A few words from Father Kemper: Recent Episodes
Fr. Kemper Anderson
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Do you remember, back when you were growing up, how it felt when summer was over, and it was time to get back into your regular school-year routine? You knew you’d be back to getting up early—too early—and eating a sleepy and sometimes rushed breakfast before heading off to a long day of school. And if that wasn’t enough to get you revved up and excited about the next few months, there was always afternoon homework to look forward to. Yup, there was plenty of reason to grimace, but there were also things about the school year that weren’t so bad… like seeing all your friends again… and buying school supplies… and maybe a new outfit or two. So, back-to-school time was a period of mixed emotions… at least it was for me. I also remember having a great feeling of optimism as I started a new year of classes. You see, I wasn’t all that great of a student during most of my primary and secondary-school years. I meant well, but I got distracted pretty-easily (now they call it “attention deficit”) and it showed in my grades. And here’s the thing: once you get in a hole, it’s hard to dig yourself out of it. The beginning of a new year was an opportunity to start over—no hole… or in today’s vernacular: a chance for a “do-over.”
In today’s lesson from Old Testament scripture, the Hebrew people were also about to experience a season of change, though they didn’t yet know how profoundly it would affect them. Since they had found their way back to Canaan after generations of captivity in Egypt and, after that, “forty years” of wandering in the wilderness, they had been shepherded by a series of “judges” who had been called by God to lead the Hebrews back onto the path of righteousness whenever their straying got them into trouble. And a very-predictable pattern had developed: (1) Israel would fall into apostasy (that’s falling away from God); (2) they would then be dominated by a foreign oppressor for a time… that was their hole; (3) Israel would call out to God in their misery; (4) God would send a judge to deliver them; and (5) this judge would bring about the defeat Israel’s oppressor. Woohoo! A chance for a do-over! And as long as that judge was there to keep the Hebrews on the straight and narrow, everything would be OK. But no one lives forever, and the judges had no heirs… and so the pattern repeated itself over-and-over again—at least twelve times, over the better part of three centuries. Whew! I may have had some bad years… but not three hundred of them in a row! The Book of Judges tells us that when there was no one to lead them, “the people did what was right in their own eyes” (vv. 17:6 and 21:25)… with predictable results. And so, the Hebrew people called out to God again, but this time for a king. And, as always, God heard their cry. But there would be no “quick fix” for God’s rebellious people. Our prayers may be answered in unexpected ways, but always in accordance with God’s purposes.
Hannah was a young and seemingly unimportant woman, married to Elkanah, a God-fearing man of the tribe of Ephraim. She was likely only minimally aware of the overarching cycle of apostasy and redemption that marked the path of God’s chosen people. Her world was pretty small. Despite her naiveté, however, she was to play an important role in God’s continuing plan for Israel. Beloved but barren, all Hannah knew was that she wanted… needed to have a son (it was almost a compulsion, really) and she took her petition in this regard to the One she knew could grant it. Here’s a bit of The Message Bible version of Hannah’s Prayer that we read as our canticle today:
I’m bursting with God-news! I’m walking on air. I’m laughing at my rivals. I’m dancing my salvation. Nothing and no one is holy like God, no rock mountain like our God.
Don’t dare talk pretentiously—not a word of boasting, ever! For God knows what’s going on. He takes the measure of everything that happens: The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength. The well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts, while the hungry are getting second helpings. The barren woman has a houseful of children, while the mother of many is bereft. God brings death and God brings life, brings down to the grave and raises up. God brings poverty and God brings wealth; he lowers, he also lifts up. He puts poor people on their feet again; he rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope, restoring dignity and respect to their lives— a place in the sun!
For the very structures of earth are God’s; he has laid out his operations on a firm foundation. He protectively cares for his faithful friends, step by step, but leaves the wicked to stumble in the dark.
No one makes it in this life by sheer muscle. God’s enemies will be blasted out of the sky, crashed in a heap and burned. God will set things right all over the earth, he’ll give strength to his king, he’ll set his anointed on top of the world! (1 Samuel 2:1-10 MSG).
Kind of a fun rendition, don’t you think? In any case, Hannah took her petition to God—and it just so happened that God had need of a prophet… and a kingmaker. Hannah’s son, Samuel, would eventually be apprenticed to the same priest (Eli) before whom she had prayed, and play a pivotal role in helping Israel transition from the rule of judges to that of kings. First Saul, then David and Solomon and from there… well, you know the story. It would not be an easy transition, but the Hebrews never did things the easy way. Neither do we in our own day and time, I’m thinking.
You know, I don’t remember a time in my life when there has been quite so much upheaval, so much ferment, going on in the world as there is right now. Borders are shifting, regimes are changing, political ideologies are clashing in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s frankly unsettling… and, sometimes tragic. I often wonder what God is up to, and what my part will be in the grand scheme of things. And make no mistake: we all have a part to play in the grand scheme of things. If God can use a barren country girl to further his purposes, he can use us too. Eachof us. God never wastes anything! It’s the not knowing that bothers me the most: what’s going to happen next, and when? And what can we do about it? What can Ido about it?
Pull out your prayer books real-quick and turn to page 847. I’ll wait.
Y’all remember the “Catechism,” right? It’s an outline of our faith: what we believe, why we believe it and what we’re supposed to do about it. Some of y’all have studied it more recently than others… right? And the good news is that ours is way shorter that the Roman Catholic Church’s… only seventeen pages vs. nine-hundred something. It’s great to be an Episcopalian, right? There’s some good stuff in here: You see at the top of the page that God promised the Hebrews that they would be his Chosen People, and that they would bring the nations of the world to him. And, in return, the People of God were to be faithful: to love justice, to do mercy, and to walk humbly with God. It’s great to be chosen, right?
And here, in this day and time, we too are the People of God. Jesus has called us to be church to a world in need of hope.
Now, turn over to page 855.
At the top of the page… “To what mission are we called?” Read the response with me: “To restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” Maybe you remember me talking about that last week. That’s it. That’s why we’re here.
“Whaaat?” you ask. How about all the problems of the world? What are we supposed to do about them?
You know the expression, “You can’t see the forest for the trees?” It’s easy to get so wrapped up in dealing with the symptoms of problems that we fail to remember why there are problems in the first place—it’s our estrangement from our Creator that’s to blame. So, if we can somehow restore people to unity with God… then God will sort out the rest.
But we get impatient, don’t we? We want to take matters into our own hands. Like our Hebrew forebears, without someone to lead us along right paths, we tend to “do what’s right in our own eyes,” and the results are as predictable for us, in this day and age, as it was for them in theirs.
There’s no denying that we’re living in difficult and dangerous times. There’s a lot of bad stuff out there, but there’s some good stuff going on too… some of it right here at St. James’ Church. It’s exciting on one hand. And it’s also sometimes unsettling, even scary. And I can’t tell you precisely how it’s all going to play out in the near term. But I cantell you a little bit about the final outcome… are you ready for this?
God’s purposes will be accomplished.
It may not be comfortable. It may not be “safe” in the conventional sense; but we’ll be OK… as long as we remember that God loves us, and is with us in the person of Jesus Christ, helping us to bear the things we need to bear, and giving us the strength and courage to be church in the face of opposition and even violence.
And, when I feel afraid, and I confess to sometimes feeling afraid, I take great comfort from the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans. Amidst all the ferment and persecution of the early church, he reminded his little flock in Rome that,
“If God is for us, who can be against us? . . . Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vv. 8:31, 35, 37-39).
Perhaps you’ll also find these words comforting as we approach this new season of Advent. Here’s an opportunity for us to “press reset” and take a step back from fear. We can take our cue from Hannah, who cried out to God, pleading for her heart’s desire. And her desire was fulfilled, but we should always remember that, while God hears all our prayers, he may choose to answer them in unexpected ways. Or, as Hanna so aptly put it: “God knows what’s going on . . . and will set things right in the end . . . to the ends of the earth.” Never forget that we are God’s people. We will be upheld. But it’s our job to be faithful in pursuit of accomplishing the mission that has been set before us, which is working to: “restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” And, if we do our part, then God will take care of the rest.
Mark 12:38-44
My, how time flies. Here we are approaching the end of Lectionary Year B: a whole year of Sunday readings focussed on the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark. It was just over 11 months ago that we read about Mark’s Jesus getting all “washed-up” in the river Jordan by his cousin John… of the dove descending, and a heavenly voice claiming Jesus as “Son” and “Beloved.” Over the past year, we’ve come to know Jesus as the Messiah sent from God in fulfillment of Jewish Scriptures, the one chosen by God to bring about his kingdom on earth. We’ve seen how vigorously he was opposed by the Jewish religious hierarchy for his failure to properly observe the rules of the Sabbath and abide by traditional “purity codes.” Jesus was always more concerned for peoplethan he was for the rules. We’ve come to understand that even his disciples initially failed to understand who he was, even though he specifically chose them to be his followers and spent enormous energy and effort trying to get it through their thick skulls. And when the disciples finally did begin to “get it,” Jesus told them to keep it quiet. Shhhh… He knew that the road ahead must be marked by suffering and Passion in order for him to achieve ultimate vindication through resurrection. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with God’s purposes. But next week’s Gospel lesson from Mark is the last we’ll be hearing from that evangelist for a while. Year B will give way to Year C on the First Sunday of Advent, just three weeks from today; and it’s going to be “all Luke, all the time” for the next fifty-two weeks, with a little bit of John and Matthew thrown in on special occasions. And if Mark’s Jesus was a particularly Jewish Messiah, portrayed as the “suffering son of God,” Luke sees Jesus as the savior of the world, belonging to all people, both Jews and Gentiles. You’ll see.
So, let’s recalibrate after last week’s side trip to Bethany and Lazarus’ resurrection in John’s Gospel on All Saints’. The last time we saw Mark’s Jesus, he had just met blind Bartimaeus on the side of the road. Bartimaeus called out… and Jesus responded with a word of hope. And immediately, Bartimaeus regained his sight. His faith had made him well. Remember? Now we’ll skip ahead a bit… a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks: Jesus has entered Jerusalem to loud “hosannas” on a road strewn with palm fronds (Mark 11:1-11) and “cleansed the temple” (Mark 11:15-19). The crowd loves him, much to the chagrin of the Temple hierarchy! Jesus has clashed yet again with the chief priests, scribes and elders: calling them out as “wicked tenants of the vineyard. . . and admonishing them about God’s plan for the stone which the builders had rejected” (Mark 12:1-12). He has foiled the Pharisees’ latest attempts to trip him up by instructing them to, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Mark 12:13-17) and has interpreted, for those with ears to hear, the “two greatest commandments” in Scripture (Mark 12:28-34). You know these stories.
And today, after excoriating those “religious professionals” who, under the aegis of Temple authority, interpreted God’s word in light of human traditions… spelling out the letter of the Law, while ignoring the spirit behind it, Jesus sat down to watch how people responded to the Temple’s “Stewardship drive.” Sure, there were some who gave generously—even ostentatiously—out of their abundance. Others were probably in-and-out quickly, perfunctorily, “paying their dues” and trying to attract as little attention as possible. Maybe you’ve seen some of these behaviors…? And then came the widow, who gave all she had to the Temple. And when Jesus called his disciples’ attention to her act of piety, I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t lauding her devotion to maintaining the bricks and mortar of the Temple complex. In the following passage (which we’ll read next week) the disciples were “oohing and aahing” over the size of the stones used in its construction, and Jesus pulled them up short saying, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Mark 13:1-2). Jesus was foretelling the destruction of the Temple and of all the artifices of man-made religion. Any edifice not built upon the “cornerstone” of God’s truth and God’s righteousness (cf. Mark 12:10) would surely crumble. Jesus wasn’t extolling the widow’s support of the machinery of religion; he was recognizing her faithful response to God’s call to put her entire life and livelihood in his almighty hands. God would sort out everything else.
So, what are we to make of this story as we continue to grapple with what it means to “be church” in our own little corner of God’s creation? We have been planted here in Cedartown/Polk County, Georgia for a special purpose: to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ . . . through prayer and worship, proclamation of the Gospel, and promotion of justice, peace and love. That’s what the Prayer Book says, at any rate (BCP 855). We do that in many ways—through loving God and our neighbor, through open and inclusive worship, through financial stewardship and support of brothers and sisters in need. People who approach financial stewardship from a faith perspective do not view the money they give merely as a way for the Parish to pay its bills. Rather, they see financial support of their worship community’s mission and ministry as a way of helping themselves grow spiritually in their relationship with God… of “paying forward” the blessings they’ve been given. Instead of seeing themselves as members of an elect “club,” who pay dues to receive the benefits of membership, they identify as followers of Jesus Christ, giving unselfishly as an act of discipleship.
And it’s getting on towards being “stewardship season” here at St. James’, you know. Wasn’t that smooth? You hardly even saw it coming, did you? In the next week or so, you’ll be receiving a pledge card in the mail for you to return your pledge of “time, talent and treasure” in support of this worshipping community’s mission and ministry. You know, the Episcopal Church canons require priests to “instruct all persons in their charge [from time-to-time] about the biblical standard of the tithe for financial stewardship” (III.9.6.b.2.4)… that is, returning to God ten percent of your income to further the mission and ministry of the Church. So y’all can consider yourselves “instructed,” and I’ll check it off of my “to-do” list. Whew, I feel better! How about you?
A number of years ago, during a “stewardship season” not unlike this one, my thoughts about pledging got turned (literally) upside down. A fellow parishioner was sharing his thoughts on the subject in front of the congregation one Sunday morning. He said, “When I think about everything God has given me: a decent income, a job that I like, reasonably good health and the love of friends and family, I try to remember that I didn’t really earn any of this… it’s all a gift from God. And, if it’s all a gift from God,” he continued, “then it’s less a question of how much I give back, as it is of how much I keep.” From that moment on, I began to think of my own tithe of time, talent and treasure not as a duty… not as a habit… not as something I did to keep from feeling guilty… but as a joyful opportunity to “pay my blessings forward” and serve God by being church. How much do I keep?
Honestly, I’m really not worried about the money. Y’all are some of the most generous people I know, and all of the budget stuff seems to have a way of working itself out. I do sometimes wonder about the other two aspects of stewardship, though. Many of us are so blessed with work and family responsibilities and a whole host of life-giving daily activities that it’s tempting to simply write a check, dust off our hands, and be done with it. But in order for St. James’ to truly thrive and fulfill its mission, it’s going to need an increased commitment of your time and talent. Yeah, I know… we’re a small Parish and we’ve all got full calendars. In fact, many of y’all here today are already giving of yourselves, over and above what you put into the collection plate. And I thank you for that. But there’s more to be done. I’m not talking about “growing the church” or turning it into something it’s not. I’m just talking about being good stewards of what’s been passed down to us by previous generations of Episcopalian Christ-followers who have worshipped and worked… and even died in this space. You see their names on these walls, and windows, and in the memorial garden. We have a legacy to carry on.
When I arrived at St. James’ nearly a decade ago, there was a small, dedicated group of Parishioners doing the lion’s share of the work to carry on that legacy. And while a few of these faithful are still up-to-their-elbows in the work of the Parish (y’all know who you are), some have moved away… or died. For others, the spirit might be willing, but the flesh is weak. I get it. We’re all busy, and we’re all getting older, but the work still needs to be done. There’s always room on the Vestry for fresh energy and perspectives. St. James’ is a family of faith, to be sure, but it’s also a non-profit corporation with roles and responsibilities established under the Laws of Georgia. But it’s not just budget and business stuff, it’s ministry and outreach and Parish life and worship… and more. So many of the things that draw us to this holy place stem from the legacy of faith and service of those who have gone before us.
I’m reminded of a saying attributed to Rabbi Hillel the Elder in the first century AD (c. 110 BCE—10 CE), which was later expanded upon by Robert Kennedy and Ronald Reagan: “If not me, then who? If not now, then when?” My friends, St. James’ needs your time and talent if it is to live into its overarching purpose, which is to help restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. It might be worship stuff, or hospitality stuff or buildings and grounds stuff… or business stuff. It’s all ministry… and it’s all important. The need is manifest… are you willing to serve? If not me, then who? If not now, then when?
If we, like the widow in today’s Gospel story, step out in faith and put the entirety our lives… our time, our talent and our treasure, in God’s almighty hands, in the service of the coming Kingdom, God will sort out everything else.
John 11:32-44
Can you imagine how annoyed Lazarus must have been when Jesus called him back from the afterlife? He seems to have been a good man who cared about friends and family, especially his sisters Martha and Mary with whom he lived, but having to pass through the agony of mortal illness and death only to be summarily ripped from the paradise of God to return to the travails of earthly life… really? And then there was the why. Lazarus’ resurrection was necessary to counter peoples’ persistent uncertainty about whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. It had only been a few weeks since Jesus had had to leave Jerusalem for his own safety after a confrontation with the Scribes and Pharisees over the healing of a blind man (on the Sabbath, God forbid!) wherein Jesus told them in no uncertain terms that he was doing the work of his Father and that, in fact, the Father and he were one! About the time folks started picking up rocks to stone him, Jesus “went away” across the Jordan River to the place where John had been baptizing, near the Sea of Galilee, about 50 miles distant, as the crow flies, where people seemed more receptive to his teaching. It was not yet his time (John 10:22-42).
But it was soon to be Lazarus’ time. Lazarus and his sisters lived in Bethany, a village just outside of Jerusalem and Jesus hadn’t seen them for a while. When Jesus received word that Lazarus was sick—sick unto death—he reassured his disciples (as he so often did) that God was up to something, and that everything was happening for a purpose. Lazarus was “asleep,” and Jesus would go and “wake him up.” “Riiiiiight…” said the disciples.And then Jesus clarified that Lazarus was indeed temporally dead, but that they needed to go to him anyway. It was all so confusing! As usual, the disciples didn’t really get it, but they were game to follow wherever Jesus might lead, even if it meant putting themselves in harm’s way. But here’s the thing, despite the urgency of the situation, Jesus inexplicably delayed his return to Bethany for two whole days! By the time Jesus and his disciples arrived on the scene, Lazarus was not only dead, but he had been in the tomb for four days (John 11:1-17). What is the significance of four days, you may ask? I will tell you. In Jewish tradition, the soul of a departed person was thought to linger in the vicinity of the body of the deceased for up to three days after death, just in case it might somehow be reunified with its earthly host. Jesus knew that, in order to achieve God’s purposes, people would have to know that Lazarus’ return to the land of the living was not simply “resuscitation.” It had to be resurrection.
But what of the human toll? Mary and Martha, both distraught from having lost their beloved sibling… their protector… likely their primary breadwinner… met Jesus on the road and reproached him saying, “If you had been here, he would not have died.” Their suffering was palpable… and tears are contagious. Even though Jesus trusted God’s overarching purpose and was committed to doing his Father’s will, it grieved him beyond measure that the unbelief of God’s people would require such a sacrifice from his friends. And Jesus wept. Not tears of sadness, I think—tears of anger… and resolve. It’s common to feel sad when people we care about are sad, but it’s quite another thing to actually share empathically in their suffering. That only happens when we have skin in the game and Jesus had skin in this game. He knew these people. He loved this family and he shared the full measure of their grief and loss. But he knew that the only real way to banish the sadness and pain of this temporal world once and for all… was to do whatever was necessary to hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom. Jesus was on a mission: a mission to change people’s understanding about their relationship with God. Other friends of Mary and Martha had come to console them in their loss. Jesus came not to console them, but to strengthen their belief. “I am the resurrection,” Jesus said. If you live in me… if you believe in me, you’ll understand that the life you live here on earth isn’t really life. And the death you die here on earth isn’t really death. It’s kind of like falling asleep (cf. John 11:25-26). And then Jesus showed them exactly what that looked like when he raised Lazarus. And he would show them again, in due course, through his own death and resurrection.
On All Saints’ Day we celebrate those whose lives have given witness, great or small, to the resurrection of Jesus Messiah. Some of their names are etched on our hearts. We remember in particular those of our own St. James’ family, especially Larry Odom and Floyd Murphy, who have departed this life since this time last year. So many other names we’ll never know… but God knows. You know, Lazarus is a saint. I doubt he was perfect, but we learned from our Gospel story today that he was faithful. And when his Savior called him from the paradise of God to help enact God’s painful purpose for a people lost in the wilderness of sin and disbelief, St. Lazarus answered the call. And Scripture tells us that, as a result of Lazarus’ faithful witness to the power of Jesus Messiah, many defied the edicts of their chief priests… and believed in Jesus. We’re all called to be saints: to love God and our neighbor, to share in one another’s suffering and, like Lazarus, fulfill the roles God has in store for us as bringers of the Kingdom. We don’t have to be perfect. God is perfect, but God’s not a perfectionist. All we need do is be faithful. It is enough.
The Feast of All Saints is also a fitting occasion to remind ourselves that this earthly sojourn is not life… and that the earth is not our home. Christ is our Paschal Lamb… our Passover… our resurrection! And we will find true life… and our true home, in renewed communion with all the saints… when we’re together—at one—with God. That is our final destination.
I’m particularly fond of a reflection on the nature of this togetherness, and God’s majesty, penned by our own Bishop Wright a few years back, titled Forever Together. He writes:
God has majesty! That’s how Jude finishes his chapter about God. Not [a solitary] majesty like Mount Everest, but majesty like the Milky Way, and strands of DNA, and the Great Barrier Reef. Majesty defined as “great togetherness.”
In God’s majesty, there’s room for everything and everyone, the visible and the invisible, for all that was, is and will come. God’s power is in holding things together: life and death, dark and light, hate and love — until time, action and waiting, together, have their perfect work.
This week we remember all the souls and the saints who have died. “People we love, but see no longer.” And while our grief and gratitude for them is real, we must never forget that together with them is what we will always be. [because God never wastes anything].
Life changed, not ended. Forever together in the majesty of a vast and great God.
Amen to that, Bishop.
Mark 10:46-52 & Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Imagine Bartimaeus sitting blind and alone beside the road as Jesus and his disciples walked past. He knew who Jesus was: he called him “Son of David” and “teacher” (Rabbouni in Aramaic), but he couldn’t see him. He had lost his vision. But when Bartimaeus called out to Jesus, he regained his sight. Isn’t it interesting that Mark chose the active verb “regained” to describe Bartimaeus’ transformation? Mark did not say that Jesus healed Bartimaeus or even that “his sight was restored.” The evangelist says only that Bartimaeus called out… and that Jesus responded with a word of hope. And immediately, Bartimaeus regained his sight. His faith had made him well.
And then there’s our friend Job. What do we know about Job’s story? A few things: we know it’s the story of a man sorely tested by God. Job knew who God was… and never lost faith in God’s sovereignty, despite great hardship and poor advice from family and friends. Job couldn’t understand why God would test him so harshly. We know that Job got pretty testy with God, but that everything turned out all right—and more than all right—in the end. Many biblical scholars believe that the story of Job takes place after the Fall… and the Flood… but before Abraham and Moses… so sometime between 2350 and 1750 BCE. That’s a long time ago! Certainly, the story was transmitted orally, along with much of what would later become the Torah, through the centuries leading up to the Babylonian Captivity, when it was written down by Hebrew scribes as part of the effort to explain what in the world had brought the Jews to this calamitous extreme… and the life changes they would have to make to ensure it never happened again! We know it’s a pretty long story (42 Chapters), a mixture of narrative and poetry, rich and complex, and probably further developed and refined over the course of several centuries to meet the catechetical needs of the Second Temple hierarchy. The first couple of chapters set the scene: who Job was, the wager between God and Satan and the utter calamity that befell Job’s life. Then come thirty-nine chapters of argument and lament… thirty-nine chapters of Job and Job’s friends and God going around and around about who gets to be angry… and who gets to be in charge… and who gets to complain… and who does God think he is to allow this sort of suffering… and who does Job think he is to feel sorry for himself, or wonder why bad things sometimes happen to good people. Then, in today’s reading from the final chapter, the dispute is resolved, in a manner of speaking: Job relents (he rests his case) and bends his knee to the God who had allowed all this calamity to occur in the first place.
The lectionary only gives us snippets of the story stretched out over four Sundays, so here’s a link to a song, actually a montage of songs, written by Michael Card titled, “Job Suite: His Story, His Lament, His God, His Response” to remind you of the content and context of the Book of Job.
Michael Card: “Job Suite”
It’s quite a story, isn’t it? The writer of the Letter of James would later encourage readers to exercise “the patience of Job” (5:11 KJV) when faced with adversity, remembering that God is compassionate and merciful, and that we will be rewarded for our faith in the end. We can thank the King James Bible for translating the Greek word ὑπομονή (hoo-po-mon-ay’) as patience. In fact, a more faithful translation of the Greek might be persistence or endurance (cf. James 5:7-11 NRSVUE). That’s more helpful to me, I think. Job wasn’t “patient” in his affliction—he had been blindsided… and he ranted and railed at God, demanding answers. Why? Why? And God didn’t tell him why. God simply reminded Job in no uncertain terms that there was a purpose behind his travail that transcended human understanding. And Job got it. Though he was never able to truly understand God’s purposes, in the end, he trusted—he had faith—that there was a purpose. And that faith provided him with a degree of clarity about his place in the grand scheme of things… and comfort in the hope of salvation. As we read Job’s story, we are reminded of our own stories: of those periods of grueling hardship in our lives when we are tempted to question the purpose behind our suffering. And perhaps we, like Job, find comfort in spirited and persistent dialogue with our Creator. And, you know what? It’s OK if we rant and rail to God. It’s a sign of our belief. What use would it be to rail against some nonexistent entity? No… we’re deeply offended that a living, loving God would allow such misery to befall us.
But Job and Bartimaeus both learned something important from their “close encounters” with God. Their separate ordeals “opened their eyes” to the realization that God is God… and we are not. And also another thing: that which is not of God can be redeemed by God, if only we will have faith. Indeed, the ordeals in our lives invite us—sometimes compel us—into a deeper relationship with our Creator. And as difficult as that might be, I wonder if that’s not part of the sometimes-painful purpose of our sojourn here on earth.
Mark 10:17-31
The fellow who approached Jesus in today’s gospel story is variously titled as “The Rich Man” (NRSV), “The Rich Young Ruler” (NASB) or my personal favorite, from the Hawai’i Pidgin (HWP) translation of the Bible: “Da Young Guy Dat Get Plenny Stuff.” Every time I read this passage, part of me wonders: if Jesus loved this guy so much, why couldn’t he have cut him a little slack? He seemed to have lived a pretty exemplary life up to this point: he’d worked within the system… he’d obeyed all the rules and done pretty well for himself. And now he’d reached a point where he was wondering, “What comes next?” and, “How can I make sure I’m good in the afterlife?” It’s a question we should all be concerned with, don’t you think? Some might say it’s the ultimate question. And this “pretty-good guy”… a guy who had lived at least as good a life as most of us here today… Jesus kind of dashed his hopes, didn’t he? Took the wind out of his sails! What’s up with that? Maybe… Jesus knew that this youngster, and we’re all youngsters when we dialogue with the Son of God, had some stuff he needed to figure out on his own. What do you think?
Over the past few Sundays, we have journeyed with Jesus and his disciples as they made their way towards Jerusalem and the last chapter of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Mark’s Jesus was always teaching… always trying to help his disciples understand the significance of their role as “Kingdom bringers” after he was gone. Of course, they mostly didn’t get it, and I’m not sure we really do either. Jesus tells us that we must “take up our crosses” if we want to be his followers… but we’re not always sure what those crosses look like. We learn that we must “become like little children” if we want to enter the Kingdom, but we’ve spent our entire lives trying to become responsible adults… and balk at having to regress. We’re admonished about the dire consequences of becoming “stumbling blocks” to those seeking the Kingdom, and we don’t mean to be… but all too often, the things we do—and don’t do—speak louder than any words we might use to try and explain what it means to be a Christ follower.
So, the rich young man in today’s Gospel passage knelt… surrendered himself before Jesus… and asked what he probably considered to be a relatively-simple—maybe even rhetorical—question, for which he assumed there’d be an equally easy answer. Maybe he even thought Jesus would say something like, “Naw, man, you’re good! C’mon and join my posse… and help me show folks how it’s done!” But that’s not quite the message that Jesus delivered, was it? Jesus said, “All the stuff you’ve done up to this point? Meh… it’s fine, but it’s not gonna bring you home, my friend. Beware that your temporal wealth does not put a barrier between you and God. How can you truly trust God and give yourself over to his will for your life, all the while holding on tight to this fancy golden parachute you’ve packed for yourself… just in case. That’s not trust. That’s not giving in. You’ve gotta be willing to give all of that up.
As far as I can tell, this guy truly loved Jesus… and wanted to walk in his ways. And, according to the Gospel writer, Jesus loved him right back. But I expect Jesus knew that it would be a struggle for the man to part with his earthly wealth in order to receive the wealth stored up for him in heaven. Jesus knew this, and it grieved him. Notice that Jesus never said that it was bad to be successful, or to have money. I believe that God wants the best for us, and for us to be happy. That said, nothing good happens when wealth and possessions become a barrier between us and our Creator. We often speak of the “blessings” in our lives: our health, our families and our successes… as being gifts from God. And they are! But they are gifts given to us for a purpose, and that is to equip us for ministry… so that we can do our part to help bring about the Kingdom of God. If we lose sight of the purpose of God’s largesse… we have a big problem.
You know, it probably never occurred to the disciples that money, and respectability and having nice homes and plenty of food to eat could stand between people and God. To many of them, these blessings were a sure sign of God’s favor. But Jesus came to turn that sort of thinking upside down. “The first will be last, and the last will be first,” he said. Setting aside our own plans and schemes for our lives, and trusting God to see us through, isn’t easy. In fact, it may be the hardest thing we’ll ever do, but Jesus tells us that the only way we can be saved is by trusting in the one for whom “all things are possible,” rather than in our own meager resources. The Kingdom is not something we can earn. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid . . . for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (vv. 12:32-34). Trust. Someone, somewhere, once said: If all of the blessings in your life are gifts from God, it’s not really a matter of how much you give away… it’s about how much you keep. That’s the thing Jesus needed the rich young man to figure out on his own… so he could begin living into it. I don’t believe there was any condemnation in Jesus’ words. He was just reminding the youngster of God’s intention for Creation, from the time of Adam and Eve… from before the Fall.
How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the Kingdom of God. But we want it all… don’t we? Both temporal security… and also to be secure in our hope for eternal life. Which reminds me not only of the story of the First Man and the First Woman, but also a little bit of my old uncle’s Golden Retriever, Wendy, who was eternally diligent in her attempts to hold every tennis ball within a twenty-foot radius in her mouth… all at once. Two, she could manage easily. I even saw her with three once… for a moment. But she could never hold onto all of them at the same time. But she’d always try… and she’d always come up short.
Where is your treasure? Is it in the here and now? Be honest. Do we sometimes deceive ourselves that “we can have it all?” Maybe we can have it all, but maybe having it all isn’t what we think it is. Maybe it’s more. The good news is that it’s never too late. Our God is a God of a million second chances, and it’s never too late for us to amend our lives: to let go… and let God. What will you decide?
You know, when you think of it, we don’t really know how today’s Gospel story ends… whether or not “da young guy dat get plenny stuff” was eventually able to part with the things that were separating him from God, so that he could truly follow Jesus. I like to think that he was able to manage it, and of the welcome he received as he ran to catch up with Jesus and his disciples on the road shouting, “Hey, you guys… wait up!”
Mark 10:2-16
When I looked at today’s Gospel reading, I was a little bit tempted to call in sick. It’s a tough one, isn’t it? Throughout most of my adult life, whenever this reading would come around in the Lectionary cycle, I’d sit in the pews wondering what the preacher would make of it. Because, as I’m sure most of y’all are aware, I’ve been divorced. Twice. And I know some of you here today have been as well, and are sitting here, looking at me, wondering what I’m going to make of Jesus’ teachings about divorce.
I was twenty-eight years old when I was divorced from my first wife. It wasn’t my idea. My own parents had divorced when I was around seven or eight and I was raised in a single-parent household. And although my childhood was good, on balance, I really missed having my father around on a daily basis, and I had sworn to myself throughout my growing-up years that I would never get divorced. I wouldn’t do that to my kids. But, I guess, sometimes stuff happens that’s beyond our ability to control. I was pretty devastated, and it didn’t help when I was sitting with a couple of friends in a little Mexican cantina one evening discussing the imminent proceedings, and one of them, Joe was his name, looked at me solemnly and pronounced judgement. Or maybe it wasn’t judgement, precisely, just a forecast certainty. He said, “Kemper, man, this is terrible. You’ve got to figure out a way to reconcile with your wife; otherwise, you’re toast!” Those were his exact words. And Joe wasn’t talking about my drawing the short straw when it came to the division of marital assets or having to pay alimony and child support for our two minor children. No. My friend Joe, who was a very recent convert to a pretty conservative, Bible-believing sect of Christianity was telling me I was going to burn in Hell because I was getting divorced. And he hated it for me, but it was what it was. That wasn’t what I needed to hear just then, and so I pretty much shut him out and moved on. “Oh waiter, another margarita please!”
But seriously, after I got over having my feelings hurt, I embarked upon a long (even a life-long) journey of reflection about marriage and divorce, and the Biblical imperatives and temporal realities surrounding each of them, in an effort to reconcile who I am, with who I’m striving to become. On one hand, I was always pretty sure I wasn’t “toast.” That’s not the way any father (certainly not our Heavenly Father!) would treat his children. And everything’s worked out OK… my ex(es) and I have done the best we could to support each other in our parenting and the kids are doing OK. On the other hand, even thirty-five or so years after the fact, rarely a day goes by when not reminded, in one way or another, that I’ve experienced divorce. It’s the “gift” that keeps on giving.
So how do we reconcile temporal realities with Jesus’ teachings? There’s a lot to think about. I suppose we could begin with rationalizations. You know the drill: Jesus’ words about divorce aren’t really applicable in this day and age because…
Maybe because, for the Jews back in first-century Palestine, it was all about cultural survival. God’s Chosen People were firmly under the thumb of their Roman occupiers, and pagan norms and practices were beginning to insinuate themselves into the daily lives of the Jews to the point of becoming a threat to their religious identity. And then, as now, religious culture and tradition was handed down primarily through the family unit. Life was tough, and in most cases, it took two parents to keep a family afloat. The mortality rate for newborns was higher than it is today, and the propagation of strong, healthy offspring was critical to the survival of Jewish culture and tradition. So… promoting a stable, nuclear family with a mommy and a daddy and 12.5 kids, all well-steeped in the culture and tradition of their parents, was the best way to ensure the survival of the Jewish ethnos. These days, though, it seems that most of us are less-concerned about cultural survival as we are about being-able-to-do-whatever-we-want-to-do-whenever-we-want-to-do-it. Amiright? That, and getting sued. Raising kids can be a lot of work and, given the current litigious environment, it can also be a risky business. Better to have a pet. And since we don’t really pass down our cultural identity through our pets… and because pets are less-likely to require a stable, nuclear family to thrive in any case, maybe divorce needn’t be quite the “bugaboo” it was it was in Jesus’ time. What do you think?
Or how about this… Married women in Jewish society were often treated as chattel… not as slaves, precisely, but as a sort of “conjugal property” and were largely, if not entirely, dependent on their husbands for support. The husband controlled all the marital assets and, in the case of divorce, the only “alimony” a woman would receive was the dowry she had brought into the marriage in the first place, which could be worth as little as a couple of hundred dollars in today’s currency. Certainly, some women might have more coming to them, but it would likely never have been enough to live on for the long haul. Maybe a divorced woman could find a new husband but, as far as society was concerned, she had already failed the matrimonial test once, and was “used goods” to boot! And, since her former husband would almost invariably maintain custody of the children of the marriage, a divorced woman was likely to die cold and alone. So, it was right and proper that Jesus should be concerned with the ramifications of divorce, particularly for women in first-century Palestine. But in the twenty-first century, things are different. Women now have far more protections within a marriage than they did back in the day: to own and control personal assets outright… to initiate divorce proceedings on their own… child custody rights, the right to equitable distribution of community property and spousal support in case of divorce… all that stuff. I suppose it’s still possible for a woman to die, cold and alone due to having been divorced, but it’s no longer the foregone conclusion it once was… not here in the U.S. at any rate. So, maybe Jesus’ teaching on divorce is just a little dated. Maybe we’re all off the hook, right?
Except that… and here’s the place I’ve come to after years of being divorced and reflecting upon what Jesus had to say about divorce: I don’t believe that, in this case, he was speaking, first and foremost, about temporal (worldly) realities and concerns… like the importance of maintaining strong, nuclear families in order to ensure the survival of Judaism, or even about the vulnerability of first-century Jewish women in marriage. Sure, both of those issues are important and bear thoughtful consideration. But if you reread the text of our Gospel passage today, you’ll notice that Jesus “went deep” with the Pharisees from the outset, pronouncing not only the prohibition on divorce, but also commenting on the nature of marriage itself. And he prefaced these comments with, “[F]rom the beginning of creation…” In the Garden… before the Fall… God made them, male and female… to leave their birth families behind and cleave together as one flesh… living together within the paradise of Eden, in eternal communion with their Creator. I’m reminded of the Bridegroom and the bride of the parables—God and the church, the Creator and the created, united and “at-one” forever. What do you think?
But that’s not quite how things worked out, was it? There was a break and an estrangement… a divorce really… something about a snake and an exotic piece of fruit. The Fall. It wasn’t God’s idea; it was ours, and we bear the burden of that estrangement each and every day of our lives. It’s the “gift” that keeps on giving. So I wonder if Jesus was reminding the Pharisees (and us) that the institution of temporal marriage was, and had always been intended, to reflect the ideal union between God and humankind, and that Moses had been forced to give the practice of divorce “a pass” (cf. Deuteronomy 24:1-4) not because it was OK, but because he recognized that the ideal of marriage can be a little hard to come by in this fallen world. It’s not that it never happens… some of us are the beneficiaries of pure, dumb luck. And between that, and a bunch of hard, hard work, they’re able to set the rest of us an example to which we can aspire. And good on them for that! But it seems sometimes to be the exception, rather than the rule, doesn’t it? So maybe Moses was onto something, and if that’s the case, then maybe the endemic fragility of human relationships stems from the brokenness of Creation… rather than the other way around. Maybe. But even if it’s not our fault, it is our problem.
What to do?
How about this: Keep on loving. God and neighbor… the best we can. And promise-keeping is part of a loving relationship. Certainly, God doesn’t want us to abrogate promises we’ve made. But neither, I believe, does God want us to throw our lives away, or put our bodies or souls at risk, in pursuit of a marriage (or any other endeavor) that doesn’t somehow reflect the ideal, archetypal relationship between the Creator and the created. Think about that for a minute. The reason for our earthly sojourn, the reason we’re here… is to learn how to shape our lives to better reflect the glory of our Creator. Yeah, I know it’s a tall order… but we’d best get our brains wrapped around that imperative.Divorce is not OK. It may be necessary… it may be the only option we can think of in the extremity of our pain and misery. But there’s nothing we can do or say to make it what it isn’t. Divorce means betrayed trust… wounded hearts… shattered dreams. It is what it is, just like it was at the beginning of creation. And we can’t make it OK. But God can make it OK. God can create something beautiful from dust… just as he did at the dawn of creation… just as he did through the death and resurrection of Jesus Messiah… if we’ll let him. So, maybe we ought to focus more on learning to make better promises to the people we love… and then living out these promises in a way that better reflects the glory of our Creator… than on broken relationships that reflect a fallen world. I’m pretty sure I know what Jesus would say. I believe he’d say: “I love you… anyhow. So, be comforted. You’re not toast.”
Mark 9:38-50
Are you squirming yet? Are you surreptitiously looking down at your lap, wondering what it would be like to lop off a hand or a foot? How would it feel to have an eye plucked out? Last week, we learned that Jesus requires us to welcome little children… to become like children ourselves,in fact… in order that we might enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Today’s Gospel message cautions us about the alternative… what will surely happen if we fail in this imperative… or become a “stumbling block” to others seeking Christ and the Kingdom. How might we cause others to stumble? I think you know. How many of us teeter on the brink of doing so, in one way or another, on any given day? It happens at work, when we act—or take sides—to advance our own selfish agendas, all-too-often to the detriment of others. It happens around the kitchen table, or when we’re out with friends, discussing politics, or our own special take on “religion,” and how that should translate into law and social policy. It happens a lot when we’re driving in traffic! Amiright? It happens whenever we forget that we are—each of us—ambassadors of Christ on earth. It happens when we fail to ask the question, as often as need be each day: “What would Jesus have us do?” – listen for the Holy Spirit’s response – and then act upon that which we hear. Are you squirming yet? You should be. We all should be.
Don’t you just hate it when Jesus talks like this? Isn’t this the same Jesus who said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest . . . For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV)? I sure thought so! Wouldn’t we rather hear a soft-spoken, almost maternal, Jesus crooning about gathering his children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings (Matthew 23:37)? I think we’d all prefer a less-demanding Jesus. But I have good news and bad news for you. First the bad: there are consequences for failing to live our lives in accordance with God’s will, and we will pay the price for “things done and left undone,” not just on Judgment Day… but every day. Like a great millstone hung around our necks… we are not punished for our sins, but by them. Jesus’ is simply telling it like it is. Now the good news (sort of): I don’t believe that Jesus really wants us to maim ourselves. He’s making the point that we must give up anything and everything that constitutes a barrier between us and God. And some of these impediments may be as dear to us – as integral to the comfortable lives we have created for ourselves – as our own hands, and feet and eyes. Remember that Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” when we talk to God (Luke 11:2-4 KJV). It’s not about what we want or what we think is best—it’s about discerning God’s will for our lives. Therein lies our redemption.
I am reminded of a great story of redemption from C. S. Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Chronicles of Narnia series.Those familiar with the series will remember that Narnia was a magical country inhabited not only by humans, but also dwarves, gnomes and fairies… and a variety of mythical beasties like unicorns, centaurs… and dragons. It was a place where all the animals could talk! The Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy had once wandered into Narnia through the back of an enchanted wardrobe and, with the help of Aslan… the lion… the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-sea (and, yes, that’s an analogy to our own Jesus Messiah), freed the land from bondage to the evil White Witch. They had all been crowned Kings and Queens of Narnia and had seemed to live there for many years… and yet, one day when they were all grown-up and out adventuring together, they wandered right back through that same wardrobe into this world… where only a few moments had passed. Pretty cool, huh? They were happy to be home… but they sure missed Narnia.
So, in the Dawn Treader story, the two younger Pevensies, Edmund and Lucy find their way back to Narnia in a most unusual way, accompanied by their cousin, Eustace Scrubb. Eustace was not a nice boy. He was forever complaining and behaving so rudely that no one really liked him or wanted to be around him. One day when Edmund and Lucy were visiting, Eustace was (as usual) being his normal “happy” self, making fun of their stories about Narnia. Lucy was passing the time admiring a picture hanging on the wall of a green “dragon ship” with a purple sail, heeling and plunging through waves that actually seemed to be moving up and down. Because they were. Quick as a wink, Edmund and Lucy… along with Eustace, found themselves sucked through the picture frame and down into the choppy sea alongside the ship. It wasn’t long before they were hoisted to the deck of the dragon ship “Dawn Treader,” and Edmund and Lucy were thrilled to find themselves among old friends. They were back in Narnia!
After recovering from the shock of his apparent teleportation, Eustace made it very clear that he was not pleased to be in Narnia and spent the next several chapters of the book trying to make sure everyone around him was as miserable as he was. His greed and self-centeredness once even led him to steal drinking water from his shipmates when the Dawn Treader was becalmed—far out at sea and without rain—for many days, putting others’ lives at risk for his own selfish purposes. Eustace eventually managed to isolate himself from all attempts at companionship by Edmund, Lucy and the rest of the crew, growing more and more angry and despondent with each passing hour. But his luck was about to change. One day, as he wandered alone on an uninhabited island the ship was visiting, Eustace stumbled across a cave that contained a mountain of treasure—gold and jewels galore—wealth beyond his wildest imagination. And a dragon. But the dragon was old and decrepit, and fell over and died right before his eyes. Eustace suddenly decided that life in Narnia might not be so terrible with all that treasure… and he stuffed his pockets full of precious gems and slipped a golden bracelet onto his arm above the elbow and prepared to take his loot back to the ship to lord his good fortune over the others.
But before he could leave the cave, Eustace fell into a deep, deep sleep… and when he awoke, guess what? Yup. He, himself, had turned into a dragon. Bummer! He was hungry, and his instincts had become so feral that, without even thinking, he devoured most of the carcass of the dead dragon. Ewwww! The gold bracelet was cutting deeply into (what was now) his foreleg and the pain was excruciating. This was a bit of an awakening for Eustace: he couldn’t live like this. He was frightened and lonely and it began to dawn on him just how poorly he had behaved… how bad of a friend and traveling companion he had been. And he resolved to do better. Eustace returned to the ship and, after a delicate period of rapprochement, was embraced and forgiven by his cousins and fellow crew members. One problem remained, however: Eustace was still a dragon… and this reality horrified and disgusted him. And no one knew how to turn the dragon back into a boy. Eustace was at his wit’s end.
And then Aslan showed up. It’s always good when Aslan shows up. He led Eustace deep into the forest, to the edge of a large pool with hot water bubbling up from the bottom. Eustace’s foreleg was throbbing terribly, and he thought that bathing in the pool might ease the pain. But Aslan told him he’d have to “undress” before he could bathe. Eustace intuited that Aslan meant he’d have to shed his dragon skin—and he tried, scratching himself hard all over… once, twice and then a third time. But every time he peeled off one layer, he found another, just as rough, just as scaly, below it. In despair, Eustace realized this was a job he wouldn’t be able to do by himself. He later told Edmund (and I’m reading from the book, here):
“Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So, I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.” “I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund [who, once upon a time, had had his own “come to Aslan” moment]. Eustace continued, “Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch, and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything… but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. . ..”[1]
Are there impediments in your life that sometimes cause you to stumble and take on the form and appetites of a dragon? What stands in the way of your becoming the child of God that you were created to be, that Jesus tells you you must be in order to enter the Kingdom? Are you ever a stumbling block to those seeking Christ and the Kingdom? You must first name these things, and then peel them away relentlessly until you are free of their taint. It won’t be easy, and none of us can do it alone. We must open ourselves to God’s sometimes-painful purpose in our lives and let him have his way with us. As messy and uncomfortable as that may be in the short term, I’m pretty sure it’s preferable to having to break out the meat cleaver.
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (New York: Collier, 1978), 90-91.
Mark 9:30-37
Do you remember the school report cards you used to get when you were a kid? I came across one of mine from second grade, going through some old storage boxes one day. Given the complexity of some of the “evals” I received in the military and grad school, this one struck me as charmingly simple. Certainly, I was graded on reading, writing and arithmetic but, perhaps more importantly, the teacher evaluated the sort of person I was becoming. There were little blocks where she could mark how good I was at following directions, how well I listened, and whether I stayed on task when I was working by myself. Did I play well with others? Did I share? Did I take care of my books and school supplies? And then there was the block about “Uses Time Wisely…” which was never my strong suit, I’m afraid. The metrics were correspondingly straightforward: “S” for satisfactory, “N” for needs improvement… and we all know what the dreaded “U” meant… unsatisfactory. You didn’t want to bring home many of those. So, back in my second-grade years, either you were doing OK… or you weren’t.
As we got older, things became more complicated. We began studying “language arts,” different kinds of arithmetic: algebra and geometry, and science and social studies. Recess became “physical education.” And the grading scale changed, too. You might have done excellent work, or maybe just good. Average work was OK for some, but not for others. Most would have preferred to do better than “barely passing,” but that was better than what my high school German teacher, Frau Bolen (we simply called her “the Frau”) liked to call the “Große buchstabe F,” or big letter F. You definitely didn’t want to bring home many of those.
So, suddenly, instead of doing either OK—or not—in school, we were rated on a scale… against our peers… which meant they really weren’t peers anymore. A pecking order had been created. When we “chose up teams” for sports: some were among the first to be chosen… while others were among the last. There was an “A” team, and there was a “B” team. Competition ensued. And then standardized testing came along, and we found ourselves segregated into percentiles. Some parents were ecstatic…while others wept. Later, we’d define success by where we went to college, what we did for a living, how many times we were promoted, who we married, how much money we made, how much “stuff” we accumulated and, of course, how our own kids did in the classroom and on the ball field. I’m not saying that metrics, or appropriate recognition for people who excel in particular areas, are bad. They often serve the purpose of encouraging people to work towards becoming the best that they can be, which is a good thing. And there is nothing wrong with a little healthy competition. The problem arises when we start constructing “mythologies” around our own worthiness and begin to believe that our accomplishments and awards make us somehow superior to other people, or groups of people.
You’ve got to wonder about the content of the disciples’ discussion on the road to Capernaum. What “mythologies” had they constructed around their own lives that would propel them to “the top of the heap” among Jesus’ followers? Peter, Andrew, James and John were fisherman… a hot, smelly, dirty profession unlikely to earn them a lot of money, but they and their families probably had enough to eat… most days. Matthew was a tax collector and he probably did make a lot of money… but I doubt he spent too much time talking about it. Most Jews considered tax collectors to be turncoats—collaborators with their Roman occupiers—pretty much the scum of the earth, and if you lorded it over folks too much, you might end up maimed… or worse. At least Matthew could read and write. Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas, James (the lesser) and Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot… we have no idea what they did for a living. They may have been day laborers, hardscrabble farmers or perhaps even tradesmen, like Jesus… we don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us. It’s likely, however, that they were a pretty “salt-of-the-earth” bunch… and mostly illiterate. Not the sharpest tools in the box, especially in Mark’s Gospel. And yet, Jesus had chosen them. But like most of us adults, the disciples had found ways to differentiate themselves, one from another. They seem to have created a “pecking order.” Perhaps they argued about who was strongest, or fastest, or who had biggest house, the prettiest wife, or the most children. Perhaps some boasted about having been disciples of John the Baptist before deciding to follow Jesus. Maybe others about who had performed the coolest miracles when Jesus had sent them out, two-by-two, a few weeks back. And they knew Jesus wouldn’t approve of their posturing, but they did it anyway. It was just their nature. Kind of like us, right?
And Jesus lost no time in setting them straight, as he usually did, probably with a sigh. “The first shall be last… and the last shall be first,”he said (cf. Matthew 19:30). They were to serve one another. And then Jesus showed his disciples how to prepare themselves for this most important work: by welcoming a child. In Matthew’s version of this Gospel passage, Jesus adds, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4).
My brothers and sisters: we, as Christ followers, are called to help bring about a world and culture turned upside down! This is the Kingdom, the New Jerusalem (Revelation 3:12; 21:2), for which we’re striving… a kingdom built on God’s righteousness, not our own. Where malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander are no more. A Kingdom where there are neither rich nor poor, because we all look after and serveone another. Where superficial differences in gender and skin color and language and “religion,” and all the things that separate us from each other, become meaningless, because we understand that we were all formed from the dust of the Cosmos by the same Creator. A kingdom in which we learn to love one another as Christ loves us, full of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
“How do we get there?” you might ask. It’s simple. We can attain the kingdom by following directions: reading the Bible and paying attention to the lessons contained in Holy Scripture. By listening, carefully, to what the Holy Spirit is asking us to do. By asking ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” and always trying to do the same, even when it means having to work by ourselves. And by taking care of God’s creation, with which we have been entrusted. The hour is late. This would be a good time for all of us to practice using our time wisely. And here’s some Good News: you won’t need any of the money… or the titles… or the trappings of success you’ve accumulated during your earthly sojourn. Jesus not only wants us to welcome children in his name, but to step down off the pedestals we’ve created for ourselves and stand before him, just the way God made us. Jesus wants us to come to him as children, and do our best to play well with others, loving God and our neighbor above all else, and to share (pay forward) all the gifts with which we’ve been blessed. That’s it. Sounds charmingly simple, doesn’t it? Perhaps even absurdly simple. But don’t worry… it’ll be enough. You’ll get… an “S.” Thanks be to God.
James 2:14-17
“Faith without works is dead” (cf. James 2:17).
But… Father Kemper, Father Kemper! I always thought that we we’re saved by faith… not by works. That’s what the Apostle Paul said, anyway. Who does this James guy think he is?
I’m glad you asked. We’re pretty familiar with the Biblical name “James,” aren’t we? From the Greek Ἰάκωβος, Jacob, as in Israel, father of the Twelve Tribes. James, son of Zebedee, brother to John. James the Greater. St. James… our James. But that’s not the James who wrote the letter from which today’s epistle is excerpted… the one who famously penned “Faith… without works, is dead.” Nope. The writer of the Letter of James is most likely James of Jerusalem, who many scholars have come to believe is the flesh and blood brother of Jesus Messiah. You know, it’s pretty funny… a lotta folks kind of envision Jesus as an only child. Right? Mary was a virgin, engaged to Joseph, when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And after the massacre of the Holy Innocents, when Jesus was still a baby, and the trip to Egypt, we don’t hear much about the family life of Mary, Joe and the kid. Not until the bit about Jesus getting lost in Jerusalem when he was twelve (Luke 2:41-52), at any rate. And after that, nothing… nada… ‘til Jesus showed up at the Jordan to get dunked by his cousin John (Luke 3:21-22). And from there on, it’s pretty much all Jesus, all the time. Joseph has dropped completely out of the story by this point and we don’t really even hear Mary’s name all that often in the post-childhood gospel narrative… except on a few occasions, such as the story of the Wedding in Cana (John 2:1-12) and also Mary at the foot of the Cross (John 19:25). We do, however, get some tantalizing references to Jesus’ family, particularly his siblings, though we aren’t given much information about them outside of their names (e.g., Mark 3:21, 31-35 and Matthew 13:55). “‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him” (Mark 6:3).
So, Jesus apparently had some brothers, and one of them was named James. James features prominently in the Book of Acts. James and his mother were present to receive the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost (1:14) and he gradually assumed leadership of the church in Jerusalem as the years went by, hence his designation as “James of Jerusalem.” He appears to have gotten along rather well with the Apostle Paul, and was instrumental in the church’s acceptance of Paul’s Gentile mission and the basic freedom of Gentile believers to eschew the stipulations of Jewish Law (Acts 15:13-21). James “the brother of Jesus” is also attested to outside the New Testament in the writings of Josephus and Eusebius, the first historians of the Christian Church, who gave him the title of “James the Just.” He was eventually martyred, like many other early Christ followers, but his letter, this letter, did manage to make it into our Canon of Scripture, so someone back in the fourth century must have thought it was worth passing on.
Faith and works. It does jangle with some of Paul’s writings, doesn’t it? Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “[So] what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith… apart from works prescribed by the law” (Romans 3:27-28). “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2). Paul sternly admonished the Galatians: “The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law…? or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing?” (vv. 3:2-3). And I could go on. You should know that all of these bits from Paul I’ve just read to you are excerpted from different letters, written at different times to different congregations of believers throughout his years in the missionary field, cunningly arranged and strung together to make a point… “proof texting,” it’s called… and the point would seem to be sola fide… we are saved by faith alone. Paul said it, I believe it and that settles it, right? And we all probably know some who folks who would be completely OK with that sentiment. That certainly seems to have been the take of Martin Luther and many of the early Protestant agitators back in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as Reformation fever swept across Europe, ushering in decades of religious turmoil, Inquisition and civil war.
But lost in all the proof texting is… context. First and foremost, a closer examination of the context of Paul’s harangues in opposition to “works” reveals that he’s referring to “works of the law.” Paul’s mission was to bring Gentiles into the Christian fold. Many Jewish Christ followers in the Jerusalem Church believed that, to be a follower of the Jewish Christ (Messiah), you first had to become a Jew, which meant adhering to all the requirements (or works) of Jewish Law. And the 613 mitzvot of the Law informed every aspect of a Jew’s daily life: how and when you worshipped, personal cleanliness (including the requirement for male circumcision), business practices, what you wore, what you ate, who you associated with… and much, much more. And Paul knew that first having to place oneself under the authority of Jewish Law to become a Christ follower would likely constitute a barrier to Gentile converts raised outside the Jewish faith tradition… hence Paul’s constant admonitions that a believer was saved by faith alone… and not by the works of the law. And James of Jerusalem, brother of our Lord, strongly supported Paul’s doctrine that one need not become an observant Jew to follow the Way of Jesus. Faith in Christ, alone, was sufficient.
Around fifteen-hundred years later, Martin Luther would leverage Paul’s writings to buttress his argument that the Roman Catholic church which, he asserted, had become corrupt and self-serving, had no business imposing its own “works of the law,” on believers in order they might obtain salvation. These new “works” were not based on Scripture, but on church doctrine (e.g., confession, payment of indulgences, and the like) and should be ended immediately. Luther’s “Ninety-five Theses” in 1517, followed around a quarter century later by the Augsburg Confession, brought the “reformation pot,” which had been simmering for the past two (or even three) centuries, to a rolling boil. And the rest is history. Maybe we’ll do a study on the Reformation in Sunday School one day.
So, we return to our conundrum: Is it faith, or is it works? Is it Paul, or is it James? Or could it be… both? The Apostle Paul may often have come across as officious and annoying, but I don’t think he was a cruel or inhumane person… at least not after his “road to Damascus experience,” though some might disagree. I can’t imagine any true Christ follower leaving the hungry and thirsty to fend for themselves, neglecting to welcome a stranger, kicking a poor person to the curb, or willfully ignoring those who are sick or in prison. Or any observant Jew, either. Buried amongst those 613 mitzvot of Jewish Law, there are plenty of prescriptions for how God’s Chosen People were to treat one another. And most tend towards kindness. And so, I don’t believe Paul was telling his churches to refrain from doing good work. He was just telling them that it would do them no good to do the right thing for the wrong reason. When we follow the prescriptions of our faith, we cannot help but do good work. God puts opportunities to do good work in front of us every single day… right slap dab in the middle of our paths. If we miss such opportunities it’s because we, like the priest and the Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), choose to “pass by on the other side of the road.” And that’s too bad.
The Letter of James contains another pithy admonition of which I’m very fond. We read it just last week… he writes that we are to be “…doers of the word” (v. 1:22). Preaching and teaching and evangelizing are wonderful things, but it’s only when we, like the Good Samaritan in the parable, are moved to pity by the sight of a man left for dead on the side of the road, and stoop to bandage his wounds and provide for his continuing care, that we’re “doing the word.” This dovetails nicely, I think, with a quote, often misattributed to St. Francis of Assisi, which reads: “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” Whether or not St. Francis actually said it, who knows? But, “Like Snoopy the Dog, I’ll quote truth wherever I find it, thank you” (Richard Bach, Illusions). First, be Christ to a world in need of hope. Anything else that comes after that is gravy. Faith and good work go hand in hand…. one is your left hand, one is your right. We don’t do the work in order to be saved, we do it because stems from who we are: Christ’s hands and feet in a world that often seems overcome by violence, greed and indifference. But never forget… we have a choice. We can be doers of the word... we can preach the Gospel with our minds, souls and bodies. Or we can cross to the other side of the road. We must be careful in our choosing, however, because we are saved by faith alone… but faith without works is dead. James said it, I believe it and that settles it.
Here’s a song by Rich Mullins explaining his take on the intersection between faith and works. It’s titled, “Screen Door,” and I hope you enjoy it!
Screen door – by Rich Mullins
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
No good deed goes unpunished, right? Imagine… Jesus and his disciples in Gennesaret preaching, teaching, healing the sick right and left… doing God’s work. Worn out from days of around-the-clock ministry, the disciples commit what must be the ultimate social gaffe—they handle food with unwashed hands. Man, what were they thinking! And, of course, the delegation of Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, probably all nicely bathed and dressed, calls them out for it. Forget all the good work being accomplished in Gennesaret, forget the feeding of the five thousand, forget the little girl raised from the dead! “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ask the Pharisees. Sheesh! Jesus and his posse can’t seem to catch a break.
And it’s tempting for us, or for me at any rate, to condemn the scribes and Pharisees for their nitpicking. But we must remember that the Pharisees, as a class, weren’t bad people—they were the leaders of an ancient faith tradition they believed was in direct covenant with God— “God’s chosen people” —educated, experienced and, I believe, in many cases, well-intentioned. The “tradition of the elders” to which they refer is part and parcel of the Jewish Law which consists of 613 Mitzvot, or commandments: 248 “thou shalts” and 365 “thou shalt nots.” The Law had been handed down through oral tradition from the time of Abraham until the Babylonian captivity, at which time it began to be codified into what we now know as the Torah. As the period of captivity ended, and the Jews began to return home after generations of exile, the writers of the Torah had a particular goal in mind: to document the events and behaviors that culminated in defeat at the hands of the Babylonians, and to put in place a system of laws and traditions that would keep such a disaster from ever happening again! So, when the Pharisees critiqued the behavior of Jesus’ disciples, they might have been nitpicking but, in their view, the consequences of straying from the straight and narrow path of tradition and the Law were severe. No good Jew wanted to go there. Interestingly, if Jesus and his disciples had not been Jews, I don’t believe the scribes and Pharisees would have cared “two whits” about hand washing. It wouldn’t have mattered. It was because Jesus and his disciples were gadding about Galilee and Judah, representing themselves as followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that the Jewish authorities took notice… and umbrage! The scribes and Pharisees were frankly worried that Jesus and his followers had the potential to “upset the apple cart,” not only with regard to the Jews’ relationship with their Roman occupiers, but with God.It had happened before… it could happen again. Eating with defiled hands might not have been in specific violation of any of the Ten Commandments, but it could be the first step on a slippery slope. And such behavior must be opposed.
Only Jesus wasn’t about to give the scribes and Pharisees a pass on their own hypocrisy. He recalled the words of the prophet Isaiah: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines” (vv. 29:13-14). And then Jesus proceeded to instruct the nitpickers—and the crowd—on the true nature of sin. Sin is less an externalthing, he said, like failing to wash one’s hands, as it is our own selfish and evil intentions. These things come from the inside, and it is with them that we truly defile ourselves: things like fornication, theft, murder, adultery, deceit… and so on. Apparently, Jewish religious leaders of the time, like some of our own leaders today, were not immune from such pitfalls. And those of us who might be tempted to pat ourselves on the back because we aren’t mired in these particular sinful behaviors may want to interrupt our self-congratulation for a moment and recall Jesus’ overarching point: “You abandon the commandment of God… and hold to human tradition.” Do we do that? Yeah. How many of us are at least occasionally inclined, like the Pharisees, to “deify” certain human traditions that serve to shore up the comfortable, predictable lives we cherish, while conveniently ignoring moral precepts that are truly commandments from God?
Let’s talk about freedom for a minute. Is there a word more dear in the American political lexicon? We Americans first sought freedom from a tyrannical English king. And we got it. Later we codified our newfound freedoms in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Great Experiment… the Americanexperiment based upon Judeo-Christian principles. A little over a century and a half later, Franklin Roosevelt expanded and humanized our concept of freedom when he spoke of “Four Freedoms” that people everywhere in the world ought to enjoy: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Don’t get me wrong, these are all good things and have served to advance the cause of human rights in this country and abroad. But I wonder sometimes if we, like the Pharisees, have become so single-minded in espousing a doctrine of freedom based upon human precepts… that we have lost sight of the moral imperative that lies behind it all. Of what use is freedom if we don’t use it to act in accordance with God’s commandments? But it’s hard, we say… it’s complicated! And that’s true because we’ve made it that way for ourselves. But Jesus helps us cut through all the complications and confusion when he reminds us to honor God’s commandments above human tradition: Love God, love your neighbor and don’t judge. Ever.
The headlines today are rife with complaints of all manner of supposed infringements of some people’s freedoms by others… often in lurid detail. There’s so much legal infighting… and, often, it seems like there’s no middle ground. Anytime lawyers and Pharisees get involved, things get complicated. How can we provide for equitable treatment of same-gender couples without infringing on the religious freedoms of those who object to such unions? How do we balance the rights of women carrying unwanted fetuses with those of the unborn children, themselves? How can we ease the plight of neighbors across the border and around the world who suffer from extreme economic hardship and political persecution? How do we respond to the very real economic and racial inequities that threaten the relative peace and stability of civil society, to which we’ve grown so accustomed in this country? I can’t give you definitive answers to any of these questions, but I can say this: while we may not always be able to find a middle ground based upon humanjurisprudence, there is always a higher ground. We say, “We have freedom of speech.” The writer of the letter to the Ephesians tells us that only by “speaking the truth in love,” will we grow into the stature of Christ (v. 4:15). We say, “It’s our money. We earned it.” The author of the Letter of James tells us that all good gifts around us come from God (v. 1.17). We say, “It’s our country. We can’t take care of the rest of the world.” Jesus told us love our neighbors… and I’m pretty sure he didn’t just mean from a distance, or that we should limit our affections to people who look and act as we do. We speak of a “Christian Work Ethic” and question why we should help people who persist in making bad decisions, and who don’t even seem to try and help themselves. Jesus says, “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42). And “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise” (Luke 3:11). I could go on. We say… God commands. It’s easy to slip into defilement, isn’t it? Just ask the Pharisees.
I’ll close on a lighter note… it’s a story that some of y’all might have heard me tell before. Once upon a time… a young Roman Catholic priest was celebrating a funeral mass for a departed parishioner. As he looked out over the assembled mourners, he realized that over half were from outside his regular congregation. As you may know, Roman Catholics are a little particular about who is allowed to partake of the Sacrament, and he agonized mentally over how he would distinguish between who could receive… and who could not. Would he ask if a guest was Catholic? Could he see it in their eyes? Later, when he was relating the story to his Monseigneur, the older man nodded sagely and asked: “And what did you do, my son?” The young priest smiled and said, “Well, I didn’t know what to do, so I just asked myself, ‘What would Jesus do?’” to which the Monseigneur replied, horrified, “you did NOT!”
What would Jesus have us do? The answers might make us feel pretty uncomfortable sometimes, but in grappling with this most fundamental of questions, we can bring ourselves, and this old world, just a little closer to the reality of God’s Kingdom come.
Ephesians 6:10-20
I remember, back when I was in third or fourth grade, one of my favorite toys was a twelve-inch action figure named Sir Stuart, the “Silver Knight,” in Marx Toys’ “Legendary Noble Knights” series. Along with my GI Joe collection, the Silver Knight was among my most prized possessions. He had a manly visage, fully articulating torso and limbs, and the coolest suit of plate armor you could imagine! Serving as “squire” to Sir Stuart, I learned a lot about all the stuff a knight had to wear and carry around during medieval times. In addition to a helmet, breastplate and shield, there were pauldrons (for the shoulders) rerebraces (upper arms), vambraces (lower arms), gauntlets (hands), faulds (waist and hips), tassets (upper legs), greaves (lower legs), sabatons (feet) and let’s not forget the cowters (elbows) and the poleyns (knees). Now, the armor worn by soldiers in Biblical times wasn’t quite as complex—or as heavy—as it was in the fifteenth century, but it served the same purpose, which was to allow the wearer to better perform his job and protect him from people and situations that could cause him harm.
As most of y’all know, I wore the armor and regalia of a “centurion” for the better part of three decades during my career in law enforcement and the military. And that armor and regalia had a lot in common with the armor described by the writer of the Letter to the Ephesians. I wore a Kevlar®vest to protect my vital organs. I had a thick leather belt on which I carried the tools of my trade. Boots protected my feet and kept them warm and dry on cold, rainy nights as I stood the watch, so that others could sleep in safety. Certainly, I wore a shield on my chest signifying the authority and responsibility conferred upon me as a result of the oath I had taken to “serve and protect.” And I had a sword… in a manner of speaking. I only had to wear a helmet when things got really bad. And like the armor described in Ephesians, the armor I wore could be hot and constricting and smelly. I guess, even with all of the advantages of modern science, some things never change.
I even had a special prayer pasted up on my bathroom mirror that I would recite, either aloud or in my head, each day before I left for work. It went something like this:
My Lord, I am ready on the threshold of this new day to go forth, armed with thy power, seeking adventure on the high road: to right wrong, to overcome evil, to suffer wounds and endure pain if need be, but in all things to serve thee bravely, faithfully, joyfully… that at the end of the day’s labor, kneeling for thy blessing, thou mayest find no blot upon my shield. This I ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with God the Father, in unity with the Holy Ghost, for all ages of ages. Amen.
Sounds a little “Rite I,” don’t you think? Perhaps even a little corny… I don’t know. What I do know is that it made a difference to get properly “prayed up” before putting myself out there to “suffer wounds and endure pain if need be,” in the service of those I was sworn to protect. And you know what else made a huge difference? Having a two-way radio! As beneficial and reassuring as the armor and sword were, having a radio meant that I was never alone. No matter what I got into, someone was always listening out for me. Help was only a radio call away.
I guess most of us don’t need to wear physical armor in this place and time in history. Others assume that burden on our behalf. And, in any case, the writer of the letter to the Ephesians was only drawing metaphorical comparisons between “physical” armor and the spiritual protection we must put on to withstand the “wiles of the devil.” He was particularly concerned with our metaphysical struggle against the rulers… authorities… and spiritual forces of evil in the world. He admonishes us that only by putting on the whole armor of God can we stand firm in opposition to these “cosmic powers of darkness.” We can’t make it on our own. And he’s right, and I think the text says pretty much everything that needs to be said in this regard elegantly, if a bit esoterically.
So, aside from the always-valid and timely reminder that the Devil is real—and that he’ll ensnare us if he can—what else can we glean from today’s passage from Ephesians? How might we use this passage as a bridge to yet another metaphor that can provide some context for our daily lives? I’m gonna take a leap here so, stay with me: The Wizard of Oz!
Get it?
No?
OK, so I’ll break it down for you: Dorothy is a pretty, but otherwise unremarkable girl, growing up in a similarly unremarkable place. Kind of like most of us, I guess. She’s loved by many, including her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, and especially her canine companion Toto, but Dorothy (like many kids her age) tends to take that for granted. The events of her day-to-day life have been recounted, up to this point, only in black-and-white. Maybe some of y’all have felt that way from time to time. Suddenly, however, Dorothy is ripped from the humdrum life she knows, landing in an altogether different world that is very remarkable indeed: full of color… and inhabited by witches, munchkins, and all manner of exotic flora and fauna. But despite the technicolor and all the wondrous inhabitants of Oz, Dorothy realizes that her heart’s dearest desire… is simply: to go home. The only way she can get there, however, is to travel to far-off Emerald City… find a wizard that no one has seen or heard from in recent memory… and hope that he can help her. The journey will be arduous, fraught with perils, both known and unknown, and the outcome is far from certain.
Well, Dorothy eventually finds the Wizard and, happily, manages to make it back to Kansas. Y’all know the story. But here’s the thing: Dorothy couldn’t have done what she needed to do to return home without the friends she made along the way. Without the scarecrow’s brains, the tin man’s heart, the courage of the supposedly cowardly lion and the faithfulness of Toto, she never would have overcome the many obstacles (e.g., Fighting Trees, the Wicked Witch’s sleeping spells, Winkie Guards and Flying Monkeys) that lay between her and her heart’s desire. Similar parallels could be drawn for Frodo in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, or for Luke Skywalker in Star Wars for that matter, but I won’t belabor the metaphor here. The point is that we’re all better together. We humans were made to be in community with God and each other. And, if you think about it, perhaps you’ll agree that most of the time, we require the help and support of friends to do the things we need to do. The important things, at any rate.
A couple of Sundays ago, our passage from Ephesians reminded us that we Christians are “members of one another” in the most basic sense (4:25). We are part of the same body—which is Christ’s Body (1 Corinthians 12:27)—and we’re meant to cleave together. Earlier, the Apostle Paul had admonished the church in Rome that the best way for them to resist the powers of darkness was to “put on the armor of light . . . to put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:12-14). So, if we’re members of one another in Christ’s Body, I wonder if part of what constitutes the “whole armor of God” in today’s passage, along with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith and all the rest… is Koinonia. That’s the Greek word used by the earliest disciples to describe true Christian community. We need to look after each other… help each other… and be accountable to each other… in love, and without judgement. As members of the same Body, we are to “put on” one another. We were made to be together. Or, to borrow a concept from South African ubuntu philosophy, “I am… because we are.”And, if that’s the case, we’ll each be better Christians… when we’re all better Christians.
Armor comes in handy sometimes… and we’re all called to take up the sword of the Spirit and be “doers of the word” (James 1:22-25). But even more than armor and weapons, we need each other. We can’t make it on our own. We need the help of brothers and sisters in the Faith to accomplish that which God has purposed for us, which is to stand firm, “fighting for the right under Christ’s banner against sin, the world, and the devil, until the end of days.”[1] And you know what? Living in koinonia…as Church, has a lot of the same advantages and disadvantages of wearing armor. On one hand, it protects the things that are most important. It slows us down (in a good way!) and limits our range of motion… to save us from getting too far ahead of ourselves. It provides a refuge when life’s miseries flood around us. And it gives us the authority to speak truth to power when the need arises. On the other hand, living in relationship with one another can also be a “dear and difficult business.” That’s the way my maternal grandmother often used to describe marriage. We may sometimes feel stifled and moved to anger… or thwarted when we can’t do what we want to do when we want to do it. Living in community means subjecting ourselves to the best and the worst of each another. So, like wearing armor, life together can be hot, constricting and smelly. But we are called to koinonia so that together, as one Body, we can better spread the Gospel of Christ to a world in need of hope. So, “put on” one another… and bear with one another. And pray for one another. We are better together. I am because we are. And the day we finally own that truth is the day we’ll hear our old friend, the Devil’s, knees begin to shake.
[1] cf. BCP 1928, p. 280 (Holy Baptism)
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
What’s the first prayer you ever remember praying? Was it “Now I lay me down to sleep…?” Or was it, “Our Father, who art in heaven…?” As you grew older, did your prayers change? “Please give me lots of friends… Please let this boy (or this girl) like me… Please help me pass this test… or get this job. I don’t know about you, but most of my praying when I was young, and even later when I was not-so-young, involved me talking… and hoping God was listening. As my faith has matured, however, I’ve come to understand that God is always listening, and always responding, though that response may manifest itself in unexpected ways. My biggest challenge is to stop talking long enough to hear what it is that God is trying to get through my thick skull.
Prayer, I think, is as much about listening as it is talking. King Solomon must have been a pretty busy guy: gadding about his kingdom keeping the peace, administering justice, raising revenue, offering sacrifices… all that stuff that kings do. But when God spoke to him in a dream, Solomon took time first to listen—and then to discern the significance of what was being offered—before answering. The Bible scholars among us might note that in this morning’s reading from Hebrew Scripture, we seem to have skipped a large bit of text right in the middle (1 Kings 2:13—3:3). You can go back and read it if you want, but here’s the “CliffsNotes” version of what we missed: the transition of power from King David to his son Solomon hadn’t gone all that smoothly. Oh, Solomon was in control of the kingdom all right, but he’d had to kill and exile a number of his father’s former cronies in order to consolidate his position. And it was probably eating him up. Tradition holds that Solomon was only twelve years old when he became King, and the politics and infighting between the old guard and the new were probably pretty intense. He had a lot on his plate. And yet… when God spoke, Solomon listened. Well, of course he did, you might say. It was God speaking, after all. But wait… this was not God speaking with the voice of thunder from the peak of Mount Sinai… this was not God speaking through the mighty words and signs of a prophet or angel. This was more conversational… almost a whisper, really: “Ask what I should give you” (v. 3:5). And Solomon was listening. And having a pretty good sense of his own limitations, and wanting to please God above all else, Solomon responded: “[Y]ou have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind . . . able to discern between good and evil” (vv. 3:7-9). Solomon listened and gave in to God’s will for his life. Solomon wished to be transformed, through wisdom, into the king he needed to become. And God gave Solomon all that he asked for, and more. Truly, there would never be another king like Solomon.
Some of y’all may be aware that our denomination, the Episcopal Church, claims its own martyr. Of course, there are many well-known Christian martyrs from the time of the early and Reformation-era church, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, and the stories of twentieth-century martyrs such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King are similarly well documented. But the only martyr specifically tied to the Episcopal Church is Jonathan Myrick Daniels. Daniels was an Episcopal seminarian killed in the service of Christ about two-hundred miles from here, fifty-nine years ago this coming Tuesday (20AUG). Last Wednesday washis feast day. Jon was born in 1939, and raised Congregationalist, before joining the Episcopal Church during his high school years. And, incidentally, he worshipped at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Keene, New Hampshire. How about that? He thought about becoming a priest when he was young, but nothing ever came of it. He also considered a career in the military, and attended Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he was elected Valedictorian of his graduating class in 1961. Like many young people, he often struggled with his faith. But God works in mysterious ways and, wouldn’t you know it, Jon decided not to join the military after all, electing instead to study English literature at Harvard. The following spring, he had a “conversion experience” during Easter services at Church of the Advent in Boston (1962) and ended up switching to Episcopal Theological Seminary (ETS) in the fall of 1963, expecting to be ordained as an Episcopal Priest after graduation in the spring of 1966.
God, apparently, had other plans. Jon had entered seminary at the height of the civil rights era—and in March 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called students from around the country to join him in Selma, Alabama for a march to the state capital in Montgomery to demonstrate support for civil reforms. And Jon was listening … not only to the voice of Dr. King but also to the voice inside of him leading him, via the path of wisdom and discernment, to fulfill the role that God had in store for him. One evening a few days after King’s call for solidarity, Jon resolved to go to Selma and lend whatever aid he could to the cause of justice and equality. He would later write:
I had come to Evening Prayer as usual, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with love and reverence . . . “My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior.” As the hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward a decisive, Spirit-filled “moment….” And then it came: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek.” I knew then that I must go to Selma.[1]
So, Jon went to Alabama and stayed for the better part of the next six months advocating, educating, organizing and helping get blacks registered to vote… but I’ll skip to the end of the story. In August of 1965, Jon and several others were arrested for picketing segregated business establishments in Fort Deposit, Alabama, (~35 miles southwest of Montgomery) and taken to the county jail in nearby Hayneville where they were held for six days. The living conditions were pretty squalid. But they were eventually released and, tired and hungry, were awaiting transportation back to Montgomery. A few of the group thought they might step around the corner to Varner’s Cash Store to buy a soft drink. When they arrived, a local resident named Tom Coleman, armed with a shotgun, met them at the door. There was a brief confrontation and Jon ended up taking a shotgun blast (meant for a young black female activist named Ruby Sales) in the chest at point blank range. He died instantly. Coleman claimed self-defense, but the facts argued otherwise: one of Daniels’ colleagues, Catholic priest Richard Morrisroe, was shot from behind as he fled the scene, and lived to tell about it.
The martyrdom of Jonathan Myrick Daniels was only one episode in an epochal struggle for freedom and human dignity in twentieth-century America. But the murder of a 26-year-old, white, educated, priest-in-training defending an unarmed, teenaged black girl, shocked members of the Episcopal Church—and the wider, white establishment—into facing the reality of racial inequality in the South… and elsewhere. To this day, however, though much has been accomplished, the goals of true justice and equality remain elusive.
How long will it be before we learn to love God and our neighbor above our own petty desires and prejudices? I don’t know… God knows. But I believe that God can turn all of the rottenness we humans dish out to one another on a daily basis into great, great good. And he’ll do it through us, if we’ll let him. Jonathan Daniels, like twelve-year-old King Solomon, pursued the way of wisdom by first listening to God, discerning the significance of what was being offered and then stepping out in faith to do what God was asking him to do.And in so doing I believe Jon, like Solomon, pleased his Creator. I’m not telling you have to walk the exact same road as Solomon or Jon to make it into heaven… not everyone is cut out to be a king… or a martyr. I am asking you, however, to tune your ears to the voice of God leading you along the way of wisdom and discernment and cherish and cultivate the “seeds” God has planted in your heart. That’s enough to keep us all busy for a lifetime! And it will be scary sometimes. But when we truly give in to God’s holy wisdom, we may find that our fears are put into perspective. I’ll leave you with something Jon had to say about fear towards the end of his time on earth:
I lost fear . . . when I began to know in my Bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters, I am already dead… and my life is hid with God in Christ. As I said my prayers day by day, I became more and more aware of the living reality of the invisible “communion of saints” — of my beloved seminary community and other praying communities, and of the ones gathered around a near-distant throne in heaven — who blend, with their celestial melodies, our own faltering songs of prayer and praise. With them, with black men and white men, with all of life, in Him Whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout, whose Name is Itself the Song which fulfills and “ends” all songs, we are indelibly, unspeakably One.[2]
Amen.
[1] Jonathan Myrick Daniels, American Martyr: The Jon Daniels Story, ed. William J. Schneider (Morehouse, 1992), p. ?
[2] Ibid., p. ?
John 6:24-35
What’s the best meal you ever had? Was it a big, fat steak or a pound-and-a-half lobster tail on your birthday or anniversary? Was it your, or a neighbor’s, soon-to-be-famous back-yard barbeque? Perhaps it was even an unexpected combination of leftovers out of the fridge that turned out to be “just the thing.” Save that recipe… write it down! Or maybe it wasn’t so much the food… maybe it was the circumstances surrounding the meal. Was it a cozy repast in a little hole-in-the-wall joint you happened upon on vacation or while traveling? Was it homemade chicken soup, lovingly prepared and served up warm and savory one day when you were feeling under-the-weather? Some of you Moms might remember with fondness the first time your child(ren) brought you breakfast in bed. Sure, the eggs were cold and the toast a little burned around the edges, but the overall effect? Priceless. I remember returning to civilization one Thanksgiving Day after having been out on the Appalachian Trail eating backpacking food for a week, and happening across a little steakhouse buffet that was serving a feast of turkey with all the trimmings for just $11.99. I would have gladly paid $100.00.
I wonder if the crowd who pursued Jesus across the Sea of Tiberias in today’s Gospel lesson was similarly besotted by the relative “feast” he had so recently provided. The writer of the fourth Gospel tells us that, after consuming the loaves and fishes miraculously multiplied by Jesus, the people said, “‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’ [and] When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:1-15). And the crowd still had “bread on the brain” the next morning when they took ship and followed Jesus to Capernaum. It must have been a pretty good meal. I expect that the first thing the crowd asked Jesus when they arrived was, “When’s lunch?” But Jesus wasn’t going to cater to their need for physical sustenance that day. “Do not work for the food that perishes…” he admonished them, “but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal” (John 6:27).
This reminds me of the story of the Transfiguration recounted in the Synoptic Gospels. We celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration this coming Tuesday, you know. Our own patron Saint James was there, along with Peter and John. They, along with Jesus, went up to the mountain to pray. Suddenly, Jesus changed. His face shone and his clothes, which were probably pretty dusty and stained from travel, turned dazzlingly white. Then Moses and Elijah showed up! How cool was that??? And as the disciples debated whether or not to build “booths” for Jesus and the two Hebrew prophets, God spoke: “This is my Son, the Beloved [or in Luke’s gospel, the “chosen”]; with him I am well pleased; listen to him” (Mark 9:2-8). Wow. Interestingly, there is no account of the Transfiguration in John’s Gospel. John tends to let the awesomeness of Jesus stand on its own. In the case of today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the crowd that God has sent the Son of Man to give a new kind of food to his people, food that will keep them satisfied not just for a few hours, or a day, or even a week! This new food satisfies for all of eternity!
“Yum!” said the crowd. “How do we get this food?” And Jesus said, “It’s easy. All you have to do is believe in the one God sent. That would be me.” “Prove it,” says the crowd, whose stomachs were probably beginning to rumble. “Scripture talks about ‘bread from heaven (lots of nods)…’ you could start there.” Man, were these guys hungry! They just didn’t know what they were hungry for. And Jesus wasn’t going to let them off the hook: “[I]t is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Whatever,” said the crowd. “Just give us some.” “I am that bread,” said Jesus. “Follow me and you’ll never be hungry or thirsty again.” I’m afraid, however, that this awesome “I AM” statement was not followed by a massive “altar call.” There may have been some in the crowd with ears to hear Jesus, but most were likely only listening to their bellies.
How different are we from that crowd? How often do we focus, and even obsess, on things that provide instant gratification at the expense of pursuing things that are truly life-giving? And I don’t know about you but, Jesus Messiah is the most life-giving thing I can think of. We say we love Jesus… and we try to. It’s just that we sometimes get so self-absorbed that we’re unwilling to put our money where our mouth is… which is to have faith, and trust God to give us what we need through his beloved, his chosen… and set ourselves resolutely on the path that Jesus offers us. “But it’s so easy to get distracted,” we complain, in an attempt to rationalize our unfaithfulness. When times are hard, it’s easy to remember to ask for God’s help, amiright? But when life is good, we get so wrapped up enjoying the good stuff that we forget where all that good comes from. Oops! But here’s the thing: I don’t believe God wants us to give up all the good stuff, the things we love to eat and drink and do… and walk around being holier-than-thou ascetics all the time. No. I don’t think God wants us to give up things that add richness and enjoyment to our lives, as long as we don’t pursue them in ways that are hurtful to ourselves or others.
But God does want us to be holy. God made us to be holy. You’ve heard me say before: “God loves you just the way you are… but he’s not gonna leave you that way.” God loves us and wants what’s best for us, and joy in life and in creation is all part of that. We must never forget, however, that God has planted us at this place, and at this time, in the history of the universe… for a purpose. And that purpose is to help bring about God’s Kingdom on earth. When Jesus offers us “the true bread of heaven,” he is inviting us to follow him… to give in to God’s will for our lives, and to become Kingdom bringers to a world in need of hope. And the trajectory of Jesus’ ministry throughout the Gospels tells us pretty much everything we need to know about how to do that: Love God. Love your neighbor. Don’t judge. Be kind. Tell the truth. Confront evil and injustice. Use your God given talents and other gifts to help others when you can. And, while you’re doing all that, yes… be happy.
As the writer of the letter to the Ephesians tells us, we are invited to “lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience… bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace—for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God… to maturity… to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (vv. 4:1-16). And you know, as tempting as it is, sometimes, to lose ourselves in the here and now, seeking first and foremost to satisfy our worldly appetites, I’m pretty sure that following Jesus and helping to bring about God’s kingdom on earth will be even richer and more satisfying. And who wouldn’t want to be part of that?
Matthew 20:20-28
Who here knows who St. James is? Or better yet… who knows who our St. James is? It’s a fair question, because there are a few St. James-es in the New Testament. There’s “James of Jerusalem,” a.k.a. “James the Just,” brother of Jesus, who many scholars believe wrote the Letter of James in the Bible. His special feast day is on October 23rd. Then there’s James, son of Alphaeus, one of the Twelve, who shares his feast day of May 1st with another Apostle, Philip. This James is also known as “James the Less.” Why “…the Less” you may ask? It’s because he seems to have stood just a little bit in the shadow of James the Great… son of Zebedee, brother of John… and our patron Saint!
A “patron saint,” is one that receives special devotion from a worshiping community, in this case, St. James’ Church in Cedartown—and the Calendar of Saints feast day for St. James the Great (or “Big James,” as Jesus refers to him in the Chosen series) is always July 25th (this past Thursday). And why is the altar and chancel dressed in red today? I’m glad you asked! It’s because our St. James’ was not only one of the Twelve Apostles, he was also a martyr—someone who literally gave his life for the cause of Christ—and the Church puts out the red hangings and vestments when it commemorates the life of a martyr. You don’t see red very often on Sundays, outside of the Sunday of the Passion (or Palm Sunday) and the Feast of Pentecost, because the weekly prescribed “Feast of our Lord”—that’s Sunday worship—takes precedence over lesser feasts that occur on Sundays… and Feasts of our Lord come in many colors, but never red. You’ll see purple on Sundays in Advent and Lent, and white during the Christmas and Easter seasons… and a whole bunch of green in between. “Ordinary time,” it’s called, and we’re in the middle of that green, ordinary time right now. Except for today, because Big James, Apostle and Martyr, is our guy… and this is his day. Just in case you were wondering.
So, who was James the Great? Frankly, considering his stature among the Twelve, we really don’t know all that much about him. We hear a lot about the things that the Apostle Peter did, the things that James’ brother John did, and certainly the things that Judas did. But we don’t hear all that much about what James did. What we know about James is who he was… and where he was… during Jesus’ three years of active ministry:
- He was one of the twelve apostles, and one of the first to follow Jesus: Matthew writes, “As [Jesus] went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him” (Matthew 4:18-22, cf. Mark 1:16-20).
- From Luke, we learn that James, along with his brother John, were with Peter on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus helped them catch more fish than they could haul aboard the boat, and told them that from now on, they would “fish for people” (vv. 5:1-11 NIV).
- “These are the names of the twelve apostles: [writes Matthew] first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him” (vv. 10:2-4, cf. Mark 3:13-19 and Luke 6:12-16).
- James was present for the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13, Mark 9:2-8 and Luke 9:28-36) and for the healing of Peter’s mother (Mark 1:29-34).
- Jesus called James and his brother John “Boanerges” (bo-a-NER-jez), or “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:13-19)… affectionately, I think. They must’ve made a lot of noise.
- James was there when Jesus resurrected the little girl who had “fallen asleep” (Talitha cum! Little girl, get up!), and was admonished by Jesus not to tell anyone what he had seen, but to get the girl something to eat (Mark 5:35-43, cf. Luke 8:49-56).
- James was with Jesus on the Mount of Olives when, in Mark’s Gospel, the Lord spoke of the Parousia, the Second Coming: he said, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs” (Mark 13:3-8).
- James and John, flush with power given to them by Jesus to heal and cast out demons, took great offense when a Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus, and offered to call down fire from heaven to consume the offenders (Luke 9:51-56). Can you imagine the look Jesus gave them?
But you know these stories.
What a wild ride it must have been… being with Jesus, day in and day out, as he interpreted Scripture, healed people in body, mind and spirit and preached about the coming of God’s Kingdom. And I suppose that James and John, in their enthusiasm, might be forgiven for putting their mother up to asking Jesus to award them special placement in his kingdom. Mark’s version of the story actually has the brothers, themselves, making the pitch (vv.10:35-45). But Jesus knew that “exaltation” was a two-edged sword, often constituting a barrier between people and God. “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,” he told them, and “whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.” If you truly want to be with me… and be like me, you have to understand this paradox and live into it. But be careful what you wish for: when you sign up to “drink from this cup” you may find that it’s more than you bargained for.
James was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he said, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake” . . . but he couldn’t (Mark 14:32-42). And he was likely in the room with the rest of the Apostles when Mary Magdalene, Joanna, his own mother Mary (Salome), and others arrived, out-of-breath, and excited beyond belief with the news that Jesus had risen from the grave (Luke 24:1-12).
James would later help build the church in Jerusalem before being “killed with the sword” (d. 44 AD), which is a code phrase for “beheaded,” by King Herod Agrippa I, which was the usual punishment for murderers and “apostates” …those who had, in the eyes of conventional religious authority, forsaken the true faith in pursuit of false gods (i.e., idol worship). James’ execution was the first “crack in the veneer” of a decade of relative peace and stability that followed the stoning of St. Stephen (d. 34 AD). James was one of the first to follow Jesus… and the first of the Twelve to be executed. Historians of the time (Eusebius/Clement) report that, before he died, James converted his jailer… who was executed along with him.[1]
I guess, sometimes, the past is prologue. Many scholars and historians agree that the era of “Christendom” is over. Christendom connotes a time when everyone was, or was expected to be, Christian, and when governments (at least in our part of the world) recognized and gave special precedence to precepts of the Christian faith. Without commenting on the many pitfalls associated with such a church/state symbiosis, Christianity has been the dominant religious paradigm in vast swaths of the world since the late 4th century AD, when Emperor Constantine adopted the faith for the Roman Empire and made it an established function of government. And it remains the most ascribed-to faith tradition in the world today. Certainly, the church has not been “established” in this country since we won our independence from Great Britain, but it’s been pretty much where everyone we knew went on Sunday… for as long as we can remember. Until now. Now many of us have friends and family members who are “un-churched,” meaning uncommitted to any particular community of faith, or who choose “none” as their religious affiliation.
It seems sometimes that the church is under siege from all sides. You don’t have to be a news junkie to be bombarded with stories in the media of Christians being killed simply on account their faith in Asia, Africa and the Middle East and other places where Christianity once flourished. And it gets worse. The church is not only at risk abroad, but here in our own country it’s been compromised by those who would pervert the tenets of Jesus’ teaching to justify harming and excluding those who think and act differently than they do. I won’t reiterate the headlines. Y’all have eyes to read, and ears to hear. And in case you, like me, are sometimes tempted to become overly nostalgic about the way things (never) used to be: It’s been only 336 years since the Glorious Revolution in mother England (1688), which ended decades of vicious bloodshed between Protestants and Catholics over arcane matters of church polity and doctrine. And just nineteen years ago (July 28th, 2005), brothers and sisters in Northern Ireland finally committed to stop killing one another in the name of Christ and embarked upon an uneasy truce that remains tenuous to this very day. So, it’s never been easy. I’m pretty sure Jesus would have frowned on all the discord.
What in the world do matters of church polity and pseudo-Christian one-upmanship have to do with the Great Commission? “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:16-20).
They don’t.
How do we reconcile our perennial infighting with Jesus’ commandment to love one another (John 13:31-35)?
We can’t.
And when we’re not going over-the-top and out-of-bounds to browbeat others into adopting our (often narrow) way of thinking, it seems that we go in the exact opposite direction: we become shrinking violets… too timid and afraid to share the Good News of God in Christ for fear of being rejected… or thought ill of. I sometimes ask myself how far I’d be willing to go in proclaiming the Good News of Salvation in the face of serious adversity. What do you think? Would you, like our patron James, be willing to put yourself and your family at risk to spread the Good News? I hope I would. I hope we all would. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking you to take up arms. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword (John 18:1-11, cf. Matthew 26:47-56). And I’m not suggesting you become a noisy zealot or make a nuisance of yourself for the cause of Christ. Jesus shared meals with all sorts and conditions of folks—even sinners and tax collectors!—and, by most accounts, he was considered to be pretty good company. I’m just asking if you’re willing to take Jesus’ message of unconditional love and forgiveness, and of the coming of God’s Kingdom, to the ends of Cedartown and Polk County: to the mall, country club and the golf course, and beyond. To every nation and to every part of the world in which you find yourself. Are you up to that?
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. James the Great… an Apostle of Jesus Messiah. Apostolos in Greek means “sent forth” and we, like James, have drunk from Jesus’ cup, and have been sent forth to proclaim the love of Christ to a world in need of hope. And sometimes, our friends and associates may not be all that receptive to what we have to say. They don’t know what they’re missing. The good news is that, even in a post-Christendom era, at least here in the U.S., we’re unlikely to face “death by the sword” on account of our faith. But we may be shunned and face the ridicule of those whom we have cultivated as friends. Are we willing to do that? Is it worth it? What would our James say?
[1] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, Sacra Pagina, ed. Daniel Harrington, no. 5. (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1992), 211.
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Have you ever felt like you had too much to do and not enough time to do it? Or perhaps you’ve encountered a “rough patch” in your life, or in the life of someone close to you… and no matter how hard you tried to fix it, nothing seemed to work? Your wheels were spinning… but you were going nowhere. You had run out of fingers to put in the dyke… but new leaks kept popping up. Maybe a better question would be, “Has any of us ever not been in such a position?”
In our Gospel lesson today, the disciples must have had a lot on their minds. They’d been following Jesus around the countryside for weeks as he proclaimed the Good News—that the Kingdom of God was near—teaching people through parables what that Kingdom looked like, and healing those who were sick in body, mind and spirit. Then, Jesus had sent them out “two by two” for a little while to practice their own ministries. What an amazing experience that must have been: away from their Master, clothed with spiritual authority, but little else—carrying no food or money, dependent on the goodness of God, and the kindness of strangers. Sounds pretty scary to me… but it all worked out. They preached, and healed, and cast out demons until they were almost-certainly worn out. Even Jesus got tired sometimes, right? This “proclaiming the Kingdom” stuff is hard work! Then came the news of John the Baptizer’s execution. Some of Jesus’ disciples had been John’s followers before they came to Jesus. They must have felt crushed… guilty and scared. They should have done something… they should be doing something! There was a lot going on.
And then Jesus said, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” The same Jesus who had pushed his disciples to the limits of their endurance to help them become more than they thought they could be, would now lead them to a place of rest and refreshment. Of course, the crowd that followed Jesus had other plans. What did it matter to them that the disciples were tired? This “larger flock” had its own needs and expectations, and would not be put off. And Jesus wouldn’t leave them hanging. “[He] had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” The text goes on to describe how Jesus continued to minister to the crowd at Gennesaret and in the surrounding areas for the next few days. End of story, right? Well, yes and no. Certainly, we have reached the end of Mark, Chapter 6. And, certainly, we have focused on some important aspects of Jesus’ interaction with his larger flock. You might notice, however, that there’s a big chunk missing from our reading today, between vv. 34 and 52. What did we skip… anything important? Only the feeding of the five thousand… and Jesus walking on the water! Oh, for heaven’s sake! Gotta love the Lectionary.
There’s actually a reason for the omission… but I’m not going to get into it right now.[1] Suffice it to say that we hear about both of these events, sort of out of context, next week… but since we’ll be doing the Scripture readings for the Feast of St. James’ next week, we’re in danger of missing out. But I’m not gonna let that happen… because these two stories, taken in the context of today’s readings, are too important to pass up. Why? you may ask. Because in reading these two stories out of context, we miss out on some of Jesus’ interactions with his smaller flock: the disciples. The ones who would remain to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom after he, himself, was gone.
So, let’s touch on the missing parts of Mark’s narrative in their proper place in the story. The disciples follow Jesus to a “deserted” place where they can rest, but that was not to be. Not for Jesus at any rate. He teaches the crowd until late in the day when it’s time for supper. Well… The disciples are hoping that Jesus will send the people home to eat because, frankly, they haven’t a clue how they can feed them, given their meager resources. Remember: they’re tired and burnt out. Jesus, of course, has other plans, and helps the disciples do what they need to do to achieve the impossible with five loaves and two fishes (Mark 6:35-44). You know the story. Later that evening, the disciples find themselves in a boat “straining at the oars against an adverse wind.” No matter how hard they try, they just can’t seem to make headway in the direction they want to go. Then they encounter Jesus walking on the water. When he joins them in the boat, the wind suddenly abates (Mark 6:45-52). You know this story, too. Both of these were “teachable moments” for the disciples. They were overwhelmed by events—they were “out-of-their-element”—but they learned that, when Jesus was with them, and when they listened to what he said, things got better. The disciples didn’t always understand precisely how this happened… but seeing was believing.
So, I wonder, how different are we from the disciples? We love Jesus and try to walk in his ways, right? But sometimes we get tired… all the while feeling as if solving the world’s problems (or even just the problems in our own backyard) is all up to us. We get so wrapped up in our projects and causes that we fall prey to the illusion that, if we were to slow down… if we were to ease up—even a little—everything would fall apart. We could not be more mistaken. God is at work in the world, and in our lives,through the Holy Spirit, each and every day. And God is not only involved in the “big-picture stuff,” but also in the “small stuff” that vexes and consumes us… because it’s in our learning to turn all of that “stuff” over to God that we begin to grow into the creatures God created us to become. I’m gonna say it again, because it’s important: Understanding our dependence on God, and God alone, is the necessary first step to our becoming the “Kingdom Bringers” we were made to be. How many times have you heard me say that? The reason you—all of us—were made… is to help bring about God’s Kingdom on earth. All the other stuff that constitutes a conventional “life well lived” whether it’s upbringing, education, family pedigree, wealth or whatever… all thoseare a means to an end, a way of equipping us to do our part to help usher in the Kingdom. Like the disciples, we have each been given gifts to help us accomplish things that are needful, and the Holy Spirit will be our Helper and Advocate in this regard. But we need to remember that it’s not our plan, it’s God’s plan that’s in play here. And there will be times when we find ourselves immersed in our own “teachable moments” (usually when we are overwhelmed and “out-of-our-element”) when we need to take a step back, and let God do the heavy lifting. Or better yet: in the words of the White Rabbit in the animated Disney adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “Don’t just do something, stand there.”[2]
So, like the disciples and King David from this morning’s lesson from Hebrew Scripture (2 Samuel 7:1-14a), we must remember that God is God and we are not. God reoriented David to this reality when he told him not to build the Temple just yet… but to wait. Rest. Instead of David building God a temple, God would make David a house… a lineage, for a larger purpose. God was reminding David that it was His plan that was in play. Surely the Temple that would be built later, by David’s son Solomon, would become a house for God’s name; but the Apostle Paul reminds us that God is less interested in a house built of bricks and mortar than in the “household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets… with Jesus Christ (of the house of David) as the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:19-22). This is the true temple and dwelling place of the Lord. This is the sort of Kingdom (with a capital “K”) revealed by Scripture.
So, when you find yourself overwhelmed by events, consider taking a deep breath, and putting yourself and everything else in God’s hands. Don’t just do something, stand there. Listen to what your Creator is asking you to do and try your best to be obedient (though it’s hard sometimes). You’ll find the strength and wisdom to do what you need to do. You will be upheld. First because you are loved, and second so that, when the time is right, you’ll be able to step up and fulfill your role in the miracle God has in store for the fallen and broken kingdom of this world.
[1] Mark is the shortest of the gospel narratives and, in order to make the readings stretch all the way to Advent, additional material must be inserted from the other gospel accounts (Matthew, Luke and John) periodically, throughout the Lectionary year. The gospel readings for Propers 12B through 16B are taken from Chapter 6 of John’s gospel, beginning with the feeding and water walking miracles, hence their absence from today’s gospel lesson.
[2] 1951, Film: Alice in Wonderland, Animation Studio: Walt Disney Productions, Adapted from Lewis Carroll’s “The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”, Quotation Location: 21 minutes into total runtime 1 hour 15 minutes.
Mark 6:1-13
“And they took offense at him.”
After raising the little girl from the dead in Capernaum, Jesus set out on foot for his childhood home of Nazareth, a distance of about twenty miles as the crow flies. As far as we know, the trip was uneventful, and Jesus’ homecoming was probably similarly low-key. Nazareth was a hardscrabble farming village in the Galilean hill country. It boasted only a few hundred residents and was held in some contempt by neighboring communities. It had only one well. The Nazarenes may have been poor, but they were proud. Theirs was a conservative town, fierce in its adherence to Jewish tradition in a part of the world that had been strongly impacted by Greco-Roman culture and mores. The villagers spoke Aramaic, a language with a strong poetic tradition, and young men were expected to be literate and good speakers. They worked hard to eke out a living and pay their taxes. They tried to live in peace. Being observant Jews, the Nazarenes valued the traditions of Moses and the prophets: they circumcised their sons, refrained from working on the Sabbath, celebrated Passover, and made pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem when they could. Community was born of shared traditions and shared hardship.
All that said, in Nazareth, as in most communities, there was a pecking order. Sure, they may have been a relatively egalitarian bunch, but some were inevitably “more equal” than others. We don’t know exactly what the Nazarene hierarchy looked like—the village rabbi was probably at or near the top, then the town elders, followed by the top trades and crafts people. They were the ones who got to sit on benches on three sides of the synagogue, resting their backs against the wall, listening to Scripture readings and teachings delivered from an elevated platform (or bimah) on the fourth wall. Everyone else sat on the floor. And while we can’t say for certain who was privileged enough to rate bench seating, there in the synagogue in Nazareth, we can be pretty sure that Jesus’ wasn’t one of them. Heck, he might have made some of those benches, but he normally didn’t get to sit on them. I can think of at least one good reason for this: he’d left town! There’s no reliable record, biblical or otherwise, of precisely what Jesus was up to from the time his parents thought they’d lost him in Jerusalem (when he was twelve) and his baptism by John in the Jordan at the beginning of Mark’s gospel. But consider this: Jesus had likely been trained by his earthly father Joseph to be a carpenter, and there just wasn’t a lot of carpentry work to be done in a barebones place like Nazareth. And Joseph, for whatever reason, seems to have dropped out of the story by this point in the Gospel narrative. So, it’s not unreasonable to imagine Jesus coming and going to and from his hometown quite a bit for who knows how many years, plying his trade in neighboring cities and towns in order to help his family make ends meet. And, in any case, by the time of our Gospel reading today, Jesus had been using Capernaum as his home base for the better part of three years, as he ranged up and down the Galilee, spreading the Good News of God’s coming kingdom. Of course, there were stories and rumors of healings and other deeds of power done by Jesus elsewhere in the region, but not in work-a-day Nazareth.
And so, I suppose, it’s no wonder that the powers-that-be got a little bit of “whiplash” when someone they had known as Yeshua, “the carpenter’s boy,” came to town speaking with authority, and threatening to turn their world upside down. Word had it that he was saying stuff and doing stuff—all sorts of signs!—that that made folks wonder if he might not just be “the One!” the foretold Messiah. But how could this be? The Jews had always been taught to expect a savior who would be a prophet like Moses, or a king like David… some larger-than-life deliverer who would smite their enemies and rescue God’s Chosen People from all their troubles. And so, these Nazarene traditionalists might be excused for thinking that this upstart homeboy just didn’t fit the bill. You know, the Gospel writer doesn’t tell us exactly what Jesus was teaching that day in the synagogue. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t high-and-mighty “messianic” stuff like: the necessity of booting the Romans out of the ancestral Jewish homeland, and bringing all the gentile nations to worship at the feet of the God of Abraham. No. That’s the sort of stuff we think a messiah should talk about. Certainly, it’s the stuff we’d be talking about if we were the messiah. But if Jesus was talking about the sort of stuff he usually talked about when he was teaching, he was probably talking about… putting God first, and then living one’s life as if that was the case. And loving one’s neighbors, even one’s enemies, and then living one’s life as if that was the case. And being faithful (Matthew 5:27-32). About the need to treat others fairly (Matthew 7:12), and the risks inherent in judging a brother or a sister (Matthew 7:2). About the need to feed the hungry, visit those sick and in prison and take in strangers (Matthew 25:35-40). And here’s where it gets interesting: about turning the other cheek… and sacrificing oneself… and going the extra mile (Matthew 5:38-42), even when people have no right to ask such a thing of you. And I could go on.
Doesn’t sound very messianic, does it? At least not if what you’re looking for in your messiah is a prophet like Moses or a king like David. And so, the folks in the synagogue that day, likely egged on by their leaders, took offense and rejected Jesus. Perhaps a better translation of they “took offense” would be that they were “scandalized,” from the Greek “skandalon,” which means “a stone that trips a person.” Jesus’ teachings had somehow managed to trip them up… set all their preconceived notions about God and religion topsy-turvy. And so, in order to regain some sort of equilibrium, the people in the synagogue that day had a choice to make: would they choose to believe Jesus’ message, amend their lives and live into the new thing God was doing in the world? Or would they cling to old ways, and old beliefs, and send Jesus packing? And it seems that most (though perhaps not all) of the folks in Jesus’ hometown chose the latter course. “And he could do no deed of power there [as he had in Capernaum and other places], except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” And you know what I think? I’m guessing that it was the faithful few who found solace and healing in Jesus’ touch. How many times in the gospels do we hear Jesus telling someone who’s been healed, “Your faith has made you well,” as he did the woman suffering from the twelve-year hemorrhage in last week’s Gospel story? Jesus never forces healing on anyone. There’s a choice to be made. God’s arms are always open, but we must step into his almighty embrace.
And so, I have a question for you. If you had been in the synagogue that day in Nazareth, all those many years ago, what choice would you have made? Or better yet, what if Jesus was right here, right now, asking you to give up all of your preconceived notions about the way the world should work, and politics, and justice, and personal accomplishment: who deserves what, and what constitutes a life well spent? What if Jesus was right here, right now, asking you to reconsider everything you think you ever knew? …and to start living your life in accordance with this new understanding? What choice would you make? I like to think I’d make the “right” choice. I like to think I’d choose to open myself to the new thing God is doing in the world… a thing that requires my complete and unreserved “buy in” if it’s to become a reality. The reality of God’s Kingdom come. Not because God can’t do it on his own, but because God will never force healing on any of us. We—each of us, and all of us—inch just a little closer to salvation on our own appointed road to kingdom come when we give ourselves completely and unreservedly to doing God’s work in the world. So, it’s a choice. And I like to think I’d do the right thing but, Lord knows, sometimes I gravitate to the easy way. I sometimes choose the path of least resistance, whereupon I can walk comfortably, secure in the knowledge that I won’t be challenged to venture too far outside my comfort zone helping to spread God’s message to the world. It’s a great job if you can get it, right? But it’s a false path and I know it. The work of evangelism is often hard and unrelenting—but the reward will be more than we can ask for or imagine. So, I keep pluggin’ along, trying to be aware of the stumbling blocks God sets before me, not so much to avoid them, but because they help me know I’m on the right path. Whenever I’m a little uncomfortable, I know I’m generally on the right path. And when I’m really uncomfortable, when I trip and fall flat on my face, I know I’m “getting warmer…” maybe even downright hot! So, stumbling’s not a bad thing, in and of itself. It’s the lesson you take from it that counts.
Perhaps you’ll not be surprised to learn that I’ve got another song to play for you today. Third time in three weeks… I guess y’all are just lucky, right? The song is by Michael Card, and it’s titled, “Scandelon.” I hope you find it… edifying.
Watch the video: Scandalon
Mark 5:21-43
“And they laughed at him.”
In all three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, the language is identical. Death had come calling. The jig was up. It was what it was. Except that Jesus said, “Not so fast . . . she’s just sleeping.” And they laughed at him… for the second time that day, I’m guessing. On the way to Jairus’ house, the crowd had been so thick, pressing in so closely about him, that when Jesus felt a touch and the healing power flowing from him, and asked, of no one in particular, “Who touched me?” all the disciples could do was ask incredulously, “What?” And I bet they laughed. People didn’t always know what to make of Jesus. Some of the things he said and did seemed pretty outlandish… even foolish. But I’m pretty sure he knew what he was doing.
Last week, we heard the story about Jesus stilling a storm on the Sea of Galilee. “Peace, be still!” he said. Remember? He and his disciples had been crossing the lake on their way to the eastern shore, which was gentile country, for a purpose that only God knew. It must have seemed kind of random, but when they arrived, the disciples began to get an inkling of what was going on: there was a crazy, out-of-control madman (the Gerasene Demoniac), full of unclean spirits—a whole legion of them—who came running up to Jesus, begging to be left… in peace. And Jesus obliged him by sending all of the demons into a nearby heard of pigs, which subsequently stampeded into the sea and drowned (Mark 5:1-20). You know the story. Not too much laughter from the disciples there, I’m guessing… unless it was nervous laughter. It was a lot to take in. The former demoniac wanted to stay with Jesus and the disciples, but Jesus sent him home, to his friends and family, to spread the Good News of God’s mercy and salvation. Jesus had a plan: the evangelism of the gentiles had begun.
So, now we’re back in Galilee, in Capernaum probably, and Jesus’ fame is continuing to spread. Jairus, who was prominent in the local synagogue, probably wouldn’t have hazarded his reputation by approaching Jesus directly had the situation not been really dire. But the situation was dire. His little girl, likely the apple of his eye, was dying… and no one else seemed to be able to help her. And so Jairus “came to Jesus.” Just like the woman with the hemorrhage “came to Jesus” after twelve years of trying anything/everything else to meet her need. Just like so many of us come to Jesus when there’s nothing else to lose. Man, wouldn’t it be cool if we could bring ourselves to come to Jesus before everything in our lives has fallen apart? Before we find ourselves beset from all sides by persistent misfortune, fear of temporal loss and abandonment, disappointment, heartache and utter hopelessness? Wouldn’t that be cool.
But that’s not how we roll, is it? Nope. We’re gonna hold fast to our pride and the illusion of self-sufficiency until the bitter end, aren’t we? We’re gonna keep on trying to protect our assets, find new doctors, new lawyers and new friends, sparing no expense looking out for number one until we bend the world to our will and get what we think we want. Any other course of action would be foolishness, would it not? Except that that’s a lie, spread by the Evil One to keep us separated from the ONE who made us, and who has loved us steadfastly and passionately and unconditionally, despite our unfaithfulness, since the dawn of creation. “Who touched me? Your faith has made you well; go in peace . . . be healed.” And then, “She’s just asleep.” It was all foolishness! And they laughed at him. Just like they laughed and mocked him as he stood trial before the Sanhedrin (Mark 14:63-65), and after Pilate had flogged him (Mark 15:16-20) and even as he hung, dying, on the cross (Mark 15:29-32).
I guess it’s sometimes just easier for us to laugh at Jesus, and his seemingly foolish message, than it is for us to give in and pin our hope on the Good News of God’s salvation. And even when we don’t actually laugh at the message, we often hold it at arm’s length—and do everything we can to avoid going “all in.” We might say, “Sure, Jesus was a good man. Even a great moral teacher. Certainly, he meant no harm. But this whole Son of God thing… and the miracles… and the Resurrection. That’s crazy! It would be foolishness to believe all that.” But I’m reminded of writer and theologian C.S. Lewis’ logic in this regard when he argued (convincingly, I think) that a person who said the things Jesus said cannot, by any definition, be simply a great moral teacher. A person who claims to be God but isn’t, must either be “a lunatic—on the level of the man who says he is a poached egg—or a liar and a charlatan.” You must make your choice, said Lewis. And choosing to ascribe to the notion of Jesus as a great moral teacher isn’t an option that’s open to us. “Great moral teachers are neither crazy, nor do they seek to deceive others through their lies. So, either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman… or something worse” (Mere Christianity, 55-6).
But, what if there’s a fourth choice, some might ask? What if the whole thing’s a fabrication? Yup. What if Jesus never really existed at all, and the story was made up by a bunch of first-century religious zealots intent on starting a new messianic sect? “Messiah fever” was pretty rampant in Jewish Palestine back in those days… just like it is for us today, in a sense. Don’t folks in this day and age sometimes hanker for the proverbial “man on a white horse” to come and fix all our problems? So, it’s possible the whole thing was just a hoax… EXCEPT that the story of Jesus’ life and ministry is attested to outside of the New Testament. First-century Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus refers to the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of Roman authorities in his work Antiquities of the Jews, written between 93-94 AD, so we have it on good authority that there was an historical Jesus.[1] Josephus doesn’t include a lot of additional content about Jesus of Nazareth, but the fact that he documented the execution of an itinerant Jewish rabbi by the Romans in Palestine, half-a-century or so after the fact, is remarkable in and of itself. What do you think?
So… Jesus might have been a real person, you concede, but maybe his followers kind of embellished the things he said and did just a bit. Maybe they started with a real person… but turned him into something more. Maybe it was all just a case of wishful thinking. How about that? Only this: we have three separate accounts of the Good News of Jesus Christ—written years apart, and in different places around the Mediterranean basin, by three different authors, a mix of Jews and gentiles who likely never met one another, and who (most Biblical scholars agree) did not collaborate with each other in their writing, in the traditional sense—and all of these accounts agree, in the main, about the details of Jesus’ life and ministry… the things he said, the things he did. Even notwithstanding John’s Gospel and the testimony of the author of Acts and the letters of Paul and the other apostles, the simple preponderance of evidence found in the synoptic gospels would seem to offer the openminded reader ample reason to take the leap of faith.
It’s a dilemma, isn’t it? If it’s true, it’s everything. But if it’s not, it’s just a monumental waste of time! It would be so much easier if the things Jesus wanted us to do and believe were more like the things we’re already predisposed to do and believe, right? Are we really to love our enemies? Turn the other cheek? Give away our stuff? Associate with society’s cast-offs, on the street and in prison? Tend the sick and infirm, placing the needs of “the least of these” above our own? And, worst of all, are we really to cease our worldly strivings and place our complete trust in some ineffable entity that we can neither see, hear, taste, touch or smell? Why, that’s counter cultural. That’s foolishness!
But that’s why God came down from heaven and stooped to become one of us, fully-human and yet fully-divine, so that we could know him, and know that nothing can separate us from his love. So, laugh if you want. Laugh at God’s foolishness. Laugh at the unexpectedness of it all. But while you’re laughing, remember that, in the end, it was God who had the last laugh when he redeemed us from the power of sin and death through the resurrection of his Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Foolishness indeed!
In closing, I’d like to play you a song I first heard on the AM radio in my police cruiser as I stood the watch early one Sunday morning when I was a young cop, back in 1985. It was the very first contemporary Christian song I ever loved. And the composer took a lot of heat from other Christian singer/ songwriters about the language he used to describe Jesus. The song is by Michael Card, and it’s titled “God’s own fool.”
Watch the video
[1] Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews,Book 18, Chapter 3, Para 3
Mark 4:35-41
I guess most of us are familiar with this Gospel story, in which Jesus stills a storm and saves the day for his disciples. It’s in all three of the synoptics (Matthew 8:23-27, Mark and Luke 8:22-25), but only in Mark do we hear Jesus telling the sea: “Peace! Be still!” That interests me… because Mark is the earliest and arguably the most “raw” of the gospel narratives. Matthew and Luke were both written several years after Mark, and, although these latter evangelists used a bunch of Mark’s material, they had to spend a fair amount of time cleaning up his grammar (scholars generally agree that Greek wasn’t Mark’s first language) and also tweaking some of the stories to present Jesus Messiah in the best possible light. Nowhere in Matthew and Luke, for instance, do you see Jesus using his spit to cure the deaf and the blind, as he did in Mark’s gospel, or needing to re-heal a fellow when the first healing didn’t quite take (vv. 7:31-37 and vv. 8:22-26). Neither do you see Jesus’ family coming to restrain him because people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind” (vv. 3:20-30). Nope. That’s all Mark. And so, I find it interesting that Matthew and Luke, who adapted so much of Mark’s gospel (~90% and ~65%, respectively) into their own narratives, have chosen to omit this particular tidbit: “Peace! Be still!” Both write of Jesus generally rebuking the wind and the sea (Matt 8:26 and Luke 8:24), but nowhere, except in Mark, do you see this “red-letter outburst” from Jesus: “Peace! Be still!”
And that’s another characteristic of Mark’s gospel: it contains more than a few such red-letter outbursts, often aimed at the disciples—Jesus’ nearest and dearest—and their seeming inability to grasp what was happening right in front of their noses. God’s kingdom had come very near in the person of Jesus Christ and they just didn’t get it (e.g., vv. 4:10-20, v. 4:41, vv. 6:45-52 and vv. 8:14-21). And so, I wonder… if Matthew and Luke might have omitted these particular words of Jesus because they stung a little bit… because they hit just a little too close to home. Yes, Jesus was rebuking the wind and the sea, but he was also rebuking them! And then, after the storm subsided, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” You guys are killing me!
I wonder if, on those occasions when our world is falling apart, and our lives seem out-of-control, when we’re praying for a miracle—usually one of our own devising—like, “Please help us get to the other side of this lake in one piece!” in God’s infinite wisdom, the miracle we are actually granted is a reminder from our Savior that, come hell or high water, we should be at peace. That we should be still… and know that God is God, and we are not. And that we can rest assured that everything is going to be OK in the end. We may not be granted a vision of what “OK” looks like… and even if we were, chances are, we’d still probably get it wrong. We’d confuse what meets our definition of “OK” in the kingdom of this world, with the “OK” that God has in store for us in the next. That’s why we’re to trust. And perhaps that’s why Jesus said, “Peace! Be still!” He knew that, in the end, faith was our only hope.
Contemporary Christian singer/songwriter, Andrew Peterson, tells a story about his own first-hand experience with a crisis of hope. Peterson is not only an outstanding composer and musical artist, but he’s also the award-winning author of the children’s fantasy series The Wingfeather Saga and other novels. And he founded the “Rabbit Room,” an online Christ-centered community of writers and visual/performing artists whose aim is to foster the spiritual formation of the likes of you and me through music, story and art. So, he’s a successful guy living the dream, right? He has a beautiful family and he makes his living doing what he loves: writing songs… playing music… telling stories. We should all be so lucky.
But here’s the thing: Andrew Peterson is a human being, albeit a very talented one, and like the rest of us, he’s got his share of “stuff,” some of it pretty dark. He often introduces his songs with a story of how he came to write them… perhaps it was about a friend who was dying of cancer… or a child struggling with the transition to adulthood… or even a fight he once had with his wife. One of these stories concerns a time, a few years back, when he was straight-up depressed. And he had been for months. His creativity seemed to have dried up. He had begun to feel isolated from family and friends. Old guilts and losses were consuming him. And it just went on and on. And it was winter. And it felt like it had been raining every single day for the past month! But he couldn’t retreat. There were bills to be paid, deadlines and people to meet, concerts to perform, “motions to go through.” So, he couldn’t run, but maybe he could hide… just for a minute or two. And so, on a particular evening, he found himself in North Carolina, in a church janitor’s closet, just down the hall from a large room where he’d be giving a concert… in about six minutes… and he was weeping uncontrollably. Would there ever be an end to this season of night? Would God, could God ever make him new again? It seemed as if all the darkness and rain that had been building up inside of him for so long had finally overwhelmed him. He couldn’t hold it back any longer, and he was utterly undone. And then, alone in the dark, he suddenly remembered the words of a short poem by Luci Shaw about the coming of spring at the end of a long winter: “Planting seeds inevitably changes my feelings about rain,” she wrote. And then, out of nowhere: “Peace, be still.” It was almost as if it had been said aloud… from right beside him… out of the aloneness. Where’d that come from? Peterson might tell you, “You get three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”
It was just a little miracle, but it was enough to get him out of the janitor’s closet and down the hall to his concert on time. And a seed had been planted that would eventually blossom into the song I’m going to play you in a minute. Peterson’s depression didn’t go away overnight, but he found the strength to do what he needed to that night… and the next… and the next… and, over time, the darkness receded, and the rain abated… but not before it had nourished the seeds for a song entitled, “The rain keeps falling.” And here’s the fun part: y’all are invited to sing along! You can be the voice of the Holy Spirit saying, “Peace! Be still!” No pressure. Three words. Three notes. Isn’t it funny how the simplest things are often the most profound. So, listen for those three words… I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to tell when it’s your time to chime in.
Watch the video: The Rain Keeps Falling
Mark 3:20-35
So, I guess Jesus may have been a little bit ticked off in today’s Gospel lesson. What do you think? His manner and tone were a bit out-of-character… at least they seemed that way to his friends and family. Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, we haven’t seen Jesus get quite this “exercised,” but God became incarnate in order that he might fully see, hear, touch, taste, smell and interact with the world around him in the same way as do you and I. Jesus was God’s only Son, fully divine… and yet he assumed the full mantle of our humanity because, in the words of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, “That which he has not assumed, he has not healed.” And so, perhaps Jesus’ exasperation with the scribes shouldn’t be all that surprising. After all, he had been preaching and teaching up a storm as he moved through the Galilee casting out demons and curing the sick and the lame, left and right. And the Jewish religious elites had begun to take notice. “Oh boy, here comes another rabble rouser from the north country claiming to be the Messiah…” except that Jesus hadn’t claimed anything of the sort until pretty recently. Up to this point, it was only the demons who had it figured out (Mark 1:24 and 3:11-12). And I’m pretty sure that some of the folks Jesus had healed also had an inkling. But Jesus hadn’t made a big deal about it… until recently. Like the time he excused his disciples breaking the law of the Sabbath as they gleaned heads of grain from the field, telling the Pharisees, “The Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath. And he seemed to be referring to himself. That raised their hackles a bit. And then, later that day, he challenged them again, this time on their own turf in the synagogue, asking them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” And, as they hemmed and hawed, Jesus looked them in the eye and healed a man with a withered hand right there in front of them (Mark 3:1-6). The gauntlet had been thrown down.
You know, I wonder if, as we read or listen to these stories, we sometimes imagine Jesus standing in the midst of an attentive crowd, wearing a clean white robe, speaking slowly, quietly and with perfect diction (think Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi): “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” But I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the way Jesus was talking in today’s Gospel story. Emotion was building. His ministry was picking up steam… huge crowds were beginning to come from far and near, hungry to hear what he had to say about the coming kingdom. And when he wasn’t preaching to the multitudes, Jesus was forming the twelve: telling stories, interpreting Scripture, cajoling and sometimes reprimanding them, trying to cram as much understanding into their thick skulls as possible about what God had in store for them after he was gone.
He must have been exhausted—wiped out—with all this nonstop preaching, teaching and healing. And now here he is, back at home, and his kinfolk show up to restrain him… because some folks say he might be off his rocker. Thanks, fam! I’m trying to work here! And then the scribes piled on: “He has a devil!” And Jesus “called to them,” or maybe he called them out: “What are you guys… nuts? The devil doesn’t cast out devils… the devil casts in devils!” And then to the crowd: “You see what these folks are trying to do, don’t you? I’m here to lead you home… so that you can reclaim your inheritance as children of God. But these scribes and Pharisees are doing the best they can to turn you from the path of truth… by trying to discredit me, and cast doubt on my message… which is actually God’s message. Don’t be taken in. Watch what I do. Listen to me. No matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’ve been, God’s arms are open to you. You will be forgiven. But these religious elites who are blaspheming the Holy Spirit and placing themselves between you and salvation? Things may not work out so well for them… trust me.” Lots of emotion. Visceral, soul-sapping emotion. But that’s why Jesus became fully-human: so that he could stand with us… and among us… feel the anger and the temptation and cynicism that is so much a part of our daily lives… and yet, not be overcome by it. Because that which he has not assumed, he has not healed.
We get ourselves into so many messes, don’t we? In our reading from Hebrew Scripture this morning, we heard about Israel’s elders coming to Samuel, who was both Judge and Prophet to them, asking that he appoint a temporal king to reign over them. Imagine that: the chosen people of the King of the Universe decide that that’s not enough for them. They want to adopt the ways of the world… and be like everyone else. “Be careful what you ask for,” said the LORD (1 Samuel 8:4-11). For the past five-hundred years or so, God had let them walk their own path for the most part, providing them with a succession of non-elected, non-hereditary leaders, known as Judges to rescue them from their oppressors when they got themselves into a bind, and help them return to the path of righteousness when they strayed. Five-hundred years of God’s particular attention and Providence… and the elders of Israel thought they could do better with a ruler of their own choosing. How often do we do that? How often do we trade our inheritance as the children of God for a worldly inheritance that brings us very little but misery and strife in the long run? But God lets us do it. “Go on, have it your way,” God says. “You’re not gonna be happy, but you need to figure that out for yourselves. I’ll be here when you’re ready.” And so, the people of Israel got Saul. We’ll hear a little more about this first King of Israel over the next few weeks. Suffice it to say that it was not an easy road that the people chose for themselves… or Saul, for that matter. But they had to work through that on their own.
Meanwhile, God never abandoned them. He remained as present in the lives of his beloved sons and daughters as he was invited to be, always ready to save and forgive. Our God is a God of a million second chances. And our salvation history is replete with one covenant between God and humanity after another, from Noah to Abraham to Moses to David… God’s almighty Providence made manifest through the work of prophets and Judges… deliverance upon deliverance, up to the Advent of Jesus Messiah, and the New Covenant: God, himself, stooping to be with us—and be us—because that which he has not assumed, he has not healed.
And you know what? I’m pretty sure that Jesus didn’t end up neglecting Mary and his family that day in Nazareth, either. Yeah, maybe they had been swayed a little bit by the emotions of the crowd and had ended up making Jesus’ work a little harder. But I wonder if the only reason they wanted to restrain Jesus was because they loved him and didn’t want him to come to any harm. They just forgot for a moment who he was. And don’t we all? Don’t we all, from time to time, question the wisdom and sanity of a faith that tells us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek… to eschew wealth and worldly success and even take up our own cross daily for the sake others in order to follow Jesus on the path of eternal salvation? Don’t we? You’d better believe we do. But God lets us have it our way… lets us figure it out on our own. And God is always waiting for us to return and be forgiven. And I bet God’s Son was just as faithful to his earthly mother. I bet that, after Jesus had made the point to his disciples about what constituted true brotherhood and true sisterhood, he quietly excused himself for a few minutes to do something important. After Jesus’ outburst, Mary was probably wringing her hands a bit, beating herself up for not having been as supportive of her son in his work as she should have been. She’d known better, but she’d given in to fear and peer pressure. She’d failed him. She was probably feeling pretty dejected. But then Jesus came and found her and made everything right in an instant. I can just imagine him walking up, giving her a big hug and saying something prosaic like, “Hi, Mom.”
What do you think? It’s not in the Bible, but it tracks with everything else I know about Jesus and God. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Mary was found and embraced. Her relationship with her son was restored. And God will similarly restore us to relationship with him when we stray… if we’ll let him. No matter where we’ve been, no matter what we’ve done, there is nothing too difficult for God. God is faithful. God became us… in order to heal us… and bring us home to reclaim the eternal inheritance that awaits us as children of the Most-High. Jesus came to earth to show us how we can become more fully-human in accordance with God’s wisdom and plan for our lives. That’s the healing. So, the question becomes: Will we take the cure?
Mark 2:23—3:6
It’s not uncommon for me to meet un-churched people (or, occasionally, even good Episcopalians) on the street or in public who, when they see my face or my collar, look down sheepishly and say, “I don’t go to church as often as I should.” Then they look at me kind of sideways, as if in search of some sort of absolution, some reassurance that they’re going to be alright anyway, even if they’re not “church people.” And they usually get it. That is, I’ll almost always tell them that Jesus doesn’t stand at the door of the church building on Sundays taking roll of who’s there and who isn’t. I tell them that God speaks to different people in different ways and that, most of all, God wants us to know that we’re beloved and cherished and that each of us has a place in the Kingdom… if we’ll only open ourselves to God’s movement and purpose in our lives. I often go on to say that “church” is not so much a building or organization as it is a community of Christian faith that exists to build us up—individually and collectively—to become the creatures God made us to be… a schoolhouse in which we can learn about God and his ongoing plan for the redemption of the world from the powers of sin and death… a shelter where we may receive comfort and support amidst the travails of this life… and a gathering of the faithful from which we are sent forth to fulfill our vocation of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to a world in need of hope. In short, “church” is a gift, not an obligation. Sometimes, I’ll catch a glimpse of new understanding in someone’s eyes… or sometimes just a hint of confusion and mistrust. It’s a lot to take in when you’ve been beat over the head all your life with the idea that going to church is act of appeasement to an irascible, even vengeful, God.
And I think that’s kind of what Jesus was talking about in our Gospel story today when he said, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” The disciples found themselves walking through a wheat field one sabbath and had apparently become a little peckish (hungry), so they began to pluck grain heads to munch on. And of course, the Doctors of the Law called them out for working (gleaning) on the sabbath, and asked Jesus why he was not similarly offended. And so, Jesus told a story about David (before he was King David) and his merry men gadding about Judea trying to avoid capture by crazy King Saul, who wanted to kill them all. David and his companions were famished and needed to eat, but the only food immediately available was the Holy Bread—the Bread of Presence—which was in the tabernacle right alongside the Holy of Holies and reserved for consumption by priests alone. But David and the others chowed down on it anyway because they were about the LORD’s business, and needed sustenance in order to carry on. The bread had been prepared and set apart to help further God’s work in the world, not as some sort of “religious delicacy” to be hoarded over and venerated on its own merits. “The sabbath was made humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.”
But Jesus wasn’t done yet. Again, on the sabbath, maybe it was that same sabbath, Jesus reached out and healed a man with a withered hand. Now, we don’t know exactly the nature of the man’s infirmity, but it was likely due to disease rather than injury. And disease, whether congenital or contracted, was often thought of as a sign of some underlying sin… and God’s resulting disfavor. And even if the man’s hand had shriveled due to some unspecified injury, it was still a blemish that tended to limit his associations with others. Certainly, it impacted his ability to earn a living. People suffering from disease and deformity were often ignored and segregated by members of polite Hebrew society in order to minimize their risk of becoming “ritually impure,” with all of the costs and inconvenience that could entail, or for fear of having some of the supposed underlying sin “rub off” on them. And we know better, right? Wrong! It’s not just the Jews of Biblical times that behaved that way. It’s pretty universal across race, creed and geography, isn’t it? From yesterday ‘til today. We humans don’t much care to be around stuff that looks ugly, or smells bad, or scares us, do we? And that was why the man probably kept his withered hand concealed under his robe. It’s even possible that he was not welcome in the synagogue on account of his deformity. But Jesus called him out… to call him in. “Come forward,” he said. And everyone held their breath because they, and Jesus, knew it was a trap—knew that the Pharisees were watching him… wondering how he would split the difference between doing right (healing a man)… and doing wrong (breaking the law of the sabbath). Except that wasn’t how Jesus rolled, was it? Splitting the difference… doing the pragmatic thing—doing the safe thing—wasn’t Jesus’ style. And so, with anger and grief and, I believe, compassion for humanity’s wretched state, Jesus told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And as the religious elders and the crowd looked on, the man’s withered hand was restored. On the sabbath. Because, “the sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.”
I have a friend who’s a former military officer turned entrepreneur, a man of the world. And he’s also a little bit of a “God-skeptic.” It’s not that he doesn’t believe in the existence of God… not at all. He believes that,alright. It’s just that he doesn’t quite know what to make of God… and isn’t 100% certain of what God expects of him… outside of doing his best to be a “good person,” of course, whatever that means. He rarely attends church, and wonders what sort of God would require us to “worship” him, anyway, and why. He wonders if the Creator of the Universe could be that self-serving? Do any of y’all ever wonder about that? I have. And I’ve come up with an answer… perhaps not the answer, but an answer. And that is… that God doesn’t actually require his creatures to “worship” him, in the conventional sense. I’m thinking that the first four of the Ten Commandments spell out our duty to God pretty clearly: We’re to love the God of Abraham and none other (Exodus 20:2-3). We’re not to make idols (vv. 4-6). We’re not to use God’s name in vain (v. 7). And we’re to observe the sabbath (vv. 8-11). What do y’all think about that? There’s no explicit requirement for us to worship God in the Ten Commandments. Let me hasten to add that there are plenty of other references throughout Scripture that seem to point to worship as a way of pleasing God. But, when you get right down to it, these are merely human inferences of what is pleasing to God, based upon what is pleasing to us. None of them are “set in stone.”
So why do we gather for worship? And I believe that we need to gather for worship. What if… we do it for ourselves. Perhaps we need to be reminded from time to time that we’re not the end-all, be-all… and that there is something out there that is greater than we are, someone ever-so-much-more strong, and loving and wise than we can even conceive of. Maybe that’s why we gather for worship: maybe worship was made for humankind, and not humankind for worship. And that left my friend scratching his head little bit… and in a good way!
And here’s a final thought: When we find ourselves called into Christian community to worship God and to be formed for service in God’s vineyard, we should know that we have been called there for a purpose, just as we are, warts and all. Like the man with the withered hand in today’s Gospel story, we all come with baggage, don’t we? Guilt… anger… regret… things done and left undone. Each of us has withered places in our lives. And these are not of God! But God will use them to show the depth of his love and healing grace, for us and for all of Creation. And that’s why we’ve been given the gift of “church” —a community of faith wherein all are who are weary and heavy laden are invited to step forward into the light of Christ and be restored.
So, come when you can, come as you are… and bring a friend.
Acts 2:1-21
It’s been one-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-seven years since the disciples, all gathered together in a house in Jerusalem, heard a sound coming from heaven like “the rush of a violent wind,” and were visited by… and imbued with… the fire of the Holy Spirit. Or it might have been one-thousand, nine-hundred and eighty-seven years, depending upon how you calculate it. If you have questions… see me after class. In any case, it’s been just under two millennia since that first Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, the day when the Advocate… the Helper…the Comforter that Jesus promised would come to be with us, was made manifest in the world.
Some churches celebrate this day with pony rides and balloons, kind of like a birthday party. The feast of Pentecost does, arguably, commemorate the “birth” of the Church, after all. But part of me wonders if “whooping it up” for the Church in this fashion is a little self-serving. Who is the church? We are the church. And when we’re at our best—our very best—we are merely an instrument for spreading the Good News of God’s saving grace on earth. And when we’re not at our best… well, sometimes I cringe. In any case, celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, the birth of the Church, the same way we might celebrate our own birthdays seems a little too much like patting ourselves on the back and saying, “Yay, US!”
Y’all may remember, back on Ash Wednesday, I asked the question: “What if it really is all about us?” What if, after we (God’s people) messed everything up in the Garden, God came after us… not to punish or destroy, but to bring us back into relationship? What if, despite our persistent rebelliousness, God entered into one covenant after another with us, with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses and David, all aimed at restoring his people to wholeness with him and the rest of creation? What if God sent Jesus Christ as the bearer of a New Covenant to rescue us from the error of our sins, and open to us the gates of everlasting life? What if God will stop at nothing to bring his lost sheep home?
Those of y’all who were in Sunday School last week might remember us going through the portion of the Catechism dealing with “The Church” …our Church, the community of the New Covenant… the Church that is described as one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Y’all remember, right? “The Church is one, because it is one Body, under one Head, our Lord Jesus Christ.” “The Church is holy, because the Holy Spirit dwells in it, consecrates its members, and guides them to do God’s work.” “The Church is catholic, because it proclaims the whole Faith to all people, to the end of time.” “The Church is apostolic, because it continues in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles and is sent to carry out Christ’s mission to all people” (BCP 854). And you probably remember your annoying teacher (that would be me) following up each of these definitive statements quietly with, “When we’re at our best.” And we are, so often, decidedly not at our best. Left to our own devices, we can be fractious and profane… exclusionary and narrow-minded… not at all Church! And that’s a big part of the reason Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be with us after he was gone. Surely the Spirit is meant to be a comforter and advocate for us, yes. But the Spirit also speaks to us when we stray, and helps us return to the path of at-one-ment with God that Jesus has set before us… if we’ll listen. So, Pentecost may be for us… a key event in the salvation history of the world, but it isn’t about us. It’s about God. We must never forget that.
We say, “We are the Church!” and we are. But what does that mean? …to be God’s Church? I’d like to share a poem with you titled: “The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ,” written by Robert Fergusson, teaching pastor at Hillsong Church. I often recite this poem on Pentecost because it paints such a powerful picture of what our one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church can be… when we’re at our best. Read at your own risk…
She is the plan of God on earth; always in her Father’s eye: Cherished, mysterious, beautiful and potent beyond measure: King-empowered and life infused. She emerges triumphant; limitless with potential; a harbor for the hopeless and an answer for the ages: The church resplendent – a bride for His Son.
She is the body of Christ on earth; born, like her Head, amidst tribulation… under jealous skies… cradled in her innocence and guarded for His purpose. She grows in wisdom and stature… with victory on her lips and freedom in her hands. Hers is an unstoppable cause. She embraces the world with dignity, honor and compassion… gives vision to the sightless and life to the dying.
She is the family of God on earth. Within her compass, the hungry find sustenance and the weary receive strength. She is a haven for recovering humanity… enthralled by grace. She invites the broken, the vulnerable and the outcast to be immersed in love. She stands imperfect… but perfection resides within her. She is flawed but washed with forgiveness. She has a treasury of faith and a wealth of belonging.
She is the house of heaven on earth: A representative, resolute to reconcile. The Word within her accepts the receptive but challenges the heartless. She is the ecclesia, called out to serve the world: Calling out to welcome in. Blood-washed and armed with testimony, the cross on her lips liberates the chained and offends the unchanging. Like her Master she is pursued and persecuted. Yet she rises with strength in her heart and fire in her soul.
She is the bride of Christ on earth; readying herself for the day when all eyes will be upon her. Prepared and presented before the LORD: The Lamb for whom the world waits, who comes like the rising sun, majestic and magnificent beyond description, while she dazzles with reflectedglory. Spotless, perfect and mature, she bows low to cast her crowns and passionately worship Him. Her temporal focus becomes her eternal gaze. She is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, rejoice… but rejoice in the Lord. Today is not about us, the Church. Today is about our God who has sent forth his Spirit so that the face of the earth may be renewed and the New Jerusalem may become reality… and about God’s overarching plan to give help to the needy, strength to the weak, and hope to the hope-less. And yes, we’re all part of that, but we’re only the bearers of that great and glorious Good News.
Happy one-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-seventh birthday, Church!
Acts 1:6-11 and Luke 24:44-50
I’m going to tell you a story: Forty days after the resurrection, when Jesus and his disciples were together in a place outside of Jerusalem, near the Mount of Olives, he told them, “This is what you have heard from me; John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” So . . . they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:6-8).
“‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so, stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’ Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them” (Luke 24:44-50).
“[A]s they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going, and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’” (Acts 1:9-11).
Welcome to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, also known as the Sunday after the Ascension… the last Sunday before Pentecost! The Feast of the Ascension is one of seven Principal Feasts of the Church, right up there with Christmas and Easter, and yet we rarely gather to celebrate it because it always happens on a Thursday, precisely forty days after Easter Sunday. So, we rarely get to hear the story of Jesus’ final farewell to his disciples on the actual day on which we commemorate it. What I’ve just read you is an amalgamation of the details of the event from Luke’s gospel and from Acts (also probably penned by the author of Luke). The story of the Ascension didn’t make it into either Matthew’s or John’s gospel narratives at all, and it receives only cursory attention from Mark. So, when we hear about Jesus’ Ascension, we’re gonna be hearing it from Luke. How might this inform our understanding of the significance of the event?
We don’t know precisely who “Luke” was… other than that he was a Greek-speaking Christian, likely writing in a place, and to a congregation, outside of Palestine in ~80-85 AD. Some Biblical scholars posit that Luke may have been a traveling companion and disciple of the Apostle Paul. Others that he was a physician. One thing we do know is that Luke adapted much of Mark’s gospel into his own. But Luke (just like each of the other gospel writers) had a particular “lens” through which he viewed the life and ministry of Jesus Messiah, and he was writing for a specific group of people who had experienced their share of hardship and struggle, and who were in search of a reason to hope. So, Luke told them the story of a prophet who had come to save his people, but who had been rejected and executed by the Jewish religious authorities. But that that hadn’t been the end. The prophet, who turned out to be God’s own Son, had been raised from the dead and had commissioned his disciples to proclaim the Good News of repentance and forgiveness… not only to Jews and Samaritans, who worshiped the God of Abraham, but to the ends of the earth! So, Luke’s proclamation of hope was for all nations and all races and, amazingly, wasn’t reserved solely for the wealthy and well-connected, but extended to the least of these: the poor, the hungry, the oppressed… perhaps even women and slaves! Hope for the hopeless. All the gospel narratives touch on these things to one degree or another, but Luke was the original “social gospel.” And not only were Luke’s words intended as a balm to soothe the miseries and injustices of this life, they were a call to action. A call to walk humbly with God, proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ unceasingly. A call to stand up for the poor and oppressed and to show generosity to the less fortunate. A call to live simply, showing the world what it meant to be good stewards of God’s gifts. And a call to live a life of service, respecting the dignity of every human being and showing forgiveness and mercy to those who’ve wronged you. That’s Luke for you.
And so, here we stand with Peter and James and John and the other disciples after Jesus’ Ascension looking up into the clear blue (empty) sky wondering, “So… what’s next?” We know that Jesus is alive: we’ve seen him… we’ve spoken with him… we’ve even broken bread with him. And we understand that we’ve received “marching orders,” so to speak, from him: to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to a world that may not think it needs it… and that might just want to marginalize and persecute us for suggesting that it does. But we’ve also been reassured that we’ll be given the tools we need to accomplish the mission. We don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, but Jesus said it, so it must be true. But, still, we look up… as if we’re awaiting another sign, or perhaps some further direction. And then we’re surprised to see a couple of guys we don’t recognize… wearing white robes… standing with us. Only, they’re not looking up. They’re looking at us. “Why are you looking up?” they ask. “Jesus has stepped away for a little while… but he’ll be back.”
And that’s the end of the Ascension story, right? Wrong! This final tidbit about the two white-robed visitors (angels… perhaps?) is actually from Luke’s Ascension narrative in first chapter of Acts, which he then follows up with twenty-seven additional chapters describing the mission and ministry of the Apostles for the next thirty or so years, from the day of their empowerment by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost through Paul’s final imprisonment in Rome. What a wild ride that must have been. So, in good Lukan form, when the angels told the disciples that, although Jesus had been taken from them up into heaven… and that he would be returning the same way, their message was not only intended as a balm to soothe the disciples’ feelings of loss and abandonment on that day. It was a call to action: “What are y’all doing lollygagging around, looking up at the sky? There’s work to be done, so get moving! And that’s what Apostles did. So, it wasn’t the end of the story at all, was it? It was only the beginning.
And the story continues with us. Whenever we’re tempted to look towards heaven wondering when Jesus is going to come back and set this world we’ve made such a mess of to rights, we would do well to remember that we’ve been commissioned and will be empowered to continue Christ’s ministry on earth… and to the ends of the earth. To all nations and races… to the poor, hungry and oppressed. To all who thirst for God’s righteousness. And we do this by walking humbly with God, proclaiming the gospel of repentance and forgiveness and by being “doers of the word” (James 1:22)… feeding Christ’s flock and tending his sheep to the best of our ability. We may feel weary and anxious from time to time. We may occasionally steal glances up at the empty sky… but, whenever we’re tempted to sit back and daydream about the future, we’d best listen for the voices of angels calling us to action: “Stop lollygagging and staring into space… there’s work to be done. So, get moving!”
John 15:9-17
The Acts of the Apostles is not only the story of the things the followers of Jesus of Nazareth did as they began their work of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ around the eastern half of the Mediterranean basin during the early days of the Church… it’s also the story of the Apostles’ ongoing maturation into the ambassadors—dare I say Kingdom Bringers—that Jesus Messiah had raised them up to become during their three years of ministry together.
By this time in Luke’s “Acts narrative” (and yes, the Book of Acts is widely-attributed to the Gospel-writer, Luke), the followers of “The Way” of Jesus Christ had been on a veritable rollercoaster ride of emotions and adventures as they slowly, and sometimes grudgingly, began to live into their new vocation as Christ’s hands and feet on earth. Shortly, before his ascension, Jesus had told his disciples not to leave Jerusalem just yet… that they would soon be receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit promised by the Father (Acts 1:4). So, the disciples waited. Peter began to take on a greater leadership role among the disciples, and Matthias was chosen to replace Judas as one of the twelve (vv. 12-26). And then, sure enough, “on a day when they were all gathered together in one place, there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind…” and tongues of fire came to rest upon each of them. It was on Pentecost, fifty days after the Jewish Passover, that the Apostles received their promised baptism by the Holy Spirit, and they had very little choice but to roll with it. And it turned out to be quite a day. The converts poured in. The preaching and the healings picked up, and the new “Jerusalem Church” began to coalesce around Peter and the other members of Jesus’ inner circle (Acts 2). And there were persecutions. The power brokers within the Jewish religious establishment had not flinched from executing Jesus of Nazareth for threatening to upset their apple cart, and neither were they squeamish about quashing his remaining followers. But the fire refused to die (Acts 3-5). Even after the very public arrest and martyrdom of St. Stephen, the flame persisted, and the Good News began to spread, even as far as Samaria (Acts 6-8).
And then came Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). You always know something interesting is about to happen when God changes someone’s name. It happened during the time of the Hebrew patriarchs, when God chose Abram to become Abraham, father of God’s covenanted people (Genesis 17:5) and, later, to Jacob who became Israel, progenitor of the Twelve Tribes (Genesis 32:28). And so, Saul became Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, because God was not content for the Good News to be spread only to Jews and Samaritans. God had done a new thing in sending Jesus Messiah to earth to pour out his atoning blood, not only for the children of Abraham, but for many… for other sheep from other folds (John 10:16)… for all people and nations (Matthew 28:18-20)… for all of God’s Creation, writ large. And I think Peter and most of the elders of the Jerusalem Church were good with all of this, in theory. But they had a hard time letting go of the notion that Jesus was a purely Jewish messiah… one who had been sent from God to save those who lived their lives strictly in accordance with Hebrew Law and custom. We’ll talk in greater detail about Paul’s squabbles with the Jerusalem Church down the road (in Lectionary Year C) as we read through the Letter to the Galatians but, for the present, you should simply bear in mind that, from the earliest days of the Church, Christ followers haven’t always thought or acted in a particularly Christ-like manner.
And that brings us to today’s reading from Acts. Peter had been preaching and healing in an area well to the west of Jerusalem, near the coastal cities of Joppa and Lydda. He had even raised a woman named Dorcas from the dead! One day, Peter had a really strange dream, or perhaps it was a vision, wherein he was very hungry, and yet had refrained from eating various non-kosher foods that were set before him. A voice from heaven said that he should eat… but Peter protested that he had never eaten anything that was “profane or unclean.” To which the voice replied: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Well, that gave Peter some cause for thought and, while he was thinking, a couple of messengers from a man named Cornelius, who was a centurion of the Italian Cohort in Caesarea (thirty or so miles up the coast), approached Peter and said that their master had also had a vision… wherein he had been told by a voice from heaven to seek out Peter in Joppa and bring him back to Caesarea so that he could give his testimony. Now, Cornelius was a Roman… and a gentile… and even hanging out with him for a few hours in his home would have caused Peter to become “ritually unclean” but, given the recent admonition by the voice from heaven in his own vision, he decided to take the chance. He was learning.
So, Peter, accompanied by a few believers from Joppa, went to Caesarea and testified to Cornelius and his entire household about the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness in Christ Jesus. And guess what? They had another “mini-Pentecost,” complete with all manner of praise and glossolalia (that’s speaking in tongues), right there in Cornelius’ house in Caesarea—smack dab in the middle of a place, and among people who most observant Jews would have consideredunclean and profane (Acts 10:1-33). And Peter got it… and the Baptisms commenced. But there would still be resistance from Jewish Christ-followers who wanted to keep this new Christianity proprietary… reserved for folks that looked and behaved like they did. I can just see Jesus up in heaven shaking his head, saying, “No, no, no! That’s not what I said… that’s not how I told y’all you should behave towards one another.”
And I believe the lesson we’re to take away from today’s Gospel story is that, as modern-day followers of the way of Christ, we are to abide in his love, which is the same as God’s unconditional love for all of Creation, writ large…and not simply in human constructs of religious doctrine and practice that serve to limit God’s favor and forgiveness to a selected few. We. Are. To. Love one another… and bear fruit for the Kingdom at all costs, just as Jesus loves us and came to bear our sins and the sins of the whole world… at all costs. It’s a commandment… not a suggestion. And here’s the thing: loving unconditionally like Jesus needn’t be an onerous thing. There will be great joy in it. But in order to enter into that joy, we’ll have to give up any pre-conceived notions of our own worthiness and remember that we are saved by God’s grace and righteousness alone. None of us really counts for much, do we? Except that we’re beloved, and have been made clean, by the Animating Power of the universe. Which is actually pretty much the coolest thing I can imagine. Amiright?
So, go out and pay it forward. Love, and then love some more. The fire’s still burning. Like the apostles of old, we’ve been chosen and raised up to be ambassadors for Christ, to help bring about God’s Kingdom on earth. And like Peter and the rest, we must keep learning… keep maturing in our faith… keep drawing the circle wider until all who wish to have a place at the table are welcomed… free from any temporal judgement or conditionality. Don’t get me wrong, there will be a final judgement… but, in military parlance, “that’s way above your and my paygrade.” We are called to love. We can know neither the hearts of men (cf. 1 Kings 8:39 NKJV)… nor the mind of God (Romans 11:34). So, our job is to “love ‘em all… and let God sort ‘em out.” And I’m pretty sure that that final sorting will be exceedingly loving and merciful. And we should all be thankful for that.
John 15:1-8
Oh, for heaven’s sake… there goes Jesus with another of his “I AM” metaphors: I AM the bread of life (John 6:35). I AM the light of the world(John 8:12). I AM the gate for the sheep and the good shepherd (John 10:7, 11). I AM the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). I AM the way,the truth and the life (John 14:6). And now, I AM the true vine. I AM… translated from the Ancient Greek ἐγώ εἰμι (ego eimi). Seven times in John’s Gospel, Jesus uses this combination of the proper noun “I” and the first-person singular version of the verb “to be,” arguably quite similar to the words YHWH used to reveal himself to Moses from the burning bush in ancient times, followed by a symbolic predicate nominative (e.g., the bread of life), to identify himself to his disciples. Could this have been just happenstance? Maybe… but I doubt it. Throughout his Gospel narrative, from: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1)… confirmed by the Baptizer’s testimony regarding Jesus’ divinity (v. 1:34)… through all of the various signs and miracles attributed to Jesus beginning with turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana (vv. 2:1-11), and the feeding of the 5000 (vv. 6:1-15), walking on water (vv. 6:16-21) and all of the healings (e.g., vv. 4:46-54, 5:1-18 and 9:1-12) and the raising of Lazarus (vv. 11:1-45), the writer of the Fourth Gospel has been pretty clear that Jesus was not only the foretold Messiah, God’s Christ, but that he was, in fact, of one beingwith God the Father. Besides which, there’s nothing in the Bible about Jesus doing anything gratuitously, is there? Everything he says and does is intentional—for a purpose. And I’m thinking that, when Jesus uses the words ego eimi, I AM, he’s revealing something about his own nature—and, by extension, the nature of God.
So, by referring to himself as the “true vine,” and his father as the “vine-grower,” what do you think it is that Jesus is trying to tell us about himself? First, let’s talk a little about vines. What comes to your mind when you think about the word “vine?” Probably a few things: how about Tarzan swinging on a vine in the African jungle? Or maybe a morning glory vine, winding and twining up and over a neighbor’s backyard fence here in Cedartown. And, of course, grapevines in a vineyard. And this is likely the sort of vine that Jesus was referring to when he called himself the “true vine.” Jesus refers to “the vineyard” in parables throughout the gospel narrative as a way of describing the kingdom of the here-and-now, as opposed to “the coming Kingdom” that God has in store for those who are faithful and diligent. The vineyard is a place ripe with the promise of God’s abundance, but it’s too often run by corrupt overseers with little or no concern for the purpose of the vineyard, which is to bring about a rich harvest for the owner (Matthew 21:33-46), or worked by greedy laborers who are concerned more with their own wealth and power and status than they are for those less-fortunate (Matthew 20:1-16). The vineyard is the world… our world. The world which used to be a Garden, created to satisfy all our earthly needs and desires, a place where all the upkeep came gratis, a place of joy and contentment and at-one-ment with our Creator… until our disobedience separated us from God. So now the world has become a vineyard, one that must be tended, worked by the sweat of our brow to reclaim it in service of the purpose for which it was created (Genesis 3:19).
And Jesus is the vine—the true vine—that God the Father has planted in our here-and-now, to help us regain the promise of the Garden. I expect Jesus chose this metaphor with care, knowing that it just might be an image his disciples could understand and take to heart. The disciples knew that a properly tended vineyard could bring great prosperity to its owner and overseers. They knew that grape vines could thrive in pretty arid, hardscrabble conditions, but before they would ever bear usable fruit, they would need to mature. The roots would need time to dig deep into the earth, extracting moisture and nutrients to strengthen and enlarge the vine itself before it could put forth new branches upon which the fruit would hang. And they probably also knew that some of those new branches would fail to bear fruit, and that it would take years of careful training and pruning before the vine would begin to reach its full potential. And that, even through the non-productive times, the soil of the vineyard must be watered and enriched, and the leaves of the branches of the vine kept free from disease and parasites. So, in using the metaphor of vine and branches, Jesus was offering his disciples… hope. Hope and a challenge. Yes, the world could be a harsh and unwelcoming place, full of oppression and pestilence. But they had already been judged worthy of preservation by the vine-grower, and he had kept them pruned and cleaned, so that they would be ready to bear fruit in due season. So, Jesus spoke of hope. But implicit in that hope was the understanding that the disciples were not being saved from something… as much as forsomething. And therein lay the challenge: they were being saved so that they could bear fruit.
I think it’s important that we understand that. That we are saved for a purpose. This world is not our home. There is a hereafter. I can’t tell you precisely how it works, or what it looks like, but I’m absolutely convinced that death is not the end, and that how we spend eternity will, in some way, be predicated upon how we’ve spent our time in the kingdom of the here-and-now… in the vineyard. And no, I’m not saying that if we misbehave on earth, God will “cast us into the outer darkness where they’ll be [great] weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13). I don’t believe that God punishes his beloved children. We’re plenty good at doing that to ourselves. But just as Jesus offers us hope and a challenge in today’s Gospel story, he also offers some timely advice about how we can make ourselves ready to take on the challenge of bearing fruit in the kingdom of the here and now. “Abide in me,” he says. Stay with me. Hold the course. Don’t try and strike out on your own. That’s not what you are made for. You’re made to abide in me, because in me everything is possible. Things that you never-in-a-million-years thought you could do, will be achievable for you—if it’s the will of him who sent me. But if you try and go it alone, you’ll come up short. Believe me. Because, apart from me, you really can do nothing. If you try and go it alone, you’ll inevitably be seduced by the evil one, just like the corrupt overseers and greedy laborers in the parables, who ended up pursuing their own selfish ends rather than allowing the Father to use them to help bring about the Kingdom… with a capital “K.” Just like Adam and Eve, who squandered God’s grace and abundance by failing to trust in his Almighty Providence. Withered. Burned. Destroyed. You don’t want to go there.
In last week’s “I AM” metaphor of the Good Shepherd, Jesus called us first to accept our nature as sheep, bound to follow one Almighty Shepherd… and then to step up and become shepherds of the flock ourselves. Today, we are being called first to accept that we are but branches of the one true vine, dependent upon that vine for all that we doand all that we are… and then to take our place as laborers in the vineyard, helping the vine-grower, who is God the Father, reap a great “Kingdom harvest,” and restore Creation to its intended state… all for the sake of his unbounded love. Do you believe it? Then abide in the love of Christ Jesus. Keep his commandments. Be in the world, but not of it, and you will bear fruit. Trust in God, and your joy will be complete.
John 10:11-18 and 1 John 3:16-24
In case you couldn’t tell, it’s “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Today’s Scripture readings are chock full of references to shepherds and sheep, and sacrificial love… and salvation. Today’s Gospel story follows on the heels of another from John’s narrative… one about Jesus healing a blind man at the Pool of Siloam on the Sabbath. You remember… the man had been blind from birth and the question was asked: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And Jesus answered them, “Neither sinned… this man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” And then, splish-splash, Jesus healed him (John 9:1-3). So… someone was born blind… so he could be healed. That’s a lot to think about.
Of course, the Jewish religious leaders of the time weren’t all that keen on Jesus’ miracle-working. To their minds, he was horning in on their territory… seducing their followers… leading them away from time-honored traditions like the Law and the Temple, down a slippery slope to God knows where. And, of course, God knew where. God sent Jesus to take charge of his flock and lead them to a better place than the one they had made for themselves: through green pastures, beside still waters, where he could revive their souls, keep them safe and provide abundantly for them (Psalm 23). And neither did Jesus cut the priests and Pharisees any slack. He called them out as thieves and bandits and charlatans—false shepherds—who came only to kill and destroy (John 10:7-10). Ouch! It was almost as if he was trying to get the Jewish religious establishment angry enough to come after him. And of course, they did.We’ve just finished our annual commemoration of Holy Week and the Passion story… and we know how it all worked out on the morning of the third day. It was almost as if Jesus knew that he had to lay down his life… in order that God’s works might be revealed in him, the same as with the blind man at the Pool of Siloam. He laid down his life… so that he might take it up again. What do you think? And what might this imply about the nature of our role as Christ followers?
On Maundy Thursday, we read of the “New Commandment” Jesus gave his disciples: that they were to love one another. “Just as I have loved you—you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). In today’s Epistle reading from 1st John (3:16-24), we are reminded of what it means to love like Jesus. We think we know a lot about love, don’t we? The love of a parent for a child… the love between spouses… love of kith and kin… love of country… even love of life. And yet, these are all really just human constructs of love, aren’t they? Based, in some cases, on instinct… or on custom… or on what makes us feel good in the moment. And I’m not saying these sorts of loves are bad… far from it. I believe we were created human so that we could learn—and revel—in what it means to be in relationship with one another as family, fellow citizens and beloved children of God. But the author of 1st John writes that, “We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (v. 3:16).
Have you ever seen a brother or a sister in need and failed to reach out to them and help? Maybe you’re busy… maybe you figure that they got themselves into this mess, and they need to get themselves out of it. Maybe you tell yourself that any help you provide will only backfire and end up being bad for them. Maybe you rationalize that too much help simply breeds dependence. And maybe you’re right, but aren’t you kind of setting yourself up as judge and jury and paragon of virtue all rolled into one? You know better. You know you do, and that’s why your conscience probably gnaws at you a little bit when you’ve done something you shouldn’t ought to have done, or not done something when you should have. It happens to all of us from time to time… that’s what the author of 1st John means when he writes, “our hearts condemn us.” And we aren’t even being asked to “lay down our lives…” not in the physical sense at any rate. God forbid.
But Father Kemper, Father Kemper, we’re still saved, right? Yes, we are. But simply recognizing the fact that we sometimes fall short—and feeling bad about it—is not the full extent of what God asks of us. We must love, in the language of 1st John, in truth and action, daily recommitting ourselves to obey the commandments of God in Christ and abiding in him by doing that which pleases him (vv. 21-24). And it is pleasing to him when we give up our own human preconceptions of a life well-lived and allow the Good Shepherd to lead us to a better place than the one we have made for ourselves. We must be willing to lay down our earthly lives, loves, fortunes and temporal joys—all of these wonderful gifts we’ve been given by our Creator—in order that God’s works might be revealed in us. We are all called to learn from Jesus how to love, in truth and action, and then to continue his ministry in the world, tending to the sick and imprisoned in body mind and spirit, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and spreading the Good News of salvation to a world in need of hope. In other words, we are called first to be sheep and then to be shepherds, willing to lay down our lives… and take them up again… for the glory of God and the coming Kingdom.
It’s a tall order, but it’s the onlypath to salvation and eternal life that I know of. I wonder if that’s what Jesus was getting at when he spoke of bringing others of his sheep into the fold so that there could be “one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16)… and when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) and, at the Last Supper, “Drink . . . all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for [you and for] many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). This “one flock” thing isn’t ex-clusive. It’s inclusive. Everyone is invited to the table. But the banquet won’t begin until we learn to love one another, and to practice that love, drawing the circle wider until all of God’s children are united into one, almighty flock… so that the Good Shepherd can lead us to a better place than the one we have made for ourselves.
And that’s where you and I come in. We’ll never be able to fix all that ails this world… that’s way over our heads. But we sure as heck need to be working on fixing what ails our own selves… by learning to love like Jesus, taking up his cross and laying down our lives so that we can take them up again to the Glory of God and in service to the world. That’s what it means to be Christ-followers, and it’s through our faithfulness to this calling that God is going to bring about the New Jerusalem.
Let us pray…
Gracious God, you sent Jesus to be our Good Shepherd, to show us the way to your Kingdom, the truth of your love and promise of life everlasting. Through your blessed Son, lead us from the place we have made for ourselves—this old world—to a better place… the place you want us to be. Help us do the hard work of laying down our earthly longings for a greater purpose: which is helping to unite, through love and service, by faith and example, all your sheep into one almighty flock, under one Almighty Shepherd. In His name we pray. Amen.
John 20:19-31
Our Easter Sunday Gospel ended with Jesus revealing himself to Mary outside the empty tomb and telling her, “Don’t hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord;’ and she told them that he had said these things to her.” In fact, all of the Gospel accounts tell us of Jesus’ admonition to Mary to tell the disciples the good news of his resurrection. Luke informs us, however that, “the words seemed to [the disciples] an idle tale and they did not believe them” (24:11). All but Peter, perhaps. Neither Matthew nor Mark mentions the disciples’ reaction to Mary’s news at all.
It is now the evening of the day of the resurrection. The disciples are gathered “in a house . . .” we aren’t told whether or not it was the house in which they shared their last meal with Jesus a few days before. But it could have been. We do know that this faithful remnant of Jesus’ followers were frightened, fearing that they too might become victims of the mob that had put their Master to death. We can only imagine the diversity of feelings on display on that particular evening: confusion, fear, anger, resignation. There would likely have been rumors of hope, the empty tomb and Mary’s claimed encounter with their Teacher, their Rabbouni. The air was probably thick with emotion.
And then, from out of nowhere, “Peace be with you.” This was not a simple greeting; it was a statement of fact. Peace was, indeed, with them. Despite all of the locks and bars and the great stone that had separated death from life, Jesus was in their midst, bearing visible scars from his victory over the grave. And the disciples rejoiced… and rejoiced… and rejoiced, until Jesus stopped them: “Peace be with you.” This time it was a command. Certainly, some of the disciples recalled Jesus’ words spoken after the Last Supper, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me . . . Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy” (John 16:16, 20). Jesus had kept his promise.
“As the Father sent me, so I send you.” A breath… and then, an invocation: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” We will never know exactly what the breath of Jesus felt like… perhaps it was like God breathing life into the first human (Genesis 2:7). Perhaps it might be compared with the breath to which Ezekiel prophesied in the Valley of the Dry Bones: “Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live” (Ezekiel 37:9). Or perhaps it was more akin to the breath of Aslan, in C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian, comforting and fortifying young Susan Pevensie for the work she had been given to do:”You have listened to your fears… Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?”[1] What we do know is this: the Holy Spirit became present with the disciples as Jesus added specificity to their commission, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Viewed in the broader context, this commission is not limited to acts of granting absolution through penance, or even excommunication, but includes, in the words of Johannine scholar Raymond Brown, “partial manifestations of a much larger power, namely, the power to isolate, repel, and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus in his mission by the Father, and given in turn by Jesus through the Spirit to those whom he commissions.”[2] This is pretty heady stuff. In John’s Gospel, the time between Easter and Pentecost was compressed into a few brief, but eventful, hours. God had a plan and a mission for the disciples and there wasn’t a moment to lose.
And then there’s Thomas. This is the same Thomas who, when Jesus had announced his intention to go to Bethany to resurrect Lazarus said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). You’ll recall Bethany is near Jerusalem, where there was likely a price on Jesus’ head. In any case, Thomas missed Jesus’ first appearance, and had reacted to the news in much the same manner as had the disciples in Luke’s Gospel… “Unless I can see him with my own eyes and feel him with my own hands, I will not believe” (v. 25). Interestingly, there is no indication in Scripture that any of Thomas’ colleagues “tattled” on him. Some may have argued with him, while others simply rolled their eyes, looked at each other and said, “That’s just Thomas… bless his heart.” But no one said anything to Jesus, as far as we know. Yet, a week later, when the disciples were again gathered in the house, Jesus once more came among them, reminded them that Peace was with them… and then went straight to Thomas. We’ll never know exactly what was going through Thomas’ head (and heart) as Jesus met him face-to-face, offering him the very thing he needed to strengthen his faith. It appears, however, that Thomas no longer felt the need to touch, only to look upon the one who knew what he needed before he could even ask. “My Lord and my God,” he said. Could there be a more powerful and complete confession of faith?
And despite all of Thomas’ frailties, Jesus loved him. After all, he had chosen him as one of the Twelve… chosen him to spread the Gospel. Jesus’ gentle admonishment: “Have you believed because you have seen me?” could have been addressed to any of the disciples. All (even Mary) had needed to see in order to believe. And they had. And now their pain had turned to joy, just as Jesus had promised. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is less a dig at Thomas, I think, than it is words of encouragement for us… we who are not able to meet Jesus face-to-face… not on this side of life, at any rate. “Blessed” (Gr. makarios), as it appears in this passage, means happy.[3] We’re not better than Thomas… we’re able to experience the joy of being in relationship with Christ because of Thomas, and the other disciples whom Jesus commissioned to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). We owe a lot to Thomas.
The Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ is God’s promise of salvation to those who give in to his movement and purpose in their lives. And just as God had a plan and a mission for Thomas and that first generation of disciples, so also is there work for us to do in our own generation: to continue spreading the Good News of Jesus Messiah to a world torn by strife and in great need of hope. The challenge often seems as daunting for us as it must have been for those disciples huddled fearfully behind locked doors, tenuously awaiting the miracle promised by their Master. But just as Jesus recognized and provided for Thomas’ unspoken needs, so too will we receive whatever may be needful to accomplish the work God has given us to do.
Peace is with you, my brothers and sisters.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 148.
[2] Raymond Brown, The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Vol. 29A (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1044.
[3] Brown, 553, 1027.
Mark 15:1-47
Oh, what a difference a week makes in the Biblical narrative of the life and ministry of Jesus Messiah… five days, really. We don’t know exactly how long it was between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a colt… or a donkey… or a colt and a donkey, depending upon which Gospel account you’re reading, and the night of his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. It might have been five days… it might have been longer… it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the way Jesus spent these last days of his earthly ministry. The first thing Jesus did after arriving in Jerusalem was to go to the Temple and eject the merchants and money changers who had turned it from a house of prayer… into a house whose occupants preyed upon the unwary (Mark 11:15-19).
Over the next several days, the chief priests and scribes tried, again and again, to trick Jesus into saying something blasphemous… something actionable, but he was too smart for them. Jesus spoke of what happened to fig trees that failed to bear fruit (vv. 20-25), of authority and baptism (vv. 27-33), of vineyards and wicked tenants (12:1-9) and the stone that the builder rejected (vv. 10-12). He reminded the Jewish elders of the difference between what belonged to God… and what belonged to Caesar… and of their responsibilities in either case (vv. 13-17). And so much more. The people loved what Jesus was saying. The Scribes and the Pharisees… not so much. They eventually stopped harassing Jesus publicly, plotting instead to shut him up for good. And Jesus knew what they were up to… but he never let up on them. If anything, he turned up the heat. He called them out as “hypocrites” and “blind guides” and “whitewashed tombs…” pretty from the outside, but filled with corruption on the inside (Matthew 23:15-36). It almost seems as if Jesus was trying to force the hand of the Hebrew religious establishment… to make them come after him.
Jesus’ disciples were likely concerned… some more than others… especially when Jesus spoke of the destruction of the temple and the end times… of natural disasters, persecutions and sacrilege… and the coming of the Son of Man, “on the clouds of heaven, with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26). He taught his disciples about the need for watchfulness… and preparation… of wise and faithful slaves (Matthew 24:36-51), foolish bridesmaids (25:1-13), the necessity for paying forward the gifts with which we are entrusted… and how we will eventually be judged in this regard (vv. 14-30). Jesus did lots of teaching during these last days… time was short and there wasn’t a moment to lose. It’s hard to know precisely when the situation escalated to the point of no return. All we know is that there came a day when Judas Iscariot approached the chief priests with an offer they couldn’t refuse… and they didn’t (Mark 14:10-11).
A last evening among friends: the institution of that most wonderful of meals: The Lord’s Supper… some final teachings about servanthood… and love… and betrayal (John 13:1-35). And then Jesus found himself alone with his Father in the gloom of Gethsemane, praying while the disciples slept, oblivious to the Passion drama beginning to unfold around them. A kiss, a shriek of pain… a final healing (Luke 22:51)… and then Jesus was led away and brought before the chief priests… bound, beaten, reviled as a trophy of their unbelief and, finally, turned over to the Roman Governor of Judea, the only man in the region with the authority to order his summary execution (Mark 14:32-50).
So here we are, immersed in the same Passion drama as were Jesus’ disciples two millennia ago. Of course, we have a bit of an advantage over them because we know how the story turns out. But we also know about the suffering and degradation that must take place before the final victory is won. In a way, I envy the disciples their unknowing. Because with the unknowing comes a certain innocence… how could they, as participants in the drama, have known that all of Jesus’ suffering was for them? How could they have understood the implications of such a gift, freely given… and their responsibility as the recipients of God’s grace: to take up Jesus’ cross… anddo their part to help restore God’s Kingdom on the Earth?
I’m still not sure we really get it. And I guess we don’t really need to… I mean really get it. It’s a mystery after all. But we need to try. What if it actually is all about us, and for us? What if God really did send the Messiah, the Christ, to show us an example of what it means to be fully-human, the way God intended us to be from the dawn of creation? And not just collectively… but each of us! What if God is every bit as concerned about us…the greatest and the least of us, individually… as he is about nations and ecology and the Church with a capital “C”? What does that tell us about how we need to be living our lives this day and every day? “This is my body… this is my blood, which was given for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins…” to bring about your salvation, your atonement (at-one-ment) with your Creator.
But even if it is all about us… this week, we are called to walk with Jesus on the road marked with suffering… on the road of his Passion, as he pours out his Body and Blood to make our Salvation possible. And none of us is innocent… unlike the disciples, we do not have the benefit of “plausible deniability.” We know we’re culpable in Jesus’ death. We knowall this is happening becauseof us. And for us. And we really don’t know the end of the story, do we? Because the end of the story is us. The end of the story is how we pay forward the gifts with which we’ve been entrusted. We are saved by grace… apprehended through faith (Ephesians 2:8), but “faith without works is dead,” (James 2:26). Think about that over the next five days of Holy Week as we relive, together, the story of the betrayal and execution of Jesus’ Messiah.
John 12:20-33
It must have been difficult keeping up with Jesus. I don’t mean physically… as far as we can tell from Scripture, Jesus’ disciples were all pretty fit, and able to match him step-for-step as he trekked across Galilee and Samaria and to-and-fro on the roads around Jerusalem. What must have been hard, though, was trying to keep up with Jesus’ intellect… his thought patterns… what was going on in his mind at any given time. And I’m not throwing shade at the disciples… it’s hard… no, impossible, for any of us to know the mind of God. Sometimes you just have to step out in faith and roll with the punches. And that’s what they did, right up ‘til the end… which was actually the beginning… but we’ll save that story for another day.
So, in today’s Gospel story, Jesus has just arrived in Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, in fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophesy given shortly after the people of Judah had returned from their Babylonian captivity: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Lo, your king comes to you . . . humble and riding on a donkey . . .” (Zechariah 9:9). Words of hope… and of God’s never-failing Providence. It hadn’t been that long ago that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead—in front of a crowd—which had made the Pharisees hopping mad. They decided, right then and there, that Jesus needed killin’… but his popularity made any plot against his life kind of tricky. So, the Pharisees were forced to bide their time, like spiders waiting for their prey to stray into a trap they had set. But Jesus was on God’s time, and it didn’t look like today was going to be their day, or tomorrow either, at the rate things were going. When he got to the city gates, Jesus had been greeted by a great crowd, many of whom had been present for Lazarus’ resurrection, waving palm branches and shouting loud hosannas to “the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!” Sheesh! the Pharisees must of have thought. “We can do nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him!” (John 12:12-19).
And the whole world apparently included “some Greeks.” Do you remember in our readings from Scripture a couple of weeks ago: The Apostle Paul was kvetching to the Corinthians about the Jews demanding signs/miracles and the Greeks demanding wisdom/proof before they would believe? (1 Corinthians 1:22) Well, apparently, these Greeks had seen enough of what Jesus was doing from a distance that they wanted to meet him up close and personal. And you’d have thought Jesus would have been pleased about that… like any pastor would be when someone new was thinking about joining his/her church. But Jesus’ reaction must have been a little baffling to Philip and Andrew. “Hey, Jesus! There are some folks here who want to meet you and – get this – they’re Greeks! How cool is that? They’re with the in-crowd… well-respected… just the sort of folks we need to be part of the movement!” And Jesus’ response? “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” “Wait… what? Oh, no. There he goes again…” the apostles must have thought. And then Jesus seemed to go off on a tangent about wheat and dying . . . and loving life but having to lose it . . . and serving and following . . .. I can just see Philip and Andrew standing there, scratching their heads and thinking to themselves, “But… what about the Greeks?” Because, you see, Philip and Andrew and the rest of the apostles… and you and I for that matter… we have selective hearing. We cry out to the LORD. We say and ask whatever is on our mind, and in our heart… in the moment. And we have our preconceived notions about the way the world should work, and how our cries should be answered. And when Jesus redirects us with words of admonishment, but also comfort, it sometimes takes us a minute to catch up… mentally and intellectually. Philip and Andrew wanted to talk to Jesus about “growing his organization.” And Jesus responded by telling them how they could grow their faith. “Here’sthe way to bear fruit in this world and ensure your place in the next,” he said: “by following me and doing what I do.”
Since the days of the early Church, Christians have pondered the question: “How precisely is it that Jesus’ death on the cross serves to relieve us of the burden of our sins and make us more atoned (at-one’d) with God?” It’s really all just a big mystery, I guess… I don’t know if we’ll ever really understand it. Like I said, it’s impossible for us to know the mind of God. Yet it’s important for us to “grapple” with this mystery from time to time, in order to better understand what we, as Christians, have signed up for when we commit ourselves to being Christ followers…“taking up our own crosses” and continuing Jesus’ mission and ministry in the world. You may be aware of a couple of these “atonement theories.”
One held in common by many Catholics and Protestants is the “Substitutionary” theory: Humankind has sinned—egregiously— and God demands justice. The penalty is death, but God doesn’t want his beloved children to perish, so he sent his Son, Jesus, to pay the penalty instead. The slate was thus wiped clean, and God’s peeps get a “redo.” Maybe… But I personally find this theory kind of baffling. Surely, justice was due, and surely God loves us enough give himself for us without reservation. But it seems to me like there must have been a less-convoluted way of getting the job done. God interceding on our behalf with… himself? That’s hard for me to get my brain wrapped around.
Another theory, known as “Christus Victor” holds that Jesus came to Earth to demonstrate God’s superiority over Satan… which he did by defeating death through his own resurrection and, thus, the Devil himself! Think of it this way: If sin is anything that separates us from God and, hence, from eternal life in heaven, then sin is tantamount to death. Or, as Paul so aptly put it, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). So, when Jesus put away death, he put away our sin, thus breaking Satan’s strangle-hold over the world, and over us… making it possible for us to be at-one’d with God. Again… maybe.
But there is a third theory of atonement that particularly resonates with me, and also seems to be supported by today’s reading from John’s Gospel. It’s often referred to as the “Exemplar” theory, and I wonder if it’s reflected in Jesus’ words: “Whoever serves me must follow me . . . [and] Whoever serves me, the Father will honor” (v. 12:26). Humankind “fell from grace” when the first man and the first woman sinned against God in the Garden. Notice I didn’t say that God removed his grace from Adam and Eve. No. They intentionally stepped away—separated themselves from that grace—by failing to trust in God’s Providence, thinking that they could do a better job looking after themselves than God could. That gave Satan a foot in the door, and he rules this world—our world—to this very day. And just like he did with the first two humans in God’s garden, Satan is forever trying to get us to believe that we don’t need God. We can be happy, healthy and wise on this earth… all by ourselves. Which is a lie… and which is why Satan is also known as “The Great Deceiver.” So, Jesus came to show us how to do better… how we can live our lives more in accordance with God’s will, as he did… in order to be more “at-one” with God, as he was… and as we were meant to be from the beginning. Jesus came to earth as a human so that he could show us, by word and example, how we can be fully-human. Jesus came to earth as a human because, in the words of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, “that which he has not assumed, he has not healed.”[1] Jesus saves us—helps us to become more at-one’d with God—by demonstrating what a life lived for God looks like. And it looks like light. The Light of Christ.
Our Lenten pilgrimage is nearly over for another year, isn’t it? But I wonder if I’m ready for it to be over. I wonder if I’ll ever really be ready for Lent to be over. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ready for Spring… and Easter. But the older I get—or maybe the more mature in my faith I become—the greater sense I have of time passing. I’m not talking about the years,necessarily. The years we spend on this earth are of this earth, and they are finite. None of us gets out of this life alive… unless we are able to bring ourselves to trust in God and God’s Providence completely… and give ourselves over to living life for the One who formed us from dust. I don’t know about you, but I’m not quite there yet. I mean, I’m there to some extent, on some days. But I’m not as “there” as I need to be. And that’s why I need Lent. I need to be reminded that I often stray from the path God has set before me. I need to be reminded that only by walking in the Light… the Light of Christ… can I be saved from the darkness and the seductions of this world and be reunited—at-one’d—with my Creator.
So, I’ll keep plugging away, trying to walk in the Light, and serve Christ as his hands and feet in this troubled, troubled world. And I hope you will too, because not only will it help bring light and hope to the hopeless, but it will also be pleasing to our Maker. And the reward will be worth it—worth everything—in the end. So c’mon, c’mon! As difficult as it may be some days, let’s you and I—let’s all of us—try and do a better job keepin’ up with Jesus.
[1] Gregory of Nazianzus “Critique of Apollinarius and Apollinarianism http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/gregoryofnaz_critique_of_apolliniarianism.htm
John 2:13-22
You know, the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), from which draw our Sunday readings each week can be a funny thing. Sometimes, the readings “fit” with each other… and other times, they seem somehow disjointed. It can be quite a conundrum! But there are at least a couple of reasons I can think of that we use the Revised Common Lectionary to guide our Scripture choices. The first is that, if all (or at least most) mainline Protestant denominations are reading and reflecting upon the same passages from the Bible each week, then there can be some good cross-talk (“cross talk,” get it?) after church at the local restaurant between folks who may not worship at the same place on Sunday. And maybe even later on, during the week… who knows? Which is probably pie-in-the-sky, I know. How many people really talk about Scripture and theology and Jesus outside of church and Sunday school, right? Many preachers would like to think that what they say from the pulpit on Sunday sticks with folks and helps guide their thoughts and actions during the week. And that may occasionally be the case, but not as often as preachers would wish. And the second reason we use the Lectionary is to make sure that we cover as much of the Bible as possible over the three-year cycle… years A, B and C. Given our druthers, I’m pretty sure most of us would be inclined to focus mostly on upbeat, easy-to-understandpassages from Scripture, ones that affirm us, give us hope, and don’t challenge our ways of thinking (or behaving) too profoundly. But reading from the Lectionary, including “the good, the bad and the ugly” parts, requires us to confront and wrestle with some of the more opaque and difficult-to-understand bits of the Bible, like it or not.
Certainly, the canon of Hebrew Scripture, often referred to as the Old Testament, is full of fire and brimstone and a wrathful God… and violence, greed and sexual misconduct perpetrated by God’s Chosen People against other tribes and, sometimes, upon each other. It’s tough to get our brains wrapped around all of that, isn’t it? We believe in a God of love, at least we say we do. How could that kind of God be party to or allow all of that bad stuff to go on? How can we reconcile that? And we can’t reconcile it, but God can. That’s why he became incarnate in Jesus. “All right kids, don’t make me come down there,” right? But he did, and through Jesus, God gave us a New Covenant. But even in the Gospels, there are some odd, difficult stories, aren’t there? You know the ones I’m talking about. Like the time Jesus was speaking about adultery and said, “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! Or your eye? Pluck it out! (Matthew 5:29-30). Or when he said, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword… to set man against father and a daughter against her mother… kith against kin” (Matthew 10:34-36). Remember the day Jesus “dissed” his own family? “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” he asked his disciples one day, in seeming rejection of Mary and his siblings, who had been standing at the edge of the crowd, just waiting to speak to him (Matthew 12:46-49)? And especially that day Jesus seemed to refer to a Canaanite woman as a “dog,” when all she was asking him to do was heal her little girl (Matthew 15:21-28). Dang, Jesus… that was harsh! But there is wisdom to be gained in grappling with these passages, and that’s why it’s important that we take them on.
And although the Lectionary readings often don’t appear to “go together,” that’s not always that case. Sometimes a theme emerges, and it occurs to me that wisdom—God’s sustaining wisdom—is the unifying thread running through all of our Scripture readings today. When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on top of Mt. Sinai (Exodus 20:1-17), he wasn’t doing it for himself, he was doing it for the Israelites. He was providing them with a “Cliff’s Notes” version of how to be fruitful and multiply as a nation in the Land of Milk and Honey, which was their inheritance. Ten Commandments which could really be distilled into two: Love God. Love your neighbor. If you do these two things, and I mean really do them, you’re going to be OK… and so will your children and your children’s children. Wisdom.
The Psalmist reminds us that the heavens, themselves, always and constantly proclaim the greatness of the LORD. “The law of the LORD is perfect… it revives the soul. The decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple… they are more to be desired than gold… and sweeter than honey from the comb… and in keeping them there is great reward.” (Psalm 19). We must be in the Earth, but not of it. If we will fix our eyes upon the glorious and unchanging Kingdom of Heaven, despite all the travails of this life, we will be upheld… saved. Wisdom.
And then there’s the bit from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. The Apostle was probably pulling out his hair at the persistent obtuseness of his flock in Corinth… “Jews demand signs…” if you want me to believe this, do something supernatural. No miracle? Bah humbug! And… “Greeks desire wisdom.” But it wasn’t the wisdom of God the Greeks desired, it was “human wisdom.” They wanted someone to lay out a logical case for them about why they should believe. Otherwise it was all just foolishness. And Paul had to keep telling them, “That’s not how it works. Some things you just have to take on faith. God came to earth in the form of Jesus Messiah to show us the Way… to be crucified, and then raised from the dead so that we would know that death is not the end. If you can give yourself over to that hope… if you can believe, you will be saved” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). God’s sustaining wisdom.
And now we come to today’s Gospel story about Jesus cleansing the Temple. That must have been quite a sight. Lots of human wisdom going on there. Lots of buying and selling of sacrificial animals… and produce… and the like, lots of money changing hands. The Temple economy was pretty important, after all. Lots of high, head muckety-mucks in the Jewish religious establishment probably made a pretty penny off the Temple trade. Cha ching! But then Jesus came and turned everything upside down… literally and figuratively. “What in the world are y’all doing?” Jesus asked. “This isn’t what the Temple is for. The Temple should be a place to worship, to glorify the Father… you know, like it says in the Law: We are to love God above all else—all else! For crying out loud… you guys are messing it up! By treating the Temple as a worldly place, you are depriving yourselves and the people of something special… the one, true sanctuary from the distractions and perversions of this world… stumbling blocks that come between you and my Father. Your Father.” And, you know, some people probably listened… nodded their heads quietly and felt a little bit ashamed. While others said, “Um… show us a sign?” In the words of the late, great Ronald Reagan: “There they go again….”
It would be easy for us to think of this Gospel story as nothing more than a literal retelling of an event that happened in a particular place, and on a particular day during Jesus’ earthly ministry, wouldn’t it? It would be easy for us to point fingers and say, “Shame, shame!” on all of the buyers and sellers and religious leaders who got their comeuppance from Jesus in the Temple that day… all the while congratulating ourselves for knowing better. Or, to use a phrase, coined by Jesus, himself, it would easy for us to take note of “the speck of sawdust in our neighbor’s eye, while ignoring the plank in our own” (cf. Matthew 7:5). But if we are seeking God’s sustaining wisdom, in today’s Gospel passage, then I believe we need to look deeper. The Jews in Jesus’ time believed that God was present in the Temple in a way that he was not any place else on Earth. The Temple was where God “lived.” It really was his house. So, the Temple wasn’t just a building, it was the place that Jews come to stand (literally) just outside the presence of God. And that was why Jesus was so hard on the merchants and religious elders that day: they were polluting that sacred space with the ordinary and the mundane.
But that’s not how most Christians (or even many Jews today) think of God being present in the world. God is everywhere… above us… beside us… even inside us. God is present throughout Creation, in the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses… and in the first cry of a newborn baby. God is in all things, great and small. And that puts an even greater onus on us than was on the Jews in Biblical times to preserve and interact with that sacred space. The whole world is our Temple, because God lives here. How, then, shall we “exercise dominion” over it? (cf. Genesis 1:28) How shall we preserve it so that all who live here can experience the nearness of God? But wait, there’s more: Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life (John 14:6),” and called us to be his disciples. If we answer that call, and give our lives over to becoming Christ followers, then our souls and bodies become, in essence, the Temple of the LORD. How, then, shall we live?
Friends, the Gospel story of Jesus upsetting the tables (and the elites) in the Temple is as timely and full of God’s sustaining wisdom for us today as it was back in Biblical times. Except, for us, the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple becomes an imperative for us to rid our lives of anything that comes between us and God. That’s a pretty good definition of sin, I think: anything that comes between us and God. And that should be our particular focus during this season of Lent: to redouble our efforts to identify and root out anything in this world that separates us from God. And lest you think this Lenten pilgrimage ends with Easter, you’d best think again. It’s an ongoing journey, a life-long marathon. We’ve been provided with a holy space between birth and death on this Earth… to strive to know the Father, and discern his will for us. And if you’re still here, it means you still have work to do. The striving can sometimes be hard… but we needn’t make it any harder on ourselves than it already is. Because remember, God is perfect, but God is not a perfectionist.
It pleases God when we try to walk a straight path. So be kind to yourself as you reflect upon how God’s sustaining wisdom might guide your journey through this life today and every day: Love God… love your neighbor… and don’t judge. You’re going to be OK. Keep your eyes on the prize… on the Kingdom of Heaven… and you will be upheld. Give yourself over to the hope of Christ crucified. Believe… and be saved. And try not to forget that, as a Christ-follower, you have a special responsibility to keep your life and your living a fit dwelling place for the Most-High. There’s no better way to spread the Gospel. Maybe if you do, people will look at you and say, “I’ll have what she’s having!” Not every day will be a good day. You won’t always “get it right,” but that’s why God sent Jesus to make everything right in the end.
Continued blessings on your pilgrimage.
Mark 8:31-38
“It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea. A mile from shore a fishing boat chummed the water, and the word for Breakfast Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a thousand seagulls came to dodge and fight for bits of food. It was another busy day beginning.”[1]
Perhaps these words strike a bell for some of you. They’re from the beginning of the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, written by Richard Bach fifty-some-odd years ago… way back in 1970. It’s the story of a very special bird who had somehow come up with this crazy idea that he was meant to do more with his life than simply flap around from one meal to the next, day in, day out, like so many other gulls were in the habit of doing. Jonathan had gotten it into his head that he was meant, first and foremost, to fly… to make the most of his time on earth by pushing the limits of his body, mind and spirit in order to grow more-fully into the creature he was made to be… and set an example for others, so that they might do the same.
And Jonathan’s efforts paid off big time. He learned to do some pretty amazing things in the sky, untethered from the mundane priorities and competition of normal seagull life. He found that with dedication and practice he could fly higher, faster and with greater precision than any other gull alive. This newfound knowledge and skill fulfilled him in a way he had never before thought possible. Sadly, however, the other gulls didn’t think too much of Jonathan’s apparent non-conformity. What was wrong with him, anyway? Didn’t he understand that life was all about eating as much as you could, as often as you could? About playing it safe? About looking out for number one? What would happen if everyone acted as irresponsibly as Jonathan Gull? What kind of world would that be?
And so, the flock shunned Jonathan… cast him out! Which made him feel sad and hurt and isolated… as it was intended to do. “Gotta nip this in the bud,” said one of the elder gulls. “Can’t have folks challenging flock mentality, willy-nilly like that. No siree! That’s dangerous!” But Jonathan had already learned too much—gotten a taste of what it meant to live into the purpose for which he was created—and there was no going back. And so, he ended up spending the rest of his natural life alone, finishing what he had started: learning to fly… farther, faster, higher… beyond the bounds of anything he had ever dreamed he could do. For those of you who haven’t read the book, I’m not going to tell you how the story ends, only that it ends well… and that Jonathan eventually finds the truth and vocation he was seeking.
You may recall that just prior to the text of our Gospel passage today, Jesus had asked his disciples who people said that he was, and they responded: John the Baptist… or Elijah… or one of the prophets. Then he doubled down and asked: But… who do you say that I am? And Peter went all in and said, “You are the Christ […the Messiah!]” (Mark 8:27-29). To which Jesus replied, “Shhhhhh… don’t tell anyone.” I wonder if he said it with a wink? But then Jesus got serious. He started saying some crazy stuff about how he—the Christ… the Messiah— would be rejected and executed by the authorities, and then rise again. And Peter, probably still a little giddy from correctly identifying Jesus as the Christ, tripped himself up by trying to talk sense into him. “What’s wrong with you, Jesus? You’re the Messiah… you’ve all but said so, yourself. Your destiny is to save your people! That’s the way we’ve always understood it, at any rate. So, save ‘em already! Enough of this fantasy talk about rejection and death and resurrection. We need you to act a little more responsibly, the way we would act if we were you. Sheesh! A Messiah who goes out of his way to get himself rejected and killed? What kind of savior would that be? So, Jesus had to deliver a smack down. Ouch!
But after the smack down, a teaching: “Guys—it’s not about us… it’s not really even about me—it’s about the work we are called to do. I’m here to show you. Look! It’s about spreading the Gospel: the Good News of repentance and love and forgiveness and adoption and of God’s faithfulness. That’s it. Nothing else matters. This is the work that has been set before humankind since the Fall, and I’m here to show you how it’s done.”
So, Peter got it wrong. Just like you and I (and flocks of seagulls) often do. We get caught up in the deception that it’s all about safety and survival and worldly success and satisfaction. Perhaps it is the work of the Tempter… the Deceiver. I wonder if Satan does a little dance on those occasions when we find ourselves a bit wobbly in our faith, tempted to give into a pernicious fear and cynicism that would have us believe there’s nothing more to life than… avoiding death. Eking out another day and another dollar because… there’s a little piece of us that’s afraid that might be all there is. And if death is the end (i.e., bye-bye… lights out for all eternity), we might be excused for wanting to live a life with ourselves at the center of the universe… maybe for just a little a while. Right? Or is it just me?
But there is no surer way for us to lose our souls, cautions Jesus Messiah. Death is not the end, and we have a great cloud of witnesses who have testified to us throughout the ages about God’s goodness and love and faithfulness, and about God’s will for Creation. And we, too, are called to be witnesses to God’s movement and purpose in the world: to spread the Gospel and, as James (of Jerusalem), brother of Jesus, so aptly put it: to be “doers of the Word” (James 1:19).
How do we do that? Well, it’s all right there in our Baptismal Covenant: we are to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers. We must persevere in resisting evil, and, when we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord. We are called to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, and seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. And finally, we must strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.[2] “Easier said than done,” you might say. But just repeat after me: “I will, with God’s help.”
The thought of losing one’s life is scary, isn’t it? But remember, the life we live here on earth isn’t really life. And the death we die here on earth isn’t really death. This temporal existence is a schoolhouse, or maybe boot camp… a stopping-off place on our own appointed roads to Kingdom come. This life is a gift, and it’s a calling… and we would do well to make sure it’s time well spent.
[1] Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, New York: Scribner, 1970.
[2] The Book of Common Prayer, According to the use of The Episcopal Church (1979), 304-5.
Mark 1:9-15
The wilderness of the Bible is a vast, uncharted place. It sometimes takes the form of a limitless desert populated by shifting sand dunes as far as the eye can see. It might be a remote expanse of dry, stubbly grassland suitable only for meager grazing of herd animals. Or perhaps it’s a region of rocky hills and outcroppings, crisscrossed by winding trails that double back on themselves, leading nowhere in particular. Water is scarce… or non-existent. Most birds and animals shun the wilderness. It’s an empty place. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their families all wandered in the wilderness at one time or another, as they struggled to understand God’s call to them… and what it meant to be in covenant relationship with the Almighty. The Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt as they struggled to free themselves from an ethos of slavery… and embrace their birthright as inheritors of the “land of milk and honey” promised to them by God. Jesus wandered in the wilderness for forty days after his baptism by John in the Jordan. It was here that, hungry and thirsty and parched by the sun, he confronted the devil, and all of his worldly temptations… and came out on top. The wilderness of the Bible is a hard, uncompromising crucible of faith in which wanderers learn to trust in God, and God alone, for their survival.
When was the last time you were drawn to the wilderness? Sometimes we yearn for the wilderness… for a place of solitude where we can lay aside our daily cares and responsibilities, if only for a while, and bask in the beauty and genius of God’s creation. Of course, our wilderness is a somewhat tamer place than that of Bible times, carefully mapped and controlled, and rarely outside the range of emergency services. And before we venture out, we equip ourselves with the latest-tech gear from our local outfitters, and are careful to carry plenty of food and water… on our backs, or in the trunks of our cars. We revel in the wilderness experience, all the while smugly congratulating ourselves on our self-sufficiency. And then we return home… in our own time… and on our own terms. I sometimes wonder if our complacency and the illusion of diminished reliance on God’s Providence has robbed us of something important. Still, we are drawn to the wilderness.
But I wonder if the wilderness can also be a region of the heart where we wander, seeking to fathom God’s will and purpose for our lives? We sometimes undertake such journeys in response to crisis. I bet you’ve been there before. Perhaps grieving the loss of a loved one… through death or estrangement? Or maybe you were stuck in a lousy job and stressed out about finances. Did you have a child in trouble? Or was it something more existential: had your doctor given you some news that you really didn’t want to hear? Was your faith in the Almighty being tested by extreme injustice and the reality of evil in the world? There’s so much pain…. And in the pain lies a paradox. We believe that God is good, and we further believe that, for God, nothing is impossible. And so, we are often left to wonder: where is God amidst all of the tragedy and travail of this life? We are hurting. We are crying out! Why isn’t God fixing this? And we’re tempted to take matters into our own hands and do our feeble best to fix what’s broken.
But here’s the thing: we often confuse the symptom—that which is causing us pain—with the underlying illness. We think of war and famine… plague and pestilence… poverty and injustice… and unspeakable violence perpetrated against innocents as the illness. Which leads us to seek human solutions for problems created by humans. And we have a responsibility, as humans, to do the best we can to clean up our messes. It’s the right thing to do, after all. But that’s only a stop-gap solution… because we’re going to keep on making ever bigger and more calamitous messes until we figure out that the underlying disorder—the illness—responsible for most everything that pains us is estrangement (separation) from God.
So, whatever “fixes” we come up with to cure society’s ills must, first and foremost, be founded upon the hard work of repairing the breach we’ve created between ourselves and the Almighty, and submission to God’s will for our lives. Otherwise, we’ll just end up chasing our tails. So maybe that’s another purpose of the wilderness: to give us the time and the space to learn that only in turning over our most pressing cares and concerns to God, and trusting in God’s Providence, will we be delivered. This attitude of submission can be a lonely and painful place. And still, we are drawn to the wilderness. Drawn so strongly, in fact, that we occasionally venture into the trackless wilderness of the heart in the absence of crisis to reflect upon what it is we need from God, and what God is asking of us. We do it in the silence of our prayers. We do it on retreat. We often do it during Lent. I think that’s because we know, intuitively, that it is in the wilderness of our hearts that we are most likely to find, and to be found by, God. Remember: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope: because with less of you, there is more of Godand God’s rule in your life” (cf. Matthew 5:3 MSG).
Why, then, did Jesus need to go into the wilderness? Jesus doesn’t need to find or be found by God. Jesus is God. What was Jesus trying to prove out there in the wilderness, wrestling with the devil? I believe Jesus did it for us. First to show us that the devil need not have the last word when we encounter him (and we will encounter him) in the midst of our wilderness wanderings. And second, to remind us that by taking on human flesh, God wills to be present with us during our darkest, most difficult times. 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople, and theologianGregory of Nazianzus wrote that God became fully human because, “that which he has not assumed, He has not healed.”[1] The Word became flesh and continues to dwell among us through the power of the Holy Spirit… especially during our wilderness travails. We will be healed. We need not fear the wilderness.
Lent is often referred to as a “pilgrimage…” a personal journey of prayer and devotion and returning to God. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that pilgrimages “evoke our earthly journey toward heaven” (Catechism,2691). Immediately after his baptism, Jesus set out into the wilderness to show us the way back to God through his earthly ministry and, ultimately, his crucifixion and resurrection. Walking the Way of Christ isn’t easy. We are often required to leave our “comfort zones” to carry out the ministry that God has given us to accomplish. Pope Francis once wisely observed that our aim during Lent should be “to place ourselves decisively on the path of Jesus, the road that leads to life. To look at Jesus… to look at what Jesus has done and go with Him. This path of Jesus passes through the desert… [and yet we may] enter into the desert without fear, because we are not alone: we are with Jesus, with the Father and with the Holy Spirit.”[2]
It’s times like these that we come face to face with the realization that we need God above all else: more than food, drink, shelter and security. And God will give us everything we need, but we must learn to have faith in God’s Providence. This, I believe, is why we are drawn to the wilderness. This is the purpose of our sojourn. And we are called to wander in the wilderness, not just during Lent, but throughout our Earthly pilgrimage. Like the ancient Israelites, we are called to offer up our “first fruits” to the Lord as we struggle and strain, with feet of clay… two steps forward, one step back… towards the Promised Land (cf. Leviticus 23:9). But our first fruits are not fruits of the ground, but fruits of God’s faithfulness (cf. James 1:18). We are called to offer, “our selves, our souls and bodies” (BCP 336) as we follow the Way of Jesus.
How’s your pilgrimage shaping up?
[1] Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 101 of Critique of Apollinarius and Apollinarianism
[2] His “Angelus” address at St. Peter’s Square on the first Sunday of Lent, 22 February 2015
Mark 1:29-39
When last we saw Jesus of Nazareth, he was in the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath, teaching (and preaching love, I think) with authority. And while he was there, he had healed a man with an unclean spirit. This caused folks to sit up and take notice. Who is this guy?
That same afternoon, Jesus, James and John accompanied Peter and Andrew to their home, presumably for a bite to eat and some downtime after their busy morning. But it was not to be. You see, Peter’s wife’s mother was laid low with a fever. And it must have been pretty serious, because Jesus went straight to her and zapped whatever it was that was ailing her. Boom. His second healing of the day… and his second on that Sabbath day. Do you see what’s happening here? This is the beginning of another new teaching… or perhaps it’s an old teaching that Jesus is reinterpreting with authority. A teaching that reminds us that our true calling on the Sabbath is to honor God… not simply by trying extra-hard to be good, or by strict obedience to a bunch of “churchy” rules, but by taking a “time out” each week from the concerns that regularly consume us: working, paying bills, doing household chores, and the like… to rededicate ourselves to the purpose for which we were created… which is to love and serve God and one another by helping to bring about the Kingdom of God in our homes, and in our communities and in the whole wide world. That’s the purpose of Sabbath and that’s what Jesus did when he healed Peter’s mom-in-law. He brought just a little bit of God’s Kingdom home to that family that day. It sheds a whole new light on what it might mean to us, as followers of Jesus, to be about our Father’s business on the Sabbath day… and every day… don’t you think?
And so, Peter’s mother-in-law was lifted up, or perhaps she even jumped up, and began to serve Jesus and his friends. I’ve heard a few preachers wax a little bit “snarky” about this part of the story—that Jesus would have allowed this poor woman to get up and serve him, after having so recently been ill. But you know what? I’m pretty sure that after Jesus healed her, Peter’s mother-in-law had never felt better in her life. That’s number one. And, number two, taking care of visitors in your home was almost a sacred responsibility in that part of the world back in those days, Sabbath or no Sabbath. And it still is. Providing hospitality to strangers is right up there with honoring God. So, Jesus wisely and lovingly let her do her bit to help bring about the Kingdom. I doubt she’d have had it any other way.
I hope Jesus got at least a couple of hours of rest, maybe even a nap, because, when evening came… the floodgates opened. The Sabbath ended at sunset and it seemed as if the entire town of Capernaum showed up on Peter and Andrew’s doorstep to see Jesus… and they brought all of their sick and crazy friends and relatives with them. Capernaum was a pretty good-sized fishing village on the Sea of Galilee back in the day, with a population of around 1,500 souls, so it must have been quite a confab… and a lot of work for Jesus! I imagine him standing there in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by people with outstretched hands, healing the sick, casting out demons, right and left, lifting them up… without a break, hour after hour, as the dusk turned to night. That’s revival, my friends. And that’s what I think of when I hear “the kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:15).
But surely Jesus must have been exhausted afterwards! I know I’m pretty worn out after leading worship on Sundays. Jesus must have been pooped! He was human, after all. Notice I didn’t say only human. He most certainly wasn’t only human. But he was fully-human, with all of the biological needs and requirements for rest and sustenance that that entails. And yet, he was up bright and early the next morning to take his message further down the road to the next place and the next gathering of seekers… and the next… and the next. Because that’s what he had come to do. That was his purpose.
And I believe you and I have a purpose, as well. And you know what that purpose is. At least, I hope you do… after having listened to me preach to you, week after week, for the last eight-and-a-half years. In our Gospel story today, Jesus has just begun his three years of active ministry. And his purpose, spreading the Good News of God’s Salvation and bringing the people back into covenant relationship with their Creator, thus helping bring about God’s Kingdom on earth… is also our purpose. We are to be the hands and feet of Christ as we continue his ministry to a world in need of hope. We are called to be Kingdom Bringers, and it’s a lot of work. And it can seem daunting sometimes. But we needn’t fear the work. And we needn’t shy away from it. We must embrace it. Because (and I can’t say this too often) It’s. Why. We’re. Here! The reason we were created! And when we give in—and live in—to the purpose God intends for us, we’ll find that we are lifted up, like Peter’s mother-in-law, and given the strength and skills and fortitude to do the work that is set before us.
Something J. Neil Alexander said back in 2011, near the end of his decade-long tenure as the 9th Bishop of Atlanta, has always resonated with me. In an interview for the Diocesan journal Pathways entitled, “The Curious Life of a Diocesan Bishop,” he was asked how he had managed to cope with all of the responsibilities of his office, and the incessant and sometimes conflicting demands of people, places and priorities. The good Bishop confided that yes, the hours were long and the work sometimes stressful but, he continued, “Remember what it means to bear a vocation, a calling. When one’s vocation is a good fit, like a comfortable shoe, then the burdens are manageable. That doesn’t mean you’re not tired and weary with sore feet, but it is a livable, perhaps even energizing burden… because the shoe fits.”
So, here’s the thing my brothers and sisters: you were created for a purpose, and the work you’ve been called to do—your vocation for the cause of Christ—is cut out for you. It’s right there in front of you. Every day. If you open your eyes, and your ears, and your heart, you’ll find that you’ll never be short of opportunities to continue Jesus’ work in the world: loving and serving God and your neighbor. The work will be difficult, and the pace unrelenting at times, but don’t worry… you’ll be given what you need to get the job done. God will never leave you hanging. So, go grab yourself a pair of “Jesus shoes.” You may be pleased and surprised to learn that they fit just fine.
Mark 1:21-28
“What is this? A new teaching—with authority!” Jesus was in the synagogue in Capernaum, presumably “going about his Father’s business” (Luke 2:49 NKJV)—teaching—as he had so many years ago in the Temple in Jerusalem. Only this time, he was no longer a twelve-year-old kid. He had grown into a man, having spent the last eighteen or so years, as Luke wrote, “increasing in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (2:50 NKJV). This piece of Scripture offers us a tantalizing glimpse of the beginning of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, well before that final journey to Jerusalem and the Passion story that would come to define Christian identity for the next two thousand years. Things were simpler then… at least they seemed that way. Mark’s Jesus had arrived on the scene, seemingly out of nowhere, and had been baptized in the Jordan by John, who told his disciples: “This is the guy!” Then a heavenly voice confirmed, “Indeed, this is the guy!” And off Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days to show Satan that he was, undoubtedly, that guy (cf. Mark 1:1-12 and Matthew 4:1-11). And now, Jesus is back in circulation picking up disciples, talking about Good News and the Kingdom… repentance and salvation. Wow.
So… what do you suppose Jesus was teaching about, there in the synagogue in Capernaum? Mark doesn’t tell us, does he? He kind of leaves that to our imagination. What do you suppose? Might Jesus have been teaching about the inerrancy of Hebrew Scripture? Or the superiority of Jewish religious doctrine over that of other faith traditions? Maybe he was schooling his listeners on the importance of becoming economically self-sufficient, so they could pay their Temple tax and not be a burden on society. Perhaps he was preaching about the evils of same-sex relationships and uncontrolled immigration and government-sponsored health insurance. Or not. That might have been the sort of stuff the Jewish scribes were teaching. And that’s what many of us Christians tend to get “wrapped around the axle” about. But what was Jesus teaching about on this day, and in this place?
Well, I can’t say for certain, but I can make a pretty good guess… based upon the sorts of things Jesus talked about throughout all of the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I bet Jesus was talking about love. Loving God and loving your neighbor… and all of the stuff that goes along with that: Honoring God by welcoming strangers made in God’s image. Helping those on the margins of society, providing food and drink and clothing to those who are in need. Providing hope to those who are sick and suffering in body, mind and spirit. Loving others as God loves us. And Jesus taught as one with authority. What does that mean? It means, I think, that Jesus’ words touched his listeners in a way that no priest or Doctor of the Law had ever done. Because, through Jesus, the Kingdom of God had come near. God’s eternal Word had come near. And those gathered round listening to Jesus understood that this was something new… something never experienced by anyone in living memory. Not since God had given Moses and the people the Ten Commandments from atop Mount Sinai. This was a new teaching… and an old teaching. The principle upon which all Creation was founded: Love.
And Jesus spoke with authority… with a capital “A.” But there are other authorities in the world, aren’t there. Back in Jesus’ time, as in our own, there are civil authorities and religious authorities, family authorities and even private, personal authorities: those things that we allow to control and influence the way we think and behave. Maybe the quest for wealth and status has “authority” over what we do and how we do it. Maybe various “shoulds and oughts” associated with being a good employee or spouse, sibling or child exercise a degree of “authority” over our daily routines. Maybe we’ve given certain substances… or habits… authority in our lives. Perhaps you can imagine some of the sorts of things I’m talking about.
The man with the unclean spirit definitely got it. And here’s the thing, don’t be thinking of the “man with the unclean spirit” as some drooling madman lurching around the synagogue grounds, spoiling for a fight. Such a one would have never been allowed to cross the threshold of the synagogue. I’m pretty sure that the man with the unclean spirit looked a lot like… you and me. The uncleanliness of his spirit had less to do with his outward appearance and behavior… as it did with the inward things to which he had given authority in his life. Things that were not of God. “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth?” he said. “What, indeed?” Jesus may have replied. “Have you come to destroy us?” “Yeah, pretty much,” said Jesus. “I know who you are…” “Well then, you know what to do: Hasta la vista, unclean spirit.” And boom! The man was free of all of the “little ‘a’ authorities” that had dogged his existence for who knows how long. We should all be so lucky, right? How often have we prayed to be rid of worldly aspirations… and appetites… that keep us from living more-fully into God’s plan for our lives. Probably plenty often… because, you see, we’re not bad people. We want to do the right thing… we want to be right with God. But we sometimes hesitate to love. We sometimes forget that we were made to bring about God’s Kingdom by bringing love and hope to the least of these… sometimes at our own expense… maybe even sacrificially. Because loving God and neighbor isn’t easy. It’s counter to everything the world teaches us brick-by-brick, blow-by-blow, from the time we’re born until the time we, well… figure it out. However long that takes.
So, here’s the takeaway: Jesus can relieve us of our unclean spirits, but it won’t be all “pony rides and balloons.” In our Gospel story today, when the man in the synagogue was redeemed from all of his unclean, “little ‘a’ authorities,” he convulsed… doubled over… fell on the ground… felt as if he was being turned inside out, as the devil within him writhed and screamed and, finally… turned him loose. It was as if the man was giving up a part of himself. And he was. But it wasn’t the best part, the holy part. It was the part that was not of God. And the man was better off without it… but it was so hard.
And it will be hard for each of us to give up the worldly authorities to which we cling so tightly and live into the “Kingdom purpose” that God has in store for us. Our earthly vision may tell us that giving in to God is foolish… that nothing will come of it but disappointment and resentment and unease. But I offer you a different vision of what it means to give in to God and God’s plan for your life. It comes in the form of a rather strange series of blessings written by Benedictine Sister Ruth Marlene Fox (1936-2023), of the Sacred Heart Monastery in Dickinson, North Dakota. It’s a call to love, and a call to action… so you better look out! But remember this: it’s what you signed up for when you decided to follow the Way of Jesus. And so, to you, my brothers and sisters in the Faith…
✞ May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships… so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen.
✞ May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people… so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen.
✞ May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war… so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy. Amen.
✞ And may God bless you with just enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world… so that you can do what others claim cannot be done: and that is to bring justice and kindness to all of our children and to the poor in body, mind and spirit. Amen!
Jonah 3:1-10
So… “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’” Jonah had been chosen by God for an important mission and, this time, he was going to do it. The first two chapters of the Book of Jonah only appear in the Daily Office Lectionary so, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to recapitulate Jonah’s story up to this point. I bet you’ll remember it.
Jonah, Son of Amittai, received a call from God to go to the city of Nineveh… to warn the people of their imminent destruction and call them to repentance. Like many prophets, however, Jonah was hesitant to take on the task that God had set before him. Actually, hesitant is a bit of an understatement. Not only did Jonah not go to Nineveh, he boarded a ship headed to Tarshish… in the opposite direction, and on the other side of the known world from Nineveh! He wanted no part of God’s call.
God, of course, had other plans. Jonah’s ship was beset mid-voyage by a terrible storm… a storm which, as it turned out, was sent by God to help Jonah change his mind. The ship’s crew prayed to their gods and struggled mightily to save their vessel, to no avail. It was only when Jonah confessed to his shipmates that he was running from his own God… and begged them to throw him overboard so that the rest might be spared, which they did… that the sea quietened. Jonah hoped to die, but God wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. A large fish was sent to swallow Jonah… and Jonah had three days and three nights in the belly of the leviathan to ponder his predicament. There in the dark, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God:
“In my trouble I called to the LORD . . . and you heard my voice. You cast me into the depths . . . into the heart of the sea. The floods engulfed me . . . all your breakers and billows swept over me. I thought I was driven away . . . out of your sight. Would I ever gaze again upon your holy Temple? The waters closed in over me . . . the deep engulfed me.”
Jonah’s song continued: “Yet you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God! When my life was ebbing away, I called the LORD to mind . . . my prayer came before you . . . into Your holy Temple. They who cling to empty folly forsake their own welfare . . . but I, with loud thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will perform. Deliverance is the LORD’s!” (Jonah, Chapters 1 and 2).
At last, Jonah had embraced God’s will… and in today’s reading, having been released from belly of the fish, Jonah found himself sitting on the beach, being commissioned by God… for a second time. Now we’re caught up.
While no one is sure precisely when Jonah lived, he is named as a prophet during the rule of King Jeroboam II of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 14:25). This would place him, timewise, in the mid-eighth century BCE. At this time, Nineveh was an “exceedingly large city” in Assyria, on the banks of the Tigris River… in modern-day Iraq, near the city of Mosul. It was also a very wicked city. While the Book of Jonah doesn’t detail the precise nature of Nineveh’s wickedness, we do know that it was the capitol of the Assyrian Empire when it overran the Northern Kingdom of Israel towards the end of the eighth century (c. 732-720 BCE). No wonder Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh! But he went… and despite the brevity of his words (v. 3:4), something in Jonah’s testimony must have convinced the Ninevites that God was serious… because they immediately “proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, [from the King on down… even the animals!] put on sackcloth.” And then, an amazing thing happened: God changed his mind, and spared the City and all of its inhabitants. Or maybe we have that backwards… I wonder if, perhaps, it was the people changing their minds that brought about the change of outcome. What do you think?
So, what’s the moral of the story of Jonah? You can run, but you can’t hide? On the surface, we see that God had a plan and, despite Jonah’s reluctance, God would see that plan carried forward. But there’s more to it, I think… The word of the LORD came to Jonah… and he ran away. A storm ensued, and the sailors tried to save the ship and Jonah by their own devices… and yet the ship nearly foundered. The sailors finally heeded Jonah’s pleas to throw him overboard, delivering him to the fate which God had ordained… and the storm abated. So, the sailors got a second chance. From the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed a prayer of supplication and humility, opening himself to God’s will for his life… and suddenly found himself redeemed from the sea… with a second chanceto live into the vocation God had in store for him. The Ninevites, in their wickedness, failed to fear God and obey his statutes. But as the hosts of heaven sat poised to witness Nineveh’s destruction, the people of the City turned from evil, embraced repentance and received God’s mercy and forgiveness. The Ninevites got a second chance. Over and over again in Scripture we see this pattern repeated: God commands… creatures balk… bad stuff happens. It is only when people repent of their stubbornness and embrace God’s will that things begin to smooth out.
And it doesn’t only happen in the Bible. It happens to us whenever we stray from the path God has set before us. Haven’t most of us, from time to time, found ourselves engaged in plans and schemes that we knew (or at least suspected) might not be precisely what God had in mind for us? Maybe it was a job or business endeavor… or a relationship or family matter. It wasn’t that we were doing anything wrong, per se… our actions just didn’t feel right, somehow… it was like we were trying to swim upstream. But our stubbornness won us over. We wanted to do something… or to be something… or to have something for ourselves. And so,by golly, we went after it! And therein lies the problem. We are often tempted to live for our selves rather than for God. And in so doing, we often lose our way. I’m particularly fond of the words of the General Confession in the Rite 1 Daily Office of the Prayer Book. Beautiful words of supplication and humility: “Almighty and most merciful Father; We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts” (BCP 41). We do that a lot, don’t we? At least I know I do. But here’s the thing: no matter how off-track we get, no matter how deep-in over our heads we get, the Good Shepherd will reach out and get our attention… and save us. By hook or by crook. Does our repentance come as the result of crisis? Or is it “a still, small voice” correcting and redirecting us? It doesn’t matter. Different people and situations require different sorts of attention getters. The takeaway here is that, if we pay attention to what God is asking of us and mend our ways then, like Jonah… and the sailors… and the Ninevites we, too, will get a second chance.
Of course, getting a second chance doesn’t mean that everything will turn out “fine and dandy” in the near term… far from it. We may not even know what fine and dandy looks like in the near term. And here’s a question for you to ponder: Why was Jonah so resistant to go and “cry out against” the wickedness of Nineveh in the first place? Was he lazy? Is that why he ran? Or was he afraid? And if he was afraid, then what was he afraid of? How about this? MAYBE… Jonah was afraid that the Ninevites, when confronted with God’s warning, would repent… and that God would spare them. Might Jonah (the prophet) have had an inkling of the future destruction that would be visited upon his own homeland by the regime ruling the very city God had commissioned him to save? And if he had, would that not have seemed ample reason to “flee from the presence of the Lord?” (v. 1:3) And, if so, would Tarshish have been a far-enough-away place to run? Can anyone ever outrun the love of God? Because here’s the thing: I wonder… if Jonah had opened the “eyes of his heart” a little wider, might he also have been able to envision a future second chancefor the divided Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which in the 8thcentury BCE had clearly lost their way… having become hopelessly mired in idol worship and sectarian strife. Might Jonah have been able to see the new thing that God had in store for his people: “mak[ing] a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” in preparation for the coming Messiah (Isaiah 43:19)? A second chance that could only be made possible by an “intervention” at the hands of the Assyrians and, later, the Babylonians. But “God’s ways are not our ways…” (cf. Isaiah 55:8), so maybe we ought to cut Jonah (and ourselves) a little slack.
And that’s why prayer and listening are so important. We can never know the mind of God, but we are often able to feel the difference between “being on the right path…” and not. When we find ourselves in the fish’s belly—and we will, from time to time find ourselves in the fish’s belly—following Jonah’s example, we must call out to the LORD . . . and know that the LORD will hear our cries. Out of the depths . . . from the heart of the sea . . . when we are beset by flood and storm and wave and feel abandoned and out of God’s sight . . . the LORD our God will hear our prayers. Deliverance is the LORD’s!
Our God is a God of a million second chances, whose arms are always outstretched and beckoning to us… but we must step into that embrace. In our Gospel story today, the Apostles Andrew, Peter, James and John left behind their former lives and livelihoods to follow Jesus (Mark 1:14-20). As modern-day disciples of God’s Christ, we are called to do the same. Don’t run from it… embrace it. Answer the call. And like Jonah and the Apostles, no matter how dark the belly of the fish… no matter how far you’ve strayed from God’s plan for your life… you’ll get a second chance. And you’ll be amazed at what God can do with you—and through you—to help bring salvation and peace to this broken world.
Romans 12:9-21
Gotta love what the Apostle Paul sets forth as the “Marks of a True Christian:” Love out loud! …God, neighbor and even strangers. Hold fast to that which is good, render to no one evil for evil. Support the weak, help the afflicted, honor everyone… these should sound familiar to you. Spread the Good News. Build up the Church. Have faith. Pray. Bless the folks who seem to be out to get you. Bless them! Don’t bless them out… not even in private. Share in peoples’ sadness. Be humble… not snooty. Do the right thing because it’s right thing to do. “Play well with others!” for goodness’ sake. We’ve got all this “true Christian stuff” licked so far, right? At least most of the time.
And then, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves [on your enemies], but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord’ (cf. Deuteronomy 32:35 NIV).” “Alrighty then!” we say as we rub our hands together. We’ll just sit here upon our high horses, patting ourselves on the back, mouthing Christian platitudes, secure in the knowledge that the Almighty’s gonna smite whoever’s abused us, or assaulted our sensibilities, or in some way called into question the value of all our hard work in being good citizens, and playing by the rules of the “salvation game.” God’s gonna get ‘em!
Except… Let me tell you a story.
Back in 1978, when I was 19, dabbling at college and sitting on a bar stool singing songs for my supper a few nights a week, I was on my way home from one of the aforementioned bar gigs at 11pm when I got pulled over by a Dekalb County cop for running a stop sign while turning right. He was polite and professional, and left me with a ticket that would cost me more money than I made in a month. Ouch! I didn’t remember running any stop sign so, after the officer had pulled away, I retraced my route. And sure enough, when I arrived at the intersection in question, there was no stop sign… only a yield, and I had yielded! So, I girded my loins and prepared to fight the citation in court.
I had never been to Dekalb County Traffic Court before, and it was impressive. Dekalb had benefited from a significant influx of tax dollars during the early 1970s, due to “white flight” from Atlanta/Fulton County, and they had spent a fair portion of it on police and fire services and public works… like the courthouse I was visiting. Deep, rich wood paneling… high ceilings and doorways… lots of officious looking folks scurrying about, doing things officious people do. And me… the 19-year-old long-haired troubadour, armed with some photos and diagrams (but without an attorney) here to fight a traffic ticket. I felt pretty small, and out of place.
And then it was, “All rise!” and I did, and the judge entered the courtroom. An older white gentleman, with silver-gray hair, dressed in a black robe. He didn’t look all that much bigger than me… and he had a nice smile. The roll was called and, since my case was towards the end of the calendar, I settled in for what was likely to be a long wait. And it was, but I got to see lots of different cases play out in court that day, not all of which were traffic related. It was fascinating stuff, and some of the stories were compelling. The judge seemed firm, but fair. I don’t remember all that much detail about that day, forty-five years ago, but one story has stuck with me. A young, African-American kid, probably 17 or 18 years old was in court accompanied by his father. Apparently, he’d been pulled over for some sort of traffic infraction and, during the course of the stop, the investigating officer found a full-sized, no-kidding military bayonet under the driver’s seat. The cop inquired about the bayonet, and the kid was discourteous and not particularly forthcoming, and managed to talk himself into a ticket.
The young man was similarly sullen and belligerent in Court, and I could see that his dad was about to come out of his chair and smack him. At one point the judge had had enough and instructed the bailiff to take the lad down to a holding cell in the Courthouse basement. Click, click went the cuffs… a pat down was conducted, and off he went to experience a taste of incarceration… all in the space of about ninety seconds. On his way out, the young man looked over his shoulder at his dad. He no longer looked sullen or belligerent. He looked scared. There was a moment of silence in the Courtroom, before the judge called the father up to the bench. “Your honor, I’m gonna kill him!” the father blurted. The judge just smiled and said, “No you’re not. You’re his dad. You’re gonna love him.” The father looked taken aback, and started to respond, but the judge continued, “Your son’s got some things to learn, and we both have a part to play in that learning… but our roles are different. Right now, he feels like he’s got it all figured out, and it’s him against the world. It’s my job to help him understand the error of his ways… and it’s yours to let him know that he’s loved, no matter what. We’ll let him sit in the holding cell for a few minutes and see how he likes it. I hope I never see your son in this court again, but you’re gonna be seeing him regularly and being his dad for the rest of y’all’s life together. Cherish that.” This was not the sort of conversation a black father had expected to have with a white judge in a largely white courtroom, after his son had behaved so poorly in front of the bench, and he was abashed. You could have heard a pin drop.
So, the dad went back to his seat, and the judge heard a few more cases before he sent the bailiff to spring the young man from civic purgatory. When he returned to the Courtroom, his head was down, shoulders slumped, tears were in his eyes. He had not known how long he’d be held… or what the judge or his dad would say or do… or even if his dad would be there when he returned to the Courtroom, and it had weighed on him. Mightily. In the end, the judge imposed a fine, admonished the young man sternly about his future behavior with cops and judges and released him to his father. As they left the courtroom, the dad’s arm was around his son’s shoulder. Sweet.
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.’” It’s easy to hear those words spoken in tones of thunder by an angry God, but I’m not so sure. Certainly, we might have said it that way… we’re only human, after all. But what of our heavenly Judge? “Right now, your son feels like he’s got it all figured out, and it’s him against the world. It’s my job to help him understand the error of his ways,” said the temporal magistrate. That courtroom experience, all those years ago, causes me to reimagine this passage from Romans as being spoken gently… as a corrective to those of us who might be tempted to either impose discipline ourselves or, perhaps more insidiously, harbor a “you’ll git what’s comin’ to you” attitude. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay. Your job is to love. Completely, unconditionally, even sacrificially. That’s it.” There’s no room for self-righteousness or gloating or distancing ourselves from those we believe have sinned. There is only love.
So, how are we doing with that? Rest assured, there will be a day of judgement for all of us… good, bad and ugly… and we will all be held accountable, firmly but fairly I think, for things done and left undone. I like to think that the young man in the story learned some life lessons that day in Court, both from the judge and his father, and eventually managed to get things figured out. Maybe. Hopefully. But here’s the thing: we must never forget that God is God, and we are not. Let God be the judge. We have one job, and that is to be Church… extending the love of God wholeheartedly and without conditions, to our friends, enemies and everyone in between. And that’s plenty enough work to last a lifetime.
And yes, by the way, I did end up weaseling my way out of my ticket… thanks be to God!
Romans 12:1-8 and Matthew 16:13-20 Grace. It’s a word we Christians use regularly. It’s sometimes conflated with another commonly used word: “blessing,” but the terms are not quite interchangeable. People of many cultures and faith traditions understand “blessing” as special favor and protection bestowed upon temporal creatures (like ourselves) by a higher power, often as […]
Matthew 15:21-28 I’ve seen a number of social media posts this week, from a variety of preachers, fretting over how they might interpret Matthew’s gospel story about Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman for their congregations. And, sure enough, it’s a tough one. Not me, however. I ascribe to the sentiments of Snoopy the Dog […]
Matthew 14:22-33 Aieeeeeeee! “Lord, save me!” Matthew doesn’t say that Peter screamed as he began to sink, and felt the water closing over his head, but it seems reasonable that he would have. I know I would have. Even before Peter’s brush with death, the disciples had been having a pretty rough go of it. Struggling against the wind on a roiling […]
Luke 9:28-36 So… a priest and a rabbi walked into a bar… oops, I mean they weresitting in a coffee shop one day having a theological conversation. We’ll call them Bob and Moishe. They were discussing the nature of God and salvation, and all sorts of pithy stuff. Things were beginning to get a bit […]
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Separating the weeds from the wheat. Yeah, baby! That’s what God’s Messiah is gonna do on the last day. Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, John the Baptizer foreshadowed today’s parable when he said: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I […]
Matthew 10:24-39 & Romans 6:1b-11 So, I’m not going to preach at y’all today. I’m going to let you grapple with today’s passage from Matthew on your own time. There’s lot’s there to think about: Jesus said, “If my detractors hate me… how much more will they hate you… and others who follow me? But don’t worry about them… […]
Genesis 12:1-9 & Romans 4:13-25 Back in my early days in the Coast Guard, I had a buddy named John Abraham. You often go by your last name in the service, and he would often be addressed as “Abram.” He would always correct folks: A-bruh-HAM! It kind of became a running joke and, eventually, we […]
Acts 2:1-21
It’s been one thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-six years since the disciples, all gathered together in a house in Jerusalem, heard a sound coming from heaven like the rush of a violent wind… and were visited by—and imbued with—the fire of the Holy Spirit. (Or, it could be one thousand, nine-hundred and eighty-six years, if you ascribe to the Lukan timeline). In any case, it’s been just under two millennia since that first Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, the day when the Advocate… the Helper… the Comforter… who Jesus promised would come to be with us, was made manifest in the world. Some churches celebrate this day with pony rides and balloons, kind of like a birthday party. After all, the feast of Pentecost does commemorate the “birth” of the Church, as we think of it today. But part of me wonders if “feting” the Church in this way is a little self-serving. Who is the church? We are the church! And when we’re at our best—our very best—we are merely an instrument for spreading the Good News of God’s saving grace on earth. And when we’re not at our best… well, sometimes I cringe. In any case, celebrating the feast of Pentecost, the birth of the Church, the same way we might celebrate our own birthdays seems a little like patting ourselves on the back and saying “Yay, US!” But Pentecost really isn’t about us, is it? At least not in the conventional sense. It’s about God.
Those of you who gathered for worship on Ash Wednesday, back at the beginning of Lent, may remember my posing the question:
“What if it really is all about us?” What if, after we (God’s people) messed everything up in the Garden, God came after us… not to punish or destroy, but to bring us back into relationship? What if, despite our persistent rebelliousness, God entered into one covenant after another with us, with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses and David, all aimed at restoring his people to wholeness with him and the rest of creation? What if God sent Jesus Christ as the bearer of a New Covenant to rescue us from the error of our sins, and open to us the gates of everlasting life? What if God will stop at nothing to bring his lost sheep home?[1]
We will be welcoming a new sister into the Church today through the sacrament of Christian Baptism. When I think about the meaning and significance of Baptism, I wonder if, when someone decides to get Baptized, they’re really making two life-altering decisions. First, they are deciding to open their eyes to the reality of evil in the world… a force existing in direct opposition to the love of the Creator… a Tempter seeking to corrupt and harm us by enticing us to do things that cause us to become separated from God. When people decide to become Baptized, it seems to me that they are making a commitment to recognize and renounce all that… choosing instead to follow Jesus, trusting him to lead them home to God. And, of course, the second decision they’re making is to join the Church. And not just a specific denomination or church family, mind you, but the Church, with a capital “C.” A worldwide community of faith, with over two billion believers (and growing), spanning seven continents… citizens of every nation on earth… some living in places where Christianity is illegal, and Christians are persecuted… even unto death. The Church is family, in the most profound sense of the word, and it’s a sign and an instrument of God’s ongoing movement and purpose in the world. Being Baptized means becoming a part of all that. And when we say the Apostles’ Creed… which is our Baptismal Creed, we are not professing to understand every aspect of the mysteries that it contains. It may take a lifetime, and beyond a lifetime, to even scratch the surface of the nature of the Trinity: God in three persons, or the role of the Church and the Communion of Saints in God’s plan for the salvation of the world. We may never understand how Christ’s death serves to bring about forgiveness of our sins and make us fit for God’s everlasting Kingdom. Trying to get our brains wrapped around all of that could give us a perpetual headache until the day we die. But here’s the thing… we don’t need to understand the mind of God. We can’t. All we can do is make the decision to take a leap of faith… and say that we believe. That will be enough.
We’ve come a long way since that first Pentecost… that “day of days” on which the Holy Spirit first came among us… to be with us and guide us… to help bring us into closer relationship with God—and one another. But while Pentecost may be for us—surely it’s a key event in the salvation history of the world—it isn’t about us. Again, it’s about God. We must never forget that. We say, “We are the Church,” and we are. But I wonder sometimes how carefully we’ve thought out what that entails. What does it mean to be God’s Church? And what does it mean when we are “sent forth into the world to love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit,” at the end of our Eucharist service? What does that mean to you?
I’d like to share a poem with you, written by Robert Fergusson (teaching pastor at Hillsong Church) that seeks to describe God’s mission and vision for the Church in terms we can understand. It’s titled, “The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.”[2] I invite you to listen at your own risk…
She is the plan of God on earth; always in her Father’s eye: Cherished, mysterious, beautiful and potent beyond measure: King-empowered and life-infused. She emerges triumphant; limitless with potential; a harbor for the hopeless and an answer for the ages: The church resplendent – a bride for His Son.
She is the body of Christ on earth; born, like her Head, amidst tribulation, under jealous skies. Cradled in her innocence and guarded for His purpose. She grows in wisdom and stature with victory on her lips and freedom in her hands. Hers is an unstoppable cause. She embraces the world with dignity, honor and compassion; gives vision to the sightless and life to the dying.
She is the family of God on earth. Within her compass, the hungry find sustenance and the weary receive strength. She is a haven for recovering humanity, enthralled by grace. She invites the broken, the vulnerable and the outcast to be immersed in love. She stands imperfect, but perfection resides within her. She is flawed but is washed with forgiveness. She has a treasury of faith and a wealth of belonging.
She is the house of heaven on earth: A representative, resolute to reconcile. The Word within her accepts the receptive but challenges the heartless. She is the ecclesia, called out to serve the world: Calling out… to welcome in. Blood-washed and armed with testimony, the cross on her lips liberates the chained and offends the unchanging. Like her Master she is pursued and persecuted. Yet she rises with strength in her heart and fire in her soul.
She is the bride of Christ on earth; readying herself for the day when all eyes will be upon her. Prepared and presented before the Lord: The Lamb… for whom the world waits, who comes like the rising sun, majestic and magnificent beyond description, while she dazzles with reflected glory. Spotless, perfect and mature, she bows low to cast her crowns and passionately worship Him. Her temporal focus becomes her eternal gaze. She is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s what it means to be church.
So, rejoice… but rejoice in the Lord. Today is not about us. Today is about the God of Creation, who sends forth his Spirit daily, so that the face of the earth may be renewed, and the New Jerusalem made a reality. It’s about God’s overarching plan to bring help the needy, strength to the weak, and hope to the hope-less. And yes, we’re all part of that, but we’re only bearers of the Word. Jesus is the Word and it’s in his name we gather and are sent forth. Happy Birthday, Church!
[1] Anderson, Kemper. “What if it really is all about us?” Ash Wednesday homily at St. James’ Episcopal Church, Cedartown, Georgia. February 22, 2023.
[2] Fergusson, Robert. “The Church of our Lord Jesus Christ [A POEM].” Hillsong.com. https://hillsong.com/collected/blog/2013/02/the-church-of-the-lord-jesus-christ-a-poem/#.WwLrbS-ZOnE (accessed May 22, 2023.
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
Well, National Police Week has come and gone. Perhaps you noticed. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy proclaimed May 15th as National Peace Officers’ Memorial Day and the calendar week in which May 15th falls, as National Police Week. I made my annual pilgrimage to visit the Memorial Wall at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center (GPSTC) in Forsyth (just this side of Macon) this past Friday. The Wall is dedicated to all of the Georgia police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians who have lost their lives in the line of duty from 1794 to present. There are currently in the neighborhood of 900 names on that wall.
I had a good friend and colleague named Steven R. Medeiros who was killed in the line of duty on September 26, 2008. Steve was a big man… and a cop’s cop… who took his oath to serve and protect very seriously. Policing wasn’t just a job for Steve, it was his ethos… his life. And not only was he dedicated to the public he served, he was also dedicated to his brothers and sisters in uniform. Steve held the rank of “staff sergeant” on the force, which meant that he reported directly to the Chief of Police on matters pertaining to the needs and concerns of rank-and-file members of the Department… kind of like a “Senior Enlisted Advisor” for those of y’all with military backgrounds. Steve was a born mentor and was particularly good at coaching newer, less-experienced colleagues to help them become successful in their jobs.
And that was why, after having already worked his regular forty hours for the week, Steve put on his uniform that Friday morning, cranked up his beloved Harley Davidson Springer Softail, and headed down to the regional police academy firing range to help a bunch of recruits qualify with their sidearms. You see, that day was make-or-break for these new officers… who hailed from a variety of departments around the state. They had been at the range all week and were tired and sunburned and stressed out. They were about three weeks into the 11-week academy curriculum, and weapons handling and marksmanship was coming easier for some than for others. And if you failed firearms, you went home… bye, bye career… that was that. Steve had a reputation for being able to help tentative students become safe, accurate shooters. In fact, he was the academy’s “go-to guy” in these sorts of situations. So, when he got the call, off to the range he went, on his day off, to help a bunch of newbies make the grade.
But Steve never made it to the firing range that day. And he never made it home, either. We’ll never know what caused the crash. Steve was a careful rider… he wasn’t speeding… the road was familiar to him… and dry. I won’t go into detail about how we made the case that Steve’s death should be considered a line-of-duty death… as opposed to simply being a traffic accident on the way to work. The only thing that matters is that the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Foundation (NLEOMF) in Washington, DC agreed, and Steve’s name was etched into the marble on that memorial wall in 2009. Georgia was harder to convince, however, and it wasn’t ‘til 2017 that Steve’s name was placed on the statememorial… Steve’s, and those of fifteen others. I remember the ceremony: the Governor said a few words… proclamations were presented to surviving family members… bagpipes played, bells tolled and a 21-gun salute was rendered. Steve would have been pleased, I think.
It’s a good time of year for storytelling… and for remembering. Monday week is Memorial Day. Y’all may know that this national holiday got its start as “Decoration Day,” back in 1868… an occasion to honor UnionCivil War dead. Over time, the day of remembrance was expanded to include all Americans who have died in military service. So, only ninety-four years after the establishment of Decoration Day, the Country had to set aside a particular day to remember law enforcement officers… Peace Officers… who gave their last full measure of devotion in the cause of safety and protection for neighbors. It sometimes grates on me when folks conflate Memorial Day with Veterans’ Day. It’s no wonder, I suppose… in both cases, we fly the flag, hang out the red, white and blue bunting, eat barbeque and buy stuff on sale. When people go out of their way to thank me for my service on Memorial Day, I normally acknowledge the compliment… but then add, “I didn’t do much.” The ultimate sacrifice was never required of me… and I’m OK with that. There are many ways to serve. I remember back in my early days in the Coast Guard, looking at all of the ribbons and medals service members wore on their uniforms, wondering what they were all for… and whether I’d ever have as many. Over the intervening years, I learned a lot about military decorations… and I earned a few. But there’s one medal… at the very top of the list… that no one ever wants to receive: the one with a gold or bronze five-pointed star, suspended on a light blue neck ribbon with thirteen stars at the center: The Medal of Honor. Those are usually given posthumously.
So, another story: Douglas Munro grew up in the small town of Cle Elum, in Washington state. He enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1939 and served on the Cutter Spencer, home-ported in New York City. Munro worked his way up through the ranks pretty quickly, pinning on his first set of crows (that is, earning the rank of Petty Officer 3rd Class) within a year. After Pearl Harbor, Munro continued his advancement to 2nd and then 1stClass Petty Officer, and eventually found himself driving 36-foot Higgins Boats (landing craft) in the WWII Pacific Theater of Operations. And it was during the Battle of Guadalcanal that Signalman 1st Class Douglas Albert Munro earned the medal that no one ever wants to receive. The date was September 27, 1942 and the invasion of Guadalcanal was well underway. Munro was transporting a detachment of Marines to their assigned landing point on the island when he passed a beachhead, thought to have been secured, and noticed an entire battalion of Marines pinned down by enemy fire and in immediate danger of being overrun. After offloading his current boatload of Marines, Munro returned to see if he could help the ones who were in trouble. Here is his Medal citation:
“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as Officer-in-Charge of a group of Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a Battalion of Marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave up his life in defense of his country.”
Most Medal of Honor citations portray similarly heroic behavior. And of the 3,530 Medals awarded to date, around 60% have been presented to a widow… or parent… or child. And for those recipients who are able to receive their award in person, the occasion is a somber one. The cost is almost too much to bear. No one wants to receive this medal.
Douglas Munro had a close childhood friend named Mike Cooley. The two had grown up together in Cle Elum… attended the same elementary and high school… and worked some of the same odd jobs around town as teenagers. Doug joined the Coast Guard to save lives. Mike served his country as a Combat Engineer in the Army. Like I said, there are many ways to serve. It would be twenty-five years before Cooley returned home to Cle Elum to find that the town’s only Medal of Honor recipient didn’t have an American flag flying over his grave. So, he got one… and put up a pole… and for thirty years Mike Cooley made sure that that flag stayed up and flying… everyday… rain or shine. Since the pole wasn’t lighted, he would walk from his home to Doug’s burial site and back… six miles round-trip… in the morning and at sundown… winter, spring, summer and fall… every single day… for thirty years. As Mike got older and creakier, his daughter would drive him when the weather was bad… or when he was feeling under-the-weather. But Mike never complained. Eventually, the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers’ Association got wind of the situation and put up a new lighted flagpole… and took over responsibility for maintaining it… as was only proper. But it was Mike Cooley who took it upon himself to serve as his dear friend’s personal honor guard until a more permanent regimen could be established. And that, my friends is, in and of itself, a legacy of service.
Mike Cooley died on July 20, 1999, just a few weeks shy of the dedication of the new and improved flagpole at Douglas Munro’s gravesite. So close… some might say. If Mike had only been able to hold on a little longer… he would have known that others had stepped up to continue the mission he had performed so faithfully over the course of three decades. But here’s the thing… I think he knows! I think he knows… and I think that he and Doug are together in Paradise at this moment, along with Steve Medeiros and a host of our other dearly-departed, listening to me tell their stories… maybe smiling a little, but also a little sad because they know that there’s so much we don’t know… can’t know… not yet… not on this side of the grave. We try to be dutiful, hopeful Christians… we gather as Church for worship… we read and ponder Scripture. We want to believe Jesus when he tells us that he loves us… and will not leave us orphaned (John 14:18) and that he is going to prepare a place for us with our Father in Heaven (John 14:3). But as much as we try to be faithful followers of the Way of Jesus Messiah, our fears sometimes get the best of us, don’t they? We can only see through a mirror, dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12)… and we allow ourselves to become distracted by the doubts and uncertainties of daily living. We forget that this world is not our home…that this life is not Life. We’re pilgrims on a journey… a journey with a purpose, to be sure… fleeting on one hand, yet which can be oh, so difficult at times. Beset by war, and pestilence and depravity of spirit, we might be forgiven for sometimes losing our way. And we are forgiven, you know.
As the writer of 1 Peter tells us, we are undergoing a fiery ordeal… we are being tested. This testing is not from God… but God will be with us throughout the ordeal, strengthening and upholding us… if we’ll let him. It’s tough to let go and simply trust God, isn’t it? But we must humble ourselves today so that, on that day of days, when we go home to our Father in Heaven, we may all be exalted. Yeah, I know… sometimes it seems like God is taking his sweet time, doesn’t it? I’m with you on that. But this I also know… and I know it in the very fabric of my being: everything is going to be OK. I can’t tell you precisely what OK looks like in God’s plan for our salvation, only that it will be good, and better than good… it will be sublime… more wonderful than we could ever ask for or imagine. After our suffering has run its course, “in the blink of an eye, a trumpet will sound… and the dead will be raised imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:52)… and we will all be changed from glory into glory (2 Corinthians 3:18)… and the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory in Christ, will restore, support, strengthen and establish us…” unto the end of ages (1 Peter 5:10). This is the home to which God is calling you. So, stay the course. Steve and Doug and Mike and a host of others… you know their names… are all watching over us… cheering us on, every day… awaiting the day of our homecoming.
Acts 17:22-31
So… I’ve been to the Areopagus, which stands at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece… a few times. So many times, in fact, that I’ve been heard to utter petulantly on a couple of occasions: “What? The Parthenon… again? Some of y’all may know that Philippa’s family is from Greece, and for many years, her folks had a country house in the Peloponnese where they’d spend their summers each year. Honey and I would visit every other summer, usually for two or three weeks at a time. It was pretty cool… staying in this house, designed by her engineer dad, which sat on the side of a mountain—smack dab in the middle of a grove of olive trees—overlooking the Gulf of Corinth. Actually, it was more than cool… it was spectacular, and I’ll always treasure the memories.
But here’s the thing: over the course of nearly twenty years, and nine or ten trips to Greece, we would serve as tour guides to a variety of family members and friends—many of whom had never been before, and who might not go again—so a lot of sightseeing had to be crammed into each of these visits. And, of course, most folks wanted to visit the same short list of “places you have to see when you go to Greece” in order to get a real feel for the country. And so, we visited all of the same museums and archeological sites over and over… year after year. I doubt there were more than a couple of summers when Philippa and I were truly on our own to go off and explore lesser-known places or just laze around the house and the beach, soaking in copious rays from the warm Mediterranean sun. Hence, my whining about having to visit the Acropolis and the Parthenon again and again. And, by the way, the Acropolis is a pretty amazing place. But what really made each visit unique and memorable were the people we were shepherding around… who were all experiencing Greece for the first time. That made it all worthwhile.
I particularly remember surprising my mother with a trip to Greece during one of those summers. Though she had taught Greek literature to countless high school and college students over the years, she herself had never been abroad. Being the bookish person that she was, she might have told you that she had “experienced the world through the printed word… and didn’t need to get on an airplane to be a tourist.” Part of it was the cost of airfare, I’m sure, and part of it was her not wanting to subject herself to the rigors and vulnerabilities of international travel. But we took her with us one summer and, though she was in her mid-seventies by that time, she had a blast. We did a lot of stuff the day we were in Athens, and by the time we got to the Acropolis, she was pretty tired… and hot… and beginning to get dehydrated. But she was game, nonetheless. And as much as she was looking forward to seeing the Parthenon, she especially wanted to stand on the Areopagus… where Paul had stood when he addressed the Athenians back in the day. The Areopagus is a rock outcropping that towers over the Agora, or central meeting place, of ancient Athens. And like many rock formations on or around the Acropolis, the Areopagus is composed almost entirely of white marble. It’s an absolutely remarkable feature… no wonder philosophers and politicians would routinely stand in front of or atop it to deliver their orations. Stairs had been cut in the marble in antiquity to aid people in ascending to the top; but weather and use had worn them down to a series of steep, undulating humps… very polished and slippery. And you didn’t want to fall. And there was Mom, standing at the bottom… looking up. So hopeful… and yet so afraid. This could be a dream come true, or just another place she’d simply read about. So, we got her up there… by hook and by crook. It wasn’t elegant—in fact, I had to put my hand in some awkward places on her anatomy… especially on the way down. But we got her safely to the top, and she got to stand where the Apostle had stood as he preached to the Athenians about “the unknown God.”
Paul was about halfway through his second missionary journey (~49-52 AD) when he had a bit of a dust up with some Synagogue leaders in Berea (in Macedonia) who didn’t appreciate the way he was gadding about their bailiwick, converting their congregants to the Gospel of Christ. So, Paul took ship for Athens, asking Timothy and Silas to join him there when they could. Paul spent his time there preaching the Gospel to any Athenian who would listen. Some were Jews and other people of faith, while others were a harder sell: Epicureans (followers of Epicurus) who believed the highest aim of humankind is to seek a pleasant life… and Stoics who believed that happiness depended upon bringing oneself into harmony with the universe. Perhaps these philosophies sound familiar to you in the present day and age. But, despite the challenges, Paul’s preaching began to gain some traction, and it wasn’t long before he was invited to speak to a larger audience at the Areopagus. And he used the example of an altar he had seen elsewhere in the City, dedicated to “an unknown god,” as his entrée for teaching the crowd about the real God… one who can be known, and who desires to be known. Mom was devout… a person of great faith, who had spent her life living into the Gospel of Christ in thought, word and deed. And there was something about that marble outcropping that brought it all home for her. And I can tell you that simply being there with her somehow deepened my faith, as well.
How many of you have friends and relations who you might think of as modern-day Epicureans and Stoics? Good people, who do no harm—and yet whose lives seem to be consumed by the mundane: working… buying stuff… raising kids (for better or for worse)… working more, to buy more stuff… seeking solace in yoga, or golf, or the latest self-help scheme (or booze, or drugs) when what they’re really hungry for is knowledge and understanding of the “unknown god” who created the Universe from dust… and within whom we live and move and have our being? Paul spoke to the Athenians of idols… and judgment… and the need for repentance. And not all of them listened… but some did. So, here’s my question to you: how are you working to spread the Gospel of Christ to a world in great need of hope? Spreading the Gospel: the Good News…εὐαγγέλιον (evangelion)… evangelism!
It’s sometimes said that Episcopalians are really not all that much into evangelism. I wonder why that is? Maybe we’re jealous of our dignity. We want people to think well of us. We are God’s “frozen chosen,” after all. And some of our more evangelical brothers and sisters can come across as a little “over-zealous” at times. But I’m pretty sure that many folks in Paul’s day thought that his ministry was “over the top” most of the time! Jesus’ too… and, like Jesus, Paul ended up being executed on that account. But Paul never soft-pedaled his faith. He always lived it out loud! to the annoyance of many. And yet, boy oh boy, was he effective. But you don’t need to travel the world… or be off-putting to people to be an evangelist. All you need to do is obey the Holy Spirit’s calling, and “bloom where you are planted.” And make no mistake: you are planted in the middle of God’s vineyard. You were created to engage the Epicureans and Stoics in your lives and offer them the chance to know, and be in relationship with, God Almighty through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’m assuming y’all are here in the pews today because you believe in the Gospel of Christ: the Good News of Grace and Salvation, and of the coming Kingdom. And if the Gospel is true, then it’s everything. And if it’s not, then I wonder if we might as well just (press stop and) go about our business. In fact, I’m not sure we can call ourselves Christians and not be evangelists, to one degree or another. It’s not enough to be a good person. It’s a start, but it’s not enough. We have to begin living our lives for something greater than our selves. That’s what it means to be a priesthood of all believers (cf. 1 Peter 2:5). And we’ve been called to be just that! When we begin living into the Gospel each day—every day—loving and serving God and our neighbor in thought, word and deed—only then will we begin to understand what it truly means to be Children of God. And I figure we have all of eternity to get that figured out… but wouldn’t it be a good thing to get started on it sooner rather than later?
1 Peter 2:2-10
When I think of stone, I think of my seminary alma mater, Sewanee, (a.k.a. “the Mothership”) on top of Monteagle in Tennessee. Honey and I try to visit The Mountain each Fall for the Seminary Homecoming and Alumni Lectures, just to soak in the ambiance. Sewanee is a pretty amazing place. Jointly owned and operated by twenty-eight southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church, Sewanee was founded just prior to the Civil War, destroyed by the Union Army as it moved through Tennessee, and then rebuilt after hostilities had ended. Sewanee’s founders intended it to be at least the academic equivalent of the big Ivy League schools in the northeastern U.S. and the undisputed hub of higher education below the Mason Dixon Line, hence it’s more formal name: The University of the South. And one of the first stipulations made by Sewanee’s chief benefactors was that the university should always house an Episcopal Theological Seminary. Today, Sewanee remains a highly regarded liberal arts university (the only one such owned/operated by the Episcopal Church), enrolling around eighteen hundred students, including nearly one hundred seminarians in various theological degree programs.
As you pass between the stone pillars marking the boundary of “The Domain” you feel as if you’ve travelled through time—and across the Pond—to England. The campus’ architecture is predominately Gothic, with towers and battlements… pointed arches and stained-glass windows… stone crosses and finials… and shaded courtyard gardens. A bell tower chimes on the quarter-hour and you’ll often see students and faculty members going about their business wearing black academic gowns over their street clothes. It’s cooler up on top of the Mountain than it is in the valley… and, as is famously portrayed on t-shirts in the University Bookstore, “Fog Happens” up in Sewanee. It really is another world… almost as if you’d been magically transported to Oxford or Cambridge in the late nineteenth century. I’ve heard people describe Sewanee as an “Anglican Theme Park,” and I guess it is. There are no less than five Episcopal churches within a couple of miles of each other, they’re on top of the Mountain. And everything (churches, academic buildings, even the frat houses) is made of stone. Local stone. Big blocks of it. Solid… dependable… permanent. I’m not going to lie to you, the massive, soaring, enduring architecture of Sewanee played a part in my call to ordained ministry back in the early 1980s. I wanted to be part of that. Design is meant to inspire, after all.
I love the metaphor in the Epistle today of the Messiah being “the stone rejected by mortals . . . by the builders” (1 Peter 2:7, cf. Psalm 118:21-24). And not just any stone… a living stone! Better than the best! And yet, the builders couldn’t figure out a way to incorporate this living stone into their design. It seems this living stone was the wrong size… or the wrong shape… it just didn’t fit their temporal vision of how the world should work. “Love your enemies?” (Matthew 5:43-48) Yeah, right! “Do unto others as you would have them unto to you?” (Matthew 7:12) That’s risky!“Don’t judge?” (Matthew 7:1-5) Well… sometimes folks need judgin’! And before we get all high and mighty thinking how much better we are than those “builders,” back in St. Peter’s day, we should ask ourselves this question: How many times a week… or a day… do we have the opportunity to build our lives upon the “living cornerstone” of the Way of Jesus Messiah, perfect and indestructible… but choose, instead, a softer and less challenging foundation… one easier to adapt to our vision of how we think the world should work? How often do we set aside The Way of Jesus in favor of our own sensibilities?
But that’s the worst of it… not by a long shot! Because it’s not just about our salvation. We’re talking about the salvation of the world, about the coming Kingdom of God. If you’re a believer… if you’re a follower of the Way, then you’ve got to know that it doesn’t all begin and end with you.You’re supposed to be a Kingdom bringer. You’ve probably heard me say that we—all of us—here, collectively, constitute a priesthood of all believers. And that’s what the author of 1 Peter is saying in the Epistle today. The Church… and make no mistake, we are the church… exists to be a “spiritual house,” and a holy priesthood… to do our part to help bring about God’s plan for the salvation of the world. As the Body of Christ we, ourselves, were made to be living stones… with all the qualities of earthly stone: solid… dependable… permanent… but also filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit… as we live into the vocation we profess in our Baptismal vows… proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, seeking to serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, striving for justice and peace among people and respecting the dignity of every human being. Are we up to that? We better be… it’s what we’re made for.
Living stones protect… and empower. Living stones nurture… and inspire. Living stones are grounded in the earth… and yet exist to reflect the light of God’s Kingdom. And that’s what you do, each in your own way—as parents and as children… friends and colleagues… brothers and sisters in Christ… and as Kingdom Bringers—when you’re truly doing your best to listen and be obedient to God’s will. You are living stones! You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and proclaimers of “the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into . . . marvelous light.”
You know what to do. So, go do it! Go forth and turn the world upside down in the name of Jesus Messiah.
Thanks be to God. Alleluia, alleluia!
John 10:1-10
Every time I hear this passage from John’s Gospel, it takes me back to my first semester in seminary and my New Testament class with Professor Paul Holloway. In my mind’s eye, I can see the whiteboard, crammed with timelines and bullet points and then, all by itself on one side of the board, a picture of a big, round sheep pen… a stick-figure sheep with a square head standing inside… and a stick-figure Jesus guarding the gate. Professor Holloway was (and is) a brilliant New Testament scholar, one of the foremost authorities on the Apostle Paul in the world. But he’ll tell you, himself, that he and many other New Testament scholars aren’t always quite sure about what to do with the Gospel of John. It’s very different from the Synoptic Gospels: Mathew, Mark and Luke. Methodist pastor and author Adam Hamilton summarizes the differences nicely, I think, when he observes that while the Synoptics tend to tell the story of the “what, when and where” of Jesus’ ministry, John’s account focuses on who Jesus was, and why he became Immanuel… God with us. And like many academics, Professor Holloway sometimes seemed to be more comfortable with the what, when and where.
In fact, there’s a lot of esoteric stuff in John’s Gospel… a lot of metaphors and “figures of speech” used by Jesus that sometimes leave us standing, scratching our heads… wondering what it’s all about. The language is beautiful and evocative to be sure: from, “In the beginning was the Word” to the “I am” sayings: I am the bread of life… the light of the world… the gate… the good shepherd… I am the resurrection and the life… the way the truth and the life… the vine, all the way through Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples, which takes up a full four chapters of John’s Gospel. It’s easy for readers to get caught up in the majesty and mystery of the text, only to find themselves wondering, in retrospect, “What does it all mean?” And Paul Holloway is as smart as they come… so if he’s a little mystified, then I guess it’s OK if we are too. Who knows… maybe Jesus wanted us to wrestle with his words a bit so that we could truly own them.
“I am the gate.” What mental picture does that bring to mind? When I get past the image of the “blockhead sheep,” I think first about the purpose of a gate… it’s designed to allow entrance to… and exit from… a space. A space necessarily delineated by some sort of barrier… some sort of perimeter. Sometimes the space is man-made, and sometimes the space simply “is.” Uh oh, there we go getting esoteric again. But following that logic, could we not say that gates, themselves, sometimes are manmade… and sometimes, they simply “are?” We don’t like it when things seem so random… so arbitrary. We want to know not only the what, when and where, but also the why. But the why can be complicated, can’t it? How many of you parents out there would be rich if you had a nickel for every time your children asked, often plaintively, “Why?” And how many of you occasionally were reduced to the response, “Because that’s just the way it is…” or, “Because I said so.” There was a perfectly good answer out there… but it was over your child’s head… or, perhaps, it just wouldn’t have been what s/he needed to hear in the moment.
“I am the gate.” Only four words… and yet, that simple statement gives us so much food for thought. “I AM.”In the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of God’s name (YHWH) is closely related to “I AM” (see Exo 3:14; 6:2; Deut 32:39; Isa 43:25; 48:12; 51:12; etc.). In the original Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX, or the Septuagint), most of these passages are translated with the expression ego eimi… I AM. In Exodus, Chapter 3, God said to Moses, “I AM… WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, I AM… has sent me to you” (v. 14). Later, in Chapter 6, God said to Moses, “I AM… the LORD” (v. 2). In Deuteronomy, God says, “See now that I, even I… AM… he, and there is no god beside me” (32:39a) and he tells the prophet Isaiah, “Hearken to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I… AM… he, I AM… the first, and I AM… the last” (48:12). So, many scholars and interpreters believe that the Johannine Jesus is making claims of divinity with many, if not all, of his “I AM…”statements.
“I AM… the gate.” We’ve talked a little about spaces, and gates to spaces, and we’ll come back to that in a minute. But first, I want to reflect a little about the word “T͟Hə,” as in “I am ‘T͟Hə’ gate.” Isn’t it funny how, despite the linguistic majesty of “I am,” and the possibilities that present themselves when we reflect upon gates and spaces, we sometimes tend to focus on “T͟Hə.” And, you know, the way we say the word informs our understanding of what it might mean. If we say “T͟Hē,” it connotes something singular… a one and only. “T͟Hə,” however, kind of means… it… that thing. I expect I’m not alone in struggling with the notion of good people… from other times and cultures… and from different faith traditions… somehow being excluded from God’s plan for the salvation of the world. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? That someone can be a creation of God, and beloved by God… a good citizen who lives righteously, loving neighbor as self, working to make the world a better place, and yet… who is somehow outside of Jesus’ sheepfold, and thus condemned for all eternity. Again, you parents out there… ask yourselves: “Is there anything that my child could do that would cause me to stop loving them… to cut them off forever?” I hope your answer to that question is “no.” The love between a parent and child runs deep… and Jesus spends a lot of time talking about the paramount importance of love in our interactions, not only with our friends and families, but even with our enemies! You’ll remember that some of Jesus’ final words from the cross, were, “Father forgive….” So, I hope that your love for your children is unconditional, and that you would never cast them aside… no matter what they did, or how badly they hurt you… or betrayed your trust. And if that is the way youfeel about your children, then how much more so does our Father in Heaven feel about his?
“I AM… the gate.” Without putting words in Jesus’ mouth, what if we were to expand that statement just a little bit, based on some of the other things we’ve heard Jesus say in John’s Gospel? What if we were to say, “There is a safe space… which is God’s presence and God’s salvation… and Jesus is standing at the entrance to show people the way in. He is calling you… hear his voice. He is lighting the way… open your eyes. He will give you everything you need, if you’ll only believe.”
Are there other ways in which people can find the path to God’s salvation? I don’t know. That’s kind of a mystery, isn’t it? Some of you may thinking ahead to next week’s Gospel passage from John in which Jesus tells his disciples: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (v. 14:6). That seems like a pretty definitive statement, doesn’t it? But remember this: Jesus’ statement was not made in the context of “Here’s what I want you to go out and preach to all the world.” No. Jesus was foreshadowing his own death on the cross and telling his disciples that everything was going to be OK in the end… that he was going to prepare a place for them with the Father… and that the Father was in him… and that he was in the Father. In short, Jesus’ words on that occasion were meant to provide comfort and reassurance for beloved friends who were about to go through something really hard. Or maybe I’m grasping at straws… I don’t know. But here’s one thing I do know: and that is that the overall trajectory of the Gospel is one of unconditional love and forgiveness and that, in the words of the Apostle Paul in his Letter to the Romans, “…neither death, nor life… nor angels, nor rulers… nor things present, nor things to come… nor powers, nor height… nor depth, nor anything else in all creation… will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:38-39). And that, my friends, is the message I’ll preach as long as I have breath and life in me.
John 20:19-31
Our Easter Sunday Gospel ended with Jesus revealing himself to Mary outside the empty tomb and telling her, “Don’t hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord;’ and she told them that he had said these things to her.” In fact, all of the Gospel accounts tell us of Jesus’ admonition to Mary to tell the disciples the good news of his resurrection. Luke informs us, however that, “the words seemed to [the disciples] an idle tale and they did not believe them” (24:11). All but Peter, perhaps. Neither Matthew nor Mark mentions the disciples’ reaction to Mary’s news at all.
It is now the evening of the day of the resurrection. The disciples are gathered “in a house . . .” we aren’t told whether or not it was the house in which they shared their last meal with Jesus a few days before. But it could have been. We do know that this faithful remnant of Jesus’ followers were frightened, fearing that they too might become victims of the mob that had put their Master to death. We can only imagine the diversity of feelings on display on that particular evening: confusion, fear, anger, resignation. There would likely have been rumors of hope, the empty tomb and Mary’s claimed encounter with their Teacher, their Rabbouni. The air was probably thick with emotion.
And then, from out of nowhere, “Peace be with you.” This was not a simple greeting; it was a statement of fact. Peace was, indeed, with them. Despite all of the locks and bars and the great stone that had separated death from life, Jesus was in their midst, bearing visible scars from his victory over the grave. And the disciples rejoiced… and rejoiced… and rejoiced, until Jesus stopped them: “Peace be with you.” This time it was a command. Certainly, some of the disciples recalled Jesus’ words spoken after the Last Supper, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me . . . Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy” (John 16:16, 20). Jesus had kept his promise.
“As the Father sent me, so I send you.” A breath… and then, an invocation: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” We will never know exactly what the breath of Jesus felt like… perhaps it was like God breathing life into the first human (Genesis 2:7). Perhaps it might be compared with the breath to which Ezekiel prophesied in the Valley of the Dry Bones: “Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live” (Ezekiel 37:9). Or perhaps it was more akin to the breath of Aslan, in C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian, comforting and fortifying young Susan Pevensie for the work she had been given to do:”You have listened to your fears… Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?”[1] What we do know is this: the Holy Spirit became present with the disciples as Jesus added specificity to their commission, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Viewed in the broader context, this commission is not limited to acts of granting absolution through penance, or even excommunication, but includes, in the words of Johannine scholar Raymond Brown, “partial manifestations of a much larger power, namely, the power to isolate, repel, and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus in his mission by the Father, and given in turn by Jesus through the Spirit to those whom he commissions.”[2] This is pretty heady stuff. In John’s Gospel, the time between Easter and Pentecost was compressed into a few brief, but eventful, hours. God had a plan and a mission for the disciples and there wasn’t a moment to lose.
And then there’s Thomas. This is the same Thomas who, when Jesus had announced his intention to go to Bethany to resurrect Lazarus said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). You’ll recall Bethany is near Jerusalem, where there was likely a price on Jesus’ head. In any case, Thomas missed Jesus’ first appearance, and had reacted to the news in much the same manner as had the disciples in Luke’s Gospel… “Unless I can see him with my own eyes and feel him with my own hands, I will not believe” (v. 25). Interestingly, there is no indication in Scripture that any of Thomas’ colleagues “tattled” on him. Some may have argued with him, while others simply rolled their eyes, looked at each other and said, “That’s just Thomas… bless his heart.” But no one said anything to Jesus, as far as we know. Yet, a week later, when the disciples were again gathered in the house, Jesus once more came among them, reminded them that Peace was with them… and then went straight to Thomas. We’ll never know exactly what was going through Thomas’ head (and heart) as Jesus met him face-to-face, offering him the very thing he needed to strengthen his faith. It appears, however, that Thomas no longer felt the need to touch, only to look upon the one who knew what he needed before he could ask. “My Lord and my God,” he said. Could there be a more powerful and complete confession of faith?
And despite all of Thomas’ frailties, Jesus loved him. After all, he had chosen him as one of the Twelve… chosen him to spread the Gospel. Jesus’ gentle admonishment: “Have you believed because you have seen me?” could have been addressed to any of the disciples. All (even Mary) had needed to see in order to believe. And they had. And now their pain had turned to joy, just as Jesus had promised. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is less a dig at Thomas, I think, than it is words of encouragement for us… we who are not able to meet Jesus face-to-face… not on this side of life, at any rate. “Blessed” (Gr. makarios), as it appears in this passage, means happy.[3] We’re not better than Thomas… we’re able to experience the joy of being in relationship with Christ because of Thomas, and the other disciples whom Jesus commissioned to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28-19). We owe a lot to Thomas.
The Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ is God’s promise of salvation to those who give in to his movement and purpose in their lives. And just as God had a plan and a mission for Thomas and that first generation of disciples, so also is there work for us to do in our own generation: to continue spreading the Good News of Jesus Messiah to a world torn by strife and in great need of hope. The challenge often seems as daunting for us as it must have been for those disciples huddled fearfully behind locked doors, tenuously awaiting the miracle promised by their Master. But just as Jesus recognized and provided for Thomas’ unspoken needs, so too will we receive whatever may be needful to accomplish the work God has given us to do.
Peace is with you, my brothers and sisters.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 148.
[2] Raymond Brown, The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Vol. 29A (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1044.
[3] Brown, 553, 1027.
John 20:1-18
It’s the climax of an old, old story that we heard in today’s Gospel lesson… a story that begins in the Garden, with the first man and the first woman, created from the dust of the cosmos, who betrayed the trust of their Creator, thus becoming exiles from God’s grace (Genesis 3). God didn’t do it to them… they did it to themselves. It’s the story of Noah, a righteous man among the wicked, and of God’s overarching plan to turn humanity from the error of its ways, back to the path of truth and right (Genesis 6-9:17). It’s the story of Father Abraham, whose descendants would someday outnumber the stars, but whose faithfulness and obedience to God nearly cost him his firstborn son (Genesis 22:1-18). It’s the story of God’s mighty hand parting the waters of the Red Sea so that the Children of Israel might escape the bondage that had ensnared them after they failed to trust God to provide for their needs (Exodus 14).
It’s a story of God’s promise to make us Holy in spite of our stubbornness—to quench our thirst with living water… and feed us with bread that never becomes stale (Isaiah 55:1-11). It’s the story of a God of abundant pardon, one who will cleanse us from our disbelief, if we’ll only allow it (Isaiah 4:2-6), and give us new hearts and new spirits (Ezekiel 36:24-28)… a God who can knit together dry bones lost in the valley of the shadow of death and give them breath and life and hope (Ezekiel 37:1-14). It’s the story of a God who will stop at nothing to restore the fortunes of his people (Zephaniah 3:12-20). And it’s the story of the power of death undone: Jesus and the empty tomb. God sent his own Son, his beloved, born of flesh and blood, to be with us and show us the way to eternal life… to show us that death is not the end.
Over the past three days we have relived the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We sat at table with him… and balked, when he tied a towel around his waist, and set about washing our feet… and told us to do the same for each other. We received the new commandment to love one another, just as Jesus loves us. While all of our good works and “causes” may be worthy, loving one another… and I mean really loving one another—is what Jesus requires of us ifwe truly want to be his followers. We partook of that first “Lord’s Supper,” and then slipped away into the night with Judas… to do the dirty work of betraying the Son of Man. We heard the cock crow and saw the look on Peter’s face as the implications of his denial swept over him. We joined the crowd in front of the judge’s bench and goaded Pilate: “Away with him! Crucify him!” And finally, we stood and watched as Jesus was stripped, scourged and nailed to a cross to die a slow and painful death. But Christ’s death wasn’t final, was it? It wasn’t the end. Mary Magdalene was the first to figure it out. The rest of the disciples also eventually came to believe, but it would take them a while—just as it sometimes takes us a while—to give in and believe God’s story of abundant pardon and relentless love.
And the story isn’t over yet. In Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle explains that, since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead also needed to come through a human being: “…for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (vv. 15:19-26). That’s the promise we’ve been given. But wait, there’s more! As St. John Chrysostom wrote in his ancient Paschal Homily, it doesn’t matter how long we’ve dragged our feet. It doesn’t matter how rebellious we’ve been, or the frequency of our failures… we are all invited to God’s feast… and to labor in his vineyard. And that, my brothers and sisters, is the Good News in a nutshell: the Word became flesh and lived among us to give us a foretaste of the joy that awaits us if we—so flawed, yet so beloved of God—can bring ourselves to give up the fear and rebelliousness that separates us from God, and give in to God’s will for our lives. Only then, we will begin to know the joys of God’s Kingdom… only then, will we begin to perceive the glory of the New Jerusalem.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve probably said it a hundred times: we, the Church, as the Body of Christ, are made to be “Kingdom bringers”—made to show the world what it means to love… and serve… like Jesus. And we have a lot of work to do. We live in a broken world that is in great need of hope. Scarcely a day goes by when we are not viscerally reminded of men’s capacity for violence and inhumanity towards one another, and towards the rest of God’s creation. But we mustn’t lose heart. We are an Easter people… and amid all the brokenness and the pain of this fallen world, we can fix our eyes on the stone rolled away from the empty tomb and hear the voice of the angel in Luke’s Gospel saying, “He. Is. Not. Here.” (vv. 24:1-12). Days like today to help us remember that this world is not our home—our home is with God—and that, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “…what can be seen is temporal, but what cannot be seen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). So, the story continues, and it won’t be over until Christ hands over the Kingdom to God the Father. We are all part of that story, and our work’s cut out for us. So, in the immortal words of the angel Gabriel in Tom Key’s musical Cotton Patch Gospel, we’d best, “Get moving!”
Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
Matthew 27:11-54
Oh, what a difference a week makes in the Biblical narrative of the life and ministry of Jesus Messiah… five days, really. We don’t know exactly how long it was between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a colt (Luke)… or a donkey (Mark)… or a colt and a donkey (Matthew), depending upon which Gospel account you’re reading… and the night of his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. It might have been five days… it might have been longer… it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is how Jesus spent these last days of his earthly ministry. The first thing Jesus did after arriving in Jerusalem was to go to the Temple and eject the merchants and money changers who had turned it from a house of prayer… into a house whose occupants preyed upon the unwary (Matthew 21:12-17).
Over the next several days, the chief priests and scribes tried, again and again, to trick Jesus into saying something blasphemous… something actionable, but he was too smart for them. Jesus spoke of the fate of fig trees that failed to bear fruit (Matthew 21:18-22), of vineyards and wicked tenants (vv. 21:33-46), of wedding banquets (vv. 22:1-14) and the stone that the builder rejected (v. 21:42). He reminded the Jewish elders of the difference between what belonged to God… and what belonged to Caesar… and of their responsibilities in each case (vv. 22:15-22). The people loved what Jesus was saying; the Scribes and the Pharisees… not so much. They eventually stopped harassing Jesus publicly, plotting instead to shut him up for good (vv. 26:1-5). Jesus knew what they were up to… but he never let up on them. If anything, he turned up the heat. He called them out as “hypocrites” and “blind guides” and “whitewashed tombs…” pretty from the outside, but filled with corruption (vv. 23:1-36). It almost seems as if Jesus was trying to force the hand of the Hebrew religious establishment… to make them come after him.
Jesus’ disciples were likely concerned… some more than others… especially when Jesus spoke of the destruction of the temple and the end times… of natural disasters, persecutions and sacrilege… and the coming of the Son of Man, “on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:1-31). He taught his disciples about the need for watchfulness (vv. 24:36-44)… and preparation… of wise and faithful slaves (vv. 24:45-51), foolish bridesmaids (vv. 25:1-13), the necessity paying forward the gifts with which we are entrusted (vv. 25:14-30)… and how we will be judged in this regard (vv. 25:31-46). Jesus did lots of teaching during these last days… time was short and there wasn’t a moment to lose. It’s hard to know precisely when the situation escalated to the point of no return. All we know is that, at one point, Judas Iscariot approached the chief priests with an offer they couldn’t refuse… and they didn’t (vv. 26:14-16).
A last evening among friends: the institution of that most wonderful of meals: the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26-30)… some final teachings about servanthood… and love… and betrayal (cf. John 13). And then Jesus found himself alone with his father in the gloom of Gethsemane, praying while the disciples slept, oblivious to the Passion drama that was beginning to unfold around them (Matthew 26:36-46). A kiss, a shriek of pain… a final healing (Luke)… and then Jesus was led away and brought before the chief priests, bound, beaten, reviled as a trophy of their unbelief and, finally, turned over to the Roman Governor of Judea, the only man in the region with the authority to order his summary execution (vv. 26:47—27:2).
So here we are, immersed in the same Passion drama as were Jesus’ disciples two millennia ago. Of course, we have a bit of an advantage over them because we know how the story turns out. But we also know about the suffering and degradation that must take place before the final victory is won. In a way, I envy the disciples their unknowing. Because with the unknowing comes a certain innocence… how could they have known that all of Jesus’ suffering was for them? How could they have understood the implications of such a gift, freely given… and their responsibility as recipients of that grace: to walk by faith… and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:1-10).
I’m still not sure we really get it. And I guess we don’t need to really get it… it’s a mystery after all. But we need to try. I posed the question on Ash Wednesday: “What if it really is all about us?” What if God sent the Messiah, the Christ, to show us the way to become the creatures God intends us to be? And not just collectively… but each of us! What if God is every bit as concerned about us…the greatest and the least of us… individually… as he is about nations and ecology and the Church with a capital “C.” And how should that inform the way we live our lives… this day and every day? “This is my body… this is my blood, which was given for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins…” to bring about your salvation, your atonement (at-one-ment) with your Creator….
But even if it is all about us, this week, we are called to walk with Jesus on the road marked with suffering… on the road of his Passion, as he pours out his Body and Blood to make our Salvation possible. And we are not innocent. Unlike the disciples, we do not have the benefit of “plausible deniability.” We know we’re all culpable in Jesus’ death. We know all this is happening because of us. And for us. And we really don’t know the end of the story, do we? Because the end of the story is us. The end of the story is how we pay forward the gifts with which we’ve been entrusted. We are saved by grace, apprehended (taken hold of) through faith. Think about that over the next five days of Holy Week as we relive, together, the story of the betrayal and execution of Jesus’ Messiah.
John 11:1-44
As I studied our Gospel lesson this week, I noticed an interesting parallel with last week’s passage from John about Jesus putting healing mud on the eyes of the blind man near the Pool of Siloam. When his disciples asked him whose sin had led to the man being born blind, Jesus responded, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (v. 9:3). OK, so the blind man was “taking one for the team,” if you will. It all worked out for him in the end… there are a lot of worse outcomes than getting to meet and be healed by the Savior and Redeemer of the world, I suppose. But to born blind… and live one’s entire life without being able to see, or to work outside of begging, or to marry and raise a family… all so that “God’s works might be revealed in him.” Dang! Sounds kind of harsh… or is it just me? And then we come to today’s passage, when Jesus learned that his good friend Lazarus was “low-sick” (for those of y’all that may not be from around here, low-sick means really, really sick), Jesus seems to almost brush off the bad news: “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (v. 11:4). Dang… again! And Jesus’ lack of urgency seemed to be reflected in the fact that it took him two whole days to stir himself to go to Lazarus’ bedside. By which time it was too late. Or was it?
Can you imagine how annoyed Lazarus must have been when Jesus called him back from the afterlife? He seems to have been a good man who cared about friends and family, especially his sisters Martha and Mary with whom he lived, but having to pass through the agony of mortal illness and death only to be summarily ripped from the Paradise of God to return to the travails of earthly life… really? And then there was the why. Lazarus’ resurrection was necessary to counter peoples’ persistent uncertainty about whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. It had only been a few weeks since Jesus had had to leave Jerusalem for his own safety after a confrontation with the Scribes and Pharisees over the healing of the blind man from last week’s Gospel lesson (on the Sabbath, God forbid!), finally telling them in parting, and in no uncertain terms, that he was doing the work of his Father and that, in fact, the Father and he were one! About the time the local posse broke out the handcuffs to arrest him, Jesus “went away” across the Jordan River, back to the place where John had been baptizing, near the Sea of Galilee, about 50 miles away, where people seemed more receptive to his teaching (John 10:22-40). It was not yet his time.
But it was soon to be Lazarus’ time. Lazarus and his sisters lived in Bethany, a village just outside of Jerusalem and Jesus hadn’t seen them for a while. So, a couple of days after “tut-tutting” Lazarus’ predicament, Jesus did an about face and told his disciples to saddle up. They were headed back into the hornets’ nest that was Jerusalem. Lazarus was “asleep,” and Jesus was going to “wake him up.” Riiiiiight…. And then Jesus clarified that Lazarus was indeed temporally dead, but that they needed to go to him anyway. It must have been so confusing for the disciples! As usual, they didn’t really get it, but they were game to follow wherever Jesus might lead, even if it meant putting themselves in harm’s way. By the time Jesus and his disciples arrived on the scene, Lazarus was not only dead, but he had been in the tomb for four days. What is the significance of four days, you may ask? I will tell you. In Jewish tradition, the soul of a departed person was thought to linger in the vicinity of the body of the deceased for up to three days after death on the off chance it might somehow be reunified with its earthly host. Jesus knew that, in order to achieve God’s purposes, people would have to know that Lazarus’ return to the land of the living wasn’t simply “resuscitation,” it had to be resurrection.
But what of the human toll? Mary and Martha, both distraught from having lost their beloved sibling… their protector… likely their primary breadwinner… met Jesus on the road and reproached him saying, “If you had been here, he would not have died.” Their suffering was palpable… and tears are contagious. Even though Jesus trusted God’s overarching purpose and was committed to doing his Father’s will, it grieved him beyond measure that the unbelief of God’s people would require such a sacrifice from his friends. And Jesus wept. Not tears of sadness, I think—tears of anger… and resolve. There’s nothing wrong with being sad when people we care about are sad, but it’s quite another thing to actually share empathically in their suffering. That only happens when we have skin in the game… and Jesus had skin in this game. He knew these people. He loved this family, and he shared the full measure of their grief. But he also knew that the only real way to banish the sadness and pain of this temporal world — once and for all — was to do whatever was necessary to hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom. Jesus was on a mission: a mission to change people’s understanding about their relationship with God. Other friends of Mary and Martha had come to console them in their loss. Jesus came not to console them, but to strengthen their belief. “I am the resurrection,” Jesus said. If you live in me… if you believe in me, you’ll understand that the life you live here on earth isn’t really life… and the death you die here on earth isn’t really death… it’s kind of like falling asleep. And then Jesus showed them exactly what that looked like when he raised Lazarus from the dead. And he would show them again, in due course, through his own resurrection.
So, everything worked out for Lazarus in the end, just as it did for the blind man in last week’s Gospel… but what a shame it is that all of this suffering had to take place. All because of our unbelief. Jesus wept… which means that God wept. God wept for Lazarus. And God weeps for us. Because God knows us! God’s got skin in this game. If you’re like me, you wonder sometimes why bad things happen to good people… or at least to people who don’t seem to have done anything to merit the level and intensity of suffering that has overtaken them. And I wish I could pull a rabbit out of a hat and answer these questions for you… but I can’t. It’s way over my head. But here’s what I do know: God loves us and wants us to be happy in this life. But simply “being happy” is not the purpose for which we were created. There’s more to it than that… a lot more. We were created to “proclaim, by word and example, the Good News of God in Christ… to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves… and to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.”
If these words sound familiar to you, it’s because they’re from our Baptismal Covenant in which we promise, essentially, to do the best we can to be the hands and feet of Christ on earth (BCP 305). We brush up on these promises from time to time because they remind us why we’re here. And when we experience suffering in this life, whether self-inflicted or perhaps as part of a larger mystery that is beyond our comprehension, we can take comfort in knowing that God is with us. God became Immanuel… in the person of Jesus Christ — fully divine, and yet fully human — because, in the words of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, “that which he has not assumed… he cannot heal.”[1] God became us… in order to heal us. God created us… and will redeem and sanctify us, if we’ll listen… and believe… and take up the hard, yet oh so rewarding, work of living into our Baptismal Covenant. Only by giving into God’s movement and purpose in our lives will we find perfect healing… and eternal life. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ shows us that God has gone “all in” to save us from the predations of the Evil One… and from our selves. God has left everything on the field. So, now it’s all on us to listen… believe… and act!
[1] Gregory of Nazianzus, “Epistle 101”
John 9:1-41
I want you to close your eyes for a minute… and keep them closed. [For those of you not physically present in the pews this morning, you’ll just have to imagine…]
It’s been noted that when we lose one of our senses, the others often become more acute. Sensory compensation, it’s called. With your eyes closed, I wonder if you become more aware of the way the Parish Nave smells: old wood… the smell of the candles, books… and perhaps a hint of mustiness from carpet and fabrics. If you listen very carefully, underneath the sound of the traffic on West Avenue, you might hear the sound of birds, or of the wind as it rustles through the branches of trees and shrubs and against the windows of the building. You might hear creaks in the wooden pews when you or one of your neighbors changes position… or the sound of your own breathing. When we’re not “taking in data” with our eyes, we might become more conscious of how it feels to sit… of the little aches and pains in our back and legs… some neck stiffness, perhaps… the way it feels when we breathe in and out… or the beating of our hearts. What other of our senses come to the forefront when we are not distracted by physical seeing, I wonder?
I want you to keep your eyes closed for just a couple more minutes as we change our venue just a bit. I want you to join me on a short pilgrimage to a different place and time… say, Jerusalem, in around 38 AD, nearly two-thousand years ago. A man, who had been blind from birth, we’ll call him Elias, is sitting in the shade of the City wall beside one of the gates. His hand is outstretched for alms. He has no other means of support… he lives in the home of his parents, but they rely on the money he receives through begging to buy his food. It’s a meager existence. Folks have become accustomed to seeing Elias sitting outside this gate with his hand out, all day, every day for years. It’s what he does. He hears the incessant hustle and bustle of the people and carts as they go about their business: the thud of hooves, the creak and squeak of harness and wheels, and occasionally little snatches of conversation about personal matters, local politics and the like. None of it really concerns him. Elias lives in a different world… a world of sometimes-inexplicable noise and meaningless conversation accompanied by the persistent smell of sweat and dung. He leans back against the cool stone, eyes closed, swatting at the occasional fly as it tickles his skin, waiting for the feel of the next coin in his palm.
Suddenly, Elias senses a nearby presence and extends his hand a little further. One asks a question… and another answers… and the man realizes that the second speaker must be the itinerant Rabbi, Jesus (his name had been coming up in a lot of conversations recently), and that the topic was blindness, Elias’ blindness in particular… and sin. And, as usual, Elias’ first inclination was to simply tune out the exchange with its references to work and light… and day and night. What was any of that to him, after all? But then, he heard a rustle of fabric and the sound of someone stooping… and spitting… and spitting again… and then, gentle fingers were touching his face… spreading a gritty paste over his eyelids. Elias was surprised that he didn’t feel the need to pull away. A passing breeze brought a sense of coolness and relief to Elias’ defective eyes as the man called Jesus spoke directly to him, telling him what he must do. And he did. And his whole world changed from a place of darkness and despair to one of infinite light and possibility.
You can open your eyes now.
There’s so much food for thought in this Gospel passage. We could talk about the healing itself. We could talk about the relationship between sin and infirmity… but Jesus has already told us that the blind man’s condition was not punishment for his or anyone else’s sin. That kind of “de-links” physical illness and infirmity from God’s wrath, doesn’t it? Jesus said it, and I’m good with it… how about you? Or we could talk about what constitutes appropriate Sabbath behavior. But we’ve been over that ground a few times before, haven’t we? Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus was taking a lot of heat for healing a lame man on the Sabbath—that was the “Stand up, take your mat and walk” story, remember?—and Jesus responded, “My Father is still working, and I also am working” (John 5:17). And on another day, after some Pharisees had been kvetching about Jesus’ disciples plucking grain to eat as they walked through a field one Sabbath, Jesus reminded them of a time in antiquity when the great King David and his friends had done something very similar and had been rewarded for it by God. Jesus schooled the Pharisees sternly, admonishing them that, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath (Mark 2:27-28). Y’all remember, right?
So, there’s a lot we could talk about. But what I think we need to talk about today is our own propensity towards “spiritual blindness.” The sort of blindness that has less to do with our eyes than it does with our hearts. You see, the man in our Gospel story today, the one I called Elias, was not only physically blind, he was blind to all of the possibilities around him. He saw himself as broken and limited and unable to change his circumstances. And he had plenty of reason to be despondent: he was an invalid, after all… he would never be able to support himself… he would never have a wife and children. He would live lonely and alone all his days and die in like manner. And, in accordance with religious teachings of the time, either he or his parents somehow deserved this punishment. But Jesus reached out and touched him and healed him, relieved him of his burden of guilt and shame and gave him new life. Unexpectedly, Elias’ physical blindness became an entrée to a world of light and life lived in Jesus Messiah. And just as, when we closed our eyes a few minutes ago, and found ourselves drawn into closer dependence on our other physical senses: hearing, smell, touch… I wonder if when we close our inward, spiritual eyes, the “eyes of our heart,” we find ourselves captivated by temptations revealed by our inward senses: the corrupt scent of power and money… the brazen cacophony of temporal fame and celebrity… the yearning for feelings of security, and comfort… and pride of position. These are all idols that we worship at our peril.
Jesus said, “I came into this world… so that those who do not see may see….” What if we turned from our idolatry of things temporal and opened the eyes of our hearts to see and hear Jesus speaking to us and telling us how we can become more fully-human… the creatures that God intends us to be? What if we could bring ourselves to trust and give in to the healing grace he offers—the peace that passes understanding—rather than relying on the “stuff” of this world to see us through the tough times? Sensory compensation is a two-edged sword, isn’t it? Though the eyes of our hearts may be shut tight, we think we have a handle on what’s going on around us, and in our lives… until we find ourselves in over our heads, confronted by an eventuality we never expected. And then we’re stuck. Kind of like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel story. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see… and those who do see may become blind.” “Surely, we are not blind, are we?” asked the Pharisees. And Jesus responded bluntly: “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” What did Jesus mean by that? How about this?
Jesus often spoke in metaphors, and used figures of speech to get his point across. You see it in his parables… you see it in the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus used Elias’ blindness, and his subsequent healing, to illustrate the connection between physical and spiritual blindness. In Elias’ case, physical blindness was his natural state. But Jesus reached out and offered Elias a way out… a way of hope, and Elias embraced grace and salvation and was saved. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were in full possession of their physical eyesight… but the eyes of their hearts were squeezed tightly shut, forcing them to rely on other inward senses that were leading them astray. And they were good with that. And what’s more, they were good with teaching other folks that that was OK. Jesus gave them every chance to repent of their stubbornness and unbelief and embrace the truth of his teaching, to no avail. The Pharisees were being willfully blind, and Jesus let them be wrong. If their blindness had been imposed on them, like it had been on Elias, if they hadn’t known any better, they’d have had some plausible deniability… an “out” if you will. But having the truth standing right there in front of them while they kept the eyes of their hearts tightly shut? It was all on them. As author and sometime philosopher Richard Bach once put it, “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.”
So, that’s my take. Jesus let the Pharisees be wrong… and he’ll let us be wrong too, if that’s the way we’re determined to play it. Jesus will never force grace and salvation on anyone. So, we have a choice to make. Will we be like the Pharisees and cling to our dogmas and blindness for dear life? Or will we take our cue from Elias and allow the eyes of our hearts to be opened by the one who can relieve us of our burdens of stubbornness and unbelief… and give us new life?
Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord.
John 3:1-17
Poor old Nicodemus. He was a supporter of those who followed the Way of Jesus. Though Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin religious council, instead of piling on with the rest of the Hebrew religious establishment in their efforts to shut Jesus up, he used his influence to help ensure that Jesus’ message got a fair hearing (cf. John 7:50). And it was Nicodemus who, along with another Pharisee named Joseph of Arimathea, anointed and buried Jesus’ body after his crucifixion (John 19:39). So, Nicodemus was more than just a smart, well-connected supporter of the Jesus movement, he was a friend. And yet, in our Gospel passage today, Jesus schools him as if he was a dunce sitting at the back of the class… finally asking him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Is that any sort of way to treat a friend?
And it’s not as if Jesus had been speaking all that plainly: “You must be born from above… the wind blows where it chooses,” he told Nicodemus, somewhat opaquely. Which seems to me to be pretty esoteric stuff, even for those of us with “20/20 hindsight,” and two-thousand years of Biblical commentary at our disposal. But Jesus was always hardest on those he was closest to. Just ask Peter. Nicodemus had come to Jesus by night—when he wouldn’t be seen by his friends and colleagues—so that he could pick Jesus’ brain in private about all of the “supernatural” stuff he was able to do. Nicodemus was a supporter, but he wasn’t yet a follower… and his un-spoken question was whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. I’m thinking that a simple “yes” or “no” would have suited Nicodemus just fine, but that wasn’t Jesus’ style. Jesus knew that folks are always looking for easy answers—but he also knew that it was better for people to first see and understand what was happening right in front of them… so that they could figure out the answers to their questions on their own. It’s a little like the time John the Baptizer sent messengers to Jesus asking if he was “the one…” or should he and his followers be waiting for someone else? To which Jesus responded, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matt 11:2-6). Reading between the lines, Jesus was telling John, “So, I’m not precisely the sort of Messiah you expected? Keep thinking on it… it’ll come to you.”
Nicodemus wanted to know if Jesus was the Messiah… and Jesus redirected him, telling him that he needed to be “born again.” What? And like the good Pharisee that he was, Nicodemus began to parse words with Jesus, “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” The writer of the Fourth Gospel doesn’t mention it in our passage today, but I suspect Jesus fixed Nicodemus with a steely gaze, and paused a minute before saying, “That’s not what I’m talking about, Nicodemus, and you know it. Or, at least, you should know it. You Children of Abraham get so wrapped up in the day-to-day drama of temporal, “fleshly” living, that you forget that you were made for much more. You forget that you were meant to be born of the Spirit… and to live your lives in – that – same – Spirit. You forget that your purpose on Earth is to learn how to rise above mundane things… to be born anew to life in the Father. That’s the way to eternal life, Nicodemus! You’re a teacher! You should know these things! Don’t get wrapped around the axle worrying about whether or not I’m the Messiah… that will become apparent soon enough. What you should be focused on is the fact that your time on earth is finite. And the past is prologue. Just as our ancestors got lost in the day-to-day exigencies of their forty-year wilderness sojourn and needed a reminder of God’s Providence to see them through (cf. Num 21:4-9), so too will God give the people of this age what they need to attain salvation… even if it is the life of his only Son.”
And then, after the end of our Gospel passage today, after the beautiful and comforting words from John 3:16 that folks like to put on bumper stickers and fridge magnets, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… not to condemn but to save…” Jesus provides a hard caveat in vv. 18-21. Here’s what he said: “Those who believe… are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light so that it may be clearly seenthat their deeds have been done in God.” Isn’t it funny how we often like to focus on the warm, fuzzy stuff Jesus said and keep the difficult, more challenging things at arm’s length? I think Jesus is telling us is that belief and action are intertwined. James, the brother of Jesus would later say, “Faith without works is dead! (James 2:17) Talk is cheap. We’ve got to walk the talk! We can’t say one thing and do another—or do nothing. That’s not the way of Jesus Messiah. Believing in Jesus means following the Way he has set before us. And it’s hard… at least it is a lot of the time. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that, “freedom is not free.” And salvation doesn’t come cheap either. Salvation only comes when we truly give in to God’s movement and purpose in our lives. Paying “lip service” won’t suffice. And when we give in, boom! Off we are sent to work in God’s vineyard. And Lord knows, there’s work to be done.
Talk should lead to action! I remember hearing Bishop Rob Wright once say: “You can talk about God . . . without actually seeing God’s movement. And that’s sad, because the word ‘movement’ is the best translation of the word ‘kingdom’ in Scripture. Movement… like the way Jesus described Spirit. A wind blowing. A wind growing – and causing growth. The temptation here is to think that by thinking a new thought, we’ll get a new life. WRONG. New thoughts… are the consequence… of new living. Jesus’ friend [Nicodemus] struggled to get this. The rut of his life… [was becoming his] grave. Born again is what Jesus prescribed. Born again can happen if we are willing to endure the labor pains.” Wise words from your Bishop.
My brothers and sisters, I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: God is in your corner… through the Spirit, God’s grace will lead you home to eternal life, but you must first believe… and then act. That’s what James, the brother of Jesus means when he calls us to be “doers of the Word” (James 1:22). Give in to the Jesus movement… which is God’s movement and purpose in the world. Give in to the coming Kingdom… and you will be born again.
Matthew 4:1-11
It’s a pretty familiar story, isn’t it? The story of how the Savior of the world was subjected to the perils of the wilderness: extreme isolation and exposure, hunger, thirst and exhaustion… and the insidious machinations of the Tempter, a fallen angel bent on diminishing or destroying him.
You know, there are a lot of New Testament scholars—very smart people—who grapple with this story: Jesus in all of his humanness beset by a supernatural and immensely powerful antagonist—the very personification of cosmic evil—and tested to the limits of his ability. And he comes out on top, but at great cost, it seems. Certainly, it was no cakewalk. What’s going on here? Why did it have to be so hard? This is Jesus we’re talking about… the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Was he just getting up to speed? Or was he going through a rough patch? Or did the fact that Jesus had taken on mortal flesh mean that he could, just possibly, have failed the test? And if you’re looking to me for definitive answers to these questions, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But I wonder…
You know, the purpose of the Gospels was to tell the story of Jesus’ years of “active ministry…” which has been defined, from the first century on, as the final three years of Jesus’ life in Galilee and Judea. Matthew and Luke add a birth narrative… and Luke recounts the story of boy Jesus in the Temple… but even in these accounts, there’s a big gap between the beginning of the story and its end. And so, we’re left to wonder just exactly what Jesus was up to during all of those intervening years. And I guess we’ll likely never know… certainly there are some apocryphal gospels in circulation that purport to fill in some of the blanks from those “lost years,” but they just don’t seem to have the “ring of truth” for many of us. And they apparently weren’t convincing enough to merit inclusion in the official canon of Christian Scripture established by the earliest Church fathers, who lived much closer to the time that all of this took place. So, we just don’t know as many of the details as we’d like… and maybe that’s on purpose. Maybe we don’t need to know. Because God is pretty good at giving us what we need, don’t you think?
In any case, here’s what I do know: if the Word was present at the beginning of everything… and if the Word was with God and the Word was God… and that same Word became flesh and lived among us for a season (John 1:1-18), and if an angel of God told Mary that she would be “overshadowed” by the Most High and conceive a son who would be holy… and be called the Son of God (Luke 1:26-38), then there was never a time when Jesus wasn’t God. There was never a time when Jesus didn’t know how to be God. If Jesus ever had any doubts about anything (and I’m not convinced he ever did), it was whether or not he would be able to get his message across to all of his thickheaded disciples… including us. Jesus had been going around all his life being Jesus… and God… all wrapped up into one inscrutable package. And I believe we’ll come to understand how all of that works one day, but not today.
So, we’re left with the question: what was up with Jesus being tempted by Satan in wilderness? We have been told that we, ourselves, will never be tested beyond our ability to withstand (1 Cor 10:13). And if Jesus was Immanuel: God with us, and I believe that he was, this is not a story about a test that could have taxed Jesus beyond his ability to endure. What then? As we read the Gospels, it’s pretty clear that Jesus was always working… always teaching… and preaching… and healing the sick in body, mind and spirit. Everything Jesus said and did had a purpose. And with that in mind, I propose that, although the themes of wilderness and temptation loom large in today’s Gospel passage, we should also be thinking about what it means to trust God to sustain us no matter the difficulties that beset us… no matter how weak and fragile and flawed we may consider ourselves to be. Jesus didn’t come to show us how it worked to be both God and human. We don’t need to understand that… because that’s way over our heads. We’ll never be God. We can and we should be working to become more like God—that’s the reason we’re here—but we’ll never be anything more than human… not in this lifetime… and that’s plenty.
But Jesus came to show how we can be fully-human. Jesus took on mortal flesh so that he could set an example for us of what it means to be fully at-one with God. I know you’ve heard me talk about “at-one-ment,” which is the root of atonement before, but I don’t think the concept can be overemphasized. Especially during Lent. There should never be a day under the sun when we are not examining our lives minutely to discern new ways in which we can live more-fully for God. There should never be a rock we leave unturned in our quest to find… and root out… those attitudes and behaviors that separate us from God. These are not exclusively Lenten practices. These are for every day. Lent just gives us a chance to “press reset” and begin anew our lifelong vocation of learning how to become more fully-human… in accordance the example set for us by the Savior of the world: God with us.
Jesus knows we’ll be tempted. And Jesus knows we’ll stumble. It’s in our nature. But our Gospel story today demonstrates that Jesus will stop at nothing to show us that putting our trust in God, completely and without reservation, is the first step on the way to salvation. Forget food, forget clothing, forget all of the trappings and idols of daily living. Instead, hold fast to God’s holy Word. You won’t be disappointed. Set aside your earthly strivings: your lust for wealth and power and position and put yourself at the disposal of the Most High. Nothing feels as good as being “at-one” with God. You can argue with God… you can even seek to bargain with God. But never forget that, in the end, God is God, and you are not. There is great comfort and liberation in praying from the heart: “Thy will be done.” Jesus endured forty days in the wilderness to show us that, in the end, there is no wilderness that can isolate us from God. There is no trial we cannot endure—if we allow God to share the burden with us—and there is no need that God cannot satisfy if we’ll put our trust in him.
My brothers and sisters: I wish you a holy and productive Lent.
Matthew 17:1-9
Back when I was younger, I used to run off to the mountains every time I got the chance. I grew up in the Peachtree Hills neighborhood of Atlanta, just down the road from Buckhead (the center of the Universe), in a smallish two-bedroom apartment, with my mother, younger brother and a variety of dogs and cats and other furry friends. It wasn’t a bad place to grow up… it was safe, and I had plenty of friends who lived within walking distance. But I sometimes felt just a tad cramped for space… a little overwhelmed by all the people and stuff around me. Maybe some of y’all know how that feels. In any case, from the time I got my driver’s license at age sixteen, when Saturday morning rolled around… boom, I was gone. Alone or in the company of friends, the mountains would beckon, and off I’d go. I’d head north on Roswell Road (which was U.S. Highway 19) in Atlanta through Sandy Springs, and after I crossed over I-285, all of the traffic would kind of melt away, and it was smooth sailing through what were then the fledgling communities of Roswell and Alpharetta, and on to Dawsonville and Dahlonega. Ah, Dahlonega and the Smith House… lots of good memories there.
One of my frequent mountain destinations was Neel’s Gap, in the Chattahoochee National Forest, and the segment of the Appalachian Trail that led to the summit of Blood Mountain, which is the crest of the AT in Georgia. Trail literature describes the hike as “moderate,” but that description is meant for seasoned hikers, I think. Most folks I know describe the trail as “challenging.” Sure enough, the walk starts off with a series of gentle ups and downs, through rhododendron thickets, across a few wet areas caused by runoff from adjacent springs, all the way up to Balancing Rock which, in and of itself, is an amazing feat of nature: picture a two-ton boulder… sitting on top of another two-ton boulder… the two being about nine feet in height altogether… and yet only touching at three separate points, each about the size of my fist. It looks impossible… it looks dangerous… it looks as if a good gust of wind would blow it over. But this rock formation has been there for as long as anyone can remember… at least hundreds, maybe even a thousand years. There’s no telling how many kids and grown-ups have had their pictures taken sitting atop this precariously balanced pair of boulders. It’s just something you have to do, I guess. But I digress.
After Balancing Rock, the trail gets pretty steep. There are stone steps to climb… rock falls to traverse… switchbacks to navigate… and the trail just seems to keep going up, up, up. “Daddy, are we there yet?” My own kids knew better that to ask this question on a road trip, but I let them ask it when we hiked up Blood Mountain. I sometimes felt the same way: how long can the trail keep going up? But my answer to them was always the same: “Just a little farther… you’ll know you’re close when you see the sky at the top of the trail in front of you.”
On those occasions when I was hiking alone—whenever I’d stop to rest, and after I’d caught my breath—it would occur me how quiet things had gotten. Gone were the noises of civilization: the sound of downshifting cars and trucks on mountain roads… slamming doors… ringing telephones… blaring music. All of that was gone. The only thing one could hear was the sound of the wind blowing across the mountain… birds and squirrels gleaning for food in the brush beside the trail… and maybe the call of a hawk as it rode a nearby updraft. Sometimes all you could hear was silence. There is such a thing as the sound of silence, you know.
Once I made it to the top of the mountain, my perspective (and my attitude) would invariably change. Out from under the overarching trees and crowding thickets, I could see a never-ending tapestry of mountains and valleys stretched out for miles in every direction, all the way to the horizon. God’s creation as God saw it, I thought to myself. Gone were the roads (most of them, anyway)… bustling towns were dwarfed by the encroaching scenery, instead of the other way around. The boundary lines of three states became blurred and meaningless. All of the fragile and frenetic activity of humankind just sort of faded into the background. I would stay on that mountaintop for hours, looking, listening, thinking… sometimes napping in the sun, sometimes wondering about my purpose in life, and sometimes just reveling in being “above it all,” unencumbered by the concerns of daily living… if only for a little while. These brief mountaintop retreats were enormously “life giving” for me during a time in my life when I needed peace, clarity and time to think, away from all of the hustle and bustle… the deadlines and drama of daily living.
I wonder if that’s why God chose to deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses on top of Mt. Sinai (Exo 24:12-18). Perhaps Moses needed the peace and clarity of the mountaintop… a break from the incessant conflict and kvetching of the Israelite encampment… to really hear and understand what God required of him. I’m pretty sure God doesn’t sweat “the small stuff.” Whenever God asks us to do something, it’s likely to be important: a task demanding our full attention and our complete devotion. Delivering the Law to the Hebrews was a pretty big deal, and God wanted to make sure that Moses was as prepared as he could be to do what he needed to do.
And maybe that’s why Jesus took Peter, James and John to the top of the mountain with him in our Gospel lesson today. Jesus’ ministry was in full swing… there was a lot going on. He and his disciples had been travelling throughout the Galilee preaching, teaching and healing all manner of ailments of body, mind and spirit. On one occasion Jesus had even raised a little girl from the dead (Matt 9:18-26). He had commissioned the Twelve and sent them out into the countryside to test their own vocations as healers and Kingdom Bringers (Matt 10:5-15). And, of course, all of this had begun to get under the skin of the Hebrew religious establishment, who considered Jesus a threat to their own authority and the political status quo. Emotions were running high… Jesus had been run out his own hometown of Nazareth (not quite “on a rail,” but almost), and his cousin John the Baptizer was executed by King Herod shortly thereafter Matt 13:54-58 and 14:1-12. In fact, a few of the “establishment elites” had begun to wonder aloud if Jesus, himself, might be better off dead. I expect that some of the wiser heads among Jesus’ followers might have suggested to their rabbi that, “discretion was the better part of valor,” and advised him to ease off a little. Let things settle down a bit… live to fight another day. But that wasn’t what Jesus had in mind. He knew where things were heading… where the story would end… but that only seemed to energize him. The teaching and the miracles continued, unabated, more and more each day. Multitudes were fed in mind, body and spirit and signed on to be new followers of Jesus’ Way of Love, as he continued to challenge the status quo… bringing help to helpless, hope to the hopeless and justice to the marginalized. The excitement continued to build… along with the angst of the Sadducees, scribes and Pharisees.
By the time of “The Transfiguration” that we read about in today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus had begun telling his disciples, in pretty concrete terms, about what the future held for him: great suffering at the hands of the elders, chief priests and scribes, death… but then resurrection! (Matt 16:21-23) The bit about great suffering and death… the Apostles understood. Back in the day, when folks ran afoul of the political elites, the results were predictable. And famine and disease took friends and family on a regular basis. Death was what happened at the end of life… it was a fact of life. The Apostles got that. But resurrection…that was different. Resurrection was a possibility that some of the Pharisees occasionally spoke of in theoretical terms, but it wasn’t a fact of life. It wasn’t reality. Even though some of the Apostles had likely been present when Jesus raised the little girl from the dead, it wasn’t something they could explain. Jesus just… did it. So, they didn’t like it one bit when Jesus spoke of his own death. To a man, the Apostles (yes, even Judas) had given their whole lives over to this teacher… this holy man who had all but proclaimed himself Messiah, and who was forever preaching about what he called the good news of the coming Kingdom. Things were moving too quickly. What would become of them if something happened to Jesus? How could they go on?
And so Jesus took Peter, James and John up to the top of a high mountain, away from all of the noise and conflict and threat of temporal catastrophe, and showed them just a little sliver of the reality of God… as much as they could handle… as much as they needed to see, to fortify and build them up for what lay ahead. Perhaps the three would have liked to stay on the mountaintop with Jesus. I can only imagine the excitement and the bliss that would have swept over them after they had recovered from the shock of their encounter with YHWH. But that was not to be. There was work to be done in God’s vineyard below. Much remained to be accomplished before Jesus would make his final entry into Jerusalem… on the back of a donkey… to begin the final act in God’s plan for the salvation of the world. So down they went.
And we, too, are standing at a bit of a threshold, here on the last Sunday after the Epiphany. In a sense, the Christian liturgical year provides us with a cycle of recurring trips from the valley to the mountaintop and back again, giving us strength and courage and hope for salvation on one hand… while keeping us grounded in our true purpose as followers of Jesus’ Way of Love, on the other. Over the last three months, we have endured the preparation and waiting of the season of Advent. We experienced the joy of Christmas and saw the power and glory of God’s Christ made manifest at the Epiphany. We watched Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, his calling of the Twelve and the first, heady days of his earthly ministry in Galilee: we listened to the Beatitudes and the first half of the Sermon on the Mount. And now we, like the disciples, have been given a foreshadowing of the part of the story we that must relive during Lent and Holy Week: deprivation, temptation, rejection, suffering and death. It’s gonna be hard.
Mountains are wonderful things. I wish I could stay on the mountaintop with Jesus forever but… Jesus isn’t there. Jesus is already ahead of me, ahead of all of us, walking the long difficult path back down the mountain to continue his ministry of love to the least of these. That’s his purpose and that’s our purpose. And it’s also the path to salvation… so, if you’re not jogging to catch up, you might just get left behind. Best giddyap, my friends!
Matthew 5:21-37
In last week’s gospel lesson, Jesus gave his disciples their marching orders: they were to be “salt of the earth,” adding an essential seasoning to the world by preaching the Good News of God’s Kingdom. They were to be a “light to the nations,” extending righteousness, that is mercy, justice, love and covenant loyalty to a world in great need of hope (Matthew 5:13-20). It’s what we were made to do… the vocation that God has set before us. What happens if we fail in that vocation?
In today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture, God is speaking through Moses to the Israelites as they lay encamped in Moab, east of the Dead Sea, near the end of their forty-year wilderness sojourn. Soon they would cross the Jordan River into Canaan. This is the last time Moses would address the Israelites—it would not be long before he would be “gathered to his people,” leaving Joshua to take them the rest of the way to their Promised Land. And the gist of Moses’ message was this: The word is very near you. Love God and walk in his ways. Observe his commandments, decrees, and ordinances… and you will be blessed beyond measure (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). Absent is any language of “thou shalt not….” We needn’t worry about a rulebook filled with hair splitting and prohibitions. When we truly commit to loving God and walking in his ways, the “thou shalt nots” take care of themselves.
Similarly, in our Gospel passage today, Jesus teaches that a simple, legalistic approach to determining whether or not a particular behavior is in keeping with God’s will for his people may not get us into the Promised Land. It’s not enough not to murder… it’s not enough not to verbally insult or degrade others. Love shows no hostility. Loving God and walking in his ways requires us to love others… at all times, and at all costs… just as Jesus loved us. It’s not enough for us to outwardly “grin and bear it,” while we inwardly harbor malice or resentment against another. Such ill feelings cannot help but become a canker on our souls, inevitably constituting a barrier between us and the one who taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who hate us. We must be fully reconciled to our brothers and sisters, just as Jesus was fully reconciled to the cross.
And then there’s adultery. We’re not even to think about it. That’s a tough one, isn’t it? Perhaps this is one of the greatest pitfalls of our human condition: the primal urge to indulge in the forbidden fruit of intimate, physical relationships that have not been sanctioned by God. Just look at the news of the day… most any day. And look at where it gets us. But here’s the thing: love is never selfish… or predatory. Everything we are and everything we do should build up and reflect our covenant relationship with God. How is it possible that lust and broken promisescould ever serve that end? And if they don’t serve that end, what end do they serve? Even the mere consideration of an adulterous relationship means that we just might be willing to put something above God, and God’s will for our lives… and that, my friends, is idolatry.
Then, finally, there’s the bit about swearing oaths. Neither Hebrew nor Christian tradition prohibits oath making. In fact, an entire chapter of the Mishnah (the Hebrew Oral Torah) deals with rules governing proper oath making. In both Jewish and Gentile spheres, an oath, whether secular or religious, invoked the deity to guarantee the truth of what was said… or to punish the oath taker if what he said wasn’t true. That which was confirmed by an oath could be taken at face value to be true. An “unsworn” statement didn’t carry the same weight. This distinction remains operative in our own society today: while lying is generally considered to be shameful and in poor form, lying under oath is a crime. So, what was Jesus going on about? We live in world where oaths are necessary to make sure folks do what they say they are going to do… and don’t try to get by with anything they ought not to do. Right? God (or the Law) will get them if they mess up. Right? But Jesus, as he so often does, points us towards a different world and a different reality: a reality in which love for God and love for neighbor overwhelms our human predilections of fear and mistrust of “the other.” A world in which love is unconditionally truthful, without any need for oaths or other protestations. A world where love and reconciliation and covenant loyalty become the hallmarks of human relationships. What kind of world would that be? This is the reality of God’s will for us. This is the reality of the Kingdom.
The gates of the Kingdom… those of everlasting life… are open to us. But like the Israelites sitting poised to enter their Promised Land, we must make a choice. Each of us must choose between life and death… between blessings and curses. And I’m pretty sure Moses’ advice to us would be the same as it was to the Israelites three-and-a-half millennia ago: “Choose life!” he would admonish us. Love God. Walk in his ways.That’s a pretty-loaded set of requirements, isn’t it? How can we possibly love like Jesus? And give of ourselves like Jesus? And die to sin like Jesus? The truth is that we can’t. We humans have been mired up to our necks in sin since our fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. It’s in our nature. But there is an even greater truth… and that is that our sins are forgiven before we ever even have the chance to ask. That’s the new Grace we’ve received through Christ Jesus. But Grace doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility of recommitting ourselves every day, every hour, every minute, to living our lives more fully in God, through Christ. We may not always know the right thing to do, or the right thing to say or whether the decisions we make are pleasing to God, but we can take comfort and counsel from the words of Thomas Merton when he prays… “the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you.” (see Merton’s A Prayer of Unknowing)
Friends, God is for us! He’s had a plan for you… and you… and you… for each of us, since before we were born. He sent Jesus to show us the way… the way of life that leads to joy and abundance… the way to the Kingdom. Life and death… blessings and curses. It seems so simple, and yet… the way of sin can be so seductive. Which path will we choose?
Matthew 5:13-20
Have you ever been talking with a friend, family member or work associate and had something important to say… but held back? Perhaps you were unsure of your position on an issue… or perhaps you were pretty sure about how you felt, but feared you’d be misinterpreted or even ridiculed if you spoke your mind. Perhaps you were afraid you’d be drawn deeper into a conversation or situation with which you were uncomfortable. Keeping silent is not always a bad thing: sometimes we realize in retrospect that we were flat out wrong on an issue… and are happy we kept our erroneous opinions to ourselves. How often, though, do we waste God-given opportunities to stand up for mercy, justice, love and covenant loyalty in our interactions with others? How often do we miss the chance to live into our Christian vocation of spreading the Good News of the Kingdom of God to a world in need of hope?
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). Where have you heard that before? Those are some of the first words spoken by Jesus as he began his ministry in Galilee. And these words seemed to get peoples’ attention, certainly that of Peter and Andrew… and James and John… who left behind their boats and nets and even their families to follow Jesus. And also that of the crowds who flocked to Jesus to hear his teachings and be healed. Jesus interpreted the Scriptures for them and helped them understand how the poor in spirit, the meek and the persecuted would find happiness and favor in the eyes of God. Jesus provided hope to the hopeless by offering them a vision of a celestial paradise inhabited by the “least of these,” who seemed destined to labor forever on earth under the cruel yoke of the rich and powerful.
“Salt and Light.” In Hebrew tradition, salt was associated with sacrifice and with covenant loyalty. Eating together was called “sharing salt” and connoted a binding relationship. Jesus’ message to his disciples was clear: YOU are the salt of the earth… YOU are the ones to spread the Good News of the Kingdom of God… not the scribes, not the Pharisees, not the established interpreters of Hebrew Law. And should the disciples fail in this purpose, the purpose for which they were intended from the beginning of time, they would become useless. Salt loses its saltiness not by any natural process, but by becoming so impure… so tainted by other elements that it loses its character and its function. For salt, not being salty is not an option.
Light, on the other hand, exists not only to be seen, but also to allow other things to be seen as they truly are. In referring to the disciples, metaphorically as light and as “a city on a hill,” Jesus is calling them not only to be seen as living good lives, but to extend righteousness, that is: mercy, justice, love and covenant loyalty to the least of these, in order to illumine the way to that heavenly citadel to which the nations will flow at the end of time (Isaiah 2:2-5, 42:6, 49:6). The disciples are not the source of the light any more than the salt generates its own saltiness. The disciples reflect the radiance and are seasoned with a flavor that comes from God. As present-day disciples, we are not challenged to try harder to be salt and light… but to understand that, as Christ followers, we ARE salt and light for the world. We are not called to exert ourselves to become more holy… but simply to heed Jesus’ call, and to accept and live out the new reality that discipleship has brought about in our lives. Piece of cake, right?
Jesus said he came not to abolish the law or the prophets… but to fulfill them. The whole of Scripture testifies to God’s will and work in the history of our world. But God’s work, as revealed in Scripture is not yet complete. The “new thing” that God is doing in the world, foretold by Isaiah (43:19), seven hundred years before, was being fulfilled in God’s Christ… God’s Messiah. Jesus tells his disciples, however, that his messianic fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision does not nullify the law and the prophets… but confirmsthem. Jesus’ words help us understand that “fulfillment” does not simply mean rote acceptance of the law as interpreted by the scribes and Pharisees… or religious fundamentalists of our own time, for that matter. Fulfillment means transcendence of the old way of thinking: “I’m doing a new thing,” says God. Later in Matthew’s gospel, in response to the Pharisees’ criticism of the disciples for breaking the law by plucking grain on the Sabbath because they were hungry, Jesus responded that, “Something greater than the temple is here . . . [God desires] mercy, not sacrifice . . .” and “[in any case] the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8). Jesus sought not to abolish the Sabbath but to fulfill it.
Y’all may remember that there are 613 mitzvot, or commandments, in Hebrew law. Some are quite broad while others deal with minutiae, and in Chapter 22 of Matthew’s gospel we learn that all of these can be distilled into “love God, and love your neighbor” (vv. 34-40). Throughout Matthew’s testimony, Jesus is forever schooling his disciples (in no uncertain terms) that mercy, justice, love and covenant loyalty are the underlying principles of the Law, upon which all of the rest depends. When Jesus says that his own life and teaching are the definitive revelation of the will of God, he is saying that the Torah, whether written or interpreted orally by the scribes and Pharisees, is not the final authority. And in next week’s gospel lesson, Jesus will provide us with some compelling examples of precisely how this fulfillment might play out: not only is murder forbidden, but anyone who harbors anger against a sister or a brother is liable to judgment. Not only shall you not commit adultery, but you shan’t even think about it! Jesus had some particularly pointed things to say about divorce and the swearing of oaths that made the Hebrew law look positively permissive in this regard. Because it was. “An eye for an eye” becomes “turn the other cheek,” and the commandment to love one’s own kith and kin is extended to include one’s enemies and those who wish to do us harm. This is fulfillment.
So… when was the last time you held your tongue in favor of “the law” when one of the “least of these” was being put on public trial, either literally or figuratively? When was the last time you sat in silence when a brother or sister was being denigrated and judged for who they were? Perhaps she was trapped in the rut of chemical dependency. Perhaps he was an unemployed youth from the “other” side of town. Was it someone of a different political persuasion than your own? Or was it someone who worships God in a different way than you do? Have you ever missed the opportunity to speak up to a friend or acquaintance mired in depression and self-loathing, seeking a way to end the pain? Sometimes, by the time we get around to it, it’s too late. How many times have you thought to yourself, “Gee, I wish I’d said something!” None of us is innocent. Each of us can think of times we wish we had spoken up… to offer comfort and hope… to spread the Good News of the Kingdom to someone who needed it. But it’s not too late – you can start today. We are each made to be part of the “new thing” God is doing. We are each made to proclaim the Gospel. And here’s the thing: you don’t have to have all the answers. That’s God’s job. You can be scared, you can be confused, you can even be on the fence about what the details of “the law” require.
I’m reminded of the story of a good friend who had survived several years in a German concentration camp during World War II. Leszek was not a Jew. He was a Polish Catholic and, in fact, quite anti-Semitic. And yet, and yet… he put his life on the line during the early years of the war, helping smuggle Jews out of Poland, to save them from the Nazis. Leszek never bragged about his work to help save Jews, actually he was a bit crotchety about his contributions in that regard. “Why did I do it?” he might respond when asked. “They were God’s people, just like me, and they needed help. But I didn’t have to like them.” But he had to love them. And so, Leszek spent three and a half years at hard labor… behind a barbed wire fence… exemplifying sacrifice and demonstrating covenant loyalty to a people he really didn’t care for… and serving as “a light to the nations” during a period of great darkness… though I’m pretty sure he didn’t think of it in those terms at the time.
So don’t let the opportunity to spread the Good News of the Kingdom pass you by. Speak up! Christ has charged us to be the salt of the earth and a city on a hill, embodying the new covenant of mercy, justice, love and loyalty to our neighbors. How do we do that? We live into our Christian vocation by advocating for the least of these who live on the margins of “polite Christian society.” Brothers and sisters who stand in need of prayer and community. Jesus said, “In as much as you have done it for the least of these, you have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:45). So, it’s OK to be unsure of yourself. It’s OK to fear injury and alienation. And you may be drawn in over your head. But Jesus will be with you, giving you strength and courage to fight the good fight. And the good fight is love.
Mercy is love. Justice is love. Covenant loyalty is love. The whole of the law is love.
So, speak love.
Matthew 5:1-12
You may remember a book written by Robert Fulghum nearly thirty-five years ago titled: All I really need to know, I learned in kindergarten. Anyone? The book consists of fifty short essays all hinging on the central thesis or Credo that, “Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile… and at Sunday School.” Here are some of the things he learned:
- Share everything.
- Play fair.
- Don’t hit people.
- Put things back where you found them.
- Clean up your own mess.
- Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
- Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
- Wash your hands before you eat.
- Flush.
- Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
- Live a balanced life— learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
- Take a nap every afternoon.
- When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
- Wonder.
- Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup— they all die. So do we.
- And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned— the biggest word of all— LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all— the whole world— had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are— when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.[1]
We humans do tend to complicate things for ourselves, don’t we? So often we delay and find excuses for not doing the things we know we ought to be doing… and we are forever coming up with rationalizations and justifications for doing things we know (or should know) we ought not to be doing. Goodness! It’s small wonder we find ourselves tied up in knots… particularly when it comes to the “hot button” social issues of the day… and politics and religion. A return to “kindergarten ethics,” says Fulghum, will allow us to live happier, healthier lives. Why is that so hard for us? I’m not saying that learning to play well with each other is easy, or natural. It’s not… not since we left the Garden (of Eden), at any rate. But I wonder if it’s not the key to our salvation. Maybe this is what Jesus was getting at when he said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3). So simple and yet, so difficult.
Some might disagree with the proposition that “it’s not God making things difficult for us… that we do it to ourselves.” God spoke ten commandments to the Hebrew people from the top of Mt. Sinai. But because of their stubbornness and unbelief, the Ten Commandments had to be interpreted and adapted into the 613 mitzvot, or tenets of Hebrew Law, in order to keep them on track throughout their forty-year wilderness sojourn. Keeping up with all these rules was a lot of work! It was complicated! Eventually, Jesus had to break it down for the Pharisees when one, a lawyer, asked him which commandment was the greatest. “Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself,” said Jesus. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt 22:36-40). If God’s chosen people had only been able to bring themselves to follow the “ground rules” implicit within the Ten Commandments, simply loving God and loving their neighbors, they would have made it a lot easier on themselves.
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus offers us a glimpse of the path to salvation, helping us to move past our human tendency to overcomplicate things… breaking it down for us in what the church has come to know as “The Beatitudes.” How shall we be blessed? You may remember that the Greek word μακάριος (makarios), which we read as “blessed” in our gospel passage today, might be better translated as “happy.” Not happy-giddy, not happy-go-lucky, not even happy-euphoric, but a deeper and much more profound sort of happy that surrounds and overwhelms us when we give into God’s movement and purpose in our lives. Perhaps the Psalmist says it best in Psalm 144: “Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall; happy are the people whose God is the Lord” (v. 15).
Sometimes the Beatitudes can seem counterintuitive. The words may be pretty and poetic, but how can the “poor in spirit” really be happy or blessed? They’re poor in spirit, after all! How about those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness… or for any other reason? Persecution hurts! Sometimes you have to just “suck it up” and grin and bear it, but I’m more likely to feel put upon and sorry for myself when I think I’m being persecuted… not happy and blessed. But Jesus waited until a crowd had gathered to teach them something profound… nine invitations to Godly living that would be life-altering for them if they could set aside their human tendencies to question, quibble with and qualify God’s Holy Commandments, and accept them as kindergartners might accept class rules laid down by their teacher. Simple, yet broadly applicable… and most importantly, given in love.
I happened upon a short reflection on the Beatitudes that I’d like to share with you today. I have no idea who wrote it, or when. And it’s certainly not an exhaustive study of today’s passage from Matthew’s Gospel, but I found it to be helpful when I applied it to my own path of discipleship. Perhaps you will as well.
Jesus said: Blessed are the poor in spirit… Happy are those who are convinced of their basic dependency on God, whose lives are emptied of all that doesn’t matter, those for whom the riches of this world just aren’t that important. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt 5:3).
Blessed are those who mourn… Happy are those who endure pain and loss… even unto death, all the while remembering that God sent his own son to bear our sins on the cross, and trusting that, “that which is not of God, God can redeem.” They will be comforted (cf. Matt 5:4).
Blessed are the meek… Happy are those who know that all they are [and all they have] is a gift from God, so they can be content with their greatness and their smallness, knowing themselves and being true to themselves. They will inherit the earth (cf. Matt 5:5).
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness… Happy are those who wear compassion like a garment, those who have learned how to find themselves by losing themselves in another’s sorrow. They too will be filled (cf. Matt 5:6).
Blessed are the merciful… Happy are those who remember how much has been forgiven them and are able to extend this forgiveness into the lives of others. They too shall receive mercy (cf. Matt 5:7).
Blessed are the pure in heart… Happy are those whose hearts are free and simple, those who have smashed all false images and are seeking honestly for truth. They will see God (cf. Matt 5:8).
Blessed are the peacemakers… Happy are the creators of peace, those who build roads that unite rather than walls that divide, those who bless the world with the healing power of their presence. They will be called children of God (cf. Matt 5:9).
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness… Happy are those whose love has been tried, like gold, in the furnace and found to be precious, genuine and lasting, those who have lived their belief out loud, no matter what the cost or pain. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:10).
And blessed are you when the world turns against you because you refuse to give into the temptation to believe that there is nothing more to life than this earthly living… You may rejoice and be glad, because the earth is not your home and you will find your salvation with the prophets in heaven (cf. Matt 5:11).
I once had a friend, now deceased, named John who would always close his letters and e-mail messages to me with the words: “May you be blessed as much as you can stand.” A thoughtful reading of the Beatitudes reveals that the blessings we receive when we give in to God’s movement and purpose in our lives do not come without cost. We will be shaped, molded and tempered to the limits of our being, but never more than we can endure… if we remain faithful (cf. 1 Cor 10:12-13). We are made in God’s image, and the purpose of our earthly sojourn is to help us recover our humanity, which was lost at the Fall, and become more fully-human… the Body of Christ in the world. The ground rules are simple: Love God. Love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and allow God to put all of that to work in the service of the coming Kingdom.
Give in to God! It won’t always be easy. There will be times when we question our ability to persevere and even question God’s goodness for allowing things here on Earth to be so tough. But in the end, if we’re faithful, we’ll receive our reward, which is the deep joy of a life lived in accordance with Christ’s teachings, and an eternity spent as children of God (cf. 1 John 3:1-3). Our time on this planet is short, and there’s much to accomplish. Through Matthew’s Beatitudes, Jesus shines a light on the path to salvation, pointing the way through life’s clutter and complexity to a new day and a new way of living simply and faithfully, in accordance with God’s will.
So, rejoice and be strong in the Lord… and may we all be blessed as much as we can stand.
[1] Fulghum, Robert (2004-05-04). All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things (p. 2-3). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
John 1:29-42
I was not part of the “in crowd” during my elementary school years. My family was relatively new to the neighborhood and I was a bit of a daydreamer. This was in the days before “attention deficit” had been classified as a “disorder,” and pharmaceutical companies had developed a magic pill aimed at correcting the deficiency. I was typically the last person chosen for pick-up and intramural sports teams, if I was chosen at all… and my grades were never really good enough for me to join in the clubs and extracurricular activities that were the domain of the “bright kids.” I wasn’t miserable… not most of the time at any rate. I guess pretty much all kids experience their own unique set of difficulties growing up… and I knew I was a good kid and that I was loved. But I confess that always being the last to be chosen bothered me… a lot.
So, I graduated elementary school and started high school… this was back in a time when there were no middle schools in Atlanta… you went straight from being a “senior” in elementary school to being a “sub-freshman” in high school. Imagine something lower on the pecking order than a high school freshman… but also try and imagine my excitement when I was elected to be the treasurer of my 8th grade class. A new school… and a new day! OK, so I wasn’t elected president or vice-president… and I was pretty sure that most of the folks who checked the box next to my name did so because the list of candidates was in alphabetical order… and Anderson was at the top of the list… but I was OK with that. I’d take it. I had been chosen!
Perhaps it was coincidence, or maybe my change of educational venue and the chance of a new start had something to do with it, but high school was a very good time for me. I made lots of friends. I did well enough academically to find my place among the “honors English” crowd and was accepted into the performing arts “magnet program,” wherein I auditioned, and was chosen for, a variety of significant roles in musical and dramatic productions. Later, I would be chosen, found worthy, to serve for the better part of three decades in public service as a police and military officer. I’ve been chosen as a friend by some pretty amazing people… and to share a lifetime with the prettiest girl I know. And I’ve been chosen, set apart and ordained, to serve as a priest in God’s church. Over the years, I have come to understand that I was formed for God’s purposes from before I was born—and that’s a very heady thought—but it was my election as class treasurer, all those years ago, that gave me my first taste of the joy of being chosen.
You know, the readings for each liturgical year (A, B and C) focus on the Gospel story as told by a particular evangelist… we’ve been in Year A since the first Sunday in Advent which means we’ll be reading a lot of Matthew for the next ten months or so. Last year was Luke, and next year will be Mark. Of course, there’s some seasonal mixing and matching, but the year of Matthew will remain, largely, the year of Matthew. And yet, on the second Sunday after the Epiphany… in all three liturgical years… we get to read a bit from the writer of the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John. I wonder why that is?
Perhaps you’re aware that the Greek word epiphany means “manifestation” or “appearance.” A deeper meaning might even be “showing.” Christians celebrate the Epiphany as the revelation (the showing) of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, and the Feast of the Epiphany is often associated with the arrival of the Magi… wise men from the East. It seems to me that angels appearing to Joseph and Mary and a bunch of shepherds and animals in the stable could have just as easily constituted “the Epiphany,” but peasants and cows don’t write history. So, the Feast of the Epiphany commemorates the manifestation of Christ incarnate to folks with the wherewithal to document the event. The Epiphany marks the end (the twelfth day) of Christmas, the end of the beginning… and the beginning the next phase of the new thing that God has in store for the world. Among all of the Gospel writers, John was less concerned with telling the story of Jesus’ life and ministry in an orderly and cohesive fashion (that is, with a beginning, a middle and an end) than he was with highlighting particular moments that showed Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. That’s why the Fourth Gospel is often referred to as the “signs” Gospel. And I think it’s for this reason that we get a bit of John every year at about this time. None of the other Gospel writers seems able to “show” us the awesome divinity of Christ in quite the same way.
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” said the Baptizer (v. 29). You don’t hear this in any of the other Gospels. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, you get the Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove… you get the voice of God speaking words of love and adoption… but you don’t get, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Nowhere else in Hebrew Scripture or in the New Testament do you encounter such language. You only see it in John, chapter 1. Twice (cf. v. 36). Johannine scholar Raymond Brown writes, “John the Baptist hailed Jesus as the lamb of Jewish apocalyptic expectation… who was to be raised up by God to destroy evil in the world, a picture not too far from that of Revelation 17:14” which reads, “they will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called… and chosen… and faithful.”[1] There’s no need for us to get too deep into the weeds about atonement theory (the whole thing about “taking away the sins of the world”) here… but it’s worth noting that, while the other Gospel writers wrote extensively on the “when, where and how” of Jesus’ life and ministry, John focused on the “who and the what.” The prologue from John’s Gospel, which we read at Christmas, tells us: “In the beginning was the Word . . . a light shining in the darkness . . . the true light . . . came into the world . . . so that all who received it received power to become children of God” (vv. 1:1-13). The Word chose us… and became flesh, like us… and lived among us for a while, so that we might learn the “way to the Father” (cf. John 14:5-7) and live into our true identities as children of God.
We have been chosen, my friends. Despite all of our fears and failures, our petty squabbling and seemingly endemic inhumanity towards one another, the Creator of the Universe chose to take on all of the frailties of our human condition so that we might be given “grace upon grace” through Jesus Christ (John 1:16-17). What sort of God would do such a thing? And why? Perhaps first-century church father and Archbishop of Constantinople Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390 CE) explained it best when he wrote, “for that which he not assumed, he cannot heal.” God loves us that much. Jesus, the Lamb of God has come to take away our sins. So now it’s on us. We’re chosen! We’re redeemed! So, we’d best we start acting like it, don’t you think?
[1] Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XXII, The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 29:60.
Matthew 3:13-17
We’ve been hearing quite a lot about John the Baptist lately, haven’t we? Think of it: in the last five weeks, beginning with the second Sunday in Advent, we’ve read about John the messenger… “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!’” About the John the Baptizer offering a ritual immersion of repentance in the Jordan River for the forgiveness of sins… and of the crowds who came to be washed clean by him… and of his prophecy about a new baptizer and a new sort of Baptism… one not of water, but of the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:1-12). And about John the witness… one who came to testify to the light… the true light that was coming into the world (John 1:1-14). We read that bit twice—must have been pretty important, I’m thinking.
And here we are again today hearing about John dunking folks in the river. But this time, there’s a bit more to the story… a new thing: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.” (v. 3:13). Wait… what? Jesus came to John for a baptism of repentance? How could that be? What did Jesus have to repent of? He was the Son of God, after all, God’s Messiah… without any taint of sin. He was the perfect man! And so, John balks at Jesus’ request to be baptized saying, “Whoa, buddy! You’re the one who should be baptizing me!” To which Jesus responded, “Work with me here, John. We have to do it this way ‘to fulfill all righteousness.’” So, John gave in, and did what Jesus wanted him to do (vv.14-15).
So, what are we to make of this? This passage has made a lot of really smart folks scratch their heads for a lot of years. And I’m not that smart, and I certainly don’t want to put words in Jesus’ mouth. But there are a couple of things we know about the nature of John’s baptism, and about the Hebrew concept of righteousness, that might inform our understanding of today’s Gospel story. First, ritual immersion (Heb. mikvah) from around the first century BCE to the present, not only serves to restore the faithful to ritual purity… so that they may properly come before the presence of God to celebrate Jewish holy days and read from the Torah, but also symbolizes a radical change of heart on the part of a Jewish convert… the total commitment to a new life of faith in YHWH. And “to fulfill all righteousness,” the words Jesus used to explain to John why he was doing what he was doing, in this context, means “doing the revealed will of God.” So, Jesus seems to confirm on one hand that he is, indeed, the Messiah, and on the other, that it was God’s will that he undergo this cleansing ritual. “Work with me here, John.”
Which makes me wonder if this might have been the very first life-lesson—or eternal life-lesson—of Jesus’ earthly ministry… the foundation upon which the balance of his teachings would be predicated: which is that the key to salvation is “getting right with God…” or atonement (or, better yet, at-one-ment) with the Father. Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah, who became incarnate as the perfect human in order to show us the Father who created us (cf. John 14:8)… and to teach us how we can be fully-human… how we can prepare ourselves to stand in the presence of God, warts and all, without shame… or fear of failure. Not because of our righteousness, or our faithfulness, but because of God’s righteousness, and God’s faithfulness. The Son of God didn’t come to earth for himself… he did it for us… because he loves us… because God loves us. God’s Christ didn’t undergo ritual purification for himself… he did it for us… to help us prepare ourselves for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit… Baptism with a capital “B…” which is being sealed against sin, the world and the devil, and adopted into the (perfect) Body of Christ forever and ever.
But we must be purified before we can be sealed. And being purified means confessing to things done and left undone… owning up to following too much the devices and desires of our own hearts… (c.f. BCP [1928], 6)and admitting that we, each of us, is mired in the original sin of selfishness that has dogged the steps of humanity since Adam and Eve in the Garden. So, when we step out in faith and follow Jesus’ example of giving himself over to the waters of purification… of humbling himself before the Almighty, we take our first steps towards becoming at-one with God, which is the only path to eternal life. We’ll never be saved on our own merits—because we are righteous—only because God is righteous. And there are promises we must make. Promises that are at the heart of our Christian vocation. Promises that, once made, we would do well to keep.
I invite you to turn to page 292 in the Book of Common Prayer so that we may renew our Baptismal promises together:
Dear People of God: In Holy Baptism we follow the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. As he came up from the water he was anointed by the Spirit of God and designated as God’s Son. So too are we anointed by that same Spirit in baptism; we are reborn and adopted as sons and daughters with whom God is well pleased. Let us now, therefore, renew our own baptismal covenant.
Celebrant: Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil and renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?
People: I do.
Celebrant: Do you believe in God the Father?
People: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
Celebrant: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
People: I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spiritand born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate,was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven,and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Celebrant: Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
People: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,the resurrection of the body,and the life everlasting.
Celebrant: Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People: I will, with God’s help.
May Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whohas given us a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, andbestowed upon us the forgiveness of sins, keep us in eternallife by his grace, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Matthew 1:18-25
Those of you who have known me for a while may recall that I took a trip to Tanzania, in East Africa, during the summer of 2014. Most of my time there was spent in the little village of Mtumba, in the central plains outside of Dodoma, as the guest of the local Anglican priest, the Rev. Daudi Chilemu. Incidentally, Daudi is Swahili for David. It was a good trip—life-changing, really—and I learned a lot about people and priorities in what some refer to not asthe third world, but as the “two-thirds world,” because two-thirds of all the people on the planet live in countries like Tanzania. The average family income is around a dollar a day, and the normal life expectancy is 65 years, which is a pretty big improvement from 1996, when it was only 49. Life in East Africa is hard. There’s no Social Security or Medicare, and the only people with a regular retirement income are folks who worked in government service: teachers, bureaucrats and the like, and those pensions are not large. Most families eke out a paltry living making things… or selling things… or performing manual labor. There are hospitals and clinics in town that people can go to if they get sick, but that means missing a day of work, and taking a crowded bus over thirty kilometers of bad road to get there. So, folks mostly just tough it out when they get sick, which means sometimes they don’t get better. Like I said, life is hard in East Africa.
Because my host, Fr. Daudi, was a priest in the church… educated, ordained and well-respected, his income was double that of most of his neighbors: two dollars a day. Needless to say, that didn’t go very far in supporting a wife and three children. Most families in Mtumba, Daudi’s included, had to cultivate corn and millet and raise chickens on the side to make ends meet. And Daudi had another expense that he placed at the top of his priority list, even over that of putting food in his stomach: and that was paying private school tuition for his two oldest children. Here in the U.S., many view private school as a bit of a luxury—great if you can afford it, but not a necessity. In most stateside communities, students and their families (who are active and engaged in the educational process) can get what they need in public schools. And, after completing school, most folks are able to find a job that pays the bills and that, perhaps, is even satisfying and meaningful. Three or four decades later, we can retire if we want, happy and healthy, and live the “good life” on the golf course, in the company of our kids and grandkids, just like we see in all the television commercials… right? OK, so I know things don’t always work out that way for many of us, but neither is it an impossibility. Sometimes our retirement dreams do become reality.
But things are a little different in Mtumba in Tanzania in East Africa. Men are the primary wage earners and women work in the home (which usually has dirt floors, and no glass in the windows), raising children, making and mending clothing, feeding chickens, getting water, gathering wood and preparing meals over an open fire… and sometimes having to chase away hyenas. If you’re a man, you work until you can’t work anymore—until your body quits on you. Then you’re done. Assuming you’ve still got a few years left, you have to depend on your children, who are also likely living on a dollar a day, for sustenance. Pretty tough, huh? That’s why Daudi was investing in his kids’ education. Sure, he loved his children and wanted the best for them… and it was a matter of family pride. But Daudi also knew that his children were his Social Security… they were his Medicare. By helping them rise above peer competitors in a subsistence-level economy, Daudi was doing the best he could to ensure his and Mama Chilemu’s survival when his body ran out of steam twenty years down the road. That’s reality in most of the two-thirds world, folks.
And that’s likely how Joseph and Mary lived in first-century Jewish Palestine. Oh, there were some: kings, religious elites, government officials and probably a few wealthy merchants who lived pretty well in the big cities: Jerusalem, Caesarea, Joppa, and the like. But in places like Nazareth and Bethlehem… well, things were pretty tough. You lived by the sweat of your brow, and there were times when you didn’t have enough to eat. Money was scarce, and the Roman taxman was apt to take more than his fair share of what little you had. We don’t really know all that much about Joseph. We know he was a carpenter (cf. Matt 13:55). We know he was engaged to Mary who was young, and a virgin. And Matthew tells us that Joseph was a righteous man, meaning that he was faithful to God. But we don’t know what he looked like, how old he was, or even if he had been previously married. It was not uncommon for older men who were widowers to remarry younger wives in hope of siring additional children to help ensure the continuity of their family line. And we can be pretty sure that Joseph was proud of his family line. He was, after all, a direct descendant of the great King David (Matt 1:1-16). Imagine his shame and anger when it appeared that his betrothed had been unfaithful to her vow. And yet, even before the angel came to tell him in a dream that the child in Mary’s womb had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, Joseph had decided that she should not be stoned or otherwise humiliated… but that he would “dismiss her quietly.” He didn’t have to do this. He would have been within his legal rights to demand public and costly satisfaction from Mary’s family. But he didn’t.
You know, it doesn’t matter whether Joseph was young or old, or previously married or not… the thought of Mary’s betrayal must have cast his entire future into doubt. He had probably sunk most of his meager resources into making a home for his new family, and now it appeared to be all for naught. Finding another suitable mate would take time, and the clock was ticking. What would happen to a man without a family? The thought must have been frightening. But Joseph didn’t give into the anger and the hurt. It was to a righteous man that the angel came in a dream, offering words of comfort… and a command: “You shall name him Jesus (Koine: Ἰησοῦς [Iēsous], which means ‘God helps’), for he will save his people from their sins” (v. 21). Actually, the name spoken to Joseph by the angel was probably the Hebrew Yeshua (yēšūă‘), which is short for Joshua (Heb: Yĕhôshúa), who was the successor to Moses’ authority during the wilderness years. And, like Mary in Luke’s Gospel, Joseph trusted God and said, “yes.”
In naming Mary’s baby, Joseph took Jesus as his own, essentially adopting him into the kingly line of David, with all of the honor and sign value that that entailed. For at least half a millennium, the Jews had been asking the question: “When Messiah comes, will he be a prophet like Moses? or a king like David?” And God’s answer was yes, on both counts: Mary will bear a son, conceived by the Holy Spirit to save God’s people from their sins. Emmanuel: God with us. He will be at once of the line of David, who was the greatest of all of God’s anointed kings, as well as successor to the power and authority of Moses, the greatest of all of God’s prophets. I’m guessing that this was a lot for Joseph to take in. You’ll notice that he didn’t say anything throughout our Gospel passage today. But, when an angel speaks, sometimes it’s best to keep your mouth shut and just listen… and nod. In any case, through all of the hurt and betrayal and sadness, Joseph remained a righteous man… Joseph remained faithful.
And I could go on to say, in closing, that that is what God is asking of us in our own day and age: to remain faithful despite all of the hurt and betrayal and sadness of this life. Few if any of us in the pews today are wondering where our next meal will come from, or if we will have a roof over our head tonight, or if we’ll have access to the emergency medical care we need when we need it. And yet, we’ve all got our own stuff… our own fears and disappointments and sorrows… things that distract us from seeing the blessings of God’s Providence that crowd around us from every side. So that would be a good message: Count your blessings! And rejoice!
But, instead, I’ll leave you with a question… and also an answer: What sort of God, immortal, omniscient and all-powerful… would come to Earth for the sole purpose of saving us from our sins? To be with us, to love us, to laugh and cry with us, to be tempted like we are and yet not give in to sin… to show us the way… to set an example for us of what it means to be fully-human, and then willingly suffer death on a cross just to show he wasn’t kidding. What sort of God would do that? A righteous one… a God who is faithful… to us. A God who has been calling out to us since we broke faith with him, and with all of Creation, that fateful day in the Garden. A God who will stop at nothing to bring home his last, lost sheep. That’s Jesus… Yeshua… Joseph’s boy. That’s Emmanuel: God with us. Let us make ready to welcome him into our hearts and into our lives as the feast of his Nativity draws near.
Matthew 11:2-11
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (v. 11:11).
What does that mean?
Not only was John the Baptist God’s prophet, he was also Jesus’ relative—perhaps even his first cousin, once removed. Or maybe not so close… who knows? In any case, there’s no need to get too worked up about it… it’s really not that important. What’s important is that John was Jesus’ relative (so, arguably, a “cousin” in our southern vernacular) and John was in jail… locked up in Herod’s dungeon awaiting the king’s judgment. Jesus was no doubt worried for his cousin and yet, rather than focusing exclusively on the here-and-now, he took the opportunity to remind his disciples of a greater truth, a more glorious vision of the future than could be found in any earthly kingdom: Jesus pointed his followers towards the kingdom of heaven. In Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus uses a variety of similes to describe the coming kingdom for those with ears to hear: “The kingdom of heaven is like “a mustard seed” (v. 31) . . . and “leaven” for bread (v. 33) . . . “a treasure hidden in a field” (v. 44) . . . “a pearl of great price” (v. 45) . . . and “a fisherman’s net” (v. 47). Y’all have heard these parables, and I urge you to go back and reread Matthew Chapter 13 when you get the chance. These similes offer a tantalizing glimpse of what is to come in a kingdom, the least of whose citizens is greater than John the Baptist. It’s not that John, or any of God’s faithful, will be excluded or treated as second-class citizens in God’s kingdom (cf. Isa 11:9)—we will be changed into creatures worthy of that kingdom. The Apostle Paul describes this in his Second Letter to the Corinthians: he writes, “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord, as though reflected in a mirror, [will be] transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (v. 3:18).
God’s kingdom has been much on my mind and heart of late. It’s a tough time of year. I expect… I know… there are those here today grieving the absence of loved ones. So many names come to mind: Carolyn Abbey, Tyson Perkins, Anna Thompson, Margaret Kidd, Tom McCoy, Wayne Whitton, Adrian Lawler, Matt Kusmick and others… some known to us, others not, but all known to God. Maybe the loss is fresh… or perhaps it’s a more lingering sorrow. I lost my own Dad six years ago this month, and I think of him often. Others of us may suffering in mind, body and spirit, wondering, where is God in our time of trouble? …questioning God’s faithfulness or maybe even God’s very existence. Lord, take me now! But you may have heard me say before that, whether or not we believe in or are estranged from God, God believes in us… and is with us, always. And that, if you’re still here, God’s not done with you yet. Death and sadness… injury, disease and disability are not from God, they’re just part of being human. And God never wastes anything. Sometimes, we may have an inkling about God’s movement and purpose in our lives. But in other cases, we may never know how God uses our pain and sickness, or even our deep sadness, to bring help to the helpless, hope to the hopeless and justice to the marginalized in this lost and broken world. All we can do is trust… and believe in the one who came to save us and lead us on the path to at-one-ment with our Creator.
It makes me smile to think that even John the Baptist had questions about who Jesus was… and what he should do about it. And if John had questions, I guess it’s OK for us to have them too. But you know what really makes me smile? It’s the thought of all of those who’ve gone before us crossing the threshold from this life to the next, some who were believers and others who may have been more stubborn, having all of their questions resolved in an eye blink—when they were transformed from one degree of glory to another—as they entered God’s kingdom. What precisely does that look like? I can only imagine. I believe that Jesus, through the parables, has painted us a picture of what the kingdom of heaven looks like, though we can only see it “through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12 KJV). But while we have life and breath within us, we must seek first the kingdom of God, and undertake the hard work of helping to bring it about here on earth… and in so doing, ready ourselves for entry into the heavenly kingdom that has been prepared for us by our Savior.
Here’s a video of a song entitled “I Can Only Imagine” written by Bart Millard of the band “Mercy Me” on the occasion of his father’s death. The song helps me visualize—albeit through a glass darkly—what it must be like to cross the threshold from this life to the next, and be changed from glory into glory, in order to be made worthy for the Kingdom. Perhaps it will do the same for you.
Matthew 3:1-12 “You sons of snakes!” …one of my favorite lines in preaching. You just gotta love John the Baptist. Walter Wangerin describes the Baptizer as: “no respecter of persons. He lived dependent on no one’s welcome or anyone’s wealth . . . And he offered Jews a ritual washing . . . a baptism of repentance for […]
The Podcast Luke 23:33-43 Changing colors, changes in liturgy, changes in the lectionary cycle: that’s how the Church marks time. From green to white… and next week, to purple. The Gloria will give way to the Trisagion: “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy upon us” (BCP 356). We’ll move from Eucharistic Prayer “A” to the somewhat […]
Luke 21:5-19 Last week, I came about as close to preaching on politics as I ever will. And in fact, I didn’t really preach about politics or the headlines of the day… I simply juxtaposed them, as did Jesus when he warned the Sadducees, who tended to focus myopically on living life in the here-and-now, pinning their […]
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Luke 18:1-8 Many biblical commentators will tell you that Jesus told this parable to educate his disciples about the value of persistence. I remember once reading about a man who was the very heart and soul of persistence in the face of repeated disappointment and seemingly insurmountable odds. He came from modest means. He was […]
Luke 17:11-19 “Were not ten made clean? …[T]he other nine, where are they?” The question is apropos, don’t you think? Ten men suffering from one of the most debilitating diseases imaginable came to Jesus begging for mercy and healing… and received it… and then off they went without so much as a backward glance or […]
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Luke 16:19-31 Poor old Lazarus. His life on earth may not have been anything to write home about, but it all worked out for him in the end, didn’t it? What goes around comes around, I guess. There are two Lazarus-es (or is it Lazari?) in the Bible. One was the brother of Mary and […]
Luke 16:1-13 I remember my New Testament professor back in seminary throwing up his hands and saying, “I don’t envy anyone ever having to help a congregation make sense of this passage from Luke. Whenever it comes around in the Lectionary, you might consider preaching on one of the other lessons… or the psalm, instead.” […]
Luke 15:1-10 Twenty-one years ago today, many of us sat and watched, in confusion and fear, as two airliners flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Unbeknownst to most of us at the time, concurrent tragedies were unfolding in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon […]
Luke 14:25-33 Kids sometimes do the darnedest things, don’t they? A story: Back in the day, I shared a workspace with a long-time friend and colleague named Nancy. We each had separate phone lines and, whenever, someone called one or the other of us, and we weren’t able to pick up, “after the beep” you […]
Luke 14:1, 7-14 I remember, a few years back, a young man with whom I was acquainted (my son) disclosing to me that he had taken on some pretty-significant debt in order to buy a new laptop computer. It was an investment, he explained. You see, he was just beginning to break into the world of online […]
Luke 13:10-17 Here’s a reading from Exodus: “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, […]
Luke 12:49-56 Uh-oh. Here comes “mean Jesus” again. Doggone it, just last week it was, “Fear not, little flock, God will take care of you.” But now, Jesus is talking about starting fires… and bringing division. He gets that way sometimes… like the time he said to cut off your hand and pluck out your eye if it offends you (Mark 9:43-47). Or […]
Luke 12:32-40 Here’s another reading… it’s from Chapter 9 of Luke’s Gospel; perhaps you’ll find it familiar: “Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two […]
Matthew 20:20-28 A blessed St. James’ Day to all! Some of our newer members may not know that much about our patron saint, and some of our long-marchers might have forgotten some stuff, so let me just begin by saying that James was a standout: wealthy and well-connected, cosmopolitan, quite the scholar… probably fluent in […]
Luke 11:1-13 “Lord, teach us to pray….” Jesus’ instruction about how to pray appears in both Luke’s and Matthew’s gospels, as well as in the Didache (Gr. Διδαχή) or “The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations” (8.2), which dates from around the second century AD. It was part and parcel of Matthew’s “Sermon on the […]
Luke 10:25-37 Who is my neighbor? That is perhaps the central question raised in today’s Gospel story. And that issue was complicated in Jesus’ day, as it is in our own. In Hebrew tradition, the original meaning of neighbor was “associate,” and connoted a fellow Hebrew within the community of Hebrews. Israelites were to treat such persons fairly and kindly and were not to […]
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 Some of y’all may know how much I love to watch swallows in flight. In fact, I enjoy birdwatching, generally, but there’s something about watching swallows dipping and diving, reveling in the freedom of the sky, that makes me smile every time I see it. Another cool thing about swallows is that […]
Luke 9:51-62 “Let the dead bury their own dead . . . no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Don’t you just hate it when Jesus says things that sound mean? He does that sometimes: he says stuff that, on the surface, sounds insensitive or even cruel. […]
Luke 8:26-39 Well, well. My, my. Here we are… back in liturgical “ordinary time” again. Here we are… returning to the chronological and “orderly” account of Jesus’ three years of active ministry according to Luke… after a nearly four-month hiatus encompassing the seasons of Lent and Eastertide. So, let’s take two or three minutes to […]
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee:Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.”1982 Episcopal Hymnal, #362 In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Trinity Sunday always rolls around about this time of year. It’s the […]
Acts 16:16-34 A lot has happened since Saul, Pharisee extraordinaire and chief persecutor of Jesus’ followers, got knocked off his high horse on the road to Damascus, and gave his life over to the cause of Christ. As is often the case with converts, Saul initially made quite a spectacle of himself preaching and “speaking […]
John 5:1-9 “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Another day, another healing… another way in which the writer of the Fourth Gospel demonstrates to his readers the awesomeness of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. For some months now, Jesus has been shuttling back and forth between Galilee, Samaria and Judea performing signs and miracles… […]
Acts 11:1-18 There was a man named Cornelius who lived with his family in the town of Caesarea on the coast of Samaria. Cornelius was a soldier… a centurion, in fact, of the Italian Cohort. He was not a Jew, but we understand from Acts, Chapter 10 that he “feared God . . . gave […]
John 10:22-30 Welp, it’s Mother’s Day… so I’m going to retell y’all one of my favorite Mother’s Day parables… one that concerns this very Parish. Once upon a fine spring morning, as I turned off Bradford Street onto the St. James’ campus, I saw something a little unusual: a fair-sized possum crossing the gravel driveway […]
John 21:1-19 You know how to make God laugh, right? Tell him your plans. Welcome to the Third Sunday of Easter. I think it ought to be called “Saints Peter and Paul Sunday,” for the conversion of St. Paul and the redemption of St. Peter. Both were good men, with strong personalities, and yet, they were also different in so many ways. One was a fisherman, the […]
Luke 23:1-49 Oh, what a difference a week makes in the lectionary/liturgical cycle of the church. Five days, really. We don’t know exactly how long it was between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a colt… or a donkey… or a colt and a donkey, depending upon which Gospel account you’re reading, […]
John 12:1-8 Who here stands with Judas? Who among you is thinking: Well, Judas is Judas… and we know the part he’s going to play in Jesus’ arrest and execution… but maybe he has a point in this case. As he so often did, Jesus had just turned his followers’ ideas about righteousness upside down. While at supper in the […]
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Once, when I was about seven or eight years old, I ran away from home. Some of y’all have heard this story. My mother helped me pack. We lived in a pretty-safe neighborhood in a brand-new suburb outside Tampa, Florida where most everyone knew each other, so safety wasn’t really an issue. […]
Luke 13:1-9 It seems like folks in Jesus’ time were preoccupied with many of the same concerns as are we in our own: Why do bad things happen to good people? Is it God who causes these bad things to happen, or do folks bring about their own misfortune? Why doesn’t God save the innocent? […]
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 A careful study of the socio/historical context of Hebrew Scripture reveals a lot about the relationship God wanted to have with his Chosen People in Old Testament times: one based on submission and trust in his righteousness. And it invites a question: How might such a relationship between God and the people […]
Luke 4:1-14 It’s a pretty familiar story, isn’t it? The story of how the Savior of the world was subjected to the perils of the wilderness: extreme isolation and exposure, hunger, thirst and exhaustion… and the insidious machinations of the Tempter, a fallen angel bent on diminishing or destroying him. You know, there are a […]
Luke 9:28-36 So… a priest and a rabbi walked into a bar… oops, I mean they were sitting in a coffee shop one day having a theological conversation. We’ll call them Bob and Moishe. They were discussing the nature of God and salvation, and things were beginning to get a bit lively when Moishe leaned […]
Luke 6:27-38 In last week’s Gospel lesson, Luke introduced the “Sermon on the Plain” by writing: “Jesus came down and stood on a level place.” Jesus didn’t preach from some lofty mountain top, far above the daily hubbub of life, with all of its attendant crises. Jesus came down… and stooped to heal and encourage and spread the Good […]
The Podcast Luke 6:17-26
Perhaps some of y’all are thinking to yourselves, “Hmmm… the words of today’s Gospel story sound familiar… it’s the Sermon on the Mount, right? The one that has “the Beatitudes” in it: all of the “Blessed are those-es,” if that’s a word, which I’m pretty sure it’s not. Right? But maybe there’s a little something jangling in your head, something that doesn’t quite sound like what you remember from your previous encounters with the story. Jesus preached a sermon, sure enough… and it was a humdinger. But it wasn’t delivered from the top of a mountain. Today’s passage begins with, “And Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place…” (v. 17). That’s the first thing, and the second is that the words of the Beatitudes are a little different. Blessed are the poor… those who hunger now… who weep now. What happened to poor in spirit? And those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? And the bit about the merciful, and the pure in heart, and the peacemakers… did we skip something? And what’s with all the “Woe to-es?” I don’t remember them being part of the Sermon on the Mount… where’d they come from? Fair questions, all.
And here’s the reason for the differences: This isn’t the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is a Matthew thing (5:1-12), and the reason that’s what springs to mind when we hear the Beatitudes is because we hear Matthew’s version of events far more often than we do Luke’s. Luke’s version is known as the Sermon on the Plain, because Jesus came down from the mountain where he’d gone to pray, to be with the people who needed to hear God’s message of hope and salvation the most.
But a couple of larger questions remain: first, why the difference between Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives? And second, why should we care? Without getting too deep into the weeds about the history of the gospels, let me just remind you that Matthew and Luke were written around the same time (80-90 AD), but in two different parts of the Roman world, and there does not appear to have been any collaboration between the writers. Each had a constituency to which he was writing, and a lens through which he viewed the world which, in turn, influenced the content and style of their writing. In a nutshell, Matthew seems to have been writing to an audience of Jewish converts to whom he wanted to introduce Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah who had come to save God’s Chosen People, in opposition to the greed and hypocrisy of the Jewish religious establishment, and fulfilling a multitude of prophesies written about him in Hebrew Scripture along the way. “Y’all have waited. The time has come. We, the Jewish faithful, were right all along.”
Luke, on the other hand, was writing to a congregation of gentile converts outside Judea, who were struggling to cope with severe economic hardship, a culture of increasing secularization, and the political turmoil of the times. Sound familiar? Certainly, there is plenty of overlap between Matthew and Luke, but Luke’s is an “activist” gospel. It’s messianic, sure, but Jesus’ followers are called to turn the world upside-down, right now! In fact, it’s often referred to as the original “social gospel.” Do remember a couple of weeks back, when Luke recounted the story of Jesus reading from the Isaiah scroll in his hometown synagogue? About the one anointed to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor? And Jesus telling them that he was that One? And do you remember how that worked out for him?
But, happily, Jesus lived to preach another day, and today as our Gospel story unfolds, we see that the multitude gathered around him are exactly the kind of people Jesus came to proclaim favored by God: the poor, the hungry and the outcasts. And Jesus is not high on some mountain talking down to them, but right there among them. And how about this: the text notes that as Jesus taught them and healed them in body, mind and spirit, he looked up at his disciples to address them. Looked up. Was Jesus simply stooping to help the least of these? Or had the disciples felt the need to retreat to higher ground, away from the seething mass of suffering? Or maybe a little bit of both?
Some of y’all probably know that the Greek word we read in this passage as “blessed” (μακάριος) might be better translated as “happy.” Happy are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. A clergy colleague of mine is fond of saying that, “To be blessed is knowing that you have God’s attention. To know that wherever you go, you’ll not be alone. To be blessed is to know that you are valued and important simply because God has made you priceless.” That would make me happy. How about you? And so, I wonder if Jesus, in looking up at his disciples to pronounce Luke’s Beatitudes, is reminding them that they too must stoop and take notice of these poor, sad, discarded folk. “Never forget that these are the blessed of God,” he seems to be saying. “These people have God’s attention. God sees them even when no one else does. And we are connected to them and to each other because the only possession anyone really has is the blessing of God. Come and join me on the plain.” Maybe Jesus said that.
The promise of Jesus Messiah, which is the Good News of God’s kingdom, is a world turned upside-down: from the poor being lifted up and the mighty cast down in Luke’s Magnificat, to the proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor to the least of these in Isaiah’s prophecy, to the blessing of the poor and the hungry, the weeping and the reviled in Luke’s Beatitudes. These are the people God notices… and blesses. These are the people Jesus said would be rewarded.
But following these words of hope is a warning to the disciples: the “woe-itudes,” which I’m also pretty sure isn’t a word. “Woe to the rich, the full and those who laugh at others’ expense. What goes around comes around. You’ll get yours.” Luke’s Jesus is clear that wealth and power and privilege are seductions that will surely separate us from God… and from each other. The kingdom of God belongs to those who have nothing… except God. How does that make you feel? It makes me feel “skeert,” which isn’t a Greek word at all. It’s kind of a human word. Skeert. Scared! Afraid that my pride of place and position, and gender and intellect might one day separate me from God’s kingdom. Because stooping to come face-to-face with the poor and the hungry, the weeping and reviled, is the only way to come face-to-face with Jesus. I’m going to say that again, because it’s important: the only way we will ever come face-to-face with Jesus is by stooping to come face-to-face with the poor and the hungry, the weeping and reviled. Maybe if we spent a little less time celebrating ourselves and a little more time trying to bring about the year of God’s favor to the broken and the least of these… maybe we’d be happier, and more aware of the blessings God has bestowed upon us.
We’re all broken, you know. The world is broken. Whether it’s broken health, broken finances, broken relationships, broken faith, or broken something else, we’ve all got our cracks and missing pieces. Our brokenness is very personal, and yet it connects us with one another because we’re all so in need of God’s healing presence in our lives, and in our world. We look around, we see, and in some cases experience, injustice, exploitation and violence. And we cannot help but mourn. And that goes for all of us, no matter our skin color, or gender, socio-economic status or political leanings, we are all mourning. We hear of wars and rumors of wars, endemic disease and poverty around the world and around the corner, religious persecution, graft and corruption in business and government, rampant street crime and increasing levels of substance abuse and addiction, cutting across age and ethnicity. We hear about all of this, and more, and know that this is not God’s will! We listen to words of hate—unspeakable vitriol—being trumpeted from our leaders on both sides of the political aisle and know that this is not how God works! How long, then? From where is our help to come? This stuff is real. We can’t escape it… we can’t sugarcoat it… and most importantly, we can’t fix it.
Woah, woah, woah, Father Kemper! What’s that you say? Here you’ve been talking about Luke’s activist gospel, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor to the least of these and turning the world upside-down, and now you’re saying that the problems of the world can’t be fixed? What the heck? What then should we do? (cf. Luke 3:10)
So, here’s the thing, we can’t fix things. But God can. There’s no amount of social advocacy, or education, or temporal justice-seeking that will cure the world’s ills. It’s all just “tilting at windmills,” as the author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes, might call it. Our help is in the Lord, and the only way we’re ever going to turn the world upside-down is to turn the world back to its Creator. Jesus knew that, and you’ll notice that he never took it upon himself to petition the Roman authorities for reduced taxes or increased political autonomy for the occupied Jewish state. He never went head-to-head with Herod over his religious apostasy or his poor treatment of political prisoners. And he never asked any of his disciples to do that either. But here’s is what Jesus did do: he stooped… to be face-to-face with the poor, the hungry and those who mourned. And his presence reminded these suffering that they had God’s attention. They were blessed. They were known. They were heard. God was just beside them in their misery and would never leave them to face their trials alone.
And that’s what we’re called to do: to come and join Jesus on the plain, each of us… broken and blessed, “skeert” but resolute, mournful and yet trusting in God’s almighty Providence. Luke wants us to know that our God was not content to look down upon us from some celestial mountain top. God loved us so much he became Immanuel, God with us, down on the plain, walking beside us on the road marked with suffering… through all of our struggles and failures and tragedies. And in inviting us to join him, down on the plain, Jesus reminds us that this is where God is looking. And somewhere along the way, we’re reminded we’re not so different from all of the poor and hungry, the weeping and reviled gathered round. We are broken, too. We’re all broken in one way or another and yearning for a world turned upside- down.
And so, a final word of wisdom… one I think Jesus would endorse: Someone, somewhere once said: “You can’t heal the poor and the hungry or those who mourn. You can’t make choices for them. You can’t rescue them. But you can promise them they won’t journey alone. You can lend them your map… but the trip is theirs. So be gentle with yourself… it’s hard work to be present to the freedom of the Other.”
…and a benediction: May you be blessed in your work to bring God’s kingdom to a world in need of healing, and may you be happy in knowing that even on your worst day—especially on your worst day—you have God’s full and complete attention. May you rest assured that there’s nowhere you can go, nothing you can do, that will ever separate you from God’s love. And may you take comfort in the knowledge that no matter how dark the night, no matter how deep the valley, Jesus will be just beside you, closer than you think, and you’ll never be left to face your trials alone. And it’s in his name I pray.
The Podcast Luke 5:1-11
“There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” That’s what the Water Rat said to the Mole the day they met on the riverbank in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. I wonder if Jesus liked boats. He certainly spent enough time in them during the months and years of his Galilean ministry: sometimes using them to get from “point A” to “point B,” sometimes teaching from them and sometimes just using them to “get away.” Several of his disciples were fishermen, eking out a living on boats with their nets on the Sea of Galilee. It was not an easy life, but it kept their families fed, mostly. During the hot Mediterranean summers, the men often worked at night and in the early morning when the fish would school near the surface to feed after having retreated to the deeper waters to escape the heat of the day. Nights and mornings were usually a pretty good time to fish, and it allowed the fishermen to get their catch to market before it spoiled. Only the super-rich had access to ice and, needless to say, Simon (who would become Peter), James and John were not rich. Not by a long shot. But they were able to keep their families fed. Mostly. But on this day, their luck had not been good. They’d toiled all night and into the morning and caught nothing. Nada! It’s a tough thing to have to tell folks who depend on you for their survival: “I got nothin’.” And so, there the men sat on the shore cleaning and mending their nets, probably feeling like failures and in no great rush to go home and tell their families about their night on the water.
And then Jesus showed up. Jesus and a crowd. Jesus usually had some kind of crowd following him around. Since his escape from the mob at the edge of the cliff in Nazareth, he’d headed north and east to Capernaum, at the top of the Sea of Galilee (or the lake of Gennesaret, as Luke calls it), a distance of about eighty miles. Along the way, he’d taught in the synagogues, cast out a few demons (on the Sabbath of course) and healed some sick folks, including a woman who turns out to be Simon Peter’s mom-in-law (Luke 4:31-41). People were avid, even desperate, to hear the message Jesus was proclaiming—the good news of the kingdom of God—so much so that when it came time for Jesus to move on, they’d have none of it, and tried to prevent him from leaving their towns (vv. 42-44). I guess popularity can be a two-edged sword, can’t it?
So here comes Jesus down to the lakeshore and the crowd is right on his heels… pushing, prodding, clutching at his robes, vying for Jesus’ attention, shouting at the top of their lungs, each person trying to make his voice heard above the others. I’m guessing Peter was not amused. “Great…” he must have thought. “The perfect end to a perfect day. Who is this guy, anyway?” The two had not yet met. Next thing you know, Jesus stepped into his boat and asked for a ride. And here’s the thing: there must have been something about Jesus that gave Peter pause. Something that stopped him from doing what he probably wanted to do, which was to pick Jesus up bodily and throw him overboard. I wonder if the two exchanged a look before Peter finally acquiesced, saying for the first time what he’d be saying over-and-over again for the next couple of three years: “Where to, Boss?”
So, I wonder if Jesus liked boats. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t; but on this particular day, I’m pretty sure Jesus “took ship” for a couple of reasons, both rooted in practicality. First and foremost, I think he must have wanted to create a little distance between himself and the crowd. He wasn’t going to be able to do what he needed to do—which was proclaim the message of God’s kingdom—amidst all the noise and commotion and incessant badgering of the crowd. Twenty or thirty feet of open water would be just the thing. And then there’s the reflective quality of water. When Philippa and I used to visit her folks in Greece, we stayed in a house about halfway up the side of a mountain on the edge of a bay in the Gulf of Corinth. There was a disco in the town across the bay from us, probably about two-and-a-half miles away as the crow flies, and very often… at night, when the wind was right… we’d hear not only the music from the disco reflecting off the surface of the bay and up onto the side of the mountain—so loud that it sounded like it was coming from the next room—but also, during lulls in the music, conversations of people at the club clearly enough that we could almost understand what they were saying. From two-and-a-half miles away! So, I wonder if, in addition to creating a little space between himself and the crowd, Jesus figured he might be able to be heard more clearly by more people if he used the natural physics of the lake to reflect and, in effect, amplify his voice. He’s smart, you know.
But that’s not really the crux of this Gospel story, is it? Certainly, the teaching happened, and that was important. But even more important was the meeting… the first interaction between Jesus and Peter, James and John… three men who would soon become some of his earliest disciples. Three guys who were having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad day. “Where to, Boss?” James and John might have heard Peter ask. They’d failed at pretty much everything else they had set their hands to that day, so they might as well stick around to listen. What did they have to lose? And so, it began. And after the teaching, Jesus invited them out into the deep water to try doing something they thought they already knew how to do… only in a new way. And the resulting abundance stunned Peter. It was all too much for him to accept: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (v. 8). But it was just Peter’s fear talking: fear of failure… fear of being found unworthy… maybe fear that it was all a dream, and that he would wake to find himself drifting out-at-sea with an empty net. But there came James and John, and if any of them was dreaming, they were all dreaming… and if any of them were failures, or unworthy of God’s largesse, weren’t they all in the same boat? And they were all in the same boat… and Jesus was with them… and he was talking about a new kind of fishing. I expect it was a lot to take in.
I wonder how many of us secretly harbor the fear that we might be failures in God’s eyes. Not that we’re unloved, or even unsaved… only that the way we live our lives doesn’t quite measure up to God’s expectations for us… making us somehow unworthy to participate in God’s plan for salvation. Anyone? Certainly, Isaiah felt unworthy to be chosen as God’s prophet in today’s lesson from Hebrew Scripture: “Woe is me! [cried Isaiah] I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). But God made him clean… made him worthy to carry a word of hope to a people who walked in darkness (cf. Isaiah 9:2). “Here am I,” said Isaiah. “Send me.” And Paul, by his own admission, was “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because [he] persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor 15:9). Paul stood by during the stoning of St. Stephen, the first martyr for the cause of Christ. Heck, he might have handed people stones to throw! And yet, Paul came to believe that even he, along with the original Twelve Apostles of the Jerusalem Church, was made righteous by the grace of God (cf. 2 Cor 5:17-21), suitable to proclaim Christ’s death and resurrection around the Roman world from Damascus to Antioch… Galatia, Ephesus and Colossae, Philippi and Corinth and, finally, in Rome itself. Wherever it was that he was called to go… Paul dragged his undeniably unfit self.
And you and I, each of us, is in the same boat. We have all failed at one thing or another… we’ve all sometimes done things and said things that do not reflect our identities Christ-followers, or our vocations as proclaimers of the good news of God’s kingdom. But, despite all of our human frailties, we’ll be OK. Because Jesus is in the boat with us. Regardless of our shortcomings, we’re beloved of the Father and forgiven. We, ourselves, will be made clean… made righteous… made worthy to join the ranks of apostles and martyrs from time immemorial, to become “fishers of people,” proclaiming the good news of God in Christ to all those who seek him… in our own hometowns and around the world… IF we’ll answer the call.
At the end of today’s gospel reading, Peter, James and John brought their boats to shore, left everything, and followed Jesus. Boom. Just like that. I wonder, sometimes, what they did with all the fish. But that’s neither here nor there… God never wastes anything. The takeaway is that these three salt-of-the-earth fishermen took a pretty big risk that day. They walked away from an enormous windfall… the biggest catch they’d ever made… to follow Jesus. Despite fear of failure or alienation from family and friends… or perhaps even the fear of waking up one day and finding out it had all been a dream, they each heard the call and responded, in essence, “Where to, Boss?” I wish the same for all of us.
The Podcast Luke 4:21-30
Just imagine: there’s Jesus sitting in the synagogue in his own hometown of Nazareth, amongst all sorts of folks who had watched him grow up over the years. Some may have known him pretty well; others might not have met him, but had probably heard of him… you know, like that third or fourth cousin, twice removed, that people here in the South talk about at family reunions. So, Jesus was among family, or at least extended family, there in the synagogue and it was likely a comfortable time of shared devotion. Until he dropped the bombshell: “Today, Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming of God’s kingdom has been fulfilled. In me.”
I can imagine a moment of shocked silence, perhaps followed by a gasp and a little “yes!” from somewhere near the back of the room (his mother, perhaps)… people looking from side-to-side at their neighbors on the benches… some alarmed, many skeptical at this unexpected intrusion into their ritual. Then, a low buzz of conversation: “You know, Judith, I always knew there was something about him. He has such a wonderful presence!” “Oh, I know, Esther! His parents must be so proud. Do you remember the story about that time, must be fifteen or so years ago, when he disappeared for two whole days in Jerusalem? And when they found him, he was sitting in the Temple with the teachers holding forth just like he was one of them! (Luke 2:41-52) His mama must have given him what for!” “Wait a minute,” rumbled a man’s voice from across the room “Isn’t that… Joseph’s boy? Where’s he been lately? Looks like he’s all grown up.” And a response, “He does, Levi. Where’s this guy been hiding? We sure could use some of that “good news” here in Galilee. Yesiree, we got plenty of trouble and oppression right here in Nazareth.” And they did.
You see, the Romans, weary of the incessant squabbling between the Jews and their Herodian overlords, were taking a more active (and brutal) role in policing the Galilean provincials. Taxes were high, and the arrest and torture of political prisoners was commonplace. Groups of armed Jewish “zealots” roamed the hills preying upon Roman commerce… and suspected Jewish collaborators. Some had even been bold enough to ambush small military units, killing the soldiers and seizing their weapons and provisions. The results of such lawlessness had been predictable… and disastrous. Roman authorities thought nothing of executing ten locals for every soldier murdered in order to discourage such rebellious behavior, and they offered generous bribes—aimed at turning brother against brother—for information leading to the capture of Jewish partisans. Many succumbed to such tactics, and so not only poverty but also internecine violence and suspicion had become endemic throughout the region. Yes, Galilee was a mess.
And here came Jesus preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed… truly, the year of God’s favor was at hand. Finally! For a people at the utter limit of their endurance, Jesus’ words were a powerful message of hope. And so, perhaps they can be forgiven for expecting this new prophet to swoop in and make all things right in an instant. But then Jesus burst their bubble, informing them in no uncertain terms that he would not be sticking around to work miracles in Nazareth. At first, there was stunned disbelief. Why would Jesus say that? Did he not understand the urgency of their need? Bitter disappointment flared into anger… and then into rage. The crowd that, only a moment before, had been so pleased and supportive of their new favorite son now assaulted him, manhandled him, pushed him to the edge of a cliff and then… Jesus disappeared.
There’s a lot to ponder here. How could Jesus seemingly ignore the plight of his “extended family” in Nazareth? How could the crowd turn so ugly, so quickly? If Jesus’ didn’t intend to help the people of Nazareth, why did raise their hopes in the first place? And, if Jesus wasn’t going to help them, then who would? Who could? Hope is a powerful thing. I wonder if Jesus, in proclaiming the advent of “the year of God’s favor” to the people of Nazareth, was inviting them… to stop all of their infighting, to set aside all of their sinful and selfish habits and to start behaving like people of God! I wonder if… implicit in Jesus’ refusal to stay with the people of Nazareth to be their own private miracle worker… was a challenge to them to become miracle workers themselves: to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to free the oppressed, to take upon themselves the role God had intended for them since the time of Abraham… that of being bringers of God’s Kingdom on Earth. But I guess the good people of Nazareth didn’t take it all that well, did they? I wonder if you and I would have taken it any better.
When was the last time you were tempted to throw Jesus off the cliff? I believe we get nudges from the Holy Spirit all the time… telling us how we can be Kingdom bringers. How many opportunities were you given to spread the Good News and proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor… yesterday? Last week? Last month? And how did you respond? How many times did you give in to the Holy Spirit’s prompting… and how many times did you just take the path of least resistance, and kind of nudge Jesus over the edge of the cliff, where he would be out of sight and out of mind? I think we’re all tempted to throw Jesus off the cliff when he tells us something we don’t want to hear… or when we know that following Jesus—and doing what Jesus would do—might be difficult or unpleasant… or unprofitable. I think we’re tempted to throw Jesus off the cliff when we talk about immigration… healthcare and reproductive rights… race relations… gender and marriage equality… homelessness… social welfare, what constitutes fair taxation… and a bunch of other issues that create divisions within our communities… even within our churches.
Jesus tells us that the poor and persecuted, the dispossessed and the disenfranchised, will always be with us (cf. Matt 26:11, Mark 14:7 and John 12:8). We will never be able to “fix” all of the social problems with which this world is confronted. But that shouldn’t stop us—mustn’t stop us—from striving to do the work God has set before us… which is being the hands and feet… the Body of Christ, in our own hometowns. The people of Nazareth seemed ready to believe that Jesus was sent from God to prophesy the year of God’s favor; and they seemed pretty avid to see Jesus perform some local miracles, just as he had in Capernaum. But what had they, themselves, been doing to “prepare the way of the Lord,” as Jesus’ cousin John (the Baptizer) would have put it? Not so much, I’m thinking. In refraining from performing any miracles in Nazareth, Jesus forced the townspeople to confront their own assumed helplessness and inaction… their own failure to do the hard work of helping to heal the divisions within their society and live into their ancestral vocation of being the people of God in Nazareth in Galilee.
And when we’re feeling sorry for our selves and find ourselves asking why God doesn’t do something about the multitude of ills that confront our generation, we should remember that God has done something… is doing something. God has created us. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase: “If not me, then who? If not now, then when?” And maybe you’ve heard the song “Do Something,” by Christian singer/songwriter Matthew West, that explores this question in light of our vocation as bringers of God’s Kingdom… “We are the salt of the earth, we are a city on a hill,” West sings, “But we’re never gonna change the world by standing still.” I think we’d all do well to reflect on the challenge implicit in the lyrics of this song the next time we’re tempted to throw Jesus from the cliff.
Matthew West: “Do Something!” Watch the video!
The Podcast Luke 4:14-21
Have you ever been looking and looking for something… only to find that it had been right there — “under your nose” — all along? You might feel pleased, although perhaps a little embarrassed—especially if someone else had been watching as you searched high-and-low. I wonder if some of the people listening to Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue that day felt pleased (and perhaps a little surprised!) to have found something rare and special right under their noses in their own little hardscrabble village of Nazareth: a Prophet of God! Perhaps there were others, however, who couldn’t quite bring themselves to believe that anyone so common, so accessible to them could be anything special at all, let alone a Prophet… or a Messiah. Certainly, the Jews had been waiting for their foretold Messiah for centuries, but they were looking for a King like David, or a Prophet like Moses… not a local carpenter’s son, and not from Nazareth! Even the Apostle Nathanial, when he was first told by Philip about “Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth” said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:45) So, it’s not always enough to simply look for something… you must have eyes to see… and, in this case, ears to hear.
This was the beginning of Jesus’ period of active ministry and he began it on his home turf in Galilee. He had just returned from forty days of fasting in the wilderness, where he had been sorely tempted by the devil. The experience seemed to have empowered rather than diminished him however, and people were already beginning to talk about this new teacher. So, when Jesus entered the synagogue in Nazareth that day, expectations were likely pretty high… among those with eyes to see and ears to hear. The order of worship in the synagogue on Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, likely began with the Shema: “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad” – “Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One.” Next would have come a recitation of the Decalogue (or Ten Commandments) followed by a series of prayers and benedictions, after which Scripture would be read and interpreted. There would likely have been more than one reader with each reading at least three verses. They would stand to read and sit to teach/interpret. While the readings from the Torah (the Law) were predetermined in a fixed, triennial cycle, much as they are today in our own Lectionary, companion readings from the Prophets were often selected on the spot by readers. In this case, Jesus chose to read a passage from the prophet Isaiah. The Hazzan (assistant) would have handed Jesus the scroll and Jesus would have opened it and read the passage in Hebrew before interpreting (or teaching from) it in Aramaic.
The interesting thing about Jesus’ use of this particular passage of Scripture is that he doesn’t seem to have read it “straight…” at least not the way Luke tells it. He omits some of the language originally contained in Isaiah 61:1 about “binding up the brokenhearted” and inserts the bit about “letting the oppressed go free” from an earlier location in the scroll (Isaiah 58:6). An accident, perhaps? Not likely. I don’t want to take us too far into the weeds on this… the takeaway is that Luke’s Jesus knew exactly the point he wanted to make, and didn’t balk at mixing and matching Isaiah’s words to suit his purposes. Jesus carefully selected and connected certain of Isaiah’s prophecies about future Messianic deliverance: to bring good news, to proclaim release, to free the oppressed and proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor… identifying them as being of the highest importance. The threefold repetition of the pronoun me underscored the role of this passage as a description of his own ministry and set the stage for Jesus’ simple and straightforward interpretation of the passage: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled…” let those with ears hear.
So, in the end, the long-awaited Jewish Messiah was neither a King like David nor a Prophet like Moses. God was doing a new thing. God became Immanuel in a flawed and broken world… full of haves and have-nots, oppressors and oppressed, politicians and prisoners and the sick in mind, body and spirit… to spread hope, and lead us to a more abundant way of living. Jesus came to set us free from the crushing bondage of our sins by teaching us to love… and share… and forgive.
Are you still looking for your Messiah? I wonder how often we find ourselves face-to-face with Jesus and fail to recognize him. Is it because our expectations are too high? Can anything good come from Nazareth? Or because they’re not high enough? It’s a lot easier to create God in our own image than it is to love like Jesus. Jesus Messiah was “in the world, but not of it…” and I wonder if the question we should be asking ourselves today… and every day… is how we can be less worldly… and more like Jesus. It doesn’t seem that hard on the surface, but there are a hundred… no, a thousand… decision points we encounter every day that offer us the opportunity to spread the Good News and proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor to “the least of these…” sometimes when it’s not terribly convenient. How are we doing with that? Are we deciding to follow Jesus as the Body of Christ in the world a thousand times a day here in our own hometown… following the example of Jesus in his? How well are we living this abundant life that God is offering? The price Jesus paid was his own life. God says we’re worth it… but are we behaving like we’re worth it? Like we’re redeemed? Are we loving like Jesus Immanuel… God with us? The cost was so great, we can never hope to repay… we can never be worthy. But we can do our best to spread the Good News and extend God’s love and forgiveness to our neighbors as we sojourn together through this weary world. That’s what Jesus would do.
The scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Have you ears to hear?
The Podcast John 2:1-11
Today is the second Sunday after the Epiphany… the Epiphany, itself, being the twelfth and final day of the Christmas Season.
We get the word Epiphany (Ἐπιφάνεια, Epiphaneia)from Koine or common Greek, and it means “manifestation” or “striking appearance.” Used in the context of our Christian faith, it means a vision or manifestation of God in Christ. One could reasonably argue that the entire period of Jesus’ active ministry was a manifestation of his divinity, but during the Season after the Epiphany we focus on some of the more extraordinary events that remind us that Jesus was truly Immanuel, God with us. On the Feast of Epiphany proper, we watched as wise men from the east, paid homage to the Christ child, after following his star to Bethlehem (Matt 2:1-12). On the first Sunday after the Epiphany, we heard Jesus asking John to baptize him so that “all righteousness” would be fulfilled (Matt 3:15)… and then came the Spirit of God like a dove, and a voice from heaven claiming Jesus as Son, as Beloved. And now, on the second Sunday after the Epiphany, we find ourselves in Cana in Galilee… at a wedding. Presumably, a good time was being had by all… until the wine gave out. We don’t know precisely why Jesus’ mother sought “divine intervention” in this case, but the fact that she asked indicates that she knew Jesus was capable of solving the problem. But Jesus hesitated. It doesn’t appear that Jesus was troubled about the act of creating wine from water, per se. It seems, rather, that the issue was one of timing. Not yet. But he changed his mind and, as far as we know, the party went on… and the first public “sign” accomplished by Jesus during his earthly ministry was in the books.
But why the hesitation? Why the change of heart? I wonder sometimes if it was just a little bit of Jesus’ humanity showing in this instance. There are a few tenets of our faith that may be instructive here. When we say that we are “Trinitarian,” we mean that we believe in one God… in three “persons:” Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God above us… God beside us… God inside us. This is key to our understanding of God being manifest in Christ. Immanuel. Our Trinitarian doctrine was shaped by several “ecumenical councils” during the fourth and early fifth centuries. Around the middle of the fifth century, the Council of Chalcedon established that Christ, the second person of the Trinity, was at once fully divine and fully human. Don’t try doing the math on that… it doesn’t add up. It’s a mystery. We read in the Letter to the Hebrews that Jesus Messiah is like us in every respect: he has been tested as we are… and is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. And yet, and yet… he is without sin (4:15). That’s because sin is anything that keeps us apart from God, and since Jesus is God, sin just can’t be in him. Humanity, yes… sin, no. I wonder if, at the moment Jesus’ mother asked him to solve the problem of the wine, he might have had a vision of where it was all going to end… and that his human side recoiled from the prospect. But only for a second. Since there was no sin in Jesus, it didn’t take but an instant for God to be made manifest in Christ through that first miracle at Cana.
And that’s the difference between Jesus… and us. We don’t have it in us to be fully human and fully divine… not by a long shot. We’re all pretty much just human. I would argue, however, that we each have a spark of the divine in us… perhaps that’s what we call our souls—that last remnant of our having been created in the image of God—and that that little bit of divinity is always seeking to return to its source. We keep that ember alive and burning within us through our hope of salvation in Christ, and by saying, “yes” to God’s movement and purpose in our lives. We experience a myriad of such opportunities every day—a constant stream… a million second chances… to do what God would have us do. But we often hesitate. Sometimes for a long time. Sometimes for entire lifetimes. Sometimes we’re just afraid to give ourselves over to the role that God has set before us in helping to bring about the Kingdom.
In today’s epistle, the Apostle Paul exhorts us to take notice of the variety of gifts, services and activities with which we have each been blessed… in one way or another, and to one degree or another… and of the Spirit that animates them in our lives for the good of all (1 Corinthians 12:1-11). That’s Kingdom talk, my friends! Come one, come all! You have a part to play! What gifts has God given you? How are you being moved to exercise them? And what’s stopping you? Does a task seem too difficult… or too inconsequential? Is it fear of failure… or of ridicule? Do you think you lack the skill? Do you think you can’t afford it? Do you doubt yourself? Do you doubt God?
Throughout the Christmas season, we celebrated the light of Christ that has come into the world: God with us. Immanuel. The Season after the Epiphany is an appropriate time for us to take note of the signs pointing to the manifestation of God in Christ, and to reflect on how God might also become manifest in us. God with us… God in us. What might that look like? And what will it cost us? God speaks to each of us in different ways, but we are all called to be bringers of the Kingdom. All of us! And the impulse to hesitate in answering that call is probably not from God. We have an Enemy, you know, who is ever seeking to thwart God’s plans… and to do us harm. When God came down to share in our earthly sojourn, he became fully human so that he could take on all of our fears and bodily frailties, the fruits of our fallen-ness, in order that he would know them… and so that he could heal them. It is through giving into God that we are healed. Let yourself be healed.
Did you ever wonder why we mix a very small amount of water with wine at Communion? A church historian would likely tell you that the quality of the wine was so poor during Apostolic times that it needed to be watered down a bit to be drinkable. And I know more than a few astute theologians who would offer that the water in the wine “symbolizes the water that came from Jesus’ side when he was pierced by a spear, as he hung on the cross in John’s Gospel. Maybe… but I prefer the Eucharistic theology of a six-year-old young man who, when asked what he thought about it all said simply, “Well, if the wine is Jesus and the water is us, then it’s better to have more of Jesus in the cup.” Hear, hear! This reminds of the Message Bible translation of Matthew 5:3… You know common translation: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (NRSV). The Message Bible says it a little differently: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”
And that’s good food for thought as we experience this new Season after the Epiphany together. God with us. God in us. How would God be made manifest in you?
The Podcast Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Baptisms… and threshing floors. What do they have to do with each other?
Do you remember the Gospel story about the time Jesus drove all of the money-changers and merchants out of the temple? (Luke 19:45-48) This was near the end of his earthly sojourn and Jesus was pushing his disciples pretty hard, getting them ready to take responsibility for spreading the Good News after he was gone. And the disciples weren’t being too “swift on the uptake,” so it’s possible that Jesus might have been feeling a little testy when the chief priests and elders approached him in the temple, where he was teaching and healing one day, and asked him by whose authority he was doing all of these things. I can almost hear Jesus sigh when he countered their question with another… hoping, truly hoping, I believe, that they would get it: “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” asked Jesus. And the chief priests and elders, who couldn’t get past struggling to find a politically correct answer to Jesus’ question, found themselves unable to respond (Luke 20:1-8). So, which was it do you think?
John, himself, was forthright in saying that the baptism he was performing was inferior to the one that the coming Messiah would provide. John’s baptism was a variation on a purification ritual for Jewish proselytes—that is, gentiles who wanted to convert to Judaism. That sort of washing was meant to start converts off with a clean slate before they placed themselves under the authority of the Hebrew Law (all 613 mitzvot) for the rest of their lives. But what was notable about John’s baptism was that it was not only for converts… but for practicing Jews as well: everybody got a bath. So, it was not only a ritual cleansing for newbies, but also preparation and a refinement of the faithful for something else… something special. What might that look like?
On the day of his resurrection, Jesus would meet with the disciples in an upper room, breathe on them and say, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:19-23). Later, he would commission them to go forth “and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:16-20). And on the day of Pentecost tongues “as of fire” would appear upon each of Jesus’ followers as they began to proclaim God’s word to all of the people of Jerusalem… in their own languages! (Acts 2:1-12) That’s what it would look like. What a day that must have been. But that brings us back around to the question posed by Jesus about John’s baptism: was it truly from God or was it just a religious thing?
I wonder if it’s not a little bit of both. God created us in the image of divinity in order to be in relationship with us forever. But we messed everything up. And ever since the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden, God has been trying to restore us to unity with him… to bring us home. God made successive covenants with Noah and Abraham and Moses and David: if only the people would be faithful, they would be blessed more than they could ask for or imagine. God always offers us a path to salvation… a chance to be made clean. And yet, we resist the “threshing” that must take place to separate us from our impurities… in order that we can be reunited with God. But despite our stubbornness, I think that most of us are hungry for God whether we know it or not… whether we choose to admit it to ourselves or not. There’s something about living on this lovely (but rather diminutive) blue and green planet… in the middle of the vast expanse of interstellar space… that reminds us of our own smallness and points us towards a truth that we can only see, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “through a glass, darkly,” but that we hope one day to see face-to-face (1 Cor 13:11-12 KJV).
And so, we create rituals that remind us of God’s unfailing love for us… rituals that help us stay faithful to God’s movement and purpose in our lives… because we want to be found worthy of adoption as God’s own people. Perhaps Jesus’ question to the temple leadership that day was rhetorical… to help them understand that the answer needn’t be simply either/or. What if it was both/and? What if the bigness and awesomeness of God could permeate human ritual and make it holy? It seems to me that the chief priests and elders missed an opportunity that day. And in our bickering over church polity in this day and age, how many opportunities do we miss to perceive the mind of God, albeit through a glass, darkly… and to spread the Good News, and be the Body of Christ to a world in great need of hope?
And here’s a final conundrum. Even if John’s baptism, though arguably of men, was sanctified by God for the purpose of spiritual cleansing and as a sign of adoption, why was it necessary for Jesus to get dunked? After all, Jesus was not only without sin… he was God incarnate! In Matthew’s version of today’s gospel story, when Jesus came to be baptized, John protested saying, “‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him: ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then [John] consented.” (Matt 3:13-17). Given the fact that it was Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ use of the term “righteousness” might have been intended to echo Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the coming Messiah when God said, “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (33:15). Or righteousness might simply be interpreted as doing the will of God. But we must also understand that the Hebrew concept of righteousness was traditionally less-concerned with law and legalism as it was with relationships between people. So, perhaps Jesus was saying that he needed to take on all of our brokenness and poverty of spirit because, in the words of Gregory of Nazianzus, “[T]hat which He has not assumed He has not healed.” God wants to be in relationship with us and will stop at nothing to bring us home.
What does your own baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit mean to you? How does it make you feel to know that God loves you unconditionally and will follow you through whatever wilderness you find yourself in, down the darkest paths you can imagine… to bring you home? No matter where you’ve been. No matter what you’ve done. You are cherished. You are adopted. But remember this: while God loves you just the way you are… he’s not going to leave you that way. So, give in to the threshing. And don’t mind the heat or the smoke… it’s just some of our chaff being burned away. We’re all redeemed. Now the question becomes, what are we going to do about it?
The Podcast Matthew 2:1-12
When I was a child, I remember the Christmas story being very simple and straightforward: God sent the baby Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, to save the world. Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger because there was no room at the inn. There was a special star… and angels… and shepherds… lots of singing and rejoicing… and kings… and presents! And it all happened a long, long time ago. Pretty easy for a young mind to take in, right? Later on, I learned about Joseph and Mary having had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem because of something having to do with taxes… King Herod and the Holy Innocents… and a trip to Egypt. Hmmmm. That was a bit more complicated, and disconcerting… especially the part about the Innocents.
Later still, someone clued me into the possibility that the kings might not have been actual kings… just “wise men” (whatever that meant) or perhaps even astrologers! Not quite as impressive. And that the wondrous “star of Bethlehem” was most-likely only a rare, but naturally occurring, astronomical phenomenon: a comet or a triple conjunction of stars that happened to have taken place around the time of Jesus’ birth. And that Jesus’ birth didn’t actually occur in the year zero BC according to the Julian calendar, but might have happened six years before… or six years after… or somewhere in between. And that Isaiah never actuallyprophesied that the mother of Immanuel would be a virgin… only a “young girl.” Man! Talk about bursting bubbles!
As I continued to dig into Biblical history, I came to understand that none of the Gospel writers was likely one of Jesus’ inner circle of (twelve) apostles, and that there were differences between all of the supposedly “infallible” gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. I had known that not all of the gospels included the story of Jesus’ birth, but it wasn’t until much later that I got around to doing a side-by-side comparison of the gospels of Matthew and Luke (the two that do contain birth narratives) and noticed that, while both affirm that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, only Luke tells of Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem… and the stable and the manger (See Luke, Chapter 2). Surely, there were angelsand shepherds in Luke’s Gospel, but no star of wonder… no wise men. Matthew, on the other hand, doesn’t even mention Nazareth until he informs us that Joseph and Mary settled there after their return from Egypt (Matt 2:13-23), a trip that Luke neglects entirely. Matthew would have us understand that the story of Jesus’ birth begins and ends in Bethlehem. But he does tell us of the star and the magi… and the massacre of the Innocents.
And it was only much, much later that I learned that the reason the gospel narratives each tell the story of Jesus Messiah a little differently, is that the writers were likely responding to the needs of their own worshipping communities in their specific place and time. For example, the Gospel of Matthew was likely written in Antioch in Syria in the last quarter of the first century, while Luke’s gospel was written around the same time, but in a different part of the Hellenized (Greek speaking) world… perhaps in Ephesus or Smyrna, in modern day Turkey. We may not be able to pinpoint times or places with exactitude, but we can absolutely discern the efforts of the Gospel writers to establish a connection between the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and the needs of the nascent Christian communities springing up in different parts of the Roman world. One can read between-the-lines in Luke’s gospel the Evangelist’s concern with leveraging the Good News of Jesus Christ to help promote justice and equity for all people, not only within his local community, but in the wider world. The subtext of Matthew’s gospel, on the other hand, reminds us that the life and ministry of Jesus fulfills all of the Old Testament prophesies concerning the advent of a “Messianic apocalypse,” wherein the Jews will be rewarded for their faithfulness, and “the nations” (non-Jewish gentiles) will stream to the light of the God of the Hebrews (Isaiah 60:3). And these are all wonderful rabbit holes we can explore together one day… but not today. The present takeaway is that Matthew likely felt that the story of the star… and the gentile wise men coming to pay homage to the king of the Jews… was important because it foreshadowed the coming Jewish Messianic apocalypse. The Magi were the first gentiles to get on board.
As for detailed timelines, do we really need them? What do they do for us? We work so hard to bring God down to our level… to rationalize and explain the unexplainable, that we run the risk of missing the point: whether Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (as Matthew tells us) or while Quirinius was governor of Syria, as Luke relates (vv. 2:1-6), isn’t really the key issue. Perhaps the writer of the fourth Gospel says it best: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . [and] from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:14a, 16). That’s the Good News: that the Word became flesh for all of us—for all races and ethnicities, all genders… for the rich and the poor, and everyone in between. For saints and for sinners… for people who believe… and for people who do not. For all of us. God loves us that much! So simple. So profound. And as for the star, maybe it was a comet, or a triple conjunction, or some other scientifically-explainable thing… but I’m pretty sure that the God of all Creation could plant a no-kidding “Star of Wonder” in the heavens to signify and celebrate the birth of the Word without breaking a sweat. What do you think?
The Nativity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, is God’s ultimate gift to the world. And I believe we’re all given gifts through which we can glorify God and hasten the coming of the Kingdom—if we choose to do so—if we are faithful. Some people’s gifts make headlines: the gifts of people like Mother Teresa or Billy Graham or Martin Luther King, Jr. But not everyone is called to be famous. Just as Jesus came to be a Messiah for us all, so too are we called to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ to all. And just as wise men from the East followed a star to bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Christ child—a long, long time ago—so, also, are we to pay forward the gifts we’ve been given, great and small, in continuing Jesus ministry of love in the world, helping to restore all people to unity with God and each other in our own little corner of God’s creation. That’s the mission of the Church, you know (BCP 854).
What is your gift? And how will you choose to pay it forward? The word epiphany (Ancient Gk. ἐπιφάνεια) means “manifestation, or striking appearance,” in this case, the manifestation of God’s Christ to the gentile Magi. I pray that you will experience a renewed epiphany of Jesus Messiah in your life, and in your heart, in the next days and weeks (even during a pandemic… no, especially during a pandemic) as you work to discern your role as a member of the Body of Christ in God’s ongoingChristmas story… for a world in great need of hope.
The Podcast Luke 1:39-55
Today’s Gospel lesson is about journeys and blessings. Not only the journey undertaken by Mary to visit her relative Elizabeth, but also the larger journey she had embarked upon when she gave in and said “yes” to the plans God had in store for her. And not only the blessing that Mary was given when she was chosen as Theotokos, which is Greek for “God Bearer,” but also the blessings she and Elizabeth both received when they trusted God to follow through with the mighty deeds that had been foretold by the angel Gabriel.
You know these stories: It was Gabriel who visited first Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, and then Mary to tell them that God was on the move, and that they had an important part to play in his plan for the salvation of the world. The angel first appeared to Zechariah in a vision, in the temple in Jerusalem, where he was serving his turn as priest, and told him that his wife would bear a much-desired son in her old age, that they should name him John, and that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit. “He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God,” said Gabriel. “With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah apparently had a bit of a tough time getting his brain wrapped around Gabriel’s prophesy and, for his disbelief, was struck dumb for the entire period of his wife’s pregnancy. Which might have been a good thing for him. As Elizabeth’s belly began to swell, however, seeing was believing for her… and she rejoiced exceedingly (Luke 1:5-25).
And as Elizabeth’s pregnancy progressed, Gabriel made a second trip to Earth, this time to the little village of Nazareth in Galilee, and appeared to Mary, who was engaged to be married to a fellow named Joseph, and told her that this was her lucky day… she had found favor with God and was, herself, going to have a baby, who she would name Jesus. “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High,” said Gabriel, “and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Sounds like the kind of news any young Jewish mother would like to hear, right? Messiah’s coming… and you get to be his mom! But Mary’s response was, “Wait… what? That might be kind of awkward because, you see, I’m still a virgin.” Implicit in her comment, I believe, was: “What will Joseph say?” And maybe that was why Gabriel didn’t strike her dumb the way he had Zechariah. He knew she would have some ‘splaining to do, and that she’d need her voice to do it. So, he just looked at her (kindly, I think) and reminded her that “nothing was impossible for God.” And Mary, like Elizabeth, embraced what God had in store for her. And so, it began (Luke 1:26-38).
Journeys… and blessings. Do you sometimes feel as if you’ve “run your race?” “…fought the good fight?” “…made your mark in the world?” whatever that might be? That your life’s journey is pretty-much complete, and now you’re just hanging out, marking time? And the blessings? Of course, every new day’s a blessing… every recovery from illness… every birth and every success of a loved one… every time your favorite sports team comes out on top. All of these are blessings, and there’s plenty more like them—almost too many to count! And I believe God forgives us when we occasionally become prisoners of our own inertia… content to mark time and count our many blessings, rather than actively and continually discerning how we can be a blessing to the world around us by participating in his plan for its salvation. Yeah, I know it’s a conundrum… “What role does God need me to play in helping to bring about his Kingdom?” Maybe Elizabeth and Mary asked a similar question back in 6 AD (by Luke’s figuring). But here’s the thing: God is full of surprises. He never stops. He’s not done with this old world and, if you’re still here on this Earth, God’s not done with you, either.
The Season of Advent’s a funny time. Not funny “ha-ha” . . . funny odd. And sometimes difficult. On one hand, it’s the build-up to Christmas! A time when we prepare to commemorate Jesus’ first-coming, two-thousand years ago, with praise and caroling and gift-giving, and by trying to be just a little bit kinder and more loving to people around us. But there’s more to Advent than that. It’s also a time when we are to take stock of our lives and prepare ourselves for the second coming, a day on which Jesus told his disciples that “the powers of the heavens will be shaken . . . and the Son of Man will come on a cloud, with power and great glory” (Luke 21:26-27). Just two weeks ago we listened as the Baptizer admonished his flock to “repent . . . to prepare the way of the Lord . . . and make his paths straight” (Luke 3:3-4). And we might have shivered a bit last week when he spoke of a new kind of Baptism that was coming into the world, not of water, but of the Holy Spirit… of wheat and chaff and unquenchable fire (Luke 3:16-17). Kind of scary, huh? So, amidst all the happy anticipation of Christmas, there’s also cause for unease. It’s a time when joy and a sense of feeling blessed can seem elusive. Astronomically, Advent is a dark time of year… the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year, will happen just two days from now.
But you know what? We’re about to turn a corner. The days will be getting longer now. The darkness will recede. Light and hope will return to the world. So, prepare yourselves. Prepare yourselves for a new beginning… to say “yes” to whatever journeys and blessings God has in store for you this Christmastime and in the coming year. You may think your dance card is full. You may think you’ve already got your ticket punched. Or you might think that you’ve made such a mess of past journeys that you’re unworthy of a second chance. But if that’s what you think… think again. Nothing is impossible for God, and it’s never too late. Our God is a God of a million second chances.
So, here’s an Advent benediction for you:
May you have the strength and courage to say “yes” to God, and take joy in your new journeys wherever they may take you.
May your path be tolerably straight, and always illuminated by the Light of Christ.
May you, yourself, be a reflection of that Light.
May the Mighty One look with favor on you… and have mercy on you… and do great things for you.
May you become an instrument of Christ’s healing and reconciliation in the world.
May you be lifted up and filled to bursting with his grace and peace.
In short, my brothers and sisters, here’s my prayer for you as we stand upon the threshold of this new and glorious Christmastide: May you be blessed as much as you can stand!
The Podcast Luke 3:7-18
Now, that’s some kind of Good News, isn’t it? “You sons of snakes!”
I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time thinking of being associated with a brood of vipers… having my heritage belittled… and being threatened with an edged bludgeon and with unquenchable fire… as good news! I guess John the Baptizer was not one to mince words when it came to telling people what they needed to do to “get right” with God. It wasn’t enough to be God’s Chosen People… it wasn’t enough to obey the Law… it wasn’t enough to be part of the Temple establishment, especially if that meant helping to maintain the status quo through violence or graft. “No,” said John, “you must repent of anything that separates you from God!” And not only that, but you must be active in bearing good fruit, the kind of fruit that helps bring about God’s Kingdom on earth. And the people were, perhaps not surprisingly, confused and alarmed! “We thought we were doing OK… we thought that our Jewish-ness and our faithfulness to the Law and the Temple would save us. If not that, then what? What then shall we do?”
John knew that the people standing around him, knee deep in the Jordan, were guilty of the original sin of selfishness: of putting their faith in their own ability to provide for themselves, rather than putting their whole trust in God. And I expect John knew that the people’s selfishness was a product of fear, pure and simple… the fear that somehow, God’s Providence would not be enough. The sin of selfishness had dogged the steps of humanity since the time of Adam and Eve, and it continued to be a barrier between the people—and God… and John was on a mission to replace the fear of things temporal with the fear of God Almighty! So, he told them, in terms they could understand, what they needed to do: “share what you have… don’t steal from folks… be content with what you’ve got”—and also what would happen to them if they failed in this charge. Implicit in John’s message was that when we put our whole trust in God, good things happen… great things… and that we will bear amazing fruit to help bring the Kingdom! That’s the Good News! And of course, this message would be central to Jesus’ ministry for the next three years. You remember what he said: “No one can serve two masters . . . don’t confuse what is truly important with that which is peripheral: consider the birds . . . and the lilies. God looks after them, and God will look after you. Your striving should be first for the Kingdom of God and its righteousness” (Matt 6:24-34). God will sort out everything else.
There’s a lot to tempt our fear going on in the world today: threats of physical and cyber-attack by our enemies… the threat of instability in the world economy… the threat of a changing climate… and those are just some of the external distractions! What about all of our personal“stuff?” Lord knows there’s plenty of that! There’s so much to distract us from the Good News of God’s Kingdom. And, like those seeking the reassurance of John’s baptism in today’s Gospel, we are caught between our fears… and the unthinkable consequences of failing to make God sovereign in our lives. What then shall we do?
For the past couple of years, mixed in with all of the angst about COVID, there’s been a lot of buzz about how this country is going to deal with multiple migrant caravans, consisting of tens of thousands of political and economic refugees from Central America and Haiti, working their way north through Mexico intent on securing a better life for themselves and their children in the U.S. People on both sides of the issue are quick to scoff at opposing viewpoints, which isn’t very helpful, and masks the underlying moral dilemma for people of faith, which is: do we trust God to inform our hearts and minds about the right thing to do, and to provide us with what we need to do it? Or do we rely instead on our own fear-based analysis of the matter at hand… and try to make the decision on our own? Well… “God helps those who help themselves,” some might say. Not in the Bible! Try the 1757 edition of “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” if you’re looking for that old chestnut.
Look, I’m not here to talk about the ethics, or even the feasibility, of secure vs. open borders… or immigration control vs. immigration reform or paths to citizenship or amnesty. My own thoughts on these issues are complicated… the whole situation is complicated. Heck, if it was easy, we’d have licked the problem decades ago. I’m not telling you what to think or which “causes” you should take on. But I will say this: I’m pretty sure that any action we take based upon fear and insecurity about the future is likely to be in straight-up opposition to God’s movement and purpose in the world. Our God is not a God of the status quo. We have work to do. And, by the way, God never told us that our lives would always be comfortable… or safe. We are told, however, over and over throughout the Old and New Testaments, that if we trust in God we will be upheld (e.g., Psalm 34:17-19, Isaiah 41:10 and John 14:16, just to name a few). God will be right beside us… just as he was with his Son on the cross.
This doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes be scared and tempted to take matters into our own hands. But that’s just fear (and the “original sin” of selfishness) talking. And it’s in overcoming such temptations that we live into being the creatures that God created us to be. It’s okay to be scared… it’s not okay to give in to our fears. Better that we give in to God and trust him to guide our feet in the way of righteousness. Giving in to God is the only true path to grace and salvation and peace.
I’d like to share a song with you that has given me great comfort during some of the difficult and fearful times in my life. Perhaps it will be helpful to you, as well, as you wrestle with your own fears, whatever they may be… continuing your Advent journey of self-examination in preparation for the rebirth of the Prince of Peace.
Rich Mullins, “Hold me Jesus”
The Podcast The Jews back in Biblical times often had trouble walking a straight path. As far back as Moses, they tended to wander in a wilderness of their own devising, making only incremental progress towards the destination God had in store for them. Two steps forward, one step back. And after they got to the Promised Land, they had great difficulty governing themselves without God’s intervention in the form of Judges and, later, kings. They just couldn’t seem to hold things together on their own. Their brief period of prosperity during the unified reigns of David and Solomon was followed by centuries of infighting between the rulers of “the divided kingdom”—the kings of Israel in the north, and Judah in the south—battling God and each other incessantly, careening down a bad road that would lead to destruction: first of Israel by the Assyrians and, only a few years later, Judah by the Babylonians.
Again and again, prophets called kings and kingdoms to task for failing to walk the straight path God had set before them. And prophets can be so annoying, right? Especially when you know, deep down, that they’re speaking the truth. It was only eighty years after the death of great King Solomon that not-so-great King Ahab referred to the prophet Elijah as the “troubler of Israel” for calling the people—and him—to repentance for their idolatry (1 Kings 18:17-18). Prophets like Elijah had a way of getting under your skin, particularly if you were an apostate king, one who had willfully abandoned God in pursuit of false idols. But not all kings were apostate… sometimes the powerful in both the North and the South listened… and heeded God’s commandments. And when Israel and Judah feared God and cooperated—when they were together—good things happened. Sadly, however, this was the exception, rather than the rule.
So, the Temple was destroyed, and the citizens of Judah were sent into exile in Babylon. But throughout all of this travail, God remained faithful to his Chosen People. The path to salvation remained open to those with eyes to see. All they had to do was be obedient and follow the way God set before them, but it took them seventy years of captivity in Babylon before they woke up and figured that out… and started paying attention to where God was leading them. Then the Jews—once again unified in spirit and purpose—were able to return to the land of their forebears. The Temple was rebuilt, and the people recovered a degree of their former autonomy… but only a degree. Because, you see, the Jews remained a proud and fractious society. God had called them a “stiff-necked people” during their Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 32:7-10), and nothing much had changed in that regard since then. The new had barely worn off the second Jewish Temple when their divisions, their sectarian strife, again got the best of them, and they fell into the same rut of political squabbling that had made them “ripe for the picking” by the Babylonians. A series of empires washed over Palestine as the Jews continued to fight among themselves: first the Persians: Darius and Xerxes, then Alexander the Great, then the great Seleucid emperor Antiochus… and then Herod and the Romans. It was only about four hundred and fifty years before the Jews again found themselves occupied and oppressed and crying out to God for help. And so, God sent John the Baptizer, a new “troubler of the people,” to help them recall words of hope and encouragement first spoken by the prophet Isaiah centuries earlier: “Comfort… my people. In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord… make his paths straight” (Isaiah 40:1-5).
Like the Jews in Biblical times, we too are a fractious people. We too have problems holding things together on our own. We each have our own myopic view of the way the world ought to work, and when things don’t go our way, we get pretty cross about it. Oh, we may not kvetch about it in public, especially if we’re unsure about our neighbors’ political leanings… we don’t want to create conflict after all, and we surely don’t want people to think ill of us. But even when we keep our contrariness to ourselves, it remains a canker in our hearts… a stumbling block separating us from God and from each other. And we know where that leads. And yet we are stubborn… stiff-necked. None of us is immune.
There’s a lot of really bad stuff going on in the world these days: wars and insurrections… people maiming and killing one another with seeming abandon in order to advance a particular political agenda… or sometimes just out of pure meanness. Or is it brokenness? Humanity seems immersed in a seething mess of social and religious turmoil… struggling and sometimes failing nation states… famine, pestilence and the very real threat posed by a changing climate. There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of urgency… some of it real, and some of it a product of the 24-hour news cycle, I think. In a very real sense, we are in the wilderness. And most of us have our own opinions about what might be done to mitigate some (or all) of these present crises, don’t we? I have a lot of great ideas about how to solve the world’s problems but sometimes, when I really think about it, I have to admit that my solutions are often self-serving in one way or another. What’s in it for me? How about you? Do you have a “default” position on some or all of the “hot button” issues that confront our nation and the world today? And, if so, what is the basis for your position? If it’s not prayer and discernment about how you can be the Body of Christ to a world in need of hope, then you may be on the wrong path. You may want to think again! Believe me, I know that trying to do what Jesus would do in any given situation is seldom convenient, or economically prudent, but that’s what you and I as Christians have signed up for… isn’t it?
Some in society are becoming increasingly dismissive of a prayerful response to the injustice and tragedy that bedevils our world today. In the print and digital media, complaints of: “GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS!” or “THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS DON’T CUT IT” often follow on the heels of each new outrage. Are our cries for help are falling on deaf ears…? It certainly feels that way sometimes. But… why is it God’s job to be forever fixing the messes we humans create for ourselves? I hold fast to the belief that God is on the move in our world every day, in every birth and every death and in every other miracle of creation… and that God hears the cries of his people for relief and salvation. God is, and will always be, with us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:20). But we’ve been given the job of helping to bring about the Kingdom here in our troubled world. It’s why we were made. So, it’s OK to rant and rail… it’s OK to ask God what he’s doing to address all of the ills that trouble this broken world. But if you listen, carefully, you may hear God’s response: “I created you.”
I’ve heard it said, that the wiser one becomes, the fewer choices one has to make. We will not achieve wisdom by relying on our own meager resources to solve the world’s problems. We can only do that by prayer and discernment—supplicating prayer, but also listening prayer—and then by doing, as best we’re able, what we think that Jesus might do in any given situation. And we must do it together—with each other—as difficult and messy as that may be. That’s the straight path. And as we listen, perhaps we’ll hear the voices of Isaiah and of John (the new Elijah) speaking words of tenderness and resolve: “Comfort… my people. In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Fill the valleys, level the hills, straighten out whatever has become crooked… smooth over the rough places. Make his paths straight.” So, keep your chin up… be faithful. Do your best to be true to your calling as the Body of Christ on earth… and you will see the salvation of God.
The Podcast Luke 21:25-36
Happy New Year, Church!
Wait… what? I see a couple of folks out there scratching their heads, but you heard me right. I always say, “Happy New Year!” on the First Sunday of Advent because it marks the beginning brand-new liturgical year, in this case, Year C… the year of Luke’s Gospel. Yippee! But, whether it’s year A (Matthew), B (Mark) or C, Advent is the season when we look forward to commemorating the nativity of our Lord and Savior in the person of the baby Jesus… the “first coming,” if you will. And we’ll be forgiven if visions of sugarplums are already beginning to dance in our heads… if our thoughts have begun to turn to holiday gatherings, gift giving and a rekindled spirit of love and charity between neighbors… the “Christmas Spirit,” it’s sometimes called. But we must remind ourselves that there is more to Advent than that. Advent is also the time when we look ahead to the second coming of Christ Jesus—the Messiah and Redeemer of the world—in his power and glory—the Parousia(par-OO-sia), if you will.That day will be a new beginning with a capital “B.” That day will change everything.
In today’s Gospel passage from Luke, Jesus gave his disciples a hint about what to expect: “there will be signs… and distress… and confusion. People will faint from fear and foreboding…” they’ll begin to question everything they thought they knew about the world they live in… and perhaps even the God who created it (vv. 21:25-26). And then, when everything seems to be falling apart around them, “then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” What a magnificent, terrible day that will be. If you were reading these words out of the Bible, you’d notice that that passage is in quotes. Jesus is repeating words spoken by someone else. Who? And when? And what was the original context? Glad you asked. Rabbi Jesus is quoting the prophet Daniel who lived five-hundred years or so before the time of Luke’s Gospel. Daniel prophesied from around 605 until around 536 BC… right in the middle of the worst period of history the Jews had ever known… when they were overrun by the Babylonians, their Temple destroyed, and all the people sent into exile. In that case, God’s rebellious people were reaping what they had sown through their willfulness and self-indulgence. Yet even in the midst of all of the violence and turmoil, as the last remnants of the glorious kingdom built by David and Solomon were being trampled into the dust, Daniel prophesied words of awesomeness and hope to a faithful remnant of God’s people in their time of need. He said the Son of Man, the Messiah, would return to save his people and be given “dominion and glory and kingship… that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion would be an everlasting dominion that would never pass away. His kingship would never be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13b-14).
And five hundred years later Jesus, like Daniel, is prophesying about apocalypse… and hope. Immediately preceding today’s passage from Luke, Jesus had foretold the second destruction of the temple and the City, this time by the Romans… the new Babylon. He spoke of wars and insurrections… famines and plagues… persecutions and death… but in the midst of all of the noise and confusion, when all hope would seem to be lost, Jesus offered his friends words of encouragement. He told them he would return to them: “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (v. 21:28).
“But we’re only human! How are we to stand? How are we to raise our heads in the face of the destruction and travail that have been foretold?” you might ask. Only by trusting that God loves us and will see us through, no matter what. God knows that we can’t make it on our own, and that’s why Jesus came to remind us of our calling and lead us back to the path of righteousness. Nothing is impossible for God if we’ll only be faithful. If we are to “stand up and raise our heads” on the day of Son of Man’s coming in power and great glory, we must repent of the willfulness and self-indulgence that dogs our days as it did those of the Jewish people in Old Testament times. We must recommit ourselves to loving God and our neighbor… to not judging… to becoming bringers of the Kingdom that will surely come, the Kingdom we pray for every time we pray the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done….” Do we mean it?
Advent is indeed a time to prepare ourselves for the birth of the Christ Child, a time to consider what kind of God would send his only Son to live among us and to show us the way to salvation. God’s arms are always open to us, but we must return the embrace through self-examination and repentance. What are we doing in our lives that separates us from God? In what ways do our willfulness and self-indulgence cause us to fall short of becoming the creatures that God has created us to become? Pondering these questions, and then taking action to correct the discrepancies will add more joy to our Christmas than we could ever ask or imagine.
So, wait for it. The sugarplums aren’t going anywhere… the time for celebration will come. But not yet. Now is the time for each of us to examine our lives carefully and honestly and ask ourselves how ready we are for the new Beginning foretold by Jesus in our Gospel lesson this morning—that magnificent and terrible day when God’s kingdom will break upon this world and change everything, the day “the Son of Man will come in a cloud with power and great glory.” If the thought doesn’t give you chill bumps, it should. How are you preparing for that day of days? Will you be ready?