Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This section is known as the prologue to John’s Gospel. It differs from the rest of the Gospel in style (the rest, like the other Gospels, is narrative), and introduces vocabulary and images that will be prevalent throughout the rest of the gospel; like life, light and darkness, witness, truth, world, knowledge, acceptance and rejection, children of God, glory, Father and Son.
• Some theologians have speculated that the writer of John’s Gospel drew from early Christian hymnodity for the prologue, similar to the Christ hymn Paul quotes in Philippians 2:6-11. Like a hymn, the prologue evokes rather than explains.
• The prologue consists of four parts
1) v. 1-5, The eternal Word is the Light and Life of Creation
2) v. 6-8, John the Baptist witnesses to the Light
3) v. 9-13, the Light, or Word, came into the World
4) v. 14-18, the Word became flesh and dwells among us
• The Prologue concerns two spheres of God’s presence
1) the eternal, the sphere of the cosmic Word of God
2) the temporal, the sphere of John the Baptist, the world, and the incarnate Word (Word made flesh)
The heart of the prologue, and of John’s gospel itself, is the interaction of these two spheres. The Prologue highlights how Jesus is both beyond time and history and also holds a specific place within time and history. John 1 starts with the eternal Word, but as the Prologue goes on, the Word enters into the time-bound world.
• The Greek phrase that starts 1:1, “In the beginning,” is the same phrase the Septuagint translator used for the beginning of Genesis 1:1.
• Logos, which is translated as “Word,” would be better translated as “message” or “communication.” It is the active experience of communicating. In logos, John used a word familiar to both Greek and Hebrew audiences in a new way that drew from both traditions. In Greek philosophy, the word was used to speak about the creative plan of God that governs the world. In the Hebrew tradition, when God speaks, action follows. God spoke at creation, and the world came into existence. God spoke at Sinai, and the Law was delivered to Moses. It also fits with the Jewish wisdom tradition, Proverbs 8:22-31 speaks of how Wisdom had been with God “before the beginning of the earth.”
• v. 5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” could also be translated “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it.”
• v. 14 “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” A better translation is “made his dwelling among us.” “To dwell” is related to the word for tabernacle or tent. One modern translator put it this way, “the Word put skin on and moved into the neighborhood.”
• The word “grace” charis shows up four times in the Prologue, and not again in the rest of the Gospel. John establishes the theme of grace, and then illustrates in throughout the rest of the Gospel without ever naming it again. It reminds me of the St. Francis quote “preach the Gospel at all times, and use words if necessary.”
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail R. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Thursday, December 24, 2015
This Is The Night: A Sermon on Luke 2:1-20
This is the night. The night we have been waiting for. For four weeks we’ve waited and watched and hoped, as the lights on our advent wreath grew brighter and brighter, as the day on the calendar grew nearer and nearer, as the wonder in our hearts grew deeper and deeper. And finally, the night has come. This is the night, the angel told the shepherds, that to us is born, this day, in the city of David, a savior who is the Messiah, the Lord.
This is the night the angel foretold, when he told Zechariah his son would make ready a people prepared for the Lord. This is the night the angel proclaimed, when he told Mary she would bear the Son of God. This is the night Elizabeth exclaimed, when she cried, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
This night so humble, this night so mild, this night, in a baby asleep on a girl child’s lap, in heavenly host singing glory to a field of unkempt shepherds, this is the night that we witness the Word of God made flesh come and dwell among us. This is the night that the king of Kings was born.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
To what humble dwellings, the Lord of Hosts was born. Born not in a palace of silver and gold, born not to parents of wealth and esteem, born not among leaders, kings, priests, or saints. But here in a stable, with sheep and with cows. Here to young parents, unmarried and poor. Here, heralded by shepherds, untrusted and scorned.
This simple birth set the stage for a life of reversal. Even as a man grown with disciples and crowds, he would never stray far from this humble beginning. The child born unwelcome would welcome the children. This child seen by shepherds would shepherd the hungry. He would break bread with sinners and forgive all the hurting. He would heal saddened hearts and give hope in our longing. And then…
This night is not the only night that the world waits in anticipation. Because also wrapped up in the glory of this night is the knowledge that when this baby grew up, his teaching and preaching, the glorious upheaval that this birth foretold; would draw the attention of the authorities. And those powerful players, like powerful players throughout all of history, like powerful players today, would not want in the world a man like this. Would not want in the world someone who told the poor they had value, who told the hurting they were loved, who promised forgiveness to sinners, and grace for all the world. The powers of this world do not want us to know that love is abundant. They want us to live in a world where greed, where shame, where conflict and pain are the forces that matter, because by such forces the powerful retain their power. But Jesus came proclaiming power of a different sort. Jesus came and said that you, exactly who you are, exactly as you are, are the people who whom Christ was born. You who sit here tonight wondering if you have enough, if you are enough. You who question, and doubt, and wonder if such good news could truly be for you, if a God who knows all, who sees all, could truly know, and love, and forgive you, this child born in a manger attests to the power of God’s promise. And for that, because the powers of this world do not want us to know our true worth, this child in a manger would one day face death. He would be brought before powers, crucified, die, and be buried. But then, on a night much like this one, the church again gathers to whisper the promise that this is the night.
Because this child born in a manger would rise from the dead. This child born of Mary would defeat death itself. This birth sung by angels is the birth of new life. All of this, resurrection and heartbreak; despair, hope, and promise; all of this set in motion on this one holy night.
Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians fear; for sinners here the silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spears shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you;
hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!
We bring to this child all our fears and our longings, we bring to this child all our hopes and desires. This Child born of Mary is God the incarnate; this child born of Mary is life for the world. The gold he desires is the gold he makes from us, the incense and myrrh is the scent of new life. We can come to this place with our hands and hearts open, for from our very lives, God is making the world.
Do not worry on this night, of the gifts you are bringing. Do not worry what you bring, for you are enough. Come just as you are, be a guest at this banquet, come just as you are to the table of grace. For here, at this table, the Christ child is waiting; here bread and wine are a feast to foretaste. A foretaste of the promise which God is creating; a foretaste of the promise that God has for all.
So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh; come, peasant, king, to own him.
The King of kings salvation brings; let loving hearts enthrone him.
Raise, raise the song on high, the virgin sings her lullaby;
Joy, joy, for Christ is born, the babe, the son of Mary!
This is the night of God born among us; this is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. Tonight above all nights we shout and sing praises, our voices ring loudly with heavenly hosts.
But not too loud. Because tonight we remember a baby is sleeping, tonight we stay silent, we watch and we wait. For on Mary’s lap, the dear Christ Child is sleeping. On Mary’s lap lies Love incarnate.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
Sermon interspersed with the hymn "What Child is This" by William C. Dix. Taken from Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymn number 296 (Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, MN, 2006).
This is the night the angel foretold, when he told Zechariah his son would make ready a people prepared for the Lord. This is the night the angel proclaimed, when he told Mary she would bear the Son of God. This is the night Elizabeth exclaimed, when she cried, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
This night so humble, this night so mild, this night, in a baby asleep on a girl child’s lap, in heavenly host singing glory to a field of unkempt shepherds, this is the night that we witness the Word of God made flesh come and dwell among us. This is the night that the king of Kings was born.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
To what humble dwellings, the Lord of Hosts was born. Born not in a palace of silver and gold, born not to parents of wealth and esteem, born not among leaders, kings, priests, or saints. But here in a stable, with sheep and with cows. Here to young parents, unmarried and poor. Here, heralded by shepherds, untrusted and scorned.
This simple birth set the stage for a life of reversal. Even as a man grown with disciples and crowds, he would never stray far from this humble beginning. The child born unwelcome would welcome the children. This child seen by shepherds would shepherd the hungry. He would break bread with sinners and forgive all the hurting. He would heal saddened hearts and give hope in our longing. And then…
This night is not the only night that the world waits in anticipation. Because also wrapped up in the glory of this night is the knowledge that when this baby grew up, his teaching and preaching, the glorious upheaval that this birth foretold; would draw the attention of the authorities. And those powerful players, like powerful players throughout all of history, like powerful players today, would not want in the world a man like this. Would not want in the world someone who told the poor they had value, who told the hurting they were loved, who promised forgiveness to sinners, and grace for all the world. The powers of this world do not want us to know that love is abundant. They want us to live in a world where greed, where shame, where conflict and pain are the forces that matter, because by such forces the powerful retain their power. But Jesus came proclaiming power of a different sort. Jesus came and said that you, exactly who you are, exactly as you are, are the people who whom Christ was born. You who sit here tonight wondering if you have enough, if you are enough. You who question, and doubt, and wonder if such good news could truly be for you, if a God who knows all, who sees all, could truly know, and love, and forgive you, this child born in a manger attests to the power of God’s promise. And for that, because the powers of this world do not want us to know our true worth, this child in a manger would one day face death. He would be brought before powers, crucified, die, and be buried. But then, on a night much like this one, the church again gathers to whisper the promise that this is the night.
Because this child born in a manger would rise from the dead. This child born of Mary would defeat death itself. This birth sung by angels is the birth of new life. All of this, resurrection and heartbreak; despair, hope, and promise; all of this set in motion on this one holy night.
Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians fear; for sinners here the silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spears shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you;
hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!
We bring to this child all our fears and our longings, we bring to this child all our hopes and desires. This Child born of Mary is God the incarnate; this child born of Mary is life for the world. The gold he desires is the gold he makes from us, the incense and myrrh is the scent of new life. We can come to this place with our hands and hearts open, for from our very lives, God is making the world.
Do not worry on this night, of the gifts you are bringing. Do not worry what you bring, for you are enough. Come just as you are, be a guest at this banquet, come just as you are to the table of grace. For here, at this table, the Christ child is waiting; here bread and wine are a feast to foretaste. A foretaste of the promise which God is creating; a foretaste of the promise that God has for all.
So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh; come, peasant, king, to own him.
The King of kings salvation brings; let loving hearts enthrone him.
Raise, raise the song on high, the virgin sings her lullaby;
Joy, joy, for Christ is born, the babe, the son of Mary!
This is the night of God born among us; this is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. Tonight above all nights we shout and sing praises, our voices ring loudly with heavenly hosts.
But not too loud. Because tonight we remember a baby is sleeping, tonight we stay silent, we watch and we wait. For on Mary’s lap, the dear Christ Child is sleeping. On Mary’s lap lies Love incarnate.
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
Sermon interspersed with the hymn "What Child is This" by William C. Dix. Taken from Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymn number 296 (Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, MN, 2006).
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 2:1-20
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Most of the birth narrative is spent setting context. Trying to place an exact date to the events inevitably breaks down for modern scholars. There is record of a census by Quirinius, but only of Judea. And because censuses were preformed for tax purposes, there would be no need to travel. The importance for Luke, like in chapter 3, is not with historical accuracy. The importance is placing the significance of the birth in relation to world history. Jesus birth is central enough to deserve to be listed among such powerful events as the reign of the emperor.
• Another important context point the census brings to light is the overwhelming power of the empire that it could force an entire nation to uproot itself and travel to its ancestral home. It makes the claim of a new king that much more amazing, and more necessary.
• Augustus was widely acclaimed as a bringer of peace. So by relating the birth as announcing “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14), Luke subtly proclaims Jesus as the true bringer of peace.
• The birth taking place is Bethlehem is important because it links Jesus to David, fulfilling the promises that the Messiah would come from the Davidic line.
• That the angel would first visit shepherds is an important detail in the kind of king Jesus will be. Shepherding was a despised occupation. Shepherds were considered to be shiftless and dishonest. Yet it is too them that the announcement of the birth of the Messiah is first proclaimed.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Most of the birth narrative is spent setting context. Trying to place an exact date to the events inevitably breaks down for modern scholars. There is record of a census by Quirinius, but only of Judea. And because censuses were preformed for tax purposes, there would be no need to travel. The importance for Luke, like in chapter 3, is not with historical accuracy. The importance is placing the significance of the birth in relation to world history. Jesus birth is central enough to deserve to be listed among such powerful events as the reign of the emperor.
• Another important context point the census brings to light is the overwhelming power of the empire that it could force an entire nation to uproot itself and travel to its ancestral home. It makes the claim of a new king that much more amazing, and more necessary.
• Augustus was widely acclaimed as a bringer of peace. So by relating the birth as announcing “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14), Luke subtly proclaims Jesus as the true bringer of peace.
• The birth taking place is Bethlehem is important because it links Jesus to David, fulfilling the promises that the Messiah would come from the Davidic line.
• That the angel would first visit shepherds is an important detail in the kind of king Jesus will be. Shepherding was a despised occupation. Shepherds were considered to be shiftless and dishonest. Yet it is too them that the announcement of the birth of the Messiah is first proclaimed.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
How Can This Be?: A Sermon on Luke 1:39-56
Our Gospel reading for today drops us in the middle of the story. So in order to understand the wonder of this meeting, let’s start where Luke started, at verse five in Jerusalem, with a minor priest named Zechariah. Zechariah was married to Elizabeth, whom, Luke tells us, is a descendant of Aaron, and thus also a member of the priestly class by birth, not just by marriage. And even though Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God and lived blamelessly according to the commandments, they were, in a time when one’s faith and worth were determined by their offspring, childless. One can only assume this had been heartbreaking to them in their younger years, but they were older now, past childbearing age, and certainly resigned to their fate of being childless.
Until one day, when it was Zechariah’s turn to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. And while he was in there, doing his priestly duty, the angel Gabriel appeared before him. The angel informed him that his prayers had been answered; his wife was to become pregnant and bear a son. Zechariah was incredulous. “How can this be,” he asked. “For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Which seems like a polite way to say, “quit kidding around angel, and let me get back to my work.”
But the angel would not be so easily dismissed. “I am Gabriel,” the angel replied. “I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And Zechariah is instantly struck mute, a strange experience for a priest in a patriarchal clerical society, someone who was certainly used to having his voice heard. Zechariah would speak again, at the naming of his son, his mouth would be open, and his first phrase would be “Blessed be the God of Israel.” But for the next nine months, he would be silent. And in that silence Elizabeth, who up to this point has been strangely absent despite the fact that one might argue she has more at stake physically in these events then Zechariah does, finds her voice, proclaiming, “This is what the Lord has done for me.”
And then the story jumps from Jerusalem to Nazareth, where the angel announced another unexpected pregnancy. This time to Mary, a girl as young as Elizabeth was old. Elizabeth had lived a lifetime as a wife of a priest, while Mary was engaged, but not yet married, to a man named Joseph. As a descendant of the house of David, Joseph may have held some esteem in some places, but certainly very little in Gentile Galilee. But Joseph is a bit player in this narrative, merely a name mentioned to set the background. The focus instead is on Mary.
“Greetings, favored one,” the angel said to Mary. “The Lord is with you. You will bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” And Mary, an unwed girl child from a small backwater community, certainly used to being told what to do, has the exact same response as the experienced and listened to Zechariah. “How can this be?”
But unlike with Zechariah, where the angel responded to his questioning by striking him mute, with Mary the angel responded much differently. He explained. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” he told her. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And now your relative Elizabeth will also conceive and bear a son, for nothing is impossible with God.” Instead of silencing her, the angel gives Mary both explanation and evidence. Here’s how it will happen, he told her. And if that isn’t enough, you can go and see Elizabeth, and her pregnancy will show you the truth of my words, the power of the Most High God.
This is where our Gospel reading picks up this morning, with these two different stories coming together. The description starts wide, and then quickly narrows to the point. “Mary set out with haste to a Judean town, in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah, and greeted Elizabeth.” Here we see the reason for the journey, to find her relative Elizabeth, to see if Elizabeth was in fact pregnant, and to know if the words of this angel could possibly be true. And as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child within her leapt with joy, fulfilling the words the angel had said to Zechariah, that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And in this greeting and leaping, Elizabeth too was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women! And why is this happening, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Not only is Elizabeth pregnant, as the angel had said she would be, but in an instant she recognized not only that Mary, who could not be more than a few weeks along at this point, was also pregnant, and was bearing the Son of God. This was enough for Mary too to exclaim. And Mary broke out in the beautiful song that we said together this morning, what is known as the Magnificat. Some scholars call the Magnificat the theological reflection of the Gospel story. In this brief song, Mary spoke of a God who not just would, but had already done great things. She recounted God’s saving actions in the past, how God’s mighty arm had led the people from slavery to freedom under Pharaoh and from the Babylonians. She spoke of a God who brought the mighty down from their thrones and uplifted the humble, who filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty, and how all this was the fulfillment of the promises God had made long ago. It is a beautiful song of hope and praise for those who find themselves cast down, that God is already on the side of the weak and downtrodden. It promises that the one who is coming is a king like no other, a king of mercy and grace, of peace and love.
There is temptation in this beautiful song by Mary and in the words of the angel and of Elizabeth, to place Mary up on a pedestal of woman above all women, blessed handmaiden of the Lord, possessor of a level of holiness and humility that can be wondered at but never attained. But remember, Mary is just a girl, a child really, and what the Magnificat really testifies to is not Mary’s weakness but God’s greatness. The Magnificat is true humility because it does not weaken the events of which Mary will be a part, but it recognizes the powerful role that Mary is to play. What Mary models is that humility is not putting ourselves down, it is being the best version of ourselves in honor of the God who created us. This is something we have trouble with as Lutherans, and as people. It is hard to, like Mary did, accept a compliment for who one is. But if God has blessed you with a gift, claim it. It does the world no good to play down who you are, whether you are a singer or kind or the bearer of the Son of God, so claim it, live into it, and embrace that you are more than you thought you could be.
The other thing this story can teach us is that it is ok to question and even to doubt the work that God has for us. Both Mary and Zechariah questioned the angel’s words to them, and the angel’s words came true regardless. These events were not predicated on Mary or Zechariah’s ability to embrace them; they were predicated on the God who set them into motion. But the angel’s response to Zechariah’s question and Mary’s question was different, and I think it comes down to the expected response of the questioner. Zechariah questioned from a place of power and authority, he assumed he would be right. Mary questioned from a place of weakness and vulnerability, she assumed that she was wrong. For his arrogance, Zechariah got a nine month time out, if you will, to contemplate the wonder God had in store for him; while for her uncertainty, Mary got explanation, guidance, and a friend and companion in Elizabeth to walk with her in the strange, uncertain journey ahead.
These different responses offer challenge and hope for us too, in times of certainty and uncertainty. When we are called to tasks which seem above our doing, roles for which we feel unprepared, be that task sharing a gift we didn’t know we had, forgiving someone who has hurt us, or simply walking through another day, we can look to the angel’s response to Zechariah and Mary, and know that God’s will for our lives will be accomplished whether we can believe it or not. And in the times that we are sure that God is wrong, we may find ourselves silenced. But in the times that we are sure we are wrong, we can trust God to provide us forgiveness, hope, and guides along the way who will walk with us in our journey.
In these final days before the Advent, the coming of our Lord, let us remember that this birth is not a story of our past, but a story of our present. For God is still born among us, each and every day, in water and word, in wine and bread, in companionship and faith and community. And like Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah, we too are called and equipped to be God-bearers for each other, bringing the promise of the coming hope. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Until one day, when it was Zechariah’s turn to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. And while he was in there, doing his priestly duty, the angel Gabriel appeared before him. The angel informed him that his prayers had been answered; his wife was to become pregnant and bear a son. Zechariah was incredulous. “How can this be,” he asked. “For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Which seems like a polite way to say, “quit kidding around angel, and let me get back to my work.”
But the angel would not be so easily dismissed. “I am Gabriel,” the angel replied. “I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And Zechariah is instantly struck mute, a strange experience for a priest in a patriarchal clerical society, someone who was certainly used to having his voice heard. Zechariah would speak again, at the naming of his son, his mouth would be open, and his first phrase would be “Blessed be the God of Israel.” But for the next nine months, he would be silent. And in that silence Elizabeth, who up to this point has been strangely absent despite the fact that one might argue she has more at stake physically in these events then Zechariah does, finds her voice, proclaiming, “This is what the Lord has done for me.”
And then the story jumps from Jerusalem to Nazareth, where the angel announced another unexpected pregnancy. This time to Mary, a girl as young as Elizabeth was old. Elizabeth had lived a lifetime as a wife of a priest, while Mary was engaged, but not yet married, to a man named Joseph. As a descendant of the house of David, Joseph may have held some esteem in some places, but certainly very little in Gentile Galilee. But Joseph is a bit player in this narrative, merely a name mentioned to set the background. The focus instead is on Mary.
“Greetings, favored one,” the angel said to Mary. “The Lord is with you. You will bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.” And Mary, an unwed girl child from a small backwater community, certainly used to being told what to do, has the exact same response as the experienced and listened to Zechariah. “How can this be?”
But unlike with Zechariah, where the angel responded to his questioning by striking him mute, with Mary the angel responded much differently. He explained. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” he told her. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And now your relative Elizabeth will also conceive and bear a son, for nothing is impossible with God.” Instead of silencing her, the angel gives Mary both explanation and evidence. Here’s how it will happen, he told her. And if that isn’t enough, you can go and see Elizabeth, and her pregnancy will show you the truth of my words, the power of the Most High God.
This is where our Gospel reading picks up this morning, with these two different stories coming together. The description starts wide, and then quickly narrows to the point. “Mary set out with haste to a Judean town, in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah, and greeted Elizabeth.” Here we see the reason for the journey, to find her relative Elizabeth, to see if Elizabeth was in fact pregnant, and to know if the words of this angel could possibly be true. And as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child within her leapt with joy, fulfilling the words the angel had said to Zechariah, that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And in this greeting and leaping, Elizabeth too was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women! And why is this happening, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Not only is Elizabeth pregnant, as the angel had said she would be, but in an instant she recognized not only that Mary, who could not be more than a few weeks along at this point, was also pregnant, and was bearing the Son of God. This was enough for Mary too to exclaim. And Mary broke out in the beautiful song that we said together this morning, what is known as the Magnificat. Some scholars call the Magnificat the theological reflection of the Gospel story. In this brief song, Mary spoke of a God who not just would, but had already done great things. She recounted God’s saving actions in the past, how God’s mighty arm had led the people from slavery to freedom under Pharaoh and from the Babylonians. She spoke of a God who brought the mighty down from their thrones and uplifted the humble, who filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty, and how all this was the fulfillment of the promises God had made long ago. It is a beautiful song of hope and praise for those who find themselves cast down, that God is already on the side of the weak and downtrodden. It promises that the one who is coming is a king like no other, a king of mercy and grace, of peace and love.
There is temptation in this beautiful song by Mary and in the words of the angel and of Elizabeth, to place Mary up on a pedestal of woman above all women, blessed handmaiden of the Lord, possessor of a level of holiness and humility that can be wondered at but never attained. But remember, Mary is just a girl, a child really, and what the Magnificat really testifies to is not Mary’s weakness but God’s greatness. The Magnificat is true humility because it does not weaken the events of which Mary will be a part, but it recognizes the powerful role that Mary is to play. What Mary models is that humility is not putting ourselves down, it is being the best version of ourselves in honor of the God who created us. This is something we have trouble with as Lutherans, and as people. It is hard to, like Mary did, accept a compliment for who one is. But if God has blessed you with a gift, claim it. It does the world no good to play down who you are, whether you are a singer or kind or the bearer of the Son of God, so claim it, live into it, and embrace that you are more than you thought you could be.
The other thing this story can teach us is that it is ok to question and even to doubt the work that God has for us. Both Mary and Zechariah questioned the angel’s words to them, and the angel’s words came true regardless. These events were not predicated on Mary or Zechariah’s ability to embrace them; they were predicated on the God who set them into motion. But the angel’s response to Zechariah’s question and Mary’s question was different, and I think it comes down to the expected response of the questioner. Zechariah questioned from a place of power and authority, he assumed he would be right. Mary questioned from a place of weakness and vulnerability, she assumed that she was wrong. For his arrogance, Zechariah got a nine month time out, if you will, to contemplate the wonder God had in store for him; while for her uncertainty, Mary got explanation, guidance, and a friend and companion in Elizabeth to walk with her in the strange, uncertain journey ahead.
These different responses offer challenge and hope for us too, in times of certainty and uncertainty. When we are called to tasks which seem above our doing, roles for which we feel unprepared, be that task sharing a gift we didn’t know we had, forgiving someone who has hurt us, or simply walking through another day, we can look to the angel’s response to Zechariah and Mary, and know that God’s will for our lives will be accomplished whether we can believe it or not. And in the times that we are sure that God is wrong, we may find ourselves silenced. But in the times that we are sure we are wrong, we can trust God to provide us forgiveness, hope, and guides along the way who will walk with us in our journey.
In these final days before the Advent, the coming of our Lord, let us remember that this birth is not a story of our past, but a story of our present. For God is still born among us, each and every day, in water and word, in wine and bread, in companionship and faith and community. And like Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah, we too are called and equipped to be God-bearers for each other, bringing the promise of the coming hope. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 1:39-56
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• In this section the two storylines, the angel’s announcement to Zechariah that his wife would bear a son, and the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear a son, come together.
• Several parts of this story fulfill the signs described in the encounter between Zechariah and the angel Gabriel. 1) Zechariah is speechless, 2) Elizabeth conceived, and now 3) the child leapt at the approach of Mary, fulfilling Luke 1:15 that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
• In Luke’s Gospel, the coming of the Holy Spirit always indicates action. When the Holy Spirit comes upon someone, they are transformed. Example Acts 2:1-20.
• The story says Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, alerting us to her next words as words from God. That Mary and the child will be blessed, that Mary is the “mother of my Lord,” that the movement of her own child is a leap of joy, and a beatitude to Mary for her faith and that the promise to her would be fulfilled.
• The Magnificat, Mary’s response to Elizabeth is a theological reflection on the meaning of the incarnation in Luke. It contains echoes of the song of Hannah in 1 Sam 2:1-10. It also draws from other biblical imagery, like the mighty hand of God leading Israel through the wilderness.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• In this section the two storylines, the angel’s announcement to Zechariah that his wife would bear a son, and the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear a son, come together.
• Several parts of this story fulfill the signs described in the encounter between Zechariah and the angel Gabriel. 1) Zechariah is speechless, 2) Elizabeth conceived, and now 3) the child leapt at the approach of Mary, fulfilling Luke 1:15 that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
• In Luke’s Gospel, the coming of the Holy Spirit always indicates action. When the Holy Spirit comes upon someone, they are transformed. Example Acts 2:1-20.
• The story says Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, alerting us to her next words as words from God. That Mary and the child will be blessed, that Mary is the “mother of my Lord,” that the movement of her own child is a leap of joy, and a beatitude to Mary for her faith and that the promise to her would be fulfilled.
• The Magnificat, Mary’s response to Elizabeth is a theological reflection on the meaning of the incarnation in Luke. It contains echoes of the song of Hannah in 1 Sam 2:1-10. It also draws from other biblical imagery, like the mighty hand of God leading Israel through the wilderness.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, December 14, 2015
John the Baptist: Crazy Uncle or Wise Old Mentor: A Sermon on Luke 3:7-18
Who taught John the Baptist to preach? I mean, seriously, “You brood of vipers!”? How many of you would stick around if I began every sermon by yelling at you and calling you names? In all the books on evangelism and church growth that I’ve read, not one of them recommended calling people snakes as a great tool to win friends and influence people.
We don’t ever quite know what to do with John the Baptist. He shows up every Advent, just as the holiday season is ramping up to its most frenzied state of joy and shopping and merriment. Only this voice in the wilderness is not singing a joyous song of praise to announce the birth of the sweet, baby coming Messiah. No, this voice is angry! He is a wild man in the wilderness blaring insults, hollering about stones turning to children, and warning people to beware the fiery wrath to come. John the Baptist does not get much play in commercialized Christmas. Instead he gets dismissed, pushed to the side, like that one weird uncle everyone tries to ignore. You know, the one who always gets drunk at family gatherings and starts spouting conspiracy theories. Think about it. No one sells holiday greeting cards with angry staff-wielding wild men on the front and “Get ready, you brood of vipers” printed inside.
And, truthfully, I think our holidays are the poorer for it. I’ve spent the last couple weeks immersed in these words from John the Baptist, and I have to say, I’ve come to really feel a deep fondness for the fellow. I’ve come to wonder if John the Baptist is maybe not that one crazy uncle, but is in fact that crusty but wise old mentor who loves us so much that he wants more for us than we believe we are capable of and who refuses to let us settle for less than our best. So let’s take a deeper look into these words from John the Baptist, and see how this sermon really is, as the writer of Luke called it, “the good news to the people.”
Our Gospel text for today comes right on the heels of the text from last week. Last week we heard how in the middle of the reign of all these rich and powerful rulers, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, and he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as was written in the book of Isaiah. This morning we hear the results of John’s proclamations. Crowds began gathering in the Judean wilderness, flocking to hear this wild and strange prophet, and to be baptized by him in the Jordan. John should be happy, right? This seems like exactly what he was trying to accomplish. But instead he denounced the crowds, “you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Um, you did, John. You went throughout the whole region proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and here are folk to be baptized, what did you expect them to do?
But what I think John was cautioning against here, is seeing this baptism of repentance as some sort of “get out of jail free” card, instead of the radical reorientation of life that it is. I think John was concerned that the crowd saw baptism like a rainy day fund, something you get done and then stick on a shelf until you need it, and then you are free to just go about your normal life. But remember, the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means to literally be turned around and set off in another direction. When John told the crowd to “bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he didn’t mean the crowd had to bear fruit in order to earn their repentance. He meant that if they had truly received repentance, the proof of that repentance would be in the fruit that they bore. For good fruit is the only possible response to repentance. When Martin Luther first started preaching a message of salvation by grace through faith as a gift from God, that there was nothing that humanity could do to earn God’s grace, he got a lot of pushback from the religious community afraid that without the threat of having to earn salvation, people would stop living rightly. They argued that it was only the threat of damnation that kept people in check. No, Luther argued, in fact the opposite was true. If people realized that God loved them so much exactly as they were, then the gratitude they would feel for this free gift of grace would so transform them that they could not help but do good works. And those good works would be better and more true for being done from a place of gratitude rather than a place of obligation.
But you have to know you received a gift in order to respond out of gratitude to it. Which is the point John was trying to get across to the crowd when he cautioned, “do not say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” Don’t think, John said to the crowd, that you deserve repentance by virtue of birthright. This is a gift freely given by God and there is nothing you can do to earn it or be worthy of it. John wanted the crowd to get out of its own way, so it could be transformed by the promise of repentance God had for them.
So what then do we do? The crowd asked John. How then shall we live? And John told them. John gave them clear, concrete ethical ways of living. He didn’t tell them “the ax is lying at the foot of the tree, so tough luck for you, suckers,” and then mic drop and walk away. No, he spelled it out for them. If you have two coats, share with someone who has none. If you have food, share it. If you’re a tax collector, do your job and collect taxes, but don’t take advantage of people and collect more than your share. If you’re a soldier, be a soldier, don’t be a bully. These are hard words, but they’re not impossible. It is hard to cut through the greed, pride, or our own fear to admit that we have more than enough and can afford to give some away. We know it, the crowd knew it, and John knew it. But after tearing the crowd down with all the ways they fell short, John built them back up with these clear concrete examples of what it meant to bear good fruit, so they could have hope. So they could know they were not simply rotten trees waiting for the ax, but that within them was the potential for a bountiful harvest, and they could be about the work of bearing good fruit.
And then John got to the third part of his sermon, the reason for all this baptizing and fruit bearing. The reason this message from John makes its way into our Advent lectionary. John told the crowds that the “one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Jesus is coming. That is what we celebrate at Christmas, what we wait for in Advent, the coming of Christ in our midst. And John wanted the crowd gathered at the Jordan to be ready for the coming of Christ among them. Not because Jesus needed them to be ready to herald his coming. Not because the crowd could make themselves any more or less worthy of earning Christ’s love. But because John knew that when they came face to face with the living God, they would want to be ready, and he wanted them to feel the best, most prepared, most ready for the moment that they could. He wanted them to be able to stand before God with their heads held high, not because God needed them to, but because it would make the crowd feel proud to live in ways that were honoring to God.
I thought a lot about John’s final metaphor for the coming of Christ, this one about how Christ would come with his winnowing fork in hand to clear the threshing floor. How he would separate the wheat from the chaff, and the wheat he would gather in his barns but the chaff would burn with unquenchable fire. Wheat is the hearty part of the crop, while chaff is the excess that needs to be shaken off before the wheat can be stored and consumed. So, to the best of my limited knowledge of old farming practices, the way they were separated was by throwing the grain into the air. The wheat was heavy and it would fall back to the barn floor, but the chaff was light and the winds would blow it away. It is a temptation to read this text as a description of two different groups of people, wheat people and chaff people. To assume that John is cautioning that Jesus will come to separate the wheat people from the chaff people, saving the wheat people, the people doing God’s work, and punishing the chaff people, the weak, lazy people who have not earned their keep. But when I examine my own soul in the way that John challenged the crowd to do, I find the answer more complicated than that. I find within myself both wheat and chaff, both the desire to do God’s work and the weakness, boasting, fear, and pride that John cautioned the crowd against. And what John seems to be saying here, and what I’ve experienced to be true, is that the Holy Spirit comes blowing through us, like a mighty wind, like a refiners fire, and burns out all of the parts of ourselves that are chaff, leaving the best parts of ourselves behind. It is painful to have the chaff burned away. To admit our faults, our guilts, our pride, and our shame. To have laid open our sin and our brokenness, the ways we fail and fall short, as we say in the confession and forgiveness, the things we have done and the things we have failed to do. But also, isn’t that what we want at Advent, isn’t that the thing that keeps us coming back again and again, to the font and to the table, this promise that God can remake us, that God can redeem us, that God is even now working in our lives with forgiveness and grace and love to make from us the precious, blessed children of God that God has created us to be?
And so, like that crusty but wise old mentor who sees in us more potential than we can see in ourselves, John challenges us this Advent to begin the process of separating the wheat from the chaff, of seeing in ourselves the ways we fall short, and in finding strength we didn’t know we had to begin to bear fruit worthy of the incredible gift we have given. Because God is already at work within us, creating these new people from us. We know it to be true. We’ve experienced this forgiveness time and time again. But what a gift to get to be a part of this great transformation. Amen.
We don’t ever quite know what to do with John the Baptist. He shows up every Advent, just as the holiday season is ramping up to its most frenzied state of joy and shopping and merriment. Only this voice in the wilderness is not singing a joyous song of praise to announce the birth of the sweet, baby coming Messiah. No, this voice is angry! He is a wild man in the wilderness blaring insults, hollering about stones turning to children, and warning people to beware the fiery wrath to come. John the Baptist does not get much play in commercialized Christmas. Instead he gets dismissed, pushed to the side, like that one weird uncle everyone tries to ignore. You know, the one who always gets drunk at family gatherings and starts spouting conspiracy theories. Think about it. No one sells holiday greeting cards with angry staff-wielding wild men on the front and “Get ready, you brood of vipers” printed inside.
And, truthfully, I think our holidays are the poorer for it. I’ve spent the last couple weeks immersed in these words from John the Baptist, and I have to say, I’ve come to really feel a deep fondness for the fellow. I’ve come to wonder if John the Baptist is maybe not that one crazy uncle, but is in fact that crusty but wise old mentor who loves us so much that he wants more for us than we believe we are capable of and who refuses to let us settle for less than our best. So let’s take a deeper look into these words from John the Baptist, and see how this sermon really is, as the writer of Luke called it, “the good news to the people.”
Our Gospel text for today comes right on the heels of the text from last week. Last week we heard how in the middle of the reign of all these rich and powerful rulers, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, and he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as was written in the book of Isaiah. This morning we hear the results of John’s proclamations. Crowds began gathering in the Judean wilderness, flocking to hear this wild and strange prophet, and to be baptized by him in the Jordan. John should be happy, right? This seems like exactly what he was trying to accomplish. But instead he denounced the crowds, “you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Um, you did, John. You went throughout the whole region proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and here are folk to be baptized, what did you expect them to do?
But what I think John was cautioning against here, is seeing this baptism of repentance as some sort of “get out of jail free” card, instead of the radical reorientation of life that it is. I think John was concerned that the crowd saw baptism like a rainy day fund, something you get done and then stick on a shelf until you need it, and then you are free to just go about your normal life. But remember, the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means to literally be turned around and set off in another direction. When John told the crowd to “bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he didn’t mean the crowd had to bear fruit in order to earn their repentance. He meant that if they had truly received repentance, the proof of that repentance would be in the fruit that they bore. For good fruit is the only possible response to repentance. When Martin Luther first started preaching a message of salvation by grace through faith as a gift from God, that there was nothing that humanity could do to earn God’s grace, he got a lot of pushback from the religious community afraid that without the threat of having to earn salvation, people would stop living rightly. They argued that it was only the threat of damnation that kept people in check. No, Luther argued, in fact the opposite was true. If people realized that God loved them so much exactly as they were, then the gratitude they would feel for this free gift of grace would so transform them that they could not help but do good works. And those good works would be better and more true for being done from a place of gratitude rather than a place of obligation.
But you have to know you received a gift in order to respond out of gratitude to it. Which is the point John was trying to get across to the crowd when he cautioned, “do not say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” Don’t think, John said to the crowd, that you deserve repentance by virtue of birthright. This is a gift freely given by God and there is nothing you can do to earn it or be worthy of it. John wanted the crowd to get out of its own way, so it could be transformed by the promise of repentance God had for them.
So what then do we do? The crowd asked John. How then shall we live? And John told them. John gave them clear, concrete ethical ways of living. He didn’t tell them “the ax is lying at the foot of the tree, so tough luck for you, suckers,” and then mic drop and walk away. No, he spelled it out for them. If you have two coats, share with someone who has none. If you have food, share it. If you’re a tax collector, do your job and collect taxes, but don’t take advantage of people and collect more than your share. If you’re a soldier, be a soldier, don’t be a bully. These are hard words, but they’re not impossible. It is hard to cut through the greed, pride, or our own fear to admit that we have more than enough and can afford to give some away. We know it, the crowd knew it, and John knew it. But after tearing the crowd down with all the ways they fell short, John built them back up with these clear concrete examples of what it meant to bear good fruit, so they could have hope. So they could know they were not simply rotten trees waiting for the ax, but that within them was the potential for a bountiful harvest, and they could be about the work of bearing good fruit.
And then John got to the third part of his sermon, the reason for all this baptizing and fruit bearing. The reason this message from John makes its way into our Advent lectionary. John told the crowds that the “one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Jesus is coming. That is what we celebrate at Christmas, what we wait for in Advent, the coming of Christ in our midst. And John wanted the crowd gathered at the Jordan to be ready for the coming of Christ among them. Not because Jesus needed them to be ready to herald his coming. Not because the crowd could make themselves any more or less worthy of earning Christ’s love. But because John knew that when they came face to face with the living God, they would want to be ready, and he wanted them to feel the best, most prepared, most ready for the moment that they could. He wanted them to be able to stand before God with their heads held high, not because God needed them to, but because it would make the crowd feel proud to live in ways that were honoring to God.
I thought a lot about John’s final metaphor for the coming of Christ, this one about how Christ would come with his winnowing fork in hand to clear the threshing floor. How he would separate the wheat from the chaff, and the wheat he would gather in his barns but the chaff would burn with unquenchable fire. Wheat is the hearty part of the crop, while chaff is the excess that needs to be shaken off before the wheat can be stored and consumed. So, to the best of my limited knowledge of old farming practices, the way they were separated was by throwing the grain into the air. The wheat was heavy and it would fall back to the barn floor, but the chaff was light and the winds would blow it away. It is a temptation to read this text as a description of two different groups of people, wheat people and chaff people. To assume that John is cautioning that Jesus will come to separate the wheat people from the chaff people, saving the wheat people, the people doing God’s work, and punishing the chaff people, the weak, lazy people who have not earned their keep. But when I examine my own soul in the way that John challenged the crowd to do, I find the answer more complicated than that. I find within myself both wheat and chaff, both the desire to do God’s work and the weakness, boasting, fear, and pride that John cautioned the crowd against. And what John seems to be saying here, and what I’ve experienced to be true, is that the Holy Spirit comes blowing through us, like a mighty wind, like a refiners fire, and burns out all of the parts of ourselves that are chaff, leaving the best parts of ourselves behind. It is painful to have the chaff burned away. To admit our faults, our guilts, our pride, and our shame. To have laid open our sin and our brokenness, the ways we fail and fall short, as we say in the confession and forgiveness, the things we have done and the things we have failed to do. But also, isn’t that what we want at Advent, isn’t that the thing that keeps us coming back again and again, to the font and to the table, this promise that God can remake us, that God can redeem us, that God is even now working in our lives with forgiveness and grace and love to make from us the precious, blessed children of God that God has created us to be?
And so, like that crusty but wise old mentor who sees in us more potential than we can see in ourselves, John challenges us this Advent to begin the process of separating the wheat from the chaff, of seeing in ourselves the ways we fall short, and in finding strength we didn’t know we had to begin to bear fruit worthy of the incredible gift we have given. Because God is already at work within us, creating these new people from us. We know it to be true. We’ve experienced this forgiveness time and time again. But what a gift to get to be a part of this great transformation. Amen.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 3:7-18
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
John develops three distinct themes:
v. 7-9 – Warnings of the coming judgment
• Ethnic background doesn’t promise salvation
• Burning of a rotten tree a prophetic image of judgment
v. 10-14 – Call for ethical reforms
• End of a life-style based on greed and accumulation of material possessions
• Repentance and ethical reform, not revolution. Wealthy should give, not needy should take
v. 15-17 – Announcement of the coming Messiah
• Untying sandals is menial/slave labor
• Spirit and fire – five possible meanings
1) Fire describes the inflaming, purifying work of the Spirit
2) The repentant will receive the Spirit, the unrepentant the judgment of fire
3) Greek “spirit” is the same word as “wind” – could be judgment is “mighty wind and fire”
4) Pentecost reference
5) Eschatological purification – the final judgment will be a refiner’s fire for the repentant and destruction for the unrepentant.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
John develops three distinct themes:
v. 7-9 – Warnings of the coming judgment
• Ethnic background doesn’t promise salvation
• Burning of a rotten tree a prophetic image of judgment
v. 10-14 – Call for ethical reforms
• End of a life-style based on greed and accumulation of material possessions
• Repentance and ethical reform, not revolution. Wealthy should give, not needy should take
v. 15-17 – Announcement of the coming Messiah
• Untying sandals is menial/slave labor
• Spirit and fire – five possible meanings
1) Fire describes the inflaming, purifying work of the Spirit
2) The repentant will receive the Spirit, the unrepentant the judgment of fire
3) Greek “spirit” is the same word as “wind” – could be judgment is “mighty wind and fire”
4) Pentecost reference
5) Eschatological purification – the final judgment will be a refiner’s fire for the repentant and destruction for the unrepentant.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, December 7, 2015
In the Fifteenth Year...: A Sermon on Luke 3:1-6
“In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John…”
It feels a little bit like one of these things is not like the other in this list of fancy names that kicked off our Gospel reading for this morning. We have Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod of Galilee, Philip of Ituraea, Lysanias of Abilene, Annas, Caiaphas, and John.
John isn’t just out of place here in terms of name fanciness; John is out of place here in rank. Luke opens his Gospel with the intention of writing “an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled…so that you may know the truth.” This list of leaders is proof of that effort. In the time before a universally accepted calendar system, respectable ancient historians dated events based on who was in power at the time. Offering six different points of reference is a mark of good scholarship; Luke is proving to his audience the accuracy of his account.
Though, let me also step back and remind us that as modern readers it is important not to read too much into dates. Remember that ancient scholars had a different relationship with historical fact than we do in an age of universally accepted calendar dates. At best, Luke’s list of leaders narrows us down to a ten-year period. Pretty good, for an event that happened two-thousand plus years ago, but still not the sort of precise dating that would get you publication in current historical scholarship.
But Luke is doing something even more important with this account than telling us a date; he is setting for his readers the political framework of the event. The importance for Luke as a respectable first century historian is the context in which John appears. By naming John the Baptist in relation to these men, Luke asserts John as every bit as much of a player on the world’s stage as Tiberius or Caiaphas or Herod. Even the phrasing around John’s call sets his value. “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness” follows all the proper structural identifying credentials for the call of a Hebrew prophet. It is the same form used to identify Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, or any of the other heroes of the faith. Luke’s statements set John as a giant of both religious and political clout.
Which is a crazy claim because nothing else about John screams powerful. The Judean wilderness was not a place of any political value, and the crowds who gathered there poor and inconsequential. This setting is even more unlikely when read along with John’s back story, which we’ll hear in two weeks, how John is the unexpected son of a minor priest and his wife, both faithful and righteous and well past child-bearing years. Herod, who eventually saw John as enough of a threat to kill him, would still have laughed to hear him named in such a list. Tiberius would possibly have never even heard of the Judean wilderness, let alone a minor prophet wandering around it in. And yet Luke places him there, in a list of the powerful, this “voice crying out in the wilderness,” “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Reading this text in Advent highlights for us the stark unexpectedness of this season. John looks out of place on this list and yet, we no longer know the exact dates of Tiberius’s reign as emperor, or who Lysanias even was, but two-thousand years later we still gather to celebrate that the one who came into the world unexpectedly is still at work in our world today. Advent, like we talked about last week, is not preparation for the remembrance of a historical event, as one might prepare for a birthday party. What we are getting ready for is the birth itself. The coming of Christ into our world. A coming we already experience in water and word, in bread and wine, in life from death and hope in tragedy. Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas were rulers over a specific group of people for a specific time and place, but the One whose coming John announced is ruler over all flesh, king of all time, salvation for the whole world. Luke places John the Baptist in a specific place and time in order to blow up the entire concept of place and time itself, to show for us a God who not just was, but is and is to come, a God whose presence in the world is not just the fulfillment of promise, but is the promise itself.
It is also fitting that we read this text on the morning that we celebrate Mark’s baptism. Because baptism too is an event that blows up place and time. This text tells us that John the Baptist came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This word our English Bible translates to “repentance” is the Greek word metanoia, which literally means turn around, or to be turned around. It does not mean you making the decision to change direction; it is a dramatic physical re-orientation by a source outside of your control. It is to find your entire life picked up, turned completely around, and placed in a totally new and opposite direction of where you were heading. And this radical reorientation affects not just your future; it changes your past as well. As the Psalmist writes, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” At Mark’s baptism, we proclaim that Mark is a child of God. We proclaim not just that there never will be, but in fact that there never has been anything that could separate God from Mark. In the unexpected simplicity of water and word, we proclaim the advent, the coming of Christ among us today, making all things new, so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
The promises made in the waters of baptism, that we are reoriented, that we are made new and claimed as God’s children, is a promise that we can hold onto for our whole lives. This is a promise we can cling to times when we finds ourselves in the wilderness. When the valleys rage deep, the hills tower high, and the crooked places leave him lost and confused. Because we face those times. We all face times of confusion and struggle, fear and aloneness. And in those times, we can look back to this moment and can rest confident in the promise of the words spoken by John from the prophet Isaiah, that God is already smoothing and filling, lowering and straightening, making a way for salvation to come.
This is a promise we can cling to, but it can be hard to hear sometimes. So the rite of baptism too is a challenge for us, dear people of God. A challenge to be that voice crying out in the wilderness for each other. To be the one urging preparation, offering direction, and promising hope in the midst of wilderness. To pray for Mark, and for Valerie and Mark as they raise him, to walk with them in faith, and to be together a sign of God’s presence.
And so, we could rewrite the beginning of our Gospel reading for this morning to read: In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Rick Snyder was governor of Michigan, and Dave Walters the mayor of Battle Creek, when Craig Satterlee was bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod and Elizabeth Eaton the Bishop of the ELCA, the word of God came to Trinity Lutheran Church in Battle Creek, Michigan and they went into all the region, proclaiming the promise that God’s presence is alive in this world, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Amen.
It feels a little bit like one of these things is not like the other in this list of fancy names that kicked off our Gospel reading for this morning. We have Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod of Galilee, Philip of Ituraea, Lysanias of Abilene, Annas, Caiaphas, and John.
John isn’t just out of place here in terms of name fanciness; John is out of place here in rank. Luke opens his Gospel with the intention of writing “an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled…so that you may know the truth.” This list of leaders is proof of that effort. In the time before a universally accepted calendar system, respectable ancient historians dated events based on who was in power at the time. Offering six different points of reference is a mark of good scholarship; Luke is proving to his audience the accuracy of his account.
Though, let me also step back and remind us that as modern readers it is important not to read too much into dates. Remember that ancient scholars had a different relationship with historical fact than we do in an age of universally accepted calendar dates. At best, Luke’s list of leaders narrows us down to a ten-year period. Pretty good, for an event that happened two-thousand plus years ago, but still not the sort of precise dating that would get you publication in current historical scholarship.
But Luke is doing something even more important with this account than telling us a date; he is setting for his readers the political framework of the event. The importance for Luke as a respectable first century historian is the context in which John appears. By naming John the Baptist in relation to these men, Luke asserts John as every bit as much of a player on the world’s stage as Tiberius or Caiaphas or Herod. Even the phrasing around John’s call sets his value. “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness” follows all the proper structural identifying credentials for the call of a Hebrew prophet. It is the same form used to identify Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, or any of the other heroes of the faith. Luke’s statements set John as a giant of both religious and political clout.
Which is a crazy claim because nothing else about John screams powerful. The Judean wilderness was not a place of any political value, and the crowds who gathered there poor and inconsequential. This setting is even more unlikely when read along with John’s back story, which we’ll hear in two weeks, how John is the unexpected son of a minor priest and his wife, both faithful and righteous and well past child-bearing years. Herod, who eventually saw John as enough of a threat to kill him, would still have laughed to hear him named in such a list. Tiberius would possibly have never even heard of the Judean wilderness, let alone a minor prophet wandering around it in. And yet Luke places him there, in a list of the powerful, this “voice crying out in the wilderness,” “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Reading this text in Advent highlights for us the stark unexpectedness of this season. John looks out of place on this list and yet, we no longer know the exact dates of Tiberius’s reign as emperor, or who Lysanias even was, but two-thousand years later we still gather to celebrate that the one who came into the world unexpectedly is still at work in our world today. Advent, like we talked about last week, is not preparation for the remembrance of a historical event, as one might prepare for a birthday party. What we are getting ready for is the birth itself. The coming of Christ into our world. A coming we already experience in water and word, in bread and wine, in life from death and hope in tragedy. Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas were rulers over a specific group of people for a specific time and place, but the One whose coming John announced is ruler over all flesh, king of all time, salvation for the whole world. Luke places John the Baptist in a specific place and time in order to blow up the entire concept of place and time itself, to show for us a God who not just was, but is and is to come, a God whose presence in the world is not just the fulfillment of promise, but is the promise itself.
It is also fitting that we read this text on the morning that we celebrate Mark’s baptism. Because baptism too is an event that blows up place and time. This text tells us that John the Baptist came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This word our English Bible translates to “repentance” is the Greek word metanoia, which literally means turn around, or to be turned around. It does not mean you making the decision to change direction; it is a dramatic physical re-orientation by a source outside of your control. It is to find your entire life picked up, turned completely around, and placed in a totally new and opposite direction of where you were heading. And this radical reorientation affects not just your future; it changes your past as well. As the Psalmist writes, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” At Mark’s baptism, we proclaim that Mark is a child of God. We proclaim not just that there never will be, but in fact that there never has been anything that could separate God from Mark. In the unexpected simplicity of water and word, we proclaim the advent, the coming of Christ among us today, making all things new, so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
The promises made in the waters of baptism, that we are reoriented, that we are made new and claimed as God’s children, is a promise that we can hold onto for our whole lives. This is a promise we can cling to times when we finds ourselves in the wilderness. When the valleys rage deep, the hills tower high, and the crooked places leave him lost and confused. Because we face those times. We all face times of confusion and struggle, fear and aloneness. And in those times, we can look back to this moment and can rest confident in the promise of the words spoken by John from the prophet Isaiah, that God is already smoothing and filling, lowering and straightening, making a way for salvation to come.
This is a promise we can cling to, but it can be hard to hear sometimes. So the rite of baptism too is a challenge for us, dear people of God. A challenge to be that voice crying out in the wilderness for each other. To be the one urging preparation, offering direction, and promising hope in the midst of wilderness. To pray for Mark, and for Valerie and Mark as they raise him, to walk with them in faith, and to be together a sign of God’s presence.
And so, we could rewrite the beginning of our Gospel reading for this morning to read: In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Rick Snyder was governor of Michigan, and Dave Walters the mayor of Battle Creek, when Craig Satterlee was bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod and Elizabeth Eaton the Bishop of the ELCA, the word of God came to Trinity Lutheran Church in Battle Creek, Michigan and they went into all the region, proclaiming the promise that God’s presence is alive in this world, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Amen.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 3:1-6
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Luke is the most academic of all the Gospel writers. He opens with his intention to write “an orderly account” (Luke 1:3). This passage demonstrates Luke’s dedication to two styles of first century academic writing, Greco-Roman historicity and the call of the Hebrew prophets.
o Greco-Roman history dated events in relation to rulers or the founding of Rome. Luke uses six different chronological vectors: the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, Philip ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. However, it is still impossible to place this at an exact date due to the inexactness of ancient calendars. Each of the ancient calendars timed the length of a year differently, so it is impossible to know how long fifteen years was. There is also the question of which year counts the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. The beginning of his co-regency? The point he became sole emperor? The other dates are even less helpful. Pilate was governor over a ten year span, eight of which overlapped with Philip, all of which overlapped with Herod of Galilee. It’s unclear who Lysanias was. And Annas and Caiaphas were not high priest at the same time. Annas was high priest from 6-15 CE and Caiaphas from 18-36 CE. The important thing for us as modern readers is not to place this event in a specific year, but that Luke places a seemingly insignificant minor prophet such as John in a list of the most powerful rulers of the time. Luke is deliberately putting John and Jesus in opposition to the recognized political leadership.
o Hebrew prophets’ calls in scripture all follow a specific formula. 1) “The Word of the Lord came” to or upon 2) the prophet 3) son of (the prophet’s father) 4) in a certain named location 5) “in the days of” the ruling king. [See Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1-3; Ezekiel 1:3; Hosea 1:1]. Luke places John in the compendium of prophets. Prophets, remember, are not fortune tellers but truth tellers, they announce the hard realities of injustice that some would rather ignore.
• Luke 3:4-6 is a quote from Isaiah 40:3-5. The book of Isaiah outlines the time before, during, and after the Babylonian exile. Isaiah prophesized that Israel was weak because the leadership was gaining wealth at the hands of the poor, and if they continued in that path they would be conquered by their enemies. In Isaiah 40, the possibility of the Babylonian exile becomes not a threat but a reality. Isaiah 40 then promises that God will be with Israel even as they are in exile and will lead them back home. The wilderness in Isaiah is the Babylonian empire. John’s use of Isaiah is a different context but a similar time. Israel again is under captivity, this time the Romans, and John again is the voice of “one crying out in the wilderness” of God’s continued presence.
Works Sourced:
Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Jones, Judith. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6.” Working Preacher. December 6, 2015. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2702>.
Lose, David. “Advent 2 C: Audacious Historians.” in the Meantime… November 30, 2015. < http://www.davidlose.net/2015/11/advent-2-c-audacious-historians/>.
Seitz, Christopher R. “The Book of Isaiah 40-66.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VI. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Luke is the most academic of all the Gospel writers. He opens with his intention to write “an orderly account” (Luke 1:3). This passage demonstrates Luke’s dedication to two styles of first century academic writing, Greco-Roman historicity and the call of the Hebrew prophets.
o Greco-Roman history dated events in relation to rulers or the founding of Rome. Luke uses six different chronological vectors: the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, Philip ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. However, it is still impossible to place this at an exact date due to the inexactness of ancient calendars. Each of the ancient calendars timed the length of a year differently, so it is impossible to know how long fifteen years was. There is also the question of which year counts the beginning of Tiberius’s reign. The beginning of his co-regency? The point he became sole emperor? The other dates are even less helpful. Pilate was governor over a ten year span, eight of which overlapped with Philip, all of which overlapped with Herod of Galilee. It’s unclear who Lysanias was. And Annas and Caiaphas were not high priest at the same time. Annas was high priest from 6-15 CE and Caiaphas from 18-36 CE. The important thing for us as modern readers is not to place this event in a specific year, but that Luke places a seemingly insignificant minor prophet such as John in a list of the most powerful rulers of the time. Luke is deliberately putting John and Jesus in opposition to the recognized political leadership.
o Hebrew prophets’ calls in scripture all follow a specific formula. 1) “The Word of the Lord came” to or upon 2) the prophet 3) son of (the prophet’s father) 4) in a certain named location 5) “in the days of” the ruling king. [See Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1-3; Ezekiel 1:3; Hosea 1:1]. Luke places John in the compendium of prophets. Prophets, remember, are not fortune tellers but truth tellers, they announce the hard realities of injustice that some would rather ignore.
• Luke 3:4-6 is a quote from Isaiah 40:3-5. The book of Isaiah outlines the time before, during, and after the Babylonian exile. Isaiah prophesized that Israel was weak because the leadership was gaining wealth at the hands of the poor, and if they continued in that path they would be conquered by their enemies. In Isaiah 40, the possibility of the Babylonian exile becomes not a threat but a reality. Isaiah 40 then promises that God will be with Israel even as they are in exile and will lead them back home. The wilderness in Isaiah is the Babylonian empire. John’s use of Isaiah is a different context but a similar time. Israel again is under captivity, this time the Romans, and John again is the voice of “one crying out in the wilderness” of God’s continued presence.
Works Sourced:
Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Jones, Judith. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6.” Working Preacher. December 6, 2015. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2702>.
Lose, David. “Advent 2 C: Audacious Historians.” in the Meantime… November 30, 2015. < http://www.davidlose.net/2015/11/advent-2-c-audacious-historians/>.
Seitz, Christopher R. “The Book of Isaiah 40-66.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VI. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Hidden Promise: A Sermon on Luke 21:25-36
A few months ago, I met my family for a family vacation at Disneyland. Growing up in California, Disneyland was and is a regular family vacation spot for us. My parents both grew up in southern California, and have memories of going to the park with their families as children. So even though my brother and I are both adults now, every few years or so the four, now five of us counting my soon-to-be sister-in-law, make the trek down to the House of Mouse.
One of my favorite things about Disneyland is the attention to detail. This trip we spent the whole time on a search for hidden Mickeys. Of course, Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters are all over the park, but scattered throughout the park are what are known as “Hidden Mickeys,” references to Mickey and other characters sprinkled in places they don’t necessarily belong. If you don’t know what to look for, you can walk by these and never notice them. But as you start to train your eyes, these secret surprises pop out everywhere, a gift for those who’ve learned to pay attention. I’ve brought pictures of a couple of my favorite examples in to show you. Here’s one from the floor of the parking garage. Most of the garage is swept semi-circles, like you would expect in a cement garage floor. But in one spot, the pattern changes to form the characteristic head with two ears.
This one is the car from Space Mountain, with Mickey formed out of the speakers in the center console.
The interesting thing about training your eyes to see these Mickeys is you start to pick them out everywhere, even after you’ve left the park. This last picture is not from Disneyland at all, it’s a picture of my breakfast a couple weekends ago after my brother and I started texting each other pictures of Mickeys we made out of pancakes.
I got to thinking about these hidden Mickeys as I was pondering this text that might at first seem like such a strange choice for the beginning of this Advent season. This morning we pick up where we left off a few weeks ago, with Jesus’ strange apocalyptic warning to his disciples in the days before his crucifixion. Even though it’s the first Sunday of Advent and the first Sunday of this new church year, it’s important to remember how we got here. Remember all throughout the summer as we were journeying with Jesus to Jerusalem as he taught his disciples about what it meant to follow him. Remember the miraculous healings, the wonder of fish and bread for thousands, the casting out of demons. Remember the lessons taught on the road about how the last will be first and the first will be last. Remember the welcoming of children, the blessing of widows, the raising up of the lowly. All throughout that long journey, Jesus was teaching his disciples to see the kingdom of God in unexpected places, to see abundance in scarcity, and hope in despair. When the disciples saw a person in need, Jesus taught them to see a brother or sister in Christ. When the disciples saw not enough to go around, Jesus taught them to see how sharing what they had meant everyone had enough. This passage we read this morning is one of Jesus’ very last opportunities to drill this message into their heads, that life and hope and love and promise can be found anywhere, everywhere, even in the midst of the most dire situations, if your eyes are only trained to see it. So when you see wars and rumors of war, signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, when you feel foreboding in the world and the powers of heaven are shaken, you do not have to be afraid. You can stand up and raise up your heads, because in there, if you know what to look for, you will see God.
Jesus did this because he knew what was coming. He knew that soon, the disciples would see him die. They would see him handed over to the authorities. They would see him mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross. They would watch him die and would see him buried. And it would not look like life, it would not look like hope, it would not look like promise, it would not look like the kingdom of God come near. Remember, we read this text after the crucifixion, this text is not a prediction of our future, it is a proof of our past. Remember what came next for the disciples. There were signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars on Good Friday at noon when darkness came over the land until three in the afternoon. There was foreboding in the world, as they stood at the cross and watched their Lord and teacher take his last breath. And in that final breath the powers of heaven were shaken as the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and in that moment, just as Jesus said it would, our redemption had drawn near. The greatest wonder the world has ever known was hidden in an innocent man’s death on a wooden cross. For those who didn’t know what to look for, it looked like foolishness. But for those of us whose eyes have been training to see, it is the wonder and the power and the glory of God.
Jesus did not begin training our eyes to see wonder in unexpected places during his ministry, it started at his very birth. Remember the incredible unexpectedness of the event that is about to take place. An elderly woman, barren and past child-bearing age, will conceive and bear a son. She will name the boy John, and he will grow to be a wild man who will preach in the wilderness and invite us to prepare the way of the Lord. But before he is born, he will leap in the womb at the approach of another unexpected mother, an unmarried teenager from small town, backwoods Nazareth who bears within her Christ the Lord. The Christ child will be born not in a palace of gold, but in a stable of animals, wrapped in clothes and laid in a manger. His attendants will be sheep and cattle and wayward shepherds. If you did not know what you were looking for, this is not where you would see glory, this is not where you would see life, this is not where you would see hope. If you did not know what you were looking for, you would see in this scene poverty and weakness, if you even saw this scene at all. If you did not know what you were looking for, it is more than likely that this scene would be invisible to you completely; for who pays attention to poor, unwed mothers who sleep in stables or wild men eating locusts and spouting nonsense when the fate of the world is at stake.
But we do not miss the holy in this scene because we have been taught to pay attention. Our eyes have been opened to the wonder of the Word made flesh. Our ears have been cleared to hear the angels sing hosanna to the Son of David. Our hearts have been formed for the Christ child whose birth we anticipate. We see these things because we know what we are looking for. Because throughout the years, God has been forming us, molding us, shaping us, teaching us to see the beautiful scene that is unfolding before us. The glory of God is not hidden to us, because we have been taught how to see.
The clarity God has shown us does not just shape how we see the Christmas story, it shapes how we see the world. Because God has taught us how to see, Christ is made visible in unexpected places in our world today. Just like Jesus showed the disciples, we see brothers and sisters in Christ in the poor and hurting and broken in our own communities. Where the world sees scarcity and not enough to go around, we see the amazing abundance of God in sharing what we have so that all have enough. In bread and wine, we see Christ present in our midst. In the dark, cold of winter, we see the promise of spring waiting under the snow. This Advent we enter into a time of practice. We practice seeing God’s surprising mystery unfolding around us. We practice looking for the subtle signs of Christ in our midst. We practice looking for the Word made flesh who still dwells among us. We practice, because God has shaped our eyes to see, and we can never see things the same again. Thanks be to God. Amen.
One of my favorite things about Disneyland is the attention to detail. This trip we spent the whole time on a search for hidden Mickeys. Of course, Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters are all over the park, but scattered throughout the park are what are known as “Hidden Mickeys,” references to Mickey and other characters sprinkled in places they don’t necessarily belong. If you don’t know what to look for, you can walk by these and never notice them. But as you start to train your eyes, these secret surprises pop out everywhere, a gift for those who’ve learned to pay attention. I’ve brought pictures of a couple of my favorite examples in to show you. Here’s one from the floor of the parking garage. Most of the garage is swept semi-circles, like you would expect in a cement garage floor. But in one spot, the pattern changes to form the characteristic head with two ears.
I got to thinking about these hidden Mickeys as I was pondering this text that might at first seem like such a strange choice for the beginning of this Advent season. This morning we pick up where we left off a few weeks ago, with Jesus’ strange apocalyptic warning to his disciples in the days before his crucifixion. Even though it’s the first Sunday of Advent and the first Sunday of this new church year, it’s important to remember how we got here. Remember all throughout the summer as we were journeying with Jesus to Jerusalem as he taught his disciples about what it meant to follow him. Remember the miraculous healings, the wonder of fish and bread for thousands, the casting out of demons. Remember the lessons taught on the road about how the last will be first and the first will be last. Remember the welcoming of children, the blessing of widows, the raising up of the lowly. All throughout that long journey, Jesus was teaching his disciples to see the kingdom of God in unexpected places, to see abundance in scarcity, and hope in despair. When the disciples saw a person in need, Jesus taught them to see a brother or sister in Christ. When the disciples saw not enough to go around, Jesus taught them to see how sharing what they had meant everyone had enough. This passage we read this morning is one of Jesus’ very last opportunities to drill this message into their heads, that life and hope and love and promise can be found anywhere, everywhere, even in the midst of the most dire situations, if your eyes are only trained to see it. So when you see wars and rumors of war, signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, when you feel foreboding in the world and the powers of heaven are shaken, you do not have to be afraid. You can stand up and raise up your heads, because in there, if you know what to look for, you will see God.
Jesus did this because he knew what was coming. He knew that soon, the disciples would see him die. They would see him handed over to the authorities. They would see him mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross. They would watch him die and would see him buried. And it would not look like life, it would not look like hope, it would not look like promise, it would not look like the kingdom of God come near. Remember, we read this text after the crucifixion, this text is not a prediction of our future, it is a proof of our past. Remember what came next for the disciples. There were signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars on Good Friday at noon when darkness came over the land until three in the afternoon. There was foreboding in the world, as they stood at the cross and watched their Lord and teacher take his last breath. And in that final breath the powers of heaven were shaken as the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and in that moment, just as Jesus said it would, our redemption had drawn near. The greatest wonder the world has ever known was hidden in an innocent man’s death on a wooden cross. For those who didn’t know what to look for, it looked like foolishness. But for those of us whose eyes have been training to see, it is the wonder and the power and the glory of God.
Jesus did not begin training our eyes to see wonder in unexpected places during his ministry, it started at his very birth. Remember the incredible unexpectedness of the event that is about to take place. An elderly woman, barren and past child-bearing age, will conceive and bear a son. She will name the boy John, and he will grow to be a wild man who will preach in the wilderness and invite us to prepare the way of the Lord. But before he is born, he will leap in the womb at the approach of another unexpected mother, an unmarried teenager from small town, backwoods Nazareth who bears within her Christ the Lord. The Christ child will be born not in a palace of gold, but in a stable of animals, wrapped in clothes and laid in a manger. His attendants will be sheep and cattle and wayward shepherds. If you did not know what you were looking for, this is not where you would see glory, this is not where you would see life, this is not where you would see hope. If you did not know what you were looking for, you would see in this scene poverty and weakness, if you even saw this scene at all. If you did not know what you were looking for, it is more than likely that this scene would be invisible to you completely; for who pays attention to poor, unwed mothers who sleep in stables or wild men eating locusts and spouting nonsense when the fate of the world is at stake.
But we do not miss the holy in this scene because we have been taught to pay attention. Our eyes have been opened to the wonder of the Word made flesh. Our ears have been cleared to hear the angels sing hosanna to the Son of David. Our hearts have been formed for the Christ child whose birth we anticipate. We see these things because we know what we are looking for. Because throughout the years, God has been forming us, molding us, shaping us, teaching us to see the beautiful scene that is unfolding before us. The glory of God is not hidden to us, because we have been taught how to see.
The clarity God has shown us does not just shape how we see the Christmas story, it shapes how we see the world. Because God has taught us how to see, Christ is made visible in unexpected places in our world today. Just like Jesus showed the disciples, we see brothers and sisters in Christ in the poor and hurting and broken in our own communities. Where the world sees scarcity and not enough to go around, we see the amazing abundance of God in sharing what we have so that all have enough. In bread and wine, we see Christ present in our midst. In the dark, cold of winter, we see the promise of spring waiting under the snow. This Advent we enter into a time of practice. We practice seeing God’s surprising mystery unfolding around us. We practice looking for the subtle signs of Christ in our midst. We practice looking for the Word made flesh who still dwells among us. We practice, because God has shaped our eyes to see, and we can never see things the same again. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Conversation Points for Luke 21:25-36
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This passage from Luke picks up right after the last one we read in Mark (Mark 13:1-8). But Luke was written a couple of decades after Mark, so the devastation of the fall of the temple has passed some. Luke is less focused on linking Jesus words to an event as he is to pointing out how to live in the in-between time of “Christ has come” and “Christ will come again.”
• Like we talked about when we read Mark 13:1-8, apocalyptic literature is not about instilling fear but in demonstrating God’s presence in the midst of chaos. Theologian Jurgen Multmann calls it a “theology of hope,” saying, “the Christian hope [is not] an ‘opium of the beyond’ but rather the divine power that makes us alive in the world.”
• I’m struck that in the midst of the terror he describes, Jesus calls us to “stand up and raise [our] heads, because [our] redemption is drawing near.”
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This passage from Luke picks up right after the last one we read in Mark (Mark 13:1-8). But Luke was written a couple of decades after Mark, so the devastation of the fall of the temple has passed some. Luke is less focused on linking Jesus words to an event as he is to pointing out how to live in the in-between time of “Christ has come” and “Christ will come again.”
• Like we talked about when we read Mark 13:1-8, apocalyptic literature is not about instilling fear but in demonstrating God’s presence in the midst of chaos. Theologian Jurgen Multmann calls it a “theology of hope,” saying, “the Christian hope [is not] an ‘opium of the beyond’ but rather the divine power that makes us alive in the world.”
• I’m struck that in the midst of the terror he describes, Jesus calls us to “stand up and raise [our] heads, because [our] redemption is drawing near.”
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
"What is Truth?": An Interactive Sermon for Christ the King based on John 18:33-38a
“What is truth?” Every week at Bible study we start with the question, “what word or phrase caught your attention in this passage?” For me this week it was this question of Pilate’s that caught my attention, “What is truth?”
The irony in this question, of course, is that Truth is standing right in front of Pilate. As Jesus said earlier in John’s Gospel, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life,” and in the sentence that prompted Pilate’s question, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” By asking this question to Jesus, to Truth personified, Pilate proves that he does not understand truth.
Pilate doesn’t understand because Pilate has a one-sided understanding of truth. Pilate has an intellectual understanding of truth. He sees truth like an elementary-school true/false test, something is either truth or it is not. But Pilate’s understanding is too shallow, because Jesus’ Truth is deeper, grander, and more wonderful than Pilate’s understanding. Jesus’ Truth is not intellectual assent to a series of doctrine; Jesus’ Truth is action. It is the lived experience of being a follower of Christ. We see this played out in the disciples. Thomas needed to see Jesus himself in order to believe after the resurrection, yet it was Thomas in John chapter eleven, who was willing to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, even though he knew it probably meant their death. Peter denied Jesus in the courtyard, and then is welcomed back by the resurrected Jesus who sets him to the task of feeding Jesus’ sheep. Over and over, the disciples misunderstand the work ahead, and yet Jesus continually draws them back into following him, and through following, into relationship with the Truth which Jesus is.
So this week I thought instead of talking about Truth, we would live into it. You might have noticed the sanctuary seems a bit cluttered today. Set up around us are a series of stations. Around the pulpit are some Bibles, you can reflect on this week’s texts or any scripture you’d like. Over here is a space to make cards for people on our prayer list. Following the current trend of coloring prayer, at this table you are invited to decorate your bulletin cover. Here is the board of reformation posts we made on Reformation Sunday. You can reflect on the things that were said or add some of your own. Here’s a series of chairs set around a labyrinth. You can kneel at the altar rail, you can touch the baptismal font, you can stay in your seat and pray. I invite you to interact with these stations in any way you like, and after about ten minutes we will come back together to sing the hymn of the day. Truth is known in following Jesus, may your actions guide your prayers this morning. Amen.
The irony in this question, of course, is that Truth is standing right in front of Pilate. As Jesus said earlier in John’s Gospel, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life,” and in the sentence that prompted Pilate’s question, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” By asking this question to Jesus, to Truth personified, Pilate proves that he does not understand truth.
Pilate doesn’t understand because Pilate has a one-sided understanding of truth. Pilate has an intellectual understanding of truth. He sees truth like an elementary-school true/false test, something is either truth or it is not. But Pilate’s understanding is too shallow, because Jesus’ Truth is deeper, grander, and more wonderful than Pilate’s understanding. Jesus’ Truth is not intellectual assent to a series of doctrine; Jesus’ Truth is action. It is the lived experience of being a follower of Christ. We see this played out in the disciples. Thomas needed to see Jesus himself in order to believe after the resurrection, yet it was Thomas in John chapter eleven, who was willing to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, even though he knew it probably meant their death. Peter denied Jesus in the courtyard, and then is welcomed back by the resurrected Jesus who sets him to the task of feeding Jesus’ sheep. Over and over, the disciples misunderstand the work ahead, and yet Jesus continually draws them back into following him, and through following, into relationship with the Truth which Jesus is.
So this week I thought instead of talking about Truth, we would live into it. You might have noticed the sanctuary seems a bit cluttered today. Set up around us are a series of stations. Around the pulpit are some Bibles, you can reflect on this week’s texts or any scripture you’d like. Over here is a space to make cards for people on our prayer list. Following the current trend of coloring prayer, at this table you are invited to decorate your bulletin cover. Here is the board of reformation posts we made on Reformation Sunday. You can reflect on the things that were said or add some of your own. Here’s a series of chairs set around a labyrinth. You can kneel at the altar rail, you can touch the baptismal font, you can stay in your seat and pray. I invite you to interact with these stations in any way you like, and after about ten minutes we will come back together to sing the hymn of the day. Truth is known in following Jesus, may your actions guide your prayers this morning. Amen.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Red Starbucks Cups and Other Signs of the Coming Apocalypse: A Sermon on Mark 13:1-8
This morning’s text was always going to be a tough one to preach. So I was pretty pleased when, totally against my normal sermon writing pattern, the Holy Spirit delivered up a witty and light-hearted sermon in about ninety minutes on Monday afternoon. And then I watched the news on Friday night, and wars and rumors of wars were once again not theoretical concepts, and I knew something different had to be said. And let me first say before we begin that the attacks on Paris are no more representative of Islam than the Charleston shooting was representative of Christianity. The Parisan attackers and the Charleston shooter, and anyone else who claims to commit acts of violence in the name of religion are followers not of the God of Abraham, but the gods of violence, greed, and power. Fundamentalism is not faith, it is a corruption of faith, and those who practice it are the people Jesus tells his disciples to beware. Our Muslim sisters and brothers around the world have condemned the Paris attacks and as fellow children of the God of Abraham, we too must join our voices with in condemning fundamentalism in all its forms.
We’re going to talk about fundamentalism today. We’re going to talk about how we read texts like this in the midst of war and rumors of war. But first, I’m going to open with the same goofy and light-hearted introduction that I wrote on Monday. Because I think in the face of the week’s events, maybe the Holy Spirit gave me this opener so that we could start this sermon with a good chuckle.
So, perhaps you’ve heard about the latest threat to Christmas, Jesus, and the world as we know it. Actually, I’m going to hope you haven’t and that I am the only one lucky enough to have this most recent controversy blowing up my Facebook news feed, but anyway, here it is.
That’s right friends. In case you haven’t heard, this seemingly innocuous cup is in fact a vicious attack on all we hold sacred. Why is this cup a problem, you might wonder? Notice the lack of snowflakes. Last year’s cups had snowflakes on them, and the removal of the snowflakes is clearly an attempt by Starbucks to do away with Christmas.
Now I don’t get this argument at all. It is advent after all, and as a good Lutheran liturgist I think the cups should be blue for most of December, and should then switch to white and gold from Christmas Eve until after Baptism of our Lord Sunday. Red is the color of Pentecost, Starbucks, get it together! And as for the snowflake pattern, well, as a Californian the snowflake never made much sense. Who’s ever heard of snow on Christmas? That’s just weird.
So clearly I’m being overly judgmental and snarky about people’s response to this cup. And if I’m honest with myself, my snarky response is really an example of the exact same fear that is driving the cup people. Because of course this fight isn’t really about cups at all. Or Christmas. This fight is really about relevance, about continuity, about whether the things we base our trust in are secure enough to hold us in the midst of a world that feels increasingly out of control. And that, snowflake or no snowflake, I totally get. The world is big and scary and chaotic. This week especially, one only has to turn on one’s television to see a world that looks out of control. And in the midst of all this uncertainty, we search, we yearn, for something to hold onto, something to make sense of senselessness. In this search for meaning, it is so tempting to fix our trust or our blame on anything that feels solid, even if that thing is small. So snowflakes on Starbucks cups aren’t an important symbol for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have equally inconsequential things that I think need to stand in order for the world to make sense. We all do. And this isn’t a modern development; longing for consistency is part of the story of being human.
This search for stability is really the point of our Gospel reading for this morning. This morning the journey is over. Jesus and his disciples have arrived in Jerusalem, and things are increasingly spinning out of control. The religious authorities who have been pursuing Jesus looking for a chance to destroy him are getting closer and closer. The end is near. The disciples couldn’t see it yet, but they could feel it. They could feel that sense of anxiety and unease, that queasy feeling deep within you that tells you something is wrong. And though they did not know what chaos was in front of them, they were subconsciously searching for something stable, something lasting, something to assure them that nothing would change. They found that promise in the temple.
“Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings,” they marveled, gazing up at the huge stone edifice that dominated the Jerusalem skyline. The temple, remember, was the center of the Jewish world. It was the location of the holiest of holies; it was the place where God dwelt. It was a massive and magnificent structure, the sheer scale of which dwarfed everything around it. Looking upon it, its weight, its girth, the disciples were able to push down the fear that was churning inside of them. Certainly a faith based on a building that solid could never be toppled.
Except, that it was. Not forty years after these words were spoken the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, never to be rebuilt. If you go to Jerusalem today, you will see it now just as Jesus told the disciples. Not one stone is left upon another, all has been thrown down.
For the disciples, the destruction of the temple represented nothing less than the end of the world. So when Jesus told them it was going to be destroyed they begged Jesus to tell them when this would take place, and how they would know it was happening. Please Jesus, if the world and everything we know and hold on to is going to be gone, please at least let us know, what are the signs of the destruction, how will we know that the end has come near?
But Jesus doesn’t answer their question. He doesn’t tell them what to look for; he doesn’t tell them how to escape. Instead he tells them not to be afraid. Instead he assures them that what looks like the end is not the end, it is merely the beginning. “Many will come in my name,” Jesus said, do not follow them. When you hear wars and rumors of war, do not be alarmed. Nation will rise against nation, there will be earthquakes and famines, but even this is not the end, even this is just the beginning.
Wars and rumors of war, nations rising against nation, earthquakes and famines, this passage seems like it war written for the events of November 13, 2015. But the sad truth is this passage was not written for us. Or at least, it was not written only for us. Wars and rumors of war, nation rising against nation, earthquakes and famines, these things are sadly not unique to our time. We said in Bible study, only half joking, that when we look around the world, we sometimes wonder if maybe free will wasn’t God’s best idea. For all our vast intellect, we humans are a very violent species.
Mark’s Gospel was written around the late 60s/early 70s CE, during the Roman/Jewish War. This was an incredibly brutal experience for those who lived through it. Blood ran in the streets, the temple, that seemingly indestructible building of large stones; was destroyed. These words from Jesus brought those first readers of Mark’s Gospel, people living through what seemed like the end of the world, incredible comfort. These words from Jesus revealed to them that their hope was not from a building, but from the living God. A God whose central truth is that resurrection always follows death, hope always rises over despair, and the worst thing that can happen is never the last thing that will happen, because God has no end.
Scary, evil, terrifying things will happen, Jesus told the disciples, and none of those things have any bearing on the coming kingdom of God. God’s presence is grander than the grandest of temples, stronger than the strongest army, more stable than the earth itself. Scary, uncertain, even evil times are not end times, because God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. God is the stability that holds us, the center in which we can place our trust.
These words from Jesus can bring us comfort too. When we are faced with earthquakes and terror, when we feel like the world is shaking, these words from Jesus can remind us that no matter what happens, the end is still to come. So we can stand strong against violence, we can stand firm against those false prophets who tell us that this is the end and tempt us to evil. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” And because Jesus told us it is not the end, we can stand up against evil. We can join with our Muslim sisters and brothers in denouncing fundamentalism in all its forms. We can work for peace, we can work for justice, we can believe that a different world is possible, because the temple was destroyed in wars and rumors of war, just like Jesus said it would, and it was only the beginning.
God’s presence is stable when all the world is shaking. God’s promise is true when nothing else will hold. God is the one who casts down walls of oppression and persecution and lifts up those who tremble and fear. Whether you are longing for the powers that hold you captive to be toppled, or desperate for something to catch your own fall, God is there. No matter what happens, no matter what you face, you can hold fast to this promise: God is eternal, God will not falter, and this is only the beginning. Thanks be to God. Amen.
We’re going to talk about fundamentalism today. We’re going to talk about how we read texts like this in the midst of war and rumors of war. But first, I’m going to open with the same goofy and light-hearted introduction that I wrote on Monday. Because I think in the face of the week’s events, maybe the Holy Spirit gave me this opener so that we could start this sermon with a good chuckle.
So, perhaps you’ve heard about the latest threat to Christmas, Jesus, and the world as we know it. Actually, I’m going to hope you haven’t and that I am the only one lucky enough to have this most recent controversy blowing up my Facebook news feed, but anyway, here it is.
That’s right friends. In case you haven’t heard, this seemingly innocuous cup is in fact a vicious attack on all we hold sacred. Why is this cup a problem, you might wonder? Notice the lack of snowflakes. Last year’s cups had snowflakes on them, and the removal of the snowflakes is clearly an attempt by Starbucks to do away with Christmas.
Now I don’t get this argument at all. It is advent after all, and as a good Lutheran liturgist I think the cups should be blue for most of December, and should then switch to white and gold from Christmas Eve until after Baptism of our Lord Sunday. Red is the color of Pentecost, Starbucks, get it together! And as for the snowflake pattern, well, as a Californian the snowflake never made much sense. Who’s ever heard of snow on Christmas? That’s just weird.
So clearly I’m being overly judgmental and snarky about people’s response to this cup. And if I’m honest with myself, my snarky response is really an example of the exact same fear that is driving the cup people. Because of course this fight isn’t really about cups at all. Or Christmas. This fight is really about relevance, about continuity, about whether the things we base our trust in are secure enough to hold us in the midst of a world that feels increasingly out of control. And that, snowflake or no snowflake, I totally get. The world is big and scary and chaotic. This week especially, one only has to turn on one’s television to see a world that looks out of control. And in the midst of all this uncertainty, we search, we yearn, for something to hold onto, something to make sense of senselessness. In this search for meaning, it is so tempting to fix our trust or our blame on anything that feels solid, even if that thing is small. So snowflakes on Starbucks cups aren’t an important symbol for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have equally inconsequential things that I think need to stand in order for the world to make sense. We all do. And this isn’t a modern development; longing for consistency is part of the story of being human.
This search for stability is really the point of our Gospel reading for this morning. This morning the journey is over. Jesus and his disciples have arrived in Jerusalem, and things are increasingly spinning out of control. The religious authorities who have been pursuing Jesus looking for a chance to destroy him are getting closer and closer. The end is near. The disciples couldn’t see it yet, but they could feel it. They could feel that sense of anxiety and unease, that queasy feeling deep within you that tells you something is wrong. And though they did not know what chaos was in front of them, they were subconsciously searching for something stable, something lasting, something to assure them that nothing would change. They found that promise in the temple.
“Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings,” they marveled, gazing up at the huge stone edifice that dominated the Jerusalem skyline. The temple, remember, was the center of the Jewish world. It was the location of the holiest of holies; it was the place where God dwelt. It was a massive and magnificent structure, the sheer scale of which dwarfed everything around it. Looking upon it, its weight, its girth, the disciples were able to push down the fear that was churning inside of them. Certainly a faith based on a building that solid could never be toppled.
Except, that it was. Not forty years after these words were spoken the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, never to be rebuilt. If you go to Jerusalem today, you will see it now just as Jesus told the disciples. Not one stone is left upon another, all has been thrown down.
For the disciples, the destruction of the temple represented nothing less than the end of the world. So when Jesus told them it was going to be destroyed they begged Jesus to tell them when this would take place, and how they would know it was happening. Please Jesus, if the world and everything we know and hold on to is going to be gone, please at least let us know, what are the signs of the destruction, how will we know that the end has come near?
But Jesus doesn’t answer their question. He doesn’t tell them what to look for; he doesn’t tell them how to escape. Instead he tells them not to be afraid. Instead he assures them that what looks like the end is not the end, it is merely the beginning. “Many will come in my name,” Jesus said, do not follow them. When you hear wars and rumors of war, do not be alarmed. Nation will rise against nation, there will be earthquakes and famines, but even this is not the end, even this is just the beginning.
Wars and rumors of war, nations rising against nation, earthquakes and famines, this passage seems like it war written for the events of November 13, 2015. But the sad truth is this passage was not written for us. Or at least, it was not written only for us. Wars and rumors of war, nation rising against nation, earthquakes and famines, these things are sadly not unique to our time. We said in Bible study, only half joking, that when we look around the world, we sometimes wonder if maybe free will wasn’t God’s best idea. For all our vast intellect, we humans are a very violent species.
Mark’s Gospel was written around the late 60s/early 70s CE, during the Roman/Jewish War. This was an incredibly brutal experience for those who lived through it. Blood ran in the streets, the temple, that seemingly indestructible building of large stones; was destroyed. These words from Jesus brought those first readers of Mark’s Gospel, people living through what seemed like the end of the world, incredible comfort. These words from Jesus revealed to them that their hope was not from a building, but from the living God. A God whose central truth is that resurrection always follows death, hope always rises over despair, and the worst thing that can happen is never the last thing that will happen, because God has no end.
Scary, evil, terrifying things will happen, Jesus told the disciples, and none of those things have any bearing on the coming kingdom of God. God’s presence is grander than the grandest of temples, stronger than the strongest army, more stable than the earth itself. Scary, uncertain, even evil times are not end times, because God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. God is the stability that holds us, the center in which we can place our trust.
These words from Jesus can bring us comfort too. When we are faced with earthquakes and terror, when we feel like the world is shaking, these words from Jesus can remind us that no matter what happens, the end is still to come. So we can stand strong against violence, we can stand firm against those false prophets who tell us that this is the end and tempt us to evil. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” And because Jesus told us it is not the end, we can stand up against evil. We can join with our Muslim sisters and brothers in denouncing fundamentalism in all its forms. We can work for peace, we can work for justice, we can believe that a different world is possible, because the temple was destroyed in wars and rumors of war, just like Jesus said it would, and it was only the beginning.
God’s presence is stable when all the world is shaking. God’s promise is true when nothing else will hold. God is the one who casts down walls of oppression and persecution and lifts up those who tremble and fear. Whether you are longing for the powers that hold you captive to be toppled, or desperate for something to catch your own fall, God is there. No matter what happens, no matter what you face, you can hold fast to this promise: God is eternal, God will not falter, and this is only the beginning. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Conversation Points for Mark 13:1-8
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Most scholars believe Mark’s Gospel was written around the end of the 60s/beginning of the 70s C.E. The temple was destroyed during the Roman/Jewish War in 66-70 C.E. For the first readers of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ words about the destruction of the temple have just come true. These words are not predicting the future, they are telling the truth of what has happened.
• In the Bible prophets are not fortune-tellers, they are truth-tellers. They diagnose current conditions not to cast judgment but to prompt reform.
• In verse three, the disciples ask Jesus to tell them when the temple will be destroyed, but Jesus doesn’t tell them when, he tells them how to live and to not be afraid.
• This section of Mark’s Gospel is known as the “little apocalypse.” Hollywood tends to portray apocalypse as disaster, but the word literally translates to “uncovering.” It means to reveal or expose truth that is hidden.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Most scholars believe Mark’s Gospel was written around the end of the 60s/beginning of the 70s C.E. The temple was destroyed during the Roman/Jewish War in 66-70 C.E. For the first readers of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ words about the destruction of the temple have just come true. These words are not predicting the future, they are telling the truth of what has happened.
• In the Bible prophets are not fortune-tellers, they are truth-tellers. They diagnose current conditions not to cast judgment but to prompt reform.
• In verse three, the disciples ask Jesus to tell them when the temple will be destroyed, but Jesus doesn’t tell them when, he tells them how to live and to not be afraid.
• This section of Mark’s Gospel is known as the “little apocalypse.” Hollywood tends to portray apocalypse as disaster, but the word literally translates to “uncovering.” It means to reveal or expose truth that is hidden.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Conversation Points for Mark 12:38-44
I'm trying an experiment this week in virtual Bible study. Every Wednesday at Trinity we have a conversation about the texts for the upcoming Sunday. In an effort to connect with folk who cannot make the Wednesday conversations, I'm posting the notes here to see if this could be a forum for virtual conversation. If you like it, let me know or join in the conversation by posting in the comments. If you have a suggestion for a better format, I'd love to hear that too.
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Our bibles tend to break this section up into two sections, but Jesus following the warning to beware the scribes who “devour widows houses” with a story about a widow indicates they are meant to be read as one. Some commentaries wonder if this is less about praising the widow then it is about critiquing a system that asks the last penny of a widow to support the wealthy elite.
• Verse 44 is better translated as “her whole living.” Some scholars suggest the widow’s selfless giving is a foreshadowing of Jesus death, where he will give his life.
• The Old Testament reading for this week is 1 Kings 17:8-16. How are the experiences of the two widows similar? How are they different?
• The word sacrifice comes from the Latin for “to make sacred.” Does thinking about the word in that definition change how you think about sacrifice?
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Our bibles tend to break this section up into two sections, but Jesus following the warning to beware the scribes who “devour widows houses” with a story about a widow indicates they are meant to be read as one. Some commentaries wonder if this is less about praising the widow then it is about critiquing a system that asks the last penny of a widow to support the wealthy elite.
• Verse 44 is better translated as “her whole living.” Some scholars suggest the widow’s selfless giving is a foreshadowing of Jesus death, where he will give his life.
• The Old Testament reading for this week is 1 Kings 17:8-16. How are the experiences of the two widows similar? How are they different?
• The word sacrifice comes from the Latin for “to make sacred.” Does thinking about the word in that definition change how you think about sacrifice?
Monday, November 2, 2015
For All the Saints: An All Saints Day Sermon on Mark 12:28-34
This morning we celebrate the festival of All Saints Day, the day in the church year we set aside to remember all those who have died in the faith, especially those who have died in the last year. This year we remember Jean, Alvina, Ed, and Dorcas, all of whom are fitting examples of what a life of faith looks like in practice. Though certainly they lived their faith in different ways, and some of those ways were gentler than others, all of them were people who showed their faith through action. Jean was a passionate and strong-willed voice for community activism through her work with Creating Change, Alvina loved to feed people through her family garden, Ed was a handyman, always fixing what needed fixing, and Dorcas demonstrated hospitality through a table that was open to anyone in need of a hot meal. Were they perfect? No, but they were saints. People who lived lives of faithful witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What is a saint, anyway? As Protestants, we have a complicated relationship with the word “saints.” It seems very Catholic, and tends to conjure up images of strange, holier than thou, long-dead figures who perform miracles and reveal themselves through fuzzy images on burnt toast. Or maybe we think of more modern saints, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., maybe even Mahatma Gandhi, people who lived holy, sacred, set-apart lives, people who accomplished tasks we could never see ourselves possibly living up to. There is a temptation to place our saints on pedestals, as figures to revere rather than models to follow. It is easy to do this with saints, especially after they are gone, to remember only the good things and forget the times they drove us crazy. Mother Theresa was strong-willed and difficult, Martin Luther King, Jr. made some questionable decisions, and certainly we can all think of a time when we did not see eye to eye with someone represented by one of these candles. And it’s important we remember those truths of our saints as well. Because placing our saints on pedestals really does them and us a disservice. To see them as greater than they are, as holier than us, is to diminish their humanity and release us from the expectation that we ourselves could be capable of doing great deeds. If they are saints and we are not, then they can go on doing great work for the world and we can go on being grateful for their sainthood and content with our lack thereof.
But if we see our saints for what they are, people just like us, sinners in need of redeeming, just like us, brothers and sisters in Christ who strove and failed, fought and struggled, tried their best, came up short, asked for forgiveness and tried again, just like us, then they become for us real models to follow, and we are set free to live into the glorious sainthood that God sees in us, the beautiful company of the kingdom of God.
Our problem with saints, this temptation to ascribe to them unreachable goodness, comes from our very human fascination with trying to earn our own salvation. And this isn’t a new human trait, something we modern-era folk came up with, this is like the central experience of humanity. Think about the Bible, one way to read it, and many people read it this way, is as a law book, if you follow every single thing written in here perfectly and exactly, then you will be a saint and God will love you. The problem with this? Since the Bible is in fact, not a law book, this is impossible. Some of the things blatantly contradict each other; others are too vague to be clear. Even the most simple like, “do not murder,” can have complicated implications. Premeditated murder is obviously wrong, but what about in cases of self-defense? What if you don’t kill someone yourself, but you neglect to intervene on someone’s behalf? Or if killing not their body, but their hopes and dreams? Is our greed which leaves so much of the world in abject poverty a form of murder? Where do we draw the line?
But this has not stopped us from trying. In fact, trying to figure out exactly how to follow every single law in the Bible perfectly was basically the full-time occupation of the scribes and the Pharisees that Jesus is so regularly struggling with in the Gospels. Questions of how to apply the law is what the scribes were disputing in our Gospel text for this morning. In the passage before this, they were discussing with Jesus tax codes and marriage laws, creating stranger and stranger situations to trick Jesus into saying something that they could hold against him.
Until one of the scribes, in a very un-scribelike move in the Gospels, instead of asking Jesus to define the situation, asked him to frame it. Which commandment is the first, Jesus? If nothing else, which commandment should I follow above all others. When the commandments disagree with one another, and I cannot figure out which way I should go, what do I follow first and foremost, above all others. Make it simpler for me, Jesus.
And Jesus said this: “the first is, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And… you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love God; love your neighbor. Neither of those, if you flip back to the lists of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testaments, is listed as one of the ten. They are instead summaries of the commandments; they are the heart of what God wanted for us when he ascribed these lists to Moses so many years ago. Love God, love neighbor, and if you do those things, everything else will fall into place. If you do those things, everything else becomes guidance.
Love God; love your neighbor. It is that simple. It is that impossibly hard. It is simple enough that we can give up all our attempts to create rules and find paths and make checklists and spreadsheets and guidelines and just live into the beautiful reality of love. It is hard enough that we can never live up to it; we will always fall short. We will always struggle with setting God above the other gods in our life, gods of comfort, of pride, of technology or success or self-righteousness. We will always struggle to love our neighbor, in no small part because we will always struggle to love ourselves, and when we forget that we ourselves are saints, then it is impossible to see the sainthood in those around us.
But that struggle, brothers and sisters, is the beautiful freedom of sainthood. By God’s grace we are made saints, and not by our actions. We are free to live, to love, to fall short, and to try again. Sainthood is a journey, not a destination. It is living every day, even when we can’t see it, even when we don’t believe it, as beloved children of God because God has said that it is so.
So this morning we give thanks for Jean, Alvina, Ed, and Dorcas, great saints of the church, who stayed the course and finished the race and now rest securely in the arms of God. We give thanks for Chase and Leah, the two newest saints to join our community this year through the sacrament of baptism. We pray on this all saints day that they might find among us and these our departed saints, models of life to strive for. And we give thanks for us all, great saints of God, that we, in our struggles and failures, our cracks and our doubts, that we too are saints, set free by the promise of God’s great love for us to live lives of hope and power and grace and freedom. Do not sell yourselves short, dear brothers and sisters, you, we, are all great saints of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
What is a saint, anyway? As Protestants, we have a complicated relationship with the word “saints.” It seems very Catholic, and tends to conjure up images of strange, holier than thou, long-dead figures who perform miracles and reveal themselves through fuzzy images on burnt toast. Or maybe we think of more modern saints, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., maybe even Mahatma Gandhi, people who lived holy, sacred, set-apart lives, people who accomplished tasks we could never see ourselves possibly living up to. There is a temptation to place our saints on pedestals, as figures to revere rather than models to follow. It is easy to do this with saints, especially after they are gone, to remember only the good things and forget the times they drove us crazy. Mother Theresa was strong-willed and difficult, Martin Luther King, Jr. made some questionable decisions, and certainly we can all think of a time when we did not see eye to eye with someone represented by one of these candles. And it’s important we remember those truths of our saints as well. Because placing our saints on pedestals really does them and us a disservice. To see them as greater than they are, as holier than us, is to diminish their humanity and release us from the expectation that we ourselves could be capable of doing great deeds. If they are saints and we are not, then they can go on doing great work for the world and we can go on being grateful for their sainthood and content with our lack thereof.
But if we see our saints for what they are, people just like us, sinners in need of redeeming, just like us, brothers and sisters in Christ who strove and failed, fought and struggled, tried their best, came up short, asked for forgiveness and tried again, just like us, then they become for us real models to follow, and we are set free to live into the glorious sainthood that God sees in us, the beautiful company of the kingdom of God.
Our problem with saints, this temptation to ascribe to them unreachable goodness, comes from our very human fascination with trying to earn our own salvation. And this isn’t a new human trait, something we modern-era folk came up with, this is like the central experience of humanity. Think about the Bible, one way to read it, and many people read it this way, is as a law book, if you follow every single thing written in here perfectly and exactly, then you will be a saint and God will love you. The problem with this? Since the Bible is in fact, not a law book, this is impossible. Some of the things blatantly contradict each other; others are too vague to be clear. Even the most simple like, “do not murder,” can have complicated implications. Premeditated murder is obviously wrong, but what about in cases of self-defense? What if you don’t kill someone yourself, but you neglect to intervene on someone’s behalf? Or if killing not their body, but their hopes and dreams? Is our greed which leaves so much of the world in abject poverty a form of murder? Where do we draw the line?
But this has not stopped us from trying. In fact, trying to figure out exactly how to follow every single law in the Bible perfectly was basically the full-time occupation of the scribes and the Pharisees that Jesus is so regularly struggling with in the Gospels. Questions of how to apply the law is what the scribes were disputing in our Gospel text for this morning. In the passage before this, they were discussing with Jesus tax codes and marriage laws, creating stranger and stranger situations to trick Jesus into saying something that they could hold against him.
Until one of the scribes, in a very un-scribelike move in the Gospels, instead of asking Jesus to define the situation, asked him to frame it. Which commandment is the first, Jesus? If nothing else, which commandment should I follow above all others. When the commandments disagree with one another, and I cannot figure out which way I should go, what do I follow first and foremost, above all others. Make it simpler for me, Jesus.
And Jesus said this: “the first is, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And… you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love God; love your neighbor. Neither of those, if you flip back to the lists of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testaments, is listed as one of the ten. They are instead summaries of the commandments; they are the heart of what God wanted for us when he ascribed these lists to Moses so many years ago. Love God, love neighbor, and if you do those things, everything else will fall into place. If you do those things, everything else becomes guidance.
Love God; love your neighbor. It is that simple. It is that impossibly hard. It is simple enough that we can give up all our attempts to create rules and find paths and make checklists and spreadsheets and guidelines and just live into the beautiful reality of love. It is hard enough that we can never live up to it; we will always fall short. We will always struggle with setting God above the other gods in our life, gods of comfort, of pride, of technology or success or self-righteousness. We will always struggle to love our neighbor, in no small part because we will always struggle to love ourselves, and when we forget that we ourselves are saints, then it is impossible to see the sainthood in those around us.
But that struggle, brothers and sisters, is the beautiful freedom of sainthood. By God’s grace we are made saints, and not by our actions. We are free to live, to love, to fall short, and to try again. Sainthood is a journey, not a destination. It is living every day, even when we can’t see it, even when we don’t believe it, as beloved children of God because God has said that it is so.
So this morning we give thanks for Jean, Alvina, Ed, and Dorcas, great saints of the church, who stayed the course and finished the race and now rest securely in the arms of God. We give thanks for Chase and Leah, the two newest saints to join our community this year through the sacrament of baptism. We pray on this all saints day that they might find among us and these our departed saints, models of life to strive for. And we give thanks for us all, great saints of God, that we, in our struggles and failures, our cracks and our doubts, that we too are saints, set free by the promise of God’s great love for us to live lives of hope and power and grace and freedom. Do not sell yourselves short, dear brothers and sisters, you, we, are all great saints of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Monday, October 26, 2015
A Timeless God for a Time-bound Humanity: A Reformation Sermon on John 8:31-36
This sermon followed a conversation regarding how worship has changed during the years, why we did things that way then and why we do them this way now. It was a much more conversational sermon than I normally preach, so if you were at the sermon and you don't remember parts of this one, I went off notes more than normal.
When we do liturgy, all of the parts have meaning and are meant to help us experience the presence of God. Liturgy is contextual, because it helps us experience God; it has to match our experiences. Early Jesuit missionaries used to shift the mass to relate it to the cultures they were trying to reach out to. Some Asian Christians use rice instead of bread for communion because rice is a more normal staple and closer to what the disciples experienced then bread would be.
We’re talking about this on Reformation Sunday, because a big part of what the early Reformers did was change worship so that it was more contextual for the people. It is thanks to the Reformation that we experience worship in our own language. Prior to the Reformation, all services were in Latin, even though none of the people and often not even the priest performing the service spoke Latin. Fun fact for the day: we get the phrase “hocus pocus” from the old Latin mass. It comes from mishearing the latin for “take and eat”, “hoc est, poc est.” The Reformers changed the mass from Latin to German so people could understand what was being said. They added singing so the people could participate in worship. They opened both the bread and the wine to everyone, before only the priests could have the bread.
Since then, we have followed in the footsteps of these early reformers to continue to find ways to have worship be meaningful and relevant to our time. We brought the table away from the wall so the pastor could stand behind it and everyone could see what was happening. In fact, we had the assisting minister and the pastor always face the congregation, instead of turning our backs to you, like Linda did in the opening prayer today. We wrote new hymns that more closely reflect the music styles of their time. We’ve loosened up the language, and stopped talking like something out of a Shakespeare play. We do all of this in the spirit of the early Reformers, to break down the barriers that keep us from experiencing God.
But not just the spirit of the early Reformers. The Reformers took their cue from Jesus, from the freedom they discovered in the scriptures. One of the stories that really helped this freedom to click is this morning’s Gospel text from John. Jesus is talking to some Jews. And remember, Jesus himself is Jewish, so he’s talking to some of his own people, about freedom. And the Jews scoff at him, “we are descendents of Abraham, we’ve never been slaves to anyone. We don’t need your stories about freedom.” Which is really a strange statement for the Jews to be making. One, because Jerusalem during the time of Jesus was a protectorate of the Roman empire so they are basically slaves of the Emperor. But even more importantly, the entire basis of the Jewish faith is the exile story, the story of God’s deliverance of the people from slavery into freedom.
But the Jews had forgotten what it meant to be captive. And because they’d forgotten their captivity, they couldn’t see the promise Jesus was offering them. They couldn’t see they were living in invisible prisons.
I don’t think the mistake the Jews make is all that surprising and uncommon. I think all of us at one time or another forget we are captive and thus miss the promise of freedom. All of us have some sort of invisible prison. Prisons of fear or addiction or pride. Prisons we’d rather remain inside because freedom, true freedom, is more terrifying than the familiarity of captivity. But captivity to old habits is not what Jesus wanted for the Jews and is not what Jesus wants for us. And so, we hear in this text the promise and the power of our adoption into God’s family through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Son has set us free and so we are free indeed. And because that place is permanent, even when we forget our place, someone will come around who will remind us of our freedom, of a world bigger than our imaginations, and will draw us back out into freedom again.
That is what we celebrate on Reformation Sunday. Not that Martin Luther wrote some stuff a long time ago, but that God is continually, through people like Luther, but also through people like you and I, drawing people back into the promise and the power of freedom. Reformation isn’t something that happened once, five-hundred years ago. It isn’t even something that happened for the first time five hundred years ago. Since the time of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has been and will continue to be reforming us and making us new. So that we can experience God’s presence in our lives just as we are and who we are. The reformation is the flowing, moving breath of the Spirit reorienting our timeless God for a time-bound people.
This morning I want us to take an opportunity to, like Luther did, declare our place in the Reformation. You may be familiar with the story of the ninety-five theses, how Martin Luther nailed a list of thoughts to the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg, and the list was published, passed around, and eventually led to the spread of the Reformation movement across the globe. What you may not know is this nailing to the door doesn’t have quite the same umph to it as we might think with such a bold visual. The Castle Church door was like the community bulletin board. Well, more like the community Facebook page. People could post questions or comments for conversation on the door to invite others into discussion. This morning we’re going to take an opportunity to post some Reformation thoughts on our own old style Facebook page, just like Luther did. Each of you has a small piece of paper. I invite you to write on your paper either a way you’ve experienced reformation or a way you’d like to experience reformation. Then when you’re ready, you can come and “post” it to the door. We have some nails and hammers. And after the service I invite you to come up and look at the door and engage each other in conversation about what Reformation might look like today for us. Happy Reforming!
When we do liturgy, all of the parts have meaning and are meant to help us experience the presence of God. Liturgy is contextual, because it helps us experience God; it has to match our experiences. Early Jesuit missionaries used to shift the mass to relate it to the cultures they were trying to reach out to. Some Asian Christians use rice instead of bread for communion because rice is a more normal staple and closer to what the disciples experienced then bread would be.
We’re talking about this on Reformation Sunday, because a big part of what the early Reformers did was change worship so that it was more contextual for the people. It is thanks to the Reformation that we experience worship in our own language. Prior to the Reformation, all services were in Latin, even though none of the people and often not even the priest performing the service spoke Latin. Fun fact for the day: we get the phrase “hocus pocus” from the old Latin mass. It comes from mishearing the latin for “take and eat”, “hoc est, poc est.” The Reformers changed the mass from Latin to German so people could understand what was being said. They added singing so the people could participate in worship. They opened both the bread and the wine to everyone, before only the priests could have the bread.
Since then, we have followed in the footsteps of these early reformers to continue to find ways to have worship be meaningful and relevant to our time. We brought the table away from the wall so the pastor could stand behind it and everyone could see what was happening. In fact, we had the assisting minister and the pastor always face the congregation, instead of turning our backs to you, like Linda did in the opening prayer today. We wrote new hymns that more closely reflect the music styles of their time. We’ve loosened up the language, and stopped talking like something out of a Shakespeare play. We do all of this in the spirit of the early Reformers, to break down the barriers that keep us from experiencing God.
But not just the spirit of the early Reformers. The Reformers took their cue from Jesus, from the freedom they discovered in the scriptures. One of the stories that really helped this freedom to click is this morning’s Gospel text from John. Jesus is talking to some Jews. And remember, Jesus himself is Jewish, so he’s talking to some of his own people, about freedom. And the Jews scoff at him, “we are descendents of Abraham, we’ve never been slaves to anyone. We don’t need your stories about freedom.” Which is really a strange statement for the Jews to be making. One, because Jerusalem during the time of Jesus was a protectorate of the Roman empire so they are basically slaves of the Emperor. But even more importantly, the entire basis of the Jewish faith is the exile story, the story of God’s deliverance of the people from slavery into freedom.
But the Jews had forgotten what it meant to be captive. And because they’d forgotten their captivity, they couldn’t see the promise Jesus was offering them. They couldn’t see they were living in invisible prisons.
I don’t think the mistake the Jews make is all that surprising and uncommon. I think all of us at one time or another forget we are captive and thus miss the promise of freedom. All of us have some sort of invisible prison. Prisons of fear or addiction or pride. Prisons we’d rather remain inside because freedom, true freedom, is more terrifying than the familiarity of captivity. But captivity to old habits is not what Jesus wanted for the Jews and is not what Jesus wants for us. And so, we hear in this text the promise and the power of our adoption into God’s family through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Son has set us free and so we are free indeed. And because that place is permanent, even when we forget our place, someone will come around who will remind us of our freedom, of a world bigger than our imaginations, and will draw us back out into freedom again.
That is what we celebrate on Reformation Sunday. Not that Martin Luther wrote some stuff a long time ago, but that God is continually, through people like Luther, but also through people like you and I, drawing people back into the promise and the power of freedom. Reformation isn’t something that happened once, five-hundred years ago. It isn’t even something that happened for the first time five hundred years ago. Since the time of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has been and will continue to be reforming us and making us new. So that we can experience God’s presence in our lives just as we are and who we are. The reformation is the flowing, moving breath of the Spirit reorienting our timeless God for a time-bound people.
This morning I want us to take an opportunity to, like Luther did, declare our place in the Reformation. You may be familiar with the story of the ninety-five theses, how Martin Luther nailed a list of thoughts to the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg, and the list was published, passed around, and eventually led to the spread of the Reformation movement across the globe. What you may not know is this nailing to the door doesn’t have quite the same umph to it as we might think with such a bold visual. The Castle Church door was like the community bulletin board. Well, more like the community Facebook page. People could post questions or comments for conversation on the door to invite others into discussion. This morning we’re going to take an opportunity to post some Reformation thoughts on our own old style Facebook page, just like Luther did. Each of you has a small piece of paper. I invite you to write on your paper either a way you’ve experienced reformation or a way you’d like to experience reformation. Then when you’re ready, you can come and “post” it to the door. We have some nails and hammers. And after the service I invite you to come up and look at the door and engage each other in conversation about what Reformation might look like today for us. Happy Reforming!
Monday, October 12, 2015
The Price of Inheritance: A Sermon on Mark 10:17-31
I kept thinking of a random quote while I was reading our text for this morning. And since it always feels like a successful Sunday when I get to work an obscure pop reference into a sermon, I’m going to share that quote with you. When I read this text, I kept thinking about a line from comedian George Carlin about religion. First though, a bit of a disclaimer. This quote I’m going to share with you is G rated. If you Google it, the rest of the sketch is not. We’re all adults here, Google at your own risk. Anyway, George Carlin defines religion as “an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke… where he will send you to live and suffer…forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, [and] somehow just can't handle money!”
And I wonder if this isn’t a little bit how the rich man in our Gospel text for this morning was feeling. Here was a guy who had done everything right for his whole life. Kept the commandments well. Didn’t lie, didn’t murder, was faithful to his spouse, didn’t steal, honored his parents. Every nuance of every law he strove to keep faithfully. And to those around him, it seemed he had been rewarded for his faithfulness. Wealth was at that time believed to be a sign of God’s blessing, and this guy was rich! But something still was missing. Even with all his possessions and all his faithfulness to the law, he knew, deep down inside that there was still an ache longing to be filled. Which is how he found himself traveling to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan to fall at the feet of an itinerant preacher and beg him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And though Jesus looked at him, and loved him, what disappointment must have filled the man’s heart when the words were delivered, “‘Go, sell what you have, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ And when he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
And then there’s Peter—it always seems to be poor, hapless Peter in these stories, doesn’t it—Peter who turns to Jesus after Jesus has followed up the rich man’s departure with a teaching about how hard it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God, who points out to Jesus, “Look, we left everything and followed you.” Only to have Jesus respond, “yes, and you who have left everything, houses, families, fields, will receive one-hundredfold in this age of persecutions.” George Carlin’s God sounds like less of a joke at the end of this reading.
This text seemed easier when I was twenty-two and self-righteous. When I left all my possessions in my parents garage and moved to DC with a duffle bag strapped to a skateboard to begin a life as a volunteer coordinator at a homeless shelter working forty hours plus hours a week for one-hundred dollars a month. I knew even then what I was doing was not poverty. I had little money, but I had none of the insecurity that comes with true poverty. I had a job, I had a home, I had health insurance. But there was still an edge of pride to this lifestyle. I get where Peter was coming from when he pointed out to Jesus, “Look, we left everything and followed you.” I get his disappointment when instead of praising him, Jesus told him that such sacrifice offered not glory but persecution, for many who are last will be first, and the first will be last. I, like Peter, thought I’d done a pretty noble thing with this sacrifice I had made to serve the homeless. Until the first really cold fall rain came. As I pushed my bike past the front of the building, I passed the hooded figure of one of the day shelter clients hunched under an awning smoking a cigarette. The awning was too narrow to offer full protection, so she was wrapped and hooded in a thick grey blanket, her belongings carefully tied in grocery bags against the downpour. She looked up as I passed by. “Good night,” she said. “Be safe riding home, it’s nasty out tonight.” That night, as I sat in my warm home, wrapped in dry blankets, full of the food my roommates had cooked for dinner, I thought of the woman sitting on the stoop, wishing me safety as I biked through the rain, and I thought, I have given up nothing.
Now it is true that the woman had choices. She could have sought shelter in our night shelter or any of the other shelters throughout the city, and maybe she did after I left, I don’t know. And even if she didn’t, that was her choice and part of following Jesus command to love your neighbor as yourself is allowing your neighbor to make their own choices with their life. I don’t know her story, I don’t know what very valid reasons she may have had to have wanted to spend that night outdoors rather than in. But I knew that everything I had given up still left me vastly wealthy compared to her. Even if I gave up everything and moved to the streets, I was born into privilege that would always put me ahead. That’s the thing about trying to earn God’s favor; everything you do is never enough. There’s always something missing.
What Peter and the rich man had in common is this sense that there was something they could do to earn God’s favor. That they could be good enough or poor enough or faithful enough or generous enough to make God love them. But what Jesus pointed out in this text is no matter how faithfully the rich man kept the law and no matter how much Peter gave, they were always going to fall short. They were always going to lack one thing. The rich man went away grieving, for he had many possessions. And Peter, well, the disciples are just consummate screw-ups in Mark’s Gospel. Read ahead for next week to see just how far James and John can get off the mark. Even the disciples can’t get this whole living like Jesus thing perfectly. How hard it is, brothers and sisters, to enter the kingdom of God. Left to our own devices, we will never make it. And that, believe it or not, is the good news in this text. That is the freeing news in this text. We can never earn our way into the kingdom of God. We can’t, and we don’t have to. The rich man asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. An inheritance isn’t something you earn, right? It’s something that’s given to you. Something you get by virtue of being part of the family. But what happens in order to get an inheritance? Someone has to die. Beloved, Jesus died. We confess every Sunday that Jesus suffered death and was buried. And so, we have an inheritance. Our inheritance is based not on our ability to earn it, but in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God is not some invisible man in the clouds with a checklist of rules we must measure up to in order to earn some vague promise of salvation someday. Jesus looked at the rich man, right then, as he was, and loved him. Jesus looked at Peter and all of his wayward, pushy, and confused disciples, and loved them. Jesus looks at us, with our questions, our fears, our failures, and shortcomings, and loves us. That love is based not own our ability to earn it, but on God’s ability to give it, because that’s the way love works. Think about love in our human relationships. It isn’t something you earn by checking off some list of accomplishments. It’s something that’s given to you, or that you give, freely, because you can’t help but love or be loved by the person. The love we experience between each other is just a dim reflection of the limitless love of God.
And because we don’t have to earn God’s love, because our freedom is a product of the inheritance we received through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can give up trying to be perfect and just be loved. And that love will change us. The disciples don’t get it through the entirety of Mark’s Gospel. You might remember from Easter that even at the resurrection, Mark’s account has the disciples not telling anyone because they were afraid. But we know from the book of Acts and from the fact that we are here this morning witnessing to Christ’s presence, that the disciples got it right eventually. They went out and told the story of God’s love for the world, and we are benefactors of the fact that their story didn’t end every time they failed. But instead every time they failed, because of the inheritance they had through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they were able to try again, to go at it again, to be disciples again. The fancy theological term for this is sanctification, it’s the way we are changed for the better out of response for the love we’ve experienced through God. Not because we’re trying to earn God’s favor, but the way a flower opens toward the sun, because God’s love has filled us and there simply is no other way to respond. And I have to imagine this is the rich man’s story too. That a God who would not be defeated by death was certainly not defeated by a rich man’s sadness. We don’t know what became of the rich man when he walked away that day, but I can only imagine that encounter with Jesus was just the first part of his story, just the first glimmerings of change that would blossom into something extraordinary.
This change too is our stories. It is in our words of forgiveness, our working toward justice, our struggles to see the world through our neighbors eyes, all these are signs of the way God is at work within us, changing us, loving us, reorienting our lives to God’s kingdom. And so, brothers and sisters, be loved. Know that you are loved. In failures and struggles, in greed and pride, our great God of love keeps coming back to us, turning our hearts, changing our lives, reorienting our souls to receive it. The inheritance is ours, brothers and sisters. For mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God, all things are possible. Amen.
And I wonder if this isn’t a little bit how the rich man in our Gospel text for this morning was feeling. Here was a guy who had done everything right for his whole life. Kept the commandments well. Didn’t lie, didn’t murder, was faithful to his spouse, didn’t steal, honored his parents. Every nuance of every law he strove to keep faithfully. And to those around him, it seemed he had been rewarded for his faithfulness. Wealth was at that time believed to be a sign of God’s blessing, and this guy was rich! But something still was missing. Even with all his possessions and all his faithfulness to the law, he knew, deep down inside that there was still an ache longing to be filled. Which is how he found himself traveling to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan to fall at the feet of an itinerant preacher and beg him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And though Jesus looked at him, and loved him, what disappointment must have filled the man’s heart when the words were delivered, “‘Go, sell what you have, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ And when he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
And then there’s Peter—it always seems to be poor, hapless Peter in these stories, doesn’t it—Peter who turns to Jesus after Jesus has followed up the rich man’s departure with a teaching about how hard it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God, who points out to Jesus, “Look, we left everything and followed you.” Only to have Jesus respond, “yes, and you who have left everything, houses, families, fields, will receive one-hundredfold in this age of persecutions.” George Carlin’s God sounds like less of a joke at the end of this reading.
This text seemed easier when I was twenty-two and self-righteous. When I left all my possessions in my parents garage and moved to DC with a duffle bag strapped to a skateboard to begin a life as a volunteer coordinator at a homeless shelter working forty hours plus hours a week for one-hundred dollars a month. I knew even then what I was doing was not poverty. I had little money, but I had none of the insecurity that comes with true poverty. I had a job, I had a home, I had health insurance. But there was still an edge of pride to this lifestyle. I get where Peter was coming from when he pointed out to Jesus, “Look, we left everything and followed you.” I get his disappointment when instead of praising him, Jesus told him that such sacrifice offered not glory but persecution, for many who are last will be first, and the first will be last. I, like Peter, thought I’d done a pretty noble thing with this sacrifice I had made to serve the homeless. Until the first really cold fall rain came. As I pushed my bike past the front of the building, I passed the hooded figure of one of the day shelter clients hunched under an awning smoking a cigarette. The awning was too narrow to offer full protection, so she was wrapped and hooded in a thick grey blanket, her belongings carefully tied in grocery bags against the downpour. She looked up as I passed by. “Good night,” she said. “Be safe riding home, it’s nasty out tonight.” That night, as I sat in my warm home, wrapped in dry blankets, full of the food my roommates had cooked for dinner, I thought of the woman sitting on the stoop, wishing me safety as I biked through the rain, and I thought, I have given up nothing.
Now it is true that the woman had choices. She could have sought shelter in our night shelter or any of the other shelters throughout the city, and maybe she did after I left, I don’t know. And even if she didn’t, that was her choice and part of following Jesus command to love your neighbor as yourself is allowing your neighbor to make their own choices with their life. I don’t know her story, I don’t know what very valid reasons she may have had to have wanted to spend that night outdoors rather than in. But I knew that everything I had given up still left me vastly wealthy compared to her. Even if I gave up everything and moved to the streets, I was born into privilege that would always put me ahead. That’s the thing about trying to earn God’s favor; everything you do is never enough. There’s always something missing.
What Peter and the rich man had in common is this sense that there was something they could do to earn God’s favor. That they could be good enough or poor enough or faithful enough or generous enough to make God love them. But what Jesus pointed out in this text is no matter how faithfully the rich man kept the law and no matter how much Peter gave, they were always going to fall short. They were always going to lack one thing. The rich man went away grieving, for he had many possessions. And Peter, well, the disciples are just consummate screw-ups in Mark’s Gospel. Read ahead for next week to see just how far James and John can get off the mark. Even the disciples can’t get this whole living like Jesus thing perfectly. How hard it is, brothers and sisters, to enter the kingdom of God. Left to our own devices, we will never make it. And that, believe it or not, is the good news in this text. That is the freeing news in this text. We can never earn our way into the kingdom of God. We can’t, and we don’t have to. The rich man asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. An inheritance isn’t something you earn, right? It’s something that’s given to you. Something you get by virtue of being part of the family. But what happens in order to get an inheritance? Someone has to die. Beloved, Jesus died. We confess every Sunday that Jesus suffered death and was buried. And so, we have an inheritance. Our inheritance is based not on our ability to earn it, but in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God is not some invisible man in the clouds with a checklist of rules we must measure up to in order to earn some vague promise of salvation someday. Jesus looked at the rich man, right then, as he was, and loved him. Jesus looked at Peter and all of his wayward, pushy, and confused disciples, and loved them. Jesus looks at us, with our questions, our fears, our failures, and shortcomings, and loves us. That love is based not own our ability to earn it, but on God’s ability to give it, because that’s the way love works. Think about love in our human relationships. It isn’t something you earn by checking off some list of accomplishments. It’s something that’s given to you, or that you give, freely, because you can’t help but love or be loved by the person. The love we experience between each other is just a dim reflection of the limitless love of God.
And because we don’t have to earn God’s love, because our freedom is a product of the inheritance we received through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can give up trying to be perfect and just be loved. And that love will change us. The disciples don’t get it through the entirety of Mark’s Gospel. You might remember from Easter that even at the resurrection, Mark’s account has the disciples not telling anyone because they were afraid. But we know from the book of Acts and from the fact that we are here this morning witnessing to Christ’s presence, that the disciples got it right eventually. They went out and told the story of God’s love for the world, and we are benefactors of the fact that their story didn’t end every time they failed. But instead every time they failed, because of the inheritance they had through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they were able to try again, to go at it again, to be disciples again. The fancy theological term for this is sanctification, it’s the way we are changed for the better out of response for the love we’ve experienced through God. Not because we’re trying to earn God’s favor, but the way a flower opens toward the sun, because God’s love has filled us and there simply is no other way to respond. And I have to imagine this is the rich man’s story too. That a God who would not be defeated by death was certainly not defeated by a rich man’s sadness. We don’t know what became of the rich man when he walked away that day, but I can only imagine that encounter with Jesus was just the first part of his story, just the first glimmerings of change that would blossom into something extraordinary.
This change too is our stories. It is in our words of forgiveness, our working toward justice, our struggles to see the world through our neighbors eyes, all these are signs of the way God is at work within us, changing us, loving us, reorienting our lives to God’s kingdom. And so, brothers and sisters, be loved. Know that you are loved. In failures and struggles, in greed and pride, our great God of love keeps coming back to us, turning our hearts, changing our lives, reorienting our souls to receive it. The inheritance is ours, brothers and sisters. For mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God, all things are possible. Amen.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Let the Little Children Come: A Sermon on Mark 10:1-16
Once again our Gospel text for this morning seems like a weird mish-match of stories. First we have this test by the Pharisees that led to these seemingly harsh teachings about divorce. Followed immediately by this beautiful image of Jesus taking the children into his arms and blessing them. These seemingly disparate images are hard to fit together as one coherent reading. Why would the lectionary have us read both of them this morning?
One commentary I read suggested the Jesus blessing the little children passage was added as a cop-out for pastors who didn’t want to deal with the divorce passage. Maybe, if the passage was read with enough monotony, no one would notice mean Jesus, and we could slide on over to nice Jesus who loves babies. But of course, we can’t. One, because this is one of those passages that as your pastor I feel responsible to unpack for us this morning, you can’t read something like this and just walk away. But two, because there isn’t mean Jesus and nice Jesus, there’s only one, Jesus, the loving, healing, grace-filled savior of the world. So if Jesus says something like this, there has to be grace in it, there has to be meaning for us. So what is it?
The lectionary may have arbitrarily stuck these two readings together this morning, but Mark did not. These passages follow each other for a reason. You might have noticed this is the same pattern Jesus has been following throughout the last few weeks. Hard teaching, welcoming children, hard teaching, lifting up the little ones, hard teaching, blessing children. Jesus follows each of his hard teachings up with an object lesson about children. So let’s talk a little bit about the role of children in Jesus time. For us to really understand the power of Jesus words here, we have to take off our twenty-first century glasses and see this moment through the disciples’ eyes. Because we value children in our culture. Children are precious, sacred, we make them the center of our homes and of our lives. This was not the case in the first century. Children had no value in society until they were old enough to work. They were pushed aside, worthless. So when Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me,” this is not the Sunday school image of a shiny long-haired Jesus holding clean, chubby-cheeked, little children. A better image for our time would be Jesus saying, “Let the drug addicts come to me, let the convicted felons come, let the homeless, let refugees, let transgendered youth, let anyone whom society has cast aside, has said is worthless, let those people come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” In welcoming the children into their midst and blessing them, Jesus is making the case that the kingdom of God is not for people like the Pharisees, people with power and money and prestige. The kingdom of God is for the vulnerable, the cast aside, the helpless, the hopeless, the forgotten. Then Jesus goes on, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” This passage can really have two meanings. It could mean, welcome the kingdom of God like a child would welcome it. I think of my little buddy Emma, who though she is only three, seems to understand communion better than I do, holding out her hands wide with a huge grin on her face, so totally excited to “eat Jesus.” Were that I always received the Eucharist with such unabashed joy. But, lest I glorify childlike faith, if we settle on this interpretation we also have to take the other side of children. Emma’s three-year-old stubbornness often leads more to “why” and “no” than it does wide-eyed wonder. It is too simple to assume that God is calling us to sentimental child-like faith, because with children remember that questioning and refusing is just as much a part of the bargain.
The second thing this passage could mean is “welcome the kingdom of God like it is a little child.” Like the kingdom of God itself is vulnerable, small, weak, and lowly. What a world-jarring image, that the kingdom of God would come to us not in power and might, but in weakness and vulnerability. Whoever wants to be first must be last, Jesus said just a few verses ago, for the kingdom of God belongs to those the world has left-behind.
With that framework, let’s unpack these teachings on divorce. Once again it’s important for us to take off our twenty-first century framework of marriage as a legal agreement between two consenting adults. In the first century, marriage was a property contract between a woman’s father and her husband. She was literally sold from her father’s house to her husband’s. And notice who is having this conversation. Jesus is not talking to two people in pain because they cannot make their marriage work. Or to someone escaping an abusive situation. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, to a bunch of men. There are no women a part of this conversation. This is because divorce was totally one-sided. Women could not divorce for any reason; only a man could cast his wife out. The command of Moses the Pharisees referenced allowed a man to divorce his wife if he found “something objectionable about her.” “Something objectionable” could be growing older, failing to bear a son, burning toast, or even the husband simply being bored. And a woman’s entire value in society was connected to the man, either her father or her husband. A divorced woman could not return to her father’s home, and no one else could marry her. So divorce left her destitute, abandoned, and alone. Exactly like the little children Jesus so eagerly welcomed.
That this teaching takes place beyond the Jordan adds another dimension to the story. The Jordan River should remind you of John the Baptist, who taught and baptized at the Jordan, and was beheaded by Herod for calling out Herod for marrying his sister-in-law. Which, if you remember from earlier in the summer, was a move made not for love but for power. What Jesus seems to be doing, both here and in the John the Baptist story, is not setting some parameter that all marriages must fall into, but calling out the Pharisees on their on-going efforts to treat the law of God as a tool of oppression, a way to keep people in bondage, to separate people from God and from each other, to stop people from living into the fullness of God’s love for them.
I think the gist of what Jesus is getting at here is that people are not disposable. Moses may have permitted divorce because of men’s hardness of heart, but Jesus will not allow any of his beloved children to be treated as disposable, free to be cast aside by their husbands at the husbands’ will. This text seem less like a commentary on modern-day divorce, and more like a critique of the tendency of people in power to create laws and rules that keep them in power at the expense of the weak.
Ironically, I think this makes this Gospel teaching from Jesus the exact opposite of what it has historically been used for, as a “clobber text” to tell people that they are not welcome in the kingdom of God. This Gospel is, in fact, a firm declaration against all of the people who would try to use the Bible to assert that the kingdom of God is anything other than the place where the lowly, the lonely, the broken, and the hurting are taken up into the arms of Jesus and blessed. Grace, remember, is not the same as niceness. Grace encompasses both law and gospel. And for the Pharisees and any time we might try to use scripture to treat someone else as less than, this passage is law. Jesus is calling the Pharisees out on their treatment of others, because to do anything else would be to turn a blind eye to suffering. Grace is about shaking us down from our self-righteous thrones so that we can live in the beauty of the kingdom of God. Because it is in the knowledge of our weakness that God comes.
Broken relationships hurt. Be those relationships be divorce, a damaged friendship, an alienated child or parent, be they broken by racism, sexism, homophobia, pride, greed, violence. So many things can break our relationships, leave us hurting and alone. Even in cases where a broken relationship is the absolute best outcome. Even when the marriage, the friendship, the bond, whatever it might be is frayed to the point where the only healthy decision is to walk away, even then it hurts; even then it is awful. And that pain, even when it is the absolute right thing, even when it is the only way to healing, is not pain God wants for us. God will walk with us through broken relationships on the path to wholeness, but that pain is caused by human failure, it is never God’s divine plan for our lives. But anyone who would willingly bring that pain on another, who would willingly cast another aside; that is the brokenness Jesus is speaking against. What God has joined together the powerful cannot from their own hardened hearts, separate. Using your power to subjugate another, to treat another as less than you, is wrong, Jesus says, in no uncertain terms. God’s law is not a tool for your oppression.
But also, all of us have experienced times when we have felt cast aside by others. When we have been broken by the sin of another, left hurting and alone by fellow children of God. And it is in those times that this passage is flowing with good news for us. Because this Gospel passage says you who are hurting, you who are broken, you who have been cast aside, come to me, do not be stopped; for it is to you, who you are, as you are, that the kingdom of God belongs. Thanks be to God. Amen.
One commentary I read suggested the Jesus blessing the little children passage was added as a cop-out for pastors who didn’t want to deal with the divorce passage. Maybe, if the passage was read with enough monotony, no one would notice mean Jesus, and we could slide on over to nice Jesus who loves babies. But of course, we can’t. One, because this is one of those passages that as your pastor I feel responsible to unpack for us this morning, you can’t read something like this and just walk away. But two, because there isn’t mean Jesus and nice Jesus, there’s only one, Jesus, the loving, healing, grace-filled savior of the world. So if Jesus says something like this, there has to be grace in it, there has to be meaning for us. So what is it?
The lectionary may have arbitrarily stuck these two readings together this morning, but Mark did not. These passages follow each other for a reason. You might have noticed this is the same pattern Jesus has been following throughout the last few weeks. Hard teaching, welcoming children, hard teaching, lifting up the little ones, hard teaching, blessing children. Jesus follows each of his hard teachings up with an object lesson about children. So let’s talk a little bit about the role of children in Jesus time. For us to really understand the power of Jesus words here, we have to take off our twenty-first century glasses and see this moment through the disciples’ eyes. Because we value children in our culture. Children are precious, sacred, we make them the center of our homes and of our lives. This was not the case in the first century. Children had no value in society until they were old enough to work. They were pushed aside, worthless. So when Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me,” this is not the Sunday school image of a shiny long-haired Jesus holding clean, chubby-cheeked, little children. A better image for our time would be Jesus saying, “Let the drug addicts come to me, let the convicted felons come, let the homeless, let refugees, let transgendered youth, let anyone whom society has cast aside, has said is worthless, let those people come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” In welcoming the children into their midst and blessing them, Jesus is making the case that the kingdom of God is not for people like the Pharisees, people with power and money and prestige. The kingdom of God is for the vulnerable, the cast aside, the helpless, the hopeless, the forgotten. Then Jesus goes on, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” This passage can really have two meanings. It could mean, welcome the kingdom of God like a child would welcome it. I think of my little buddy Emma, who though she is only three, seems to understand communion better than I do, holding out her hands wide with a huge grin on her face, so totally excited to “eat Jesus.” Were that I always received the Eucharist with such unabashed joy. But, lest I glorify childlike faith, if we settle on this interpretation we also have to take the other side of children. Emma’s three-year-old stubbornness often leads more to “why” and “no” than it does wide-eyed wonder. It is too simple to assume that God is calling us to sentimental child-like faith, because with children remember that questioning and refusing is just as much a part of the bargain.
The second thing this passage could mean is “welcome the kingdom of God like it is a little child.” Like the kingdom of God itself is vulnerable, small, weak, and lowly. What a world-jarring image, that the kingdom of God would come to us not in power and might, but in weakness and vulnerability. Whoever wants to be first must be last, Jesus said just a few verses ago, for the kingdom of God belongs to those the world has left-behind.
With that framework, let’s unpack these teachings on divorce. Once again it’s important for us to take off our twenty-first century framework of marriage as a legal agreement between two consenting adults. In the first century, marriage was a property contract between a woman’s father and her husband. She was literally sold from her father’s house to her husband’s. And notice who is having this conversation. Jesus is not talking to two people in pain because they cannot make their marriage work. Or to someone escaping an abusive situation. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, to a bunch of men. There are no women a part of this conversation. This is because divorce was totally one-sided. Women could not divorce for any reason; only a man could cast his wife out. The command of Moses the Pharisees referenced allowed a man to divorce his wife if he found “something objectionable about her.” “Something objectionable” could be growing older, failing to bear a son, burning toast, or even the husband simply being bored. And a woman’s entire value in society was connected to the man, either her father or her husband. A divorced woman could not return to her father’s home, and no one else could marry her. So divorce left her destitute, abandoned, and alone. Exactly like the little children Jesus so eagerly welcomed.
That this teaching takes place beyond the Jordan adds another dimension to the story. The Jordan River should remind you of John the Baptist, who taught and baptized at the Jordan, and was beheaded by Herod for calling out Herod for marrying his sister-in-law. Which, if you remember from earlier in the summer, was a move made not for love but for power. What Jesus seems to be doing, both here and in the John the Baptist story, is not setting some parameter that all marriages must fall into, but calling out the Pharisees on their on-going efforts to treat the law of God as a tool of oppression, a way to keep people in bondage, to separate people from God and from each other, to stop people from living into the fullness of God’s love for them.
I think the gist of what Jesus is getting at here is that people are not disposable. Moses may have permitted divorce because of men’s hardness of heart, but Jesus will not allow any of his beloved children to be treated as disposable, free to be cast aside by their husbands at the husbands’ will. This text seem less like a commentary on modern-day divorce, and more like a critique of the tendency of people in power to create laws and rules that keep them in power at the expense of the weak.
Ironically, I think this makes this Gospel teaching from Jesus the exact opposite of what it has historically been used for, as a “clobber text” to tell people that they are not welcome in the kingdom of God. This Gospel is, in fact, a firm declaration against all of the people who would try to use the Bible to assert that the kingdom of God is anything other than the place where the lowly, the lonely, the broken, and the hurting are taken up into the arms of Jesus and blessed. Grace, remember, is not the same as niceness. Grace encompasses both law and gospel. And for the Pharisees and any time we might try to use scripture to treat someone else as less than, this passage is law. Jesus is calling the Pharisees out on their treatment of others, because to do anything else would be to turn a blind eye to suffering. Grace is about shaking us down from our self-righteous thrones so that we can live in the beauty of the kingdom of God. Because it is in the knowledge of our weakness that God comes.
Broken relationships hurt. Be those relationships be divorce, a damaged friendship, an alienated child or parent, be they broken by racism, sexism, homophobia, pride, greed, violence. So many things can break our relationships, leave us hurting and alone. Even in cases where a broken relationship is the absolute best outcome. Even when the marriage, the friendship, the bond, whatever it might be is frayed to the point where the only healthy decision is to walk away, even then it hurts; even then it is awful. And that pain, even when it is the absolute right thing, even when it is the only way to healing, is not pain God wants for us. God will walk with us through broken relationships on the path to wholeness, but that pain is caused by human failure, it is never God’s divine plan for our lives. But anyone who would willingly bring that pain on another, who would willingly cast another aside; that is the brokenness Jesus is speaking against. What God has joined together the powerful cannot from their own hardened hearts, separate. Using your power to subjugate another, to treat another as less than you, is wrong, Jesus says, in no uncertain terms. God’s law is not a tool for your oppression.
But also, all of us have experienced times when we have felt cast aside by others. When we have been broken by the sin of another, left hurting and alone by fellow children of God. And it is in those times that this passage is flowing with good news for us. Because this Gospel passage says you who are hurting, you who are broken, you who have been cast aside, come to me, do not be stopped; for it is to you, who you are, as you are, that the kingdom of God belongs. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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