Cleared Away: A Sermon on John 2:13-22

There’s an internet meme that always makes its way around the Facebook circuit anytime this reading comes up in the lectionary. The meme is based on a popular movement among Christian circles in the nineties about asking the question “What Would Jesus Do?” Maybe you remember, it was big for a while to wear those elastic band bracelets with W.W.J.D. emblazoned on them. The idea was that we were to approach any question, any issue, we might encounter with the question “What would Jesus do” in this situation? How would Jesus respond to this conflict with a family member, or this peer pressure temptation, or this moral dilemma, and by thinking about how Jesus would respond, and responding accordingly, we could be guaranteed to act correctly.

Well, this internet meme making the rounds right now is an illustration of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus cleansing the temple. It features a very angry-looking Jesus-figure in the center, dressed in red and brandishing a whip, while all around him, are strewn upturned tables and frightened, tousled people. Framing the image in bold letters, are the words, “If anyone ever asks you, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ Remind him that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibility.”

Maybe the better question of this Gospel reading today is not, “What Would Jesus Do? But “What is Jesus Doing?” What is Jesus doing? This is the Temple after all, the most sacred place in the Jewish faith. The center of the known world, the place where God dwelled. And here’s a little more background for you, these people Jesus is driving out, the people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers, they’re not just there all willy-nilly. This isn’t the same as setting up a pet store in the narthex. Part of the Temple culture, the accepted religious practice at the time, was animal sacrifice. People came to the Temple specifically to offer an animal to the house of God. A trip to the Temple was for people who lived in the outlying regions, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, they would travel miles, days, weeks, in order to worship the True God in the Temple. And so, to aid in their worship, to make the journey easier for them, a robust trade of sacrificial animals developed within the temple complex, in order to assist pilgrims in being able to enter fully into worship. Instead of having to travel long distances with a cow, a pilgrim could simply purchase a cow, or a sheep, or a dove, upon arrival. Much in the same way that if you were flying somewhere, you might pick up a bag of chips once you reached your destination rather than trying to keep them from being crushed in your carry-on luggage. And with all this commerce going on, money-changers were there to help people from foreign countries to trade in the local currency. This booming Temple industry had developed to help people worship God. So, one might ask, what was Jesus’ problem with this?

The disciples made sense of what happened here with one word: Zeal. The Gospel reads, “Then the disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” Zeal. Passion. Ardor. Fervor. Devotion. Even so far as intensity or fanaticism, zeal is the single-minded drive toward a goal so focused that nothing can stand in its way. So focused is Jesus’ devotion to the Temple, to God, that whatever stands in the way, good or bad, must be forced away to allow for God’s grace to enter through.

At Trinity this Lent we’ve been talking about Old Testament stories, and what these stories have to teach us about the nature of God and the nature of humanity. As we’re talking this morning about zeal, our Old Testament reading from Exodus about God giving the Ten Commandments, and what’s happened with those commandments over time, really gets to the heart of why Jesus cleansed the Temple.

Just a bit of a refresher on how we got to Exodus chapter twenty. The Israelites were in slavery under the Pharaoh in Egypt, then God sent Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery. But Pharaoh wasn’t keen on letting his entire workforce go free, so God had Moses bring plagues down, and God split the Red Sea, so the Israelites could walk on dry land, and then brought the sea back down upon the Egyptian army, and finally the Israelites were a free people, in the middle of the Sinai wilderness. The other problem, of course, is that the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for so long that they really didn’t understood what it meant any more to be a community, to be the people of God. So part of what God was doing in that forty years that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness was making them into one people again. God was uniting them as God’s people, teaching them what it meant to live together. The Ten Commandments were part of this uniting. God gave the Ten Commandments to the people of God so that they would know how to live well together with God and with each other. I had a professor in seminary who described the Ten Commandments as a playpen. We put children in playpens when they are learning to crawl so that they will be in a safe space. The Ten Commandments were about building community, about creating a place where the people of God could be united with each other, connected to one another.

But, because the Israelites were people, over time they turned the Ten Commandments from a playpen to a fence. They put more and more structures and rules in place in order to decide who got to be in the playpen. And the Ten Commandments changed from guidelines to create community to rules to divide people from community. Humanity broke the good covenant which God made with God’s people not by breaking the Ten Commandments, but by enforcing it so strictly so as to take the life out of it, leaving us not with a gift for living, but a weapon for dividing.

If only this was a thing that happened back then, but not anymore. But the truth is, we still do this. We still put up laws, rules, restrictions, on ourselves and on others, about what makes us worthy of God’s love, what makes us worthy to be in the community of the people of God. These restrictions may come from the best intentions, but they divide us. And I think, during this season of Lent and as people of the ELCA, we are even harder on ourselves. We’re quick to welcome others to the fold, quick to extend grace to our neighbors, but do we extend that same grace to ourselves, do we allow ourselves to believe that this good news that we are preaching is for us?

Here’s the good news for us in Jesus cleansing the temple this morning, Jesus cleanses the temple of all that holds us captive as well. All the ways that we fell short, the prayers we did not say, the Lenten disciples we did not keep, the sin and pain and brokenness that keeps us separate from God, with a whip and a shout, Jesus drives all of those things away as well. Because nothing will keep Jesus from us. Not the powers of evil, the death made clear on the cross, not our own failures in faith, or even our unfocused piety that draws our attention to us rather than God. Whatever it is that stands in our way, Jesus drives it away, because such is Jesus love for us, that Jesus will not let anything get in the way of relationship with us.

This morning, like every Sunday morning, we come to the Table to experience this grace. At this table there are no barriers, there are no boundaries, there is no code you have to meet or yardstick you have to measure up to, because Jesus has cleared them away. Jesus has set a feast for us, and all are welcome, because nothing, nothing, will keep Jesus from us. Amen.

Denial and Abundance: A Sermon on Mark 8:31-38

I had kind of a funny, contradictory experience this week as I was pondering the sermon for this morning. On Wednesday, I was invited to speak at the Lenten Lunch series at Second Missionary Baptist church. The topic for the series this year is “Living the Abundant Life through Christ.” So I spent much of the beginning of the week pondering what it means to live abundantly, and what kind of life does Christ want for us. However, alongside of that, I was also immersed in my normal sermon prep for this morning, which involved spending the week reflecting on this Gospel text from Mark, where Jesus rebukes Peter and tells him that those who want to become followers of Jesus must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow. I don’t know about you, but Jesus injunction about denial and cross-bearing didn’t seem to have much to do with abundance.

Lent itself, truthfully, does not conjure up for me images of abundance. When I think of Lent, I think more about denial. Oftentimes in Lent we give up something, like chocolate or soda pop or playing Candy Crush on Facebook. The idea being that God wants us to practice self-denial, that giving up something helps us focus more fully on God, achieve a greater level of spiritual disciple. And in theory there’s wisdom in this. The early church often practiced asceticism as a means of drawing one’s attention closer to God. But in practice, or at least in practice in my life, this discipline of giving something up for Lent often becomes less about God and more about a second attempt at whatever New Year’s resolution I had that bottomed out by the third of January. There is temptation for me to turn the season of Lent into a six week long self-improvement endeavor couched in the language of spirituality. Like I need to be healthier, so I’m giving up chocolate for Jesus, despite the fact that the Bible says nothing at all about chocolate, as it didn’t exist in First Century Palestine. Lent then runs the risk of either becoming a chance to feel great about myself, “look how good I am at not eating chocolate, I’m super great, Jesus must really be proud of me,” or another opportunity to put myself down, “oh man, I gave in to the temptation to check Facebook last night, God must really be mad about me, I am such a failure.” Either way, Lent becomes more about me, about what I’m doing, about who I am, about how I’m being this great person, or not, then it is about Christ, who is the heart of this season of Lent. And it certainly doesn’t feel like abundance.

So I am so grateful to Reverend Wyne for having invited me to speak at their series, and possibly you should be grateful to Reverent Wyne as well, :) because looking at this text through the framework of abundance forced me to look at this text in a different way, to wonder what denying oneself might have to say about the kind of life Christ wants for us.

This reading from Mark comes from chapter eight, which is really a turning point in the Gospel. Up until this point, Jesus disciples had been traveling with Jesus through Galilee, learning all that Jesus had to teach them. They’d heard him teach, seen him heal, cast out demons, forgive sins. So finally, right before this reading, Jesus basically asked the disciples, alright, you’ve seen all this, now, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter responded, “You are the Messiah.” Which is, of course, the right answer. But then we hear in this passage that Jesus, as he was wont to do, kept talking. And he started talking all about how he was going to undergo great suffering, and be rejected, and be killed, and then rise again. And Peter is like, wait a minute now! Jesus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but we’ve got a bit of a movement going on here, and this talk about dying is really not going to raise moral. Let’s stick with the more helpful teachings, you know, maybe give them some food, or heal them, something like that. Crowds love that.

Jesus response to Peter is sudden and unmistakable, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. See, Peter knew Jesus was the Messiah. Peter knew that the ministry Jesus was doing was incredibly important and was changing the lives of thousands of people. Which may have been his problem. He got the importance of the work Jesus was doing almost too much. See, Peter was thinking about the movement, he was thinking about the good work Jesus was doing in the world in that moment. He was also, probably, thinking about himself. Thinking about how he, Peter, looked, being associated with this great healer and teacher. I think Peter got caught up in all that Jesus was doing and it caused him to think too small. Even the most noble of Peter’s ambitions for Jesus to do great work in the world were on too small a scale for what Jesus had in mind. Jesus knew that this great work that he was doing on earth, even things as huge as feeding five-thousand people, wouldn’t hold a candle to the vision God had for humanity. Peter was worried about the crowds gathered that day, Jesus was working for every person that ever lived, every person that would ever live. Peter wanted Jesus to stay in the salvation business long enough to get a movement off the ground to overthrow the Roman Empire, Jesus was laying plans to throw the very forces of evil out of power. Peter’s rebuke of Jesus was well-intentioned, but it displayed a faith that didn’t have any concept of just how vast the love of Christ for humanity and the vision that love gave Christ for the world. Jesus wanted more for Peter than Peter even knew to want for himself.

After rebuking Peter, Jesus called the crowd in with his disciples and said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” What we see in this passage is that abundant life is all about denial. Jesus is calling Peter and the crowd to deny themselves, because the vision Jesus has for them is bigger than themselves. This denial isn’t about suffering, it isn’t about self-improvement, it isn’t about the self at all. Denial is about setting all of the things that keep your hands full aside so that your life is open to receive the abundance that Christ has for you.

In this story from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus invited Peter, the disciples, the crowd, and us, to deny all the things that are smaller than God’s dreams for us, so that we are free to embrace the abundance God offers. Jesus invited Peter, the disciples, us, to deny all of the things that keep us from God, because God’s vision is so much bigger than we can imagine.

So what does this denial look like? It means that Jesus doesn’t so much care if we give up dessert, but Jesus does want us to be healthy, to get full life out of the good bodies that God gave us. And Jesus does care that we know that our value is determined not by how we look, but by how God sees us. It means that Jesus doesn’t worry about our Candy Crush addiction, but Jesus does care that we have relationships with people that support us, nurture us, and bring us life and joy. Denying ourselves is about Jesus coming in and interrupting all the things that make us that think less of ourselves than who we are, all that gets in the way of us being fully God’s child, all that keeps us from seeing ourselves the way God sees us, as precious, as valued, as Beloved children of God. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, so that we can be more fully ourselves, more fully immersed in God’s abundant love.

But it’s not enough to just talk about what we need to deny, because Jesus did more than simply ask the disciples to deny themselves, Jesus did more than simply invite the disciples into this new life, Jesus went to the cross to rebuke all that held them captive and demand from the powers of the world that life. Jesus rebuked Peter, and then Jesus went to the cross and rebuked death itself, so that death could not have power over us. And because of what Jesus did at the cross, we know that nothing else can ever have power over us. In the face of death itself, things like Facebook games or food, or even big things like broken relationships or anger or heartache or grief, these things have no power over us, because at the cross Jesus rebuked all the powers of the world so that those powers would have no power over us.

Jesus Christ rebuked Peter because Peter’s understanding of Christ’s mission was keeping Peter captive. Jesus rebuked Peter because Jesus had more for Peter than Peter could imagine for himself. Jesus rebuked Peter so that Peter’s limits couldn’t get in the way of God’s limitless love for Peter. That’s how much Jesus loved Peter, Jesus loves us, that Jesus was not going to waste time when Peter, when we, missed out on the abundance Christ has for us. So no matter what it is that gets in the way of that life, be it death or power or just our own undersized expectations, Jesus will not stop until that power is rebuked. Jesus simply had too much love for Peter, too much vision for Peter, and too much love for us, to let anything get in the way of that love, that vision, that power. Amen.

God Acts: A Sermon on Mark 1:9-15

Do you have any idea how many times the number forty appears in the Bible? A lot, as it turns out. The number forty plays an important role in our readings today. We always start our forty day Lenten journey with the story of Jesus forty days in the wilderness from one of the three Gospels. And this year’s lectionary cycle pairs Jesus forty days in the wilderness with the covenant God made with Noah, a covenant made after Noah was in the waters of the flood for forty days. Off the top of my head I could think of a couple other examples of the number forty. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness forty years after they escaped Egypt. Moses was on the mountain forty days to receive the Ten Commandments. I have this program on my computer where I can run word searches through the Bible, so I decided to run one on the number forty. Oh my gosh, I was amazed at how often it came up! Isaac was forty when he got married, his son Esau was forty when he got married. While the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they sent spies to check out the Promised Land, the spy was forty years old and he was in the Promised Land forty days. In the time of the Judges there were forty years of peace, followed by forty years of war with the Philistines. King David reigned for forty years, King Solomon reigned for forty years, I could quite literally go on like this all morning. What struck me about all of these instances of forty, and what I think is more important than the exact amount of time itself, is that the use of the number forty is meant to clue us into something. In each of these examples, forty signifies the amount of time it took the people to be ready for something, the time in which God needed to act. Think about it. Noah was on the flood forty days because a new covenant was being formed. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness not because they were bad at asking for directions, but because God was making out of them a new people. In forty days, Moses was gathering the laws that would create a new community. Each of these periods of forty were not just dead time where people were hanging around waiting, they were periods of rich, creative work on the part of God in setting up a new reality for God’s people, a reality so different that it would take a long break from the old so that people would be ready to receive the new.

So in our Gospel reading for today, “Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

Something I noticed about this wilderness period for Jesus is that the wilderness falls right on the heels of Jesus baptism in the Jordan. Immediately after the Spirit of God descended on Jesus and declared him God’s Son, that very same Spirit drove him into the wilderness. Jesus wasn’t called into the wilderness, he wasn’t invited into the wilderness, the Spirit didn’t walk along beside him gently as Jesus braved the wilderness. No the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. Which I think means we can assume something; Jesus didn’t really want to go. The wilderness was not high on Jesus priority list of places to begin his ministry. Jesus, like the rest of us, wasn’t really interested in spending any time in the uncertainty of the wilderness, Jesus would have been just as happy to have headed back to Galilee following the announcement of him as God’s Beloved Son. But the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, because God was about to do a new thing with Jesus and that new thing was going to take some time.

Another thing I thought was important was that in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted, actually tested is a better word, by Satan. Not, by the Holy Spirit. I’d never caught that difference before. The Holy Spirit didn’t drive Jesus out to be tested; the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Now, yes, in the wilderness, Jesus met Satan, Jesus was tested, but testing Jesus, putting Jesus through suffering, was not the role of the Holy Spirit. Suffering, testing, happened in the wilderness, but it was not the point of the wilderness. I think this is important because I think so often when we find ourselves or others in wilderness times, it is tempting to look for answers in attributing that testing to God. Like God wants us to suffer so we can undergo some sort of great learning. And I think this story tells us that is not the case. Wilderness times, times of uncertainty, times when we do not know the way forward, those can be God times, times when God is doing a new thing in our lives and until that new thing has come into creation we cannot see the way. But suffering, testing, pain, while that can be found in those wilderness times, it is not God’s purpose for us, it is not God’s hope for us. We’ll get into this a lot more next week when Peter and Jesus talk about carrying the cross, but for now I want to make the distinction between wilderness as a time of creativity and as a time of suffering. The Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, but the Holy Spirit did not test Jesus, Satan did that. Testing, tempting, was not the work of God, though it happened in a place God had set up for Jesus to be.

I also think it’s important to note that Jesus was not alone in the wilderness, “he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” When I first read “he was with the wild beasts,” this thought came to mind of one of those old cartoons, Jesus sitting alone at a campfire, surrounded by an encircling darkness of glowing red eyes. But, here’s your obscure Greek fact for the day, the word “with” is an unspecific terms. So we don’t really know what it means that he was “with” the wild beasts, but it seems actually more likely that being “with the wild beasts” means that Jesus and the wild beasts were together around the campfire, allies against the encircling wilderness. A better image may be Jesus, a lion, a wildebeest, and whatever other animals one might find in the Jordanian outback all seated together around a crackling campfire, protecting each other from the uncertainty of the wilderness. Envisioning the scene this way, we might ask ourselves, who are the unexpected companions we have found in wilderness journeys. Who are the unlikely bedfellows who have shared the path with us? And who might God have placed in our wilderness now to journey with us?

But Jesus was not just with the wild beasts, the text also tells us the angels waited on him. Now, of course, you might be thinking, he’s the Son of God, of course the angels waited on him. But here’s something I’d never thought of before, there’s another time in the Bible where there is wilderness and man and angels, and the angels are not waiting. In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve ate of tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were driven out of the garden, same word there, Jesus was driven into the wilderness, and an angel was set to guard the entrance. So in Jesus time in the wilderness we see the beginning of the end of the angel as a guard. This new thing that God is doing with Jesus, this new thing that will end at the cross with the defeat of death and restored relationship between God and God’s creation, we already see the start of it right here in the wilderness, where the angel goes from guardian to guide, from adversary to companion on the journey. Already a new thing is happening in the wilderness, and it is happening despite all the temptation that Satan might be throwing at Jesus. Jesus time in the wilderness is a creative time, it is setting the stage for this new thing that God is going to be about in the world, and all the tempting of Satan cannot get in the way of the change that is about to come out of the wilderness.

This story of Jesus time in the wilderness is a great story for us, not just at the start of Lent, but at this time in the life of our church and in the life of our world. Because wilderness time is a time we can relate to. Advances in technology, changes in culture, moves in our personal lives, retirements, family changes, illnesses and joys, things are happening at a rapid rate, and even the great things can seem unsettling. It can be hard to see the way forward, hard to figure out who we will be at the end of all this shifting. But here’s what we know from Jesus time in the wilderness, from all of the forty day, week, year periods in scripture. We know God acts in times of uncertainty. We know that just because we cannot see the way through, does not mean that God cannot see the way through. We know that God’s vision is broad enough to encompass the whole of the wilderness, and that God meets us, leads us, guides us through these times, even when the path is unclear. We know that sometimes Satan shows up in the wilderness, but we know that evil, pain, suffering, while it may occur on our paths, is not a part of God’s plan. And we know that when we encounter suffering, we do not encounter it alone. We have companions on the journey. Some companions are holy angels, guides and leaders who walk with us, support us, and protect us. Other companions look at first like wild beasts, we may worry about their presence or wonder about their plans. But God uses strange tools to accomplish God’s mission, and the most unlikely relationship may be our greatest blessing.

So as we enter into this season of Lent, let us also enter into this season of wilderness. This season of creative becoming, trusting that God has a plan for our path and a will for our lives. And that in the uncertainty God is doing a new thing, and it will be different, greater and newer, than the thing we had before. Amen.

Speak On the Ashes: A Sermon for Ash Wednesday from Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

I read a story recently about Sojourner Truth that reminded me of Ash Wednesday. One of our local heroes, the former slave turned abolitionist preacher lived in Battle Creek, but she traveled all over the country giving speeches and teaching people about the sins of slavery and racial prejudice. The story I read was about a time she was scheduled to preach in Angola, Indiana when she received the news that someone was threatening to burn down the town house she was to speak in if she continued with the meeting. Undeterred, Truth responded, “then I will speak on the ashes.” I cannot imagine the courage, the confidence in her convictions that Truth would have needed, as a black woman and a former slave in the tinderbox of the years before the Civil War, to make such a bold statement. “Then I will speak on the ashes.”

I don’t think it is a far step to say that we too live in a tinderbox world, live in a world aflame. More connected than ever before, we seem as divided as ever. Protests this summer in Ferguson and New York. The recent shooting deaths of three young Muslim-Americans in North Carolina. Economic inequality, so clearly displayed in the reports yet again coming from just down the street from us in Triangle Trailer Park. The growing threat of extremism. And a government so divided that it seems only able to agree that things are not working. The flames of hatred, of poverty, of prejudice, of inequality, leave behind a world of ashes.

And the truth of life on this ashy sphere is that no matter how far away the evil, the violence, might be, the world is an insular place, and we are complicit in this brokenness. After killing his brother, Cain asked God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And God responded with a resounding yes. On this ashy sphere, we are bound up in each other, dependent on each other, connected to each other, in blessing and in brokenness. And so, on Ash Wednesday, we gather. To confess our brokenness. To confess the ways in which our sin, our brokenness, contribute to the enslavement of our fellow humanity. We make corporate confession this day for sins close and far, not just what we did, but what we allowed to happen in our name, what we benefited from in ways we did not know. We confess the ashy remains of broken lives, of a broken world.

We confess and then, in an ashy cross drawn upon our forehead we find that God was here all along, we find a God who is, as the prophet Joel proclaimed, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” In this ashy cross on our forehead we are reminded that God speaks on the ashes. That from the burnt out remains of sin, God speaks life where there was death, hope where there was suffering, light where there was darkness. In this ashy cross upon our foreheads, we hear the resounding voice of a God who says “You are my Beloved,” and there is no burn of sin or death or darkness that can ever change the power of that voice.

God speaks on the ashes, because that is what God has always done. Our God is a God of new life, a God who is always speaking into the ashes and bringing something new. From the dust of creation, God formed humanity, breathing life where there had been only mud. When the Israelites stood between the Red Sea and the fires of Pharaoh’s army, God spoke through Moses, parting the sea and leading God’s people from slavery to freedom. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God spoke over the dry bones and life, and breath, came over those bones again. Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale, then God spoke and Jonah was spewed onto high ground, free to bring good news of God’s mercy to the people of Nineveh. King Nebechanezzer threw the servants of God into a firey furnace, but God was with them in the furnace, and not a hair on their head was scorched. God speaks on the ashes and brings new life, because speaking on the ashes and bringing new life is what God does, it is who God is. It is God’s story, a story that finds its completion in a cross.

Ash Wednesday leads us to the cross. It leads us to the most powerful manifestation of God’s overwhelming love for humanity. At the cross we see a world so divided, so embattled, so fearful and full of hate that it led God’s own Son to death. But more than that, at the cross we see a God so committed to us that God turned death into everlasting life. In the death of Christ death itself was broken open, so that never again could death contain us. And then, God raised Jesus from the dead so that we too are raised. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God spoke on the ashes of all death, so that death would not have the last word. So that wherever there are ashes, there is life.

These ashy crosses make that promise visible. They make visible the promise of our baptism, that for us Christ died and through Christ we too are raised. These ashy crosses proclaim that nothing can separate us from the love of this God in Christ for us. These ashy crosses are not about marking our sorrow, or marking our shame, marking our brokenness, or marking our pain. These ashy crosses are about marking us as God’s. These ashy crosses are about a God who dances on the graves of all that hold us captive, a God who says not just that a different way is possible, but who promises that from the dust is where God always forms God’s best creation, from dust is where God always brings new life. These ashy crosses proclaim that we who are dust are God’s handiwork, the creation which God calls good. That we who were slaves now are free. That we dry bones have life again. Long after the ashes have worn of your face this evening, may you feel the presence of that promise, made visible tonight, but always there, always with you, always marking your forehead through the promise of the waters of baptism, and may you know, now and always, that your God is with you. Amen.

Transfiguration: A Sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-12 and Mark 9:2-9

This is kind of a strange text this morning. For one thing, after several weeks of slowly, meticulously working our way through the first chapter of Mark, it feels a little bit jarring to all of a sudden jump forward nine chapters to head up a mountain. Especially since next week it will be back to the first chapter of Mark again. The text also forces the whole tone our worship to stand in stark contrast to next week. Next week we begin our journey through Lent. The music slows, the colors change to purple, our worship takes on a more somber tone. But before we can do that, the Transfiguration calls for everything to be adorned in celebratory white, for the organ to explore its full range, for loud celebratory shouts of “Alleluia.” Especially since Transfiguration is a season that lasts exactly one Sunday, it can make today feel like a strange blip in what has been a very formulaic journey through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

We might chalk such a blip up to an over excitable lectionary committee, except the Transfiguration of Jesus plays exactly the same role in our church year as it plays in the Gospel of Mark. Mark’s Gospel is sixteen chapters long and is broken up into two distinct sections. The first section, chapters roughly one through eight, covers Jesus life and ministry, the roughly a year where Jesus was preaching, teaching, and healing in the Galilee region of northern Israel. We’ve talked before about Mark’s verbal tick with the word “immediately.” That tick is because Mark has to cover a lot of ground, his is the shortest of all the Gospel accounts. In just eight chapters, Jesus and his disciples are all over the Galilee. He heals a leper, a paralytic, a man with a withered hand, and those are just the ones that get section titles, casts out demons and spirits, they cross the sea of Galilee a couple of times, he feeds five thousand, and then he feeds four thousand, teaches and preaches, and draws crowds everywhere he goes. Every sentence is a miracle, every paragraph a different region of the country. The Gospel reads like an action flick, fast-paced and attention grabbing.

But in the second half of Mark’s Gospel the pace… slows… way… down… Chapter ten, they travel the roughly ninety miles between the Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem. About a three-day journey walking straight through, but they stopped and talked and healed some people, nowhere Jesus went was ever a straight shot, so it probably took them a little bit longer. Once they get to Jerusalem things get slower still. Chapters eleven to fourteen is slower still, covering four-five days. And then, the very end, the last less than twenty-four hours of Jesus life, the Last Supper, his betrayal, crucifixion, death, and burial, stretch out a full three chapters. Mark’s depiction of the passion slams the brakes on the rollicking adventure story, drawing the reader in to the every tightening drama that is unfolding around Jesus and this building conflict with the authorities.

And right in the middle of these two very different styles of writing sits this morning’s text. Acting as the literary hinge point of the Gospel, the break between the ministry of Jesus and the passion of Christ, Jesus left the crowds, left the twelve, and took just Peter, James, and John, his closest disciples, the three who had been with him since the beginning, up the mountain alone.

When they got up the mountain, something extraordinary occurred. Jesus was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white. The text actually translates to like offensively white, painfully white, divinely white. And just in case we somehow missed the connotation between Jesus transfiguration and the divine in-breaking of the moment, who appears on the mountain beside him but Moses and Elijah. Two other prophets of the Lord who also have mountain top experiences. Moses, you might remember, traveled up Mount Sinai to speak face-to-face with God on a regular basis, and he would return to the people of Israel with his face glowing so brightly he would have to veil himself. And we heard in the first reading about Elijah, how he was carried up into heaven in a chariot of fire born on a whirlwind with his desperate and faithful disciple Elisha running along behind shouting and gasping for a last glimpse at his teacher. There are other connections here; ancient Jewish wisdom posited that both Moses and Elijah did not die. Both are also intricately connected to the question of Jesus identity. Jesus is painted as the new Moses, sent to free God’s people from slavery under the Romans. And Elijah was of course to return to usher in the Messiah, claims we saw made about the role of John the Baptist, the “one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.”

Whether all of these interesting theological tidbits were bouncing around in Peter’s head or if he was simply blinded by the dazzling whiteness, his response is not all that different from Elisha’s. Elisha chased, trying to hang on to the moment. Peter stared, open mouthed, before finally stammering out, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.” But here’s where the Transfiguration story and the Elijah story differ. In the Elijah story, Elisha ran, and yelled as Elijah got further and further away. Then, once Elijah had disappeared from view, Elisha picked up his mantle, picked up the role of prophet that Elijah had left for him, and began to do his work. But for Peter, after his attempt to stay in the glory of the moment, a great cloud overshadowed them, a voice declared, “this is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” And then something happened, a crash or a flash or something that drove them to their knees because when the disciples looked around, they saw no one, only Jesus, and they went down the mountain together.

They went down the mountain together, and as they were traveling, Jesus turned to them and he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until, and this is the key part, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. For Jesus to command not to be spoken of, that’s a common theme in Mark’s Gospel, we’ve heard him say that several times already in just the first chapter. But this is the first time Jesus gave an end date to that secrecy; don’t tell anyone until after the resurrection.

So a couple different things happen in this text. One, Jesus set an end date on the disciples suffering. He’d already told them about his death, though they hadn’t really figured out quite what he was talking about yet, and he’d tell them several more times. And they never did really pick up on it. But here he gave them the promise that as the writing on the wall became clearer that he wasn’t getting out of this one alive, they could look back at this moment on the trail and remember that they could talk about it after he’d risen from the dead. Which meant that the death they were witnessing was only part of the story. There would be a time for telling a story, and that telling would come after Jesus who was dead, was dead no longer.

Two, in the glory of the Transfiguration Jesus gave them a taste of the power of God. As they entered into Jerusalem things would get dark, really dark, and fast. The dazzling whiteness would burn on their retinas and hopefully give them a reflection to hold onto when everything seemed hopeless. The appearance of Moses and Elijah would give them comfort that the same God who led the people from slavery into freedom and from exile into prosperity would certainly be with them as well. They could look back on their history and know that what seemed like the end was always just another beginning with God.

And finally, and what is I think the most important thing to take out of this story is that Jesus went with them. That is the crucial difference between the pre-crucifixion Jesus and Moses and Elijah, the difference that prefigures all other differences, Jesus went with them off the mountain. Moses stayed on Mount Sinai as the Israelites traveled into the Promised Land, Elijah went up into heaven and Elisha took up his master’s mantle and his work. But Jesus went with the disciples into Jerusalem, to his crucifixion, died, and then rose from the dead so that we too, even though we die, have life.

And so this morning I pray that the glory of Christ transfigured among us becomes burned in your vision, shifting your focus so that no matter where you go, the glory of Christ goes before you. But more than that, I pray that you feel Christ’s presence beside you, walking with you. That when you feel alone, and you see no one, you know, even if you cannot see, that with you is only Jesus, down the mountain with you. Never to leave you, always to guide you. Because that is God’s promise. Amen.

Home For Lunch: A Sermon on Mark 1:29-39

My thoughts on our text this morning borrow heavily from the sermon our Bishop preached this week at the synod Eucharist. So if you want to hear the original, probably more eloquent version of this sermon from the bishop, you can reach it from his website, I’m happy to give you the web address.*

I was listening to the bishop’s words this week because I was stuck on what to say about this text myself. Healing stories are hard, because it’s easy for me to get caught up in the pageantry of it all. In my mind, Jesus flies into the scene like some kind of Oprah of healing, passing out magical medicine to his studio audience like a door prize, “you get a healing, you get a healing.” And in a world where we so rarely experience magic Oprah Jesus, I get stuck up in these healing stories.

But what the bishop pointed out in his sermon was there is something outstandingly ordinary about how this story begins. Remember, the text just before this one, Jesus and the disciples were in the synagogue for prayers, when Jesus was accosted by a man with an unclean spirit. And with a word, Jesus silenced the spirit and cast the spirit out of the man. And everyone who saw it was amazed and kept asking each other about this new teaching.

But then, after the worship in the synagogue had ended, Simon and Andrew and James and John did what so many of us will do after worship is over today, they went home for lunch. And they took Jesus with them. As any of you might do with a traveling preacher who came to visit Trinity for a Sunday and had nowhere to go, they brought the preacher to lunch at their house. You have to wonder how much the incredible event of the casting out of an unclean spirit had really affected the disciples. They just witnessed Jesus perform a miracle and instead of running out into the world to tell everyone about it, they went home for lunch.

Not surprising that the disciples missed it, they’d been pretty busy. The past few verses had been a whirlwind for Simon, he’d gone from tending his nets to becoming a disciple to witnessing an exorcism. But now, bringing Jesus through the front door of his home, he was faced once again with simple, painful domestic concerns. His mother-in-law was sick with a fever. We can assume Simon probably cared for and worried about his mother-in-law. Maybe this illness hadn’t yet taken hold when Simon agreed to follow Jesus on the lakeshore; maybe it had been gnawing away at him the whole time. Either way, bringing Jesus into his home, Simon was once again forced to reckon with the painful, tender normalcy of an illness of someone he loved.

I say it’s normal not to downplay illness, but to recognize the universality of Simon’s concerns. For Simon, for any of us facing a loved one in pain, be the pain illness, addiction, grief, what-have-you, the experience is anything but normal, it is gut wrenching. I say it’s normal, because the helplessness is an all too common experience.

Into this domestic scene steps Jesus. And he came and took Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and lifted her up. And the fever left her, and she began to serve them. The healing in this quiet little tableau is no the flashy, commanding “be silent” of the synagogue. It is, instead, a hand outstretched, a gentle touch, a “lifting up” back into a position of honor.

Now wait a minute, you might be thinking. This woman just got up from the sickbed, and now she has to rush into service? Can’t someone else do the serving for an afternoon and let her rest? But here’s that thing, her instant move to service signified a return to her right place of honor. As would be true in so many of our homes, who got to show hospitality to a guest was a sign of respect to the host as well as the guest. Yes, Simon’s wife could have served Jesus, but as the head of the household, Simon’s mother-in-law was the rightful holder of that honor, an honor that the fever had stolen from her. So when Jesus lifted her up, when Jesus pulled her from the fever, he did more than just heal her illness, Jesus restored her to a place of honor in the family and in the community.

All Simon did was bring Jesus home with him, bring Jesus home to the person he loved who needed Jesus, and Jesus did the rest. And then, the story goes on, it didn’t stop there. From healing Simon’s mother-in-law, the whole city ended up gathered around the door, and Jesus cured many who were sick, healed various diseases, and cast out many demons. But it started with tired disciples bringing Jesus home.

As I was reflecting on this sermon I couldn’t help but notice the similarity between Jesus taking Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and lifting her up, and the language the Women’s Co-op uses about offering a hand up not a hand out. And the bishop wondered, and I wondered too, if maybe ministry is just that simple. If maybe bringing healing, bringing life, bringing restoration of relationship is just as simple as bringing Jesus into our homes, our neighborhoods, our everyday concerns, and trusting Jesus to do the rest. Trusting that Jesus cares just as much about the ordinary as he does about the extraordinary. That Jesus is present in the simple, every day acts of breaking bread and sharing the cup, of gathering community and extending a hand.

And that bringing Jesus into these simple, ordinary relationships, trust that Jesus power comes even here has amazing and transformative results. After worship, we’ll gather for our annual meeting. We will have a potluck, we will break bread and eat soup, there will be coffee and water with frozen fruit in it and brownies. We will sit at folding tables and eat off disposable plates, it will all look overwhelmingly ordinary. Some will have the position of honor in service; others who held the position of honor in service for years will have the position of honor of being served. At the meeting we will pour over a packet of reports, we’ll discuss the budget, the roof, the parking lot. We’ll wonder about the past and worry about the future, it will all be exceptionally ordinary.

But here’s what this Gospel reading promises us, it promises us that Jesus will be there. That when we walk out the doors of the sanctuary and head down the hall for lunch, that Jesus comes with us. That Jesus is just as interested in the goings on of our day-to-day existence as he is in our worship. And that Jesus presence in our ordinary is transcendent. I know, because I get the privilege of seeing that every day. In the energy generated by a few coats of paint. In the constant hustle of women in the hallway, turning bags and bags of cast-off clothing into pure treasure. In strips of PVC pipe that turned into a bike rack for children at INASMUCH house, and varying degrees of skilled and unskilled labor is turning into a home for a family on Eagle Street, Jesus is transforming our church, our community, our world, even as we speak, even as we wonder, even as we, like the disciples go searching after him, begging him to return, Jesus is already here.

Simon brought Jesus home with him, and Jesus did the rest. That is the good news in our reading today, that is the promise we can cling to. That Jesus comes home with us, that Jesus wants to come home with us, wants to be in our churches, our houses, our lives, and that Jesus will do the rest. So as we head next door to eat potluck and discuss the budget, as we worry about ill loved ones, an ill community, an ill world, as we look for ways to use our hands in service, we can first know this. That Jesus is there with us, that Jesus comes into our places of fear and need and brokenness, and that he will do the rest. Amen.


* Bishop Satterlee's sermon on this text can be found on his website: http://craigasatterlee.com/logjam/february-8.html

Be Silent: A Sermon on Mark 1:21-28

He didn’t really just appear in the synagogue, the man with the unclean spirit. He’d been there all along, hovering in the doorway, torn between in or out, coming or going. It was just that had no one noticed him. No one ever noticed him, it was one of the benefits of being an unclean spirit, you could come and go as you pleased, no one paid any attention. He wasn’t sure why he’d come to the synagogue that day, curiosity, maybe.

The unclean spirit didn’t bother him, he’d gotten used to it with time. Somedays it was loud, a steady pounding voice, judging him, condemning him, demanding him. You don’t belong, you don’t matter, you are unwelcome, you are unclean. Those days were hard. Most days it was not, most days it just ran like a steady hum in the back of his attention. But always, every day, it was noise.

He’d heard all about this teacher Jesus. Everyone in town had heard about Jesus. Simon and Andrew, James and John were not exactly quiet about it. How this Jesus had just appeared one day in the wilderness to be baptized by John, and when he was coming out of the water, how the heavens were torn apart and a voice from heaven declared, “This is my Son.” How Jesus had been going all around Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news.” And of course, the favorite story, how Simon and Andrew, James and John had come to follow him, how they’d been just standing on the seashore, minding their own business, when suddenly, out of nowhere, Jesus appeared and commanded, “Follow me,” and how seemingly despite themselves, they’d followed.

The stories were so amazing, the words so powerful, that when the Sabbath came around, and the word spread that Jesus would be teaching in the synagogue, everyone came, even the man with an unclean spirit. Came to see what Jesus would have to say.

Standing in the doorway, the man with the unclean spirit could see the astonishment on the face of the crowd. He could hear their murmuring, about how Jesus taught with authority and not as the scribes. He was not amazed.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. And he pushed through the crowd to where Jesus was teaching, shouting, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” His voice dripped with distain, thickening with false bravado as he tried to keep steady. Truth was, he was afraid. Afraid to have come flying out of the safety of anonymity. Afraid of the attention suddenly focused on him. Afraid of how Jesus might respond to this outburst. Could Jesus see through him, through his uncertainty, through his pride, to the desperate broken humanity within him yearning for a taste of hope, yearning for the promise that Jesus just might have the authority he claimed. Begging for relief from the disillusionment of false prophets and failed beliefs, impatient for a break from the cynicism. This question was both a challenge and a prayer, a challenge that Jesus prove this authority, a desperate, hopeful prayer that he would. Caged in fear, unwilling to be disappointed again, he pushed on, daring to voice the only possibility he could imagine. “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

The crowd around Jesus let out an audible gasp. How had this man with an unclean spirit gotten INTO THE SYNAGOGUE. This was a house of worship, a holy place of God. This man had no presence being here, no right to invade their holy space. In the midst of the crowd’s whispering, Jesus stood still. He faced the man with the unclean spirit, focused on him, with his full attention. Then the man with the unclean spirit began to stir uncomfortably. It felt like this teacher could see right through him.

Then like a clap of thunder, like the slamming of a gavel, Jesus spoke. His voice cut through the noise in the man’s head, and rebuked him. But it wasn’t a rebuke like the man had experienced before, it wasn’t harsh or painful or judgmental. It didn’t even seem to be directed at him. Rebuke wasn’t even really the right word, it was more like a command. But not even a command really. There was honor in Jesus’ voice, like he saw the man he was speaking to and respected him. The words were firm, there was no question of obedience, but gentle? It was like nothing the man with the unclean spirit had ever quite experienced.

Jesus spoke, and said, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And man with the unclean spirit’s mind was filled with a silence so loud it was deafening. And even the turmoil within him, the doubts, the fears, the questions, the uncertainty, that had always been a part of him, that had always run like a low din in the back of his mind, could not be heard over the sheer, overwhelming sound of silence. The silence echoed in his mind, pounded through his eardrums, he’d never heard anything so silent. Pressed against the silence, the noise inside his mind convulsed and like a rush the unclean spirit came out of him.

The crowd was amazed and kept asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” But the man who had had the unclean spirit was not amazed. The pressure released, the noise dissipated, and he was silent. For the first time in a long time, he took a deep breath and inhaled nothing but sheer, sweet, silence. It was a healing silence, gentle and soft. It washed over him like peace, filling every nook and cranny that had once held the noise of fear. As the crowd pushed and marveled he once again found himself pushed to the outside, overlooked by the crowd. But this time he was alone, blissfully alone and not afraid. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth,” the man had asked. He had his answer now, in the silence. Amen.