A couple of weekends ago I was downstairs reading the paper when I heard Dugan scratching on something and meowing sadly. I went upstairs to make sure he wasn’t locked in the closet. Which has happened a few times. He likes to sneak into the back corner of the closet and then because, he’s all black and hard to see in the dark, we shut the door on him not knowing he’s in there.
The problem was a closed door, not one that was keeping him in, but one that was keeping him out. Travis had shut the bathroom door so he could take a shower and Dugan decided that he had been abandoned. Never mind that I was downstairs, less than fifteen feet away, or that Travis has never once gone into the bathroom and never returned, Dugan was completely convinced that Travis had left him forever, that he was never coming back through that door, and he was irreconcilable. The sound I heard was Dugan, lying on his side, alternating between scratching at the bathroom door and reaching his paw under it trying to coax Travis to come back out, meowing sadly. Travis, of course, was in the shower throughout this whole ordeal, completely unaware of the pathetic tableau unfolding in the hallway. Cat emotions, friends, are real, complex, and powerful. Illogical. But powerful.
While I don’t feel compelled to lay on my side meowing sadly and trying to stick my hand out the front door, I admit a similar complexity of emotions these days as Dugan felt at Travis’s abandoning him out of the bathroom. I know the world is out there, I know everyone I love is just a phone call, a text message, even a Zoom conference away, but the distance feels immeasurable. I don’t completely understand it. I’ve moved a lot, which means I’m pretty experienced with being physically distanced from the people I love, but this feels different somehow. My family has started a weekly Zoom call. Every Sunday night my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and Travis and I all log into Zoom from our living rooms and visit with each other. My family and I are close, but this regular weekly check in is more communication than we’d normally have with one another. And I certainly wouldn’t see them, we’d normally just call. Yet despite the regular communication, the fact that they cannot come makes the distance between us feel larger. My two best friends live in Wisconsin, I’ll regularly go a long time without seeing either of them, but that I can’t, that I don’t know when that gap will lift, makes the distance seem unbearable. Even you all, even people in Battle Creek feel far. Ellis was in the garage at church fixing the lawn mower the other day when I stopped by to check the mail, and I was careful to keep space between us. There was nothing strange about this interaction. I’ve never made a habit of inspecting Ellis’s lawnmower repairs. I own a push-reel mower, what do I know about the baby tractors that he and Bill ride, but just knowing that I needed to stay at a safe distance made him feel far off and distant.
I was thinking about all this this week, because our Gospel text for this morning is about the abiding presence of God through the person of Jesus and soon through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the work of the beloved community. This text is Jesus telling his disciples, I know you feel alone but I promise you, you’re not. So let’s take some time to walk through this text and hear this assurance of Christ’s presence that Jesus is proclaiming here.
Our text this morning, which follows immediately on the heels of the one we read last week, is all about Jesus stressing for his disciples two crucial points. Point one – loving Jesus and keeping Jesus’ commands are inseparable experiences. You cannot love Jesus without keeping his commands, you cannot keep his commands without loving Jesus. We’ll circle back to what we mean by “loving Jesus” and “keeping his commands” in a minute here, but first let me go on. Point two of this section is this is not the end of the relationship between God and Jesus’ followers, because God continues to dwell with Jesus’ own even after Jesus has gone. In verse sixteen, Jesus told his disciples that God would send them, “another Advocate.” The word translated as “advocate” here is a great one. The Greek word is parakletos, which means “one who exhorts,” “one who comforts,” one who helps,” and “one who makes appeals on one’s behalf.” There isn’t an English equivalent that captures all of its meaning. The NRSV translation uses advocate, with a footnote that “helper” would also be a possible choice. The King James Version goes with “Comforter,” the NIV tries “Counselor,” The Message uses “Friend,” and the Common English Bible, “Companion,” you get the point. There’s so much packed into this one word that some translations give up all together and just go with the English transliteration of the Greek word, Paraclete. This complexity coupled with the fact that our English translations tend to capitalize the word as if it was a proper noun. Like Jesus is introducing someone by their name, “I’d like you all to the spirit of truth, her name is Paraclete.” But Paraclete or Advocate or Helper or Friend, none of these are names, rather they are functions. They are descriptions of the work. This would be like if we all stopped calling Kendra, Kendra, and started referring to her exclusively as Occupational Therapist. Or we only called Ellis, “guy who fixes the lawn mower when the blade falls off.” Those are jobs they hold, but they’re not who they are. I make this point because Jesus said he was asking the Father to send us “another Paraclete.” Another tells us we had one already. Those roles I rattled off, counselor, helper, advocate, companion, friend, “one who exhorts,” “one who comforts,” “one who appeals on another’s behalf,” all of those are roles held by Jesus when he was with them. Now that he would be leaving, he promised there would be another who would continue to play all those roles for them.
“I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus told his disciples, “I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” I’d always read that passage as being about Jesus’ resurrection appearances to the disciples, or maybe a reference to Jesus return at the end of days. But I heard a theologian this week who said this promise that they will see Jesus is more immediate than even the resurrection. They will see Jesus because of the Spirit. Just as they know the Father because they know Jesus, and Jesus and the Father are one, so too do they see Jesus, even when Jesus is gone, because they have another who is continuing in all the roles which Jesus held for them. Roles of teacher, friend, advocate, helper, comforter, yes. But even more than that, role of holder of the relationship between Jesus and the Father, the relationship which we learned last week that the disciples too are now a part of because of their relationship with Jesus.
Which gets us back to Point One of this section. Point One remember being what Jesus laid out in verses fifteen and twenty-one. Verse fifteen, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” My Bible has a note that some translations read “If you love me, you keep my commands.” And then verse twenty-one, “those who have my commands and keep them are those that love me.” It’s the great chicken and the egg problem here, are the ones who love Jesus the ones who keep his commands? Or is that the ones who keep his commands the ones who love Jesus? Which comes first, loving Jesus or doing Jesus’ work? Yes is the very Lutheran response to this clearly not a yes or no question. The other question here also is what are Jesus’ commands? We talked about that last week, the command we are to keep is that we love each another as Jesus has loved us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,” Jesus told them, told us, just a chapter before, “if you have love for one another.”
So dear people of God, here’s the good news. Here’s the promise. This loneliness we feel right now. This sense of isolation, fear for each other and our world, our concern for our neighbors, that, really, is a sign of God’s presence with us, a sign of God’s love for us. This is a bit of a curveball, I know, but bear with me here. Because think about it. All those things I just described, loneliness, fear for others, concern for our neighbor, those are signs of love, of us having love for others, just as Jesus commanded us to do. Our love for others and Jesus’ love for us are in inseparable realities.
Dear people of God, there are not words for how much you are loved by the Father. English, Greek, it doesn’t matter the language, no words could do that love justice. To borrow a line from later in John’s Gospel, if the words describing God’s love for you were written down, “I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” Amen.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Not Being Troubled in the Midst of Troubled Times: A Sermon on John 14:1-14
On Friday I ran 2.23 miles in honor of Ahmaud Arbery, the African American man who was shot in February while jogging because he quote “looked like” someone who had been seen breaking into houses in the neighborhood. Friday would have been his twenty-sixth birthday. Instead, two months after his death, Friday marked the day that charges were brought against the two men who shot him. So on Friday I did my normal workout, so
I would be tired and able to focus. Then I ran the additional 2.23 miles in circles around the park by my house, thinking about this shooting, about our text for this weekend, and about how we read this text in the midst of the world we live in.
Our reading for this morning started with Jesus saying to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Do not let your hearts be troubled. I don’t know about you, but I find my heart is troubled a lot these days. I’m troubled by the death of Arbery, and by the fact that his is not the only name I can rattle off, far from it, of someone who was killed for looking like someone who might have committed a crime. I’m troubled that assault weapons are allowed in our state building, but poster board signs are considered too much of a threat. I’m troubled that in the midst of a global pandemic some people are clamoring to go back to work because to be without work means to be without health care, while others are so enraged at the imposition of wearing a mask that they will shoot the clerk who asked them to. I’m troubled.
I’m troubled, and so on first read I struggle with this command of Jesus for the disciples to not let their “hearts be troubled.” Because that’s what it is, a command. And there is, after all, much for the disciples to be troubled about. After three years of Jesus talking about how his hour had not yet come, suddenly he’d switched his tone and now it’s all, “my hour has come” and “now my soul is troubled.” They had gathered that night for a meal, a joyful time with friends before the Passover, but Jesus first had washed their feet, then predicted one of them would betray him, leading to Judas’ departure. Then he’d told Peter that he would deny him, and now this message not to let their hearts be troubled. Jesus, our hearts had been troubled since we came back here to watch you raise Lazarus, and things are going from bad to worse, are we just to push aside these very real fears?
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus said, but he did not stop there. He followed this up with two additional commands. “Believe in God, believe also in me.” On Palm Sunday we talked about the literary technique common in Hebrew poetry to say something, and then say the thing again with more detail to explain it. The example being the verse from the prophet Zechariah, “Lo, your king comes to you victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” We talked about how Zechariah was not implying the king was riding on two animals, the reference to the colt was further clarifying the age of the donkey. Fun grammar fact I learned this week, this is what’s called an appositive, which means a noun or pronoun that identifies or explains the first noun. Why am I sharing this with you other than fun with English grammar? Because the entire first verse of John chapter fourteen is an appositive phrase. We cannot understand what it means when Jesus says, “do not let your hearts be troubled,” without the additional information, “believe in God, believe also in me.” “Believe in God, believe also in me” is what makes “do not let your hearts be troubled” possible.
What do I mean? The central message of Jesus in John’s Gospel is that he and the Father are one. And because Jesus and the Father are one, the disciples can trust that everything that is about to occur, the betrayal, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus is not the failure of the mission, but in fact the triumph of the mission, the culmination of the work which God through Jesus came to earth to do.
It is because of this promise, that Jesus and the Father are one, that Jesus goes to prepare a place for us in the Father’s own heart, that Jesus returned—that’s key too, notice Jesus said “will return” but I’m saying returned, because this was spoken by the pre-resurrection Jesus, but we read it with the knowledge of the resurrection, so we know already of the truth of these words, the fulfillment of the promise of his return—that Jesus returned to take us to himself, so that where he is—in relationship with the Father—where he is that we may be also. “And you know the way to the place where I am going.”
If you’re confused where this is all going right now, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Thomas too at this point is like, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Bringing us to our second appositive phrase of the passage, “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Truth and life are meant to clarify for us what Jesus means when he calls himself the way. Truth – through Jesus, the Word made flesh, the truth of God is present in the world. What was once an abstract concept is now standing among us, available to see, to hear, to touch, to know. And life – in Jesus the promise of the life-giving, life- sustaining, power of God is accessible. Truth and life are what is meant by Jesus as “the way.” The way is not a road or direction, it is not a path to follow or a set of instructions. The way is relationship with God. The way is Jesus, because in knowing Jesus we know all that God has promised.
This text has the same expansiveness as Jesus’ pronouncement from last week that he is the gate. What we humans try to make so small, Jesus is the gate, and you can’t come in. Jesus is the way, we get to God and you do not, Jesus makes vast. This passage has no comment on the inness or outness of others, it is solely concerned with this promise of relationship of those who have been called out. You who have been left out of the promise, Jesus says, I am the way in, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. You are in because of me, because of what I said, who I am, what I am about to do. You now the way, because the way isn’t about what you know, but that I know you. You do not need to see the Father, because I see you, and if I see you, then you are seen and known by the Father also.
All of this is what gives “do not let your hearts be troubled” it’s robustness, it is what makes “do not let your hearts be troubled” possible. In all that followed we come to see that not having troubled hearts is not about not having feelings. It’s not about not being sad or scared or mad. Not letting our hearts be troubled is about not being paralyzed by those feelings. It is about being sad, scared, angry, alone, all the complexities of the human experience, and still knowing that God is in the midst of this world and is drawing all people to Godself, just like Jesus promised. So here is where I found hope this week. Here is where I found courage this week. Here is where I saw God in our midst, reminding me of this promise that the things of this world do not have the staying power of the promise of God. In the Sikh tradition, men are not allowed to cut their beards. But the N-95 masks which medical providers are required to wear while treating COVID-19 patients don’t fit properly if the wearer has facial hair. So in Canada, two Sikh doctors did just that, shaving off this symbol of their faith so that they could continue to serve their patients. Friends, that’s faith. It is about being sad, being scared, being angry, afraid, alone, and standing up and moving forward anyway. It is staying home, even though it’s uncomfortable. Or going out and running errands for vulnerable friends or neighbors. It is wearing a mask if you are able, and not judging those who cannot. Above all, it is about trusting that whatever we do and whoever we are, God has it, and God has us, and nothing can change that.
And here’s the other blaring good news in this passage, verse twelve, “very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” What this means, dear people of God, is that the work that we do matters. It feels so small the things we are called to right now. Staying home, running errands, wearing a mask, ordering take-out. These things are nothing. And yet, this verse promises that they are everything. That they are the hands and feet, the heart and voice of God in our midst. So do not be troubled, dear people of God. Be sad, be scared, be angry. But don’t be troubled. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Our reading for this morning started with Jesus saying to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Do not let your hearts be troubled. I don’t know about you, but I find my heart is troubled a lot these days. I’m troubled by the death of Arbery, and by the fact that his is not the only name I can rattle off, far from it, of someone who was killed for looking like someone who might have committed a crime. I’m troubled that assault weapons are allowed in our state building, but poster board signs are considered too much of a threat. I’m troubled that in the midst of a global pandemic some people are clamoring to go back to work because to be without work means to be without health care, while others are so enraged at the imposition of wearing a mask that they will shoot the clerk who asked them to. I’m troubled.
I’m troubled, and so on first read I struggle with this command of Jesus for the disciples to not let their “hearts be troubled.” Because that’s what it is, a command. And there is, after all, much for the disciples to be troubled about. After three years of Jesus talking about how his hour had not yet come, suddenly he’d switched his tone and now it’s all, “my hour has come” and “now my soul is troubled.” They had gathered that night for a meal, a joyful time with friends before the Passover, but Jesus first had washed their feet, then predicted one of them would betray him, leading to Judas’ departure. Then he’d told Peter that he would deny him, and now this message not to let their hearts be troubled. Jesus, our hearts had been troubled since we came back here to watch you raise Lazarus, and things are going from bad to worse, are we just to push aside these very real fears?
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus said, but he did not stop there. He followed this up with two additional commands. “Believe in God, believe also in me.” On Palm Sunday we talked about the literary technique common in Hebrew poetry to say something, and then say the thing again with more detail to explain it. The example being the verse from the prophet Zechariah, “Lo, your king comes to you victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” We talked about how Zechariah was not implying the king was riding on two animals, the reference to the colt was further clarifying the age of the donkey. Fun grammar fact I learned this week, this is what’s called an appositive, which means a noun or pronoun that identifies or explains the first noun. Why am I sharing this with you other than fun with English grammar? Because the entire first verse of John chapter fourteen is an appositive phrase. We cannot understand what it means when Jesus says, “do not let your hearts be troubled,” without the additional information, “believe in God, believe also in me.” “Believe in God, believe also in me” is what makes “do not let your hearts be troubled” possible.
What do I mean? The central message of Jesus in John’s Gospel is that he and the Father are one. And because Jesus and the Father are one, the disciples can trust that everything that is about to occur, the betrayal, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus is not the failure of the mission, but in fact the triumph of the mission, the culmination of the work which God through Jesus came to earth to do.
It is because of this promise, that Jesus and the Father are one, that Jesus goes to prepare a place for us in the Father’s own heart, that Jesus returned—that’s key too, notice Jesus said “will return” but I’m saying returned, because this was spoken by the pre-resurrection Jesus, but we read it with the knowledge of the resurrection, so we know already of the truth of these words, the fulfillment of the promise of his return—that Jesus returned to take us to himself, so that where he is—in relationship with the Father—where he is that we may be also. “And you know the way to the place where I am going.”
If you’re confused where this is all going right now, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Thomas too at this point is like, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Bringing us to our second appositive phrase of the passage, “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Truth and life are meant to clarify for us what Jesus means when he calls himself the way. Truth – through Jesus, the Word made flesh, the truth of God is present in the world. What was once an abstract concept is now standing among us, available to see, to hear, to touch, to know. And life – in Jesus the promise of the life-giving, life- sustaining, power of God is accessible. Truth and life are what is meant by Jesus as “the way.” The way is not a road or direction, it is not a path to follow or a set of instructions. The way is relationship with God. The way is Jesus, because in knowing Jesus we know all that God has promised.
This text has the same expansiveness as Jesus’ pronouncement from last week that he is the gate. What we humans try to make so small, Jesus is the gate, and you can’t come in. Jesus is the way, we get to God and you do not, Jesus makes vast. This passage has no comment on the inness or outness of others, it is solely concerned with this promise of relationship of those who have been called out. You who have been left out of the promise, Jesus says, I am the way in, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. You are in because of me, because of what I said, who I am, what I am about to do. You now the way, because the way isn’t about what you know, but that I know you. You do not need to see the Father, because I see you, and if I see you, then you are seen and known by the Father also.
All of this is what gives “do not let your hearts be troubled” it’s robustness, it is what makes “do not let your hearts be troubled” possible. In all that followed we come to see that not having troubled hearts is not about not having feelings. It’s not about not being sad or scared or mad. Not letting our hearts be troubled is about not being paralyzed by those feelings. It is about being sad, scared, angry, alone, all the complexities of the human experience, and still knowing that God is in the midst of this world and is drawing all people to Godself, just like Jesus promised. So here is where I found hope this week. Here is where I found courage this week. Here is where I saw God in our midst, reminding me of this promise that the things of this world do not have the staying power of the promise of God. In the Sikh tradition, men are not allowed to cut their beards. But the N-95 masks which medical providers are required to wear while treating COVID-19 patients don’t fit properly if the wearer has facial hair. So in Canada, two Sikh doctors did just that, shaving off this symbol of their faith so that they could continue to serve their patients. Friends, that’s faith. It is about being sad, being scared, being angry, afraid, alone, and standing up and moving forward anyway. It is staying home, even though it’s uncomfortable. Or going out and running errands for vulnerable friends or neighbors. It is wearing a mask if you are able, and not judging those who cannot. Above all, it is about trusting that whatever we do and whoever we are, God has it, and God has us, and nothing can change that.
And here’s the other blaring good news in this passage, verse twelve, “very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” What this means, dear people of God, is that the work that we do matters. It feels so small the things we are called to right now. Staying home, running errands, wearing a mask, ordering take-out. These things are nothing. And yet, this verse promises that they are everything. That they are the hands and feet, the heart and voice of God in our midst. So do not be troubled, dear people of God. Be sad, be scared, be angry. But don’t be troubled. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Jesus is the Gate - A Sermon on John 10:1-10
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. Every year on the fourth Sunday of Easter, we read a section of John chapter 10, which is known as the Good Shepherd discourse. All the other readings also have some mention of sheep in them. Though it is really next year’s Easter 4 reading, verses eleven to eighteen, that have Jesus as the Good Shepherd. In this morning’s readings, Jesus says, “I am the gate.” But as theologian Karoline Lewis pointed out, between “Gate Sunday” not having quite the same ring to it and our hymnal’s decided lack of gate themed hymns, “Good Shepherd Sunday” it is.
I’ve been thinking all week about what it means to think of Jesus as the gate. Maybe it’s human nature, but when I think of gates and gatekeeping, I think of things kept out. When we hear Jesus referred to as the gate, I think the verse we tend to read with this is John fourteen, six, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” and we make this gate exclusionary. Jesus is the way, and the only way, so you better believe in Jesus or you’re out. Now, Jesus did say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” but Jesus did not say that here. So let’s set some context for this gate metaphor to see if we can shed some light on what Jesus was getting at.
We’re reading the Gospel of John, and we’ve talked about how John uses a very particular pattern of event-dialogue-discourse. Event – Jesus does something, heals someone, reaches out to someone, meets someone, etc. Dialogue – a series of conversations ensue between Jesus and the person, onlookers, etc. Discourse – Jesus offers an extended monologue on what the event and dialogue says about who Jesus is and what his mission is about. So what is the Good Shepherd discourse a discourse for? Think back a million years ago, to the fourth Sunday of Lent, when we read the story of the man born blind in John chapter nine. Jesus was walking along the road when he met a man who had been blind from birth and restored his sight. This miracle, the event, kicked off a series of conversations between the neighbors, the man and the Pharisees, the Pharisees and the man’s parents, and the man and the Pharisees again, until finally the Pharisees drove the man out of the community.
So Jesus went and found the man, a move which only further annoyed the Pharisees. And Jesus remarked, this is chapter nine, verse thirty-nine, by the way, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, but those who do see may become blind.” To which the Pharisees responded, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” A telling question, because while the Pharisees were not physically blind in the same way the man born blind had been physically without sight, their lack of knowledge of who Jesus was indicates not blindness, but a refusal to see, in a metaphorical sense, who Jesus was. This was the jumping off point for our reading this morning, this teaching about how Jesus is the gate for the sheep.
I got to thinking about gates and the nature of gates, what they do and what they are for. And I thought about the work we recently had done at Trinity in having new door locks put on the front doors. The decision to have new locks put on the doors was a decision based on hospitality and being a more welcoming space for Woman’s Co-op and our community. Our old door locks, for those of you who aren’t familiar with our building, were original to the building. So they had served us very well, but they had seen a lot of use in their fifty years of service and they weren’t serving us well anymore. It had actually gotten to the point where one of them at first would not unlock, and we had to duct tape it open every Sunday. Then it wouldn’t lock all the way, and to secure the building we had to wire the doors shut with a coat hanger. This was obviously both not welcoming and not safe. Not welcoming because I cannot tell you the number of times either on a Sunday morning or worse at a community event, someone would try to come in the wired shut doors, and I’d have to apologetically direct them around to the other set of doors and explain, we really did want them there, that door just didn’t work right. And unsafe in a couple ways. First, if we’d had an emergency where people needed to get out of the building quickly, those doors wouldn’t be available. But also, the coat hanger was only so effective as a locking mechanism. A really determined person could probably have still gotten in if they’d wanted to. And given the nature of the work Co-op does, there are times when, for the safety of its members, those doors need to be able to be locked and locked well. And that was a level of security I never felt like we were able to offer to the degree that we needed to.
So these new door locks say several things about who we are as a congregation. The fact that all four of them can now be fully unlocked and opened says this is a building where you are welcome. We want you to be able to come in here, to make use of this space, to have your needs met. And that they can be locked when they need to says to our Co-op sisters, we care about you. We want you to feel safe here, to know that we value you, and your safety and security, and we want to be able to keep you safe if and when we need to. Our door locks aren’t about keeping people out, they’re about keeping people safe.
Friends, that’s what Jesus means when he says “I am the gate.” When Jesus says, “I am the gate,” he is not playing the role of bouncer at some exclusive nightclub, deciding who is in and who is out of the Kingdom of God. That was what the Pharisees were doing when they kicked the man born blind who could not adequately, in their minds, answer their questions out of the community. When Jesus says, “I am the gate,” what he’s talking about is protection. It is the promise that what Jesus wants for his people, what it means to be in the Kingdom of God, is to be in a place of safety and security. People who want to sneak in over the fence are not people who are feeling left out or excluded, they are people who mean harm, people who are concerned not about the community but about their own wants and privileges.
This week, council met for the first time via Zoom, and much of the conversation was around what it will look like when the Stay Home. Stay Safe. order is lifted and we are all allowed to return to church. And I want to caution you right now friends, that it is going to look different for a while, probably a long while. Until there is a vaccine or an effective treatment, we really cannot safely gather in the way that we used to. I don’t know when we will be able to come back to worship, even after the Stay Home. Stay Safe. order is lifted. Some level of social distancing will remain, and you will probably be stuck sitting in your living rooms listening to my poor singing over Facebook Live for a while. I say this not to disappoint you, but to try and not get your hopes up, this is going to be a long haul yet.
But when I get sad and discouraged about not being able to be in worship with you all, when I wonder if we’re not doing our work as church by not gathering in prayer and praise, to be fed at the table and nurtured in fellowship, I remember the last day I was in the office in March. There were rumors that the governor was going to issue a Stay Home. Stay Safe. order, and I was packing up my computer in case I would not be able to return. The building was completely empty, Co-op had already made the decision to shutter their in-person operations and work from home, and I was feeling very torn on this decision to close the church building. After all, we are the church, and we are a church committed to our neighborhood, what does it mean to close our door to our neighbors in a time of crisis. As I picked up the printer off the desk, I noticed that one of the print outs from Eileen’s Sunday school lesson from the week before had slid under it. The print out had three Lenten practices listed on it for the kids to decorate, “prayer, fasting, and acts of love.”
What we are doing, dear people of God, are acts of love. We are not gathering out of love for our neighbors, we will be slow returning to worship out of love for our neighbors, and when we return, we will worship differently out of love for our neighbors. The gates we will put up for how we will gather, how close we will stand, how we will sing, and pray, and praise, all of these things we will do will not be about exclusion, they will be about inclusion. They will be about following the model of Jesus when he said, “I am the gate” and ensuring that we create a safe space where the people of God can come and feel honored and valued and secure. So hang in there, dear people of God, hang in there. This is tough, I know. But God holds you, God loves you, and these gates are what love looks like. Amen.
I’ve been thinking all week about what it means to think of Jesus as the gate. Maybe it’s human nature, but when I think of gates and gatekeeping, I think of things kept out. When we hear Jesus referred to as the gate, I think the verse we tend to read with this is John fourteen, six, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” and we make this gate exclusionary. Jesus is the way, and the only way, so you better believe in Jesus or you’re out. Now, Jesus did say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” but Jesus did not say that here. So let’s set some context for this gate metaphor to see if we can shed some light on what Jesus was getting at.
We’re reading the Gospel of John, and we’ve talked about how John uses a very particular pattern of event-dialogue-discourse. Event – Jesus does something, heals someone, reaches out to someone, meets someone, etc. Dialogue – a series of conversations ensue between Jesus and the person, onlookers, etc. Discourse – Jesus offers an extended monologue on what the event and dialogue says about who Jesus is and what his mission is about. So what is the Good Shepherd discourse a discourse for? Think back a million years ago, to the fourth Sunday of Lent, when we read the story of the man born blind in John chapter nine. Jesus was walking along the road when he met a man who had been blind from birth and restored his sight. This miracle, the event, kicked off a series of conversations between the neighbors, the man and the Pharisees, the Pharisees and the man’s parents, and the man and the Pharisees again, until finally the Pharisees drove the man out of the community.
So Jesus went and found the man, a move which only further annoyed the Pharisees. And Jesus remarked, this is chapter nine, verse thirty-nine, by the way, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, but those who do see may become blind.” To which the Pharisees responded, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” A telling question, because while the Pharisees were not physically blind in the same way the man born blind had been physically without sight, their lack of knowledge of who Jesus was indicates not blindness, but a refusal to see, in a metaphorical sense, who Jesus was. This was the jumping off point for our reading this morning, this teaching about how Jesus is the gate for the sheep.
I got to thinking about gates and the nature of gates, what they do and what they are for. And I thought about the work we recently had done at Trinity in having new door locks put on the front doors. The decision to have new locks put on the doors was a decision based on hospitality and being a more welcoming space for Woman’s Co-op and our community. Our old door locks, for those of you who aren’t familiar with our building, were original to the building. So they had served us very well, but they had seen a lot of use in their fifty years of service and they weren’t serving us well anymore. It had actually gotten to the point where one of them at first would not unlock, and we had to duct tape it open every Sunday. Then it wouldn’t lock all the way, and to secure the building we had to wire the doors shut with a coat hanger. This was obviously both not welcoming and not safe. Not welcoming because I cannot tell you the number of times either on a Sunday morning or worse at a community event, someone would try to come in the wired shut doors, and I’d have to apologetically direct them around to the other set of doors and explain, we really did want them there, that door just didn’t work right. And unsafe in a couple ways. First, if we’d had an emergency where people needed to get out of the building quickly, those doors wouldn’t be available. But also, the coat hanger was only so effective as a locking mechanism. A really determined person could probably have still gotten in if they’d wanted to. And given the nature of the work Co-op does, there are times when, for the safety of its members, those doors need to be able to be locked and locked well. And that was a level of security I never felt like we were able to offer to the degree that we needed to.
So these new door locks say several things about who we are as a congregation. The fact that all four of them can now be fully unlocked and opened says this is a building where you are welcome. We want you to be able to come in here, to make use of this space, to have your needs met. And that they can be locked when they need to says to our Co-op sisters, we care about you. We want you to feel safe here, to know that we value you, and your safety and security, and we want to be able to keep you safe if and when we need to. Our door locks aren’t about keeping people out, they’re about keeping people safe.
Friends, that’s what Jesus means when he says “I am the gate.” When Jesus says, “I am the gate,” he is not playing the role of bouncer at some exclusive nightclub, deciding who is in and who is out of the Kingdom of God. That was what the Pharisees were doing when they kicked the man born blind who could not adequately, in their minds, answer their questions out of the community. When Jesus says, “I am the gate,” what he’s talking about is protection. It is the promise that what Jesus wants for his people, what it means to be in the Kingdom of God, is to be in a place of safety and security. People who want to sneak in over the fence are not people who are feeling left out or excluded, they are people who mean harm, people who are concerned not about the community but about their own wants and privileges.
This week, council met for the first time via Zoom, and much of the conversation was around what it will look like when the Stay Home. Stay Safe. order is lifted and we are all allowed to return to church. And I want to caution you right now friends, that it is going to look different for a while, probably a long while. Until there is a vaccine or an effective treatment, we really cannot safely gather in the way that we used to. I don’t know when we will be able to come back to worship, even after the Stay Home. Stay Safe. order is lifted. Some level of social distancing will remain, and you will probably be stuck sitting in your living rooms listening to my poor singing over Facebook Live for a while. I say this not to disappoint you, but to try and not get your hopes up, this is going to be a long haul yet.
But when I get sad and discouraged about not being able to be in worship with you all, when I wonder if we’re not doing our work as church by not gathering in prayer and praise, to be fed at the table and nurtured in fellowship, I remember the last day I was in the office in March. There were rumors that the governor was going to issue a Stay Home. Stay Safe. order, and I was packing up my computer in case I would not be able to return. The building was completely empty, Co-op had already made the decision to shutter their in-person operations and work from home, and I was feeling very torn on this decision to close the church building. After all, we are the church, and we are a church committed to our neighborhood, what does it mean to close our door to our neighbors in a time of crisis. As I picked up the printer off the desk, I noticed that one of the print outs from Eileen’s Sunday school lesson from the week before had slid under it. The print out had three Lenten practices listed on it for the kids to decorate, “prayer, fasting, and acts of love.”
What we are doing, dear people of God, are acts of love. We are not gathering out of love for our neighbors, we will be slow returning to worship out of love for our neighbors, and when we return, we will worship differently out of love for our neighbors. The gates we will put up for how we will gather, how close we will stand, how we will sing, and pray, and praise, all of these things we will do will not be about exclusion, they will be about inclusion. They will be about following the model of Jesus when he said, “I am the gate” and ensuring that we create a safe space where the people of God can come and feel honored and valued and secure. So hang in there, dear people of God, hang in there. This is tough, I know. But God holds you, God loves you, and these gates are what love looks like. Amen.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Masks, Surprises, and God in our Midst - A Sermon on Luke 24:13-35
A few weeks ago in Horrocks I was approached by a masked man. I was minding my own business, trying to find cumin, when suddenly this strange man came around the aisle. When he saw me he stopped, staying the recommended six feet away, and, his voice muffled and breathy through the painter’s mask he was wearing, said to me, “Hey Kjersten.” It took me a minute, but it turns out it was my friend Gary. I’ve known Gary and his wife for years; they were some of my first running friends in Battle Creek. His wife and I ran the TC Ironman together last summer, we are in the same Tuesday night running group. Or we were, when group runs were still a thing. Moral of the story, I know Gary really well, he is definitely not a stranger, and yet when he came around the corner and greeted me last week in a painters mask, I had absolutely no idea who he was and why he was talking to me.
The mask thing is weird and is definitely taking getting used to. Now, don’t get me wrong, I fully support it. I’ve read the science, I’m glad our governor has as well, and I’m all on board with the minor inconvenience of looking like an old-timey wild west bandit for the sake of protecting my neighbors. But I’d never realized how dependent I am on facial expressions of the whole face, not just the bridge of your nose up, to both recognize people and judge reactions.
It’s weird, but I’m also experiencing a strange and wonderful camaraderie with my fellow mask-wearers. Several weeks ago now, when the CDC was just hinting that masks were going to become the recommendation, I tried an experiment. First I went to Meijer wearing my mask, and I felt silly. Then I went to Horrocks and I didn’t wear the mask, and I felt like kind of a jerk. From that point I decided I’d rather look silly and it was masks for me. Now when I go to Horrocks, proudly repping one of the mask Travis’s mom made for us, I feel like I’m part of Team No Triple C—Team No Triple C, by the way, being a club I made up, Team No COVID in Calhoun County. I smile at the Horrocks person through the plexiglass screen, we make our normal small talk about what obscure vegetable I’m buying, she tells me a joke. The masks keep some anonymity, but they also bring a sense of community, we are both committed to the work of keeping each other safe.
What got me thinking about masks this week was this Gospel story about the road to Emmaus. The text tells us that two disciples were walking along the road to Emmaus, “talking with each other about all these things that had happened”—all these things being Jesus’ crucifixion and the women’s surprising discovery of the empty tomb—when “Jesus himself came near…but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” I’ve always wondered how the disciples could have not recognized Jesus, but when people show up in places we don’t expect, places we don’t think they belong; it can be hard to place them. A couple years ago one of my very good seminary friends happened to be passing through Battle Creek and he popped into my office unexpectedly, and it took me a while to place the bearded man in my doorway. He had to introduce himself to me, and then I was super embarrassed that this person whom I had spent hours trying to muddle through Greek and systematic theology with was so out of context standing in my doorway that I couldn’t place him. And if I couldn’t recognize Brian, who I knew was alive and well, I just thought he was in Minnesota, imagine the disciples disconnection when Jesus, whom they had seen put to death and buried, starts walking along beside them. That is not the context they were expecting.
And while we’re talking about the disciples, let’s also talk about where they were going. Luke’s Gospel places them on the road “to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.” Or about 20 miles from Jerusalem, depending on which manuscript you’re reading. But this really doesn’t matter because, remember, the writer of Luke probably lived in Turkey, his directions were always a bit questionable. For Luke locations were always more theological than geographical. The point wasn’t that the disciples were going to a specific village, the point was they were getting out of Jerusalem and going elsewhere. There’s an amazing Frederick Buechner quote that I shared during the Wednesday bible study that describes Emmaus as: “the place we go in order to escape—a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, “Let the whole damned thing go to hang. It makes no difference anyway”… Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had—ideas about love and freedom and justice—have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.” The disciples were traveling to Emmaus because they were grieving. They were sad and frightened and discouraged. They had given up hope. We’ll hear later in Cleopas’s unintentionally ironic recounting to Jesus of who Jesus was that they “had hoped that he—Jesus—would be the one to redeem Israel.” These aren’t just words. From the infancy narratives way back in the beginning of Luke’s Gospel we saw Zechariah, Simeon, and Anna, all pronouncing Jesus as the one Isaiah had foretold, and Cleopas shared with Jesus that they’d believed those promises. Only to, as far as they could see, watch those promises not just dashed but literally beaten, hung on a tree, and buried in a tomb a mere three days before. They were heartbroken.
And what I love about this story is that it was on the road to that place. The place that you go when everything has failed, when every promise you had was broken, when everything seems lost, it was on the road to that place that Jesus met them. And not just met them, but came alongside them. Walked with them. Listened to them. Asked them questions, heard their response, and answered them. Opened the scriptures to them and “interpreted to them the things about him in all the scriptures.” They didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t stop Jesus from being with them, from teaching them, from serving them.
And then they got to the place where they were going, and they invited Jesus to a meal. Not, mind you because they knew who he was, but because social norms required that they do so. This was the “wear a mask and stay six feet apart” of their time. It was the expectation of being a good member of society. Jesus accepted the offer and they had a meal together. And all the commentaries I read were careful to point out that while we want to read Eucharistic tones into this text, into Jesus breaking bread, blessing it, and giving it to them, that really wasn’t what was going on here. This wasn’t worship, it wasn’t communion, it was dinner. Dinner like we have around our own tables every night.
But it was in that table fellowship, in that breaking of bread and sharing of food that the text tells us “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.” Which is such a weird detail, but I think it tells us something else crucial about this post-resurrection time we live in, which is that in the already and not yet of this time we get glimpses of the holy. Moments when Christ breaks through and we see, just for a moment, with total clarity. I find that as off-kilter as things are right now, I have those moments often. The neighbor kid’s chalk art, or a colleague who calls just to check in, or that nod of appreciation across the plexiglass of the grocery store that we are wearing these masks for each other. These quick connections are glimpses of the divine, they are moments when I see Jesus in the breaking bread of fellowship, and when they are over I find myself reflecting, “was not my heart burning within me…”
So this week, as we continue on this strange path that we are walking, alone together, I invite you to be on the lookout for these moments of clarity. Maybe this year we are more able than ever to see the resurrected Christ in our midst as we too journey along an unknown road to an unknown location. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The mask thing is weird and is definitely taking getting used to. Now, don’t get me wrong, I fully support it. I’ve read the science, I’m glad our governor has as well, and I’m all on board with the minor inconvenience of looking like an old-timey wild west bandit for the sake of protecting my neighbors. But I’d never realized how dependent I am on facial expressions of the whole face, not just the bridge of your nose up, to both recognize people and judge reactions.
It’s weird, but I’m also experiencing a strange and wonderful camaraderie with my fellow mask-wearers. Several weeks ago now, when the CDC was just hinting that masks were going to become the recommendation, I tried an experiment. First I went to Meijer wearing my mask, and I felt silly. Then I went to Horrocks and I didn’t wear the mask, and I felt like kind of a jerk. From that point I decided I’d rather look silly and it was masks for me. Now when I go to Horrocks, proudly repping one of the mask Travis’s mom made for us, I feel like I’m part of Team No Triple C—Team No Triple C, by the way, being a club I made up, Team No COVID in Calhoun County. I smile at the Horrocks person through the plexiglass screen, we make our normal small talk about what obscure vegetable I’m buying, she tells me a joke. The masks keep some anonymity, but they also bring a sense of community, we are both committed to the work of keeping each other safe.
What got me thinking about masks this week was this Gospel story about the road to Emmaus. The text tells us that two disciples were walking along the road to Emmaus, “talking with each other about all these things that had happened”—all these things being Jesus’ crucifixion and the women’s surprising discovery of the empty tomb—when “Jesus himself came near…but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” I’ve always wondered how the disciples could have not recognized Jesus, but when people show up in places we don’t expect, places we don’t think they belong; it can be hard to place them. A couple years ago one of my very good seminary friends happened to be passing through Battle Creek and he popped into my office unexpectedly, and it took me a while to place the bearded man in my doorway. He had to introduce himself to me, and then I was super embarrassed that this person whom I had spent hours trying to muddle through Greek and systematic theology with was so out of context standing in my doorway that I couldn’t place him. And if I couldn’t recognize Brian, who I knew was alive and well, I just thought he was in Minnesota, imagine the disciples disconnection when Jesus, whom they had seen put to death and buried, starts walking along beside them. That is not the context they were expecting.
And while we’re talking about the disciples, let’s also talk about where they were going. Luke’s Gospel places them on the road “to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.” Or about 20 miles from Jerusalem, depending on which manuscript you’re reading. But this really doesn’t matter because, remember, the writer of Luke probably lived in Turkey, his directions were always a bit questionable. For Luke locations were always more theological than geographical. The point wasn’t that the disciples were going to a specific village, the point was they were getting out of Jerusalem and going elsewhere. There’s an amazing Frederick Buechner quote that I shared during the Wednesday bible study that describes Emmaus as: “the place we go in order to escape—a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, “Let the whole damned thing go to hang. It makes no difference anyway”… Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had—ideas about love and freedom and justice—have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.” The disciples were traveling to Emmaus because they were grieving. They were sad and frightened and discouraged. They had given up hope. We’ll hear later in Cleopas’s unintentionally ironic recounting to Jesus of who Jesus was that they “had hoped that he—Jesus—would be the one to redeem Israel.” These aren’t just words. From the infancy narratives way back in the beginning of Luke’s Gospel we saw Zechariah, Simeon, and Anna, all pronouncing Jesus as the one Isaiah had foretold, and Cleopas shared with Jesus that they’d believed those promises. Only to, as far as they could see, watch those promises not just dashed but literally beaten, hung on a tree, and buried in a tomb a mere three days before. They were heartbroken.
And what I love about this story is that it was on the road to that place. The place that you go when everything has failed, when every promise you had was broken, when everything seems lost, it was on the road to that place that Jesus met them. And not just met them, but came alongside them. Walked with them. Listened to them. Asked them questions, heard their response, and answered them. Opened the scriptures to them and “interpreted to them the things about him in all the scriptures.” They didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t stop Jesus from being with them, from teaching them, from serving them.
And then they got to the place where they were going, and they invited Jesus to a meal. Not, mind you because they knew who he was, but because social norms required that they do so. This was the “wear a mask and stay six feet apart” of their time. It was the expectation of being a good member of society. Jesus accepted the offer and they had a meal together. And all the commentaries I read were careful to point out that while we want to read Eucharistic tones into this text, into Jesus breaking bread, blessing it, and giving it to them, that really wasn’t what was going on here. This wasn’t worship, it wasn’t communion, it was dinner. Dinner like we have around our own tables every night.
But it was in that table fellowship, in that breaking of bread and sharing of food that the text tells us “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.” Which is such a weird detail, but I think it tells us something else crucial about this post-resurrection time we live in, which is that in the already and not yet of this time we get glimpses of the holy. Moments when Christ breaks through and we see, just for a moment, with total clarity. I find that as off-kilter as things are right now, I have those moments often. The neighbor kid’s chalk art, or a colleague who calls just to check in, or that nod of appreciation across the plexiglass of the grocery store that we are wearing these masks for each other. These quick connections are glimpses of the divine, they are moments when I see Jesus in the breaking bread of fellowship, and when they are over I find myself reflecting, “was not my heart burning within me…”
So this week, as we continue on this strange path that we are walking, alone together, I invite you to be on the lookout for these moments of clarity. Maybe this year we are more able than ever to see the resurrected Christ in our midst as we too journey along an unknown road to an unknown location. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
On Forgiving and Not Forgetting: A Sermon on John 20:19-31
My first thought on reading the Gospel text for this morning was that the good news is so blatantly obvious for us in this Stay Home, Stay Safe time that it was almost a gimmie. I mean, come on. The disciples are in a house, the doors of which are locked because the disciples are afraid, and Jesus showed up, behind the locked doors, and said, “Peace be with you.” Oh, and then Jesus breaths on them. This text is just begging to be another sermon about how bad Jesus is at social distancing, and what good and comforting news that is for us.
And that is good and comforting news. The promise that Jesus is able to just show up in the spaces and places that we are locked to just be among us, that’s great news. I mean, I don’t know about all of you but as much as I love Travis, we’re both ready to be within six feet of someone besides each other. If I’m only allowed within six feet of one person, I’m glad Travis is that person, but I’d rather be able to be within six feet of more than one person. In this text we have a Jesus who does just that. Who comes to where the disciples are, amid their very real and genuine and legitimate fear and gives them a sign and a promise of his peace. And that is super good news for us. It’s good news for us all the time, but it is super good news when we are all behind doors locked in fear yes, but also in wise precaution, and in concern for our neighbors, to know that we have a God who comes to us wherever we are. I was listening to a podcast this week in which an Old Testament scholar was talking about the role of Jerusalem and the Temple in scripture as being places “where humans lived in the immediate presence of God.” What this text does for us is it reminds us that all places are places where we live in the immediate presence of God.
That’s great. This is one of those texts where I could stop here and say Amen, and we’d all be satisfied with the good news of this story. But as I was thinking about this text this week, something else kept catching my attention. So I want to invite us this morning to start to look beyond our current Stay Home, Stay Safe world, and start to think about what good news this text has for us when we can respond to Jesus’ command that we be sent, just as he was sent by the Father.
The text tells us Jesus “breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” The work Jesus sent the disciples, sends us out to do, is the work of forgiveness. But what is forgiveness? That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question right there, isn’t it: what is forgiveness?
We teach children from an early age to “forgive and forget,” right? But I wonder if forgetting is really a wise part of forgiveness, or even a faithful part. Let’s take our small child and imagine said child was playing too rough with the kitty and got scratched. Now, assuming said cat is mostly well-behaved and not the horrible demon beast I lived with one summer, we might assure the child that kitty didn’t mean it, and they should forgive the kitty. They should forgive the kitty, but they probably shouldn’t forget, right. Because there is value in learning that kitty is going to scratch you if you pull its tail.
Now hold on here because this is obviously a limited example. Unless the aggressor is a cat, we ought not to let perpetrators of wrong off so easy. However, I think it is worth asking about both the practicality and the value in forgetting as an aspect of forgiveness.
The other thing that had me questioning the value of forgetting is that this is a resurrection story. And as we’ve talked about, one of the key aspects of resurrection is that it is not an undoing of the bad thing that happened to the way things were before, it is a transformation through that bad thing to a whole new way of being. The resurrected Jesus is still the crucified Jesus. Resurrection wasn’t a do-over, where Jesus came back to life because killing him was a mistake in the first place. Resurrection happened because through crucifixion Jesus destroyed the power of death itself. Without crucifixion, resurrection is meaningless.
The other piece to think about here is what we mean when we talk about sin. We tend to think about sin as an action. Pulling the cat’s tail, for example, would be sin. Or coveting your neighbor’s ox, or murder. Obviously those actions are not on the same level of effect, and we end up ranking sin from super bad, murder, to meh, like, I don’t know, not telling someone they have spinach in their teeth. And then we get into the question of who gets to decide what is sin and what is not. Because on a scale of murder to spinach, there is a whole lot of in-between. And what some communities see as horrible sin, others see seeing that thing as sin as itself a sin. You see the complication when Jesus gives us the command to forgive and retain sins. Who gets to pick them?
The Gospel of John simplifies this for us by defining sin in a totally different way. Sin in John’s Gospel isn’t about moral action or behavior. Sin in John’s Gospel is about relationship, specifically about the breaking of a relationship. Sin is that which separates us from God. And what we see in these resurrection stories is Jesus continually being about the work of restoring relationship. We talked about it last week, when Jesus said to the women about the disciples, “Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee.” Go tell my brothers. These are the disciples who are not even in the entire twenty-seventh chapter of Matthew, because they peaced out at the end of chapter twenty-six, but his first words after his resurrection was to call them brothers. And we see it this week when Thomas said he needed to see the marks of the nails in Jesus’ hands, so Jesus showed up and was like, ok, here are my hands, because Jesus is always about meeting people where they are at and giving them the thing that they need to move forward. The resurrection stories are all about Jesus rebuilding relationships that had been broken, not by him but by those around him, so that they can be about the work of restoring relationships with the world. This is our work now, people of God. John’s Gospel places us with the disciples, so we are the ones who have been breathed on by the Holy Spirit, we are the ones sent by Jesus to do the work God first sent him to do, to forgive sin, to rebuild relationship. Not to forget, but to transform.
Part of what got me thinking about all this recently is all the conversations we seem to be having about normal. About when we can return to normal, and how this is a new normal, and what will be normal when all this is through. Travis hates the phrase “new normal,” and while I fully agree that not shaking hands or having any semblance of an economy or ever leaving our homes is not the normal I want to continue with, I do think now is a great time for us to start to think about what parts of what we are experiencing do we not want to forget? What might it not be helpful, or even faithful to forget? One thing the pandemic is doing is it is laying bare all of the places in our society that were not working well to begin with. In Michigan, fourteen percent of the population is African American, yet African Americans make up forty percent of the COVID-19 deaths. Dr. Rashawn Ray, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. remarked, “COVID-19 is an equal opportunity disease. The problem is that our U.S. healthcare system is not.” Issues like access to health care, food deserts, and water shut-offs—economic problems—are compounding the effect of this disease in our inner cities. Thanks to the actions of some of our policy makers, some of these issues are being addressed now on a crisis basis. Since 2014, one-hundred and forty-one thousand Detroit households have had their water shut off. In an effort to combat COVID-19, Detroit has been restoring water access and there are currently less than 100 houses in Detroit without water. If one-hundred and forty-one thousand homes without water is normal, that is not a normal I want to return to.
And there is a lot of well-deserved praise right now for frontline essential service workers. People like grocery store clerks, restaurant employees, long-range truck drivers, mail carriers, bus drivers, I could go on and on and on. These people are being raised up as heroes, and they are. But it is not enough to call them heroes, if we don’t also acknowledge that they didn’t sign up to be heroes. And some, maybe even many, continue to work out of care for the greater good of all of us, but some are there because they don’t have a choice. Because their families are dependent on the money they bring in, and they don’t have a safety net if that job falls through, or if they get sick, or cannot work. The living wage for one adult in Calhoun County is eleven dollars an hour. That’s one single adult, with no children, no previous debt, no extenuating circumstances, eleven dollars an hour. Let us not forget that many of the heroes in this pandemic are making less than that. That too is not a normal I want to return to.
The promise of Easter, the promise of our faith, dear people of God, is the promise of resurrection. It is the promise that life always follows death, that joy always comes after despair, and that God is always reaching from divinity across to our humanity to be in relationship with us. We are in the gap right now, that liminal space where the future is not yet clear. So let us use this time to dream about what resurrection will look like, how we want to live on the other side of today. Because the gift of this passage is that we have been given the Holy Spirit. How then do we want to transform our future? Amen.
And that is good and comforting news. The promise that Jesus is able to just show up in the spaces and places that we are locked to just be among us, that’s great news. I mean, I don’t know about all of you but as much as I love Travis, we’re both ready to be within six feet of someone besides each other. If I’m only allowed within six feet of one person, I’m glad Travis is that person, but I’d rather be able to be within six feet of more than one person. In this text we have a Jesus who does just that. Who comes to where the disciples are, amid their very real and genuine and legitimate fear and gives them a sign and a promise of his peace. And that is super good news for us. It’s good news for us all the time, but it is super good news when we are all behind doors locked in fear yes, but also in wise precaution, and in concern for our neighbors, to know that we have a God who comes to us wherever we are. I was listening to a podcast this week in which an Old Testament scholar was talking about the role of Jerusalem and the Temple in scripture as being places “where humans lived in the immediate presence of God.” What this text does for us is it reminds us that all places are places where we live in the immediate presence of God.
That’s great. This is one of those texts where I could stop here and say Amen, and we’d all be satisfied with the good news of this story. But as I was thinking about this text this week, something else kept catching my attention. So I want to invite us this morning to start to look beyond our current Stay Home, Stay Safe world, and start to think about what good news this text has for us when we can respond to Jesus’ command that we be sent, just as he was sent by the Father.
The text tells us Jesus “breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” The work Jesus sent the disciples, sends us out to do, is the work of forgiveness. But what is forgiveness? That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question right there, isn’t it: what is forgiveness?
We teach children from an early age to “forgive and forget,” right? But I wonder if forgetting is really a wise part of forgiveness, or even a faithful part. Let’s take our small child and imagine said child was playing too rough with the kitty and got scratched. Now, assuming said cat is mostly well-behaved and not the horrible demon beast I lived with one summer, we might assure the child that kitty didn’t mean it, and they should forgive the kitty. They should forgive the kitty, but they probably shouldn’t forget, right. Because there is value in learning that kitty is going to scratch you if you pull its tail.
Now hold on here because this is obviously a limited example. Unless the aggressor is a cat, we ought not to let perpetrators of wrong off so easy. However, I think it is worth asking about both the practicality and the value in forgetting as an aspect of forgiveness.
The other thing that had me questioning the value of forgetting is that this is a resurrection story. And as we’ve talked about, one of the key aspects of resurrection is that it is not an undoing of the bad thing that happened to the way things were before, it is a transformation through that bad thing to a whole new way of being. The resurrected Jesus is still the crucified Jesus. Resurrection wasn’t a do-over, where Jesus came back to life because killing him was a mistake in the first place. Resurrection happened because through crucifixion Jesus destroyed the power of death itself. Without crucifixion, resurrection is meaningless.
The other piece to think about here is what we mean when we talk about sin. We tend to think about sin as an action. Pulling the cat’s tail, for example, would be sin. Or coveting your neighbor’s ox, or murder. Obviously those actions are not on the same level of effect, and we end up ranking sin from super bad, murder, to meh, like, I don’t know, not telling someone they have spinach in their teeth. And then we get into the question of who gets to decide what is sin and what is not. Because on a scale of murder to spinach, there is a whole lot of in-between. And what some communities see as horrible sin, others see seeing that thing as sin as itself a sin. You see the complication when Jesus gives us the command to forgive and retain sins. Who gets to pick them?
The Gospel of John simplifies this for us by defining sin in a totally different way. Sin in John’s Gospel isn’t about moral action or behavior. Sin in John’s Gospel is about relationship, specifically about the breaking of a relationship. Sin is that which separates us from God. And what we see in these resurrection stories is Jesus continually being about the work of restoring relationship. We talked about it last week, when Jesus said to the women about the disciples, “Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee.” Go tell my brothers. These are the disciples who are not even in the entire twenty-seventh chapter of Matthew, because they peaced out at the end of chapter twenty-six, but his first words after his resurrection was to call them brothers. And we see it this week when Thomas said he needed to see the marks of the nails in Jesus’ hands, so Jesus showed up and was like, ok, here are my hands, because Jesus is always about meeting people where they are at and giving them the thing that they need to move forward. The resurrection stories are all about Jesus rebuilding relationships that had been broken, not by him but by those around him, so that they can be about the work of restoring relationships with the world. This is our work now, people of God. John’s Gospel places us with the disciples, so we are the ones who have been breathed on by the Holy Spirit, we are the ones sent by Jesus to do the work God first sent him to do, to forgive sin, to rebuild relationship. Not to forget, but to transform.
Part of what got me thinking about all this recently is all the conversations we seem to be having about normal. About when we can return to normal, and how this is a new normal, and what will be normal when all this is through. Travis hates the phrase “new normal,” and while I fully agree that not shaking hands or having any semblance of an economy or ever leaving our homes is not the normal I want to continue with, I do think now is a great time for us to start to think about what parts of what we are experiencing do we not want to forget? What might it not be helpful, or even faithful to forget? One thing the pandemic is doing is it is laying bare all of the places in our society that were not working well to begin with. In Michigan, fourteen percent of the population is African American, yet African Americans make up forty percent of the COVID-19 deaths. Dr. Rashawn Ray, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. remarked, “COVID-19 is an equal opportunity disease. The problem is that our U.S. healthcare system is not.” Issues like access to health care, food deserts, and water shut-offs—economic problems—are compounding the effect of this disease in our inner cities. Thanks to the actions of some of our policy makers, some of these issues are being addressed now on a crisis basis. Since 2014, one-hundred and forty-one thousand Detroit households have had their water shut off. In an effort to combat COVID-19, Detroit has been restoring water access and there are currently less than 100 houses in Detroit without water. If one-hundred and forty-one thousand homes without water is normal, that is not a normal I want to return to.
And there is a lot of well-deserved praise right now for frontline essential service workers. People like grocery store clerks, restaurant employees, long-range truck drivers, mail carriers, bus drivers, I could go on and on and on. These people are being raised up as heroes, and they are. But it is not enough to call them heroes, if we don’t also acknowledge that they didn’t sign up to be heroes. And some, maybe even many, continue to work out of care for the greater good of all of us, but some are there because they don’t have a choice. Because their families are dependent on the money they bring in, and they don’t have a safety net if that job falls through, or if they get sick, or cannot work. The living wage for one adult in Calhoun County is eleven dollars an hour. That’s one single adult, with no children, no previous debt, no extenuating circumstances, eleven dollars an hour. Let us not forget that many of the heroes in this pandemic are making less than that. That too is not a normal I want to return to.
The promise of Easter, the promise of our faith, dear people of God, is the promise of resurrection. It is the promise that life always follows death, that joy always comes after despair, and that God is always reaching from divinity across to our humanity to be in relationship with us. We are in the gap right now, that liminal space where the future is not yet clear. So let us use this time to dream about what resurrection will look like, how we want to live on the other side of today. Because the gift of this passage is that we have been given the Holy Spirit. How then do we want to transform our future? Amen.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
All the Feels: An Easter Sermon on Matthew 28:1-10
Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
I can’t hear you, obviously. But I wonder if there was the same confused delay that I usually get on Easter when I start my sermon with that call and response. I know it’s because you’re not sure if you’re supposed to respond or if I’m just making a rhetorical statement, but I always wonder if there might be a little hesitation because we’re all not quite sure yet.
Today I admit a similar hesitation, because today just doesn’t quite feel like Easter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to wear slippers to church—and yes, I’m definitely wearing slippers under the table—but this is not where I want to be this Sunday. I want to be in our sanctuary, with you. I want to be just a little bit anxious about having an allergy attack from the overwhelming aroma of lilies, something I now consider a blessing after the year I forgot to water the lilies and we had the saddest Easter display. I want to be full of Doug’s long-awaited donuts and whatever delicious egg bake Eileen made, Doug Markusic’s homemade bread, and Rose’s bunny cake. As an aside, Travis and I did make a bunny cake which we will be enjoying after worship, but Rose’s mold is cuter than my sort of scary bunny drawing.
Mostly, I want to be with you in worship. I want to come into the sanctuary to David playing the organ, and Tish and Jeff and maybe a couple other Anderts on the brass. I want to feel the swell of voices as we sing Jesus Christ is Risen Today! I want to hear the results of the choir’s hard work. When I call out Alleluia, Christ is risen! I want to hear you all boldly chime, Christ is risen, indeed, Alleluia. Because it takes a few tries, but we always get there. Holy week and especially Easter Sunday are very busy times in the life of a pastor, but they also feel the most sacred and the most clear, because I know my role. I know the journey we are going on together, and it is a blessing to travel that road with you.
And at Trinity, there is always another special part of Easter: it always marks the time when the snowbirds start to trickle back in and those who have been in hibernation for the winter start to reappear. I want to see the Eversons back from Arizona and know that the Kolodizieizycks, the Davis’s, and Dorphine will soon be on their way. Things get real quiet around Trinity in February and March, and Easter marks the time when I feel our ministry start to shift towards the summer.
These things are not to be this year. And I’m sad about that. I’m sad, and I don’t know how long it will be until we can regather again. Our governor has extended the Stay Home. Stay Safe. Order through the end of April, and it seems likely that even after that our return to normalcy will be slow. I don’t know when we will be able to be together again.
So I’m sad about that. I’m sad, but I’ve also experienced tremendous joy and blessing in these weird Facebook Live worships. I mentioned Easter marks the time when I start to get excited about seeing people again. But this year thanks to the miracle of technology, I’m getting to worship with all sorts of people I wouldn’t have otherwise. John and Gloria are here, the Eversons, the Davis’s. The Robinsons have been tuning in from Ann Arbor, Maxine’s with us. I know David Herdman’s here, and I found out the Crowes have been tuning in. Great to have you with us again, we’ve missed you! We’ve had St. Peter folk hop over after their service is done. Several of our mission partner congregations are following. A friend from California tunes in to our service before he goes to his own—Hi Jonathan! Doug and Amanda, , and hi Tully and CC, just a few of the cats getting religion these days. I’m sure I missed many others, so know even if you weren’t named, I’m glad you’re here and glad we’re together. And while I am in no way advocating for this being our new normal, man do I love getting to be with you all in this way, especially those of you who I wouldn’t get to be with at all were it not for this strange venue.
It’s complicated knowing how to feel in this Stay Home. Stay Safe. Time. On one hand, I am grateful to have a home, to have a paycheck that keeps coming, to have so much time to spend writing and spend with my cat. And with Travis, but Travis is essential staff and still goes to work every day, so a lot of time it’s just me and Cat. I’m grateful, but I’m also annoyed and scared. Annoyed that things I want to do are being cancelled. I had plans for a June marathon, that’s cancelled. Cheetah Chase, my favorite 5K, was cancelled. Travis and I were supposed to go to Arizona in March, we did not. I miss baseball season and runs with friends and eating at restaurants. And the three things I’ve found I miss the most are the library, bottle return, and green trash pickup. So many sticks with nowhere to go. I’m annoyed, but I’m also scared. As I’ve mentioned, maybe foolishly I’m not terribly concerned about my own health, but I worry a lot about yours. I worry about what could happen if this thing takes off in one of the assisted living communities where we have members. I worry about the effects of isolation on mental health, even for people who don’t get COVID-19. And I worry a lot about the economic effects of the shutdown on the most vulnerable among us. Some are calling this pandemic the great equalizer, but it is not. Already, we’re seeing in Detroit that the ones who face the most risk from the illness itself are also the ones who are losing the most from the shutting down of the economy. Do we stay shut down so that less people die, and destroy the livelihoods of millions of people who are already struggling at the margins, or do we reopen the economy, get those people back to work, and let them, and a whole bunch of other people, including hard-working medical professionals who are putting their lives on the line every single day, die of the coronavirus? I don’t like any of the presented options.
Grateful, annoyed, scared, well-rested, exhausted, bored, overwhelmed, hungry. These are just a few of the emotions I find myself experiencing on any given day, at any given moment. And honestly, all of these put us in good company to understand the Easter story we read this morning. Because we think of Easter as this day of just sheer unadulterated joy. There’s trumpets and lilies, donuts and bunny cakes, a full sanctuary and the thrill of brass and organ, but those things are not how the first Easter was experienced. The first Easter was experienced by women going to a tomb at dawn to sit and mourn their friend. They were not going to anoint his body, and they were definitely not going expecting resurrection. They went only because they did not know what else to do with their grief but to sit outside a closed tomb and weep. They also, I have to imagine, went to find peace. To honor someone who was more than just another victim of Roman oppression, but someone who they have come to know as their teacher, their savior, their Lord. They went as a visible show of defiance, to make it clear to Rome that Rome could kill his body, but it could not kill his message.
And to their great surprise, they were met at the tomb by an earthquake, the stone rolling away, and an angel of the Lord appearing to tell them, “he is not here, for he has been raised.” And when they went to tell the disciples as they had been instructed, the women “left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.”
These women filled with fear and joy went to tell the disciples, who went to Galilee as instructed and met the risen Lord. And the text tells us the disciples too, when they saw Jesus, “worshiped him; but some doubted.” Fear and joy, doubt and worship, these seem like contradictory emotions, but the Easter story tells us they are the exact right responses for resurrection faith. We are a people who cling to the impossible promise that life always follows death, and that in the times when the world feels the most out of control, the most at risk, the most chaotic, those are exactly the moments when God shows up and says, in that phrase that echoes throughout every divine appearance, “do not be afraid.”
And while we’re on the subject of divine messengers and their command to not fear, let us pause for a moment and reflect on what the response to that command is. The person being told not to fear is never like, “thanks, divine glowing being with a face like lightening, you’re right. I should definitely not be afraid of you, you’re not scary at all.” No, right, that person is generally described as still being terrified. And what is the divine being’s response to this fear? They do the thing they came there to do in the first place. There is not a single story in scripture where the divine being leaves because the person they were talking to did not show the correct emotional response to their appearance. It’s almost as if God’s work in the world is actually not dependent on us. As if God is going to show up and be God and do the things God promised to do whether we have the right beliefs, or say the right prayers, or hold the right ideas, or, dare I say, join together in worship in the right ways. The Easter story tells us that God actually just shows up on God’s own, because not even death, especially not death, will keep God from God’s people.
There is a line from the Good Friday service that gets me every year, and it got me again this year, as I sat at this table next to a stack of Harry Potter books and a small porcelain cross, listening to David playing “Were You There” through my tinny computer speakers. The line is this: “We glory in your cross, O Lord, / and we praise your holy resurrection, / for by your cross joy has come into the world.” This is the last line of the procession of the cross, and it always feels like such a strange imposition, talking about joy at the end of Good Friday worship, but that is the strange and beautiful juxtaposition of our faith. We believe, we testify, we cling to the promise that in the darkness of death, in the violence of the cross, in fear is where God shows up to God’s people most poignantly. The Episcopalians have a lock on what I think is the best line of all Christian liturgy. The line is from the Episcopal funeral liturgy and it proudly proclaims, “yet even at the grave we make our song Alleluia.” That right there is the promise of Easter.
So here’s the promise, dear people of God. Here’s the good news. Today is Easter, whether you feel it or not. Whether you believe it or not. What you bring, what you believe, has no bearing on the promise God has for you. Christ has risen, and Christ will keep on rising until the whole world is drawn into the embrace. So bring your fear and your joy, your worship and your doubt, whatever you carry with you this day. For it is the right response to God. Amen.
Today I admit a similar hesitation, because today just doesn’t quite feel like Easter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to wear slippers to church—and yes, I’m definitely wearing slippers under the table—but this is not where I want to be this Sunday. I want to be in our sanctuary, with you. I want to be just a little bit anxious about having an allergy attack from the overwhelming aroma of lilies, something I now consider a blessing after the year I forgot to water the lilies and we had the saddest Easter display. I want to be full of Doug’s long-awaited donuts and whatever delicious egg bake Eileen made, Doug Markusic’s homemade bread, and Rose’s bunny cake. As an aside, Travis and I did make a bunny cake which we will be enjoying after worship, but Rose’s mold is cuter than my sort of scary bunny drawing.
Mostly, I want to be with you in worship. I want to come into the sanctuary to David playing the organ, and Tish and Jeff and maybe a couple other Anderts on the brass. I want to feel the swell of voices as we sing Jesus Christ is Risen Today! I want to hear the results of the choir’s hard work. When I call out Alleluia, Christ is risen! I want to hear you all boldly chime, Christ is risen, indeed, Alleluia. Because it takes a few tries, but we always get there. Holy week and especially Easter Sunday are very busy times in the life of a pastor, but they also feel the most sacred and the most clear, because I know my role. I know the journey we are going on together, and it is a blessing to travel that road with you.
And at Trinity, there is always another special part of Easter: it always marks the time when the snowbirds start to trickle back in and those who have been in hibernation for the winter start to reappear. I want to see the Eversons back from Arizona and know that the Kolodizieizycks, the Davis’s, and Dorphine will soon be on their way. Things get real quiet around Trinity in February and March, and Easter marks the time when I feel our ministry start to shift towards the summer.
These things are not to be this year. And I’m sad about that. I’m sad, and I don’t know how long it will be until we can regather again. Our governor has extended the Stay Home. Stay Safe. Order through the end of April, and it seems likely that even after that our return to normalcy will be slow. I don’t know when we will be able to be together again.
So I’m sad about that. I’m sad, but I’ve also experienced tremendous joy and blessing in these weird Facebook Live worships. I mentioned Easter marks the time when I start to get excited about seeing people again. But this year thanks to the miracle of technology, I’m getting to worship with all sorts of people I wouldn’t have otherwise. John and Gloria are here, the Eversons, the Davis’s. The Robinsons have been tuning in from Ann Arbor, Maxine’s with us. I know David Herdman’s here, and I found out the Crowes have been tuning in. Great to have you with us again, we’ve missed you! We’ve had St. Peter folk hop over after their service is done. Several of our mission partner congregations are following. A friend from California tunes in to our service before he goes to his own—Hi Jonathan! Doug and Amanda, , and hi Tully and CC, just a few of the cats getting religion these days. I’m sure I missed many others, so know even if you weren’t named, I’m glad you’re here and glad we’re together. And while I am in no way advocating for this being our new normal, man do I love getting to be with you all in this way, especially those of you who I wouldn’t get to be with at all were it not for this strange venue.
It’s complicated knowing how to feel in this Stay Home. Stay Safe. Time. On one hand, I am grateful to have a home, to have a paycheck that keeps coming, to have so much time to spend writing and spend with my cat. And with Travis, but Travis is essential staff and still goes to work every day, so a lot of time it’s just me and Cat. I’m grateful, but I’m also annoyed and scared. Annoyed that things I want to do are being cancelled. I had plans for a June marathon, that’s cancelled. Cheetah Chase, my favorite 5K, was cancelled. Travis and I were supposed to go to Arizona in March, we did not. I miss baseball season and runs with friends and eating at restaurants. And the three things I’ve found I miss the most are the library, bottle return, and green trash pickup. So many sticks with nowhere to go. I’m annoyed, but I’m also scared. As I’ve mentioned, maybe foolishly I’m not terribly concerned about my own health, but I worry a lot about yours. I worry about what could happen if this thing takes off in one of the assisted living communities where we have members. I worry about the effects of isolation on mental health, even for people who don’t get COVID-19. And I worry a lot about the economic effects of the shutdown on the most vulnerable among us. Some are calling this pandemic the great equalizer, but it is not. Already, we’re seeing in Detroit that the ones who face the most risk from the illness itself are also the ones who are losing the most from the shutting down of the economy. Do we stay shut down so that less people die, and destroy the livelihoods of millions of people who are already struggling at the margins, or do we reopen the economy, get those people back to work, and let them, and a whole bunch of other people, including hard-working medical professionals who are putting their lives on the line every single day, die of the coronavirus? I don’t like any of the presented options.
Grateful, annoyed, scared, well-rested, exhausted, bored, overwhelmed, hungry. These are just a few of the emotions I find myself experiencing on any given day, at any given moment. And honestly, all of these put us in good company to understand the Easter story we read this morning. Because we think of Easter as this day of just sheer unadulterated joy. There’s trumpets and lilies, donuts and bunny cakes, a full sanctuary and the thrill of brass and organ, but those things are not how the first Easter was experienced. The first Easter was experienced by women going to a tomb at dawn to sit and mourn their friend. They were not going to anoint his body, and they were definitely not going expecting resurrection. They went only because they did not know what else to do with their grief but to sit outside a closed tomb and weep. They also, I have to imagine, went to find peace. To honor someone who was more than just another victim of Roman oppression, but someone who they have come to know as their teacher, their savior, their Lord. They went as a visible show of defiance, to make it clear to Rome that Rome could kill his body, but it could not kill his message.
And to their great surprise, they were met at the tomb by an earthquake, the stone rolling away, and an angel of the Lord appearing to tell them, “he is not here, for he has been raised.” And when they went to tell the disciples as they had been instructed, the women “left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.”
These women filled with fear and joy went to tell the disciples, who went to Galilee as instructed and met the risen Lord. And the text tells us the disciples too, when they saw Jesus, “worshiped him; but some doubted.” Fear and joy, doubt and worship, these seem like contradictory emotions, but the Easter story tells us they are the exact right responses for resurrection faith. We are a people who cling to the impossible promise that life always follows death, and that in the times when the world feels the most out of control, the most at risk, the most chaotic, those are exactly the moments when God shows up and says, in that phrase that echoes throughout every divine appearance, “do not be afraid.”
And while we’re on the subject of divine messengers and their command to not fear, let us pause for a moment and reflect on what the response to that command is. The person being told not to fear is never like, “thanks, divine glowing being with a face like lightening, you’re right. I should definitely not be afraid of you, you’re not scary at all.” No, right, that person is generally described as still being terrified. And what is the divine being’s response to this fear? They do the thing they came there to do in the first place. There is not a single story in scripture where the divine being leaves because the person they were talking to did not show the correct emotional response to their appearance. It’s almost as if God’s work in the world is actually not dependent on us. As if God is going to show up and be God and do the things God promised to do whether we have the right beliefs, or say the right prayers, or hold the right ideas, or, dare I say, join together in worship in the right ways. The Easter story tells us that God actually just shows up on God’s own, because not even death, especially not death, will keep God from God’s people.
There is a line from the Good Friday service that gets me every year, and it got me again this year, as I sat at this table next to a stack of Harry Potter books and a small porcelain cross, listening to David playing “Were You There” through my tinny computer speakers. The line is this: “We glory in your cross, O Lord, / and we praise your holy resurrection, / for by your cross joy has come into the world.” This is the last line of the procession of the cross, and it always feels like such a strange imposition, talking about joy at the end of Good Friday worship, but that is the strange and beautiful juxtaposition of our faith. We believe, we testify, we cling to the promise that in the darkness of death, in the violence of the cross, in fear is where God shows up to God’s people most poignantly. The Episcopalians have a lock on what I think is the best line of all Christian liturgy. The line is from the Episcopal funeral liturgy and it proudly proclaims, “yet even at the grave we make our song Alleluia.” That right there is the promise of Easter.
So here’s the promise, dear people of God. Here’s the good news. Today is Easter, whether you feel it or not. Whether you believe it or not. What you bring, what you believe, has no bearing on the promise God has for you. Christ has risen, and Christ will keep on rising until the whole world is drawn into the embrace. So bring your fear and your joy, your worship and your doubt, whatever you carry with you this day. For it is the right response to God. Amen.
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Jesus is Brave: A Palm Sunday Sermon on Matthew 21:1-17
Happy Palm Sunday! First off, let me just say that making the Palm Sunday procession video was like the most fun thing I’ve done in this Stay Home, Stay Safe time. Thank you to everyone who sent in videos and photos, it was so great to see everyone’s creativity and smiling faces. Or serious faces, some of you are very serious processors. If you missed the chance and still want to participate, I’ll still take videos, photos, whatever. I still have Tish and David’s music, we can make more procession videos.
Since this is not a normal Palm Sunday, I want to break with my own Palm/Passion Sunday tradition, and stay on the palm theme for the service. Some of you may remember from past years, I always want to include the reading of the passion narrative from whatever Gospel we’re in as the Gospel reading for this Sunday. We read the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem in the social hall, then we raise our palms, process into the sanctuary, and then we almost immediately plunge from that into the passion story. The result is on a normal Palm Sunday we’ve gone from All, Glory, Laud, and Honor to the choir singing O Sacred Head, Now Wounded in the span of about forty-five minutes. Which is crazy, but there is on your normal Palm Sunday a method to my madness. Which I’ll share with you now. The reason I have us do that is because I want us to get a sense of just how fast things unraveled at that first Easter. Holy Week is a time so steeped in ritual and tradition, we all know what is going to happen and when and where, that I always want to try on that first day of this most holy week, to remind us of how chaotic it all felt.
But this year, I feel like we aren’t going to need help remembering what chaos feels like. We’ve been feeling chaos every day. All you have to do is turn on the TV or open the paper to see a world that feels like it’s spinning out of control. Michigan reported fifteen-hundred new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday. Which is actually good news, because that’s five hundred less new cases than were reported on Friday. But still fifteen-hundred new cases is a lot of new cases. Michigan also reported sixty deaths yesterday. And on Friday Calhoun County experienced our first death from the illness, a resident of Advantage Living Center on Wagner. Five other residents and four staff members have also tested positive for the virus. And while I don’t know the person, their death hit home for me because I know the Advantage Living Center. It’s been several years since I’ve been there, but Mary lived there for a while, and I visited regularly. I knew the staff; I knew the residents. I forgot the code and got myself locked in the memory care unit more times than I care to admit.
All this to say, we know chaos. We know fear. We will have ample opportunities in the weeks and months to come, to reflect on the experience of the disciples that first Easter morning, locked in an upper room, alone, afraid, grieving, and wondering what was going on. So this morning, rather than rushing to the passion, I want us to spend some time just sitting with the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and reflecting on the tremendous bravery that Jesus displays in this story.
So to set the scene for us a little bit. In Matthew’s account, this was Jesus’ first time in Jerusalem during his public ministry. John, who’s account we’ve been reading throughout Lent, has Jesus back and forth between Galilee and Jerusalem several times over the course of his ministry, but for Matthew this is it. Jesus came to Jerusalem with one specific action in mind, he came to fulfill the words he had spoken about his impending death.
Here’s something else to keep in mind as we read this story about Jesus’ so-called “triumphal entry,” as a Roman occupied territory, the people of Jerusalem were well versed in triumphal entries. Triumphal entries were precisely the tool Rome used to remind the people of Jerusalem that they had been conquered, and Rome had the might to do that again whenever it should so choose. In fact, we know Pilate is in town, since Jesus will meet with him in just a couple days. Pilate was in town because of the Passover. With so many people coming from all over the countryside to gather for the holiday, Rome wanted Pilate, and the show of imperial power and grand imperial procession that accompanied him, to remind the people that Rome was in charge.
So Pilate entered into the city through the main city gates, resplendent in all the pomp and circumstance of the empire, astride a mighty stallion decked out armor. Accompanying Pilate would have been a full regiment of Roman soldiers, parading through streets lined with the wealthy and elite, waving banners and shouting chants of praise and power.
And around this time, some theologians offer even at the same time, a very different parade was taking place as Jesus entered one of the side gates of the city. In contrast to Pilate’s stallion, Jesus was riding “on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” And lining the streets of Jesus’ entry was not the wealthy and powerful. It was the crowds of the poor, the sick, and the hungry who had been journeying with him on the road. This rag-tag bunch of sinners and outcasts did not wave banners or blast trumpets. Instead they cut branches from trees and laid their own cloaks on the ground. They shouted the words of one of the processional psalms that pilgrims had chanted for ages, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Hosanna, save us, this religious “hurrah” is a direct mockery of Pilate’s entrance. Many of you know that snarky flash mob protests are one of my favorite things. This is what that was. This was Jesus and his followers thumbing their nose at the Roman Imperial Army, saying you, Rome, are not in control. You think you are, with your might and your strength, but here is what real kingship looks like. Here is what real power looks like.
And the text tells us that “the whole city was in turmoil” at this action. This word “turmoil” is a great one, because it shows up three other times in Matthew’s Gospel. It was the response of Herod when he heard of Jesus’ birth “and he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.” It was the response of the world when “the earth shook, and the rocks were split” as Jesus “breathed his last.” And it was the response of the guards who “shook and appeared like dead men” at the appearance of an angel announcing Christ’s resurrection. This is a word that encompasses both fear and awe. It is the response of one who has experienced the glory of the almighty, and the mix of wonder and fear that such an encounter holds.
What I love about the upside down nature of this display of power is that it is at its heart so simple. Jesus didn’t perform some great miracle to announce his presence. He didn’t do what was expected of a Messiah and ride in on a stallion, leading a host of armies behind him. The act that announced the event that would upend the entire universe and bring death itself to its knees was a parade of misfits welcoming a dusty preacher precariously balanced on the back of a donkey. Those looking for power in the form of Rome missed the display of the Almighty taking place on the edges.
Dear friends in Christ, what this passage reminded me of this week is that power and bravery do not have to be grand acts. We’re all looking for something to do right now, some way to help. And for many of us, maybe for most of us, the grandest, most noble acts we can do are the simplest. Travis and I stopped by Territorial Brewing Company last week to pick up a growler and support the local economy and I quipped to the bartender about saving the world through takeout. We’d been joking back and forth about his carefully sanitized pens, but at this remark he turned and got serious with me, “you don’t know what you folk stopping in here and buying something means to us. For us, this really matters.” One of my neighbor kids made individually wrapped bags of popcorn with shark facts on them. There was a story on the news last night about the Woolridge neighborhood putting signs in their windows thanking the workers at Bronson Hospital.
And here’s another amazing piece of good news in this text. These crowds who are displaying this incredible act of bravery, who are part of this upending of the forces of death and destruction, they have no idea what they’re doing. They aren’t great superheroes of faith either. They’re people, like you and me. People who we know in just a couple of days are going to totally screw this whole thing up. And yet, that does not stop Jesus from using them to reveal his glory, and from dying for them so that they might live.
So friends, in this Holy Week like you have never experienced before, and in this time like no other, may you be brave. May you revel in the simple acts of bravery that are making such a difference in this time. May you stay home, may you get take out, may you call a lonely neighbor, give a donation to a nonprofit supporting the most vulnerable, take a walk and wave at others—from a safe social distance, of course.
May you be brave, but most importantly, may you be gentle. Know that none of us know how do to this thing well. It’s ok to be scared. It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to be not productive. It’s ok to stay home and watch way too much Netflix. Whatever we do and however we are, none of this stops the promise of this Holy Week. The promise that God is with us, no matter what, not because of who we are and not because of what we do, but simply because that is who God is. Not our mistakes, not our doubts, not even death itself will keep God from God’s people. The first Easter didn’t happen in a church. The first Easter happened when God’s people were scattered, alone, and afraid. God is here, dear people. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Since this is not a normal Palm Sunday, I want to break with my own Palm/Passion Sunday tradition, and stay on the palm theme for the service. Some of you may remember from past years, I always want to include the reading of the passion narrative from whatever Gospel we’re in as the Gospel reading for this Sunday. We read the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem in the social hall, then we raise our palms, process into the sanctuary, and then we almost immediately plunge from that into the passion story. The result is on a normal Palm Sunday we’ve gone from All, Glory, Laud, and Honor to the choir singing O Sacred Head, Now Wounded in the span of about forty-five minutes. Which is crazy, but there is on your normal Palm Sunday a method to my madness. Which I’ll share with you now. The reason I have us do that is because I want us to get a sense of just how fast things unraveled at that first Easter. Holy Week is a time so steeped in ritual and tradition, we all know what is going to happen and when and where, that I always want to try on that first day of this most holy week, to remind us of how chaotic it all felt.
But this year, I feel like we aren’t going to need help remembering what chaos feels like. We’ve been feeling chaos every day. All you have to do is turn on the TV or open the paper to see a world that feels like it’s spinning out of control. Michigan reported fifteen-hundred new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday. Which is actually good news, because that’s five hundred less new cases than were reported on Friday. But still fifteen-hundred new cases is a lot of new cases. Michigan also reported sixty deaths yesterday. And on Friday Calhoun County experienced our first death from the illness, a resident of Advantage Living Center on Wagner. Five other residents and four staff members have also tested positive for the virus. And while I don’t know the person, their death hit home for me because I know the Advantage Living Center. It’s been several years since I’ve been there, but Mary lived there for a while, and I visited regularly. I knew the staff; I knew the residents. I forgot the code and got myself locked in the memory care unit more times than I care to admit.
All this to say, we know chaos. We know fear. We will have ample opportunities in the weeks and months to come, to reflect on the experience of the disciples that first Easter morning, locked in an upper room, alone, afraid, grieving, and wondering what was going on. So this morning, rather than rushing to the passion, I want us to spend some time just sitting with the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and reflecting on the tremendous bravery that Jesus displays in this story.
So to set the scene for us a little bit. In Matthew’s account, this was Jesus’ first time in Jerusalem during his public ministry. John, who’s account we’ve been reading throughout Lent, has Jesus back and forth between Galilee and Jerusalem several times over the course of his ministry, but for Matthew this is it. Jesus came to Jerusalem with one specific action in mind, he came to fulfill the words he had spoken about his impending death.
Here’s something else to keep in mind as we read this story about Jesus’ so-called “triumphal entry,” as a Roman occupied territory, the people of Jerusalem were well versed in triumphal entries. Triumphal entries were precisely the tool Rome used to remind the people of Jerusalem that they had been conquered, and Rome had the might to do that again whenever it should so choose. In fact, we know Pilate is in town, since Jesus will meet with him in just a couple days. Pilate was in town because of the Passover. With so many people coming from all over the countryside to gather for the holiday, Rome wanted Pilate, and the show of imperial power and grand imperial procession that accompanied him, to remind the people that Rome was in charge.
So Pilate entered into the city through the main city gates, resplendent in all the pomp and circumstance of the empire, astride a mighty stallion decked out armor. Accompanying Pilate would have been a full regiment of Roman soldiers, parading through streets lined with the wealthy and elite, waving banners and shouting chants of praise and power.
And around this time, some theologians offer even at the same time, a very different parade was taking place as Jesus entered one of the side gates of the city. In contrast to Pilate’s stallion, Jesus was riding “on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” And lining the streets of Jesus’ entry was not the wealthy and powerful. It was the crowds of the poor, the sick, and the hungry who had been journeying with him on the road. This rag-tag bunch of sinners and outcasts did not wave banners or blast trumpets. Instead they cut branches from trees and laid their own cloaks on the ground. They shouted the words of one of the processional psalms that pilgrims had chanted for ages, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Hosanna, save us, this religious “hurrah” is a direct mockery of Pilate’s entrance. Many of you know that snarky flash mob protests are one of my favorite things. This is what that was. This was Jesus and his followers thumbing their nose at the Roman Imperial Army, saying you, Rome, are not in control. You think you are, with your might and your strength, but here is what real kingship looks like. Here is what real power looks like.
And the text tells us that “the whole city was in turmoil” at this action. This word “turmoil” is a great one, because it shows up three other times in Matthew’s Gospel. It was the response of Herod when he heard of Jesus’ birth “and he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.” It was the response of the world when “the earth shook, and the rocks were split” as Jesus “breathed his last.” And it was the response of the guards who “shook and appeared like dead men” at the appearance of an angel announcing Christ’s resurrection. This is a word that encompasses both fear and awe. It is the response of one who has experienced the glory of the almighty, and the mix of wonder and fear that such an encounter holds.
What I love about the upside down nature of this display of power is that it is at its heart so simple. Jesus didn’t perform some great miracle to announce his presence. He didn’t do what was expected of a Messiah and ride in on a stallion, leading a host of armies behind him. The act that announced the event that would upend the entire universe and bring death itself to its knees was a parade of misfits welcoming a dusty preacher precariously balanced on the back of a donkey. Those looking for power in the form of Rome missed the display of the Almighty taking place on the edges.
Dear friends in Christ, what this passage reminded me of this week is that power and bravery do not have to be grand acts. We’re all looking for something to do right now, some way to help. And for many of us, maybe for most of us, the grandest, most noble acts we can do are the simplest. Travis and I stopped by Territorial Brewing Company last week to pick up a growler and support the local economy and I quipped to the bartender about saving the world through takeout. We’d been joking back and forth about his carefully sanitized pens, but at this remark he turned and got serious with me, “you don’t know what you folk stopping in here and buying something means to us. For us, this really matters.” One of my neighbor kids made individually wrapped bags of popcorn with shark facts on them. There was a story on the news last night about the Woolridge neighborhood putting signs in their windows thanking the workers at Bronson Hospital.
And here’s another amazing piece of good news in this text. These crowds who are displaying this incredible act of bravery, who are part of this upending of the forces of death and destruction, they have no idea what they’re doing. They aren’t great superheroes of faith either. They’re people, like you and me. People who we know in just a couple of days are going to totally screw this whole thing up. And yet, that does not stop Jesus from using them to reveal his glory, and from dying for them so that they might live.
So friends, in this Holy Week like you have never experienced before, and in this time like no other, may you be brave. May you revel in the simple acts of bravery that are making such a difference in this time. May you stay home, may you get take out, may you call a lonely neighbor, give a donation to a nonprofit supporting the most vulnerable, take a walk and wave at others—from a safe social distance, of course.
May you be brave, but most importantly, may you be gentle. Know that none of us know how do to this thing well. It’s ok to be scared. It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to be not productive. It’s ok to stay home and watch way too much Netflix. Whatever we do and however we are, none of this stops the promise of this Holy Week. The promise that God is with us, no matter what, not because of who we are and not because of what we do, but simply because that is who God is. Not our mistakes, not our doubts, not even death itself will keep God from God’s people. The first Easter didn’t happen in a church. The first Easter happened when God’s people were scattered, alone, and afraid. God is here, dear people. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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