Category Archives: Mark

Why are you Eating? (Sermon 8/12)

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1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51
            My best friend and I are what you might call “eating friends”. She lives in Pennsylvania, but when we know we are going to get together- we immediately start making a list of restaurants in the area in which we will be. We make choices about which days to eat the big breakfast, lunch, OR dinner. We also have foods we both buy or bring, only on trips, because they are our vacation foods and because we enjoy eating them together. For us, the experience of eating together is a fun part of our relationship and our memories of things we have done together. (For the record, we do things other than eat. I think.)
            What are some of the reasons we eat? We eat for pleasure. We eat because it’s time. We eat because we’re hungry. Anyone who has worked at losing weight knows that it’s easy to fall into the trap of eating because you’re lonely, bored, or sad. We eat when we’re celebrating and when we’re grieving. But when it comes down to it, we eat to stay alive. We eat because without eating, we cannot function.
            So, we understand that while we often have many, sometimes overlapping reasons for eating, there is one basic reason why we eat- to stay alive. So here’s my follow-up question to that: why do we trust in Jesus? What are some of the reasons why we put our faith in Jesus, a Jewish man of two centuries ago, who some say was the Messiah of God?
            We may have faith in Jesus the Christ because of some experience- internal or external. We may trust in our tradition and the tradition of our families, a part of which is belief in Jesus. We may still be questioning in our hearts, but feel that Jesus is the best bet for an anchor in a rocky sea. We may be seeking our best life now and a great return for bread cast out upon the waters. Of all these reasons, when it comes down to it, why do we believe in Jesus?
            We want eternal life.
We want eternal life. We want to stay alive. We want heaven. We want the reunion with those who have gone before us. In a way that is beyond our imagination, we want the banquet and the rejoicing and the tree of life and city beyond imagination and the parade of nations and the drying of all tears and abounding joy. We eat to stay alive and, often, (more often than not) we look to Jesus as our ticket to doing the exact same thing. We treat the bread of life like a ticket to heaven. We look at the table as a foretaste of the feast to come and, when it doesn’t turn to ashes in our mouths, we see it as insurance and assurance that we will be at that feast.
            But the life of faith is so much more than that. More importantly, Jesus is so much more than a ticket to ride or insurance toward immortality. In today’s readings, God’s story unfolds to help us understand that bread of heaven (and bread from heaven) is for the life of the world, eternally. Which is wholly different than being for eternal life.
            When Elijah is fleeing from Jezebel (the actions preceding today’s excerpt), he travels to the end of the known world and then goes one more day- just to be on the safe side. He’s ready to die. He wants to die. God sends a messenger to Elijah, bringing him food and telling him to eat. Why does Elijah  need to eat? Because his work is not done. He has to eat for life- his own life and for the life of God’s word in the world. As a prophet, his work of speaking truth, of revealing God’s power, of bringing hope to God’s people is not yet over. Thus he receives bread for the journey because it is not time for him to die. Elijah receives bread from heaven, the bread of life, for his life here on earth (and for the other lives whom he encounters as well).
            When the crowds gather around Jesus, they grumble about what he has to say- even though he’s fed them, healed them, and generally amazed them. Still, they know his people, they’ve seen his followers, they know he sleeps and has physical needs. What’s this about heaven? Yet, he tells them the One who has come from God is the bread of life. The bread of life comes for the life of the world. Jesus explains that the bread of life feeds us for eternal life and for life right now.
            Like the crowds, we do not always like that “life right now” part. What does that look like? The writer of Ephesians says it is a life of uplifting speech (no slander, no backbiting), a life of kindness and gentleness, a life of forgiveness and imitation of Christ. Would this be the same Christ who gave up his life for the sake of the world? Are we supposed to imitate that Christ?
            That’s where our experience of Jesus gets tough- where we’d rather think about eternal life, than what’s happening right here and now. When the imitation of Christ means loving our enemies, not the ones far way, but the ones next to us, the ones who we see in the grocery store, at the family reunion, at the communion rail… When the imitation of Christ means trying something new and uncertain… When the imitation of Christ means admitting that you’re not, that we’re not in control… When the imitation of Christ means living by faith, and faith alone… all of that makes the bread of life seem a little dry and to catch in our throats.
            Eternal life, whatever it is like, will be fantastic. But we are here now. The bread of life… the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we experience in communion, in Word, and in community… this bread of life is food for this journey, nourishment so that we can live, sustenance so that we can live right now, provisions so that we can live right now for the sake of the world. Fuel for the imitation of Christ.
            Our faith is not a retirement plan. It is not a moral system that we use for guidance on occasion. We have been given the gift of faith, so that the world might know the joy of salvation, the salvation that has come through Jesus the Christ. We have been baptized into God’s history for the life of the world, the life of the world right now. We are fed- as a community and as individuals- in communion and in prayer- through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are fed so that we can stay alive. Alive in faith. Alive in Christ. Alive to do the work to which we have been called and to which we are being led.
            We are eating friends, food friends, bread sharers. Being fed from heaven right now- for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the world.
Amen. 

The Bondage of Memory (Sermon 8/5)

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Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; John 6:24-35
            Every four years, I have a little jealous streak that rears its head. It’s not because I wish I had put more effort into being an Olympic athlete, though I am admittedly envious of their skills. The little green monster that peeks out dates way back to my childhood when, looking at a poster in the hallway of my house, I realized there were no women presidents. Immediately, I wanted to be one. The presidency became my goal. In high school, I pursued a lot of avenues that were open for politically inclined students. I was voted most likely to succeed and most likely to become President. So every four years, I feel a little nostalgia that it is not going to happen.
            At some point, I realized this was not the path for me. I do not mean a path that was not open to me- I mean not the best one for me. In order to move on to places and things that were better suited for my skills, I had to let the dream of being president die. Yet, the ghost of that dream occasionally haunts me.
            In today’s readings, people are having a hard time letting their dreams die. The Israelites likely dreamt of freedom each night they were in Egypt and, to be sure, it did not look like this wandering in the desert, uncertain, hot, and wistful, even, for the food of Egypt (tinged with the poison of slavery, though it was). They are in bondage to their memory, unable to be thankful to the God who has brought them thus far.
            Their memories will neither allow them to let go of what they thought freedom would be like nor will their memories recall the truth of what life in Egypt truly was. Their memories are holding them back from seeing God’s actions right in front of them- the actions that are bringing them life.
            The people gathered around Jesus in today’s gospel, both Jews and Gentiles, are not able to see who he really is. Their memories are fixated in two directions as well. On the one hand, they are clearly remembering the many baskets of leftover food after an entire crowd ate their fill. On the other hand, they are remembering what has always been promised about the Messiah of God and what his advent will bring. Obsessed with the signs they’ve witnessed, they crowd Jesus- unable or unwilling to hear what he is saying about belief in God and what truly sustains life.
            Their memories will not allow them to see past the obviousness of the miracles nor will it allow them to let go of the messiah of their minds. Their memories are holding them back from seeing God’s actions right in front of them- the actions that are offering them life.
            We too can be in bondage to our memories. Not just to what we once thought we might have been personally, but in many directions. We can hold ourselves captive by society’s standards or the expectations of those we hold dear. We may be enslaved by the memories of our own beliefs about ourselves, our work, our families- what they were going to be, what they could be if we just made a few changes.
            As a church family, we can be in bondage to our memories of what we think we our best times. We can long for the leeks and cucumbers of days gone by, forgetting the work that went with those meals. As part of the church universal, we can hold so tightly to our memories of what we believed would happen when we nailed the theses to the door, ordained women, become more welcoming… that we are devastated by events that do not live up to the expectation of our memories.
            I’m not talking about our memories of people we have loved or times that we appreciated- those are gifts from God that we’re able to recognize. But the memories of what we thought would be… Our communities, our homes, ourselves… can be held back by what we once believed would be our future. When this happens, and it does, we often grieve for what might have been- without taking stock in what is. Our memorial grief can hold us back from seeing God’s actions right in front of us- the actions that are offering us life.
            When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life”- it’s not about food for the stomach. When God provides manna in the wilderness, it’s not about keeping the Israelites alive for another day. It’s about the present… and the presence. About the relating… and the relationship. The reality of the spiritual strength that is offered to us through Jesus, by the work of the Spirit… that reality is so that we can live, right now. So that we can believe that God is with us, right now. So that we can grow into our potential as God’s beloved, right now. 
            Part of the work to which we are called letting go of the idols of our memories, breaking the bonds of what we thought would be, and helping our neighbors to do the same. We have a very real present in which to live, a very Real Presence that feeds and sustains us. In order to appreciate these gifts and their accompaniments, forgiveness, reconciliation, hope, we have to be willing to be open to the immediate work of the Spirit. We have to accept that God is still speaking. We have to expect that Christ will feed us. We must believe that what God is doing, right now, in our lives and in the world, is greater than what we could have expected or dreamed.
            And then we find ourselves released from the bondage of our memories, false as they were. And we find ourselves in a gracious present, lacking nothing, equipped and energized to carry the bread of life into the world. Whether we are Olympian, pastor, lawyer, teacher, accountant, retiree, homebody, or president. 

It’s A Mystery (Sermon, 6/17)

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2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34
            When I was back on the East Coast a couple weeks ago, I went to visit my maternal grandparents’ grave. I went by myself and took flowers and water. I brushed off the stone, pulled the dead grass from around the edges, and then sat for a while and talked. My grandfather has been dead for just over eight years and my grandmother, for not quite four.
            I miss them frequently. When I was sitting at their graveside and talking to them through my tears, I kept thinking about what I was doing. If I believe they are resting here until the last days, why have I occasionally perceived them with me? Or if I believe that they are now in the presence of God, why is it so much more meaningful to be here in the place where I last saw their bodies?
            Somewhere in the mix of experience and emotion, in the tangle of reason and hope, somehow I hold to be true that my grandparents are resting in God, cheering me on, and waiting with all until the time of judgment. Yes, I realize some of those things seem contradictory, but they are all part of the presentation we receive in the written Scriptures about the life after death.
            Paul exhibits that same mix of future hopes in the passage from 2 Corinthians that we read today. 2nd Corinthians is pieced together from at least four or five letters that Paul wrote to the community at Corinth. If you read it straight through, it feels a little disjointed and Paul’s emotions and examples seem all over the map. In this section, he’s talking about how God calls the faithful into different kinds of ministries. That sounds like familiar Pauline stuff- the different gifts or different members of the body.
            He is also saying that all people receive help, through the Spirit, for the ministry of hardship and the ministry of reconciliation. Regardless of what your other gifts may be, Corinthians or Anchorage-ites, you will come to learn that there is struggle in the life of faith, but that you are never alone in that struggle (ministry of hardship). As we are learning to live and to die in and with Christ, we are also equipped for and brought into the work of sharing his message with those around us (ministry of reconciliation).
            Paul is writing so vigorously about these things that he points that out that he only sounds sane when he’s making the effort to talk to people. Usually, he’s just crazy for God. (“If we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right minds, it is for you.”) As Paul writes furiously, he comments, “while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.”  What is Paul saying about the body here? And about when we return to Christ?
            When Paul talks about the body as treasure in clay jars or that being in the body means being away from the Lord, he is notlamenting that somehow our physical existence separates us from God or from God’s love in Christ. (Think Romans 8:36-38.) Paul does not believe in the immortality of the soul without the body. In the same way that he trusts in God’s resurrection of Jesus in the body, Paul trusts that this will happen to all those whom God has redeemed through Jesus.
            The struggle for Paul, in part, is that the degradation of the body in this life makes it hard for us to do all the work to which we have been called. By the time Paul is writing his 8th, 9th, 10thletters to the Corinthians, he’s older. He’s been beaten and jailed. Things are not quite as easy as they were. While this might not take a toll on the faith of his heart, the literal walk of faith has become more of a stretch for him. Paul laments to the Corinthians that the breakdown of our physical bodies in this life can make it hard to perceive or to dare to hope for (or to desire) their resurrection in the next.
            The other issue is that Paul expresses here, in one sense, the expectation that the dead are immediately in the presence of the Lord. This is an immediate hope. Elsewhere, in Philippians and in other letters to Corinth, the judgment and the life eternal are far off- a future hope. When we combine Paul’s own lack of timeline with other parts of the Bible, we can have a confusing landscape of expectations. Hebrews talks about the cloud of witnesses who are cheering us on in our race. Revelation talks both about the saints who are already around the throne and the judgment that is to come. Part of understanding what Scripture says about the life of the world to come is to consider who is writing about it and what their purposes are. The separate books and authors that make up the Bible are working together with Spirit to assure us, regardless of details, that our life begun in God remains in God forever. But the mechanics of what happens after what we know for sure are a mystery.
            This is part of the ministry of reconciliation that Paul talks about and to which we are called. The love of Christ urges on to this work- to loving and serving our neighbors, not to insure our future, but because we trust that it has been insured by work that is not our own.
            That’s the heart of the parable from Mark that Jesus spoke to his disciples. The sowing, the growth, the harvest is not ours. We’ve been called into the work, but the success of the kingdom is God’s work and God’s secret work. What we are called to do is obvious. What God does is mysterious. We have to learn to live with the mystery, the parable, and to let it go enough so that we can do the obvious to which we are called. If we refrain from feeding, from visiting, from healing, from teaching, from companioning until we understand everything… nothing will ever get done. The tasks we have from Jesus are plain; everything else is a mystery.
            This mystery is most certainly true about the life that is to come. I had a professor in seminary whose his first wife died of cancer when they were both young. When I talked with him about grief I was experiencing, he was very helpful. He also emphasized what we know and what we don’t. He talked about how he wished both of his wives knew each other, though he knew that was not possible right now. He also talked about wanting to know that his first wife was happy for him. He noted, to me, that he did not know that she wasn’t.
 All of my grandparents are dead. I wish that they could see Daniel, my son, and know what he’s like and how he’s growing. But I don’t know that they don’t know. I hear them speak to me sometimes. Maybe it’s that I really want to. Maybe it’s because they are encouraging me or advising me.
I have no idea what comes next. All I know is what I believe is true and I believe what Jesus says is true, not because I want immortality, but  because of what I have experienced and encountered through reason and Scripture through the Spirit. That God sees all people through the eyes of Christ and that we am called to do this too. That this is the life in which I am in now, and you too, and whatever comes next is beyond my control (and yours). That I have body that’s not what it once was, but is also not what it will be. That there is a new creation since the resurrection- a creation of reconciliation, healing, and hope unlike any other.
And in the mystery that is the new creation, we all (even the pastor) walk by faith, and not by sight.
Now, but not forever.
And we do not walk alone.
Amen.
           
            

A Moveable Feast (Second Easter Service)

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Mark 16:1-8
            Do you know why the date of Easter changes? It has to do with the cycle of the moon and the church calendar. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. For the most part that means Easter falls somewhere between March 22 and April 25. Of course, and this is one of the best parts, the churches that use this date for Easter have what’s known as an “ecclesiastical calendar”, meaning the church occasionally has slightly different lunar dates than the astronomical calendar, kept by, well, astronomers. But for the most part, the formula has held true since 325 A.D. (for churches using the Gregorian calendar).
            Easter has earned a special name, since it does not have a fixed date. It is referred to as a moveable feast. Moveable feast. And all the dates that are coordinated with Easter’s date are also moveable feasts: Transfiguration, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Ascension, Pentecost, and Holy Trinity Sunday. All moveable feasts because their celebration is always a given number of days from Easter. (For example, Ash Wednesday is always the Wednesday before the sixth Sunday ahead of Easter.)
            Why am I talking so much about calendars? It’s actually not the calendar part I care about. It’s the name: moveable feast. It sounds like a picnic on the go, something that comes with us, that we can carry, that carries us. A moveable feast sounds like a banquet, a glorious table spread with all kinds of amazing foods. But when you’ve been really hungry or exhausted, a moveable feast is a shared crust of bread and the slug of liquid that makes you feel like you can keep going. Easter is both of these kinds of feasts.
            Mary Magdalene, Mary- the mother of James, and Salome were not in a feasting mood as they headed toward the tomb for that first sunrise service, a service of laying on of hands and prayer. They probably ate very little the day before, since it was the Sabbath and because they were probably still stunned from the crucifixion. At some point during that day, each of them quietly set aside ointments, cloths, spices in a little basket. Not a feast, just little odds and ends to tend Jesus’ body, to mend it, to commend it to God through washing and prayer. Tears pouring down their faces, they crept out of their houses at first light, before their families were awakened. Instructions were given to oldest daughters and daughters-in-law about the morning meal. And then the quiet slap of sandals on hardened dirt streets.
            The mother of James probably thought she was the only one, until Salome hurried to catch up to her. They both saw the figure of Mary Magdalene ahead of them and scurried to be by the side of that beloved apostle on the way. Still stunned by how abruptly it had all ended, the ringing of the hammer on the nails in their minds… the feel of Jesus’ body gone cold as they laid it in the tomb… the confusion as to where the disciples had gone… was it true about Judas… how will they move the stone. It was all too much. These women were not ready for a feast of any kind.
            But, ready or not, they arrived to hear of resurrection. They come with one task in mind, if they can accomplish it. That task proves worthless, all their planning, their grieved collection of materials. The task they came to do is moot and they are given another task, but it’s too much to absorb. We want to imagine them leaping in excitement and leaving the symbols of sorrow in their wake, a trail of spices, cloths, and broken perfume bottles leading to the empty tomb.
            They are stunned and afraid. What if this is a trick? What if Jesus’ body has been stolen? Do they go tell the apostles, who will doubtless come to the same conclusion and, possibly, accuse the women of knowing what happened? What do they do? Only minutes before they had a momentous task, honoring the body of Jesus. Now they have a different, monumental task… becoming the body of Christ. Carrying words as a balm, hope as the fragrance, faith as a spice. They nibble at the edges of this feast, easing the hunger of their grief.
            Why does the angel tell them to go his disciples and Peter? Is it because Peter is special, is elevated, or because Peter denied Jesus and it’s important to express plainly that he is still in the fold. He is still a sheep of Jesus’ own flock, a lamb of God’s own fold, a sinner who has now been redeemed. The messenger is clarifying for the women that there are no side tables at God’s feast, no people who wait for scraps in the kitchen, no one who will be turned away from the banquet of resurrection. Even Peter has a place at the Easter feast, when it reaches him through the witness of the women.
            That’s the thing about a moveable feast. It comes whether you’re ready or not. Whether you are in your own extended Lenten season, wrestling with crucifixion, lying in the tomb- unable to rise, the moveable feast comes. A moveable feast offers us hope until we can taste joy. A moveable feast offers expectation until we can drink from faith. A moveable feast fills us with courage until we are stuffed from encounter.
             
            Easter is the moveable feast that brings us the food for our souls when we need it and when we can receive it. Sometimes in April. Sometimes in September. Sometimes in December and January. The news of resurrection comes to us in our deep hunger and edges us into fullness, into renewal, into strength.
            Who would believe the story of three women who say they saw a heavenly messenger at the empty tomb of an itinerant preacher from the backwater of Nazareth? Who will listen to that story? Who will take their word?
            People who are hungry for forgiveness. People who thirst to believe God is still acting in the world. People who believe in the possibility of redemption. People who crave justice and peace. People smell the scent of equality and long to have their fill. People who have tasted of true freedom and want to revel in it again. That’s who will listen to their story. That’s who will believe them. People who are hungry for the feast of Easter. Hungry for it on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Hungry for it on the day after. And after that. And after that.
            Do you dare to believe that this is a moveable feast for you? That is for the person beside you and beside them? That this feast has moved from an empty tomb to Galilee to Judea to all of Palestine to the entire world? Do we dare to speak up and say this is a feast to which everyone is invited?
            Our hymns and our words mainly speak of Easter joy, but that first Easter (and maybe every one since) wasn’t about joy. It was about hope. The hope in the truth of the resurrection. The hope in the triumph of the God of life over the power of death. The hope of grace and forgiveness and the family of God. You may not always feel like feasting on first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, but we can believe the feast is there.
The moveable feast of resurrection, of Easter is bound human limitations, then or now.
When is resurrection?
When is Easter?
Thanks be to God that the moveable feast of Easter is always right when the world needs it to be.
Amen. 

Ready or Not, Resurrection (Early Easter Service)

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Mark 16:1-8
            What happens when you’re not in the mood for Easter? What if the smells are too strong, the colors too bright, the alleluias too loud? We are all a little used to people talking about not feeling the Christmas spirit, but who doesn’t want new life… who doesn’t thrill at the sound of the trumpet… who isn’t ready for resurrection?
            Sometimes our own Lent goes on beyond forty days. Sometimes, in our own lives, our own passion story, our own feeling of crucifixion… exposure and abandonment… is not over in a week or three days. Sometimes resurrection comes, but we are not ready to get up. We are not ready to tell the story.
            The women heading toward the tomb for that first sunrise service, a service of laying on of hands and prayer… those women were not prepared for resurrection. They may have spent the whole day before, the Sabbath day, longing to be at the tomb. Maybe it was too far too walk for the Sabbath or perhaps the work was not permitted. So each of them quietly set aside ointments, cloths, spices in a little basket. Tears pouring down their faces, they crept out of their houses at first light, before their families were awakened. Instructions were given to oldest daughters and daughters-in-law about the morning meal. And then the quiet slap of sandals on hardened dirt streets.
            The mother of James probably thought she was the only one, until Salome hurried to catch up to her. They both saw the figure of Mary Magdalene ahead of them and scurried to be by the side of that beloved apostle on the way. Still stunned by how abruptly it had all ended, the ringing of the hammer on the nails in their minds… the feel of Jesus’ body gone cold as they laid it in the tomb… the confusion as to where the disciples had gone… was it true about Judas… how will they move the stone. It was all too much. These women were not ready for resurrection.
            But, ready or not, they arrived to hear of resurrection. They come with one task in mind, if they can accomplish it. That task proves worthless, all their planning, their grieved collection of materials. The task they came to do is moot and they are given another task, but it’s too much to absorb. We want to imagine them leaping in excitement and leaving the symbols of sorrow in their wake, a trail of spices, cloths, and broken perfume bottles leading to the empty tomb.
            They are stunned and afraid. What if this is a trick? What if Jesus’ body has been stolen? Do they go tell the apostles, who will doubtless come to the same conclusion and, possibly, accuse the women of knowing what happened? What do they do? Only minutes before they had a momentous task, honoring the body of Jesus. Now they have a different, monumental task… becoming the body of Christ. Carrying words as a balm, hope as the fragrance, faith as a spice.
            Did they go to the disciples right away? Did they make a plan to meet later in the week and talk about what happened? Did they return to their respective houses, already moving with morning activity, and slip back into their routines, knowing things were different, but unsure how to put that difference into words?
            Knowing things are different, but unsure how to put that difference into words is the Easter story for most of us. Sometimes we receive the news of resurrection, but we’re trying to understand how it applies to us. How it makes us free. How it brings us restoration, hope, and faith.
            Stories of grief have to be repeated until understanding comes, until relief arrives, until a light shines in the darkness. The women probably met again… maybe that afternoon, maybe a few days later. They had to get ready for resurrection. Because it happened when they were unprepared. It happens in the same way to us.
            Whatever our state of belief, of grief, of celebration, Christ’s resurrection comes to us, comes to all creation, whether we are ready or not. And here’s the good news about resurrection… we cannot stop it, we cannot slow its work, we will not stem its grace or welcome. Ready or not, we have been swept into the stream of Easter hope. The Spirit keeps us floating until we are ready to swim.
           
Easter is here, but resurrection is still coming, still washing over us, still be absorbed in us so that, like the women at the tomb, we too may take on the task of telling the story and becoming the body of Christ.
Amen.

Hosanna! Save Us! (Sermon, Palm Sunday)

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The premise of this sermon begins with the fact that the service was “backwards” for April Fools Day. We began with a benediction, flowed to communion, back through the service, concluding with confession. 

Mark 11:1-10
            How do I give a sermon backwards or upside down? Do I begin with the point I would close with and close with a pointed story? I’m not sure. On the best days, the Spirit works through the sermon to give us the food for thought and the faith that brings us to the table to receive, and commune with, the presence of Christ. Since we communed first today, I’m trusting that the communion that is in us and among us… is also opening us up to a new way of looking at this holy Sunday… Palm Sunday.
            Today’s gospel lesson is usually called the “Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem”. What makes it triumphant?
–       The people greeting Jesus?
–       Like a parade?
–       Treating him like a king?
The crowd is shouting, “Hosanna! Hosanna!” What does that mean? Hosanna is actually a very April Fools kind of cry. It sounds happy, but it isn’t.  It doesn’t mean “Hooray” or “Cheers” or anything we could imagine yelling in a parade. Hosanna, in both Hebrew and the equivalent Greek, means “help us” or “save us”. So people are waving leafy branches and calling for Jesus to help and save them. They are expecting salvation from Roman oppression, from physical ailments, from the unbalanced temple system of the time.
Sometimes when we see pictures of Jesus riding on the colt, he looks like he has indigestion. It’s a strange look for someone who is receiving a parade in his honor, but it’s not so strange if we think about the message Jesus has been preaching and the upside and backwards expectations people have of him.
            Speaking of the colt, why do you think Jesus’ parade vehicle was a “colt that had never been ridden”? That probably wasn’t the smoothest ride he could have found. Many people point to a verse from the prophet Zechariah, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion.  Sing aloud, Daughter Jerusalem. Look, your king will come to you. He is righteous and victorious. He is humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the offspring of a donkey.” (Zech. 9:9) Jesus knew his Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures, and he could have been fulfilling this.
            Yet, there’s something a little further back that might also be a factor and goes hand-in-hand with the understanding of Jesus as a very different kind of king. When Solomon was crowned king, he rode to his anointing on his father David’s mule. (1 Kings 1:38-39) This symbolized Solomon’s succession to his father’s throne. Very frequently when new kings take over, they do so by re-fitting or re-claiming the symbols, possessions, wives, and residences of their predecessors- as if to clearly establish who is king now and who is not. People are greeting Jesus as a king in the line of David, but is he? Is it possible to be in the family of David, but to be a king in an entirely different way?
            Jesus rides on… a colt that has never had a rider. He’s coming into a kingship that has no predecessor. What did we sing this morning: “His is no earthly kingdom, he comes from heaven above. His rule is peace and freedom, and justice, truth, and love.” (Prepare the Royal Highway) By riding a colt with no previous rider, Jesus is revealing, perhaps too subtly, that what he brings is very different from what previous rulers have offered.
            Yet the crowds miss that. Most of the disciples don’t understand it. They’re too busy calling for salvation and they know exactly what they want that to look like.
            They know exactly what they want salvation to look like.
            April fools.
            This is one of the challenges of Holy Week- letting go of what we want salvation to be and allowing ourselves to be open to what it is. On Wednesday night, a few of us talked about the favorite moments of the week. It came up that Easter is supposed to help us not to be afraid of death. Someone responded, “I’m not afraid of death. It’s the dying part that I don’t like.”
            That’s so true for most of us. It’s the dying that we’re afraid of. And Holy Week has a lot of dying. The recollection of betrayal and false accusation and crucifixion causes us to tremble, but the dying begins here- with the palms in our hands. Dying well takes honesty. How honest are we ready to be?
            Are we prepared to be honest with the emotions we feel this week? The discomfort at being touched? The uncertainty at the story of the crucifixion? The sense of being overwhelmed or underwhelmed by a story that’s been told many times? Are we will to be honest that Jesus isn’t the king we’re expecting and sometimes we don’t like that?
            Are we prepared to die to the notion that our goodness, our right behavior, can save us or make us right with God? Are we prepared to be honest that we don’t always look for Jesus in other people and we do not always let people see Jesus in us? In this Holy Week, are we prepared to die, within ourselves and in our actions, to our prejudices, to our blind spots, to our fears, to our insecurities? Are we prepared to crucify injustice, anger, judgment, and mistrust? Are we prepared to cry, “Hosanna to the King of Kings”, and mean it? To mean, “Save us, Jesus, save us from ourselves, from our possessions, from our efforts to control.”
            Something must die to make way for rebirth. And the dying is scary. But this week is all about dying… in particular, dying so that we might live
           
            Who can help us with that? To whom shall we cry, “Hosanna! Save us!”?
The Jesus who came to us at the table… the Jesus whose death brings the possibility of resurrection… and resurrection brings the promise of new life.
            Are you ready for Holy Week? Are you ready to remember? Can you be open to the dying that makes way for new life? Are we prepared to ponder the different kind of king that Jesus is and the different kind of life to which we are called… or will we hold back… hold back and have the joke be on us?
            Jesus, you are king forever. We would never betray you or your call to us. April Fools.
           
Hosanna. Hosanna. Hosanna.
Amen.
             

Theology of the Cross (Sermon 3/18)

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Lent 4 (Narrative Lectionary, Year B)
Mark 12:38-44
            I like to start sermons with a story. I feel like a story helps us to get into the groove of listening and pondering what’s happening in the Scripture reading. The story is like a little bridge that we cross over into history and that history crosses over to meet us.
            However, in order to be true to the gospel of Christ according to Mark, today’s passage does not lend itself to a good story, to a catchy story, to a story that I want to remember and to tell. In Luke, the widow with her two coins is the hero of the story. In Luke’s account of this story, Jesus praises the woman for giving her last two coins. For generations, she has been upheld as the model of sacrificial giving for the cause of the church.
            For Mark, the woman is symbolic, too. But she doesn’t represent sacrificial giving. Instead, in Mark’s gospel, the woman is a sacrificial lamb, preyed upon by greedy church leaders who posture at showy displays of piety, but in truth consume the goods of the poor, down to their last coins and then their houses.  Mark’s version of this story puts me in mind of all of church history, the bad parts, not a story I want to open with today.
            In 70 A.D., the temple in Jerusalem is destroyed. This is the second temple. The first temple is built under Solomon’s direction, with the conscripted labor of the Israelites. (Conscripted labor is a fancy phrase for slavery.) When it is destroyed and the people of Israel are held captive in Babylon, there is a deep longing for a place to connect with God. After the time of captivity, the second temple is built with money from Cyrus the Great. No matter how great he was, no matter how respectful of Hebrew history, Cyrus is Persian. This is not a king of Israel.
            The building project that is begun by Cyrus continues until it is finished under Herod the Great. By now, the structure of worship life in the temple is strictly monitored. Animals must be bought from the temple. Money has to be changed to temple coinage. The scribes and temple leaders demand, in the name of God, offerings for all kinds of sins. The cost of living righteously keeps many people in a cycle of poverty.
            Many people, regular people, probably have a deep sense of ambivalence about the temple because of this history. The building itself, the worship inside, the people who run the show. Yet it is also the place where people have felt close to God, where they have had deeply moving moments in their hearts or with members of their family, it is a place that is connected with hope, a future, and promises. This is what the woman believes she is giving her last two coins, too. So that someone else may have what she has experienced.
            Mark is trying to convey all of this in his story, in this fleeting description of Jesus and the disciples witnessing temple life. If Mark is writing before the temple falls, he is trying to remind people of what the story of the building is and of what Jesus said it would be, should be. If Mark is writing after the temple has fallen, he is trying to remind people of the corruption that was and the wholeness that can be.
            What Mark is conveying, what Jesus is showing, what the widow remembers is the best of what a community of faith can be. The truth that is revealed to and through a community of faith comes via the story that it tells. Is it a story of obvious glory, of fancy structures, of powerful leaders, of devouring the houses of widows for the sake of show? Or is the story of glory in the cross, of welcome and consolation, of quiet conversations, food and fellowship, support, and making ends meet?
            It’s amazing to me, though it shouldn’t be, that church history is filled with this story repeating over and over again. The story of people whose power or position went to their head and they began to build towers, cathedrals, and cities. They expected their influence to last forever. It didn’t and it can’t.
            We can’t hold the earthly idea of power, the idea that the scribes and so many since them have had… we can’t hold that idea and, at the same time, say that we trust God-in-Jesus who noticed the widow, who called unschooled fishermen, who spoke with isolated women, who healed lepers, who blessed children. The theology of glory, honor, and triumph can’t hold a candle to the theology of the cross. One is empty because it is hollow. The other is empty because of the power of God. One is pyrite, sparkly and worth nothing. The other is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.
            The deep, dark valleys of church history, the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly, can’t overcome the hope and comfort that is the story of God. This is the call to us, to each of us and to our congregation. We are called to remember that the life of faith isn’t about the story of this church, but about the story of God. The story of God-in-us and with us. The story of the family into which we have been adopted through baptism, the family table at which we eat together, the family circle that we see here and is completed in heaven.
            The story of the temple, of the building, of the scribes… the stories of seeking earthly power never end well. These things do pass.
            The story to which the widow belonged, the story into which we are called, the story of abundant life, the story of grace… it’s a story for the ages. For all ages. It’s the story that will carry us into the life that is to come.
Amen. 

No Elaboration Needed (Sermon 3/11)

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Lent 3 (Narrative Lectionary, Year B)
Mark 12:28-34
            When I was in my first couple months of seminary, there was a guy in a couple of my classes named “Bob”. Bob was one of those people who is not good at picking up on social signals. He talked a little too loudly, asked questions that were a little too personal, and volunteered more information than you might want. He was a very nice guy, though, friendly and well-meaning. No one disliked him, but no one really sought him out either. (Yes, you may point out the painful irony of this behavior in seminarians.)
            One evening, I decided to walk from my apartment to downtown New Haven and I ran into Bob. He had been riding his bike, but he hopped off and walked along with me. We talked and we went to a little diner and had a piece of cake. Then we walked back up the hill to the divinity school. He was really talking and I felt awkward trying to say goodnight, so I invited him in for a cup of tea.
            I called a friend to let her know that Bob was with me, just so someone would know this information. (For the record, there was never any point where I was concerned about my safety with this guy. Otherwise, I would not have allowed him into where I lived.) In the meantime, Bob looked at my shelves and asked about watching a movie. I made tea and he sat in one of my two chairs and I sat in the other. At one point, he was chilly. He asked about a housecoat, but I gave him my huge flannel bathrobe, which he put on over his clothes and a blanket he put over his lap.
            I emailed my friend, “Bob’s STILL here! Watching a movie! Third cup of tea! Wearing my bathrobe over his clothes!” I could practically hear her giggling over the email, “What are you going to do?” I didn’t know what to do, so I sat through the rest of the movie thinking about how to get him out of my apartment. When the movie ended, he announced that it had been a terrible movie and proceeded to go through the reasons why. He brought up things I had never considered and he was right.
            Then he asked to use the bathroom and said he thought he should go home. He asked if he could give me a hug. I opened the door to the apartment and we hugged briefly in the hallway and then he left. At this point, we’d spent about seven hours together. I called my friend and we kept laughing about the oddity of the situation and about “Bob”. Not my finest moment, that.
Many weeks later, he returned a borrowed book to me with a note thanking me for helping him to feel less lonely. Thank you, he said, for being a friend when I wasn’t sure this was a good place for me. Thank you for being so generous with your tea, your housecoat, and your time. Your friend, he said, Bob.
            That note made me want to kick myself and I’ve never forgotten it. I especially remember it in my own Bob moments- when I talk too long, tell a story that doesn’t quite hit the mark, when the words I offer seem woefully inadequate. When I’m trying to love my neighbors as I love myself, even when I’m not sure about how I feel about them or about me.
            The greatest commandment, the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, doesn’t need elaboration. It says what it means and it means what it says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Jesus adds to it from Leviticus 19:18, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The commands go together and are the foundation of what it means to have faith. These commands are how we respond to the way God has loved us, even in our most human moments… especially in our most human moments.
            We’ve all been welcomed when we were Bob… when we awkward and uncertain…when we have over-stayed a welcome… we’ve had makeshift families or friends in odd places who offered us hospitality… we’ve all let someone who needed to stay longer than we wanted… We will be called to offer that welcome again. And we will receive it again. These are the moments of God-with-us and God-in-us that are the challenges of living in this world.
            Fulfilling these commandments doesn’t make us closer to God, but helps us to perceive God’s nearness to us. In those moments, of welcome and of being welcomed, we are not far from the kingdom of God.
Amen.
           
           

Whose Vineyard is It? (Sermon for 3/4/12)

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Mark 11:27 – 12:12
            I don’t know about you, but I am about finished with this year’s politics. I know we have not even voted yet, but sometimes I think if I hear another political story my head might explode. Not only does the rhetoric seems particularly bad this year, but the issues on which people are choosing to focus seem, to me, coming from nowhere. And, I confess to you, this year’s politics are making me judgmental.
            I mean… JUDGY… to extent that I’m not proud of, but seems hard to avoid. I keep trying to think of the 8th Commandment; however, that plan is not going so well. The 8th Commandment, you may remember, is “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” We usually interpret this to mean that we should not make things up, speculate, or tell lies about our neighbor. In fact, Martin Luther said we’re not only to fulfill this commandment by omission of lies, but by also coming to the defense of our neighbor, speaking well of them, and interpreting everything they do in the best light.
            Um… I can’t do that with some people. In fact, not only do I not interpret their actions in the best light, I kind of want Jesus to come back, just so he could punch them in the nose. Better yet, I’d like to punch them in the nose and yell, “For God, for country, and for Yale” (or something like that).
            Which pretty much makes me (and you if you’re like me) exactly like the scribes, chief priests, and elders of this story.*These are the people, the men, who make up the hierarchy of the church and the leadership structure of the Jewish community. Jesus does not only unnerve them, but he also frustrates and angers them by the threat he poses to their power and to the order they have lived to carefully cultivate and maintain.
            He uses this parable of the vineyard to pin them exactly where it hurts. This parable appears in Matthew and Luke as well (and for what it’s worth, in the Gospel of Thomas), so it’s fairly certain to be something that Jesus said. The vineyard is a particular metaphor for Israel that appears in several of the prophets, particularly Amos and Isaiah. Israel is spoken of as the vineyard that bears the fruit of God’s grace to the world. Jesus is leading these religious leaders along the path of the story until they come to the end and recognize that he’s talking about them.
            But what’s he saying about them? Presumably, they are the tenants of the vineyard in this allegory and the owner is God. The servants who come to collect the harvest are the prophets. The owner’s son is… Jesus.
            Why do you think the tenants act the way they do? Do you think they are deliberately cruel? Do they really think they will inherit the land if the son dies? Is it possible they began to think the vineyard and all its fruits belonged to them and they were angered by anyone who made it seem otherwise?
            We are talking about nearly a thousand years after King David, when the Messiah, God’s anointed, is supposed to show up and be like David- the 3D experience. People waited and waited. One hundred years. Two hundred years. Five hundred years. Still they waited for the Messiah. Once people waited for a few hundred years, they probably began to wonder if it was true. As they waited, as they were exiled, as the temples fell and were rebuilt… the idea of the Messiah who would come became more and more grand. As they waited, it became easier and easier to think of themselves as the owners of the vineyard.
            The mystery of stewardship, the caretaking of God’s garden of creation, took a backseat to Messianic speculation and preservation of life-as-they-knew-it. (Particularly certain types of power) When Jesus shows up and people proclaim him as the Messiah, not only is he coming to talk about the harvest, he is, in part, shining a light the people who have been keeping the garden. To be clear, he’s not casting all Jews in a bad light, but specifically the people, Jews and Gentiles, who have refused to acknowledge God’s intentions and plans for the vineyard of creation.
            The scribes get what Jesus is saying, the stewardship of the vineyard is going to be opened up… with the criteria of tenancy being faithfulness to the plans of the owner, God. The only criterion of tenancy is faith in the plans of the owner. Not how well you behave, not how much you do, not how good a gardener you are… the owner has faith in you and you are called to respond in faith.
            Which brings me back to the 8th commandment and the people who I want to hit in the name of Jesus. That’s not what Jesus would have me (or you do). The Messiah of grace and peace that upsets the religious leaders of two thousand years ago still expects the same thing today.
            We are certainly called to point out rotten fruit, to say when a vine seems to be rotten. But we are also called to try to love our neighbor. Who is your neighbor? If you wouldn’t call a person a family member or a friend, then he or she is your neighbor. So we have three categories- family, friends, and neighbors. All of whom are with us in God’s garden of this world.
            In anger and judgment, we easily make the same presumption that the tenants make- the assumption that the vineyard belongs to us. That whoever is against us is a trespasser. Then it follows that we begin to think that the harvest is ours. And then we are so focused on what we have done that we will fail to recognize the Messiah when he’s right in front of us, loving us.
            One of the purposes of the season of Lent is to give us time to think about what we need to change and how God is trying to shape and change us. In this challenging church season, we are called to consider that all we have is a gift from the One who made us, knows us, and loves us still. We are called to see our neighbors and to attempt to see them in the best possible light, if we can’t do the same for all their actions. We called to remember that we are ambassadors for Christ and that it is, in part, through what we do that people have an experience of Jesus, of God-in-us. (Which means punching someone in the nose is right out.)
            We are also called to ponder in our hearts the message that the vineyard was opened to all people, through the faithfulness of the Son. Open to all people, with the standard for tenancy being faith… which is itself a gift from God. Which goes to show you that even when we are not able to see a person in the best light, God still sees us through the best light… through the light of Christ.
Amen.

* (Please note the absence of Pharisees, the reform movement that can get a bad rap.)

God’s Punctuation (Sermon 2/12/12)

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Epiphany 6 (NL, Year B)
12 February 2012
Mark 7:1-23
            Some of you may remember George Burns and Gracie Allen. Some of you may have heard of them. Some of you may have no idea what I’m talking about. Burns and Allen were a comedy duo couple in the first half of the last (20th) century. He was the straight man to her comedy lines and they were very successful on the radio, on stage, and on television. Their television show was on from 1950- 1958. After having some heart trouble, Gracie decided to retire. George attempted the show without her for one year, but it didn’t work without Gracie. She died of a heart attack in 1964. When George went through her papers, he found a note she wrote to him, which included the line, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.”
            Never place a period where God has placed a comma. George Burns took this reminder from his beloved that his life on earth wasn’t over yet. He went on to continue acting, directing, and writing until he died at the age of 100 in 1996, always missing Gracie, but continuing to truly live his own life. Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
            I was thinking about this phrase with regard to our text today because it is hard to know if the Pharisees thought there was a period at the end of the law or a comma. It is too easy for us to immediately make the Pharisees the villains of any gospel story in which they appear. The organ music ratchets up, “Dum dum dum”, and we practically see them holding their capes up and cackling.
           
            That’s not exactly the most accurate picture. What is that the Pharisees are upset about in this chapter? They are not thrilled that the disciples are not washing their hands before they eat. It’s not just that the disciples aren’t hygienic, but that they are not performing the rituals of cleanliness before eating and not just for their hands, but also their dishes, cookware, and so forth.
The Pharisees are a reform movement. (What, reformers already?!?) They are trying to help people understand and live out the written and oral laws. Why do those laws matter? As the saying goes, “cleanliness is next to godliness”. Both the written law (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and the oral tradition are aimed at keeping the community of the Israelites pure. When the Israelites are wandering in the desert, they have with them the Tabernacle of the Lord. This is where presence of the Lord dwelled, God’s RV if you will. The Lord is holy. The presence of the Lord is holy. Where that presence lives needs to be holy. The people who enter that presence better be holy. And it helps if the people around them are… holy. Laws about cleanliness, sacrifice, and punishment are also about keeping the community holy so that the presence of the Lord can and will remain there.
Cut to the Pharisees at the time of Jesus. Part of their mission is to help people understand and follow the myriad rules for cleanliness so that they will continue to be a holy people and, thus, so the presence (and, possibly, the favor) of the Lord will be with the Hebrew people. This does not seem quite so evil, when you consider the oppression of Rome and the long history of struggle to survive.
Then Jesus enters the picture and he touches dead people, women who are bleeding, and a leper. He eats with Gentiles and sinners of all stripes. His disciples were not chosen because of their success in Hebrew school (shul), but on their willingness to follow. Furthermore, he is teaching these disciples (and everyone else) to disregard the laws that regulate cleanliness and, thereby, holiness. This Jesus is not just a threat to the power of the Pharisees. That’s not their problem. The way they see it, he has the ability to destroy the holiness of the community by making it impossible for God to dwell with God’s people.
Where they see a period, Jesus is a comma- a place where God has broken into the story and is altering the narrative. The story is still the same, but now God is telling it through Jesus in the world.  Jesus tells the Pharisees that it is not that the laws or the traditions are wrong, but that theyare going in the wrong direction. By continuing to focus on minutiae as holiness, the Pharisees are missing the forest for the trees. Is it right to allow your elderly parents to have a leaky roof because you financed a new wing to the church (synagogue)? Is it right to proudly carry your beautiful offering of birds past many hungry beggars? Is it right to have prayed a formula perfectly and then to be so proud of how much better you can do it than others? This is the point that Jesus makes to the Pharisees and that he makes to us as well.
These are some of the questions for us as individuals, as a congregation, as part of the Church catholic. Are we worried about the mechanics of our spiritual life or are we actually concerned with our own actions? Let’s say no one here has any sexual sins, thefts, murders, or unrestrained immorality on their record. That leaves greed, deceit, arrogance, envy, insults, and foolishness. If anyone here is totally free of those, I invite you come forward and take over because I may well have done two or three already this morning.
            Does how you live from day to day reflect the idea that God is still acting? In Mark, the purpose of Emmanuel… God-with-us… Jesus is to give us a deeper understanding into God’s desires and actions. But it’s not just touchy-feely, it’s a deep, gritty, too bright revelation that God is present at all times and God cares about us doing the right thing for the right reason.
            The very traditions and habits we think are helping us to live faithful lives may very well be getting in the way of living in the way God is calling us. That includes our attachment to this space, our feelings about the order of worship, formulas we’ve developed for spiritual practices, the excuses we give for not having spiritual practices… all these things can become the minutiae of holiness that prevents us, like the Pharisees, from seeing Jesus right in front of us.
            Never place a period where God has placed a comma. By embracing the idea 1) God continues to act and 2) God continues to bring us to a deeper understanding of God’s written word, we are living into the truth that we are known and loved by a living God. Through the Holy Spirit, we are called out of the distraction of details. We are called away from the habits of religiosity that can themselves become idols, gods of false hope and comfort. We are not defiled by what comes into us, but by what we do and we must be honest with ourselves about the wrongs we do. God already knows them. We are called into wholeness, into holiness with the God who made the whole world a tabernacle. We reflect the holiness of that relationship by how we treat the world around us. We are participants in this relationship, not performers hoping to get the motions right to appeal to a God who appears and disappears on a whim. We are participants in the relationship, which means our input matters. We are living with and in a living God.
            George Burns’s life wasn’t over when Gracie Allen died. There was a comma. God continued speaking through his life for over 30 more years.
            God’s presence is not limited to the tabernacle of the ancient Israelites or to physical body of Jesus. God’s presence is in the world, in every place, through the power of the Spirit. That same Spirit that continues to refresh us with deeper understanding of God’s revelation… That same Spirit continues to shape us… cleanses us… makes us holy places where God can and does dwell…
            The God of creation has not stopped creating… The God of our salvation has not stopped saving…. The God of renewal has not stopped reforming… A light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
God is still speaking.
Amen.





** “God is still speaking” is one of the mottos of the United Church of Christ (UCC). They also quote Gracie Allen. Having recently spent sometime with UCC clergy, I’ve been turning over the idea in my head ever since.