(Scriptures: Acts 4:1-12 Psalm 23, I John 3:14-24 John 10:1-18)
Today’s reading from John’s Gospel gives us one of the most beloved images from Scripture – Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Among our stained glass windows is a window dedicated to long-ago former Pastor Forster, showing Jesus as the Good Shepherd. The image is widespread within the church: pastors, who are called to serve Jesus the Good Shepherd, think of their congregation as their flock. Among pastors, there are even bits of humor associated with the image: I remember a former pastor who had a coffee cup with a picture of a sheep, which carried the phrase “get your sheep together.” (As disorganized as I was last Sunday, I could have used some help getting my sheep together – or getting my own act together, at least.) As is often true, the challenge of lifting up these beloved images is that they’ve been worn out from overuse, have been domesticated to the point where we think they have nothing new to tell us. So with such a familiar passage of Scripture, I’d challenge each of us to listen carefully, to see if God may have something new to say to us, even through such familiar words and timeworn images.
In today’s reading from John’s Gospel – as is generally true in reading Scripture – context is crucial. Today’s reading from the 10th chapter of John’s Gospel immediate follows the story in the 9th chapter of John’s Gospel in which Jesus had just healed a man who had been blind from birth. The man, of course, was overjoyed to receive his sight, and you’d think that everyone who knew him would share in his joy. And you’d be wrong. The religious authorities, who saw Jesus as a threat, interrogated the man closely and even frightened the man’s parents with their many questions. Ultimately the man, who had been given his sight, was driven away by the religious authorities. And Jesus responded by commenting that it was religious authorities, not the healed man, who were truly blind.
Unlike the other Gospels, in which Jesus is endlessly cautioning people not to tell others of his miracles, in John’s Gospel, it sometimes seems that Jesus hardly ever stops talking about himself. Todays’ reading is no exception. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ works and healings are called signs – they are not just random good deeds, not just random acts of kindness, but carefully chosen ways in which to understand who Jesus is. So in John’s Gospel, Jesus talks about himself, not only by his many “I am” statements - for example, today’s statement “I am the good shepherd” – but by his signs – sort of like Jesus’ version of show and tell - signs which first show us and then tell us who Jesus is.
John’s Gospel has been called “the gospel of love” – it’s often recommended reading for new Christians - but the love within John’s Gospel is a particular kind of love, a kind of solidarity or mutually supportive love among the members of a persecuted faith community, which provides strength to deal with opposition and persecution from outside. John’s Gospel has a very strong dynamic of insiders and outsiders, those who are inside the beloved community of Jesus’ followers, and those outsiders who are persecuting the community. This dynamic of “us and them”, “insiders vs outsiders” surfaces strongly in today’s Gospel reading. It is after Jesus watches the formerly blind, now healed man being driven outside the synagogue community that he begins speaking of himself as the Good Shepherd, contrasting himself, who lays himself down for the sheep, with the bad shepherds who drive sheep away from the community and leave them to their own devices. The whole incident really provides quite a sharp commentary on the religious establishment of his day. Consider that the man had been perfectly acceptable to the religious leaders when he had been blind and dependent on the kindness of others. It was only after the man received his sight, only after he was able to act for himself, only after he began to challenge the religious leaders, that he was thrown out of the synagogue. This incident acts out Jesus’ description of the religious establishment as blind guides leading the blind. Since the man was no longer blind and no longer receptive to the blind guidance of the religious establishment, he was driven out – only to be welcomed into Jesus’ community of those granted the gift of spiritual insight.
So Jesus and his followers, who have in effect been kicked to the curb by the religious community in which they were raised, respond by forming an alternative religious community. Jesus, rejected by the leaders of the Temple religious community, becomes the shepherd of an alternative religious community. As the sheep of a given flock know the voice of the shepherd, so the mark of inclusion in the alternative community formed by Jesus is the ability to hear the voice of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. The formerly blind man who received his sight was able to hear that voice. The religious establishment, for the most part, was not.
How about us? Remember that a mark of inclusion in the community formed by Jesus is the ability to distinguish the voice of the shepherd. It’s at least as true in our day as it was when Jesus spoke the words – not every voice we hear speaking in God’s name is the voice of the Good Shepherd. There are the hirelings, those only in the pastorate for a paycheck, who will cut and run at the first sign of trouble. And there are the thieves and robbers, who seek to misuse the pastoral office and the good faith of the congregation for their own benefit. And having heard the voice of the Good Shepherd, a mark of inclusion in the beloved community is the ability, not only to hear, but to respond. In the words of a hymn popular in the Roman Catholic church, adapted from Psalm 95, “if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
The mark of inclusion in the faith community of Jesus is the ability to hear and respond to the voice of Jesus. Unfortunately, just as was true in Jesus’ day, many religious leaders of our day want to impose other litmus tests for inclusion in the church: Do you believe the right creed? Do you have the correct marital status and family configuration? Do you have the right kind of friends? Listen to the right kind of music? Dress the right way? Support the right political causes? But those who would impose these additional tests ignore the words of Jesus, when he says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Remember the mistake made by those who excluded the early Christians from the synagogues – may we learn from this mistake, so that we don’t repeat it. We must never presume to exclude those whom Jesus himself invites, those who respond to the voice of the Good Shepherd.
Take another look at our Good Shepherd stained glass window. Let it remind each of us who it is who calls us, and whom it is that we are to obey. Where the Good Shepherd leads, may Emanuel Church follow. Amen.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Hearts Ablaze!
(Scriptures: Acts 3:1-26, I John 3:1-7, Luke 24:13-48)
The 1950 movie Roshamon, by famed film maker Akira Kurosawa, tells the same story – the assault of a bandit on the wife of a samarai and the death of the samarai – from the viewpoint of several characters – among them, the bandit, the wife, and a woodcutter who had witnessed the events. As one might expect, while the stories have some points in common, they are all mutually contradictory. The viewer is left to wonder at how a single sequence of events can be described in such contrasting ways.
We have a sort of a Roshamon today in our reading from Luke’s Gospel. Two followers of Jesus are leaving the city of Jerusalem to return to Emmaus. Encountering a stranger on the road, who seems strangely unaware of the events that had brought the pair to despair, the travelers tell the stranger about Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in word and deed whom they had hoped would liberate Israel, but who was condemned to death by the Temple religious establishment. The travelers mention – oh, by the way, some women were telling some silly story about seeing angels who said Jesus was alive. But the travelers dismiss the women’s tale, and their story ends on a note of hopelessness.
And then the stranger – who we of course know is Jesus – tells the same story back to them. The same story, but with a very different ending. Yes, the Messiah was to suffer – but suffering was not the end of the story. The stranger’s story had much in common with that of the travelers, but, informed by Scripture, was a story, not of hopelessness, but of triumph. Arriving at their home village, they want to hear more, and invite the stranger to join them for dinner. As the stranger took, blessed, and broke the bread, suddenly the travelers knew who had been the stranger in their midst.
The travelers returned the seven mile trip to Jerusalem and told those gathered there what they had experienced. And as they were talking, Jesus himself appeared. Their first reaction was terror – they thought they were seeing a ghost – but again Jesus interpreted the events in a different way, turning their ghost story into a reunion story.
In our reading from Acts, Peter and John, newly empowered at Pentecost by the Holy Spirit, encountered a beggar and changed his story from that of dependency to dancing. Accosted by the beggar asking for alms, Peter responds, “Silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give you – in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk. Formerly lame, now he was leaping for joy.
So what’s your story? Perhaps more importantly, who will write your story? The media, the culture, have written scripts for us to follow. There’s the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” script, for us to watch on TV to see how happy money supposedly makes a lucky few people. For those of more moderate means there’s the “life in the suburbs” script of a McMansion and an expensive car. Advertisers have lovely scripts, that if you buy their product, friends and fun will surround you all your days. For many of us, there’s the Horatio Alger “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” script – that in this day of economic distress doesn’t seem to be working all that well. For people of color and people who grow up in disadvantaged homes, there’s a script as well, a script of hopelessness – drop out of high school before graduating, make some fast money selling drugs, get arrested, and spend your days hanging on the corner because nobody wants to hire somebody with a prison record. These stories are pre-written – all we have to do is learn the lines our society teaches us, and we’ll fit right in.
Perhaps you, like I, are not crazy about any of these stories. Jesus has a much better story – a story of his comforting presence in times of trouble, a story of sorrow only being for a night, but joy coming in the morning. Stories of alienation being overcome by reconciliation. Stories of crucifixion followed by resurrection. Where our society tries to put a period, God places a comma – because ultimately God is the author of the only story that matters, and it’s a story that God is still writing – because God is still speaking.
The travelers on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus during all that seven miles of walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. We’re told that their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Perhaps we could say that their grief affected their vision. No doubt as they walked and talked on the road to Emmaus they thought “where was God” – when Jesus was walking right beside them, unknown to them. It was only in retrospect, looking back, that they could see how their hearts were ablaze, burning within them – as one translation puts it, “strangely warmed” – during their encounter with the stranger on the Emmaus road. As we emerge from times of struggle, it may only be in retrospect that we can recognize those times and places in which Christ had been with us, had sustained us.
Many among us – perhaps all of us in various ways – have difficult stories to tell – stories of grief, of hardship, of abuse, of injustice. Some of these stories we’ve shared around the table during coffee hour. This congregation, and those who are members of our congregation, have been through a lot. As Christians, though, it’s important that, in the words of the old radio commentator Paul Harvey, we remember the rest of the story – that we did not and do not go through these things alone, that Christ was and is with us, that nothing – neither height or depth nor anything else in all creation – can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And because of our experience of having experienced God’s presence in the struggle, our stories of hardship can become testimonies of faith, can become a source of strength and hope for others.
I’ll close with the words of an old gospel hymn – and here at Emanuel church, may we be able to make these words part of our story:
“By and by, when the morning comes
When the saints of God are gathered home
We’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome
And we’ll understand it better by and by.”
May it be so with us. Amen.
The 1950 movie Roshamon, by famed film maker Akira Kurosawa, tells the same story – the assault of a bandit on the wife of a samarai and the death of the samarai – from the viewpoint of several characters – among them, the bandit, the wife, and a woodcutter who had witnessed the events. As one might expect, while the stories have some points in common, they are all mutually contradictory. The viewer is left to wonder at how a single sequence of events can be described in such contrasting ways.
We have a sort of a Roshamon today in our reading from Luke’s Gospel. Two followers of Jesus are leaving the city of Jerusalem to return to Emmaus. Encountering a stranger on the road, who seems strangely unaware of the events that had brought the pair to despair, the travelers tell the stranger about Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in word and deed whom they had hoped would liberate Israel, but who was condemned to death by the Temple religious establishment. The travelers mention – oh, by the way, some women were telling some silly story about seeing angels who said Jesus was alive. But the travelers dismiss the women’s tale, and their story ends on a note of hopelessness.
And then the stranger – who we of course know is Jesus – tells the same story back to them. The same story, but with a very different ending. Yes, the Messiah was to suffer – but suffering was not the end of the story. The stranger’s story had much in common with that of the travelers, but, informed by Scripture, was a story, not of hopelessness, but of triumph. Arriving at their home village, they want to hear more, and invite the stranger to join them for dinner. As the stranger took, blessed, and broke the bread, suddenly the travelers knew who had been the stranger in their midst.
The travelers returned the seven mile trip to Jerusalem and told those gathered there what they had experienced. And as they were talking, Jesus himself appeared. Their first reaction was terror – they thought they were seeing a ghost – but again Jesus interpreted the events in a different way, turning their ghost story into a reunion story.
In our reading from Acts, Peter and John, newly empowered at Pentecost by the Holy Spirit, encountered a beggar and changed his story from that of dependency to dancing. Accosted by the beggar asking for alms, Peter responds, “Silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give you – in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk. Formerly lame, now he was leaping for joy.
So what’s your story? Perhaps more importantly, who will write your story? The media, the culture, have written scripts for us to follow. There’s the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” script, for us to watch on TV to see how happy money supposedly makes a lucky few people. For those of more moderate means there’s the “life in the suburbs” script of a McMansion and an expensive car. Advertisers have lovely scripts, that if you buy their product, friends and fun will surround you all your days. For many of us, there’s the Horatio Alger “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” script – that in this day of economic distress doesn’t seem to be working all that well. For people of color and people who grow up in disadvantaged homes, there’s a script as well, a script of hopelessness – drop out of high school before graduating, make some fast money selling drugs, get arrested, and spend your days hanging on the corner because nobody wants to hire somebody with a prison record. These stories are pre-written – all we have to do is learn the lines our society teaches us, and we’ll fit right in.
Perhaps you, like I, are not crazy about any of these stories. Jesus has a much better story – a story of his comforting presence in times of trouble, a story of sorrow only being for a night, but joy coming in the morning. Stories of alienation being overcome by reconciliation. Stories of crucifixion followed by resurrection. Where our society tries to put a period, God places a comma – because ultimately God is the author of the only story that matters, and it’s a story that God is still writing – because God is still speaking.
The travelers on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus during all that seven miles of walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. We’re told that their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Perhaps we could say that their grief affected their vision. No doubt as they walked and talked on the road to Emmaus they thought “where was God” – when Jesus was walking right beside them, unknown to them. It was only in retrospect, looking back, that they could see how their hearts were ablaze, burning within them – as one translation puts it, “strangely warmed” – during their encounter with the stranger on the Emmaus road. As we emerge from times of struggle, it may only be in retrospect that we can recognize those times and places in which Christ had been with us, had sustained us.
Many among us – perhaps all of us in various ways – have difficult stories to tell – stories of grief, of hardship, of abuse, of injustice. Some of these stories we’ve shared around the table during coffee hour. This congregation, and those who are members of our congregation, have been through a lot. As Christians, though, it’s important that, in the words of the old radio commentator Paul Harvey, we remember the rest of the story – that we did not and do not go through these things alone, that Christ was and is with us, that nothing – neither height or depth nor anything else in all creation – can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And because of our experience of having experienced God’s presence in the struggle, our stories of hardship can become testimonies of faith, can become a source of strength and hope for others.
I’ll close with the words of an old gospel hymn – and here at Emanuel church, may we be able to make these words part of our story:
“By and by, when the morning comes
When the saints of God are gathered home
We’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome
And we’ll understand it better by and by.”
May it be so with us. Amen.
"Peace Be With You!"
(Scriptures: Acts 4:32-35 Psalm 133, I John 1:1-2:2 John 20:19-31)
Where to go from here? The disciples had had such high hopes. They had walked followed Jesus through his public ministry, watched him heal, listened to him teach, saw him go up against the religious authorities. They had walked alongside Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem, watched him throw the money changers out of the Temple. All that had been just a few days ago, but it felt like it was a lifetime ago. Jesus was arrested – Judas had ratted Jesus out while he was praying – rushed through a trial that was like a bad parody of a show trial, and executed.
Where to go from here? For the moment the disciples weren’t going much of anywhere. Concerned that the authorities might be hunting them down too, they were hidden behind doors that were locked and bolted. Some of the women had come with some crazy story about an angel and an empty tomb, but the disciples dismissed this talk – after all, women are always having vapors and becoming hysterical. Aren’t they?
Maybe not this time. Or maybe the disciples were having a case of the vapors themselves. Because now Jesus was standing in front of them – how could he be alive, and how’d past that locked door – and he’s saying “Peace be with you.” He not only greets them, but commissions them: “As the Father sent me, so I send you,” says Jesus. He breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Ghost.” In a sense, Jesus breathes new life into these frightened disciples. And so their mourning turns to joy.
Except for Thomas. Thomas wasn’t locked behind closed doors with the other disciples when Jesus appeared – perhaps he was braver and more willing to venture out in public. So the disciples tell Thomas what they saw, and Thomas reacts as all the disciples had reacted when they heard the women’s tale about Jesus appearing to them – by dismissing it. “Unless I can see and touch, I will not believe.”
A week later, the disciples are back behind closed doors – even though Jesus commissioned them and sent them forth, it seems they didn’t go very far – and this time Thomas is with them. And Jesus appears to them all, and allows Thomas to touch the print of the nail in his hand. And like the rest of the disciples, Thomas’s despair turns to joy. And Jesus offers a blessing that applies to all of us – “blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.”
Thomas’ doubts were not the last word for him. Indeed, Thomas went on to carry the faith to many; by tradition, Thomas brought the Gospel to India. While Christians are very much a minority in India, there are many congregations who trace their origins to the work of Thomas. All these who heard the Gospel from Thomas are those who did not see, and yet have believed. As are we.
Our Gospel reading describes Jesus by his appearing turning despair into joy, fear to hope. How many of our neighbors – how many of us – are like those disciples, locked behind doors of fear and despair. We’ve experienced a devastating loss – the death of a family member, serious illness, loss of employment. Or we, or our neighbors, have stumbled into self-defeating, even self-destructive behavior that has created distance from others, has shut down possibilities, has seemingly locked our neighbors or ourselves away from hopes for anything better. Where do we go from here?
Will our actions be driven by fear, or by faith? Fear shrinks us, makes us smaller, keeps a locked door between us and the life to which God would call us. Faith calls us to grow and stretch and reach out, to stumble out of the tombs of despair into the sunlight of God’s love. Remember that at the death of Lazarus, Jesus ordered the stone rolled away, and mourning turned to joy. Death did not have the last word – not for Lazarus, not for Jesus – and not for us who are commissioned as followers of the Risen Christ.
During times of tragedy – such as the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago today, such as the deaths of those firefighters who died in a burning warehouse last week – we wonder
“Where was God” and ask why. Mark’s Gospel tells us that even Jesus was not immune to these questions, as he cried on the cross, in the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And yet as Christians we believe that, even when God does not spare us from times of tragedy, God also does not abandon us to tragedy. Even in times of devastating loss, we can find peace in trusting that for those who died, death does not have the last word, that our departed have heard from Christ the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”; have been welcomed into the embrace of a loving God.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Must a Christ die in torment in every age to save those who have no imagination?” As Christians we believe that Christ died once for all. Yet every society, including our own, perpetrates acts of injustice and hatred that crucify the hopes of the poor and disadvantaged. When our hopes and dreams are crucified, it takes the eyes of faith to look for a resurrection. When we experience those Good Friday moments in our lives, it takes the eyes of faith to say, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Before his experience of the risen Christ, Thomas thought that, as the saying goes, seeing is believing. It was only after his experience that Thomas could turn those words around, to spend the rest of his life acting on the thought that believing is seeing. Believing – believing in the saving power of Christ – is seeing.
Before seeing the Risen Christ, Thomas said “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” After experiencing the Risen Christ, Thomas could only say, “My Lord and my God.” May we, like Thomas, be surprised by joy by the experience of the Risen Christ in our lives. Amen.
Where to go from here? The disciples had had such high hopes. They had walked followed Jesus through his public ministry, watched him heal, listened to him teach, saw him go up against the religious authorities. They had walked alongside Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem, watched him throw the money changers out of the Temple. All that had been just a few days ago, but it felt like it was a lifetime ago. Jesus was arrested – Judas had ratted Jesus out while he was praying – rushed through a trial that was like a bad parody of a show trial, and executed.
Where to go from here? For the moment the disciples weren’t going much of anywhere. Concerned that the authorities might be hunting them down too, they were hidden behind doors that were locked and bolted. Some of the women had come with some crazy story about an angel and an empty tomb, but the disciples dismissed this talk – after all, women are always having vapors and becoming hysterical. Aren’t they?
Maybe not this time. Or maybe the disciples were having a case of the vapors themselves. Because now Jesus was standing in front of them – how could he be alive, and how’d past that locked door – and he’s saying “Peace be with you.” He not only greets them, but commissions them: “As the Father sent me, so I send you,” says Jesus. He breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Ghost.” In a sense, Jesus breathes new life into these frightened disciples. And so their mourning turns to joy.
Except for Thomas. Thomas wasn’t locked behind closed doors with the other disciples when Jesus appeared – perhaps he was braver and more willing to venture out in public. So the disciples tell Thomas what they saw, and Thomas reacts as all the disciples had reacted when they heard the women’s tale about Jesus appearing to them – by dismissing it. “Unless I can see and touch, I will not believe.”
A week later, the disciples are back behind closed doors – even though Jesus commissioned them and sent them forth, it seems they didn’t go very far – and this time Thomas is with them. And Jesus appears to them all, and allows Thomas to touch the print of the nail in his hand. And like the rest of the disciples, Thomas’s despair turns to joy. And Jesus offers a blessing that applies to all of us – “blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.”
Thomas’ doubts were not the last word for him. Indeed, Thomas went on to carry the faith to many; by tradition, Thomas brought the Gospel to India. While Christians are very much a minority in India, there are many congregations who trace their origins to the work of Thomas. All these who heard the Gospel from Thomas are those who did not see, and yet have believed. As are we.
Our Gospel reading describes Jesus by his appearing turning despair into joy, fear to hope. How many of our neighbors – how many of us – are like those disciples, locked behind doors of fear and despair. We’ve experienced a devastating loss – the death of a family member, serious illness, loss of employment. Or we, or our neighbors, have stumbled into self-defeating, even self-destructive behavior that has created distance from others, has shut down possibilities, has seemingly locked our neighbors or ourselves away from hopes for anything better. Where do we go from here?
Will our actions be driven by fear, or by faith? Fear shrinks us, makes us smaller, keeps a locked door between us and the life to which God would call us. Faith calls us to grow and stretch and reach out, to stumble out of the tombs of despair into the sunlight of God’s love. Remember that at the death of Lazarus, Jesus ordered the stone rolled away, and mourning turned to joy. Death did not have the last word – not for Lazarus, not for Jesus – and not for us who are commissioned as followers of the Risen Christ.
During times of tragedy – such as the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago today, such as the deaths of those firefighters who died in a burning warehouse last week – we wonder
“Where was God” and ask why. Mark’s Gospel tells us that even Jesus was not immune to these questions, as he cried on the cross, in the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And yet as Christians we believe that, even when God does not spare us from times of tragedy, God also does not abandon us to tragedy. Even in times of devastating loss, we can find peace in trusting that for those who died, death does not have the last word, that our departed have heard from Christ the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”; have been welcomed into the embrace of a loving God.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Must a Christ die in torment in every age to save those who have no imagination?” As Christians we believe that Christ died once for all. Yet every society, including our own, perpetrates acts of injustice and hatred that crucify the hopes of the poor and disadvantaged. When our hopes and dreams are crucified, it takes the eyes of faith to look for a resurrection. When we experience those Good Friday moments in our lives, it takes the eyes of faith to say, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Before his experience of the risen Christ, Thomas thought that, as the saying goes, seeing is believing. It was only after his experience that Thomas could turn those words around, to spend the rest of his life acting on the thought that believing is seeing. Believing – believing in the saving power of Christ – is seeing.
Before seeing the Risen Christ, Thomas said “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” After experiencing the Risen Christ, Thomas could only say, “My Lord and my God.” May we, like Thomas, be surprised by joy by the experience of the Risen Christ in our lives. Amen.
Look! Go! Tell!
(Scriptures: Acts 10:34-43 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24, I Corinthians 15:1-11 Mark 16:1-8)
The sinking of the Titanic, which took place on April 15, 1912 – next Sunday will be the 100th anniversary – has prompted renewed interest in the details of the ship’s demise. It has also prompted the re-release, in 3D this time, of the movie Titanic. I didn’t see the movie when it originally came out in 1997 – can 15 years have passed already? – but I gather that at the end, the now-elderly Titanic survivor Rose quietly throws a ring, her memento from the doomed voyage, overboard. I’ve also read that there’s an alternate ending, in which several bystanders try to stop Rose from throwing the ring overboard. And, of course, with video technology and access to YouTube becoming widespread, Titanic groupies can write their own alternative endings. I shudder to think of the Trekkie version: the Titanic is beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise, and Jack and Rose go to Starfleet Academy and live long and prosper. Maybe I’ll skip seeing that version.
I was reminded of the concept of alternate endings by this morning’s reading from Mark’s Gospel. You see, like the Titanic movie, the Gospel of Mark has more than one ending. The most ancient manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel stop at chapter 16, verse 8, with the women fleeing the empty tomb in terror and amazement, and not saying anything to anyone, because they were terrified. However, it apparently didn’t take long for early readers of Mark’s gospel to express their dissatisfaction with what they evidently considered a lame ending by supplying other endings. One of the alternate endings to Mark’s Gospel is very brief:
“And all that had been commanded them they told immediately to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.”
A second, longer alternate ending of Mark’s Gospel begins with Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She goes out to tell the disciples, but they don’t believe her. Next Jesus appears to two disciples who were walking into the country – this sounds very like the Emmaus road encounter in Luke’s Gospel – but the others still don’t believe. Finally Jesus appeared to the remaining eleven disciples, chastises them for their lack of faith, and sends them out into all the world to proclaim the good news to the whole creation – and this part sounds a bit like the end of Matthew’s Gospel. There’s some additional material: Jesus tells them that believers will be accompanied by various signs: Jesus said: “By using my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Advisory note to the congregation – don’t do the stuff with the snakes and the poison at home, and for heavens sake don’t try it in here! But anyway - In this ending, after making this proclamation, Jesus is taken up into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God – very much like the beginning of the Book of Acts.
But most Bible scholars think these endings I read, both the short version and the long version, are later additions to the original text, which ended at verse 8 with the women fleeing in terror and amazement, and not telling anyone because they were afraid. What a weird ending! Why would Mark end his Gospel, his account of good news, in this manner? A few scholars have offered the idea that perhaps there were additional verses that followed verse 8, but they crumbled off or were torn off the manuscript at some point long centuries ago, and are now lost to time. Most scholars, however, think that Mark’s unusual ending was intentional – in effect, it was an invitation for readers to do exactly what the writers of the alternative endings to Mark’s Gospel did - to tie up the loose ends themselves, to respond to the angel’s proclamation in their own way; in effect, to write their own endings. From Mark’s Gospel, the last thing we hear is that the women fled the tomb and kept silent because they were frightened out of their wits. However, we know that they must have told someone at some point – the existence of the missionary outreach of the early disciples, the formation of the Christian church, indeed, the very fact that we’re seated here at Emanuel Church this Easter morning is testimony that the women fleeing the tomb sometime, somehow, some way eventually told somebody. And those somebodies told other somebodies…..and today, some 2000 years later, here we are, singing that great old Easter hymn of testimony, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”, and preparing in a few minutes to gather at the table, share bread and wine, and in so doing experience the presence of Christ in our midst.
For in fact each of us sitting here and in other congregations around the globe today are writing our own continuations and endings to Mark’s Gospel every day. Mark’s Gospel begins with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” That’s how it starts. How it ends is, at least in part, up to us, to you, to me, to each of us sitting here this morning. Like the women at the tomb, we’ve been given great good news – that the Crucified One has risen, that through his dying and rising we are saved – that life, not death, has the last word; that divine love, not human injustice, prevails in the end; that what humans intend for evil, God in God’s infinite creative wisdom is able to use for good.
How will we end Mark’s Gospel? We can behave as the women did just after fleeing the tomb, by keeping the good news to ourselves, out of fear of how it will be heard. But that’s not what the angel told the women to do. The angel gave three imperatives, three commands, three words that constituted their marching orders, if you will: Look! Go! Tell!
Look! It’s hard to tell others about something we’ve never seen, that we’ve only heard about at second hand, if at all. We need to experience the resurrection power of Jesus ourselves, before we can pass it on to others. If you’ve never experienced it – find someone who has. Talk to that person. Talk about it, read about it, pray about it – but by all means experience it. The resurrection power of Jesus may come in quiet, surprising ways, ways we would never expect – one who experiences unexpected healing or recovery from illness, a timid one receiving holy boldness to step out in faith, one who is in mourning seeing the beams of God’s love breaking through the storm clouds of grief, one who is bitter and alienated, finding inspiration to tear down walls and build bridges to others who have been kept at a distance. You may not experience God knocking you off your horse on the Damascus road. You may not find God in the wind and the earthquake, but find that he calls to you in a still, small voice. Look! Listen! Expect the unexpected!
Go! Christian discipleship is not something we do for one hour on Sunday morning. Indeed, Sunday morning is a time of refreshment and renewal, to provide us with strength for the journey on the other six days of the week. While I’m the pastor of Emanuel Church, all of us are the ministers of Emanuel Church – all of us, no exceptions. The real work of the church doesn’t happen in here, but out there, outside our doors. Especially since people aren’t necessarily breaking down our doors to get in here, we need to go out there, to go into the highways and byways and meet people where they are. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place where God calls us is the place where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Deep gladness meeting great need – that is where we are to go. So what are you waiting for? What am I waiting for?
Tell! Many Christians act as if going to church is like going to Las Vegas – you know the saying, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”; what happens in church stays in church. But what happens in church is great good news, news that your neighbor and your neighbor and your neighbor are dying to hear, whether they know it or not. If you talk to your neighbor, he or she probably won’t tell you they want to experience Jesus. What they may tell you is that they feel like something is missing, that joy has gone out of their lives or that they don’t know exactly why they bother to drag themselves out of bed in the morning, lace up their shoes, and go to work, that while they’re making a living, they’re not sure how to make a life. That’s your opportunity, not to get all preachy and holier-than-thou, but to share what God has done in your life, to show what the promise of abundant life in this world and eternal life in the world to come are like. So do tell!
We began by talking about various alternative endings to Mark’s Gospel, and indeed the three other Gospels end in different ways. Matthew’s Gospel ends on a mountain top in Galilee, with Jesus telling the disciples to Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost – and with Jesus asking us to remember these words, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” John’s Gospel ends with Jesus asking Peter three times if Peter loved him, and Jesus commanding Peter three times, “Feed my sheep”. Luke’s Gospel ends with Jesus being carried up to heaven, and the disciples returning to Jerusalem with great joy, continually being in the temple blessing God. And of course, Luke’s Gospel has a sequel, which we know as the Acts of the Apostles.
So what ending will you write to Mark’s Gospel? For what acts will the disciples at Emanuel Church be remembered? Will we be known for our silence, or for our words of hope and love and joy. May we at Emanuel Church be surprised by joy at the resurrection power of Jesus, and may we share that joy with all we meet. Amen.
The sinking of the Titanic, which took place on April 15, 1912 – next Sunday will be the 100th anniversary – has prompted renewed interest in the details of the ship’s demise. It has also prompted the re-release, in 3D this time, of the movie Titanic. I didn’t see the movie when it originally came out in 1997 – can 15 years have passed already? – but I gather that at the end, the now-elderly Titanic survivor Rose quietly throws a ring, her memento from the doomed voyage, overboard. I’ve also read that there’s an alternate ending, in which several bystanders try to stop Rose from throwing the ring overboard. And, of course, with video technology and access to YouTube becoming widespread, Titanic groupies can write their own alternative endings. I shudder to think of the Trekkie version: the Titanic is beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise, and Jack and Rose go to Starfleet Academy and live long and prosper. Maybe I’ll skip seeing that version.
I was reminded of the concept of alternate endings by this morning’s reading from Mark’s Gospel. You see, like the Titanic movie, the Gospel of Mark has more than one ending. The most ancient manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel stop at chapter 16, verse 8, with the women fleeing the empty tomb in terror and amazement, and not saying anything to anyone, because they were terrified. However, it apparently didn’t take long for early readers of Mark’s gospel to express their dissatisfaction with what they evidently considered a lame ending by supplying other endings. One of the alternate endings to Mark’s Gospel is very brief:
“And all that had been commanded them they told immediately to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.”
A second, longer alternate ending of Mark’s Gospel begins with Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She goes out to tell the disciples, but they don’t believe her. Next Jesus appears to two disciples who were walking into the country – this sounds very like the Emmaus road encounter in Luke’s Gospel – but the others still don’t believe. Finally Jesus appeared to the remaining eleven disciples, chastises them for their lack of faith, and sends them out into all the world to proclaim the good news to the whole creation – and this part sounds a bit like the end of Matthew’s Gospel. There’s some additional material: Jesus tells them that believers will be accompanied by various signs: Jesus said: “By using my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Advisory note to the congregation – don’t do the stuff with the snakes and the poison at home, and for heavens sake don’t try it in here! But anyway - In this ending, after making this proclamation, Jesus is taken up into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God – very much like the beginning of the Book of Acts.
But most Bible scholars think these endings I read, both the short version and the long version, are later additions to the original text, which ended at verse 8 with the women fleeing in terror and amazement, and not telling anyone because they were afraid. What a weird ending! Why would Mark end his Gospel, his account of good news, in this manner? A few scholars have offered the idea that perhaps there were additional verses that followed verse 8, but they crumbled off or were torn off the manuscript at some point long centuries ago, and are now lost to time. Most scholars, however, think that Mark’s unusual ending was intentional – in effect, it was an invitation for readers to do exactly what the writers of the alternative endings to Mark’s Gospel did - to tie up the loose ends themselves, to respond to the angel’s proclamation in their own way; in effect, to write their own endings. From Mark’s Gospel, the last thing we hear is that the women fled the tomb and kept silent because they were frightened out of their wits. However, we know that they must have told someone at some point – the existence of the missionary outreach of the early disciples, the formation of the Christian church, indeed, the very fact that we’re seated here at Emanuel Church this Easter morning is testimony that the women fleeing the tomb sometime, somehow, some way eventually told somebody. And those somebodies told other somebodies…..and today, some 2000 years later, here we are, singing that great old Easter hymn of testimony, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”, and preparing in a few minutes to gather at the table, share bread and wine, and in so doing experience the presence of Christ in our midst.
For in fact each of us sitting here and in other congregations around the globe today are writing our own continuations and endings to Mark’s Gospel every day. Mark’s Gospel begins with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” That’s how it starts. How it ends is, at least in part, up to us, to you, to me, to each of us sitting here this morning. Like the women at the tomb, we’ve been given great good news – that the Crucified One has risen, that through his dying and rising we are saved – that life, not death, has the last word; that divine love, not human injustice, prevails in the end; that what humans intend for evil, God in God’s infinite creative wisdom is able to use for good.
How will we end Mark’s Gospel? We can behave as the women did just after fleeing the tomb, by keeping the good news to ourselves, out of fear of how it will be heard. But that’s not what the angel told the women to do. The angel gave three imperatives, three commands, three words that constituted their marching orders, if you will: Look! Go! Tell!
Look! It’s hard to tell others about something we’ve never seen, that we’ve only heard about at second hand, if at all. We need to experience the resurrection power of Jesus ourselves, before we can pass it on to others. If you’ve never experienced it – find someone who has. Talk to that person. Talk about it, read about it, pray about it – but by all means experience it. The resurrection power of Jesus may come in quiet, surprising ways, ways we would never expect – one who experiences unexpected healing or recovery from illness, a timid one receiving holy boldness to step out in faith, one who is in mourning seeing the beams of God’s love breaking through the storm clouds of grief, one who is bitter and alienated, finding inspiration to tear down walls and build bridges to others who have been kept at a distance. You may not experience God knocking you off your horse on the Damascus road. You may not find God in the wind and the earthquake, but find that he calls to you in a still, small voice. Look! Listen! Expect the unexpected!
Go! Christian discipleship is not something we do for one hour on Sunday morning. Indeed, Sunday morning is a time of refreshment and renewal, to provide us with strength for the journey on the other six days of the week. While I’m the pastor of Emanuel Church, all of us are the ministers of Emanuel Church – all of us, no exceptions. The real work of the church doesn’t happen in here, but out there, outside our doors. Especially since people aren’t necessarily breaking down our doors to get in here, we need to go out there, to go into the highways and byways and meet people where they are. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place where God calls us is the place where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Deep gladness meeting great need – that is where we are to go. So what are you waiting for? What am I waiting for?
Tell! Many Christians act as if going to church is like going to Las Vegas – you know the saying, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”; what happens in church stays in church. But what happens in church is great good news, news that your neighbor and your neighbor and your neighbor are dying to hear, whether they know it or not. If you talk to your neighbor, he or she probably won’t tell you they want to experience Jesus. What they may tell you is that they feel like something is missing, that joy has gone out of their lives or that they don’t know exactly why they bother to drag themselves out of bed in the morning, lace up their shoes, and go to work, that while they’re making a living, they’re not sure how to make a life. That’s your opportunity, not to get all preachy and holier-than-thou, but to share what God has done in your life, to show what the promise of abundant life in this world and eternal life in the world to come are like. So do tell!
We began by talking about various alternative endings to Mark’s Gospel, and indeed the three other Gospels end in different ways. Matthew’s Gospel ends on a mountain top in Galilee, with Jesus telling the disciples to Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost – and with Jesus asking us to remember these words, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” John’s Gospel ends with Jesus asking Peter three times if Peter loved him, and Jesus commanding Peter three times, “Feed my sheep”. Luke’s Gospel ends with Jesus being carried up to heaven, and the disciples returning to Jerusalem with great joy, continually being in the temple blessing God. And of course, Luke’s Gospel has a sequel, which we know as the Acts of the Apostles.
So what ending will you write to Mark’s Gospel? For what acts will the disciples at Emanuel Church be remembered? Will we be known for our silence, or for our words of hope and love and joy. May we at Emanuel Church be surprised by joy at the resurrection power of Jesus, and may we share that joy with all we meet. Amen.
The King is Coming (No Foolin')
(Scriptures: Isaiah 50:4-9a Philippians 2:5-11 Mark 11:1-11)
And so, our Lenten journey draws near to a close. For 40 days, we’ve walked alongside Jesus in his earthly ministry as he has traveled throughout Galilee healing and preaching, driving out demons and proclaiming the in-breaking of God’s reign. Now Jesus is preparing to enter Jerusalem, the center of political power – at least on a local level – and for devout Jews, the center of religious faith and expression. Jesus is preparing to enter Jerusalem – not as a tourist or even as a religious pilgrim, but preparing to take on the civil and religious establishment, powers that be.
In preparing to take on the power that be, Jesus knows how to make an entrance! Expectations have been swirling around Jesus – is He the Messiah? Will he take on the hated domination of Judah by the Roman Empire? Will he win independence for the Jews? The Jews have very definite ideas of what this will look like, based on the words of the prophet Zechariah quoted in your bulletin – the king, a descendent of King David, coming in triumphant, yet with humility, riding on a donkey. Jesus and his followers act out this prophecy with a demonstration of a sort of street theatre, securing a colt – we’re told this colt had never before been ridden - and starting a processional march into the city.
I suspect that the “Occupy Wall Street” and “Occupy Philadelphia” demonstrations of the past year may give us a sense of what Jesus and his followers were doing in taking on the establishment. The Occupy encampment at City Hall this fall was a sort of base camp where members of many political and religious groups gathered, hung out together, exchanged ideas. They came from many different places, came with many different grievances, but they came together out of a shared sense that change is needed. From this base camp, members of Occupy set out on many different marches and processions – to protest against the exploitation of banks and financial institutions, to protest the seemingly unending wars in the Middle East, to march in solidarity and support of labor unions and students buried in school loans. The group that’s camping out by the Betsy Ross bridge formed as a spinoff from the Occupy movement. We probably still have pictures in our minds of what these gatherings and marches looked like – large groups of people, banners, signs, chants. Likely with the coming of warm weather, we can expect more to come in the weeks and months ahead. And these memories and expectations may help us understand what Jesus and his followers were doing on that Palm Sunday so long ago. Jerusalem, the center of power, had been co-opted by Roman oppression and corrupted by a religious establishment more interested in its own self-preservation than in ministry to God or the people. Perhaps we can think of Palm Sunday as Jesus and his followers staging an “Occupy Jerusalem” event. Their march, their street demonstration included Jesus riding on a colt – like the description in Zechariah’s prophecy, but like a parody of a Roman ruler riding in triumph – with his followers spreading palm branches and cloaks before Jesus as he approached, and chanting a song of triumph over Israel’s enemies. Mark’s account of the triumphal entry ends…not very triumphally: we’re told “Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” Perhaps Jesus went to the temple to make plans for the next day, when he would kick off another demonstration by throwing the moneychangers out of the Temple. Having “Occupied Jerusalem”, they were preparing to “Occupy the Temple”.
Which brings us an opportunity to consider one other comparison with the Occupy demonstrations of the fall – eventually, the authorities shut them down. And for the Occupiers from this fall, none of this was unexpected; the protesters had made prior arrangements for legal representation in case they were carted off to jail – which indeed did happen to some. Our memories of the fall Occupy protests may include images of police blockading protesters, police clubbing protesters over the head, and police arrests. An Occupy protest at the University of California, Davis campus – a sit-down protest – drew national news coverage when a police officer casually walked by the group pepper-spraying them. Those in authority don’t like it when folks rock the boat, and they’ll do what’s needed, however brutal, to restore order. In Jerusalem, Jesus and his followers were very definitely rocking the boat, and the establishment in Jerusalem – Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea; Caiaphas the high priest – were not appreciative. They were willing to do what needed to be done to restore order. During Holy Week, Jesus’ throwing the moneychangers out of the temple set off an escalating series of confrontations, eventually leading up to the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, the arrest, trial, and crucifixion.
For the political and religious establishment in Jerusalem, the events of Good Friday were all in a day’s work. The Jews were always rebelling against Roman oppression – within a few decades, Rome would respond to ongoing agitation by destroying the Jerusalem Temple itself - and from Rome’s point of view, Jesus was just another protester, another loudmouth, another nobody claiming to be somebody. Rome routinely executed anyone who opposed the empire, and for Rome, the crucifixion of Jesus was just one more political execution. It is the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul and Peter and John and others that give us God’s very different perspective on the matter – that Jesus - not Caiaphas, not Pilate, but Jesus - was in charge; that in pretending to pronounce judgment on Jesus, Caiaphas and Pilate only succeeded in pronouncing judgment on themselves; that the actions they took to silence Jesus would instead spread the Gospel of Christ around the world; that the actions they took to kill Jesus, instead prepared the way for the resurrection of Jesus, and for eternal life for all who believe in him.
Some words which are said to have been found scratched on the walls of a cellar in Cologne, Germany where Jews were hiding from the Nazis – “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I cannot feel it. I believe in God even when He is silent.” The events of Palm Sunday, of Holy Week, of Easter, remind us that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. What looked like failure, God turned into glory. What looked like the end, was a new beginning. What was intended as death, God used to bring life – new life, abundant life in this world and eternal life in the world to come. To use language popular in the United Church of Christ, what human sin intended as a period, God turned into a comma. For God is still speaking – was still speaking even through the horrors of Good Friday, is still speaking through all the crosses and losses we experience in our lives. May we at Emanuel continue to open our ears and our hearts to God’s word for us. Even when we experience life at its worst, may we remember, in the words of an old sermon: “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Amen.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Toppling Tables
(Scriptures: Exodus 20:1-17, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25,John 2:13-22)
When I go traveling in urban areas, I often like to visit the large churches and cathedrals in the city. For example, in New York City, St Patrick’s Cathedral is a most impressive place to visit. On a trip to Quebec, I traveled to a small town a short drive from Quebec to visit St. Anne’s cathedral, reputed to be the site of many healings – as you walk in the church, around the entrance are numerous canes and crutches and leg braces left behind by those healed of their infirmities. In these and other cathedrals, the art and architecture are breathtaking, a testament to the faith and sacrifice of those whose humble offerings paid for these wonders – as well as the excellent taste of those who commissioned them to be created. Of course, at many of these houses of worship, on the way out you encounter…..the gift shop. The nature of the items for sale is variable – often, a few are truly beautiful, unique, while most are mass-produced and dreadfully tacky. It’s understandable, especially if one is awed by one’s experience in the cathedral, to want to take along a reminder of that experience. And maintaining these monuments to faith isn’t cheap – it’s not cheap just to maintain our modest house of worship - and the gift shop helps generate funds for maintenance. However, I’ve always found it a little deflating, even a little jarring, to make the transition from the hushed, sacred silence of the Cathedral sanctuary to the bustle of fellow tourists and the ring of the cash register inside the gift shop – and I suspect I’m not alone in this. I can’t help thinking of the Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the other; one of these things just doesn’t belong….”
This week’s Gospel readings begin a detour from Mark’s Gospel, which we have been studying, into John’s Gospel, where we will remain for the rest of March. John’s Gospel is very different from the other three Gospels. In the other three Gospels, Jesus is known by his teachings, healings, and other miracles, and – especially in Mark’s Gospel – orders those whom he helps to keep Jesus’ acts a secret. From these actions, the reader is invited to come to their point of belief that Jesus is the Messiah. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is endlessly talking about himself and his relationship to the Father. In a series of “I am” statements – “I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the good shepherd; I am the true vine; I am the way, the truth, and the life….”- Jesus uses a variety of metaphors to explain his identity and to invite those around him to belief. John’s Gospel also has a very noticeable “us and them” outlook on the world. John is thought to have been the latest of the four Gospels to have been written, and it appears that by the time John’s Gospel was written, the early followers of Jesus had been expelled from the synagogues. John’s Gospel reflects this mutual hostility, often referring to the religious leaders with the loaded phrase, “the Jews”. Given this highly charged language, it’s especially important to keep in mind that the disagreements between Jesus and the Temple leaders was essentially a kind of family feud within Judaism – and we all know how unattractive family feuds can become.
The account of the Jesus throwing the moneychangers out of the Temple occurs in all four Gospels. In the other three Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – it occurs near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, right after Palm Sunday, helping to set into motion the plot to have Jesus arrested. In John’s Gospel, it occurs near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, setting the tone for hostile relations between Jesus and the Temple religious establishment that carry through for the rest of the book.
Why were there moneychangers and sellers of animals in the temple in the first place? Our cathedral gift shops sell trinkets for tourists to take home, but in our Gospel reading, the coins and animals were for worshippers to bring into the Temple as they entered, not to carry home as they left. Of course, we know that at that time, the ceremonies of worship held at the Temple involved animal sacrifice. People came for long distances, often on foot, to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem – and it would have been quite an ordeal to bring their sacrificial animals along with them. And since the sacrificial animals had to be of the highest quality – God demands our best - you wouldn’t want to drag along one of your own, only to find out at the end of your long journey that it didn’t pass muster. So, as a service to worshippers traveling long distances, the Temple offered animals deemed fitting for sacrifice – for a price, of course. The moneychangers were needed because one had to pay a temple tax of half a shekel. Given that Roman and Greek coins had imagery depicting the emperor as a god, those coins were not acceptable for use in paying the Temple tax – so these were exchanged for the Jewish half-shekel coin that everyone had to pay in support of the Temple.
So there were good, defensible reasons why moneychangers and vendors of animals were part of the Temple economy. Perhaps Jesus’ objection was, in part, that they were actually within the outer courts of the Temple. Previously, they would have been outside the Temple – nearby, but still outside. According to one tradition, it was Caiaphas himself – yes, that Caiaphas – who allowed the merchants to set up shop inside the Temple. It certainly must have been deflating for pious pilgrims who had walked long distances to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem to come all that long, weary, sweaty distance, only to have to run a gauntlet of vendors on the way into the house of the Lord. One would readily sense not only crass commercialism, but more than a whiff of corruption – these folks, along with the Temple establishment, were profiting from the humble piety of peasants who wanted only to worship the God of their fathers. So Jesus toppled the tables of the vendors and drove them out, saying, stop making my Father’s house a house of commerce, a marketplace. We’re told that the disciples recalled a phrase from Psalm 69, “Zeal for your – that is, God’s - house will consume me.” As I thought about our Gospel reading, it struck me that, in a sense, both Jesus and the vendors were, in different ways, zealous for God’s house. The vendors were zealous to raise funds for the maintenance of the Temple and its hierarchy – and perhaps were a bit overzealous in profiting personally from their location within God’s house. And of course, Jesus was zealous that God’s holiness and the sanctity of God’s house be upheld.
The intersection between faith and commerce has always been problematic. In the words of the Sesame Street song, indeed, one of these things is not like the other. Faith, at its best, leads to generosity and openness of spirit, while commerce often promotes a spirit of greed. In both faith and commerce, our hands are extended – in one case, to give; in the other, perhaps to grab. Several years before composing his 95 theses, while he was still a zealous Roman Catholic, in an attempt to rekindle his faith and get relief for his guilty conscience, Luther made a pilgrimage to Rome. Far from restoring his faith, his experiences in Rome nearly destroyed it. Watching Pope Julius II behaving more like a patron of the arts than like a priest, watching priests living like princes on the offerings of the faithful, seeing the splendor of St Peter’s and knowing it was paid for by the tithes of the pious poor – all this turned Luther’s stomach. And of course, as we know, the sale of indulgences – spiritual tickets out of purgatory, sold to the faithful in order to raise money for St. Peter’s, just sent Luther right over the edge, eventually prompting his break with Rome.
Our Old Testament reading from Exodus gave us the Ten Commandments – and it strikes us as very legalistic, an oppressive list of “thou shalt nots” to be rebelled against. But in reality, the Ten Commandments were given by God to define and safeguard the kind of community his chosen people would be, over and against the surrounding nations. God was defining his chosen people as a community where God would always have first place, whose name would be held sacred and who was beyond the ability of man to capture in graven images. The chosen people, having escaped slavery in Egypt would be a community in which a day of rest was not only permitted, but commanded. The chosen people would be a community in which parents and by extension the elderly would be honored and cared for; where murder, marital infidelity, theft, dishonesty, and envy would be unknown. Of course, we know it didn’t work out quite that way – not for them, not for us – but it’s a vision of how God would have us live together.
Likewise, we are called to be, not just any community, but God’s community, a community in which we seek neither wisdom nor signs, but Christ crucified, still a scandal to the worldly wisdom of our day; in which we have systems and boundaries set in place to define how we are organized and to defend from abuse. May we at Emanuel Church continue to live into God’s vision of what our community of faith will be. Amen.
When I go traveling in urban areas, I often like to visit the large churches and cathedrals in the city. For example, in New York City, St Patrick’s Cathedral is a most impressive place to visit. On a trip to Quebec, I traveled to a small town a short drive from Quebec to visit St. Anne’s cathedral, reputed to be the site of many healings – as you walk in the church, around the entrance are numerous canes and crutches and leg braces left behind by those healed of their infirmities. In these and other cathedrals, the art and architecture are breathtaking, a testament to the faith and sacrifice of those whose humble offerings paid for these wonders – as well as the excellent taste of those who commissioned them to be created. Of course, at many of these houses of worship, on the way out you encounter…..the gift shop. The nature of the items for sale is variable – often, a few are truly beautiful, unique, while most are mass-produced and dreadfully tacky. It’s understandable, especially if one is awed by one’s experience in the cathedral, to want to take along a reminder of that experience. And maintaining these monuments to faith isn’t cheap – it’s not cheap just to maintain our modest house of worship - and the gift shop helps generate funds for maintenance. However, I’ve always found it a little deflating, even a little jarring, to make the transition from the hushed, sacred silence of the Cathedral sanctuary to the bustle of fellow tourists and the ring of the cash register inside the gift shop – and I suspect I’m not alone in this. I can’t help thinking of the Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the other; one of these things just doesn’t belong….”
This week’s Gospel readings begin a detour from Mark’s Gospel, which we have been studying, into John’s Gospel, where we will remain for the rest of March. John’s Gospel is very different from the other three Gospels. In the other three Gospels, Jesus is known by his teachings, healings, and other miracles, and – especially in Mark’s Gospel – orders those whom he helps to keep Jesus’ acts a secret. From these actions, the reader is invited to come to their point of belief that Jesus is the Messiah. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is endlessly talking about himself and his relationship to the Father. In a series of “I am” statements – “I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the good shepherd; I am the true vine; I am the way, the truth, and the life….”- Jesus uses a variety of metaphors to explain his identity and to invite those around him to belief. John’s Gospel also has a very noticeable “us and them” outlook on the world. John is thought to have been the latest of the four Gospels to have been written, and it appears that by the time John’s Gospel was written, the early followers of Jesus had been expelled from the synagogues. John’s Gospel reflects this mutual hostility, often referring to the religious leaders with the loaded phrase, “the Jews”. Given this highly charged language, it’s especially important to keep in mind that the disagreements between Jesus and the Temple leaders was essentially a kind of family feud within Judaism – and we all know how unattractive family feuds can become.
The account of the Jesus throwing the moneychangers out of the Temple occurs in all four Gospels. In the other three Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – it occurs near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, right after Palm Sunday, helping to set into motion the plot to have Jesus arrested. In John’s Gospel, it occurs near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, setting the tone for hostile relations between Jesus and the Temple religious establishment that carry through for the rest of the book.
Why were there moneychangers and sellers of animals in the temple in the first place? Our cathedral gift shops sell trinkets for tourists to take home, but in our Gospel reading, the coins and animals were for worshippers to bring into the Temple as they entered, not to carry home as they left. Of course, we know that at that time, the ceremonies of worship held at the Temple involved animal sacrifice. People came for long distances, often on foot, to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem – and it would have been quite an ordeal to bring their sacrificial animals along with them. And since the sacrificial animals had to be of the highest quality – God demands our best - you wouldn’t want to drag along one of your own, only to find out at the end of your long journey that it didn’t pass muster. So, as a service to worshippers traveling long distances, the Temple offered animals deemed fitting for sacrifice – for a price, of course. The moneychangers were needed because one had to pay a temple tax of half a shekel. Given that Roman and Greek coins had imagery depicting the emperor as a god, those coins were not acceptable for use in paying the Temple tax – so these were exchanged for the Jewish half-shekel coin that everyone had to pay in support of the Temple.
So there were good, defensible reasons why moneychangers and vendors of animals were part of the Temple economy. Perhaps Jesus’ objection was, in part, that they were actually within the outer courts of the Temple. Previously, they would have been outside the Temple – nearby, but still outside. According to one tradition, it was Caiaphas himself – yes, that Caiaphas – who allowed the merchants to set up shop inside the Temple. It certainly must have been deflating for pious pilgrims who had walked long distances to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem to come all that long, weary, sweaty distance, only to have to run a gauntlet of vendors on the way into the house of the Lord. One would readily sense not only crass commercialism, but more than a whiff of corruption – these folks, along with the Temple establishment, were profiting from the humble piety of peasants who wanted only to worship the God of their fathers. So Jesus toppled the tables of the vendors and drove them out, saying, stop making my Father’s house a house of commerce, a marketplace. We’re told that the disciples recalled a phrase from Psalm 69, “Zeal for your – that is, God’s - house will consume me.” As I thought about our Gospel reading, it struck me that, in a sense, both Jesus and the vendors were, in different ways, zealous for God’s house. The vendors were zealous to raise funds for the maintenance of the Temple and its hierarchy – and perhaps were a bit overzealous in profiting personally from their location within God’s house. And of course, Jesus was zealous that God’s holiness and the sanctity of God’s house be upheld.
The intersection between faith and commerce has always been problematic. In the words of the Sesame Street song, indeed, one of these things is not like the other. Faith, at its best, leads to generosity and openness of spirit, while commerce often promotes a spirit of greed. In both faith and commerce, our hands are extended – in one case, to give; in the other, perhaps to grab. Several years before composing his 95 theses, while he was still a zealous Roman Catholic, in an attempt to rekindle his faith and get relief for his guilty conscience, Luther made a pilgrimage to Rome. Far from restoring his faith, his experiences in Rome nearly destroyed it. Watching Pope Julius II behaving more like a patron of the arts than like a priest, watching priests living like princes on the offerings of the faithful, seeing the splendor of St Peter’s and knowing it was paid for by the tithes of the pious poor – all this turned Luther’s stomach. And of course, as we know, the sale of indulgences – spiritual tickets out of purgatory, sold to the faithful in order to raise money for St. Peter’s, just sent Luther right over the edge, eventually prompting his break with Rome.
Our Old Testament reading from Exodus gave us the Ten Commandments – and it strikes us as very legalistic, an oppressive list of “thou shalt nots” to be rebelled against. But in reality, the Ten Commandments were given by God to define and safeguard the kind of community his chosen people would be, over and against the surrounding nations. God was defining his chosen people as a community where God would always have first place, whose name would be held sacred and who was beyond the ability of man to capture in graven images. The chosen people, having escaped slavery in Egypt would be a community in which a day of rest was not only permitted, but commanded. The chosen people would be a community in which parents and by extension the elderly would be honored and cared for; where murder, marital infidelity, theft, dishonesty, and envy would be unknown. Of course, we know it didn’t work out quite that way – not for them, not for us – but it’s a vision of how God would have us live together.
Likewise, we are called to be, not just any community, but God’s community, a community in which we seek neither wisdom nor signs, but Christ crucified, still a scandal to the worldly wisdom of our day; in which we have systems and boundaries set in place to define how we are organized and to defend from abuse. May we at Emanuel Church continue to live into God’s vision of what our community of faith will be. Amen.
Promises, Promises!
(Scriptures: Genesis 17:1-8, 15-22, Romans 4:1-25, Mark 8:31-38)
Our readings from Genesis and Romans deal with the word covenant. A covenant is a promise from one party to another. Last week’s reading from Genesis included God’s promise to, or covenant with, Noah and his family and with every creature on earth, that God would never again destroy all life on earth in a flood. This is the first covenant mentioned in Scripture.
Covenants often involve a mutual set of promises between two parties or two persons. Some covenants are quite mundane – for example, in my rental agreement, my landlord covenants to let me live in an apartment and to take care of maintenance, and I covenant to pay my rent timely and not trash the place. If I decide to move, after giving my landlord the stipulated notice, I can find another landlord easily enough, and my landlord can find another tenant easily enough. No harm, no foul. But some covenants are defining moments in our lives. One that may quickly come to mind is the set of promises or the covenant that a couple make to one another at a wedding or ceremony of union – promises to to love, honor, and cherish one another for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as both shall live. Having made this covenant, it is understood that the couple has committed to stand by one another not just when it’s convenient, but through all the good and bad that life may throw at them, and even through the hurt and disappointment that they may inadvertently or intentionally inflict on one another. All that the couple does from that time forward is done in the context of that set of promises.
And even this level of commitment is exceeded by the commitment that God offers in God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah. When God first appears to Abraham, we’re told that Abraham is 75 years old, that Abraham and Sarah had no children and indeed that Sarah could not have children. God promised Abraham and Sarah many descendents, and a land for their descendents to inhabit. By the time of today’s reading from Genesis, some 25 years have passed. At various points Abraham has despaired that his servant Eleazar of Damascus would be his heir, and at Sarah’s suggestion tried to sort of help God out by sleeping with his servant Hagar, who gave birth to his son Ishmael. And yet God repeatedly reassures Abraham that he and his wife Sarah will give birth to a son who will have many descendents. In today’s reading, God puts a timeline on his promise: the waiting is almost over. By this time next year, Sarah will have a son. In a section from Genesis that was not read, Abraham’s response to this covenant was that he and his male descendents would be circumcised, in a sense literally writing the covenant indelibly into their flesh. So, like a marriage covenant, God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah and their descendents define who they will be to one another from that time forward. From this time forward they’re stuck with each other. Even though Abraham’s descendents were often unfaithful – the book of Hosea which we studied some months ago compares God’s relationship with God’s people to Hosea’s troubled relationship with a truly awful wife whose behavior he can hardly stand, and yet whom he can’t bring himself to abandon, and as one reads it one wonders “can this marriage be saved” – despite all that, and despite the consequences of the peoples’ unfaithfulness, God didn’t abandon God’s people – God was and is faithful.
In our reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, Paul wrote the early Christian movement, wrote the church – indeed, wrote us - into the covenant as being among those who share the faith of Abraham, among those whom God will not abandon. The future of the early church was at least as precarious as the future of Abraham and Sarah. There were no TV ministries in those days, no megachurches – the early Christian movement consisted of house churches scattered here and there in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean Sea, many of the latter planted by Paul and his followers. As God called an elderly, childless couple to become mother and father of multitudes, God called a tiny number of people, ostracized by synagogue and persecuted by empire – a tiny number of people willing to live by Jesus’ words to take up their cross and follow him, a tiny number of people willing to lose their lives for the sake of Christ and the Gospel - to spread the good news of the Gospel, and in the Book of Acts, even their opponents described them as those who have been turning the world upside down.
As God called Abraham and Sarah, and as God called Paul and the early church, so God calls us, the members of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Like Abraham and Sarah and their descendents, we are defined by God’s covenant with us. Though we inhabit many different identities, wear lots of different hats – parent, child, spouse, partner, employee, customer, citizen, voter, neighbor – our deepest identification is that made at our baptism. By our baptismal covenant with God and the church as we or our sponsors on our behalf vow to renounce the powers of evil, to profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and to be his disciple, through the covenant of baptism we are defined as children of God, disciples of Christ, members of Christ’s church. In the sacrament of communion in which we will participate in a few minutes, in sharing bread and wine we share in the covenant. Our life together as members of Emanuel United Church of Christ is also defined by covenant – your covenant as members of Emanuel Church to worship and fellowship and minister and do church together, the mutual covenant between us as pastor and congregation, our congregation’s covenant with the United Church of Christ, and the covenant of the United Church of Christ with us.
Paul wrote that God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah was not for them alone, but for the early Christian churches as well. In the same way, God’s covenant with us in baptism, our life together as Emanuel Church, is not for ourselves alone, but for our neighbors near and far. Like those early house churches, there aren’t a whole lot of us – we gathered here today probably have as many folks as those small gatherings did, though our house is a bit larger than theirs would have been. Like Abraham and Sarah, some of us are getting on in years, have been celebrating our 39th birthday for decades now. But God who called Abraham and Sarah to be father and mother of nations, God who called the early disciples to turn the world upside down, also calls us to spread Good News. In a world that proclaims the reign of tanks and bombs, the reign of wealth, the reign of empire; in a country which proclaims the reign of consumer goods, the reign of stuff - we are to spread the Good News of the Reign of God.
God called Abraham to go from his country and his kindred to a land that God would show him. As a congregation, we, too, are on a journey. As a congregation, we may have to leave what is familiar to go to the place God has called us. We won’t be much of a blessing if our identity as Emanuel church is just to huddle here behind closed doors on Fillmore Street. We are called to be a channel for God’s blessings, not a storage tank.
When we leave here, the good news goes with us, and as the good news goes with us, perhaps others will be attracted to join us in proclaiming good news to others. Through our support of the Bridesburg Council of Churches Food Cupboard and our commitment to Our Church’s Wider Mission, we bring good news to folks in our neighborhood and around the world that we may never meet in person.
I’ll close with an old Sunday School song
“Father Abraham had many sons (and daughters)
How many children had Father Abraham
Well, I am one of them, and so are you
And look what we can do.”
Amen.
Our readings from Genesis and Romans deal with the word covenant. A covenant is a promise from one party to another. Last week’s reading from Genesis included God’s promise to, or covenant with, Noah and his family and with every creature on earth, that God would never again destroy all life on earth in a flood. This is the first covenant mentioned in Scripture.
Covenants often involve a mutual set of promises between two parties or two persons. Some covenants are quite mundane – for example, in my rental agreement, my landlord covenants to let me live in an apartment and to take care of maintenance, and I covenant to pay my rent timely and not trash the place. If I decide to move, after giving my landlord the stipulated notice, I can find another landlord easily enough, and my landlord can find another tenant easily enough. No harm, no foul. But some covenants are defining moments in our lives. One that may quickly come to mind is the set of promises or the covenant that a couple make to one another at a wedding or ceremony of union – promises to to love, honor, and cherish one another for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as both shall live. Having made this covenant, it is understood that the couple has committed to stand by one another not just when it’s convenient, but through all the good and bad that life may throw at them, and even through the hurt and disappointment that they may inadvertently or intentionally inflict on one another. All that the couple does from that time forward is done in the context of that set of promises.
And even this level of commitment is exceeded by the commitment that God offers in God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah. When God first appears to Abraham, we’re told that Abraham is 75 years old, that Abraham and Sarah had no children and indeed that Sarah could not have children. God promised Abraham and Sarah many descendents, and a land for their descendents to inhabit. By the time of today’s reading from Genesis, some 25 years have passed. At various points Abraham has despaired that his servant Eleazar of Damascus would be his heir, and at Sarah’s suggestion tried to sort of help God out by sleeping with his servant Hagar, who gave birth to his son Ishmael. And yet God repeatedly reassures Abraham that he and his wife Sarah will give birth to a son who will have many descendents. In today’s reading, God puts a timeline on his promise: the waiting is almost over. By this time next year, Sarah will have a son. In a section from Genesis that was not read, Abraham’s response to this covenant was that he and his male descendents would be circumcised, in a sense literally writing the covenant indelibly into their flesh. So, like a marriage covenant, God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah and their descendents define who they will be to one another from that time forward. From this time forward they’re stuck with each other. Even though Abraham’s descendents were often unfaithful – the book of Hosea which we studied some months ago compares God’s relationship with God’s people to Hosea’s troubled relationship with a truly awful wife whose behavior he can hardly stand, and yet whom he can’t bring himself to abandon, and as one reads it one wonders “can this marriage be saved” – despite all that, and despite the consequences of the peoples’ unfaithfulness, God didn’t abandon God’s people – God was and is faithful.
In our reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, Paul wrote the early Christian movement, wrote the church – indeed, wrote us - into the covenant as being among those who share the faith of Abraham, among those whom God will not abandon. The future of the early church was at least as precarious as the future of Abraham and Sarah. There were no TV ministries in those days, no megachurches – the early Christian movement consisted of house churches scattered here and there in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean Sea, many of the latter planted by Paul and his followers. As God called an elderly, childless couple to become mother and father of multitudes, God called a tiny number of people, ostracized by synagogue and persecuted by empire – a tiny number of people willing to live by Jesus’ words to take up their cross and follow him, a tiny number of people willing to lose their lives for the sake of Christ and the Gospel - to spread the good news of the Gospel, and in the Book of Acts, even their opponents described them as those who have been turning the world upside down.
As God called Abraham and Sarah, and as God called Paul and the early church, so God calls us, the members of Emanuel United Church of Christ. Like Abraham and Sarah and their descendents, we are defined by God’s covenant with us. Though we inhabit many different identities, wear lots of different hats – parent, child, spouse, partner, employee, customer, citizen, voter, neighbor – our deepest identification is that made at our baptism. By our baptismal covenant with God and the church as we or our sponsors on our behalf vow to renounce the powers of evil, to profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and to be his disciple, through the covenant of baptism we are defined as children of God, disciples of Christ, members of Christ’s church. In the sacrament of communion in which we will participate in a few minutes, in sharing bread and wine we share in the covenant. Our life together as members of Emanuel United Church of Christ is also defined by covenant – your covenant as members of Emanuel Church to worship and fellowship and minister and do church together, the mutual covenant between us as pastor and congregation, our congregation’s covenant with the United Church of Christ, and the covenant of the United Church of Christ with us.
Paul wrote that God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah was not for them alone, but for the early Christian churches as well. In the same way, God’s covenant with us in baptism, our life together as Emanuel Church, is not for ourselves alone, but for our neighbors near and far. Like those early house churches, there aren’t a whole lot of us – we gathered here today probably have as many folks as those small gatherings did, though our house is a bit larger than theirs would have been. Like Abraham and Sarah, some of us are getting on in years, have been celebrating our 39th birthday for decades now. But God who called Abraham and Sarah to be father and mother of nations, God who called the early disciples to turn the world upside down, also calls us to spread Good News. In a world that proclaims the reign of tanks and bombs, the reign of wealth, the reign of empire; in a country which proclaims the reign of consumer goods, the reign of stuff - we are to spread the Good News of the Reign of God.
God called Abraham to go from his country and his kindred to a land that God would show him. As a congregation, we, too, are on a journey. As a congregation, we may have to leave what is familiar to go to the place God has called us. We won’t be much of a blessing if our identity as Emanuel church is just to huddle here behind closed doors on Fillmore Street. We are called to be a channel for God’s blessings, not a storage tank.
When we leave here, the good news goes with us, and as the good news goes with us, perhaps others will be attracted to join us in proclaiming good news to others. Through our support of the Bridesburg Council of Churches Food Cupboard and our commitment to Our Church’s Wider Mission, we bring good news to folks in our neighborhood and around the world that we may never meet in person.
I’ll close with an old Sunday School song
“Father Abraham had many sons (and daughters)
How many children had Father Abraham
Well, I am one of them, and so are you
And look what we can do.”
Amen.
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