In my previous life living near downtown Phoenix, each morning, I awoke to the sounds of the train just 500 yards from my front door, the nearby industrial recycling plant’s occasional explosions that shook my home, ambulance sirens, loud music, and a half-mile long string of halted traffic on the main thoroughfare just one empty lot away. I would dress in my running gear and jog north to Thomas Avenue, a major city street that runs through the entirety of Phoenix, thick with cars and buses zipping by from stoplight to stoplight or crawling slowly from stoplight to stoplight. At church, a constant stream of folks experiencing homelessness coming through the church office, donors dropping off food, clothing, and hygiene products, parents dropping off their kids at the Montessori preschool on site, young people coming for concerts put on most nights by a ministry partner, random people stopping by with questions or wanting tours of our historic building, plus, of course, regular church programming. Life was, to sum it up, loud and busy. Right around this time 4 years ago, at the start of the pandemic, I remember leaving my house to jog each morning the same as always, except this time, when I got to Thomas Avenue, there was not a single car. With everyone working from home or simply not working, the half-mile string of traffic on the main thoroughfare was reduced to just a few stray cars at the intersection. Not able to welcome people indoors anymore, the constant hubbub at church slimmed down to just a person or two at a time grabbing water or a meal from the outdoor stations we had set up for the duration of the pandemic. Life was, to sum it up, still. Quiet. Empty.
The stillness of the pandemic reminds me of the stillness of that first Easter morning. For the year of ministry preceding Jesus’ death was loud and busy. After the opening words: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” the gospel of Mark tells how Jesus is baptized, is driven into the wilderness by the Spirit and tempted, and then, we’re off to the races. Jesus “immediately” calls disciples and proclaims the kingdom of God, heals people and feeds them, “immediately” used time and again in the gospel of Mark, 41 times in all. With his disciples in tow, Jesus is mobbed by crowds wishing to be healed and needing to be fed. They travel by foot from village to village, and seemingly everywhere they go, people have heard of Jesus. They cry out to him, wish to touch the hem of his robe, want him to stop and touch them, send their children to him. When Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the intensity of following Jesus only increases. The Last Supper, Jesus’ arrest in the garden, Jesus before the high priest and Pilate, Jesus crucified, Jesus’ body laid in a tomb. It all happens so fast, I’m sure the disciples can hardly take it in. Afraid for their own lives that Good Friday, the disciples are, apparently, locked in the upper room. Saturday, the sabbath, passes. Still. Quiet. Empty. Their savior dead, their purpose gone, their lives upended. They will soon go back to fishing and tax collecting, back to their families. The people who cried out “Crucify him” are at home and have forgotten how they helped put an innocent man to death. Pilate has washed his hands of the matter. Everyone else, the crowds and bystanders, have shrugged their shoulders and moved on. Jesus is dead. That’s all the women know when they go to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body with spices that first Easter Sunday—they only know Jesus is dead. These women had followed Jesus, provided meals for him, gave up family obligations in order to travel with him. Like the disciples, their lives too are upended, both by Jesus’ appearance in their lives and now by his sudden crucifixion. But, soon, things will go back to the way they were before Jesus… Except that, when Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome arrive at the tomb, the stone is already rolled away from its entrance, and a young man in a white robe tells them Jesus is not here, that he has been raised. And the young man, presumably an angel, tells them, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” In Mark’s account of Jesus’ resurrection, the women are seized by terror and amazement, and they say nothing to anyone for they are afraid. The End. Still. Quiet. Empty. Yet this is not the end of the story. For Jesus is going ahead of the disciples and the women to Galilee. Jesus is going ahead of them to the place where it all began. There, they will see him. Mark’s gospel ends here, but it really begins a new chapter in the life of Jesus. According to the other gospels, Jesus continues ministry for 39 days after the resurrection—until he ascends into heaven on day 40. Then, on day 50, Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fills the disciples in Jerusalem, the Spirit that then sends them out to do the work of Jesus. The resurrected life of Jesus continues in the people of God through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on them. The gospel of Mark ends with the women’s terror and amazement, but the good news of the angel, that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee, means there is more to come. Jesus is going back to the place where he taught and preached, healed and forgave, fed and loved. And through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, he will empower the disciples, who become the church, to continue his ministry of teaching and preaching, healing and forgiving, feeding and loving. Friends, we are now that church; we are now Jesus’ disciples. And we too have received the Holy Spirit in baptism. Our life in God is not still, quiet, or empty. For we are the ones in whom the resurrected life of Christ continues. We are the ones called by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit to teach and preach, heal and forgive, feed and love. Today. Now. This is not the end of the Jesus story. This is only the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God—For Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.
0 Comments
Langston Hughes, American poet of the 20th century, wrote:
I'd rather see a sermon than to hear one any day. I'd rather one walk with me than just to show the way. The eye is a better pupil and more willing than the ear. Advice may be misleading but examples are always clear. And the very best of teachers are the ones who live their creed For to see good put into action is what everybody needs. I can soon learn to do it if you let me see it done I can watch your hand in motion but your tongue too fast may run And the lectures you deliver may be very fine and true But I'd rather get my lesson by observing what you do. For I may misunderstand you and the fine advice you give But there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live Tonight, Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus’ crucifixion and death, we don’t so much hear a sermon as see one. Later, Jesus will command the disciples to love one another as he has loved them, but first, Jesus washes their feet. He, their master, their teacher, their savior, kneels at their feet, ties a towel around himself, and literally gets his hands dirty. Jesus performs an act of service reserved for the lowest servant of the house. Performs a mundane act of care. Performs a daily chore necessitated by their 1st century circumstances. For these are not 21st century US feet, wrapped in wool socks, pedicured, and cared for by physicians. These are dusty, dirty, hard-worn soles aided only by sandals or even bare, walking rough-hewn roads in the desert wilderness. Tonight, we wash one another’s feet, but we don’t really-wash one another’s feet. For us, foot washing is a ritual act, a symbol, a carefully orchestrated and thoroughly clean endeavor. Jesus washing the disciples’ feet would be like, today, a friend, partner, or neighbor buying our groceries when we are sick, snowblowing our driveway, driving us to a doctor’s appointment, or responding to a midnight summons for help. If I have learned nothing else in the short time I’ve lived in Minnesota, I have learned that the lessons of Maundy Thursday are not lost on you. I have seen time and again this very sermon lived out before me. This past week, my neighbor whom I had met only once before snowblowed our driveway. Throughout Lent, many families here at St. John’s fed this community prior to MidWeek Lenten worship—even ensuring there were gluten-free options for me. When a tree went down due to wind here at church, almost immediately Jeff was there to cut it up, take it away, and grade the driveway. I have witnessed you joyfully cleaning the church. On a personal level, our insurance agent, the superintendent of schools, bank tellers, people working at the library and thrift stores have all gone out of their way to make life easier for us. And I have heard you, the people of St. John’s of Cedarbrook, tell stories of serving others, in daily, mundane ways. Getting up in the middle of the night to fix a family’s furnace or to help a grieving family with a seriously ill pet, serving as an EMT or with the fire department, mowing a neighbor’s lawn or helping with the demolition of a house, aiding young people in securing employment or providing a meal for someone recently hospitalized. As I interviewed with St. John’s, and Richard and I prepared to move here, one thing I clearly remember someone telling us was, “Please let us know if you need help. Around here, we help each other.” So you get it. There’s no misunderstanding how you act and how you live. And there’s no misunderstanding how Jesus acts and how Jesus lives. For here he is: the night before he dies. He knows, when he goes to the garden later with the disciples, Judas will betray him. He knows, when he’s arrested, all the rest of the disciples will abandon him. He knows, when Peter is confronted in the courtyard by by-standers, Peter will deny him. He knows none of the disciples will be seen at the cross, that only the women will be standing near. Yet he washes Judas’ feet, Peter’s feet, the feet of all the disciples. And then he commands them to love one another as he loves them, foot washing as his primary example. When we not only listen to Jesus’ sermon but also watch it, we see that he washes the feet of those who hurt him, those who deny knowing him, those who walk away from him at the very moment he needs a friend. And this is where Jesus’ command and his sermon of foot washing challenge us, for those we are called to love won’t always love us the way we hope. Jesus washes their feet even though they will betray and deny and abandon him—because love is not a barter chip, something we risk in order to earn more love. I distinctly remember the day this lesson sunk in. Of course, after years of Bible camp, campus ministry, seminary, and parish ministry, I had taught and preached Jesus’ love countless times—in addition to a lifetime spent in church where I doubtless heard the good news of Jesus’ love for me on the regular. But it wasn’t until May 2015 that I got it. During worship at Grace Lutheran Church one Sunday that May, we had a baptism. Of an adult who had been coming to worship for several months. I had met with him a couple of times to discuss the meaning of baptism in the Lutheran church, and though he had not grown up in the church, he had studied philosophy. So he understood the Christian theological tradition in its wider context while less familiar with the rituals and traditions of the church. For the day of his baptism, we had decided his dear friend who was his baptismal sponsor would stand at the lectern and share why he was coming to be baptized. When his friend got to the lectern, she veered from the topic at hand and talked about how he cared for her during difficult times in her life, how he helped her do hard things, and how their friendship blossomed over time. I’ll never forget how she said: “One day, I realized he loved me long before I ever loved him.” To love one another as Jesus loves us is to love one another, regardless. Whatever our crabby family member or neighbor, ornery coworker or community member do, we love them as Jesus loves us. Whether we agree with them or not, whether we judge them or not, we love them as Jesus loves us. To do so doesn’t mean we have warm, fuzzy feelings for them. It doesn’t mean we like or endorse what the other person is doing. It doesn’t mean we are saints with perfect composure and patience in all circumstances. Rather, love means rolling up our sleeves, getting our hands dirty, and doing love. We love because we have been loved in the very same way. Even though we betray and deny and abandon Jesus. Even though we, like all humans, will never love Jesus back perfectly. Jesus loved us long before we ever loved him. Tonight, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples. There is no misunderstanding how he acts and how he lives. With love—for every one of us. Thanks be to God! Amen. From the Mount of Olives, Jesus sends disciples ahead of him to secure the colt, and word spreads quickly. The crowd get up early to prepare. To cut branches from palm trees. To gather their friends and family. To spread the news that Jesus is coming from the Mount of Olives, the place from whence the savior would come according to the Old Testament prophet Zechariah. To spread the news that Jesus is entering Jerusalem, the seat of power in that region of the world and the home of the Jewish temple. The crowd get up early because a king is coming to save them from the tyrannical rule of the Roman Empire. They will be free, free from occupation, free from exorbitant taxes, free from arbitrarily cruel punishment. The colt, a sign of the promised king’s arrival from the prophet Zechariah, tips them off. They lay down a bed of palm branches and cloaks on the road to prepare for the king’s arrival.
Many generations before, the ancient Israelites were enslaved in Egypt and then delivered out of slavery by Moses. In thanksgiving, God instructed them to process around the temple altar waving palm branches. On the first Palm Sunday, the palm branches signal the crowd’s joyful hope that, like Moses, Jesus will lead a new exodus and deliver them from their bondage. So too by “spreading their cloaks on the road,” the crowd signals they recognize Jesus as royalty, just as described in 2 Kings. Palm Sunday is full of expectation, the people’s expectations teed up by the Old Testament. This Lent during our MidWeek Lenten worship services, we have considered our expectations of Jesus. We likely don’t share the expectations of those held by the people of the first century. We likely don’t expect Jesus to end corrupt systems of government or de-throne political leaders. We likely don’t expect Jesus to save us from paying our taxes or to guarantee safe passage of particular legislation through Congress. But perhaps we expect Jesus to agree with us, to accept the things we accept and to judge the things and people we judge. Perhaps we expect Jesus’ ways to mirror our ways. Perhaps we expect Jesus to solve all our problems or end suffering in the world. Perhaps we expect Jesus to make our lives easier, not harder. And honestly, why not expect those things from a savior-king? Even while typing these words, especially “perhaps we expect Jesus to end suffering in the world,” I was like, yeah, I do. I think about all that is wrong in the world, all those actually dying from malnutrition in Gaza and Haiti today. I think about refugees around the world who are at this moment walking away from everything they’ve ever known, carrying all their possessions tied up in a quilt. I think about people, maybe even some in our own community, who woke up this morning and were hit or belittled by their partner, and I wonder: Why doesn’t Jesus end this? Palm Sunday and, indeed, the entirety of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection challenge our expectations of a savior-king. Jesus challenges our expectations of what will happen when he shows up. He challenges our expectations of what is truly redemptive. As humans, we naturally would like our problems to simply be eradicated, but that is, evidently, not how God works. Instead, God becomes flesh in Jesus and joins us in our suffering. Which is somehow exactly what we need. A few years ago, a young woman I’ll call Anne joined the church I served. Off and on, she was homeless and seemingly always in unstable, unpredictable situations. I didn’t see her in worship much, but she would sometimes just stop by the church. I’d return from a meeting elsewhere, and she would be sitting on the steps right in front of my office door. I’d sit down on the steps next to her, and she’d tell me what was going on in her life. Twenty minutes later, she’d have to go, and so would I. That’s all she needed. This past week, someone from our own community showed up at church, and when I greeted them, out spilled their anxiety and aggravations, common worries and frustrations. For maybe ten minutes, this beloved person shared while another member and I listened. Ten minutes, and we had to go, but the person who shared smiled and thanked us for listening, clearly more at peace. Once a month, I have an hour-long zoom call with my coach. Each meeting, she helps me solve a problem I’m facing either in my professional or personal life by asking me questions that lead me to clarity and action. She and I met the week before last, and like every month, I described a problem I had, one I was a bit ashamed to admit. Once admitted, though, my coach helped me unravel the knots of my problem, and I ended the session with a light heart. So often what Anne and the member of our community, what I and all of us is need is not heroics but simply presence, the presence of another person and especially the presence of God. Today, Jesus challenges the expectations of the people of his day—and ours. Jesus does not show up mighty and swashbuckling, forceful and heroic. Instead, our savior-king shows up on a colt, fulfilling Old Testament prophecy, yes, but prophecy depicting the humblest of all kings. But apparently, Jesus’ humble entrance into Jerusalem goes right over the heads of the crowd, for they still call out “Hosanna,” meaning “save us!” They are not crying out “save us from our sin” but for deliverance from the oppression of the Roman Empire. No wonder the crowd turns on Jesus just a few days later. If Jesus can’t save even himself from the Roman Empire’s tortuous cross, how can he possibly save us? they likely wonder. While the crowd rejoices upon Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, he later disappoints the hopes of everyone. For he does not slew a single soldier. He does not remove the emperor from his throne. He does not change the law of the land. What does he do? He shows up. He shows up in the very place where he will die. Many people die in Jerusalem by the power of the state; Jesus is just one more. Jesus enters Jerusalem not like other kings, not with swords and shields, not with chariots, not even a horse—just a colt, a borrowed one, at that. Jesus knows when he gets on the colt that doing so will cement his fate for to enter Jerusalem like that, to be hailed Son of David, to be flocked by a crowd shouting “Hosanna” is sedition. It is to challenge the sitting emperor. Even though he knows he will die and die in great agony, he does not pick up a sword. He will not bring about the kingdom of God through violence. There will be another way. That other way is the one we walk this week, this holy week. Amen. In a previous congregation, a woman I’ll call Cindy was very much engaged in the life of the congregation: serving on council, consistently showing up to help out, contributing her gifts to the ministry of the congregation. Not long after I met Cindy, a family in the congregation went through a time of turmoil, and Cindy was a good friend of the wife but not the husband. Cindy was not pleased with how I handled the situation, and she wasn’t shy about telling me—or telling anyone else. Even though she was very angry, she continued to come to church. After Cindy stirred up anxiety and conflict in the congregation for a few months, the family managed to work through their difficulties, and I went to find Cindy who was volunteering at the church with the renovation of a bathroom. By this point, I wasn’t so much mad at Cindy as confused and wondering what caused her to be so upset about a matter unrelated to her own life or family. So I asked her, “What’s this all about?” And because Cindy had shared with me and the rest of the council that she had been raped as a young woman, I asked her, “Is this because you were raped?” She immediately turned to me and said, “I’ve been thinking about that. I think that might be true.” Cindy turned her back to the wall, slid down it, and sat on the bathroom floor, crying. I did the same, just crying next to her on the floor. The next day, she packed up her tools, resigned from council, and stopped coming to church. It was a death. Cindy let go of the congregation as her faith community, and she let go of her anger towards me. She also let go of the illusion that her anger had something to do with her friend’s situation or my response—instead of Cindy’s own trauma.
A man I’ll call John approached me one day shortly after I arrived at Grace Lutheran in Phoenix. He introduced himself and told me that, though he was a member of the church, he had been barred from the property because he had gotten into a fight with another member the year before. John asked if he could possibly come back, and I agreed—on the condition that he would sign a covenant stating he would not engage in physical violence with anyone on church property. The covenant also stipulated his coping mechanisms for when he felt angry which included conversation with trusted people, going for walks, and breathing deeply. Suffice it to say, I spoke with John on a near-daily basis for a couple of years after he signed the covenant as he had both the desire and physical capacity to hurt others. Nearly 12 years later, on my last Sunday at Grace, John came over to hug me and said: “You’ve made me non-violent, Pastor.” He hadn’t been in a single fight all those 12 years. And of course, that was his and the Holy Spirit’s doing, not mine. It was a death, the death of a person who uses violence to solve their problems. I got married for the first time when I was 23 years old. The kind, gentle man I married was the wrong fit for me—and me the wrong fit for him. We just made a mistake. After multiple rounds of counseling, numerous books read, endless conversation, and 13 years, I finally said: We need to get divorced. It was 13 years later because I didn’t want to get divorced. I had read what Jesus says about divorce, and he’s not a fan. I had spent my entire adult life with my first husband and couldn’t imagine life any other way. Our divorce was a death, the death of a marriage but also the death of an illusion I had that happiness in this life doesn’t matter. I share these death stories today because today’s gospel is also a type of death story. The Jewish leaders had decided in the previous chapter that they were going to put Jesus to death. You see, Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead, and because of that, crowds were flocking to Jesus and believing in him. The Jewish leaders had said to one another: “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” So they determined to kill him. In today’s gospel, Jesus announces that the hour has come for the Son of Man, who is Jesus, to be glorified. Explaining this glorification, Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls in the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus uses agriculture imagery here to make clear what his glorification entails. And we, like Jesus’ ancient listeners, know that grains of wheat, when they are buried or sown in the ground, we know that does not mean death. Instead, a grain of wheat buried is the first step to new life, to new life sprouting and fruit borne. The Jewish leaders wish to kill Jesus, and they think they are burying him in a grave. Turns out, they are planting him like a seed. Jesus will not simply die but also be raised, and his resurrection, like fruit borne, will mean the birth of the Christian church. We humans, we avoid death like the plague. We don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want to give into it. Even when a person has lived a long and joyous life, we rarely acknowledge death and its inevitability. It’s only when we see people or other animals suffer that we welcome death. It seems we avoid other forms of death as avidly as we do physical death. I’m not the only person who has miserably stayed married and avoided the death of an unhappy marriage. John isn’t the only person who has spent decades of their life stuck in cycles of violence and avoided change. Cindy isn’t the only person who has lashed out due to their own trauma and avoided healing. Death, strangely, is not always to be avoided. Jesus’ own death and the deaths I have seen among God’s people lead me to wonder: What might death make possible in my life and the life of the world? What fruit is potentially borne when I or we let go of that to which we so avidly cling? I have no pat answers to these questions, just the questions that we each might wrestle with them. But I know this: at baptism, we were put to death. As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 6, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. At baptism, we were drowned, we and our old, tired ways of bitterness and grudges, our ways of spite and envy, our ways of indifference and greed. We were drowned that we might walk in newness of life, a baptismal life of love for our neighbor, a baptismal life of forgiveness and service, generosity and joy. Our baptismal death is not to be avoided but embraced because death makes newness of life possible. And friends, that is the truest of all death stories. What might death make possible, and what fruit is borne through it? For Jesus, it was us, here, the body of Christ extending the love of Christ in every generation. We are the fruit borne of Jesus’ death. For that, we can say: Thanks be to God! Amen. Many of the folks who were part of Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Phoenix, where I formerly served, were experiencing homelessness, and each day as people streamed through the office during office hours, we would receive request after request: for water and snacks, for bus tickets and first aid supplies, for help securing a copy of someone’s birth certificate or $7 to replace their Arizona ID, for prayer and Bibles, and for many, many other things. I helped people set aside criminal charges, kitted people out for new jobs, helped people navigate various governmental agencies’ automated phone lines. People sat at the table in my office and told me stories—of prison time, of getting beaten up at their campsite, of being abused by parents or a partner, of chronic physical pain or just not being able to see and not being able to afford glasses. People described to me the labyrinth of their challenges, of how each small lack or challenge impacted the larger web of choices available—or unavailable—to them. What struck me, upon my arrival at Grace in 2010 right through my last Sunday there in October 2022 was this: The vast majority of the members of the Grace community experiencing homelessness were consistently pleasant. When these folks who slept on concrete every night in addition to unemployment and mental health concerns and broken relationships were asked: How ya doin’?, the most common response was “Blessed, pastor. I’m blessed.” By far, the most common response was “blessed.”
In the grand biblical narrative that begins in Exodus, God sends Moses to deliver the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. After a series of plagues and mishaps, including the momentous trek through the Red Sea, the people are freed. However, once Pharoah and his army perish in the sea, the people are left in the wilderness, the desert wilderness of what is today Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The general consensus among the people is that freedom isn’t what it’s cracked up to be…for in the desert wilderness, the Israelites accuse Moses and Aaron of delivering them from slavery only to kill them with hunger. Upon their exaggerated complaint, God provides manna from heaven each morning, bread enough for each day, and quails every evening, meat enough for every day. And God directs Moses to take his staff and get water from a rock, water abundant enough to slake the thirst of the whole community plus their animals. In today’s reading from Numbers, there the people go again, complaining now not just to Moses but to God: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” I have to laugh because the moment after they claim there is no food, they admit they have food—though they detest it. And the chapter before this story, Moses again strikes a rock with his staff as commanded by God, and out comes water. This time, scripture tells us God sends poisonous serpents among the people, serpents that bite and kill the people. It appears that God has just “had it” with their complaining and can’t be God’s gracious self any longer, after freeing them from slavery, providing daily bread and meat, and streaming water from rocks so they don’t die of thirst. After all that, the people can’t see what God has done for them. Still, when the people admit their sin to Moses and ask him to intercede with God on their behalf, God comes up with a solution. At God’s command, Moses erects a serpent of bronze on a pole. Whenever someone is bitten by a serpent, the person looks at the serpent of bronze and lives. God does not eradicate the serpents. God does not stop the serpents from biting the people. God simply brings healing when people look up at the serpent. As people at Grace would say, today’s story compels us to “keep it real.” Sin, whether personal or systemic, whether done knowingly or unknowingly, against ourselves or others, sin has consequences. In this story of the Israelites, the poisonous serpents enter the scene when the people of Israel are grumbling and complaining, when they fail to see the grace and abundance provided them. When they fail to see that God has been walking with them all along the way. When they fail to see that God has been feeding them, literally raining bread from heaven. When they fail to see that God has come to their aid time and again. Their sin is a lack of gratitude, a stubborn resistance to acknowledging what God has provided. And their sin has consequences. The consequence is not estrangement from God, and the consequence is not death—for God quickly comes to their aid—as God always does for they are God’s people. The consequence is living in a world shaped by their lack of gratitude. A world where the bad things that happen are understood as punishment, a world where God is not to be trusted, no matter what God does. When we read this story from the book of Numbers, we can reasonably assert that the serpents enter the Israelites’ camp because the people are complaining and because God has finally said “enough.” But I do wonder about the way the Israelites assign the serpents to God’s doing. I wonder because they are in the desert wilderness, and this is where poisonous serpents live. I wonder if the serpents were already there, if in their stubborn resistance to God’s leading, the people blamed the serpents on God instead of acknowledging that a desert wilderness includes serpents. I wonder this because, for 12 years, I walked with people who had every reason to blame God for their many troubles. I walked with people who had every reason to blame God for the circumstances of their birth or the circumstances which led them to homelessness. I walked with people who had every reason to blame God when a job or an apartment fell through. But they didn’t. They didn’t blame God for a single one of their troubles. Instead, people saw the consequences of their own actions, their complex family patterns, and the broken systems of our culture as the reasons for their situation. And they praised God for all the ways God had provided. They knew they were blessed, and this way of life, too, had its consequences, consequences of joy and faith despite hardship and pain. I wonder if any of us sympathize with the Israelites. I wonder if any of us are caught in a cycle of bitterness and anger. I wonder if any of us quite reasonably question why God would allow disease or natural disaster or the death of a beloved person. If we do blame God or question God and don’t we all at some time?, we are invited to see, to see all the ways God provided for the Israelites and, in turn, all the ways God provides for us. The people God has put in our lives to support us, to help us, to make us laugh. The opportunities God has given us to serve our neighbor. The gifts of daily bread and all the necessities of life. The beauty of this planet and in particular this place of lakes and trees and rivers. The gifts and talents through which we get to bless the world. The joy of this life. Like the Israelites, our troubles are real—but so are the grace and abundance of God. For that, we can say: Thanks be to God! Amen. Today, I invite you to take a Bible or maybe share with your neighbor and turn to our gospel reading for this Sunday: John 2:13-22. The Bible has two major parts. Does anyone know what the two major parts are? Old Testament and New Testament What part is the gospel of John in? New Testament Since John is a gospel, it is near the front of the New Testament, and it’s the last gospel, right after Luke and before Acts. When we share a biblical citation like John 2:13-22, the 2 is the chapter number, similar to book chapters, the larger number. The 13-22 are the verse numbers, the smaller numbers.
In today’s gospel story, we immediately know the time of year of the story. What’s our clue? The Passover of the Jews was near. So it was probably spring since that’s when the Passover is celebrated. Sometimes, Passover coincides with Holy Week, and sometimes it doesn’t. But Passover is always in the late winter or spring. The next thing the gospel of John tells us is that Jesus went to Jerusalem, and it’s almost like the gospel writer says: Naturally, Jesus went to Jerusalem. Why would Jesus of course go to Jerusalem for Passover? Because that’s where the temple is. Because Jerusalem is the center of the Jewish faith. And the Passover is a very important holiday in the Jewish faith. When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, he enters the temple, the largest and most important worship space in ancient Judaism. The ancient Jews believed that God literally resided in the holiest of holies at the center of the temple, a space only the high priest might enter. Like an onion, the temple unfurled in layers, with a space considered the Temple proper just outside the holy of holies where other priests could worship. In addition, there was a Court of the Priests, a Court of Israelites open to Israelite men, a Court of Women open to Israelite women. Around these spaces was constructed a wall, and on the other side of the wall laid the Court of the Gentiles, the place where non-Jewish people could gather. It was there that vendors set up their marketplace. During the first century, Jews practiced, as written in religious law, animal sacrifice as a way of reconciling themselves to God. Animals without blemish were required. Worshipers who did not already possess animals appropriate for sacrifice could purchase them there, at the temple, along with changing their money into the appropriate coinage. What Jesus encounters this marketplace in the temple, what does he do? Turns over the tables of the moneychangers, pours out their coins, makes a whip of cords and drives out the cattle and sheep, tells those selling doves to take them out of there and to stop making his father’s house a marketplace. What do you think of Jesus’ response to the vendors in the temple marketplace? Throughout the gospel of John, the gospel writer refers to a group he calls “the Jews” which is curious because nearly every single person in the gospel is Jewish: Jesus, the disciples, the crowds, most of the people Jesus interacts with. It indicates to us that, when the gospel writer uses this phrase, he is referring to this group not because of their religion but because they are a group who defend tradition and traditional structures. This means, of course, that they are suspicious of Jesus—but not for religious reasons, per se, but because Jesus challenges tradition. When questioned by “the Jews” about his actions in the temple, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” When you hear Jesus’ response, do you think he’s referring to the temple in Jerusalem or something else? How do you know? The temple had been under construction 46 years, so it’s unlikely that Jesus would raise it up in 3 days. But we know that Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day. Jesus doesn’t actually tell the Jews or the disciples what he meant. It’s just the gospel writer who tells the reader that Jesus was referring to the temple of his body. Having examined this story, why do you think Jesus turned over the tables of the moneychangers and drove out the cattle and sheep? Why was he angry? This story appears in all 4 gospels, one of the few stories that does appear in all 4 gospels. And in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the focus of the story is different than it is in John. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus calls the marketplace a “den of robbers” implying the problem, the reason he’s angry is that the vendors are up-charging their products. They are taking advantage of the common people who have come to fulfill their religious obligation. In John, Jesus’ focus is on the marketplace itself. Which requires some digging to understand. Jesus does not appear to be critiquing commerce generally. Jerusalem would have been full of vendors, and Jesus does not go to the stand selling figs and dates to flip over that vendor’s tables. And I also don’t think Jesus is critiquing commerce in the temple worship space—because the commerce would have been necessary for the Jewish people to fulfill their religious obligations. They are buying the cattle and sheep because God commanded that they practice animal sacrifice. All I—and a host of biblical scholars far more learned than I—can figure is that Jesus is challenging the sacrificial system itself. The system that required worshipers to come to a building, a sacred building, in order to be made right with God. The system that required worshipers to spend large amounts of resources in order to be made pure and whole. The system that required priests to perform functions on behalf of the people. Jesus seems to say: This system is no longer relevant. For the temple, the thing that mediates your relationship with God, is no longer a building but my body. This was good news for the early Christians—that the temple building and along with it, the sacrificial system, was no longer necessary. For the temple was destroyed in 70 of the common era, 40 years after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. But this is good news for us too. An intimate relationship with God has nothing to do with a building or a priest, with the correct words or a proper sacrifice. An intimate relationship with God is one where we abide in God as God abides in us. One where we take in Christ’s body and blood—in Holy Communion—so that we can be Christ’s body in the world, loving and serving our neighbors in concrete, mundane ways. One where we speak with God in prayer as with an old friend, confident we are heard and seen and loved. One where we gather with other Jesus-followers, yes in a church building that is helpful but not necessary. We gather to be encouraged, to worship and learn and grow, to love and be loved, to practice following Jesus. Destroy this temple, destroy this body, Jesus says, and in three days I will raise it up. For we 21st century Christians, we might hear Jesus say: Destroy this church, this institution, this body of Christ, and in three days I will raise it up. For now, we are the body of Christ in the world, and even if this body is destroyed, we wait for the third day. Thanks be to God! Amen. |
AuthorPastor Sarah Stadler shares her sermons from the previous Sunday. Archives
May 2024
Categories |