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.
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In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples he will undergo great suffering, be rejected, be killed, and after three days rise again. When Peter rebukes Jesus, Jesus teaches both the disciples and the crowd to follow him. For, Jesus says, those who want to save their life lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, save it.
When I imagine following someone, in the way Jesus calls us to follow him, the image that comes to mind is walking in deep snow. When snow has just fallen and we are walking through it, we, especially short people like me, appreciate when someone goes ahead of us, when someone breaks the path. Then, all I do is step into the footprints. I don’t have to make my own way. I just walk exactly where the person before me walked. Now, there are lots of people and forces and trends to follow, other than Jesus: our parents and extended families, our friends and colleagues, our culture at large, particular political or social leaders, or those we actually “follow” on facebook or twitter or tiktok or youtube. We can’t help but follow someone, somewhere. While we may think that we can break our own path in the world, similar to the way we might break a path in pristine snow, the reality is that not a single one of us truly walks our own way in the world. How we live, the choices we make, what we even consider to be our choices at all are a reflection of all the people and forces and trends that have shaped us, for good or ill. Jesus’ invitation might make us wonder, as it does me: who do I follow? Or to say it another way: If our lives are a game of Follow the Leader, who is my leader? On the first day of my first call over 17 years ago, I went to join one of the WELCA circles—the Women of the ELCA Bible study circles—for their regular Bible study at my new church. I had never met these women before, but they graciously welcomed me, cut me a piece of cake, poured me a cup of coffee, and then continued with their Bible study. I don’t remember what they were studying, but at one point in the study, one of the discussion questions was: Is it easy to follow Jesus? Around the table, each woman said: “Well, yes, of course.” Now, I wanted to be respectful, and of course, I had just met them. But I couldn’t help myself and burst out with: “No, it’s not easy to follow Jesus at all! He leads us to do hard things, good things but hard things. And ultimately, if we follow him, we follow him into suffering and death. No, it’s not easy to follow Jesus; we basically lose our lives.” Surprised silence followed my outburst, and then, a woman named Elaine said, “Huh. We need more of that.” Once in a while, like these women, I get caught up in thinking that it’s easy to follow Jesus and that I’m doing it just great. I get seduced into thinking that the One I follow is Jesus and that, really, I’ve got this whole discipleship thing sewn up. It’s usually right around that time that something happens that humbles me. I discover I’ve been holding a grudge and am unwilling to forgive someone, or I hear myself saying something rude and hurtful about a particular person or group of people. Richard will turn to me, and say: “Do you really think that?” Or I willfully and specifically decide to skirt responsibility for caring for God’s creation or loving my neighbor. It was at this point in my sermon writing that I didn’t know where to go. Because I had already basically written three whole sermons and erased the first two. They just didn’t feel right. I love this passage from Mark and the similar passages from Luke and Matthew—because following Jesus is the reason I am here, in church. I appreciate other aspects of the Christian faith and specifically the Lutheran tradition, but for me, it all boils down to following Jesus. I just dig him. And I really want to follow him. Because I do want to follow him, I get to thinking that I know how to do it well and that I have something to say about it. In my sermon writing process this week, I laughed aloud when I discovered that my hubris, my pride had surfaced again, in writing this very sermon, and that, instead of following Jesus, I was following myself. Which was probably why my sermon process wasn’t going well. I had to remind myself that, if I am following Jesus, I am following, not leading. And of course, that’s true for all of us. None of us are breaking that path through the deep snow; we’re only just stepping into the footprints Jesus left for us. And if we’re following Jesus, that’s some deep snow, three feet at least. If we step into the footprints Jesus has left for us, here’s what we see: We see Jesus healing people, touching people one by one by one through entire crowds. We see him blessing bread and fish and sharing it with 5000 men plus women and children besides. We see him calling Zacchaeus out of the sycamore tree and announcing his forgiveness. We see him hanging out with women and tax collectors and lepers and even the dead. And then, we see ourselves step into those footprints, literally following Jesus everywhere he goes. Jesus leads us to spend time with people we would never have sought out, leads us to do things we would have never done, opens our eyes to needs we would have ignored. Our priorities, in a real and vivid way, shift. We allow our lives to not only change; as Jesus said, we give up our lives. Today, the good news in the midst of hard, challenging news, is this: Jesus has left us footprints in which we may simply step. We don’t have to follow, but when we do, we find a life we won’t regret. For that, we can say: Thanks be to God! Amen. On Ash Wednesday, we confront ourselves.
We begin worship in silence. We cannot avoid the thoughts inside our heads. We confess our sin, our most grievous sin. We cannot avoid the truth of our communal confession, that we are a broken people. We receive ashes on our forehead and hear: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. We cannot avoid our mortality. We hear Jesus’ warning: Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them. We cannot avoid the fact that we like to be seen as good by others. We hear Isaiah’s hard truth: Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. We cannot avoid how we perpetuate injustice in many ways. On Ash Wednesday, we confront ourselves. And we are not fond of confronting ourselves. In fact, most of us are out of practice of confronting ourselves. Doing so is tricky because confronting ourselves does not mean blaming ourselves. It does not mean shaming ourselves. It is not telling ourselves we’re not good enough. No. Blame, shame, accusation is not Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday, we confront ourselves, however we are. Ash Wednesday is like standing in front of a mirror. There’s no need for the mirror to speak, to blame, to shame, to accuse; simply by standing in front of it, we see ourselves. Standing in front of the mirror, we cannot avoid ourselves. When we look in that mirror, we see what we do, not what we think or what we say, but what we do, actually do. And that’s startling: to measure how or if we follow Jesus only by what we actually do—with no commentary, no explanations, no excuses. When we see ourselves, we do not need to blame, shame, or accuse ourselves but just see plainly that we, all of us, me included, are not as ethical as we believe, not as consistent, not as good. When we stand in front of that mirror, we may even find that we don’t follow Jesus, that we have no desire to follow Jesus, that we straight up avoid questions of large importance, such as questions of justice and questions of love. Still, amazingly, just as Jesus fails to judge the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 6, he fails to judge us. When Jesus sees us, he sees exactly how we are, and while we are a dishonest, inconsistent, self-centered people, Jesus somehow avoids blame, shame, and accusation. Jesus calls us to walk the walk, not simply talk the talk. In fact, he recommends not talking—only doing. Give. Don’t talk about giving. Pray. Don’t talk about praying. Fast. Don’t talk about fasting. No judgment. He just shows us to ourselves. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus uses the Pharisees as an object lesson because they, among all the people of Jesus’ world, hold the highest opinion and thus the most unrealistic opinion of themselves. They happen to be the most religious of all the people in Jesus’ world, the most proper, the most legalistically pure. Jesus does not condemn them. He just describes what they do. By contrast, the disciples who follow Jesus, his friends with whom he breaks bread, the sick and demented crowds who flock to him, the women who stay with him at the cross, these people are not so religious, not so pure, not so proper. They are broken too, just like the Pharisees. But they know it. They are able to look in the mirror and see themselves. That’s who Jesus teaches in Matthew chapter six, courageous people who take a good look in the mirror and hear the gospel in the midst of the law. For the law warns: Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them. But the gospel declares: I see you exactly as you are, and still, I love you. That’s Ash Wednesday. Thanks be to God! Amen. Today, on Transfiguration of Christ Sunday, we hear a gospel story of a vision, a vision beheld by the disciples, a vision so odd in its details that we may not recall this pivotal story from the gospel of Mark. Given that, I invite you to help tell the story of the transfiguration of Christ. I will read the gospel again while those who volunteer will show us what the characters do. There are no speaking parts, just acting with our bodies and especially our faces. You don’t have to fit the character’s age or gender; you’ll have a nametag to remind who you are.
Worships acted out the story. Peter, James, and John see a vision. On a mountaintop, they see Jesus transfigured, glowing, dazzling. They see Moses and Elijah, prophets long dead, the most important prophets of the Jewish faith. They hear the voice of God claiming Jesus as God’s own son. The glory of God is revealed to Peter, James, and John, first hand, directly, a vision clear and near to them, in real time. A vision that terrifies them. But also a vision that assures them who Jesus is. You see, just six days before, Jesus had told them he would suffer and be rejected and killed. Jesus had also told them he would rise again after three days, but for the disciples who have left everything to follow Jesus, this news of suffering and rejection and death must have left them panicked and fearful. And now, they see this vision of Jesus glorified. Not suffering, not rejected, not killed—but glorified alongside the greatest prophets of the Jewish faith, Moses and Elijah. The transfiguration of Christ assures the disciples that, beyond Jesus’ suffering, rejection, and death or perhaps in his suffering, rejection, and death, he will be glorified. Back in November, I sat at a computer screen to connect with the call committee of St. John and interviewed for the first time for the call here. To be honest with you, I was puzzled when I read your Ministry Site Profile, the paperwork sent to prospective pastoral candidates. I was puzzled because I couldn’t find a clear mission statement in your Ministry Site Profile though I read it and then reread it a number of times. I went to your website in search of your mission statement, thinking, perhaps, that I had overlooked it but couldn’t find it there either. At the interview, when the call committee inquired about my questions, I had to ask: What’s your mission statement? On my end, the screen was quite fuzzy for some reason, so I could only see a dim outline of each person. But from where I sat, it appeared that the committee members looked at each other, sheepishly, laughed, and then said: We knew this would come up. And they explained that St. John doesn’t currently have a clear mission statement, a clear vision. “We’re not very good at writing mission statements,” one committee member said. That’s okay. We’ll figure it out together, all of us and God. We’ll figure it out together. Because just as God revealed a vision to Peter, James, and John, so too will God reveal a vision to us. If we are willing to see and willing to listen, God will show us God’s vision for St. John of Cedarbrook. God will show us what we are to do and where we are to go. God will speak, and God will show up here, clear and near. God will reveal God’s own vision for us. God’s vision is not for us to decide, only to discern. Beginning next week, near the conclusion of worship, we will pray together a prayer of discernment. Each week, we will set aside space and time to listen for God’s voice, to ask God to make God’s desire for St. John clear to us. We will ask God to open us to whatever God has for us, and God will. God will! On the mountaintop, Peter, James, and John see a vision, a vision revealed to them by God, a vision that inspires hope. For we who wish to hear and see and experience God, we too will receive God’s vision for this place, God’s vision for St. John of Cedarbrook, a vision that will inspire hope. Thanks be to God! Amen. |
AuthorPastor Sarah Stadler shares her sermons from the previous Sunday. Archives
May 2024
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