Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, "Mercy and Sacrifice," Psalm 50:7-15, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 (Proper 5/Ordinary 10)

Sermon 6/11/23

Psalm 50:7-15, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Mercy and Sacrifice

A few weeks ago, just before I came to Central New York for the summer, I packed up my apartment in New Jersey and moved from one town to another. Not a huge move - just about 15 minutes away. And not a huge amount of things - I moved in with other PhD students, so other than my bedroom furniture, I didn’t have much I needed to bring. As far as moves go, since I have moved so many times as an itinerant pastor and often moved from one five bedroom parsonage to another, this one was pretty simple. Except… as a PhD student, I have to move “student-style,” finding a truck and getting some friends who are willing to help for the reward of my thanks and some pizza for lunch. And, except - I was moving from a second floor apartment, requiring a lot of up and down stairs. And, except this: both of my knees need replacing. They’ve been deteriorating for years, and now they’re down to bone on bone, and walking is painful enough but stairs are even harder, and stairs while carrying heavy things are near impossible. Thankfully, I have good friends. But on moving day, I had to basically sit and watch while they did all of the work of loading and unloading my things, taking trip after trip up and down the stairs at my old place, on what was of course the hottest day of that week. And while that might sound great - sitting back and watching others do the hard work - I suspect for most of us, actually, being helped, while we can’t contribute anything, is more stressful than not. I spent a lot of the day feeling guilty, frustrated, and helpless, wishing I could help, wishing things were different. My helpers? They weren’t doing anything to make me feel guilty. They were thoughtful, appreciative of the lunch I bought, efficient, and done and moved on, while I was still wrestling with how much I hated having to rely on them to get the job done. 

You’ve probably heard the expression: it’s more blessed to give than receive. And I think most of us find that to be the case. We love giving to others. It brings us a lot of joy, doesn’t it, giving? Being able to lift others up through our actions? But being able to receive, graciously, thankfully, when we’re in a place of need and someone else can meet our need that we can’t do ourselves? I think receiving is actually harder than it looks. Maybe it’s fine on Christmas, on birthdays, on occasions where being the recipient of gifts is expected. But outside of that? Where we are receiving not even gifts but “help”? Mostly, I think we really chafe against needing help. I think many of us would do just about anything to avoid appearing helpless, being helpless. 

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week as I read our gospel lesson. Our gospel lesson from Mathew is really three stories in one. In the first part, Jesus calls Matthew, a tax collector, to follow him. Matthew does, immediately. Jesus is then eating dinner - perhaps at Matthew’s house? - and there are many other “tax-collectors and sinners” joining in the meal. Then the Pharisees - the religious leaders of the community - discover who has been at this gathering, they criticize Jesus to his disciples, that he eats with what they consider unfit company. Jesus overhears and says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,”” paraphrasing from the prophet Hosea. He continues, “For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Then we skip ahead a bit into what might seem to be two unrelated healing stories, both of which you might be familiar with. First, Jesus gets a message from a leader of the community that his daughter has died, but asking Jesus to come and lay hands on her, trusting that the girl will live. On the way to the leader’s house, Jesus is approached by a woman who has been suffering with hemorrhages for over a decade. And she’s confident that if she can just touch Jesus, even his cloak, she will be healed. Jesus takes notice of her right away, saying to her, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well,” and indeed, she has been made well. Finally, Jesus gets to the leader’s house and finds everyone in the household already in mourning over the daughter who has died. Jesus sends them all away, insisting the girl is only sleeping. Everyone laughs - the girl is clearly dead! But when the crowd of mourners leave, Jesus takes the girl by the hand, and she gets up, alive and well. Our text closes with Matthew reporting that news of these events spread quickly throughout the region. 

I desire mercy, not sacrifice, Jesus says. I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners. What does Jesus mean? Righteousness, after all, means something like being in “right relationship” with God and one another. And it seems, throughout the scriptures, that God very much does long for us to be in right relationships, just relationships. Isn’t that what God wants? isn’t our journey of discipleship about just that - learning how to set right our relationships with God and one another? And, what does it mean that God desires mercy? I understand that God is merciful - compassionate and forgiving. But how do mercy, sacrifice, righteousness, and sinfulness relate? I can’t think Jesus means that we have to relish our sinfulness so that God has more opportunity to show us mercy. I don’t think that Jesus wants us to pretend to be in need of help so that God can get the joy of rescuing us. So what does Jesus mean? 

I think first - and this is a hard one - first, God’s primary audience is not always us. Sometimes we’re like the lost sheep - but sometimes, especially if we’ve been on the path of discipleship for a long time, seeking to grow deeper and deeper in our faith - we’re just one of the sheep who is safe in the pasture. God’s priority is the sheep who is lost. And we can be jealous that God is tending to the lost sheep, or we can be thankful that we’re already safe and sound. 

As for righteousness? Well: like everything else we might come to have, it is a gift of God. If we learn to grow in discipleship, and set right all our relationships, it is through drawing on God’s strength, embracing God’s grace, and imitating God’s love. When we start believing righteousness is something we’ve achieved by our own efforts, that’s self-righteousness, and self-righteousness is pretty far from God’s intent for us. Being in right relationship with God and others isn’t a destination we can reach and just settle at. It’s a practice, a discipline, something that we grow in with God’s help. 

And there it is: God’s help. Friends - we need God’s help, always. We stand in need of God’s mercy, always. Rather than this gospel being some strange suggestion that we have make ourselves appear to be in a position of needing mercy in order for us to get God’s attention, we need to recognize that we’re already there. We are in need of God’s help. We need God’s mercy. We do sin. We are broken. We do turn away from God. We do fail to live in right relationships. We can’t do it by ourselves. We need God’s help. Unfortunately, our culture is full of really destructive messages about being in need of mercy, about needing help. Our society implies that if you need help, especially too much help, or for too often, or for too long, you are weak, you’re wrong, you’re less than. Instead, we cultivate this myth of self-made people who’ve pulled themselves up by their own power and strength, no help needed. 

When I look at the vignettes in our scripture today, I see stories of people who knew that they needed help/ Matthew, the unnamed sinners and tax collectors, the leader seeking help for his daughter, the woman Jesus healed - they needed help, and they knew it, and they weren’t afraid to accept the help Jesus offered them. Can we be vulnerable enough to know that we need help, and to accept the help that Jesus offers? Can we recognize our own failings, and receive mercy from God who is ever-ready to offer it to us? It’s not that God isn’t interested in righteousness. I think, rather, it’s that our ability to claim the label “righteous” isn’t the standard for entry into God’s reign that we think it is. Rather, God wonders, how receptive are we to receiving God’s grace and mercy? How ready are we to receive all that God wants to give us? I think, friends, that part of our readiness to receive from God includes letting others receive mercy and grace without judgment from us. Those who received healing, welcome, and a calling from Jesus in our text from today: they demonstrate to us the incredible vulnerability of being able accept God’s mercy. God wants to be merciful to us too. God wants to help us, because we need it. May we open our hands and our hearts, ready to receive what we need. Amen. 

Sermon for Trinity Sunday, Year A, "God in Community, Holy in One," 2 Corinthians 13:1-13, Matthew 28:16-20

 Sermon 6/4/23

2 Corinthians 13:1-3, Matthew 28:16-20

God in Community, Holy in One

I was torn between directions for my sermon when I picked our hymns for today. They mostly focus on our text from Matthew and the Great Commission and what it means, but I’ll have to save those thoughts for another sermon, because I just couldn’t stop thinking about the Trinity on this Trinity Sunday, and what I might say about this most unique aspect of Christianity. Our scripture texts are chosen in the lectionary because they both use a Trinitarian formula - “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” naming the three persons of the Trinity. Last week, as we celebrated Pentecost Sunday, I mentioned that I find the Holy Spirit to be a little weird. Well: the Trinity? Definitely also weird. And it’s not just me who thinks so. Our conception of God as a Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, Parent/Child/Spirit, however we phrase it, our Christian understanding of God as Three Persons/One God: Well, of all of the many things that set religious traditions apart from each other, we can find common ground in so many ways. But the Trinity? It’s rather unique. Most Christians understand ourselves to be monotheistic - in other words, believing in one and only one God. But from the outside, people from other religious traditions hear this idea of the Trinity - that Jesus is also Divine, God in the flesh, that the Holy Spirit is also God - and declare that you can’t be Trinitarian - believing in a three-in-one kind of God, and still be monotheists, believing in one God without quite so many layers, or personalities, or complications. 

And indeed - there are lots of reasons for those who are not Christian to be confused by the Trinity, because, honestly, we Christians are confused by the Trinity, sometimes without even realizing it. First: The word Trinity? It never appears anywhere in the Bible. The Bible says a lot of things about the nature of God, about who God is and gives us ideas about how to describe God from titles to descriptions of God’s character. And we learn a lot from the scriptures about Jesus and his relationship to God, and as we discussed last week, we get a lot of descriptions of the Spirit and what the Spirit does, and the sense that the Spirit is of God, is in Christ, is sent by God, by Jesus, to be with us. And yet, despite all this, nowhere does the Bible say: Hey, God is a Trinity, a Three-in-One deal.   

So where do we get the notion of Trinity from? It’s an extrapolation. In other words, it’s a conclusion we reach by taking all the witness of the scriptures and trying to figure out what they’re telling us about God. Even though the word “Trinity” isn’t there, the early church leaders came to understand “Trinity” as the best way to describe God and the relationship between God who creates, who is the divine parent of Jesus and humanity, and Jesus who is the Christ, God-with-us, God in the flesh, and God’s Holy Spirit, sent through the ages to fill the hearts of God’s servants. It wasn’t exactly a simple and smooth process, though, coming to understand God as Trinity through the witness of the scriptures …

I remember that during my church history class in seminary we spent a lot of time talking about what can loosely be called the Trinitarian controversies - a variety of arguments about exactly what the Trinity is. Church leaders debated these fiercely contested questions at church councils, and there were strong “parties” that supported certain views. One party, for example, thought that any concept of Trinity would need to show that Jesus, the Son, was not comparable to God the father. But another group wanted to insist, with a very specific Greek word configuration, that God the father and God the son were “like according to substance,” even though this is never clearly stated in the scriptures anywhere. Even still, this same group who wanted to emphasize the divinity of Jesus also wanted to make it clear that only the Christ person of the Trinity was incarnate, enfleshed. God the Father does not suffer death on the cross, only Jesus the Christ, even though the Christ is one person of the Trinity. Another debate was over whether Christ was “begotten” or “made” – created by God, or existing with God in the beginning in a way different from the creation of human beings. Another debate questioned whether or not the fully human person of Jesus Christ was part of the Trinity, or just the divine Son. And they questioned what to do with that strange Holy Spirit thing, perhaps like we do today. They wanted to know if the Holy Spirit came from God the Father directly, or from the Father and the Son together. 

All these details they eventually hammered out, though not always - not usually actually - in a friendly way, not always without labeling each other as heretics and running anyone who disagreed out of the church. Today, though, most of us, if trying to describe the Trinity? We’re (unintentionally) heretics too. All of the metaphors we have for describing the Trinity? For example, any Children’s Sermons you might have seen trying to teach kids about the Trinity that talk about the petals of a clover, or about how steam and water and ice are all forms of the same thing, or about how a person can be a parent and child and an aunt and a sister all at the same time while still being the same person - basically every one of those explanations is a form of modalism - our one God shows up in three different modes - a heresy rejected by the early church. I think fondly of one woman from my last appointment in Gouverneur - I shared with a Bible study group our tendency towards being heretics about the Trinity - and she was always trying to come up with an example that would be theologically correct according to our ancient predecessors. And every time, I’d have to tell her: Nope, that’s still modalism!  We worship one God, three person. God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But the Father is not the Son or the Spirit. The Son is not the Spirit. But The Father is God. The Son is God, the Spirit is God. And they are three-in-one, One God. Simple? Not exactly. So, most of us are unintentional heretics. The Trinity is a central doctrine of Christianity, but most of us can only explain what it means in ways that have been, technically, deemed theologically incorrect. And if, then, most of us can’t even rightly say what the Trinity is, does the Trinity matter? 

Of course, I think it does. Here’s why. I think the Trinity - and the history of debates, sometimes painful debates about the Trinity - help us wrestle with whether our notion of God is limited or expansive. We may not be participants in the church councils of the early church.  But I think we do often engage in the same behavior as those folks did – we’d really like to get a fix on God if we can. We’re always trying to define God, define our faith, define a set of rules for our life with God. It’s a reasonable urge – we want to know our Creator better, we want to know who this Being is who gives us life and who we gather to worship. We want to know who this God is that makes us and shapes us and calls us to do all of these things that are so difficult and challenging and frustrating. We want to know better who it is who gives us love and grace and calls us children, as we call this Being a divine parent. It’s good and natural to want to know this God with whom we’re in relationship. But sometimes we cross a line, where we go from wanting to know God better out of a desire for relationship, to wanting to know God so that we can contain and control God. After all, if we can control God, perhaps we can limit God’s control on us, and not feel so obligated to follow all of those pesky commands about loving our neighbors and enemies, about giving away all of our stuff, about following wherever we’re led.

But instead of seeing the Trinity as a way to contain God, I think the Trinity is meant to help us understand how expansive our God is, how beyond the scope of our human limitations. I remember when I was a young child, my dearest friend, Krissy, who of course also went to church with me, was working on a project. She was searching through the Bible, looking for all of the different names of God, making a list. Of course, these days, we could quickly grab that information online. But she was doing it by hand, marveling at so many different ways God is named, described, so many ways God is revealed to us. The Trinity helps us understand a God who is expansive and dynamic, who contains relationship right within God’s own self, even as God calls us towards deeper relationships with God and with one another and with all of creation. God models in God’s very own being how God wants us to live with one another. I especially love the description used by Rev. Thom Shuman, whose liturgies I have often used. He calls the Trinity “God in Community, Holy in One.” I really love that. 

Our God is not only our Creator, but also one who is willing to come and be with us in human form, to take on all that it means to be a human on earth. And God is not only one who does those things, but also one who is willing to dwell within us, to live in our hearts, and so guide our lives right from within the very core of our beings. This is a God who will seek us out for relationships in any way possible, so desirous is God of being a part of who we are, and having us be part of who God is. Our God is persistent, asking again and again, to be let into our lives. Our God is creative, meeting us where we’re least expecting to find God. And our God is pervasive, permeating every part of our existence. That’s the Trinity, even if it’s not a very defined definition. Indeed, it seems some of the very best things in the world are the ones we are least able to put into clear words, concise definitions. For all of the writings we have, movies and poems and books and classes that talk about love, for example, it’s very hard to “define” love. But that doesn’t reduce love’s power or potency, or our desire to give and receive love in our lives. Love seems to be something you have to simply experience to know. Perhaps it is the same with this God who is God in Community and Holy in One. Hard to define, but worth all the conversation. Easier to experience God – the best way we can go about knowing God. 

I’ll probably never be able to describe the Trinity perfectly without being a little bit of a heretic modalist. But what’s better is that I can be in relationship with the Trinity, and learn to be in relationship with others because of this expansive God who knows me and seeks relationship with me and with you. God who creates us and parents us so well. God who lives among us and walks beside us. God who dwells within us, as close as our breath. God in Community, and Holy in One. Let’s give thanks for this mysterious God who defies our definitions, who exceeds our expectations, and who loves us without limits. Amen. 

Sermon for Easter Sunday, Year A, "Dos and Don'ts," John 20:1-18, Matthew 28:1-10

 Sermon 4/9/23

John 20:1-18, Matthew 28:1-10

Dos and Don’ts

I’ve been telling you, on Palm Sunday, and again on Maundy Thursday, that our best strategy for being disciples is to stay close to Jesus. “Stay with me,” Jesus was asking us. But today, this Easter morning, Jesus’s message is strikingly different: “Don’t hold on to me.” - “Go!” How do we get from one to the other? Why does Jesus tell Mary not to hold on to him, to stay with him? And what do his words mean for our discipleship? 

Today we’ve heard the Easter stories from two gospels - John’s gospel - the most well known version - and Matthew’s account. This phrase - “don’t hold on to me” - occurs only in John’s version, although I think the meaning of the phrase is in Matthew’s account too. At first brush, Jesus’s words sound kind of dismissive to me, as if Mary is somehow being too clingy. And I don’t know about you, but if I thought that my dearest loved one, my teacher, who I’d devoted my life to, had died, been put to death, and then suddenly they seemed to somehow be alive after all, resurrected: well, I’d be clingy. I wouldn’t want to let them out of my sight for a second. Instead, the first thing, nearly the only thing Jesus really says to Mary, aside from getting her to recognize who he is, is this “Do not hold on to me.” Jesus says that he is “ascending to God,” as if that explains everything, and while he tells Mary what not to do, he does also tell her what she should do: “Go and tell.” Go and tell the disciples what she’s seen. She does. “I have seen the Lord.” Mary is the first preacher of the resurrection news. 

Still, why the “don’t hold on to me?” I’ve been trying to think about where I’ve heard this phrase in my life - it was sort of striking at my memories. “Don’t hold on to me.” When do we say that? And it struck me: My 8 year old niece Siggy says this to me all the time, whenever she is trying to do something daring, some trick she’s working out, some gymnastic maneuver, some tumbling feat, some wild antic she has a vision of in her head, and I, Aunt Beth, have visions of broken bones and the potential for head injuries, and I just want her to be safe, and so I want to hold on to her - steady her, make her more secure, make her take a bit less of risk. “Aunt Beth, don’t hold on to me,” said with a little exasperation, and a little thrill at whatever feat of daring she’s about to try. And so I try - I try to let go enough for her to be the brave and bold person she wants to be. 

I can only imagine that Mary, that others, seeing Jesus, who they thought they had lost, would want to “keep” him. They failed to protect him before - but now that they have a second chance, they will protect him from harm. They won’t let him out of their sight. This time, they will stand up to his enemies, they won’t fall away, they will get it right, and they will stick to Jesus like glue. But things have changed. Now, if they want to stay with Jesus, they have to let go, because Jesus is on the move. Jesus has things to do. Jesus is going to God, and the best way to be with Jesus now will be to let him go, so that they can get to work sharing the good news of resurrection and life. It’s a big shift to make. I can only imagine how Mary must have felt, leaving Jesus at the tomb. But whatever hesitation she might have been feeling, and however much she worried, however much her impulse was to resist the “don’t hold on to me,” she does just what Jesus asks. 

Matthew’s Easter story is a bit different, but I think it actually mirrors John’s gospel well. In Matthew, Mary Magdalene is accompanied by another Mary - Jesus’s mother perhaps, or one of the other women with this common name. They first find an angel, a messenger of God at the empty tomb. Matthew also starts with a “don’t” - don’t be afraid. “Don’t be afraid,” the messenger says. “You’re looking for Jesus, but he has been raised.” And, as in Matthew, the messenger doesn’t want the women to linger. They get to “come and see,” but then they have a task: “Go - quickly - and tell.” The women obey, both full of joy, but still full of fear, despite instructions. But before they can get to the disciples, they see Jesus himself. Perhaps sensing that they haven’t yet listened fully to the messenger’s “don’t,” Jesus repeats it and their task. “Don’t be afraid. Go and tell.” We don’t know if the women remained afraid or not, but we don’t hear about it again. So perhaps, from Jesus’s own mouth, they could let those words sink in. “Don’t be afraid.”

It isn’t that Jesus doesn’t want us to stay close to him once Easter hits, once the resurrection happens. It’s that we have to make sure we’re staying close to Jesus for the best reasons. Are we holding on to Jesus because of his risk-taking that makes us uncomfortable? Is it that we want Jesus to be safe - so we can be safe? Does Jesus and his way of confronting, and breaking boundaries, and making a stir scare us? Do we want to hold on, to stay close, to keep an eye on Jesus? There’s a deep connection between “Don’t hold on to me” and “don’t be afraid.” Jesus knows our default mode is to be afraid. As much as we long for new life, new life is actually pretty scary too. It is so unknown. New life changes everything. And as much as we might be ready for change, the lives we know are comfortable. Safe. “Don’t be afraid.” Again and again in the scriptures, and again right here - “don’t be afraid.” 

One of my favorite theologians, Walter Brueggemann, writes: “Being unafraid is an odd vocation; but it is the vocation of all those who have been baptized. We are different when baptized. The Acts account of the early church says that the Spirit of God came upon Jesus in baptism …. What the Spirit does is visit our lives … with the freedom of God, so that we are unafraid in the world, able to live differently, not needing to control, not needing to dominate, not needing to accumulate, not driven by anxiety.” The disciples, he says, were “known, named, and unafraid people,” who “turned the world upside down.” “Or better to say, they turned the world right side up.” He continues: “The truth is that frightened people will never turn the world, because they use too much energy on protection of self. It is the vocation of the baptized, the known and named and unafraid, to make the world whole.” (1) 

“Don’t hold on to me, Aunt Beth.” Maybe I’ll never read John’s Easter account again without Siggy’s voice ringing in my ear. And oh, I want to hold on! I want my girl to be safe, and sometimes, her antics leave me full of fear! But more than I want to hold on, I want her to experience life to the full. I want her to be brave, to take big risks so that she finds great joy. 

And that’s what God wants for us, too. “Don’t hold on to me,” says Jesus. Resurrection is risky stuff. And it’s active. New life means being on the move. Jesus has things to do. And as resurrection people, staying with Jesus means letting him go, so he can go ahead of us into the world, and we can follow. Don’t hold on, but don’t be afraid. Instead, come and see, and then go and tell, and go and tell, and go and tell. 

Amen. 

 

1. A Way Other than Our Own, 60-61. 

Sermon for Maundy Thursday, Year A, "Staying or Leaving," Matthew 26:20-29, 36-46

 Sermon 4/6/23

Matthew 26:20-29, Matthew 26:36-46

Staying or Leaving

You’ve probably heard that when animals feel like they are on high alert, under stress, or under attack, they have a “fight or flight” response. Some animals, when in danger, will do everything they can to get away as fast as possible. Some, when cornered, will lash out, ready to fight, ready to harm in order to get free. There’s actually another option - “freeze” - some animals freeze, like the proverbial deer caught in the glare of headlights, immobilized with fear. Of course, we are animals too, we humans, and we sometimes find ourselves deeply driven by fight, flight, and freeze responses too.  Sometimes we are in genuine danger - and we must figure out if we need to flee or fight or freeze in response to a threat, to abuse, to something or someone that can do harm to us. 

But sometimes, we react like we’re responding to a threat, to danger, but our minds are confusing danger and discomfort. Here’s what I mean: Those of you who’ve known me for some time now might remember that I will admit that my default mode is to be a conflict-avoider. I think that mostly falls into the “flight” response category to stress, but I also manage to try to pretend a conflict just isn’t happening sometimes too. I do not like conflict. I don’t like it when people are arguing, when people are being unkind and hurtful. I don’t like it when people’s feelings are hurt - the emotional pain of others really bothers me. And when I see that happening as a result of conflict, my impulse is to try to fix, to smooth things over, to do anything I can to suppress the sense of conflict. 

My conflict-avoidant response is something I’ve had to work on a lot over the years, particularly because leadership roles and the flight response or the “pretend this isn’t happening” response don’t work so well together! In fact, a lot of leadership guidebooks will tell you that a good technique for leaders is knowing when to “turn up the heat” on tense, conflict-ridden situations. Conflict, when handled thoughtfully, can actually be an ingredient for new life in an organization, in a community, in a congregation. Staying committed and attentive and ready to work through things during a conflict in healthy relationships can lead to meaningful transformation. One of my favorite scholars, Donna Haraway, calls this “staying with the trouble.” If you can work past the fight, flight, and freeze responses of conflict, if you can “stay with the trouble,” stay committed to the work, something really transformative might happen. 

I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday that the events of Palm Sunday are the start of this pressure-cooker intensity where Jesus is pretty consistently confrontational, taking actions and making statements that require a response. Jesus is “turning up the heat.” And all of those who have been following Jesus - the crowds, the women who supported his ministry with time and money, the disciples - they are all confronted with a decision in response to the increasing pressure: fight, flight, freeze. Or… or, another way. Staying with the trouble. Staying with Jesus. A path that might lead to transformation. 

I’ve read the gospel accounts of the passion narrative, the last days of Jesus’ pre-resurrection life, so many times, preached on them, taught about them so many times. And yet somehow I never noticed until this week that in Matthew’s account - our focus today - and in Mark’s account, Jesus, while dining with the disciples at what we call The Last Supper, brings up Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial before he says the words that have become our sacrament of communion. In other words, Jesus says: I know that among you, my closest followers who I have spent years with, one of you will deny ever knowing me, and one of you will betray me into the hands of those who want to execute me - and then he shares with them the bread and cup, signs of his body, his blood, his life given for those very disciples. In Luke’s account, it’s the other way around - Jesus shares the new covenant of communion, and then, as things are wrapping up, talks about Peter’s pending denial. So Jesus is sitting with the knowledge of what will unfold, but the disciples are (mostly) blissfully ignorant. But here in Matthew, everyone has to stay at the table together with this painful, awful truth Jesus has just lobbed into their midst. Denial and betrayal are about to unfold - but right now they have to sit together still. Right now, they have to accept the unfathomable grace of God poured out literally and figuratively by Jesus, as he breaks the bread, as he passes the wine. Jesus turns up the pressure - and they just have to sit there. 

Somehow, they made it through that meal, a meal that I can only imagine was so fraught with unspoken questions, accusations, explanations. But eventually, the pressure, the confrontation, the truth Jesus speaks to them - the disciples fall away. Judas departs, returning only to see Jesus handed over to the authorities. Peter will deny Jesus, just as Jesus said. But even before that, he and James and John escape into sleep, finding a way, perhaps like my technique, of pretending the conflict around them just isn’t happening. Maybe they can just sleep through it, and Jesus - and his words - will be easier to take the next day. The next day, though, only has more heartache in store. 

I said on Sunday that we need to stay close to Jesus - but staying with Jesus is pretty hard on a night like this, isn’t it? Jesus always stays close to us. But can we stay close to Jesus? On this holy night, I wonder: how have we - how are we putting distance between ourselves and Jesus? When the path of discipleship gets to be too much, how do we try to turn down the heat, avoid the conflict, deflect the responsibility and work and risk and sacrifice that discipleship entails? And on this holy night, I wonder: how can we draw closer to Jesus? How can we stay? Stay with the trouble. Stay through the crisis. Stay through our doubts and fears. Stay through our failures. Stay through the discomfort. Stay even when staying means Jesus shining a light on everything we don’t want to examine in our lives and world. Jesus asks us: Will we stay? 

Let’s linger, a little, in the garden, in the dark, in the midst of heartache, in the grieving. Even though we want to get to Easter, where it’s bright and sunny and pastel and joyful, let’s stay. Because our task, our purpose, the very meaning of discipleship is to be where Jesus is. We have to stay with him. And tonight, Jesus is at his most vulnerable, and asking if we can stay, if we can share with him and in him even though it is so hard, and so uncomfortable, and so demanding, and so full of grief and pain. Let’s stay. Amen.  

Sermon for Palm/Passion Sunday, Year A, "Verse Twelve," Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon 4/2/23

Matthew 21:1-11

Verse Twelve

I don’t usually give a message on Palm/Passion Sunday. My preaching professor in seminary, the late Dr. Charles Rice, always said that the combined events of celebrating the Triumphant Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem with palms and Hosannas and of remembering the Passion of Jesus Christ by concluding with the telling of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion was enough. The text preaches itself, he said. We don’t need to add more words. Over the years, I’ve found his words to ring true, and because of the vividness of the readings, and the juxtaposition of the crowds yelling, “Hosanna, God save us!” at the start of the worship service and then yelling, “Crucify, Crucify him!” by the end, I’ve found Palm/Passion Sunday to be one of the most meaningful worship services of the year. And so I’m not really giving a lengthy sermon today either, I promise! Just a little contextualizing, I think. The events of Palm Sunday and of the Passion of Jesus are as compelling as ever, but I want to help focus our attention just a bit. 

Have any of you seen the TV show How I Met Your Mother? Really, the content of the show doesn’t matter - but I wanted to talk about a technique they use in one episode. In one episode, it begins with the whole gang at a restaurant, out to brunch, pausing for a photo that looks perfect - everyone is dressed up, everyone is smiling, and it seems to capture a happy moment. But then in the rest of the episode, we find out everything that has led up to that moment of the photo, and everything that happens afterwards, and let’s just say, it isn’t all so happy and lovely as the freeze-frame photo will look. 

I’ve had that episode in my mind - that “freeze frame” image in my mind as I’ve read Matthew’s account of Palm Sunday. Imagine that the photo, the freeze frame of Palm Sunday is Jesus, riding into Jerusalem, crowds spreading their cloaks on the ground, or spreading branches out before him, a sign of honor, or shouting the greeting that is also a plea: Hosanna - God save us - blessed is the one who comes in God’s name - familiar lines of scripture that also signified that this crowd at least saw Jesus as a king, a savior, a messiah - an anointed one who would fix things, maybe work for the overthrow of Rome. It makes a vibrant, exciting image, and it has always left me feeling like I wanted to be part of that parade, part of that crowd, welcoming Jesus, crying, “Hosanna!” 

But if we “zoom out” on the freeze frame photo of Palm Sunday, we find a more complicated story. The beginning several verses of our text from Matthew show Jesus and the disciples finalizing details for entering Jerusalem. Matthew’s account seems to involve a complicated arrangement of both a colt and a donkey, and Jesus inexplicably riding on both, because Matthew, God bless him, didn’t really understand the repetitive nature of Hebrew poetry, the scripture he is trying so hard to show Jesus fulfilling. But however he gets there, eventually Jesus is on a donkey - or two - headed into Jerusalem. It isn’t in Jerusalem, though, that the crowds are cheering him. It’s on the road heading into the city that Jesus and the disciples are accompanied by a crowd. Who are these people? We don’t really know. Were they Jesus followers already? Had they been listening to his teaching and preaching? Had they been healed by Jesus? Where are they coming from? Did some come from Jerusalem to meet and escort him in, or are these all out-of-towners? Whoever they are, it is this crowd who seems excited about Jesus, anxious for his saving power to be at work in their lives, even if we might wonder if they had the same idea as Jesus about what it meant to be saved. 

But once Jesus gets into Jerusalem, the joyous parade changes in tone. In verse 10 we read that “the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’” The word “turmoil” there has some interesting definitions. Turmoil means  shaken to and fro like a poised spear, shaken to the foundation. It is a word that describes earthquakes. It is concussion-causing agitation or disturbance. It’s a word used with accusation, spite, extortion, and blackmail. (1) The Jerusalem crowd is in turmoil - shaken to their core - when Jesus comes into town. They know him to be a prophet, and they don’t seem excited to greet him. When the parade hits Jerusalem, everything is different. 

That’s where our text for today ends. But of course, that’s not where the story ends. Next comes verse 12. The Jerusalem crowds are shaken, and they should be, because in verse 12, a newly-arrived-to-town Jesus heads straight to the temple, and drives out all of those who are buying and selling in the temple, implying that those partaking in the long-established temple are nothing better than robbers in a house of prayer. Some - those with little standing in society - come to Jesus - the blind and lame come for healing, and children in the temple are still honoring Jesus with Hosannas. But those who “counted” in temple life - the chief priests and scribes - are less excited. Jesus “cleansing the temple”  - as these events are called - happens on Palm Sunday too. It’s not part of the perfect parade picture - but it’s still the same day. 

Palm Sunday sets up the contrasts - between who is with Jesus on the road, and who encounters Jesus in the city; between those on the margins of society who embrace Jesus, and those in the center of things who feel like they’ve been through an earthquake when they’re in his presence; between those who have little access to power structures, and those who are wielding great power at the expense of others. And Palm Sunday starts this sequence of events that just increases in intensity. After the cleansing of the temple, Jesus spends the next day teaching in parables and continuing to fight with the religious leaders. These parables are “lighter” parables about seed and forgiveness and the lost and found. They’re about preparedness, judgment, and people who miss Jesus’s message, miss what God is trying to say. Palm Sunday is the day that the pressure cooker of Holy Week starts to increase the temperature. Jesus is confrontational with everyone, even a fig tree that isn’t bearing fruit! Always confronting. 

This Palm Sunday, this Holy Week, can we look beyond the freeze frame photo of the Palm parade? As always, our best strategy is to stick as close to Jesus as possible - on the margins, instead of at the center, in the places where power is shared insead of gathered up. Stick close to Jesus. In Holy Week, from Verse Twelve on, we see that sticking with Jesus is no easy task. Judas, Peter, the rest of the twelve, the religious leaders, others who are condemned by the same system of oppression that condemns Jesus - so many find it difficult to continue following Jesus when the palms stop waving. We might find it difficult too. And sometimes Jesus is confronting us - calling us out, calling us to accountability, calling us to repentance. Even so - stick close. Search the stories for those who stay with Jesus. Search for those who find their way back again. Search out the ways God keeps calling us. After the parade, then what? We’ve shouted our hosannas. Where will Jesus us find us next? 

Amen.  

1. Henry George Liddell. Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by. Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940.,

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=e%29sei%2Fsqh&la=greek&can=e%29sei%2Fsqh0&prior=*)ieroso/luma&d=Perseus:text:1999.01.0155:book=Matthew:chapter=21:verse=10&i=1#lexicon

Sermon for Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Year A, "Here Is My Servant," Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

 Sermon 1/8/23

Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

Here Is My Servant

I’ve been thinking a lot about our Christian concept of call in the last couple of years. One of the most important things my mom taught me about faith was that God calls all of us. Being called by God isn’t something that’s just for pastors, for preachers. No, she reminded me often that everybody is called - it’s just a matter of figuring out what it is that you’re called to do. So, I was always on the lookout for my call from God. Mom never told us being called by God would look like any one thing, and indeed, my siblings and I took very different paths. But, as seems to be somewhat of the family way, I slowly realized I was called to pastoral ministry. And I went to seminary, and I pastored churches for 17 years. And during my years of pastoring, I’ve loved talking to other people about listening for and finding and answering their call from God. I love helping people discern what God is up to in their lives. 

Sometimes, though, I wonder if the way we’ve talked about being called by God in the church has been too confusing, or too narrow, too limiting for people. Not everyone has had the same journey with “call” as I have had. My brother Tim, for example, really struggled to find a career path. These days, he works in international banking doing something I don’t understand at all. But I know he would never describe his work as a “call.” And with my other brothers working in higher education and in vocational rehabilitation, Tim sometimes feels like the odd one out. He’s never felt like God was calling him to a particular kind of work. I worry that we’ve tied “call” and “career” too closely together. “Careers” as we think of them today weren’t really a thing in the scripture, anyway. Nobody was picking college majors in Jesus’s day. 

And then there’s me: I was pastoring in the local church, but I’m not anymore. I loved a lot about being a pastor, and the people I served were wonderful, but eventually some of the stresses and strains of pastoring started to outweigh the joys. I’m reminded of theologian Frederick Buechner’s words about vocation - words I bet my Uncle has shared with you at some point - that the “place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” (from Wishful Thinking.) I certainly wasn’t miserable in my life as a pastor. But neither was I finding my deep gladness any longer. Do calls from God end? Do they get replaced with a new one? When I decided to go back to school to work on my PhD, I wasn’t necessarily feeling called by God to that particular path. But I did think it might bring me some deep joy to be in school again. Is that “enough” to “count” as a call? Or is it only a call from God if we feel we are being pointed by God to take a very specific path? 

As it would happen, a couple of the thinkers I’ve encountered in my PhD work have helped me think about how we’re called in some new ways. My focus is on Christianity and Animals. Dr. David Clough, a scholar in the field, writes that the although humans are more like nonhuman animals than we like to think, what sets human apart might be our vocation - our call. And for Clough, our call from God, our purpose, is laid out for us right in chapter 1 of Genesis: we’re made in God’s image - and being God’s image in the world is our purpose! (1) Imagine how your life would be shaped if you focused all your attention on trying to be the best reflection of God in the world you could be! It wouldn’t matter so much what career you chose, although there are certainly some careers that might make it easier for us than others to try to reflect God in our work. Instead, all aspects of our lives could be fulfilling our call from God. Dr. Christopher Carter is another scholar whose work I really admire. As he thinks about the relationship between humans and nonhuman animals, he says that our human task is to figure out what it means to be human and that doing that figuring out takes practice. We have to practice being the kinds of humans God means for us to be. (2) There’s something comforting to me about that idea - that we don’t always do a great job of being the humans-created-in-God’s-image we’re meant to be, but that we can practice, work at it, get better at it - better at loving, caring, growing, and reflecting God’s image. So - what if the biggest call from God that we need to hear (again and again) is the call to be God’s image in the world? And what if we spend our lives practicing and practicing this work until we can say that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves, and really mean it. That’s a call that we won’t outgrow, a call that doesn’t fit for just one season of our lives.

And it is, in fact, the call of our baptism. Martin Luther, the 16th century excommunicated Catholic priest who was a leader in what we call the Protestant Reformation, taught an understanding of the scripture and the meaning of baptism that we still hold called “the priesthood of all believers.” Luther argued that Christians didn’t need to rely on a mediator, a priest, to go between them and God. Christians had direct access to God through their own faith life. And for Luther, it is baptism that provides the marker of our relationship with God - the entry point, in a sense. In baptism, we are all made “priests” of sorts, not because we will all be leaders of congregations and preside over the sacraments, but because, as 1 Peter 2:9 says, “we can show others the goodness of God.” God calls us to service and discipleship in the baptismal waters. In baptism, we’re reminded that we are created in God’s image. Baptism is a way of answering God’s call to a life of faith, and answering “yes” to God’s invitation of grace. 

Today, we remember that Jesus was baptized too. Jesus’s baptism has always been kind of puzzling. If Jesus is God’s child, is God, is without sin, why does he need to be baptized? And Jesus never really explains to John why Jesus has to be baptized - we see that in our reading from Matthew today. His “it’s proper, it makes things right” doesn’t really answer all my questions anyway. In fact, even the gospel writers seem to me a little puzzled by the scene (hence their including John asking the question they and we are all asking: why does Jesus need to get baptized?), but they know it is really important. It marks the beginning of his ministry. It serves as the dividing line between his life before, which we know so little about, and his life after - his preaching, teaching, death, and resurrection. Can remembering Jesus’s baptism help us understand our own baptism? How can it help us as we ponder our purpose, our call? 

I think of our reading today from the prophet Isaiah. In our passage, God is describing a servant, full of wisdom and justice, who will help Israel, God’s people, in a time of great need. This servant is upheld by God, chosen by God, one in whom God delights. The servant is full of God’s spirit. The servant works to bring forth justice, persists in the midst of struggles, and pursues justice even when things are challenging. God leads the servant, and sets them as a light to the people. The servant works to open the eyes that are blind, to bring prisoners out of dungeons and darkness. Through the servant, God does new things. 

We tend to see passages like this as descriptions of Jesus - whether because Isaiah was predicting the future (even while he certainly believed he was just writing about his own context, and a hoped for earthly leader amidst the war and chaos of his time), or because we at least read back into these texts and see in Isaiah’s hope for a kind of ideal leader a description that only Jesus could fulfill so completely. But either way, I think when we read this description of God’s servant, by seeing this is clearly “about Jesus,” we miss how it is about us too. Because if this text is only describing Jesus, it can’t possibly be describing something we might need to fulfill through lives of discipleship. If only Jesus can be the kind of leader the prophets envisioned, then our discipleship isn’t so important - no one is depending on us.  

Instead though, again and again in the gospels, Jesus asks us to follow him not from a distance, awed by his mighty deeds that we could never do; no, Jesus asks us to follow closely and learn how to do everything he does. Jesus shares power. Jesus says we can do what he does and more. Jesus wants us, calls us, to be like him. And I think that we can be like Jesus because Jesus is like us. I think Jesus is baptized because we are baptized. Jesus is God-with-us - that’s what we’ve just celebrated in Christmas. And being baptized with us is another way of being with us, joining us together in one purpose, one call. If Jesus is God incarnate, then we are God imaged. Jesus shows us God in the flesh and then asks us to do the same for one another. Jesus show us the goodness of God, and then we spend our lives showing the goodness of God to others.   

I’m about halfway through my PhD program, and I’m still not sure what particular path I’m taking - if I’ll teach, or work for an organization, or even a  church again, or somehow figure out a way to go back to school for an 89th time. But I still trust my mom’s advice. We’re all called. We’re called to follow Jesus and be as much like him as we can. We’re called to reflect God’s image to the world. We’re called to show God’s goodness to others. It will take practice. But that’s what being human is all about, and Jesus promises to join us in our work, being like us, so we can be like him. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

1. Clough, On Animals Vol 1: Systematic Theology 

2. Cite Carter, The Spirit of Soul Food