What can we say May 7? Easter 5

    Acts 7:55-60 narrates the drama of the first Christian martyr – killed not because of radical prophetic chatter but because of his simple care for the needy, and his steadfast public belief in who Christ really was. We have the intriguing textual issue of his final words. Did he first say “Forgive them, they know not what they do”? – or did he borrow the words from Jesus? Most think they were his first, and only later attributed to Jesus – although I’d sure rank Jesus as the ultimate kind of guy to forgive enemies harming him… Imagine though someone, even you, saying something so startling and marvelous that writers couldn’t help but attribute such words to Jesus himself!

   Willie Jennings as always is eloquent: “For Saul, this is a righteous act. Killing in the name of God can be approved. But this approval is of the old order, not the new. Now its absurdity can be exposed.” Notice the loud lamentation – what God welcomes and wants from his people when we witness the loss of a witness so singular.

   Psalm 31. Jesus and Stephen cite this Psalm. I love the fact that, as a Jewish guy, Jesus would have been taught the Psalms by his mother, as a boy, at home. So when he lifts up his recollection of this Psalm on the cross, how did that feel for his mother, looking on, knowing she’d taught him the words, watching him pray them in such distress? Did Jesus in his mind, or with his words, move forward in the Psalm, albeit unrecorded by our Gospel writers, to say “My times are in your hand” (verse 15) – and then the prayer for deliverance… Did Jesus seek deliverance, or just obsequiously accept death? I vote for his seeking deliverance. Of course he did, and his need for it, his sense of being abandoned by God in his hour of immense need, is the whole point of the cross.

   Ellen Charry’s (Brazos commentary) thoughts on Psalm 31 are germane: “Perhaps the poet is inviting us to take our place in several of the roles offered by this psalm, much as Rembrandt invites us to assume the place of the father, the son, and the various onlookers in his painting of the prodigal son. We are David, as well as the inmate, both sinner and sinned against. We are the neighbors, and acquaintances who ignore the sinner. We are also members of the congregation of Israel hearing the story recounted, worrying about whether we will be treated so contemptuously for our misdeeds.”

   1 Peter 2:2-10. The milk and infants image is arresting, but way too tempting for the spiritual elite, who always want to seize on this to brag about how grown up they are spiritually. I suspect all New Testament writers who deployed this image, and Paul for sure (1 Corinthians 3), hope we’ll understand that we are always dependent infants.

   Peter (or whoever writes as Peter here) piles one powerful image on top of another. Nursing, then stones in a building, sacrifices on the altar. Verse 7 begs for some deconstruction: “to believers he is precious, for those who don’t believe, it’s rejection.” Today, I suspect that for those who don’t believe, it’s a yawn, and for those who do believe, it’s about manipulating God to secure a good life down here and the pledge of heaven later – not at all about the Lord being “precious.” I recall a good friend opening up to me about his marriage, which was fine, but veering toward unsatisfying and frustrating. His core reason? “She doesn’t cherish me.” Cherish. God longs to be cherished, to be thought and felt by us as precious, not as useful.

   Churches strive to discern and declare their mission – as they should. You could do worse than our text, where the church – nascent, and barely existent, with no grand buildings! – realized themselves to be a “chosen race” (given issues on race nowadays!), a “royal priesthood” (we’re not all that “royal” nowadays, but…), a “holy nation” (not much in evidence in our particular nation, and that holds wherever you’re reading this!), “God’s own people.”

   And, hopefully without sounding too annoyed: how many light years is all this from what many churches, in my embarrassing denomination and also in others, have decided they want their role to be - namely the "moral police." The world isn't asking for moral police... and it's so reductionist, so secular, with no theological vision or power beyond me and my ability to do good (which after all, is terribly compromised anyhow)!

   I find I am especially fond of “Once you were no people, now God’s, once no mercy, now received mercy” – a clear, profound echo of Hosea’s lost children!! – but do people understand how radical being God’s people versus no people at all, or a people receiving mercy vs. a people not treated with mercy at all – how that actually flies? – practically and theologically?

  John 14:1-14. This text, familiar to our people from funerals, speaks also during days of thriving and not merely in the hour of death! Jesus’ going to “prepare the house” for them – fascinating because he was a guy with building skills!! – intrigues me. I doubt Jesus was tempting them with something from “Homes of the Rich and Famous.”

   We fix – rightly – on the “I am the way” business. How odd this plowshare has been reforged into a sword, an instrument of judgment and exclusion instead of an invitation into mystery and – yes – home. It’s not our mental assent, but it’s his grace that saves. I devised a short video a while back on “Is Jesus the way?” in which I probe the awful problems that creep into the exclusive, one way evangelical thinking that uses this as a prop, and if there aren’t ways to think about Jesus as the way for people who haven’t heard of him, have only heard of him from mean people (or boring people) and thus don’t believe in him.

   I think it’s more than fair to wonder out loud about such a thing in a sermon, which I’ve done with only a couple of people getting infuriated. Here’s a recent sermon where I did so – and another episode in my recent “Good Questions” series on the matter. Certainly we highlight that Jesus isn’t giving a definitive lecture on the relationship of Christianity to other religions. The mood is somber. It’s Passover. The disciples are confused, terrified, nearly numb. Jesus, to those who feel there’s no way out, warmly assures them there is a way, that he is the one they look to and trust.

   I love David Ford’s new commentary on John, where he suggests that this way isn’t a set of beliefs, but the person Jesus: “There can be no more inclusive framework or overview of truth that can claim priority over this person. Christians, too, cannot claim to have the ultimate framework or overview; we simply testify to Jesus and seek in his light to understand more and more truth, while acknowledging how little we know…” Indeed, Jesus is greater than the narrow limits we’d put on him; he is great enough to save those who don’t believe quite what we do.

   A couple of other Ford quotes are worth passing along: “‘My Father’s House’ might be unimaginably capacious, and even those most at home there might meet many surprises – especially other people they do not expect, but also dimensions of truth and life.” And, “Those who give themselves to this continuing interrelationship in trust, understanding and love, have an utterly secure home. But that is not all. This home gives a base from which to act in unprecedented, daring ways.”

   There’s much else in this text! “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus has been showing them the father, from conception to this very moment, and he’ll reveal even more on Good Friday. This Jesus, and in his relationship with his Father, is what satisfies (answering a culture of inexhaustible hankering, our theme song being “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones!).

   “I will do whatever you ask,” a verse that delights those prayer warriors we all know who “claim” God’s answer even as they ask. Jesus would shudder. He adds, carefully, “in my name” – and “so the Father may be glorified.” Are our prayers genuinely “in his name,” after the pattern of all he was about? Will an “answer” actually glorify God? or make my life easier?
   Holy Spirit: not an emotional experience, but a divine person whose role is never once in Scripture defined as providing us with an emotional swoon. Ford points out how here the disciples learn – for the first time! – about the Holy Spirit as Advocate, Encourager, Helper, Comforter: “Readers are led deeper into the life, love and glory of God as their true home, and at the same time inspired to pray and love daringly in the ongoing drama in the name of Jesus” (Ford again).

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