What can we say June 25? 4th after Pentecost

    Genesis 21:8-21 is a harrowing text, with an unexpected hopefulness. Phyllis Trible (Texts of Terror) read the text from a feminist perspective: Hagar symbolizes countless women trapped and abused by the power of men. Patriarchy and race are written all over Abraham’s awful shunning of this woman. And yet she finally achieves liberation despite all that. She isn’t shunned by God, who sends a messenger, a promise, water in the wilderness, and comfort. 

   Check out Gustave Dore’s image, one among many artistic images of this haunting scene. Frances Klopper, the South African scholar, notes that “the frequency with which the expulsion scene has been painted testifies to a fascination with the fate of the slave-woman who has been wronged by her master and mistress.” Her tribe is legion indeed. Getting inside Hagar’s sorrow: the poet Alicia Suskin Ostriker imagined her thinking “She threw me away like garbage… But I still wonder Why could she not love me? We were women together.” Can the preacher use this moment as a time to lift up domestic abuse and how women still get short shrift?

   How cool is the image of the little boys Ishmael and Isaac playing together? What’s more intriguing is that, evidently after years of isolation, Genesis 25:9 reports that Isaac and Ishmael bury Abraham. How did they get back in contact for the funeral? Jonathan Sacks, after raising this question, also asks Who was Keturah, Abraham’s way late in life wife and mother of his subsequent children? Among many medieval rabbis, Keturah was none other than Hagar! After Sarah’s death, Abraham found Hagar, redeemed and married her, reuniting Isaac and Ishmael – which Sacks sees as a Scriptural warrant for friendly relations today between Jews and Muslims.

   Romans 6:1b-11. I never encounter people who think I’ll sin more so grace will be even greater! We do presume upon God’s mercy, or maybe God’s laid back, laissez-faire attitude we fantasize God must feel. Voltaire famously quipped “God will forgive me; that’s his job.” Paul’s query, “How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” elicits the obvious answer: “Plenty of ways!”

   I like Michael Gorman's rendering of Paul's response to such craziness: "Are you out of your mind?" As he explains, "There is absolutely no place for cheap grace in the Christian life. In Baptism, we have been relocated." Relocated! "To believe the creed is not merely to assent to its truthfulness, but to enter it, even, in a sense, to become it. Creeds have consequences. Christ's story becomes our story, and our story is folded into his."

   Since Paul’s line of thought is so alien to how American Christians think, this is good cause to reiterate it and help people reimagine it. C.E.B. Cranfield opens a window by analyzing “four quite different senses in which Christian die to sin.” We die to sin in God’s sight; it’s God’s decision to crucify our sin. In Baptism, God seals and ratifies God’s own decision. Then death to sin is our calling to be holy – and as God calls, God simultaneously give us “the freedom to die daily and hourly to sin by the mortification of their sinful natures.” And death to sin is an eschatological promise; in eternity, sin will be no more.

   Austin Farrer’s terrific (and sadly out of print) The Crown of the Year puts it this way: “You are to become Jesus’ body. You are to be nailed to Christ's sacrificial will. The nails that hold you are God's commandments, your rules of life, prayers, confessions, communions regularly observed. Let us honour the nails for Christ's sake, and pray that by the virtue of his passion they may hold fast.” And another: being born again. In my Birth book, it’s a whole new life, a whole new identity, learning dependence, mercy.

   Death “no longer has dominion”? Ernest Becker won a Pulitzer Prize by assessing how all our craziness and the havoc in our heads and relationships grow out of The Denial of Death. Recently I re-read Henri Nouwen’s The Inner Voice of Love, where he speaks tantalizingly: “You are so afraid of dying alone. Your deeply hidden memories of a fearful birth make you suspect that your death will be equally fearful… Maybe the death at the end of your life won’t be so fearful is you can die well now. Yes, the real death – the passage from time into eternity from the transient beauty of this world to the lasting beauty of the next, from darkness into light – has to be made now.” Unsure how to preach that – but I bet it’s important for us clergy to live into as people and would-be leaders.

   Matthew 10:24-39. I so long to say Beelzebub out loud in a sermon! Just fun to utter – as are the possible translations, “lord of the house,” “lord of dung,” “lord of the flies.” Jesus is all over the place in this text. Even if the lectionary has trampled over periscope divisions, Jesus must have talked like this, one topic, shifting to another, blurting out a reminder on something else. The preacher should take care not to latch on either the comfort or the severity themes here. Jesus clearly was comfortable with both, holding both together always.

   Our people believe (why??) Jesus brings family stability and happiness – yet the real Jesus comes, “setting a man against his father.” Examples abound, such as St. Francis divesting himself of his father’s goods – and how his father never spoke to him again, spitting in his direction as they passed on the streets of Assisi.

   Jesus wants to be acknowledged, not denied – not as a double dare you, but because of the blessing to the acknowledger and any who notice, and the dissonance in the soul of the one who denies. What does denial look like in 2023? Myriad stuff, like conventional living, fitting in, letting a racist slur slide on by, on and on. I wonder if piety can be a paradoxical denial of Jesus? You make sugary but harmful theological remarks (“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” or “Everything happens for a reason”) – which deny the more robust reality of Jesus who doesn’t deny but embraces suffering?

   Taking up one’s cross? Losing one’s life? I really appreciate Joel Marcus for reflecting on Alexander Solzhenitsyn in (of all places) his Anchor Bible commentary on Mark! “From the moment you go to prison you must put your cozy past firmly behind you.  At the threshold, you must say to yourself: ‘My former life is over, I shall never return.  I no longer have property.  Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious to me.’”

   Jesus points to the sparrow! We have the new hymn, “God of the Sparrow,” which is lovely – but it’s tough to top that oldie, “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” It’s been recorded countless times: by Gladys Knight, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Holliday, Sandi Patty, Marvin Gaye, and even Michael Jackson but I’ll take Mahalia Jackson any day. Here’s a reflection on the hymn, and on Jesus’ regard of sparrows, for my book, Unrevealed Until Its Season:

   When I was a young pastor, I had a handful of members who were most unhappy with our “new hymnal” (which was nearly twenty years old at the time!) for several glaring omissions, the most egregious being “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” 

   “We should never have replaced the old Cokesbury Hymnal!” They had plenty of copies on hand, but none of my people really needed a book to sing “Why should I feel discouraged?” Despite my resistance, a warbly soprano I loved deeply would do it as a solo now and then, although I detected a few semi-restrained eyerolls when she’d sing it. I just found it to be kind of corny, sentimental, not made of strong enough stuff for the tough theology I was lifting up to my people.

   I must have been just the kind of guy Jesus hoped would overhear when he told people who didn’t matter in the world’s eyes that in God’s eyes they were fabulously precious. Thankfully I’ve fallen back in love with this old hymn I heard my grandmother sing while she went about her chores. Jesus asked us to see God’s handiwork and sustenance in mere sparrows. 

   Walter Brueggemann (in A Glad Obedience) calls them “model citizens in the Kingdom of God.” They nest inside the glorious temple itself, too high to be swooshed away by the priest and their acolytes. God feeds and clothes them, quite naturally; these non-acquisitive, trusting creatures have no worries.

   Easy for sparrows, I’d say. The hymn asks “Why should I be discouraged?” Let me count the ways. “Why should the shadows come?” is worth pausing over, not merely to count all the darkness that imposes itself in every life. 

   Ray Barfield, in his book on beauty and suffering called Wager, speaks of “reverencing my shadow.” If you’re in the world, you cast a shadow; it’s proof you’re here. If there’s light, there is shadow, and if there’s shadow, then there’s light. Obviously – but that is why the shadows should come.

   What’s so lovely about the hymn is that it doesn’t pledge or expect a quick fix or any fix at all. It’s not God will do what I ask, or God will repair everything tomorrow. It’s simply that God cares. God sees. His eye is on the sparrow – and as virtually worthless as a sparrow might seem to be (Jesus pointed out that five are sold for two pennies!), God miraculously cares intensely for each one. 

   God sees the sparrow, and you and me. And it’s not just a passing glance. Birdwatchers are patient, focused people, gazing at length through their binoculars, noticing the slightest flutter of a feather, turn of the head, opening of the beak or twitching of a talon.

   Who was Jesus? Who is he? His nickname at birth was “Emmanuel,” God with us. And his parting words were “I will be with you.” Not a magical fulfiller of wishes or fixer of all troubles. He is with us. That’s what my grandmother was singing about while sweeping and ironing. God’s abiding presence infused her with joy and strength. She was still dirt poor, and her arthritis pained her. But Jesus was her “portion,” a lovely echo of Psalm 73:26.

   Indeed, my grandmother and my warbly soprano soared to the climactic high note in the hymn, which occurs on “I’m free.” Not free American-style, the paltry notion that I can do whatever I dang well please. No, I’m free, like a bird, as in Paul’s ringing declaration that “For freedom Christ has set us free.” Free from the cruel bondage of sin, anxiety, fretting over self-worth or terror of mortality.

   Civilla Durfee Martin wrote this poem, later set to music by Charles Gabriel, after visiting with her friend, a Mrs. Doolittle, bedridden for over twenty years. Martin’s husband asked Mrs. Doolittle her secret of joy in the thick of affliction. “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.” That was in 1905. It was back in maybe the year 28 that Jesus said pretty much the same thing. No wonder the hymn, and more importantly, the reality of God’s tender care for sparrows and us people, lingers despite failing to make the hymnal committee cut.

What can we say June 18? 3rd after Pentecost

    Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7). I love the charming and ancient fresco in Ravenna depicting the visit of the three strangers to Abraham and Sarah under the Oaks of Mamre. What a lovely place-name! Trees mark the spot! It’s hard not to interweave chapter 17’s details of the same moment – and (my seminary training notwithstanding!) it isn’t illegitimate to do so either!

   Rabbi Jonathan Sacks sees Abraham (after the foibles of Adam, Eve, Cain, Noah) as “a new human type.” Until now, people viewed God’s command as “a constraint from which they strive to break free.” For Abraham, God’s command is his life. He calls him the “unheroic hero,” as it’s not about him, but about God. He’s flawed, laughable at times. And then the last laugh comes.

   Three strangers. Of course, Christian theologians have lunged toward the Trinity. But why not simply think “strangers.” The Triune God is active any and everywhere, including when strangers materialize. Isn’t mature spirituality seeing strangers, noticing them, and maybe discerning something angelic or even divine in them?

   These three somehow though know of Sarah’s impending pregnancy – and they can even read her silent thoughts just inside the tent. Robert Alter’s rendering is vivid: “Sarah no longer had her woman’s flow. And Sarah laughed inwardly, saying ‘After being shriveled, shall I have pleasure?’” The laugh, yitzak, is cynical, and ironic – since we know the baby is coming, and that his very name Isaac, yitzak, means laughter. The sermon just has to play on this, how we might snicker at the possibility of new life, and then how when it comes we laugh – for the joy, or even at ourselves for our prior snickering.

   How to preach hospitality – in an unsafe world? The question isn’t Do we do hospitality? but How? Children learn "Don't talk to strangers." But isn't it like "Don't cross the road?" Once you're grown, you've learned how to. Can grownups learn to talk to strangers? Isn't hospitality a kind of curiosity? And a kind of humility?

   How to preach impossibility? Easy for the preacher to rattle off jargon about God doing the impossible. But I doubt many people I preach to expect anything extraordinary or beyond human capacity from God – and that’s likely because I as their pastor don’t expect so much either.

   Romans 5:1-11. Paul is finally warming up to his greatest eloquence after his midrashic meanderings about Abraham and faith. Every time I imagine Paul pacing around a room, dictating this letter, I get slackjawed with wonder. There was no New Testament, no theology textbooks – and off the top of his head he came up with this! Inspired, sure. Still amazes me. What was the secretary thinking? Wow, this guy is on fire today. I ruminate on this in sermons sometimes. No takeaway, no go-thou-and-do-likewise...

   I like Michael Gorman’s new commentary on this (and most other Romans texts!). Romans 5 forms a “bridge” between the 1^st 4 chapters and the next 4 – so it’s pivot. Our text forms an “artfully composed chiastic form,” shaped like the Greek letter chi (X):
   A (v 1-2a): Justification as peace thru Christ

     B (v 2b-5): Hope for future glory

        C (v 6-8): Christ’s death as God’s love

     B’ (v 9-10): Hope for future salvation

   A’ ( 11): Reconciliation through Christ

This matters, since Christ’s death is the center, the fulcrum, of God’s justifying, reconciling work. And “reconciliation isn’t something separate from justification”; they are used in the “same breath.”

   Faith: is it ours? (as most would assume) or Christ’s (as theologians think)? Paul stressed that the initiative is always God’s alone, and even its completion. “God’s grace is the means of justification, and faith is the mode of justification.” Hence it is “not mere assent but is robust: a sharing in the faithfulness of Jesus” (Gorman).

   Notice how for Paul “the road to glory is bumpy and has a cruciform shape: it includes, or will include, suffering.” The “will” matters; it’s not “might,” which we would prefer!

   Romans 5, the preacher should note, is entirely in first person plural. It’s not I have peace with God, or you, you individual person out there, have access to God. It’s we: we who are part of the Body. God doesn’t intend for us to do this alone. The logical consequence of all Paul has declared in chapters 1-4? Peace. C.E.B. Cranfield reminds us that eirene isn’t “subjective feelings of peace (though these may indeed result), but the objective state of being at peace instead of being enemies.” It’s a fact. Done. And not by you but by Christ, and at immense cost to himself.

   James K.A. Smith, in his marvelous On the Road with Saint Augustine, paints a homiletically intriguing picture of what our pursuit of peace is: “Like the exhausted refugee, fatigued by vulnerability, what we crave is rest (‘You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you’)… Joy, for Augustine, is characterized by a quietude that is the opposite of anxiety – the exhale of someone who has been holding her breath out of fear or worry or insecurity. It is the blissful rest of someone who realizes she no longer has to perform; she is loved. We find joy in the grace of God precisely because he is the one we don’t have to prove anything to. "

   "But it is also the exhale of someone who has arrived – who can finally breathe after making it through the anxiety-inducing experience of the border crossing, seeking refuge… The Christian isn’t just a pilgrim but a refugee, a migrant in search of refuge.” He then invites us to imagine Augustine’s City of God “as a tent city, a refugee camp… Think of Dadaab in Kenya, the Sahrawi camps in Maghreb.” Not my usual image of the City of God - but there it is. 

   “Obtained access” in v. 2: F.F. Bruce vividly explains that the Greek, prosagoge, means “the privilege of being introduced into the presence of someone of high station.” Verse 3: “We rejoice in our sufferings” – which is aspirational more than true. 

   There is beauty in suffering; Ray Barfield spoke at our church on just this (check out his little book, Wager: Beauty, Suffering, and Being in the World, on this). People know if you press them: “I was with my mother when she died, and it was a beautiful moment” - although care is required in talking this way, as some haven't had that beautiful experience, and suffering for many is brutally ugly...  Paul has in mind some origami in the soul that suffering initiates. His lovely litany is memorable, and worth repeating (or cross-stitching): “Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope.” I’m tempted to edit Paul a little by inserting the word “might” or “sometimes.” Suffering can make you bitter or mean. Why does it produce character and hope sometimes, and not in others? It's too cheap just to say "If you have faith, if you trust God." Isn't community involved? Doesn't God have mercy on is when suffering drowns us in depression?

   “Hope does not disappoint.” Christopher Lasch clarified how optimism, the sunny view that tomorrow will be a better day, and it’s up to us to make it happen, is vastly inferior to hope, the substantive faith that all will be well, even if tomorrow is worse – for this future is in God’s hands ultimately.

   I may fiddle around with the “poured out” image from v. 5, a picturesque image of the lavishness of grace. Jesus’ blood poured out, pouring coffee in the morning, the pitcher pouring water into the baptismal bowl, Jesus pouring water over the disciples’ feet, the bartender pouring you a drink, the woman pouring oil over Jesus’ head, the priest pouring wine into the chalice, your mother pouring you a glass of milk, a waterfall, water over a dam, a garden fountain. Is there a way all of these and more not only symbolize but actually are the pouring out of God’s goodness?

   “While we were still weak” reminds me of a terrific story. In 1980 I was running “Helping Hands,” a ministry to folks in need at Myrtle Beach, S.C. Our most problematical guy was named Belton. I drove him to the job I’d helped him get; when I came back for lunch he’d quit. I bought him groceries; he sold them to buy queludes. He tore up the temporary living quarters we found for him. Finally the board and volunteers met to decide how to cut him off, I think. All was proceeding in that direction until a woman said “You know, the Bible says ‘God helps those who help themselves.’”

   Everyone nodded, except a very old, frail woman, who countered: “That’s not in the Bible. That’s Ben Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanack.” I was impressed. She then opened her New American Standard Bible to Romans 5:6 and read “While we were helpless, Christ died for the ungodly.” And she added “That would be all of us.” The vote was unanimous. We’d keep doing whatever we could for and with Belton. I wish I had a happy ending, like He got on his feet, went back to school, and now is an executive at Bank of America. But no. We hung together another month or so, and then he just vanished. Did we fail? I don’t think so. We kept one of God’s helpless children alive a little longer, which is good. And God’s other helpless, ungodly children got a refresher course in theology from the physically weakest but most spiritually astute one in our group.

   Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23) provides an intriguing snapshot into a turning point in Jesus’ ministry – between when he dazzles the crowds and draws a following to his sending out his followers to continue, expand and even augment his ministry. Matthew reports that Jesus has been curing “every” disease and “every” sickness – which can’t be reality. Donald Hagner calls the “every” here “hyperbolic and symbolic.” People still had cancer and Alzheimer’s and tooth decay and deafness after Jesus left town. If anything, his healings weren’t so people could feel better, but so serve as object lessons for his sermons. His #1 cure was for blindness – and he always then pointed out how the righteous people thought they could see but couldn’t.

   This Jesus, the one who wept when Lazarus died and prayed in intense agony, had “compassion” on the crowds. The Greek esplanchnisthe connotes a twisting pain in the entrails, a writhing, intense emotion. It’s a common translation for the Hebrew riham, which means “womb” and then the pangs the womb underwent during the agonies of childbirth. Watch a woman in labor: that’s how Jesus felt when he saw the crowds, total strangers – and yet he knew them so intimately.

   He didn’t blame them for their plight, or pity their lackluster, colorless, futile existence as the utterly impoverished and despised people in the Roman empire. He understood that they were “harassed and helpless.” How harassed are your people? By their employers, by heartbreaking friends and family, by the chipper Facebook culture that depresses them, by the rancor of political ideology, by ads, by loneliness. The Greek for “helpless,” errimmenoi, means literally “cast down to the ground.” The preacher portrays, imitates and embodies Jesus himself by simply naming the miseries and niggling frustrations people undergo all the time.

   In Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus, besieged by throngs seeking help, sings “There’s too many of you; don’t push me; there’s too little of me; don’t crowd me.” He needs help, more of himself. In our Gospel, Jesus asks his laborers to pray for more laborers! How do we join him in this prayer today? By poking around for laity who’ll get busy? Connecting with non-church people who might turn out to be the naïve, zealous type of new Christian who doesn’t know to be a lazy Christian yet? Or even investing time with sharp young people, middle- and high-schoolers, college students, and daring to ask if they’ve thought about ministry? I became a laborer in the field because an Episcopal priest took an interest in me, somebody with a zero religious resume, and asked if I’d thought about ministry. Never, ever… but it planted a seed that grew years later.

   What does the relationship with Jesus look like? I’m fond of “following” as the image. Jesus goes, I try to stay close. He sets the path, I simply trail behind in his wake. In Matthew 9, Jesus looks at his followers and “sends” them. That is, without him – unless you count spiritually or mystically. They have to figure out where and how to go, and what to do. They have “authority” – but what would that be for us? Not an M.Div. or that some bishop laid hands on me. It’s something more organic in me, or despite me. Maybe it’s just being fool enough to try: is that the authority? Is it trying to get out of the way and let Jesus be where I am?

   I love it that the Gospels provide names of the twelve – although the lists are happily inconsistent. A dozen – with some wiggle room. They are in stained glass in my sanctuary, and little biographies (95% of which is total guesswork/fiction!) are posted in our children’s building.

   Jesus, unhappily for me, directs them not to go to Gentiles but only to the Jews. I wish he’d urged the opposite, given anti-Semitism and often strained relationships with Judaism. Hagner reminds us that this limitation is “temporary,” as Matthew’s Gospel later on sends Jesus’ people to the whole world. Maybe, if you're white, we translate this into our world as We begin with white people. So much to work on in here before we can connect and change out there - although dithering on self for long is so lame.

   Maybe we do go to the Jews first – not to proselytize, but to find common ground. As you saw above, my greatest learning in Scripture lately is from Rabbi Sacks (who died just too young for my tastes and homiletical needs!). In our city of Charlotte, we have more in common, and can work more effectively with the synagogues than with many of the churches – including my own cantankerous Methodist denomination!

   St. Francis heard Jesus’ words about “take no bag, no silver,” and he and his friars (Italian for “brothers”!) did just that. I can't get there. I'm taking my bags, checking out my pension portfolio, garnering funds. I can only stand in awe, with a restless sense of penitence and yearning.

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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   Check out my book on preaching - not how to preach, but how to continue preaching: The Beauty of the Word: the Challenge and the Wonder of Preaching.

 

 

What can we say April 2? Palm Sunday

    Palm Sunday. We’ve made it cute, fun, breezy, optimistic – and a good bit of that was in the air when Jesus entered Jerusalem. There is, simultaneously, a tragic dimension, a foreboding. Jesus comes surrounded by great joy but into the teeth of mortal danger; he comes to tackle the powers, and to be killed by them. And there’s a joyful dimension, paradoxically enough, to the Passion. Gruesome, horrific, unjust suffering, transformed by the miraculous way of God into immense life, light, joy.

   Psalm 118 could prompt a fine sermon, or at least a call to worship. It celebrates a royal victory in ancient times. “This is the day the Lord has made” doesn’t mean Oh, God made a pretty day for me to enjoy, but “This is the day the Lord has acted,” brought deliverance, re-established his people once peril was eluded. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Did Jesus or any of his friends ponder this as he rode right by the huge ashlars of Herod’s temple mount?

   Philippians 2:5-11 is an entirely fitting and moving text for the day as well. Consider the up and down coming of the Lord – and the quirky translation quandary that needn’t be resolved but simply pondered: is it “although he was in the form of God, he humbled himself to death on a cross”? or should it be “because he was in the form of God, he…” I lean “because.” Jesus wasn’t pretending to be what he wasn’t, or what God isn’t. Precisely in his humility, in his shattered heart and body do we see the truth about God.

   Matthew 21:1-11. A king on a little donkey, not a war stallion like Bucephalus (Alexander the Great’s mount) – and a  borrowed donkey at that. Or two. Not just as fulfillment of prophecy (Zechariah!), this has a lovely, family feel. Mother and child, father and child, donkey and colt. Martin Luther noticed Jesus road on “an animal of peace fit only for burden and labor. He indicates by this that he comes not to frighten anyone, nor to drive or crush anyone, but to help him and carry his burdens.” Notice "the Lord has need of them." Being needed by our Lord; that's enough, isn't it? Some special donkey. Despite all the clamor, he never gets skittish; he doesn’t bolt or freeze.

Those following weren’t armed or rich or influential. Dreamers, every one. Wouldn’t the recently healed Bartimaeus have been in the crowd? And the recently raised Lazarus? 

   Jesus is so full of courage – that rarest of virtues in our day. The preacher is wise to portray vividly the sights and sounds: Pilate had just marched his legions from Caesarea on the coast to Jerusalem to intimidate, to secure the city overcrowded at Passover. His stomping regiments, with arms clattering and banners waving high, heading east into the city could not have found a greater contrast that Jesus, donkey hooves clomping on the stone, children holding leafy branches in the air, heading west into the city. The perpetual clash of good and evil coming to its climax.

   Stanley Hauerwas is right: "Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem is an unmistakable political act." The crowd does not yet know, and may never understand, that "this king triumphs not through violent revolt, but by being for Israel the one able to show it that its worship of God is its freedom." His action is "a refusal to let Rome determine what counts and doesn't count as politics." Well-said, daunting to explicate in a sermon though, with hearers mired on old-timey Americanish notions about what politics is and what religion (to them, very different) is.

   Hard to beat the wisdom inside Jesus Christ Superstar’s “Hosanna Heysanna...” with the crowd’s escalating appeals to Jesus: “Won’t you smile for me?” “Won’t you fight for me?” “Won’t you die for me?” I lucked into a podcast (my “Maybe I'm Amazed”) conversation with Tim Rice, who wrote these and all the words for that splendid musical! Lots of insight in there for Holy Week! For Palm Sunday, we feel the jubilation, and yet the painful ironies, the dawning realization on them, and us, of impending doom and what’s at stake.

   The shout “Hosanna!” isn’t cheering in church, but a prayer, a cry for help meaning “Save us now!” That’s precisely why he came, although the enthusiastic crowd melted away by Good Friday. Not the saving they had in mind.

   World leaders, including our own, look frightening, and expose themselves as frightened. Jesus wasn’t scared, and he didn’t scare anybody – except the armed and powerful who probably couldn’t admit to themselves that his stark alternative posed a paradoxical threat to their business. Jesus had so much courage! And yet an utter calm, the ultimate non-anxious presence.

   Others have imitated Jesus by striding peacefully into the jaws of danger. Francis of Assisi, having joined the bloodthirsty Crusaders in the battle of Damietta in 1219, walked across No Man’s Land between the heavily armed Christians and the saber-rattling Muslims – unarmed, barefooted. He was so pitiful that, instead of butchering him, the soldiers hauled him to the sultan, Malik al-Kamil. Francis spent three days with him, befriending him, and bought peace in that region. Well, for a brief time.

   What is the homiletical takeaway? Go thou and so likewise? Hardly. We simply find ourselves in the crowd, excited yet with the hunch that a week of agony for this holy one is beginning. Just before Lent we observed the Transfiguration. No takeaway there. The disciples fell on their faces in awe. I dream of the sermon that has no moral, no lesson, but simply causes all of us to say Wow, Jesus is amazing, so courageous, so humble, so loving, so bold, so holy, so divine. That’s really enough, isn’t it?

   I also like to think each year about Howard Thurman's lovely thought (whether it winds up in my sermon or not) - all the more interesting in light of Peter Eisenstadt's new, great biography, Against the Hounds of Hell (also the topic of one of my “Maybe I’m Amazed” podcasts!): “I wonder what was at work in the mind of Jesus of Nazareth as he jogged along on the back of that faithful donkey. Perhaps his mind was far away to the scenes of his childhood, feeling the sawdust between his toes in his father’s shop. He may have been remembering the high holy days in the synagogue with his whole body quickened by the echo of the ram’s horn. Or perhaps he was thinking of his mother, how deeply he loved her and how he wished that there had not been laid upon him this Great Necessity that sent him out on to the open road to proclaim the Truth, leaving her side forever. It may be that he lived all over again that high moment on the Sabbath when he was handed the scroll and he unrolled it to the great passage from Isaiah, ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor.’ I wonder what was moving through the mind of the Master as he jogged along on the back of that faithful donkey.”

What can we say March 26? Lent 5

    Psalm 130 strikes me as lovely timing-wise. It’s one of the Church’s historic “Seven Penitential Psalms,” so fitting for Lent. People with zero Bible knowledge can resonate to those depths. I preached on this a while back and told about a friend of mind who went radio silent for about 3 weeks. I texted, called, wondered, finally texted his wife. He called and said “I fell into a deep hole. Sorry I’ve not been in touch.” I said “Next time you fall into a hole, you call me. I’ll pull you out.” After a little thought, I repaired that to say “Actually, I’ll climb down in the hole and sit with you.”

   Sometimes we get too syrupy about perils like the proverbial hole, and think it’s God’s job to yank us out immediately, or church people’s job to assure them they can snap right out of it. Maybe we get down in the hole and just sit with them. The Gospel, after all, is that Jesus was God coming down into our hole, the depths, to be with us, not to fix everything.

   Naturally, when that sermon ended, several reminded me as they exited (too late, right?) of the great scene in West Wing where Leo encourages Josh with a story: A guy falls into a hole, can’t get out. A doctor comes along, hears the cry for help, writes out a prescription and drops it into the hole. A priest comes next, jots down a prayer and drops it in. Finally a friend comes, who jumps down into the hole. “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says “I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.”

   Our Psalm inspired John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience. Dart around the Scriptures and mention dark pit moments: Joseph sold into slavery, Daniel in the lion’s den, Jonah in the fish’s belly, Jesus in the dungeon the night before his crucifixion, or lying in the stone cold tomb.

   What are the depths? Leslie Brandt, in his lovely spiritual book Psalms Now, updates the language to “O God, tonight I see You with a heart full of guilt and a mind full of bewilderment and frustration.” 

 Compare this, though, to Ernesto Cardenal, a Nicaraguan priest imprisoned for standing with the poorest of the poor: “From the depths, I cry in the night from the prison cell, from the torture chamber in the hour of darkness, hear my S.O.S.” We know our depths, and are asked to be attentive to the depths of others, the Cardenals of the world. Explore various locations for this Psalm. Invite the pew-sitters to explore their own.

   Important to note: we can’t extricate ourselves. Ours is simply to wait, to watch. Jason Byassee (in his great Brazos commentary) phrased it shrewdly: “Don’t do something. Just stand there. The Lord will act.” No wonder Martin Luther thought this Psalm captured the heart of the Gospel. Byassee goes on to say he can’t think of the Psalm without singing it, mentioning Chris Miner’s “From the Depths of Woe” and Charles Pettee and Folk Song’s “Psalm 130.” I’d add Arvo Pärt’s “De Profundis” and John Michael Talbot’s “Out of the Depths.” We “get” the Psalm when it’s sung, as the music can probe more deeply than words; and it’s the universal agony of it all that then inspires more music.

   Ezekiel 37:1-14 is a vivid, memorable text, although we might miss how utterly shocking it is. Artists started depicting it at Dura Europos (3rd century, in modern day Syria) – and it inspired the catchy “Dem Bones” spiritual. Ezekiel is vouchsafed a vision of a valley of dry bones. My mind flits to those horrific photos of dead Civil War soldiers strewn over battlefields at Antietam or Gettysburg. In Ezekiel’s vision, the death was some time ago, as the bodies have decayed to nothing but the bones. Don’t forget: in Judaism, a corpse was an unclean thing to be dealt with quickly or avoided. This valley isn’t a cemetery, but the epitome of uncleanliness.

   The prophet isn’t like us, presuming upon resurrection as a natural right. It’s utterly impossible, inconceivable; there is zero hope in this valley. Walter Zimmerli’s eloquent assessment is worth quoting at length: “We hear not the man of God who is gifted with special insight, but simply the man who knows about God: ‘You know.’ This has two sides to it: the admission of the powerlessness of man who, faced with such an irrefutable victory on death’s part, is incapable of saying anything about the possibility of life; at the same time, the knowledge that he is replying to the God whose abilities are not curtailed by man’s lack of abilities.” Don’t your people – and you as their pastor – feel powerless?

   Of course, we can rightly discern personal, psychological hope in our text. Ponder the anxiety, depression and discouragement people feel when they simply watch the news - the way the political becomes personal for most. Ezekiel's vision might just suggest that God can even take away such despair, and raise us from the graves that our hearts can become.

   The breath, the wind, reminds us of Genesis, when God blows the ruah, the wind / breath into Adam’s lifeless dust. Impossible, not human determination or skill. How to preach such a text? Can we trust Ezekiel’s vision to be its own illustration? His vision was his preaching illustration; can we improve on it? We can guide people into (hopefully) a dawning realization that on our own we have the ability to break God’s heart and wind up dead. That’s it. As a Church, or if we think of our nation, we cannot fix what ails us. It’s a fallen, broken world. It’s God, or nothing.

   Fascinating: in the book of Ezekiel, God saves, not so much because he adores the people or the nation. Rather, God may save in order to keep from looking bad. What lengths will this God go to in order to protect his own image, and to reveal himself to the world? God uses the very same prophet who pronounced and enacted through signs God’s judgment now to deliver this message of new life. Prophets do judgment; prophets do hope. Prophets “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Too often, preachers and prophets whiff on this; John Goldingay is right: “The true prophet knows what time it is.” In the hopeless depths of exile, it’s time for hope.

   And Israel’s deliverance is utterly unconditional. Nothing in them deserves restoration; they have zero capacity to help themselves. Ezekiel can only stammer “Lord, you know…” Zimmerli’s elegant conclusion? “Only when, as a result of this event, the great awareness dawns and men no longer appear with their own achievements, no matter how magnificently righteous these might be, but when they realize that God reveals himself in the miracle of his free promise of life – only there does God’s action achieve its goal. There all ecclesiastical prerogatives collapse, and there remains only the praise given to the God who in the majestic freedom of his faithfulness has revealed himself.”

   Romans 8:6-11 is (of course!) a fine text, part of Paul’s greatest chapter - but not as picturesque as Ezekiel, the Psalmist or the Gospel. And so:

   John 11:1-45. Such a long reading! And is Lent 5 the time to leap ahead to Easter prematurely? Yet Lent has its Sundays. We feel the mournful ashes in the sorrow of the sisters, and in Jesus’ simple weeping. On this text, I refer you to my blog from the prior lectionary run – with illustrative material from the archaeology of Bethany (as the newly constructed “wall” there now!), N.T. Wright, Frederick Buechner and Wendell Berry. 

   I hesitate to add, but will anyhow, an intriguing thought from Jean Vanier, whose wisdom (I’d shyly argue) isn’t entirely squashed by stories of his wayward behavior? In We Need Each Other, he notes the way John 11 (not to mention Luke 10) speaks of "the house of Martha," Vanier infers that Lazarus "has a severe disability." The Catholic Church has a feast day for Mary and one for Martha but none for Lazarus (which is shocking); Vanier points out "we tend to forget people with disabilities." He riffs on his frequently voiced themes of how the disabled are great gifts to us - and how we all are sick. I wonder how, late in life, he saw himself in his wise words about our shared sickness. Picturing Lazarus in the tomb he wrote: "Our fears, hatred and incapacities to love and forgive are the graves in which we are enclosed. Jesus calls to those parts of us that are dead, those parts of us that are controlled by fear of failure or not being loved. All those fears prevent us from entering into the vision of Jesus: a Church where the weakest people transform us by their presence."

What can we say February 12? 6th after Epiphany

    Deuteronomy 30:15-20 strikes me as promising homiletically. I recall learning in school that Deuteronomy was a kind of “preaching” to the Israelites… The setting is dramatic: Israel, perched on a high cliff overlooking the Jordan valley with the promised land beyond, listening to a long sermon from Moses, his last – and all about God’s promises and how freed people can receive and enjoy the gift of the land as free people. So much love, unmerited grace; so much potential and hope! But so many texts feel like a nag, dire warning, as if God’s making a list and checking it twice.

   Patrick Miller’s lovely commentary hits on some crucial items – such as the call in this text for what I don’t call for often enough: a decision! “This good life, which is God’s gift to God’s people, does not just happen automatically. The land given must also be a land taken; the life offered must also be a life lived out.” It’s all about worship, purity of life, justice for the weak…. Whatever notions of the good life may exist as alternatives in a world where many gods, enticing systems of power, and hawkers of attractive elixirs of life content for the loyalties of humankind, the Bible insists without qualification that there is really only one way to find life and good and well-being. It is the Lord’s way. So choose that way, follow that Lord.”

   Walter Brueggemann (in his commentary on this text) does notice the "doable" character of Torah. This is no "impossible ethic" - and thus the faithful are freed from anxiety or dread of inevitable falling short. 

He illustrates the plain and simple character of doing what God has prescribed by the Christians of Le Chambon in France who hid Jews from the Nazis during World War II - at great risk to themselves. When asked why they did such a thing, they shrugged. No big dramatic, heroic or strategic explanations. Acting this way was simply a doable thing from their Scriptures.

   1 Corinthians 3:1-9 spawns much lunacy, I think. I remain baffled by Paul’s apparent progression from infant’s milk to solid food, spiritually that is. My gut discomfort might just be Paul’s point (or so I fantasize!). My friends who’ve spoken of the solid food imply they’re digging into it, while the less mature are still back on the bottle. 

 Roy Harrisville’s wise commentary ties this text to Jesus’ prayer, “I thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to babes” (Matthew 11:25). In other words, the milk is it. We’re always to be like children, humbly drinking what’s given. The arrogant ones who presume they’ve matured father are the… arrogant ones. I hope Harrisville is right: the Gospel of grace and utter dependence is all there is.

   Matthew 5:21-37. Jesus himself presses for a kind of maturity, or at least depth of soul. Last week’s text lured us toward a righteousness that exceeds that of the uber-righteous Pharisees. This week, in Matthew 5:21-37, he provides samples so we’ll get the hang of things. Picking out a couple of the easier of the Ten Commandments, Jesus lovingly but firmly presses those who haven’t murdered anybody to ponder their hidden anger – which is a kind of killing the other person. And killing yourself! Isn’t anger the toxicity that feels like it’s venting itself on the other guy but only eats away at you?

   I’ll guarantee you your people know anger well, and are weary of it. Political ideology feeds rancor. Drivers rage. Spouses demean. Bosses boss people. The nations rage too. Politicians show their fists. Hoping for good, we go after guns, or the other political party, or we blame whomever for whatever. But there is a kind of accepted, expected anger in the world, in society, in all of us, and it’s the high god who’s commanding loyalty and devouring us all. Jesus exposes it, not to say Nyet nyet nyet, gotcha!! or You’re even more of a worm than you thought! Rather, Jesus, like a gentle surgeon, lances the wound, lets the toxins seep out, and opens the way toward healing.

   What’s all the anger about, anyhow? So normalized, and justified in our culture!! It’s the unwitting recoil of fear – at least most of the time. We fear change, we fear others, we fear loss, we fear…. Preachers can fill in this blank endlessly, and fruitfully, looking with compassion into our people’s eyes; they can’t avert their gaze; they know – and hope against hope that Jesus’ hard words really do bring life and light. 

   To do this I try to model myself on Dinah, the frontier preacher in George Eliot’s Adam Bede. “Dinah walked as simply as if she were going to the market, and seemed as unconscious of her outward appearance as a little boy, no attitude of the arms that said ‘But you must think of me as a saint.’ There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations. The eyes looked so simple, so candid, so gravely loving, that no accusing scowl, no light sneer could help melting away before their glance… The simple things she said seemed like novelties; the quiet depth of conviction with which she spoke seemed in itself an evidence for the truth of her message. She spoke slowly… She was not preaching as she heard others preach, but speaking directly from her own emotions and under the inspiration of her own simple faith.”

   Jesus, his eyes shedding love, turned then to speak of adultery. To all who’d managed not to have an affair, he said that if you’ve harbored lust in your heart, it’s the same thing. President Jimmy Carter, such a devout Bible guy, unveiled his heart (in Playboy magazine!) on this and got hooted down. But in our #metoo chapter of civilization, in a culture that mangles attitudes toward the body and intimacy, what more precious words could we contemplate? Everybody else talks about sex. Why are we so hushed in church - except for the occasional "Don't be naughty" triviality?

   I’ve found no better wisdom on this than from the philosopher Roger Scruton (in both Beauty, and Sexual Desire), who shows how physical intimacy between lovers properly is an interest in a person as embodied, not merely as an assemblage of body parts. In a kiss, the mouth is involved. But it’s not an aperture for food and drink, or the dentist’s workshop. Embodied persons touch with their mouths – but in a kiss you touch the other person in their very whole self.

   Lust and its partner, obscenity, mistreats the body on display as mere body; and so lust is “the eclipse of the soul by the body.” If we make the body “a thing among other things,” something to be owned, we forget that my own body isn’t my property; it is my incarnation; it is God’s temple. Lust assaults mentally, and many times physically, the other as an object for my pleasure, not as a person. Another target of lust, “pornography, like slavery, is a denial of the human subject, a way of negating the moral demand that free beings must treat each other as ends in themselves.”

   Genuine, human intimacy isn’t getting what you desire. You’re part of the whole. A caress “incarnates” me and simultaneously the other. We discover the mystery of one another in reciprocity. “I am awakened in my body, to the embodiment of you.” How lovely and profound – and a far cry from the couple recently who answered my question, “Why do you want to marry?” The groom cockily replied, "She's the best in bed I’ve ever had.”

   Lust is a tough topic to preach on? How could we pass up such a tantalizing possibility to talk about what is at the core of the disjointed modern soul? Modern Americans would celebrate lust, or just accede to it as inevitable. But the woes springing from it when it is nurtured is like kudzu, a tangle obscuring God, love, and goodness.