What can we say May 31? Pentecost Sunday

 Pentecost. I feel I’ve preached on Acts 2 quite a few years now. I might again, but might not. If you plan to, I’ll refer you to my blog from a couple of years ago, which has pretty extensive material that might be of use to you. Also, perhaps you've seen the "Lament and Mourn 100K" appeal that emanated, I believe, from Jim Wallis and Sojourners - inviting houses of worship to mark the U.S. passing the 100,000 mark in deaths from Covid-19, with a time of mourning and prayers for the healing of our nation. Where I am, such talk gets hijacked into ideological rhetoric in a nano-second, but it does seem like the sort of thing churches should do together.

   1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 is an intriguing choice. If Pentecost is, as we are fond of saying, the birthday of the Church, then what does it mean to be the Church? Paul’s exploration of gifts is worth probing. There are “varieties of gifts,” so there’s no one spirituality or service model for everybody. Many churches (like mine!) do “spiritual gifts” inventories, assessments of “strength finders” etc. so people can see how they are wired and thus find their path to service. All good: but I always wonder if we might be getting it backwards. Is it that God has made me a certain way, so that’s how I serve? Or do I stretch and learn to serve God more profoundly if I do what I’m not gifted at?

   Does God use my strengths? Or my brokenness? Leonard Cohen’s “Everything has a crack in it, that’s how the light gets in,” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The world breaks everyone, and then some become strong in the broken places” come to mind. How do we unearth people’s gifts – all the people’s? I gripe at my place about the way churches and their groups and service options are geared toward “marathoners,” people like my wife who will sign up for 35 week studies or 3 year weekly commitments. I’m a “sprinter,” and my tribe is increasing: I get nervous over a 3 week commitment. And then what times of day do we have things? A young parent, or a surgeon, or a night nurse: how do we employ their gifts, and time?

   Not surprisingly, in our culture, “difference” feels threatening. The Methodists can’t seem to get along with people who think or act differently. But difference is God’s good gift; difference is how we know God, not merely through the daunting labor of reconciliation, but even just hearing God’s voice. I love Hans Urs von Balthasar’s wisdom: “We cannot find the dimensions of Christ’s love other than in the community of the church, where the vocations and charisms distributed by the Spirit are shared: each person must tell the others what special knowledge of the Lord has been shown to him. For no one can tread simultaneously all the paths of the love given to the saints: while one explores the heights, another experiences the depths and a third the breadth. No one is alone under the banner of the Spirit, the Son and the Father; only the whole Church is the Bride of Christ, and that only as a vessel shaped by him to receive his fullness.”

  The lectionary supplies us with a couple of Gospel options! John 20:19-23 is a text we saw and commented on recently… (with mentions of Rachel Hollis’s bikini, Caravaggio’s painting, wisdom from Simone Weil and Jean Vanier, and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair – and what Jesus “breathing on them” was about). So let’s look at John 7:37-39. One of the coolest new things to visit in Jerusalem is the “Pilgrim’s Path,” newly excavated, starting at the Pool of Siloam, making its way up the long incline to the Temple Mount. I've taken several groups now through this tunnel! You have to duck your head, but it’s a spectacular underground walk – the very stones on which Jesus and thousands of Jewish pilgrims would have made their way from Siloam, 

which is a mass Mikveh for cleansing, up to the Temple for worship on the great Festival days.

   John’s vignette reveals a dramatic moment – and in my sermon, I will paint the scene as vividly as I’m able. The Festival in question was the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkoth, when Jews recalled dwelling in makeshift booths in the wilderness years; special celebration was given to the miraculous gift of water in the desert (Exodus 17 – right on the heels of the gift of the bread from heaven in Exodus 16, just as John 7 is right on the heels of Jesus as the “bread of life” in John 6!). The high priest would lead this great processional, carrying a golden pitcher full of water from the Spring Gihon and the Pool of Siloam. Upon reaching the pinnacle, he would pour the water out on the ground – a dramatic reminder of the gift of water, not to mention David’s nobly heroic moment reported in 2 Samuel 23:15-17: after sighing that he was thirsty, 3 devoted men broke through the Philistine lines and brought him water at great risk to themselves; moved by their action, instead of drinking, David poured it out on the ground.

   At this Feast of Booths, Jesus was in the crowd. Just as the priest solemnly poured the water, Jesus cried from the side, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me” – and mysteriously alludes to living water flowing within any who believe. People must have been puzzled, chagrined, or maybe drawn to him.

   Of all Jesus’ “I am” declarations in John, the “Water” identity is curiously alluring. In the Incarnation, Jesus entered the water of Mary’s womb, and was himself 80% water when he was born (like all infants) – and even as an adult was 70% water (like you are). So much of his ministry was conducted near or on the water. His Baptism, the fishermen, so many miracles, preaching and healing at the great Mikveh pools in Jerusalem, Bethesda and Siloam. Water has some mystical lure for us. A rainshower calms the soul. The lapping of waves along the ocean shore, or a river flowing by speaks somehow deeply into the soul. Add water to a landscape painting and it goes from lovely to beautiful.

   Jean Vanier, whom I've loved and quoted and now feel crushed by... can still with his words usher me and maybe some others into the holy mindset: “Jesus crying out in this way reveals his own thirst to give life. His desire to liberate people is welling up in his heart. He is thirsty that we thirst for him.” But then those who drink from his grace become themselves vessels for his grace to others: “Jesus is calling us to receive him so we may give life to those who are thirsty. Those who believe in Jesus become like him. Through their love, words and presence, they transmit the Spirit they receive from Jesus. They will quench the thirst of the poor, the lonely, the needy, those in pain and anguish and will give them life, love, and peace of heart.”

   This is the Church, the one born at Pentecost, right?

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  I'm excited about my new book on Birth - for the Pastoring for Life: Theological Wisdom for Ministering Well series - and I hope you'll check it out. Got negative reviews on Amazon.com for suggesting that birth isn't to be politicized, or that evolutionary facts are.... facts. Alas. Thanks in advance for giving it a good look!

What can we say May 24? 7th Sunday of Easter

   Of course, my people aren’t thinking 7th Sunday after Easter. It’s Memorial Day weekend – which has often bugged me, as I privately muse that what people say, that soldiers died so we could worship freely, is celebrated by people missing church in droves. We’ll see under Covid-19 restrictions. I do try to give people for whom Memorial Day means so much something. This year, during my sermon, I’ll play a 3 minute Zoom interview I did with a World War II veteran, who is so wise and lovely, not a rah-rah hawk or uber-patriot at all. I’m also fond of, for Memorial Day, this marvelous passage from Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow. 

 Jayber ponders the death of his friend Forrest in World War II: “I imagine that soldiers who are killed in war just disappear from the places where they are killed. Their deaths may be remembered by the comrades who saw them die, if the comrades live to remember. Their deaths will not be remembered where they happened. They will not be remembered in the halls of government. Where do dead soldiers die who are killed in battle? They die at home – in Port William and thousands of other little darkened places, in thousands upon thousands of houses like Miss Gladdie’s where The News comes, and everything on the tables and shelves is all of a sudden a relic and a reminder forever.” Memorial Day? Check. Segue into Gospel hope? Check!

   Acts 1:6-14 overlaps with the reading for The Ascension, Acts 1:1-11, which is marked on the calendar as Thursday, May 21. Whether you’re preaching Acts 1 as Easter 7 or as Ascension, I’ll refer you to my blog from a couple of years ago, which has a pretty thorough look at these texts, with illustrative material.

   1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11. I’m not fond of what I tend to view as a vapid Christian habit – the lifting up of a single Bible verse as an amulet of protection, or a medicinal dose of comfort. But 1 Peter 5:7 is quite good, something I text out now and then to my mass text distribution – and people love it, as they should. “Cast your cares upon the Lord, for he cares for you.” {I'm not as fond of "Cast your anxieties on him," as it begins to feel more about me and my inner self than "cares," which are usually real things out there... but it's not awful.} 

   I wonder about a sermon that just settles around that invitation, reflecting on how much we need this, how it’s not a quick fix or a blithe assumption that God will do what I demand, that it’s the sharing of our anxieties, our darkness, whatever we care about, with the assurance that God cares. That’s as much as we really want from the people we love: my wife can’t fix my trouble, but she cares; my best friend might be clueless about my work situation, but he cares.

   It’s not a forsaking of responsibility or even asking God to make up the little deficit of what you can’t manage for yourself. I think about Henri Nouwen’s book he wrote during his own darkest days: “You so much want to heal yourself, fight your temptations, stay in control. But you cannot do it yourself. Every time you try, you are more discouraged. So you must acknowledge your powerlessness. You have to say Yes fully to your powerlessness in order to let God heal you.” He notes how addiction recovery begins, continues and ends on just this assumption: you are powerless. And all our troubles are addictive, aren’t they?

   And then there’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s marvelous little book on the Psalms, which are as good a primer in how to pray as I’ve ever known: “The Psalms cast every difficulty and agony on God: ‘We can no longer bear it, take it from us, and bear it yourself, you alone can handle suffering.’” After all, verse 7, the little golden nugget, hinges on what Peter just said in verse 6: “Humble yourselves.” The humble know they aren’t masters of the universe, and that the grit of free will might just spiral you into ever worsening maladies.

   At the same time, verses 6 and 7 keep some rigorous company, don’t they? Verse 7 is followed by counsel to be disciplined, and to keep alert. If you’re in a pickle, and you cast your cares upon the Lord, and there is some lightening of the burden, you’ll be right back where you were in a few hours without the discipline of new habits, avoiding perilous places and people. Sam Wells wittily wrote that “Ethics is not about being clever in a crisis, but about forming a character that does not realize it has been in a crisis until the ‘crisis’ is over.”

   Hence not merely how to cope with but how to grow from or even avert the “fiery ordeal.” Sounds like flaming torment – but the Greek, peirasmos, is the same word used for Jesus being “tested” in the wilderness, with the connotation of test, trial, discipline. The worst of combating difficulty is feeling alone; 1 Peter offers good company: we “share” (the Greek is koinonia!) in Jesus’ sufferings!

   This might be a word for clergy more than it’s a word for clergy to preach to the people. And the sneaky peril is this: I suffer in my ministry – so can I safely conclude it’s because I’m so in fellowship with Jesus? Or is it because I’ve been a dufus and have miscalculated my emotional capital or what my people can bear in love?

   ** I’ll add here that I like to seed a sermon by texting all my people with a question. A question I ask them, apart from sermon preparation, is simply “How can I pray with you?” I get like a zillion replies, and reading them breaks your heart. For this Sunday, if I’m preaching 1 Peter’s “cares” or the Gospel we’re about to consider, asking our people “What are your cares, what are you suffering?” This prepares them for worship (and life with God), creates solidarity within the Body – and also provides me with something to ponder or even use in my sermon. If I’m preaching 1 Peter, I may just read a sampling. Then their hearts break too – and maybe break open to new life in Christ.

   John 17:1-11. We are at the very end of the very long Last Supper. Much has happened, much has been said, they’ve lingered over the meal. And then a long pause. The action, stately as it has been, halts. It's time for contemplation. Jesus lifts his eyes toward heaven. He's already caught up in what he's been talking about with them: being one with the Father.

   And so they overhear him praying. How puzzled, moved, confused and awed they must have been. Jesus prays to be glorified – which is what they desperately wanted for him (and for themselves!). But the glory, in John’s Gospel, isn’t a titanic win, some shining, towering victory. 

It’s the Cross. It’s the nails and thorny crown, the blood, the lance in the side. This is how the Father glorifies the Son. If there is any single point clergy will struggle to communicate, or even to “get” themselves, it is this. It’s not the rush to the empty tomb, it’s not the soaring or the shedding of agony. It’s in the agony, it’s at the heart of the God-forsakenness where the glory is glory.

   There is no “illustration” of this for preachers. The cross is the cross. “What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend?” – as we rightly sing. The cross bears pondering, surveying, lingering in its shadow. Jesus embraces this glory in advance, in anticipation. What courage. What immense faith. What unbounded love for the very guys standing around who are clueless even as they overhear him praying. What unstinting mercy on us who live vapid, unintentional lives thoroughly enmeshed in a culture that does not know or love the Lord Jesus.

   Take special note in preaching of verse 3. Jesus prays for them and us: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus whom you have sent.” Better rewind. Could this be? Eternal life – isn’t it all the fun, acing every hole playing golf, festive parties, reunions with lost loved ones, eating bonbons and not gaining an ounce, basking in the brightness of heaven and the endless music of angelic choirs? Eternal life isn’t God saying You get to keep on keeping on. It’s not the infinite extension of the best life you’ve enjoyed thus far. 

   Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his genius of a commentary on Genesis, midrashes on Genesis 3 and points out that for the Bible's "great empires," Babylon and Egypt, we witness the remains of "the idea that one defeats mortality by building monuments that outlast the winds and sands of time. Judaism has a quite different idea, that we defeat mortality by engraving our ideals on the hearts of our children." Indeed, when Adam learned that Eve would bear children, "suddenly he knew that though we die, if we are privileged to have children, something of us will live on. That is our immortality."

   Lovely. In John 17 we see something different, and (with all due respect to my Jewish friends) maybe better? Eternal life isn't a thing, or things, or a place in the way we think of places. It's not other people, although other people will be involved. It’s relationship - with God. Knowing God, being known by God.

   You came into being, just like the whole universe, out of the creative and loving mind of God. God knew you into being. God knew you in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139), and God knows you, and your people right at this moment better than you’ll ever know yourselves. And knowing so thoroughly, God loves and finds you to be beautiful. This knowing isn’t facts and figures. It’s knowing, the way I know my infant daughter who can’t tell me about herself, the way I know it’s time to rest, or I know I need a hug, or I know I can’t live without my beloved, or I know I dream and yearn and love and love some more. Eternal life is knowing Jesus, clearly, intimately.

   Isn’t this related to 1 Corinthians 13, which isn’t a poem Paul wrote so we’d have some pious words at weddings. It’s about the love in the Body of Christ, and for the head of the Body. Realizing we never know the other as clearly or deeply as we might wish, Paul says “Now we see through a glass darkly. Then we will see face to face.” I’ll see God, and not be blinded, although I will never see all of God. I’ll see myself, for the first time, the full, unvarnished, marvelous truth about myself. And I’ll see, I’ll know others, like I’ve never known even those I’ve known best. Wouldn’t this be enough? and better than daily golf or bonbons?

   If this is eternal life, and if we realize this eternity in some measure now, then Jesus’ prayer that we may be one isn’t far-fetched at all, is it?

****

  Let me commend my new book, in the "Pastoring for Life: Theological Wisdom for Ministering Well" series: Birth: The Mystery of Being Born. I loved researching and writing this, and hope you'll enjoy. Glad to do a virtual signing of the frontispiece for you!

What can we say May 17? 6th Sunday of Easter

   Great texts this week. I'm focusing on the Epistle, especially the bit about accounting for the hope that is in you. Discussed below... but to underline how people, not just clergy, bear witness with words to the hope in us, I've asked a dozen people to shoot a selfie video saying "I am hopeful because..." We'll piece those together, and they'll be in my sermon. Oh, the pleasures of Covid-19 preaching!

  Acts 17:22-31 – the Old Testament? – narrates a telling moment in early Christianity. Does the preacher dare to preach on one of history’s great sermons? Or do we ponder how he did it for our own enrichment and preach on a different text?

   When Paul arrived in Athens, the Parthenon was already nearly 500 years old; the golden age of Pericles and Socrates was long past, and yet the city was still an architectural wonder - and virtually all the grand marble structures had some religious purpose. The classic pantheon of Greek divinities (Zeus, Athena, Hermes) were worshipped in addition to gods imported from various peoples all over the world.

   Paul was mortified - but the citizens of Athens must have been puzzled by his mood. They had countless gods, but weren't all that serious about any of them (except perhaps Dionysus, the god of wine and parties!). What was strange about Paul was not that he was a religious person; Athenians could prove their religiosity by simply pointing to the urban landscape. But Paul was zealous, daring to say his God was the lone true god, and all the others were fakes, zeroes. Theirs was a civil religion that accommodated everyone and offended no one - except Paul!

   Paul’s tone is important: he does not condemn, despite his inner feelings. He connects, he invites. He “argues,” but the Greek is identical to our word “dialogue.” He establishes common ground what he can about their culture while luring them into something richer and more noble. Can today’s preacher achieve the same?

   He goes to them, in the agora, the marketplace, the shopping mall of Athens. Can the preacher get out to prepare the sermon, maybe after conversation with random people in a shopping mall? To continue the conversation, Paul’s critics walk with him uphill to the Areopagus, Mars Hill, the stone court where generals decided whether to go to war or not. Paul comes peacefully, and suggests his God isn't limited to Athens or any other place or vested interest, but is for all people, everywhere, in every age.

   In a way, Acts 17 asks if Christianity is intellectually respectable, as Paul makes his case before the most educated, cultured, philosophically sophisticated people in the world. Paul does his best, but knows he will never win the day on reason alone. Christianity is not unreasonable, but the Gospel embraces far more than reason can begin to grasp. Reason is faith’s greatest block, isn’t it? Paul proudly admits that the Christian message is “folly to the wisdom of the world” (1 Corinthians 1:19): a poor peasant, executed but coming back to life? No wonder in the philosophical mecca of Athens Paul was mocked as a “babbler” (Acts 17:18).

   A few Athenians converted, others couldn't accept the Gospel message; but notice the word of hope from many of the unconverted: We will hear you again about this (verse 32). Can we be faithful, can we articulate the hope that is in us, but with perseverance and patience, and in a way that even skeptics might want to hear us again?

   John 14:15-21 teases out what agape love is all about. “If you love… you keep commandments” sounds conditional. But let’s be clear: Love has its conditions; love has its rules. Love isn’t a mood you feel or don’t. If I love my wife, I know the rules that bear witness to that love. We aren’t saved because we’re fastidious rule-keepers.

   And John’s rumination on the coming gift of the Spirit after Jesus’ departure is just astonishing. No systematic theologies to consult, Jesus was barely gone, and John writes with such tender wisdom about the mystery of this Spirit. Clearly, it’s not some emotional titillation, which many American Christians would pervert the Spirit into being. The Spirit is your Advocate – and you’ll need a good one. And the Spirit is all about Truth – which is entirely up for grabs or viewed as nonexistent nowadays in our culture of warring political ideologies. There is Truth. There are facts. And not just facts but the deeper Truth that is the way things really are with God and God’s world. To get at this, I like to quote the popular historian David McCullough: “You can have all the facts imaginable and miss the truth, just as you can have facts missing or some wrong, and reach the larger truth. ‘I hear all the notes, but I hear no music,’ is the old piano teacher’s complaint. There has to be music. The work of history calls for mind and heart.”

   In my Birth book out last month, I have a chapter on Adoption. We might fixate on the nuclear family, but the Bible is obsessed with language and images of foundlings, orphans, adoption. Check out this blog I posted (scroll down to the bottom half!) during Pentecost for a quick summation of how all this plays out, relying much on the insights of Kelley Nikondeha in Adopted.

   Evocative as Acts 17 and John 14 are, I believe I will go with the Epistle.  1 Peter 3:13-22 reveals how tough things were on early Christians, and thereby how the life of faith today is a walk in the park, eliciting more yawns than harsh critique. So how does our text’s counsel apply? Maybe you can say those who dare to live a radical faith have their troubles, or you can grandstand or confuse people by pointing to how mad people get over your political ideology. Let’s linger over a few intriguing items here.

   “Harm” has become a big word, from “First do no harm,” to the controversial but crucial “harm reduction” in substance abuse treatment, and then the “Reduce Harm” movement in Methodism – all 3 inviting people to courageous action to minimize harm to others. 1 Peter’s question: “Who will harm you if you are eager to do good?” I’m tempted to answer “Lots of people,” especially in this realm of the defense of the harmed. So today, doing good, not being a believer per se, can stir up trouble. Joel Green comments: “It is precisely by doing good that the righteous attract unwanted attention.”

   Maybe this text is a way to talk about issues that matter to you without nagging or condemning. So you simply observe that those who are trying to do good, sheltering immigrants, advocating for gun control, lobbying against abortion, striving for racial reconciliation, whatever it may be (and if you do a list, zigzag left and then right as I just did to avoid people thinking you’re just pasting faith on top of your agenda) do bear some misery – although you have to own that in the biblical world you could be imprisoned, beaten, or shut out of work, whereas today you’re more likely to get blasted on Facebook. The text reminds us of Jesus’ suffering, and this solidarity ennobles suffering and induces the strength to bear it.

   The RSV invites us to “sanctify” Christ. He’s already holy, of course… The verb, hagiasate, a quote from Isaiah 8:13, and the same word as “Hallowed be thy name,” means to reverence, to treat as holy. Live in a way that doesn’t embarrass Christ; tempt him to take pride in you. The “Be ready to make your defense” envisions being on trial, or pressured to renounce your faith. For us, is this finding yourself in awkward conversation where a neighbor make a chilling racist comment, or someone blasts a Mexican yard worker?

   Does this entail the simple skill of being able to give testimony to why and what you believe? I worry I’ve not helped my people enough to be able to articulate the simple basics of why and what they believe – and my church people who are glib and eloquent on this are too often the smug types who have all the answers and are all too eager to download their spiritual genius into others. I think of Lillian Daniel’s Tell It Like It Is: Reclaiming the Practice of Testimony or Tom Long’s Testimony as wise explorations of this, important for our people even if it’s only a quick mention in this Sunday’s sermon.

   I remind my people periodically that the Creed matters because it was devised to give people simple ways to talk about their faith. Every Sunday’s recitation is a little practice session. And this “defense” 1 Peter prepares us for isn’t dogma so much as a personal naming of to whom we cling; it’s not propositional but “the hope that is in you.” The average Christian needs to be able to say without being shrill or sappy, “My hope is in God” or “I believe Christ is with me.” And that “in you”: 1 Peter’s Greek is en humin, plural, really then “the hope that is in y’all.” We have good company as we believe, defend, bear witness and make testimony. We’re good listeners; we stand with others. And it’s always “with gentleness and reverence,” not cockiness or judgment!

   Speaking of the creed: verse 19 poses huge challenges with its mystifying talk of Jesus preaching to “spirits in prison… who disobeyed in the days of Noah.” Pseudepigraphical books like Enoch dwell on bound “fallen angels,” reminding us that even back in the first century, Christians believed some very curious things. Over time, the belief that Christ “descended into Hell” emerged, and has survived in many creeds. I included a chapter on this in my book The Life We Claim: The Apostles’ Creed for Preaching, Teaching and Worship. This descent is lovely to explore, raising questions about death and mercy, and the fate of those we spoke of in last week’s blog who don’t believe in Jesus as the way. Peter Jackson’s depiction of Tolkien’s allusion to this, when Gandalf plummeted into the abyss while battling Balrog, is unforgettable: “You Shall Not Pass!!!” – which can be an intriguing entrée to people otherwise baffled or uninterested.

 ** Here’s an excerpt from TheLife We Claim, if you’re interested in the Descent Into Hell:

   The Creeds devised by the Church cannot seem to make up their minds:  should “He descended into Hell” be included? or not? The 1 Peter passage seems tantalizingly to suggest that between his burial late in the day on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday, Jesus went down into the underworld to save those awaiting judgment. Many New Testament scholars construe the 1 Peter passage differently: if we sort through Genesis 6:1-4, Isaiah 24:21, Jude 6, 2 Peter 2:4, and 1 Peter 3:19-20, we glimpse a belief held by first century Jews, that disobedient angels were thrown into a pit and locked up – and that Jesus’ preaching mission was to these evil powers. Still, the Church has historically taught that Jesus “descended into Hell” – a doctrine that “need not be explicitly grounded upon specific biblical texts; rather, it must rely upon a reading of Scripture as a whole.”

   Hell, we know, is not a fiery cavern down in the earth patrolled by red men with pitchforks. Jesus’ journey there is symbolic, intimating that all people, in this life and even beyond this life, are offered the love of God.  Even the grave does not silence God’s call. “What is to happen to the multitude who lived before Jesus’ ministry? And what will become of the many who never came into contact with the Christian message? What is to happen to the people who have certainly heard the message of Christ but who – perhaps through the fault of those very Christians who have been charged with its proclamation – have never come face to face with its truth? Are all these delivered to damnation? Do they remain forever shut out? The Christian faith can say ‘no’ to this urgent question. What took place for mankind in Jesus also applies to the people who either never came into contact with Jesus and his message, or who have never really caught sight of the truth of his person and story” (Wolfhart Pannenberg). God is relentless, unfazed by time, space, or death itself. Even the pit of Hell is owned by the unquenchable love of Christ; the abyss is not bottomless, but has an opening to heaven. Or so many thinkers have argued, unable to make sense of the idea that God could love everyone with infinite power and wind up losing even one. Perhaps Christ’s descent into hell opens a window for those who have never heard of Christ, or have heard it from terrible people.

   “In view of what Jesus had seen the last few days of his life, maybe the transition to Hell wasn’t as hard as you might think (Buechner).” Many theologians have claimed that Christ descended into hell the moment he cried “My God, why have you forsaken me?” on the cross; “No more terrible abyss can be conceived than to feel yourself forsaken and estranged from God, and when you call upon him, not to be heard (John Calvin).” Jürgen Moltmann thought it really began in Gethsemane when Jesus’ request that the cup be removed was denied. Whichever side of the grave your Hell may be on, “there is no depth, no darkness, no unraveling of reality, which God’s Son has not shared” (Nicholas Lash). No matter what Hell I go through, God is in the teeth of it with me, descending into whatever abyss I have fallen. And, if Jesus descended into Hell, then I as a follower of Christ, and we as the Church of Christ, must follow, and seek out those whose Hell is palpable and devastating, and we become the embodied love of Christ for those who think they are totally sealed off from God.

   In The Great Divorce, Lewis imagined Hell as a dingy, dark place, the weather always overcast. People mull about, hanging their heads, depressed in this bureaucratic nightmare of a place. Curiously, they can leave as any time, but they prefer to stay in Hell. Accustomed to the place, they stay, relishing Hell’s activities calendar, including theological discussion groups where they talk about questions like what happens to people in Mongolia… Lewis provides us with some short quotations from Hell’s residents: “I don’t what any help. I want to be left alone. I’m in charge of my own life” – common sentiments in Hell. As Lewis surmises, “There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery. There’s always something they prefer to joy. There are only two kinds of people in the end. Those who say to God, ‘They will be done.’ And those to whom God says, ‘They will be done.’ And all that are in hell chose it.”

What can we say May 10? 5th Sunday of Easter

  The emotions that are Mother's Day are more complicated than usual. People with elderly moms they can't visit. Moms stressed by working from home while home schooling. I have a woman whose mom died last week without her being able to be there, or organize a funeral due to coronavirus restrictions. College graduation day for several I know - who are home with mom, yet with some bittersweetness. We name the pains, the joys, the complications, never glibly glorifying motherhood. A strategy of mine always on Mother's Day is to spend some time of adoration for the greatest mother ever, Mary. And... the 1 Peter text (which I'll preach on myself) makes a fitting notice of the Hallmark holiday by reflecting on being born, born again - which is a Mother's day recollection "for everyone born."

    Acts 7:55-60, the martyrdom of Stephen, has little details rich in homiletical possibility. Saul/Paul is present – so is it a thing that Christians who misunderstand, who approve and participate in judgment, might actually see the light? And instead of me thinking of somebody else when I read that sentence, might I ask this about myself?

   Fascinating: Stephen saw the Son of Man, but they covered their ears. Vision vs. hearing. I recall from seminary days the brilliant Prof. David Steinmetz, explaining Luther’s theological epistemology, saying “The eyes are hard of hearing,” that the ears are the organ of faith, how what we see can be misleading. And yet some have seen the Lord. His foes shut their ears, not wanting to hear what had been seen by others.

   Then we have the quirky textual issue: Stephen, with his dying breath, pleads for forgiveness for his attackers. Was he mimicking Jesus? Or did early copyists of Luke 23 not want Stephen to appear to be more gracious than Jesus, so they placed these words on Jesus’ lips? It’s missing in several early manuscripts of Luke. Alternatively, did some copyist remove the words from Jesus’ lips, as they so loathed the Jews they didn’t want Jesus offering them mercy? Do textual debates ever belong in a sermon? I’d say occasionally. We just have to discern if a worthy theological point can be made. Here it’s possible: could it be that Stephen so profoundly understood all Jesus was about that he sought forgiveness for his killers – without Jesus having verbally done the same? What about the theory of anti-Semitism? Are there those for whom we’d delete Jesus’ mercy?

   1 Peter 2:2-10 slices off the first half of a sentence beginning in verse 1! The spiritual milk business isn’t some sweet spiritual thought, but about the setting aside of evil, deceit, jealousy and slander! Is the point of v. 2 then that infants don’t do these things, that they are learned in a corrupt, fallen world? It’s a riff on Psalm 34:8 (“O taste and see that the Lord is good”). The early Church Fathers allegorized, seeing the milk as coming from the two breasts of the two Testaments. I wonder if, as preachers, we can expand upon what 1 Peter would have known. In my Birth: the Mystery of Being Born book that just came out (just in time for Mother's Day...), I report on the way breastfeeding is surprisingly interactive. The infant’s saliva secretes something into the mother which tells the milk production specific things the infant needs. We spiritual milk-drinkers aren’t merely passive receptacles!

   Ernest Best reminds us that milk is what you need, spiritually. There is no greater milk or food than Christ himself! So there is no spiritual cockiness, as some might imagine they have advanced beyond simple milk to more complex foods. We are always children needing simple milk; didn’t Jesus say we must become like children?

   Might the author of 1 Peter have imagined a literal birth when he wrote in v. 9 “You were called out of darkness into marvelous light, you once were no people, now you are God’s people, now you have received mercy”? Maybe not. But he was “inspired,” and so can surely can. Infants emerge from the womb, the Hebrew word for which also means “mercy,” out of near-total darkness into near-blinding light – and voila! She’s a person who wasn’t before. Of course, the children of Hosea and Gomer whisper in the background, with their bizarre but prophetically suggestive names, Lo-Ruhama (same “womb” word!) and Lo-Ammi. The people’s infidelity, personified in Gomer’s waywardness (Hosea 1), results in a loss of mercy and being the people! – but all that is reversed in the dawning of Christ’s new way.

   My Birth book has a whole chapter on the meaning of being “Born Again” in light of actual, physical birth. To that, I’d add Joel Green’s pithy comment: “Conversion entails autobiographical reconstruction.” From whom and where have I come? Who is my family? St. Francis shed his clothing and lost his father’s affection when he became a friar, literally a “brother” to others in the family of God; at his trial, famously depicted by Giotto, Francis gave it all back to his father and said “No longer if Pietro Bernardone my father, but from now on my father is ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’”

   A few other preachable details: in early Church baptisms, when you emerged from the pool you were given a drink of milk and honey, emblematic of Israel and the Promised Land. Wish we still did that one. Verse 4 has a pun worth playing on: “kindness” is chrestos in Greek, barely a squiggle away from Christ. To be Christlike is quite literally to be chrestos, kind. And you have to love the Bible’s repeated usage of the passive imperative – illogical grammatically. It’s imperative! – that something happens to you. Stones, with no muscles, legs or agility, must be built into a temple. This is an improvement on Paul’s idea that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), which is cool but could feel lonely. All bodies together are stones in the temple of God! And finally the “offense” the Bible regularly perceives in Christ as cornerstone, a stumbling block. I wish more offense were taken at Christ. Today we get lots of yawns and averted gazes.

   John 14:1-14 requires considerable care. Lots of people request some portion of this at funerals due to the “many mansions.” At Christmas, we visited the Biltmore House, which boasts of being the largest privately owned home in America. 58 Christmas trees, massive, elegantly decorated rooms, a warren of servant quarters below. Is that what heaven is like? Seems crass. The Greek, monē, was a night-stop or resting place. The Latin rendered it “mansion,” which back then still meant merely a resting place, which is what “mansion” meant even in Old English. The “many” implies not “lots of them” but rather There’s room for all.

   Maybe instead of thinking I get a fabulous house in heaven, we notice the relationship of monē to the verb menein, which means simply “to remain, stay, abide.” It’s not the place, the nature of the abode, but the abiding, the being with Jesus, not at all Tammy Faye Bakker’s famous “shopping mall in the sky where I have a credit card with no limit.”

   I cringe a little when v. 6 gets included in a funeral, and I cringe more over the way it is interpreted as if Jesus is giving a theological lecture on the relationship of Christianity to World Religions. It’s a somber meal, in shadows, the disciples trembling with anxiety. Jesus reassures them that there is a way. We do not normally use “way” in an exclusive sense anyhow, do we? I speak of “the way to my house” as simply a direction, it’s findable, it’s not barricaded with iron gates. The truth isn’t about intellectual assent or dogmatic assertion on my end; it’s all from God, and about God, it’s the truth about God’s heart. 

I put out this brief video (7 minutes) called “Jesus is THE way?” a few years back with my best take on what John 14:6 is about. I’ve done this with lots of lay people too. It’s all about your tone if you dream of explaining it in a sermon or elsewhere to your people – and yet important for those who’d swiftly judge others, and for those terrified by the deaths of loved ones who weren’t “believers.”

   Philip’s plea, “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied” is so preachable. Jesus showed us quite clearly the heart, mind and way of God his Father. And it’s this alone this satisfies, this alone that is enough. How much is enough? We think it’s additive, or novel: If I get more, or the newest, I’ll have enough! But it’s a fiction. When, after all, am I enough? The Jesus who shows us the Father says You are enough already. That includes you, the preacher, no matter what you tell them this Sunday.

   Realizing this, living in sync with this, then resolves the other weirdness in this passage, which is Jesus promising “Anything you ask in my name, I will do it.” People ask Does prayer work? – the wrong question, as if I measured my marriage by saying Yeah, Lisa does a high percentage of stuff I ask her to do for me. It’s a relationship, togetherness, gratitude, sharing, solidarity with God, way better than asking favors. The kicker is “in my name.” It’s not a formula, as if God’s waiting for you to say “in Jesus’ name” and then the wish is granted. “In my name” means being in sync with Jesus and his dreams, loves, projects, visions.

   So Christians need not pray, especially in public, non-worship spaces, “in Jesus’ name” in order for the prayer to be valid. Jesus’ way, after all, brought all paths to God to fulfillment - didn't he? His way was new in that he was one of us, one with us - a brother to all people in all places and in all times.

What can we say May 3? 4th Sunday of Easter

   Wendell Berry’s famous “Mad Farmer” poem (too long to cite in full in a sermon, as I discovered when I tried it 20 years ago!) sums up all its memorable lines (“Do something that won’t compute, love the world, work for nothing, praise ignorance, ask questions that have no answers, plant sequoias”) with “Practice Resurrection.” Here is the Bible’s startling take on how to do so: Acts 2:42-47, hugely important to lay out for modern day capitalists, yet never in a chiding way. We aren’t likely to overturn the economy or convert our people into St. Francises. And yet the vision is God’s vision. And some form of this does actually happen, as with Shane Claiborne, Urban Monasticism, The Simple Way. Hard to think of sharing during Covid-19 distancing - and yet perhaps more important than ever?

  I suspect it’s important for the preacher to tease out the way that the “they sold their possessions and distributed to any in need” is intimately and inextricably related to v. 47, “and the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Any chance for the church to “save” people today must grow from the soil of what we do for those in need – and what are they being saved from? Hell? Their poverty? From their loneliness/isolation? The economics of earliest Christianity is worth attending to in preaching. Jesus and the disciples shared a common purse, and whatever property they had was left behind when they followed Jesus.

   Joe Fitzmyer points out that the early Christians called themselves koinonia before they called themselves ekklesia – a fellowship, a sharing before being an institution. He admits there is an idyllic element in this – “but it highlights the elements that should be part of genuine Christian life.”

   The first Christians, socially and personally, were filled with “reverent awe” (v. 43, which is Greek is “there was fear [phobos] in every soul”). I love the “one accord” (apart from the old dumb joke about the Christians riding around in Hondas…) – In “The First Noel,” the last stanza sings “Then let us all with one accord sing praises to our heavenly Lord” (and Dan Forrest’s arrangement of this is particularly moving! – go to the 43 minute mark!).

   “Breaking bread form home to home” is worth noting. The early Christians had no church buildings, but met in various homes. “Those being saved” is a passive participle, so important: they weren’t saving themselves, or being clever enough to believe or good enough; it happens to them! F.F. Bruce points out “Jesus thus acquired more followers in one day than in the whole of his public ministry” – fulfilling John 14:12, that after he returned to the Father, they would perform greater works than he did!

   Psalm 23 is a great opportunity for preaching, albeit with the risk of yawns of familiarity. I blogged on it last year – and to that blog (featuring Evelyn Underhill, Shari Lewis, Sam Wells and - yes, pre-traumatic revelations! - Jean Vanier) I’d add Ellen Charry’s wisdom (in Psalms 1-50), linking the Psalm to Augustine’s “our hearts are restless until they find rest in you”: “Psalm 23 transforms that longing into a lush landscape of secure peace, safety and strength.” She also calls it “the answering word of deliverance to the mournful cry of distress in Psalm 22.” {Since we are pre-recording some elements of our online services, we are having differing voices of people in various outdoor locations read lines of the Psalm. We'll patch them all together - without being overly literal. No need for one person with a sheep, another in a valley, another by a stream!}

   1 Peter 2:19-25 can be jettisoned as byzantine to downright shameful theologically (as we know slaveowners quotes v. 18 to their slaves!). “Subordinate yourselves” is intriguing counsel, but it depends on where you’re starting from. In a marriage, you should – or you shouldn’t, depending on whether you’re abused or loved tenderly. This text’s view of Christ’s suffering is theologically interesting, as it’s not redemptive so much as simply an example of how to bear injustice. Do clergy dare ponder their mistreatment by parishoners as allied with Christ’s crucifixion?

   Here we see regular New Testament language of discipleship as “following in his steps.” St. Francis’s first biographers spoke of this constantly, how his life script was to walk around in the vestigiae of Christ. Easy to drape a WWJD bracelet on. Tougher to touch the untouchables, grate on political and religious sensitivities, and get yourself crucified. I’m not a vocal preacher on Jesus paying the price for our sins, as I can’t get it all sort out in my mind, and it sure is tough for cynics and doubters listening to me. 

   I did have an Aha! moment recently: George Adam Smith, in his eloquent 1897 commentary on Isaiah, avers that the Suffering Servant “made atonement” for us under the law. It’s all grace and mercy – so why the legal verdict? The law is good and true, and even in shedding mercy abroad, “homage must be paid to the divine law… By his death the Servant did homage to the law of God.” There’s a deep insight there. The law matters – and Christ paid homage to it by dying under the law, albeit unjustly.

   John 10:1-10 was my father-in-law’s favorite preaching text. The “abundant life” image pulsated through his preaching; his car’s license tag was personalized: “Live alive!” I love him, and this – although it’s risky, as this “abundant life” can be confused in Christians’ minds as happiness, or success, or the moral goods the world has to offer. The Greek “abundantly” is perisson, meaning overflowing – perhaps an echo of Psalm 23? I saw a marquis the other day that said “If someone asks if my cup if half full or half empty, I just feel lucky to have a cup.” If there is an overflowing, an abundance, it’s not things or other measurables, but a sense of God’s mercy, an at-homeness with God, a realizing of reconciliation.

   Jesus is the “good” Shepherd. The Greek, kalos, can imply “beautiful.” I love that – although I’ve tended to recoil at pretty paintings of Jesus as this mild shepherd. Real shepherds are rough and tumble guys, hollering at sheep with a switch in hand. The text asks us to imagine a small stone wall enclosure, with a gate, just an opening. If we think of God and gates, the booboo is to think we’re shutting somebody out or protecting ourselves. The gate is an opening to let people in! Are our church gates open? How do we think of the church anyhow? I like what C.S. Lewis did with that wardrobe in his Narnia novels: you step through into another world!

   Raymond Brown reports on the habits of some shepherds who sleep across the entrance to the fold, serving thus as both shepherd and gate! Brown also notes how Palestinian shepherds frequently have pet names for their favorite sheep, like “Long-ears” or “White-nose.” Lamb chop? Jean Vanier ponders this: “To know someone by name implies a growing understanding of a person, of his or her unique gifts and weaknesses, needs and mission in life. That means taking time with the person, listening, creating a mutual relationship of communion, revealing that the person is loved, has value and is precious.” Didn’t Isaiah 49 tell us that God has your name tattooed on the palm of God’s hand?

   Preachers always remember they are also shepherds. Vanier: “It is not easy to be a good shepherd, to really listen, to accept another’s reality and conflicts. It is not easy to touch our own fears and blocks in relation to people or to love people to love.” But then isn’t it the peril of ministry that we are always holding the door open for people to go in but maybe don’t get in ourselves? Do you know that “I Stand By the Door” by Sam Shoemaker? Every clergyperson should reflect on this at least once a year.

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   My new book just came out! Birth: the Mystery of Being Born in the new Pastoring for Life: Theological Wisdom for Ministering Well series. I'm excited! Loved researching and writing it more than any book ever.