a Sermon for Lent 3A
Text: John 4:5-42
Jesus walks
Through the eyes of others, we see our Lord walking
on water, through deserts, in our minds.
We focus on photographs left to time
by those that saw something in Him, something different,
maybe even dangerous. But compelling.
In this picture, a woman stands before Him,
and he sits, relaxed and confident and
when they speak, you can see the magic flowing
between their lips, more intimate than a kiss,
more close than their bodies clutched together.
What we see is love. A dangerous love.
This talk is different. It is a linguistic dance between Jesus and this Samaritan woman. It begins with her self-consciousness; she knows that her people are outcasts and aren’t the right kind of Jews. That they are lesser. But Jesus doesn’t treat her that way. He treats her differently: not like a princess: elevated: but as an equal and participant. That they are the same. And in the end, she is changed. Remember last week’s reading about Nicodemus? Jesus asks if he is willing to undergo a life-long transformation: of being re-created. No. This woman gets the same question and she says yes.
Living Waters
When Jesus says that this living water
gushes up to eternal life, we scratch our heads,
confused: is He talking about heaven?
We focus on the physicality of the water
and permanence of time; but just as John invites us
to see Jesus as offering constant transformation
he offers this woman eternal life—a life
a now
a being
a way
a vibrant life that radiates love
that exemplifies Jesus like a mirror
reflecting life and love onto everything.
The conversation that Jesus and the woman have starts out talking about water, H2O and turns metaphorical, poetic. We often forget that John isn’t writing a biography, but a poetic form that we might today call creative nonfiction. Jesus sees in this well the opportunity to reveal a message about love and about being re-created.
Jacob’s Well
Jacob came across a well with sheep around it.
And a man was there, waiting for more to arrive,
when Rachel comes with her sheep. He refuses
to move the stone from the well, for not all
of the sheep have come. Jacob shoves the rock
so that these sheep may drink now.
This well becomes the people’s well.
Jesus uses Jacob’s well to speak about the power of the Living Water and Eternal Life—this vibrant life of being re-created. That Jesus, like Jacob shoves the rock away. Jesus brings that vibrant spirit to us immediately—we don’t have to wait for everybody to get there. And when this woman hears this, she runs into town to tell everybody.
The Disciples
They don’t get it.
They never do.
Following their master
like puppies, devoted,
always hungry, and
marking their territory.
Jesus gives them this living picture,
our photograph of a woman
transformed into vibrant life
and he tells them
`One sows and another reaps.'
Because she is off to sow and
the bountiful harvest will need reapers.
The woman is filled with the Spirit, and yet the disciples still aren’t sure of their jobs—their place in the story. Jesus has to put the tools in their hands and say “Look! The people will be here soon! Get ready to help them find the vibrant life of being re-created.”
Being Re-Created
I know I’m wrong from time to time.
I know I don’t live the life I should
or follow Jesus’s teachings closely enough
and I certainly don’t pray enough,
so why am I afraid of being re-created?
Why do I fear the vibrant life Jesus promises all of us?
Is it because he promises it to us all?
It certainly isn’t because I think that highly of myself
and this life. But I am. Being re-created means
things have to change and I have to change.
The Pious Young Man was asked to change
and he ran away. Is that what I’m doing?
This is a gospel of transformation. The woman goes from being a nobody and becomes a catalyst for the Kingdom. She isn’t convinced by Jesus’s arguments, nor is she magically given confidence because Jesus is a wizard or a shaman. She is filled with the Spirit because she realizes that she needs it. She realizes that her previous life was not a vibrant life and she was transformed. And was moved to bring others to the well to drink the Living Water offered not just by Jesus, but by his disciples. As Jesus says, we don’t have to drink from His well again—but we must be ready to act, to reap what others sow. May we be so ready and so moved.
Showing posts with label Gospel of John. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gospel of John. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Crazy Glory / Crazy Love
a Sermon for Easter 5C
Text: John 13:31-35
We have a gospel this morning from Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus died. Kind of a strange thing for our lectionary to jump backwards, and stranger still to jump to one of Jesus’s final moments; a moment of Jesus foretelling his own death and departure. We tell ourselves that this is Eastertide: the time when we revel in the risen Christ! We shout “Alleluia!” and praise his name. And to go back to this dark day seems…inappropriate.
We often think about time as following a line, meaning events that happen are relegated to the past and there are only two ways to go: forward and backward. Or, for us to deal with events in our recent past, we have to stop time so that we can give all of our attention to the event, abandoning that forward momentum that is inherent to this view of time.
We sometimes recast the time line as a circle, as we find ourselves repeating past behaviors or missed opportunities. Then the scientists in the room get involved and imagine that time isn’t a line or a circle, but a spiral in which we do the same things again, but they’re different each time as we circle up. Or perhaps time is a Möbius strip in an infinite loop—not a circle, which is replaying the old pattern, but a picture of infinity that is both the same and perpetually different. All of these ideas are interesting and share some insights about the nature of time that force us to address the parts that make up time: past, present, and future.
I think time is more like an art museum. The museum is often set up in chronological order, so those looking for progress can see how artists built on and expanded on what came before them. Paintings are often grouped by style or movement so that those looking at behaviors and a social view can see the influence of peers on one another or to dwell on particular movements that affect them personally. There’s a reason people are drawn to the Impressionists. Those interested in the history of humanity can look at the subjects of the art and learn about what was most important to the people of the time and recognize what is different in each room. And those learning to appreciate art can walk from gallery to gallery, finding inspiration, confusion, and surprise in each one, finding virtue in art from every era. For me, the real reason time is like an art museum is that we all walk in with our own values and we decide for ourselves what is the greatest moment and who the most talented artists are or were. We have access to our history and our future at any moment without having to relive it—we just need to have the ability to see those moments with integrity in light of the now.
It is in that spirit that we find this moment, in light of the crucifixion and resurrection. One of my favorite plays is The Betrayal by Harold Pinter, about a couple’s relationship told in reverse order from ending to beginning, and the audience is haunted by each event in light of the events that came later. We learn about the troubles and then the decision that led them there. It is powerful and teaches in a way wholly different than if it were told in chronological order. This morning, we learn about Jesus’s death and resurrection through one of Jesus’s final moments. We shout “Alleluiah!” not just because Jesus is risen, but because of all of those things that Jesus told us and all of the things we learn and know and even for the mysteries that continue to go unanswered. In other words, for us to shout “Alleluiah!” without the cross is to degrade Jesus’s sacrifice.
For John, the cross—that moment—is Jesus’s finest hour. In Matthew and Luke, we focus on the resurrection as the expression of victory over death, but for John, it’s the cross. This may seem strange to us—that some horrific moment could be Jesus’s moment of glory, but to John, this is the victory. As Jesus is a king without an army and a conqueror without a sword, his victory over Rome comes in being executed by them. This is Jesus’s finest moment, his moment of greatest glory. In fact, on the cross, he is even raised up.
So it comes as strange that in today’s gospel, Jesus says “Now the Son of Man has been glorified,” since the glorification is to come on the cross. John’s twisted sense of glory comes as Judas betrays him, as Jesus prepares his followers for the days ahead, and as Jesus gives them the greatest lesson of their coming ministry. This is Jesus glorified.
How alien that glorification seems, even now. Almost two thousand years of Christian history and we still have trouble with glory, with seeing Jesus’s glory in death, seeing the expression of glory in sacrifice, in being lesser servants. We still want our earthly glory with fancy shoes and watches, and prominence in our community, and a bank account full of cash. But Jesus’s glory is humble and humiliating. Jesus’s glory is in being betrayed by a close friend, stripped naked, abused, and killed.
But Jesus’s mission isn’t only about this strange glory, but about love. We might hear his instruction: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” as a restatement of previous teaching, but this one is new and for them. Thomas Troeger translates the passage this way: “I have loved you in order that you also love one another.” Removing the “should” removes the duty and reveals Jesus’s relationship to the love. Pushing it further, Scott Hoezee points out that our translation misses the power in that small word “as”. In the Greek, the word kathos, translated as “as”, isn’t meant to say that we imitate Jesus, but carries the connotation of the love actually coming from Jesus. “I have loved you so you can love.”
Our place isn’t to love, but to be loved. To allow Jesus’s love in…and you know what; it might come right out of us. And what comes out of us is reflective of the love we receive from Him. See, the badge we wear, the uniform we’re in that says “Christian” [or if we’re in sweat pants, its across our butt] isn’t bought at a good Christian store or from a Christian music festival or from a St. Paul’s gift shop, and it isn’t even something that we can pick out in certain colors or styles [like Christian / est. 30 on it]. It isn’t something that your friends or your parents can give to you for your birthday or Christmas. It isn’t even something you can hope for. It comes from within you because it was put there from the outside. The uniform is your love—love that’s yours because it was Jesus’s and he gave it to you. Love. Love that is felt in your heart and in your soul because you are worth loving. Because you are beautiful. You are loved. So love.
Jesus’s love isn’t bigger than your love and isn’t the love of Hallmark cards or Lifetime movies, but a strange and crazy love that says “I win when he thinks he’s won.” It’s a crazy/weird love. It’s about feeling love to express love. It’s about giving love to people that want it and to those who don’t want it or don’t deserve it. It’s a love that angers our puritanical side and confuses our permissive side. It’s a love that isn’t human, but divine: not merely bigger—but different and awesome.
Text: John 13:31-35
GOD of Hope and Wonder, we thank you for Jesus, the incarnation, and the love that he shared with the disciples. Help us to realize that same love you have for us. Amen.
We have a gospel this morning from Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus died. Kind of a strange thing for our lectionary to jump backwards, and stranger still to jump to one of Jesus’s final moments; a moment of Jesus foretelling his own death and departure. We tell ourselves that this is Eastertide: the time when we revel in the risen Christ! We shout “Alleluia!” and praise his name. And to go back to this dark day seems…inappropriate.
We often think about time as following a line, meaning events that happen are relegated to the past and there are only two ways to go: forward and backward. Or, for us to deal with events in our recent past, we have to stop time so that we can give all of our attention to the event, abandoning that forward momentum that is inherent to this view of time.
We sometimes recast the time line as a circle, as we find ourselves repeating past behaviors or missed opportunities. Then the scientists in the room get involved and imagine that time isn’t a line or a circle, but a spiral in which we do the same things again, but they’re different each time as we circle up. Or perhaps time is a Möbius strip in an infinite loop—not a circle, which is replaying the old pattern, but a picture of infinity that is both the same and perpetually different. All of these ideas are interesting and share some insights about the nature of time that force us to address the parts that make up time: past, present, and future.
I think time is more like an art museum. The museum is often set up in chronological order, so those looking for progress can see how artists built on and expanded on what came before them. Paintings are often grouped by style or movement so that those looking at behaviors and a social view can see the influence of peers on one another or to dwell on particular movements that affect them personally. There’s a reason people are drawn to the Impressionists. Those interested in the history of humanity can look at the subjects of the art and learn about what was most important to the people of the time and recognize what is different in each room. And those learning to appreciate art can walk from gallery to gallery, finding inspiration, confusion, and surprise in each one, finding virtue in art from every era. For me, the real reason time is like an art museum is that we all walk in with our own values and we decide for ourselves what is the greatest moment and who the most talented artists are or were. We have access to our history and our future at any moment without having to relive it—we just need to have the ability to see those moments with integrity in light of the now.
It is in that spirit that we find this moment, in light of the crucifixion and resurrection. One of my favorite plays is The Betrayal by Harold Pinter, about a couple’s relationship told in reverse order from ending to beginning, and the audience is haunted by each event in light of the events that came later. We learn about the troubles and then the decision that led them there. It is powerful and teaches in a way wholly different than if it were told in chronological order. This morning, we learn about Jesus’s death and resurrection through one of Jesus’s final moments. We shout “Alleluiah!” not just because Jesus is risen, but because of all of those things that Jesus told us and all of the things we learn and know and even for the mysteries that continue to go unanswered. In other words, for us to shout “Alleluiah!” without the cross is to degrade Jesus’s sacrifice.
For John, the cross—that moment—is Jesus’s finest hour. In Matthew and Luke, we focus on the resurrection as the expression of victory over death, but for John, it’s the cross. This may seem strange to us—that some horrific moment could be Jesus’s moment of glory, but to John, this is the victory. As Jesus is a king without an army and a conqueror without a sword, his victory over Rome comes in being executed by them. This is Jesus’s finest moment, his moment of greatest glory. In fact, on the cross, he is even raised up.
So it comes as strange that in today’s gospel, Jesus says “Now the Son of Man has been glorified,” since the glorification is to come on the cross. John’s twisted sense of glory comes as Judas betrays him, as Jesus prepares his followers for the days ahead, and as Jesus gives them the greatest lesson of their coming ministry. This is Jesus glorified.
How alien that glorification seems, even now. Almost two thousand years of Christian history and we still have trouble with glory, with seeing Jesus’s glory in death, seeing the expression of glory in sacrifice, in being lesser servants. We still want our earthly glory with fancy shoes and watches, and prominence in our community, and a bank account full of cash. But Jesus’s glory is humble and humiliating. Jesus’s glory is in being betrayed by a close friend, stripped naked, abused, and killed.
But Jesus’s mission isn’t only about this strange glory, but about love. We might hear his instruction: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” as a restatement of previous teaching, but this one is new and for them. Thomas Troeger translates the passage this way: “I have loved you in order that you also love one another.” Removing the “should” removes the duty and reveals Jesus’s relationship to the love. Pushing it further, Scott Hoezee points out that our translation misses the power in that small word “as”. In the Greek, the word kathos, translated as “as”, isn’t meant to say that we imitate Jesus, but carries the connotation of the love actually coming from Jesus. “I have loved you so you can love.”
Our place isn’t to love, but to be loved. To allow Jesus’s love in…and you know what; it might come right out of us. And what comes out of us is reflective of the love we receive from Him. See, the badge we wear, the uniform we’re in that says “Christian” [or if we’re in sweat pants, its across our butt] isn’t bought at a good Christian store or from a Christian music festival or from a St. Paul’s gift shop, and it isn’t even something that we can pick out in certain colors or styles [like Christian / est. 30 on it]. It isn’t something that your friends or your parents can give to you for your birthday or Christmas. It isn’t even something you can hope for. It comes from within you because it was put there from the outside. The uniform is your love—love that’s yours because it was Jesus’s and he gave it to you. Love. Love that is felt in your heart and in your soul because you are worth loving. Because you are beautiful. You are loved. So love.
Jesus’s love isn’t bigger than your love and isn’t the love of Hallmark cards or Lifetime movies, but a strange and crazy love that says “I win when he thinks he’s won.” It’s a crazy/weird love. It’s about feeling love to express love. It’s about giving love to people that want it and to those who don’t want it or don’t deserve it. It’s a love that angers our puritanical side and confuses our permissive side. It’s a love that isn’t human, but divine: not merely bigger—but different and awesome.
May we all feel GOD’s love, accept it, and allow it to transform us, sharing its strangeness and brilliance with all those who need it most. Amen.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Throw away that “Do Not Touch” sign
a Sermon for Easter 2C
Text: John 20:19-31
In the gospels, there are individuals with whom many of us naturally sympathize. For many, it’s Martha, the hardworking hostess that is irritated by her indulgent sister Mary. For others, it’s Peter, who responds to Jesus’s questions eagerly, though dimly—sometimes even shouting out “how high?” before Jesus has even asked him to jump. And there are individuals with whom we know we’re supposed to sympathize. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we know that we can tend to be the pious Jews that pass the helpless victim by and that we ought to be that individual that picks him up and carries him to safety. And, of course there are the individuals with whom we would naturally sympathize if we hadn’t been conditioned to condemn. This last case is typified by Thomas.
If we were to think back about these last two weeks in Thomas’s life, and of our life, what becomes readily clear is how the playground of theory and practice that characterized discipleship was turned upside down and replaced by cruel, human forces of betrayal, trial, crucifixion, persecution, and hiding from hunters. As one of the named disciples, he learned theory and its application; he learned about the nature of the world and of GOD; and the world was his laboratory, giving him the chance to apply all that he was learning from Jesus. And then, in a flash, his protector and spiritual guide was gone and the world was transformed. What he thought he knew wasn’t true. Or at least didn’t seem to be true.
And further, there were things that he had observed and knew to be true. He observed the way the Temple authorities treated Jesus, the increasingly edginess of Jesus as the week progressed, he ate and drank and watched the Last Supper, he went with Jesus to the Garden in which he was betrayed. He saw the reflection of the moonlight off of steel blades, witnessing actions and their bloody consequences. And even though he wasn’t at the crucifixion and didn’t remove the body from the cross, he knew what that meant. All of these things were observable and we can be sure that Thomas absorbed them all.
So, as Jesus appears to the disciples as he said he would, we can understand why Thomas would need to experience it, too. Why he would need that empirical data. That he would reserve judgment of what happened until he had all of the facts himself—so that he could make his own decision.
That’s why I think we ought to sympathize with him: because we’re all about empirical data. We want to know about the experience and the moment. It gives us some sense of the rational and the objective. ‘Such and such happened so I know X to be true.’ We do this with our friends and our government and our church. Why should we condemn Thomas for wanting to gather some empirical data? Jesus was dead. We know from science class what is supposed to happen next. That which is dead decays. So, Jesus’s body, unless treated with chemicals and mummified, would start to rot. AND if He were revived magically, as Jesus brought Lazarus from the dead, that body would certainly look a certain way. Even restored to full health, he would still look like Jesus and be bound by physics.
But our brains are complex. We respond to multiple stimuli and integrate them into an experience. A while back, I watched this program on the history of photojournalism and they talked about how different the world became when photographs began to accompany stories. We began to understand stories in a more personal way, because we became exposed to a wider sense of the story. In 1963, a Vietnamese monk named Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the oppressive South Vietnamese government. The iconic image in profile of this man silently burning to death is haunting and captivating. Another photo, taken in 1972 in the height of the Vietnam War, made a similar impact. The picture’s most compelling subject is Phan Thị Kim Phúc, a 9 year-old girl running naked, her flesh burning from napalm dropped by South Vietnamese forces. Many elements of the picture are striking: her nakedness, the way her body is positioned at the moment the photograph was taken, and that horrified expression on her face. Both of these pictures, like countless others, continue to shape the way we experience the events of our life. We learn from them in ways that words cannot express.
We experience by hearing and seeing…and touching…and smelling…and tasting. And all of these elements come to tell us about the world around us. And Thomas, hoping to experience the risen Christ, asks to see and touch him, as the other disciples did. This isn’t doubt—it isn’t even skepticism—in the way we think of it. Maybe it is selfishly pragmatic, but only fair. He didn’t want to hear about Jesus, he wanted to actually hear Jesus. And a week goes by, and it is the one week anniversary of the resurrection, and Jesus shows up again. And if we are being honest to the text, we’ll see what happens: Jesus walks right up to Thomas, who hasn’t said anything, by the way, and says to him “See me and touch me. Believe.” And Thomas exclaims “My Lord and my God!” The gospel never says that Thomas touches him—it clearly suggests the contrary—that Thomas sensed Jesus and was moved by Him. Jesus was there with them and he knew what the others had said was true. And Jesus addresses him personally, directly, looking him square in the eye and offering to share in this humble moment in which his wounds are exposed to this loved one, this disciple to touch, to feel.
And no sooner is this offer made than Thomas declares that he is in the presence of the holy. This is a truly intimate moment of personal relationship and spiritual revelation that occurs in this room full of people! And for us to be privy to it means that we must respect the dignity of this moment.
And perhaps it is to our detriment that we so cast aside the power of Jesus’s final statement:
“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Words often used to criticize Thomas for his “non-belief”. But this statement serves a different purpose. Jesus is demonstrating two ways of entering into faith: those that have faith because they have seen GOD’s work themselves and those that have only heard about it. The phrasing (“blessed are those”) is reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount (“blessed are the poor/the peacemakers/the meek”).
This is good news for us because Jesus frees us from a faith that is dependent: dependent on physical or historical proof or dependent on blind or ignorant leaps of faith. In fact, the very idea that he made himself known to all of the disciples, that he appeared to the group twice shows that he wanted to get them all. Perhaps even appearing the second time as a means of going after the lost sheep.
What this gospel says about faith, therefore, is not merely about possessing it, but sharing it. Jesus was heading out and needed to pass on this one piece: The disciples must have faith, but they also must share it; to go out and make disciples as he did. And it seems to me that all of the tools at our disposal are necessary. Our ability to experience faith through all of our senses helps us to not only deepen our own faith, but give us a means to describe it and share it with others. Our senses help us tell better stories and share relevant experiences with others. They help us describe, demonstrate, or depict our own relationships so that GOD might help us forge new ones. They help us better tell The Story.
May the GOD that gives us all of these ways of experiencing the world, and shared in our humanity, to experience the world like we do, grant us heightened senses; and may we use them to better understand GOD in our midst and share GOD's love with others. Amen
Text: John 20:19-31
GOD of Hope and Wonder, creator of the world we experience and enjoy, come among us this morning, so that we might know and understand and share your love. Amen.
In the gospels, there are individuals with whom many of us naturally sympathize. For many, it’s Martha, the hardworking hostess that is irritated by her indulgent sister Mary. For others, it’s Peter, who responds to Jesus’s questions eagerly, though dimly—sometimes even shouting out “how high?” before Jesus has even asked him to jump. And there are individuals with whom we know we’re supposed to sympathize. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we know that we can tend to be the pious Jews that pass the helpless victim by and that we ought to be that individual that picks him up and carries him to safety. And, of course there are the individuals with whom we would naturally sympathize if we hadn’t been conditioned to condemn. This last case is typified by Thomas.
If we were to think back about these last two weeks in Thomas’s life, and of our life, what becomes readily clear is how the playground of theory and practice that characterized discipleship was turned upside down and replaced by cruel, human forces of betrayal, trial, crucifixion, persecution, and hiding from hunters. As one of the named disciples, he learned theory and its application; he learned about the nature of the world and of GOD; and the world was his laboratory, giving him the chance to apply all that he was learning from Jesus. And then, in a flash, his protector and spiritual guide was gone and the world was transformed. What he thought he knew wasn’t true. Or at least didn’t seem to be true.
And further, there were things that he had observed and knew to be true. He observed the way the Temple authorities treated Jesus, the increasingly edginess of Jesus as the week progressed, he ate and drank and watched the Last Supper, he went with Jesus to the Garden in which he was betrayed. He saw the reflection of the moonlight off of steel blades, witnessing actions and their bloody consequences. And even though he wasn’t at the crucifixion and didn’t remove the body from the cross, he knew what that meant. All of these things were observable and we can be sure that Thomas absorbed them all.
So, as Jesus appears to the disciples as he said he would, we can understand why Thomas would need to experience it, too. Why he would need that empirical data. That he would reserve judgment of what happened until he had all of the facts himself—so that he could make his own decision.
That’s why I think we ought to sympathize with him: because we’re all about empirical data. We want to know about the experience and the moment. It gives us some sense of the rational and the objective. ‘Such and such happened so I know X to be true.’ We do this with our friends and our government and our church. Why should we condemn Thomas for wanting to gather some empirical data? Jesus was dead. We know from science class what is supposed to happen next. That which is dead decays. So, Jesus’s body, unless treated with chemicals and mummified, would start to rot. AND if He were revived magically, as Jesus brought Lazarus from the dead, that body would certainly look a certain way. Even restored to full health, he would still look like Jesus and be bound by physics.
But our brains are complex. We respond to multiple stimuli and integrate them into an experience. A while back, I watched this program on the history of photojournalism and they talked about how different the world became when photographs began to accompany stories. We began to understand stories in a more personal way, because we became exposed to a wider sense of the story. In 1963, a Vietnamese monk named Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the oppressive South Vietnamese government. The iconic image in profile of this man silently burning to death is haunting and captivating. Another photo, taken in 1972 in the height of the Vietnam War, made a similar impact. The picture’s most compelling subject is Phan Thị Kim Phúc, a 9 year-old girl running naked, her flesh burning from napalm dropped by South Vietnamese forces. Many elements of the picture are striking: her nakedness, the way her body is positioned at the moment the photograph was taken, and that horrified expression on her face. Both of these pictures, like countless others, continue to shape the way we experience the events of our life. We learn from them in ways that words cannot express.
We experience by hearing and seeing…and touching…and smelling…and tasting. And all of these elements come to tell us about the world around us. And Thomas, hoping to experience the risen Christ, asks to see and touch him, as the other disciples did. This isn’t doubt—it isn’t even skepticism—in the way we think of it. Maybe it is selfishly pragmatic, but only fair. He didn’t want to hear about Jesus, he wanted to actually hear Jesus. And a week goes by, and it is the one week anniversary of the resurrection, and Jesus shows up again. And if we are being honest to the text, we’ll see what happens: Jesus walks right up to Thomas, who hasn’t said anything, by the way, and says to him “See me and touch me. Believe.” And Thomas exclaims “My Lord and my God!” The gospel never says that Thomas touches him—it clearly suggests the contrary—that Thomas sensed Jesus and was moved by Him. Jesus was there with them and he knew what the others had said was true. And Jesus addresses him personally, directly, looking him square in the eye and offering to share in this humble moment in which his wounds are exposed to this loved one, this disciple to touch, to feel.
And no sooner is this offer made than Thomas declares that he is in the presence of the holy. This is a truly intimate moment of personal relationship and spiritual revelation that occurs in this room full of people! And for us to be privy to it means that we must respect the dignity of this moment.
And perhaps it is to our detriment that we so cast aside the power of Jesus’s final statement:
“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Words often used to criticize Thomas for his “non-belief”. But this statement serves a different purpose. Jesus is demonstrating two ways of entering into faith: those that have faith because they have seen GOD’s work themselves and those that have only heard about it. The phrasing (“blessed are those”) is reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount (“blessed are the poor/the peacemakers/the meek”).
This is good news for us because Jesus frees us from a faith that is dependent: dependent on physical or historical proof or dependent on blind or ignorant leaps of faith. In fact, the very idea that he made himself known to all of the disciples, that he appeared to the group twice shows that he wanted to get them all. Perhaps even appearing the second time as a means of going after the lost sheep.
What this gospel says about faith, therefore, is not merely about possessing it, but sharing it. Jesus was heading out and needed to pass on this one piece: The disciples must have faith, but they also must share it; to go out and make disciples as he did. And it seems to me that all of the tools at our disposal are necessary. Our ability to experience faith through all of our senses helps us to not only deepen our own faith, but give us a means to describe it and share it with others. Our senses help us tell better stories and share relevant experiences with others. They help us describe, demonstrate, or depict our own relationships so that GOD might help us forge new ones. They help us better tell The Story.
May the GOD that gives us all of these ways of experiencing the world, and shared in our humanity, to experience the world like we do, grant us heightened senses; and may we use them to better understand GOD in our midst and share GOD's love with others. Amen
Friday, April 2, 2010
Telling Her
a Sermon for Good Friday, Year C
Text: John 18:1-19:42
If you have ever had to follow a tough act—you can begin to understand what it is like to stand here at this moment. To follow the reading of the Passion. This gospel humbles and silences us.
Perhaps because it is haunting and frightening that many are moved on Good Friday to talk theologically about sin and forgiveness, using big words like atonement and Christology; using this talk to pull us away from feeling sad and guilty. Even the name Good Friday comes to us with a cruel irony that is certainly unavoidable in this space. The cross, our symbol begins to feel heavy on our chests and burn in our eyes when we think about it. When we hear those words: “There they crucified him,” we can’t help but think about the grim reality of what is going on this story. We can’t help but see in this the earthy, human reality of what took place. Humans put our human-born Messiah on a human-made torture device and killed him.
Sunday, I mentioned a book, The Last Week, which covers the final days of Jesus’s life. When the authors get to Good Friday, they describe the crucifix itself. We might envision it as tall planks of wood, rising high into the air. The cruel truth is that the victims are only a couple of feet off of the ground. The upper body high enough to draw carrion birds to pick at the flesh, while the lower limbs close enough for stray dogs to tear at the feet. The reality of crucifixion is that it is disgusting. It is demoralizing. It is torture. And in Roman occupied territory, as Jerusalem was, it was the most frightening act the state could use against the people.
I’ll tell you today is the hardest day to be a Christian. Not because I have to endure this story, the emotions, the fears; but I have to think of some way to tell my daughter this story. This time around, she’s a week away from 2 and I know she won’t get it. I’ll tell her something about God’s generosity and Rose and I will go about our year feeling thankful that we don’t have to really talk about this. But when do I tell her? When do I tell her that people killed God? When she’s four or five? And when do I try to explain this story that is both sacrifice on Jesus’s part and cruel viciousness on humanity’s part? That we can’t really tell the story without both parts. When will she be mature enough to understand it?
Perhaps in a more basic sense, part of the reason most of us are afraid to talk about the crucifixion is that it isn’t “appropriate subject matter”. This story isn’t G-rated. In our culture, there is no proper place for us to have a conversation that involves talking about torture, mockery, and execution to a general audience. Even the evening news makes close-to-home cases a mixture of scintillating true crime and clinical depictions of tragic events. We can’t talk about the ugliness of humanity in the way it deals with difficult subjects. One memory that is etched in my mind was back in ’96 (I think). It was after the final game of the NBA finals when the Bulls beat the Jazz and the 11:00 News came on and they were covering the sentencing of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber. He had been given a sentence of execution and they were showing this crowd that was pushing against this chain link fence, apparently there to keep the crowds away from the proceedings and I remember hearing the words screamed with hate; faces distorted in hunger for the kill. They were giddy and joyful and had crazy animal eyes. And I sat down overwhelmed with shock and sadness and shared guilt that maybe I could be part of this. Maybe I could be transformed into a being of pure evil and hate. And I cried…confused and hurt. I shut the TV off and sat in silence and I cried.
Today is the day we confront death. We have to. We confront death in the form of loved ones that we’ve sat with, we’ve cried over, we’ve held in our arms. It’s the day we confront all of the stages: knowledge of impending death, the torture of the coming death, the strange details of death, and finally, loss. Maybe that’s why we feel compelled to skip on to Easter. But don’t. Not this time. Stay for a little longer in this moment. Because its here, in loss, in grief, that we get to experience anew this “Good” day.
So let’s stay away from theology and explanations of why this had to happen, just this once. And let us sit with ourselves in this moment, in all of these emotions.
As I see it, I won’t be able to talk to my daughter about Good Friday with integrity without learning how to feel it. How to feel death and loss. Until I can share with her some of my experiences. And to do that, I have to deal with my own stuff. And I don’t think we’ll ever do that if we simply see Good Friday as the day God balanced the checkbook or the day Jesus rescued prisoners from the Underworld or whatever interpretation you want to throw out. At its root, at its deepest level, Good Friday is about death—and talking about death. It’s about sharing in a story that is hard to tell and hard to hear. But we share it anyway.
May our own experiences of death and loss give us a new sliver of wisdom of God’s sacrifice for us. Amen.
Text: John 18:1-19:42
God of Hope and Wonder, you give us this day that hurts us each year as a reminder and as an opportunity. Be with us now and through the weekend as we mourn the loss of your Son. Amen.
If you have ever had to follow a tough act—you can begin to understand what it is like to stand here at this moment. To follow the reading of the Passion. This gospel humbles and silences us.
Perhaps because it is haunting and frightening that many are moved on Good Friday to talk theologically about sin and forgiveness, using big words like atonement and Christology; using this talk to pull us away from feeling sad and guilty. Even the name Good Friday comes to us with a cruel irony that is certainly unavoidable in this space. The cross, our symbol begins to feel heavy on our chests and burn in our eyes when we think about it. When we hear those words: “There they crucified him,” we can’t help but think about the grim reality of what is going on this story. We can’t help but see in this the earthy, human reality of what took place. Humans put our human-born Messiah on a human-made torture device and killed him.
Sunday, I mentioned a book, The Last Week, which covers the final days of Jesus’s life. When the authors get to Good Friday, they describe the crucifix itself. We might envision it as tall planks of wood, rising high into the air. The cruel truth is that the victims are only a couple of feet off of the ground. The upper body high enough to draw carrion birds to pick at the flesh, while the lower limbs close enough for stray dogs to tear at the feet. The reality of crucifixion is that it is disgusting. It is demoralizing. It is torture. And in Roman occupied territory, as Jerusalem was, it was the most frightening act the state could use against the people.
I’ll tell you today is the hardest day to be a Christian. Not because I have to endure this story, the emotions, the fears; but I have to think of some way to tell my daughter this story. This time around, she’s a week away from 2 and I know she won’t get it. I’ll tell her something about God’s generosity and Rose and I will go about our year feeling thankful that we don’t have to really talk about this. But when do I tell her? When do I tell her that people killed God? When she’s four or five? And when do I try to explain this story that is both sacrifice on Jesus’s part and cruel viciousness on humanity’s part? That we can’t really tell the story without both parts. When will she be mature enough to understand it?
Perhaps in a more basic sense, part of the reason most of us are afraid to talk about the crucifixion is that it isn’t “appropriate subject matter”. This story isn’t G-rated. In our culture, there is no proper place for us to have a conversation that involves talking about torture, mockery, and execution to a general audience. Even the evening news makes close-to-home cases a mixture of scintillating true crime and clinical depictions of tragic events. We can’t talk about the ugliness of humanity in the way it deals with difficult subjects. One memory that is etched in my mind was back in ’96 (I think). It was after the final game of the NBA finals when the Bulls beat the Jazz and the 11:00 News came on and they were covering the sentencing of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber. He had been given a sentence of execution and they were showing this crowd that was pushing against this chain link fence, apparently there to keep the crowds away from the proceedings and I remember hearing the words screamed with hate; faces distorted in hunger for the kill. They were giddy and joyful and had crazy animal eyes. And I sat down overwhelmed with shock and sadness and shared guilt that maybe I could be part of this. Maybe I could be transformed into a being of pure evil and hate. And I cried…confused and hurt. I shut the TV off and sat in silence and I cried.
Today is the day we confront death. We have to. We confront death in the form of loved ones that we’ve sat with, we’ve cried over, we’ve held in our arms. It’s the day we confront all of the stages: knowledge of impending death, the torture of the coming death, the strange details of death, and finally, loss. Maybe that’s why we feel compelled to skip on to Easter. But don’t. Not this time. Stay for a little longer in this moment. Because its here, in loss, in grief, that we get to experience anew this “Good” day.
So let’s stay away from theology and explanations of why this had to happen, just this once. And let us sit with ourselves in this moment, in all of these emotions.
As I see it, I won’t be able to talk to my daughter about Good Friday with integrity without learning how to feel it. How to feel death and loss. Until I can share with her some of my experiences. And to do that, I have to deal with my own stuff. And I don’t think we’ll ever do that if we simply see Good Friday as the day God balanced the checkbook or the day Jesus rescued prisoners from the Underworld or whatever interpretation you want to throw out. At its root, at its deepest level, Good Friday is about death—and talking about death. It’s about sharing in a story that is hard to tell and hard to hear. But we share it anyway.
May our own experiences of death and loss give us a new sliver of wisdom of God’s sacrifice for us. Amen.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
What the Darkness Really Hides
a Sermon for Lent 4B
Text: John 3:14-21
First things first—today’s gospel contains perhaps the Bible’s most famous line. Or at least the verse most commonly referenced. In ballparks and stadiums—the man with the rainbow wig would hold up a sign that said simply “John 3:16”. Passing by Vinnagrette’s here on Elmwood, you can usually see it on their billboard on Sunday mornings. “John 3:16”. The verse itself, so readily familiar:
As the hallmark for Christian ministry, these words seem a bit…difficult. Let me rephrase it:
But in this gospel, Jesus is finishing up this conversation with Nicodemus here, and he’s been trying to explain life and death, and Nicodemus just can’t seem to get it. He keeps trying to take Jesus literally—to him, being born from above means being re-born or born again—meaning literally passing through the womb a second time. What Jesus argues for is a spiritual birth.
I mention this as a reminder of Jesus’s context. Reading Jesus’s arguments here, he seems to be setting up a structure of relating concepts—the spiritual and the physical, salvation and condemnation, good and evil, light and dark. He seems to be setting up a structure of in and out and God, through the Son of Man, has given us a way in. This should be good news. Except that it seems to imply that some will be out. That some will be condemned—that some are already condemned.
And if we know anything about Jesus, we know that he isn’t a big fan of pride and boastfulness, right, so let me connect the dots here…
You know that I don’t see Jesus this way, and I’m pretty sure that you don’t either. But the Jesus of this gospel is a bit troubling. Made worse by the way we use these words to exclude. To judge. To condemn. To be the ones that say to all the others out there that they are wrong, they are condemned, they are out. We can sit back in our ivory towers, shouting down to the ground “don’t blame me—these aren’t my words—they’re Jesus’. I’m not keeping you out, he is.” Like the bully that grabs another kid’s wrist, then forceing the child’s hand into his own shoulder saying “stop hitting yourself”. We can easily hijack the situation for our own ideological abuse.
But Jesus gives us an interesting motif here. He describes truth, salvation, and condemnation with the images of light and darkness. He presupposes the darkness, right? He presupposes that we are in darkness and that a light—Jesus, right?—has come into the world.
Imagine for a moment the solitude of darkness—Imagine getting up in the middle of the night. Your eyes adjust to twilight pretty easily now. You get out of bed and head for the bathroom. Your muscle memory tells you to turn on the light but you remember that sudden light kind of hurts, so you head to the toilet in darkness. In this darkness, you can see shapes and you’re familiar enough with your surroundings that you know what’s there. The big blob to the left is the counter with the sink, right? The lighter thing to the right is the shower. In this darkness, you can see the rugs and the soap dispenser and the toothbrushes, and all of the stuff in the room, even though everything is draped in darkness. You wander back to bed, pull the covers up, and drift back to sleep.
Now imagine living in that world permanently. Imagine the darkness as normal. Imagine that you have to do all of your business, love your friends, cook and eat dinner, do everything in the dark. Now think about that light switch. Think about that flood of light that suddenly blinds you. That you can’t keep your eyes open. We’d avoid it, right? We avoid routine pains, don’t we? So we actually like living in the dark.
Jesus also points out that “all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” But to Jesus, we all do evil—we all screw up. And out of shame or guilt or whatever, we keep ourselves and our loved ones in the dark. We don’t want our secrets exposed, we don’t want our faces to be seen, right? We don’t want to have to look each other in the eyes.
Jesus offers us an option. He says “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” The point is that we aren’t the light—aren’t living in light, aren’t people of light—Jesus is the light. But we can “come to the light,” we can move ourselves to the light. We can flip on that switch and see all that is there—the shower that needs to be cleaned, the towels that need to be washed, the garbage can that is full, the Q-tips and toilet paper need to be restocked—and we are different people. We can look in the mirror and recognize that we could use a little more sleep, our eyes still don’t like the light, but they’re getting used to it, and all of this stuff will be here tomorrow waiting for us. And then, when we go to bed in total darkness, we no longer see with dark eyes, but light ones.
The harsh Jesus I described earlier isn’t the real Jesus—it isn’t the Jesus that came to save the world. Jesus isn’t excluding (or encouraging us to condemn our neighbors), but offering us salvation and truth. Offering us the choice to live a life of honesty—physically and spiritually. To be the people we believe ourselves to be.
Our great festive night, The Great Vigil of Easter, begins with a fire built in darkness, which is used to light the Paschal Candle. We follow that candle into a dark church, following the light of Christ in the midst of darkness. That light doesn’t just reveal the room and make us feel safe, it reveals each of us. So that we might look each other in the eye. To see and be seen.
Text: John 3:14-21
First things first—today’s gospel contains perhaps the Bible’s most famous line. Or at least the verse most commonly referenced. In ballparks and stadiums—the man with the rainbow wig would hold up a sign that said simply “John 3:16”. Passing by Vinnagrette’s here on Elmwood, you can usually see it on their billboard on Sunday mornings. “John 3:16”. The verse itself, so readily familiar:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”These words are attributed to Jesus.
As the hallmark for Christian ministry, these words seem a bit…difficult. Let me rephrase it:
God loves us so much that he had his son killed—but don’t worry—if you believe hard enough, you won’t die like him.Not the cheeriest of lines. Those in the advertising business might suggest that we stay away from that as our tag line, don’t you think?
But in this gospel, Jesus is finishing up this conversation with Nicodemus here, and he’s been trying to explain life and death, and Nicodemus just can’t seem to get it. He keeps trying to take Jesus literally—to him, being born from above means being re-born or born again—meaning literally passing through the womb a second time. What Jesus argues for is a spiritual birth.
I mention this as a reminder of Jesus’s context. Reading Jesus’s arguments here, he seems to be setting up a structure of relating concepts—the spiritual and the physical, salvation and condemnation, good and evil, light and dark. He seems to be setting up a structure of in and out and God, through the Son of Man, has given us a way in. This should be good news. Except that it seems to imply that some will be out. That some will be condemned—that some are already condemned.
And if we know anything about Jesus, we know that he isn’t a big fan of pride and boastfulness, right, so let me connect the dots here…
- he says “those who believe in him are not condemned”. OK, check.
- “But those who do not believe are condemned already”. They remain condemned. Starting out behind the eight ball, right? Tough stuff here.
- He explains that “because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” So he’s declaring who’s in and who’s out.
You know that I don’t see Jesus this way, and I’m pretty sure that you don’t either. But the Jesus of this gospel is a bit troubling. Made worse by the way we use these words to exclude. To judge. To condemn. To be the ones that say to all the others out there that they are wrong, they are condemned, they are out. We can sit back in our ivory towers, shouting down to the ground “don’t blame me—these aren’t my words—they’re Jesus’. I’m not keeping you out, he is.” Like the bully that grabs another kid’s wrist, then forceing the child’s hand into his own shoulder saying “stop hitting yourself”. We can easily hijack the situation for our own ideological abuse.
But Jesus gives us an interesting motif here. He describes truth, salvation, and condemnation with the images of light and darkness. He presupposes the darkness, right? He presupposes that we are in darkness and that a light—Jesus, right?—has come into the world.
Imagine for a moment the solitude of darkness—Imagine getting up in the middle of the night. Your eyes adjust to twilight pretty easily now. You get out of bed and head for the bathroom. Your muscle memory tells you to turn on the light but you remember that sudden light kind of hurts, so you head to the toilet in darkness. In this darkness, you can see shapes and you’re familiar enough with your surroundings that you know what’s there. The big blob to the left is the counter with the sink, right? The lighter thing to the right is the shower. In this darkness, you can see the rugs and the soap dispenser and the toothbrushes, and all of the stuff in the room, even though everything is draped in darkness. You wander back to bed, pull the covers up, and drift back to sleep.
Now imagine living in that world permanently. Imagine the darkness as normal. Imagine that you have to do all of your business, love your friends, cook and eat dinner, do everything in the dark. Now think about that light switch. Think about that flood of light that suddenly blinds you. That you can’t keep your eyes open. We’d avoid it, right? We avoid routine pains, don’t we? So we actually like living in the dark.
Jesus also points out that “all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” But to Jesus, we all do evil—we all screw up. And out of shame or guilt or whatever, we keep ourselves and our loved ones in the dark. We don’t want our secrets exposed, we don’t want our faces to be seen, right? We don’t want to have to look each other in the eyes.
Jesus offers us an option. He says “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” The point is that we aren’t the light—aren’t living in light, aren’t people of light—Jesus is the light. But we can “come to the light,” we can move ourselves to the light. We can flip on that switch and see all that is there—the shower that needs to be cleaned, the towels that need to be washed, the garbage can that is full, the Q-tips and toilet paper need to be restocked—and we are different people. We can look in the mirror and recognize that we could use a little more sleep, our eyes still don’t like the light, but they’re getting used to it, and all of this stuff will be here tomorrow waiting for us. And then, when we go to bed in total darkness, we no longer see with dark eyes, but light ones.
The harsh Jesus I described earlier isn’t the real Jesus—it isn’t the Jesus that came to save the world. Jesus isn’t excluding (or encouraging us to condemn our neighbors), but offering us salvation and truth. Offering us the choice to live a life of honesty—physically and spiritually. To be the people we believe ourselves to be.
Our great festive night, The Great Vigil of Easter, begins with a fire built in darkness, which is used to light the Paschal Candle. We follow that candle into a dark church, following the light of Christ in the midst of darkness. That light doesn’t just reveal the room and make us feel safe, it reveals each of us. So that we might look each other in the eye. To see and be seen.
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