Sharing in the reconciliation

a Sermon for Proper 7C
Text: Luke 8:26-39

GOD of Hope and Wonder, it is often so easy for us to see the brokenness and separation—that we can’t see your work in us and for us. Help us to better see and know your dream for us. Amen.

GOD longs to reconcile the world. GOD longs to make us whole and bring us back together. Verna Dozier calls this “The Dream of God” in her book of the same name. This dream is to reunite the people in a profound new kingdom that is very different from the way the world is now. It’s a beautiful dream—a dream that GOD invites us to share in over and over…in Scripture, in revelation, in worship. We might not want to think of GOD as a used car salesman, but He keeps pitching it to us, talking it up, wanting us to want it too. And to be perfectly blunt, the Kingdom of GOD is actually a pretty good deal.

This work of reconciling has been everywhere in our Scripture readings lately, especially in the gospel lessons from Luke. Last week—the woman who cleaned Jesus’s feet with her hair and Jesus forgives her of her sins—that’s about reconciliation. Two weeks ago—Jesus raises the widow’s only son from the dead—that’s about reconciliation. Actually, that’s a double reconciliation, restoring both the son to the community, and also the mother. A reconciling two-fer. Today’s gospel about a man possessed by demons is about reconciliation: about restoring this man to his community. This is a big part of GOD’s dream: our reconciling with one another. GOD longs to reconcile the world.

We know separation, don’t we? Separation here, separation in the world, separation between one another, and separation from GOD. We know separation. We don’t like it and we don’t want it. We know Jesus doesn’t like it and doesn’t want it. We know GOD doesn’t like it and doesn’t want it. That’s where the Spirit comes in. That’s why we can trust: GOD longs to reconcile the world.

We get in this reading from Luke a picture of reconciliation. A man possessed by demons is healed and restored to community. We know this is complete because toward the end of the gospel, these people, who hear about this crazy event are brought out to see this man, who was naked and talking craziness was now “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” Resist the temptation to ask where the clothes come from—think about the visual here, the symbolism. The man, who was naked, is now freshly clothed and restored to humanity. He is brought back in. All that separates him from the community is gone. The very picture of reconciliation.

This man was once like everybody else. He no doubt has a family, maybe kids, maybe a good job and a home in the good part of town, but when Jesus shows up, he’s naked and living in the tombs. Could there be a more vivid image of this man’s separation from the community than his living among the dead?

For us, this naked man lives on in the lives of those victims to evil and injustice who also at one time had families and loved ones and a job and home and mattered to people until that fateful day in which they looked around and they were living in the subway tunnel and don’t remember the last time they saw their children or the last time they wore a suit or the last time someone looked at them with respect and love. Many of us have seen that person and felt pity or repulsion or perhaps both at the same time. And almost in the same way, that person remains to us as nameless as the man in the gospel lesson—but just like him, we probably still remember them—or at least our brief time together. A nameless man becomes our anecdote—the easy reference for a person that has lost everything. But GOD promises reconciliation: which may or may not be in that person’s lifetime, but is eternal and hoped for here on earth. He can be reconciled with his family and the world just as surely as we can be reconciled with one another and with GOD: right here, this morning. All it takes is a first step.

When Jesus set foot on the soil, at the beginning of this pericope, this was soon after a crazy boat ride from Capernaum that rocked the little fishing boats that they crossed in and Jesus had calmed the storms—another big miracle. But when he steps out of the boat and onto this shore, he has left the safety of his home territory and, for the first time in the gospel of Luke, walks into gentile territory. He is met by a gentile, filled to the brim with demons, naked, living in tombs, and the demons are frightened and want to make a bargain. And Jesus gives them permission to leave the man, and the demons are soon vanquished. But after saving this man and restoring him to his community and reconciling him with GOD, other gentiles come back to Jesus and tell him to get out.

It might be easy for us to see in Jesus’s ministry an obviousness that everyone would get him, and see his miraculous acts as the very works of GOD. But not necessarily to gentiles and not to all of the people that lost a bunch of pigs in a mass swine slaughter. They don’t yet see a benefit to keeping Jesus around. But the man with the new clothes does. He wants to be with Him. Makes so much sense, doesn’t it? Stick with the person that saved you. Jesus has a different idea.

Just as the man is restored to his full humanity—reconciled with the world community—he is restored to his home community. As much as he wants to travel out into the world with Jesus, he is reconciled to a specific community—to these particular people from whom he was separated. And then Jesus went home.

We are a community of reconcilers. In baptism, we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. In gathering every Sunday, hearing the word, confessing our sins, receiving absolution and then sharing in a great act of reconciliation—we greet each other with the sign of GOD’s peace. Each Sunday, we reconcile with one another and we bring the kingdom closer. This is our bold proclamation.

GOD longs to reconcile the world; all of it. The big parts and the small parts; the cities and the farming communities; the mega-churches and the people meeting in a living room; the down-and-out and the people that are just down; everyone gets to be a part of it. There is even the promise of sending someone to make it happen, even in hostile territory.

Like the man sent home to proclaim the good news of what was done to him, we are called to do that very thing—to share what GOD does for us. We all have a place in this bold and beautiful dream that is both simple and challenging: to love one another and describe what GOD has done for us. To love and to share. Remember that the man was naked? He was vulnerable. The good news requires our own vulnerability—our own metaphoric nakedness. This is the first step, our chance to get out of the boat onto foreign soil and, with GOD’s help, begin the great reconciliation of the world.

From dead to living

a Sermon for Proper 5C
Text: Luke 7:11-17

GOD of Hope and Wonder, your compassion for us is immeasurable; continue to bless us with compassion and community. Amen.

If ever there was a ‘Wow!’ event in Jesus’s ministry, this would be it. That’s what Bill called it on Wednesday: a ‘Wow!’ event. Jesus strolls into town and raises a man from the dead. I’m thinking something on par with a Western where the hero rides in, sees the damsel in tears, and tells the man to “get up” and the man springs to life. He then asks for directions to the nearest saloon.

From dead to living.

What catches me as I read this story, however, isn’t the miracle: it’s where Jesus’s attention is. Jesus has compassion for the mother and then does what he does. He does it for her.

Who is worth this?

Worth a ‘Wow!’ event?
Worth being given her son back?
Worth the transformation from dead to living?

Who is worth this?

A woman with no name. Apparently nobody bothered remembering her name—just her condition. She goes by ‘the widow’.

For Jesus, The Widow is worth this.

There is a bunch of stuff that we know about widows, right? We know that they were married to a spouse who has since died. Historically, the moniker of ‘widow’ has been given primarily to a woman. This says a great deal about cultural priorities. In the patriarchal Palestine of the 1st Century, men were the primary source of work, ownership, and representation. Therefore, if a man’s wife were to die, he still remains a man—his social worth is unchanged. But for a wife, that connection to society evaporates.

We also should note the attempts made to help widows. One example is the Jewish law that allowed for a widow to marry her husband’s brother, granting her the ability to return to society. The Widow’s son apparently afforded her some place, even without a husband. For as strange as this sounds, they were actually trying their best to help.

What else do we know about widows? There is a further clue in the word’s origin which essentially means a woman who is “separated” or “solitary”.

For the 1st Century Jewish woman from Nain, this couldn’t be truer: she was in political solitary. For a 21st Century Christian woman from Newnan, we might have a closer understanding as emotional solitary.

It seems to me that these ideas: ‘separated’ and ‘solitary’: represent the reason Jesus believes the widow is worth this ‘Wow!’ event. “How can we change solitary into community? How can we regain community?”

Jesus answers this with resurrection.

Truthfully, I’m not sure whether Jesus thought of his own mother when he saw The Widow or not. I’m sure he thought of her in that ‘what if’ sense that we do when we think of scenarios that make it easy for us to plug in ourselves and loved ones. In the same way, though, death precedes a ‘Wow!’ event: when Jesus goes from dead to living.


Moving from solitary to community—

Placing people out of solitary and into community—

Changing community to eliminate solitary.


Just as Jesus restores The Widow to the community by resurrecting her connection to community, GOD longs to restore each of us to community from the solitary that confines us. From the stuff that separates us from grace. The health issues, soccer practice, chauffeuring kids, preparing for guests to arrive, work and more work, and all of the distractions—all these things separate us—they are our solitary. And truth be told, we know, deep down, that this is honestly more sin-full than taking a drink of scotch. Sin isn’t an act—it is that which separates us from GOD. This is GOD’s hope for us—to be back—to leave the exile we put on ourselves. To rejoin community. And for those of us in the community, to make room in ourselves for those that aren’t.

And we know that GOD wants something else. This something else has to do with the community. For me, the most important words in the Gospel are these: “and with her was a large crowd from the town.” By the common interpretation of the law, The Widow was now destitute and subject to the mercy of the city. But here was a large crowd that were there out of support, out of love, out of compassion for her. In resurrecting a dead son, Jesus doesn’t simply restore this community, he breaks the established order: the dead can become the living.

We know that GOD doesn’t want us to put our interpretation of the Law before our love of Him or one another. And that interpretation created separation and solitary more than the death of the husband or the only son. GOD wants us to be a certain community: a community of compassion and reconciliation, where none are relegated to solitary because of human reasons, even because of life and death.

I’ve only been in this community now for eight months, but St. Paul’s radiates that compassion. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, and sometimes some of us get off track, but the heart of St. Paul’s is this compassion. I’ve been a part of moments of welcome and of support—in which the Spirit moves us to act as Christ to one another. I’m reminded daily of the hunger for justice and missional opportunities here, near here, and far away from here. This is the St. Paul’s I know. This is the community GOD continues to call us to be.

GOD has big plans for us: all of us. That’s the Kingdom; and it gets closer every time we show compassion; every time we do things out of love for GOD and our neighbor. We pull the Kingdom a little bit closer. This is why we are worth it.

Crazy Glory / Crazy Love

a Sermon for Easter 5C
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.

Throw away that “Do Not Touch” sign

a Sermon for Easter 2C
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

Telling Her

a Sermon for Good Friday, Year C
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.

A matter of trust

a Sermon for Palm Sunday, Year C
Text: Luke 19:28-40

GOD of Hope and Wonder, we gather this morning in joy and confusion, to celebrate this bittersweet day once again. Help us to see how much you trust in us—and that we might return the favor. Amen.

Today is a strange day in which we commemorate both the Palms and the Passion. It may seem a bit confusing since we start on a Sunday, skip to Friday; only to rewind to Thursday later in the week and do the Passion all over again on Good Friday. The chronology alone is a headscratcher.

Some of you might be asking yourselves why we do it then. Why read the Passion gospel now if we are going to read it again in a few days? The answer is simple: the church doesn’t trust us. It doesn’t trust that we’re going to come back Friday to actually hear that part of the story. It wants to make sure that every one of us hears the Passion, so we read it now and again in five days. The church doesn’t trust us. But let’s be honest, why should it? Many of us won’t come out Friday. Many will stay at home, treating Good Friday as any other day. The church knows this because we don’t have a very good track record. So, yeah, the church has a right to not trust us.

Me? I trust you! I know you will all come back on Friday. So I’m not going to preach on the Passion—I’ll save it for Good Friday. We’re going to talk about the Palm Gospel instead. We’re going to talk about Jesus finally arriving at his destination, walking into a Jerusalem suburb and riding a donkey up to the gates of the city. We’re going to talk about this happy day that caused such joyous response.

But first let’s look at the first thing that happens. Jesus gives his disciples some pretty specific instructions: go to this particular place, steal a donkey, and when you are asked what you’re doing, simply say “The Lord needs it.” Now, if I were one of those disciples, and I was given that, I’m not sure I’d simply say “OK!” and keep moving! Would you? Where’s the bargaining? “Um…Jesus, I get that you want this donkey but I think I’m gonna need something a little more tangible to give them.” Right? But they dutifully follow Jesus’s instructions—a miracle for the disciples, really—and when it goes down like Jesus said, we get to a second strange part: the owners actually ask the disciples what they’re doing, and trusting Jesus, (GOD bless ‘em) they say “The Lord needs it.” The text doesn’t say what happens next—but they get Jesus the donkey. Apparently the owners trusted in Jesus too! I can’t explain it. It seems absolutely crazy. But I’ll tell you this: it says something to us about Jesus, about this moment, and about trust.

The reason I bring up the donkey isn’t just because of its strange place in this story, but because of what it represents to the larger story. We know that Jesus was called Messiah— GOD’s anointed. We know that many disciples were following Him because they thought he was the new King, the descendant of David—the great unifier. Jesus—later laughed at as King of the Jews—was making his grand entrance…on a donkey. For the disciples, this must have been a bit confusing.

In their excellent book, The Last Week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan refer to Jesus’s arrival at Jerusalem as ‘the other’ Triumphal Entry. See, Pilate didn’t live in Jerusalem. He came from the west, bringing with him a large escort of Roman soldiers. He would come to Jerusalem in advance of the big holy days, knowing that a big show of Roman might would keep the natives in line. So you can imagine this Roman officer showing up with all of the accoutrement of Imperial power. Soldiers on horseback, many more marching with these tall banners to demonstrate the majesty of the Roman Empire. Pilate, of course riding along like the Grand Marshall of this ancient parade. So here comes Pilate, showing up in Jerusalem for Passover from the west, while on the other side of town, approaching from the east, is this poor, ragged man, riding on a donkey—the polar opposite of imperial power.

Jesus’ entrance was visually symbolic—symbolic of the leadership of heaven (as shown by Jesus) and the leadership of earth (as shown by Rome). Jesus didn’t just tell people parables, he demonstrated them—he revealed truths that can only be attested to visually, with our eyes. When we close our eyes and imagine all of the pomp and circumstance of a Roman parade, all of those elements, things that make us look skyward, that makes us sense the sheer numbers of soldiers, that make us see their weapons and the various tools by which victory can be claimed, we know that this wasn’t just a celebration of victory, it was a celebration of power and strength. These things make Rome seem bigger and stronger and scarier then anybody else. And in the midst of this is Pilate, the stand-in for Caesar, bringing all of the Emperor’s authority with him…authority that was larger than life…authority that spoke of intimidation, domination, and control over people through acts of military strength and economic coercion. All of this would come to mind in Jesus’s symbolic entrance.

But also coming to mind is that Jesus shows up, representing not the powerful, but the poor. A king and conqueror who enters without a weapon or armor, but with open palms and dusty robes. He didn’t enter on a stallion, but a donkey. He didn’t have the big military escort, but an entourage of peasant disciples. Nothing about Jesus intimidates or coerces; frightens or dominates…except for the wealthy and powerful. Except for Temple leadership that were on the Roman payroll and Roman authorities that didn’t want anything messing up the good thing they had going. For them, the biggest threat wasn’t someone bigger or stronger, but someone not swayed by the riches of earth. Jesus showing up on a donkey with joyous supporters was the very thing that frightened them the most.

For us, Palm Sunday may simply be seen as the kickoff to Holy Week. The day that leads to a strange paradox several days later when joy turns to outrage. The day of bittersweet exuberance. But it’s so much more. It is the day in which we see what real courage looks like. The day we see what it really means to stand up for our convictions. The day we see the true nature of our world, revealed in its ugly, naked quest for earthly power and dominance. And the day we catch a glimpse of what the Kingdom of GOD looks like when practiced on earth. And at its center, this requires trust.

All of that Roman coercion displays a lack of trust, but Jesus expected and reinforced trust. Trust in Him and trust in GOD. It is easy for us to trust in the world. We trust in gravity. If I drop an apple from my hand, it will fall to the floor. We trust that will happen. We’ve done it and continue to do it. But trust really only matters when it’s tested. It only matters when we enter the city as the disciples did, knowing what we’ll find their and hoping that it isn’t true.

To truly trust GOD, we must have faith in the Spirit’s direction for St. Paul’s. That in spite of things that upset us, we trust that the Spirit can, will, and more radically, does lead us. That’s trust.

Think of the trust-fall. It’s a team-building exercise that requires one person to fall back, trusting that the person behind them will catch them. When done in a group, the person not only falls back, but trusts that the group will keep her up as she is passed around the team. As one who has done this many times, it is still difficult to do. Because here’s the thing about trust—we have to start it. If we were falling down anyway, it’s easy to trust the person behind us, because either way, we’re falling. But we have to put our bodies out of balance. We have to shift the weight to the heels of our feet and lean back. We have to start the falling. The only time I’ve seen well-prepared trust-falls fail is when the person falling doesn’t let themselves fall.

More than anything, Palm Sunday represents trust in GOD. Jesus’s last chance to turn around and skip the Passion. Our own last chance to skip committing ourselves to this incredible relationship with our maker, our guide, and our courage. In light of all that has been thrown at us we have been given this shot. This opportunity. This chance to shift our weight, lean back, and…

“There was a man who had two sons”

a Sermon for Epiphany 4C
Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

God, Father, we know that we don’t always listen, we don’t always follow, and we don’t always come home when you call. But please help us come in from the cold and share our lives with you. Amen.

“There was a man who had two sons,” Jesus begins. Three figures: a father, an elder son, and a younger son. We know the story pretty well and we refer to it by a very recognizable name. And the way we deal with what it says is to focus most of our energy in the first part, about a younger son that is lost, who deeply offends his father, runs out into the world recklessly and comes home penniless. We focus also on the father who runs out to this lost son and we marvel at the amazing forgiveness offered by the father. This no doubt leads us to better understand God’s relationship with us and to see God as practicing radical forgiveness, which is comforting. We might even be encouraged to practice that radical forgiveness with our children, which is a bit challenging.

But, as we all noticed, there is a second son. A man that represents right living and hard work. Unlike his brother, he stayed home with his father and took responsibility for the land. He demonstrated that he is of good character and will be an honest and quality caretaker of his inheritance—which is two thirds of the family’s original land—now all of what’s left. We look at this character and we say “what a good man.” We probably even explain away his outrage at his father’s generosity—because it doesn’t seem fair.

The way Jesus tells the story is to treat both of these brothers as taking action—each is the primary figure in his part of the story. In the first half, the brother rejects his father, leaves, and comes home broken. In the second half, the brother rejects the father’s feast, doesn’t enter the home, and stands on the outside as his father comes to him. The most telling statement of the older son’s is this: “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you”. ‘Like a slave.’ We might hear that as a euphemism—because we actually use it that way—as we “slave all day in the kitchen”. But I think the brother actually means it. Even though they are working the same farm, the older son feels separated from his father. He doesn’t feel like family. He doesn’t feel like the heir of a fortune. He feels like a slave, as one with no self-identity and no hope, following someone else’s rules. The irony of this son’s life is that his proximity to the father and his own sense of responsibility leave him feeling isolated and alone. This sense of separation causes the older brother to reject his father’s dream on the happiest day of his life.

Earlier in the week, I was looking through a book I picked up a year or so ago called The Father & His Two Sons. It is a collection of artwork depicting this classic parable. Many of the works were stunning, giving me insight into the nature of the story, and some have forever changed the way I visualize it. But one struck me personally. The second-to-last one in the book is a painting by Jonathan Quist called Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son Revisited. In Rembrandt’s depiction of the story, the artist uses light sources to first draw your attention to the father’s reconciliation with the younger son and then your eyes are drawn to the face of the unhappy older son as he watches on. Quist puts himself in this recasting. In his own words, he describes his place in the painting:

“I have replaced the elder son with an image of myself as an artist, painting the staged embrace between the father and prodigal son. In this way, I have full control of the situation. I am not required to participate in the embrace because I am going about the prestigious task of painting. The large canvas, tools, and easel ensure this separation.”[1]

In the painting, you can really feel the separation—the easel divides the painting in half. What affects me is that Quist observes in himself something of which I am completely afraid: that I put up barriers that separate me from God. My barrier isn’t the canvas, but that I could make God theoretical. I build up this wall of theory and belief and emotional or rational certainty that sometimes prevents me from truly loving God. I’ve been staring at this picture all week, my eyes drawn to this artist in his green work clothes, so as not to get his “real” clothes dirty, his expressionless face and stiff posture showing how seriously he takes his work. His detachment, both physically and emotionally, from this moment that represents complete joy, satisfaction, and the very grace of God reminds me of the ways I detach myself and the ways I sometimes allow my familiarity with our practices get in the way of my ability to worship, to personally join in the embrace.

This is the problem of the older son: his separation from the father comes from his belief that he has been behaving properly. When given a choice in his life to do the right thing or stray from it, he chose to do the right thing. He did what he was supposed to. He followed the rules. But those rules became too important. They became the very thing that separated him from his father. His own selfish righteousness led him to become lost in his own home. Now we don’t know what happens next. The parable ends with the father reasoning with the older son. Since Jesus is telling this story to the Pharisees, it is clear from the beginning that he sees the younger brother as the tax collectors and the sinners with whom he was just eating and the Pharisees are the older brother.

Timothy Keller suggests that this parable teaches us three things about our relationship with God, whether we are a younger or older brother.

1. “The Initiating love of God”

For both of his sons, the father leaves the home to get them. The younger as he returns, and for the older as he disobeys. God makes the first move toward reconciliation.

2. “Repent for something other than sins”

Jesus is showing us that we can be in need of repentance without having sinned. In the younger son, you have the example of someone whose very life becomes representative of sinfulness, but in the older, you have one who has done nothing wrong, and yet needs to repent and share with God.

3. We must be “melted and moved by what it costs to bring us home”[2]

For the reconciliation that Jesus does to bring us back to God to work, we must let it affect us. For us, this means taking to heart the sacrifice that Jesus makes on our behalf. It means confronting that sacrifice as freely-given grace and allowing that grace in, letting it seep into our pores and letting it change us and make us new.

I think that’s the real reason we stick to the first part of the story. Like the pious young man, we can easily feel comfortable in our own righteousness and smug superiority. And kind of like Ruby Turpin, the character Matt+ mentioned last week who obviously knows the right thing to do and the right way to behave…except that she really doesn’t. We want doing the right thing or dare I say, merely believing the right things to stand in place of loving God and living with God. But Jesus wants us to see that living in God’s house is as simple as accepting the invitation—because He comes running to get us. It means getting over our own righteousness—even if it means cleaning out the pigsty. It means letting the grace touch us—worthy or unworthy—and permanently change us.

Who we are is defined in our relationship with God. The text doesn’t say what happens after the father comes to get the older son. Just as our future isn’t written. But what would it be do you think if we let the father open that door for us, holding it and bowing his head as we enter the house to see the whole town drinking wine and making music? What would it be to walk in through the kitchen, into the living room, someone shoving a glass in our hand as we pass the table and we see under the big bay window a couch—and sitting in the middle cushion is our little brother, back from the dead? And what would it be to sit down in the empty space next to him and say simply “welcome home”?

I think that’s a little bit like what Jesus does for us.




[1] The Father & His Two Sons: The Art of Forgiveness. (Eyekons Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2008) p. 56

[2] Keller, Timothy. The Prodigal God. DVD, Zondervan.