Palm Sunday - March 29

Can You Imagine?
Mark 11:1-11

A big part of what the church offers during Holy Week is the opportunity and the hope that all of us will experience the stories of Holy Week. That we will literally be drawn into the events of Holy Week… find ourselves taking part in the stories. Think about it: We have more “props” in this week’s worship services than in the entire rest of the year. In fact, unless you count the Advent wreath and maybe the crèche, we don’t use any props at any other time of the year. But this week we have palm branches, foot washing, our own Garden of Gethsame, the veneration of the cross… Props intended to invite us to an enacted participation in the stories.

But I find myself wondering if that really happens for many people. I know many parishioners find the special rituals of this week moving and meaningful. But do they really lead you to see and experience yourself in the stories?

I think there are a couple of things that make it difficult for us to experience these stories as though we are actually a part of them. One is that it is a long ways, literally and metaphorically from 21st century northern Illinois to 1st century Jerusalem. It is not easy to travel across the vast distance of time, culture and geography to enter into the stories of Jesus’ last week.

Second, we know how it ends. It’s very difficult to enter into these stories along with those people who were experiencing them as they happened. Today we heard the story of the triumphal entry and the story of the crucifixion.  We know what happens.

For example, the folded palm crosses as one of the props for Palm Sunday. (They are a part of my history in the church; I folded a lot of the ones we have today; but, as many of you know, I mutter about them, too.) They are an odd prop if meant to evoke the original story of Jesus’ triumphal entry. No one in Jerusalem then would have had them. Not just because they didn’t have altar guilds to fold them, but because the cross hadn’t happened yet!

Having said all that… even if the liturgical enactment of these stories is not often effective at literally drawing us into them, perhaps it will spur our imagination. Let us try to imagine… to imagine what it was like for the people who experienced Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Let us try to imagine what the people who were there experienced.

I offer one contemporary analogy, and I don’t mean this irreverently. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was like the homecoming parade of a victorious sports team. Our own are returning home in glory. We identify with them. We are a part of a larger, exciting movement. There is a sense of common identity, shared celebration across all sorts of ethnic and economic divisions. They are ours and we are theirs and we share in their glory.

The Son of David has come home in triumph to the city of David! He is ours and we are his, united and sharing in his glory.

Can you imagine feeling that way about Jesus? That enthusiastic identification with him and his movement?

And what did Jesus bring to the people who lined the streets of Jerusalem to greet him? Remember, he did not bring them salvation from their sins. He did not bring 2000+ years of interpretation of the meaning of his death.

He did come bringing God’s solidarity with the socially marginalized, politically oppressed and economically exploited. Can you imagine cheering for someone like that?

For many, though surely not for all of us, it requires a lot of imagination to celebrate someone who brings God’s solidarity to people who are socially marginalized, politically oppressed or economically exploited. But the people who cheered Jesus into Jerusalem were those people. Can you imagine what they celebrated?

And, as Jesus entered Jerusalem, he brought the fruits of his life and ministry. He had taught people about God. His teaching made God real in their lives in new and powerful ways. His very presence with them seemed to instill healing and hope and peace from beyond any resources that this world offers.

Can you imagine being overwhelmingly excited to be in the presence of someone like that? Can you imagine being so excited to see someone who teaches about God that you take time away from work to be there? Can you imagine being so eager to see someone who offers the healing and hope and peace of God that you would travel for days with your family just to cry Hosanna when he passes by?

It’s a pity that today it seems to require imagination to stir up excitement about the coming of Jesus.

The Fifth Sunday in Lent - March 22

If You Want to See Jesus, Look in the Mirror
John 12:20-33

Some Greeks came to Philip and said, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

It’s interesting to speculate who they were and what motivated them to seek out Jesus. They are Jews, come to Jerusalem for Passover. In John’s Gospel, the stories we heard read this morning take place immediately after Jesus’ “Palm Sunday” triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The events of Jesus’ life and ministry are building toward their conclusion.

We don’t know anything about these Greeks. At the most basic level they are what today we would call seekers. They want to actually see Jesus, to have a personal encounter Jesus. Perhaps they had heard about Jesus. But now they wish to see him, to know him, maybe to be known by Jesus.

Interestingly, John doesn’t tell us if they actually do get to see or meet Jesus. But John does show us Jesus. The Jesus whom the Greeks seek… John shows us who he is. Just in these few verses John identifies three qualities of Jesus.

1) He is glorified by God. The divine voice from heaven says: My name is glorified in you. Elsewhere in the Gospels, of course, the divine voice proclaims Jesus as God’s child, God’s Son, God’s beloved. Jesus is beloved of God and bears the presence and glory of God.

2) Right after the conversation with Philip and Andrew, Jesus talks about his coming death, and about the cross as the way of life. The Jesus who is on his way to the cross and, after three days, resurrection embodies the transformational journey from suffering to hope, from death to life. And by his death and resurrection he shows that, with God’s power and love, love and life are more powerful than fear and death.

3) Finally, Jesus asks for people to serve him. Those who follow Jesus serve Jesus. And to serve Jesus is to serve those whom he served. People who are outcast, poor, lost, hungry, sick. To be with Jesus is to bring hope and healing to the people whom Jesus cares for.

Jesus is beloved of God and bears the presence and glory of God. Jesus embodies the power of God’s transformational journey from suffering to hope, from death to life. And Jesus brings God’s care in tangible ways to people who are in need.

Apparently in some faith traditions or other denominations, it is customary to carve the words of the Greeks on pulpits. “We wish to see Jesus.” For better or worse, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in an Episcopal Church.

Among some of the commentators I read this week, there was a great deal of angst about whether or not present-day seekers really would encounter Jesus in our worship services. Are we preaching the right sermons, singing the right music, sharing the right liturgy, so that a seeker would, if fact, see and encounter Jesus in our churches? These are certainly good questions to ask. And it should be a legitimate expectation of anyone coming through the doors of a church for worship to meet Jesus here… at least from time to time.

BUT. If. YOU. really. want. to. see. Jesus…. LOOK IN THE MIRROR!

Look in the mirror. The face that you see is a beloved child of God. Someone in whom the glory and presence of God abides.

Look in the mirror. You will see someone in whom God’s love and power is working transformation. Someone on the journey—now—from suffering to hope, from death to life. Someone in whom, by God's grace and power, life and love are triumphing over fear, hatred, darkness and death.

If you want to see Jesus, look in the mirror. You will see the voice and hands of Christ today serving people today who are poor, marginalized, sick. The voice, the hands, the care of Christ made real in our world today.

We are the Body of Christ, in all of the fullness that that means. God’s sons and daughters, beloved and glorified by God. People on the transformative resurrection journey. People called to serve the world in Christ’s name.

And, if each of us can look in the mirror and at least glimpse the face of Jesus looking back at us, and carry that awareness with us throughout our lives… Then we don’t have to worry quite so much about whether or not seekers we see and encounter Jesus in the rituals of the Church. Those who seek for Jesus, whether we meet them here in church or out there somewhere in the world, will see Jesus in us.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent - March 15

An Angry God???
Numbers 21:4-9

One of the powerful parts of the Ash Wednesday liturgy is the litany of penitence (BCP, p. 267). It is a concise, clear, but also comprehensive confession of the many ways that we sin “by our own fault in thought, word and deed.” Towards the end it includes this petition:

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us. 

Lord, let your anger depart from us. God’s anger. How often do you picture God as angry? Do you ever think God is angry with you?

It’s today’s reading from Numbers that prompts these reflections. In many ways the reading is bizarre and difficult to interpret or find any relevance for us today. But basically, the Hebrew people are whining in the wilderness (again!!). For one thing, they don’t like the food. So they complain against God. They criticize God for freeing them from slavery. The rage against God for bringing them out of Egypt.

The next thing that happens is God sends poisonous snakes. One commentator that I read (Prof. Cameron B. R. Howard, HERE), an OT scholar, points out that, technically, in this reading neither God nor the narrator explicitly states that God sends the snakes because the people sinned. God sends the snakes, but it does not say that God sent them because the people complained. It does seem to be implied, but it’s not actually stated. And the Hebrew Scriptures are inconsistent on whether or not railing or complaining against God is a sin or not.

But the main point to stress is that the people thought that God sent the snakes in anger, as a consequence for their transgression. The people thought that God sent the poisonous snakes because they had sinned.

The God they knew, the God they experienced, was powerful, even dangerous, and certainly expressed righteous anger.

There are quite a few references in the Hebrew Scriptures that describe God as “slow to anger.” Not devoid of anger, but it is meant to be reassuring that God is “slow to anger and abounding in mercy.”

Just a few chapters earlier in Numbers (14:18) it is written:
The Lord is slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love,
forgiving iniquity and transgression,
but by no means clearing the guilty… 

I want to be very clear that I’m not saying that every time something bad happens to someone it is always a sign of God’s anger or punishment. As we all know, bad things happen to good, righteous people for absolutely no apparent reason. And God is not the cause.

But it is worth noting that when the early Hebrew people did screw up, they expected consequences. When they knew and acknowledged their own sin, they expected consequences. In today’s reading they are sure that their suffering, the snakes, are a consequence for their admitted sin. So they name their sin and ask Moses to help restore them in God’s favor. And, in God’s own way, God does.

Restore us Good Lord, and let your anger depart from us.

This active, powerful, occasionally angry God is quite different, I think, from the God we expect in our lives. Our God is more tame, generally passive, never angry and eternally understanding. Eternally understanding! Our most common prayer seems to be: O Lord, keep calm and be eternally understanding. Be understanding, O God, of all my faults, negligences, and indifference towards you…. I know that this is often my hope and expectation of God, and I hear a similar sentiment over and over again in the lives of others.

I have a wonderful book that has come to me third hand through the libraries of two priests before me called He Sent Leanness, by a British priest David Head. It was published in 1959 and is long out of print. In it the author pens a series of prayers designed to show us ourselves and our true conception of God. These are not the prayers we pray from the Book of Common Prayer when we gather for common worship. And they are probably not the prayers we speak when we offer our own intentional prayers. These are the prayers implied in our actions and expectations towards God. The truest prayers of our lives, even if they are never explicitly articulated.

The first he calls a prayer of “pious intention”…   pious intention about attending worship.

O Lord, so long as the weather is reasonably fine,
   so long as I have no visitors,
   so long as nobody asks me to do any work,
   so long as I can sit in the back pew but one on the left,
   so long as it isn’t a local preacher planned,
   so long as they don’t choose hymns I don’t know,
   so long as my Joe is asked to recite at the Anniversary,
   so long as I can get home in time for the play,
I will honour Thee with my presence at Church whenever I feel like it. 

It would be really funny if it didn’t hit quite so close to home. I hear these sorts of comments often—offered quite reasonably. I’ll admit to feeling frustrated. I imagine that God feels mostly sad. And maybe just a touch angry?

But, of course, it isn’t really about coming to church. It’s about God. And our expectations of who God is and what it is like to experience God. This prayer about worship speaks of an understanding of God who is passive and content to accept our excuses.

Another prayer from the book speaks even more directly about how we understand the nature of God, and what we expect the experience of God to be like. It’s a General Confession, modeled after the one in the Book of Common Prayer.

Benevolent and easy-going Father; we have occasionally been guilty of errors of judgement. We have lived under the deprivations of heredity and the disadvantages of environment. We have sometimes failed to act in accordance with common sense. We have done the best we could in the circumstances; And have been careful not to ignore the common standards of decency; And we are glad to think that we are fairly normal. Do thou, O Lord, deal lightly with our infrequent lapses. Be thy own sweet Self with those who admit they are not perfect; According to the unlimited tolerance which we have a right to expect from thee. And grant as an indulgent Parent that we may hereafter continue to live a harmless and happy life and keep our self-respect. 

I do want to add, as an important aside, that a perception of God as always angry and judgmental towards people, never simply cherishing us as his own (a perception probably not too common in the Episcopal Church) is equally misguided.

Professor Howard, whom I quoted before, writes: “As twenty-first-century Christians it may take us out of our comfort zones to imagine God as a dangerous, [powerful] presence in our lives. Yet, if we claim that we’ve got God all figured out, then we have ignored the mystery and divine freedom with which God is characterized throughout much of Scripture. A domesticated, unmoving God does not pull a people out of slavery, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land.”

The Hebrew Scriptures as a whole (written out of the wisdom and experience of the collective hindsight of God’s people) are a record of God’s relentless faithfulness to his people. God’s relentless faithfulness. But God’s presence and faithfulness was often expressed and experienced as powerful, dangerous and bearing righteous anger.

This is generally not the God of our theology, or our expectations…

Professor Howard concludes: "Perhaps it is the task of preaching to turn our attention to the God of the wilderness."

The Third Sunday in Lent - March 8

Recipe for a Feast
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19

“Then God spoke all these words.” God spoke to the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

God didn’t number them. And, at least in this passage, God didn’t “give commandments.” What God did was speak some words. A simple list of words.

You may know that different faith groups split and number this list of words differently. Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, most other Protestants… list the so-called Ten Commandments differently. They appear twice, both here and in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy. Especially if you look at both versions combined, you can count as many as 14 or 15 different words. God wasn’t going for ten. Various faith groups merge and combine them differently to get ten, one for each finger. Ten is a mnemonic, not a divine decree. All of this is just a reminder that we really should be cautious about casting them in stone.

And God doesn’t “give” them as commandments. Not only that, as one commentator reminds us, “the [so-called] Ten Commandments specify no judicial consequences for disobedience. Their being obligatory is not conditional on their being enforceable. Their appeal is to a deeper grounding and motivation: these are the commands of the Lord your God, who has created you and redeemed you” (Terence E. Fretheim, HERE).

There are no judicial consequences set out for disobedience. Unlike the laws of our civic life where specific punishments are prescribed for breaking any law, there are no judicial consequences set out for breaking any of the commandments. They are not enforceable.

So why would we keep them? What might motivate us to take these words seriously in our lives? There are a number of possible answers to that question:

We might see them as an obligation taken on out of a sense of gratitude. The context for that comes from Scripture where God speaks these words after reminding the people that he is the God who brought them out from Egypt, who liberated them from slavery. So if God brought us out of Egypt, the least we can do in gratitude is to try to follow his commandments.

Or we might follow them purely out of a sense of duty or reverence. God gave them to us. That should be enough motivation. And it should be.

Or many people might say that as individuals, and as a society, we need some sort of ethical norms. We need a moral compass. And regardless of the faith perspective, these seem pretty sound.

All of these are good reasons to take these words of God’s seriously, but what’s still missing for me is a sense of eagerness, a positive desire that might motivate me to take these words to heart. So I’m going to offer an extended metaphor. Another way to imaginatively think about the commandments.

Think of this list of words, not as a list of commands, but as a list of ingredients in a recipe for a glorious feast. A feast that will taste delicious, bring deep satisfaction. Something that’s just really, really good! That feast is what it’s like to live in relationship with God, to live into our vocation as people made in the image of God. As being God’s own.

These 10 or 14 or 15 words are the ingredients that combine in us to create something wonderful. They are not a duty or an obligation or a burden. They are ingredients for stewing up goodness.

And each ingredient is important. Have you ever made a batch of cookies and left out the ¼ teaspoon of salt? It’s only a ¼ teaspoon! And cookies don’t seem like they should need salt. It’s easy to let it go. But it makes a difference. The cookies don’t taste right without the salt. They’re not good. The whole batch is off, and you’ve missed out on a treat. The same thing happens if you fail to rest on the Sabbath.

On the other hand, imagine if you added ¼ teaspoon cayenne to a chocolate chip cookie recipe. The end result would not be very satisfying. The taste would be spoiled. The same thing happens if you acquire things in life by stealing them from others.

It’s not a perfect metaphor and it can’t be pushed too far. But for me it provides a positive motivation to cherish and live these words.

And, interestingly, in Luther’s small catechism as he describes the meaning of each “commandment” he also adds a positive interpretation on all of them. Even those that are prohibitions—thou shalt not—he casts in the positive. So all of the words become positive ingredients.

For example: You shall not steal. Luther interprets this to mean “we may not take our neighbor’s money or goods, nor get them by false ware or dealing, but help him to improve and protect his property and business.”

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Luther says, “we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, nor defame our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.”

Positive ingredients, that combined in us create a life of joy and profound satisfaction, a life in good relationship with God.

The commandments were never meant to be immutable, unchangeable for all time. In fact, the list in Deuteronomy a bit different from the one in Exodus, perhaps reflecting changing social norms. In Exodus the neighbor’s wife is in a list of the neighbor’s property, somewhere between the house and the donkey. In Deuteronomy she is listed on her own, perhaps reflecting a slight shift in the status of women.

These words are also not comprehensive. These are the basic ingredients for all of us in our lives, but beyond these we have our own individual ingredients that we add to our lives. Some enrich, some spoil the feast of our life.

One way to look at Lenten disciplines is as a practice of adding or subtracting the ingredients in the recipe of our own lives. What ingredients in our daily lives are spoiling the feast of our relationship with God, and should be excluded from the mix? Or what ingredients do we need to add to make the richness and goodness come out?

Maybe you need a pinch more silence? Or maybe for some people, you need a bit less silence and a little more conversation.

Maybe you need to add a cup more prayer or worship. Or maybe you need to find a way to eliminate whatever it is that makes you angry. Anger spoils the taste of most everything.

Or, thinking about today’s psalm, maybe you need little more time with the stars or other parts of God’s creation? Rejoicing with them and singing along in their praise of God? Maybe a little less time in front of the TV. Maybe your life would be richer with fewer things that need to be insured? And more things that need to be shared.

This Lent, think about the ingredients of your life. Are they the recipe for a feast? What ingredients are missing and need to be added? What needs to be omitted? You still have time to adjust your recipe before the grand paschal feast of Easter.

The Second Sunday in Lent - March 1

Abraham's Reaction
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

For these first few weeks in Lent the theme of our Old Testament readings is covenants.

You may remember last week it was God’s covenant with Noah.  "God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you…. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood… This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds” (Genesis 8-9, 11a, 12-13a).

This week it is THE covenant. The covenant between God and Abraham and his descendents. This is the most important covenant between God and God’s people in the Hebrew Scriptures and remains extremely important in Jewish identity today.

We just heard the reading from Genesis 17. "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ ….I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you" (Genesis 17:1-2, 4-7).

God promises Abraham offspring. God promises that Abraham will be exceedingly numerous, exceeding fruitful. And God makes a covenant of relationship between the descendants of Abraham and God. I will be your God.

As important as this covenant itself is, I want to focus today on Abraham’s reaction to God’s promise. Remember that at this point Abraham and Sarah have no children together, although Ishmael has been born to Sarah’s handmaid. God promises Abraham numerous descendents. How does Abraham react to God’s promise?

In today’s epistle Paul talks about Abraham’s reaction: "Abraham believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:18-21).

Admittedly, Paul is trying to make another point here, but it seems to me he greatly exaggerates the faithfulness of Abraham’s response! Based on what’s in Genesis, it certainly seems an exaggeration to say that Abraham did not weaken or waver at all in his faith and was fully convinced that God would fulfill God’s promise.

Abraham’s reaction as it is recounted in Genesis is in the next verse after the reading appointed in the lectionary for today. Genesis 18:17: "Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’"  Then Abraham went on to try to bargain with God.  How about Ishmael?  Can't we maybe shift the covenant to him?  He's already alive...

Abraham fell on his face and laughed. (Paul must have skimmed over that verse.)

It’s common for us to attribute a certain naiveté to the ancients, but they knew where babies come from. And not from a man who was “as good as dead.”

So there are two parts to Abraham’s reaction. He fell on his face. And he laughed.

To fall on one’s face in the Hebrew Bible is to take a posture of obedience or worshipfulness, as at Genesis 17:3, when Abraham’s falling appears there to be a sign of assent to the covenant. In v. 17, the falling is joined with laughter, and obedience mixes with incredulity. It is as if Abraham’s body knows what to do upon hearing this news, but his mind can’t quite catch up (Cameron B. R. Howard at Working Preacher, citing Claus Westermann, Genesis 12-36)

Obedience mixes with incredulity.

Worship and skepticism go hand in hand.

Right there in father Abraham. Father of us all, as Paul says. And Sarah, too, in the next chapter of Genesis when the promise of a child is renewed by oaks of Mamre. Sarah laughs.

It’s OK; it’s common; it’s normal to hold these two paradoxically contradictory reactions at the same time. As Abraham did. Obedience mixed with incredulity. Worship and awe mixed with skepticism.

I’ve said before, it both frustrates and saddens me when people refuse or drop away from participation in any religious practices because they think their faith isn’t perfect or certain or unwavering.

Abraham is in the midst of a personal encounter with God! Abraham experiences himself in the very presence of God. And God makes a promise and offers a covenant. And Abraham falls on his face and laughs. Obedience and incredulity.

This is relevant to us in general, I think, but also particularly during Lent. When we are yearning towards the promise of God, the Easter promise. God’s promise of redemption and resurrection. And think how that Easter promise sounds, not only to us today, but to Jesus’ disciples as he was speaking to them in today’s reading.

God has promised a redeemer, a newly anointed king of kings, a savior to deliver the nations from sin and suffering. But that redeemer will be executed by the empire, and who could really be raised from the dead? The prospect is as impossible as ninety-year-old woman having a child with a hundred-year-old man. When we hear the promise of the resurrection, we know to fall on our faces in reverence: God is speaking to us! Yet surely we must also laugh incredulously; this is a foolish promise (Cameron B. R. Howard, HERE).

The witness of Scripture is that God keeps God’s incredible promises.

But it is also the witness of Scripture that human beings, from Abraham all the way up through Peter, react to God’s promises with complicated mixtures of obedience and incredulity, worship and doubt, faith and denial.

We shouldn’t expect our reactions to be any different.