Some Kind of Power

John 18:33-37             

Although it might seem like forever-ago, it’s been just a few weeks since we had a very contentious midterm election in this country. It dominated the news for weeks beforehand, and even after. Many Americans needed to take anti-anxiety meds or practice their yoga breathing just to get through it – especially on election night while we watched the odds-makers continually revising their predictions about who would win.

Mid-term elections have become more like presidential year elections, in that they have taken on a national tone. People don’t just care about their local and state representatives – they care deeply about everyone else’s representatives. People make donations to high profile candidates in states far away from their own, all because governing this country has become, for a great many of us, a cosmic showdown between the forces of good and evil. Our guys are good, while the opponents of our guys are evil.

And this year there are lots of people giving advice on how to talk to your relatives at the thanksgiving feast. Because it has become a given that some of the people in your family are on the side of evil. And, horror of horrors, you might have to sit across the table from and pass the gravy to the enemies of all that is good and right and pure.

Politics today is a zero-sum game, and if your enemy wins that means you lose. Just the fact that we have begun using the word enemy when we refer to our opponents speaks volumes about how we view political power.

I hope that someday soon we will pass through this particular phase of our political life and move toward something more civil and compassionate. It will be interesting to see how history deals with this phenomenon. And I imagine that there will probably be more than one view. History is usually written from some personal perspective.

I am thinking about this as I consider the historical perspective of the gospel we read today.

I want to be careful of talking about history and gospel in the same sentence, because most biblical scholars would tell you the gospels are not history. The gospel writers did not intend to give us a historical account of first century Palestine. They wanted to give us the good news, that’s all. And so whatever history we glean from it, we need to ask how it serves the agenda, the purpose, of the gospel.

The character of Pontius Pilate has been a fascination to Christians throughout the life of the Church. He played a very important role in the gospel, and because of that he has been elevated, historically, to an outsized role.

In some Christian accounts Pilate has been nearly elevated to sainthood because he was the instrument of the death that led to the world’s salvation. I think that’s a little twisted, but that is the logic, nonetheless. There are others who do not go that far, but they want to impose certain sympathetic qualities on him that flesh out the story in a pleasing way. They give him a conscience. They make him doubt the goodness of what he is being asked to do by the Jewish authorities.

In fact, the gospel of Matthew tells a story in which Pilate has grave reservations about crucifying Jesus. His wife begs him not to do it because of a terrible dream she had. Pilate then turns to the Jewish crowd and asks them to make the decision for him. He asks them more than once, wanting them to change their answer, but they persist in wanting Jesus killed. Finally, Pilate washes his hands to symbolize his innocence and tells the crowd his death is their responsibility, which they gladly accept.

Yet this is in all likelihood a very misleading portrayal of Pilate – not to mention the absurd prejudice against Jews. By most historical accounts, Pilate was the worst, most cutthroat governor Jerusalem ever had. He was ruthless, cruel, heartless. By any accounts outside the gospels, he had no qualms about killing Jews. None whatsoever.

In a world where there are all kinds of power, Pilate liked the violent kind. He was a very practical man, who would have had little patience for philosophical discussions. He would rather cut straight to the point: are you a problem for me? If so, I will get rid of you. If not, stop wasting my time.

We see shades of this in John’s account of how Pilate deals with Jesus. It all starts with the Jewish Priests. They feel Jesus is a threat to the well-being and peace of Jerusalem. And Caiaphas, the Chief Priest, says, “It is better for one person to die for the people.” So they arrest Jesus and try to trick him into self-incrimination. But you know how that usually goes. Apparently, they lose patience with him and take him over to Pilate’s headquarters. They want the Roman Governor to deal with him, because he is the one with the power of crucifixion.

So Pilate takes Jesus inside with him and attempts to dispose of this problem expeditiously. “Are you the king of the Jews?” Do you call yourself a king? Do I have a reason to execute you?

Jesus wants to know who is asking this question – is he asking on behalf of the Jewish authorities or Rome? Because the answer depends on that. To the Jews, who would understand the kingship of God and the messianic promise, he might say one thing. To Rome, who only understands other kings as a challenge to the authority of the Empire, the answer would be different.

Pilate is like, just cut the bull. I don’t care about your internal disputes, but your people handed you over to me so I need to deal with you. Tell me, what have you done?

We have here what we might call a clash of empires. The distance between Jesus and Pilate is so enormous; they are speaking on entirely different planes, they understand the world and power in completely different ways. Jesus and Pilate each have power, but their powers are entirely different in terms of where they come from, what they look like, and how they impact the world.

Jesus responds to Pilate, finally, saying that his kingdom is not from this world. And Pilate lights up, “Ah, so you do call yourself a king then!” Jesus replies, “You say that I am a king.” That’s your word. It is the language of people like Pilate who see the world as a zero-sum game.

For Pilate and those like him, power only comes in one form – power is force. Power is winning. If I win you lose. If you win that means I lose, so I cannot let you win. In Pilate’s world, everyone who is not supporting him must lose.

Pilate will never understand the power of Jesus Christ.

Today is The Reign of Christ Sunday. We used to call it Christ the King Sunday, but it was renamed because we’re not that comfortable using the language of kings and kingdoms – it confuses us a bit. Today we are asked to reflect on power – as we understand it in this world, as we are taught about it through our faith – and what kinds of power we will choose to embrace in our lives.

Part of it hinges on how we interpret Jesus’ words when he says to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world.”

Some Christians choose to hear this as, “My kingdom has nothing to do with this world.” They choose to compartmentalize their faith, guarding it from the secular world where “real-life” decisions are made in a practical and efficient way. To put Christ in a corner and live the rest of their lives like Pilate.

Other Christians choose to hear this as, “My kingdom has come from somewhere else in order to take over this world,” overruling the powers that be. So, therefore, it is their duty to put people in power who will rule according to what they see as God’s law. They might even, in fact, lift up rulers who look a lot like Pilate as long as they say the right things and pass their litmus tests.

Even though these two positions appear to be opposite, they can end up being a lot alike. In both cases, Christians end up surrendering to the powers of this world, the power of empire. The power of Pilate.

It goes back to the tendency we have to divide the world up into good guys and bad guys. My guys and the other guys. White hats and black hats. But the world isn’t like that.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously wrote, “the line separating good and evil does not pass through states or classes or political parties, but right through every human heart.”

Jesus tries to tell Pilate that his power – his kingdom, if you will – is truth. Truth. And I can hear Pilate snorting with disdain as he replies, “What is truth?” Pilate is not a man who has time for truth. Pilate is not a man who sees any value in truth, whatever that is. Therefore, Pilate does not recognize the power that Jesus holds within him.

I wonder. Will we recognize it?

The power of Christ is the power of truth, and it rules over all things. It is the journey of a lifetime to seek it. It ultimately will rule over this world – but not yet. It may be entrusted to the hands of individuals at times, but men and women will never be the repositories of truth. That lies solely in the domain of God.

Although Christ’s power came from somewhere outside of this world, there is not an inch of this world that is not claimed by him. All life on earth is made to serve him and glorify him. May we be guided by this truth.

May you live always in obedience to Christ, seeking his truth in every facet of your life,

May you embrace the power of this truth, and recognize falsehood, even when it is spoken by the “good guys,”

May you speak the truth. What is truth? Life and love.

Love and Happiness

Mark 1:4-11 

There are a few passages from scripture that are so well known and loved that they almost become etched on our hearts. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” is one of them. “For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son,” is another.  These are special; no one should mess with these.  “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” is also one of these, I think. But when I read this story of the baptism of Jesus in the Common English Bible translation, it had me in a whole new way.

“You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.” What beautiful language. Maybe not poetic in the way that the King James Bible is poetic, but clear and direct and beautiful in its message to us. You are my Son, whom I dearly love. In you I find happiness.

You are my Son. Whom I dearly love. In you I find happiness. The words are spoken directly to Jesus. The word “love” – it is not a noun here, an object or a concept; it is a verb, an action word: You are my son whom I love; I love you.

One of my favorite bands, the Avett Brothers, wrote a song that says, “Three words that became hard to say: I and Love and You.” This is so true; how often do we dare to say these three words together? I Love You. And these are the words God says.

But that’s not all. The voice from heaven goes on to say: In you I find happiness.

You make me happy. You are my happiness – just you being you. You don’t have to do anything: perform tricks, master a skill, stroke my ego or provide for my amusement. Just know that I find happiness in you being you. 

I don’t know if there are any more beautiful words in the whole world. You are my son, my daughter. I love you. In you I find happiness. 

And this all happened at the river. At his baptism. All this love and happiness, right here at the place of baptism. Jesus was baptized out of love. You and I, all of us, are baptized out of love.

The love that God has for us. The love that your parents or grandparents had for you when they carried you to the baptismal font as an infant or young child; the love a pastor had for you when he or she shared with you the good news of God’s unbounded love for you, and showed you the way to baptism as a youth or adult. The love the church has for you when they promise to be there for you always, when they welcome you into the fold of God’s beloved community. 

I don’t know what could give us more happiness than knowing that.

We are talking about baptism today because today we will baptize four new members of the family of God – Joy and Michelle and their two children. And we are also welcoming six others into the congregation today, six who have previously been baptized, but today as they make the decision to become a part of us, we remember their baptism. And as we say what we believe, as we make our promises, as we welcome our new members, we each remember our own baptism, remembering that we, too, have been baptized. Do you remember your baptism?

I don’t remember my baptism because I was two months old, but I remember the stories. And I have seen the pictures of my Aunt Violet holding me on her lap with my Uncle Helmuth beside her, and my older brother, Brian, looking over her shoulder.  I was baptized because I was loved. 

You were baptized because you were loved.  Someone found happiness in you.

Today this family will be baptized because they are loved. They are loved by this congregation, they are loved by God. These children are loved by their parents who made the decision to bring them to the font today. There is a lot of love and happiness going around here today. All the way around.

When Joy and Michelle and their children are baptized today they become a part of us and we become a part of them. When Jim and Kim and Caryn and Bruce and Rita and Eric profess their faith before everyone today they become a part of us and we become a part of them. They reaffirm their baptism and all that it means for them. All the power that is in it.

There is a story about Martin Luther; that whenever he found himself tempted or tormented by evil, he would say loudly and clearly, “I have been baptized!” because he found strength in it.  Our baptism makes us stronger.  Do you know why?  Because in our baptism we have the strength of the saints surrounding us – all those who have lived and gone before us, who have inspired us and made a path for us – as well as all our brothers and sisters in Christ who are present with us. We have the strength of this great big family of faith that we are adopted into.

Baptism is about our claim on one another in love when God claims each one of us in love. And there is nothing stronger than love. The power of baptism is enduring power that sees us through all our life; your baptism will not fail you.  The power is renewed every time we gather at the table to share the bread and the cup; every time we proclaim that we have been baptized; every time we remember. Remember your baptism; in whatever ways you can, remember the power of God’s love.

Remember you are lovable, you are loved, and you make someone happy.

Remember you belong here, by virtue of your baptism. God has claimed you.

Remember we are all in this together, as we share the common memory of water. Memory is a powerful thing – collective memory, especially. It is a teacher, a liberator, a meaning-maker. Today in our worship let us remember our baptism. Let us remember because in these things we know how much we are loved.

And that makes me – and I hope you – deeply happy.

Go and See

Mark 6:30-44     

Recently, I came across this list of the top ten things you never hear in church.

10.  Hey – it’s my turn to sit in the front row!

9.    Pastor, I was so enthralled, I never noticed your sermon ran 25 minutes over.

8.    Personally, I find witnessing much more enjoyable than golf.

7.    How long is the waiting list to serve on session?

6.    I’ll be the permanent nursery volunteer.

5.    Isn’t it great to have the children running around the church making a joyful noise?

4.    I LOVE it when we sing songs I’ve never heard before!

3.    No, don’t ask someone else. Let me do it.

2.    Pastor, we’d like to send you to this Bible seminar in Hawaii.

1.    Nothing inspires me and strengthens my commitment like our annual stewardship drive![1]

We always hear a few groans when stewardship time comes around. It seems, to many folks, like a necessary evil. We wish we didn’t have to sully ourselves with this distasteful topic of money, but, alas, we do. If we want to pay the bills, we do.

If we want to do any ministry, we do. If we want to do any mission, we do.

If we want to be the church, we do. So, let’s talk about it.

A pastor stood before her congregation and said, “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the church has all the money it needs.” Everyone cheered in great relief. Then the pastor said, “The bad news is that it’s still in your wallets.” Stewardship Sunday is one of those days when the church has the opportunity to really see clearly that the church does not consist of buildings, denominational logos or anything else, as much as the church is all of us. Look around you, the folks sitting beside you, in front of you and behind you; when you think of church, this is what it is.

The story we read today is a familiar favorite – the feeding of the 5,000. This is a story that appears in all four of the gospels, something that is noteworthy. The notion of the abundance of God’s provision is so central to the gospel message, so crucial to our faith, each one of the gospel writers made sure to include it. In fact, Mark included it twice. Really.

Jesus and his disciples have been traveling and teaching and their following has been growing. Shortly before this, Jesus has sent out his disciples to travel the countryside in pairs, without him, to spread the message far and wide. They return to him, feeling high on their success. But Jesus sees that they need to be brought back to their center of gravity, so he leads them to a boat, to go and have some quiet time to themselves.

But the quiet doesn’t last for long. The hungry crowds, hungry for the message, follow them, they will not leave them alone. So, the time they had in the boat will have to be enough to refresh them, as they went ashore and continued teaching these sheep in need of a shepherd.

The time grows late and the disciples remind Jesus that he will need to let the people go so they can find something to eat. I suspect the disciples are as thoughtful as they are because they, themselves, want to get something to eat. But Jesus says to them something shocking: You give them something to eat.

These people don’t need to go away. You feed them. Well, his disciples balk, as you would expect. There are thousands and thousands of people here. The text says there were 5,000 men, so this would almost certainly mean that there were also thousands of women and children. I’ve been to some large banquets, but never anything like this.

These disciples haven’t a clue as to how they are supposed to take care of thousands of people. They have never been asked to do something like this before and they don’t know how to begin. So Jesus helps them out. He says, “How much do you have? Go and see.”

Go and see. Take stock of your resources. Look in every corner and find out how much there is to work with. Go and see; you will probably be surprised.

Initially they found five loaves of bread and two fish. But as they went about the process of feeding the crowd, it is quite clear that much more food became available. The story doesn’t tell us exactly where it came from and how it happened, but we know that much, much more was “found,” because many thousands of people were fed and satisfied, and there were 12 baskets of crumbs left over.

Let’s consider this miracle for a moment. We generally assume that Jesus created this abundance of food out of thin air, because … well, because he’s Jesus. But look at what else was going on.

We shouldn’t ignore the fact that Jesus put this task in the hands of his disciples. If he was intending to produce tons of bread out of thin air, why not just do it? Why enlist the disciples to take over the job? If, on the other hand, he wanted to create a different kind of miracle, a miracle of generosity and compassion and trust, this was a way to do it.

Jesus said to his disciples you are responsible for this. Go and see what you have to work with.

Go and see.

A story has been told about Tony Campolo, a very well-known and highly regarded Baptist pastor, writer, speaker. He was invited to speak to a Christian women’s organization. There were about 300 women there. The president of the organization got up to make some opening remarks, during which time she read aloud a letter from a missionary. The missionary wrote about an emergency situation, and said they needed about $4000 to address this problem. Everyone was very moved by the letter. The president turned to Tony and said, “We need to pray that God will provide the resources to meet this need. Brother Campolo, will you please pray for us? 

Tony said, no, he would not. Now, Tony Campolo is known for being blunt even to the point of being offensive (as all good preachers should be, at times!); even knowing that, these women were shocked. The president said, “I beg your pardon?” He said, “I won’t pray for that. I believe that God has already provided the resources and that all we need to do is give. Here’s what I will do. I’m going to step up to this table and give every bit of cash I have in my pockets. And if you all do the same thing, well, I think we will see that God has already provided the resources.”

The president laughed lightly and said, “Okay, I think we get the point. You want to teach us that we should give sacrificially.” But Tony said, “No, I’m trying to teach you that God has already provided for this missionary. All we need to do is give it.” He had $15 dollars on him, so he put that down on the table and deliberately looked at the president. Hesitantly, she opened her purse and took out the $40 she had inside and placed it on the table. Then, one by one, the women in the room all came up and put their money on the table. When the money was all counted, there was more than $4000.

Tony said, “God, who always supplies our needs, had already provided for the needs of this missionary. The only problem was we were keeping it for ourselves. Now, we’ll pray; let’s say a prayer of thanks to God for his provision.”

Go and see what you have. Go and see what God has already provided. Go and see and give.

Today we will present our pledges for next year; we will thank God for God’s faithful provision and we will ask God to bless these pledges and all the gifts we bring. Your Stewardship Team has asked you to consider increasing your pledge by 10% over last year. Why? Because we can never rest on our good deeds, but always ask ourselves, “What has God provided? What do I have to share?”

Some of us will increase our pledge this year by 10%; some will increase it by a greater amount, some a little less. Others will not change the amount of their pledge, and some may decrease their pledge. Each of us is simply asked to go and see what we are able to give. There is no shame in doing what you are able to do, whatever that is.

For many years now, at stewardship time, Kim and I have searched ourselves and asked what we can give. Knowing each year that it would be impossible for us to outdo God in our generosity, we have increased our pledge – some years by less than10%, some years by more. This is what we have been able to do. Some are not able to do that, but some are able to do more than that. It is for each one of us to go and see what God has provided for us to give.

You have all heard about that beloved church member, Someone Else? Someone Else has been relied upon for many, many years to step up and do what is necessary when others of us don’t want to do it – to speak up when others were afraid to, to fill the need when others didn’t care to. Dear, dear Someone Else. But Someone Else will not be with us forever, and we must learn to step up in place of Someone Else.

The disciples out there in the wilderness with Jesus and thousands of hungry people were hoping that Someone Else would take care of things. But Jesus said to them, “You do it.” And then, “Go and see what you have.”

Let us be thankful today for the generous way God has provided for us. And let us, each one of us, give in accordance with the blessings we have received.

---

[1] This, and other stories shared today, come to you courtesy of the internet, preacher’s best friend.