Jesus Preaches, Part 3: Rules & Relationships

Matthew 5:21-37        

The farther we get into Jesus’ sermon on the mount, I begin to imagine how the scene around him might have been changing, reacting to the things he was saying. Remember he was amidst a large crowd of people who had been following him. And he went up to the top of the mount, a little distance away from the crowd, to teach his band of disciples. But assume, also, that the crowds below could hear what he was saying. 

He begins his sermon with some jarring statements – the strange blessings – lifting up all the qualities that the world tends to find embarrassing, or even shameful. So maybe the people in the crowd raised their eyebrows in surprise, but they would continue to listen. 

Then he starts calling them salt and light, whatever that means. And he says they must exceed the Pharisees and Scribes in their righteousness if they want to have a prayer of being welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. And, well, that’s intimidating.

Now he starts with the “You have heard … but I say” sayings, where he shows them just how serious he was when he said not one jot or tittle would be taken from the law until all was accomplished.

I think by now some folks are drifting away. This is not what they want to hear; it’s gone beyond puzzling to just plain offensive. I imagine some are thinking that life is hard enough without having to hear some preacher telling you that you may as well hang it up. That you’ve lost already. 

It must have seemed disappointing, to put it mildly. They believed they had found something new, something hopeful in this man, Jesus; something different. But now he just seems to be tightening the screws. 

Saying things like, “You have heard that it was said, “you must not commit murder.” But I say to you, it’s way harder than that. You must not even think bad thoughts about another person. You must not be angry.

You have heard that it was said, “you must not commit adultery.” But I say to you, if you even let a scintilla of the thought of it enter your mind, you are guilty. 

It looks like he took an already hard system and made it harder. But at the same time, when you look at it in the context of the whole gospel, that doesn’t seem like something Jesus would do. He is forever criticizing the Pharisees for their zeal about the law, and the hard burden they put on the people. And Jesus even seems to flaunt his law-breaking in their face.  Surely Jesus would not lay an even heavier burden on them. 

So once again, it seems we need to take a deeper look into his words. When Jesus speaks of the law, he means something different than what most people did. And perhaps different than what we, as his followers, think of it.

There are basically three ways that Christians tend to relate to the law of God. The first way is to just dismiss it. Which some Christians do. It’s called Marcionism, one of the greatest heresies of the church, named after the 2^nd century teacher Marcion.

Marcion became a Christian, but soon his strange beliefs became apparent and he was excommunicated. Marcion simply refused to believe that the God of the Old Testament had anything to do with Jesus Christ. So he threw away the Old Testament – and large parts of the New Testament, as well, because they challenged his view of a happy, happy Jesus. A soft-focus Jesus, who gives us inspiring, morally-uplifting messages.

Marcion was excommunicated from the church, but he still had a large following. It was a very popular heresy – and still is. And Marcion’s heresy lives on, it’s easy to see. 

The second way Christians might relate to the law is to say that, for us, the law is a reminder of how futile it is to try to attain righteousness on our own. This is where Martin Luther started from in his own spiritual awakening.  He had tried so hard to be a man blameless before the law, as Paul described himself to be.  But the harder Luther tried the more he realized that he was incapable of it.  He was a sinner by nature, as we all are.  The only way he could achieve righteousness is through Jesus Christ, who was tempted as we are tempted yet remained without sin.  For Luther, the law is to remind us just how far we fall short of righteousness, how much we need God’s grace.  In that way, it is of critical importance.

We sometimes call that the Second Use of the Law.  But there is another way of regarding the law, which Presbyterians embrace: that the law is not obsolete.  The law is not just something to scare us or make us feel bad about ourselves.  This Third Use of the Law is to hold it before us as an ideal.  We will never achieve perfection in the eyes of God’s law, but we should never stop striving toward it. Because God’s grace enables us to grow.

And that is where these words from Jesus’ sermon become meaningful to us. The law is not some dusty relic of a time gone by. But neither is it just some big scary stick that makes us want to run away from it into the arms of our loving savior. Rather than the stick, God’s law is the carrot that draws us in as we begin to see how it is useful to us.

And it is useful to us when it begins to show us a better way than so much of what the world offers us. Particularly as we see the contrast in how we may relate to other people.

Let me tell you about a man named Louis Howe. He was a political advisor to Franklin Roosevelt. Howe worked for Roosevelt from his early days in the New York State Senate, up through his presidency. Howe was devoted to Roosevelt until his death.

Apparently, Howe had a tendency to be harsh – rude and even cruel to some people. He played political hardball. And it is said that on one occasion when Howe was very harsh with someone at a White House social event, Eleanor Roosevelt took him aside and asked him why he did that. He answered that it was because this man had once been unsupportive of President Roosevelt. Eleanor said, “My goodness, I had forgotten all about that” Howe said, “I didn’t. I never forget.”

Howe, it seems, was the kind of man who kept an enemies list in his head. I’m sure he wasn’t the first man in politics to do that, and we know he wasn’t the last. It’s all too easy to turn your opponents into your enemies. And from there it’s a small step to turn enemies into objects of contempt.

And it’s easy to justify all of it. As long as you haven’t murdered somebody you are on the right side of the law. And I realize there are those who seem to believe they are exempt from the law. But that’s another sermon for another day.

As long as you haven’t stolen from them, you’re on the right side of the law.

We can defend some really awful behavior by saying that it doesn’t break the law, because it doesn’t cross the boundary between legal and illegal. But Jesus was trying to draw our attention away from that boundary line and toward the heart-center, where he resides, where God resides. 

So instead of only trying to clear that low bar we might shift our focus to what is truly good. 

Rather than making it all about rules, Jesus makes it all about how we treat one another. It’s about the quality of love in all our relationships.

Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law. But he did intend for us to understand the law in a whole new way:

For the whole of the law can be summed up in these two commandments – love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. And if love is the essence of the law then we know these things:

That it is right to seek reconciliation rather than retribution.

That we should speak the truth always, in love.

And to never, ever lose sight of the essential humanity of anyone. 

Remember that God’s love and forgiveness is showered on everyone – even those we think don’t deserve it. God loves us all.

Let each one of us strive to do likewise.

Photo: Willa and Nicaraguan children reading a book

Jesus Preaches, Part 2: Salt and Light

Matthew 5:13-20        

There is an old English folktale that I have always loved, The Three Sillies. A young man is courting a farmer’s daughter and is invited to their house for dinner. During the meal, the daughter is sent down to the cellar to fetch the beer for supper. As she is drawing the beer she notices a mallet stuck in one of the beams overhead. And she thinks, “Suppose one day he and I get married and we have a son, and our son comes down to the cellar to get the beer and the mallet falls on his head and kills him!” and she is so overcome with grief she can’t move.

Soon her mother comes down to look for her. “What is the matter with you?” she asks. The girl points to the mallet and tells her mother this imagined scenario – and the mother collapses in tears next to the daughter. The father comes down and the scene is repeated.

Finally, the young man wanders down wondering what is keeping everyone. When they tell him what they’re crying over, he pulls the mallet out of the beam. He tells them he’s not sure he wants to marry into such a silly family. He will have to think about it. So he goes wandering through the countryside looking to see if there are bigger fools out there than this family.

Soon he encounters a woman who was trying to get her cow to climb a ladder up to her roof because there was some nice grass growing up there for the cow to eat. He suggested she cut the grass and bring it down to her cow, but the woman thought her method would be easier.

That night, he stopped at an inn where he shared a room with another man. He woke up in the morning to find this man trying to run and leap into his trousers. Apparently, this was the ritual he went through every morning. The young man watched several unsuccessful attempts and then demonstrated for him the method he used for putting on his trousers. The other man was quite appreciative.

Later in his journey, he encountered a group of folks around a pond with rakes and pitchforks. They were trying to pull the moon out of the pond. The young man pointed out to them that the moon was actually up in the sky, but they scoffed and called him a fool, they said that was only a reflection up there. In fact, they got so angry at this young man for contradicting them, they turned their pitchforks on him and he had to hightail it out of there.

Moral of the story, I guess, is that there is no shortage of fools in the world. Sometimes their foolishness will hurt no one but themselves. Occasionally they will listen to reason. And other times, they can become a menace to others – especially anyone who tries to shine the light of truth.

Another story that you probably know is the one about the emperor who was taken in by a couple of swindlers who convinced him that they could make him some clothes that would be exceptionally beautiful to everyone who could see them. But for anyone who was too incompetent, they would be invisible. And so, consequently, everyone who was shown the outfit pretended they could see it, and maybe even convinced themselves they could see it, lest they appear to be incompetent.

When the emperor paraded through the streets to show off his new outfit, everyone praised his fine clothing because they didn’t want any trouble. Only one small boy spoke the truth: the emperor has no clothes on. Which shocked and silenced everyone, because it was the truth. But deciding that it was better to continue the charade, the emperor walked on with his head high, his noblemen behind him, holding his invisible train.

There are many stories like this for children, I suppose because it’s important to teach children the lessons of honesty and integrity. It’s important to teach our children that going along with the crowd is not always the best policy. But maybe they are important lessons for adults too.

In any case, it seems to be a message we hear from Jesus in this sermon on the mount. When he calls his disciples salt of the earth, light to the world, he is anointing them to this rare and sometimes lonely position.

I have often pondered what it means to be called salt. I have listened to and read the wisdom of others on this passage. Salt gives things flavor, so disciples of Jesus give flavor to life. Salt is a preservative, so disciples of Jesus keep and preserve the good news. These are both true but there is something more – an insight that I come to through the practice of baking bread.

I have baked bread for years; it is something I love to do. Bread is beautiful, and it is symbolic of life. Our daily bread is our sustenance. I have learned a few things from my efforts in bread-making, and one is this: there are few ingredients, but every ingredient is essential, no matter how small.

Everyone knows you need yeast to make bread – without just a tiny teaspoon of this stuff, the dough will not rise – not one bit. You will have a brick and nobody will want to eat it. But you may not know, unless you try it, that without salt bread is utterly tasteless.

You might think it wouldn’t make much difference, because most recipes only call for a pinch or so. It looks trivial. But it makes all the difference you can imagine. A little pinch of salt gives flavor to the whole loaf. A little pinch of salt helps to strengthen the gluten. And without that little pinch, nobody will want to eat it.

It only takes a little bit of salt to make a big difference.

And you could say that light is similar. It’s not hard for us to understand Jesus’ meaning when he calls us the light of the world. Light is a much more common image and even permeates our common language. We speak of being enlightened. Of shedding some light on a confusing situation or bringing light into darkness. And we always know what it means.

The same thing that is true of salt is also true of light. It only takes a little bit to make a big difference. One headlamp in a dark cave can make the difference between knowing where you are and being smothered in darkness.

You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, Jesus tells his disciples. If one of you stands up and claims that identity you can change the world around you.

You don’t have to wait and watch and see what everyone else is doing. You don’t have to follow suit. You don’t have to use popular opinion as your justification for your decisions and actions. You don’t have to adjust your responses in accordance with what someone else tells you is smart or good. In fact, if you do these things, disciples of Jesus, you have wasted your salt. You have hidden your light under a bushel basket. You have forsaken your calling.

For in your baptism you have been called to this life, you have been anointed as Christ’s own. You have been given a new identity, as salt and light.

I remember the pastor of the church I attended in graduate school – we called him PJ. Every Sunday we celebrated the sacrament of communion standing in a circle. But before we were given the bread of life and the cup of salvation, PJ would approach us, one at a time, and offer us a pinch of salt on our tongues, saying the words, “Remember your baptism.”

Remember your baptism. Remember you are the salt of the earth. And even if you feel like you are alone in this, you are enough. Even if you feel like you are only a small pinch, hardly significant, you are enough. Don’t forsake your saltiness.

Remember you are the light of the world. No matter how small your light, one single light can alter the atmosphere.

You are enough to dissuade one fool from his foolishness. You are enough to bring out the truth for all to see.

Now, the world may not be persuaded to follow. The world may choose to ignore the light and persist in their pretense that the emperor has some very fine clothes on, all evidence to the contrary, simply because their pride insists that they do.

The kingdoms of this world may even try to punish you for being different. But remember, beloved: yours is the kingdom of heaven.

To be salt of the earth, light of the world – a rare and sometimes lonely position. But I am reminded of another story, this one from the Old Testament book of Kings. The prophet Elijah has been called by God to stand up to King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, to stand against all the prophets of Baal, to stand for God and righteousness.

But at a point it becomes too much for Elijah and he collapses, lamenting at how alone he is. God says to him, “Elijah, you are not alone. Do you think I would leave you alone? Elijah, I have thousands more in the world like you.”

You might not know just how many pinches of salt and glimmers of light God has in the world, just like you, until you stand up.

Photo: By Olga Ernst - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76234030

Jesus Preaches, Part 1: The Blessed

In the practice of Zen Buddhism, there is something called beginner’s mind. It doesn’t mean someone who is just beginning the practice, though. For practitioners of Buddhism, the challenge is to keep that beginner’s mind constantly. It is about keeping an open mind, letting go of preconceptions, practicing the curiosity of a child. Beginner’s mind is a way of life. To have a beginner’s mind is to let go of what you already know so you might learn something new.

Years ago, I spent some time with a Chinese student at the university where I worked. She wanted to practice her English. She wanted to learn about the Christian faith. She came to me knowing nothing about Christianity. She and I agreed to meet up and read the Bible together. It turned out to be an enlightening experience for me.

We began with the gospel, because it seemed to me like the best place to begin for a beginner. We sat at a table and read aloud to each other – stories that were very familiar to me and very strange to her. More than once she stopped, scrunched up her face, and said, “Huh. Why did he say that?” or “Why did he do that?” More than once, she caught me off-balance. She made me see just how strange Jesus was.

You might sometimes think that I say some strange things, or wrong things, or even dangerous things. But know this: I’ve got nothing on Jesus. He was pretty strange. Many people thought he was dead wrong. And make no mistake, he was dangerous.

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on the Sermon on the Mount, where we have the opportunity to get as close as possible to the authentic Jesus. Biblical scholars believe that these passages are the closest thing we have to his original teachings. This is the historical Jesus.

Matthew places this sermon very early in Jesus’ ministry. So far, he has been baptized by John, gone out into the wilderness to wrestle with his demons for 40 days, then returned to Galilee, where he began to call his disciples. Then he went about performing all kinds of healings and very quickly had a following.

As Matthew says, he saw the crowds who were following him now and he went up the mountain – perhaps to put some breathing space between himself and the people. He sat down. Maybe then he gestured to his disciples, or just looked at them expectantly – not the large crowd, but the smaller group of individuals he had called to follow him on a journey that would take them to new places. They came to him. Then he began to speak to them.

We might imagine ourselves in the place of those beginning disciples as we listen to his words:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:3-12)

We know that even his disciples had difficulty understanding his meaning, as they gathered around listening to him speak. He contradicted everything that their culture, their religion, taught. He challenged the order by which everything worked.

All societies have a pecking order. In some cultures, it is more pronounced than others. In the ancient middle east it was quite clear. Everyone knew where they stood. Everyone knew what was expected of them. Everyone’s job was to do the right things and be able to stay in their niche, to not lose what you had.

But at the bottom of the pecking order were those who had nothing more to lose. These were the untouchables, the invisibles. These men and women had nothing and no opportunities. They were unemployed and unemployable. The expendable.

These were the souls who had to live by their wits – maybe they stole, maybe they begged. They did whatever they needed to do to survive.

They were, in the Greek, the ptochoi, which we translate here as the poor in spirit. As in,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are these untouchable, unwanted, forgotten human beings. The homeless, the invisible, the expendable ones who live their lives in a state of utter humility – of pure, raw vulnerability.

To call them blessed, to understand this, takes the mind of a beginner.

Someone – I don’t remember who – recommended a book to me months ago. I added it to my list of books I should read someday. And recently I picked up a bargain bin copy of it and started reading. It’s called True Places. I wish I could remember who recommended it so I can thank them. It has shed some valuable light for me on the beatitudes.

It’s a story about an upper-middle class wife and mother who has a chance encounter with a girl named Iris who has been raised in the wilderness. Some years ago her father disappeared. Later, her mother had an accident and died, so Iris, now 16, has been surviving alone in the woods for three years.

When this woman, Suzanne, finds her she is very, very sick. So Suzanne picks her up and carries her into her SUV and drives her to the hospital, where she leaves her in their care. But Suzanne doesn’t just walk away from her. She returns again and again to visit her, to be a familiar face, a comforting presence.

And as Iris heals, the hospital staff is faced with the problem of figuring out where she will go next. Suzanne and her husband decide to take her home, to foster her until a family member can be found. But here is where the story gets complicated. The transition to their home turns out to be anything but easy.

Bringing Iris into their big luxurious home is a shock to her. She is confused by everything. She reacts badly to many things the family takes for granted. But it is not only shocking to Iris, it is upsetting to the family as well.

Suzanne finds that she is infected by Iris’s reactions – her beginner’s mind, you might say. Suzanne begins to see her life from a different perspective – from an outsider’s perspective.

I think that is what Jesus wants from us: to begin to see our lives, the world we live in, from a different perspective.

Jesus wants us, who have everything, to take the perspective of those who have nothing.

Why? Not to pity them. Not to feel guilty. Not for any reason except this: we can’t know what we could have as long as our vision is clouded by all we do have. And when I speak of all that we have I am referring not only to material possessions, but also all the other things we covet and strive for, like respect, admiration, independence.

These are the things our culture tells us are valuable. We go chasing after the things our culture says will make us complete. But they don’t make us complete. And so we find that we need more and more of what doesn’t work. When you are reaching for what doesn’t fill you, there is no enough. There never will be enough.

In the story, True Places, this family, like so many, lives by the guiding principle “we’re not quite there yet.” They need more money, a bigger house, more popularity, more success, more expensive stuff. The daughter affectionately talks about her dad’s work as “shaking the money tree.” The dad lusts after a bigger house, more powerful friends, greater success, a higher spot on the totem pole. In this home there is a whole lot of everything but there is no real contentment, no peace, no joy. There is no enough.

When Iris comes to live with them, her presence is disturbing because it threatens to lift the veil from their eyes and force them to see. Without doing anything, she disrupts their foundation.

Which is what Jesus did – and does.

And what do we do when Jesus threatens to disrupt our foundation?  We might reinterpret his words in a more comfortable way. Or we might consign them to the dustbins of history – another time, another world, doesn’t apply to us anymore. But instead of softening his edges or shelving his words, we would benefit from listening to what he said, and looking at what he did: Approach the untouchables, speak to the invisibles, break bread with the expendables.

And ask ourselves, like the Chinese student did, “Why did he do that?”

Why did he do that? To help us break free.

May our minds and hearts be opened to see things from the perspective of one of these poor ones. Then to truly see what Jesus is offering us.

Photo: http://buddhabe.tumblr.com/post/33709505123/beginners-mind-in-the-beginners-mind-there-are

The Call

Matthew 4:12-23        

Last weekend I watched a film with members of our session – a documentary about churches. There was one conversation that struck me as funny. One of the pastors interviewed described what his congregation was like whenever he suggested something new. He said if it wasn’t really different from what they were used to, they were usually willing to give it a try. And if it was different, well, then they would usually be willing to call a committee together to study it further, for a period of time. He seemed to think that was pretty good.

This was not a Presbyterian church, but it could have been, because Presbyterians are also fond of forming committees. We rely on committees to make decisions and get work done. Committees are a very “churchy” thing. Church people love committees. Presbyterians, in particular, love committees.

In fact, I have heard that when Presbyterians die and go to heaven, there we find a whole host of committees. We are given our assignments and then we get to work. Presbyterian heaven is full of committees. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

But looking at this passage from Matthew, where Jesus calls his disciples to come and follow him, do you notice what they don’t do?

They don’t form committees. They don’t hold any meetings.

They don’t make up an agenda. No one checks the Book of Order to see if there are any rules pertaining to this matter. No one makes a motion, or seconds one, and of course there are no votes. There is none of that good, decent, orderly stuff that gives us comfort and a sense of purpose. These guys don’t do committees. They just go.

I find it a bit alarming, don’t you? The way they seem to be willing to just drop everything and follow Jesus.

It’s something that all the disciples seem to have in common when Jesus calls. They drop their nets. They leave their fathers sitting in the boat. They walk away from their tax business, walk away from their home and family, walk away from the teacher they have been following. They don’t need to think about it. They don’t need to talk it over with one another. They don’t need to get to know Jesus better over a cup of coffee. They don’t need to sleep on it, pray over it, hear what the experts think, or put it to a vote. They just go.

It seems irrational – even irresponsible – to make a huge life-altering decision with such little deliberation. Yet, somehow, it seems to be essential that they do this very thing. Later in his ministry, we meet others who say they want to follow Jesus, but first they want to go home and take care of a few things. But that won’t cut it. Jesus doesn’t accept any excuses. You are either with him or you aren’t. Come now or don’t come at all.

There is no time for, “I’ll go follow Jesus next week.” There is no time for, “We need to research this before making a decision.” There is no time for anything else. Now is the time, and that’s it.

I wonder how they knew, in the moment, what was the right thing to do.

It was a tumultuous time in their world – a difficult time. This business of “follow me and I will make you fish for people” was not something they were familiar with. It wasn’t a common religious ritual of the day. And yet when they heard it they knew.

It was a difficult time; not too different from this time. Big changes in our world are leaving us wondering what it is we should be doing if we are faithfully following Jesus. These are times that leave us wondering where and how Jesus will lead us in this time and place.

And, most of all, wondering if we will be able, and willing, to follow.

Churches tend to be much like that one in the film – the one who approaches any new thing with suspicion, cautiously, slowly. We want to be good stewards, and that often means we want to be sure we don’t make a mistake. So we plan carefully. We don’t rush into things. And sometimes, we are so not-rushed, we appear to be stuck in place.

Over the past few months, I have been working with two congregations in our presbytery who are participating in a project called The Unglued Church. The project name comes from the observation that many churches these days seem to be stuck – unable to make the adaptations they need to make in order to be the church Jesus is calling them to be.

In this project, congregations are encouraged to first look at what they have and then what they can do. They take inventory of all their resources – monetary resources, material resources, human resources. And they take a look around at their neighborhood to see who their neighbors are, and what they need. They look at what they have and they look at what needs doing.

And then they try something.

The churches are encouraged to just try something, to “just do it” as Nike says. It doesn’t have to be the best idea, but just a good idea and a do-able idea.

Now, this is uncomfortable and uncharted territory for most congregations, because generally speaking, before we do something new we spend a lot of time planning. We form a committee. We schedule meetings. We discuss it. We gather information, and we discuss it some more. But in the Unglued Church Project they say, just do it. Don’t spend a lot of time planning it. Because then when you are finally ready to put your plan in action, the whole problem will have changed. When you’re finally ready to follow Jesus – well, the moment has passed. Do it now, or don’t do it at all.

I share this with you as someone who finds it all very challenging. I don’t rush into things – I never have. My comfort zone is “let’s make a committee and discuss it.” But rather than patting us on the back for being careful planners, here it seems like Jesus is telling us “don’t think – do.”

You have to be nimble, the Unglued Church Project says. So how do we do that – be nimble? How do we know what new thing to do? How do we know when to say yes and just go for it – and not look back?

How do we drop our nets and follow Jesus when he calls?

Matthew doesn’t tell us what was going on in the heads of those disciples who followed Jesus, and I wish he did. I would like to know what they thought. I would like to know what their lives were like before Jesus, what they were like before they dropped their nets and followed Jesus. But Matthew doesn’t tell us any of that, and so I don’t know. But here is something I do know.

If we are going to be able to follow Jesus when he calls us, we ought to be in the habit of listening. And not only that, but we ought to be expecting him to call us. Listening. Expecting. Anticipating the call that says, “Come and follow me.” And to not be so attached to our nets – or anything else we have, or are doing now – that we can’t let it go.

Listen for the call. And when it comes, follow.

Behold the Lamb

Isaiah 49:1-7       

John 1:29-42       

There is a new film on Netflix called The Two Popes. It’s a dramatization about the relationship between the Popes Benedict and Francis. Pope Benedict, who was elected after Pope John Paul died, and Pope Francis, who was elected after Benedict resigned. Or retired. Or quit. 

I’m not sure what to call it. It was something that has no precedent in modern history. Popes don’t usually resign – they die.

The film portrays how during the conclave when Benedict was elected, the cardinals were not initially all of one mind. Many wanted Francis instead. But Benedict eventually received the required number of votes and so that was it. Francis (although he wasn’t called Francis at that time. He was Jorge) went home to Argentina and continued serving as a cardinal.

Some years later, Francis, or Jorge, sent a letter to the Pope asking for permission to retire. He may have expected this to be a simple thing, handled through the mail. But much to his surprise he was summoned to see the pope. He didn’t know why.

These two men didn’t have a relationship at that time. They were very different and they had a lot of disagreements. There were many things Benedict did as pope that Jorge disagreed with, and this was a large part of the reason, according to the film, Jorge wanted to retire. He was no longer comfortable serving under this pope.

When he arrived at the pope’s summer residence he discovered that Benedict did not want him to retire. So they spent a few days together with Jorge trying to press the issue and Benedict changing the subject.

Eventually, he realized why Benedict was resisting the matter of his cardinal’s retirement when he disclosed to Jorge that he, Benedict, intended to retire. And he wanted Francis to succeed him. This wasn’t his choice, of course, but he had reasons to believe that Jorge would probably be elected. And would then become Pope Francis.

This is a story about calling – answering the call of God and then learning what that call will involve, what will be demanded of you. It’s always a matter of answering the call to “come and see.”

Neither of these men knew what would unfold for them. It’s possible that Benedict always dreamed of being pope. But he surely never dreamed that it would turn out as it did. He became embroiled in scandals – the sex abuse scandals that we all know about, and the Vatican financial scandals that were less sensational but very serious. And he was somewhat at a loss as to how to deal with these things.

In their conversations, they spoke about their spiritual lives and Benedict confessed a painful thing: he felt he was no longer hearing God speak to him. He no longer felt the Holy Spirit working in him – a very lonely feeling. He began to wonder what he should do. How could he be the Holy Father of the church if he no longer felt God was with him?

It was while he was trying to discern his way forward that he received the letter from Jorge, and only then felt he knew what God wanted him to do. 

You never really know where a call will take you.

In the story from John’s gospel, John the baptist’s disciples are with him when Jesus approaches. John says to his disciples, “Here is the Lamb of God.” And right then two of John’s disciples left John and followed Jesus.

Now, Lamb of God was not a title. There was no reason why John’s disciples would have recognized the term and knew what it meant. It’s actually an odd name for John to call Jesus. A lamb is meek, mild. Maybe not too smart or too strong. We don’t think of lambs as leaders, do we? We don’t envision ourselves following a lamb.

And for Israel there is one other thing: a lamb is a sacrifice.

This goes back to the book of Exodus. The story says that God visited ten plagues on the Egyptians to compel the Pharaoh to release the Israelites from their slavery. Frogs, locusts, boils, and so on. The final sacrifice being the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt. And so, the story goes, the Israelites were instructed to sacrifice a lamb, and then smear the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their houses. When the angel of death saw the blood he would pass over that house, sparing them. This is remembered every year in the celebration of the Passover. 

And so all of Israel knows what a lamb represents – sacrifice.

Nonetheless, these two men, disciples of John, followed Jesus. They didn’t know anything about him and, I suppose, they didn’t really know why they were following him. He said to them, “Come and see.” And they did.  One of these two was Andrew, the brother of Simon. He went to his brother Simon and said to him, “Come – we have found the Messiah. And Simon went with him. 

And when they arrived, Jesus said to Simon, “You will be called Cephas,” which is translated Peter.

Peter, the one whom, it is believed, all the popes are spiritually descended from. 

Every single one of these men was called. And each one said yes to the call. “Yes” to “Come and see.”

Of course, it isn’t only popes that receive calls to serve God. Everyone who joins the church has received a call. Everyone who has been baptized has been called to come and see. That means you and me.

You don’t know, when you say yes to the call, where it will lead you. When I joined the Presbyterian Church, I certainly didn’t know that I would, within a couple of years, be called to serve as a Director of Christian Education for the congregation. And I sure did not know when I said yes to that call that God would soon be calling me to pastoral ministry. 

You know, one thing leads to another. But God always knows the plans God has for us. And often God gives us some pretty tall orders – Isaiah knew all about that. But God also equips us for the call, no matter what it is. God simply asks us to come and see, to trust enough for that.

This weekend we celebrate the life of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, who answered the call of God, which took him to places he never would have imagined – and likely would not have chosen, left to his own devices. But he had faith enough to say yes, to come and see what it was. And the world is changed because of that. 

The world is a better place because of him. 

God called Martin to work for justice, to teach nonviolence as a way of life, and to lead with love.

And then God called him to be a sacrifice.

Perhaps this was necessary. I don’t know. But I am grateful that Martin answered his call and followed the Lord when he said, “Martin, come and see.” 

May we also do likewise.

Photo: Sukkoria, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Way to Love and Happiness

Matthew 3:13-17     

I was in my office one morning at the church I served as pastor when a couple of members walked in to see me. They had a dilemma they wanted me to resolve. Their granddaughter was getting married. She and her fiancé had a one-year-old son. The family wanted the child to be baptized. They also wanted her fiancé to be baptized.

The baby was easy, it would be done like any other ordinary baptism, in church during worship. The fiancé, however, was more of a problem. He was willing, basically because it was important to the family he was marrying into. But he was a big, tough guy, and felt it would be embarrassing to stand in front of the congregation and submit to having me splash him with water. So the family thought they could solve the problem by holding a private baptism for him. Just to get it done. Without embarrassing him. When can we do this, they wanted to know.

So often when we talk about baptism we are presented with teachable moments. The ways in which we understand – or misunderstand – baptism could fill a book, or many. On that day I explained to the family that we do not do private baptisms, because baptism is not a private ritual. It is an act of the community, where we welcome a new child of God into the covenant we all share with God. A baptism is as important to every single member of the church as it is to the one being baptized.

I also explained that I would not feel comfortable baptizing a grown man just because his in-laws wanted it for him; that there is a significant difference between parents bringing their child forward for baptism and these folks trying to do the same thing with their grown-up soon-to-be son-in-law. I think they understood. But on that day, sitting across from this particular family and hearing their dilemma, I was struck by one other thing: baptism is fundamentally a matter of making oneself vulnerable. It asks us to trust in ways we rarely do.

We do this thing called baptism because Jesus urged us to. But it all started with John, who had established himself out in the wilderness of Judea with a message of repentance. He drew people to him who were yearning for something they weren’t finding anywhere else. John invited them to turn themselves around, to take a new perspective on life.

Baptism was not a new thing that John invented, however. It was already at that time an ancient practice of Israel. The ritual bath – the mikvah – had its place. It was used by the priests who served in the temple, to purify themselves for service. It was, and still is, used by Orthodox Jewish women to purify themselves once a month. And it is a ritual that is part of conversion to Judaism.

But John was using it in a new way. He invited any and all of the children of Israel to come to the waters and turn their lives around. This was not a conversion to a new religion, nor was it a ritual purification as prescribed by the law of Moses. John was inviting them into something new and unknown.

And then Jesus came to him in the waters presenting himself to be immersed. Jesus has not begun his ministry yet, but John knew who he was. Luke tells the story about how John and Jesus were cousins. Their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, lived in the same household for a while when they both were pregnant. John knows who Jesus is, and who he will be, and so he is surprised.

He has already been telling people about the one who is greater than he; “the one whose sandals I am not worthy of carrying,” John has said. And now this great one is asking John to carry his body down into the water and back out again. But why should Jesus submit to John? It should be the other way around.

Why should the Son of God, the King of the Universe, the Savior of the World, be surrendering himself so completely?

It is most peculiar. He comes alone. He doesn’t have an entourage of bodyguards and assistants, or even a friend to lean on. He comes alone, steps into the water, and puts himself in John’s hands – literally. In front of all these people.

He has not yet begun his ministry, but Jesus, in baptism, begins to show us the power of vulnerability.

You may be troubled by this. Because we know that vulnerability is not a good thing. To be vulnerable is to be at risk in some way. Those who lack adequate health care are vulnerable to illness. Those who lack housing are vulnerable to the elements. Those who suffer mental illness or addiction are vulnerable to anyone who would prey on them. The elderly are vulnerable and young children are vulnerable. No one wants to be vulnerable. We are afraid of being vulnerable.

Yet Jesus reveals to us its beauty.

Whether we like it or not, the truth is that we are all vulnerable – it’s the human condition. We are breakable. We can be hurt – physically and emotionally. But we learn to protect ourselves from these potential hurts, because we are afraid, of course, of such vulnerability.

A baby doesn’t yet know enough to be afraid of their vulnerability. Yes, they will instinctively close their eyes and mouth and nose when we slosh water over them in baptism. And they may cry out against this strange stuff happening to them. But they haven’t yet learned to be embarrassed about their helplessness. Their faces register surprise and delight and discomfort and all the feelings they are feeling when these strange things are happening to them. And isn’t there a certain beauty in that?

This week there was a story in the news about an 84-year-old man who has a terminal cancer diagnosis. As he reflected on his life, he felt satisfied, content. With family he loves, work that was purposeful, and a church that was central to his life. But one thing was missing. He had somehow never been baptized.

Everyone else in his family was, but somehow it bypassed him. I’ve known it to happen. If a family is going through a particularly difficult or busy time, it might be overlooked. And now, looking back over the entirety of his life, he felt like something important was missing.

He asked to be baptized – by immersion – no sprinkling would do it for him. But his body was weak and so many options were closed to him.

His caregivers and the chaplain found a way. They took him to a regional hospice center with a big walk-in tub with a built-in seat. They helped him in, then filled the tub with water. They said the familiar words, “You are baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” He bent forward and immersed his face. The chaplain scooped up water and poured it over the back of his head. As he rose up from the water, they wiped his face for him.

And then they shampooed his hair. They oiled his skin all over and massaged his feet. He said, “that felt good.” And the staff and chaplains who cared so tenderly for his frail body said it filled their hearts with joy.

Isn’t it beautiful – this tender vulnerability?

It seems like we never willingly shed our armor and allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We would never willingly risk the pain, that might come our way if we shed our tough protective skins.

But Jesus shows us the power of vulnerability. Jesus reveals to us its beauty. Because it is only through vulnerability that we find the way to love and happiness.

Vulnerability is really not a bad word, after all.

It is the way we may draw near to God.

Photo: The baptismal font at Wicomico Presbyterian Church - a fine gathering place. 

Why Are They Here?

Matthew 2:1-12

I don’t know if you ever think about why the books of the Bible are ordered the way they are. But I can tell you one reason Matthew is first in the New Testament.

Matthew is first because– of all the gospels – it most clearly and directly links the story of Jesus with the prophets of the Old Testament. Matthew is constantly saying things like, “as it was written by the prophets,” and “this was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet.” Matthew connects all the dots. He tells us what we need to know.

Yet, as pedantic as Matthew is sometimes, he is also full of surprises at other times. Take the genealogy in Chapter 1.

To which you might say, “No thanks, I’m good. You can keep it.” Nobody reads the genealogies in the Bible. They’re boring. Nobody cares about all those names. But if you read through Matthew’s genealogy in Chapter 1, you will find some interesting things, I promise you.

“Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers” – and on it goes. Typically, genealogies contain the names of the men in the line of descent – the patriarchs. And there are plenty of them in this list. So many that most readers probably don’t even notice that Matthew has thrown a few women in. Four, to be exact. And the women he chooses to bring to our attention – that is what’s most interesting. Who are they?

Tamar, the woman who posed as a harlot by the side of the road to ensnare Judah. Rahab, the prostitute in Jericho who let the spies of Israel hide in her boudoir. Ruth, the Moabite woman who hustled her way into the family of a prominent Bethlehem man. And the wife of Uriah, otherwise known as Bathsheba, who bore a son for King David while she was married to another man.

Some families want to shove the black sheep of the family tree into the back of the closet, but Matthew puts them right in the middle of the genealogy of Jesus the Christ. You have to wonder: Why are they here?

No sooner do we get past this strangeness than we arrive at the scene where “wise men” from the east come to pay homage to the newborn king.

It is another mystery, really, that Matthew decides to call these men wise. Maybe they are knowledgeable about the stars, but they are dangerously naïve about people. They waltz into the court of King Herod, one of the most paranoid and ruthlessly violent kings ever, to ask for directions. “Excuse me, do you know where we might find the newborn king of the Jews? Oh, you’re the king of the Jews? Well, we meant the new king.” What could possibly go wrong here?

At any rate, they manage to get directions, although why they needed them, I don’t know. That star seemed to be as reliable as Google maps. They found Jesus.  But I don’t doubt that by the time they did, everyone between Jerusalem and Bethlehem was talking about them. They were passing strange. They didn’t exactly fit in.

These men from Baghdad, or thereabout, were Magi – magicians. They looked different, they dressed different, they sounded different and acted different. Really, everything about them was different – scandalous and abhorrent to Israel. Yet, here they are with front row seats at the birth of the Jewish Messiah.

They were thoughtful enough to bring gifts – strange gifts, it must be said. I imagine Mary’s confused expression when they handed her their packages of Frankincense and Myrrh. She probably forced a smile on her face and said thank you, it’s just what we needed. Although she didn’t have to fake it when she saw the gold. That would come in handy. Even so, she must have wondered why they were there.

Do we wonder? Why are they here? We should.

We might discover that Matthew, in his unique way, is telling us something about who we are.

If you are someone who was carried into the church as a newborn babe like I was, then you probably think you have always known who you are, who your people are. If you first crossed the threshold of the church as an adult, then you know that you made a conscious, deliberate decision about who you are and who your people are.

But it is a risk of Christianity – or any particular religious identity – that we think of who we are in terms far too narrow. And too rigidly marked. Christians often define ourselves in opposition to everyone else in the world. We are not Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or Pagan or Buddhist or Atheist or anything else you can name. We are different from everyone else, we want to say. We are better than everyone else – we might want to say. We’re the ones who got it right, we think as we give ourselves a little pat on the back.

And it’s possible that some of the folks in Jesus’ family tree felt that way too. They were acutely aware of who they were not, and who was not one of them. So they gave the side eye to Rahab, that woman who let the Hebrew spies into her room. They turned to their sisters and tsked Ruth when she just showed up in Boaz’s fields all by herself. They gave Bathsheba the back of their hand when she tried to start up a conversation with them at the market.

And when those ridiculous Magi showed up in their turbans and colorful robes, people whispered and tittered about those crazy foreigners. Don’t even know where they’re going.

Yet here they are – these crazy foreigners. The welcoming committee as we open the New Testament. Let us show you the way, they say to us.

And they might point out to us that when he grew up Jesus told his disciples that they would have to go to the back of the line if they wanted to be his. That he was going to turn the order of the world upside down. Outsiders would be brought inside, and they would teach the insiders a few things worth knowing.

We call this the Epiphany, which means revelation. The moment when the light bulb goes on and we can see something we couldn’t see before. When these strange characters from out of town came to bow down before the baby Jesus, to show the world who he was and what he would do. He would shake things up and turn things upside down. He would open the gates, tear down the walls and let everybody in. Come to the table. I am the bread of life. I am the cup of salvation.

He would rock our world.

Epiphany, in the year 2020 – the year of perfect vision. Get ready to have your world rocked.