Friday, December 20, 2024

Advent 3C - "Have You Heard John Preach?"



Saint Luke 3:7-18

In his classic book Whatever Became of Sin Psychologist Karl Menninger gave us this scene.
On a sunny day in September 1972, a stern-faced, plainly dressed man could be seen standing still on a street comer in the busy Chicago Loop. As pedestrians hurried by on their way to lunch or business, he would solemnly lift his right arm, and pointing to the person nearest him, intone loudly the single word “GUILTY!”  Then, without any change of expression, he would resume his stiff stance for a few moments before repeating the gesture. Then, again, the inexorable raising of his arm, the pointing, and the solemn pronouncing of the one word “GUILTY!”
The effect of this strange faccuse pantomime on the passing strangers was extraordinary, almost eerie. They would stare at him, hesitate, look away, look at each other, and then at him again; then hurriedly continue on their ways. One man, turning to another who was my informant, exclaimed: “But how did he know?”1

Those of us who live in cities can spot street preachers from blocks away.  They are easy to identify with their big megaphones and even bigger bibles.  Their message is almost always the same.  Those who pass by are “guilty as sin” and they need to repent or face the dire consequences.  Most times we can avoid them but there are other occasions where they insert themselves wherever we are.

James Thurber in his essay “The Get Ready Man” remembered that once the “Get Ready Man” interrupted a production of “King Lear” at the local theatre.

The theatre was in absolute darkness and there were rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightening offstage {when} the Get Ready Man added his bawlings to the ranting of the King and the mouthing of the Fool. Right in the middle of the play from the balcony there came the shouts “Get Ready!  Get Ready!  The World is coming to an end!” 

They found him finally, and ejected him, still shouting. Neither father nor I, {Thurber wrote} completely got over the scene... The theatre in our time, {he speculated} has known few such moments.”2

I’ll bet not.  It takes a while to get over any encounter with those who remind us of our shortcomings which is why I tried to deftly avoid John the Baptist last week by talking about his parents,  Zachariah and Elizabeth, in the hopes of giving him a wide enough berth to avoid him entirely.  But apparently, I didn’t swerve far enough because John the Baptist is still here.

It seems that we are not going to able to get to Christmas without hearing John preach.

Long ago in another place in time I quoted a sermon by the late, great, preacher of preachers, Dr. Fred B. Craddock when he let his imagination run wild over the figure of John the Baptist.

He was an oddity. He had long hair, and when I say he had long hair, I don’t mean he just had long hair. It wasn’t like the young businessmen in Atlanta with a little ponytail. He never cut his hair. I mean, he never cut his hair. He had a long beard, not a neat beard like some of you have. I mean, he had never trimmed his beard. He ... was strange. And dressed in an unusual way – camel’s hair and a leather band around the waist. And his food – he never went home with anybody for lunch, and I’m sure no one accepted his invitation. 

 I loved the imagery until after church when a really nice woman who we had spent weeks actively courting for membership came up to me and said, “What do you mean he never cut his hair?  What do you mean he never trimmed his beard? What do you mean he never took a bath?” and stormed out. 

I wanted to run after her myself shouting: “Hey! Hey! Hey!  Don’t blame me! Blame Fred Craddock!” But she was gone, never to be seen at our church again.

While we might try to avoid hearing John and his kind preach I’m with Dr. Peter Marty, who wrote:

What fascinates me about John is that our first-century friends made the decision to go out and hear him in the wilderness. They took the initiative. He didn’t come to them to dwell in their midst and inhabit their lives, as Jesus did. They had to go to him, leaving behind their comforts, conveniences, and suburban cul-de-sacs.3

At the risk of getting in trouble again let me tap into Dr. Craddock’s overactive imagination:

Plows were left in the furrows, bread was left in the oven, shops were left unattended, school was let our early because the crowds were moving into the desert to hear this extraordinary preacher.

I’m sure that many of the people who went were just curious, curious about the way he looked and the way he talked. I’m sure some the young people went out there just out of curiosity, nothing to do, sat out on the hoods of their camels and just watched the crowd and listened to John, bored perhaps. But most of the people who went were very sincere. There was something persuasive about him.4

 Start a sermon like that and the congregation just might come to believe you have real anger issues.  Preacher friends and I can’t remember in all our years of preaching ever starting a sermon by calling our congregations a brood of vipers, a bunch of snakes. We’ve thought about it but thinking and doing are two different matters.

Besides, the people’s reaction to John was amazing.  They don’t announce in returned anger, “Well, I don’t believe it!”  They don’t storm back to their villages and farms. They don’t try to cut off his head. Sadly, that will come later but it will not be one of them but be by a leader who demands ultimate, unquestioning, loyalty from any in their kingdom or court.

Instead, the crowds ask: “Then what are we supposed to do?”6

Just as no preacher I know would start a sermon the way John did, no preacher I know would ever expect that kind of reaction.  Believe me when I tell you, “What do you want us to do?”7 is not a reaction most preachers are used to getting but it is what happens when we hear John preach.

I find it curious that John doesn’t tell the tax collectors to quit working for the Romans and their ... collaborators, nor are the soldiers called to quit serving Caesar and his empire. Both the despised tax collectors and the feared soldiers and called ... to respond to the advent of the Christ, right here and right now in their ordinary everyday lives.8

An encounter with Jesus, the baby in the manger, the full-grown adult who John is pointing us to, makes us different. When we have heard John preach our reaction is “what shall we do?”

And this doesn’t mean just to repeat pious phrases over and over.  This doesn’t mean to try to impress people with our knowledge of scripture or theology.  It doesn’t mean that we only care for our close relatives and friends.  But it does means that we broaden our scope, our horizons, and begin to live like the world really is coming to an end.

When we’ve really heard John preach we may just wind up like Ebenezer Scrooge.  He, and Dickens’ play, A Christmas Carol is playing almost everywhere about now.  

His main complaint about Christmas is that it costs him money.  Money is everything to him, it is his first love.  He has sacrificed everything for it including the love of another person.

is complaint with the poorly paid Bob Crachit is that he wants a day off with or without pay and that will cost Scrooge money in, if nothing else, lost business.

He throws the gentlemen asking for donations to the poor out of his office because he pays taxes, lots of taxes, don’t they know, and his taxes pay for poorhouses.  There is nothing more he wishes to do but be left alone.

After an evening meal and bed, alone as always, he is visited by three ghosts, past, present, and future, that frankly sum up his life in one word, “guilty.”  “How did they know?” might have been his response and it could have been his only response. 

But spoiler alert! Scrooge wakes up a changed man.  Maybe he had heard the three ghosts and they sounded a lot like John preaching.  And, as someone pointed out: “Scrooge’s first merry Christmas cost Scrooge a fortune.”9

Have you heard John preach?  Have you heard him bear witness to the light whose coming we will celebrate in just a few days?  

Have you heard John preach?  It may not cost you a fortune, but it will give you back your life. 

“Share now. Be merciful now. Do justice now. Inhabit your life, no matter how plain, how obscure, how unglamourous, how routine”10 now.

Hear John preach now, and you really will be ready for Christmas.

 

________________

1. Karl A. Menninger, Whatever Became of Sin? (New York, NY: Hawthorne Books, 1197), 1-2.

2. James Thurber, “The Car We Had to Push,” in My Life and Hard Times (Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 13-14.

3. Peter Marty, “The Eerie Call of John the Baptist,” The Christian Century, December 1, 2023, https://www.christiancentury.org/first-words/eerie-call-john-baptist

4. Fred B. Craddock, “Have You Heard John Preach?,” essay, in The Collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock (Louisville, KY: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2011), 109–14.

5. William H. Willimon, “A Sermon About Sermons,” Pulpit Resource, Year B, 52, no. 4 (2024): 33–35.

6. St. Luke 3:10. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE:Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).]

7. St. Luke 3:10. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. (Carol Stream, IL:Tyndale House Publishers, 1971.)]

8. Willimon, loc. cit.

9. William Willimon, “How Much Does Christmas Cost?” Pulpit Resource, Year B, 46, no. 4 (2024): 33–35.

10. Debie Thomas, “What Then Should We Do?” Journey with Jesus, December 9, 2018, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2030-what-then-should-we-do.


 

Monday, December 9, 2024

Advent 2C - "Wait for It"


 

Saint Luke 1:5–23 & 57-80


On Friday, November 1, WLIT-FM which bills itself as “Chicago’s Christmas Music Station,” began playing Christmas music exclusively 24/7. In a press release, Mick Lee, program director and host said:

“93.9 LITE FM listeners have spoken year after year — once Halloween ends, they are ready for Christmas music on 93.9 LITE FM. We’re thrilled to celebrate our 24th year as Chicago’s Christmas station, spreading cheer, unity and warmth all season long!”1

 Now don’t get me wrong and don’t expect the usual harangue one gets from preachers who bemoan the fact that if you start Christmas music on November 1st it does seem that you are rushing headlong into Christmas without giving it a second thought.

There is nothing like a little Christmas music to get you in the spirit but honestly how many times can one listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” or Burl Ives’ classic rendition of “Frosty the Snow Man” or even a wonderful choral rendition of “Jesse’s Carol” which, the first couple of times can make me tear up, but after that I just dry my eyes and get on with my day.

For, as my friend and Scotsman, Callum MacLeod, said in a sermon once: “It really seems that a sane person can only listen to ‘Feliz Navidad’ so many times before taking a hammer to the appliance.”2

months worth of Christmas music if it didn’t result in exceptionally high ratings.  But I do have my doubts about politicians who promise that if they get elected we’ll be able to say “Merry Christmas” once again to everybody, even our beloved friends of other faiths and traditions, that makes them feel not quite so beloved.

Or, Nicholas Maduro, the Venesuelian dictator, who decided to hide behind a stolen election, political unrest, and lawless gangs causing countless to flee his country for fear of their lives to decree:

“It’s September, and it already smells like Christmas,” Maduro said Monday night during his weekly television show. “That’s why this year, as a way of paying tribute to you all, and in gratitude to you all, I’m going to decree an early Christmas for October 1.”3

 If you can’t give your people peace and prosperity, at least give them “bread and circuses” or in this case, tinsel and garland, and the promise that they will be able to say “Merry Christmas” to anybody they want whenever they want.

The season of Advent that liturgical churches celebrate so well reminds us in the words of the poet Edwina Gateley:

Advent means we are waiting for something; we are to expect something good and up-lifting to make us feel better. And why not? We struggle so, and we only want peace, security and even a little happiness. We dream of it—like a lost treasure in an empty desert. Then, in the very dying of the Autumn Season, along comes Advent with candles, prayers, songs and promises of new possibilities. And, all tingling with excitement and expectancy, we are seduced into hoping once again.”4

 There are two people, glossed over in the Christmas story by all the surrounding hoopla, who were seduced into hoping once again but before this hope became a reality they had to wait.  And their waiting began in a very strange place – at worship.

There is a name hidden deep in our Gospel reading this morning. It is the name of John the Baptist’s father, Zachariah. 

We know a lot about John.  He may be one of the noisiest characters in all of scripture preaching a message of repentance at the top of his lungs out in the wilderness to any and all who will listen.

But his dad, his father, Zachariah is another matter.  He’s an elderly man, the kind of guy with whom I am having a greater and greater affinity.  His wife is getting up there too and she suffers the ignominy of bearing the cruelest title of all, she is called “barren.”

They are an old couple, a faithful couple, who have long since given up on the idea that they will ever be called mom and dad by a child of their own.  That is until one night at worship something happens.  

Zachariah is a priest and it falls to him, entirely by chance, to go into the temple and be the one to burn incense.  It is to be, as my Episcopal friends call it, “a smoking service” which is something that we here at Saint Luke can relate to.

I can see the old priest, perhaps with a smile on his face, putting the coals in the incense pot, loading spoonful upon spoonful of incense in the censer, and swinging that baby around until the temple bore a striking resemblance to St. Luke on a Pentecost Sunday.

Then, from within the smoke, of all things, an angel appears striking terror into the old guy who may have then wondered, “What’s in this incense anyway? One too many, ‘nose hits’ perhaps?”  

“But the angel spoke to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zacharias; your prayers have been heard. Elisabeth your wife will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. This will be joy and delight to you and many more will be glad because he is born.’”5

 Now one would think the Zachariah would be overjoyed at the news but instead of listening to the angel and rejoicing over the message he snaps back at the angel. “Do you expect me to believe this? I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman.”6

Stop and think about this for a second.  He’s spent years of praying.  He’s spent years of hoping perhaps followed by years of sad resignation that he and his wife would never be parents and an angel shows up, in the temple no less, right in the middle of worship, and tells him that his prayers have been answered and Zachariah is acting like somebody who has either spent too much time in seminary or too much time around other old priests.

He wants to talk about it. Discuss the offer the angel is making. Determine the biological probabilities.

But the angel Gabriel has better, more important things to do.  So instead of listening to the old boy hem and haw and go on and on, the angels just takes away his power to speak.  

A priest who can’t speak! How long have many of you been praying for exactly that?  You may even be praying for that now.

Kathleen Norris, in her book Amazing Grace, writes: 

When the angel strikes Zachariah dumb he is given a pregnancy of his own. I read Zachariah’s punishment as a grace in that he couldn’t say anything to compound his initial arrogance when confronted with mystery. When he does speak again it is to praise God.  It’s just that he needed nine months to think it over.7

When the baby is born his pondering is over and everybody gathered around the mother and the child thinks the little guy should be named after his father. However, Elizabeth and Zechariah make a stunning announcement. They are going to name their son John.

“What?” [the relatives, neighbours, and friends] exclaimed. “There is no one in all your family by that name.”  To affirm his wife’s decision the happy father motions for “a piece of paper and to everyone’s surprise writes, ‘His name is John!’ Instantly Zacharias could speak again, and he began praising God.”8

As Dr. John Buchanan reminded us in a sermon when “old Zechariah finds his voice ... the first words out of his mouth are a kind of joyful poem; the birth of a child turns fathers into poets. Whatever he said, Luke arranges it in a canticle, which the church has loved for twenty centuries, the Benedictus: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people.”

[Then,] “as new fathers are inclined to do, Zechariah can’t resist a little boasting: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.”

And then the most beautiful images I know: “By the tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”9

Our temptation is to rush headlong into Christmas.  To, by our own power and might, make rough places smooth and paths straight.  Our temptation may be to crank up the carols as soon as we can even though we know that it won’t be long before we tire of hearing them over and over.

Our temptation may even be to use Christmas as a tool to fool people into believing that everything is okay and if they just rush around a little more, or buy a little more, or pretend a little more that everything will be alright. 

But not so cleverly hidden in the Advent celebration are real people like Elizabeth and Zachariah, John’s parents, and Mary and Joseph, who simply had to wait.

And you and I, here and now, wait for that moment when we can celebrate the birth him whose coming marks the day when the dawn from on high will appear once again the and tender mercies of the one for whom we wait will break upon us.

Wait for it!  For it is something worth waiting for.

________________

1. Kelly Bauer, “Nonstop Christmas Music Is Back on 93.9 Lite FM Starting Friday,” Block Club Chicago, October 30, 2024, https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/10/30/nonstop-christmas-music-is-back-on-93-9-lite-fm-starting-friday/.

2. Calum I. MacLeod, “A Christmas Eve Sermon.” Sermon preached at The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, December 24, 2012.

3. Jorge Rueda, “Christmas in Venezuela Kicks off in October, President Maduro Has Declared,” AP News, September 4, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-christmas-october-maduro-elections-tensions-2889fbab6a6a063d1f3bfe9d0afd33ba.

4. Edwina Gately, “Advent.” https://www.journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers/3776-advent

5. St. Luke 1:5-17. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (London, ENG: HarperCollins, 2000).]

6. St. Luke 1:18. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE:Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).

7. Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc, 2003).

8. St. John 1:61-63. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. (Carol Stream, IL:Tyndale House Publishers, 1971.)]

9. John M. Buchanan, “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. December 6, 2009

Friday, November 29, 2024

Pentecost 27B - "No Cliche" {Christ the King/Reign of Christ}


Saint John 18:33-37

Every cliche has more than a little truth to it.

We’ve all felt trapped “between a rock and a hard place.”

We’ve all felt like we are living between “the devil and the deep blue sea.”

We have all found ourselves in “Catch 22" situations where there doesn’t seem to be any good option between two choices both of which may yield equally bad results.

We have all faced moments in our lives when we have faced a Hobson’s “take it or leave it” choice between two alternatives when neither is a particularly good one.

Moments like this may make us wish we had a “mind palace” – a place where we could go where we might discover whether there might be another option, another way out.

If you watched the most recent version of Sherlock Holmes on PBS you know that Holmes had a “mind palace” where he would withdraw to get away from the noise that surrounded him and retreat into a world of his own where he could see things more clearly.

While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never used “mind palace” as a literary device I discovered recently while cleaning out mine that it was an concept employed by the ancient Greeks and Roman philosophers to organize thoughts and remember things that were really important while throwing out ideas that were not.

According to Smithsonian Magazine: 

Given the technique’s power and history, it’s a little surprising that Arthur Conan Doyle never mentioned such a thing in his stories. Instead, he attributed his creation’s prodigious memory to an exceptionally well-organized, well-stocked “brain attic.”

“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose,” Holmes tells John Watson in A Study in Scarlet, the first of Conan Doyle’s tales about the detective. Holmes is careful to fill his brain attic with only memories that may be useful.1

 I am willing to bet that Pontius Pilot would have given everything he had to have a “mind palace” where he could go to help him sort out what was before him in today’s Gospel.

Every cliche in the history of literature – maybe even the history of the world! – is standing before Pilate in the person who has been brought before him.

“It’s early morning and the air in the room is laced with lamp oil and irony.”3

Pilot has been roused from sleep by a bunch of rabble who, in Pilot’s eyes, could have rivalled the mob who stormed the laboratory in Mel Brook’s movie “Young Frankenstein.” He also has before him an unlikely suspect on a even more unlikely charge.

Getting him out of bed must have made him angry enough but when he looked over the faces of the crowd he may have become even more angry.

His relationship with the people standing before him has been tumultuous from the start when he, full of himself, insulted “their religious sensibilities ... [by hanging] worship images of the emperor throughout Jerusalem and had coins bearing pagan religious symbols minted.”2

They were not his supporters, and Pilate was afraid that it is possible to lose control of this angry mob very quickly.  If word of a revolt got back to Rome it would call his leadership abilities into question.  It might cost him his job, his pension, his security, even his life.

He is investigating the only charge that interests a Roman prefect. Pretension to kingship in this restive province on a festal weekend is an annoyance and requires his attention. But the man before him would never have caught the notice of imperial profilers, and Pilate is a little incredulous: “Are you the King of the Jews?”4

We must understand that matters of religion do not matter to Pilate.  He has only one legitimate concern, and that is whether Jesus poses a threat to Rome.  If Jesus is assuming the role of king, that is treason—punishable by death.   If not, call it a day and everybody can go back to bed.

Pilate can hardly imagine that this ordinary looking man would be trying to pass himself off as a king.  His question to Jesus is really a mocking question of the crowd: “Are you the king of the Jews?”  He is baiting them and appealing to their sense of tribalism.

We know all about that.  

A leader who may be afraid keeps showing us his anger.  A leader who is afraid may exploit divisions that may already exist and make them deeper.  He may play to the people’s fears.

The people in front of Pilate were exhibiting their fears in their anger as well.  They too were afraid that they were going to lose everything.  

Anger born of fear can lead us to terrible places.  Anger born of fear can lead us to do terrible things.

It can lead some people to define truth as anything they want it to be.  

It can lead some to seek to destroy any who oppose them or, at least, threaten to lock them up.

It can lead some to want to separate families lest they, while searching for a better life, take jobs that few are willing to do anyway.  

Anger born of fear can cause us to call out the military to “protect” us from a group of men, women, and children who are fleeing their home counties for the lives.

 Anger born of fear can cause any who have a heart, or fear for their mortal souls, to look back at what they have done and be very, very sorry.

And today’s gospel tells us that anger born of fear can lead to the death of an innocent man.

Yet this innocent seems to be the only one in this little tableau to not be fearful or even angry.  Instead, he seems to be the only one who is in control.

Instead of referring to Jesus’ trial and crucifixion as a Passion Narrative Father Raymond Brown in his book The Death of the Messiah calls it “The Book of Glory” in which Jesus comes to do what he ultimately came to do.

He came to do what he is recorded as doing today: Challenging the powerful. 

Pilate, who may see himself as the most powerful man in the city, is ultimately the one Jesus puts on trial here. 

When Pilate asks him sarcastically here, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus replies in effect, “Who told you that?”

At this point Pilate has to admit that he is just listening to the cries of a fearful, angry crowd.  He is not his own person.  He is not thinking for himself.  He is just parroting what others have told him.

What they have told him is kill this guy and we’ll have nothing to fear.  Kill Jesus and we will have one less thing to be angry about.  Kill this rabble rouser and maybe his crowds will go home and our nation will be safe.  Kill Jesus and maybe, just maybe, everything will be great again.

It is not as Pilate asks, “What have you done?” but a matter of what Jesus about to do.  He is about to do that for which he was born and for which he came into the world.

He is about to show us that his Kingdom is not of this world because it is a kingdom built on something else.

Jesus' way out of our cliched choices is another way.  His way is to follow him.  His way is to do what he did and act as he acted.

There will always be those who live in a perpetual state of anger.  There will always be those who live in a perpetual state of fear.  Jesus is showing us another way that is above politics and power but it is about “peace making instead of war mongering, liberation not exploitation, sacrifice rather than subjugation, mercy and not vengeance, care for the vulnerable instead of privileges for the powerful, generosity instead of greed, humility rather than hubris, and inclusion rather than exclusion.”4

In the midst of all the cliches that divide.  In the midst of all the cliches that induce anger and fear we can choose to follow Jesus.  

It’s not a once and for all choice, it’s a daily choice, that continually turns us back to him. For to live as Jesus would have us live doesn’t present us with one grand victory but little victories that ultimately point to him and his kingdom.

For as Walter Bruggemann reminds us:

Like Jesus and all the ancient prophets, we are sent back into the world to do the good work entrusted us.  It is the work of peace-making.  It is the work of truth-telling. It is the work of justice-doing. It is good work, but it requires our resolve to stay at it, even in the face of the forces to the contrary that are sure to prevail for a season” but in the end will not ultimately triumph.

That is not a cliche. That is not something that exists only in some room in our “mind palace.” That is our hope, and it is to that hope we must ultimately cling even on those days when we feel ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place because our rock, our leader, is Jesus Christ our Lord whose kingdom, whose reign and rule, has lasted to this very day and will last “to infinity and beyond.”

And that’s no cliche.  That is a promise.

________________

1.  Sarah Zielinski, “The Secrets of Sherlock’s Mind Palace,” Smithsonian.com February 3, 2014, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/secrets-sherlocks-mind-palace-180949567/.

2. Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. "Pontius Pilate: Govenor of Judea," accessed November 21, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pontius-Pilate.

3. Leonard Beechy, “A New Kind of King: John 18:33-37,” The Christian Century, November 17, 2009, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2009-11/new-kind-king?code=4GITJI3cX0u9i3UFWJBw&utm_source=Christian%2BCentury%2BNewsletter

4. ibid.

5. Dan Clendenin, “King Jesus,” Journey with Jesus, November 17, 2024, https://journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay.

 

 

Pentecost 26B - "When the End is the Beginning"


 Saint Mark 13:1-13


So I was driving home one day, westbound on Belmont Avenue, when I pulled up next to one of those plastic wrapped busses that are giant, moving, advertisements from stem to stern.  Usually I pay little or no attention, but this one caught my eye because written in bold letters on the side were the words: “Judgement Day is here.”

“Yipes!” I thought to myself. “I wish somebody had told me I would have warned my people.”

Pulling back my gaze just a bit I saw a very stern looking woman staring down from window level on the side of the bus.  She didn’t look at all happy.  Clearly judgement day was coming, and all was not going to go well for any who were subject to her glowering scowl.  

I recognized that face.  It was no other than, Judith Susan Sheindlin, better known to most of us as Judge Judy who for twenty-five years mediated disputes big and small between parties who were willing to have their courtroom arguments heard in public. For her efforts her program was consistently rated among the top programs on daytime television and also made her an incredibly wealthy woman.  

Not unbelievably, in 2013 “ABC's ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ took to the streets of Los Angeles ... to ask people what they thought of President Obama nominating Judge Judy to the Supreme Court. Of course, Obama did no such thing”1 but that didn’t stop many who were interviewed from voicing their support.  At this point in time, it wouldn’t surprise me that a majority of the even more gullible American people believe she is on the supreme court

She is not, but she does apparently have a new show “Judy Justice.” Same format, same kinds of cases, but for some reason she has exchanged her black judicial robe for a more telegenic red one.

The ad on the bus clearly referred to the new show’s premier when, obviously, judgement day would come.  The disciples couldn’t see it but for Jesus the signs of the judgement for the people were written in the handwriting on the walls of the temple in Jerusalem.

For the disciples the temple was the biggest, boldest, and most unshakable symbol of the presence of the Holy One they could imagine but it was also the largest public works project of its day. 

It was built by King Herod who, Scripture and history tell us, was a despicable human being. He was a misogynist, a slanderer, and a destroyer of any enemy, real or perceived, that seemed to get in his way.  He was a leader without any moral compass. And, to make matters worse, because he surrounded himself with toadies who dared not say no to him his power was mostly unchecked.

The two things he had going for him was that he was a dealmaker and a builder.

So, the first thing he does is strike a deal with the religious leaders.  It was transactional. I’ll build you a centre for worship and you leave me alone to do whatever I please.  They would be free to practice whatever religion they wanted; in whatever way they wanted so long as they didn’t question Herod and his authority. He would build them a temple if they would give him peace.

And build them a temple he did.  It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  It was “twice as large as the Roman Forum and four times as large as the Athenian Acropolis with its Parthenon.”  The Roman Historian Josephus reported that “Herod used so much gold to cover the outside walls of the temple that, in the bright sunlight, it nearly blinded anyone who looked at it.”2

While the religious leaders saw the temple as the centre of their worship life Herod saw it as his way to make money and, in so doing, solidify his power.  He was a first century huckster.  “Let’s see if we can increase tourism just a little bit and give all those people coming to Jerusalem on pilgrimages something to see.” he might have said. But, make no mistake about it, it was clear that this was Herod’s temple, the only thing he didn’t do was place his name on the front of the building in 20-foot-high letters. 

That is what Jesus’ disciples were looking at on that fine day, and without a doubt, the temple, Herod’s temple, was one of the most spectacular things they had ever seen. But Jesus throws water on his friends’ slack-jawed amazement by announcing.  “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”3

You can imagine the disciples looking at him with puzzled looks on their faces. Maybe he had to repeat himself: “There’s not a stone in the whole works that is not going to end up in a heap of rubble.”4

When they catch their breath enough to respond all they can do is ask, in effect, “Where? When?  How?”

And all Jesus does is give them a warning for their day and for all time. 

So, Jesus began to tell them: “Be very careful that no one deceives you. Many are going to come in my name and say, ‘I am he’, and will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, don’t be alarmed. such things are bound to happen, but the end is not yet. Nation will take up arms against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in different places and terrible famines. But this is only the beginning”

And then he goes on to tell them one verse later in The Good Book: “You yourselves must keep your wits about you...”5

That may be the hardest, most difficult ask of all by Jesus.

When the world seems to be falling apart and the wrongs seem often strong we are not to follow after any charlatan, religious or political, who sees themselves or are seen by their followers as “the annointed one” who can solve any problem and make their people’s lives great again.  Do not follow after anyone who promises that “anything broken they can fix.”  

History is full of such “leaders” who have failed their flocks mightily in the words of the old commercial “promising them anything but giving them Arpege.”  And history is also full of fallen followers who “drank the Kool-Aid” and paid the price.

Jesus is only saying to us: “Be careful. Be very careful who in this life you choose to follow because you just may discover that your hero is really a Herod in disguise.

It dosn’t take a warning on the side of a city bus to bring us up short and remind us that the world just may be bringing about judgement on itself.  

Jesus was not a soothsayer.  He wasn’t about the business of predicting the future but he could read the signs of the times, and he knew that Herod’s of his day and ours don’t last.  Judgement day will come for them.

Just as the temple – built by Herod – would be destroyed less than a biblical generation after his disciples were caught up in admiration of its magnificent stones so too the proud emperors and empires of earth will pass away.  

We know that the only thing left of the temple after the revolt against Rome in 70A.D. is the Western Wall, the “wailing wall” still there but still fought over to this day.

So, it shouldn’t take a warning on the side of a city bus to remind us that some have chosen to follow the lesser gods of politics – power and prestige – will find out that those gods won’t last.

In this troubling context, it’s easy to despair.  Or to grow numb.  Or to let exhaustion win.  But it’s precisely now, now when the world around us feels like it may be coming to an end, that we have to respond by tethering ourselves more closely to Jesus and following his ways.

It’s precisely now, when systemic evil and age-old brokenness threatens to bring us to ruin that we have to “hold each other tight” and allow the walls that separate us one from another to fall and to reveal what is really happening.  What’s happening, Jesus promises at the end of this week’s Gospel reading, is not death, but a new beginning. 

A new beginning that will come, as the hymn writer reminds us, “not through swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums, but in deeds of love and mercy.” That’s how Christ’s kingdom, a reign and rule that has lasted through the ages, will come.

May that day of new beginnings and restoration come and come soon.


________________

1.     Sean Sullivan, “Jimmy Kimmel Asks: Judge Judy for the Supreme Court? (Video) - The Washington Post, thewashingtonpost.com, May 17, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/05/17/jimmy-kimmel-asks-judge-judy-for-the-supreme-court-video/.

2. Debie Thomas, “Not One Stone,” Journey with Jesus, November 11, 2018, https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2010-not-one-stone.

3. St. Mark 13:2. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

4. St. Mark 13:2. (MESSAGE) [Message=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004)]

5. St. Mark 13:5-11. (PHILLIPS) [J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (London, ENG: HarperCollins, 2000).



Thursday, November 28, 2024

Pentecost 25B - "It Mite Be Enough"


1 Kings 17:8-16
 Saint Mark 12:38-44

On April 23, 1910, the then former president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, delivered a speech at the Sorbonne in France that was formally titled “Citizenship in a Republic” but later became known as the “Man in the Arena.”  The language is dated. Now we, and probably Roosevelt too, would have used more inclusive pronouns, but I’m going to stick to President Roosevelt’s original words because to change anything ruins the cadence. 

Here is what Roosevelt said:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly...”1

Everyone who stands for elected office enters into an arena where he or she much give it all. From those who ran for President, for the Senate, or the House, to a friend of mine who ran for a seat on the Palm Springs City Council and fell 149 votes short dared greatly and gave it all they had.2  

Two, not surprisingly unnamed women, both widows with very little wear-with-all of their own give all they had and then some.

The first woman we meet is out gathering sticks for her last meal and the prophet speaks to her in the same, almost dismissive way that men have spoken to women for ages.  She doesn’t even rise to the level of waitress, she is his servant who, even though she doesn’t know him, is supposed to do his bidding, cater to his every need.

Many translations try to soften the prophet’s approach with a little “please” and “thank you” but this time scholars tell us that there are no niceties just two direct orders. “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” And then as she heads off to get that for him he adds to his order, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”3

Believe me when I tell you had Elijah been dumb enough to say this to my aunt when she wasn’t in the best of moods, she would have responded to his request, as she often did to her brothers or me when they were treating her like they hadn’t read “The Emancipation Proclamation,” which she would suggest we do and follow that with a question of her own: “What did you do break your leg?” So, if the prophet didn’t get up and get it for himself, if he was dealing with my aunt he would have most certainly died of thirst.

The widow who is dutifully doing Elijah’s bidding tells her self-assured customer that her provisions are meagre. So meagre in fact, that it looks like this meal with be her last. 

Here is a woman who is raising a child without a husband, without a safety net and she is doing it in a time of famine and drought. Raising a child requires countless acts of trust and many prayers.  She is certainly someone who has been in Roosevelt’s arena and is at this moment in her life daring greatly.

Because, as Heidi Neumark pointed out in a Christian Century article:

Here is a woman about to die with her child, a mother unable to feed her little boy, who still manages to love her neighbour as herself. Yes, Elijah predicts the miracle, but she is the one who sets the miracle in motion by her trust and risky generosity.4

Perhaps Jesus had her in mind when he watched another woman cross the temple courtyard wading her way quietly through all the pomp and show of those who just can wait to parade their piety and their generosity before others.  These are not just religious leaders of Jesus’ day but any who proclaim their faith so loudly that they become “full of themselves.”

The image passed down through the ages is that the “temple was outfitted with trumpet-shaped offering boxes so that when people ‘threw’ in their coins, the clanging announced loudly the generosity of the giver. It’s hard not to think of Luther’s annoyance at Tetzel and the sale of indulgences: ‘When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.’”5

So this woman catches Jesus eye and he calls us  all together for a teaching moment that has very little to do with stewardship (Though, God knows, we have all heard enough sermons in our lifetimes that bounce the text in that direction) but much more to do with faithfulness.

Once again, let’s let one of my favourite writers, Debi Thomas, help us dig a little deeper and see what’s going on with this woman living on the margins of society who is not only impoverished but vulnerable in every single way that can be imagined.

This is a moment in the story when I'd give anything to hear Jesus' tone of voice, and to see the expression on his face.  Is he heartbroken as he tells his disciples to peel their eyes away from the rich folks and glance in her direction instead?  Is he outraged?  Is he resigned?  Does he tell one of his friends to run after the woman and give her a bit of bread, or at least a drink of water?  What does it mean to Jesus, mere seconds after he's described the Temple leaders as devourers of widows' houses, to witness just such a widow being devoured?  And worse, participating in her own devouring?

I think he noticed the widow's courage.  I imagine it took quite a bit of courage for her to make her “insignificant” gift alongside the rich with their fistfuls of coins.  Even more to allow the last scraps of her security to fall out of her palms.  

I think Jesus noticed her dignity.  Surely, she had to steel herself when widowhood rendered her worthless — a person marked "expendable" even by the Temple she loved.  Surely she had to trust — in the face of all the evidence piled up around her — that her tiny gift had value in God's eyes.

Perhaps what Jesus noticed was kinship.  Her story mirroring his.  The widow gave everything she had to serve a world so broken...  Days later, Jesus gave everything he had to redeem, restore, and renew that very same world.6

Both widows had more than enough courage to go into the arena and give it all they had.  And we worship a Saviour who gave it all he had too.

That is what Jesus is asking of us.  To enter into the arena and give it all.  We may find ourselves on some days battered, and bruised, and perhaps even sorely disappointed.  We may “come up short again and again” but we continue to try and make the world a little better one cup of water, one morsel of bread, one small offering of our life and labour, at a time.

As David L. Brooks wrote in a recent article in The Atlantic, “we are either degrading our souls or elevating our souls with every little thing we do.”

It may not seem like much but, in the end, all those little things we do for the good just might be enough.

_______________

1. Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic” speech delivered at Sorbourn University, Paris, France. 23 April 1910. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Blog/Item/The%20Man%20in%20the%20Arena

2. Eric Gray, “Latest Local Election Results District 4 - Naomi Soto Wins,” Latest Local Election Results District 4 - Naomi Soto Wins -, November 8, 2024, https://pstribune.com/2024/11/08/latest-local-election-results-district-4-naomi-soto-wins/.

3. 1 Kings 17:10c & 11b. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition]

4. Heidi Neumark, “The Widow’s Hand,” The Christian Century, September 27, 2000, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/widow-s-hand?code=SUYJEA1d6bG6QvdNvFnZ&

5. James ` C Howell, “What Can We Say November 10? 25th after Pentecost,” James Howell’s Weekly Preaching Notions, January 1, 2024, https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.

6. Debie Thomas, “Out of Her Poverty,” Journey with Jesus, November 4, 2018, https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2003-out-of-her-poverty.

7. David L Brooks, “Confessions of a Republican Exile,” The Atlantic, October 16, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/trumpism-republican-party-exile-david-brooks/680243/?

 

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

All Saints B - "Everyone Mourns"


Saint John 11:32-44

No one mourns the wicked.” Are the opening words sung by the chorus in the Broadway musical Wicked immediately after the death of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. The Citizens of Oz rejoice, celebrating the demise of their supposed enemy.  “No one mourns the wicked. No one lays a lily on their grave.”

However, Glinda the good witch, seems to be able to pick up on the loneliness and isolation of the ones who nobody seems to be interested in mourning: “The Wicked’s lives are lonely. Goodness knows the Wicked die alone. It just shows when you’re wicked, you’re left only on your own.”1

While nobody may mourn the wicked it is a sure and certain thing that everybody will mourn.  

Our own beloved, Dr. Martin Marty, in his book A Cry of Absence, tells of a famous public man with no recognizable faith who died and was buried.  
His family and friends commandeered an underused but reminiscently appropriate college chapel for the occasion. 
The powerful and the rich were present. Lacking a book of rites and ceremonies, those who sponsored the service did what moderns do: they invented a nice little liturgy of their own. Several bleak songs by a near-contemporary composer were the only sounds verging and anything sacral that participants heard. They were also treated to numerous — some remember ten — eulogies. We learned of the administrative, anecdotal, scholarly, and charitable activities of the departed.  All this took place without an amplifying system to make all parts of the service audible.  The event occurred before the chapel was air-conditioned. The elite people of the city melted pounds away in the steam and fumed away other pounds in discontent of the muffled sounds.2
They may not have known how to mourn or simply wished to soften their mourning to the point where it didn’t seem to hurt so much.  

This was not so with Mary and Martha, when they mourned the whole community mourned with them.  That was their tradition, where no loss went unnoticed.

And this one really hurt because after Lazarus died a request went unanswered.  The sisters sent word to Jesus that a man who he knew, who he considered such a friend to have dined with him on more than one occasion, had died.

Even we know what we are supposed to do.  We are to put together a peach cobbler and a green bean casserole and head over to the house to offer comfort.  We know that this is a time to order flowers, buy a sympathy card, give memorial, or, at the very least, light a candle.
The sisters sent word to Jesus that his friend had died and we are told by a very reliable sympathetic source that even “after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”3
Imagine the commotion this caused in Mary and Martha’s community.  The sisters stopping every few hours, every few minutes, to look down the garden path to see if their friend was coming.  The townsfolk asking the kind of questions that, at the best of times can drive a person nuts but in a time of stress can work one’s last nerve.

“Have you heard anything from your friend Jesus?”  “Are you sure he’s coming?”  “Are you sure you sent the message to the right address?”  “What are you going to do if he moved on?”
Is it any wonder why when Martha caught a glimpse of Jesus finally making his appearance, she let him have it.  Never one to suffer fools, any fool, gladly Martha lets him have it: “Master, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”4

In another church, in another life, I once read this in the sternest, most angry voice possible and was accosted by a couple after church who said, “No one would ever talk to Jesus that way!”  Martha would and did.
She may have been tempted to temper the surprise at what she heard herself saying and perhaps even the surprise on Jesus’ face with a little theological reflection: “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”5

Nothing like a little theological conversation to diffuse the situation or muddy the waters as the case may be.  The talk turns to the how and when of resurrection to which Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.”6

It is all too much for Jesus.  There are no words to describe Jesus' reaction. Some suggest he was shaken to his very bones.  It’s a sob.  It’s a shudder.  It’s a wail! “Jesus wept.”

That Jesus — the most accurate revelation of the divine we will ever have — stands at the grave of his friend and cries.  When Jesus cries, he assures Mary not only that her beloved brother is worth crying for, but also that she is worth crying with.8

And he is telling us that at the depths of our despair we are worth crying for too.

But a sobbing Saviour standing at the foot of a grave only gets us so far.  Jesus has to do more.

He walks to the grave and over the objections of the onlookers, who know a little about decomposition, orders it opened.  Then he cries out as one author described it with a voice so loud it seemed like the roar of a thousand lions, “Lazarus! Come Out!”

And before you know it there is a formerly dead man walking.  Stumbling actually until Jesus completes his gigantic gesture with a simple loving one: ““Unbind him, and let him go.”9  Or, my favourite paraphrase: ““Unwrap him and let him loose.”10

Lazarus on the loose!  Lazarus on the go!  It frightened some and hardened their hearts against Jesus so much that it made them more determined than ever to do away with him.

But what of the rest?  What of Lazarus’ sisters who have spent the last few days teetering between disappointment and downright anger at Jesus for taking so long? What of the townsfolk whose tears moved Jesus so deeply that he did the unthinkable, the unbelievable?  What of them all with their red eyes, raspy voices and head aching from so much crying?

I think they had a celebration.  A celebration like we see on the television after a person or even a puppy is lifted out of what, at one time, seemed to be an inescapable situation.

I think the funeral luncheon was something to behold with Lazarus at the head table receiving back slaps, and hugs, and handshakes all around.  And Mary and Martha standing off to the side with Jesus who is reminding them that, at one time or another, everybody mourns but not you, not now.

This whole story reminds me of one of those New Orleans funerals in the old south.

You know how they go.  A jazz band leads a parade of mourners slowly, ever so slowly, to the cemetery playing “Just a closer walk with thee” in a minor key and at a tempo so slow that it surpasses any time signature in the history of music.  Women are weeping and men, trying to remain strong have almost bitten their lower lip through.

The casket is lowered.  “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.  And may perpetual light shine upon them.” 

Then something happens that affirms that Lazarus and his kind are on the loose.  Something happens that proclaims that Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

The key changes from the minor to the major.  The tune changes too.  The tempo is upbeat and the somber crowd marches back into town with a new vigour in their step because the band is playing “When the Saints Go Marching In!”

They know that people will mourn them and mourn them well.  They know that lilies will be laid on their grave.  They know that they are the saints who will come marching in.

Lord, I want to be in that number. When the saints come marching in.  And because of Christ, we will be.  We will be.
________________

1. Mario Sulivan, “The Meaning behind the Song: No One Mourns the Wicked by Kristin Chenoweth,” Beat Crave, July 12, 2024, https://beatcrave.com/w2/the-meaning-behind-the-song-no-one-mourns-the-wicked-by-kristin-chenoweth

2. Martin E. Marty, A Cry of Absence Reflections for the Winter of the Heart (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1983).

3. St. John 11:6. (NRSV) [NRSV= The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition]

4. St. John 11:21-22. (MESSAGE) [The Message=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).

5. St. John 11:22. (NIV) [NIV= The New International Version]

6. St. John 11:25. (NRSV)

7. St. John 11:32. (NRSV)

8. Debie Thomas, “When Jesus Weeps,” Journey with Jesus, October 28, 2018, https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/1999-when-jesus-weeps.

9. St. John 10:44. (NRSV)

10, St. John 10:44 (MESSAGE)

Followers