"Holy Family Dynamics" - Christmas 1C

Saint Luke 2:41-52

The Saturday before last my partner and I went downtown to the Christkindle Market in Daley Center.  By Chicago standards it was a mild Saturday evening and the place was packed.  It was cheek to check packed.  If someone would have fallen down or had passed out the market would have been closed by the time they were found.

Times like that always make me smile and remember what I was told to do as a little kid if I got lost.  My Uncle Herb’s first rule on becoming separated was that I was to “stop and stay”.

The theory behind this is simple: If two people are wandering around looking for each other it becomes like Brownian motion - two people, in this case, just wandering around and perhaps even passing each other without either one knowing it. While if one just stops and the other does the searching all the searcher has to do is retrace his or her steps and allowing for a reunion to take place more quickly. 

This is exactly what today’s gospel is about. 

But I must warn you that I have read countless sermons and articles on this reading and most of them have missed how very human the whole business is while they focused on the divine.
The facts are simple.

Mary, Joseph, Jesus and a whole group of relatives, friends and neighbors from back home are making their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem in a first century tour group for the Passover.

The city is as crowded as the Daley Center was and somehow, someway, Jesus becomes separated from his parents.  The text says only that he remained in Jerusalem but whether it was by accident or choice remains unclear.  What is clear is that the whole party was a day’s journey out of town before it was discovered that Jesus was missing.

Anyone who is a parent or who has ever been charged with the care of a child knows all about the mixture of fear and anger Mary and Joseph must have felt.  The overwhelming fear that some harm may have befallen their son mixed with the anger of a parent who says: “I hope he’s okay because when I find him, I’m going to kill that kid!”

That last option was not open to Mary and Joseph because of the divine nature of this story.  While they were frantically searching every wagon and asking every relative and friend if they had see Jesus  Mary was remembering the visit from the solitary angel named Gabriel, the shepherds, and finally the multitudes of angels who hailed her son’s birth.

Joseph was remembering his visit from that same angel, and three years later, the wise men. \

I cannot believe that at this moment Mary and Joseph were serene people of prayer with hearts and minds at peace.  No, they were remembering and they were worried because it was not just their son but the son who had been entrusted to them by God who was missing.

There is only one thing to do but make the long journey back to Jerusalem.  Two exhausting days of traveling and worrying.  Two sleepless nights spent tossing and turning.  Then another day searching in shops, and markets, and anywhere else they could think of asking everyone they had met if they had see their son.  Frantically they searched for Jesus.

Finally they try the temple maybe to look and maybe to pray. And when they do, lo and behold, there is their son sitting among the teachers asking questions and amazing eavesdroppers with his understanding.

Mary is not as impressed as the other and instead expresses her relief and frustration in one loaded sentence: “My child, why have you done this to us?”

Do you hear the guilt in that question?  It is almost as if she is saying:  “Why have you done this to us?  Why have you made us suffer so?”

Then Mary continues: “See how worried your father and I have been looking for you.”  Now she is bringing Joseph into it.  “Its bad enough you have done this to me but look at what you have done to your father. You know he was never sure about this whole business in the first place and now you’ve made him a nervous wreck.”

This is real family dynamics at its best. Not Holy Family dynamics but real family dynamics because all of us in this room have been involved in the same type of situations and conversations.

Every child who has ever stayed out too late or forgot to call home to tell his or her parents where they were or that they had arrived safely has heard, “We were so worried.”

And every parent has had to endure the kind of answer Jesus gives.  “Why were you searching for me?”

You can almost hear Joseph, can’t you?  “Why? Why? I’ll tell you why! What did you expect us to do? Were we supposed to go home and wait for you to show up?  You’re twelve years old pal!”

To add fuel to the family dynamic fire that is now raging Jesus says: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house. But they did not understand what he said to them.”

And neither do we because we load so much theological baggage onto this encounter that we fail to see the reasonableness of his response.

What was he supposed to do, check into an inn? He was a little young for that and besides, his previous experience with inns and innkeepers had not been that pleasant.

No, when he was separated from his parents he headed for the safest place in town, the temple. Here is would be sheltered, secure, and cared for until his parents showed up.

This is the only story we have of Jesus between the time of his infancy to his adulthood. So, it leaves one to wonder why it, above all others, is remembered.

I have no proof of this but I think that, as he grew, Jesus told this story to any who would hear to remind himself just how much his earthly family loved him. That even though his family may not have understood what he was up to, or even approved of what he said or did, they still loved him enough to search every nook and cranny of Jerusalem until they found him.

And I think he told us to remind us that there wasn’t anything in this life that he did not experience.  He told it to remind us that now God knows that even the simplest of family outings can turn into disasters of frustrations and frazzled nerves. 
Several years ago someone gave me a sermon preached by Dr. Frederich Niedner of Valparaiso University.  In this sermon he quoted from a seven year old child’s letter to God:

Dear God,
 I worry about you since you must not have a family the way we do. You must get real lonely. How about sharing my family? They argue a lot but they’re good to have mostly.
     Love,
     Ann Marie

  “That’s it,” Niedner wrote, “we argue a lot but we’re good to have mostly.  In Jesus God did come to make a home with us and be family with us. Here we discover that our love and our capacity to forgive is bigger and stronger than all our arguments put together.”

That is what Jesus taught at twelve and teaches still. There will be times when we feel like we have been left behind.  There will be times when our lives and schedules will be as crowded and confusing as the Christkindle market during Advent or Jerusalem at Passover. But it is just there where God has promised to be with us.

Jesus came to remind us that we are part of God’s family - God’s confusing and confused; God’s wandering and wonderful family; God bemusing and blessed family - all wrapped up in the love of God who came to be family with us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

That is the best news for all of us who have ever been caught us in the same crazy family dynamics that the Holy Family was on their annual outing to Jerusalem. Don’t you think?

Thanks for listening.

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1. St. Luke 2:48b (JB) [JB = The Jerusalem Bible]

2.  St. Luke 2:49a (NRSV) [NRSV = The New Revised Standard Version]

3.  St. Luke 2:49 (NRSV)

“The Triumph over Anger and Fear” - The Reign of Christ

Saint John 18:33-37

Unless you pay particular attention to the opening credits of  television’s most popular comedy series you don’t know this man’s name.

I didn’t either until a couple of weeks ago when he was profiled on CBS Sunday Morning. 

Chuck Lorrie is the creator of some of the most popular TV comedies “in the past three decades, including the original ‘Rosanne,’ ‘Cybill,’ ‘Grace Under Fire,’ ‘Mike and Molly,” and ‘Two-and-a-Half Men.’”

Even if you are a news, sports, and British mystery guy like me while you may have never watched more than a minute of these programs you have heard of them.

“And that’s not even counting what [Lorrie] has got going on now.  ‘Young Sheldon,’ ‘Mom,’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ [three shows that [together] average more than 40 million viewers a week.”

Even as Lorrie was making viewers laugh he was making co-workers cower with his infamous explosive temper that once got him labeled “The angriest man in television.” 
 

He’s mellowed over the years and now refers to himself as a Teddy Bear.  

In a reflective moment he looked back at his tumultuous years and said: “Fear for me exhibits as anger.  ‘Cause I am not going to show you fear; I’m going to show you anger.”1

It seems to me that there is a lot of fear exhibiting itself as anger in today’s Gospel.
We can see the fear on the angry faces of almost every member of the cast in order of appearance.

Anger is there on the face of Pontius Pilate who had been awakened at an early morning hour by a mob with a prisoner.  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 ware not his supporters and Pilate was afraid that it is possible to lose control of this angry mob very quickly.  If word of a Jewish 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.

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.   

However, 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 bating them and appealing to their sense of tribalism.

We know all about that.  A leader who may be afraid keeps showing us his anger.  Exploit divisions that may already exist and make them deeper.  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.  

Herod the King had curried their favor by rebuilding their temple.  He didn’t do it out of any sense of religious obligation but because he saw the financial advantages.  If the temple was magnificent people would flock to it and tourism in Jerusalem would prosper. 

While the religious leaders saw the temple as the center of their worship life Herod saw it as his Disneyland.  For him it was a tourist attraction.  Think of it like that re-construction of Noah’s Ark in Kentucky.

With political leaders there is always a catch.  For Herod the catch was this: He would build them a temple and they would give him peace.  They would be free to practice their religion any way they wanted so long as they didn’t question the authority of the state. 

If Herod found out that they were swearing their allegiance to another king there would be trouble.  Big trouble.  The people knew that!  Even Pilate knew that!  That is why he uses the title “King” for Jesus.  

If the designation of Jesus as king was done to get the Romans involved they were now and their involvement was a two edged sword.  Their fear and anger has forced the people into a Hobson’s choice.  Is Jesus their king or is Caesar their king?  Choose Caesar and deny their faith.  Choose Jesus and lose whatever freedom they had.

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 believe that anybody who opposes them should be locked 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 some to see a  group so small that it wouldn’t even fill the average minor league ballpark as a national security threat.  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.
He will actually be doing the will of the high priest Caiphais who fear is so great of this itinerant carpenter that, in a moment of frenzy, he says to the crowd:  “You know nothing at all!  Nor do you understand that it is expedient and politically advantageous for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.”3

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.

Amidst the anger and fear of his crucifixion Jesus is about to show us a kingdom not built on anger and fear but a kingdom based on something else.  God reign and rule begins with an act of redemption and love.

It begins with a conversation between Jesus and the two thieves hanging on either side of him.  One is fearful and angry that Jesus won’t save himself and them.  The other’s fear is not turned into anger but trust and absolute dependence.   All he asks is that Jesus remember him.  All he wants to do is to be remembered.  In his fear of God all he desires is not to be forgotten.  

Jesus promised him more than that.  “Today you will be with me in Paradise. This is a solemn promise.” Jesus says.

That is Jesus promise to us not for sometime, somewhere, out there but for here and now.
When fear manifests itself as anger Jesus shows us a better way. Even from the cross he shows us that the way of God is the way of love that is so deep, and broad, and high that it can embrace the two thieves on either side of him.  

Jesus is showing us that God’s love can’t be defeated by anger or fear but always triumphs. 

Jesus shows us that God’s love always has the last word.  Jesus shows us that even in the darkest hours of our national or personal lives God’s love will triumph. 

It will triumph over despots, the Pilates of our day.  It will triumph of the mindless amid the crowds that march out of fear born of anger.  We hold on to faith that tells us that God’s love will ultimately win.

In Jesus we know that the love of God is for every single one of us.  In Jesus we discover that God’s love is a stunning, beautiful, expansive love that is for everybody, everywhere.
It’s for you.  Yes, it’s even for me.  It’s for us when we are fearful and yes, even angry.  God’s love never fails. 

That is something that can give us a glimpse of paradise on this Sunday we celebrate the Reign and Rule of Christ.  Christ’s love can reign over fear and anger on this Sunday,  every Sunday, and every day of our lives if we would only allow it.   Don’t you think?

Thanks for listening. 

_______________

1.  Tony Dokoupil, writer, "’Big Bang Theory’ Creator Chuck Lorrie Reflects on His New Netflix Series," on CBS Sunday Morning, CBS, November 4, 2018.

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

3.  St.  John 11:49b-50.  (AMP) [AMP = The Amplified Bible ]

Sermon preached at Faith Lutheran Church 

Bellingham, Washington

"Never 'Reformationed Out'" - Reformation Sunday 2018

Saint Mark 10:46-53

Last year was a very big year for all things Reformation.

You would have been hard pressed to squeeze yourself into one of the numerous tours of the Luther lands in Germany.  There were several books about Luther published.  Even the Presbyterian church I attend in Chicago had me do a three week presentation on Luther’s life and works. 

They also had a replica built of a church door like the one at the castle church in Wittenberg and invited people to place “post-it” notes about things they would like to see “reformed” in the church.  This made the pastors on staff nervous for fear that someone would suggest that a good place to start would be to fire them all.  Nobody in the congregation did.
The pastor of the Lutheran church Lowell and I worship at in Bellingham, Washington said that when the big day was finally over  she was “all Reformationed out.”

Major anniversaries can do that to you.  They can wear you out planning for them, reading about them, and then celebrating them when the day finally arrives.  They can all get to be a little much.

Minor Anniversaries don’t effect us that way.  The 501st anniversary of the Reformation will not raise very many eyebrows.  We may sing great hymns, have a fine brass choir, celebrate with balloons and a special cake but I’ll bet you could have booked a trip to the Luther lands this year for half the price you would have paid last year. 

I think that minor anniversaries may be more important than major anniversaries because they remind us that we have managed to keep being the church for another year. 
Today’s Gospel tells us what the church needs to keep doing year after year, day after day.

The personification of the needs of the world comes to us in the form of a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.

Considering he is one of societies outcasts we know more about him that any other recipients of Jesus’ miracles.

We not only know his name but his father’s name and, considering his present condition, they may seem to be an oxymoron.  “Bar means “son of” in Aramaic and timao means honor, so Bartimaecus means, “son of honor.”1

This “son of honor” is sitting by the side of the road begging.  He is a person in need whom the crowd no longer sees.  His blindness has made him an outcast who calls for help fall on deaf ears until Jesus comes along and listens.

The first thing the church offers to the world is a God who listens.  Who stops and pays attention to our needs. 

When Jesus stopped, you can bet that his disciples stopped and then the whole crowd stopped. Everybody stopped for this guy who they saw as a nobody from nowhere.  They stopped because the man was shouting. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

You can imagine their reaction.  Think of how you would feel if you were in a crowd of people and someone started yelling.  I know that my first inclination would be to do what that crowd did.  I’d try to get the guy to be quiet, to pipe down, or at least use his inside voice.

Jesus doesn’t do that.  He stops.  Jesus sees him for who he really is.  The man is  a son of honor who is in trouble.  Jesus wants the crowd and us to see him that way too.  So he gives them the task of bringing the man closer to Jesus. 

That is the second job of the church.  It is to, quite simply, bring people closer to Jesus.  To hear Jesus say to the least, the lost, and the lonely, “What can I do for you?”

If you were here last week and have a very good memory you’ll remember that this is the same question Jesus asks of James and John when they asked him for the best seats in the house.  They wanted to be seen and envied but they didn’t get what they wanted. 

Bartimaeus just wants to see and maybe for the first time in his life be seen as a member of the community rather than an outcast.  Bartamaus doesn’t want to be extraordinary he just wants to be ordinary.  All he wants to do is just see.  He doesn’t want to rule over others, he just wants to join them in their experience of a normal life.

Jesus has the crowd bring Bartimaeus closer so that they could, maybe for the first time in a long time, see him. Jesus was forcing them to pay some attention to the needs of this blind beggar.
There is a part Bartimaeus plays in this little drama as well.  It is such a small part that we might miss it.  Saint Mark tells us that: “Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.”2
That cloak was everything to Bartimaeus.  It not only kept him warm but it was spread out to catch the coins of the occasional passersby who took pity on him.  It was his only visible means of support.
That is the third job of the church and for the church in our day and it is a very tough task.  

In Luther’s day the people were burdened by life in general - dirty streets, drafty homes, terrible sanitation.  Life in the sixteenth, or even nineteenth century was barbaric compared to ours.  So when the people heard of a new notion of God who was love and grace instead of offering more hardship and judgement is it any wonder they flocked to it.

Now things are more difficult for the church.  People like us think they have it pretty good.  They have two cars in the garage and a nice house in a nice place.  They may be worried about what is going on in the world and would like to live in quieter, more peaceful times, but the economy is good and chances are very high that we will survive all of this as we have survived much worse in the past.  
Their cloaks are fitting just fine, thank you very much, and their schedules are so packed that they just don’t have an hour to give up to read or watch television much less to get up, get out of bed, get dressed, and get to church to get a little Jesus.

Bartimaeus may have been blind but he was notblind to his needs.

Today it is just the other way around.  People can see but think their needs will be met by a big breakfast, a long coffee and the paper at the local Starbucks, a walk in the park, another hour at the health club, or just watching the Sunday morning gabfests on television. 

Dr. Eugene Peterson, who recently passed away, and who was the man who gave us the excellent paraphrase of Scripture called The Message that I quote from often, would tell people who think church is just another something on their to-do lists, what they are missing out on.  In leaving his job as a professor of Greek and Hebrew for a job as a pastor he said:

“In the church everything was going every which way all the time — dying, being born, divorces, kids running away. I suddenly realized that this is where I really got a sense of being involved and not just sitting on the sidelines as a spectator but being in the game.”3

The final job for the church is the biggest gift Jesus gave Bartimaeus.  He gave him his sight but he also got him back in the game.  He was restored to his community. He was restored to his rightful position as a “son of honor,” a child of God.  He was given a new life.  

That’s what the church offers to people when they come and follow Jesus.
Bartimaeus’ story doesn’t end there.  His story never ends.   

“‘On your way,’ said Jesus. ‘Your faith has saved and healed you.’ In that very instant he recovered his sight and followed Jesus down the road.”

We almost never get a name for anybody who was healed by Jesus.  They get their healing, receive what they need, and fade back into the anonymous faces of the  crowd.  We never get to know who they are, or their family, or anything about them.

Bartamaeus is different.  We not only know his name but we know his family of origin.  Why?  Because he followed Jesus down the road.  He went with him on the way.

Dr. William H. Willimon suggest that the reason Bartamaeus’ name was remembered was because “even as the story was being told in the early church, Bartimaeus was there.” He followed.

 “Healing? Yes. It happened to one of us. You know old Bartimaeus?”

 “Bartimaeus, Sunday school superintendent over at Rock Creek Church?” 

 “Yep. He was one.”

“One who was healed?  One who Jesus touched and cured?

 “Yep.”4

Every time someone throws off their cloak of self-sufficiency and follows Jesus there is a reformation.  Every time someone leaves the pressures of the world and follows Jesus there is a reformation.  Every time someone sees themself as a child of honor rather than one of the world’s outcasts there is a reformation.  Every time someone, any one, any where is following Jesus there is a reformation.

So we celebrate this day not only the 501st Anniversary of that Reformation started by Martin Luther but we celebrate this day the continuing reformation in all of our lives started by Jesus Christ when he said, “Follow me!”

Maybe if we see Reformation not as a once a year event but something that is continuing this day and every day we’ll never be all reformationed out.

Don’t you think?  Thanks for listening.

__________

1.  Richard Donovan, "What Do You Want Me To Do For You?" Sermon Writer: Making Preaching More of a Joy! 22, no. 10 (October 9, 2018): , October 9, 2018, accessed October 26, 2018, https://www.sermonwriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-10-28-Proper25B.doc.

2.  St. Mark 10:50.  (NIV) [NIV= The New International Version ]

3.  Emily McFarlane Miller, "Ministry Matters,” Eugene Peterson, Author of The Message and Pastor to Other Pastors, Dies at Age 85", October 23, 2018, , accessed October 26, 2018, https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9307/eugene-peterson-author-of-the-message-and-pastor-to-other-pastors-dies-at-age-85.

4.  St. Mark 10:52. (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

5.  William H. Willimon, "Faith to Follow," Pulpit Resource, B, 43, no. 4 (October 25, 2015), p. 19.

Sermon preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church

Aurora