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).

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/?

 

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)

Reformation B - "Truth"

"Truth"

Jeremiah 31:31-34 and St. John 8:31-36

Believe this or not, carved in stone in the lobby of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia are the words:  “And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free – John 8:32.”

They were placed there at the insistence of John W. Dulles who was then the longest serving director of the C.I.A. and who took such a personal interest in the construction of the building that, in addition to quoting the text in his speech at the dedication of the headquarters, he insisted that the quotation be fixed in stone in the lobby.1

While I don’t know Dulles’ faith background I do know before his job at the C.I.A. he was appointed Secretary of State by President Dwight D. Eisenhower who famously said:  "In other words, our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is."2

So, the etched in stone biblical reference may only be an example of what I like to call, “the piety of the Potomac” in which politicians from both sides take a low sweeping bow toward a faith they do not practice.  Or, it may have been that Dulles believed the central mission of the C.I.A. was to get to the truth wherever it could be found.

It really doesn’t matter because the “truth” the C.I.A. was looking for in the cloak-and-dagger, spy-versus-spy, world of national intelligence is not the same thing Jesus was talking about when he addressed his followers or the crowd listening in on that day. However, it may be particularly important to us in our day when we face a national election where there is a lot at stake.

For us “truth” has become an elusive commodity.  In the past few years we have heard people say with straight face that there are “facts” and there are “alternative facts.”  Reminding me of what the late Senator from New York, a darling of both conservatives and liberals, Daniel Patrick Moynihan  said once: “There is a center in American politics. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”3

We have been exposed to politicians who seem to be cheerfully indifferent to the truth.  But there are truths in this life. 

I know 440 vibrations per second produces the pitch of A.  

I know that in major league baseball the distance between the pitching rubber on the mound and home plate is 60 feet 6 inches.  

I know that gravity exists even though sometimes, for me, that belief takes irrational forms.

When my friends decided that one of the things we just had to do when we visited Australia was take on the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb my belief in gravity was in high gear.  What they ask you to do, and I am proud to say I did, was climb up the infrastructure of this iconic bridge on platforms that are no wider than 3/4th the size of this pulpit (but seem a lot smaller) to the very top which is 440 feet above the water.  

I was convinced that even though I was connected to a steel guide rope by a tether, which seemed to me to be a little cheesy, at any moment a gust of wind would catch me off guard, my connection to the bridge would be severed, and my belief in gravity would be proved correct as I plunged into the waters below enjoying a last but spectacular glimpse of the Sydney Opera house in my final earthly moments before I hit the water and landed safe in the heavenly arms of Jesus.

My point, now highly belabored, is that there are truths and there are religious truths.   There is a huge difference between believing that gravity is real and hitting water or anything else from a great height and believing that you will find yourself face to face with your Saviour who might be asking you, “What in the world were you thinking?”

The truth that sets us free is not who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, that is the stuff of spy craft.  The truth that sets us free is that Jesus is “truth incarnate, and he exposes the hatred, the selfishness, and the lies that enslave us. He does not merely forgive our sins; he promises us to liberate us from them and make us free to follow him instead.”4

That is what the learned ones in Jesus’ day and some in our day simply can’t see.  When we place our faith in our heritage and identity, we delude ourselves like Jesus’ opponents.  “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said, “and have never been slaves to any man on earth! What do you mean, ‘set free’?”5

As The Rev’d Tom Are, the interim pastor at Fourth Church, said a couple of weeks ago in a sermon.

I don’t think anyone in this room, regardless of your party, celebrates where facts are ignored, or denied, or invented.  None of us wants that. [When] politicians appear to use deception as a political strategy, it is harmful. Today, particularly in our public life, many profess beliefs that are contrary to the facts.  They do so as if such creative narratives hold no negative consequences, but they are wrong.  We can hold convictions that are larger than the facts, but we cannot hold convictions that are contrary to fact without damaging the community.6

Jesus was bringing them and us back to the real issue.  He is the truth that sets us free.  

It is a law, to paraphrase Jeremiah, that is written on our hearts.  It is the promise that we do not need any lesser god coming in the form of a common politician, or entertainer, or businessman turned politician, to save us, for we have been saved by nothing less than the grace revealed in Jesus Christ.

That is the truth we know and that is the truth that can set us free.  All the other “truths” will just wear us down, like the person from Pennsylvania who was quoted in a recent edition of The Atlantic saying. 

“I don’t pay attention to politics; I’ll be honest. I’d sooner watch Barney Miller. I can’t wait ’til November’s over so I can watch regular commercials about what razors to buy.”7

  Perhaps this was said in nervous jest but I think what the person was looking for was some truth in the midst of all the commotion.

And so that is what we must offer, truth in the midst of the commotion.  

“Tell the truth. Double down on truth. Keep speaking the truth. And at the same time no matter how tough things seem to be and how fearful the days ahead might seem let’s not turn our backs on each other."

Let the spies spy on each other.  Let the politicians duke it out in the public square.  We know which ones are making things up out of whole cloth and which ones are not.

We don’t have to listen to them, but we need to listen to each other. 

Listen to each other. Listen to the cries of the broken. Embrace the despondent. Stand in solidarity with them, pray with them. That’s the work of the church. And if we do this, we will endure whatever storm may come. If we do this there will always be hope.8

Hope grounded in the one whom we know to be truth, the truth that sets us free, Jesus Christ our Lord.

________________

1.  “About the Bible Quote Carving,” Central Intelligence Agency, accessed October 25, 2024, https://www.cia.gov/legacy/headquarters/bible-quote-carving/.

2. Dwight Eisenhower, “Quotes,” Eisenhower Presidential Library (Eisenhowerlibrary.gov), accessed October 14, 2022, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/eisenhowers/quotes#:~:text=%22In%20other%20words%2C%20our%20form,t%20care%20what%20it%

3. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “More Than Social Security Was at Stake,” The Washington Post, January 17, 1983.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/01/18/more-than-social-security-was-at-stake/87951725-8bfb-426d-933a-dbf1ad94f981/

4. Judith Jones, “Commentary on John 8:31-36,” Working Preacher , November 11, 2020, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/reformation-day/commentary-on-john-831-36-14.

5. St. John 8:33. (TLB) [TLB= The Living Bible (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1971]

6. Tom Are, Jr., “Truth Known and Truth Believed (Don’t Confuse Them!).” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, 29 September 2024.

7. George Packer, “The Three Factors That Will Decide the Election,” The Atlantic, October 23, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/how-win-pennsylvania/680302/.

8. Scott Black Johnson, “Give Us a King #7 - A Goat's Song.” Sermon preached at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York. 20 October 2024.

Pentecost 22B - "The Doctor is In"

 Saint Luke 1:1-4 & 24:44-53

Today we celebrate the day in which we remember the life and work of Saint Luke who we believe wrote the Gospel that bears his name, was a physician, and because of his work in both fields has the high honour of having this church and many others named after him.

In that sense he reminded me of another physician turned author, Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland who had the same dual careers of author and physician.  In his first book he told of why he decided to become a doctor. 

Before there were two digits in my age, I had seen the hope (I choose the word deliberately) that a doctor’s presence brings to a worried family.

There were several frightening experiences during my mother’s long illness... [Where] the mere knowledge that someone had gone to the drugstore phone to call the doctor and the word that he was on the way, changed the atmosphere in our small apartment from terrified helplessness to a secure sense that somehow the dreadful situation could be made right.

That man — the man who stepped across the threshold with a smile and an air of competence, who called each of us by name, who understood that beyond anything else we needed reassurance, and whose very entrance into our home conveyed it — that was the man I wanted to be.1

 Nuland’s childhood physician did who not have a modicum of medications, and tests, and procedures that our physicians had.  In fact, in another book, The Uncertain Art, he himself reflected on the fact that for most of his career as a physician he lived without most of the diagnostic tools doctors have at their disposal today.  

Obviously, St. Luke was working with even less.  There was very little in his black bag, if he even had one, to bring.  All he could probably do in his day was stride across the threshold armed only with air of confidence and the reassurance that the dreadful situation could be made right.

Is it any wonder why Saint Luke was drawn to Jesus?  His skill, his kindness, his air of confidence that things could be made better must had been what attracted him to this man who seemed to be a better physician than Saint Luke would ever hope to be in his life.

So, when Luke sat down to write his orderly account to a person whose background to this day remains unknown but who name meant “friend of God” he does so with the precision of a physician looking into the background of a patient and the soul of a poet.

You may not realize it, but it is Saint Luke we have to thank for all the trappings of our Christmas story.  With the precision of Bob Woodward some of the more imaginative among us like to believe he sat down with many of the characters who were involved to get the “deep background” on exactly what happened.  

Matthew did a great job telling us about the doubts and faith of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, but St. Luke broadens out the cast of characters to people whose words affect us and inspire us to this day.

So, Luke gives us the encounter of Mary with the Angel Gabriel who tells her that if she goes along with the plan he is proposing she will give birth to a wonderous child.  Luke brings us right into the room where that tense conversation happened. Gabriel first tells her not to be afraid – for in his announcement there is much to be afraid of – and then has to wait, and wait, and wait until Mary finally, after some difficult questions, for Mary to say “Yes.”

Then Dr. Luke takes us to the house of her cousin Elizabeth already heavily pregnant with the one we will know as John the Baptist. Elizabeth, who upon seeing Mary “spoke out with a loud voice and said, ‘blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”2  These words along with Luke’s recorded greeting of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, “Mary, full of grace." gives us the words of the second most recited prayer in all of Christendom, the “Hail Mary” which, in addition to being what fans call the last ditch effort in any sport, has been on the lips of the faithful for centuries, “Hail, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.” 

Elizabeth’s assurance gives Mary the strength to sing of her hopes for her child, this very special child. “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.  He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.”3

The Good Doctor, Saint Luke, through Mary’s magnificent song is telling us what Jesus was to be about.

And most of all, Saint Luke gives us the Christmas Story.  It maybe the reason we leave the dishes in the sink and put on our winter coats to hurry off to a late evening worship on Christmas Eve. We venture out into the darkness to hear again the story of an imperial decree which forces a heavily pregnant Mary and her faithful husband Joseph to take a journey to Bethlehem where Jesus was born in a manger “because there was no room for them in the inn.”4

Aren’t you glad that Doctor Luke left his surgery and took time to give us all the images we love so much at Christmas?  Shepherds, angel choruses, we have Luke’s hard work to thank for these.  

But even more important for this day is that when decades pass in the life of our Lord, and we find him staring at his cousin John the Baptist the “voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’”5

John was preaching and baptizing.  And the people came. They left furrow in the field and the bread in the oven to hear John preach and be baptized by him. Then, St. Luke tells us, “when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”6

Today we are going to react the scene St. Luke gave us.  Like the people in St. John the Baptist’s day who marched down to the river Jordan we are going to march to the back of this church and the baptismal font hymnals in hand, singing. Then we are going to affirm our baptismal promises and baptize Miles, surrounded by his parents, and Sydney’s classmates, their parents, and you, the people of God.

We are going to celebrate that all of us who have been dunked, or dipped, or sprinkled, or spayed by the waters of baptism have heard the same promise that was said to Jesus at his baptism: ““You are my Son[my daughter], chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”7

We’ll hear those words spoken over Miles as they were once spoken over us. And we’ll have Saint Luke to thank for putting down whatever tools doctors used in those days and taking the time to record them for us so that in every dreadful situation of terrified helplessness we’ll have the reassurance that “the Lord is with us” and that marked with Christ’s love we are his chosen, his delight.

________________

1.  Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1995), 247.

2. St. Luke 1:42. (NKJV) [NKJV=The New King James Version]

3. St. Luke 1:42. (NKJV)

3. St. Luke 1:42. (NKJV)

4. St. Luke 2:7. (NKJV)

5. St. Luke 3:4b (NKJV)

6. St. Luke 3:21–22. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Edition Updated Edition]

7. St. Luke 3:22b. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).