Shepherd > Sheep > Shepherd - Easter 4C

Psalm 23
Saint John 10:22-30 & 21:15-19

At the Tuesday Morning Bible Study I attend one of the members wondered about the effectiveness of street preachers.

I must confess that, as yet, I haven’t spent enough time in Aurora to have run into any but I am sure they are there.  In downtown Chicago it is impossible to walk four blocks without seeing or hearing one.

They are easy to spot with their signs that usually read something like “Repent or Die” or “The Wages of Sin is Death” and their bullhorn blasts condemning all who pass by to the fires of hell unless they embrace Jesus in the exact same way they have embraced Jesus.

My bible study friend, one of the kindest men I know, wondered if they get any takers.  He wondered if people really respond to their message.  He wondered if anybody ever went up to them and engaged in conversation.  He wondered if their efforts led to any converts. 

While everyone in the group had seen street preachers none had actually spoken to one.  They usually give them a wide berth and pass by.  If they run into one they say something like, “I’m late.  I gotta go.” Or, and I’ve never dared to use this one on anybody who was abrasive but I would love to someday, “I’m sorry, I’d like to stay and chat but I think my appendix just burst.”

I am not so sure that bellowing at people on a street corner while waving a big bible in their faces is the best way to share the faith.  

I prefer the way depicted in the picture above where one sheep says to another about the shepherd.  “What I like most about him is that he never tells you to stay in line but asks you to stay in line.” 

The fact is, beside the sheep, shepherds in Jesus day couldn’t make or even ask anybody to stay in line.  According to Fr. Raymond Brown:

To modern romantics the shepherds described [in Scripture] take on the gentleness of their flocks... In fact, in Jesus’ time shepherds were often considered as dishonest, outside the law.1

 No matter their keepers’ reputation sheep needed somebody who would care for them and these outsiders took on that responsibility.  They cared for the sheep isolated from society - keeping watch over the flock not only by night but by day.  The relationship between sheep and their shepherds was an intimate one.

Roy Howard, Pastor of Saint Mark’s Presbyterian Church in North Bethesda, Maryland once got a real lesson on sheep/shepherd relationships by a infuriated man in his congregation who insisted that sheep were not dumb.

He was offended that I would speak of sheep in such derogatory terms. (He didn’t say anything about humans.) When I told him that I was repeating what had been told to me by another farmer, who was also a member of the congregation whose family he knew well. He replied, “Huh! Well, that explains it! He is cattleman who doesn’t know a thing about sheep.” Then he said with confidence that sounded like love, “I know sheep and they know me. They do as I say, because they know who I am.”2

 That’s the kind of shepherd we have in Jesus. 

He’s is not seen as one of societies high and mighty but rather as someone who really is on the fringes.  He is a carpenter turned wandering rabbi who goes about teaching in humility about goodness and mercy.

He is not like some of the others.  He doesn’t condemn like the street preacher - telling us all the ways we have fallen short.  He encourages us.  He doesn’t tell us to stay in line.  He doesn’t even ask us to stay in line.  He shows us how to stay in line.  We listen to what he says because the way he says things makes us want to follow him.

We will go wherever he leads us because we trust him.

Think of the most peaceful place you have ever been, Jesus is there.  Think of the darkest time you have ever faced.  Jesus is there, too.  Not only does Jesus never leave our side or leave us out of his sight he never even lets us slip out of his hand.

Wouldn’t it be great if the street preachers were proclaiming that?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were saying: “Did you know that somebody loves you?”  Wouldn’t it be great if the primary message coming from every church was not one of judgement but rather: “Did you know there is nothing you can do to break the bonds of God’s love?”

That’s the message of Jesus but it is a message the comes with  great responsibility.

That is why I added the end of the gospel from last week to this weeks lesson. 

Here Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him and each time Peter answers with a stronger and stronger “yes.”  Then Jesus gives him something to do:  “Feed My Sheep.” “Tend My Lambs.” 

The good shepherd has made us, his sheep, into shepherds.  We are to care for others the same way that Jesus has cared for us.

I owe this insight to a pastor friend of mine who wrote in a recent devotion for his church.

Admitting that there were times when he “struggled with issues that have seemed overwhelming and insurmountable.”

A marriage that was not working. A child with special needs. A vocation in which I felt inadequate and ill-equipped. These were the times when I felt completely alone and cried out for a Savior. But I saw no savior come in obvious or dramatic ways. It was through a counselor, a social worker at our child’s school, an inspired idea that mysteriously came at just the right time, a group of fellow strugglers who let me know I was not alone after all. And it was often during worship when my eyes were opened to the Source of all these blessings. Through a sermon preached that mysteriously spoke to exactly what I was going through; a scripture that was read; an anthem or hymn that was sung.3

My guess is that this is how most of us have had Christ come to us. 

Christ did not come in the harsh harangues of the street corner, fire-and-brimstone, preacher but by the words and deeds of other sheep who know the shepherd and who are always with us, as our shepherds not telling us what to do but always watching, always willing us to turn in the right direction.

Christ comes in those who are willing to stand with us when wait for our life’s jigsaw journeys to come together.  Christ comes to us in those times when we wander, wonder, look for inspiration and find all that we need in the words and deeds of other sheep who know the shepherd.

That’s how it works.  The gospel is transmitted from Jesus, our good shepherd, to us sheep, so that we can becomes shepherds for one another. 

From Shepherd to sheep to shepherds is a better way to tell the story of God’s ever-lasting, never-ending, ever-living love than by blasting it at innocent passers-by through a bullhorn. 

Don’t you think?
 
____________

1. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. (New York: Doubleday, 2008), p. 420. 

2. Roy W. Howard, "This Is the Good Shepherd" (Sermon, Saint Mark's Presbyterian Church, North Bethesda, Maryland, May 10, 2019).
 http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/JOHN-10.2011.pdf

3.  David S. Handley, "Revelation 5:11-14," Daily Devotions, May 7`, 2019, , accessed May 11, 2019, http://www.fourthchurch.org/devotions/2019/050719.html.

Gone Fishin' - Easter 3C

Saint John 21:1-14

This may surprise you but one of this highest rated cable networks does not feature talking heads screaming at each other but rather “countdowns”.  In addition to “Countdown to Christmas” and “Countdown to Valentines Day” they also have mysteries such as (and I am not making this up) “Murder, She Baked,” “Morning Show Mysteries” and “Fixer Upper Mysteries.”  What we are talking about here is The Hallmark Channel.

 In the midst of television mayhem it is a pleasant place to be and I much confess that in troubled times I find myself turning to it more and more.  I like to because I know that no matter what I am watching everything will turn out fine in the end.  The answer to every promo on the channel is always “Yes.”

 “Will the woman who goes to Paris to start a vineyard and a man who is rebelling against his father who owns a winery fall in love?”  “Yes!”  “Will the local baker find the killer in her community with the help of a police detective who is also her love interest?”  “Yes!”  “Will the couple who buys houses, fixes them up, and sells them find love in the lumber yard?”  “Yes”  

 (Come to think of it all these promos need is a voice over by Marv Albert.  “Love from the three point line?  Yes!”)

 The feeling may come when we get the occasional glimpse of what could be but then look around and say to ourselves “as things were so shall the ever be, you can’t change nothing in this world.”

 The feeling may come when we have tried and tried our very best and still come up short.  It is then we may want to give up and give in, on a job, a relationship, even our future by just announcing that we’ve “gone fishin’”.

That is exactly what the disciples did.  They trudged back to exactly the same thing they were doing before Jesus called them to be his followers.

  

 They had a wonderful ride with him.  They heard some great ideas on how the world should be and saw things that were miraculous.  They were feeling that, like in a Hallmark movie, everything was going to be alright.  Then their friend who they tied their whole lives to had gone and gotten himself killed.

 The period of time for them that we commemorate with real Hallmark Easter cards was one of total confusion.  Jesus, keeps popping in and out of their lives.  A little of him here, a little there.  If he would stay in one spot everything would be fine but his buzzing about is more than a little upsetting.

 So they go back to the business they knew best - fishing.  This people fishing stuff didn’t seem to have much of a future to it so they go back to fish fishing.  It seemed like the reasonable thing to do.  It fits their skill set.

Now they are even having trouble even in their former trade.  They fish all night and come up with nothing.  They can’t even seem to get “going fishin” right.  Their empty nets must have seemed to them like a symbol for what they felt.  They must have felt like total failures unable to do something they knew how to do.   There is a real danger here that their failure may become permanent.  

 It’s that way for us too.  It comes in those moments when we have tried to make things better and have come up empty.  When even “going fishin” doesn’t seem to be working we may be tempted to ask ourselves who was I to believe that anything could change?  Who was I to think I could make a difference?  Who was I to think that it would be different this time?”  When we begin to think that failure will be permanent and that it will never get any better than this we scare ourselves stuck.1

 That is where the disciples were.  They were stuck on a boat, on a lake, with nothing to show for a nights worth of work.

 It is then that Jesus appears to them but only as a figure on the beach.  I think they didn’t recognize him because they were still staring at their empty nets and thinking about what failures they were.  It is only when they wiped the sorrow from their eyes and looked up could they hear him say, in one of my favorite paraphrases: “Any fish, boys?”2

 They have to admit that they have “gone fishin” and have caught nothing.

Then in almost a minute by minute, word for word, recreation of their original call in Saint Luke’s Gospel Jesus suggests that instead of being stuck they try another strategy.  He merely suggests that they might be fishing in the wrong spot.  He suggests that they move their nets to another spot and, wonder of wonders, they do!

Some people I know who love fishing tell me that this may be Jesus’ biggest post-resurrection miracle.  Based on the premise that “you can always tell a fisherman but you can’t tell them much” they contend that getting the disciples to listen and take his advice to move their nets was a huge miracle.  To get seasoned fisherman to admit that they might have been wrong about anything and give into someone else’s idea is big stuff indeed.  

When they do as their told and their nets are almost breaking someone calls out, “It is the Lord.”  Pandemonium ensues as the weight of all the fish in nets almost causes them to break.  Peter is leaping  through the water and the disciples are dragging their catch ashore.

 Over all the commotion Jesus invites them to come and have breakfast.  Jesus gives these tired, hungry, disciples who have “gone fishin” on him and maybe even the rest of their futures exactly what they need.

This is not a gourmet meal at Joe’s Seafood and Stone Crab, or Shaw’s, or even Red Lobster.  This is only some broiled fish and some  bread but coming from the hands of the Jesus, the master chef, it is more than enough to get them back on their feet and back on their journey.  It is enough to get them unstuck.

Easter is not a Hallmark movie.

 If we think that Easter and the risen Christ means that Jesus has erased all discouragement, frustration and failure from our world and from our lives, we will be sorely disappointed.  We will remain scared and stuck.  While we may go fishing on Jesus, Jesus will never go fishing on us.

When we are tempted to shrug our shoulders, walk away from his resurrection and go back to our everyday routines, Jesus will be there.  The promise of all the resurrection appearances is that even in the midst of our failures, Jesus shows up and gets us moving again.3

All we have to do is to look up from the empty fishing nets and see where Jesus is and then be willing to move to the place where Jesus wants to meet us so that he can give us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

 It’s not quite a Hallmark movie but for real life, real faith, real encounters with Jesus, it will have to be enough.  Because for those of us who have looked up and seen him, it is more than enough. 

Don’t you think?

____________

1.  Michael Bos. "Where Do I Go from Here?" Sermon, Sunday Morning Worship, Marble Collegiate Church, New York, New York, April 28, 2019.

2.  Saint John 21:5.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

3.  William H. Willimon, "Fishing, Failure, and a Future" Sermon, The Third Sunday of Easter, Year 3, Richmond, Virginia, May 4, 2019, May 1, 2019, accessed May 4, 2019, https://www.dropbox.com/s/zj9bma4dk75uohd/Will Willimon, John 21.pdf?dl=0.

"Doubting or Faithful" - Easter 2C

Saint John 20:19-31

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have my name mentioned specifically in a Sunday confession of the church.  I would be mortified!

I have enough trouble with the general confessions that we say every Sunday which remind me that I have sinned in “thought word and deed.”  That is general enough not to cause too much anxiety but when we get to something more specific like “we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves” I get more antsy.

You probably can breeze through all this without any problem  but I think of the shouting match I had with my real neighbor last week.  I think of the times I have yelled at my friends.  And please, don’t even mention the things I have said to people while driving!

The good thing is I have never been called out by name but poor Thomas has.

In the church we worshiped in on Palm Sunday here is what was said about him in the confession no less: “Thomas, servant of doubt, where are you?”  And we were all supposed to respond: “I am here!”1

How would you like to be known as a “servant of doubt”?  Sure, there are times when we all have doubts that creep in every once and awhile but we are not their servants.  On the contrary we’d like to get rid of them as soon as possible and get back to making this uncertain life as certain as possible.

Poor Thomas is forever stuck with the moniker “servant of doubt”. But what if he isn’t?  What if this whole episode is not about doubt but faithfulness?
The only thing Thomas is guilty of is absence on that first Easter evening when Jesus made one of his appearances to the whole group of disciples.  They were all gathered together but Thomas is not there.

Perhaps he got tired of the endless speculation about what happened.  Perhaps he was as confused - as we can sometimes be - by all the stories of resurrection encounters with Jesus.  Perhaps he was just tired of staring at the wallpaper and wondering what to do.  Perhaps he needed a breath of fresh air.  We don’t know what Thomas was doing. All we know for certain is that he wasn’t in the room when Jesus made his grand re-entry into the disciples’ lives.

Upon his return all Thomas does is wonder if what his friends are saying is true.

Remember, what they are telling him is that his friend Jesus who was stone cold, definitely dead a few days ago is running around making guest appearances to everybody Thomas knows.  Everybody that is but him. 

We’ve been celebrating Easter for all of our lives and while the story has not lost one bit of its power hearing it for the very first time must have been an entirely different matter.  This is not something that is taken in easily and Thomas is not sure he can believe it just based on word of mouth.

It is then, I believe, that faithfulness begins to appear.  It is visible and invisible.  Faithfulness is there in what is done and left undone.
The disciples who were there do not try to persuade Thomas that they are right and he is wrong.  They do not berate him for being gone when the big moment came.  They don’t even doubt the sincerity of his doubt.  They just keep the faith for him and isn’t that what we do?

I am sure that there were lots of people who came to this church last Sunday that we won’t see again until Christmas.  Where I used to attend we called them “CEO’s” for “Christmas and Easter Onlys.” 

We may wish they were here every Sunday.  We wish they would walk with us and discover that there is more to this Jesus guy than a manger full of baby and a tomb full of empty but they have decided that twice a year is plenty. 

Our job is to do for them what the disciples did for Thomas.  We are to keep the faith for them so that when they need it, when they want to have a real experience with Jesus, a place and a people will be there for them to do just that.

That is what the disciples did for Thomas and that is our work in the world - to remain faithful.

Thomas didn’t just doubt.  He hung around.  This is the second invisible moment in this story that we miss.

Thomas didn’t listen and dismiss the other’s story as being out of hand.  He didn’t say, “Ah, you’re nuts!” or “What have you been smoking?”  He stays with his community.  Even amid his doubts he sticks with his friends.  He lets their certainty buoy up his uncertainty. 

We do that for each other too.  In difficult times when those doubts begin to creep in, at our best, we are there for each other with a word of reassurance that all is not lost and God is not finished.  We can say this because of the faithfulness of Jesus. 

If you don’t remember anything else I say this morning remember this: Jesus was faithful too.  Jesus never gave up on Thomas! 

Jesus could have responded: “All right then, don’t take your friends word for it.  Don’t listen to them for all I care.”  He could have even said, “Listen I’m not going to subject myself to your cockamamie tests.  Either believe or don’t believe but don’t you be poking me.”

Instead Jesus says: “Whatever you need Thomas.  Poke, prod, ask, talk, do whatever you want.  While your doubts may have rocked your faith a little  I have never lost faith in you.”

It is then that the doubter, the one we have mistakenly labeled “the servant of doubt” makes “the supreme christological pronouncement of the Fourth Gospel” when he says: “My Lord and my God!”  This confession, this acclimation, these words go far beyond any titles bestowed anywhere else in the Gospels.  The greatest doubter has become the greatest believer.

As you know we follow a three year cycle of readings called the lectionary.  Very few stories appear more than twice, most only once but every year like clockwork on the second Sunday of Easter we have Thomas. 

As the sound of the trumpets have died out, as the crowds have returned to their normal size, there is the story of Thomas because he is us.

Sometimes we doubt.  Sometimes we believe.  Faith is a struggle.  It waxes and wanes.  Faith is sometimes strong and sometimes weak.

In this story we hear Jesus tell us.  “Yes, you weren’t there to see my miracles first hand but here you are in church anyway faithfully working your way through your doubts and opening your eyes to faith.”

When that moment comes and faithfulness triumphs over doubt maybe we will be able to say with Thomas - perhaps in a shout, perhaps only in a whisper - “My Lord and my God.”  And we’ll no longer be servants of doubt but servants of faith. 

Thanks for listening.

Sermon preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church

Aurora, Illinois

28 April 2019

"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.

__________

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

"Getting Back on the Right Track" - Pentecost 23B

St.  Mark 10:17-31

“Getting Back On the Right Track”

Last Thursday I ushered for the memorial service of a titan of Chicago business.  His family was huge in publishing and when the need for their product was made obsolete by the internet he turned that fortune into an even bigger fortune in financial services.

Close to three hundred people attended the funeral which became a celebration of him.  His brothers talked about his business acumen.  His son talked about all the places his father took the family for vacations and his daughter spoke about how he taught her the value of a dollar.

This guy has so much money and was such a big fan of train travel that what he used to do was lease a private car to take his family and friends across the country for their vacations.  As a rail fan I must admit I was becoming a little jealous of all the places they visited - the California Coast, the U.S. and Canadien Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest.  All viewed from the back of a private car stocked with fine food, top shelf liqueur, and the highest quality cigars.  (I would skip the cigars!)
Admittedly he was a larger than life character.

When it came to the homily the preacher was the priest in charge of a large social service agency for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

He took off on the topic of trains and how they were made up.  It was a pretty good idea.

 The baggage car was where the man placed all his accomplishments.  The second car was the business associates.  The third was friends while the private car was for family.

Preacher that I am I kept waiting for God to be mentioned and when Father turned his attention towards the engine I thought it had.  You know, God pulling you through the tough times and giving you the energy to move forward in life.  But no, Jim the deceased was the engine. 

Then he talked about the couplings between cars.  Once again my mind turned to God.  Surely it was God who kept us all bound together.  Nope, that was Jim too.

In the homily God was nowhere to be found - not even the caboose.

As we were walking out of the service another one of the ushers said to me: “There were a lot of egos in that room.  So many that there wasn’t any room for God.”

The funeral train went off the tracks because there wasn’t any room left for God.  Riches, the man’s personality and his lucrative business career didn’t leave much room for God because he was so successful.

I wonder if he ever thought to ask the question another rich, successful, man asked of Jesus.  “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”1

Most people don’t give the rich guy kneeling in front of Jesus much credit for coming up with such a really good question.  Instead they try to psychoanalyze him.  Something must have been missing in his life.  Maybe managing all his money was burden too great to handle?  Maybe he was rich in things but poor in spirit?  Or, maybe he had a great question that he just had to ask about eternal life and how to get it?

Jesus doesn’t care to talk to the man about his psyche, or even his spiritual being, he asks the man about his actions. 

His commandment keeping score is outstanding.  This man has a lot going for him.  If we were Jesus we’d snap him up in a nano-second as a member of our church.  He’s pious and he’s rich!  What more could you ask for in a member of the congregation.

Instead of signing him up Jesus gives him an assignment with a demand so high that it is impossible to meet.  He tells him to “Go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”2

This is one of those things, as they say on television, that you should not try at home.  Don’t take this sermon so literally that tomorrow when your partner or spouse gets home there no furniture, no appliances, not even am an empty house because even the house has been sold.

I don’t want you telling your loved ones that you took something Pastor Nelson said in a sermon to heart and liquidated everything. You’ll get us both killed!

When the rich man goes away with a frown on his face we may be led to ask the same question the disciples did.  With the criterion that high who can make it?  Eternity is going to be really empty if the standard to get in is unattainable. 

At this point Jesus gives a really crazy analogy.  “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle that for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Scholars have wasted gallons of ink trying to explain this away.

Some have suggested that is was a mistranslation of the word camel.  In the Greek a simple vowel change can make the word for camel into the word for rope.  Nope.

Then there was the interpreter [who around 850AD] came up with the brilliant idea that there was a low gate into Jerusalem called “the eye of the needle,” through which camel could squeeze in if unburdened. Get it! If we let go of some of our stuff we can indeed get through the needle’s eye. Sorry, no such gate ever existed.3

 So what are we left with?  I think we are left with Jesus telling us about our God who is so gracious, and so winsome, and so powerful that God could, if God wanted, take a full sized camel (One hump or two, take your choice!) a drop that camel right through the eye of a needle and have that dromedary emerge dazed but unscathed on the other side.


That is the God Jesus tells us to put our trust in.

If we continue to put our trust in what we have accomplished, or what we have, or our 401(k)s (And hasn’t that been a scary ride this past week?) we are going to be on the wrong track.

Trust God more than the laundry list of characters and things Jesus goes on to describe and the train will be back on track. 

Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor explained what we receive this way.

It is a dare to [us] to become a new creature, defined in a new way, to trade in all the words that have described [us] up to now – wealthy, committed, cultured, responsible, educated, powerful, obedient – to trade them all in on one radically different word, which is free”4

We’ll be free to serve God and our neighbors without any thought of reward.  We’ll be free to serve God and our neighbors without any cost/benefit analysis.  We’ll be free from trying to save ourselves by parading our good deeds before God. 


When we forget about thinking about all we’ve done and think about all that God can do with us and through us we’ll be free to follow Jesus wherever he leads.

Jesus turned the rich man’s question about eternal life into a challenge to follow him. 

That’s all Jesus asks of us. All he asks is that we follow him and if we do people will say of us - whether we are rich or poor - at least, they were always on the right track.

Thanks for listening.

____________

1.  St.  Mark 10:18b.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

2.  St. Mark 10:21. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

3.  William H. Willimon, ""How Hard to Be a Disciple"," Pulpit Resource, B, 46, no. 4 (October 1, 2018), p. 8.

4.  Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, (Cowley Publications, Cambridge, Massachusetts), p.121-126.