"A priest, a rabbi, and a Samaritan walk into a bar..."

My deepest thanks to folks like Michael Rogness, David Lose, Kathryn Matthews Huey, D. Mark Davis, and Delmer Chilton for their keen insights and scholarship on today's Gospel reading.

The verdict in the Zimmerman trial came down as I was finishing the sermon tonight, and it shines a light on one of my most deeply held convictions: governments don't bring justice. Courts don't, nor do political processes of any kind. We do. We change hearts, we change outcomes, we build communities and societies where people like Travon Martin can walk without fear and where people like George Zimmerman can put away their guns and their aggression and their prejudices...

...by becoming a neighbor.

LUKE 10:25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

This is the Word of the Lord.

“Who is my neighbor?”

The lawyer who asked the question knew his stuff, of course: When Jesus turned his question back on him, he responded without hesitation, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Maybe it’s the familiarity of the passage, or the fact that the parable overshadows everything leading up to it, but I never really noticed before how, out of all of the Mosaic law, all of the Scriptures detailing how the Children of Israel are to act, eat, worship, and think, the answer to the biggest question of all – life, the universe, and everything – even then, even to the experts in Jewish law, was love.

So my question is this: if the lawyer knew this already, why ask? Was he testing Jesus as a way of demonstrating to the people listening to Jesus that he was right? That Jesus was right? That the Law was right?

Or… was the real question that follow up question, “who is my neighbor?”

I like the direction David Lose of Luther Seminary takes with this – when the Scripture says the lawyer was “wanting to justify himself,” perhaps he wasn’t looking for confirmation of his actions. Maybe he really was seeking – wanting to know precisely what is required for the sake of justice in light of the commandments he has quoted. “OK, I get that, Jesus. But help me out, give me some parameters: Whom do I have to love just as much as I love myself, whose needs and welfare need to be as important to me as my own? Are there not are at least some people who are not my neighbor, someone it’s okay not to love?”

I don’t know, maybe he is hoping Jesus will say something like, “Well, if you can manage to love your family and friends and maybe throw a coin at a beggar every once in a while, that's pretty good. Just be sure to worship regularly at the temple, obey all the religious laws about sexual morality, and pay your pledge every year. Then you're all set - or as you put it, you'll inherit eternal life, and you'll go to heaven when you die, because, after all, you will have earned it.”

Nope. Jesus responds by telling a story that redefines “neighbor” not in terms of race, religion, or proximity, but in terms of vulnerability: Whoever is in need is your neighbor.

The man who was attacked and robbed was apparently Jewish. His fellow Jews, professional religious people, no less, went out of their way to go around him, no doubt fearing he was already dead and not wanting to make themselves unclean – after all, they had important business in Jerusalem, priest and Levite business, much more important than mere people, right?

Wrong, by the way: especially if they were heading the same way as the robbed man, they were done with all their Temple duties, ceremonial uncleanness wouldn’t have hurt them a bit, and besides, the Law said they had to help someone in need!

And what’s more, by all indications, be they cultural, racial, or geographical, the priest and the Levite were already this robbed and beaten man’s neighbor. If anyone should help this poor guy, it’s his people, for crying out loud!

Now, Stephen Patterson tells us that, in Jesus’ time, it was a pretty common theme to have a priest and a Levite in a story, kind of like a joke that starts out, “a priest, a rabbi, and a (fill in the blank) walk in to a bar…” The people listening would have strong feelings about the first two, no one listening to the story is surprised that the priest and Levite have no compassion. But normally in those stories, the third person, the one who gets it right, the one who saves the day, is a regular, run-of-the-mill Israelite. Someone like them!

That isn’t what happens though, is it? Of all the people to have compassion – and I mean a real, gut-wrenching need to respond, because the Greek word here is exactly the same kind of compassion Jesus felt when the Gospel of Luke tell us he saw a mother processing to bury her son, and it is the father’s response when he sees his lost son returning home in the parable of the Prodigal Son! Of all the people to drop everything and rush to help, a Samaritan?

Jesus’ audience would have been shocked and probably deeply offended that the hero coming around the bend is a hated Samaritan. After all, the Samaritans were considered "half-breeds," traitors who had colluded with Syria against the Jews. The Samaritans were so despised that, even after Jesus' moving story, the lawyer could not bring himself to say the 'Samaritan' word! That's how deep the hatred ran.

The Samaritans considered themselves Jewish, and in fact thought that the people in Jerusalem had it all wrong. The Samaritans believed that the center of worship was on Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem. They knew that the Jews considered them not only traitors, not only racially inferior, but absolutely unclean! A really good Jew would go the long way around to avoid a Samaritan town on his way to Jerusalem, not wanting his sandals to even touch the dirt of the village.

So you could imagine that the Samaritans felt just as much spite for the Jews. Besides, this Samaritan is in Jewish territory, on the same dangerous road, and those robbers could still be hanging around, waiting for their next victim. But this man doesn't let the Law, or fear, or hate, or the knowledge that he himself is hated keep him a higher righteousness: what loving God and loving your neighbor really means.

Somewhere along the way, the priests and the Levites of Jesus’ day had let their quest for holiness violate God’s commandments to love. This Samaritan didn’t even think of the consequences, though. He just acted out of his compassion, taking time out of his day, going out of his way to render aid and get the injured man to safety, spending money he would never see again to make certain that his recovery continued in his absence.

One of the things I wonder about is what happened to the man after the Samaritan left? After he recovered, his bones mended and his wounds healed, after he went home to his family and friends… was he changed?

Did he still laugh at the “Samaritan” jokes? Did he turn away when someone said mean things about Samaritans, or treated the cruelly? Or was he changed? Did he defend the Samaritans? Reach out to them? Treat them with the same love and compassion he had received?

Because if there is one thing I have discovered in my life’s journey, it is that my prejudices, my preconceptions, my most dearly held hatreds are exposed and challenged and destroyed not by arguments, not by political processes, not by logical evidence, but by flesh and blood. Meeting and becoming friends with people who refuse to fit my mental stereotypes means that either they, or my stereotypes, must go.

In a way, we can see ourselves as the good lawyer, having our understanding of Scripture deepened, going away from the conversation a more complete believer. We can, in a way, see ourselves as the Samaritan, crossing boundaries of culture and creed and class in the name of Jesus to help a person in need.

Yet is there not, in these interpretations, a lingering sense of superiority? We come out on top either being educated or condescending to help the less fortunate… I want to suggest that there is a third, much more difficult way.

Look at the structure of the story: by turning the usual template of “a priest a Levite, and an Israelite…” on its head, by making the hero of the day a hated outcast, doesn’t that mean the guy in the ditch is us? We're not the good Jewish lawyer or the Samaritan, we are lying in that ditch, and we desperately need our enemy to forget what he's been taught and what he understands his rights to be. We need him to forget the risk and the robbers, and stop and help us in our need. He needs to be moved by pity for our suffering.

When I speak of meeting and making friends with people who challenge and ultimately destroy my hatreds and prejudices and preconceptions, it is not with the tone of someone who has done the hard work of reaching out, of purposely seeking opportunities. I haven’t taken the risk, these friends have found me, have taken a chance, and have endured my stupidity and accidental cruelty and have loved me anyway.

They have loved me anyway…

Perhaps we are the person in the ditch… and the Good Samaritan is God. Deep down, most of us don't want God's hand-out of love, we don't want God's generous offer. We are only aware of God because God first loved us, after all, otherwise in our total depravity we would never give a second thought to God. But we know about God and God’s love and we want to deserve it, we want to earn it… but, of course, we can't. We really can't. We are the one in the ditch. We are the wounded and foolish one, the one helpless and in need of help and healing.

Jesus concludes his story and there is a wonderful turn of phrase when he asks the lawyer that follow-up question. The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” and in the Greek, Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which of these three do you think… had become a neighbor? Here is where the rubber meets the road: who has done the hard work, sat through the long nights and spent the time and money and gone out of their way to help?

We know the real answer to that lawyer’s first question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer is “nothing.” We can’t do anything, it’s already done! We were saved when Jesus died on the cross, we are being saved every day as we walk closer with our loving God, and we will be saved on that final day of days when Jesus comes again. It is done. We cannot earn God’s love, because even when we were furthest from God, in the depths of our sin and separation, God loved us and sent Jesus to die for us.

We are called to live in that love: to be the good lawyer, seeking to learn more and more about responding to God’s boundless, resplendent love; to be the good Samaritan, acting with heartfelt compassion, being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to a world that is broken, bleeding and half dead… and when we need it, to receive the friendship, the assistance, the compassion and love of others, even when they don’t think or look or act or believe the way that we do.

Because just like that traveler on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, we are on a journey. Eternal life isn’t about hitting the jackpot when we die; God has already saved us. Eternal life, life lived abundantly, is here and now and tomorrow and the next day and every day. God has reached down, pulled us from the ditch, has healed our wounds and carried us to safety and paid our way!

Our calling, our journey is to act like it! To love because Christ first loved us, to become a neighbor to anyone in any kind of need, and to grow every day in God’s love.

“Who is my neighbor?”

Everyone. Everyone.

The Blame Game...

I owe a great debt to the writings of Dr. Bruce Epperly, the Rev. Dr. Delmer Chilton, James Allison, and D. Mark Davis for their writings and insight.

God doesn't judge people by causing disasters... rather, I think, God looks to those of us who call ourselves by the name of Christ and judges whether or not we are worthy, in our reactions to disaster, of that Name.

Luke 13:1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them — do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."

Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

This is the Word of the Lord.

Seminary professor Haddon Robinson tells the story of a young woman who talked to her pastor about her sin of pride. She says, "Pastor, every Sunday I come to church and look around and think to myself that I am the prettiest girl in the church. I try to stop but I just can't. Am I horribly sinful?" Pastor looked at her and said, "No dear not sinful; just horribly mistaken.”

In our Gospel reading today, a group of people point out an act of ghastly violence, and apparently ask Jesus if it was the sin of the murdered Galileans which caused God to let Pilate do his evil, and Jesus says, in effect, “no, you’re horribly mistaken.”

The people addressing Jesus are doing what comes naturally, it seems. Every time there is a natural or man-made disaster, some TV preacher somewhere pops up and plays the blame game, blaming the disaster on the victims: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, the list goes on and on.

And the blame game gets all too personal as well. Barbara Brown Taylor tells about her days as a hospital chaplain, when she sat with the mother of a little girl undergoing an operation for a brain tumor.

“On the day of the operation, I found her mother sitting under the fluorescent lights in the waiting room beside an ashtray full of cigarette butts. She smelled as if she had puffed every one of them, although she was not smoking when I got there. She was staring at a patch of carpet in front of her, with her eyebrows raised in that half-hypnotized look that warned me to move slowly. I sat down beside her. She came to, and after some small talk she told me just how awful it was. She even told me why it had happened.

“'It’s my punishment,' she said, 'for smoking these... cigarettes. God couldn’t get my attention any other way, so he made my baby sick.' Then she started crying so hard that what she said next came out like a siren: 'Now I’m supposed to stop, but I can’t stop. I’m going to kill my own child!'”

Jesus looks at us in all of these situations, and when we play the blame game He says, “no, you are horribly mistaken.”

What we are looking for is theodicy. A theodicy seeks to show that it is reasonable to believe in God despite evidence of evil in the world, and offers a framework which can account for why evil exists. We want the universe to make sense, for there to be cosmic laws of cause and effect. There has to be a reason that good things happen to some people and bad things happen to others. Life should be fair!

But what Jesus seems to say here is, “no, sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes stuff just happens. People fall victim to bloodthirsty despots or shoddy construction, and they are guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Then he says something that is, frankly, jarring. “But.”

“…but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Is Jesus contradicting himself? “They didn’t die because they were sinners, but unless you watch it, bub, you will.” Yeah, that’s totally fair.

But Jesus isn’t addressing theodicy here, He’s talking about hypocrisy. What I would like to suggest is that Jesus is speaking to these people – and to all of us – about the tendency humankind has to look at the shortcomings and perceived moral failures of others as a way of ignoring our own spiritual needs.

This isn’t the only reference Jesus makes to this tendency. Jesus asks in another place, “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

Our tendency is to look at the world around us and react like the owner of the garden who loses patience with the fig tree and demands its destruction. God looks at the world and sees it in the same way as the gardener sees that fig tree: Just a little more work, a little more time, and let’s see what good things can happen.

To “repent” literally means to change one’s mind, to think differently after. Jesus calls us to look away from what’s wrong with others, and more than that, to abandon the idolatry of the blame game.

In the early twentieth century, The Times of London invited famous writers to answer the question: “What is wrong with the world?” In response, they got many long essays spelling out both the problems and the writer's assessment as to who was to blame. God, the Devil, the Church, the Communists, the Fascists, White people, Black people, Asians, Hispanics, the Jews, the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, the Moslems, and the Americans.  It was women, men, the “Older Generation” and “These Young People Today.” 

In the midst of all of this, theologian and author GK Chesterton, looked at the question, “what is wrong with the world?” and wrote, simply: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely, GK Chesterton.”

When we focus on the sinfulness, or saintliness, of another, we are distracted from our own journey with God. In this season of Lent, we are called upon to turn from fear - to faith, to turn from sin - to grace, and to turn from the world - to God. We are called on to dig around our own fig tree, thank you very much, and to fertilize it with prayer and the Word, and to bring forth fruits of good works and righteousness – again, not because by doing this maybe God will notice us and forgive us, but as a response to the fact that God already loves us, with a steadfast love that endures forever.

When we do this – when we address our fear of other groups or individuals who think, act, look, believe differently with faith that God loves them as well as us, and with the assurance that God’s steadfast love indeed endures forever; when we confront the sin we see and the sin we commit with the grace of a God whose forgiveness flows from Calvary; when we commit to seeking the Kingdom of God above all the world has to offer… it doesn’t mean that bad things stop happening. Tornadoes blow down churches as quickly as they do casinos, and the homes of the righteous are destroyed as quickly as the unrighteous. Floods don’t discriminate, nor do fires or AK-47s. Faith isn’t fire insurance. Faith is a foundation which gives us the strength to not only endure the storms of life, but to be a source of strength and guidance for others as they, too, ride out the storm.

I’m not sure I have this figured out, but it seems that, every time we expect God to respond to the sinfulness of the world with wrath – fire from heaven at best, or some kind of obvious smiting, for cryin’ out loud – God rather responds in patience and in love.

When we say things like, “God is love,” we understand that the ultimate expression of that love is the cross of Christ. Now, it is not as if God loved us by throwing Jesus to us as if we were a pack of hungry crocodiles. No, God's love for us empowered Jesus to create for us a way out –  out of our hopelessness, out of our violence, out of our death.

There is a certain kind of theological imagination which sees Jesus on the Cross, with the Father observing from above. In some versions the Father is pleased, because he is being offered a sacrifice which will wipe out our sins; in another version the Father is horrified by the cruelty which we are showing towards his Son. I think these both miss the point. The Father was present at the Cross not as a spectator, but as an active participant, a revelation of God’s self in the very dying from of Jesus, as the source of the love which overcame death and its dominion in our lives, which tore the doors off the Kingdom to make a way for us all.

God’s wrath is not senseless anger – the garden owner demanding the tree be cut down, destroyed. Towers fall, evil rulers send planes and bombs against their own people, earthquakes shake and storms blow, but these are not God’s judgment.

No, God’s judgment is love. And when we say that God’s love is steadfast and endures forever, what we are saying is that there is no limit, no expiration date, it cannot, and will not be exhausted. God doesn’t get tired of loving us, and God doesn’t get tired of loving the world – the whole world, everyone! God’s inclusiveness is beyond our comprehension: God loves the vulnerable as well as the well-heeled, the weak as well as the powerful, the sinful as well as the righteousness.  Our love is a shadow of God’s love for us.  We are limited, but God’s love elects all creation and God’s providence heals all who are broken.

God digs around the roots a bit more, fertilizes with grace and love and compassion, and waits – actively, working at all times, but patiently.

And our response when there is tragedy, when there is disaster, when there is suffering of any kind, even our own, must never be to play the blame game. No one wins that game, ever.

Rather, God calls us to be conduits of grace, facilitators of providence, reflections of that steadfast love of God that really does endure forever.

Since You Are...

Thanks this week to the writings of Scott Shauf, D. Mark Davis, and the Rev. Dr. Delmer Chilton.

You know, I think it's fine if you want to use Lent as a way to cut back on sweets, or to try and stop drinking so much caffeine or eliminate nicotine or tobacco from your life. Just remember: God doesn't want your chocolate or your Marlboros. God wants you, all of you, without reservation.

And ain't that good news?

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Jesus has just been baptized by John in the Jordan. After decades of preparation – which looked strikingly similar to quietly living his life in Nazareth, working as a carpenter – Jesus is plunged into his calling, brought fully into his true purpose and mission on earth. And he begins it not by turning back down the road toward civilization, but by crossing the Jordan and walking off into the wilderness.

You may have heard of John Milton’s epic poem, “Paradise Lost,” which is a retelling of the fall of Adam and Eve. Less well-known is his sequel, “Paradise Regained.” Not surprisingly, the subject of this poem is Jesus Christ; however, the work doesn’t focus on his birth, his death, or his resurrection… but on the subject of our Gospel reading today. John Milton sees, in the temptation in the wilderness, the rebirth of hope. By giving in to temptation, Adam and Eve lost, for all of humankind, the possibility of life lived in God’s presence. By resisting temptation, Jesus Christ restored that possibility.

The first of the three temptations is interesting, not in the least because there is nothing at all wrong with what Jesus appears to be tempted with. Food is vital to life, and after forty days with none, Jesus is at a point where he must eat if he wants to keep on living. However, it isn’t the “what” that is the temptation here. It’s the “why.”

Look at the phrase from our reading: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” One noted Bible translator, Paul Achtemeier, points out that the word for “if” here, “ei,” means “to be, to exist, to happen, to be present,” and should this be translated “Since you are the Son of God…”

This is significant because it means that Jesus doesn’t have to prove to himself that he is God’s son, He knows he is. In fact, even the devil is willing to concede the point! The question, the temptation, is “how should God’s son act?”

Jesus’ response to the devil is an echo of Deuteronomy 8, verse three: “[God] humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

Jesus is asserting that, from the outset, he exists not to do his own will, but the will of his Father in Heaven. This is true in this most basic of ways, getting some food, as it is on the night he is betrayed, when he prays, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” It is true this day in the lonely wilderness, and on the day he hangs on the cross in front of passersby who both mock him and plead with him to assert his authority and save himself from death.

The next temptation deals with the basic human desire for power, or, perhaps more specifically, the question, “if Christ is King, what does the Kingdom look like?” Does it look and act and feel like a political and military empire, overpowering and eliminating all lesser kingdoms, consolidating the planet and all within it under the banner of the one true and living God? No problem, the devil says, I can make that happen in an instant, just say the word.

On its surface, this temptation, to worship the devil, seems ridiculous! How could he even begin to imagine that the son of God would bow to the devil? How could this be a temptation?

I don’t know, but here’s what I think: Certainly, any kingdom Christ establishes will be eternal. And yes, eliminating the cruelty of the Romans, the hedonism of the Herods, and the rampaging lunacy of the tinier outlying kingdoms dotting the globe in those days would be a very good thing for the people suffering under the oppression of despots and emperors and kings. And sure, the sooner the better.

After all, Jesus had seen the suffering, had felt the terror of a Roman legion marching in to town, had seen people struggle between feeding their family or paying taxes. Given who he was, why wouldn’t he want that to end forever, why wouldn’t he want to bring peace and security and comfort to as many people as he could, as quickly as he could?

But the price is, of course, too high. In any case, Jesus’ Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, is a different kind of kingdom. If God is God, then power, especially earthly political and military power, is irrelevant. God has all power, and as such, doesn’t need to prove that power, doesn’t even need to have that power acknowledged, it just is, and it is absolute. Because of this – the complete assurance of power and authority without qualification, the Kingdom of God turns our expectations of empire on its head. The Kingdom of God is thus not predicated upon power, but upon service. Jesus will tell his disciples, and all who follow him, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”

This third temptation seems another call for Jesus to prove himself. And again, if we make the devil’s challenge begin. “Since you are the Son of God…” as I mentioned in the first temptation, then Jesus isn’t proving anything to himself or to the devil. They both know full well who he is.

And no, I don’t know how he got to the top of the Temple, whether he was physically there or there in a vision or in his mind’s eye – though I suspect that any presence less than immediate and physical would change this event from a temptation into an academic discussion. I think he is somehow right there, standing at the highest point of the Temple, the hot Judean winds whipping at his robes, the noise of the priests and people and animals and merchant’s stalls faint and far below.

You and I both know who you are, the devil says. Prove it to all of them, now, and get on with it. Skip all this slow, plodding, teaching and preaching and healing stuff, jump right past the resurrection and in to people knowing who you are and worshipping you. Show ‘em the sizzle, get their attention.

By this time, someone, perhaps a youngster, has happened to look up and spot Jesus, way up at the very top of the Temple, and soon Jesus sees everyone below looking up at him, their faces like a field of flowers turned toward the sun. Imagine just leaning forward a bit, his feet slipping from the stone of the Temple, the wind rushing past as he falls, and at the last moment, a band of heavenly angels appearing out of nowhere, boom!, and catching him!

Ha! Let them try and doubt him then!

If Jesus does something this spectacular, this obvious, there will be no question in anyone’s mind who he is, and the path to making him king will be short and sweet. Faith will be a moot point, because the proof, right before their eyes, will be inarguable.

Not believing in Christ will be as impossible as not believing in gravity. Jesus would make an end run around the cross and establish his Kingdom based on the fame and fortune of a very entertaining stunt.

But Jesus understands not only who he is, but what that means for himself and for the world he came to save. The signs he does are done not simply as an indication of who he is, but in order bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Jesus knows that his purpose is not to serve himself. Those people, those faces staring up at him from far below, it is about them. These lost sheep need a shepherd, not a stuntman. So he steps back from the edge and begins the longer, more painful, more terrifying and lonely journey – the one that leads, inexorably, to Golgatha.

Throughout these forty days of Lent we are called to contemplate the life of Jesus, his path of service and obedience to God, his living out his identity as the Son of God. Since as Christians we are called to continue the Spirit-led proclamation and enactment of God’s kingdom, we must ask ourselves some identity questions, personally and congregationally.

Who am I? Who am I, really, and what is God calling me to do? Who are we? Who are we, the church in all its expressions, really, and what is God calling us to do? As Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, we are also tempted to make shortcuts, to abandon the task God has given us in favor of the easy ways, the ways of self-fulfillment, power, and spectacle.

But if all we are is a gathering of like-minded people, who share a preference for a certain form of theology and worship, then the things we do should be designed to provide for our survival, to take care of ourselves. Shortcuts, power grabs and self-aggrandizement not only make sense, they are vital.

But if we a people whom God has called together to be the Body of Christ: Called to be Christians, gathered around Word and Sacrament, Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Sent into the world to spread the Love of God, then the things we do must be designed to care for the world, for others. No shortcuts.

Now, unlike Jesus, we will fail at times. We will give in to the temptation to take the easy way, to grab power, to take care of Number One at the expense of someone else. Lent is the time for confessing our failures and redirecting our steps to the way of Jesus. And through the power of the Spirit, we, too, can resist the temptations of the devil.

Since we are the children of God, let us step away from the edge, and walk the narrow path that leads to the Kingdom of God.

What if?

I am indebted to the writing of D. Mark Davis, Amy Oden (Gospel tab), Alyce McKenzie,and Delmer Chilton for their ideas and sermon paths.

Mark 9:30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

This is the Word of the Lord.

“They did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.”

At this point in the Gospel, Jesus had gone with Peter, James and John on a mountaintop and had been transfigured before them. He had cast a demon from a child – mind you, the other disciples had not only tried to do this and failed, they’d gotten into a loud and bitter argument with some scribes over the matter to boot.

The point is that the disciples, either in smaller or larger groups, had seen plenty of who Jesus was and is, had heard him answer hard questions countless times, and this is by no means the first time he has told them in detail, about what awaits him at the end of this road: betrayal, suffering, death, and ultimately, resurrection.

But what they are hearing clashes with what they think they know. The Messiah is supposed to come in glory and crush his enemies, not be given over into their hands and killed! It is as if Jesus is suddenly speaking in another language, or stringing together words in a nonsense fashion. It isn’t connecting.

But they’re afraid to ask. No one wants to pipe up, no one wants to look stupid. After all, they’re The Twelve, right? They’re the big dogs, the inner circle, they’re supposed to have all of this figured out. They have a reputation to uphold.

Or maybe they remember the dressing-down Peter got when he took Jesus aside… forgetting, of course, that Peter hadn’t been asking anything, he’d been attempting to correct Jesus’ misconceptions about himself. And maybe they are frightened of the answer, fearing that the man they’d abandoned their former lives to follow was, in fact, not who they thought him to be. Perhaps what terrified them was that Jesus was who they thought him to be, and to have that confirmed once and for all was an overwhelming thought.

I wonder… what if they hadn’t been afraid? What if someone – Peter or James or John, maybe, who had seen him glorified and shining like the sun, or even Thomas, who had a quiet determination to follow no matter what, or Nathaniel, who doesn’t get very many good lines in the Gospel narrative – what if one of them had asked?

What would they have asked?

“Look, Jesus, all this death-and-resurrection talk doesn’t square with what we’ve been taught. Explain to us how God can die.”

“How will you come in your glory if you are humiliated on a cross, Jesus?”

“Jesus, we expect you to save us from the Romans. How is all of this really going to help us where we really need help?”

“Um, Jesus, ‘rise again?’ What does that mean, exactly?”

Whatever form it takes, the question that the disciples are afraid to ask is the question that propelled so many early Christian attempts to construct a logical, intelligible, and horribly misguided, theology of who Christ is. Maybe Jesus didn’t really suffer and die (that’s called Docetism). Maybe only the human part of Jesus suffered, and the divine part was untouched (that’s called Gnosticism). Early Christians struggled almost endlessly with this question: what sort of deity lets himself get pushed into a corner like that, and does it on purpose? The early Christians needed an almighty God who conquers enemies, not one who suffers and dies.

If only the disciples had asked, we could have known the answers to the basic questions of who Jesus is, and of the nature of God. Perhaps then the church could have avoided millennia of heresies, conflicts, schisms, and bloodshed.

Or maybe the church would have found other reasons to have heresies, conflicts, schisms and bloodshed.

We are human, after all, and like the disciples, we have our own questions we are afraid to ask. No one wants to look uninformed, confused, or clueless. We withhold our toughest questions, within ourselves, within own churches, and within Christian fellowship. We pretend we don't have hard questions. Yet, if we are honest, the deepest mysteries of life elude us. Why do good people suffer? Why are humans so brutal to one another? Why does evil succeed? If God's own Son is betrayed and killed, then is anyone safe? Why did God set up a world like this?

The disciples didn’t ask. They avoided the hard question, and instead – or, perhaps, as an unavoidable result of avoiding the hard question – started bickering over who was the greatest: who the head disciple was, who was going to occupy the throne closest to Jesus, and on and on.

And in response to all of this – yes, all of the arguing, but I wonder if it was also in response to their lack of comprehension, and fear of asking the hard questions? In any case, Jesus sits them down in a circle and puts a child right there in the middle of them.

A child.

What is it about a child here? I’ve read plenty of sermons about the importance of childlike faith, about how I should focus on my inward life, on becoming more pure, more innocent, more humble, more spontaneous, more trusting. More childlike in my faith.

And there is no question that, in other portions of the Gospel narrative, we as Christians are told that we must become like little children. That childlike faith is important.

But that childlike faith isn’t the point here.

You see, the disciples were arguing over who was the greatest specifically because they viewed “greatness” in exactly the same way every human does.

In order to win, you see, someone has to lose. In order to lead, someone has to follow. One is only greater if another is lesser. Our culture, our politics, our advertising, and, all too often, even popular Christian theology is predicated upon seeing one’s self as better than another. It is a common language, perfectly acceptable in polite society.

And in that one profound act, putting that child (probably a toddler) in the circle of disciples, and then embracing that child, Jesus is telling us one simple fact: We have it all wrong.

Let me tell you about the value of children in ancient society: In Rome, when a baby was born it was laid at the feet of its father. If the father picked the child up, it lived. If the father ignored it, it was taken out of the house and left to die.

Now, Jewish culture was not that harsh, and more value was given to children. A father was bound by Law and tradition to teach the firstborn the Torah, teach him a trade, and get a wife for him. But there was no provision for female children, and nothing stopping that father from offering his children for sale as slaves if times got tough, and it did happen, because when you got right down to it, children, like women, were property. And outside of the family structure, children were pretty much invisible.

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Servant even of those who have no power, no position, no ability to help you get ahead in your life or career or ambitions. Servant even of those who cannot pay you back. Servant even to the invisible.

It is too easy to end this sermon talking about the invisible people in our society. We all know who they are: the homeless, the alien, the poor, the disenfranchised, those without equal civil rights, those who society as a whole treats as invisible. Obviously, at least in my eyes, we have a clear and compelling duty as followers of Christ to reach out to these individuals and groups and classes, to serve them as Christ served them.

It is much harder to end with a question: a question to all of us, yes, but especially to myself: who is invisible to me? Do I dare ask the hard question, in prayer, to have my eyes opened to the person, or people, I don’t see? To have my heart opened to the people I never notice?

How would history have changed for all of Christianity if the disciples had asked the questions, there on that road through Galilee, that they were afraid to ask?

And what if you and I had the courage to ask the questions we are afraid to ask… and what if we opened our eyes, and hearts, and lives, to the invisible people around us?