There's More to the Story!

I cannot begin to express the depth of gratitude I owe to David R. Henson for helping me face the prickly issues in the Gospel reading, as well as the usual suspects (like Kathryn Matthews Huey, Bruce Epperly, and "Working Preacher" contributor Greg Carey).

Seriously, y'all, come by sometime. Lunch is on me.

Matthew 25:1-13

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

I have a confession this morning. Just between us, OK? This reading bothers me.

OK, I mean, I get what the gist of the passage is: be prepared for the Lord's return. The “wise” bridesmaids brought extra oil just in case things ran a little over schedule and the party was late getting started, I get that. If we take this as a metaphor for the return of Christ, then the idea is that Christians should understand that while the Lord's return may be imminent, it isn't necessarily immediate. Don't give up. Stay the course, keep the faith. And hold that perseverance in tension with the knowledge that Christ's return just might be immediate... so stay alert. Be prepared.

And as long as we hold it right there... understand that, historically, the people Matthew was writing to had seen the Temple destroyed, which Jesus prophesied in the previous chapter, and they were expecting Jesus to return in triumph any day now... they had been expecting Jesus to return any day now for a long, long, long time... so the message of not giving up, not abandoning the truth of Jesus in search of some other pleasure or comfort or temporal assurance makes sense... and as long as that is as far as we go with it, everything is fine.

Don't pick at the edges. Don't scratch at the finish to see what's beneath. We're good, right? There isn't anything more to the story. Pass the plate and let's sing.

And maybe that was what Jesus intended. Maybe there really isn't more to the story. After all, he is in the middle of the Gospel of Matthew's apocalyptic passage, which began with Jesus predicting that the Temple would be utterly destroyed, and ends with Jesus talking about separating sheep from goats at the Final Judgment. Maybe all Jesus intended to get across was “be vigilant, be alert, be prepared. Period.”

There is a brusqueness, a harshness in this passage about the bridesmaids, after all, isn't there? It lacks the element of grace we're used to seeing in Jesus' parables – the father who runs to meet the Prodigal Son, the joy of finding the lost sheep or the lost coin, the wild abandon of selling everything to obtain the pearl of great price. Maybe it's like Fred Craddock says, and there are really two types of parables, “those that offer a surprise of grace at the end...and those that follow the direct course from cause to effect as surely as the harvest comes from what is sown. There are no gifts and parties. Together the two types present justice and grace, either of which becomes distorted without the other.”

Still... the passage closes with the admonition, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” That's fine, I guess, but it occurs to me that out of the ten bridesmaids, exactly zero stayed awake waiting on the bridegroom. All of them fell asleep. The only difference – the only difference! – was that half of them brought extra oil.

Oil that they would not share because they might – might! – not have enough. That fact right there drives me crazy! And I don't mind telling you that many of the scholars and commentators that I have read concerning this passage feel the same way.

And the very idea that the bridegroom would punish these five “foolish” bridesmaids for going to get what they needed because of their stingy counterparts... it just seems kind of arbitrary to me. All ten got to the banquet hall on time. All ten of them waited. All ten of them fell asleep. On only one point did they differ. I don't know if I can agree with Fred Craddock. This just doesn't seem all that just to me. There has to be more to the story, doesn't there?

Yes, I confess, I almost went with another reading today. It was a choice between doing that and just kind of glossing over my discomfort, preaching about preparedness and what that means, and being done with it. Nothing wrong with that, it's safe, and it would be true.

And it would be one-dimensional. No depth. And there isn't anyone here who is a one-dimensional person. We have facets, and depths, and complexities and experiences that make us who we are, unique and wonderful and beautiful, and the faith that each of us possess is no different.

So is it enough to say “be like the wise bridesmaids?” Sure, I want to identify with the wise ones... and there are times and subjects in which I feel pretty wise. Some days my lamp burns nice and bright. Some days I think, y'know, Jesus could come back and I'd be OK. I'd be “in.”

But there are days... who am I kidding? There are weeks sometimes, endless dark periods where, if I am honest, I identify more with the “foolish” bridesmaids than I do with the “wise” ones. I doubt, I worry, I harbor fears and gnaw on anger over some offense, where something or another, or several dozen somethings, it seems, overwhelm me, and my lamp isn't so bright. The flame flickers and grows dim. If Jesus came back then, would I be “in?” Is it as arbitrary as this passage makes it seem, is my presence in the Kingdom of God predicated upon what side of the bed I get out of in the morning?

C'mon. Do I even have to say it? No! There is more to the story.

Our faith, our theology, dare I say our God is so much larger than a single passage of Scripture from the Lectionary reading! Yes, we an say the Kingdom of Heaven is like this parable of the ten bridesmaids, and – and! – we can say the Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, and like leaven, and like a treasure hidden in a field, and like a pearl of great price...

What I'm saying is, there is more to the story.

We can call the five prepared (but stingy) bridesmaids “wise,” sure, but we can also put them up against the servant in the very next passage of Scripture who, rather than take a risk with the money his master left him with, hid it away and did not use it at all, and was punished severely for his cowardice, or we can compare them to the goats at the end of this chapter who saw the hungry and did not feed them, who ignored the cries of the thirsty or the shivering of the naked.

What I'm saying is, there is more to the story.

So yes, let's take the important base message here – be patient, but be vigilant, because the Lord will return, and it might be tomorrow and it might be today but maybe not – but let's not stop there. Let's not let this be the only lesson.

David Henson asks a wonderful question about this passage, about the bridesmaids who left, seeking oil for their lamps: “...[W]hat would have happened, I wonder, had the bridesmaids simply continued to wait, with sputtering lamps and dwindling lights?

“What would have happened had the bridesmaids simply waited in the darkness of the night?

“To me, this was their mistake. They left, when they should have stayed. The bridal couple surely would have welcomed their friends into the light of the banquet, unconcerned about the state of their oil lamps, happy just to see their friends waiting for them.

“What faith it would have taken, though, to wait in such frailty, in such honesty!”

Perhaps what we see in this parable is a lack of faith on the part of all of the bridesmaids. After all, the wise as well as the foolish are operating out of fear, not trusting the love that the bridegroom has for his friends. If the wise ones really trusted, really believed, they would have shared their oil. So what if they all end up with flickering lamps, weak flames barely hanging on to the end of dry, smoking wicks, weakly beating back the darkness of midnight? After all, the bridegroom is on his way, and he will welcome his friends who have been faithfully awaiting him into the light and warmth and joy of the wedding feast!

There are times I have been like the five wise bridesmaids: I have all my ducks in a row I have enough and a bit to spare, but I have been stingy; afraid that if I gave away part of my excess, that spare bit, I'd end up with not enough.

There are times I have been like the five foolish bridesmaids, too: scrambling to make up for lost time or a lack of resources or cover my bases because I made a mistake, desperately hoping that no one finds out what an idiot I have been.

And you know what? There are even times I have been like the bridegroom. I know, and the context of the passage is pretty clear, that the bridegroom is supposed to represent the returning Christ. But, again, I think there is more to the story, and I want to separate the personality of the bridegroom for the moment from the apocalyptic nature of the parable.

This guy didn't care about protocol, didn't give a rip about how long anyone had to wait on him, he just showed up when he pleased, and he callously excluded half of the bridesmaids because they were away in that moment when he just decided to pop in, never mind that they were knocking on the doors of friends and family and merchants in the middle of the night, desperately trying to make up for what they lacked, trying their hardest to be good enough for the bridegroom.

What. A. Jerk.

I've been that guy. I've spoken out of my place of privilege, judged others harshly for perceived shortcomings, snubbed those who struggle with difficulties that I have never had to deal with, arbitrarily dismissing whole classes of people because they aren't as “good” as I think I am... or as I pretend to be.

I can, if I am honest, identify with every character in this parable in one way or another. And perhaps that is the lesson.

Perhaps the lesson is this: When we find ourselves feeling like the foolish bridesmaids, remember to wait in the darkness. Don’t run from it. It is a holy place and God will meet us there.

When we find ourselves feeling like the wise bridesmaids, remember to share what we have, even if it scares us.

Especially if it scares us.

Don’t trade temporary comfort for lasting and beloved community. The chance to give of ourself is a holy place and God will meet us there.

When we find ourselves feeling like the bridegroom, remember to open wide the door to the banquet feast. Don’t let hurt feelings and fear insulate us from others. Welcoming those who have made mistakes and who walk in darkness is a holy place. God will meet us there. The Lord's table is vast, and the banquet hall as large as the Kingdom of Heaven.

No matter how thin our light, no matter how dark the night, we wait, not seeking to be anything other than present right where we are. We trust that in the end, when the light of the bridegroom arrives, it won’t matter whether our tiny oil lamps are flickering still or extinguished completely. Rather the light of bridegroom will be enough for all, to illuminate the beauty of the darkness and to bring us in joy to the midnight celebration.

Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come.

Alleluia, amen.

Kingdom Weeds...

OK, I confess... I posted this yesterday, knowing it wasn't really a completed sermon, but not knowing what to do with it. In the past, I've winged it from the pulpit, and I guess I've done OK.

This time, my friend Dr. Greg Brown came to my rescue. I am blessed to have many smart, spiritually insightful friends, including Dr. Brown, who can take a mess I've made and help me translate it into a sermon.

Kinda like Jesus does here with mustard seeds and yeast, huh?

I am also indebted to Kathryn Matthews Huey for her insight into today's Gospel reading.

MATTHEW 13:31-33, 44-52

He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

"Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

This is the Word of the Lord.

Jesus asked “Have you understood all this?” And his disciples answered, “Yes.” I find that just a little hard to believe, don't you? I mean, we go from last week's reading, where Jesus took the time to explain one parable, in detail, just so everyone knew precisely what he meant by sowing and seeds and ground... and here we are with five short, rapid-fire parables, and everybody understands completely.

I guess I'd have an easier time believing that everyone understood everything Jesus was saying here if it weren't for the pages and pages of scholarly commentary on different aspects of these parables. I try to resist that kind of thing, because if we understand parables as tales told in the moment to a specific group of individuals for the purpose of making a point, then dissecting each word at length misses the point. But I digress.

You may have noticed that our readings from the Lectionary, especially when it comes to the Gospel, sometimes tend to jump around a bit, skipping verses here and there. In this case, I think we miss something ery important in the missing verses. We don't see to whm and where Jesus is saying these things. What I mean is this: Jesus speaks of mustard seeds and yeast to the crowd in general. As far as we know, he's still on that boat just off the lakeshore where he told the Parable of the Sower. He goes into a house with his disciples and speaks of hidden treasures, found pearls, and rejected fish to his them alone. It is Jesus' disciples, not the crowd at large, who Jesus asks, “Do you understand?”

Good thing, too, because what Jesus said to the crowd about yeast and seeds might have taken them a minute to digest.

Yeah, mustard seeds are teensy, but they sure do grow up big; and it doesn't take a lot of yeast to make bread rise... but wait a minute! Why on earth, with so many possible metaphors available to Jesus, would he pick those? I mean, for just one example, Jesus and his listeners would have been familiar with the pomegranate. Pomegranate seeds are small, but the trees get big enough for birds to nest.

But no, Jesus specifically chose mustard seeds and yeast. Was he trying to offend the crowd?

Maybe.

Mustard for the first-century Judeans wasn't the wonderful condiment we know today. It was a pungent, pervasive weed. And in proposing that someone intentionally sowed a mustard seed, not only was Jesus suggesting that someone planted a weed in their own field, on purpose, he was in effect advocating an act that was, at the very least, problematic to the faithful Jew. Richard Swanson says, “Living a Jewish life means living a life that witnesses to the stable and orderly love of God in all things. Planting a weed that was a symbol of wild disorder was judged to be an unnecessary compromise of the basic principles of a Jewish life.”

Furthermore, yeast, or leaven, was seen as a symbol of things unclean and corrupting. The Old Testament is filled with these kinds of references, and the New Testament repeats this view of leaven as a metaphor for moral corruption – the one rotten apple in the barrel – as well.

It's easy to miss these things in our day and time. I like leavened bread, and I really like mustard, too. So with the popularity of mustard and wonderful, yeasty bread, we don't hear the story the same way, and we miss the offense and – just perhaps – we miss the power of what Jesus is saying.

Kathryn Matthews Huey observes that “...our considerable efforts to avoid offense in the life of the church and in its ministry run the risk of neutralizing the gospel that Jesus embodied. If he didn't 'give offense,' would he have been crucified by the powers that be, with the crowd shouting its approval?”

So, sure, maybe Jesus was either purposely offending people, and maybe he didn't care whether he caused an affront to their delicate sensibilities anyway...

Or maybe... maybe...

During this period of his ministry, Jesus is preaching in the towns of Galilee. He's a long way from the Temple, and probably not terribly close to any Roman garrisons. So it is most likely that Jesus isn't speaking to the powerful Romans, or to the wealthy Pharisees and Sadducees. Rather, in that boat off the lakeshore, he is speaking to a people oppressed on all sides.

The Roman Empire was a massive juggernaut, bringing its bloody form of “peace” to nearly every corner of the known world. When Rome conquered, the lucky ones were merely subjugated and taxed; more than once the Romans had completely obliterated whole societies, destroying cities and selling those they did not murder outright into slavery. The only people the “pax Romana” benefited were the Romans; to everyone else, the Roman Eagle represented harsh oppression. Talk as they would of the former glory of Israel under King David, it was easy to see one's self as small, insignificant, as utterly worthless as a tiny mustard seed.

Then there were the demands of Judaism – never mind the constant pressure to pay the Temple tax and to come up with the required animals and grain and what-not for the sacrifices, no one – no one – could be expected to live up to the reams of minutiae required to be properly holy. More than eighty percent of Judeans lived a subsistence existence, barely enough food to keep them alive, constantly hungry, and constantly aware that they were not good enough, not holy enough, not pure enough, for God. They were as cast out as the leaven at Passover – reviled, forgotten, worthless.

So perhaps, just perhaps, one of the things Jesus is saying to the crowd is that the Kingdom of God is more like them than it is like the powerful Temple elite or the all-too-holy Scribes and Pharisees. Maybe the Kingdom of God isn't so much about power as it is about pervasiveness – like a weed, growing anywhere and everywhere; like yeast, multiplying and spreading and growing and thriving.

No, a mustard tree doesn't look anything like the cedars used to build the Temple, it doesn't at all resemble the columns of Roman architecture... but birds find a home in its branches, and even those who have been oppressed and forgotten by society can find a home in the Kingdom of God.

That was true when Jesus said it, and it remains true today.

And that is dangerous. And offensive. And being dangerous and offensive isn't something that Western Christianity is used to.

Maybe it's time to change all of that.

In its earliest years, Christianity was known as a religion of women and slaves. In Rome, Christians would sneak out in the night and rescue abandoned babies, left to die on the steps of the Forum. Not all of them, probably, and not every night, but it made a difference to the ones they were able to save, didn't it? Now, we have people who proclaim themselves to be Christians, waving signs and hurling insults at children who surrendered at our southern border to try and escape certain death in Central America.

In its earliest years, Christians were tortured and killed because they refused to bow their knee to Caesar. Now, we require that a politician give lip service to God before they can be elected. The facade of faith trumps competence in far too many elections.

Is this the measure of Christian faith?

Who cares for the homeless, the forgotten? Who tells the person contemplating suicide that there is hope? Who comforts the sick, who visits the imprisoned? Who becomes the family to one who has been kicked out of their home because of their orientation? Whose heart is broken by suffering, and who resolves to use whatever means are available to alleviate that suffering?

I know who it should be.

I know it should be us, the church.

I know this because time and again throughout Scripture, and particularly here, in Jesus' choice to use despised, misunderstood, and rejected things as examples, Jesus is saying this: The Kingdom of God isn't like the empires you're used to. It doesn't look like Rome, nor does it look like the Temple.

The Kingdom of God looks like you. It looks like me. And it looks like every marginalized and forgotten person everywhere, whether in downtown Birmingham or in Gaza or in Mozul or Detroit. These are the people of the Kingdom.

Maybe we look like mustard seeds – worthless weeds, worthy only for the trashbin. Maybe we look like yeast – others see us as sinful merely because we exist.

The kingdom will grow from those who have been made to feel unworthy, the scorned, the abused. Jesus says to these "insignificant" ones, this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. You are not worthless and neither are people you may see as "seedier" than you. It is from these – women and slaves, the despised and rejected of that society – I will build a Kingdom for all who dare come, a kingdom so large that there truly will be room for all.

Alleluia, Amen.

"Christ is risen! NOW what?"

I am indebted to the writing of Karoline Lewis and Kathryn Matthews Huey for their thoughts on this reading.

And because why not, here's an awesome version of "Kashmir:"

JOHN 14:15-21

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Christ is risen... now what?

Yes, I know that the reading comes from a part of the Gospel of John that's before the Crucifixion, but remember when and for whom it was written – it was written for us Resurrection People, and, more precisely, a specific group of Resurrection People at the end of the first century.

I struggled with a word to describe what kind of situation these believers were in when they first read the Gospel of John, and the best I can come up with is, they felt alone. Orphaned. The Resurrection had happened something near seventy years back, which meant that everyone who had ever seen Jesus was very likely now dead, except perhaps for John himself... and who knows? By the time the Gospel got out to most of the body of believers, John was probably gone, too.

All they seemed to have left were the writings, the traditions, and the firm conviction that Christ had risen from the dead. And that's important, yes, but wasn't Jesus supposed to be coming back any day? Where was he? Maybe he had forgotten all of that, maybe there had been a change of plan or something, they didn't know. And the Apostles, the people who had seen Christ and heard his words, seen the miracles and felt his breath when he said, “receive the Holy Spirit,” the living connection these believers had had to the focal point of their faith, were gone.

So yeah, they felt alone. Forgotten. Orphaned. Without focus or direction.

Somewhere on a sunny, cool afternoon in the Roman province of Asia, which encircled the Mediterranean Sea, a group of people sit, huddle around the cooking fire in the open courtyard of a home. Most of them are slaves and women, and many bear the scars of persecution. Someone, likely a man, is reading from a codex – that's sheets of papyrus folded in to what you and I would think of as a book these days.

Last week, you'll remember, Jesus spoke to some of the things they had been worrying about. Already several of the listeners are looking up, listening intently as Jesus talks directly to them.

But can you imagine the feeling when Jesus says, “I will not leave you orphaned...”? When he promises, “I am coming to you”?

Faces that had been downcast, looking at the dirt, are now raised to the sunlight, and Jesus reminds them of something that, just perhaps, they had forgotten.

I think that a lot of people – preachers, at least – in mainline Protestant churches don't really know what to do with the Holy Spirit. We tend to leave talking about this Person of the Trinity to mentions in the Apostle's Creed and a sermon on Pentecost, for the most part. My own experience, coming from a decade in the Pentecostal Church of God, is to be very careful in my own approach. That tradition rather goes to the other extreme with the Holy Spirit, so I confess that it is more than a little difficult to find a rational middle ground.

But maybe it's time to let the Holy Spirit loose from the cage of Pentecost, and from the sole proprietorship of the Pentecostals.

Jesus promises to send “another Advocate,” which we know is the Holy Spirit, and he is careful in his language to connect himself with the Father and with the gathered disciples, and, yes, those believers in that courtyard and yes, with you and me. “ I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you...”

The catalyst in that connection is the Holy Spirit, unseen but active in the lives of those whose lives are in Christ.

The Holy Spirit is, of course, active in many ways, but (and I never do three-point sermons, but this is kind of unavoidable) I want to look at three specific activities that Jesus speaks of concerning the Holy Spirit in this passage.

First, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Last week, we read where Jesus revealed himself as the way, the truth, and the life. In the trial he will undergo before Pilate, the concept of truth will play a major role.

Jesus tells Pilate, “...the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” The truth is synonymous with Jesus. Jesus is the truth. Jesus promises his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”

Second, Jesus tells the disciples that they know the Spirit, and, we talked about this last week, the only real way to know someone is to be in relationship. The Spirit abides with you and will be in you... abiding is synonymous with “relationship” in John's Gospel. Third, the coming of the Spirit, the promise of the Spirit, means that the disciples, those at the table, those at the cooking fire, and those gathered here today, in this congregation, and in churches and fellowships everywhere, will not be orphaned.

OK, I was wrong, I don't want to talk about three activities of the Holy Spirit, I want to talk about four. Because this last one is a big deal. This last activity of the Holy Spirit keeps us from becoming a body of people intent on codifying and adhering to a strict list of rules and regulations, from leaving the worship of God for worship of doctrines, from living under the weight of condemnation for every mistake and sin we commit.

Jesus begins and ends our reading today by speaking of his disciples, those who love him, keeping his commandments. And oh Lord when we read that we can go wild with it, can't we? Over the last two millenia, we've put a lot of words in Jesus' mouth, about what day to worship on, about how wet to get when we are baptized, about what to believe when it comes to the Lord's Supper, about which people, created in the image of God, are loved by that God, and which of those created beings God despises, the kinds of war Jesus likes, what forms of government and which political parties Jesus supports...

But what did Jesus really say? What are his commandments?

Hear the Word of God from the 22^nd chapter of Matthew, the 35^th through the 41^st verses:

“One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?'

Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'”

Again, the Word of the Lord from the Gospel of John, the 13^th chapter and the 34^th and 35^th verses:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

I sense a theme running through these verses, do you?

Love God, love each other, love your neighbor – and if we learn anything from the Parable of the Good Samaritan, it is that our “neighbor” is anyone and everyone.

Anyone and everyone. Dang it. I can't do that.

Some people rub me the wrong way. They do things I don't do, sometimes they smell bad, or say things that offend me, or like things I don't like, or look different than me, or act in ways that make me uncomfortable, or believe things I don't believe, or vote for people I don't vote for, and I want to close and lock the doors and put an electric fence around the communion table and say, “not you!”

It is the Holy Spirit who works through me, and through each of us, to change that. Dianne Bergant puts it like this: The Holy Spirit “strengthens us, comforts us, guides us, and inspires us. It is the Spirit who enables us to interpret the signs of the times in ways very different from the ways of the world. It is the Spirit who works through us for the transformation of the world.”

I submit to you that this desire to protect my most precious prejudices, my most beloved hatreds, to sanctify my fear, is the definition of “the ways of the world.” Over against that, the Holy Spirit seeks to take down the fences, to throw the doors wide open – no, to break the doors off their hinges, put them up on sawhorses, to spread a meal and invite all who hunger to come.

That is who we are! We are Resurrection People, and we dare to bring the Resurrection with us beyond Easter Sunday, we are bold to free the Holy Spirit from Pentecost Sunday, and to say that, in the face of the unfathomable, egregiously lavish, belligerently generous love that God has shown for us, we must take this light of Christ that lives within us as the Holy Spirit and shine it in the dark corners, we must give of this living water that flows in us to all who thirst, we must throw our doors and our arms and our hearts open wide and welcome people in to relationship with the risen Christ, we must make it clear that whoever, whatever, whenever... God loves you.

"Come and See"

My thanks to the writing of Richard Swanson, Kathryn Matthews Huey, the Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton, and Paul J. Nuechterlein for their valuable insights into today's Scripture reading.

John 1:29-42

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

This is the Word of the Lord.

When John calls Jesus the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” what is he saying? I think the most common interpretation is that Jesus is the sacrifice which atones for the sins of humankind. And that's true, yes, and it's fine, in and of itself, if that is what one takes away from the Gospels, it's enough.

But the interesting thing is that – remembering that Jesus and John and the disciples are all Jewish, and that their understanding of sacrifice would be based solely upon the Jewish Temple sacrificial system – lambs, in the Scriptures, are not sin sacrifices.

Bulls are sin offerings, as well as male and female goats. Where a lamb is mentioned it is specifically a female lamb.

Remember, though, that Jesus is crucified during Passover. That feast specifically calls for a male lamb, unblemished, sacrificed, roasted and consumed. The blood of that sacrificed lamb was to be splashed on the doorframe of the house, so that when the Angel of the Lord saw it, that house would be passed over, and another, unsplashed home would see its firstborn killed.

The sacrifice of that lamb protected the home, and ultimately freed the Hebrew people from slavery, and set them on the road to finding the Promised Land. The annual feast of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, remembered that mighty act of God. This, then, is what Jesus, as the Lamb of God, does: liberates the world from slavery to sin by bringing the world into new and fresh contact with the presence of God, so that human alienation from God can end.

Yes, Jesus Christ is our atoning sacrifice, Scripture is clear on that. But to say that Jesus simply died to please the bloodlust of an angry God, was One who wiped the slate clean so we could mess it up again – and let's be honest, for a sin-washed world, there is plentiful sin still to go around. People still kill people, people still rape and steal, hate and lust, disease and starvation and slavery...

Jesus is our Atonement, and so much more.

When John points out Jesus to his disciples, when they leave John to approach this Lamb of God, they approach one who is about reconciling the cosmos, all there was, is. And ever will be, to God, one who exists to break down the barriers which separate all of us from our loving Creator.

There is a word in Greek that shows up a lot in this reading: “meno,” which is most distinctively rendered “abide.” That word occurs five times in four verses here: “And John testified, 'I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abided on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and abide is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' Then: “When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, 'What are you looking for?' They said to him, 'Rabbi' (which translated means Teacher), 'where are you abiding?' He said to them, 'Come and see.' They came and saw where he was abiding, and they abided with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.”

Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus teaches us that he abides in the Father and the Father in him, and we as his disciples are then invited to abide in him and he in us. So when Jesus turns to ask the approaching disciples what they're looking for, and they ask where he lives, maybe they aren't asking for his address. Maybe they are really answering the question: “What are you looking for?” “We are looking to abide where you abide, to live where you live.”

Now, each of the Gospels is clear about how completely clueless the disciples are, so I don't know that these two completely understand what they are asking. What I do know is how they reacted to Jesus' answer to their question – they respond the same way John did, by telling what they had found.

Andrew finds Simon, and brings him to Jesus... and Simon is changed. He gets a new identity.

Evangelism is a scary word, I'll admit. We don't talk a whole lot about it in mainline denominations, and when we do, it's often within the context of a program or ministry of the church as a whole. The dirty little secret, though, is that even in evangelical denominations, the idea of sharing your faith is daunting. That is why there are shelves full of how-to books, warehouses full of tracts and step-by-step formulas for witnessing to others about Jesus Christ.

I've used them and taught them before, but I will be honest: when I was writing this sermon, I couldn't remember more than Bill Bright's “The Four Spiritual Laws” and “The Romans Road,” which walks a person through key verses in (you may guess it by the name) the Book of Romans.

So I Googled “witnessing tools.” What I found was nine hundred and two thousand results, including how-to websites, offers of brochures and tracts, a Christian multi-tool (one of those things with pliers, screwdrivers, knives, and all in a pocket tool), a Christian mini barrel spotlight, illustrations, instructions on witnessing with balloon animals, Christian tee shirts, Christian bumper stickers, Christian drumsticks and Christian guitar straps and Christian keychains and Christian bracelets and Christian iPhone cases and Christian purses and Christian wallets and Christian sunglasses and Christian hair accessories...

But is the best way to share our faith found in a lanyard or a bumper sticker? Has anyone's life been changed by a one hundred twenty five foot high cross on I-65 North or by a billboard or keychain or church marquee sign?

Jesus did his fair share of seeking out disciples – John and Andrew by the sea of Galilee, for example. But in this case, the disciples sought out Jesus. They were told about him by someone who had firsthand knowledge, and they went to find out for themselves. And Jesus said to those inquiring disciples, “Come and see.”

And they saw. That is to say, the disciples saw his life, saw where he abided, and from seeing his life, they came to know who he was – Andrew said to Simon, “We have found the Messiah.”

A multitool or t-shirt can't do that, nor can a billboard or bumper sticker or a huge metal cross. I submit that these are marketing campaigns, not evangelism. The most effective form of evangelism, the best way to share our faith, and by far the most frightening, is by living. By being who we are in Christ.

The disciples were seekers. They had connected with John the Baptist because he had a message, and he pointed out for them the way to transformation – “Behold, the Lamb of God.” To be sure, this is a world full of seekers. We have “the pursuit of happiness” written into our history and our cultural DNA. We seek for meaning to life, we scramble to fill what St. Augustine called the “God-shaped hole.” And through it all, our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

To find and be found, we all need a John the Baptist, an Andrew, a preacher, a teacher, a parent, a friend, a brother or sister – maybe all of the above and more – to point us in the right direction and to keep us on the trail.

To be John the Baptist for someone else is not difficult, it is not something to worry about or shy away from. It doesn't require perfection or a flawless delivery of perfected points of doctrine. We don't have to be right all the time. Madeline L'Engle (“lingel”) said, “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

All that is required is a willingness to help others find what you have found. To help them find the place where they can sit and be still and wait for the Christ to come and say to them, as he has to each of us, “Come and see.”

Don't Give Up!

I am deeply indebted to the scholarship and thoughts of Kathryn Matthews Huey, D. Mark Davis, Meda Stamper, and David Kalas.

Nothing pithy or humorous to say. Just encouragement: Don't give up...

LUKE 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

This is the Word of the Lord.

There are some beautiful representations of prayer in classic art. No doubt when I say the words “Praying Hands,” either a painting or sculpture of hands pressed together in an attitude of prayer comes to mind – we've all seen it, haven't we? Or the familiar painting of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, kneeling at a rock, face turned toward heaven. Or an elderly gentleman at a table, clasping his hands, a loaf of bread in front of him.

There's nothing at all wrong with these kinds of representations, any more than there is anything wrong with these kinds of quiet, dignified prayers. Our Gospel reading today has nothing to do with these kinds of prayer, though.

We begin with a picture of a judge who isn't much of a judge. When you and I hear the word “judge,” we picture a man or a woman in a black robe, gavel in hand. As I understand it, for people in Judea the time of Jesus, the leader of the synagogue was called upon to mediate disputes among people in their village. The priests of the Temple in Jerusalem were judges as well, many meeting together in the Great Sanhedrin to hear and decide matters of religious and civil importance.

And yes, injustices abounded with these different judges – the High Priest owed his job to the Romans – in fact, Pilate kept the priestly garments under lock and key, and if the Roman Prefect didn't like what the Chief Priest was doing, he simply replaced him. Even so, scholars and historians note that the priestly class in Jerusalem lived sumptuously off the proceeds from the Temple tax, and was thus quite dedicated to keeping the status quo.

By stark contrast, the widow had, quite literally, nothing. John Pilch writes that the “word for 'widow' in Hebrew means 'silent one' or 'one unable to speak.' In the patriarchal Mediterranean world males alone play a public role. Women do not speak on their own behalf.” Women could not own property or work to earn a living. Without a husband or a male child to support her, the widow was dependent upon the kindness of the synagogue or Temple for her basic daily needs.

Now, of course, we don't know who this woman's opponent was, or what the person had done against the widow, all we are certain of is that (a) this judge doesn't care, and (b) the widow doesn't care that this judge doesn't care. She has a need, the judge can address that need, so she is by cracky gonna get her need addressed!

\You can just see this widow waiting at the judge's door every morning, first in line. Maybe she interrupts him again at lunch, and maybe every time she is turned away she gets back in line again, so by the end of the day she has been turned away by the judge several times. Maybe she knocks on his door during supper. Maybe she makes a point to sit in the front row at they synagogue and stare at him the whole time...

After awhile, the judge gets heartburn every morning because he knows who is gonna be there when he opens his door. He hears her voice in his dreams, he is beginning to lose sleep – the Greek for where the judge says “...so that she may not wear me out...” has, as its primary meanings, “to beat black and blue, to smite so as to cause bruises and livid spots.” He is feeling verbally beaten up by this widow's constant haranguing! So for the sake of his own health, he gives in and answers the widow's request.

Perhaps the first time this widow stood before the judge, she did so properly, following decorum. Once he turned her away, though, she was faced with a hard choice: give up, and let her opponent keep whatever she had taken from the widow, or keep fighting for her rights.

One of the principles I taught in sales is that, most times, people will take the easiest option given to them. That's why the best salespeople give only the illusion of choice: So would you like the red one or the green one? And when faced with opposition, either real or imagined, the easiest option for humans is to give up, find a better way, or settle for no way at all.

But if Moses had given up after that initial, disheartening encounter with Pharaoh, the Hebrews would not have been freed. If the children of Israel had given up marching around Jericho after five days, the walls would not have fallen. If the Syrophonecian woman had given up when she received no response — or a negative one — from Jesus, her daughter would not have been healed. If, following the coming of the Holy Spirit, the apostles in Jerusalem had given up at the first sign of opposition, the church there would have floundered while they cowered. If Paul had given up his missionary efforts as soon as he encountered difficulty, untold numbers of individuals and communities would not have heard the good news.

So yes, maybe surrender is easy, but giving up is the easiest, quickest way to lose. And not giving up is a basic key to victory in any sense of the word.

At the point in time Luke was writing his Gospel, people were probably starting to feel discouraged. Everyone expected Jesus to be coming any day now, but time wore on and no Jesus. They were tired of waiting for the deepest hope of their hearts, and it just wasn't happening. They were tired of being persecuted as a tiny little minority in a great big, powerful empire. They were anxious and suffering.

So this parable is most decidedly not about how to nag God with our repeated requests so, eventually, we'll wear the Almighty out and God will give in and give us what we want. Rather, today's passage is about waiting and not being discouraged, not losing heart.

Society may have told the widow that she was a nobody without a voice, but she knew otherwise, and her persistence helped her hold on to that knowledge: Barbara Brown Taylor says, “She [was] willing to say what [she] wanted – out loud, day and night, over and over – whether she got it or not, because saying it was how she remembered who she was.”

One of the doctrines of Calvinism, which serves as the basis for our Reformed theology in the Presbyterian Church USA, is “Perseverance of the Saints.” This doctrine has been taken to mean a lot of things, like “Once Saved, Always Saved,” or evidence that people who may fall away from the faith were never “really saved” in the first place. But I rather see the idea of “Perseverance of the Saints” as an encouragement, reassurance that, for the Christian, staying the course is worth it.

Our New Testament Lectionary reading, from Second Timothy, follows on this theme of persistence, not giving in or giving up. Paul writes to Timothy, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”

Do you hear how those words stand out? Proclaim, be persistent, with the utmost patience, endure, carry out...

Don't give up. In the face of prayers that continue to go unanswered, and we don't know why, don't give up. When justice is slow, when good things happen to bad people and when good people just keep getting bad things, don't give up.

Jesus ends the parable with a question: “...when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Faith is not about our doctrines, faith is not about what we believe. Marcus Borg puts it best: “you can believe all the right things and still be in bondage. You can believe all the right things and still be miserable. You can believe all the right things and still be relatively unchanged. Believing a set of claims to be true has very little transforming power.”

Rather, faith has to do with relationship. With giving your heart and your trust, your radical trust, to God. Soren Kierkegaard says that “faith as trust is like floating on a deep ocean. Faith is like floating in seventy thousand fathoms of water. If you struggle, if you tense up and thrash about, you will eventually sink. But if you relax and trust, you will float.”

Faith as trust is trusting in the buoyancy of God. Faith is trusting in the sea of being in which we live and move and have our being.

In this sense, then, persistence in prayer has very little to do with what we pray for. Sure, the content of our prayers is important, but part of what we learn as we grow in relationship with God as we pray, and pray, and pray, is how to pray. Prayer is one of the ways we remind ourselves of who we are, and prayer shapes our hearts in a way that reflects the heart of God.

It bears repeating, then: don't give up. God, who is not at all like the unjust judge, doesn't move in our time frame, no, and sometimes the answers to our prayers don't come, or they seem to come in ways that make no sense.

Don't give up. We are promised the Holy Spirit, we are promised justice, and we are promised the now-and-coming Kingdom of God. We are precious to God, and these are the best gifts that God can give to us.

Don't give up.