Jesus doesn't offer investment advice or self-help pop-psychology. He offers a hard choice. I can only hope I've done the text justice.
I am grateful for the work of John Petty of "Progressive Involvement," David Lose of "Working Preacher," and John van de Laar of "Sacresdise" for their work, which figures extensively in this sermon.
Though it is not included here, I am also adapting the "World in Prayer" for the Prayers of the People.
Isaiah 49:8-16a
Thus says the LORD:
In a time of favor I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages;
saying to the prisoners, “Come out,” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;
they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,
for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.
And I will turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways shall be raised up.
Lo, these shall come from far away, and lo, these from the north and from the west,
and these from the land of Syene.
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.
Matthew 6:24-34
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
”So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
There’s a bumper sticker I saw awhile back that reads, “If you aren’t completely appalled, you aren’t paying attention.”
I don’t really know how long it’s been going on, or where it started, but it seems like our society is bent on having something to be terrified about all the time, and if you aren’t sharing in the horror, you’re apparently misinformed, or, worse, part of “the problem.”
Politicians, TV commentators, and radio talk-show hosts make a very good living by pushing the panic button – health care, immigration, inflation, this crisis, that ideological attack, the other side’s lies about something or the other, it goes on and on.
Never mind that you and I live in one of the most affluent societies in the history of the planet. My friend the Reverend Barbara Vaughn says that we'd rather be scared and confused by those we think know better than trusting our own intelligence. As a result, if the politicians and pundits can get us to worry about taxes, shrinking incomes and rising prices, shortages and uncertainty, they can sway us to think and act and vote the way they want us to, and we go along with it.
But in our Gospel reading today, Jesus says, “Wait. You’re better than that.”
At its core, today’s reading is a question: what, or who, do we place our trust in? Is it God, or is it “stuff?” If this is no small question for you and I, it was an even greater challenge to the people who were listening to Jesus that day on the mountainside.
There were a few very rich people in ancient Israel. At the top were the aristocratic families, many of whom were of Greek or Roman background, who had received their property through military conquest. They made up about two or three percent of the population at most.
Under them were the four or five percent of people who were merely wealthy: the major tax collectors, and those who held high positions with the major landowners. The tax collectors and landowners were agents of political oppression. You can count the priests and scribes in Jerusalem among them. They were not necessarily rich in terms of assets (some were, though), but they lived in palatial splendor. If the tax collectors were political oppressors, the priests and scribes were religious oppressors, so the people caught it from both sides.
Everybody else was poor. A good seventy-five percent of the people were merchants, fishermen, artisans, and farmers. Today, these are respected, often well-paid professions, but back then these workers lived a hand-to-mouth existence, making barely enough to get by, if that.
At the very bottom rung were the fifteen percent who were beggars, cripples, prostitutes and criminals who lived off the land outside the cities. So, rather than feeling challenged when Jesus said “you cannot serve God and wealth,” the people would have been in full agreement. After all, with the various taxes they paid approaching fully half of their already meager income, they regarded their economic superiors as greedy, living high on the hog while so many were near starvation. These wealthy and super-rich rulers were obviously following money and power more than God.
But one doesn’t attempt to serve two masters simply by having an abundance of wealth. Jesus makes six statements in these verses against worrying, and while it’s true that the wealthy felt great anxiety over keeping and enhancing the things they’ve accumulated, it isn’t hard to imagine that the people listening to Jesus that day, the poor and the poorer, had plenty to worry about. Funny thing is, no matter where they were in the economic spectrum, they worried about the same things: security and acquisition.
Soren Kierkegaard once defined anxiety as "the next day." We don't know what will happen "the next day," which creates anxiety this day. If you accumulate enough stuff – food, clothing, money, things – you will be secure against that great unknown that is “tomorrow.” Of course, we soon find out, if we’re paying attention, that there is never “enough.”
So, you see, Jesus isn’t offering a spiritual or doctrinal directive when he says that we cannot serve two masters. He is stating a physical reality, a psychological truth. It isn’t that we shouldn’t serve two masters, or that it would be a really good idea not to serve two masters, or that we should strive to not serve two masters. It’s that we cannot serve two masters, period. We lack the ability.
What Jesus is offering is a chance to reject scarcity and embrace abundance, to leave behind the economics of the world for the economics of God. To serve God is to be in relationship with God, and to live in the Kingdom of God, and the currency of the Kingdom of God – the coin of the realm, if you will – is love.
Love – and especially God's love – cannot be counted, tracked or stockpiled. And when you live in this kind of relationship of love and trust, you've entered into the realm of abundance, the world of possibility, the world of contentment. Suddenly, in this world – Jesus calls it the "kingdom of God" – not worrying actually becomes an option. This world invites us to trust God's faithfulness in the same way that the lilies of the field trust in spring, or a bird trusts the currents of the air it sails upon.
This is the world Jesus invites us into: a world of abundance, generosity, and new life. But it is also a world of fragility, trust, and vulnerability. Lilies and birds, after all, can't defend themselves but must trust God's providence and love.
But let me ask you something: is this “don’t worry” philosophy realistic for everyone in our world today? Can we speak about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air to the people of Libya, to those still digging out of the rubble in Christchurch, New Zealand, or to Uganda’s Invisible Children, or to the millions living in refugee camps across the world? Can we tell a homeless man not to worry, or someone struggling with illness to set their anxiety aside?
I contend that this is why Jesus commands us to strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness. I’ve seen the word “righteousness” also translated as “justice,” and for good reason. “Righteousness” sounds as if we are to be seeking personal purity. This is a good idea, and certainly part and parcel of a right relationship with God, but the context of the passage compels us to look beyond the personal.
To seek the Kingdom’s justice is to recognize this fact: There is no lack of wealth, food or resources in our world today. There is only the lack of sharing, connectedness and equitable distribution that would ensure that all people have enough.
Living as servants of God, as residents of the Kingdom of God, requires a shift in our loyalties – from ourselves, our resources, our accumulated treasure, to God, God’s resources and God’s interconnected community. To share, to connect, to distribute. To be the solution. To let the victims of violence and war discover that they can be free because they are surrounded by peacemakers who are protecting and shielding them. To allow the hungry and the homeless to find that they are free because they are welcomed into the hospitality of caring brothers and sisters. To truly care for those who are the least, the lost, the forgotten, the marginalized.
Will it work, this putting the Kingdom of God, and God’s justice for all creation first? Will all of our needs be met as well? I don’t know. Jesus certainly thinks so. And we’ll only find out by trying… so let it begin here.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Living More Deeply
This would have been a much more superficial sermon without the gift of friendship I enjoy with Rev. Kathleen Lambert. Her encouragement and support, and the permission to use her story in this sermon, are just a part of why she is a gift from God. I also relied heavily on the scholarship of Rev. Dr. George Hermanson, and of Scott Hoezee of The Center for Excellence in Preaching.
When I think of nonviolent protest, and the dangers and rewards, I of course think of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the thousands of brave men, women, and children who marched with him in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. I also think of the important, ongoing work of groups like SoulForce. But my heart remains with the people of the Middle east, who as you read this are bleeding and dying for that most basic human desire, freedom.
May they live to see their dream fulfilled.
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD.
You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.
You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,
“He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
and again,
“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are futile.”
So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Matthew 5:38-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
Our Gospel reading today has quite a history. The whole idea of not resisting evildoers, of turning the other cheek, has for centuries been used against oppressed people, has been used to keep abused women and children in dangerous relationships, has been used as an excuse to do nothing when confronted with violence against others, has been used to convince others to become a “doormat for Christ.”
Really? Is that what Jesus is saying here? Or could it be that this passage is one of those places in Scripture where a poor translation, and a few hundred years of misinterpretation, has taken its toll?
First, let’s look at the issue of translation. Where the New Revised Standard Version quotes Jesus as saying, “Do not resist an evildoer,” it’s translating from the Greek, “antistenai,” which is better translated, “Do not violently resist an evildoer.” And in the context of the sentence just before, it makes perfect sense to read it this way!
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” When this law, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” was first recorded in the book of Exodus, it was nothing short of revolutionary in that it functioned as a limit to how far revenge could go. The idea might have been to keep life from looking like a Quentin Tarentino movie. If someone killed your cow, you couldn’t burn down their barn. If someone hit you, you couldn’t stab them. If someone insulted you, you couldn’t kill their family. A person could do just enough to repair his reputation, just what it took to save face, and no more. One’s retribution could not go further than matching the original offense.
Remember that we talked last week about how Jesus, in this section of the Sermon on the Mount, is taking all-too-familiar laws and sayings and intensifying them, radicalizing them, making them personal and extending these teachings into almost every area of life.
Jesus is saying, “Look. Moses said that if you need revenge, you can have it, but don’t go over the line. I say put revenge aside. You have to ask yourself, ‘What kind of person do I want to be? A critical, cynical person, who refuses to forget even for a moment that old so-and-so owes me a buck, owes me an apology, owes me an invitation to dinner, owes me a phone call? So self-absorbed that I’m forever calculating what I’ve got coming?’ If you’re following me, that’s not going to cut it.”
Jesus' basic call in Matthew 5, and it is nowhere more obvious than here, is the call for us to be what Dietrich Bonhoeffer once called "surprising people." Instead of being like so many others in this world--people with chips on their shoulders, people always spoiling for a fight, folks forever hauling each other into the People's Court to settle silly disputes that just a little understanding and honesty could resolve in ten minutes, we are called to live more deeply.
If I may play off of a quote by C.S. Lewis, everyone agrees that loving enemies and forgiving the people who hurt us are great ideas. Most everyone agrees on that right up until the moment they are confronted with an actual enemy and with a real-life hurt inflicted on them by someone. Then all of a sudden this “turn the other cheek” stuff starts to look like fine advice for other people, for people who do not have to face circumstances anywhere near as raw and complex as what we are currently facing.
It is a sad but telling feature to our lives that we tend to condemn in others what we excuse in ourselves. We assume that no one else in the world faces precisely the dynamics we face. What we see through our own eyeballs and what we feel inside our own hearts are not shared by others because nobody has ever been hurt the way I have been hurt. No one has an enemy as pernicious and cruel as my enemy. Others can turn the other cheek but I am going to hit back before I get destroyed. Others can be loving and forgiving but I am going to use the good sense God gave me and be wary and defensive.
But we are called to live more deeply. To walk in that place where Jesus has walked before us. Jesus had the worst enemies ever and endured a hatred he could never in a million lifetimes have deserved. And despite enduring the worst that those enemies could hurl at him, he still managed to rasp out in a moment of agony: “Father, forgive them—they know not what they are doing.”
And if life consisted of just the petty, the superficial, if the worst thing that anyone ever had to endure was getting cut off in traffic or being ignored by a receptionist or having to wait on hold, then what I have said thus far would be enough. Play the piano, pass the plate, don’t forget to dance, what’s for lunch?
But as Christ calls upon us to live more deeply, we must recognize that the problems that we, and others in our lives and upon this planet, face, are all too often far more than mere inconveniences or insults to our dignity. To treat all situations as equal is to, and this is just one example, return to the horror of telling a battered woman or abused child to “turn the other cheek” and remain in a deadly situation.
The examples Jesus uses in expanding upon “Do not violently resist an evildoer” are telling. Each of the three scenarios – turning the cheek, giving your cloak as well as your coat when sued, going the extra mile – were things done to the powerless, the poor, the enslaved. These were things done by powerful people, in a system which gave absolute power to those with wealth and position and birth.
“…if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also…” according to some of the scholars I’ve read, Jesus is describing an act done by Masters to their servants and slaves. It was always done by hitting with the back of the right hand across the right cheek, and was not at all an act of random violence or of fighting among friends or enemies. The blow was about asserting status, rank, privilege and power over the other. It had to be done properly, to demonstrate that the master had control of the slave. The slave must obediently stand facing you without external coercion. You must strike only the right cheek; and only with the back of the right hand.
If this is correct, then by turning the left cheek, the slave renders the master powerless to continue the violence, and does so without lifting a finger.
“…if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well…” Peasants did not sue one another, so this, too is about the privileged abusing the poor. Since peasants quite literally only owned the clothes on their backs, being sued for your coat was being sued for the only thing you owned - except for your underwear… which, in those days, was a “cloak!” Perhaps the idea is to publicly expose the shame which allows someone with wealth and privilege to take away the only thing a poor person owns! Give him your underwear. Let him explain why you are naked.
“…and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile…” Soldiers were allowed to conscript civilians to carry their packs, but only for a mile. However, this was no minor inconvenience for anyone who worked and fed their family day by day. Walking a mile with a heavy pack and then back again would mean missing that day's labor, and therefore that day's food for the family. Perhaps going that extra mile not only exposed to the soldier the injustice he was committing, but it saved some other poor laborer from missing a day’s work as well.
We carry away from this some very important lessons in twenty-first century America. First and foremost, don’t be part of a system, and don’t act in a way, which forces others to turn the other cheek, to give us coat and cloak, to walk the extra mile. Live more deeply.
Next, we must recognize that there are times when the truth must be spoken to power in a way which exposes the evil and corruption inherent in their systems. Nowhere is this more apparent today than in the protests breaking out across the Middle East. Change has come, and is continuing, in places like Yemen, Egypt, and in Libya and Iran… the change comes with a price as those in power use their police forces and armies to injure and kill the protestors. Yet as it did when people endured police dogs, fire hoses, and dynamite bombs in our own city in the 1960’s, the change comes.
And we must carry away something which, perhaps, cuts “closer to the bone,” if you will. We must learn to recognize when those offenses committed against us are petty, and when, by confronting the offender in love, we can bring a level of healing, restoration, and growth to both parties.
My friend Rev. Kathleen Lambert was asked, when she was being examined by the Committee on Ministry for ordination in her Presbytery, to describe a time when my faith was challenged or shaken.
She says, “I told them of a time when I was serving as an associate pastor with a senior pastor who was condescending to me and humiliated me in general, but once even in a worship service… he came right over to me yelling and pointing his finger at me… I was left with a feeling of being so reduced and so confused about what I should do next. How was I as a Christian woman and a subordinate to handle this situation?
“That night I prayed and prayed and prayed. I was up till 4:00 in the morning wrestling with this. Then a peace came over me as the answer became clear. As I prayed for him, as I began to imagine hope, my anger melted away and I saw a way for both of us to be restored.
“It occurred to me that he treated lots of people this way. The other associate, who was a man, his wife, his children, the church secretary, and the youth group. And nobody stood up to him. Surely, we were all afraid. And maybe, nobody ever told him that he scares people. Maybe he didn't even know how much he was hurting people.
“It became clear as day to me, that God was giving me that peace that surpasses understanding so that I would have the confidence to help him to be restored. I needed to say something to him, not just to stand up for myself, but to give him the freedom from the evil that possessed him and caused him to hurt so me and so many others.
“The next day, I explained to him how I felt from his treatment of me. I told him that I felt humiliated, like I had been slapped across the face. I told him that he was making unreasonable demands on me. I told him that I wanted to work it out. I was willing to go the extra mile. But that I would not accept being treated like that any longer.
“Then I drew deep from the well of divine confidence and told him ‘and so we have a problem.’
“Then I was quiet.
“He was quiet too. Then he said, ‘thank you. No one has ever showed me such dignity. No one has ever given me my humanity. Thank you.’
“That was the story I told to the chair and vice chair of the COM and that what I learned that day was how to handle confrontation. And it has changed my faith in a profound way.
“I am no longer afraid of confrontation, because I know as a Jesus follower, there is another way to handle it. A way that restores both people.”
Our reading ends with Jesus telling us to be perfect, in the same way that God is perfect. That word, “teleios,” could mean complete, as in brought to its end, finished, or wanting nothing necessary to completeness, and it could mean mature, full grown, adult.
The most obvious meaning is the latter, “mature.” But let’s not set that first idea aside yet. When Christ calls on us to live more deeply, he calls us to the maturity that brings depth, but he also calls us to that journey towards perfection, toward God's perfection. Toward restoration. Yes, restoration between ourselves and our fellow Christians, ourselves and our fellow human beings, but it cannot end there, because that makes Christianity little more than a social activism club.
No, to live more deeply, to walk this faith journey in the footsteps of Christ and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is to strive to reconcile all of humanity with their loving Creator. To live more deeply is to love extravagantly – not the emotional, internal, felt “love,” but the difficult, dirty, inconvenient love. The kind of love that cares, in tangible, active ways, even for people we don’t particularly like. The kind of love that cares, in tangible, active ways, even for people who kind of scare us.
We need a whole-hearted, whole-souled commitment to God's creation and every person in it. We need, in short, the eyes of God – eyes that scan the horizon not first for what we can get out of life but what we can contribute to life for the peace and flourishing joy of all.
This is living more deeply.
When I think of nonviolent protest, and the dangers and rewards, I of course think of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the thousands of brave men, women, and children who marched with him in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. I also think of the important, ongoing work of groups like SoulForce. But my heart remains with the people of the Middle east, who as you read this are bleeding and dying for that most basic human desire, freedom.
May they live to see their dream fulfilled.
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD.
You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.
You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,
“He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
and again,
“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are futile.”
So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Matthew 5:38-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
Our Gospel reading today has quite a history. The whole idea of not resisting evildoers, of turning the other cheek, has for centuries been used against oppressed people, has been used to keep abused women and children in dangerous relationships, has been used as an excuse to do nothing when confronted with violence against others, has been used to convince others to become a “doormat for Christ.”
Really? Is that what Jesus is saying here? Or could it be that this passage is one of those places in Scripture where a poor translation, and a few hundred years of misinterpretation, has taken its toll?
First, let’s look at the issue of translation. Where the New Revised Standard Version quotes Jesus as saying, “Do not resist an evildoer,” it’s translating from the Greek, “antistenai,” which is better translated, “Do not violently resist an evildoer.” And in the context of the sentence just before, it makes perfect sense to read it this way!
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” When this law, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” was first recorded in the book of Exodus, it was nothing short of revolutionary in that it functioned as a limit to how far revenge could go. The idea might have been to keep life from looking like a Quentin Tarentino movie. If someone killed your cow, you couldn’t burn down their barn. If someone hit you, you couldn’t stab them. If someone insulted you, you couldn’t kill their family. A person could do just enough to repair his reputation, just what it took to save face, and no more. One’s retribution could not go further than matching the original offense.
Remember that we talked last week about how Jesus, in this section of the Sermon on the Mount, is taking all-too-familiar laws and sayings and intensifying them, radicalizing them, making them personal and extending these teachings into almost every area of life.
Jesus is saying, “Look. Moses said that if you need revenge, you can have it, but don’t go over the line. I say put revenge aside. You have to ask yourself, ‘What kind of person do I want to be? A critical, cynical person, who refuses to forget even for a moment that old so-and-so owes me a buck, owes me an apology, owes me an invitation to dinner, owes me a phone call? So self-absorbed that I’m forever calculating what I’ve got coming?’ If you’re following me, that’s not going to cut it.”
Jesus' basic call in Matthew 5, and it is nowhere more obvious than here, is the call for us to be what Dietrich Bonhoeffer once called "surprising people." Instead of being like so many others in this world--people with chips on their shoulders, people always spoiling for a fight, folks forever hauling each other into the People's Court to settle silly disputes that just a little understanding and honesty could resolve in ten minutes, we are called to live more deeply.
If I may play off of a quote by C.S. Lewis, everyone agrees that loving enemies and forgiving the people who hurt us are great ideas. Most everyone agrees on that right up until the moment they are confronted with an actual enemy and with a real-life hurt inflicted on them by someone. Then all of a sudden this “turn the other cheek” stuff starts to look like fine advice for other people, for people who do not have to face circumstances anywhere near as raw and complex as what we are currently facing.
It is a sad but telling feature to our lives that we tend to condemn in others what we excuse in ourselves. We assume that no one else in the world faces precisely the dynamics we face. What we see through our own eyeballs and what we feel inside our own hearts are not shared by others because nobody has ever been hurt the way I have been hurt. No one has an enemy as pernicious and cruel as my enemy. Others can turn the other cheek but I am going to hit back before I get destroyed. Others can be loving and forgiving but I am going to use the good sense God gave me and be wary and defensive.
But we are called to live more deeply. To walk in that place where Jesus has walked before us. Jesus had the worst enemies ever and endured a hatred he could never in a million lifetimes have deserved. And despite enduring the worst that those enemies could hurl at him, he still managed to rasp out in a moment of agony: “Father, forgive them—they know not what they are doing.”
And if life consisted of just the petty, the superficial, if the worst thing that anyone ever had to endure was getting cut off in traffic or being ignored by a receptionist or having to wait on hold, then what I have said thus far would be enough. Play the piano, pass the plate, don’t forget to dance, what’s for lunch?
But as Christ calls upon us to live more deeply, we must recognize that the problems that we, and others in our lives and upon this planet, face, are all too often far more than mere inconveniences or insults to our dignity. To treat all situations as equal is to, and this is just one example, return to the horror of telling a battered woman or abused child to “turn the other cheek” and remain in a deadly situation.
The examples Jesus uses in expanding upon “Do not violently resist an evildoer” are telling. Each of the three scenarios – turning the cheek, giving your cloak as well as your coat when sued, going the extra mile – were things done to the powerless, the poor, the enslaved. These were things done by powerful people, in a system which gave absolute power to those with wealth and position and birth.
“…if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also…” according to some of the scholars I’ve read, Jesus is describing an act done by Masters to their servants and slaves. It was always done by hitting with the back of the right hand across the right cheek, and was not at all an act of random violence or of fighting among friends or enemies. The blow was about asserting status, rank, privilege and power over the other. It had to be done properly, to demonstrate that the master had control of the slave. The slave must obediently stand facing you without external coercion. You must strike only the right cheek; and only with the back of the right hand.
If this is correct, then by turning the left cheek, the slave renders the master powerless to continue the violence, and does so without lifting a finger.
“…if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well…” Peasants did not sue one another, so this, too is about the privileged abusing the poor. Since peasants quite literally only owned the clothes on their backs, being sued for your coat was being sued for the only thing you owned - except for your underwear… which, in those days, was a “cloak!” Perhaps the idea is to publicly expose the shame which allows someone with wealth and privilege to take away the only thing a poor person owns! Give him your underwear. Let him explain why you are naked.
“…and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile…” Soldiers were allowed to conscript civilians to carry their packs, but only for a mile. However, this was no minor inconvenience for anyone who worked and fed their family day by day. Walking a mile with a heavy pack and then back again would mean missing that day's labor, and therefore that day's food for the family. Perhaps going that extra mile not only exposed to the soldier the injustice he was committing, but it saved some other poor laborer from missing a day’s work as well.
We carry away from this some very important lessons in twenty-first century America. First and foremost, don’t be part of a system, and don’t act in a way, which forces others to turn the other cheek, to give us coat and cloak, to walk the extra mile. Live more deeply.
Next, we must recognize that there are times when the truth must be spoken to power in a way which exposes the evil and corruption inherent in their systems. Nowhere is this more apparent today than in the protests breaking out across the Middle East. Change has come, and is continuing, in places like Yemen, Egypt, and in Libya and Iran… the change comes with a price as those in power use their police forces and armies to injure and kill the protestors. Yet as it did when people endured police dogs, fire hoses, and dynamite bombs in our own city in the 1960’s, the change comes.
And we must carry away something which, perhaps, cuts “closer to the bone,” if you will. We must learn to recognize when those offenses committed against us are petty, and when, by confronting the offender in love, we can bring a level of healing, restoration, and growth to both parties.
My friend Rev. Kathleen Lambert was asked, when she was being examined by the Committee on Ministry for ordination in her Presbytery, to describe a time when my faith was challenged or shaken.
She says, “I told them of a time when I was serving as an associate pastor with a senior pastor who was condescending to me and humiliated me in general, but once even in a worship service… he came right over to me yelling and pointing his finger at me… I was left with a feeling of being so reduced and so confused about what I should do next. How was I as a Christian woman and a subordinate to handle this situation?
“That night I prayed and prayed and prayed. I was up till 4:00 in the morning wrestling with this. Then a peace came over me as the answer became clear. As I prayed for him, as I began to imagine hope, my anger melted away and I saw a way for both of us to be restored.
“It occurred to me that he treated lots of people this way. The other associate, who was a man, his wife, his children, the church secretary, and the youth group. And nobody stood up to him. Surely, we were all afraid. And maybe, nobody ever told him that he scares people. Maybe he didn't even know how much he was hurting people.
“It became clear as day to me, that God was giving me that peace that surpasses understanding so that I would have the confidence to help him to be restored. I needed to say something to him, not just to stand up for myself, but to give him the freedom from the evil that possessed him and caused him to hurt so me and so many others.
“The next day, I explained to him how I felt from his treatment of me. I told him that I felt humiliated, like I had been slapped across the face. I told him that he was making unreasonable demands on me. I told him that I wanted to work it out. I was willing to go the extra mile. But that I would not accept being treated like that any longer.
“Then I drew deep from the well of divine confidence and told him ‘and so we have a problem.’
“Then I was quiet.
“He was quiet too. Then he said, ‘thank you. No one has ever showed me such dignity. No one has ever given me my humanity. Thank you.’
“That was the story I told to the chair and vice chair of the COM and that what I learned that day was how to handle confrontation. And it has changed my faith in a profound way.
“I am no longer afraid of confrontation, because I know as a Jesus follower, there is another way to handle it. A way that restores both people.”
Our reading ends with Jesus telling us to be perfect, in the same way that God is perfect. That word, “teleios,” could mean complete, as in brought to its end, finished, or wanting nothing necessary to completeness, and it could mean mature, full grown, adult.
The most obvious meaning is the latter, “mature.” But let’s not set that first idea aside yet. When Christ calls on us to live more deeply, he calls us to the maturity that brings depth, but he also calls us to that journey towards perfection, toward God's perfection. Toward restoration. Yes, restoration between ourselves and our fellow Christians, ourselves and our fellow human beings, but it cannot end there, because that makes Christianity little more than a social activism club.
No, to live more deeply, to walk this faith journey in the footsteps of Christ and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is to strive to reconcile all of humanity with their loving Creator. To live more deeply is to love extravagantly – not the emotional, internal, felt “love,” but the difficult, dirty, inconvenient love. The kind of love that cares, in tangible, active ways, even for people we don’t particularly like. The kind of love that cares, in tangible, active ways, even for people who kind of scare us.
We need a whole-hearted, whole-souled commitment to God's creation and every person in it. We need, in short, the eyes of God – eyes that scan the horizon not first for what we can get out of life but what we can contribute to life for the peace and flourishing joy of all.
This is living more deeply.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Salt, Light, and a Little Storefront Church in Arkansas...
What if we acted like the most important thing in our lives was not how well we followed doctrine, or that our theology was more perfect than that other person's? What if we acted like salt and light? What would that mean?
I think it would look a lot like Canvas Community Church's "Warming Center." Watch the video - the young lady in the green shirt is Rachel McAdams (@gubeltrut on Twitter), who clued me in on this amazing effort.
1 Corinthians 2:1-16
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him” —
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.
Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
Matthew 5:13-20
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Isaiah 58:1-12
Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
This is the Word of the Lord.
The exile was over. Cyrus had decreed that the Jews could return to their homeland from Babylon. Little by little, people were returning to Jerusalem, and families were repopulating the lands they – and in many cases, their parents and grandparents – had been taken from almost sixty years before.
The inhabitants of Jerusalem work hard. They rebuild the Temple, though it’s rather tiny and run-down, compared to the one destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. They do their best to repair the city walls, the roads, and the marketplace.
While all of this is going on, the citizens of Jerusalem are very careful to attend Temple regularly, keep up with their sacrifices and tithes and donations, and (though food is scarce and many people are bordering on malnutrition) fasting two days each week.
But it seems that the harder they work, the worse things get. No matter how careful they are to keep the Law, no matter how pious they appear to be, there’s not enough rain for the crops. There are still holes in the walls, their houses are still in ruins, and many of the roads are unusable. The whole thing is very confusing. Could it be that, after bringing them through the Exile and returning them home, God has lost interest? Could it be that God has found another chosen people? Could God simply be no longer listening?
I can imagine how shocking Isaiah’s words were for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people who were saying, perhaps aloud, but certainly in their hearts, “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
You see, in the same way that you and I may flip a wall switch and expect a light to come on, people in that day and age, whatever country they were in, whatever gods they worshipped, expected that if they followed the rules, made the sacrifices, and attended to their rituals properly, that god or those gods would respond as expected. Keeping the rules meant keeping the deities happy, and as long as He or she or it or they were satisfied, then the people would find favor with those deities, and nothing else mattered.
The obvious problem with this logic was that, from the moment God had called Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, the Jewish people had been God’s chosen people, an example to the nations, a race which, by their very existence, had already found favor with God.
What was the point of all this fasting, all this self-abasement? If they were already God’s chosen people, how could they be more chosen? Isaiah’s call is for God’s people to act like what they already are – God’s people!
God’s people don’t need ritual fasts to get God’s attention. What God calls for is not more sackcloth and ashes to demonstrate someone’s piety, but a redefinition of “piety.” In this new definition we read in Isaiah, fasting is a new set of relationships within ongoing life. The fasting acceptable to God is a daily fast from domination, from blaming others, from evil speech, from self-satisfaction, from entitlement, from blindness to one's privilege. The fast that God seeks calls for radical, vigilant attention justice and generosity, day in and day out.
It is the fast of a people not seeking their identity, but confident and active within their identity! Not trying to be somebody, but sure of who they already are! It is a fast which, because of its generosity, compassion, and confidence in the blessings of God, will naturally result in the light, healing, help, protection, satisfying of needs, and, most certainly, the presence and guidance of God among them.
In countless Sunday Schools, Bible studies, youth groups and worship services today, discussions and lessons and sermons will be struggling with our Gospel reading, and I do mean “struggling.” Set aside trying to explain how salt can become unsalty; the whole thing about the Law not being abolished, and the requirement to be more righteous than the Pharisees is a tall mountain to climb for anyone.
It’s too easy to get the discussion wrong – to end up talking about how we, as Christians, might become the salt of the earth, or become the light of the world. Too often, the message will be that if we work harder in this or that, if we are more diligent in the other, then perhaps God will look favorably upon those actions, and mercifully account for our actions as attaining the status of being salt and light.
But Jesus never said “You can become the salt of the earth,” or “You will be the light of the world.” These are not potential states, achievements to be attained, or even future certainties! We don’t have to try to become salt and light.
Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world! In Jesus Christ, this is a current reality. And when we embrace this reality, when we know who we are, everything changes.
The thing about salt is, whether it’s mined or harvested through desalinization, it can’t be not salt. It seasons, it preserves, in some areas of the country it melts ice on roads, and in the summer that same kind of salt helps freeze ice cream. In ancient times salt was rubbed on newborns, and had other medicinal uses. Some gourmets claim to be able to taste the difference between salt from different places on the planet. But whatever the application, salt has to be salt.
The thing about light is it can’t be anything but light. Light is pervasive and invasive; if you have to develop film in a darkroom, any trace of light seeping in will ruin the process. When it’s so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face, a single match can make all the difference. Whichever extreme, light has to be light.
If we view church as something we go to, rather than something we are; if it’s a once-a-week get-out-of-Hell-free card or if it counts as positive marks on our social acceptability meter, we miss the point, and I would contend that we are in danger of finding out how salt can become unsalty.
And if we, as Christians, are struggling to be accepted by God, to be doctrinally perfect and theologically blameless, we’re missing the point. We are already accepted by God. We are already salt and light. We don’t cease functioning because we’re already there; instead, knowing who we are and whose we are frees us to act in response to this incredible gift of God’s grace! We can’t be anything but salt! We can’t be anything but light!
One of the most striking examples I’ve seen lately of this kind of freedom was when my friend Rachel McAdams told me about volunteer work she’s doing at this tiny storefront church in Little Rock, Arkansas, called Canvas Community Church. In early January, as temperatures in Arkansas were dropping far more than usual, the homeless shelters became filled to over capacity. People were, out of necessity, being turned away. There was no room. Canvas Community church members decided to open their doors so folks could get warm. There was no big pomp and circumstance, no running it through committee to make sure it didn’t violate the charter, no budget, and no plan for how to get it done. I don’t even think they ran it past City Hall. They saw a need and filled the need.
They set up row upon row of donated cots in the common area. They made coffee. They cooked food. They opened the doors. Over a hundred people showed up that first night, and aside from a few nights when the temperature has meant that the center could close, the place has been packed ever since. More than one hundred and fifty volunteers have done the following: Over 2,000 meals have been distributed. Hundreds of people have received haircuts, warm clothes, showers, sleeping bags, and hygiene kits. But the impact is going far beyond these basics. Over a hundred people so far have received medical assistance. Fifty six homeless and marginalized individuals so far have been helped into social services. Twenty-one people have been helped into rehab. Thirteen people have been helped into an education program. And no less than twelve families have been reunited.
What is striking to me, and not in a good way, is this: Canvas Community Church is all too unique, not because of what they did, but that they did it at all. They didn’t sit back and expect the shelters to magically expand their capacity to do the job. They didn’t wait on the government to step in. They were salt. They were light.
Seeing a need and actively, even recklessly, meeting that need? That is being the salt of the earth which brings nourishment, healing, and restoration. That is being the light of the world which brings hope, direction, growth, and life.
When God spoke through Isaiah, he was calling on the returning exiles to act like who they already were: the chosen of God, a beacon of light to the Gentiles, a source of hope for the nations. When Christ calls us to exceed the Pharisees in our righteousness, we can do this only by acting like what we already are – what we cannot not be! Salt and light!
I think it would look a lot like Canvas Community Church's "Warming Center." Watch the video - the young lady in the green shirt is Rachel McAdams (@gubeltrut on Twitter), who clued me in on this amazing effort.
1 Corinthians 2:1-16
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him” —
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.
Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
Matthew 5:13-20
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Isaiah 58:1-12
Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
This is the Word of the Lord.
The exile was over. Cyrus had decreed that the Jews could return to their homeland from Babylon. Little by little, people were returning to Jerusalem, and families were repopulating the lands they – and in many cases, their parents and grandparents – had been taken from almost sixty years before.
The inhabitants of Jerusalem work hard. They rebuild the Temple, though it’s rather tiny and run-down, compared to the one destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. They do their best to repair the city walls, the roads, and the marketplace.
While all of this is going on, the citizens of Jerusalem are very careful to attend Temple regularly, keep up with their sacrifices and tithes and donations, and (though food is scarce and many people are bordering on malnutrition) fasting two days each week.
But it seems that the harder they work, the worse things get. No matter how careful they are to keep the Law, no matter how pious they appear to be, there’s not enough rain for the crops. There are still holes in the walls, their houses are still in ruins, and many of the roads are unusable. The whole thing is very confusing. Could it be that, after bringing them through the Exile and returning them home, God has lost interest? Could it be that God has found another chosen people? Could God simply be no longer listening?
I can imagine how shocking Isaiah’s words were for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people who were saying, perhaps aloud, but certainly in their hearts, “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
You see, in the same way that you and I may flip a wall switch and expect a light to come on, people in that day and age, whatever country they were in, whatever gods they worshipped, expected that if they followed the rules, made the sacrifices, and attended to their rituals properly, that god or those gods would respond as expected. Keeping the rules meant keeping the deities happy, and as long as He or she or it or they were satisfied, then the people would find favor with those deities, and nothing else mattered.
The obvious problem with this logic was that, from the moment God had called Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, the Jewish people had been God’s chosen people, an example to the nations, a race which, by their very existence, had already found favor with God.
What was the point of all this fasting, all this self-abasement? If they were already God’s chosen people, how could they be more chosen? Isaiah’s call is for God’s people to act like what they already are – God’s people!
God’s people don’t need ritual fasts to get God’s attention. What God calls for is not more sackcloth and ashes to demonstrate someone’s piety, but a redefinition of “piety.” In this new definition we read in Isaiah, fasting is a new set of relationships within ongoing life. The fasting acceptable to God is a daily fast from domination, from blaming others, from evil speech, from self-satisfaction, from entitlement, from blindness to one's privilege. The fast that God seeks calls for radical, vigilant attention justice and generosity, day in and day out.
It is the fast of a people not seeking their identity, but confident and active within their identity! Not trying to be somebody, but sure of who they already are! It is a fast which, because of its generosity, compassion, and confidence in the blessings of God, will naturally result in the light, healing, help, protection, satisfying of needs, and, most certainly, the presence and guidance of God among them.
In countless Sunday Schools, Bible studies, youth groups and worship services today, discussions and lessons and sermons will be struggling with our Gospel reading, and I do mean “struggling.” Set aside trying to explain how salt can become unsalty; the whole thing about the Law not being abolished, and the requirement to be more righteous than the Pharisees is a tall mountain to climb for anyone.
It’s too easy to get the discussion wrong – to end up talking about how we, as Christians, might become the salt of the earth, or become the light of the world. Too often, the message will be that if we work harder in this or that, if we are more diligent in the other, then perhaps God will look favorably upon those actions, and mercifully account for our actions as attaining the status of being salt and light.
But Jesus never said “You can become the salt of the earth,” or “You will be the light of the world.” These are not potential states, achievements to be attained, or even future certainties! We don’t have to try to become salt and light.
Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world! In Jesus Christ, this is a current reality. And when we embrace this reality, when we know who we are, everything changes.
The thing about salt is, whether it’s mined or harvested through desalinization, it can’t be not salt. It seasons, it preserves, in some areas of the country it melts ice on roads, and in the summer that same kind of salt helps freeze ice cream. In ancient times salt was rubbed on newborns, and had other medicinal uses. Some gourmets claim to be able to taste the difference between salt from different places on the planet. But whatever the application, salt has to be salt.
The thing about light is it can’t be anything but light. Light is pervasive and invasive; if you have to develop film in a darkroom, any trace of light seeping in will ruin the process. When it’s so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face, a single match can make all the difference. Whichever extreme, light has to be light.
If we view church as something we go to, rather than something we are; if it’s a once-a-week get-out-of-Hell-free card or if it counts as positive marks on our social acceptability meter, we miss the point, and I would contend that we are in danger of finding out how salt can become unsalty.
And if we, as Christians, are struggling to be accepted by God, to be doctrinally perfect and theologically blameless, we’re missing the point. We are already accepted by God. We are already salt and light. We don’t cease functioning because we’re already there; instead, knowing who we are and whose we are frees us to act in response to this incredible gift of God’s grace! We can’t be anything but salt! We can’t be anything but light!
One of the most striking examples I’ve seen lately of this kind of freedom was when my friend Rachel McAdams told me about volunteer work she’s doing at this tiny storefront church in Little Rock, Arkansas, called Canvas Community Church. In early January, as temperatures in Arkansas were dropping far more than usual, the homeless shelters became filled to over capacity. People were, out of necessity, being turned away. There was no room. Canvas Community church members decided to open their doors so folks could get warm. There was no big pomp and circumstance, no running it through committee to make sure it didn’t violate the charter, no budget, and no plan for how to get it done. I don’t even think they ran it past City Hall. They saw a need and filled the need.
They set up row upon row of donated cots in the common area. They made coffee. They cooked food. They opened the doors. Over a hundred people showed up that first night, and aside from a few nights when the temperature has meant that the center could close, the place has been packed ever since. More than one hundred and fifty volunteers have done the following: Over 2,000 meals have been distributed. Hundreds of people have received haircuts, warm clothes, showers, sleeping bags, and hygiene kits. But the impact is going far beyond these basics. Over a hundred people so far have received medical assistance. Fifty six homeless and marginalized individuals so far have been helped into social services. Twenty-one people have been helped into rehab. Thirteen people have been helped into an education program. And no less than twelve families have been reunited.
What is striking to me, and not in a good way, is this: Canvas Community Church is all too unique, not because of what they did, but that they did it at all. They didn’t sit back and expect the shelters to magically expand their capacity to do the job. They didn’t wait on the government to step in. They were salt. They were light.
Seeing a need and actively, even recklessly, meeting that need? That is being the salt of the earth which brings nourishment, healing, and restoration. That is being the light of the world which brings hope, direction, growth, and life.
When God spoke through Isaiah, he was calling on the returning exiles to act like who they already were: the chosen of God, a beacon of light to the Gentiles, a source of hope for the nations. When Christ calls us to exceed the Pharisees in our righteousness, we can do this only by acting like what we already are – what we cannot not be! Salt and light!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Insert Witty Beatitudes-Centric Title Here.
I don't know Sarah Dylan Breuer, but her excellent Lectionary blog has, countless times, helped challenge me into seeing Scripture in new ways. I owe her a great debt for this sermon.
Micah 6:1-8
Hear what the LORD says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.
“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.”
“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Matthew 5:1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
I think the Beatitudes have been given a bum rap for a long time. It‘s too easy, I fear, to call them what Robert Schuller called them, the “Be Happy Attitudes,” where we read them like directions for positive thinking, or poetically vapid self-help tips. We’ve filtered the Beatitudes through the lens of our Western individualism and in the process we’ve robbed of their revolutionary, scandalous, shocking character.
That’s right, the Beatitudes were revolutionary. As much as any part of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes called for a radical change in the way we view the world around us.
To understand this to see why these words are such a tectonic shift in everything we have ever known or believed, we must first understand the words, and the context in which they were spoken.
I mentioned Western individualism for a reason: in our society, being your own person is a good thing. Standing on our own two feet, making a name for ourselves, these are things we respect, and expect of ourselves. However, in first-century Palestine, the opposite was true.
In the New Testament world, the esteem you commanded was in large part a function of how important your connections -- your family members, your patrons, and your clients -- were. If you were (whether by birth, adoption, or being a slave or freedperson) part of a very important family, you were important. If your family was less important, you were less important. If you weren't connected to others, that didn't make you "your own man"; it made you nobody. That's serious stuff, because nobody wants to do business with a nobody; being pushed out of your network of social relationships could also mean being left with nothing to live on and no way to get out of that position.
That situation brought about all kinds of other hardships. The one pushed out could be destitute. The Greek is ptochos, traditionally translated “poor in spirit” in Matthew 5:3. The hunger and thirst that Matthew 5:6 talks about -- literal hunger and thirst incurred for righteousness as Jesus redefined it -- would certainly follow, as would mourning (Matthew 5:4).
To call this a “blessed” position to be in makes no sense to our modern ears, and that’s OK, because it almost certainly struck the disciples, and those gathered to hear Jesus speak as he sat on that mountain, as utter tomfoolery… unless what Jesus was speaking of wasn’t what Dictionary.com defines as “divinely or supremely favored; fortunate: to be blessed with a strong, healthy body; blessed with an ability to find friends,” or “blissfully happy or contented.”
More than one commentator I’ve read suggests that a better translation of ptochos would be “honored,” that is, “given of credit or distinction; high respect, as for worth, merit, or rank; high public esteem; fame; glory.” The One, of course, bestowing that honor is God. This way, these verses don't show Jesus as pop psychologist, telling people how to be happy; they show Jesus giving honor to those pushed out to the margins of their culture.
You see, two things are happening here: First, Jesus is shifting the worldview of everyone listening: for the follower of Christ, the people in the margins, the ones who are forgotten, those “less than,” are not to be made fun of, or allowed to be ignored. No, right there in front of all the crowds, Jesus ascribes honor to them, declaring that these are the people whom the God of Israel honors. They may well have been disowned, but they are children of the God who created the universe, to whom all honor belongs. Yes, Jesus makes them family. They are children of one Father, and that makes them brothers and sisters. They will never be bereft in a community that sees themselves as family, and that cares for one another in ways that show that they take that family relationship with utmost seriousness.
And that’s important, because Jesus is also preparing his followers for the persecution which lay ahead.
Christianity, lived out in that culture, was rife with things guaranteed to get people in trouble: Followers of Christ were “meek.” Now, when you hear that word, don’t confuse it as “overly submissive or compliant, spiritless, or tame.” The kind of meekness Jesus refers to is not being a doormat, it’s being specifically nonviolent, even in protests, like Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr. In first-century culture, being “meek” in this context meant refusing to engage in contests for honor – contests whose outcomes, whose very existence, affected their entire family as much as it did the individual male who refused to "be a man" when challenged.
Followers of Christ were "merciful" and "peacemakers," seeking reconciliation with, rather than revenge on, someone who wronged them. Followers of Christ were "pure in heart," and as Jesus defines purity, that meant doing things – like eating with any who would break bread with you – bound to render them impure in others' eyes.
Looking at it from this direction, it makes sense to take the suggestion of Jerome Neyrey in his book, “Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew,” and take that last Beatitude, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account…” as the focal point.
Now, this is the point in the sermon where I’m suppose to wrap it up by saying that we need to treat the poor with honor in exactly the ways I’ve already mentioned: providing for their needs, recognizing them as humans deserving dignity as opposed to ridicule, disgust, and rejection. It’s a nice, safe, comfortable way to end a sermon: preach the Social Gospel, pray, and listen to some music.
But as much as The Beatitudes are not poetic pick-me-ups, they, like all of Scripture, hold much more depth than a single definition does justice to. If these words were only relevant to the men and women who were poor in the first century, only impacted those persecuted in the centuries leading up to Constantine, then why preach them? No, the Beatitudes speak to us today, not only challenging our worldview, not simply calling on us to turn the tables on society’s understanding of poverty and treatment of the poor, but they speak words of instruction, hope, and comfort to our spirit, in a very real way.
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the poor in spirit, who have failed, those whose self-dependence is exhausted, and whose only recourse is grace, Those who know that, without the love of Christ they are, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt: without hope, without purpose, without a real future. The kingdom of heaven, God’s reign experienced and lived on earth, belongs – lock, stock, and barrel – to them.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are those who mourn, both for the things which should be better in the world, and for the things which should be better in themselves; for the relationships and triumphs they’ve lost, and those they will never have. They will be comforted, God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the meek, who speak the truth to power, refusing to encourage or engage in violence, yet standing for truth, and for fair treatment for all inhabitants of the earth. These are the ones whose inheritance is the planet itself.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, both within themselves, and for justice in the world around them. Their hunger and thirst will certainly be satisfied!”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the ones who practice mercy when it matters most, and when it is least convenient. God’s grace will shower them with mercy.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the pure in heart, who don’t wonder “what’s in it for me,” who love without reservation, who insist on seeing the good in others. They will see God, both in the faces of those they love… and in that now-and-coming Kingdom.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the peacemakers, the finders of common ground, those who beat swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks, who don’t fear conflict, but who face it and defuse it. These folks are called ‘children of God.’”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are those in Laos, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Algeria, who are persecuted for being Christians, the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are you who live in Indonesia, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Libya, Turkey, Columbia, Cuba, and so many other countries, where you are imprisoned, reviled, persecuted and killed for believing in Jesus Christ. You’re in the company of all of God’s prophets, and your reward in heaven is immense.”
Allelia. Amen.
Micah 6:1-8
Hear what the LORD says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.
“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.”
“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Matthew 5:1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
I think the Beatitudes have been given a bum rap for a long time. It‘s too easy, I fear, to call them what Robert Schuller called them, the “Be Happy Attitudes,” where we read them like directions for positive thinking, or poetically vapid self-help tips. We’ve filtered the Beatitudes through the lens of our Western individualism and in the process we’ve robbed of their revolutionary, scandalous, shocking character.
That’s right, the Beatitudes were revolutionary. As much as any part of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes called for a radical change in the way we view the world around us.
To understand this to see why these words are such a tectonic shift in everything we have ever known or believed, we must first understand the words, and the context in which they were spoken.
I mentioned Western individualism for a reason: in our society, being your own person is a good thing. Standing on our own two feet, making a name for ourselves, these are things we respect, and expect of ourselves. However, in first-century Palestine, the opposite was true.
In the New Testament world, the esteem you commanded was in large part a function of how important your connections -- your family members, your patrons, and your clients -- were. If you were (whether by birth, adoption, or being a slave or freedperson) part of a very important family, you were important. If your family was less important, you were less important. If you weren't connected to others, that didn't make you "your own man"; it made you nobody. That's serious stuff, because nobody wants to do business with a nobody; being pushed out of your network of social relationships could also mean being left with nothing to live on and no way to get out of that position.
That situation brought about all kinds of other hardships. The one pushed out could be destitute. The Greek is ptochos, traditionally translated “poor in spirit” in Matthew 5:3. The hunger and thirst that Matthew 5:6 talks about -- literal hunger and thirst incurred for righteousness as Jesus redefined it -- would certainly follow, as would mourning (Matthew 5:4).
To call this a “blessed” position to be in makes no sense to our modern ears, and that’s OK, because it almost certainly struck the disciples, and those gathered to hear Jesus speak as he sat on that mountain, as utter tomfoolery… unless what Jesus was speaking of wasn’t what Dictionary.com defines as “divinely or supremely favored; fortunate: to be blessed with a strong, healthy body; blessed with an ability to find friends,” or “blissfully happy or contented.”
More than one commentator I’ve read suggests that a better translation of ptochos would be “honored,” that is, “given of credit or distinction; high respect, as for worth, merit, or rank; high public esteem; fame; glory.” The One, of course, bestowing that honor is God. This way, these verses don't show Jesus as pop psychologist, telling people how to be happy; they show Jesus giving honor to those pushed out to the margins of their culture.
You see, two things are happening here: First, Jesus is shifting the worldview of everyone listening: for the follower of Christ, the people in the margins, the ones who are forgotten, those “less than,” are not to be made fun of, or allowed to be ignored. No, right there in front of all the crowds, Jesus ascribes honor to them, declaring that these are the people whom the God of Israel honors. They may well have been disowned, but they are children of the God who created the universe, to whom all honor belongs. Yes, Jesus makes them family. They are children of one Father, and that makes them brothers and sisters. They will never be bereft in a community that sees themselves as family, and that cares for one another in ways that show that they take that family relationship with utmost seriousness.
And that’s important, because Jesus is also preparing his followers for the persecution which lay ahead.
Christianity, lived out in that culture, was rife with things guaranteed to get people in trouble: Followers of Christ were “meek.” Now, when you hear that word, don’t confuse it as “overly submissive or compliant, spiritless, or tame.” The kind of meekness Jesus refers to is not being a doormat, it’s being specifically nonviolent, even in protests, like Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr. In first-century culture, being “meek” in this context meant refusing to engage in contests for honor – contests whose outcomes, whose very existence, affected their entire family as much as it did the individual male who refused to "be a man" when challenged.
Followers of Christ were "merciful" and "peacemakers," seeking reconciliation with, rather than revenge on, someone who wronged them. Followers of Christ were "pure in heart," and as Jesus defines purity, that meant doing things – like eating with any who would break bread with you – bound to render them impure in others' eyes.
Looking at it from this direction, it makes sense to take the suggestion of Jerome Neyrey in his book, “Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew,” and take that last Beatitude, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account…” as the focal point.
Now, this is the point in the sermon where I’m suppose to wrap it up by saying that we need to treat the poor with honor in exactly the ways I’ve already mentioned: providing for their needs, recognizing them as humans deserving dignity as opposed to ridicule, disgust, and rejection. It’s a nice, safe, comfortable way to end a sermon: preach the Social Gospel, pray, and listen to some music.
But as much as The Beatitudes are not poetic pick-me-ups, they, like all of Scripture, hold much more depth than a single definition does justice to. If these words were only relevant to the men and women who were poor in the first century, only impacted those persecuted in the centuries leading up to Constantine, then why preach them? No, the Beatitudes speak to us today, not only challenging our worldview, not simply calling on us to turn the tables on society’s understanding of poverty and treatment of the poor, but they speak words of instruction, hope, and comfort to our spirit, in a very real way.
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the poor in spirit, who have failed, those whose self-dependence is exhausted, and whose only recourse is grace, Those who know that, without the love of Christ they are, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt: without hope, without purpose, without a real future. The kingdom of heaven, God’s reign experienced and lived on earth, belongs – lock, stock, and barrel – to them.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are those who mourn, both for the things which should be better in the world, and for the things which should be better in themselves; for the relationships and triumphs they’ve lost, and those they will never have. They will be comforted, God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the meek, who speak the truth to power, refusing to encourage or engage in violence, yet standing for truth, and for fair treatment for all inhabitants of the earth. These are the ones whose inheritance is the planet itself.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, both within themselves, and for justice in the world around them. Their hunger and thirst will certainly be satisfied!”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the ones who practice mercy when it matters most, and when it is least convenient. God’s grace will shower them with mercy.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the pure in heart, who don’t wonder “what’s in it for me,” who love without reservation, who insist on seeing the good in others. They will see God, both in the faces of those they love… and in that now-and-coming Kingdom.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are the peacemakers, the finders of common ground, those who beat swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks, who don’t fear conflict, but who face it and defuse it. These folks are called ‘children of God.’”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are those in Laos, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Algeria, who are persecuted for being Christians, the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.”
The Beatitudes say to us today,
“Honored are you who live in Indonesia, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Libya, Turkey, Columbia, Cuba, and so many other countries, where you are imprisoned, reviled, persecuted and killed for believing in Jesus Christ. You’re in the company of all of God’s prophets, and your reward in heaven is immense.”
Allelia. Amen.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Chasm (Revisited)
The Epistle reading stood out to me this week, and though I've spoken about The Chasm before, it seems an appropriate metaphor for the divisions in the church.
We can argue soteriology, baptism, Eucharist... or we can love God and love people. That seems to be the choice.
Isaiah 9:1-4
But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
Matthew 4:12-23
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles — the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
This is the Word of the Lord.
I worked for a number of years with a nonprofit ministry whose stated purpose was to bring all Christians of every denomination together to positively impact the lives of teenagers. The organization is quite successful, and operates in cities in all fifty states, but they've never really come close to fulfilling that stated purpose.
The problem is this: the ministry was founded by a conservative Evangelical Christian, and is run on conservative Evangelical principles. As a member of a mainline, less conservative denomination, every time I would try and involve Presbyterians or Catholics or the less conservative members of the Episcopal Church in ministry activities, or suggest women as speakers for their events, I would confront what I call “The Chasm.”
The Chasm, you see, is that place created by sharp differences in theology – where, because your views on baptism are different on my views of baptism, we can't really work together in ministry. Where your views about women in ministry are different than my views, so we can't work together in ministry. Where your views on the process of salvation are different than mine, so we can't work together in ministry. Our differences are so great that there exists between us a deep hole, so wide we cannot reach across.
You may not know about The Chasm, because for most of us it doesn't really exist. We have friends and neighbors and even family members who come from a wide variety of faith traditions, and we get along just fine, thank you.
Still, most of us have seen The Chasm in operation in one way or another. Most of us have a couple of neighbors or coworkers or relatives who are really “out there,” don't we?
Maybe it's someone who is a dedicated Conservative Christian, horrified at the thought of you attending a church where not only are women included in the leadership of the church, but allowed to preach and to pastor! Aghast at the idea of baptizing infants! Dubious about your relationship with God because your church doesn't have an invitation at the end of every service!
Or maybe it's the person who is a dedicated Liberal Christian, who writes in Green Party candidates for any and every election, no matter what, refers to God as “She,” is aghast that you don't eat organically grown foods, horrified that you shop at Wal-Mart, dubious about your worship service because it doesn't include a time for spontaneous interpretive dance, and is still angry that the PC(USA) stopped boycotting Taco Bell!
Imagine all of those people, and a few in-between, all in the same church building. Paul had been hearing about the conflicts for some time now: first from Apollos, who Paul had left in charge of the church at Corinth, then from members of Chloe’s household, and finally from Stephanas and his two friends who were passing through Ephesus, where Paul was staying. From the sound of it, things in that church were bad, and getting worse.
It was a lot like the story I heard this week about a young rabbi who found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the rabbi said or did made any difference. Finally, in desperation, the young rabbi sought out the synagogue's 99-year-old founder. He met the old rabbi in the nursing home and poured out his troubles. "So tell me," he pleaded, "was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?" "No," answered the old rabbi." Ah," responded the younger man, "then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?"
"No," answered the old rabbi. "Well," the young rabbi responded, "what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, and the other half sit and scream." "Ah," said the old man, "that was the tradition."
Part of the members claimed to be on the right path because they followed Paul. Others claimed to be on the right path because they followed Apollos. Still others insisted that these first two groups had it all wrong, that the correct teaching was found in Simon Peter’s words. And of course there was the group which loudly proclaimed that they, alone, were following Christ.
So what Paul has to confront in this letter to the Corinthian church is factionalism – a factionalism based on a difference in teaching and doctrine.
You see, theology and doctrine in their purest forms are meant to bring the Body of Christ together under a commonality of purpose, a unity of focus, a culture of the now-and-yet-to-come Kingdom of God. In Corinth, the ideal of theological purity has turned putrid. The details of doctrine have overwhelmed the Corinthian church and have become the focus of faith.. Being right has become far more important than righteousness. The rules – and the constant battle over whose rules are the right rules – has smothered love.
It sounds childish, it sounds very unlike the way a church should operate, and it sounds very familiar.
There are, right now, worldwide, some thirty-four thousand Christian denominations, and twelve hundred in the United States alone. Each of these denominations differs to greater or lesser degrees from the others in things like what the Lord’s Supper means, what baptism means – not to mention when someone should be baptized, and how wet they should get when it’s done – matters of polity, ordination, the structure of the worship service, the proper response to social issues, and on and on and on.
Even within denominations, churches split over such important issues as the color of the hymnals, carpet, or roof shingles, the spelling of the word “hallelujah,” or the retirement of a pastor.
Earlier in the week, I read Paul’s rhetorical, sarcastic question to the Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?” and I confess that, in light of all of these factors, I wanted to answer, “Yes.” At least as far as the Body of Christ, the community of believers is concerned, Christ is as divided, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope of repairing the broken places.
Yet despite everything that makes us different, despite all the problems and disagreements which set us apart from one another, there is a common, beautiful thread which binds us together. Paul’s message to that fractured Corinthian church is relevant today: the central focus of the church, whichever name might be on the sign out front, cannot be how we worship, or how we baptize, or what form of church government we adhere to, or whether or not we take the offering before or after the sermon. The central focus, our common message, must be the cross of Christ.
It’s interesting that, despite the fact that Paul’s evangelism and preaching had established the Corinthian church, despite the fact that he himself had placed Apollos as the leader of the church, and despite the fact that, more than once in the New Testament, Paul butts heads with Peter over important matters of doctrine and salvation, he spends no time at all in our reading this morning weighing the merits of those who claim allegiance to his teaching, or Apollos’ leadership, over against those who claim to follow Simon Peter (or Cephas) and those who seem to think that they, alone, have it all figured out and are the singular followers of Christ.
Because when the Body is at odds with itself, when members are so involved fighting that they pay no attention to the real and pressing needs about them, who is right and who is wrong no longer matter. When theology and doctrine get in the way of justice and mercy and faithfulness, that theology and doctrine become irrelevant.
Through our Epistle reading this morning, God calls on us to set aside these factions and arguments, look past the name over the doorway and finally act as if we are a family, because that’s what we have been created to be. It is Christ who was crucified for us, and it is in Christ’s name that we are baptized.
For far too long we have stood at the precipice of this chasm, looking across at one another, flinging mud back and forth, waving our arms and yelling about how the people on the other side have it wrong, the other side is evil and corrupt and apostate and heretical and doesn’t bathe regularly. Deep below, covered ever more deeply by the angry mud we have slung, stand the poor, the marginalized, the sick, the theologically imperfect, and the enslaved.
The thing is, none of them care which side is right. They need help.
It’s time to get down into the chasm with them. The message of the Cross, the message of the centrality and pre-eminence of Christ, does not consist of which denominational label we wear, or whose theology we find most speaks to our spirit about the nature of God. The prophet Micah wrote, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Jesus’ teaching about The Greatest Commandment is similar: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Our guide cannot be the latest sermon series by this television preacher or the last radio show from that commentator. For us the one non-negotiable standard must be the Greatest Commandment: to love God and love our neighbor. As a result, we bracket our day in prayer and Scripture reading, and we trust the Holy Spirit as our guide and teacher, and do not ignore our common sense.
We are about the business of leading people out of the chasm, and into new life. This makes us neither Fundamentalist Evangelicals or Liberals, or whatever other label someone wants to slap on us. Rather, we are the Body of Christ, in action daily. And though we do so in our imperfect, human, Chasm-dwelling way, we strive to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk on our spiritual journey both humbly, and ever closer, with our God.
We can argue soteriology, baptism, Eucharist... or we can love God and love people. That seems to be the choice.
Isaiah 9:1-4
But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
Matthew 4:12-23
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles — the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
This is the Word of the Lord.
I worked for a number of years with a nonprofit ministry whose stated purpose was to bring all Christians of every denomination together to positively impact the lives of teenagers. The organization is quite successful, and operates in cities in all fifty states, but they've never really come close to fulfilling that stated purpose.
The problem is this: the ministry was founded by a conservative Evangelical Christian, and is run on conservative Evangelical principles. As a member of a mainline, less conservative denomination, every time I would try and involve Presbyterians or Catholics or the less conservative members of the Episcopal Church in ministry activities, or suggest women as speakers for their events, I would confront what I call “The Chasm.”
The Chasm, you see, is that place created by sharp differences in theology – where, because your views on baptism are different on my views of baptism, we can't really work together in ministry. Where your views about women in ministry are different than my views, so we can't work together in ministry. Where your views on the process of salvation are different than mine, so we can't work together in ministry. Our differences are so great that there exists between us a deep hole, so wide we cannot reach across.
You may not know about The Chasm, because for most of us it doesn't really exist. We have friends and neighbors and even family members who come from a wide variety of faith traditions, and we get along just fine, thank you.
Still, most of us have seen The Chasm in operation in one way or another. Most of us have a couple of neighbors or coworkers or relatives who are really “out there,” don't we?
Maybe it's someone who is a dedicated Conservative Christian, horrified at the thought of you attending a church where not only are women included in the leadership of the church, but allowed to preach and to pastor! Aghast at the idea of baptizing infants! Dubious about your relationship with God because your church doesn't have an invitation at the end of every service!
Or maybe it's the person who is a dedicated Liberal Christian, who writes in Green Party candidates for any and every election, no matter what, refers to God as “She,” is aghast that you don't eat organically grown foods, horrified that you shop at Wal-Mart, dubious about your worship service because it doesn't include a time for spontaneous interpretive dance, and is still angry that the PC(USA) stopped boycotting Taco Bell!
Imagine all of those people, and a few in-between, all in the same church building. Paul had been hearing about the conflicts for some time now: first from Apollos, who Paul had left in charge of the church at Corinth, then from members of Chloe’s household, and finally from Stephanas and his two friends who were passing through Ephesus, where Paul was staying. From the sound of it, things in that church were bad, and getting worse.
It was a lot like the story I heard this week about a young rabbi who found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the rabbi said or did made any difference. Finally, in desperation, the young rabbi sought out the synagogue's 99-year-old founder. He met the old rabbi in the nursing home and poured out his troubles. "So tell me," he pleaded, "was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?" "No," answered the old rabbi." Ah," responded the younger man, "then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?"
"No," answered the old rabbi. "Well," the young rabbi responded, "what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, and the other half sit and scream." "Ah," said the old man, "that was the tradition."
Part of the members claimed to be on the right path because they followed Paul. Others claimed to be on the right path because they followed Apollos. Still others insisted that these first two groups had it all wrong, that the correct teaching was found in Simon Peter’s words. And of course there was the group which loudly proclaimed that they, alone, were following Christ.
So what Paul has to confront in this letter to the Corinthian church is factionalism – a factionalism based on a difference in teaching and doctrine.
You see, theology and doctrine in their purest forms are meant to bring the Body of Christ together under a commonality of purpose, a unity of focus, a culture of the now-and-yet-to-come Kingdom of God. In Corinth, the ideal of theological purity has turned putrid. The details of doctrine have overwhelmed the Corinthian church and have become the focus of faith.. Being right has become far more important than righteousness. The rules – and the constant battle over whose rules are the right rules – has smothered love.
It sounds childish, it sounds very unlike the way a church should operate, and it sounds very familiar.
There are, right now, worldwide, some thirty-four thousand Christian denominations, and twelve hundred in the United States alone. Each of these denominations differs to greater or lesser degrees from the others in things like what the Lord’s Supper means, what baptism means – not to mention when someone should be baptized, and how wet they should get when it’s done – matters of polity, ordination, the structure of the worship service, the proper response to social issues, and on and on and on.
Even within denominations, churches split over such important issues as the color of the hymnals, carpet, or roof shingles, the spelling of the word “hallelujah,” or the retirement of a pastor.
Earlier in the week, I read Paul’s rhetorical, sarcastic question to the Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?” and I confess that, in light of all of these factors, I wanted to answer, “Yes.” At least as far as the Body of Christ, the community of believers is concerned, Christ is as divided, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope of repairing the broken places.
Yet despite everything that makes us different, despite all the problems and disagreements which set us apart from one another, there is a common, beautiful thread which binds us together. Paul’s message to that fractured Corinthian church is relevant today: the central focus of the church, whichever name might be on the sign out front, cannot be how we worship, or how we baptize, or what form of church government we adhere to, or whether or not we take the offering before or after the sermon. The central focus, our common message, must be the cross of Christ.
It’s interesting that, despite the fact that Paul’s evangelism and preaching had established the Corinthian church, despite the fact that he himself had placed Apollos as the leader of the church, and despite the fact that, more than once in the New Testament, Paul butts heads with Peter over important matters of doctrine and salvation, he spends no time at all in our reading this morning weighing the merits of those who claim allegiance to his teaching, or Apollos’ leadership, over against those who claim to follow Simon Peter (or Cephas) and those who seem to think that they, alone, have it all figured out and are the singular followers of Christ.
Because when the Body is at odds with itself, when members are so involved fighting that they pay no attention to the real and pressing needs about them, who is right and who is wrong no longer matter. When theology and doctrine get in the way of justice and mercy and faithfulness, that theology and doctrine become irrelevant.
Through our Epistle reading this morning, God calls on us to set aside these factions and arguments, look past the name over the doorway and finally act as if we are a family, because that’s what we have been created to be. It is Christ who was crucified for us, and it is in Christ’s name that we are baptized.
For far too long we have stood at the precipice of this chasm, looking across at one another, flinging mud back and forth, waving our arms and yelling about how the people on the other side have it wrong, the other side is evil and corrupt and apostate and heretical and doesn’t bathe regularly. Deep below, covered ever more deeply by the angry mud we have slung, stand the poor, the marginalized, the sick, the theologically imperfect, and the enslaved.
The thing is, none of them care which side is right. They need help.
It’s time to get down into the chasm with them. The message of the Cross, the message of the centrality and pre-eminence of Christ, does not consist of which denominational label we wear, or whose theology we find most speaks to our spirit about the nature of God. The prophet Micah wrote, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Jesus’ teaching about The Greatest Commandment is similar: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Our guide cannot be the latest sermon series by this television preacher or the last radio show from that commentator. For us the one non-negotiable standard must be the Greatest Commandment: to love God and love our neighbor. As a result, we bracket our day in prayer and Scripture reading, and we trust the Holy Spirit as our guide and teacher, and do not ignore our common sense.
We are about the business of leading people out of the chasm, and into new life. This makes us neither Fundamentalist Evangelicals or Liberals, or whatever other label someone wants to slap on us. Rather, we are the Body of Christ, in action daily. And though we do so in our imperfect, human, Chasm-dwelling way, we strive to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk on our spiritual journey both humbly, and ever closer, with our God.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Come and See!
I owe a debt of gratitude to René Girard and the folks at "Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary" for giving me much to think about concerning this week's Gospel passage. Also, a shout of appreciation goes to Peter Woods, whose words I used to close my sermon.
I don't know if I'm wallowing in heresy or not, but it's a fascinating way to view atonement...
Isaiah 49:1-7
Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The LORD called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the LORD,
and my reward with my God.”
And now the LORD says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength —
he says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Thus says the LORD,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
“Kings shall see and stand up, princes,
and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the LORD, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind — just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you — so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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.
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
If you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes inside a church, you’ve heard Jesus referred to as the “Lamb of God” more than once.
But have you ever wondered what that phrase, “the Lamb of God,” means? Well, come on, everyone knows what that phrase means, right? Jesus is the new Passover, a spotless sacrifice, removing the sins of the world and reconciling us to God.
The reason I ask the question is that I’ve come across some intriguing thoughts in my study resources this week. You see, I’ve always been under the impression that Jesus’ sacrifice was something God required in order to reconcile humankind to God’s self. The idea is that, in order for humankind to be worthy of relationship with God, blood must be shed. Our separation, by way of sin, is so great that a sacrifice must be offered. We are so depraved and dirty that, in order for God to look upon us with favor, someone has to die.
I mean, church folks usually say it in prettier ways, of course, but it comes down to the same thing.
In order to appease God, who was angry with the sins of humanity and poised, at any moment, to bring disease, famine, and conquest raining down on all of Creation, Jesus had to come to Earth and get nailed to the cross. God’s son was the only acceptable sacrifice for such corruption.
What if God is not like that, though?
I began to think about this a few years back, actually, during my training as a Commissioned Lay Pastor. You see, Reformed Theology, which defines the way Presbyterians struggle to understand God, has at its core John Calvin’s idea that man did nothing – can do nothing – to reconcile to God. God did everything necessary to reconcile humankind to God’s self.
Now, taking it a step further, we have to look at the Reformed understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We’ve talked before about how the Triune God is one God, a singular, and though our human interaction with our singular Creator understands three “persons,” we risk falling into pantheism if we do not understand that every act of any “person” of the Trinity is participated in by every part of the Trinity – all of God is directly involved with every act of the Father, every act of the Son, every act of the Holy Spirit. We can say with as much confidence as we can about any point of theological thought that God does not operate any other way.
As I began to understand these kinds of concepts, the idea of Jesus volunteering to sacrifice Himself in order to appease a wrathful Father, bent on annihilating everyone, began to make less and less sense.
Author and lecturer Gil Bailie suggests that the phrase “Lamb of God” means something wholly different than what I had become accustomed to. He says that if God had demanded the sacrifice of Jesus, then Jesus would have been the lamb of the human community given to God.
I’m almost certain I will get this wrong, but I’m going to do my best to explain what he suggests: Over the millennia, humankind developed a scapegoat mentality: quoting him here, “All archaic religions existed to take away the sins of the world. How did they do it? Every once in a while they dumped all these sins on someone and ran them out, or strung them up -- and felt righteous about it.”
Commenting on Gil Bailie’s words, Michael Hardin says, “We have [misunderstood what it means for Jesus to be the ‘Lamb of God’] largely by failing to attribute the demand for blood to the correct party, us. In the now-overused words of Pogo, ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us!’ Jesus’ sacrifice was designed to expose our bloodthirstiness, our enslavement to the sacrificial mechanism, not to satisfy a God who sits on the throne demanding yet another scapegoat. By making our sacrificial system and its falseness visible, Jesus takes away our ‘sin,’ our ‘missing-of-the-mark’ and leaves us without a viable victim.”
We are left, in other words, without someone to blame. We can no longer blame it on God. We can no longer say God wanted that sacrifice. What’s more, we can no longer look around and point at another, saying “your sin killed Christ,” because if we are human, we must realize that we are as responsible as any other human for the sacrifice. There are no more victims, there is no one left to blame. All of our excuses, our deflections, our justifications have been torn away by the violence of the Cross.
If you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes inside a church, you’ve heard the phrase “God is love.” If we dare to view Jesus as the Lamb of God, and understand it in a way that removes the responsibility for the sacrifice from God, do we not begin to glimpse the staggering, breathtaking breadth and depth of that love?
God loves you, personally and individually, without reservation, without hesitation, without limits! What’s more, if Jesus is the Lamb of God given to us, then it becomes glaringly obvious that God has always loved us! There truly is no depth we can sink to, no far country we can travel to, no philosophy we can hide behind, which will remove us from the love of God!
John says to his disciples, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” And Jesus invites them to “Come and see.”
Despite the countless layers of encrusted doctrine, dogma and determined identities that the Church has put onto Jesus as well as the requirements so many communities put on prospective followers before they even begin, Jesus simply invites you and I to come and see. Come and see, come and experience a life where we don’t have to worry about being good enough, where we don’t have to make sure we’re always doing the right things at the right times. Come and experience a world where we sacrifice not because we are trying to gain God’s favor, but because someone else is in need. Come and experience a world where we don’t have to obsess over who is “in” and who is “out” when it comes to the love and grace of God.
No, we can be like Andrew, sharing the Good News with confidence bordering on abandon, because we know that, since the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, then by definition God loves everyone, and everyone deserves to know that love, to be welcomed into the family, into relationship with God!
Christ’s invitation to us, and to everyone, is simply to experience. Come and see.
It is an adventure where the disciple and the teacher are in real relationship.
It is the path to life.
I don't know if I'm wallowing in heresy or not, but it's a fascinating way to view atonement...
Isaiah 49:1-7
Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The LORD called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the LORD,
and my reward with my God.”
And now the LORD says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength —
he says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Thus says the LORD,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
“Kings shall see and stand up, princes,
and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the LORD, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind — just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you — so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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.
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
If you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes inside a church, you’ve heard Jesus referred to as the “Lamb of God” more than once.
But have you ever wondered what that phrase, “the Lamb of God,” means? Well, come on, everyone knows what that phrase means, right? Jesus is the new Passover, a spotless sacrifice, removing the sins of the world and reconciling us to God.
The reason I ask the question is that I’ve come across some intriguing thoughts in my study resources this week. You see, I’ve always been under the impression that Jesus’ sacrifice was something God required in order to reconcile humankind to God’s self. The idea is that, in order for humankind to be worthy of relationship with God, blood must be shed. Our separation, by way of sin, is so great that a sacrifice must be offered. We are so depraved and dirty that, in order for God to look upon us with favor, someone has to die.
I mean, church folks usually say it in prettier ways, of course, but it comes down to the same thing.
In order to appease God, who was angry with the sins of humanity and poised, at any moment, to bring disease, famine, and conquest raining down on all of Creation, Jesus had to come to Earth and get nailed to the cross. God’s son was the only acceptable sacrifice for such corruption.
What if God is not like that, though?
I began to think about this a few years back, actually, during my training as a Commissioned Lay Pastor. You see, Reformed Theology, which defines the way Presbyterians struggle to understand God, has at its core John Calvin’s idea that man did nothing – can do nothing – to reconcile to God. God did everything necessary to reconcile humankind to God’s self.
Now, taking it a step further, we have to look at the Reformed understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We’ve talked before about how the Triune God is one God, a singular, and though our human interaction with our singular Creator understands three “persons,” we risk falling into pantheism if we do not understand that every act of any “person” of the Trinity is participated in by every part of the Trinity – all of God is directly involved with every act of the Father, every act of the Son, every act of the Holy Spirit. We can say with as much confidence as we can about any point of theological thought that God does not operate any other way.
As I began to understand these kinds of concepts, the idea of Jesus volunteering to sacrifice Himself in order to appease a wrathful Father, bent on annihilating everyone, began to make less and less sense.
Author and lecturer Gil Bailie suggests that the phrase “Lamb of God” means something wholly different than what I had become accustomed to. He says that if God had demanded the sacrifice of Jesus, then Jesus would have been the lamb of the human community given to God.
I’m almost certain I will get this wrong, but I’m going to do my best to explain what he suggests: Over the millennia, humankind developed a scapegoat mentality: quoting him here, “All archaic religions existed to take away the sins of the world. How did they do it? Every once in a while they dumped all these sins on someone and ran them out, or strung them up -- and felt righteous about it.”
Commenting on Gil Bailie’s words, Michael Hardin says, “We have [misunderstood what it means for Jesus to be the ‘Lamb of God’] largely by failing to attribute the demand for blood to the correct party, us. In the now-overused words of Pogo, ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us!’ Jesus’ sacrifice was designed to expose our bloodthirstiness, our enslavement to the sacrificial mechanism, not to satisfy a God who sits on the throne demanding yet another scapegoat. By making our sacrificial system and its falseness visible, Jesus takes away our ‘sin,’ our ‘missing-of-the-mark’ and leaves us without a viable victim.”
We are left, in other words, without someone to blame. We can no longer blame it on God. We can no longer say God wanted that sacrifice. What’s more, we can no longer look around and point at another, saying “your sin killed Christ,” because if we are human, we must realize that we are as responsible as any other human for the sacrifice. There are no more victims, there is no one left to blame. All of our excuses, our deflections, our justifications have been torn away by the violence of the Cross.
If you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes inside a church, you’ve heard the phrase “God is love.” If we dare to view Jesus as the Lamb of God, and understand it in a way that removes the responsibility for the sacrifice from God, do we not begin to glimpse the staggering, breathtaking breadth and depth of that love?
God loves you, personally and individually, without reservation, without hesitation, without limits! What’s more, if Jesus is the Lamb of God given to us, then it becomes glaringly obvious that God has always loved us! There truly is no depth we can sink to, no far country we can travel to, no philosophy we can hide behind, which will remove us from the love of God!
John says to his disciples, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” And Jesus invites them to “Come and see.”
Despite the countless layers of encrusted doctrine, dogma and determined identities that the Church has put onto Jesus as well as the requirements so many communities put on prospective followers before they even begin, Jesus simply invites you and I to come and see. Come and see, come and experience a life where we don’t have to worry about being good enough, where we don’t have to make sure we’re always doing the right things at the right times. Come and experience a world where we sacrifice not because we are trying to gain God’s favor, but because someone else is in need. Come and experience a world where we don’t have to obsess over who is “in” and who is “out” when it comes to the love and grace of God.
No, we can be like Andrew, sharing the Good News with confidence bordering on abandon, because we know that, since the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, then by definition God loves everyone, and everyone deserves to know that love, to be welcomed into the family, into relationship with God!
Christ’s invitation to us, and to everyone, is simply to experience. Come and see.
It is an adventure where the disciple and the teacher are in real relationship.
It is the path to life.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Al Fadr and the Baptism of Jesus
I'm posting this in the hours after a horrific shooting in Arizona, where a nine-year-old girl was murdered for no reason at all.
Perhaps we're in the twilight before dawn, but it still seems far too dark sometimes.
Isaiah 42:1-9
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
Acts 10:34-43
Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ-he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
Matthew 3:13-17
1Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
This is the Word of the Lord.
One of the things that has confused me all along about the baptism of Jesus is, quite simply, “why?” If, as John the Baptist proclaimed, the baptism he offered was for the remission of sin, then it follows that, for the sinless Messiah, such a thing would be unnecessary. If it was, as some think, merely to serve as an example for us, then what was with the dove of the Holy Spirit, and the voice from heaven? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen anyone else get the dove-and-voice treatment when they got baptized, so I can’t buy into the idea that the baptism of Jesus was just for show. There was more going on there. There are people, called “Adoptionists,‘ who believe that Jesus did not become Christ, the Messiah, God’s only son, until he was baptized, and frankly I cannot agree with that either. Like we discussed last week, Jesus was and is and shall be eternally God. In that light, the idea that it all began there in the Jordan River is nonsensical.
But this week, a conversation with a Muslim helped me see the baptism of Jesus in a different light. This man moved to Alabama from Bagdad. Of course I had a million questions, and he was more than happy to engage me in conversation. Along the way, we talked about our children and such, and he told me that one of his daughters is named “Fajer.” Since I don’t speak Arabic, this name meant nothing to me… until he explained.
Devout Muslims pray five times a day, and the first prayer, offered before dawn, is called al Fajer. What caught my attention is that the prayer is named for when it takes place -- in the twilight before the dawn.
We’ve talked before about how we, as Resurrection people, live in the twilight before dawn. A dark time, yes, but not the kind of dark where the long, cold, featureless night stretches before us, empty and hopeless, but the twilight before the dawn, when we can see the first vague outlines of the coming day, and we know that the darkness is coming to an end. This kind of twilight is the definition of hope. Talking to this man, I finally had a name for that!
But there’s another way in which the word “fajer” is used, and this really excited me. It signifies the start of a new life.
This isn’t a foreign concept to Westerners, if you think about it. Baby showers and birth announcements are a kind of fajer. Proms and diplomas are another kind; wedding rings yet another, and the list could go on: items or events which remind us of passages from one point in our life’s journey into another.
Ted Williams of Columbus, Ohio can tell us all about the concept of “fajer,” of breaking out of the long twilight, of starting a new life. Years of drug and alcohol abuse had left Ted homeless, just another panhandler on the side of the road. Despite having overcome his addiction over two years ago, Ted couldn’t drag himself out of the hole.
Now, I have to tell you that Ted had a little something that most of the folks who stand by the roadside with cardboard signs don’t have. Aside from an uncanny resemblance to Jimi Hendrix, Ted had a deep, sonorous radio verse with a pitch-perfect announcer’s delivery. Motorists would stop and give him money simply to hear him introduce an imaginary song or announce a baseball score.
One afternoon a reporter with the local newspaper took a video camera with him to tape Ted; first announcing an upcoming concert in return for a donation, then standing on a sidewalk later, talking about his life and his dreams.
The reporter posted the video on YouTube, and something amazing happened. A few people happened upon it, and shared the webpage link with others. People were fascinated! Ted’s video flooded FaceBook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and other sharing sites. In the terminology of Internet fads, it had “gone viral.” In almost no time at all, millions of people had seen the video of Ted Williams, the Panhandler with the Golden Voice.
Something else happened, though. Ted Williams got job offers. He was given a house to live in and a car. Appearing on ABC’s Morning Show after accepting a job at a major radio station, Ted wept openly at the turn his life had taken… all because someone had taken the time to take an interest in him. A simple video on a website paved the way for Ted Williams’ fajer.
We’ve just celebrated the miracle of Jesus’ birth. This past Thursday was Epiphany, which celebrates the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child. But following that event, except for a brief glimpse of Christ at twelve years old, we know nothing of Jesus from the time the gold, frankincense, and myrrh is given until the moment he shows up on the banks of the Jordan River.
I imagine John the Baptist busily baptizing person after person, all the while yelling to the crowds gathered on the bank, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” Perhaps he doesn’t even notice his cousin until he’s standing right there in front of him, next in line to receive baptism. John stands there, gape mouthed in shock, for a long moment before he says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
You see, John knows who Jesus is. John knows that, of all the people standing on the bank now, of all the people he has baptized and of all the people he will ever baptize, the one person who has nothing to repent of is this man – Jesus!
And yes, Jesus says that he wants to be baptized because “it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness,” as odd as that sounds. Though John doesn’t understand it, he proceeds with the baptism… and the most amazing thing happens!
The sky opens up! The Spirit, like a dove, settles on Jesus, and God speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Now, while I am careful to affirm that I do not think that Jesus was baptized merely to mark the beginning of his ministry, nor do I go to the other extreme and claim that he was not God until he was baptized, I think that part of what happened for Jesus at the baptism was his “fajer,” the start of a new life.
Think of it: from this point forward, everything changes for Jesus. No longer will he stand in that carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, breathing in the aroma of the sawdust as he builds a cabinet; no longer will he sit quietly in the synagogue as the scribes read the Torah. This thing he was born to do, this mission that’s been coursing through his veins since he was old enough to understand it, starts now!
For all of us in the Christian faith, whether we practice infant baptism or what is commonly referred to as “”believer’s baptism,” that event serves as a point of reference for our passage into a new life, a fajer.
Because Jesus took this first step in the journey, because he was faithful to “fulfill all righteousness,” because that faithfulness led Jesus to the cross and the Resurrection, we can say with the Apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Whatever events define our past, whatever future once lay before us, all of that is changed. Whoever we were, whatever darkness we were groping around in, now the dawn is coming, our new life has begun! We have become part of the family of God, and the reality for us has become this: in life, in death, in life beyond death, we belong to God!
Perhaps we're in the twilight before dawn, but it still seems far too dark sometimes.
Isaiah 42:1-9
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
Acts 10:34-43
Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ-he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
Matthew 3:13-17
1Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
This is the Word of the Lord.
One of the things that has confused me all along about the baptism of Jesus is, quite simply, “why?” If, as John the Baptist proclaimed, the baptism he offered was for the remission of sin, then it follows that, for the sinless Messiah, such a thing would be unnecessary. If it was, as some think, merely to serve as an example for us, then what was with the dove of the Holy Spirit, and the voice from heaven? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen anyone else get the dove-and-voice treatment when they got baptized, so I can’t buy into the idea that the baptism of Jesus was just for show. There was more going on there. There are people, called “Adoptionists,‘ who believe that Jesus did not become Christ, the Messiah, God’s only son, until he was baptized, and frankly I cannot agree with that either. Like we discussed last week, Jesus was and is and shall be eternally God. In that light, the idea that it all began there in the Jordan River is nonsensical.
But this week, a conversation with a Muslim helped me see the baptism of Jesus in a different light. This man moved to Alabama from Bagdad. Of course I had a million questions, and he was more than happy to engage me in conversation. Along the way, we talked about our children and such, and he told me that one of his daughters is named “Fajer.” Since I don’t speak Arabic, this name meant nothing to me… until he explained.
Devout Muslims pray five times a day, and the first prayer, offered before dawn, is called al Fajer. What caught my attention is that the prayer is named for when it takes place -- in the twilight before the dawn.
We’ve talked before about how we, as Resurrection people, live in the twilight before dawn. A dark time, yes, but not the kind of dark where the long, cold, featureless night stretches before us, empty and hopeless, but the twilight before the dawn, when we can see the first vague outlines of the coming day, and we know that the darkness is coming to an end. This kind of twilight is the definition of hope. Talking to this man, I finally had a name for that!
But there’s another way in which the word “fajer” is used, and this really excited me. It signifies the start of a new life.
This isn’t a foreign concept to Westerners, if you think about it. Baby showers and birth announcements are a kind of fajer. Proms and diplomas are another kind; wedding rings yet another, and the list could go on: items or events which remind us of passages from one point in our life’s journey into another.
Ted Williams of Columbus, Ohio can tell us all about the concept of “fajer,” of breaking out of the long twilight, of starting a new life. Years of drug and alcohol abuse had left Ted homeless, just another panhandler on the side of the road. Despite having overcome his addiction over two years ago, Ted couldn’t drag himself out of the hole.
Now, I have to tell you that Ted had a little something that most of the folks who stand by the roadside with cardboard signs don’t have. Aside from an uncanny resemblance to Jimi Hendrix, Ted had a deep, sonorous radio verse with a pitch-perfect announcer’s delivery. Motorists would stop and give him money simply to hear him introduce an imaginary song or announce a baseball score.
One afternoon a reporter with the local newspaper took a video camera with him to tape Ted; first announcing an upcoming concert in return for a donation, then standing on a sidewalk later, talking about his life and his dreams.
The reporter posted the video on YouTube, and something amazing happened. A few people happened upon it, and shared the webpage link with others. People were fascinated! Ted’s video flooded FaceBook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and other sharing sites. In the terminology of Internet fads, it had “gone viral.” In almost no time at all, millions of people had seen the video of Ted Williams, the Panhandler with the Golden Voice.
Something else happened, though. Ted Williams got job offers. He was given a house to live in and a car. Appearing on ABC’s Morning Show after accepting a job at a major radio station, Ted wept openly at the turn his life had taken… all because someone had taken the time to take an interest in him. A simple video on a website paved the way for Ted Williams’ fajer.
We’ve just celebrated the miracle of Jesus’ birth. This past Thursday was Epiphany, which celebrates the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child. But following that event, except for a brief glimpse of Christ at twelve years old, we know nothing of Jesus from the time the gold, frankincense, and myrrh is given until the moment he shows up on the banks of the Jordan River.
I imagine John the Baptist busily baptizing person after person, all the while yelling to the crowds gathered on the bank, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” Perhaps he doesn’t even notice his cousin until he’s standing right there in front of him, next in line to receive baptism. John stands there, gape mouthed in shock, for a long moment before he says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
You see, John knows who Jesus is. John knows that, of all the people standing on the bank now, of all the people he has baptized and of all the people he will ever baptize, the one person who has nothing to repent of is this man – Jesus!
And yes, Jesus says that he wants to be baptized because “it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness,” as odd as that sounds. Though John doesn’t understand it, he proceeds with the baptism… and the most amazing thing happens!
The sky opens up! The Spirit, like a dove, settles on Jesus, and God speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Now, while I am careful to affirm that I do not think that Jesus was baptized merely to mark the beginning of his ministry, nor do I go to the other extreme and claim that he was not God until he was baptized, I think that part of what happened for Jesus at the baptism was his “fajer,” the start of a new life.
Think of it: from this point forward, everything changes for Jesus. No longer will he stand in that carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, breathing in the aroma of the sawdust as he builds a cabinet; no longer will he sit quietly in the synagogue as the scribes read the Torah. This thing he was born to do, this mission that’s been coursing through his veins since he was old enough to understand it, starts now!
For all of us in the Christian faith, whether we practice infant baptism or what is commonly referred to as “”believer’s baptism,” that event serves as a point of reference for our passage into a new life, a fajer.
Because Jesus took this first step in the journey, because he was faithful to “fulfill all righteousness,” because that faithfulness led Jesus to the cross and the Resurrection, we can say with the Apostle Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Whatever events define our past, whatever future once lay before us, all of that is changed. Whoever we were, whatever darkness we were groping around in, now the dawn is coming, our new life has begun! We have become part of the family of God, and the reality for us has become this: in life, in death, in life beyond death, we belong to God!
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