After Paul and Silas has passed through Amphipolis and Appolonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, explaining that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.” Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house. When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.” The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.
When I was growing up, one of my favorite afternoon cartoons was Animaniacs. Who here remembers Animaniacs? It’s a cartoon about the Warner brothers and their sister, Dot. They live in the water tower at Warner Brothers studios, and just for run they run around the Warner movie lot. Every episode included a sort of “guest segment” that would rotate with each show, sort of like on Saturday Night Live you may intermittently see a spot featuring “Debbie Downer.”
On Animaniacs, my favorite recurring spot was “Pinkie and the Brain.” This was a spot about two laboratory mice who had been experimented on to the point that they were capable of some interesting thinking. Pinky, the one mouse, was quite goofy and seemed just a bit out-of-sorts. The other mouse, called “Brain,” turned out to be a global mastermind. There was one thing they were bent on doing each and every night, and this sole sense of purpose was captured in a dialogue that was part of the opening of every episode.
“Gee, Brain – what do you want to do tonight?” “Same thing we do every night, Pinkie, try to take over the world.” That dialogue sets up for us very clearly what these two lab mice were going to attempt to do in every episode. No questioning, no debating, just a single, unified vision. I wonder what it would look like for the Church to have that sort of clarity about its purpose. May we pray.
By this time, Paul and Silas had developed quite a reputation for themselves. These traveling preachers had worn out their welcome in just about every city they came to. Their pattern was always the same: show up in town. Preach Jesus in the synagogue. Get kicked out. Preach Jesus to the non-Jews. Convert some. Get run out of town. Sometimes the details of the story are a little different – sometimes there’s prison, sometimes there are new characters introduced, sometimes they’re run out after one week, or two or three – but this is their pattern.
It actually sort of reminds me of what used to happen to John Wesley and the early Methodist preachers. John Wesley was a priest in the Church of England his entire life. He never intended for the Methodist movement to break away from the Church of England, but hoped it would serve as a vehicle for renewal within the established Church. Even so, John Wesley’s brand of Christianity was a little too radical for some within the establishment. He records several instances in his journal of delivering a sermon in a particular congregation of the Church of England, and then being “uninvited” to preach there ever again.
Paul and Silas were also uninvited to preach in the Jewish synagogues, and this passage tells us exactly why. They were accused of turning the world upside down. Now, a side note here. Have you ever been wrongly accused of something? Or, has someone wrongly assumed they knew the motivation behind your actions? That’s incredibly frustrating. I think that’s what happened to Paul and Silas, at least in some regard.
Paul and Silas made the religious establishment nervous. A sort of “us-them” mentality always developed between the leaders of the establishment and Paul and Silas. It was seen as a power struggle between those who were already there – the guards of the old game, if you will – and these new up-and-coming disrespectful traveling preachers.
What’s interesting here, however, is Paul was one of their own. Paul was a Jew’s Jew – someone with the pedigree, education, and credentials to be a prominent rabbi, a prominent leader in the religious establishment, a guardian of the old ways of doing things. When it came to an impressive religious resume, Paul had it. He went to the right school, he knew his Bible inside and out, he knew all the rules (even the ones that contradicted all the other rules). In other words, when it came to being a Jew, Paul was all that and a can of Pringles.
But for Paul, there was more to it than that. Paul had also had a blinding encounter with the life-giving God. What’s interesting here is that Paul’s encounter with God did not erase his training, his education, his appreciation for his heritage or anything else on his religious resume. Paul, instead, saw all these factors pointing to the very truth that God revealed – that Jesus – the same Jesus whose followers Paul had been persecuting relentlessly, was the long-awaited Messiah who would reconcile the world back to God.
So when Paul and Silas showed up in a city, they had no intention of turning the world upside down simply for the sake of grins and giggles. They were there with a holy boldness to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, as God’s anointed, as the one who could heal their broken relationship with God. They went to the synagogue to share the good news that the long-awaited Messiah had actually come, and they wanted to give everyone there an opportunity for an encounter with Jesus just as they had. Just as John Wesley was trying to help the people of his day become better Christians by returning to their own heritage while moving into a new life-giving future with God, so Paul was trying to help the Jews of his day become better Jews by living into God’s new life-giving future that was based in the Scriptures and traditions they had so come to love.
“These people have been turning the world upside down!” That was the complaint. That was their reputation. Paul and Silas were known for one thing – turning the world upside down. Sure, that’s how it seemed to the leaders of the religious institution of Paul and Silas’ day. It seems to happen everywhere, in every society, throughout history. Movements spring up that are new, fresh, radical, and dynamic. But somewhere along the way, movements become institutions, and more time is spent maintaining that institution than remembering what it was designed to do in the first place.
I think what made the religious institution uncomfortable was the fact that Paul dared to suggest that God’s work was bigger then they were. The institution had come to view itself as the guardian of truth and dispenser of revelation, and Paul said, “Wait a minute – this thing that God is doing is bigger than me or you or any of us!” Because he knew his own history, Paul knew that his religious tradition had started as something much broader and grander than what it had become. He remembered back thousands of years, to a covenant made between God and Abraham. Over time, the Jews had come to understand and interpret this covenant as securing some sort of a privileged place among all people. But they had forgotten just what those privileges entailed. God had promised to make their name great and to make them a great nation – that much was true. But God also promised that through them all peoples on earth would be blessed. In other words, God was blessing them in order that they might bless others; their privilege carried with it great responsibility.
They were turning the world upside down all right, but the world needed to be turned upside down. And really, they were turning it right side up, but it had been backward for so long, it seemed strange and foreign to those who liked the world off-center.
Friends, when the world has been upside down for so long that it seems up is down, down is up, left is right, right is wrong, the world needs to be turned upside down yet again. But here’s the thing – if you read this passage carefully, you’ll notice it wasn’t the world as we commonly think of it that was being turned upside down.
In fact, the powers of the world were fairly uninterested in the whole thing. The government and civil authorities were really uninvolved until the religious leaders stirred things up. Look at this – it wasn’t even Paul and Silas who stirred things up! Things were going fairly well until the religious leaders went and found “marketplace ruffians” who stirred up a riot in the city, and then they took Paul and Silas to the government officials and said they were stirring things up, when in fact the religious leaders were the ones who got the riot going!
They were turning the world upside down all right, but it was the world of the religious establishment that was most threatened. It was a world that needed to be turned over.
Friends, if you’re a follower of Jesus, you’d better be ready to turn some worlds over. That’s what we’re here for. In every generation, a revival is called for as we remember once again with freshness and boldness what we’re here to do. There are a whole lot of other things that churches can and do get involved in – many of them good, worthwhile, fun things. But if we’re not careful, those things can become more and more important and take more and more time away from what we’re here for in the first place. The Church can be known for a lot of things, but if we’re going to be known for anything, it better be because we’re transforming the world.
People will sometimes comment to me that they wish the Church would do this or that. My comment back is usually, “And what are you personally willing to do about it?” Sometimes we speak about the Church as if it were some nameless, faceless institution. But the Church is made up of people, it’s made up of you and me, and whatever I do, the Church does, and whatever you do, the Church does.
If you want the Church to transform the world – if you want the Church to turn the world upside down – allow me to make this suggestion: go ahead and transform the world and turn it upside down. Please don’t wait for permission. Please don’t wait for a comprehensive master plan to be unrolled. If God has placed something within you to do, just go ahead and do it.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is someone who turned the world upside down. As he sowed the seeds for what became the civil rights movement, many in the religious establishment begged him to slow down. A group of church leaders in Alabama asked him for more time to get people used to the ideas he was proposing, to adjust slowly. It’s not that they disagreed with him, at least not openly. They wanted more time and a more gradual transition. But Dr. King simply said, “The time is always ripe to do what is right.”
You know that John Mayer song, “Waiting on the World to Change?” That song is the exact opposite message from the one we followers of Jesus should be listening to. In too many churches in too many places, too many people are simply sitting there waiting for the world to change. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of waiting. Life is too short. I only have, at best, 60 more years to live on this earth. I’m 29 years old and almost dead, I don’t have time to wait for the world to change. I want to be part of changing the world, not sitting around waiting for the world to change. Like Paul and Silas, if people are going to accuse me of anything, I want them to accuse me of turning the world upside down.
How about you? If you’re a follower of Jesus, you’d better be ready to turn some worlds over. We’re sometimes reluctant, and I’m not sure why that is. Maybe we’re waiting for permission. Maybe we think our hands are tied by institutional structures. Maybe we think it’s not our problem. Maybe we don’t want to be accused of turning the world upside-down. But I’m telling you, whatever it is that God has put within you to do, please just go ahead and do it. We don’t have to wait. We have the Holy Spirit on our side, empowering us, enabling us, leading us to turn the world upside down, or really, right side up, for Jesus.
This morning, we baptized little Rowan. In her baptism, she is claimed as a child of God in the Christian family. In her baptism, the grace of God is poured out into her life. In her baptism, she is commissioned for ministry in the world. She is commissioned to turn the world upside down. Today we have said that she will be one who turns the world right side up for God. Today, we have all renewed our commitment to turn it right side up. In her baptism, she is commissioned for a life of radical service in the world. Our baptism is not about some spiritual cosmetic or a cute reminder of God’s presence in our lives. Baptism is something that changes our lives forever – in it, God says “This one belongs to me, and this one is going to be part of my plan to turn the world upside down.” In baptism, God has declared this truth about Rowan. In baptism, God has declared it about each of us, as well.
Being a follower of Jesus isn’t about being polite or following the rules. It’s not about wearing the right clothes or following some arbitrary ethical standard of behavior. It’s not about believing the right thing or knowing the right secret handshake. It’s not about committee meetings or institutional structures or preserving the ways of days gone by. It’s not about excluding others to feel better about ourselves. It’s not about the building, it’s not about the budget, it’s not about the programs – it’s not about any of our own random stuff we so often try to make it about. It’s about doing everything in our ability and beyond our ability to turn the world upside down – to turn it right side up for God. It’s not some after I die, pie in the sky, sweet by-and-by sorta thing. Every week, we people of Christian faith pray for God’s kingdom to come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Right here, right now. It’s time to start doing what we’ve been praying all along.
The Spirit doesn’t wait. The time is always ripe to do what is right. The world is just waiting to be turned upside down. It has often been said that when Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of God, he pointed to an upside down kingdom. The values of God’s kingdom are exactly the opposite of what had come to be expected as normal.
This is the kingdom of God! The ministry of Jesus is about righting every wrong, about letting the oppressed go free, about proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor, about declaring people who have been shut out by the kingdoms of the world to be embraced at the exact center of God’s kingdom, about turning the values of the world completely on their head, about spinning things so far that what seems to be turning things upside down is really turning them right side up. The will of God, the ministry of Jesus, is about restoring everything has ever been marred – most importantly, the relationship between God and humankind, and our relationships with each other. It’s the ministry of Jesus, and it’s the ministry of all those who claim to be his followers.
And just where are you supposed to transform the world? That’s a good question. There is so much to be done – where on earth do you start? Theologian Frederick Buechner says your calling in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need. In other words, find the intersection between what you love to do and what the world needs most.
We all need to stir up that calling from God that has been placed within each of us. We all need to find our purpose, and then be empowered to live out that purpose with holy boldness.
On your sermon notes, you might want to write the beginning of two sentences. The first is “My joy is . . .” The second is “The world needs . . .” Think and pray about these sentences and figure out your own answers to them.
We all have a ministry and calling, and we will find it where our greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.
Friends, if we’re going to be followers of Jesus, we need to be about the ministry of Jesus, a ministry that literally turned the world upside down. We don’t need to wait for permission, we don’t need to wait for gradual change, we don’t need to wait for the institutions to change. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of waiting. Life is too short. I’m 29 years old and almost dead; I don’t have time to wait for the world to change. I want to be part of changing the world, not sitting around waiting for the world to change. If people are going to accuse us of anything, I want them to accuse us of something that matters. I want us to be accused of turning the world upside down.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Beyond Bailouts - Mark 8:27-38
27Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
I know that many of you have looked at the title of today’s sermon, and are wondering if there are politically-charged ramifications to my sermon today. If the politics of this congregation are like most United Methodist Churches, depending on what I would say with a political tone, about half of you would be very pleased with what I say, and about half of you would be very displeased.
Not to worry. While I certainly have political opinions, I will never air them from the sacred space of this pulpit, nor in my role as your pastor, because last time I checked, the will of God is still greater than the will of any political party, any government, or any human institution.
But if you want politics, you still don’t have to look any further than what was going on in today’s text. In the 8th Chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, things around Jesus have gotten very political indeed. By the time we meet up with him in this reading, things have gotten interesting. He’s been healing people of their diseases left and right, miraculously feeding thousands of people out of one very special Long John Silver’s combo meal, teaching with such great authority that a great revival is breaking out through the land, and accumulating a very large following.
Right in the middle of the excitement, the disciples are riding high. They are, after all, part of the inner circle. When the band pulls into town, they are in the penthouse suite hanging out with everyone who is anyone. Jesus has become quite the celebrity, and with him, the disciples are feeling pretty great, too. Before they get too comfortable, however, Jesus is going to give greatness a whole new definition. May we pray.
Do you remember what you were going to be when you grew up? Back when you still had an imagination, when you still believed anything was possible, before the sobering reality of maturity sunk around you and made you deal in the world of probable instead of possible?
We were all going to be great. Every time we played baseball with four people in our front yard and hit the grand slam that got all our ghost runners home, we imagined rounding third place and heading for home in front of great cheering crowds at Fenway or Camden Yards or Turner Field. We were all going to be heroes – brave firefighters, skilled surgeons, wise judges.
I was going to be president. I announced my candidacy in Miss Stelianou’s second grade classroom. No sooner had I started my candidacy than all my friends came to me seeking important cabinet positions in my new administration. I found myself creating brand new government agencies just so I would have something for everyone to do, and everyone seemed happy to be in the presence of one so great. Now that I look back on it, we were all a bunch of dorks.
Yet, something within us wants to be associated with greatness. If we can clearly establish a link with someone who is perceived to be great by others, then perhaps they’ll think that we’re great, too, which brings us back to Jesus and his disciples.
Jesus was at the top of his game. It was the week before primaries, and Jesus had just taken a sharp lead in the polls. The tide of public opinion was firmly behind him, and success followed him like a lost puppy. In the middle of it, the disciples were there, answering questions, talking with the media, meeting the girls, pouring the champagne, planning the party.
It was the day the poll numbers had come out, and Jesus and his disciples were gathered together at dinner. He looked around the table and asked a question: “Who do you say that I am?” It was low-hanging fruit. The disciples knew he just wanted someone to say what they were all thinking.
One by one around the table, they began to name some of the great leaders of history. “Some say you are Elijah.” “Others say you’re Moses.” “Some think you’re John the Baptist.” But Peter remained silent. Peter, ever the wise politician, ever thinking of what he could do to come just a little closer into Jesus’ favor, held his answer for a brief pause from the others. “You are the Messiah. The Christ. The Anointed One of God. You are one who redeem your people. You are already the next leader.”
A hush fell around the table. They had all thought the things Peter had spoken, but he had dared to give voice to them. They looked at Jesus, waiting for a response. He never corrected Peter. He never said that Peter was wrong. He simply ordered them not to tell anyone.
We all know the danger in calling an election too soon. Many of us can remember election night of 2000, when late into the night we still didn’t know who the president was. We remember the confusion caused when competing news outlets began to give conflicting reports about which candidate seemed to have won the election. Scott Ferebee and I have been hearing different mayoral candidates speak at our Rotary club, and this week John Lassiter was careful to talk about the challenges that face “the next mayor of Charlotte,” never presuming himself to be that person, always talking about what he would do “if” he’s elected mayor, not “when.”
But in Jesus’ bid for Messiah, it’s not like it was even a close race. No one else was even running. There had been false prophets before, but they all knew Jesus was the real deal. There was going to be no campaign finance scandal – the guy didn’t even own a house! It’s not like anyone was going to call for his resignation because of inappropriate travel – the guy walked everywhere he went!
Jesus still doesn’t correct Peter. Clearly, he really does believe he’s the Messiah. But he lets the air out of the balloons about as quickly as they fall from the ceiling. He begins to teach that the Messiah will go through great suffering, rejection from all the religious leaders, be killed, and raised up again. Even at his own party, Jesus turns out to be a wet blanket who suffocates the expectations of everyone at the table.
Peter gets upset. Without even thinking, he yells out, “You lie!” It’s poor etiquette, but do you see Peter’s point? From the time of King David, a Messiah has been promised. And for about as long, the people of Israel have undergone great suffering. They have endured war, captivity, and economic embargo. They are the laughing stock of all the neighboring countries, and they have spent more time under occupation by outsiders than they have as independent. Finally, the Messiah – the great hope, the liberator, the new king – is here, and it’s about time. Peter and the rest of the disciples couldn’t be happier. Israel has drawn the short straw enough times, it’s been on the bottom too many times, now it’s time for Israel to be on top. Now it’s time for Israel to turn the tables and get some just desserts and do to everyone what’s been done to them. And how could they not succeed? The guy’s biggest backer is God.
To this vision of Jesus’ proposed kingdom, Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan!” In other words, stop and consider for a moment that you have just described the way the kingdoms of the world operate. But Jesus’ kingdom is not like the kingdoms of the world. Jesus’ kingdom does not have the same values or priorities, and the rules that govern it couldn’t be any different than what Peter hopes for. Jesus represents a kingdom that’s a brand new thing, a brand new people marked by a brand new way. Peter’s hope for a militant Messiah misses the mark because the kingdom of God is bigger and broader than the kingdoms of the world. With a whole new kind of kingdom come a whole new set of priorities. Jesus’ kingdom comes with a whole new way of doing things, and he reminds us that if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re gonna keep getting what you’ve always got. This is how the world tends to solve its problems. War got us into this mess, so more war will get us out. Greed got us into this problem, so let’s throw more money at the situation and hope that makes things better. Policies of hate and fear got us here, let’s be increasingly hateful and fearful others and hope that it goes away. From either side of the aisle, across the spectrum from left to right, top to bottom, and front to back, there is enough blame to go around.
Peter was looking for a bailout. He was looking for a one-time magic wand to be swept over the situation and erase all the bad stuff that had ever happened.
But Jesus provides a solution that is well beyond bailouts. Jesus is forming a whole new people, with a whole new set of values, and who turn the definition of greatness on its head. In the middle of that strategic planning meeting, Jesus yells out, “Do you want to be great?” The disciples shouted, “Yes!” He asked, “Do you want to follow me?” “Yes!” “Here’s how: deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
I'm with Peter. Should not religious faith protect us from suffering, make us acceptable, give us victory over what threatens us? This is no way to win the world and gain followers! Promised suffering, bearing crosses, losing one's life ~ that will not sell. Only the emotionally warped masochists could find such an invitation appealing. Isolation from suffering, avoiding the cross, that is what we want and expect from God, is it not?
Why would anyone follow a Christ who is to be crucified? We have enough suffering and rejection without this! Peter's objection is as contemporary and personal as our own instinct for self-preservation, our own longing for security and prominence and health and life.
Mark knows, however, that only those who follow Jesus all the way to the cross will really know who he is. If we stop before Calvary, we will misunderstand him. We will assume that he is just another miracle worker, or another exorcist, or a wise and compelling teacher. If Peter and the other disciples proclaim him Messiah based on what they have seen thus far, they will have proclaimed a false Messiah. His identity can only truly be known at the cross. There, even an unenlightened Roman soldier will be able to recognize him: "Truly this is the son of God."
Why follow a crucified Christ? Because only a crucified Messiah reveals God as a suffering, vulnerable God.
Such an image of God is as objectionable and foreign to us as it was to Peter. We want an invincible God, a Super God, who shields us from our own vulnerability. That is the God we imitate and worship ~ invincible, self-sufficient, controlling, an all powerful one who shares divine power with us. "Immortal, invincible, God only wise" that is the God we consider worthy of worship, “A Mighty Fortress,” that is a God worthy of emulation. One who promises “Your Best Life Now” is a God worth praising. But strength in weakness, gaining by losing, the power of the cross ~ that still seems foolishness to those who measure strength by Gross National Product and megaton bombs, those devoted to finishing first and those who thrive on power as prominence.
This is God! Only those who follow all the way to the cross know the depth of this God's love, the expanse of this God's presence, the power of this God's purpose! The message is profound. There is One who has moved into our vulnerability, our guilt, our alienation, our suffering, our death. God has claimed our weakness as a resource for divine power. God has claimed our wounds as potential means of healing.
By following a crucified Christ, we can come clean with our own vulnerability. No longer do we have to hide behind a mask of stoic control nor wear the protective armor of vulnerability. We can face our weaknesses, and even share with Paul the assurance that "when I am weak then I am strong." We can take up a cross with the full assurance that One has gone before us and now shares its weight and pain.
We follow, however, as people of hope. We live on the other side of the cross from Peter. The Crucified One is the Risen One. We know who won! The future belongs to the one who went to the cross and left it empty. Those who follow him all the way know the future does not belong to the triumph of suffering, sin and death. It belongs to the reign of Christ over all creation. A new heaven and a new earth are on the way to completion.
When it looks as though sin and suffering and death have the last word, those who follow a crucified Christ know better. They were there on that terrible day when darkness covered the earth. All the evil within us was there. Greed was there. Envy was there. Hate was there. Violence was there. Political expediency was there. Religious bigotry and arrogance was there. Can't you just hear them say as the one without sin bowed his head in death, "Now we got him. We have won." Those who stick around and listen carefully hear another message. "He is risen. He is not here.”
Jesus said, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."
When faced with overwhelming odds -- or just with our own limitations, those who take up their cross and follow Jesus do not lose heart -- because we know that there is a power beyond our limitations, our helplessness our weakness.
It is the power of God to bring life from death, to bring healing from disease, to bring wholeness from our brokenness.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Sassy Savior - Mark 7:24-37
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
The story is told of a Quaker minister who was involved in a traffic accident. The other driver was quite angry, and jumped out of his car yelling every obscenity he could think of and calling the Quaker minister every name in the book. He stood there silently as the other driver said things that will not be repeated here. Finally, the man finished, exasperated, perspiring, and worn out. The Quaker minister looked at him for a moment and said, “Sir, I cannot speak to thee as thou hast spoken to me. But I sincerely hope when you arrive home this evening, that your mother runs out from under the porch and bites you.”
There is an art to delivering an insult. My grandfather used to deliver these one-liners and I found myself fascinated by his delivery. Most of his insults had to do with the perceived intelligence of those around him. About a co-worker, he once remarked that the gentleman in question didn’t have enough sense to pound sand down a gopher hole. Or about a particular neighbor, that he wasn’t smart enough to pour water out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel. Or to a claims adjustor from his insurance company, “Sir, I wish to engage you in a battle of wits, but you appear to be unarmed.” The only pity was that most of these people were, in fact, too dim to realize they’d been insulted.
Not so with the woman in today’s text. In the 7th Chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus insults a woman after he tells her he has no time for her. She understands that she has been insulted, but rather than firing one back, she presses on with her original goal still plainly in view. Even in the midst of an insult, something amazing happens. May we pray.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not entirely comfortable with the picture we get of Jesus in this morning’s text. This is not the Jesus I got to know in Sunday School. This Jesus is just a little too earthy for many of our tastes. Whether we know it or not, we have been conditioned to view Jesus in certain ways. On one hand, we know that he was fully human and fully divine. However, we often think of him as being fully human on the outside, and fully divine on the inside. Some sort of divine spark placed into a human body, an everlasting piece of immortality placed into flesh. When we think of Jesus, we think of some inner radiance that seems to always beam out of him like light through stained glass. Jesus never smiles, but always looks sort of ethereal and distant, as if his mind is on great heavenly things for which we mere mortals have no comprehension. And just so we know there’s a divine being living inside that normal-looking body, we always have to put a halo on him. In short, the picture of Jesus that most of us prefer looks a lot like . . . well, this particular window.
One of my favorite cereals to this day remains Frosted Mini Wheats. I love them so much that Kellogg’s should probably send me an endorsement check. On weekday afternoons, I would watch TV (when I was supposed to be doing my homework) with an open box of Frosted Mini Wheats, slowly and deliberately eating the frosting off each delicious little square, carefully laying each square aside, and putting them back in the box when I was finished. The best part was that my sister was always up a bit earlier than I was, and she would have a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats the next morning. Incidentally, my sister never liked that particular cereal all that well, but could never figure out why.
Do you remember their ad campaign? An adult would be sitting at the table in professional attire eating a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats. They would look at the camera and say, “The adult in me loves the whole wheat side,” and then the adult would be replaced by a child wearing the same clothes who would say, “But the kid in me loves the frosted side.”
Right now, you’re wondering what this has to do with Jesus and particularly with today’s text, right? I think the way we often think of Jesus is similar to these Frosted Mini Wheats commercials. The commercials indicate that there’s a little kid inside each of us, and the way we portray Jesus is that there was a divine being inside that body. His mind always on things above and slightly disconnected from things on earth even as his body did the things that normal earthly bodies do. In short, even though we understand Jesus to be fully human and fully divine, our portrayals often make him half human and half divine – human on the outside, and divine on the inside.
In today’s text, I think Jesus is just a little too human, a little too raw, a little too earthy for what we want Jesus to be. The whole passage that was read includes two healing stories, and you’ve got to admit, Jesus is pretty earthy, pretty human, pretty fleshy in both of these healing accounts. In the second part of the text, Jesus is spitting, playing in the dirt, and giving the poor deaf guy with a speech impediment a wet willy.
In the first part of the text, Jesus casually hurls a pretty nasty insult at a woman who was only asking for help. Why? Because she wasn’t one of his chosen people, of course. She is a Gentile. She’s an outsider.
She asks Jesus to heal her daughter, and he casts her aside with a wave of his hand and says over his shoulder as he doesn’t even slow down, “It’s not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” In other words, “you’re not a child; you’re a dog.”
I know that many of you have dogs who are like members of your family. Not faulting anyone for that. In fact, on Saturday October 3, we’ll have a service of blessing the animals where we celebrate and remember what all God’s creatures mean to each of us, and offer an individual blessing for each animal. I know many of you love your dogs as if they’re your own children.
I just need you to understand that such a view of dogs would have been completely foreign in the worldview in which today’s text took place. Dogs were not members of the family. Dogs were not beloved pets. Dogs were not cute and adorable and cuddly animals. In the words of Dog Whisperer, Caesar Millan, “It’s a dog.”
In first century Palestine, it was not uncommon for Jews to call non-Jews dogs. It was meant to be an insult. It was a way of saying, “you people who are different than us are really not quite people. You’re not quite human. You’re just the same as the disease-ridden animals who eat the garbage and drink out of the toilet.”
We find Jesus using this very insult when he speaks to the Gentile woman who asks for healing for her daughter. Ouch. We may welcome Jesus’ depiction of Israel as “the children,” but did he have to call this poor, frantic, desperate mother, along with all her people, “the dogs?” Maybe the Gentiles could have instead been cast as “the neighbor kids.”
Not exactly the picture of Jesus we want to hang onto, is it? Jesus the snob? Jesus the racist?
Really, I think the picture is actually one of Jesus the human. Jesus the human who lived at a particular time, lived among a particular people, and may very well have had some of the prejudices and ways of doing that went along with living at a particular time in a particular place. From time to time, I will speak with people of previous generations who use words that no one of my politically-correct generation would ever use – words with racial, ethnic, homophobic, or elitist overtones. I know that people will sometimes use these words and then claim ignorance on how they’re interpreted today or say, “Well, that’s just how I was taught, but I don’t mean anything by it,” and by the way, I’ve just taught you something different so those are words about other people I never expect anyone here to utter in my presence. But, I also understand that there are a small number of folks who may use such terms completely innocently, who really do intend no harm and the last thing they would want would be to insult anyone.
If we keep digging into the context of this particular story, I think that’s exactly what was going on with Jesus. In the Greek, Jesus doesn’t use the same word for dogs that was considered derogatory. He uses a diminutive version of the word, which describes not the wild, filthy, flea-bitten, mangy dogs of the street. The word he uses describes the rare domesticated dogs of the house, beloved puppies, the pets that many of us treat as if they’re children.
Jesus is making a play on words here. He’s not being insulting; he’s being clever. Jesus is not insulting, the fact that he even poses the question to the woman is, in and of itself, a compliment and an olive branch to elevate her to higher standing than a first century male Palestinian Jew would offer a Greek woman. Back then, much as today, the Greeks loved conversation, mental sparring, friendly debate, and vigorous banter. But even more than that, back then, men did not discuss theological issues with women. Women were regarded as inferior, as mindless, as things to be owned, used, and discarded.
So when Jesus asks her this philosophical question, he is actually honoring her. He is engaging her in a style of discourse loved and prized by her culture. He is treating her as being on the same playing field as a worthy mental adversary. He is a man, asking her a theological and philosophical question on her very own turf. The very fact that he engages her on her own turf is proof positive that Jesus was not being insulting.
Skillfully, she rises to the challenge. With great grace she says, “Sir, I concede your point. The children are, indeed, fed first. But even if I am a dog as you playfully assert, what is the reason why I can’t have the crumbs the children throw away under the table?”
She was, in a word, charming. She painted herself out of the corner Jesus had backed her into, handed him the paintbrush and said, “What else ya got?” Jesus grinned, knowing that she had just declared “Checkmate” in this verbal chess game, and you know what? Jesus was impressed. Jesus was impressed by the depth of her conviction, by the strength of her love, and by her willingness to endure a little gentle ribbing if it meant she might get what she needed for her daughter. Jesus laughed and said, “You got me. And by the way, your daughter is well.”
And in that, we see a glimpse of the kingdom of God. Even when we have our prejudices, even when we have our pre-conceived notions of how the world should work, even when we have correctly identified those whom we perceive to be favored by God, God’s grace is still larger.
Even when we play favorites, God is at work in the lives of those we don’t like, those we insult, those we perceive to inferior to be ourselves. This is where the kingdom of God shows itself to a complete reversal of the kingdoms of this world. The kingdoms of this world are built on the concept of scarcity. Think about it. We’ve all been told that there’s only so much of anything and everything, and the result is that we find ourselves in a constant competition with every other person around us. I was starting to search for airline tickets for a trip to Kansas City next month, and the search engine reminded me that there are “only four tickets left at this price!” There are only so many spaces in the entering freshman class. There are only so many good jobs in this field. There are only so many lakefront lots left. There are only so many fish in the sea. There is only so much oil, or so much money, or you get the picture.
The governments of the world love war so much because they have bought into the idea of scarcity. Everyone is trying to look out for their own interests, make sure their own needs are met, “I’m looking out for #1 and I don’t care what happens to the rest of you!” Nations go to war with each other, neighbors feud, students cheat, we hurl insults and slurs about anything we don’t like about another person or group of people, family members stop speaking to each other, and religious groups argue about which one of them is actually the most favored by God because of one thing – we’ve all bought into the lie of scarcity upon which the economies of the world are based.
But there is an alternative, and Jesus gives us a glimpse of it in today’s text. In the economy of God’s kingdom, even the dogs under the table get the table scraps, and it is enough to meet their needs. There is enough. Even those we’ve excluded from the table, even those we’ve treated as dogs, even those we are convinced are less than human, find enough of the bread of God’s grace and love to meet their needs. Even when we show favoritism and bar the door to the banquet hall, even when we are exclusive and narrow-minded and judgmental, God still finds a way to feed the very ones we’ve tried to leave out. If that’s not a definition of grace in the kingdom of God, I don’t know what is.
So my question for us this morning is this: if God is going to take care of everyone anyway, why don’t we just set a few more seats at the table and invite them to the banquet? The kingdom of God is often likened to a great feast, and before us today, a foretaste of the feast has been set. Every time we gather at this table to break this bread and receive from this cup, we participate in a sign of the kingdom of God. We commune with our risen Lord at this table, but we also commune with each other – with God’s people of all times and places, of all races and colors, of all economic backgrounds, of all lifestyles and ways of thinking, believing, and doing, even the ones we think don’t belong at the table in the first place.
When you come today and every time I serve you communion, you’ll receive a big piece of bread, because this is a meal of God’s kingdom. This is a meal of the abundance of God’s kingdom, not a meager meal to remind us of the scarcity the world wants us to believe in. Every time you participate in this meal, whether it is celebrated at this table or somewhere else, you are participating in a countercultural and subversive act. Every time you participate in this meal, you are declaring your conviction that God’s grace is abundant, and that there is more than enough of it to go around.
She only asked for crumbs. Jesus gave her a seat at the banquet instead.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
The story is told of a Quaker minister who was involved in a traffic accident. The other driver was quite angry, and jumped out of his car yelling every obscenity he could think of and calling the Quaker minister every name in the book. He stood there silently as the other driver said things that will not be repeated here. Finally, the man finished, exasperated, perspiring, and worn out. The Quaker minister looked at him for a moment and said, “Sir, I cannot speak to thee as thou hast spoken to me. But I sincerely hope when you arrive home this evening, that your mother runs out from under the porch and bites you.”
There is an art to delivering an insult. My grandfather used to deliver these one-liners and I found myself fascinated by his delivery. Most of his insults had to do with the perceived intelligence of those around him. About a co-worker, he once remarked that the gentleman in question didn’t have enough sense to pound sand down a gopher hole. Or about a particular neighbor, that he wasn’t smart enough to pour water out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel. Or to a claims adjustor from his insurance company, “Sir, I wish to engage you in a battle of wits, but you appear to be unarmed.” The only pity was that most of these people were, in fact, too dim to realize they’d been insulted.
Not so with the woman in today’s text. In the 7th Chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus insults a woman after he tells her he has no time for her. She understands that she has been insulted, but rather than firing one back, she presses on with her original goal still plainly in view. Even in the midst of an insult, something amazing happens. May we pray.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not entirely comfortable with the picture we get of Jesus in this morning’s text. This is not the Jesus I got to know in Sunday School. This Jesus is just a little too earthy for many of our tastes. Whether we know it or not, we have been conditioned to view Jesus in certain ways. On one hand, we know that he was fully human and fully divine. However, we often think of him as being fully human on the outside, and fully divine on the inside. Some sort of divine spark placed into a human body, an everlasting piece of immortality placed into flesh. When we think of Jesus, we think of some inner radiance that seems to always beam out of him like light through stained glass. Jesus never smiles, but always looks sort of ethereal and distant, as if his mind is on great heavenly things for which we mere mortals have no comprehension. And just so we know there’s a divine being living inside that normal-looking body, we always have to put a halo on him. In short, the picture of Jesus that most of us prefer looks a lot like . . . well, this particular window.
One of my favorite cereals to this day remains Frosted Mini Wheats. I love them so much that Kellogg’s should probably send me an endorsement check. On weekday afternoons, I would watch TV (when I was supposed to be doing my homework) with an open box of Frosted Mini Wheats, slowly and deliberately eating the frosting off each delicious little square, carefully laying each square aside, and putting them back in the box when I was finished. The best part was that my sister was always up a bit earlier than I was, and she would have a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats the next morning. Incidentally, my sister never liked that particular cereal all that well, but could never figure out why.
Do you remember their ad campaign? An adult would be sitting at the table in professional attire eating a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats. They would look at the camera and say, “The adult in me loves the whole wheat side,” and then the adult would be replaced by a child wearing the same clothes who would say, “But the kid in me loves the frosted side.”
Right now, you’re wondering what this has to do with Jesus and particularly with today’s text, right? I think the way we often think of Jesus is similar to these Frosted Mini Wheats commercials. The commercials indicate that there’s a little kid inside each of us, and the way we portray Jesus is that there was a divine being inside that body. His mind always on things above and slightly disconnected from things on earth even as his body did the things that normal earthly bodies do. In short, even though we understand Jesus to be fully human and fully divine, our portrayals often make him half human and half divine – human on the outside, and divine on the inside.
In today’s text, I think Jesus is just a little too human, a little too raw, a little too earthy for what we want Jesus to be. The whole passage that was read includes two healing stories, and you’ve got to admit, Jesus is pretty earthy, pretty human, pretty fleshy in both of these healing accounts. In the second part of the text, Jesus is spitting, playing in the dirt, and giving the poor deaf guy with a speech impediment a wet willy.
In the first part of the text, Jesus casually hurls a pretty nasty insult at a woman who was only asking for help. Why? Because she wasn’t one of his chosen people, of course. She is a Gentile. She’s an outsider.
She asks Jesus to heal her daughter, and he casts her aside with a wave of his hand and says over his shoulder as he doesn’t even slow down, “It’s not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” In other words, “you’re not a child; you’re a dog.”
I know that many of you have dogs who are like members of your family. Not faulting anyone for that. In fact, on Saturday October 3, we’ll have a service of blessing the animals where we celebrate and remember what all God’s creatures mean to each of us, and offer an individual blessing for each animal. I know many of you love your dogs as if they’re your own children.
I just need you to understand that such a view of dogs would have been completely foreign in the worldview in which today’s text took place. Dogs were not members of the family. Dogs were not beloved pets. Dogs were not cute and adorable and cuddly animals. In the words of Dog Whisperer, Caesar Millan, “It’s a dog.”
In first century Palestine, it was not uncommon for Jews to call non-Jews dogs. It was meant to be an insult. It was a way of saying, “you people who are different than us are really not quite people. You’re not quite human. You’re just the same as the disease-ridden animals who eat the garbage and drink out of the toilet.”
We find Jesus using this very insult when he speaks to the Gentile woman who asks for healing for her daughter. Ouch. We may welcome Jesus’ depiction of Israel as “the children,” but did he have to call this poor, frantic, desperate mother, along with all her people, “the dogs?” Maybe the Gentiles could have instead been cast as “the neighbor kids.”
Not exactly the picture of Jesus we want to hang onto, is it? Jesus the snob? Jesus the racist?
Really, I think the picture is actually one of Jesus the human. Jesus the human who lived at a particular time, lived among a particular people, and may very well have had some of the prejudices and ways of doing that went along with living at a particular time in a particular place. From time to time, I will speak with people of previous generations who use words that no one of my politically-correct generation would ever use – words with racial, ethnic, homophobic, or elitist overtones. I know that people will sometimes use these words and then claim ignorance on how they’re interpreted today or say, “Well, that’s just how I was taught, but I don’t mean anything by it,” and by the way, I’ve just taught you something different so those are words about other people I never expect anyone here to utter in my presence. But, I also understand that there are a small number of folks who may use such terms completely innocently, who really do intend no harm and the last thing they would want would be to insult anyone.
If we keep digging into the context of this particular story, I think that’s exactly what was going on with Jesus. In the Greek, Jesus doesn’t use the same word for dogs that was considered derogatory. He uses a diminutive version of the word, which describes not the wild, filthy, flea-bitten, mangy dogs of the street. The word he uses describes the rare domesticated dogs of the house, beloved puppies, the pets that many of us treat as if they’re children.
Jesus is making a play on words here. He’s not being insulting; he’s being clever. Jesus is not insulting, the fact that he even poses the question to the woman is, in and of itself, a compliment and an olive branch to elevate her to higher standing than a first century male Palestinian Jew would offer a Greek woman. Back then, much as today, the Greeks loved conversation, mental sparring, friendly debate, and vigorous banter. But even more than that, back then, men did not discuss theological issues with women. Women were regarded as inferior, as mindless, as things to be owned, used, and discarded.
So when Jesus asks her this philosophical question, he is actually honoring her. He is engaging her in a style of discourse loved and prized by her culture. He is treating her as being on the same playing field as a worthy mental adversary. He is a man, asking her a theological and philosophical question on her very own turf. The very fact that he engages her on her own turf is proof positive that Jesus was not being insulting.
Skillfully, she rises to the challenge. With great grace she says, “Sir, I concede your point. The children are, indeed, fed first. But even if I am a dog as you playfully assert, what is the reason why I can’t have the crumbs the children throw away under the table?”
She was, in a word, charming. She painted herself out of the corner Jesus had backed her into, handed him the paintbrush and said, “What else ya got?” Jesus grinned, knowing that she had just declared “Checkmate” in this verbal chess game, and you know what? Jesus was impressed. Jesus was impressed by the depth of her conviction, by the strength of her love, and by her willingness to endure a little gentle ribbing if it meant she might get what she needed for her daughter. Jesus laughed and said, “You got me. And by the way, your daughter is well.”
And in that, we see a glimpse of the kingdom of God. Even when we have our prejudices, even when we have our pre-conceived notions of how the world should work, even when we have correctly identified those whom we perceive to be favored by God, God’s grace is still larger.
Even when we play favorites, God is at work in the lives of those we don’t like, those we insult, those we perceive to inferior to be ourselves. This is where the kingdom of God shows itself to a complete reversal of the kingdoms of this world. The kingdoms of this world are built on the concept of scarcity. Think about it. We’ve all been told that there’s only so much of anything and everything, and the result is that we find ourselves in a constant competition with every other person around us. I was starting to search for airline tickets for a trip to Kansas City next month, and the search engine reminded me that there are “only four tickets left at this price!” There are only so many spaces in the entering freshman class. There are only so many good jobs in this field. There are only so many lakefront lots left. There are only so many fish in the sea. There is only so much oil, or so much money, or you get the picture.
The governments of the world love war so much because they have bought into the idea of scarcity. Everyone is trying to look out for their own interests, make sure their own needs are met, “I’m looking out for #1 and I don’t care what happens to the rest of you!” Nations go to war with each other, neighbors feud, students cheat, we hurl insults and slurs about anything we don’t like about another person or group of people, family members stop speaking to each other, and religious groups argue about which one of them is actually the most favored by God because of one thing – we’ve all bought into the lie of scarcity upon which the economies of the world are based.
But there is an alternative, and Jesus gives us a glimpse of it in today’s text. In the economy of God’s kingdom, even the dogs under the table get the table scraps, and it is enough to meet their needs. There is enough. Even those we’ve excluded from the table, even those we’ve treated as dogs, even those we are convinced are less than human, find enough of the bread of God’s grace and love to meet their needs. Even when we show favoritism and bar the door to the banquet hall, even when we are exclusive and narrow-minded and judgmental, God still finds a way to feed the very ones we’ve tried to leave out. If that’s not a definition of grace in the kingdom of God, I don’t know what is.
So my question for us this morning is this: if God is going to take care of everyone anyway, why don’t we just set a few more seats at the table and invite them to the banquet? The kingdom of God is often likened to a great feast, and before us today, a foretaste of the feast has been set. Every time we gather at this table to break this bread and receive from this cup, we participate in a sign of the kingdom of God. We commune with our risen Lord at this table, but we also commune with each other – with God’s people of all times and places, of all races and colors, of all economic backgrounds, of all lifestyles and ways of thinking, believing, and doing, even the ones we think don’t belong at the table in the first place.
When you come today and every time I serve you communion, you’ll receive a big piece of bread, because this is a meal of God’s kingdom. This is a meal of the abundance of God’s kingdom, not a meager meal to remind us of the scarcity the world wants us to believe in. Every time you participate in this meal, whether it is celebrated at this table or somewhere else, you are participating in a countercultural and subversive act. Every time you participate in this meal, you are declaring your conviction that God’s grace is abundant, and that there is more than enough of it to go around.
She only asked for crumbs. Jesus gave her a seat at the banquet instead.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Prophet Overboard! - Jonah 1:1-17, 2:10-3:6, 3:10-4:2
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, “Go at once to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. The captain came and said to him, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”
The sailors said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” “I am a Hebrew,” he replied. “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.
Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea was growing more tempestuous. He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.” Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they made a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Ninevah, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah sent out and went to Ninevah, according to the word of the Lord. Now Ninevah was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go in to the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Ninevah will be overthrown!” And the people of Ninevah believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
When the news reached the king of Ninevah, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.
But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”
A third grade class was doing a science unit on marine life. The teacher explained a whale’s diet, noting that it would be impossible for a whale to swallow a human because of its very small throat. Johnny put up his hand and said, “But Jonah was swallowed whole by the whale!” The teacher was slightly irritated and said, “A whale simply cannot swallow a human whole.” Not deterred, Johnny said, “I’ll simply ask Jonah when I get to heaven.” The teacher said, “What if Jonah didn’t go to heaven?” Johnny replied, “Then you can ask him.”
Peter Gomes, who serves as the minister of Harvard’s Memorial Church, refers to the Bible as “a book of the imagination.” The Jonah story is one example of a story that requires some imagination when we read it. This story has some great truths, and it reveals a lot to us about God and about ourselves, if we will only read it with a little imagination. May we pray.
Jonah is a great story. It is only four chapters long, and each chapter serves as a little mini-story within the larger story. It’s an excellent piece of literature, and our selected readings for today only hit the highlights. When you go home this evening, I want you to sit down and read the entire book of Jonah – you can read it in about 15 minutes. Read it with a sense of humor, and read it as satire. Satire not only entertains, but it teaches.
We wonder about the inclusion of this story in the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s different from the other books. The other books focus on God’s concern for Israel – this one focuses on God’s concern for a group of Gentiles. Not exactly what you’d expect in the Scriptures for God’s chosen people.
Jonah is sitting at home in the very first words of the book, and God says, “Hey Jonah. I’ve got a job for you. I want you to go east to Ninevah, and cry out against all the wickedness there.” Now, Ninevah is the capital city of Assyria, a long-standing enemy of Israel.
Jonah goes all right. He goes down to the seaport, to a town called Joppa, and pays his way onto a ship headed for Tarshish. Tarshish is a town on the west coast of what is now Spain. It represented the end of the known world, and was the exact opposite direction from where God wanted Jonah to go. The text tells us that Jonah was trying to get away from God’s presence, and, I suppose the end of the world would have been the most likely place to hide.
Certainly, Jonah is not the first nor the last person to run away from a call from God. Show me a pastor working in full-time ministry, and I’ll show you someone who initially resisted that call. I sensed my call into ministry years before I accepted it. I somehow thought that if I ran fast and far enough in the opposite direction, I could get away from God’s call, that I could somehow get out ahead of it. If I buried myself with school, with work, with other pursuits, perhaps the call of God would simply pass me by.
Jonah tried to bury himself as well. In fact, burial is a good word for what Jonah intended to do. When he intended to board the ship, the text tells us he went down to Joppa. This is symbolic language that implies a descent, a burial. On board, he went down into the hold of the ship to sleep. When the storm was at its worst, he was thrown into the sea, and descended below its waters. Finally, he went down into the belly of the fish. Four times Jonah has buried himself or been buried, each time an attempt to hide from the presence of God.
But, it doesn’t work. Even in the belly of the fish, even in the deepest, darkest, place Jonah can bury himself, God is still there.
The fish spews Jonah up on the shore, and this time, he sets out for his destination. A side note, here. Did you know that the fish is an example of oceanfront real estate development? It’s true. The fish took what should have been a loss and turned it into some prophet on the shore.
Jonah arrives in Ninevah, bleached white from three days swimming in gastric juices, with a few pieces of seaweed still clinging to his ear. Tucked under his arm is his favorite sermon on hellfire and brimstone. He may not have been happy about being there in the first place, but I think he was proud of the sermon. “Hey Ninevah!” In 40 days, you’re going to be blasted to bits!!!” If you have to go and deliver a message to your worst enemy, you have to be glad when it’s one of gloom and doom and imminent judgment.
Jonah finishes giving his sermon, hikes up a nearby hill, pops the top off a PBR, begins the doomsday countdown, and gets himself a front row seat for all the destructive action. You can just hear him counting down the days: “40 more days, and Ninevah gets it! 39 more days! 38, 37, 36 . . .” By the time the count has finally worn down, Jonah is jumping up and down, excitedly counting down the last few seconds. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – BOOM!” Only, no boom. He began the countdown again, thinking his timing might be off. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – BOOM!” Still no boom.
The phone rang. “Jonah – good news.” It was the Lord. “Great job on the sermon. They believed you. The whole city repented, so I’m not going to destroy them after all. Thanks, Jonah.”
Jonah gets furious at this. “Lord, that’s why I didn’t want to come here in the first place! That’s why I ran away from you in the first place! When I preach doom and destruction, I expect doom and destruction! But here you are, so merciful, so kind, so forgiving, so loving. It just makes me sick.”
I hope you catch the humor in this. This story is funny. This story is so funny that as I continued to read it in preparation this week, I found myself chuckling. This story is a satire on every exclusive, narrow-minded expression of religion. This is theology presented to us as high comedy.
But the story should not only amuse us; it should disturb us a bit as well. Jonah presents us with a picture of God that is so loving, so patient, so obnoxiously gracious that we are forced to extend our human boundaries of God’s infinite grace.
Jonah is angry because God just loves too many people. According to Jonah, God is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing." Like Jonah, that's how we expect God to be toward us. It sure is irritating when God acts that way toward others.
A story is told about an incident on an international flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to London. A well-dressed woman made her way down the aisle, past the business travelers, toward her assigned seat. She arrived, and a man who was clearly from some more remote part of the continent was her seatmate. “Is this your assigned seat?” she asked. “Yes.” She looked around for empty seats nearby, but the flight appeared to be full. She grabbed a flight attendant who was passing by. “Excuse me, I seem to be seated next to someone whose skin color is different from my own. Another arrangement must be made.” The flight attendant responded, “Ma’am, it is not our policy to move passengers unnecessarily.” “Well,” said the woman quietly. “I have enough cash in my purse to provide for an alternative. Please go up to first class and see if something is available up there.” A few minutes later, the flight attendant came back. He leaned across the woman and tapped the male passenger on the arm. “I’m sorry sir, but we need to make a seating change. If you follow me, we have a place for you up in first class.”
The love of God makes it possible to give everyone first-class treatment. Even people we don’t like. Even people we think should be the last recipients of God’s grace. What troubles us is that we sometimes end up in our same old seats.
This can be very upsetting to us, and it was very upsetting to Jonah. He had delivered a message of judgment, and he expected God to fulfill it. The people in Ninevah were wicked, and they were going to get just exactly what they had deserved. They had made their beds, now they could lie in them. They were Israel’s enemies for crying out loud!!! Just when Jonah stands to call down the all-consuming fire of judgment, God has the nerve to forgive, to have mercy, and to abound in steadfast love.
The text will go on to tell us that while Jonah is sulking in the desert, God caused a plant to come up and shelter his head from the 120-degree heat. Then God sends a worm to attack the plant, and it withers and dies. Jonah goes into a fit yet again. “Here I am sitting out here in this stupid heat, and you kill the plant that was giving me some relief from the heat!” God simply says, “Jonah, what’s the matter with you? How can you be angry with me for allowing a little plant to die, yet disappointed because I allowed 120,000 people to live?”
Forgiveness becomes a bitter pill for Jonah to swallow. The result of withholding forgiveness is bitterness, and it eats away at Jonah in just the same way the worm ate away at his beloved plant in the desert. It seems absurd to hang onto such anger, yet we’ve all done it. In righteous indignation we withdraw to a safe distance, where we can sulk and contentedly wait and watch for our enemies to get what they deserve. Forgiveness only complicates the issue. When you can stay angry at a person, at least you know where he or she stands at a safe distance somewhere below you. Forgiveness is messy, sorta what you might imagine after being cooped up in a fish’s stomach for three days. But a life lived in community with others is messy, and it requires us to forgive.
To be sure, when we hold onto bitterness and anger, there is punishment. Only it is the one who sits alone brooding in anger and bitterness who is punished, and it’s always self-inflicted. We can withhold love and forgiveness, we can wallow in bitterness and anger, we can carry our grudges everywhere, but in the end, that ends up doing the most damage to ourselves.
Jonah is so busy sulking out in the desert, so busy grinding his teeth, so busy wallowing in his anger, he forgets one very small detail. God never asked him to go hang out in the desert and see what the result of the message was. God only asked him to deliver the message. Here Jonah is, making a huge sacrifice, going through great discomfort, exerting a ton of effort, and angry because God doesn’t stop and recognize Jonah for doing something God had no desire for Jonah to do in the first place.
There’s a lesson in that for us. Rather than making ourselves busy with all sorts of things that God may not even desire for us to do, let’s each stop and re-consider just what exactly God would like for us to do. We may find that we’re off sulking in the desert, expecting God to reward us, when, in fact, God never asked us to go and wallow in our own anger. God may be busy loving the very people we delivered a message of judgment too, and God may need us to start loving them too. God may wonder why we’re spending our time on things that have nothing to do with proclaiming the kingdom of God or seeking those who are lost to be part of our community. God may remind us to simply get back to basics, to do what we’re supposed to do in the first place and not make ourselves busy with a lot of other “stuff.” God may simply tell us to operate according to God’s priorities, and not any one person’s forceful or misguided agenda.
By the end of the story, Jonah is confronted with the reality that he is not, in fact, the center of the universe. God’s ways are different than his. God’s choices are different than his. God’s priorities are different than his. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, not only to me, not only to people like me or to people I like. God has the audacity to love everyone, including the people I love the least.
Jesus got in trouble when he carried out this principle. He made no distinction between rich and poor, male and female, healthy and sick, insider and outsider. Jesus radically shared God’s love with everybody and anybody, and this made the religious establishment nervous. Jesus set forth a vision of the kingdom of God that was entirely too broad for the religious insiders of his day. In the name of God, Jesus gave himself to the world.
The Church has struggled with this message. In the 10th chapter of the book of Acts, Simon Peter didn’t want to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. He didn’t want anyone outside his little circle getting in. But, too late. They were already knocking on the door. In fact, so many outsiders became part of the Church that by the 15th chapter, all the preachers had to come to a specially-called session of the annual conference to squabble over how many were going to be let into God’s Church. It would seem that God just keeps inviting everybody.
The problem is that we human messengers are sometimes reluctant. The Church doesn’t tell a lot of new stories, just the same old story of a God who loves everybody, who is merciful to everybody, and who is kind to everybody. Despite our reluctance, we continue to proclaim that the love of God is for all people and that the Creator of heaven and earth wants to stand face-to-face with every one of his beloved children.
God is willing to love everybody, including Jonah, including Ninevah, including you and me, and there ain’t nothing we can do about it, thanks be to God!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
What happened to the sermon from August 23?
Many of you have probably noticed that there is no sermon posted from August 23. That's because I didn't preach on August 23! Instead, musical guests "AG and Kate" led our morning worship gathering, and I got to sit in the congregation for a change.
Thanks for understanding that I, too, take a little time off every now and then.
If you'd like more information on AG and Kate, you can visit their website www.agandkate.com
Thanks for understanding that I, too, take a little time off every now and then.
If you'd like more information on AG and Kate, you can visit their website www.agandkate.com
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Noah's Ark - Genesis 6:9-24, 7:24, 8:14-19
These are the descendents of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits (450 feet), its width fifty cubits (75 feet), and its height 30 cubits (45 feet). Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days.
In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God said to Noah, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh – birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth – so that they may about on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. And every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark by families.
This morning we find ourselves in the middle of some of our favorite stories out of the Old Testament. Today, I invite you to join me in looking at Noah’s Ark. We are prone to think of Noah’s Ark as a children’s story, and I’ll admit that most of my memories of stories like Noah’s Ark are from when I was back in Vacation Bible School happily coloring rainbows and smiling animals and the nice man with the long white beard.
I’d like you imagine this story taking place today. The Lord speaks to Noah and says: "In one year, I am going to make it rain and cover the whole Earth with water until all is destroyed. But I want you to save the righteous people and two of every kind of living thing on the Earth. Therefore, I am commanding you to build an Ark."
In a flash of lightning, God delivered the specifications for an Ark, and Noah agreed to build it.
"Remember," said the Lord, "You must complete the Ark and bring everything aboard in one year."
Exactly one year later, a fierce storm cloud formed and all the seas of the earth went into a tumult. The Lord saw Noah sitting in his front yard weeping. "Noah." He shouted, "Where is the Ark?"
"Lord, please forgive me!" cried Noah. "I did my best but there were big problems. First, I had to get a permit for construction and your plans weren’t up to code. I had to hire an engineering firm and redraw the plans.
Then I got into a fight with OSHA over a fire sprinkler system and floatation devices.
Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning ordinances by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission.
I had problems getting enough wood, because there was a ban on cutting trees to protect the Spotted Owl. I finally convinced the U.S. Forest Service that I needed the wood to save the owls.
However, the Fish and Wildlife Service won't let me catch any owls. So, no owls.
The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Union. Now I have 16 carpenters on the Ark, but still no owls.
When I started rounding up the other animals, I got sued by an animal rights group for confining the animals.
Just when I got the suit dismissed, the EPA notified me that I could not complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. They didn't take very kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of the Creator of the universe.
Then the Army Corps of Engineer demanded a map of the proposed new flood plain. I sent them a globe.
Right now, I am trying to resolve a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that I am practicing discrimination by not taking godless, unbelieving people aboard!
The IRS has seized all my assets, claiming that I'm about to flee the country to avoid paying taxes.
I got a notice from the State that I owe some user tax and failed to register the Ark as a 'recreational water craft.'
Finally the ACLU got the courts to issue an injunction against further construction of the Ark, saying that since God is flooding the earth, it is a religious event and therefore unconstitutional.
I really don't think I can finish the Ark for another 5 or 6 years!" Noah wailed.
The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine and the seas began to calm. A rainbow arched across the sky.
Noah looked up hopefully. "You mean you are not going to destroy the Earth, Lord?"
"No," said the Lord sadly. "It looks like humanity is doing that all on its own!" May we pray.
Like the charming tales in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, the stories in Genesis 3-11 originally tried to answer age-old questions such as: “Why is childbirth painful?” or “Why do people speak different languages?” In Genesis, however, these stories have been refashioned to present us with a picture of humanity repeatedly shattering the relationship with God established in creation; as such they depict the spread of sin.
These stories are not intended to serve as either a historical record or scientific account of the beginnings of humanity. Rather, they are intended to tell us something about God and about who we are in relation to God. Over and over again, we find the story punctuated by sin, that is, by our distance and separation from God.
Right at the middle of this section of the book of origins, the book of beginnings – Genesis – we find the story of the great flood and a man who went by the name of Noah.
Let’s look at some of the background before we proceed any further. The legend of an epic flood is common to all ancient cultures. Anthropologists have identified 25 distinct flood accounts in the traditions of various cultures, and if we allow for all the variations upon those accounts, we end up with around 2500 identifiable flood stories from ancient cultures.
Take a look at the ark itself. God gives very specific instructions for its construction, including where to put the door and window. I’ll get to this window in a minute. If we convert the measurements for the ark into modern figures, it’s about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. If you take the square footage produced by those dimensions, and place those onto three decks, you end up with a vessel with 101,250 square feet. The ark is of colossal proportions – is it any wonder that it captured our imaginations as children?
For many people of faith, we grow up hearing the Noah story in Sunday School and at Vacation Bible School and we sing songs about it. “The Lord told Noah, build me an arky, arky…” We learn the story as if it is just a cute little story about a boat and animals and a rainbow in the sky. We decorate nurseries and children’s classrooms with Noah’s Ark murals and put it on the front of children’s bibles. Smiling and happy Noah, surrounded by smiling and happy animals, merrily floating along under a bright and colorful rainbow. Whenever I drew this story in Sunday School, that’s how it always looked.
Then we get older and we re-read the story of Noah, and we’ll stop and think, “Wait! We teach this to children?” We are surprised by the utter destruction depicted, by God’s anger and wrath and God’s desire to destroy all life on the earth, images that clash with our childhood memories of sheep and cows getting on a nice boat built by the nice, long-bearded man.
Too often, however, I think we focus on the wrong aspect of the flood narrative. Too often we hone in on humanity’s corruption and God’s wrathful judgment, either reveling in or being repulsed by it. In that regard, we are often like we are when we pass a bad car wreck on the highway, not being able to look away, either because of our horror at what has happened or our fascination to know just a little bit more about what had taken place. Either way, our eyes are glued to the scene.
We are fascinated by this depiction of God’s judgment. We sometimes act as if God is peeking at us over a cloud with a sack full of lightning bolts, just waiting for us to really screw up. How many times have you heard someone say something or watched them do something that you knew was wrong, and find yourself slowly sliding away from them? You half expect them to get zapped, and give them just a little bit of room in case God’s aim is slightly off or he failed to account for the wind or has developed a slice or something.
But, this story really isn’t about God’s judgment. Some have used this text to prop up their own agendas and to dole out their own versions of justice, oppressing anyone they perceive to be inferior. Christians have used this argument to validate anti-semitism, saying the Jews somehow missed the boat. Others have used it to validate racism using some half-baked cockamamie theory about one of Noah’s sons being darker than the others and also inferior. Modern-day Israel has used this argument to oppress Palestinians. Some strains of the Christian tradition have used this argument to delight in anything they perceive as God’s judgment upon the ungodly, infidels, and persons of moral inferiority. Others have used it to justify so-called “righteous violence,” the violence of genocide, oppression, and final solutions, perceiving themselves to be the righteous one? Have you ever noticed that, no matter how narrow God’s favored people are defined, the person doing the defining is always on the list? These actions, even if this story were about God’s judgment – which it’s not – somehow forget the detail of the story that God does the dirty work, not Noah.
However, nowhere on the sacred page of Scripture are the details of the disaster described. The text is not concerned with, nor does it delight in, the plight of the victims. There are no portholes on the ark, so that righteous Noah and his righteous family can watch all humanity suffer. There is only a window in the top, an opening toward God, that will let God’s light in. God is not depicted as having a good laugh while throwing down lightning bolts to smite the random evil-doers. Genesis 6:6 says that when God saw the wickedness of the earth, “it grieved him to his heart.” The reality of evil and God dealing with it is something that breaks God’s very heart. God appears as a grieving and pained parent, not as an angry executioner, not as a sadistic torturer, not as one who delights in pain. So, this story really isn’t about God’s judgment.
This story really isn’t about Noah and his family, either. Sometimes we read this story as if Noah were the winner of some TV elimination show like Survivor or Middle Eastern Idol or Who Wants to be Righteous Man? As if Noah stood up to some long battery of tests administered by the righteousness agency or won the supernatural lottery.
It’s hard to say why God chose Noah. We know he was a righteous man, a man of integrity in his generation; and we know he walked with God. But the text doesn’t claim that he was the only one who did. It never says that Noah was the last righteous man on earth, or that good behavior is the reason God chose him in the first place. It’s not because Noah was perfect. Only a few verses after Noah’s family comes out of the ark, that much is already clear – take a look at Genesis chapter 9 for this part of the story. After being cooped up on the ark for over a year and probably coming very close to losing his sanity – not to mention his breakfast – Noah, a man of the soil, planted a vineyard. Of course he drank some of the wine from that vineyard. Of course he drank a little too much – there was much to celebrate. And we find Noah, the character most likely to be featured on nursery wallpaper, passed out naked in the living room. No, he certainly wasn’t perfect.
What the text does tell us is that Noah walked with God. Let’s dwell there for a minute.
It may not surprise you to learn that this phrase, “walked with God,” means something much deeper and richer in the original language than our translations can capture. Walking with God suggests an intimacy, an interdependence, even. Early Christian theologians used similar terms when they tried to articulate the bond among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The terms they used suggested a dance.
Our translations might serve us better if they said, “Noah danced with God,” which is undeniable and empirical evidence that Noah was, at least statistically, more likely to be a Methodist than a Baptist.
In a dance, there is movement. There is give and take between partners. There is flow. There is intertwining to the point that it sometimes becomes difficult to view one partner apart from the other. Have you ever watched the beauty of two people dancing together who really know what they’re doing? Have you noticed how painfully awkward it is to watch two people dance of whom neither one has a clue what they’re doing?
But far more interesting, have you ever watched two people dance, one with great skill, and the other with great none whatsoever? When the weaker partner leads, it’s clumsy and awkward. But when the stronger partner leads, they can do so in such a way that the movement is beautiful and seamless, and you would never notice the shortcomings of the weaker dancer?
In our dance with God, God is clearly the strong partner and we are clearly the weak partner. We can try to lead God – dictating the sorts of things God should be up to and the sorts of things God ought to prioritize, whom to smite and whom to save – but I think our dance would look awkward at best and disastrous at worst. God is the leading partner. We need to surrender our own wills, stop trying to force God into our own little box, and be conformed to God’s will. We need to stop asking God to move with us, and be open to moving with God.
Noah moved with God. Life flowed between them. Noah dwelt in the full radiance of God’s presence.
It’s sort of like asking an unborn child if it has a relationship with its mother. Assuming the child is available for interview, understands English, and can respond back, the child might say, “Well, I guess you could say that I have a relationship with my mother. But, well, it’s so much deeper than that. I am dependent on her. I go everywhere with her. Whenever she moves, I move. My heartbeat happens because of her. Yes, we have a relationship, but I live inside of her. Do you get that?”
That’s what Noah had with God. It went beyond a relationship. It went beyond walking together. It was a situation in which Noah relied upon God for his very life. In turn, God chose to use Noah, knowing full well that Noah was not perfect, knowing that Noah was fragile, knowing that Noah was just as likely to fail as succeed.
And by that, we have stumbled onto the meaning of this story. The story isn’t about God’s wrath and judgment. It’s not about the animals. It’s not about Noah and his family. The story of Noah’s ark is about God and God’s commitment to the world. It’s a story about God who commits to the future of a less than perfect world.
God realizes that we humans are resistant to God’s will for creation, yet God continues to live with and work through such resistant creatures. God continues to work through a father who has too much to drink and passes out naked in the living room. God continues to work through a son who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and sees something he shouldn’t. God continues to work through two other sons who cover up the elephant in the room and never want to address it again.
God will continue to grieve the wrongdoing of his children, but through grace, will open up new avenues of interaction between the human and the divine. God proves trustworthy in this dance with humanity, and though we often forget the steps, or miss the rhythm, or fall on our faces, or leave the dance floor, God continues to invite us back. God remains committed to us, despite our sometimes glaring lack of commitment to God.
And so, despite all the things we’d like to make this story of Noah and the ark about, it’s about God – God’s commitment and God’s promises. It’s about God who provides salvation in the midst of chaos and who willingly enters into the uncertainty of a less-than-perfect world. It’s about God who does not abandon what God created and blessed and called “good” in the first place.
God is committed to the future of a less-than-perfect world with less-than-perfect people, in less-than-perfect circumstances, and leaves a sign to remind us of his covenant. God hangs the rainbow in the sky as a reminder that God keeps God’s promises, even when we fail to keep ours, a reminder that God is committed to us even when we are not committed to God, a reminder that God continues to invite us to dance, a reminder that all people everywhere – people of every color, line, and hue – are created in the image of God and therefore valued, and we’re all invited to the dance.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Good Intentions - Matthew 21:23-32
When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not;’ but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”
When John Wesley sent the early Methodist preachers out, he asked three questions upon their return: “Did you make anyone glad? Did you make anyone sad? Did you make anyone mad?” If the answer to all three questions was “no,” he concluded that their preaching on that particular occasion had been ineffective.
There are times when the Gospel message comes to us as news that makes us glad – glad for the good news of God’s love in Christ for us. There are times when it makes us sad – sad over our sin and failure to live for God. And there are times when it makes us mad – mad because we realize we’re the ones being talked about and being asked to change. Throughout the teachings of Jesus, we find ourselves responding in all these ways.
In our text today, Jesus has some very direct things to say to the religious leaders of his day. As someone who has become a religious leader of our day, I pay much closer attention to these particular stories than I used to. I realized, that as a leader in the religious establishment, as a church insider, as part of the good and upstanding church crowd, this thing was aimed right at me! “But God, I have good intentions!” I protest. This is one of those texts that just seems to say, “That’s all well and good, but you know where the road paved with good intentions leads!”
May we pray.
Gracious God, your people have gathered to worship, and also to hear from you. Now Lord, I ask that you would speak to me; speak through me; if necessary in spite of me, and always beyond me that the truth of your Word might not be hid. Amen.
Today’s text is a conversation taking place between Jesus and the religious leaders. It is his last week in Jerusalem before the crucifixion – the joy of his triumphal entry is behind him, and the cross looms ever larger in front of him. He seems to be ticking off the religious establishment left and right, and I’m sure this conversation helped bring the conflict to a head. This is a rare instance in which Jesus confronts the religious folks on their own turf. They engage him in a style of discourse commonly used by rabbis. They ask questions, Jesus responds with stories and additional questions, and he comes off sounding like a real smart aleck.
Jesus and the religious leaders were all in the hallway getting their coffee before Sunday School. He tells them this story: A man had two sons. To both sons he said, “Go work in the vineyard.” The first son said, “No,” but then later, for whatever reason, went and worked. The second son said, “Sure Dad, I’ll go do it,” but stayed inside chatting on facebook for the rest of the day. One son said the wrong thing, but followed through with the right action. The other son said the right thing, but failed to follow through.
Have you ever had an experience with someone who said they were there to help, but in reality, provided no help whatsoever? About a year ago, I was doing a wedding in another church for a wonderful couple from out-of-town. Their wedding director was a relative of the mother-of-the-bride. My usual arrangement with wedding directors is, “You run everything at the back of the church, and I’ll run everything at the front.” If you have your wedding here, you’re blessed to have Sara Kidd as your wedding director. I haven’t done a wedding with Sara yet, but just in our general worship planning, I love working with Sara. She makes my job easy. Things run smoothly. She and Polly Haney and the rest of the worship team are such a help in pulling off the logistics of worship. However, sometimes people say they’re going to help, and then make things more difficult.
I have wedding rehearsals down to a science. The whole thing, including seating mothers and grandmothers, the processional, the service, and the recessional, can be rehearsed twice in 45 minutes. With this particular wedding director, at 45 minutes, we were just finishing the first run-through of seating the mothers and the processional after several starts and re-starts. I freely admit that patience continues to be a growth area for me. It was a hot evening. The church wasn’t air-conditioned. We were all getting hungry knowing that the rehearsal dinner was prepared and waiting for us. The wedding party and members of the family were getting a little edgy and frustrated, and you could slice the tension in the room. After 45 minutes, everyone was finally assembled where they were supposed to be, and I had just opened my book and was about to begin our first run-through of the service. The wedding director interrupted. To me she said, “When everyone is coming in, I think you should be standing over here.” Her suggestion made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Perhaps I was frustrated. Perhaps I was concerned for the waste of everyone else’s time. Perhaps my patience had run out. Perhaps I just wasn’t interested in being told how to conduct the wedding, but in response to her suggestion I heard myself say, “No.” She began to argue. I said, “Ma’am, you’re going to need to have a seat now.”
Her intentions were good. She sincerely thought she was helping.
Back in our text today, Jesus asks the religious leaders, “Which son did the will of their father? The son who gave the wrong answer but did the right thing, or the son who gave the right answer but did the wrong thing?”
They decided it was the son who did the right thing, even though he gave the wrong answer. They know Jesus has told this story against them, though they can’t really prove it. As religious leaders, they were known for giving the right answers, but not necessarily for doing the right thing. But they know the old clichés as well as any of us: actions speak louder than words, talk is cheap, empty words are synonymous with broken promises, I would rather see a sermon than hear one.
So as a religious insider, I am warned against honoring the Lord with my lips while my heart and actions are far from what God expects. The truth of my commitment lives in my heart, and what I do is the best measure of what’s in my heart. Or, as it’s put by the great poet of our age, Toby Keith, “a little less talk, a lot more action.”
The son who gives the wrong answer but does the right action is elevated as the hero in many interpretations of this text, and there are even some who refer to it as the parable as the faithful and unfaithful son.
However, the response of both sons is lacking. Each response lacks integrity because word is disconnected from action. The son who said “no,” even though he eventually did what the father asked, was no prize, either. In many cultures—including the one in which this story is set—open, public defiance of one’s father was a worse offense than not doing what one’s father asked. What sort of father would raise his son in such a manner that the son thought it was okay to speak to him that way? The father is left with one son who says “no” with his words and “yes” with his actions, and another who says “yes” with his words and “no” with his actions. There is something about both sons that needs to be transformed.
When we are asked to choose, we are asked to choose between two sons who both insulted their father. I can identify with either son in this parable, which is the troubling part, because both sons are still so far away from the will of their father. If we say the will of God is primarily about saying and knowing and believing the right things – about saying the right creed, and attending the right Bible study, and thinking a certain way, and constructing our worship services appropriately, we can forget that a lack of action will make our words sound incredibly hollow. If, on the other hand, we say the will of God is primarily about behavior – about doing the right things, and acting the right way, and getting our hands dirty working in the vineyard, we easily lapse into a works righteousness in which we are trying to earn our way into the kingdom of God. It’s not as simple as a change in our words and beliefs, nor is it as simple as a change in our actions and deeds.
What Jesus calls for is a change of heart.
Jesus calls for a change of heart that is only possible by God’s grace. To rely solely on our own words or on our own deeds is to rely solely upon ourselves. Herein lies the danger of good intentions: they allow us to rest too easily upon ourselves and in the promises we ourselves make. We can become very comfortable with the contributions we’re making or the things we believe, or the contributions we intend to make or the things we intend to believe. Those who believe certain things will take false pride in those beliefs and chide anyone who doesn’t believe the same way, and those who act in certain ways look down their noses at others who don’t act just like they do.
Have you met these people? People who are so convinced that they’re right that everyone else has to be wrong? Who will go down a long list of things that they believe and do, and if you don’t believe just like they do, then you are completely wrong? If your experiences are different, if your values are different, if your worldview is different, then you must be in the wrong? Rather than recognizing the complexity of how we are fearfully and wonderfully made, they spend all their time arguing the correctness of their position in such a way that highlights what they perceive to be the incorrectness of yours. Or, worse yet, have you ever been one such person?
A friend of mine who is a United Methodist pastor has a fondness for Hardee’s sausage biscuits. I know, a pastor with a fondness for fatty, greasy food – who would have thought? One day, he was at the Hardee’s near his church wearing a polo shirt with his church’s name and logo on it. Some guy, apparently trying to pick a fight with him, looked at his shirt and said, “United Methodist Church, huh? What Bible y’all use over there?” My friend responded, “We use the one that has both the Old and New Testaments.” Not deterred, his antagonist pressed on. “Nah, man – you boys believe in the King James Bible over there?” Without missing a beat, my friend responded, “Believe in it? Shoot, I’ve even seen one.”
The man was like the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, who thought that the absolute pristine correctness of their beliefs trumped everything else. They felt justified in looking down their noses and anyone who did not think and act the same way, that if people believed anything outside of their determined little realm, then they were wrong. However, is it possible to be firm in our convictions and still recognize the validity of other people’s beliefs and experiences, even when they don’t exactly line up with ours?
Even the Puritans in early New England recognized this complexity. Keep in mind that Puritans were not exactly the most open-minded people; after all, these were the same people who would burn you at the stake for witchcraft if you forgot the words to the Lord’s Prayer. But an old Puritan proverb said “God does not break all hearts in the same way.” In other words, God moves and works in different hearts in radically different ways. It is nothing more than spiritual snobbery to assume that we have the corner on the market and that we’re somehow superior because of some knowledge or experience or action of our own.
To this, Jesus says even the tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God ahead of people who act and think this way. Even the most despised and reviled sinners of Jesus’ day would enter the kingdom of God ahead of anyone in the religious establishment who was placing their security in their own beliefs or actions or accomplishments. I would love to point the finger at someone else in this interpretation, and say, Jesus must be talking about them in this passage. I want to walk up to Jesus, shake his hand on the way out of church, wink, and whisper, “I’m sure SOMEBODY needed their toes stepped on, and you sure gave it to ‘em!” And what I would mean by that is somebody else – insert your favorite sin or marginalized people group here – needed to hear that. Certainly not me and my Godly friends.
But I’m exactly the one this is aimed at. Here’s why. People in the religious establishment, like me, too easily become comfortable in our own accomplishments and good intentions. Comfortable and complacent, we too easily become very satisfied with the position we’ve settled into and focus on being nice people instead of on the power of the Gospel. We too easily substitute politeness for transformation, and forget that we are still in need of God’s grace. We too easily forget that the resurrection is still the defining force in our lives, and that things in our lives still need to die in order for the things of God to be brought to new life. We too easily think we’re just fine and dandy, thank you very much.
People on the outside, however, those whose personal lives are in shambles, who are on the fringes, who are marginalized, know they need something. They know something’s not working. Those who are outside the pale of the acceptable circles of the religious elite may in fact be those who are most sensitive to their need for radical grace. It’s much easier to seek grace when you stand in desperate need of it. It’s much easier to seek radical transformation in your life when you realize how deeply you need it. The church is here to proclaim God’s grace. We need to remember that grace is still needed by those inside. And it is always available to those outside.
Perhaps Thomas Jefferson was right. Perhaps the church really does need a revolution in every generation. Those of us in the religious establishment would do well to trade in our public images and good intentions for a fresh dose of the transformative grace of God. We are still sinners whose lives have been touched and transformed by God’s grace, and it is imperative that we invite others to experience what we have. That’s what evangelism is – when we invite others to join us on the journey and experience what we have. Evangelism is not some expert giving all the right answers to those who are without them. Evangelism is simply one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.
Every now and then, it’s good for the saints to be reminded that we’re also sinners. Every time I’ve gotten just a little too comfortable with the correctness of my words, or the correctness of my deeds, it’s good to be reminded that my heart is always in need of transformation. Every time I’ve started to think it’s about me – about my words, and my deeds, and my efforts, and my intentions, I’m reminded that it’s about God – about what God is doing and how I need to make myself available to the ways God is working and moving through me. If it were all about me, I think the hope for the world would be slim indeed.
Thank God it’s not all about me, or all about any of us, for that matter. It’s not about our deeds, our beliefs, our doctrine, or our words being right. It’s about our hearts being right. It’s about our hearts being broken and transformed into the likeness of the heart of God, a transformation that only comes about through the grace of Jesus Christ. That transformation is not something that happens only once. It happens day by day, each and every morning when we wake up and continue to a say a resounding “yes” to the transformation God works in each of us.
A man had two sons. One thought his words would save him; the other thought his deeds would save him. In the end, it was the love and grace of their father that saved them, love and grace that can transform every human heart, including ones like ours.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, may we pray.
Lord God, you call us not to correct words or action alone. You call us to have transformed hearts. We know we can’t do it on our own. We’ve tried to do it on our own accomplishments, on our own knowledge, on our own good intentions. Transform us, God. We know that such transformation comes about only through a relationship with your son, Jesus. We want to be his followers. We invite him into our lives, to transform our hearts into the likeness of your heart. For those who need to invite him into their lives for the first time, we pray. Right now, fill them with your presence and begin the great work of transformation within them. For those of us who have said “yes” with our lips only, for those of us who have said “yes” with our actions only, we know it’s not enough. May we recognize that we are in need of continual transformation, and that each of us always stands in need of your love and grace. Keep us open, Lord. Keep us open, and continue to pour out your grace on us and fill us with your Holy Spirit. We make a new commitment to you right now. We will live as your resurrection people in the world, full of your grace, full of your love, ready to serve you fully with our words and deeds, because you have transformed our hearts.
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