Just another WordPress site

Author: Sara Palmer

  • Preaching the cross and confronting capital punishiment

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 38

    Preaching the Cross

    and Confronting Capital Punishment

    Stacy Rector Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death ?enalty, Nashville, Tennessee

    Whether standing atop church steeples, adorning necklines, or dotting interstate highways, crosses are common sights. In fact, foe prevalence of the cross today may belie its power to confrontand challenge.ForChristians,the cross is central,representing God’s self-giving love poured out for foe world in foe crucifixion of Jesus. The Lenten season brings a renewed focus on the meaning of the cross, often framed in terms of sacrifice and salvation. Yet foe meaning of foe cross must also be understood in terms of scandal, as the method used to execute Jesus. The challenge for preachers is not only to help our congregations contemplate the profound act of love demonstrated on the cross through Jesus’ death, but also to contemplate foe particularity of this act, as Jesus dies as a death row inmate. What are foe implications of foe cross for foe continued use of the death penalty today? What does it mean for us who dare to follow one who was executed? How do we preach about the implications of foe cross for our lives together?

    The Reality As I sit at my computer writing this reflection, our nation has executed 1,347 people since 1976,the modem era ofthe death penalty. Over 75 ^rcentofthe victims in these cases resulting in an execution were white, even though nationally only 5 ه percent of murder victims are white.* In Louisiana, the chances of receiving a death sentence were 97 percent higher for offenders if foe victim was white rather than black3 In North Carolina, foe odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendants whose victims were white.^ The vast majority of those on death row today are individuals who were too poor to afford their own defense at trial.4 In fact, those who are rich and guilty often get better results in our current system than those who are poor and innocent. Geographic disparities in death sentencing also abound, with just 10 percent of all foe counties in foe U.S. returning even a single death sentence from 2004-2009.5 Those with mental disabilities and mental illnesses continue to be executed, though foe u. S. Supreme Court has mled it unconstitutional to execute someone who is either intellectually disabled or “insane” (legal term). Mental Health America estimates that 5 to 10 percent of those on death row have a serious mental illness.^ In August 2013, foe state of Florida executed John Ferguson, despite his documented forty years of severe mental illness.^ In Georgia, Warren Hill has endured multiple execution dates and continues to face execution, though he has an IQ of 70 and is considered intellectually disabled.® States spend millions more to maintain foe death penalty than they would on alternative sentences, including life without foe possibility of parole. Cost studies conducted in North Carolina ؟and Maryland*® show foe cost incurred by taxpayers from trial through execution is at least two million dollars more per capital case than foe cost of life without parole. Such studies conducted in other states reflect similar,

    Page 39

    if not worse, fiscal realities. Some respond that cost should not he a factor in toe consideration of whether or not the nation retains toe death penalty, but budgets are moral documents which reflect our priorities and ¥alues. Spending millions of dollars to pursue death for the small percentage of those convicted of capital crimes is not only wasteful, but means fewer resources are available to spend on efforts that actually prevent violence in our communities, such as drug treatment, access to mental health care, and educational opportunities. Since 1973,142 people have been released from death rows across this country when evidence of their innocence emerged.^ Given the total number of executions nationwide in the modem era of the death penalty, this means that for roughly every 10 executions, someone has been released from death rcw because the system got it wrong. These arc just the individuals for whom toe error was discovered in time. Another factor to consider is toe impact toe pursuit of toe death penalty has on toe lives of murder victims’ femilies. The current system is neither swift nor sure, with a death sentence often taking decades to be carried out, if ever. Families go for years without legal finality as they deal with toe “on־again, off-again” nature of this penalty. As Tennesseans for Alternatives to toe Death Fenalty board member Charles Strobel, whose mother was kidnapped and murdered in Nashville in 1986, states, “For surviving family members dealing with the horror and personal trauma of losing a loved one to murder, the death penalty only adds to their suffering by freezing them at a moment in time for years, forcing them to rclive over and over the tragic ‘ of the murder with every new twist and turn in the legal process. This process never allows them the opportunity to painfully struggle to go on with their lives as my family was able to do.” Obviously, not all families of murder victims agree on this point. Still most that I encounter, whether they support toe death penalty or not, agree that the current system is broken and is not addressing toe needs of these fomilies in a comprehensive way. Susan Herman, author of Parallel Justicefor Victims ofCrime, explains why “justice for all re tire s more than holding offenders accountable; it means addressing victims’ torce basic needs: to be safe, to recover from the trauma of the crime, and to regain control of their lives.”^ Ferhaps, in toe wake of a homicide, if we offered victims’ families such support for as long as they needed it, toe urge for toe death penalty would diminish. In the final analysis, toe evidence is overwhelming. The death penalty system is broken, unfair, costly, and inaccurate. When given this information, many people do become more concerned about whether or not this system can be trusted. And though death sentencing and public support for toe death penalty continue to decline^ there is another reality with which pastors must contend: there are those in toe pews on any given Sunday who do not view the death penalty as problematic, but, in fact, support it. How do we approach toe death penalty in our preaching, given all of these realities ? How do we find a way to shed more light than heat on this very painful issue?

    Theological Reflections With several years o ^ ^ rie n c e n o w inaddressingthis sutyect with congregations, I have discovered a few helpfol theological approaches. First, we must prayerfully consider some hard questions when tackling this issue. How are we called to respond

    Page 40

    as followers of Jesus in a violent world? How do we proteet the people we love from those who would do them harm? When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” does he mean even those who murder children ٢٠police officers? What about the surviving family members of murder victims and their needs? What does forgiveness look like in the context of a murder? Do we believe in God’s power to redeem even the “worst of the worst”? As recipients of God’s infinite mercy, how are our lives and our public policies informed by such mercy? These (questions are complex. Acknowledging to a congregation that these are questions with which we all must wrestle,regardless of our various positions,is ٢٠٢١٦ !؛- tant. If I have learned anything in my work thus far, it is that la m a fellow struggler, with my own views constantly shaped by the experiences of those who have been directly impacted by this issue: victims’families, death row exonerees, families of the executed, correctional officers, attorneys, law enforcement, and death row inmates themselves. 1 always try to approach these conversations from a position of deep humility and recognize that 1 too am still learning. If your parishioners understand that you are on a journey as well, they will be more likely to go with you. When we preach or teach on this issue, we may actually need to I^ake ،؛few assumptions. Typically 1 would argue that making assumptions about any group of people is not a good idea, but in this case, 1 think it can be. When 1 step into the pulpit, 1 make an assumption that someone sitting in the pew has lost a loved one to murder. 1 assume that among those in the congregation is a member of law enforcement, a family member of someone who is incarcerated, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a correctional officer. Gbviously, these are individuals with a variety of perspectives that may ٢٠may not ultimately match my assumptions, but this exercise forces me to think carefully about my words and the spirit behind those words when reflecting on this issue. It may not change the comem of what I say, but it may change the way 1 say it. Still 1 am convinced that we already share more common concerns than not, and at least part of my role is helping to discover the common ground that we do share and to build on it. Most of us want the same things from ourjustice system. We want to see murder victims’ families supported in the wake ofa homicide and receive legal finality as soon as possible. We want accountability when a murder has occurred and tor our communities to be safe. We want a system that is fair and accurate, not only for some, but for all. If we can find our way through our differences to a place of common ground, then we can begin to see some light that can illumine a path to move us forward together. There are obviously a variety of scriptures that can be used in addressing this topic: “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13); the story of Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:1lb ); Jonah; the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5); and others. A mentor of mine, Harmon Wray, provided insight on a text for me years ago that has been particularly instructive as I speak about this issue. In this text, Jesus is confronted with the death penalty, and we are confronted with his approach to it. The text comes from John’s gospel where we meet a woman threatened with stoning because she is caught in the act of adultery (8:1-11). Here the woman is charged capitally for her participation in the act, but her partner in crime is nowhere on the scene. He does not appear to be facing death for his participation. Not unlike our current system, there appears to be disparate sentencing for those involved in the same crime. Conceding the unfairness of the situation, the woman we meet in John’s gospel

    Page 41

    is guilty, and her execution is legal. Those gathered to exaet justice are not a vigilante mob, but ones with the legal authority to eharge this woman and carry out the sentence. Though the leadership in this text may aetually be more interested in how Jesus will respond to their challenge than in requiring the woman’s life, Jesus’ reaetion is instruetive on the issue nonetheless. When asked what they should do with her, Jesus, in the oft quoted line, responds, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” With his response, he reframes the issue. Jesus is not primarily coneerned with what this woman deserves. She is guilty. According to the law, it is within the legal right of those gathered to execute her. However, Jesus seems less coneerned about whether this woman deserves to die and more coneerned about whether those holding the stones deserve to kill her. With his brilliant reframing, Jesus reminds us that the use of the death penalty may say less about the offenders and more about us. We are the ones holding the stones today and are confronted with how we, as followers of Jesus, will respond to a brother ٢٠sister who eommits an act that offends our conscience and sparks our outrage. In the wake of a horrific murder, there is naturally horror, fear, and anger. We all are offended by sueh violence and the senseless taking of life. But what do we do with these impulses? This seems to be what Jesus is asking. Another eomplieating factor in our response is that with today’s death penalty, the punishment is not enaeted immediately, but requires a necessarily iong process of appeals to address the inevitable problems that are inherent in such a flawed system. With these appeals, decades may pass before a sentence is carried out, which means that the twenty-five-year-old who was sentenced to death is now the fifty-year-old who is executed. When we take human beings from prison cells where they have spent the last twenty years, and we shackle hands and feet, strap them to a table, and kill them, is that really about them? Another theological approach that provokes interesting conversation is exploring the theme of redemption. Most every Sunday when we gather for worship, we are assured of God’s pardon: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away, see everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). This part of our worship service is repeated so often that if we are not careful, we take such assurance for granted. But when we are confronted with this profession of faith in the context of the death penalty, we must ask ourselves if we truly believe what we say. Does such an assurance of pardon apply to all, even to those who murder? Is there a statute of limitations on such assurance? Can the continued use of the death penalty be reconciled to our belief that God’s mercy is from everlasting to everlasting? The witness of Scripture attests to God’s offensive mercy and freedom to choose to use anyone God pleases to fulfill God’s purposes in the world: Moses, who beats an Egyptian to death just before God calls him to lead the Hebrew slaves to freedom (Exodus 2); King David who sends Uriah to the front lines to be slaughtered to cover up David’s misdeeds (2 Samuel II); and Saul (later ?aul), who targets Christians for death out of his religious zeal, holding the coats for those stoning Stephen (Acts 7:54-8:1). Leading congregations through an exercise of reflecting on our worship liturgy as well as lifting Biblical characters from the confines of a Sunday school lesson in order to view them as the very flawed people that they are can spark thoughtful conversation.

    Page 42

    The Stories One of the most powerful tools we have in engaging congregations on the death penalty, and on any divisive issue, is the personal story. In my experience, the stories of those who have been direetly affeeted by the death penalty are the most impactful . A personal story ehanges the conversation and moves the focus from an issue to be debated to a person to be heard, ?articularly powerful are the stories of murder victims’ families and their journeys toward forgiveness. In her public speaking. Sister Helen Prejean often mentions Lloyd LeBlanc, who lost his only son, David, to murder. She calls Mr. LeBlanc the hero of her book Dead Man Walking because he shows her what turning one’s face toward forgiveness looks like. She writes that Mr. LeBlanc “acknowledges that it’s a struggle to overcome the feelings of bitterness and revenge that well up, especially as he remembers David’s birthday year by year and loses him all over again….Forgiveness is never going to be easy. Each day it must be prayed for and struggled for, and won.”** Bud Welch lost his only daughter, Julie, in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and wanted the bombers to die. His journey after Julie’s murder, however, led him from a place of seeking vengeance to one of seeking some form of reconciliation. Three years after foe bombing, he traveled to foe home ofBill McVeigh, foe father of Timothy McVeigh, one of Julie’s killers. Bud and Bill sat down at the kitchen table in foe McVeigh home as two fathers grieving for their children. Bud says that his encounter with Mr. McVeigh led him to conclude that he and foe McVeigh family were in this together. This realization was a key part of his healing process. From that day on, Bud Welch worked to stop foe execution of Timothy McVeigh.ى There is the story of Clemmie Greenlee, who lost her son, Rodriguez, to gang violence in Nashville. Clemmie says, “Why would I, foe Mama of a murdered son, want to see another Mama’ ؟son murdered? I can’t live with that.”16 There are foe stories ofjeanne Bishop,Vicki Shieber, James Staub,Nick and Amanda Wilcox, and many others who embody the spirit of healing and forgiveness in their own lives. To read more of these stories, visit Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (WWW. mvfhr.org). There are foe stories ofthose wrongfully convicted like Ray Krone, who spent ten years in prison in Arizona (nearly three on death row) for a crime he didn’t commit. Ray was tried, found guilty twice, and finally released only after DNA from foe crime scene was matched to another man. As he was leaving prison as foe nation’s 100th death row exoneree, Ray recalls that he shared with foe media how the rediscovery of his faith helped him to survive. A reporter then asked how Ray could justify God’s leaving him in prison for ten years. Ray was confounded at first, but finally stated, “Maybe it is not about the last ten years, but what I am going to do with foe next ten years.” Ray now travels foe world sharing his story and his opposition to foe death penalty. Visit Witness to Innocence (www.witnesstoinnocence.org) for more of these storie.؟ There are foe stories of individuals on death rows all across this country who challenge our stereotypes about who these convicted killers are and remind us that there is more to all of us than our worst act. There are the stories of families who tried to stop their loved ones’ executions and were unable, like Bill Babbitt. Bill’s brother Manny, a Vietnam veteran who struggled with severe mental illness, ended up on death row after foe beating death of a woman. Bill turned his brother in when

    Page 43

    he suspected that Manny might he the attaeker. n€ was told Manny w©uld get help. Instead, Manny Babbitt was executed.17 The issue is e©mplex. The realities are troubling, and toe stories are painful. Still, the conversation on toe death penalty is ehanging with more and more people questioning toe practice. In the past six years, six states have repealed the death penalty, and we have every reason to believe that toe trend will continue. N©w is toe time to engage your congregations to educate, to challenge, to comfort, and to listen. On toe cross, God’s embrace is wider than all that divides us; therefore, let us be bold in our preaching and humble in spirit, ready to take up our cross and follow Jesus into a more just and merciful world.

    Notes “ لFacts About the Death Feualty.” www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. Death Fenalty Information Center, 25 Sept. 2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf. 2 Glenn L. Fierce and Michael L. Radelet, “Death Sentencing in East Baton Rouge Farish, 1990-2008,” La. L. Rev. 71 (2010): 647. 3 “Race and the DeathPenalty in North Carolina اDeath Fenalty Information Centef,” accessed September 2 8 ,2013,http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race־and-death-penalty־north-carolina#Tl. 4 Stephen B. Bright, “Race, F0¥erty, toe Death Penalty, and toe Responsibility of the Legal Frofession,” Seattle j. Soc. Just. 1 (2002): 73. 5 Robert j. Smith, “The Geography of the Death Fenalty and Its Ramifications’’ (2011), lm^//works. bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=robertjsmith. 6 “Fosition Statement 54: Death Fenalty and Feople with Mental Illness: Mental Health America,” accessed September 30,2013. http://www.nmha.org/go/position-statements/54. 7Andrew Cohen, “On the Death ofJohn Ferguson,’”TheAtlantic,August5,2013, http://www.theatlantic. com/national/archive/2013/08/on-the-death-of-john-ferguson/278382/. 8 Alex Seitz-Wald, “Georgia Gives ‘mentally Retarded’ Inmate July 15 Execution Date,” accessed September 28, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/07/05/georgia_hopes_to_execute_mentally_retarded .inmate/. 9 Fhilip j. Cook, Donna B. Slawson, and Lori A. Gries, The Costs ofProcessing Murder Cases ٠ ^ ^»؛ Carolina (Terry Sanford InstituteofPublic Policy, Duke University, 1993), tot^//www.dsth^n^tyinfo. org/northcarolina.pdf. 10 John Roman, “The Cost of the Death Fenalty in Maryland” (2008), htt^//wwwmbm.or^t^blications /411625 .html. 11 “Facts About the Death Penalty.” www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. 12 Susan Herman, Parallel Justicefor Victims ofCrime (National Center for Victims of Crime, 2010), htt^//www.^r^lelju^ce.org/thebook/. 13 “Facts about the Death Penalty.” www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. 14 Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States (Vintage, 1994), 244-245. 15 ‘Oklahoma City Bombing: Two Fathers and Forgiveness – April 2000 Issue of St. Anthony Messenger Magazine Online,” accessed September 28,2013, http://www.americancatholic.org/messenger/ Apr2000/feature2.asp. 16 “Victims’ Stories اMurder Victims’ Families for Human Rights,” accessed September 29, 2013, http://www.mvfhr.org/victims-stories. 17“HundredsTakeUp the Cause ofaKiller,”Afew York Times, accessed September28,2013, http://www. nytimes.com/1999/04/26/us/hundreds-take-up-the-cause-of-a-killer.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.

  • Preaching the Lenten texts

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 2

    Preaching the Lenten Texts

    Liz Goodman

    Monterey United Church of Christ, Monterey, Massachusetts

    Ash Wednesday

    Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 51:1-17; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21 Lent is tricky for preachers. Of course, there’s no puzzle greater than the cross, which means Lent ends in the trickiest territory of all. But, deft preaching is required right from the start, with Jesus admonishing any who would follow him, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them” and then our imposing upon our parishioners and ourselves ashen crosses drawn on foreheads, one of foe most publicly pious acts of foe liturgical year. How do we square these two things? It isn’t difficult to discern foe theme of these texts: they all concern themselves with right worship according to God, “right” being foe sort of worship that informs the way people live. Isaiah, anticipating restoration in foe land following the exile, means for foe people to get it right fois time, asking of them on behalf of foe Lord, “Is not this foe fast that 1 choose: to loose foe bonds of injustice, to undo foe thongs of the yoke, to let foe oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” As for the psalm, it covers a lot of ground, but this is one patch of it, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, 0 God, you will not despise.” Jesus, for his part, preaches even less overt religion—that those who give alms ought to do it “in secret,” that those who pray ought to do it “in secret,” and that those who fast should put on a brave face for it, washed and oiled so other people think it’s just a normal day. There may be some comfort in knowing that foe tension between public piety and true worship is less tense these days. After all, foe degree to which worshipping in secret and a forehead smeared with ash lie in contrast depends upon foe larger culture into which we each go following worship. And things have changed. There was a time (or so I’m told) when people could gain respect, even authority, by being known as “church people.” Really, once this was shorthand for declaring someone of good character. (1 remember foe self-serious Muppet, Sam the American Eagle, introducing the musical duo, also Muppets, Wayne and Wanda like this: “Besides being tremendous singers, they’re church people.”) In such a milieu, you could wear a black cross on your forehead not as mark of humility or mortality ٢٠even shame, but as a badge of honor. Jesus would have us be wary of this. Good thing for us, then, that this is considerably less foe case these days—or at least is less so where 1 live in New England and among my generation “X.” No one that 1 know considers going to ehure’h a way to rise in social standing. On foe contrary, most people in fois demographic feel a need to explain ٢٠even defend their quaint habits, should they even have them, and most don’t. Eor them, indeed for us, a smudgy black forehead is cause for more discomfiting conclusions than that we’re admirable, hke that we’re ignorant fools or self-righteous jerks ٢٠that we simply don’t know how to wash our faces in foe morning. But none of this sort of notice ought to concern us (though it might). No, what

    Journal/or Preachers

    Page 3

    should concern us, what should concern any who will set out on a regular old Wednesday after having ashes imposed, is that people’s notice of this might then set their expectations as to how we should live: Christian, rise, and act your creed! Being a Christian is impossible—except by grace. Following Christ is impossible—except by grace. For any of us who would go where Christ leads, the journey will prove impossible, asymptotic. This is the paradox built into the call of the Lord; this is the paradox essential to the call of the gospel. For some, this paradox will be cause for giving up; why bother attempting something that will always best you? For others, a few others, that paradox will be life itself—the truth that gives life its form, shape, and direction. At no other time in the Christian liturgical year is this paradox laid out more plainly than during Lent, when we follow Christ to the cross because here we find hope when we pray to take on the cross ourselves because by this we truly live. And on no other day will our folly in the faith be more apparent to the world than when we each wear the ashen cross. By it, we are condemned. For it, we rise.

    First Sunday in Lent Genesis 2:15-1?, 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11 How many sermons have you heard that take the serpent at his word? How many sermons have you preached that assume the serpent to be speaking truth? I’ll tell if you will. The serpent in the garden and the devil in the wilderness don’t share a name, don’t share a form; many a scholar would caution us against making too direct an equivalence here. But they do use the same technique—suggestion, and that counts for something. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any fruit in the garden?”’ This question is ambiguous, 1 imagine by design. Consider, did the serpent mean to ask, “Did God say that of all the trees here in this garden, are there any from which you may not eat?” In this case God can be felt as gracious, having offered the man and woman a great abundance, everything here but one. Or did the serpent mean to ask, “Did God say not to eat from any tree in this garden?” In this case God would be felt as withholding, even cruel, a tempter himself, laying out an abundance and then saying, “Don’t touch.” The woman’s response might be seen as her attempt to hold on to God as good: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but not of the fruit that is in the middle of the garden.” But the suggestion otherwise now hangs in the air. So it might have been in the wilderness. Once again, temptation comes by suggestion : “If you are the Son of God,” the devil is said to have said, though Jesus had not claimed such a thing for himself. But now, there it is, something Jesus might now indeed want, to be thought of as the Son of God! Will he defend it? Will he work to prove it? Not at first, and not again, as twice the devil is said to repeat this pattern. Finally, the devil, perhaps frustrated with subtlety, goes with the straightforward: “All these—the kingdoms of the world—I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.” Yet by this point thejig was up, and the hook was empty. Jesus was suggestible to no one but his Father. Not so for nearly everyone else. The serpent told the woman that God didn’t want the man and woman 0 اeat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because if they did so, “your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,” the suggestion being that God doesn’t want human

    Lem 2014

    Page 4

    beings to be like God. And so eomes the sermon: the man and the woman should have been eontent in their humanity, shouldn’t have striven for divinity, and as for them, so for us. But, if God doesn’t want us to be like God, then why would God have sent us Jesus? If God doesn’t want us to live fully into our resemblanee to God, then why would God have sent us God’s Son who so perfectly imitated God and said also to us, “Follow me,” e’ompieieiy embodying God’s self-giving love and also inviting us, “Come and see,” assuring us, “I am the Way”? If God doesn’t want us to be like God, then why would God have sent us God’s Holy Spirit by whieh we might eome together as the Church to be formed, informed, reformed, transformed into the mystical body of Christ? Truly, if God didn’t want us to be like God and yet sent God’s Son to stimulate in us sueh mimetic desire and God’s Spirit that this desire might be fulfilled, then God is more tempter than foe serpent, foe devil. Consider, God would only have a problem with our becoming like God if God were eertain things that we know, through Christ, God not to be. God wouldn’t want us to be like God if God were all about control, for there ean be only one force in control. But God isn’t about control: God is about freedom. God wouldn’t want us to be like God if God were powerful as the world understands power, for such power seeures itself against all who want in on that aetion. But God isn’t about foe power that seeks domination: God is about power as expressed in service and self-giving. God, this God who is love, who sent His Son to be our shepherd and His Holy spirit to empower foe Church, of course God wants us to be like God! And yet there is this prohibition, “Of foe fruit of foe tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.. . So perhaps what God didn’t want was for us to suffer, to know not only good but evil as well. Or perhaps what God didn’t want was for us to attempt to distinguish between these two, good and evil, a process of judgment we so often get woefully wrong. The prohibition eould be about any number of things. I just don’t think it’s about what foe serpent suggested it was about. The resistance to suggestion is holy work. Moreover, it’s work we’ll do on a daily basis, as will foe people for whom we preach. Almost every communication between people comes with some measure of suggestion; so much interaction in our “jus’ sayin’” culture is barbed with hooks by which we might get hooked. Gur Lenten journey has as its aim foe cross of self-giving love and has as our guide Jesus Christ. We set our vision on this aim, we walk in mimesis with our guide, and we take this first step.

    Second Sunday in Lent Genesis 12:I-4a; Psalm 121; John 3:1-17 All foe readings for this Sunday witness God at work. In Genesis, God, while calling Abraham, has little to say about what Abraham will do and much to say about what God will do. As for foe psalmist, all he does is lift his eyes to the hills while foe Lord acts in helping and keeping. The story of Nicodemus is more oblique on this matter, but foe way in which it has come to be understood casts it in contrast with foe assurance that God is foe principal actor in life. Tobe bom again has becomeaprescription,acommandment.Tosome Christians, this is the prescription, the ،;ommaudmeut, the thing you must do in order to be saved: you must be bom again. Often aggressively prescribed, coercively commanded, to

    Page 5

    be born again, though an invitation, an appeal, has eome to att!־aet mainly those for whom Christianity is a competitive sport and who esteem themselves as winning. But notice, Jesus himself wasn’t so strict with this prescription. First of all, he spoke this only to one person and not to every person who ever approached him wondering how to enter ٢٠inherit or abide in the Kingdom of Heaven, and there were many! Second, he spoke in several different terms of this phenomenon—bom anew, bom from above, bom of the Spirit—suggesting that this isn’t so literal after all. But most compelling is the fact that what we’re “to do” is actually something that is to be done to us. The middle voice isn’t really an option that we as speakers of modem English have. When we speak of ourselves at work in the world, we really have only two choices. The active voice is preferred, and rightly so. Clearer, more direct, the active voice presupposes that a subject can act upon an object and have a direct effect. This is the voice of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility; this is the voice of science with its repeatable results; this is capitalism with its self-made man, and this is democracy with its citizen-activists. The passive voice is our other choice, but we tend to avoid it, and not only because we’ve been taught to, but also because it’s uninteresting and obfuscating. This is the voice of public figures when forced to admit that mistakes were made, affairs were had, and, if people were hurt or an offense was caused, then an apology is offered. The middle voice as a third option is all but lost to us, and what a loss it is. Though a prominent feature in many languages, including Biblical Hebrew■ and Greek, the middle voice comes to us as vestigial. Think “the bread is baking in the oven”—the middle voice conceives of its subject as one participant in some larger, on-going action whose principal actor (the baker) might go unnamed, unrecognized. Thus, it can hold its subjects as responsible for action (or inaction), but not wholly in control of outcome. This is the voice of interrelatedness and multi-causality. Equal parts commandment and confirmation, prescription and procl؛mrat؛on. this is the voice of faith Being bom, whether the first time ٢٠anew, is an activity that can only be rightly understood as happening in the middle voice, an event that depends upon our participation but can hardly be said to be ours alone to have achieved. Really, none of us would brag about our having been born, so why should having been bom again be a point of pride or self-righteousness? No, this, which Jesus said, “You must be bom anew, bom from above, bom of the Spirit,” he said simply because it’s true: this is something that must happen to us. What’s more, this is something that is happening to us. After all, before we can even hope, fulfillment is already coming. 1 often ask my congregation whether, when they tell a story from their lives, they’re the principal actor in it. As for me, the older I get and the more practiced I get in this faith and the more familiar 1 get with the scriptural witness, the more I realize I am a bit player. 1 decide, I act, but always within a grand narrative that is good only by God’s catholic grace. The Holy Spirit blows where it chooses. What’s mine to do, what’s ours to do, is to pray that we each might move with it, leading as it does from life to life.

    Page 6

    Third Sunday in Lent John 4:5-42 This well was contested territory. The women of the village were likely the ones most to use it؛ fetching th*e day’s water would have been women’s work. Also likely, they did so first thing in the morning when it was still cool; lugging water was hard enough work without doing it in the heat of the day. Also likely, they did so as a group, to help each other, to keep company with each other. Really, this well was likely akin to today’s office water cooler, with aJl its social dynamics, ripe and fraught. Contested territory: the woman alone at the well in the heat of the day had lost. M ishas me feelingfor her. This has me assuming Christ likewise feltfor her. Indeed, there’s scriptural evidence for this ؛Jesus shared with her the longest conversation he’s remembered to have shared with anyone, even though she was a woman and he a man, even though she was a Samaritan and he a Jew. Certainly my preaching has focused on this, on her individual suffering of collective scorn, and on Jesus seeing past this and on how freeing she found this and how seeing she became because of this. One of the earliest preachers of the gospel, this woman would go on to proclaim to her countrymen, “Come and see!” and they would indeed leave their city to come, to see. But foe well was contested territory in the more conventional sense, too. Though in Samaria, it was yet Jacob’s Well—Jacob whom both foe Samaritans and the Jews claimed as a patriarch. But in foe centuries since Jacob had met Rebecca there, foe people of the region—Judeans, Israelites, Samaritans—differed over where was foe rightful place for worship of the Lord whom Jacob had handed down to them all. Those in the southclaimed itwas Jerusalem,while those in س0لآ Maimed itwas Mount Gerizim and furthermore that leaders offoe Jews had edited foe Torah to minimize foe importance of Gerizim, to emphasize foe importance of Jerusalem. It was a journey through history that left the Samaritans to feel themselves as second-class citizens even in their own territory. Then came foe Babylonian invasion which resulted in the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and foe deportation of foe most powerful and important Jews while left behind were those deemed of little value, namely foe Samaritans. Yet by this slight, they wem left to drink of foe well, of this well. By historical irony, this treasured well was now all theirs…until after foe fall of Babylon, when many of those deported returned to their homeland, returned to their higher status, and so cast low once again those who’d been there all along, namely foe Samaritans. But fois foe Samaritans still had, secure within their territory: the well, this well. When foe woman at foe well spoke to Jesus of “our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well,” it isn’t clear whom she meant to include in “our” and among “us.” Was she casting “us” as a narrow, tribal group or was she drawing a wider circle, a much wider circle? ft was perhaps unclear even to her, foe circle widening, widening even as she spoke. What if we’re all “us”? No “them” implied, what if no one is here but “us”? If she’d begun to imagine ft thus, it was indeed a change for her. After all, her first words to Jesus werc tribal: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Moreover, if she’d begun to see it thus, then she was close indeed to drinking of the living water. The living water of which Jesus spoke, as distinct from

    Page 7

    the water ©f this we , اhas s©mething t© do with the day that was coming when those who worship on Mount Gerizim and those who worship in Jerusalem would come instead to worship the Father wherever they stood, wherever we stand. This is water that slakes thirst, slakes desire in an absolute and pacifying sense—no more need, no more grasping, no more contests as to who gets what. Not so for the water of other wells, even this well. No, th©se who come to this well today will yet need water again tomorrow and will come to this well because they have claim to it, will moreover come in order to continue in their claim to it. The water of this well will never completely fulfill such need. To drink water of contested territory is to live in a world defined by rivalry and violence. T© drink of the living water is to live in the Kingdom of God where “us” is all there is. The gospel universalizes; the gospel totalizes. The cross is the means of this work. The difference between this and every attempt at totality that the world has ever made is that the cross is a means not of taking by force, but of attracting by grace and self-giving love that all may be one.

    Fourth Sunday in Lent John 9:1-41 The question of who is “us” continues with this story on this Sunday, charged to an even higher degree. But before we get to that, we need to begin in the beginning. This is, indeed, where “John” begins his gospel; like the Bible itself, this narrative begins in the beginning. Yet John’s beginning is different fr©m that in Genesis, different in two key ways. One is that Christ is imagined to have been in the beginning with God at work in creating. The other is that God never came to rest as “on the seventh day” according to Genesis—this because God’s creative w©rk according to John didn’t come to completion, indeed hasn’t even now come to completion but in Christ Now to this healing, Jesus and the once-blind man—three points of n©t-©bvi©us significance. Jesus spat on the ground and made mud, the very stuff ©fwhich “Adam” in tàebe^nning was made—ﻢﻣ/س “( man”) and adamah (“dustofthe ground”) sharing toe same Hebrew root. Jesus did so to mb this on the man’s unseeing eyes, a gesture by which this incomplete bit of creation was made now complete. God’s creative work is >׳ct to be done, and this is toe w©rk Jesus was sent to do, toe work that he claimed was as food to him—doing toe will of his Father in completing, perfecting toe creation. This is what he meant when he claimed that this man was bom blind not because of sin but so that “God’s w©rks might be revealed through him.” God is yet creating; Christ is yet with God creating. The man bom blind wasn’t so because he was sinful ٢٠because his parents were sinful, but because toe creation is yet incomplete, yet imperfect. Finally, this is the significance of Christ doing this creative work of completion on toe Sabbath, working toe works of him who sent Christ rather than resting as if toe work were already complete. Rest will come with toe end. As of now, as long as Christ is in toe world, Christ will be toe light of the world, bringing light to th©se who had been blind, which will in turn blind those who had esteemed them selves as seeing. As such people, toe Fharisees took issue with what had happened, took issue

    Page 8

    with the (}nee-blind man’s parents, then took issue with the once-blind man himself. But the moment when they decided about him, decided to drive him out, had less to do with Jesus violating the Sabbath or performing signs that were outside the established authorities, had less to do with the once-blind man’s clearly having undergone something miraculous but having no ability now to explain it in terms of how or who ٢٠why, and had apparently everything to do with when the once-blind man said this ٨۴ himself and the Pharisees: ،،we.” Up to that point in the story, the once-blind man had been singled out. People spoke of him, “he.” They spoke to him, “you.” Others in the story operated as “we”—the neighbors, the Pharisees, even the man’s parents. The once-blind man is alone in conceiving of himself as “I,” alone, that is, except for Jesus. Most notably, he once even said as Jesus had often said, ‘’Ego eimi, ״that is,“l am.” When everyone around him, confused and confusing each other, was asking who it was that Jesus had healed, the now-seeing man declared, “Ego eimi, ” of himself. Once, though, he joined himself with a group. In speaking to the Pharisees, he had this to say: “This is an astonishing thing!… We know that God does not listen to sinners….” And it’s this that had the Pharisees finally acting decisively in his regard, cutting him out of the “we” that he had just grafted himself into, peeling him off from them since he could only corrupt them by association: “You were bom entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach usT’ And at that, they “drove him out.” The gospel universalizes; the gospel, as I said, totalizes. The gospel also, paradoxically , individuates. We each must stand alone before God. Ego eimi, that is, “I am” the one whom the gospel calls. Jesus worked to dissipate crowds; indeed he was crucified at the hands of a mob, but upon hearing word that the Pharisees had driven the now-seeing man out, he went in search of him, one outcast picking up another outcast. The Church: a herd of strays claimed by Christ. Soren Kierkegaard suspected that most people are less afraid of being wrong in their convictions than of standing alone in their convictions, ff this is true (and I think it is), then here is a central challenge in the Christian life. We gather together, yes, but we are to be capable also of standing alone.

    Fifth Sunday ofLent John 11:1-45 Lent has caught in its net the psychological (in that we each resist suggestion), the spiritual (in our need to be bom anew), the political (in our abiding in no-longer contested territory), and the individual (in our being capable ofstanding alone). We’ve covered a lot of ground. Indeed, we have come and seen. John’s gospel should come with a decoder ring. There are words and phrases herein that read like code, and nearly all of them are put to use in this passage of Lazarus raised and Christ now hunted. One for the decoder ring is “glorified,” used in John not as in the other gospels to imagine Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father, but to indicate him raised on the cross cmcified. It may seem a strange ٢٠ even deranged meaning until we recognize our writer (or writers, as this gospel may have had several) meant for those who follow Christ to find glory not in things such as wealth, power, beauty, might, but in self-emptying service, in kenosis. Nowhere is kenosis more absolutely displayed than in Christ on the cross. And oniy by kenosis

    Page 9

    will the world he saved. A second one for the decoder ring is “stay,” in Greek meno. This is also rendered “abide,” “dwell,” “endure,” “remain”; and it frequently indicates Jesus as “staying,” “abiding,” “dwelling” in the Father, as the Father does in Jesus. According to this gospel, Jesus is God-like, and God is Jesus-like—this because of mutual menein. Finally, there is this phrase: “Come and see.” Jesus first spoke it to the two disciples who had been following John but who switched to following Jesus when John declared of him, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” Those two disciples then asked of Jesus, “Where are you staying?” which is an odd question to follow John’s also quite odd declaration—odd until we hear it in these terms: “Where are you abiding?” or “What are you all about?” “Come and see,” was Jesus’ response. The next time we hear it, it comes from Fhilip when, having come to follow Jesus himself, he’d now invite Nathanael to ؛o؛n: “Come and see.” This is the call that the woman at the well would issue to her countrymen: “Come and see a man who told me everything 1 have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” And then at last there is this, Mary and Martha leading Jesus to Lazarus’ grave. He had asked them, “Where have you laid him?” and they answered, “Come and see.” And at this, Jesus began to weep. Why? When word had come to Jesus that Lazarus was sick unto death, Jesus knew, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” In other words, Jesus knew that to go to Lazarus and to make him rise would be to hand himself over to death. And when he then, though loving Martha and her sister and Lazarus, “stayed two days longer in the place where he was,” he wasn’t dilly-dallying; he was praying; he was staying, abiding with God. So often we suppose that Jesus’ delay resulted in Lazarus’ death. But properly heard, it becomes clear that, on the contrary, Jesus’ delay enabled Lazarus’ rise. By God’s abiding in Jesus and Jesus’ abiding in God, Jesus was able to do the work of the Father—which in this case was not only performing a miraculous resuscitation , but also performing miraculous kenosis. It takes prayer to empty yourself of survival-at-all-cost. It takes prayer to put yourself in harm’s way for another’s sake.’ It takes abiding in God even if you’re the Christ, to ready yourself to face untruth, torture, and death. Indeed, this is perhaps what makes the Christ the Christ—patiently abiding in God rather than running off at every request to save the world, every suggestion that he could and should. The gospel of John doesn’t imagine Jesus in Gethsemane. Unlike the synoptic gospels, John’s gospel never imagines Jesus in prayer, distressed and anguished, while the disciples sleep not far away. The raising of Lazarus is John’s imagining this; the raising of Lazarus is Jesus’ moment of waking to what time it is while others sleep and dream “Come and see,” Mary and Martha said to Jesus, and Jesus began to weep because his invitation had now returned to him. What others were to come and see—namely, the truth that to live in God’s glory is to give yourself to the cross—Jesus was now asked to come and see. The word he’d first spoken, the call he’d long ago issued, had come now back to itself. Jesus’ ministry had come full circle. Now it was time

    Page 10

    for it to be finished. So he wept. Worse, he did $ ٠alone. No one there reeognized what Lazarus’ rise wonld eost him. The Church is called to such recognition. Yet we are also released, forgiven, from such a weighty responsibility. We send Christ on to do what we mostly cannot. Cod go with him.

    Palm Sunday Matthew 21 ;t -11 Every year about the sixth Sunday of Lent, the question arises as to whether to observe ?aim Sunday ? ٢٠assion Sunday. For some congregations, the matter is long settled: Palm Sunday is a tradition not to be messed with. But these days, as fewer and fewer people observe Holy Week or even just Cood Friday, moving from Palm Sunday to Easter feels like an easy skip from a good time to a better one. For this, 1 often choose the Liturgy of the Passion. It just doesn’t seem right to leave out of worship Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. Year , ٨however, has the events of Holy Week start early. The raising of Lazarus jump-starts Jesus’ passion; Jesus’ weeping is as the first nail. For this, Year A presents the opportunity of having it both ways, the triumphal entry without ignoring the cross. That said, I confess I find the scene of Jesus coming into Jerusalem thin stuff to make a sermon out of. (Another reason not to do it every year!) I take it as street theater, provocative and, according to Matthew, fulfilling of prophecy, but at the end of the day insignificant, fts details are worthy of exploring and explaining, but taken whole, nothing new is revealed and nothing old is called into question. Yet, here’s something this story does do: it brings us into real time with Jesus in his final week as a man in the world, and so this is something our preaching on Pa؛m Sunday might do—initiate our parishioners to walk with Jesus through this week. Of course, this is an invitation implied every time we preach. This week, though, we might issue it outright. We might even provide a framework for following him, either in daily worship or in devotions at home. What lies ahead is heated and pressurized. Old adversaries will yet test Jesus; new ones will team up to come at him from all sides. As for Jesus, his parables will become more pointed and his behavior more provocative, but never at cost to anyone hitt himself. Read the story from the outside and the crucifixion might be felt as cathartic, a release of the pressure, a letting off of the steam, tragic, yes, but cleansing, too. Read the story while walking at Jesus’ side though, and the crucifixion can only be felt as absurd—killing an innocent in order to break the fever and rising fury. Truly, whatever catharsis the powers-that-be might have hoped this would bring will be supplanted. In its place will be peace by means of a life that continues to live and a God whose nature is to love and forgive. Have a blessed Lem, my fellow preachers. May it prepare the way for Easter in all its fullness and grace.

    Note 1 Antoinette Tuff, the ا00آا’اح administrator who t،؛lk،،l a ﺀظ- ﺳﺎا،ااschool shooter out of doing toe deed, fills my thoughts as I write this. R،؛so!]؛tt11؛g particularly is Stephanie Paulsell’s article about her: “Emergency Prayer,” in the October 2,2013 “Eaith Matters” of The Christian Century.

  • Dinner parties

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 28

    Dinner Parties

    James 3:13-18,4:1-3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

    l i / Goodman

    Monterey United Church of Christ, Monterey, Massachusetts

    I the letter of James. It was Martin Luther who had a problem with it. He called it an “epistle of straw”—which I suppose is true enough. He claimed there was too little of Christ crucified in it—which I suppose is true enough. Words of wisdom, words of common sense: okay, it’s not profound, but it is useful. Placed more in the Old Testament tradition of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the fetter of James “was to enforce the practical duties of Christian life,” Wikipedia tells us. And it does so quite well, beautifully, in fact. Preacher Will Willimon has said that reading the book of Proverbs is like taking a long road trip with your grandmother. If so, then the letter of James is as if your grandmother were a Waldorf method preschool teacher. Actually, it sort ofreminds me of a new book, ReligionforAtheists. Alain de Botton , a Swiss-born, now Englishman and self-proclaimed atheist, wrote it. I’ll admit I haven’t read the book, but I did read the opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal and the book review Aengus Woods wrote for National Public Radio. De Botton’s central thesis is that secular modernism has resulted in a loss of a sense of community, which he believes is something the great religions of the world managed to create very well. So he means, by his own admission and in his own words, to “steal” from religions the practices that create community. While leaving behind the belief systems that he finds absurd and that he assumes most people guided by common sense would also find absurd, de Botton would like to see a flowering of Agape restaurants, for example, wherein people who are strangers might eat together so to become friends. Rich and poor, young and old, smart and simple, senator and janitor: all would be welcome, would sit shoulder to shoulder, and would feast. Incidentally, this is quite a switch from what I’m used to hearing: that people want spirituality without all that religion. Here’s someone who wants all that religion but without the silly spirituality. De Botton is going to let common sense be the guide for building a commonly held sense o ^in m u n ity . But, the problem, which the NPR book review points out very well, is that common sense isn’t so common. Everyone thinks they’ve got it and that some other people might have it as well, “yet most of us can usually identify large chunks of the population who conspicuously lack it,” writes Woods. “To make matters worse, in any projected breakdown of global common-sensc distribution, we can’t even agree on which folk constitute the haves and [which] the have-nots. However, one thing is always certain: I myself possess it. Definitely. Absolutely. No question.” Woods continues,“This conundrum of common sense is w ^tm akesaw riter such as Alain de Botton so attractive and so infuriating. He is a master ofthe well-heeled, chatty, and above all reasonable tone.. .٠But scratch the veneer, and one quickly finds myriad competing common senses screaming to break free.” Here ic e o D h e c o m ^ th ^ common senses that screams inmymindto break free: when I gather with strangers at an agape meal, whose voice is authoritative? Whose sense and sensibility will we adopt in common? Alain de Botton’s—so reasonable, so calmly assertive? Well, then I’m not interested. I’ve met educated white guys

    Page 29

    with a calmly overdeveloped sense of reason. They make me want to run screaming to my nearest women’s studies class. But about one thing he might be right, though not as swecpingly so as his sweeping statement suggests. He writes, “Insofar as modem society ever promises us access to a community, it is one centered on the worship of professional success. We sense that we are brushing up against its gates when the first gestion we are asked at a party is ‘What do you do?’ our answer to which wifi determine whether we are warmly welcomed or conclusively abandoned.” And this reminds me of what the disciples wem arguing about as they walked along the way. It’s surprising that they fall into this argument, isn’t it? An argument over greatness , over what is greatness, and over who among them will be deemed greatest. That this is where their conversation goes is surprising given that what comes before is Jesus teaching them about his own suffering and death. “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands,” or more accurately translated, “is to be handed over, and the humans will kill him, and three days after being killed, he wifi rise again.” This is one of three times that Jesus mentions his fate on the cross. Sometimes it’s said that he foretells it—his own crucifixion; this time it’s said that he teaches it. It’s a distinction that I’ll now perhaps make too much of. To foretell it is to tell me about something that’s to happen to him; to teach it is to tell me about something that I should try to do as well. As a follower of Christ, as a disciple to be disciplined in the way of Christ, I should live a cruciform life; I should form my living in the shape of the cross—self-giving, self-emptying. And it is a discipline. It is something that needs to be taught to me, that I need reminding of and practice in—because it isn’t the human’s natural predisposition, or at least not the human’s only natural ^disposition. We like power, and the power to be found in vulnerability is a little counterintuitive. We like glory, and the glory to be found in giving love is not as self-evident as the glory to be found in wearing pretty clothes or living in a fancy home where you can threw parties that everyone wants an invitation to or holding a job that pays you millions of dollars and where you get to employ lots of people and fire a few too. The bitter envy, the selfish ambition that James mentions in this open letter, these are so common! It might act be so, as James writes, that we want something and do not have it, so we commit murder. It might not even be so that we desire something and cannot attain it and so we engage in disputes and conflicts. No, the reactions to such feelings might not be ours in such extremes. But certainly these feelings, so familiar to me, are familiar to each of us, and certainly they do pose a threat to our relating, to our participating in community. Otherwise why write an open letter? ff envy, if ambition, ff competition weren’t so commonly at work within us, if these are evils that afflict only a couple of people, then why not just write that one guy who has this thing called envy that seems to spoil his relationships; otherwise, why not just write that one girl who is out of fee norm because of her ambition? The disciples didn’t understand fee teaching. They didn’t understand what Jesus was saying,and I can relate. Every time I’m to preach on one ofthese occasions when Jesus has spoken of what awaits him—something I’m to do a lot, since three times in fee three synoptic gospels, he speaks of his own coming suffering, which means that three times a year outside of Holy Week, fee cross is there for us to wrestle with again—my initial thought is, “Oh, I’ve done this before; I’ll whip this sermon out.”

    Page 30

    But then I sit with the text and with the formula to which it testifies —that the eross is God’s revelation of good news for us, that the crueifixion is made a means of God’s graee, God’s amazing graee—and 1 realize that once again 1 don’t get it, that 1 need to start from scratch and figure it out anew. Why is the crucifixion good news? Why does the cross save; how and why and from what does it save us? The cross is good news because it means humans, even at our worst, are little match for God’s goodness—God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s peace. ^ ٥١١cross is good news because it reveals that God’s glory is in weakness, God’s strength is in vulnerability, God’s might is in self-giving, God’s victory is in self-emptying. And God’s Christ is that guy—not some superstar, but just some guy; some gentle, forceful , regular, exceptional guy for whom there is no place in this world of powers and principalities and death-dealing d e m ie s and mi^t-makes-right, and so who must be expelled from it, yet only to return and to say for starters not this, “I’m back, and I’m ^ s s e d ,n d ^ u ’regon^getyom s,’’bm this,“?eacebe with you.” And the crucifixion saves because it reveals to us humans toe power dynamics to which we are enthralled, a revelation that in turn gives us some measure of self-understanding and therefore hope for stepping out of such a downward spiraling. The crucifixion saves because it lays bare toe lie by which we largely live, that violence can and will save us from violence, which in turn gives us some measure of unblindess and unforgetting and therefore hope of ending cycles of violenee. Finally, the crucifixion saves because in it and through it and in spite of it, God has done so u th in g —something wonderful, something new (behold!), something !toraculous—that plants in the earth a seed of peace, a seed of hope, a seed by which God’s Kingdom will grow even here. Liz G ^ ^ n -B y e rly , our once member and then seminarian and now pastor of a ucc congregation in F en y lv an ia, and I used to play with this question: the salvation that comes through the cross, does it come because of what we do in response to what we’ve learned in witnessing toe cross and resurrection; or is it something God did,has done, continues to do, in toe mystery of the cross? And at her ecclesiastical council, when those gathered, having read her ordination paper, might then question her on certain aspects of it, I asked the inevitable atonement question. There’s always one in every council, someone who asks toe dread atonement question. “How does toe cross save us? It’s not that toe blood of Christ is what God required in order to slake God’s wrath. That was our answer once—for about 1,000 years; but now we know better. So, does toe salvation come of what we do in response to what we’ve seen and heard? Or is it something God has accomplished in Christ and the Church?” I asked it, and she smiled back at me knowingly: this was coming. Her answer: “¥es.” Okay, so toe disciples didn’t understand. Clearly, toe more things change, toe more they stay the same. But they at least had the chance to ask follow-up questions; they at least could have asked Christ, “Could you say again, and this time slower?” That they didn’t out of fear softens my judgment in their regard. That they didn’t ask because they were afraid to ask has me feeling some compassion for them. I’ve been there. A math teacher stands at toe chalkboard and says, “A2 + B2 = C2,” and I sit at my desk and nod my head because, you know, whatever. Fear comes because I know I have no hope of understanding, and toe test is coming up, and this is probably going to be on ft. Jesus, for his part, seeing that the disciples haven’t learned from his teaching, arguing as they were moments later about greatness, decides to give it another go.

    Page 31

    “Show, don’t tell” is some common wisdom, and so he does, taking a little child and putting it among them—this poweriess, voiceless, vulnerable scrap, probably dirty, perhaps disowned. Here is the guest of honor. It makes a huge difference to me at least in whose nam eljoin a group—in whose name and by what spirit. It matters, probably more than it should, in whose name and by what spirit I join in. Alain de Botton has invited us to a meal; so has Jesus. I’ve been to meals of the sort de Botton has in mind. They do nothing to address the cravings that are always at war within me, and (I sort of hope) are always at war within and among us all. (I don’t want to be singularly crazed.) They, in fact, tend further to stoke such internal conflict: to tell the funniest story or to listen graciously while awaiting your turn, to amuse and sparkle in conversation or to try to blend in with the wallpaper, to impress or to come across as someone who really couldn’t care less. I’ve also been to the meal Jesus had in mind—been to it in sanctnarie ؟of stone and stained glass, been to it kneeling at an altar and sitting in a pew and standing at the table myself breaking the bread, been to it in conference rooms at annual meetings and in this plain room of restrained beauty. It always addresses that which is at war within me and us—the things James’ letter means to address and Jesus’ self-giving and servanthood does clearly address. It addresses it by spelling out and laying bare just exactly who I am (frail, foolish, in need of confession) and having me at table anyway. It addresses it by saying, implicitly if not outright, “Come as you are; serve as you can; eat as you need; taste and see that the Lord is good.” If you can get that self-emptying spirit into a restaurant dedicated to a secular agape meal, then God bless it. Take it away,Alain. But if you can’t, then we’re here. Just look for the sign of the cross and you’ll find us. Thanks be to God.

  • At the death of Peter Knauert: Peter amid remembering and hoping

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 35

    At the Death ofPeter Knauert:

    Peter amid Remembering and Hoping

    Walter Brueggemann

    Cincinnati, Ohio

    The sermon and the testimony ofLeigh Knauert thatfollow are statements made at a memorial service for Peter Knauert. Peter was fourteen and had committed suicide. His death, moreover, was in the wake of the death o f his father David, Leigh ’s husband, only a brieftime before. Thus the griefon that occasion was deeply compoundedfor us all. Afine caring congregation gathered that day in Denver to remember, ؛٠grieve, and to hope. Walter Bmeggemann

    There are no words to match Peter’s death. The depth of loss, sadness, and anger is beyond all of our words. But my assignment is to find words for the loss, sadness, and anger of Leigh and Harrison and Lily and Da¥id, and all of us. Maybe I have found some adequate words for this moment…, maybe not. The best words may be in the old Book of Lamentations. It is a long poem of grief about the loss of Jerusalem when Jerusalem was destroyed. The city was so loved and treasured, and then it was gone in a flash, lost in destruction and devastation. The city was so beloved that it had to be grieved for a very long time. 1 think that poetry is our poetry today. All we have to do is shift the grief of that old beloved city to this well beloved Peter, beloved son, beloved brother, beloved grandson and nephew. We can only speak of our love for Peter the way they loved the city. And now we sink in free fall in grief and loss and anger. So listen to these old words that might be our words: “She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks…. She has none to comfort her (1:2). In its death the city weeps, abandoned, with none to comfort. The poet watches the people who pass by and are too busy. They do not even notice, even when we want them to stop and pay attention to this unbearable loss:

    Is it nothing to you, all of you who pass by? Look and see If there is any sorrow like my sorrow. When this was brought on me in the day of fierce anger. (1:12)

    The poet knows that our sorrow on this day is like no other sorrow that has ever been. No one has grieved with us in the loss of the city, or in the loss of beloved Peter. And even God could not escape the loss, so we ask about God’s failure and implication in our loss. The poet’s grief touches our bodies in anguish:

    From on high he sent fire; it went deep into my bones; He spread a net for my feet;

    Page 36

    He turned me baek; He has left me stunned, faint all day long. (1:13)

    The loss moves into our bones, so that we can hardly stand ft. It leaves us stunned. We are left with only tears of sadness or of anger.

    For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me; no one to revive my courage. My children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed. (1:16)

    There is no consolation; any possible comfort is remote from us, and we refuse to be comforted in his death. Nobody can receive our anger, and our children, these children, are left in their own abandonment. The poet gives us words for the anguish of our bodies, without much sleep, with no appetite, only the food of salty tears:

    See, o Lord, how distressed I am; My stomach chums, My heart is wrung within m e…. On the street it is like a sword cuts to the heart, In the house it is like death. They heard how I was groaning with no one to comfort me. (1:21)

    The poetry dares to line out the way in which God has been absent to need:

    He has fllled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, And made me cower in ashes; My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; So I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.” The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. (3:15-20)

    Gone is all we had hoped for. We had such hope for Feter. We hoped him such a bright, alert, agile young man. We hoped him the man in the family, and he stepped up to the plate to fill that role as best he could. But he could not help it that it was too much. Nobody saw coming the rage he felt, not about that one moment of dispute, but about the way life had turned on him with a sense of abandonment. In that moment being possessed beyond himself, he could not bear the anger. And so gone is the wonder and the possibility and the giftedness…all vanished in an instant, all gone, beyond recall. The poet repeats the themes of the day: “None to comfort; No ground for hope.” Those surely are our words today. But then them is a pause in the poem. It is like the pause after the Good Friday

    Page 37

    death Jesus, before the in-breaking of Easter. The poet says:

    But.. .but in spite of that; But…but the loss notwithstanding. Blit ■ .but this I eall to mind. This I remember. This I ha¥e not forgotten, even in my loss. Anri therefore I have hope.

    I remember and so 1 hope. And what I remember, says the poet, is this:

    The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, (not now, not in death; not even death ean disrupt God’s steadfast

    His mereies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfolness. (3:22-23)

    The memory of God’s people is saturated with God’s action and steadfast love, mercy, and faithfulness. We never stop reeiting the miracles of God’s self-giving. It is like a mantra to us…steadfast love, mercy, faithfulness. All miraeles:

    The miraele of life; The miraele of a new baby. So we remember ?eter’s birth; We remember his first talking that was tentative. We remember his first walking that was so ^eearious. We remember his first day of school, a mix of eagerness and timidity. We remember the moment when he fell in love with the Celties. We remember the joy of his baptism.

    All gifts, all gifts from God, followed by the miraeles of Han־ison and Lily and David. And we remember the gifts of father David, his strength and his power and faithfulness, gifts he has given to his children. And, says the poet, all these miraeles in our lives are gifts of God’s aetive steadfast love, mercy, and faithfulness. God continues to do that. We remember sueh aets, and we hope for them again. We know that ?eter in this moment, for all our loss and bewilderment and anger and remorse, is located exactly in this steadfast love, mercy, and faithfulness from God. And so are we! That will carry him well beyond any anger he knew to a place of well-being with abiding mercy and faithfulness. And we ourselves, in our season ٢٠grief, are held by the same truth of God’s steadfast love, mercy, and faithfulness that is not disrupted by his death or by our grief. I do know, Leigh, Lily, Harrison, and David, that these are at the moment empty words for you and will not comfort. But we wifi hold to them for you. We wifi remember the old gifts and wifi continue to watch for the new gifts that are sure to be given. We will hold Peter’s life and our lives to the truth of the Gospel of God’s deep, reliable presence. Because God’s absence is for a moment in the night, and joy comes

    Page 38

    only later, in the morning. Here we are with our words and with many tears. But the reservoir of our faith is deep and resilient, and so we locate ?eter’s death in the midst of that faith that surpasses all of our anguish and pain. In the Heidelberg Cateehism, a wondrous Reformation statement of our faith, the first question of the teaching is this: “What is our only comfort, in life and in death?” This is an urgent question, given that the poet has said over and over, “There is none to comfort.” And the answer in the catechism is this: “My only comfort is that I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself, but to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ who has completely freed me from fee dominion of evil.” We belong to Christ in his faithfulness! ?eter belongs to him! And so do we! The catechism answer goes on to say, “He protects me so well that without fee will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fell from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation.” This is fee truth for us in this day of loss and death. All of our sadness and anger and bewilderment are held in fee heart of God who knows fee hair on our heads and fee yearning of our hearts and fee our hunger for wellbeing. Feter is left to rest in that good assurance. And we, in our turn, can rest there as well. The God who birthed us and knows us and counts our hairs is the one we know in steadfast love, mercy, and faithfulness. That is our only comfort. We wait for that comfort to come among us. It is poised and will come for us in time to come.

    ؛ﺀ ب ه Wordsfor Peter

    Teigh Knauert Denver, Colorado

    For those of you who do not know, I am Feter’s mom. I thought it was important for you to hear from Peter’s mom today. I thought it was important because when I think about my situation as someone else’s, I can’t help but think that the first place I would go in my mind would be to the mother, in this case fee only surviving parent. How is she doing? What is she thinking? How can she survive another tragedy? What will she do? How can they go on? Although I don’t know fee answers to most of these questions, I do feel called to tell you at least part of what it is like to be me right now. I have had fee privilege over the past nine years to be exposed to a man who has taught me more about survival than anyone. I was married to one of his most prized students and am very close friends with two of his others. Walter Brueggemann’s years ofwork on fee psalms has provided me wife much ofwhat I have needed to deal wife the death of my husband, David. Because ofW alter’s work and his presence in my life through my darkest days, I have been reminded that my cries of pain have to be uttered, whether through soft and controlled words or through literal shouts and screams. The psalms are our Biblical model of the utterance of pain making possible fee sight of hope. Once we have cried out and have felt heard, we are then able to move to a new place. Only because my cries have been heard, by God and by many of you, have I been able to stand in this new place and enter into the healing that has

  • Preaching the texts for ordinary time

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 3

    Preaching the Textsfor Ordinary Time

    Guy Sayles

    First Baptist Church, Asheville, North Carolina

    Just as the vast majority of Christian history unfolds between the out-pouring of the Spirit on the church at Fentecost nearly 2,000 years ago and the future fulfillment of God’s dreams for the cosmos in the “second advent” of Jesus, so the bulk of the liturgical year comes between Pentecost Sunday and the First Sunday of Advent. We sometimes call this long season—24 Sundays in 2014—“Ordinary Time.” Though the season technically gets its name from the “ordinal” numbers which mark its progress, we may find it both irresistible and helpful to think of these Sundays as invitations to reflect on the church’s faithfulness and effectiveness in the challenges and opportunities of its mundane, day-to-day, and “ordinary” existence.

    “Housework”: The Tasks and Opportunities ofOrdinary Time An image of the community of Jesus’ disciples which appears in two of the lectionary texts of this season is “household” (Matthew 10:24-25, June 22; Matthew 13:51-52, July 27). When we imagine God’s community as a “household,” we can also think of the tasks and responsibilities of church life as “housework”—the ecclesial equivalent of such ordinary things as preparing meals, washing dishes, doing laundry, and paying bills. Years ago, when poet Kathleen Norris had just begun to date the man who later became her husband, they attended the Roman Catholic wedding of one of his high school classmates, an Irish-American fellow from Long Island. Norris had left her Presbyterian roots behind in college, and she attended worship only when she visited her grandparents in South Dakota. She was unfamiliar with the actions and practices of a Catholic mass, and she was intrigued by the Eucharist. She says,

    At one point, 1 gasped. “Look at that! The priest is cleaning up! He’s doing the dishes.” I found it remarkable—and still find it remarkable—that in that big, fancy church, after all of the dress-up and formalities of the wedding mass, homage was being paid to the lowly truth that we human beings must wash the dishes after we eat and drink…. And I found it enormously comforting to see the priest as a kind of daft housewife, overdressed for the kitchen, in bulky robes, puttering about the altar, washing up after having served so great a meal to so many people.1

    The Lord’s Supper is bread and drink, baptism is a bath, and preaching is family story-telling; worship is, in many ways, housework. Housework is, by its very nature, repetitive. You work all weekend to get the clothes clean for Monday, and when Friday arrives, you have to start all over again. Cook dinner, feed the family, do the dishes, and make the grocery list for tomorrow’s supper; on and on it goes, the same things, again and again. Similarly, in the household of God, there is a lot of recurring housework. The church year is a grand cycle: Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Ordinary Time, and back to Advent. Some years fly so quickly by that it seems we were just

    Page 4

    putting away the Advent wreath when it is time to get it ©ut again. In ehureh life, there are seores of repeated and predictable tasks. Each year, for instance, we nominate and elect leaders, draw-up budgets, promise to fund them, and offer ministries which we hope will be transformational. Such tasks are as regular and as common as mowing foe lawn in foe summertime. We occasionally grow weary of these “church chores,” which is understandable, but we also know that when we can no longer see foe value of them, it’s a sign that something has gone wrong, just as a lack of attention to the condition of one’s home or body is a possible indicator of depression. Ordinary Time gives us opportunities to reflect on foe significance of unspectacular but steady faithfulness to foe mission and ministry of the church. Most of us will not demonstrate our love for God and neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40, October 26) in a single gesture of heroic self-sacrifice; instead, we will show our love by our diligence in the daily tasks of caring for the people, communities, and places we call home. Housework matters because we do not have healthy and welcoming homes without it.

    A Community ofSelf-Giving Love: Trinity and Reign ofChrist Sundays We do “housework” of ongoing church life with foe assurance that we are part of a community of self-giving love. The First and Twenty-Fourth Sundays after Fentecost frame Ordinary Time. The First Sunday (June 15) is Trinity Sunday, a day to celebrate foe mystery that foe one God is a community of three persons who delight in mutual, generous, and other-regarding love. The Twenty-Fourth Sunday (November 23) is Reign of Christ Sunday, on which we acknowledge that Jesus’ gracious and truthful reign creates a beloved community of justice, compassion, and peace. The entire season, then, is held in the embrace of divine love—foe love who is Trinity and foe love which energizes and characterizes Jesus’ rule and realm.

    Trinity Sunday (June 15): Genesis l:l-2:4a; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20 When we attempt to describe God, we often reach for western philosophical terms like omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, abstract labels which have far less resonance in Scripture than relational words like Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, ٢٠Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Ouly a handful of biblical texts make straightforward ontological claims about foe nature of God (Exodus 3:14; I John 4:8), but there is an overwhelming abundance of texts which helps us to know who God is by what God does. We know God primarily by means of verbs: God makes, blesses, and sets limits. God judges, forgives, and reconciles. God sends, gathers, and hosts. God suffers, rejoices, and, most of all, loves. The God who is Trinity also calls people to share foe divine mission in foe world, a mission which extends God’s life-giving and life-gladdening love to everyone and to all things. Gur texts describe two mandates which God gives to God’s people: to tend wisely and well to creation (Genesis l:l-2:4a) and to make disciples of Jesus (Matthew 28:16-20). At foe dawn of creation, having spoken foe world into order out of chaos and having fashioned human beings in foe divine image, God gave them this vocation: “Be fruitful and multiply; fill foe earth and subdue it; and have dominion over foe fish of foe sea and foe birds of foe air and over every living thing that moves upon

    Page 5

    the faee of the earth” (Genesis 1:28). In the lin§ering lightofhis resu!־reetion,Jesus gathered his followers onaGalilean mountain and gave to them this commission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and 10,1 am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Both mandates are global in scope: “Fill the earth and subdue it.” “Make disciples of all nations.” Both are grateful responses to the generosity of God. We labor to nurture it and to tend to the earth which sustains it. Filled with wonder over the grace given to us by the crucified and risen Jesus, we work to share his gospel with the world. We answer these mandates as people whom the Trinity deeply blesses by making us part ofthe community of God’s own life. Immersed in God’s Trinitarian nature, we experience “the grace ofthe Tord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion ofthe Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:11-13). We live in the “love of God” who is our Creator and the Source ©four worth and value. The God who made us loves us with an everlasting love. We live “in the grace ofthe Tord Jesus Christ” who accepts us as we are, forgives our sins, and has mercy on our brokenness. His grace frees us to live passionately and joyfully. We live in “the communion of the Holy Spirit.” We are never completely alone, even when we feel most afraid and most forsaken. We are held in the koinonia of the Spirit, a koinonia which is both the inner life of the Trinity and the shared life of the church which the Trinity creates and sustains.

    ReignofChristSunday(November23):Ezekiel34:ll-16,20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46 The Bible’s most enduring image of leadership is not commander, warrior, judge ٢٠elder. It is, instead, shepherd: one who tends, protects, leads, and nourishes the flock. Shepherd isn’t, as we might think, merely an image of religious leadership. It’s an image of what we would call civic, cultural, and economic leadership as well. Tike the other peoples of the ancient near East, Israel thought of its kings, not only or mainly its priests, as shepherds. For us, anyone who is in a position to care for the well-being of others is a shepherd . Elected officials are shepherds for their constituents; CEOs are shepherds for their corporations; doctors are shepherds for their patients; parents are shepherds for their children; teachers are shepherds for their students; and pastors are shepherds for their congregants. Everyone who offers leadership, however vast ٢٠modest its scope, is a shepherd. Ail of us need shepherding. We need guidance: someone to help us find the right path ٢٠to rescue us when we have strayed from it. We need protection: someone to warn us of hidden dangers, to shelter us from avoidable adversity, and to provide for us havens of restoration. We need nurture: someone to share with us the nourishment of truth and the sustenance of wisdom. Because we all need shepherds, it’s especially heartbreaking when the people we trust to care for us seem too busy, distracted, ٢٠insensitive to do so, and it’s crushing when the people who were supposed to be our shepherds use and abuse us. Shepherds who do not care tenderly and skillfully wreak havoc and inflict great harm. Think of the damage done by indifferent or corrupt shepherding:

    Page 6

    Clergy wh© are merely professional in toeir care and offer staged eompassion and pretend empathy to h e strnggling, CEOs who drive their colorations into bankruptcy, take a golden parachute into luxury, and leave average employees without jobs ٢٠hope, Elected officials who grow rich in office but become calloused toward h e legitimate needs of the poor and marginalized. Parents who neglect or abuse their children.

    Shoddy ٢٠unethical shepherding wounds the body, bruises the soul, and rends the heart. Shepherds are accountable to Cod for what happens to heir sheep, and the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that Cod has particular anger toward selfish shepherds. In verses which precede our text from Ezekiel,God warns Israel’s heedless shepherds of impending judgment (Ezekiel 34:1-10). Then in our text, God pledges never to leave the vulnerable, lost, and hungry sheep of Israel in the hands of those self-centered shepherds (see 34:11-16). Christians believe that God’s pledge found its most complete fillfillment when Jesus came to live among us. In Jesus, God searched for scattered sheep. In Jesus’ arms, God carried the injured back to safety. In Jesus’ mercy, God nurtured the weak back to strength. Jesus shows us that God is a shepherd who does not rest until all the lost are found, all the displaced have been welcomed home, and all the hungry are satisfied In Matthew’s Gospel (25:31-46),Jesus told a story about the lastjudgment which makes it clear that, as St. John of the Cross put it, “At the end of the day, the subject of the examination will be love.” The parable’s shepherd-king does not divide the sheep from the goats on the basis of beliefs they professed, doctrines they affirmed, ٢٠positions they defended. This judgment hinges on the presence ٢٠absence of compassion. The shepherd-king says that when people showed mercy on the least and lost, they were merciful to him. With this story, Jesus claimed to be starving with the hungry, to be clothed only by shame with the naked, to be silenced in the voiceless, to be uprooted in the homeless, ٠٢be desolate with the abandoned, and to wrestle with limitation in the sick. Jesus wants to know: Did you see me in the least of these? Did you feed me by sharing your bread with the hungry, clothe me by offering a coat to the naked, visit me by spending time with the prisoners, care for me by nursing the sick, and love me by welcoming the stranger? A couple of years ago, I met a young woman, an entrepreneur and activist in our town, who introduced me again to the Jesus who told this parable. A mutual friend had brought us together for lunch. As soon as our food was in front of us, she looked ^ ־ سctongly in toe e ^ ^ n d wito a ؟uiet irtens^

    I grew up around here. My grandfather was a preacher. 1 heard toe stories about Jesus from him. I don’t have much to do with organized religion, because, to me, toe people in churches don’t sound ٢٠act much like him. They spend a lot of time fussing over and protecting things he didn’t seem to care about. If I understand what he said, when I feed hungry people, I feed him. Right? And when 1 help them find shelter, 1 shelter him. Right? So, what I want to know from you is, what do yon intend to do about all

    Page 7

    these people in our own eommnnity who don’t have enough to eat ٢٠a deeent plaee to live or any hope for a real job?”

    My new friend wasn’t harsh with me, and she didn’t attaek the ehureh, either. In fact, in an odd way, she believes that the church has more potential for good than some of us believe it does. With fierce love in her heart, she challenged me to listen again to the Jesus I talk about all the time—the Jesus whose rule and reign creates and sustains a beloved community of justice, compassion, and peace.

    Broken Families and Salvation History: The Genesis Texts in Ordinary Time (June 22-August 17) God often creates beloved community out of broken relationships, just as God crewed toe h eav e^n d toe earth from the swirling chaosofa“formless void” (Genesis 1:1). The readings from Genesis in Ordinary Time are toe stories of shattered and shattering families; in another way, they are toe stories of God’s salvation. There are childless couples who yearn for a baby, and parents who grieve over toe lives of toe children they do have. We read about preferential treatment, raw ambition, and deceitful scheming. There is envy, hatred, and violence alongside occasional incursions of mercy, love, and peace. Divisions in toe families of Israel’s patriarchs and matriarchs were in Genesis the seedbed of much of the hostility which came to exist between Israel and its neighbors. These Jl-t0(>human stories provide astonished testimony that God brings salvation to God’s people precisely through brokenness. That astonishment pervades toe stories about Joseph which occupy roughly toe last fifth of toe book of Genesis (chapters 37-50; see toe readings for August 10 and 17). As Genesis narrates his story, Joseph’s envious brothers sold him into slavery, but he rose from servitude to become one of the most powerful men in ancient Egypt. Toward toe end ofhis life, he was reconciled wito his family when his brothers came to Egypt during a time of severe famine to beg for food. The Joseph stories warn us about toe effects of arrogance and jealousy, inspire us to five wito courage and integrity, and urge us to hope in God’s providence. The narratives show how a rejected brother became the source of deliverance for his estranged family. They give evidence that forgiveness can transform malice. These stories tell that God works wito us to absorb adversity and pain into a larger purpose. They invite us to trust that God is present even when we can neither see nor hear nor feel toe intimations of that presence.

    The Gospel ofMatthew, Discipleship, and Ordinary Time The Gospel lessons for Ordinary Time are from Matthew, as they are for nearly all of Advent 20I3-?entecost 2014. This gospel intends to shape its readers into devoted disciples of Jesus who “hear his words and act on them” (7:24-27) and who respond obediently to his commission to “go and make disciples of all nations” (28:18-20). Matthew tells toe story of Jesus in a way that seizes us wito the same amazement that grasped toe people who encountered him in toe first century: Jesus’ teaching “astounds” us (7:28), his compassion touches us (9:36), and his call makes us his followers (4:18-22). A concern for toe formation of faithful disciples permeates Matthew’s Gospel. In Matthew 10, Jesus prepared his disciples for a brief “mission trip,” an opportunity

    Page 8

    for them to do the kinds of things they had seen him doing (narrated in Matthew 8-9). At the heart of that training session, Jesus offered this brief and “־ description of diseipleship: “A diseiple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master. It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master” (10:24-25, June 22). To be a disciple of Jesus is to be engaged in a process of becoming progressively more like him. In Matthew lb, following ?eter’s confession ofjesus as the Messiah,Jesus spelled out the terms of diseipleship: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (16:24-25, August 31). Disciples of Jesus lose their lives—they set aside the limited definitions and distorted images of self which give them their identity—in favor of the authentic life Jesus offers, defined by the will and way of God, shaped in the image of Jesus. As our lives become increasingly like his, we are able, as ?eter did, to confess Jesus to be “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (16:16, August 24). Matthew presents ?eter as an exemplar of diseipleship and affirms his central role in the community of Jesus’ followers. Matthew does not “photo-shop” his picture of Peter by editing out the impulsive disciple’s flaws and failures. Instead, Matthew unfiinchingly shows that ?eter, like us, often stumbled along the path of following Jesus. ? ٢٠instance, Rudolf Schnackenburg believes that Matthew’s story of Jesus’ walking across stormy waters toward his frightened disciples in a wave-tossed boat (14:22-33, August 10) presents Peter as a “paradigm of faith and doubt.”^ On the one hand, ?eter risked stepping out of the boat to move toward Jesus; on the other, he was distracted from Jesus by the upheaval and chaos which raged around him. Sinking in the water, ?eter’s cry for help is also the continuing prayer of the church: “Lord, save me!” (14:30). Throughout his gospel, Matthew unhesitatingly describes ?eter’s capacity for bluster (26:33-35) and denial (26:69-75). Nonetheless, ?eter was the disciple to whom God first revealed Jesus’ identity as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16, August 24). Matthew records (Mark and Luke do not.) Jesus’ affirmation of ?eter’s confession: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! ? ٢٠flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my ?ather in heaven” (16:17). Jesus also identified ?eter as “the rock” on which he would build his church (16:18) and as the bearer ofuni؟ue authority (“the keys,” 16:19) in the Christian community. The nature and extent of Peter’s authority became (and continues to be) a cause of debate between “Catholics” and “?rotestants”; however, Peter’s central and vital importance in the early church is clear. At least until the ascendancy of the Apostle ?aul among Gentile Christians, ?eter was the pivotal leader of the early Christian movement. Itis well-known that Matthew organized his gospel to presentJesus as the church’s Moses—its authoritative teacher. Matthew includes five major discourses ofjesus which parallel the ?entateuch, the “five books” which comprise the Torah of Moses. Each discourse contains collected teachings ofjesus on particular themes. The five discourses and their general themes are:

    The Nature of Christian Diseipleship The Disciples’ Mission in the World The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth Chapters 5-7 Chapter 10 (June 22 and 29) Chapter 13 (July 13-27)

    Page 9

    Chapter 18 (September 7 and 14) Life in Christian c©mmunity Chapters 24-25 (November 9-23) Present Trouble and Future Triumph

    These diseourses are preeeded and followed by extended narratives of Jesus’ aetions ; in faet, the whole of Matthew’s gospel is patterned by this alternating rhythm of Jesus’ “words” and “deeds”—foe words diseiples are to obey and foe deeds they

    This five-fold organization of Jesus’ teaehing in Matthew underseores Jesus’ Moses-like signifieance for the church. Jesus is not so much a “new Moses”; he is, instead, a still-deeper revelation of the heart and soul of God’s will, foe same will of God toward which Moses and foe prophets had pointed. Jesus did not come to “abolish but to fulfill” foe law which Moses received and taught (see Matthew 5:17-20). Jesus concluded this third discourse with a brief parable which describes a “well trained scribe” (or “fully-discipled teacher”) whose calling was to be a “master of the household” and to tend to a storehouse of wisdom which had been stocked with treasures “new” and “old” (Matthew 13:51-52,1 اy 27). In Jesus’ culture, householders managed large estates which belonged to foe wealthy. A householder was responsible for meeting foe material needs of everyone in the household. He managed its business affairs, supervised its servants, and saw to education of its young children. This job required sound stewardship. The manager could waste nothing: things both new and old—hand-me-downs and new garments, stored grain and fresh produce—had to be used. Jesus’ followers have a similar task: to use all of foe resources of God’s wisdom , both new and old, to meet foe needs of foe household of faith. For members of Matthew’s church, fois text assured them that they would have foe wisdom they needed to meet foe challenges they faced after Jesus’ death and resurrection. They had “old” treasures, which were their memories of the ministry of foe earthly Jesus. They would also receive “new” treasures from his always-speaking Spirit. Jesus had promised, “I am with you always, to foe end of foe age” (28:20). Notice that Jesus mentioned “new treasures” first: they were to be given highest priority. This text cautions foe church about foe danger of our allowing foe “old, old story” to become “old hat.” ft challenges us not to turn our hearts into museums of things past and invites us to allow foe Holy Spirit to make them theaters of God’s ever-new drama. God is always up to something new, beckoning us into foe future, and God is always reminding us of something old, anchoring us to God’s mighty deeds in the past. Ordinary Time invites us into foe storehouse to rummage around in foe apparently everyday, mundane, and familiar resources of revelation and to discover in them the eternal, foe ‘ and foe surprising gifts of God. In this season, we have foe opportunity to discover that all times are ordinarily extraordinary.

    Notes 1 Kathleen Norris, The رﻣﺢ’س ‘ﺀ؛ م،،و Mysteries (Ne^ York: ?aulist ?re3 -1 , (1998 , <.؛ < ؛ 2 Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel ofMatthew (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002), 8.

  • Preaching the Psalms in Lent

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 33

    Preaching Psalms in Lent

    Mark Ramsey Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Asheville, North Carolina

    During Lent two years ago, my colleague and 1 began talking about a sermon series for the following f^nt. We find talking about next year’s liturgical season during the current season serves as real time corrective to our more unruly ideas. We thought about a series on Parables, a focus on the text of Holy Week throughout f^nt, and then we briefly touched on Psalms – should we preach a series of Psalms? We came to no conclusion. A few weeks later, I was attending a preaching conference where Tom ﺎﻣ!ﺂﺟ began his lecture saying, “1 want to offer you a modest proposal to consider preaching a sermon series on the Psalms.” 1 didn’t think it was quite a Road to Damascus moment, but it was telling that he addressed some of our initial points of resistance to preaching the psalms. Are the Psalms even meant to be preached? Can we navigate our way through Psalms that have less than uplifting parts that we usually conveniently ignore? In response to this, we set the series with a few ground rules. We chose some that were not the usual “top ten” popular Psalms. We ended up choosing Psalms 1, 19,77,107, and 137. Each of these has challenges in structure and/or content. We also committed to preaching the whole Psalm, even the uncomfortable and unsettling portions. The sermon that follows uses Psalm 107 as its text. Psalm 107 has 43 verses about deliverance from trouble. The stanzas each describe a different situation of peril. In worship, we printed the entire Psalm and then had different parts of the sanctuary—choir, one side of the pews, then the other, then the balcony—read each particular “deliverance from distress” for which the Psalmist is giving thanks. One final note is that our congregation suffered a devastating loss days before the beginning of fx؛nt with the death of a young, beloved former pastor. Her colleagues, our congregation,and our community were still reeling from thatloss,and these Psalms of lament, complaint, thanksgiving, praise, and prayer seemed to provide vocabulary and theological undergirding for expressions of our individual and communal grief.

    “Particular” Psalm 107 The late, great Tryon, North Carolina-born jazz, blues, and R&B singer Nina Simone used to perform to some of the most eclectic audiences anyone could gather. Some came drawn by her civil rights activism, others for the blues or jazz, and still others because she was a classically trained pianist and composer. But, inevitably in her concerts, Nina Simone would say to the assembled, right before performing the gospel song Children, Go Where I Send You, “¥ ’all ever been to a revival meeting? ¥ ٧٠don’t know what I’m talking about, do ya? Well, you in one now.” Psalm 107 plunks us right down in the middle of a revival. Testimony is being given. The Psalmist asks, “Can I get a witness?!” And folks from the balcony and the choir, from front and back, young and old, strong and weak, one after another after another cries out: “Let me tell you about my lift ؛oftrouble…and about the steadfast love of God!” However, as Nina Simone knew in her life, as you and I know in our lives, as the Bible shows and tells, it’s a long journey in any life to that moment of revival

    Page 34

    and testimony. This ?salm reminds us that God’s steadfast love is proven and experieneed in moments of desperation, peril, loss, anger, and disorientation. That is the real tronble with Psalm 107: we don’t like to think about it. We do not want to think of ourselves as suffering, even when we are. Suffering seems like failure, and we want to sueeeed. When someone is in distress and is offered help, what is offen our refrain? “Oh. it is not that bad. 1 will get through this on my own.” Did we cry out to the Lord in our distress? Not so much. Psalm 107 is a full-throated ery of those who need, want, and expeet God to come into their lives and put them baek on solid ground. Can we believe that God is really present, eapable of providing help in times of trouble? American society is addieted to the myth of personal responsibility and self-reliance. We trust in our own resources and put little faith in God’s capacity for deliverance. A eolleague tells about a eontentious ehureh finance committee meeting a couple of years ago. They were discussing what to do with an unexpected gift of $25,000. She remembered,

    Most of the committee members wanted the money to go toward mission, but our viee-ehair was adamant about putting the money into our “rainy day” fund just in case our giving fell short. Another member countered, “Jesus did not say anything about storing up money for a rainy day. He calls us to sell the second coat and give the money to the poor.” The vice-chair turned and said, “Jesus does not pay our gas bills.” The other member looked at him for a moment and said, “Actually, he does.” Sometimes, this is where we are: faith is all well and good, but when it comes to the real issues of life, we are on our own.1

    The New York Times reported that Gallup called 1,000 randomly selected American adults and asked them about happiness. Gallup inquired about their emotional status, work satisfaction, eating habits, illnesses, stress levels, and other indicators of their quality of life. The responses were plugged into a formula, and voila, they came up with a statistical composite for the happiest person in America. Gallup’s answer: a tall Asian-American male, an observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business, and has $120,000 in household income.* Alas, happiness—or better said, well-being—is never a matter of formula, is rarely influenced by demographics, and is not built on avoiding low places, dark nights of the soul, or jarring events. The movie Up in the ‘//٨features George Clooney working for a company that other companies hire when the company doing foe hiring doesn’t want to do foe firing . In other words, Clooney’s job is to fire people he’s never met. Wheu making foe film, director Jason Reitman put out an ad for people who really had been fired in Detroit, in St. Louis, in Omaha to play parts of people being fired in foe movie. And foe response was larger than he had imagined. Using untrained actors in those roles, one of the things that stood out to Reitman was how honest and forthcoming foe real-life characters were. According to Reitman, these folks found it somewhat “cafoartie” to be able to say on camera in a movie that thousands of people would see exactly what it felt like to have their jobs taken from fitem.* Real life is hard and unpredictable and perilous, carrying with it capacity for sadness and for joy, for despair and for hope, ?salm 7 ﻫﻞis a psalm of hope and trust

    Page 35

    and faith, but آلtraverses authentieally rough terrain to get there. Those who do not know what suffering is eannot appreciate the truth of ?salm 1 7 . مThen again, we all suffer to some degree. We heard it around the room as we read the Psalm together; we all ean give testimony, every single one of us. The lectionary, the list of seheduled readings for every Sunday, guts the power of this psalm by giving us just one e x ^ le o ^ ffe rin g : ^yrieal hunger. But we just read all forty-three verses—you heard it. Here is suffering of every kind: those who suffer imprisonment, literally and figuratively; those who suffer physieal and spiritual siekness; those who are nearly lost in a storm; those whose suffering is eaused by nature and others by sin. Yet all of these people in great distress cry out to God and are delivered. This psalm, the “lectionary part,” starts out general and poetic, but the rest of it gets very specific. Testimony is like that. This Psalm names names and situations and perils and fears; it names our broken places. Somewhere in this we all find ourselves, like it or not.4 Richard Lischer has taught at Duke Divinity School for 30 years. He just wrote a book about the death of his son. He begins the account this way:

    Seven years ago, on the thirteenth day of April, my son called to tell me his cancer had returned. He was a grown man, but he told me his news like aboy.He a id ,“Hey,Dd,where’^ o m ? ” Youwo^dhaveth^^ just put a dent in the family’s new car or failed a final exam. He might have been in a little trouble and wanted his mother to buffer the rough edges. He said they had found tumors in quite a few places….Then he asked me to come to him. And that was all. 1 was not expecting the call. But then you never are. You are never adequately braced with feet planted and stomach muscles clenched. A ^ o n a llfro m y o u rso n . fa m ilia r voice emerges from a piece of inexpensive black plastic. The voice has no body, and yet it makes a claim as firm and authoritative as flesh. It says “Hey, Dad” with an end stress on Dad that has always and in every circumstance meant trouble. “Hey, Dad,” and ordinary time stands still and the room begins to turn while you wait for foe rest of the sentence to do its work. “Why don’t you come over,” it says. The ruin in his voice becomes foe new truth in your life, and your old life, foe only one you’ve ever known or wanted, simply vanishes.5

    If God’s steadfast love is to be trusted, if it is worthy of being called upon in this world, then God’s steadfast love needs to show up here. There has to be a voice of love that overcomes foe voice of fear. What testimony can we give to foe steadfast love of God in times of peril? I was in Los Angeles not long ago and had foe opportunity to visit Homeboy Industries, foe amazing ministry founded by Fr. Greg Boyle to help young women and men escape gang hfo and establish themselves free from that peril. I had lunch at “Home Girl Café,” the breakfast and lunch spot using only former gang members and those trying to be former gang members as staff. We werc led to our table by a woman whose neck was bandaged, covering foe painful and slow work of removing gang tattoos. Later I heard her talking with a colleague about how grateful she was to have that job and not, as she said, “to be working the streets.” The man who brought

    Page 36

    our order still had gang tattoos everywhere we could see and whose smile and direct eye contact seemed newly learned, but quite steady. “Is everything okay?” he asked before departing. He seemed to be asking himself as much as asking us. Finally, we left after lunch by way of foe store where they sold t-shirts and hats to support the ministry. The cashier was a young woman, again bearing foe signs of a former life in a gang. She said to me and to everyone around, “If you have questions, ask me anything. Ask me about foe shirts, ask me about foe hats, ask me about foe Home Boy, ask me about my life… ·Really, ask me about anything, rm telling you, I was gone, but I’m here.. . In that place, for those young women and men, those jobs represented foe particularity of God’s love to them. What testimony can we give to foe steadfast love of God in times of peril? Many remember “Mr. Rogers,” who had a children’s TV show for years until he died in 2003. Some years ago, Fred Rogers, who was an ordained Fresbyterian minister, was invited to Hollywood to receive a special Emmy honoring his lifetime of work. When Fred Rogers stood up to speak, he said that he knew foe room was filled with so many stars and celebrities, men and women who had achieved much. Rogers then took out a pocket watch and announced that he was going to keep thirty seconds of silence, and he invited everybody in foe room to remember people in their past—parents, teachers, coaches, friends, and others—who had helped them along foe way, who had paid the price for their success, who had made them into foe people they were today. It was a call to a particular testimony of steadfast love. And then Mister Rogers stood there looking at his watch and saying nothing. The room grew quiet as foe seconds ticked away, and before Fred Rogers tucked away his watch, one could hear all around foe room people sniffling as they were moved by foe memories of those who had made sacrifices on their behalf and who had given each of them many gifts.6 And in that glittering Hollywood setting built on so many false hopes and fake appearances, in their desert of hunger and thirst, they were filled. And in their gloom of self-promotion, they were freed. And in their storm of striving, everything was hushed as their silence gave testimony to their memory of a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. What testimony can we give to foe steadfast love of God in times of peril? God’s promises are rarely offered to us in foe abstract. They are particular. God’s steadfast love doesn’t come sometime, somewhere. God’s steadfast love shows itself when you are in foe desert ofhunger, when you are parched with thirst for living water, when we sit in darkness and gloom, when something has imprisoned us, when we are sick, when we have made our life a mess, when our life has broken us, when we are caught in a storm, when the waters are about to overwhelm us. In these particular times, particular places, particular circumstances, particular relationships, we give thanks to foe Lord for God’s steadfast love which shows up right there, right then, and does not leave us lost and wanting. It’s like how we come for communion. We don’t just receive foe idea of sustenance ; we receive fois bread and this cup, at this table, with these people, on this day, in this hour, bringing with us all our particular hopes and tears. Into our particular circumstance, God’s steadfast love delivers us. We live in this particular today, and we live into foe promise of God’s steadfast love today, which will carry us to tomorrow . A colleague wrote recently that his wife’s father had died several years ago at

    Page 37

    this time of year, deep into f^nt. She sat by his bedside on toe last night, holding his hand. “What did yon do all night long?” he asked. “What did you say?” “1 !־an ont of things to say/’ she explained, “so 1 sang all the Easter hymns 1 could remember and said, ‘Easter’s eoming. Daddy, Easter’s coming.’”’ We live in this particular today. We live into toe promise of God’s steadfast love today, and toe truest word 1 can say to you by way of testimony is that love will carry us to tomorrow. Easter is coming.

    Notes لShawnthea Monroe, Feasting on the W ord-YearA, Volume 4: Season After ?enteeost, ed. by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, (WJK, 2011), 342-344. 2 Catherine Rampell, “Ameriea’s Happiest Man,” The New York Times, March 6,2011. 3 Anthony Kauffman, “Toronto Film Festival: George Clooney’s ‘Up in the Air’ Spotlights Eeonomic Trouble,” The Wall Street Journal, September 13,2009. 4 Shawnthea Monroe, Feasting on the Word, 344. 5 Richard Lischer, Stations ofthe Heart: Parting with a Son, (New York: Knopf, 2013), 88. 6 Tom Junod, “Can You Say…’Hero,”’ Esquire Magazine, October, 1998. 7 John Buchanan, “Easter’s Coming,” The Christian Century, March 20,2013.

  • Preaching as demonstration of resurrection

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 13

    Preaching as Demonstration ofResurrection

    Will Willimon

    Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina

    Christian preaching is born at Easter in that first astonished, breathless cry, “He is risen!” In a sense, this is as far as faithful preaching goes. As ?aul says, without the resurreetion, we have nothing to say and our preaching is in vain. The angel’s word was not the eomforting “Jesus is raised, now you will all get to see your loved ones in eternity.” Rather, the angel’s ^m m and was Go, tell! ?reaehing is specifically Christian that actively ^rticipates in cross and resurrection . Paul told the Corinthians to look at their own radical transformation. They were once nobodies, strangers separated by a host of divisions. Now they are family, first wave of God’s great reclamation of the world. God “has chosen things low and ontem ptible, mere nothings, to overthrow the existing order” (1 Cor.l:28 NEB). In our preaching, God uses frail, lowly human means to accomplish divine work, even as was done in cross and resurrection. Though Paul bragged that when he preached to the Corinthians, he said nothing but cross, cross, cross, Christian preaching can’t stop with cross-talk. To do so leads to morbidity that merely wallows in suffering and guilt and gives away too much to death. Some sermons gleefully list the abundant evidence of injustice and evil in the world and then predictably urge some form of human action to right the wrongs that ail us. Insufferable moralism characterizes preaching that goes no further than “Took what we did to Jesus and still do to one another. We ought to do better.” Preaching lapses into the exclusively imperative mode. “Should,” “ought,” and “must” fill the air as moralistic preaching transforms good news of what God has done and is doing in resurrection into the bad news of ethical exhortation. Since God has not acted decisively , we must try. Anthropology replaces theology; self-salvation is the theme. Every time a preacher stands up and dares a sermon, it’s demonstration of resurrection , of God’s determination not to let death have the last word. Contem porary preaching is often tempted toward anthropology rather than theology. Perhaps that’s why Easter preaching is tough; the resurrection is quintessentially about a living God who is deteimined finally to get what God wants. So while we are attempting cruciform truth, let’s also be Easter honest, ff preaching frequently fails, preaching also, by the grace of God, succeeds. Despite all obstacles and hindrances, people do hear. Anew world is created on the basis o f nothing but the words. Preachers are powerful because God has chosen to use preaching to bring to nothing things that the world regards as something (cross) and to make something out of nothing (resurrection). Failure in preaching can eventually be justified: I told them the truth and they can’t take it. Success in preaching is seary. Some yokel staggers out of church on a Sunday exclaiming,“That wasagreat sermon,preacher! Because of that serm onl’m going to sell the pickup, learn Spanish, and move to Honduras to be a missionary.” And what is your reaction when preaching is heard and resurrection becomes a present event? Will you preachers agree with me when I say that one of the greatest challenges of Christian preaching is working with the Risen Christ. It would be one thingto preach on thesubjectofChrist,but“we preach Christ” crucified and resurrected

    Page 14

    (1 Cor . 23 -ل2:ل .)We do not preach ideas, precepts, or principles. Rather we preaeh a living, aetive, resourceful person, Jesus Christ. Our challenge is well represented by the movements of the risen Christ in John 20. It is “the first day of the week,” first day of the Jewish work week, day when Israel, including the disciples of Jesus, are attempting to return to normal after a ^rticularly bloody weekend. Unfortunately, the yearning to get back to business will be disrupted by the resurrection. He appears among them,kicks open their locked doors, and speaks,commands, and commissions, and then disappears, moving on, eluding their grasp. The call of Paul the apostle was his experience of finding himself living in a whole new world. Paul changed because of his realization that in Jesus Christ, the world had changed. It was not merely that he discovered a new way of describing the world, but rather that his citizenship had been exchanged. Paul’s key testimonial to this recreation is in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:

    So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:17-18)

    Certainly old habits die hard. There are still, as Paul acknowledges so eloquently in Romans 8, “the sufferings of the present time.” The resistance and outright rejection that preachers suffer is evidence that the church has not yet fully appreciated the eschatological, end of the age, transformed arrangements that ought to characterize church talk. That many of us preachers still use essentially secular (i.e. godless) means of persuasion borrowed uncritically from the world is testimony to our failure to believe that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, thus radically changing everything. In so doing we act as if Jesus were still sealed securely in the tomb, as if he did not come back to us, did not speak, and cannot, will not speak to us today. Resurrection is not only the content of gospel preaching, but also its miraculous means. Where two or toree of us are gathered in his name, daring to talk about him, he is there, talking to us (Matt. 18:20). Our words are unable to tell toe truth about God without God’s agency. All toe way to toe end of toe age, in every part of the world, in our baptism and ^oclamation, he speaks for himself (Matt. 28:20). Christian preaching never rests on my human experience, even the experience of the oppressed, as some forms of Liberation Theology attempt to suggest, because human experience tends to be limited by toe world’s deadly, deathly means of interpretation . The world tells Christians to “get real,” to “face facts,” but we have, after the cross and resurrection, a particular opinion of what is real. I don’t preach Jesus’ story in toe light of my experience as a helpful symbol or myth which is illumined by my own story of struggle and triumph. Rather, I am invited by Easter to interpret my story in toe light of God’s triumph in toe resurrection. I really don’t know toe significance of my little life until I view my life through toe lens of cross and resurrection . On a weekly basis we lay the gospel story over our stories and reread our lives in toe light of what is real now that crucified Jesus has been raised from the dead. So last week, in conversation with a troubled soul in my congregation, when asked,

    Journalfor Preachers

    Page 15

    “Preacher, do you really think that 1 can get a grip on my addiction to heroine?” 1 almost responded, “No. Almost no one ever gets that monkey off his hack. 1 really don’t think you’ll get better.” But then 1 remembered that we are in Eastertide when the church insists that we tell the story of the resurrection of Christ as our story, as a truthful account of what Cod is really up to in the world. So 1 responded, “You know, if this wem about you or even toe two of us working together, toe answer is ‘No, you can’t get better.’ Fortunately, after Easter, this is about Cod, about God’s determination to get what God wants.” Only because we worship a resurrected Lord can we risk preaching. As Rowan Williams says.

    The Christian proclamation of the resurrection of the crucified just man, his return to his utoaithful friends and his empowering of them to forgive in his name offers a paradigm of toe “saving” process; yet not only a paradigm . ft is a story which is itself an indispensable agent in toe completion of this process, because ft witnesses to toe one personal agent in whose presence we may have full courage to “own” ourselves as sinners and full hope for a humanity whose identity is grounded in a recognition and affirmation by nothing less than God. It is a story which makes possible the comprehensive act of trust…}

    It makes a world of difference whether or not a preacher has been encountered by toe living, speaking, resurrected Christ. Thus, making doxology to God (Rom. م(361 :33ل Paul urges us to present ourselves as “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” by not being “conformed to this world” but by being “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). All of this is resurrection talk, the sort of tensive speech of those who find their lives still in an old, dying world yet also are conscious of a new world being bom. Our lives are chatologically stretched between the sneak preview of toe new world being shown to us in the church and toe old world where toe {^ncipalities and powers are reluctant to give way. We throw out our frail voices into a dying world, and they come back to us in the lives of those in the congregation who have seen and heard the risen Christ and who now embody that new 1 ثﺀنin their lives. As pastors,we see a world in the grip of the Final Enemy, but we also,by toe grace of God, get to see toe Enemy losing his grip upon some of the territory he thought was his. We see the cross being raised again in a thousand places, but we also see Jesus. In toe meantime, which is toe only time the church has ever known, we live as those who know something about the fate of the world that toe world does not yet know, something so grand and wonderful that we cannot keep silent. We must go and tell. We must preach. Because of Easter, we preachers are not permitted despair. There is certainly enough failure and disappointment in the preaching life to understand why depression , disillusionment, and despair could be considered three curses of the preaching ministry. Despair is most understandable among some of our most conscientious and dedicated preachers. Any pastor who is not tempted by despair has probably given in to the world too soon, is expecting too little of the preached word. Weekly confrontation with toe gap between what God dares to say and what we are able to

    Page 16

    hear leads many of our best and brightest to despondency. ¥et, as ?aul says, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. If our hope were in ourselves or our techniques for the skillful and effective proclamation of the gospel, we might well despair. Our hope is in Christ, who for reasons known only to himself has determined our spoken words to be a major means of his powerful presence in the world. Many Sundays, standing at the door of the church, bidding farewell to the worshippers, I see no evidence for Christ’s faith in us preachers. The congregation appears to have heard nothing. ¥et by the grace of God, I do believe that we preachers work not alone. In Jesus Christ, God is reconciling the world to God. And Easter tells us that God’s purposes shall not be defeated, not by the Enemy nor death nor ]^incipalities and powers nor even by the church itself. There is that sort ofhomiletical despair that leads some of our brothers and sisters to quit, to stop talking, and to go into less demanding vocations. ¥et there is also that despair which I find more widespread, that leads some of us to slither into permanent cynicism about the efficacy ofpreaching.“Preaching doesn’tchangepeople” becomes their mantra. Some of this sense of the vanity of preaching is due to lack of faith that God can do any new thing with us. It is sad to see such accommodation to sin and death. How do we know that Easter is not true? Who told us that Jesus used bad judgment when he made us his witnesses to the resurrection even to the ends of the earth? In order for the powers-that-be to have their way with us, to convince us that the rumor of resurrection is a lie, they must first convince us that death is “reality” and that wisdom comes in uncomplaining adjustment to that reality: “this is it, this is all there is. Preaching is woefully archaic, one sided, authoritarian indoctrination that is hound to fail. Silence!” If one considers the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, the birth of the church from the once despondent and defeated disciples, the perseverance of the saints even unto today, last Sunday’s sermon that changed a life, it is difficult to see why anyone would disbelieve resurrection except for two reasons: 1. The resurrection is an odd occurrence outside the range of our usual experience, so that makes it difficult for our conceptual abilities. We tend to reject that which we lack the conceptual apparatus for understanding. Because we cannot conceive of resurtection, we deny its possibility. 2. Perhaps more importantly, if Jesus is raised from the dead, if the resurrection is true, a fact, then we must change. Resurrection carries with it a claim, a demand that we live in the light of this stunning new reality or else appear oddly out of step. (This must be Paul’s point in 2 Corinthians 17.) Easter means we must either change, join in God’s revolution, or else remain under the illusions of the old world and its rulers, sin and death. We are not permitted the excuse for lethargy, “people don’t change.” Certainly, everything we know about people suggests that they usually don’t change. But sometimes they do. And that keeps us preachers nervous. Change is rare, virtually impossible, were it not that Jesus has been raised from the dead. When a pastor keeps working with some suffering parishioner even when there is no discernable change in that person’s life, when a pastor keeps preaching the truth even without visible congregational response, that pastor is faithful witnesstothe resurrection (Euke 1:2). That preacher is continuing to be obedient to the charge of the angel at the tomb to

    Journal/or Preachers

    Page 17

    go and tell something that has ehanged the fate of the world (Matt. 28:7), which the world eannot know if no one dares to tell. Easter keeps differentiating the ehureh from a r ^ ^ a b l e , gradually progressive, moral improvement soeiety. Here, there are sudden lurehes to the left and to the right, falling backwards and lunging forward, people breaking lose and out of control. Easter keeps reminding us pastors that the ehureh is the result of something that God in Jesus Christ has done. When the world wants change, the world raises an army and marches forth with banners unfurled. When the God of cross and resurrection wants to change foe world, this God always does so nonviolently, through some voice crying in the wildemess, through preaching. Easter is great graee to those well-disciplined, hard-working, conscientious preachers who are so often in danger of thinking that foe Kingdom of God depends mostly on their well-constructed and energetically delivered sermons. Easter is also a warning to cautious and too prudent preachers that they ought to expect to live on foe edge. A resurrected Christ is pure movement, elusive, evasive. Christ goes ahead of us and will not be held by us. A true and living God seems to enjoy shocking and surprising those who think that they are tight with God. We therefore ought to press foe boundaries of what is possible and what is impossible to say in foe pulpit, ought to keep working foe edges as if miracles were not miraculous at all but simply typical of a God who loves to raise foe dead. We ought to preach in such a reckless, utterlyd e^ d n t-u p o n -G o d sort of way that, if God has not vindicated by the peculiar way of Jesus by raising him from foe dead, then our ministry is in vain. But, as Paul says, thank God, our faith in resurrection is not in vain because, by foe grace of a living God, our preaching is not in vain.

    N o te 1 Rowan Williams, Resurrection (London, Lanon, Longman & Todd, 49 ,ر82ول .

  • Preaching the Easter texts: can I get a witness?

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 3

    Preaching the Easter Texts: Can / Get a Witness?

    Joseph S. Harvard, III

    Durham, North Carolina

    Can / get a witness? It is the question that should be raised for and by preaehers as Easter approaehes. In an Easter sermon, Barbara Brown Taylor points out how extraordinary the Easter claim is that God has raised Jesus from the dead.* This is not a message that we could have ever imagined. It is not the natural turn of events,business as usual, what we expect, ?eople who die stay dead! That is the way the world functions. Now we have to stand up and bear witness to a different reality. It is not our task to explain something that defies conventional wisdom and reality. Often during a sermon in an African American church, the preacher will make a point and then ask the congregation , “Can I get a witness?” A witness is, by definition, one who bears testimony about things she or he has seen, heard, or experienced. Our job is not to present a logical proof that Jesus was raised from the dead. It is our task to bear witness to the resurrection. These amazing stories that stand at the heart of our faith defy our expectations and imagination. So we need a few good people with the courage and faith to stand up at the witness stand (pulpit) to give testimony to the incredible news of what God has done by raising Jesus from the dead, overcoming the power of death, and what this means for our lives and the world.

    “Can I get a witness? ” During the fiftieth anniversary ofthe March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the story is told ofhow Martin Luther King, Jr. felt the anxiety of delivering the most important speech of his life. King was in a quandary about what to say to the diverse crowd gathered on that hot day of August 28,1963. He had his “A Dream” speech that he had delivered to other groups. Some of his advisors told him not to use it, so he worked on a fresh analysis of the situation faced by African Americans seeking freedom and justice in our country. Martin Luther King, Jr. had just begun his speech when Mahalia Jackson, who was sitting on the podium near Dr. King, shouted out: “Tell them about the Dream, Martin! Tell them about the Dream!” So he launched into the “I Have a Dream” speech, which changed our world and continues to encourage us. “Can / get a witness? ” Our task as Easter preachers is to take up the challenge to bear witness: “Tell them about God who raised Jesus and who gives us hope! Tell them about what God is doing here, right now! Be witness to a God whose love can be trusted and never ends!”

    Matthew 28:1-10—Easter Sunday According to Matthew’s account, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were not only the first witnesses to the resurrection, but they also preached the first Easter sermon . Maybe you find it as ironic as I do that Christian churches have denied women the right to tell the Easter story in worship for centuries, and some still do! We would not have the incredible good news without their witness.

    Page 4

    In Matthew, we get the CeeilB.DeM ille spectacular version with an earth،}uake, a lot of noise, an angel rolling the stone away and sitting on it. I love the confusion, the running back and forth. 1 love the skepticism. 1 love the sense that human beings are trying to understand what they just experienced, trying to appropriate something that doesn’t st^uare with what they know about life and death. The text says, “They went out with fear and great joy.” Fear and great joy! These mixed emotions make sense. Human beings, like you and me, are witnesses to something beyond our understanding of reality. If it is true, wowl What does it mean for how we live? We know how to live in a Good Friday world where innocent people get killed and the weak get stepped on, but to live in a world where love is victorious over hate, where hope is stronger than despair, is difficult, a challenge to conventional wisdom. It takes us to the heart of the Gospel. It takes us to toe profound matter of what we believe. In toe toce of the reality we often experience as threatening, painful, and disappointing, Easter proclaims a reality that is God whose love is stronger than toe harsh realities we encounter. Easter invites us to trust in toe living God. “Do notbeafraid!” Howmanytimes throughout theBibledo we hear these words? Several times in toe Easter text, we are encouraged to set aside our fears. Isn’t that like asking us to jump out of our skin? “Fear not” in a world like this when we know ourselves to be vulnerable human beings. William Faulkner, toe great southern novelist , once wrote, “The basis of all things is to be afraid.” ¥ou have seen toe pictures of people fleeing from bombs, guarding themselves from tornados and hurricanes and all kinds of other calamities. “Fear not,” as we grow older and face toe prospects of aging and Oto own death. “Fear not,” when we await the results ofthat exam to tell us what is wrong wito us. “Fear not,” as we grieve the deaths of those we love. We are afraid. God knows we are afraid. So the first thing is to acknowledge our fears. My son, Bankston, used to tell me when 1 was avoiding some truth or reality 1 did not want to deal wito, “Dad, you are traveling down toe longest river in Egypt.” I said, “What?” He said, “Yes, you’re in de Nile (denial)!” We deny a basic part of who we toe when we deny our fear. 1 am so glad that toe story of toe resurrection said, “Wito fear and great joy they went out.” Our fear changes focus as we see the angel using toe death stone as a stool. As we feel toe earth shake beneath us, our fear is still there, but only in another form. Death has lost its sting. What calms our fear is toe promise that God can be trusted to be wito us, to save us, to overcome the powers of death. The earth shook on Easter because resurrection means God is at the boundaries of our existence. We do not have to live in fear or be controlled by our fears. As “The Brief Statement of Faith” puts it, “In life as in death, we belong to God.”^ It is a source of deep joy to know that God can be trusted. Seamus Heaney, toe remarkable Irish poet, died in 2013. His poetry has been an inspiration to people around toe globe. His final act was remarkable. Minutes before his death in the hospital, he sent a text message to his wife, Marie. It simply read, “Noli timere,” which in Latin means “Do not be afraid.” He got it. This man, who was a genius with words, in his final words in Latin used social media to bear witness to the essence of toe Easter story.

    John 20:19-31—E astern “You must be relieved now that Easter is over.” It is a remark I often heard as a pastor over the years. This is true if Easter is a day when we pull out all the stops,

    Page 5

    celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord. If that is what Easter means, then Easter is over. The Second Sunday of Easter is affectionately called “Low Sunday” because there is usually more room in the sanctuary. But the Easter reality is not over. I love Low Sunday because those who come back are ready to raise the question of what to do with the Easter message that “the Lord is risen.” You and I have a decision to make: either the facts of life are set—you are born, you grow up,you live your life, and then you die—and there is nothing to do but grab what you can in the time you have left, or if the Resurrection makes a difference, if it is the defining moment in human history, if the Lord is risen indeed, then there is a whole other agenda set before us. We have to decide if we want to stay on this road of following him to the end. If we want to follow not just to the cross and to the empty tomb where the women discover that Jesus was not there, but if we want to follow him into the implications of the new reality, Christ is risen. We meet the disciples locked in a room. The word was out that Jesus was back. What did this mean for them? The primary feelings of those disciples gathered in that room werebewildermentand uncertainty. We all know what feat feels like. Something dramatic happens in your life. There is a major change in what you were expecting. Where do we go from here? What does it mean for us that Jesus Christ was raised from fee dead? Suddenly, fee Risen Christ appeared to them. Remember, this is one of his first appearances after his resurrection. He doesn’t ask them “Where were you when I needed you? Why did you desert me? Why weren’t you there to the bitter end?” Instead, what he says to them is simply, “Peace be wife you. Shalom. May fee fullness of God’s presence be wife you.” No condemnation, no “I told you so.” Easter is a story about forgiveness. The Risen Christ bears witness to fee power of forgiveness. We affirm feat forgiveness is at the heart of faith every time we say the Apostles’ Creed. But how hard is it to practice forgiveness? Every once in a while, someone comes along to remind us how transforming forgiveness can be to individual relationships,to nations,and to the human family.Atthe death in December of Nelson Mandela who had gone from serving 27 years in prison to becoming fee first elected president of the new South Africa after apartheid, we were reminded of how forgiveness is at fee heart of his gift and legacy to us. In June 1995, when the South African rugby team which had been a symbol of white supremacy in fee country won a huge match in fee World Cup final, Mandela walked onto the field wearing fee green jersey of fee team. At fee time of Mandela’s death, columnist Leonard Pitts wrote,

    Mandela forgave. He forgave fee government that segregated him to the margins of society and made him an outsider in his own country. He forgave fee jailers who tried to break his body and spirit during his long incarcération . He forgave his country for hating him.^

    In forming the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he worked to enable a process for genuine healing to take place. His ability to forgive provided fee world wife a powerful witness. But then there is the problem of Thomas, known to us better by fee nickname “Doubting Thomas.” Thomas is a fascinating character. He is one of those people who was not an automatic follower. You don’t just hand him fee script, and then he

    Page 6

    does what comes next. He wants to know why. And then he’s also very honest. He is willing to ask tough questions. There is a Thomas in every group. I dare to assume there is even some of Thomas in all of us. “Tow Sunday” is a good time to faee up to our douhts. If you’re sitting on the doubter’s beneh, you are in good company. Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. We all see through a glass darkly. We move forward toward the day when we will see face-to-face. One of my friends in toe ministry, Jim Lowry, calls it raw hope. He said, “Raw hope begins when you have toe courage to question, toe co u rag to d e^ w ito y o ^ h o n ed o u b te.’’Thomas is not th ro w u to H h e community; he is accepted by our Lord, doubts and all.

    Luke 24:13-35—Easter III It was on the Emmaus Road that toe Risen Lord joined a couple of his disciples, and they did not recognize him. They were having an extended conversation about what had gone on in Jerusalem in the past week, and toe disciples still did not get it. Then he opened toe scriptures to them. When they came to a place where they were to stay, he looked like he was going on further. They encouraged him to stay. As they were sitting at table, he took bread and broke it, and they recognized him. Why didn’t they know it was Jesus? They had been wito him. They had left everything to follow him. They knew his voice. Why didn’t they recognize him? I have a mental picture of what I call toe “kicking toe can exercise.” There are two guys walking down toe road with their heads down, kicking a can, talking about how bad things are. Ever been there? Why didn’t they recognize him? I have come to think that maybe they didn’t recognize him for the reason I don’t recognize him. My head is down, and I am preoccupied wito what has just happened. They were also unprepared for what was happening. Things like this just don’t happen. Remember toe Holiday Inn advertisement a few years ago, “The best surprise is no surprise”? That may be good advice for choosing a motel room, but for a way of life, the lito best lived is open to the surprises of God. I am not sure why they were blind to who Jesus is. But I do know there is a blindness within me, that so often I become so preoccupied with myself and with how I am going to get through toe day, get this done, get there, that I fail to see what God is doing all around me. Where is our Emmaus Road? Where is toe place in our lives where Christ meets us? The good news is that toe Risen Christ is known to us in toe breaking of bread. That is what Jesus did. He went around breaking bread. He broke bread wito all kinds of people. In fact, one of the charges against him was, “He breaks bread wito sinners and wito tax collectors.” He will break bread wito anybody, anytime, anywhere. That is what he did in his ministry, and he still does it. It is at toe table of our Lord that our eyes are opened and we recognize him.

    John 10:1-10; Psalm 23—Easter IV Eourth Sunday ofEaster is often called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” We read ?salm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” We read from John 10, which is entitled “Jesus the Good Shepherd” (NRSV). I extended the reading to toe first 18 verses instead of just 10 as the lectionary suggests. The talk is about sheep. In fact.

    Page 7

    one member suggested on this Sunday that she thought there were too many sheep in the service. (There is a goat or two in every eongregation!) This reminded me of a very embarrassing situation in my ministry. On Good Shepherd Sunday several years ago, I had an unforgettable experienee. 1 had been talking about shepherds and sheep, and 1 thought 1 had done a reasonably goodjob. We were also having a baptism. And so 1 said to the children as we gathered at the baptismal font, “We have talked a lot about shepherds and sheep this morning, children, and in a few minutes, I’m going to baptize another one of God’s sheep.” At that point, one of the young girls in a loud voice said, “You’re going to do whatl You’re going to baptize a sheep?” There was sporadic laughter in the congregation for the remainder of the service, and 1 learned that day something about literalism and children. Talking about shepherds and sheep seems a tittle strange in twenty-first century urban Ameriea. What do we know about shepherds and sheep? We live in a world that is not pastoral. Yet, the words “The Lord is my shepherd; 1 shall not want…,” “I am the Good Shepherd…,” “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” resonate with people of all ages and stations in life. The hymn “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” is one of the most familiar and beloved of the church. But the g estion arises. Who needs a shepherd and why? If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, then who are we? That makes us the sheep, the wooly ones.But being a sheep does not sit well, does it? Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Most of us think of sheep as slobbering, untidy, dumb animals who exist only to be shaved ٢٠slaughtered.”* Maybe the question should not be who wants to be a sheep? The question is why do we feel vulnerable and in need of someone who will lead us? There are those who would rob us of our identity. Instead of ehildren of God, we are led to believe that we are eonsumers whose value is in what we possess. We are self-made men and women who are independent, rugged individuals. The thieves and the robbers who masquerade as shepherds steal our birthright as those made in God’s image and turn us against each other. This past summer I spent some time on the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. There, I was able to observe a lot of sheep grazing on the lovely hillsides. I had the chance to get up close and personal with several sheep. I also talked with those who were herding the sheep. I now have it on good authority that sheep are not dumb. I’ve got it from someone who grew up on a sheep farm in Ireland. In fact, it was suggested to me that the notion that sheep are dumb is a rumor that’s been spread by cattle ranchers in Texas who say sheep are dumb because sheep are different. And you know that old saying that if it’s different from me and mine and ours, then it must be bad and dumb and no good. We have been victims of that kind of prejudice down through the centuries and up to the present day. Let me tell you what the difference is. Cows are herded from the rear by eowboys craeking whips. In other words, they get behind the eattle to get and keep them moving. This will not work with sheep, ff you try standing behind sheep making loud noises, they will go crazy trying to get behind you. Sheep prefer to be led. You push cows, but you lead sheep. Sheep will not go anywhere if someone else does not go first. They need a shepherd who will go ahead of them to show them that things are all right. “The wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away” (John 10:12-13). Who needs a shepherd? Who needs someone to go, to guide, to show the way?

    Page 8

    One who says, “I am the gate” or “I am the door”; “It is through me that you understand the value of life, that you understand what’s going on in this world. It is through me that you find abundant life, life that enables you to aeeept one another wife our differenees.” I have a dear friend who developed a brain tumor. He was faeing serious surgery. As he was going into the operating room, one of fee nurses standing beside him asked, “Is there anything I ean do for you?” He asked, “Do you know fee Twentythird ?salm?” She said, “Yes.” And they began to reeite it together, and the doctors going in with them joined them: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . ٠ ٠Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art wife me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Ps. 23:1,4). A young man whom I had never met stopped by fee church I was serving in Louisville, Kentucky. I was new in ministry. He was a Presbyterian from another town and wanted a pastor to visit his mother who was dying in a hospital room downtown. I went, not sure what in the world I would say or do. His mother was barely present when I entered fee room, her bed surrounded by family members. She whispered to ask if I would recite Psalm Twenty-three and pray. I did, and she smiled. The Good Shepherd was not on a hillside in some far away land, but in a hospital room wife a dying woman and a frightened young pastor. Over fee years, this experience has been replicated for me and countless others. Shepherd talk may sound a bit strange in an urban society, but it speaks to a great need in our lives. In a world of so many crazy episodes, who needs a Good Shepherd? I do! What about you? “Can / get a witness? ”

    John 14:1-14—Easter V God is not easy for us to behold. Our Hebrew ancestors thought it was a fearful thing to gaze upon the glory of God. For them, God is holy, distant, and unapproachable . The Jews believed that if you could see God face to face, God would be an object under our control that we could manipulate and use. Do you get fee picture? God has been seen as unapproachable. You may have heard about fee young girl who was a budding artist. She loved to draw. One day her father came home to find her working on a picture. “What are you drawing?” he asked. “God,” she replied. “That is interesting,” he responded, “since no one knows what God looks like.” “They will when I finish this drawing,” she answered. In fee back of our minds, each of us has an image of God, what God looks like. Some see a kindly old man in fee sky, or maybe you see God in a beautiful sunset. “The Brief Statement of Faith” says, “Like a mother God cares for God’s children, like a father God welcomes our home coming.” We draw images from our experience. All of our images don’t quite capture the essence of God. In his farewell discourse as Jesus is preparing his disciples for his death, his going away, Jesus says a remarkable thing. In response to a request from Fhilip, “Show us fee father and we will be satisfied,” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen fee Father!” (John 14:8-9). If you want to know what God looks like, take a look at Jesus. Take a look at his acts of compassion, his devotion to fee truth, his willingness to lay down his life for his friends even when his friends desert him, deny him, and betray him. He is the embodiment of God’s love for us and for the world.

    Page 9

    In the afterglew of Easter as we seek to take In the astounding Implications of Christ living among us, this Easter season is a good time to look at God through the lens of the One who made God known. Shirley Guthrie is helpful when he writes:

    How do we come to know the Creator of heaven and earth? Where do we meet this God personally?Inaweak,helpless baby lyinginacradle inabam! In a Jew who was toe friend of dishonest business people, prostitutes, and social outcasts! In a man condemned to die by capital punishment between two thieves! What an inappropriate place to meet “Almighty God”! How Unspiritual! But hidden in the peasant baby, this ancient Jewish preacher, this “criminal” – there is God speaking, acting, personally present. God is not a man, but this man is God-with-us.” Whoever has seen me has seen toe Father.” (John 14:9) 0Christian Doctrine, 58, Shirley Guthrie)

    Jesus said to Fhilip, “If you have trouble believing this, look at toe works.” In other words, “Look at toe things I have done. Look at the way people have been healed and given hope; look at toe way people have been given a second chance. Look at what God is doing among you.” This is Jesus who is for us “toe way, toe truth and the life” (John 14:6). I ride by a church every day that has on its mar،؛uee “Jesus Is the Way.” Often Christians have used these words to exclude others who are not Christian. This seems to me to miss toe point. Jesus who shows us toe way, who is toe way, is always opening doors to let others in on toe way and expanding the table to make room for others. We need the way of Jesus to be our way, the truth of God’s expansive love to be our truth. We need this life to offer new life to a world that seems hell bent on selfdestruction . We need, with our Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist friends, and neighbors without any faith tradition, to took at each other through toe lens of One who gave of himself that toe ways of God might flourish and prosper in our world. He came to reconcile us to each other. Let me be so bold as to suggest that although we do not have a full length portrait of God, what we do have in Jesus of Nazareth is a picture of God in toe face of Jesus Christ. It is a picture that we carry with us, and it will carry us home. Fhilip said, “Show us toe father, and we will be satisfied.” And Jesus said, “Look at me, Philip. It doesn’t get better than this.”

    John 14:14-21 —Easter VI The Gospel lesson for toe Sixth Sunday of Easter is a continuation of Jesus’ farewell discourse. Those who bear witness to the Resurrection will not be left atone. He is preparing toe disciples for his departure with toe assurance of his continual presence. These are important words for us to hear in toe church today. There is so much anxiety about what is ahead in an increasingly secular and pluralistic society. We are told that we live in a post-denominational world, which makes us anxious. How will we be faitofnl witnesses to the Resurrection in such a time as this? The actor Hugh Grant starred in a movie titled About a Boy. Grant played Will Freeman, a rich London playboy who has made it his goal to live only for himself. Will has a shallow fife devoted to clothes, videos, pop music, and other such stuff. He also uses people and sets out to prove John Donne wrong. He is an island unto

    F,aster 2014

    Page 10

    himself. In pursuit of this goal, he meets an awkward 12-year-old boy n ^ e d Marcus. Marcus adopts Will—that’s a 12-year-old adopting a young playboy. Marcus goes on to teach Will valuable lessons of life. At one point in the story, when a sudden crisis threatens them, Marcus, the 12-year-old, says to Will, his new best friend, “Two is not enough. We need backup.” All of us have been aware in difficult times of the need for support. Jesus assures us that he will not leave us orphaned. What a powerful image! Jesus is saying, “I’ve got your back; there is backup.” But there is more here. What Jesus describes is an intimate relationship based on love. This is the kind of love that seeks the wellbeing of others and will make sacrifices on behalf of others. It is not a “here today, gone tomorrow” emotion. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8). Now that sounds like a foundation that is steadfast and trustworthy. This is what creates a Christian community that has sustaining and staying power. How does it work? What are the practices? Such an intimate and committed relationship is nurtured in worship. In the company of the Body of Christ, we are nurtured. In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about this relationship. “It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share in God’s Word and Sacrament.’* This visible fellowship is also a witness to the presence of the Risen Lord, so every Sunday is a little Easter. Recently, I heard a sermon by Bishop ?orter Taylor, Bishop of fee Diocese of Western North Carolina. He told about a conference on liturgy he had attended with other clergy and laity. They were asked to identify the most meaningful part of the liturgy for them. To his dismay, the sermon was not fee first choice, although it was important. For the majority, including him, it was the moment in fee Eucharist where you hold open your hands to receive fee bread of life. It is the moment that acknowledges our dependence on a reality beyond us with the power to nourish and sustain us.

    What a fellowship, what ajoy divine, Leaning on fee everlasting arms; What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, Leaning on the everlasting arms.6

    John 17:1-17—Easter VII

    Hear the good news! Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ, and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us.

    These familiar words from fee “Declaration of Forgiveness” in fee Book ofCommon Worship (p. 56) affirm that, as the Ascension proclaims, “Christ reigns in power.” But that is not all. “Christ prays for us.” For some, that is a comforting statement.

    Page 11

    Three years ago, I had serious heart surgery to replaee a valve and repair an aneurism on my aorta. It meant more to me than I ever imagined to receive word from family, friends, and Grangers that they were praying for me. Prayer is not a rational exercise. There are all sorts of questions reasonable folks eould ask about its efficaey. Nevertheless, it matters to know you are being lifted up in prayer. What does it mean that Jesus prays for us? Again, there are a lot of questions one ean raise, but it is a souree of eomfort and strength to know that “Christ prays for us.” Anne Lamott, in her book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, says one of the basic prayers is “Help.”^ In his prayer in John 17, Jesus prays for help for us. Jesus knows that his followers need help to keep the faith. The excitement and enthusiasm of Easter Sunday is receding in the rearview mirror. The lilies have faded, the music has toned down, the congregation is smaller. What does this “resurrection business” mean as summer approaches and the problems we face seem more difficult and complex? Jesus does not ignore the harsh realities and challenges that face us as we continue bearing witness to the resurrection. The world around us is not only indifferent; it is hostile. The danger is that as Easter season ends, we breathe a sigh of relief and go back to business as usual, that we will blend into the real world and avoid the challenge of letting our lives bear witness to the Resurrection reality. In his book Brother ؛٠a Dragonfly, Will Campbell, a noted Baptist preacher and theologian,recountedaconversation with his irreverent friend P.D. East, which speaks to this danger. The conversation takes place in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement . They had just heard of the killing of a young seminarian,Jonathan Daniels, who was registering black citizens to vote. East complained about the role of the church in those turbulent times; he said the church reminded him of an “Easter chicken.” He then described the baby chicken he had given his little daughter, Karen. The Easter chicken was dyed a deep purple. Will interrupted his friend to remind him that white is the liturgical eolor for Easter, but P.D. ignored him. P.D. went on to describe how the baby chicken started feathering, and the new feathers were Rhode Island Red. They took the half-purple, half-red chicken and put it into toe chicken yard with toe other chickens. At first, toe little chicken was different, and toe others knew it was different. It did not bother toe others or enter into their fights. But little by little it began behaving just like toe rcst of the chickens. It would peck and fight, knock other chickens down to catch a bug. “And now,” said East, “you can’t tell one chicken from another. They’re all just alike. The Easter chicken is just one more chicken.” In a world of division and enmity, toe transforming power of God’s love in our common life is a powerful witness. Several years ago, I encountered toe powers of a faithful witness under difficult circumstances. I was attending an urban ministry conference for Presbyterians working in city ministries. The conference was being held in San ^ancisco. One of the presenters was a young pastor who was engaged in a street ministry in downtown San Francisco. There were then and still are many young people living on toe street in that city, to too many cases, they arrive there because they are gay and have been kicked out by their families. Often they turn to prostitution and get hooked on drugs and alcohol. This pastor walks toe streets at night getting to know these young men and women. He shared several stories with us and talked about how he tries to get to know

    Page 12

    them and eneourages them to find healthy eommunities that will offer support. I was fascinated by his presentation and told him so afterwards. He thanked me and then noted that we had a free evening that night. “Would you be interested in joining me as 1 make my rounds?” he asked. 1 felt a bit threatened by the prospeet, but 1 aeeepted. What followed was one of the most amazing evenings 1 have ever experienced. In the first place, 1 discovered early on that he was good at what he did. Over and over as we walked the streets, young men and women would greet him by name and freely talk with him about what was happening in their lives. They obviously considered him a trusted friend. We encountered one young man who seemed uncomfortable about their meeting. When we got back to the young pastor’s small storefront office, I could tell he was discouraged. He shared with me that he had hoped foe person we had just met would have been able to turn his hfo around, but it was evident that he had fallen back into harmful behavior. “That must be discouraging to you,” 1 suggested. “Yes,” he responded. After a pause, 1 asked him, “What enables you to keep going when this happens?” Without hesitation,he responded,“It’s foe Resurrection! It’s foe Resurrection!” I realized that I had been in the presence of someone who believes that because God raised Jesus from the dead, he is our Good Shepherd. As foe Apostle ?aul puts it, “Nothing can separate us from foe love of God.” I had been with a witness.

    Notes 1 Barba!־a Brown Taylor, “Dust to Dust (Faith Matters),” The Christian Century 119, no 7 (March 27, 2002): 32. 2 “The Brief Statement of Faith,” Fresbyterian Church (USA). 3 Leonard Fitts, “Forgiveness Lies at the Heart of Mandela Legacy,” Durham Herald-Sun, December 10,2013,A7. 4 Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life (Cowley Publications: Cambridge, MA, 1993), 140. 5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), IS. 6 “Leaning on theEverlastingArms,”Text:ElishaA. Hoffman; Music:AnthonyJ.Showalter. http://www. hymnsite.com/lyrics/umhl33.sht 7 Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012), 15

  • Is God always anything?

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 56

    Is God Always Anything?

    The Book ofJob; Isa 43:14-21; 1 John 1:1-5

    BrentA.Strawn Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

    “Then the L ord answered Job out ofthe whirlwind:.. .‘Where were you when / laid thefoundation ofthe earth? Tell me, ifyou have understanding.’” (Job 38:1, 4)

    Introduction I sometimes tell my students who are beginning their preaching careers to start with something easy when preaching. Some easy text. And short, too. Short and easy. That would be a good idea. But professors often seem completely incapable of following their own advice! And so it is that 1 have chosen a very difficult text: Job. And not just one little part, but the whole booh of Job. Now don’t worry, I’m not going to read the whole book to you. But ifl’m going to preach on Job, you might wonder what gives with those Old and New Testament readings. Here’s what gives: when we read those well-beloved portions of scripture together, they seem to pose a question: Is God always anything? That is, is God always one thing consistently, whether it is light, as 1 John says, ٢٠something else? Or does God, at least on occasion, change God’s mind, forgetting the old ways and doing new things as Isaiah asserts? Which is it, consistency ٢٠changeability? One, both, neither? And how might we decide? Enter the Book ofJob.

    Job’s Predicament (1:1-2:13) This question—“Is God Always Anything?” —is just one of many that arises from the Book ،}’؛Job. And I think Job gives us an answer ٢٠two. Now I’m sure you are already quite familiar with Job. In fact, I have no doubt that many of you feel intimately acquainted with him for whatever reason—for a whole host of reasons! “Know him?” some of you might be saying right now, “I am him! 1 am Job. Or at least it feels like it.” It really does feel like it sometimes, doesn’t it? And that’s what makes this material so crucial—crucial for our theologies and crucial for our souls. The story begins with a nice guy in a nice place with all the nice trappings: nice wife, nice kids—though they party a bit much—and lots of nice stuff. But then something strange happens: we are suddenly ushered into the divine throne room and catch a glimpse of what goes on there. In come the heavenly beings, and with them comes one called “the Satan,” which means “the accuser,” since that is his job. Unfortunately for Job, God is quite proud of him and brags to the Satan about Job: “Have you considered my servant Job?” God asks. “There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil” (1:8). Then the Satan answers God: “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?.. .But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (1:9-11). God takes this challenge; the wager is set. It’s a bet of cosmic proportions. Heaven and earth will strain to see if Job really serves God “for nothing.” He has

    Page 57

    been blessed and supp©rted and loved and nurtured. Take it away, though, and will he still be faithful? Or will he eurse God and call it quits? That’s the gist of the opening chapters. And so the story begins. In one day, Job loses all his material possessions—oxen, donkeys, sheep, and camels—and he loses his loved ones—all but four messengers and all of his ten children, dead. And, amazingly, we come to find out that without all this—without all of the trappings, the hedge of protection, even without his children and servants—Job is still able to say, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (1:21). Such words! Almost unfathomable in the face of such tragedy. Unfortunately for Job, the tragedy has only just begun. Back in God’s throne room, foe heavenly beings file in, and wouldn’t you know it, foe Satan is back too. God won foe first round, but foe accuser wants double-ornothing : “All that people have they will give to save their lives,” he says. “But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face” (2:4-5). Then, of course, Job is afflicted with loathsome sores from foe sole of his foot to the crown of his head. All he can do is sit on foe ash heap and scrape his blisters with a piece ofbroken potter)’. But still he persists, despite foe discouraging words of his wife that he should curse God and die. “Should we accept only good from God and not accept evil?” he asks her (2:10). Well, that’s Job’s story—up to this point at least. That’s his predicament. And it is certainly a tragic one: once rich, he is now impoverished; once a father of many children, he is now bereaved; once a husband, he is now estranged from his wife; once healthy, he is now a portrait of sickness and suffering. But it’s actually worse than all that. ¥ ٧٠see, Job didn’t have foe benefit of seeing God’s throne room like we have. He knows of no “Satan” figure and doesn’t know that his situation is foe result of an elaborate cosmic wager on whether ٢٠not he will prove faithful in foe end. On foe one hand, maybe it’s better that Job didn’t know that! But on foe other hand, this also makes his predicament much worse because Job only knows of God. All there is, then, is Job’s painful encounter with the one ultimately responsible for his very great suffering: God. Oh, there is something else: Job’s friends. Eliphaz foe Temanite, Bildad foe Shuhite, and Zophar foe Naamathite “met together to go and console and comfort” Job (2:11). When they find him, they don’t recognize him, so twisted is he from his pain. “They sat with him on foe ground seven days and seven nights,” foe Scripture says, “and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great” (2:13).

    Job, Job’s Friends, and Their Answers (3:1-37:24) Finally someone speaks out of the silence. It is Job. And his voice is both less and more confident than it had been in foe preceding ehapters. It is less confident in that Job wishes he were dead, wishes he had never been bom, is uncertain about foe character and quality of foe God whom he has served with such uprightness and blamelessness. But Job’s voice is more confident in that he is certain that his suffering is undeserved. He has, truly and in fact, served this God with uprightness and blamelessness. How then could fois have happened? Then Job’s friends break their silence. They have an answer for Job. He won’t like it, but they have it all figured out. They tell him that he is absolutely right—this

    Page 58

    shouldn’t have happened to an innocent, upright, and blameless chap like Job. That’s the whole point—it did happen, and that is proof that Job is not so innocent, upright, blameless, perfect, sanctified, you name it. On the contrary, he is guilty, sinful, perverse , ignorant, arrogant, you name it. That’s the answer. That is why Job suffers. In theological terms we call this type of thinking retribution theology. It means that you always get what you’ve got coming. Ifyou do good, good things will happen to you. Ifyou do bad, bad things wifi happen to you. It’s as simple and un-complex as that. This is the way God works, the friends say: “Since you got the bad end of the deal, it means, logically, necessarily, inescapably, that you were the bad start of the deal. God is just, God is fair, God rewards according to one’s deeds. Always. There is no use complaining about that. Give up, give in, repent, and everything will be all right again. Of course, the sheep and the children and the servants are all still dead, but no matter. ¥ ٧٠suffer, Job, because you deserve to suffer.” Several fascinating things happen in this dialogue between Job and his friends. The first is that Job actually agrees. His friends are right. This Is the way God works. But they are wrong too, Job avows. He is, despite what they say, innocent, completely and totally. That’s what makes their theology, which sounds so right and good, in actuality so utterly wrong and horrible. ¥ ٧٠see, it is not applicable here. Here, we have a good man, a good Job, at the start. But instead of a good end to the story, there is a tragic one. This system, this retribution theology that the friends espouse just doesn’t work. God may work this way sometimes, but certainly not always. “I am innocent!” Job maintains. The friends disagree. They become more and more hostile in their condemnation of Job, and Job becomes more and more adamant about his innocence and the injustice of his situation. And it goes on like this for 33 chapters. In the middle of this maelstrom, another fascinating thing happens. Since his friends refuse to listen, Job decides to take his case to the One that is responsible in the first place. He complains to God. And with such pathos! And with such honesty! And with such boldness, if not arrogance! Listen to what he says:

    If I summoned [God] and he answered me, I do not believe that he would listen to my voice. For he crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause; he will not let me catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness… ·he destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks the calamity of the innocent… ■He has tom me in his wrath, and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me….I was at ease, and he broke me in two; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target….He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground.” (9:16-20. 22-24; 16:7a,9,11-14)

    Who among us would dare say such things—of God no less?! But that is what Job says. In such pain, all he can end with is simply, plaintively, “Where then is my hope? Who will see my hope?” (17:15). All the while the friends are getting more and more nervous. They smell heresy here! It won’t do to have such talk in church! And friendship and compassion get thrown to the wind in their attempt to justify God and God’s ways. Their systematic theology—if we might call it that—is inflexible, absolutely rigid, completely settled.

    Page 59

    There is no room for a Job in it. And there is definitely no room for this Job. Then comes the most fascinating part of all. At the end of the book, as you know, God finally comes on the scene to survey the situation and to have a word with those involved. God speaks primarily to Job; there is only one comment to the friends, and it is directed to Eliphaz. Listen to what God says to him: “My wrath bums against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7,9). Now wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Those things Job said about God, about the universe, about everything—all that anger, that pain, that suffering speech—that was right! And all those things that the friends said about God always rewarding the just and always punishing the unjust—that was not right? That was wrong? The Book of Job seems to be telling us that just when you feel like you have God all figured out and just when you are ready to box God up into a nice little package of theology, religion, spirituality, whatever—watch out! God may just end up bursting out. God may end up freer than our systems allow! God may end up saying and showing that our little finite minds and our little finite theologies are not e؟uipped to deal ultimately and exhaustively with the Infinite. Indeed, it may be that some of our talk of God will end up being wrong: “You have not spoken right of me as my servant Job has.” You see. Job’s God, our God, is not subject to our whims, our pleasures, our every desire, not e v e o re v e ty prayer. Job’s God,ﻢﻤﺤﻣ-ﻢﺳ ,is God. No less! Gurtheologies —even our best constructed, best informed, and most well-meaning ones—are not God. That is what Job’s friends learn, and they learn it from God’s own mouth.

    Job’s God and God’s Answer (Job 38:1-42:17) But they end up getting off easy. Job leams what they learn too, but he learns more because God has more to say to him. Job finally gets what he has wanted, begged for, demanded: audience with Almighty God. But it ain’t all it’s cracked up tobe!

    Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Prepare yourself…I will (question you, and you shall inform me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!” (38:1-4)

    Now hold on. The Scripture says that God answered Job. This is supposed to be an answer? It’s no answer at all. Instead, all Job gets for all his eloquence, for all his suffering, for all his pain-full theology is the question: “Where were you, boy, when I laid the foundation of the earth?” Job can say nothing. Now could he? How could he respond to this odd, this uncontrollable, this radically free God? This God who is God—no less!? All Job can say is, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know… .1 had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I recant, and repent of dust and ashes” (42:3b, 5). Maybe when everything is said and done, then, Job’s innocence and uprightness

    Page 60

    and all that doesn’t really matter, at least not in the faee of the question “Where were you?” That question views Job’s suffering on a eosmie scale, and from that perspective , as tragic and significant as Job’s suffering is,ttjust isn’t that tragic ٢٠significant. Job says it himself: “1 am of small account; what could 1 (possibly) say to you?” (40:4). And yet this overwhelming, almighty God is the same God who says, “Job, my servant, spoke right of me.” And this is the same God who comes to Job in his suffering, exactly where he needed God most and where he has longed to see God most and where he has begged for God to meet him most. This God of the universe, this God of the whirlwind and of the cosmic perspective, this God who asks, “Where were you?”—this is the God who nevertheless, despite all that, still shows up at the ash heap where Job scrapes his latest blister with a piece of broken pottery.

    Conclusion When you stop and think about that, it is absolutely stunning. But before we get caught up in it, 1 think we should ponder God’s question to Job further. For as harsh as that question seems, we mustn’t shirk it, because it is of critical importance for people like us—people who faithfully attend church—who go to camp meetings even!—committed Christian folks who know our way around a hymnal and a Bible and thus presumably know something about God and can speak about God knowingly and wisely. We—our type—we have God down, don’t we? We know what God would say on subject X, y, ٢٠z! That’s our job! But where were we when God laid the foundation ofthe earth? ()h,I know. 1 know, 1 know: when the pressure is on, we can always defer to our forebears who certainly knew more than we do! We have traditions, don’t we, and doctrine and theologians and denominations! But the question won’t die: Where were you, Martin Luther? Where were y0 H, John Calvin? And, perish the thought, you good Methodists among the Kinfolk, Where were you, Mr. Wesley? But most humbling of all, foe question hits close to home: Where were you, Brent? “Uhh,me? Umm, nowhere.” Could any answer be more obvious? I wasn’t there! ¥ ٧٠weren’t there! Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and all the others weren’t there! But could any question be harder to hear? It bespeaks our limitations, our finitude, our lack of knowledge about all that God might be and all that God might be up to in this world. It warns us that we ought to be careful with our theology—let it not be too precise, too rigid, too settled. For there is seldom room for a Job in a theology like that. And God might just break out of a theology like that. God may just end up appearing in a whirlwind asking, “Where were you?” And that is no small question. For you see, in foe final analysis, fois is not just a theological question; it is also a pastoral question, even for those of us who are not ordained. Don’t forget that these well-meaning but ill-informed friends (every one of them un-ordained) who came and sat down next to Job came to comfort him and console him in his time ٢٠need. But they did nothing ٢٠foe sort. They placed their system of belief above foeir compassion for their friend, and in their concern to be true to foe system, they betrayed him. His words were more than they could bear, too irreverent they thought. He must be crushed somehow. Or at least corrected. But it is their words that are finally and ultimately condemned, not by Job ٢٠by the harsh facts ٢٠life, but by God’s own lips. And, in the end, it is Job who becomes foeir pastor, interceding on foeir behalf for foeir forgiveness as he offers sacrifices

    Page 61

    for them and prays for them. So too for us, I think, when we encounter the many Jobs that will cross our paths. Some will only think they are Job; some will really be Job. But it doesn’t m atter-the effect is the same: Job is always with us, and Job always wants an answer.1 Ultimately, only God can provide that answer. So the question is whether or not we will rush in after Job’s friends giving their answers, saying things like:

    “God wanted this—wanted your brother to die this way.” “That atrocity overseas happened to get those people’s attention.” “You probably lost your job because you aren’t right with God.” “Look, I’m really sorry about your cancer, but it happened so that God would bring good of it.” “Those people deserve everything they get.”

    Those are words worthy ofEliphaz the Temanitc, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They are not worthy, however, ofJob, not the book and not the man. And they are not worthy of Job’s God. And so, they are not worthy to speak to the Job you will be staring in the eyes sooner ٢٠later, scraping his or her latest sore with a piece of broken pottery. So, is God always anything? It would seem that the Book ofJob says no, at least on some points. God has the freedom and ability to break out and do new things (like Isaiah says), to act in new ways, to not be confined by systems or ideologies, wellmeaning or not. And that means we can’t be too quick in presuming that we know what God is doing in someone’s life and why God is doing it ٢٠even i/God is doing it, especially if we are talking about someone’s suffering. So, no, God isn’t always anything, if that anything in any way limits the freedom of God to be God. But that just shows that God is always something in the Book of Job and that is that God is always God. ٠٧less! And there is something else to be said about this God who is always God: this God is with us when we suffer, when we sit on the ash heap. And that’s why we know that God is light; in God there is no darkness—not even one bit. We know this, not from our own experience, for if we are honest, truly honest, we must admit that we don’t always experience God that way. But we know of God’s goodness nevertheless, not only from the First Bpistle of St. John ٢٠because the God of the whirlwind shows up at the ash heap in the Book ofJob. We also know of God’s goodness because of the pathos of the one who suffered not only with us, but for us, our Lord Jesus Christ. And if he has suffered, then we can too—whether it be as bad as, worse than, ٢٠less than his servant Job. And when we suffer, maybe God will meet us there, too. For God met Christ in his suffering at the ash heap of Golgotha. And God also met us in Christ’s suffering, just as God met Job in his.

    Note 1 Archibald MacLeish, J.B.: A Play in Verse (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986). 12-13.

    Lem 2 1 4ه

  • Don’t stone the minister

    This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

    Page 17

    Don’t Stone the Minister

    Lillian Daniel

    First Congregational Church ucc, Glen Ellyn, Illinois

    Today’s story comes from the Old Testament. It is one of many “grumbling stories.” These are stories, and there are many of them, where the people who had been slaves in Egypt are wandering around the dessert with Moses as their leader, and they start to grumble. In one earlier story, they grumble about having to eat the manna from heaven and wish that they could return to Egypt where they had cucumbers , leeks, and melons, even if they had been slaves. And in this grumbling story that comes a little later, they are frustrated that there is not enough water to drink. They’ve been camping for a long time, this motley crew, who by now in the story are called a “congregation.” And they are frustrated with their leader Moses, who by now is really their pastor. They’ve been together for a while, this pastor and this congregation, and they are starting to get on each other’s nerves.

    Exodus 17:1-7 From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us ٢٠not?” On Seminary Sunday, a day when we try to lift up the vocation of ministry, it is only fitting that we hear a story about a religious leader who is about to be pelted with rocks by his congregation. And by the way, for a while I have wondered if anybody reads that sign outside our church with the weekly sermon title, and I think the answer is No. I mean, 1 have had a sign outside the church for a week that says, “Flease don’t throw rocks at the pastor,” and not one person has commented on it. Never mind the title, not one person has asked, “Lillian, are you ok or are you having a bad day?” Nothing, so I conclude one of two things, either you don’t read the sign, or you saw it and thought, “Ah, the usual public service announcement.” Yes, on the day when we hope that God is stirring someone’s heart to join the next generation of leaders for the church, it is only fitting that we hear a story about people who nagged their leader for water, accused him of ruining their lives, and wem on to plot physical violence. And if he’d had a church sign, Moses might have needed to hide behind it. Furthermore,on a Sunday when we pray that God will notjust lift up some people.

    Fentecost 2014

    Page 18

    but that God will lift up the right peopie to attend seminary, the people of a mature faith, a reasonable spirit, and a balanced ego, it is only fitting that we should hear the story of a religious leader who is so worked up about his own program, so disconnected from his people, so puffed up with arrogant self-righteousness that when criticized, all he can think to say is “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” As if Moses and the Lord were one and nobody had a right to question a thing. No wonder his congregation wanted to stone him. Moses had become obnoxious. The relationship between the congregation and the pastor is a delicate one, prone to the sinfulness of humanity on both sides of the equation. After all, religious organizations are still, at their root, human organizations. And any organization that admits human beings into its midst is going to have problems. 1 have often said that if we could just kick all the people out of the church, we could really live up to our ideals. And that includes clergy. Let’s face it, we’re all human, and therefore we’re always going to fall short of the divine calling in some way. But some times can be worse than others. And this story from Exodus was one of those worse times. The congregation and the pastor were falling short of one another’s expectations to such a degree that things had grown unpleasant. And when you read this story from so many thousands of years ago, another country, another people, an entirely foreign culture to our own, that grumbling and those tensions probably sound familiar Anyone who has ever been in any kind of leadership knows about some of this. The group begins to grumble, they stew over discontents that can start small and grow larger, and they point their fingers at the leader, wondering why he hasn’t fixed it. This could be the church, the PTA, or your last staff meeting. The leader, in turn, has grown defensive. Because of all that grumbling, he has stopped enjoying talking to his people. And you can understand that too, can’t you? If every interaction is a complaint about the water ٢٠the food or the tents ٢٠the direction …well, you can see why Moses might have pulled back a little and stopped talking to his people. $ ٠that when they finally did get his ear and complained about the water shortage that he wasn’t able to do anything about, he said, “If you quarrel with me, you’re quarreling with the Lord.” And in that statement, Moses moved from a defensive posture ofleadership to an arrogant posture,and while we may understand how he got there, ultimately neither one of those works. Now, Moses did have the word of God in his ear. I don’t doubt that. But having the word of God in your ear doesn’t mean you always get it right. There can be static on the line. And to be a strong and faithful leader, you have to * this: that you can be in communication with God, but nobody, and I mean nobody, gets a direct line. But the congregation Moses served also should have been talking to God. As people offaith,we don’tbelieve that onlythe pastor should talk to God,although there are times when we can act as if we think that. Sometimes religious communities can rely so heavily upon a leader that they become lazy in their own spiritual practices. They treat the pastor as the sort of professional Christian, asking the minister to say the blessing at meals ٢٠offer the prayer at the meeting, as if everyone else at the table is incapable of doing so. If a church is committed to building discipleship in all its members, that’s a dynamic you don’t want to slip into. But I think that’s what had happened to the Israelites in the desert. They had fallen oft in their own religious

    Page 19

    practices, in their own ministries, and were devoting all their energy toward criticizing the ministry of their leader. They were thirsty, and there was no water, and rather than go out looking themselves, they focused on Moses. In some ways, the Israelites in this story were like six-year-olds playing soccer. You know how six-year-olds play soccer? They all follow the ball around in a big, mad pack. Nobody passes, nobody spreads out, and they just all clump around the ball. Well, human organizations can be like that too. They can all clump around the leadership and fight each other for the ball,criticizing the other members ofthe clump, in particular the leaders. But meanwhile, there’s nowhere for that ball to go because they’re stuck in a clump. And that’s what had happened to Moses and the people. The people had relinquished their own leadership and discipleship to him and were engaged in a ministry of criticism. And Moses, his problem was that he had allowed them to relinquish their leadership and discipleship over to him. Out there in the dessert, he had allowed himself to become the go-to guy for everything, ?erhaps he even enjoyed that feeling at the beginning, was excited to feel that needed and admired. But as his stature went up, die congregation’s responsibility went down, and he was stuck being the answer man for a group that had far too many questions for one person to deal with. Has this ever happened to you when you were working with a group? He was exhausted, run down, even resentful of the people, but he had allowed it to happen. And that was how the courageous leader who led the Israelites across the desert and out of slavery deteriorated into a self-righteous whiner who cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” It’s a mess. In writing on leadership, the author Ronald Heifetz distinguishes between technical problems and adaptive problems. Atechnical problem is a problem with a clear and simple solution. Tor example, a strep throat is generally a technical problem. There is a medication you can take that usually wifi take care of it. But a heart condition is more of an adaptive problem. There are no easy answers. You may do surgery, you may do medication, but you’ll also be looking at diet and exercise. An adaptive problem does not have a simple answer in that it may involve changing any number of things, perhaps your whole way of life. So there are technical problems with simpler solutions and adaptive problems that are more complex. In this book Leadership Without Easy Answers, Heifetz says that organizations get in the most trouble when they mistake an adaptive problem for a technical problem. They try to solve a complex problem with easy answers, and often the group plays into this by not taking responsibility and by looking to a leader who also plays into it by trying to solve the problem all by himself. The situation Moses and the people had gotten into is a perfect example of this kind of organizational psychology. The people complained that they were thirsty and blamed Moses for not taking them someplace that had water, but the issues were deeper than that. Well, this story actually has a happy ending. And that’s why it works for Seminary Sunday and works for any one of us who has ever been in an organization crazy enough to admit human beings. This story has a happy ending, but it also has a lesson that is better than anything an organizational psychologist could come up with. It’s an ending that informs my ministry and that of many others, and I hope it will inform your ministries, here or out in the world as well. For the next part ofthe story goes like this: God, yes, God, intervenes. And God says to Moses, “Go on ahead of

    Lem 2 1 4ه

    Page 20

    the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with whieh you struek the Nile, and go. I will he standing there in front of you on the roek at Horeb. Strike the roek, and water will eome out of it, so that the people may drink.” And Moses did so. And it was the smartest thing he eould have done. But you may he thinking, which part of this was smart? I mean, Moses had no options. Ne was all out of ideas. And then God essentially takes Moses to a place where there is water and shows him where it is so that the people can drink. What’s smart about that? Moses gets spoon fed a solution, right? Well, what’s smart is that Moses recognized he was out of ideas and stopped his acting out and turned instead to the place where he could be changed. He prayed. First step in an organizational dilemma should be prayer. Humility. Admitting to God that I have no idea what to do here. And then listening with imagination and hope for an answer. And in prayer, Moses got his answer, although it was a strange one. But in that plan with the stick and the elders and the water, God was working on Moses, trying to teach him something . You see, the story could have gone several different ways. First, God could have just made water appear, right there, like a giant water cooler in the middle of desert. And that would have taken care of the technical problem, the people were thirsty; but it would not have taken care of the adaptive problem, the congregation was not functioning well. Another way this could have gone is that God could have told Moses where the water was and sent him there with a bucket alone to get it. Moses could have come back with this bucket full of water and been a hero. But again, that would have solved the technical problem, the people were thirsty, but not the a (laptive problem, Moses had been a lone ranger too long and it was limiting what the congregation could do. So, God leads Moses in a third option that will address both the technical and the adaptive problem and lead the organization back to health. And that is, God insists that Moses not do this alone, but he calls some other people to do it with him. The scripture says it very plainly: “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you.” So God is saying, “Don’tjust take anyone, don’t just take the whole gang, take the elders.” And here, elders does not mean simply old people. Elders means the respected leaders, tried and true, who have been doing the ministry and the work of the people and who ought to be part of this event. “Take the elders,” God says. “Do not do this alone.” And then, in God’s genius, God does not make the water appear right there. He makes them all venture out to another place to get the water. So by having them travel, they had to spend time together. Moses had to get off his high horse of martyrdom and misery, and the elders had to step up to the plate and stop complaining and join him in solving a very serious problem of water for thirsty people. Moses and the elders had to come together, and the larger congregation stayed back and took care of things at the camp. At this point in the story, they had stopped being ‘ playing soccer. Now they all had their positions on the field, different ‘ different tasks, but a unified vision. The organization was returning to health. When Moses did find water, not because of his genius, but because of God’s, the scripture points out that it happened “in the sight of the elders of Israel.” They witnessed God’s miracle and were humbled by it together. A leader who had grown disconnected and a congregation that had set to grumbling were now ready to do

    Page 21

    ministry again. I think ab©ut these stories from Exodus every day. And I think anybody who works with people should think about them every day as well. But in partieular as a religious leader, these are the stories 1 read to be eorreeted, to be inspired, to be reminded that God’s been working on our group dynamies for a while. These stories tell us what our shared ministry should not be, but they also point to what it ean be when we work together, all of us playing our own positions on the held. On this Seminary Sunday, when we as a eongregation eonsider what it would mean to produee future leaders for toe ehureh who will go to seminary, while that is a noble goal, let’s not think that that alone is toe answer. We can produce as many ministers as we want, but if we don’t have toe elders as well, we’ll end up like Moses at his worst, cursing at his critics, and like that congregation at its worst, complaining about but not doing toe ministry. Instead, if we study these stories and take discipleship seriously, we can be toe church at its best. We can be toe Israelites at their strongest, being brave and courageous in the desert, standing together for what is right under toe toughest of circumstances . If we take shared leadership seriously, we can be toe soccer team that has toe confidence to spread out across toe field so that, for example, some of you spread out in ministry teams throughout the church while others of you may be doing your ministry work in your jobs or your school or in civic life. The playing field then becomes large wito more than enough room for the team to spread out. And as we spread out, some of us may go to seminary, some of us may go to cooking school, some of us may study religion, some of us may study economics, some of us may write sermons, some of us may write letters to toe editor, some of us may teach Sunday school, some of us may teach elementary school, but every one of us is playing a crucial position, and all of us are on toe same team. It’s that kind of game that got toe Israelites out of the desert and into toe ?romised Land. And if you remember the story, Moses didn’t get to see it. He died before arriving . It was as if God wanted to make this same point one last rime. It’s not about one player. It’s about the whole team.

    Pentecost 2014