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  • ‘Where Do We Begin?’: Genesis 1:1-3

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    “Where Do We Begin?”

    Genesis 1:1-3

    Jon Komperda

    Toledo, Ohio

    In the beginning, there was a cardboard box and packaging tape hung off one side, tattered and torn, flimsy and feeble, destined—to any rational adult—for the trash. But not for a child, little images of God with big imaginations of grandeur. My five-year-old’s voice echoed the Vox Dei, “Let there be … Let us make … Let us make for ourselves … a vending machine.” (Yes, my kids are strange. Maybe it’s because we never let them get things out of vending machines in public or maybe it’s the engineering challenge, but this one always wants to make vending machines.) Anyway, being the good father that I am, I just roll my eyes. Meanwhile, he scurries off to the pantry to fill his arms with pre-packaged snacks to vend and then returns to subdue the hopeless brown remnant of cardboard. Again, always the playful and compassionate father, I prepare for the moment when the laws of physics kick in and my son ends up weeping over all the ways this project isn’t resembling the vending machine in his mind. And I look at the complete chaos in front of me and think, “Where do we begin?”

    The Bible begins with “complete chaos.” Let’s read from Genesis 1.

    When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

    The NRSVUE says, “Complete chaos.” The Hebrew is a really fun phrase: tohu vabohu. I won’t blame you if you want to try saying it on your own: “tohu vabohu .” Sometimes it’s translated, “Formless void” or “Wild and waste.” In the science world, they talk about life emerging from “Primordial soup.” Which are all ways of saying, “tohu vabohu … complete chaos.” That’s where I want to begin—with two brief observations about this text and then we’ll get to the good stuff:

    1. Gen. 1 doesn’t begin with nothing. It begins with tohu vabohu. There is an old Christian doctrine—and like many old Christian doctrines, theologians like to sound smart by saying it in Latin. Creatio ex nihilo. It means that God created “out of nothing.” And I don’t dispute that doctrine . But it’s more of a philosophical doctrine than a biblical one. At least it’s not quite the picture Genesis 1 paints for us. In the beginning of

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    Genesis, there isn’t nothing. There is tohu vabohu, formless void, wild and waste, complete chaos.

    2. Gen. 1 doesn’t really say anything new to the ancient world about the biological origins or structures of the material cosmos.1 If you were to take ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian creation texts and try to draw a rough sketch of the material universe, you would end up with something pretty similar to what you get when you do the same with Genesis 1. Genesis 1 is not really speaking to us about the scientific origins of the material world. It is about something more important. Linguistically, textually, thematically, literarily, this little poem is a way of imagining and expressing other biblical stories, namely the stories of Exodus and Exile. In Genesis 1, God splits the waters … sound familiar? In Genesis 1, God speaks ten times … you might call them ten “commandments.” There are seven days in this creation poem … the same number of days as the building and consecration of the Temple. Ideas like “image of God” and a divine being “resting” in a temple, these are theological concepts in the cultures of Egypt and Babylon that the Genesis poet is taking and transfiguring, reimagining, even subverting. Genesis 1 is a word to slaves, to exiles, to those suffering in the tohu vabohu of Empire, and it’s a word … in Divine poetic time … to those who bear witness to the crucified body of Jesus. It’s a word for all who look out on tohu vabohu and ask, “Where do we begin?” Genesis 1 is where WE begin as we look out over the tohu vabohu, the complete chaos, the wild and waste that we see in the world around us, in electoral politics, in places torn apart by warfare or by natural disaster, in this post-Christendom era of the American Church, and maybe even in our own lives and sense of vocation and belonging … or is that just me? Where do we begin? We begin with God. As the Apostle Paul says, “Be imitators of God.”2 So a vision of the Christian life begins with a vision of the character of God. But where does God begin? Now I’m going to do a little faithful risk-taking. Because when we look out at the chaos, many of us like to hold onto a little phrase. You’ve certainly heard it, and probably—like me—used it: “God is in control.” Here’s what I want to say to us as we not only look out upon the tohu vabohu, but as we dare to lead in the name of Jesus. In the beginning, we don’t see a God who is in CONTROL. We see a God who is CREATING. As activists, as leaders, as visionaries, sometimes we’re tempted to imagine and to lead like we have a blank canvas and a whole palette of materials and we can paint our utopia ex nihilo. Naw. We’ve got a cardboard box and some scotch tape!

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    Journal for Preachers

    God is not in control. God is creating. And the work of creation, as we know, really doesn’t feel like being in control at all. Creation is existing in the liminal space of hope and limitation, idea and reality, imagination and the laws of physics. That’s why it’s helpful to know this story isn’t about creation ex nihilo. When God creates, God takes the tohu vabohu and hovers … and speaks … and declares it good … or good enough. It’s helpful to know that if Gen. 1 is about Exodus, creation is going to feel like juggling a hardhearted narcissistic Pharaoh and stiff-necked Stockholm-syndromed slaves and wandering in the complete chaos of wilderness … and declaring it a good enough beginning of something new. If Gen. 1 is about Exile, creation is going to feel like trying to convince disoriened and devastated exiles to build houses and plant gardens and seek the welfare of someone else’s city, to do something new as strangers in a strange land. Creation feels like asking a young woman for permission to become small in her womb and vulnerable in her arms and helpless on a cross as she weeps before you. And this was good enough for the Savior of the world, who didn’t just hover over, but plunged into tohu vabohu from baptism to cross, whose very life felt uncomfortably like tohu vabohu to people who were just trying to manage and keep balance and survive under the weight of Empire’s taxes and temptations and threats. A Savior who beckons us to join him not in a distant realm of clouds and harps comfortably above the complete chaos of the world, but who beckons us down with him into the waters of baptism and up with him, Cross on shoulder, onto Golgotha. Jesus tells us to meet him in the tohu vabohu. So where do we begin? We begin by bearing witness to a God who creates rather than controls. Who takes the tohu vabohu, the slavery and exile, the broken and poured out body of Jesus, and infuses abundant possibility, makes a way out of no way, transfigures wounds of crucifixion into icons of resurrection. Be imitators of the Creator. Give up on controlling and conquering and cajoling. Work with what you have. Risk faithfully into the creative process that is filled with frustration and vulnerability, stops and starts, hard hearts and stiff necks, disorientation and disillusionment and deaths of all kinds. Because I can tell you this. Something beautiful happens when I stop rolling my eyes at the cardboard vending machine project and plunge myself into my child’s vision . I learn from him the lessons of play, of creative imagination, and when I hover over the tohu vabohu of cardboard and scotch tape and packages of fruit snacks and granola bars and hear myself speak words of possibility to him and hold the rough pieces together ever so gently, I suddenly find myself as tenaciously devoted to this strange, messy project as he is. And he learns from me the lessons of good enough and the wisdom of our limitations. And he leaves space in his imagination for both order and chaos, light and dark, beauty and mess. And eventually, we look at one

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    another and smile and sigh, satisfied at the odd thing we’ve created together that shockingly does bear some good enough resemblance to a vending machine … if only to us, if only for that short moment before it all falls apart. And then we begin again.

    Notes 1. These observations are mostly borrowed from biblical scholar John Walton, and can be found in his work The Lost World of Genesis 1. 2. Ephesians 5:1

  • ‘Invested Liberation’

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    ((Invested Liberation

    ))

    Matthew 18:21-35

    Emily McGinley

    San Francisco, California

    I recently received an email from my bank. They were generously offering to cut my credit card interest rate to 7%—^basically 30% of its current rate—for six months. Now, I immediately deleted it because that’s what I do with junk email. And I didn’t think too much about this until I reflected more deeply on our passage for today. Be­ cause, between the bank and the king in this story, what we have here is an account of two very different economies. It begins with a scene familiar enough to us. There’s a crediting agency—the king—and the bills have come due. Here comes a slave—the passage calls them a servant, but they are a slave, because that’s what anyone who has maxed out ev­ ery and any line of credit that they, their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren combined could ever have, really is: a slave. And this king— who is really a stand-in for God—let this servant get way too far into debt. Although the worth of a talent varied in different periods, ten thousand talents represented between thirty and one hundred million days’ wages for an average peasant—a lot of work. This dude owes the king more money than existed in circulation in the whole country at the time! This is lifelong, generationsdebt and they will never be able to pay the king back; it’s beyond impossible. He was a fool to get so far in debt and, frankly, the king had been a fool to let him get away with it. Why? Why did the king allow the debt to go so far? Why would the king extend so much credit? And I’ll pause here to remind us of my six months’ lowered interest offer. Why would they be so generous? Why would they want to make it so easy to run up my debt? The answer is pretty obvious to us, right? They want to lower my interest rate so that I’ll maybe splurge a little more than usual—or even, a lot more than usual— hoping that I’ll come out the tail end of those six months carrying debt that I hadn’t planned for. Debt that I can’t pay off right away. Debt that they can charge me that original interest rate on every month I roll it over. And, of course, you can sort of see this little thought-bubble skit that is playing out in the heads of those banking marketers as they rub their hands together, adding up the dollars and cents. And this is our economy, right? You can’t get through life in this country without some kind of debt—even if it’s student loans—and all that debt comes with an interest rate be­ cause that’s the price you pay to spend money you don’t have. We know this and we have known this since the day we turned 18 and people were offering us, not voting registration forms, but free t-shirts and baseball hats and bonus points to sign up for their credit card. It all sounds like a good idea at the time, but, well, it’s a trap.

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    But in our story for today, we have a different situation. The creditor—the king—does something that seems pretty much unthinkable. This poor schmuck, who is so far in over his head in debt he doesn’t know which way is up, gets the break of a lifetime. He kneels down before the king and begs him, “Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.” The king has compassion on him and gives him a pass. It’s not that the king sets him up with a graduated payment plan or even cuts the debt down. The king completely eliminates it. And, honestly, it just doesn’t make sense. First of all, why would he let someone who clearly has limited finances run up that kind of debt? And then, why would the king totally erase it? Doesn’t the king know how to run a kingdom? Like, who put this guy in charge, right? But of course, this is what Jesus is trying to explain about how God’s economy of grace works: we are not on the hook to pay back all the debt that we have accrued. In fact, that’s impossible. And, I mean, I really don’t know what this servant did to get that far in, but even if you start adding up all the side-eyes, eye rolls, and death stares we give, right there we’ve racked up at least a couple of weeks worth of wages. And that’s just the eyes! That’s not including the the selfishness, self-centeredness, and casual cruelties we inflict on one another knowingly and unknowingly. We might not be that bad, but we ain’t that good either. And Jesus’s point is like, “This is God! She wants you to live free from the crushing burden of all the ways you have failed yourself, the people around you, and God herself!” God’s grace is so deep, and so unimaginable, that it doesn’t make sense and, really, is impossible to totally grasp. This is what Jesus is trying to say. But that’s only the first half. The passage began with this question from Peter: “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times?’ 1’5

    Jesus answers, “Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times.” And it’s easy to want to be put off really quick. Because, biblically, seventy-sev­ en times is basically, just a lot of times. An infinite number of times. And that feels wrong, it feels almost unfair. And I’m sure it’s been mishandled in abusive ways. Folks have been gaslighted into enduring oppressive circumstances and toxic rela­ tionships by verses like these. But here’s the thing: that’s only the first half of what Jesus says. He goes on to say, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servant,” which, is this abundantly generous, impossibly forgiving king, right? But that’s not the end of the story! The servant walks out from underneath this guillotine of debt, free and clear with a new lease on life, only to roll up like Rihanna on someone else, being like “Pay me what you owe me!” This dude literally says the same thing that the servant said to the king—“Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.”—but instead of the com­ passion that he just got served, the servant comes down hard on this guy and throws him in jail until he can pay him back. Now, when the king finds out about this, he is

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    Journal for Preachers

    like, “Wait, what? Uh-uh,” He withdraws his earlier ruling and gives the servant the same kind of treatment he gave to the other guy. Jesus started out by saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servant,” and we all thought that this was a warm and fuzzy kind of situation until we realize that this king isn’t playing. So, when Jesus says, at the end, “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if you don’t forgive your brother or sister from your heart,” we realize that God isn’t out here writing blank checks. No, God is making an investment. Because, here’s the thing: God isn’t a schmuck. God is radically gracious, yes. Radically forgiving, yes. Radically generous, yes. But God is no fool. And because God is no fool; because God has expectations about who you should be and knowl­ edge about who you are capable of being, God isn’t ready to let your humanness get in the way of you living into the fullness of who you were created to be. And so, God seeks to pull us out of the realities, the circumstances, the legacies of activity that have held us back; to clear out our debts. But what God can’t stand, what God won’t put up with, is entitlement and ingratitude. God seeks our liberation—^but not just for ourselves, not just so I can go out and get mine. God seeks our liberation … for the liberation of others. God is ready to forgive—God wants to forgive—but it is not without strings attached. It may not be -20% interest, but you better recognize your liberator! And because of this, God does not forget, because there are expectations tied to that for­ giveness. And this is where things can start to feel a little tricky, because what gets in the way of us really understanding what God’s grace and forgiveness is all about is that we live in a world that is transactional. And because we live in a world that’s transactional, this idea that there are strings attached to God’s grace and forgiveness can quickly be interpreted as something it’s not. This is not a tit-for-tat arrangement. We don’t “pay God back.” (As if that’s even possible.) Nor is it like buying carbon credits to offset our carbon footprint. This is how the capitalistic, consumer-oriented, culture that we’ve been raised in would have us think. But God’s economy runs on a different kind of currency; a denomination of gifts and graces. So, we have to sort of get out of that mindset because it’s not that binary and it’s not that tight. God’s grace and gift of forgiveness demands something, but it’s not pay back and it’s not even exactly pay forward (although it’s not not that). God’s grace and forgiveness, like I said before, is an investment. It’s an investment in our liberation, our transformation, and our vocation. The king did not free the servant so that he could go out and shake down someone else. He freed the servant so the servant could experience a renewal of self worth that would compel him to go out and live his life fully—and make it possible for others to do the same. God’s economy is not “I do for you and you do for me,” it’s “I do for you and you do for others—and they do for still more … on and on and on.” God is not in your life to write blank checks, God is mak­ ing an investment. This is where a theology of personal salvation gets things wrong.

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    It’s not just about me and Jesus; it’s about me and Jesus and me and you and me and all of us, together. God wants to liberate you so that you can liberate others. I’ll say it one more time in another way, just to make sure you got me: it hasn’t changed your life if it’s not changing someone else’s life in some way. You don’t have to be a hero; you just need to let yourself be transformed so deeply inside that it can’t help but show up somehow on the outside. Now, this does not mean that there isn’t space for rest. It doesn’t mean that the only faithful response is to do something. For those of us who buy into the idea that our worth is measured according to our productivity, do not hear me saying that what you do determines your value. I really think that the king would have been fine if the servant had walked away and just lived his life, debt-free, being a good and joyful neighbor. It wasn’t that the servant didn’t walk away and immediately become a model citizen; it’s that they walked away and made life hell for someone else! The total lack of compassion, the complete disconnect between the mercy they had re­ ceived and their attack on the next guy was what unleashed God’s anger. God gets angry when justice is perverted and that is exactly what happened in that instance. We are a forgiven people and so we must act like it. This looks like gratitude. This looks like compassion. This looks like recognizing the gift of what you have been given and allowing that to undo the knots that have been formed within. Knots of survivalism, individualism, secrecy, and scarcity. These knots keep us constricted, and if we do not allow God to loosen them, we will choke out any spiritual renewal that God might enact within us. God is not keeping score, but God is paying attention. There is a place for anger in the conversation of forgiveness; when the grace we extend is abused, when it is taken for granted, when it is received with ingratitude, there is room for anger. And. And … there is room for grace. There is another part of this story that I play out in my imagination. It’s the part where the king comes back to the servant in jail and asks him, “Are you ready now? Are you ready to be a changed person? Are you ready to allow the knots that have grown so tight within you to loosen?’’ Pen poised over the checkbook. “I am ready to make an investment. 59

    God’s offer of forgiveness is here for you. It is an ongoing invitation, ready to make a change within you. Are you ready for it? Are you ready to be changed? Do you want to be renewed? Set free and set forth? Receive God’s offer; let it change you, let it liberate you, and let it set you loose for the work of liberation in a world so far in over its head that it can’t even begin to imagine what it looks like to be free.

  • Shimmering and Shuddering

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    Shimmering and Shuddering

    Matt Fitzgerald

    Chicago, Illinois

    Preachers should read more poems and fewer commentaries. A great poem can jolt your faith. Like a 2:00 a.m. knock startling an old dog into her best self, the right poem will make a preacher howl. Finding the right poem is a challenge. Reading poetry can be like trying to find a good song on the radio. There is so much music, and so much of it is awful. The hit-to-miss ratio in these art forms is abysmal. No matter what shape your own taste takes, you have to skim (or ignore or endure) a lot of dross to get the gold. But the gold is incredible. Who wants to live in a world without songs that make you wave your hands in the air and wish the drive was longer?

    Here is the second half of Richard Wilbur’s poem, “Epistemology,”

    “We milk the cow of the world, and as we do

    955 We whisper in her ear, ‘You are not true.

    Like most readers of this journal, I habitually proclaim a Paul Tillich-derived definition of the human condition. Sin is separation, experienced in a tri-fold, di­ sastrously galvanizing manner. Living in a state of sin, we are separated from God, separated from each other, and separated from ourselves. Such precision clarifies, perhaps too much. I love how Wilbur’s understanding of the problem illustrates and obfuscates our orthodoxies. As our story nears its apex, it shimmers and begins to shudder; a speeding train exceeding its own capacities, or a child careening down a hill, arms akimbo, about to spill or fly. As we near the cross and resurrection, we approach what Karl Barth called “an event that takes place precisely at the boundary between what is possible and impossible, what is historical and what is unhistorical, time and eternity.”’ Sud­ denly the narrative shifts from one rooted in time and history to a story “confronted by obscurities and irreconcilable contradictions.”^ A congregant told me, “We should hold the Good Friday service once every three years. It is too intense.” Our longing for God and our inability to withstand His proximity is reflected in the story’s capac­ ity to carry His presence even as His presence explodes it. At this point, it is good to remember Emil Brunner’s insistent observation: “Di­ rect communication is paganism. Direct communication cannot communicate the message of God, but only that of an idol.”’ How are we to preach amidst such ten­ sion? I am not suggesting that we proclaim in poetry. The sermon is its own form. But, when prose, even the prose of the Gospels, shudders with the power it is trying to convey, a retreat or a leap into poetry’s indirect communication seems wise. In her poem “Prayer” Marie Howe names perfectly our hammering desire for God, and our flat refusal of His nearness.

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    The poem’s opening lines say it all. ‘Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important calls for my attention—^the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage I need to buy for the trip. Even now I can hardly sit here”“’

    How can luggage and skin cream be more important than God? The answer to that question points toward the cross. Galway Kinnell’s short poem “Prayer” shares its title with Howe, but is far more opaque. The poem reads as a prayer of supplication, but what Kinnell wants is un­ clear.

    “Whatever happens. Whatever what is is what I want. Only that. But that.”5

    Is he asking for the world, renouncing desire, or surrendering to automatic ne­ cessity? This poem is either a declaration of outrageous faith, or the dullest sort of atheism. Nate Klug’s poem “The Choice” offers a distanced consideration of faith. But the poem’s cool tone is undercut by a disgusting image. The choice Klug presents to the believer is modernity or orthodoxy, an opportunity to analyze your own faith, or to be engulfed by it. The first option:

    “To stand for once outside my faith to steady it caught and squirming on a stick”*’

    Klug told me a childhood memory of gigging frogs informed the poem. But, faith held up and “squirming on a stick” calls to mind a deeper memory: God com­ manding Moses to mount a metal serpent on a pole in order to heal his snake-bitten people. It is faith’s object, caught and squirming on a stick, that Jesus uses to define himself in the Gospel of John. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” This is the struggle Christianity inflicts on the believer’s brain. To hold the cross in “mind’s inviting light” is both necessary and repulsive. We are left, like Klug at the end of his poem, irritated with our inability to understand our faith and waiting to be claimed by it; to be bathed in what another poet called the crucifixion’s “ray of darkness. 99

    In the meantime we are stuck with our sin. One of the few poems I have memorized is “Dinky” by Theodore Roethke. I did not memorize it intentionally. When our children were small, my wife and I read it to them over and over and over again. I wonder where our minds were. “Dinky” sounds like children’s verse, but probably isn’t. The opening lines echo Lewis Carroll.

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    “Oh what’s the weather in a beard? It’s windy there and rather weird.’’

    “Dinky” is a five verse poem. The first four verses observe the work of “Dirty Dinky.” He ruins good weather, lets you step barefoot on a worm, causes pain, ruins your sleep.

    “Last night you lay a-sleeping? No! The room was thirty-five below; The sheets and blankets turned to snow. He’d got in: Dirty Dinky.”

    Who is Dirty Dinky? He’s a trickster; the rotten actor in the story of your life. He sins against you. He is your enemy; the villain. Which means you must be the hero. That’s the logic until the fifth verse drops the hammer.

    “You’d better watch the things you do. You’d better watch the things you do. You’re part of him; he’s part of you You may be Dirty Dinky.”7

    Paul, Augustine, Luther, and the newspaper are all relentless in their insistence that Sin’s dominion is both the cause and the result of the sins we commit. None of them get at this in the innocent rhythms of a children’s poem, and so none of them hit so wickedly. The Polish poet Vasco Popa’s poem “Nails” is eerie, and fable-like. It is part of a series of short poems titled Games. Each of these poems purports to be instructions for a children’s game. To play “Nails” one person is the nail, another the pliers, and the remaining players are workmen.

    “The pliers take the nail by the head They grip him with their teeth and arms

    And tug and tug To get him out of the ceiling Usually they only pull his head off Getting nails out of the ceiling is hard.”

    As a result, the workmen step in to remedy the situation. They express disgust with the pliers’ failure

    “And smash their jaws and snap their arms And throw them out the window’ The poem concludes r”

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    “After that someone else should be the pliers Someone else the nail The others being workmen.”8

    In a 1966 essay hailing Popa’s genius, Ted Hughes described the action in “Nails” as “tireless cruel play within a mysterious nightmare.” I think of soldiers, rolling dice for Christ’s clothing, and the thief mocking him with his dying breath, as perverse as schoolyard bullies plucking wings from butterflies. I think of our annual observance of Christ’s death, a way to name our daily habit of shoving him from our lives. Of the poems in Games Hughes writes, “They are deeper than common reality in the way puppets are deeper than common reality.” Imagine a passion play cast with dead-eyed marionettes. Imagine pulling the strings. ***

    A great poem can lift you into a mode of existence more light-filled, efferves­ cent, and delightful than the everyday, revealing the everyday to be delightful. Dan­ ielle Chapman’s poem “Coda” is transporting.

    “- beyond our grand stupidities – the urgency won’t perish; to be known In one’s own person as crocuses are known by sun, conceiving green to breathe it ” 9 for ravishment by light.

    But just as surely, a great poem can turn the ground beneath your feet uncertain, strip false assurances away, and leave you desperate for Easter. Most preachers know that denouncing sin or bemoaning the tragedy of existence is the easiest part of writ­ ing a sermon. I suspect that even poets who do not believe in sin experience a similar truth. After all, we witness and anticipate death in ways we will never encounter resurrection. I set out to identify a few poems good enough to shock a preacher into the deeper truths of Lent. The search for equally unsparing Easter poems will take much longer. The effort and the search are worth it, because the need is so great. One of the stron­ gest ironies in Christianity is that the resurrection, an event that demands proclama­ tion, utterly defies explanation. Maybe there is no other way. As Emily Dickinson says in poem 1668

    “If I could tell you how glad I was I should not be so glad-” ‘®

    The best preaching advice I have ever read came at the beginning of a long poem I struggle to understand. HD’s poem The Flowering of the Rodhas, forty-six sections. In the third one she writes,

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    “In resurrection, there is confusion if we start to argue; if we stand and stare.

    we do not know where to go; In resurrection there is simple affirmation.

    but do not delay to round up the others, up and down the street; your going

    in a moment like this, is the best proof That you know the way.”ii

    And if you need an image to hang all this on, I suggest you do what Connie Wanek does in her poem “Peaches.” Buy a dozen peaches, and eat them

    “peach after peach without hesitation or apology’ r”

    She finds them disappointing.

    “I wondered what exactly I expected of them. Flavor, I suppose.”

    She is left with her disappointment and with the pit, the stone of the last peach she has eaten. She holds it in her hand and thinks, hopes, that the stone, the pit

    “might offer me I can’t say what, like tea leaves or a fortune cookie, some hint of a changed life. Still moist, still bearing a tassel of flesh, the stone requests a sympathetic burial; it believes that any amicable clay, even mine, is suitable for resurrection.”’^

    May be it be so.

    Notes

    1 Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Ephesians, Baker, 2017, p. 132-33 2 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics Volume IVpart 1, Scribner, 1956, p. 335 3 Emil Brunner and Karl Barth, Natural Theology, Wipf and Stock, 2002, p. 50 4 Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, Norton, 2008, p. 27 5 Galway Kinnel, A New Selected Poems, Houghton Mifflin, 2000 6 Nate Klug, Poetry Magazine, November, 2010 7 Theodore Roethke, Collected Poems, Anchor, 1975, p.l74 8 Vasco Popa, The Rattlebag eds Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes, Faber and Faber, 1985, p. 171 9 Danielle Chapman, Delinquent Palaces, Northwestern, 2014, p. 37 10 Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Back Bay Books, 1976 11 Hilda Doolittle, Selected Poems, New Directions, 1985, p. 165 12 Connie Wanek, Rival Gardens, University of Nebraska Press, 2016 p. 36

  • “Somehow”

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    “Somehow ”

    Matthew 28:1-10; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26; Colossians 1:15-20

    Rebecca Gurney

    Weaverville, North Carolina

    In the 1960s, a group of archaeologists excavated King Herod’s temple at Ma­ sada. They found a pottery jar containing seeds of the Judean date palm, a tree that had been extinct for over eight hundred years. For four decades, those seeds sat in the archaeological collections department of a university, until three of them were planted in Southern Israel in 2005. One seed sprouted. It is the oldest known seed to have germinated and, at that time, was the only living example of the date palm. It grew to ten feet, and they named it Methuselah. Methuselah is still flourishing, and other date palm seeds have been discovered and have sprouted. Scientists hope that they will one day grow a male and female tree, so the species will reproduce for the first time in 800 years. It all began with a few seeds waiting quietly in the dark.1 Methuselah is a testament to life sprouting against all odds. It amazes me when a tiny basil seed manages to grow into a full plant that gives us pesto all summer. And here is a seed that had been dormant for 800 years sprouting and growing into a mature tree. This is an astonishing story about the persistent, regenerative capacity of the natural world. But it is not the same as the story of Easter

    The famous cellist Yo Yo Ma remembers when his father was living in Paris during World War Two. Ma’s father was also an accomplished musician, a violinist. During the war, there was a blackout almost every night. His father said the darkness was terribly frightening and lonely, so he would spend his daylight hours memoriz­ ing pieces of music, and then, when the lights went out, he would play from memory to comfort himself and his neighbors. Years later, during pandemic lockdown, his famous son did the very same thing. He gave free online concerts to isolated people across the world. He played with his doors and windows open to the delight of his neighbors, and eventually, he gave an outdoor performance to honor and remember all who died from Covid.2 This story is a testimony to the healing, comforting power of music. It’s a testi­ mony to the gift of beauty, even in the midst of pain and sorrow and to the creative generosity of those who share their gifts. It’s a beautiful story. But it is not the same as the story of Easter

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    Ten years ago, Richard Joyner, pastor of Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, realized he was conducting at least two funerals every month. Often these services were for young people who died because of poor nutrition. His church is situated in a small town in Eastern North Carolina that was officially labeled a food desert, a place where it is difficult to find healthy food. And even when they could find food, many of his church members couldn’t afford it. Joyner grew discouraged and angry. One day, while he was praying, he got the idea to start a farm for the youth who came to camp at his church. That summer they grew greens and sweet potatoes and delivered the produce to members of their community. Initially there was skepticism about the garden: many of his church members had ancestors who had been share­ croppers or slaves on this land, and the idea of farming brought up painful memories. But they persisted and discovered a way to farm that was redemptive and life-giving. The community had good food, and slowly and steadily, the health of an en­ tire town improved. Joyner said, “The youth enjoy the process [of growing food]. They’re playing out there in the fields.” Their work is also a lesson in science, math­ ematics, and the economics of running a business. The death rate in the town has dropped dramatically. In Reverend Joyner’s church alone, people spend four thousand fewer dollars on medicine each quarter than they did just ten years ago. Today, the Conetoe Family Life Center cultivates twenty-one acres of food.3 In the face of sickness and death, Pastor Joyner saw a way forward, and slowly, steadily his church built a ministry that has brought health and hope to his entire community. This is a story of hope sown from the good work of the church. But it is not the same as the story of Easter.

    In the weeks leading up to Jesus’s death, Jesus’s friend Lazarus grew sick and died. Jesus went to Lazarus’s tomb, where he saw his friends, Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha, weeping alongside all who had gathered there. Jesus wept with them. Then he ordered someone to roll the stone away from the grave. Martha protested, “Lord, he’s been in there four days. It’s going to stink.” But Jesus did it anyway, and he called to Lazarus, who walked out still wound up in his shroud. The mourners freed him from his bonds, and Lazarus was restored to life and to his family. This is an amazing story about Jesus’s ability to heal, even after death. This story reveals Jesus’s authority and his divinity. Soon after restoring his friend to life, Jesus would suffer indignity and humiliation, his body broken and his spirit crushed as he met his own death on the cross. This moment in Bethany is a window into Jesus’s power, a hint that even death may not have the final word. The gospel story makes it clear that we are looking to­ ward Easter when Jesus proclaims, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

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    But even this story is not the same as the story of Easter

    Easter morning is like no other moment in all of history. We’ve got nothing to compare it to, no life experience that we can trot out and say, Oh yes, that reminds me of the time … If Easter is close to anything at all, it’s that moment when God spoke into the darkness: Let there be light. Easter is like nothing that’s happened on earth since the dawn of time. Everyone at that empty tomb is shocked into silence. The earth quakes. The angel appears in blinding light. And the guards and the women are struck dumb. As the women leave, they stumble along, at once terrified and overjoyed. And then they run into Jesus who—in what is perhaps the greatest understatement in all of histo­ ry—just says, “Hello.” Not even Jesus is going to try and explain it. He simply says, “Hello, go tell the others.” Easter is here. The tomb is empty! The Lord is Risen! And we can’t elaborate. We have no language for this, no way to explain it. It is beyond us, bigger than us, bigger than everything. Nevertheless, it is here, right before our very eyes. We don’t witness the actual event of the resurrection, the mysterious power of God that worked in the dark that Easter morning. We see only the empty tomb, and then, the Risen Lord, but they testify to an event like no other. As the meaning of Easter begins to unfold, it’s clear that in Jesus’s death and resurrection, the world has changed forever, and we, too, will be changed with it. That empty tomb is like a black hole in the middle of history, slowly pulling all of creation into its center, only for everything to emerge again on the other side—not just washed, not just a little bit nicer, but entirely, beautifully, inexplicably made new. This is the triumph of love that would not win by coercion or military power or the most convincing argument. It is God who won—who conquered sin and death— simply by being what God has always been, the inexhaustible source of creative, self-giving love. Of course, there are many times—maybe more often than not—when the resur­ rection life loosed on the world feels hidden. The good news of Easter isn’t always laid bare before our eyes. But on this day, we dare to say: Easter is not as hidden as we might think. God is at work in the world. All those stories I told you, they aren’t the same as Easter—Easter is something decisive God did for the world when God raised Jesus; it’s the absolute triumph of good, the vindication of God’s righteous son who invites all of us to participate in the new life made possible in him—but all those stories, they are a reflection of Easter. The triumph of Easter making its slow, steady progress in the world. Easter is not as hidden as we might think. Yes, Easter is about our future—a promise that we, too, will be raised with Jesus, that death will be vanquished and God will make all things new. But that is a future

    Page 31

    promise that reaches back into our lives right now. If our future is kept safe in Jesus, and our past is forgiven, our new life—with and in God—begins now, because we have a living hope. Those stories are not the same as Easter, but they give voice to the hope of Easter at work in the world. In a recent interview, Ukrainian pastor Ivan Rusyn talked about the constant terror and uncertainty of life in his country. But he also said the conflict has helped the church to hammer out its vocation. The church has worked to meet people in their need, providing everything from food and fuel to a space for lament. His people have discovered a generosity and grit that is astounding. In his own life, Rusyn has agonized over prayers unanswered, over his anger at the violence and suffering. But then he said something surprising, “I will follow even if I don’t understand. Whatever is lost. Will I survive? Will my family survive? I will follow anyway, somehow during this year my relationship with God has become more real.”4 Something has gripped Rusyn and his church. They are being transformed amidst their grief and the very real horror of evil, and they have hope. Somehow—he can’t explain it but it’s true. It’s a future hope that is changing their present life. That’s where Easter meets us. It meets us at the cross and the tomb. It meets us where evil is real and death threatens at every turn. It meets us where our relationships are most broken and our hearts are most weary. It meets us in our shame and anger and fear. And it dares to say: there is something else. Something that happened 2,000 years ago that cannot be undone. Easter is not as hidden as we might think. Yes, there is no area of life that is not marked by sin or grief or evil. But there is no piece of that same life that cannot also be made new, even if we cannot always explain how Easter is at work. I love Pastor Rusyn’s word somehow. Somehow, the mystery of Easter is at work. Sometimes it’s below the surface, sometimes it’s in the long, hard road of forgiveness, or the strange way hope keeps popping up. Some­ times it’s the renewing, reconciling work of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, it’s new life that smacks us in the face, unexpected and out of nowhere. Somehow, Easter is not as hidden as we might think. In Jesus Christ, there is no end that cannot be a beginning. Where we expect a sealed tomb, there is an open door. When we’re convinced it’s all over, the Risen Lord meets us and says, “Hello … get moving, go on and spread the word, we’re just getting started here.” That is the joyous, earth-shattering good news of Easter. It’s true this morning for you, for the person next to you, for the person you pray for every day. It’s true for all the world.

    Notes

    1. Tim Flannery, “The Tree Whisperers, ” The New York Review of Books (May 24, 2018), https:// www.nybooks. com/articles/2018/05/24/tree-whisperers.

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    2. Although I have encountered this story in many places, I first heard it in a sermon by Rev. Kristy Farber. 3. Jeff Chu, “How a North Carolina Minister Sowed Seeds of Hope in a Food Desert,” Modern Farmer (October 19, 2017), https://modernfarmer.com/2017/10/north-carolina-minister-sowed-seedshope -food-desert. 4. Ivan Rusyn, “War and the Church in Ukraine: Part 2,” Plough Magazine (March 25, 2023), https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/witness/war-and-the-church-in-ukraine-part-2 .

  • A Letter to the Next Pastor of Christ Church

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    Page 24

    A Letter to the Next Pastor of Christ Church

    Drew Stockstill

    Norfolk, Virginia

    Christ Church is a congregation with a ministry of healing throughfree health clinics for a community with significant barriers to health and well-being.

    1 Colossians 1: 24-29

    I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its minister according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil and strive with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me.

    Dear Pastor, Welcome to what I hope will be one of the great honors of your life—it was for me, and, honestly, this was something that I had to remind myself of often because it was also one of the greatest struggles of my life. You have accepted this task, I’m sure, with all the hopes and expectations of the joy that will surely come, and because I know you are not a naive person, but a mature Christian, you also know personal sufferings lay ahead. While honor and privilege are not too strong of words to ex­ press the feeling of having been trusted and loved by the people of Christ Church and our larger community, I must also tell you truthfully, I have not known pain as sharp and temporarily devastating as the pain of loving this community. Perhaps the greatest wisdom I have gained is how to be both utterly helpless and desperately hopeful at the same time. This is a lesson I learned from my col­ leagues—the nurses who work in our church’s free health clinic. I saw them care for people with cancer who could not afford treatment—utterly helpless and desperately hopeful. They offered relentless hope in the face of shame and disappointment as they treated the wounds of patients with substance disorders. From the nurses, I learned how to care for the largest segment of your new congregation, who do and do not show up on Sunday: Those in the pit of addiction, those with minds tossed in a tornado of mental illness, sex workers, neglectful parents, children whose paths seem as set as the mechanical rabbit at the dog track.

    Page 25

    It is not acceptable in the American vernacular to talk of helplessness, but truth­ fully, Pastor, there is little you will be able to do to fix the things you will see, which you will feel you must fix. You will be able to help a little, and mysteriously, what little you do will be more than you know. But you will be utterly helpless to do much regarding the things that will bring you to your knees. Pastor, your main task is to do more than fix or solve. “The mystery,” the Apostle teaches us, is that, “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” Pastor, you are utterly help­ less but you must be desperately hopeful, for that is the Christ in you—not for your sake or for your glory, but for the sake of this community whose true hope (and for very, very many, only hope) is the hope of glory.

    In the first chapter of his letter to the saints of Colossae, the Apostle writes, “It is [Christ] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom.” And so that is what I hope to offer you, Pastor, warnings and, perhaps, hopefully, some wisdom. Many years ago, when I was interviewing with Christ Church in Pennsylvania, I sat at our kitchen table in Georgia for a long conversation with the retiring pastor about the possibility of becoming the next Director of Health Ministries and pastor. I saw the warning signs. When I got off the phone, my wife asked how it went, “Were there any red flags?” “Ellen, there are nothing but red flags,” I replied. It had everything we are told to avoid: a current pastor without a clear departure plan, a pay cut, negligible lay leadership, isolated from the larger governing body, no contract or assurance I would actually become the pastor; a congregation limping along on a hemorrhaging invest­ ment account, a deteriorating building in an urban neighborhood whose only growth potential was in the numbers of those who are uninsured, undocumented, and those dying from drug overdoses and gun violence. The Holy Spirit was standing on the runway frantically waving all the red flags she could find, but, to my curious dismay, she was waving those flags to signal the safe, if violently turbulent, landing here in this church. So, this is me joining the Holy Spirit on the runway waving a few remaining red flags—warnings—yet offering assurance you can land here and, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Not on account of much you can do, but what Christ will do through you, and Christ in the people of this beloved community. In Colossians 1 the Apostle says this life of discipleship, of pastoral leadership, is, “toil and struggle.” I appreciate the reality check, his honesty, the unfiltered truth­ fulness of the Apostle regarding the nature of what we call ministry. This truthfulness about the futility of ministry, the suffering, the toil and endless striving that are the marks of this work is not a warning away but a welcoming, because in accepting this reality you gain this greater wisdom: our futility reveals the power of God. What is

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    Journal for Preachers

    hidden to many in the perceived bleakness and pessimism, chasing after the wind, is revealed to us, says the Apostle, as the mystery of the word of God. You perhaps already have discovered, but will surely experience here that this mystery is the hope the Apostle says powerfully inspires him with energy to continue to toil and strive in joy. It is sound and fury signifying not nothing, but the Kingdom of Heaven. Chris­ tian maturity is looking at the cross and seeing utter helplessness, a warning away to all who would follow such a path, and being filled, miraculously, with desperate hope. This is the way. The Apostle warns you, Pastor, of his own experience leading this church: “Now I am joyful in my pain over you.” Christian maturity. The cross is a warning and it is wisdom. Christ offered his warnings as well: “do not think I came to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace” (Matt. 10: 34). “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). And of course, the Prophets before him: Warnings and Wisdom. So, I will add my own for you, Pastor, about this church.

    Warning: Everything is broken and it is dangerous to go near. Wisdom: Great is the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.

    Warning: The plans and programs won’t work. Wisdom: God will do something way more exciting … No, not exciting. Often boring, but necessary and very good.

    Warning: Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion are little more than set pieces or wax museum figures if they are only policies and trainings. Wisdom: Real J.E.D.I. is the Kingdom of God. Nonjudgmental communities with authentic welcome and clear, repeated pronouncements of Jesus Christ and his grace are fertile soil for a Pentecost church. It’s not rocket science, nor is it the other things. It’s the gospel. Celebrate and enjoy the diversity of this congregation but do not try to capture it or idolize it or let it be corrupted by politics or it will slip away.

    Warning: “The poor you will have with you … always,” and they can jack up your roof. At a critical mass, they scare away the people who you think could save the church. Wisdom: Jesus healed all of them of every affliction. But some went away because they had many possessions.

    Warning: The congregation that will ask the most of you doesn’t show up on Sunday. Wisdom: If you start worship at the altar during the prelude with the silent prayer, “Please, dear God, help!” or “Lord, I need you to help me love them

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    today.” Or “Lord, where are they?” the prayer at the altar during the last hymn will usually be, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

    Warning: Don’t make promises, especially ones you cannot keep. Wisdom: Speak often, clearly and boldly, of God’s promises which are kept.

    Warning: Glen! Wisdom: He is actually secretly extravagantly generous and will do almost anything you ask of him, just not on time or well.

    Warning: Your newest attendees don’t speak English. Wisdom: Love them in other ways, they bring their friends. I suspect they are part of God’s plan for your time here.

    Warning: Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come. And if they do come it doesn’t mean they will stay. Wisdom: Keep healing ministries at the center of this church and steel yourself to love the ones he sends you. Jesus’s most consistent vehicle of ministry, of proclamation, was free healing. Churches started the first hospitals. Stick to the script. The community of saints won’t let this end.

    Warning: Most of your ideas won’t work. Wisdom: Ask the nurses. They know what does.

    Warning: The bell tower is a danger to the community and a pain in the neck. Wisdom: Hymns play from it three times a day and shower prostitutes and drug dealers and kids walking home from school with the sounds of church.

    Warning: There is so much violence and cruelty on these blocks. Wisdom: They will let you be their pastor and that will break you and that will save you.

    Pastor, Sailors have an important practice called, Watch Standing or Keeping the Watch. At all times, day and night, at sea and on land, sailors rotate the re­ sponsibility so someone is always on watch. This allows others to rest, assured there is someone on the bridge, at the helm, walking the line—someone has the watch. A sailor may not leave the watch until properly relieved, when his or her replacement arrives and announces, “I have the watch.” To which the reply is, “You have the watch.”

    Pastor, “You have the watch.”

    Helplessly Hopeful, Pastor Drew

  • ‘Who We are Becoming in Christ’

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    Page 44

    (iWho We are Becoming in Christ

    Luke 19:28-40

    Jessica R. Patchett

    Madison, Wisconsin

    When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’just say this, ‘The Lord needs it. 555

    So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

    “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven. and glory in the highest heaven! 55

    Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’’ He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” Sixty years ago on Palm Sunday, this congregation worshiped in this sanctuary for the first time. Christ Presbyterian Church spent more than a century on the Square, across from the State Capitol, right in the heart of power in this city and state. Legend has it that, in those years, the coffee break destination of choice for many state representatives was none other than—Christ Pres. From there on the Square, Christ Pres was a short walk up Bascom Hill to the University. In fact, the first president of the University of Wisconsin Madison was an early member of Christ Presbyterian Church. For more than one hundred years, this congregation held a position of some prominence in this city. And, sixty years ago, we gave it up—on purpose. Not everyone thought this was a good idea. Some elders warned that the church would lose its significant influence, should it move further away from the heart of political power.

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    Sixty years later, it’s clear that in many ways, they were right. Moving off the square and into the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood changed this congregation and the nature of its influence. But, in my estimation, there were some ways in which that move changed us and our public witness for the better. How? Well, from here, on the shores of Lake Mendota, gazing back at the center of power, we see things we never saw when we were in the middle of it all. We know Jesus in a way we didn’t know him there. You see, Jesus most often stood on the edges and margins of life. Take for example, that first Palm Sunday. Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives and gazed down at the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the heart of political, religious, and social power in Jesus’s time, and it had been so for thousands of years. Jerusalem was the city of David, the home of the Temple Mount, the place where the prophets said God—God’s very self—would dwell. Gazing down at Jerusalem, Jesus could see all of Jerusalem’s grandeur and beau­ ty and possibility. He could also see its incredible problems. A military occupation. Economic exploitation. Political violence. Religious cor­ ruption. Racial segregation. Gender discrimination. Kids caught in the middle of very adult problems. The gospels say that before Jesus entered Jerusalem, he wept and cried, “Jerusa­ lem, Jerusalem, if only you knew the things that made for peace. 99

    There are things you can see when you’re not planted in the center of political power. And Jesus spent most of his life with people on the outside looking in. Now that our congregation has spent a significant chapter of our life together doing the same, we see things our ancestors in faith didn’t see so clearly. We more readily join Jesus in weeping for our city and for our country, “If only we knew the things that made for peace. 99

    And, it’s why, I believe, all these years later, we still join Jesus in his Palm Sun­ day parade. It’s easy to forget why we celebrate this odd festival. Or perhaps you’re new to church and you’re thinking, “Yeah, I have no earthly idea why I’m holding a palm on April 1 st in Wisconsin. It snowed yesterday.” I get it. Church can be strange. Let me see if I can help paint the picture: When Jesus first rode down what we now call the Palm Sunday road, Jesus sad­ dles a donkey. People wave palms. Actually, Luke doesn’t actually mention any palms. The gospel according to John does. His disciples hail him King. And, this is confusing to a lot of people. Because, Jesus hadn’t won a battle. There’s no coronation awaiting him in Jeru­ salem.

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    Pharisees, religious leaders in the center of power, tell the disciples to stop shout­ ing. Jesus tells them not to bother. If they stop shouting, the stones would cry out. But why? It seems that what Jesus and his disciples were up to was one part prophetic act, one part performance art, one part parade, and one part protest. Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we? To understand Palm Sunday, we have to un­ derstand something of the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish faith tradition. On that first Palm Sunday, people gathered in Jerusalem—^not to wave palms, but to celebrate the Passover. Passover commemorates what is arguably the single-most important event in Jewish history—God’s rescue of the Hebrew children from slavery in Egypt. To celebrate the Passover was and is to make a declaration of faith; that God cares about human suffering and actively works to liberate people from violence and oppression. So, when Jesus gathered with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, they did so as an act of faith, to declare that just as God heard the cries of enslaved Hebrew chil­ dren and helped them find a way to freedom, God heard their cries and would help them find a way to freedom, too. Jesus and his disciples weren’t the only ones who did this. People gathered all over Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. And, on the same day that Jesus led his disciples in a processional down the Palm Sunday road, there was another parade heading into the city. From the west, Roman authorities marched into Jerusalem to keep order, to en­ sure that this Passover celebration didn’t get too out of hand. Remember, this festival was about freedom, and Jewish Palestine was occupied by the Roman Empire. Jew­ ish political action groups often staged violent uprisings during the Passover festival. So, that day, Roman soldiers and authorities marched into the western gates in full military regalia, with spears and swords, ready to “keep the peace” by force. And inevitably, somewhere across town, there were some Jewish people gathering with swords plotting when to stage their violent resistance, because for them, there could be no peace without freedom. Meanwhile, to the east, looking down on the city from the Mount of Olives, Jesus mounted a donkey. His disciples stood near. And I’m pretty confident that those disciples did not assume that Jesus was rid­ ing into Jerusalem to overtake the army coming from the west, unseat Pilate and Herod, and install himself in power. Jesus carried no sword or spear. He never had. Nevertheless, 1 do think Jesus’s closest followers knew that when Jesus got on that donkey, the world as it was—^was about to change. Five hundred years before, the prophet Zechariah said that the Messiah, God’s anointed one, would come to Jerusalem riding on the foal of a donkey—just as Sol­ omon, David’s son, had done when he went to Gihon to be crowned king.

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    In the ancient world, kings rode donkeys when they triumphantly entered con­ quered cities. A king riding a donkey—instead of a warhorse—into a city was a sign that the battle had been won. There was no more fight left to fight. It was a signal to the people of a city to welcome their new king, so that they could live in peace. So, what do you think it meant that Jesus mounted a donkey to ride into Jerusa­ lem and his disciples hailed him king? Jesus hadn’t won a battle against any human army. He’d never picked up a weap­ on against anyone. And it didn’t seem likely he would defend any of his disciples or subjects, should a competing king come to challenge him. It was a puzzling scene then, as it is now. But the puzzle of it all, the confounding display of peace and voluntary alle­ giance, was actually the point—the prophetic act, the performance art—that Jesus and his disciples put on display. What was the first Palm Sunday? It was a demonstration that Jesus was the Mes­ siah—just not exactly the one many people had been looking for. In some ways, Jesus was the spitting image of the Messiah whom Zechariah said would come. He rode on the foal of a donkey and led his disciples to Jerusalem. Je­ sus had raised people from the dead, healed the sick, forgave sins, and turned people back to God. The Messiah was supposed to do all of these things. But the Messiah was also supposed to unseat foreign kings and restore Israel to Jewish rule. Many prophets said the Messiah would vanquish Israel’s enemies and become rich from the spoils of war. In these ways, Jesus didn’t fit the bill. The Jesus who sent disciples on missions along dangerous roads without money or sword wouldn’t go on to overthrow the Roman government. The Jesus who sat with the Samaritan woman at the well wouldn’t harm people who were racially or religiously “other” in order to reinstate a Jewish nation. The Jesus who rebuffed Satan for asking him to put God to the test, wouldn’t tolerate a disciple cutting off the ear of a soldier in hopes of saving his life. On Palm Sunday, Jesus and his disciples demonstrated that Jesus was not exact­ ly the King they’d been waiting for, but he was God’s Messiah and he would bring freedom. It’s just that Jesus would bring freedom not only to their tribe, but to the whole world. On Palm Sunday, Jesus and his disciples demonstrated that prophets like Zech­ ariah had been right—in part. Zecharaiah had seen a messianic vision of Jewish children playing safely in peace in the plazas of Jerusalem. But Jesus the Messiah saw more: He saw his Jewish nieces and nephews joined by the Samaritan woman’s daughter, the Roman Centurion’s son, and the Ethiopian eunuch—all living in peace and growing into old age together.

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    Some of the Hebrew scriptures had said the Messiah would inaugurate a new world order, one in which Israel would reign in power over other nations. But Jesus the Messiah saw a loving and inclusive world, a sanctuary for all to live in peace and freedom together. The first Palm Sunday was a prophetic, performance art protest parade and it was an act of faith. Riding and marching into Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples de­ clared a new version of that first Passover affirmation: the God who led the Hebrew people to freedom will lead all the peoples of the world to freedom, and God would do it all without violence. For any who cheered Jesus on the donkey, some of the hopes of ancient days had to die. Dreams of conquest and control, certainty, exclusivity and superiority— they had no place in a Messianic march to a future where all could live in peace and freedom. And the same is true for any of us who cheer on Jesus today—some of the hopes of ancient days yet have to die. The good news for us is that we have some experience in letting go of the world we’ve inherited in favor of welcoming the world God intends for us. Because this church moved fi’om the center of power on the Square to this beau­ tiful lot on the shores of Lake Mendota, we—subtly, and slowly, perhaps—have begun to give up some of those same things that early followers of Jesus had to re­ linquish: control, certainty, exclusivity, superiority. You’ve seen them begun to melt away, haven’t you? And what we’ve gained, of course, is a little more perspective and a little more freedom, along our journey with the Prince of Peace. If it weren’t so, do you imagine that in the summer of 2020, elders and leaders of this congregation would have joined demonstrations protesting the violent murder of George Floyd? If it weren’t so, do you imagine that in the decade before, this congregation would have established a Community Immigration Law Center to support the cases of asylum seekers, regardless of how they entered this country? If it weren’t so, do you imagine that today, we’d be a church standing alongside our Trans youth, elders, and staff, asking our elected officials to stop the barrage of bills that threaten to take away the essential medical care they count on for health and wholeness? These are the actions of a people who’ve stood with Jesus outside of the city and wept with him, “Will we ever know the things that make for peace?’ Today, the Palm Sunday parade continues and calls out to any who want to join Jesus the Christ on a long walk to freedom. And, I can’t tell you why you might be inclined to join the Palm Sunday parade today, but I can tell you why I will. I join the Palm Sunday parade because I don’t think anyone but God has figured out how to lead us out of the social-political mess we’re in.

    Page 49

    I join the Palm Sunday parade because we live in a culture obsessed with vi­ olence and our children are dying. And I don’t think that the people with weapons lined up to march into the halls of power are the ones who can save our children. But I think that following the Prince of Peace, we can. I join the Palm Sunday parade because we live in a nation still plagued by the sin of racism and the delusion of white supremacy. I don’t buy into the myths that people of one race are smarter or better equipped to lead or govern. I want to follow Jesus into a future where people of all races and religions are free and equal. I join the Palm Sunday parade because I’ve watched generations before me join it and follow Jesus to freedom, and I want to get there, too. Friends, the Palm Sunday parade began a long, long time ago, but it marches on today. Across the world this morning, millions join its number to walk beside the prince of peace. And you are invited to come and join it too, singing Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.

  • This is really Jesus!

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    Page 32

    This is really Jesus!

    Amy Valdez Barker

    Atlanta, Georgia

    My daughter and I were driving back from shopping, and I was pondering thoughts about what kind of sermons would really reach her generation. Like many of the col­ lege students I know, she may or may not go to church on Sunday morning, depending on what she was up to the night before. Even though I did my best to raise both of my kids in the church and relay to them the value of worshipping every Sunday, since leaving our home, she now has complete control of her Sundays and can decide if wor­ ship is a priority or not. I asked her, “What sermons or messages have stuck out to you recently, what do you remember?” Like a typical twenty-year old talking to her mother she said, “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” So, I prodded some more and asked what Bible verses or stories did she remember being preached that captured your imagina­ tion? She sat next to me, thoughtful and pensive, reflecting on the question. Then she said, “I remember this story about two mothers who were fighting over one baby and this guy was threatening to cut the baby in half” She looked at me and added, “Yeah! I remember that and it was a vivid picture for me. But, I don’t remember when I heard it or where.” My heart swelled for a moment because I preached that sermon in May during Mother’s Day, and she was there. It may have been the last sermon she remem­ bered because it was the last worship service she went to, but I told myself that it was because of how I helped her encounter the text in my preaching. All I cared about was that she remembered SOMETHING in the sermon that was preached. In reality, most people don’t remember the messages they hear from week to week, especially if they are regular attenders of worship. One message gets replaced with the next message as preachers and parishioners engage with each other every week. I tried this same approach on my father who is a retired preacher while we were out on a walk, and I was preparing for the next week’s sermon. I said, “What do you remember from the sermon last week?” He thought about it and looked at me and honestly said, “Ummm … I don’t know.” This again was discouraging, and I said, “Well then, what’s the point? Why do preachers work so hard to prepare a sermon every week when people forget it the minute they walk out the door?” My sweet father felt for me and dug a little deeper in his memory and pulled out a few illustrations from the message before. Both of these wonderful people are those who love me enough to care about what I have to say whether or not it feeds their spiritual souls. What about the hundreds of people who hear our sermons, don’t know us, don’t necessarily care about what we think, but at the end of the day, they want their souls filled and fed because they are hungry for the encounter with the Divine? It took me some time to remember this amid my own soul needing nurturing, but as I looked up and out at the world, I realized that this is what Christ was inviting us to see.

    Page 33

    “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Jesus’s words come to us right after being tested in the wilderness and tempted by the devil according to the Gospel of Luke. He’s back in Galilee and on a spiritual high from overcoming the challenges of forty days of fasting and the testing of his human condition and abilities. He starts teaching in the synagogues there in Galilee and people are astounded, marveling at his wisdom. I can only imagine how affirmed and confident he felt, being rewarded through human accolades for his preaching, teaching, and transformation as a spiritual leader in Galilee. A moment later in verse 16, he goes to Nazareth, his hometown, and he again stood up and read from the prophet Isaiah the words that remind us of his anointing and the power of the Spirit who is upon Jesus. But, as he sits down and starts teaching the people whom he knew well and who knew him well, things started to turn. At first in verse 22, they speak well of him and “were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.” But, this son of Joseph, the carpenter, doesn’t leave it there, like most people would. He starts to tell them something they don’t want to hear. According to Craig C. Hill in his book Servant of All: Status, Ambition, and the Way of Jesus, Jesus is claiming “the prophetic anointing for himself and announced that the long-anticipated time of restoration, “the year of the Lord’s favor,” was upon them. According to the Gos­ pels, this was too much for his hometown audience to swallow.”’ Who is this Jesus? And who does he think he is, anyway? That’s what the people of Nazareth seem to be saying as they listen to him claim the status and power of God that had been prom­ ised to the Messiah. They can’t believe that Joseph’s kid would come back and tell everyone that he’s all that and more. It seems like an implausible and unbelievable claim, and it made many of the religious leaders in that community angry. They were so angry that they “drove him out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff’ (vs. 29). Preachers and teachers of the Gospel don’t want another Nazareth experience to happen to Jesus again, so we hold onto the ways in which Jesus was received in Galilee, versus how he was received in Nazareth. As preachers, we want to present a well-respected, kind-hearted, gracious, authoritative picture of Jesus who, like our religious dignitaries today, have the power to command the presence and attention of the people. Jesus, the influencer, who has gained popularity and a following because his words of wisdom and his connection with the Divine is like an addictive substance that has drawn everyone in, that’s the Jesus we try to present as we wax and wane about the beauty of the Gospel. It’s easier to get people to follow this lovely image of Jesus, our best fnend, the one who has it all together so that we, too, like him can have it all together. Our attempt to make Jesus worthy of remembering often morphs this concept of Christ into something so unrecognizable that people aren’t sure if it’s really Jesus.

    Page 34

    Ryan Lokkesmoe, a contributor to Relevant magazine, wrote about how we have airbrushed Jesus into a “socially palatable” image that “smooths out His rough edges and His apparent inconsistencies.”^ This image of Jesus is much easier to get along with and to present to the general populous, because he is pleasing to our lives. He fits in better with our communities and our cultures; he doesn’t ask too much of us or demand too many sacrifices. The Jesus that many churches represent convinces us that our denomination, our church, our institution is the most correct image of Jesus, the risen Christ, that we can follow. And for whatever doctrine we believe is most essential, we may “airbrush”^ Jesus into the image we want him to be. Why is this unacceptable? What’s wrong with focusing on the good aspects of Jesus and simply ignoring the parts that might drive us a little crazy? Maybe the better question is. Will the glossy airbrushed preaching and teaching engage twenty-year-olds, like my daughter, and give her something worth getting up every Sunday for? If you have ever entered any kind of long-term relationship with any other hu­ man in this world, you’ll know that focusing on the good and sometimes ignoring the parts that make us a little uncomfortable is necessary to sticking with them even when faced with things that make us question the relationship. In his book. Universal Christ, Richard Rohr interprets the words of St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) from The Soul’s Journey to God as a slow and gentle movement towards love by “loving the very humblest and simplest things, and then move up from there.”’* His illustration of the long-lasting love of God is demonstrated in everyday relationships that have the depth of love for someone other than oneself. I once had the privilege of serving as the pastor in a sweet church where I was blessed by people who had discovered what it meant to have a long-lasting love for one another. Whenever we celebrated birthdays and anniversaries at our Wednesday night dinners, and for anniversaries 1 would ask, “How many years are you celebrat­ ing together?” What always made me marvel were the couples who said they had been together for fifty years or more. And what delighted my soul was when they looked into each other’s eyes, and you could still see the spark of love and hope shin­ ing through their gaze at one another. That was always a gift from the Holy Spirit, to see the beauty of love in those relationships. As one who has enjoyed twenty-six years of marriage, I am beginning to recognize what it takes to really hold onto one another through thick and thin and to discover the very “humblest and simplest of things” that make you fall in love over and over again. The problem is that there are too many influencers in our world who convince us that when the going gets tough, the tough get out of there. Like Peter, when the pressure was on to follow Jesus to the cross, he denies having been with him as a disciple, he denies knowing him, and he denies even being associated with him due to his accent (Matthew 26:69-74, NIV). This painful, but poignant, illustration of Jesus’s and Peter’s relationship in the gospel of Matthew reminds us how difficult and complex human and Divine relationships can be.

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    I tend to believe that preachers have a similarly complex relationship with Jesus as we do our best to respond to Christ’s call in our lives. Like Peter, we are eager to please Jesus, and prove our loyalty to him. We are ready to walk on water with Jesus (Matthew 14) and be told that we are the rock where Christ will build his church (Matthew 16:18). Maybe we remember the first time we fell in love with Jesus, and we could still feel the butterflies in our stomach, the beating of our hearts, and the transcendence of our thoughts and minds as we discovered that Christ was just as in love with us as we were with him. There is something beautiful about the first moments of discovery when you are falling in love. Everything is new and exciting; the challenges are exhilarating as you begin to dance with the Divine. The feelings of love are at their most brilliant stage when it first sparks within you. Rohr writes in his chapter “Love is the Meaning”: “When we are truly ‘in love,’ we move out of our small, individual selves to unite with another, whether in companionship, simple friendship, marriage, or any other trustful relationship.”^ That moment of surrender to the movement beyond ourselves is the invitation we have to commune with God. In the beginning, it’s an easy movement, a delightful action, the part in the movies when everything is glowing and focused in on the main characters who are in love. We live for that moment. We treasure that moment. We idolize that moment so much that we believe that is the only feeling of true love. And once again, we airbrush Je­ sus into that image that made us feel so wonderful. Unfortunately, that experience of Christ is limited and, like Peter in the Gospel of Matthew, we begin to discover that a relationship with Jesus is much more com­ plex than the single call moment, the falling in love moment, or the glowing in the spotlight moment, that our world wants us to hold onto and long for. Every time Peter thought he was doing the right thing with Jesus, he discovered it was a bit more scary then he thought. Remember when Peter stepped out of the boat and started walking towards Jesus, he looked up and out and saw the waves, and the wind was whipping his hair in his face and next thing you know, he can’t see Jesus. As he cries out, Jesus is right next to him, helping him out of the storm. He falls in love again (Matthew 14: 28-33, NIV). Then there is the moment when at the beginning of Matthew 16, Jesus is being challenged by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and turns to Peter and asks him to declare who Jesus is to everyone who is listening. Peter gets it right! I’m sure in that moment, Peter was beaming with pride that the one whom he loves, worships, and follows, had just found him worthy of building his church upon his shoulders. We’ve all felt that moment when we have declared our love and devotion for Christ to all the world and in some way, we know with confidence that Christ is using us to build his church. We stand up a little taller when the people whom God has called us to serve give us the words we long to hear, “Well done, Preacher! You hit a home run today! 9?

    We must be doing something right! This is an easy moment to feel the love of Christ being showered upon us.

    Page 36

    Wait, we can’t stop there, because not more than five verses later, in the good news presented by Matthew, we hear Jesus rebuking Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” (Matthew 16:23, NIV). How many of us have said in our heads, “But wait, Jesus, you just said you were building the church on me be­ cause 1 was blessed by your Father in Heaven! And now 1 am being called “Satan?” Certainly Peter had to have been very confused by the complexity of Jesus’s words, actions, and behaviors. We see the messiness of the relationship between Jesus and Peter, and we wonder, Why did Peter stay with him through it all? Crushed and confused, we can all imagine Peter wanting to wallow in his wounds when the very one he loved threw daggers of accusation at him because all he wanted to do was protect him from the world that would crucify him. Maybe that’s what we do with Jesus every time we present him to the world as a palatable, prophetic teach­ er who will make us feel good about every aspect of our lives. Maybe that’s what we do with Jesus when we airbrush the edges out and soften what we call impurities to offer an image of Jesus that the world won’t persecute and crucify. Like Peter, we just want to cling to the one we love the most and ensure ourselves that we will never lose Christ, even when we take our eyes off him and face the winds and the waves. The responsibility of the prophets of the Old Testament, the prophets of the New Testament, and the prophets of today is to present all of the Divine complexity, cha­ os, and messiness of God. Anyone who spends time with the prophets of the Old Tes­ tament discovers how difficult it was to prophesy against the powers of the world and speak about the God who created all the world and who can work in spite of those powerful people. Take a moment to dig into Exodus and work with Moses as he ar­ gues with God and is still called and used to move the people of Israel out of Egypt. Beyond the four Gospels of the New Testament, there are letters upon letters written by the faithful followers of Jesus who weren’t afraid to witness to the Good News of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, illustrating the complexities of following Jesus in their time and place. Whether you love Paul or not, he went all out for Jesus in a way most of us would be uncomfortable with today. 1 know too many preachers who shy away from what Walter Brueggeman calls “prophetic imagination,”’’ because we have bought into systems and cultures that have convinced us that there is only one way to see God’s work in the world. Brueggeman challenges that thinking as he offers this explanation: If you take the phrase “prophetic imagination,” the imagination part of that is that the prophets are able to imagine the world other than the way that is in front of them. The word prophetic alludes to the reality of God. And what the prophets believe deeply is that God is a lively character, and a real agent who acts in the world, who causes endings and who causes new beginnings. And that’s worth thinking about, because that is not ordinary thinking among us — that God is a lively agent and a real character.’

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    We continue to discover God through Jesus the risen Christ every day we take time to sit with the scriptures. By the gift of the Holy Spirit, we can listen closely to the whispers of the Divine with our own soul, in our own experiences, and in our own interpretations of God’s love in the world. The longer we stay in love with Christ, the deeper that love grows and the more confident we become in giving that prophetic witness, even when it’s difficult. Rohr notes that, “Love is a paradox. It often involves making a clear decision, but at its heart, it is not a matter of mind or willpower but a flow of energy willingly allowed and exchanged, without requiring payment in return. Divine love is, of course, the template and model for such human ”8 love, and yet human love is the necessary school for any encounter with love. At the end of the day, each preacher, teacher, and prophet is invited and called to give a witness to Jesus who loves them. When we put the living, breathing, mag­ nitude of love that Jesus has for us at the center of our witness, then it’s easier for us to begin to speak of the love that we have for Jesus. The Jesus I know through the scriptures constantly draws me closer to him with every story, every person, every love I have in this world that gets me beyond myself and into God’s great living story of creation. It is the foundation of my faith that allows me to join Peter, Paul, Mary, and the other millions of Disciples around the world to lean into the mysterious wonder of Christ. Our everyday invitation is to be that witness in all that we do. One of the best ways for preachers to get the people to come back for their weekly date with Jesus is to present Jesus in all of his complexity, messiness, and love. When hearers, too, fall in love with Jesus, it will be something worth remembering and paying attention to every week. I’ll leave you with words from Pope St. Francis: “Let us all remember this: one cannot proclaim the Gospel of Jesus without the tangible witness of one’s life. Those who listen to us and observe us must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give glory to God!”’

    Notes

    1 Hill, Craig C. Servant of all: Status, ambition, and the way of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017. 2 Lokkesmoe, Ryan. “The Dangers of Making Jesus Look like Us.” RELEVANT, June 7, 2017. https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/dangers-making-jesus-look-us/. (accessed 9/17/23) 3 Ibid. 4 Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe. 1st ed. New York, NY: Convergent Books, 2019. 5 Ibid. 70 6 Brueggemann, Walter. “Walter Brueggemann: Jesus Acted out the Alternative to Empire.” Sojourn­ ers, March 10, 2020. https://sojo.net/articles/walter-brueggemann-jesus-acted-out-altemative-empire. (accessed 9/17/23) – In this speech, Brueggemann introduces the idea that the prophets “context is an ideological totalism, that intends to contain all thinkable, imaginable, doable social possibilities.” He goes on to criticize this “totalism,” by noting how it tells people what to imagine and think. This cri­ tique is important for Brueggemann to point out because he goes on to argue that in buying into this, we lose the possibility that God can still work in us and through us today. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. p. 71 9 Kelly-Gangi, Carol, ed. Pope Francis: His Essential Wisdom. New York, NY: Fall River Press, 2014.

  • Are You the One?

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    Page 20

    ‘Are You the One?

    ((

    Matthew’ 11:1-6

    Sarah Are Speed

    New York City, New York

    For our honeymoon, my husband and I were fortunate enough to spend some time in Italy. We could see the Alps towering over the horizon. They were like noth­ ing I’ve ever seen before. While there, I learned an amazing piece of history regarding those mountains. In 1848 construction began on a railroad pathway through a portion of the Alps called “The Semmering.” The goal was to connect Vienna with Venice, allowing for easy transportation of goods and people from the coast to interior Europe. To no one’s surprise, many said it could not be done. The mountains were too steep. The risk of avalanche too great. The winter months too hard for construc­ tion, and the elevation far too high. But still, the project‘s designer, Carl von Ghega, pressed on. After seven years of construction. The Semmering rail line consisted of 14 tun­ nels, 16 viaducts, 100 stone arches, and 11 bridges. It had been worked on by 20,000 construction workers and been the cause of 700 casualties—including Carl himself. But finally, the project, once deemed impossible, was complete.^ Europe had their first train track crossing of the Alps. I can only imagine the celebrations that ensued when the workers laid that final brick! While the construction of this daunting project is more than impressive, the thing that amazed me the most about the Semmering, is the fact that when the Semmering rail pass was built, there was not a train in existence capable of making the trip. At the time that Carl von Ghega built the track, no trains could handle the steep eleva­ tion or the sharp turns through the mountains. Four different locomotives were tried and all four failed, forcing train companies to build and design a new train, with the strict goal of surviving that mountain pass.^ Those 20,000 workers from Austria, Italy, and Germany came together day after day after day in miserable conditions to build a track for a train that did not yet exist. Which can only mean that those construction workers truly believed, deep in their bones, that someday a train would come. It takes a lot of hope to live like that. There are days when I have that much hope in the future, days where I feel like Carl von Ghega, days where I am confident that a train will come. But there are other days where hope feels out of reach, days where the rug has been pulled out from under me, days where I am more like John the Bap­ tist in our text for today. If you grew up going to Sunday school like I did, then you probably learned about John the Baptist at some point. You may have learned that John was a wil-

    2Q

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    demess man, a man who wore camel hair and ate locust and honey. You may have learned that John was a preacher and a prophet, known for quoting Isaiah, saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Or you may have heard the story of John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River. If you grow up going to Sunday school, then you’ve probably heard a John the Baptist story before, but chances are they didn’t teach you this one. Chances are, they didn’t tell you about John, the mighty prophet, stmggling to hold onto hope. Our text for today tells us that John the Baptist is locked away in prison. John publicly criticized Herod, the local mler at the time, for marrying within Herod’s own family. To no one’s surprise, Herod didn’t like the public scolding, so before too long, John finds himself in jail. We don’t know how long John’s been there, or what the conditions are like. We don’t know if he’s hungry or scared, alone or crowded with unwelcome company. All we know is that at some point in that prison sentence, John sends a message to Jesus. He asks, “Are you the one we’ve been waiting for, or should we wait for another?”

    “Are you the one …or should we wait for another? ” John isn’t asking a simple “yes” or “no” question here. John is asking Jesus time? -is it you, or was I wrong all this

    ‘Is it you, or will I die in this prison?” Is it you, or did I get my hopes up too quickly?’ ► 99

    ’Jesus, is it you? Will the promised day ever come?” It’s the kind of question you ask when you are mnning out of hope. “Is it you, God, or should we wait for another?” I imagine we all know that bottom of the barrel, low on hope kind of feeling. A few weeks back I was on the phone with Matt Conner, a talented pastor and friend of mine. Matt has two little boys, and the night before our phone call a big thunderstorm hit. As is common with toddlers, Matt’s youngest son woke up to the sound of the storm and ran to his parent’s room, seeking comfort. The next morning, the boys were in the car together driving to day care, when Matt’s son said out of the blue, “That storm was scary. Daddy.” Matt agreed, “Yeah, it was scary, buddy.” But then he added, “Just remember, you’re always safe inside your house!” The little boy in the back seat thought about that for a moment, and then whispered quietly from his carseat in the back of the van, “But not outside.” It was a question as much as it was a statement. He carried on, “Am I safe at church? At school?” This conversation happened just a few days after the Nashville elementary school shooting. Matt’s wife is a teacher. They had the news on in the house, watching the updates, sharing in our nation’s communal fear. The boys had clearly seen it. Kids understand so much more than we realize sometimes! So when Matt said to his son. “you’re always safe inside, buddy,’’ his son added, “But not outside?’ »99

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    Journal for Preachers

    Matt told me he didn’t know how to answer his four-year-old son’s question. He didn’t know how to tell him that safety was not a guarantee. So he simply pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes to make sure the child in the backseat couldn’t see him cry. We know what it feels like to run out of hope. We know what it’s like to think that the world is never going to change, that the train will never come, that the vio­ lence will never stop. Like John, we know what it feels like to want to run to Jesus and ask, “Is it you or should we wait for another? Jesus, is this the plan you had? Will it ever get better? Was I wrong all this time, or will the promised day ever come?’ And that’s why we need today’s text. I imagine John the Baptist was running low on hope when he sent that message to Jesus from inside his jail cell asking, “Are you the one?” I imagine John was want­ ing to cry out—“Jesus, is this the plan you had? Will it ever get better? Was I wrong

    »’5 all this time, or will the promised day ever come?’ And do you know how Jesus responded? Jesus responded by telling John what he saw. Jesus said, “The blind receive their sight and the lame walk.” Jesus said, “the dead are raised, and the poor have good news.” When John couldn’t see the change, Jesus pointed the change out for him. When John couldn’t hold onto hope, Jesus held onto it for him. When John could no longer imagine what a savior looked like, Jesus said, “Ask the blind, because they can see. 99

    The text doesn’t tell us what happens next, but my hope is that this is the moment when John rediscovers Jesus. My hope is that instead of allowing the jail cell bars to erode John’s belief in Christ, John listened to his friend and rediscovered Christ all over again. For there are days where the jail-cell moments of our lives threaten to unravel our faith. But if we learn anything from this text, let it be that we can be like Jesus and John for each other. If we share our hope, then we can help each other rediscover faith, rediscover God’s fingerprints, rediscover Christ. We just have to be willing to tell each other what we see. When I was a college student in Richmond, Virginia, I began to discern a call to ministry. Like a true professional, I wrote a letter to every single Presbyterian church in the zip code, begging someone to hire me. (My job experience at that point in­ cluded dog walking and babysitting my younger brother, so it was a miracle to even be considered.) Fortunately, a small Presbyterian church in town with a warm and friendly congregation made me an offer. At the time I was onboarded, the church did not have a youth group, so I asked my new boss if I could start one. With his blessing, I began gathering together the teenagers that were there each Sunday. It wasn’t long after I arrived that one of those students, we’ll call her Kate, ended up in the hospital due to a failed suicide attempt. There in the hospital, just a few days after I’d arrived, Kate confessed to her mom that she had been enduring abuse, unbeknownst to their family. Kate ended up

    Page 23

    in a treatment program, a therapy eenter that could help her unpack her trauma and heal. During that time the church formed a small care team that wrote letters to Kate. It included people like Kate’s confirmation mentor, her childhood Sunday school teacher, and Mr. Franklin, who sat in the pew behind Kate’s family her whole life. That small care team took turns writing Kate a letter every single week that she was in treatment. After Kate was discharged she shared with me that there were days and weeks at the beginning of her treatment where she was convinced that she would never feel good again. There were days and weeks where she was convinced that the scars would be the first thing that she saw, that the trauma would always be on the front of her mind. But the church kept writing letters. They told her, you are not alone, and we are not giving up on you. They told her what they could see. And although I didn’t read them all, I imagine that their letters sounded a lot like Jesus’s message to John, be­ cause those faithful folks believed in a world where the sick could be healed. They believe in a world where the poor could receive good news, and even the dead come back to life. Kate couldn’t see it then. Her jail cell bars were too thick. But the church could see that promised day, so they wrote her letters. They told her what they saw. And now, dozens of letters and many years later, Kate can finally see some of that for herself. She has a dog, a niece, a group of friends, and a college degree. Kate has a joy that she didn’t know then. And I know from talking with her, that when ev­ erything good in her life felt out of reach, it was the church, telling her all the places that they saw God’s fingerprints, that got her through. There are things in life that can threaten to erode our faith—gun violence, abuse, jail-cell bars—the list goes on! So if the circumstances of life begin to erode your faith, if the mountains seem impassible, and hope feels out of reach, then let us, your church, tell you what we see. Let us tell you about a girl named Kate who came back to life. Let us tell you about a train that rides through the Alps. Let us tell you about the glimpses of good and the fingerprints of God that we see in our own lives. Just like Jesus did for John, let us tell you about a God who gives good news to the poor and sight to the blind. John asked, “Is it you, or should we wait for another?’’ He’s not the only one asking. So Church, tell each other what you see. Tell the world what you see, and speak loudly, because we cannot rediscover Jesus alone. Amen.

    Notes ‘ Wolmar, C. (n.d.). The Iron Road: The Illustrated History of Railway – erenow. The Spread of the Railroads, https://erenow.net/common/illustrated-history-of-railway/19.php 2 Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, February 13). Semmering railway. Semmering Railway, https://

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_railway

  • ‘Touched by Trauma, Touched by Grace’

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    Page 40

    ((Touched hy Trauma, Touched by Grace

    Mark 5:25-34

    Sarah Travis

    New York City, New York

    “Who touched me?” Jesus feels a tug on his cloak. He feels power going out from him. The crowd is pressing around him, and the disciples express their disdain at his ridiculous question. After all, in the crush of bodies around him, everybody is touching other bodies. Jesus is persistent. He continues to look for the one who has reached out to him. As he examines the faces of people surrounding him, one partic­ ular face swims into his vision. A woman. Opening her mouth to speak, to address him. She falls into a crouch in front of him, and she begins to tell her story. Twelve years of bleeding, pain, suffering. Twelve years of not being able to practice her religious rituals because she is unclean because of the issue of blood. Twelve years of traumatic illness. She has seen all the doctors and tried every treatment available to her. Now her money is gone, and her situation is unchanged. This woman has ex­ hausted her resources. She simply cannot heal herself. Jesus listens. The people nearest to Jesus in the crowd also listen, waiting to hear how such a story will be received by their teacher. No doubt the woman’s voice shakes because she is doing something courageous—telling her story in public, risk­ ing humiliation or rejection. It takes courage for her to speak to this strange man about womanly problems. It takes courage to admit that she has come to the end of her resources. The whole truth, in this case, is not a pretty story. When she has finished, she waits to see whether she will be publicly embarrassed or sent away in shame. Jesus’s response is elegantly compassionate; “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.” The woman is suddenly well. Her bleeding stopped as soon as she touched Je­ sus’s garment. She turns to walk away into a very different life than her previous existence. Jesus has not only healed her body, but he has also healed the trauma of her marginalization, her poverty, her shame. By allowing her to tell her story in the hearing of others, Jesus has given her a voice to name out loud what she has expe­ rienced. In the telling, her healing is complete. She returns to her family to learn to live without the burden of her illness. We listen to the interaction of Jesus and the woman as people who need to be healed. This text might lead us to tremendous hope that healing is possible. It might lead us to despair, because despite strong faith, healing doesn’t always happen—at least not the way it happened to the hemorrhaging woman. Faith, in this story, does not refer to a set of beliefs. Although the woman has obviously heard things about Jesus and knows him to be a powerful healer, she does not know him personally. The woman’s faith is rooted in two things—a hope that Jesus can heal what no one else

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    can heal. And the recognition that she has come to the end of her capacity to heal herself. The hope, combined with the lack of a better option, leads her to Jesus. It is the realization that she cannot heal herself that causes her to take the risk of touching a man she had no business touching. Faith began, for her, at the moment when she knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that her own resources are not sufficient. It is amazing how human beings cope. We have considerable resources gifted by God to heal ourselves. We have communities of science, communities of support. We have intellect. We have a drive to survive. But there are some events that exceed our capacity to cope. Trauma is an experience that exceeds our capacity to cope. That’s what trauma is—all our systems and strategies are overwhelmed by an event or series of events that traumatize us. While we might think that trauma is limited to car accidents, earthquakes, and plane crashes, trauma is much more likely to occur during our daily lives. Deep personal loss, abuse, negative childhood experiences, surgeries, injuries, and accidents. The degree of trauma experienced by an individual will depend on several factors—including access to resources and personal ability to cope. Trauma has an uncanny ability to persist beyond the actual event—and for some, it means reliving negative experiences like a loop—^unable to escape from fragmented mem­ ories of painful events that are no longer happening yet shape our bodies and souls. We can be traumatized by what happens to us, or even by what we witness happening to others. I would argue that our entire culture is traumatized, by the pandemic, by political division, by racism, by violence. We who gather for worship today will have our own experiences of trauma—^what we have seen and what we have experienced. Trauma is an unbearable burden, and it overrides our capacities. Trauma strips us of our agency and imagination. That is, it becomes difficult to act in a way that leads to healing—in fact, it sometimes becomes impossible to even imagine that healing is possible. I have characterized the woman’s illness as traumatic. In Mark’s gospel, the healing happens immediately and seems complete. Her encounter with Jesus heals her trauma, so that she is free to go and live a new life. I struggle with the immediacy of the healing in this text because in my experience, healing from trauma is a much slower process. Healing is rarely immediate and rarely complete. Jesus offers us a way forward, a pathway to healing in which we are accopanied and loved tenderly along the way. The woman’s story teaches us about Jesus’s capacity to heal even those wounds which persist beyond what is necessary and adaptive. We learn a lot about Jesus in this passage. He is persistent. He gives us space to tell our stories. His own body responds to the woman’s touch—knowing that power has left him. Jesus has the capacity to heal us when we cannot heal our­ selves. In this story, it is the woman’s reaching out that initiates the healing. While we might be tempted to spiritualize our interpretations of this passage, it is a story about

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    Journal for Preachers

    real bodies. A bleeding, suffering body. And the body of a man filled with healing power. In the encounter of these bodies, healing happens. How do you and I encoun­ ter Jesus? I wish it were as simple as reaching out and touching the hem of his gar­ ment. Jesus is no longer with us, but Jesus is among us in the strange logic of faith. Jesus is always near, close enough to touch. We reach out in prayer. We encounter him in the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. We encounter him in community, in the Body of Christ that is alive and well in the world today. We have a different perspec­ tive on Jesus than the woman in the story. She knew only that he was a teacher and a healer. We know that Jesus has suffered a violent death at the hands of Rome. He was tortured and abused. He experienced trauma in all its overpowering ugliness. Thus, Jesus knows firsthand what it means to suffer. We also know that death is not the end of the story. We know that he was risen with healing in his wings. When we reach out to Jesus, we do so in the knowledge that there are not actually limits to God’s capacity to heal and restore—to resurrect. Healing may not happen for us in the same manner or at the same speed that it happened for the woman, but healing is available, and we have immediate access to Jesus. In this season of Lent, we remember Jesus’s relentless march toward Jerusalem. We prepare ourselves for the agony of the cross, never losing sight of the fact that the cross is not the end of the story. As a time of preparation. Lent is a good time to reflect on our spiritual practices. How do we encounter Jesus in our lives? Or more accurately, how does Jesus encounter us? The woman in the story initiates contact with Jesus, but he is the one to engage her. He persistently seeks her out of the crowd, making space for her in the crush of people, encouraging her to tell her story. Jesus bears witness to her trauma and to her healing. In the same way, Jesus bears witness to us and our healing. We are invited to come to Jesus, to reach out and touch the hem of his garment, knowing that he will turn to us. He will listen to our stories of pain and suffering, and he will consider our faith in his ability to heal. Remember, our faith might only be the size of a mustard seed. It might be like a teaspoon of yeast, seeming insignificant. Faith, as I interpret it in this story, is about the recognition that we need help beyond what our own re­ sources can offer. It is a turning toward God, even if we shake in our boots. This is not an absolute kind of faith—it is not certainty. It is a faith derived from hope, the hope that God’s power and ability far exceeds our own. The woman in the story has tried everything and lost everything. It is only when she approaches Jesus that she finds a resource that can meet her needs. Faith may be as simple as a hunch that God will meet our needs. He calls us Daughter. Son. Child. Once we have told our story and received Je­ sus’s blessing, we are sent out to continue the work of healing. As I said a moment ago, healing, at least in our reality is a slow process. It begins with Jesus, and it con­ tinues in his power and presence throughout our lives. We do not have the resources, on our own, to resist temptation, survive the wilderness or heal ourselves.

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    Some of you may be familiar with the story of Tommy Dorsey, a jazz musician in the 1930s. When his wife and new son died in childbirth, he was bereft. How does one heal from that kind of pain? For Dorsey, the answer was straightforward. He turned to the God of the universe made known in Jesus Christ, his precious Lord.

    Precious Lord, take my hand. Lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn; Through the storm, through the night. Lead me on to the light Precious Lord, take my hand.

    Dorsey recognizes the power of touch, and the healing that can happen when we reach out toward the Lord Jesus Christ. When we are tired, weak, and worn, we are invited to reach for Jesus—even just to grasp an inch of the fabric of his clothing. Like the woman, we might approach fearfully yet boldly, not sure of anything except that we need the power of Jesus to make us whole. When we tell our stories to Jesus and to one another, we acknowledge our dependence on Christ and Christ’s body in the world. So let us tell the hard stories, the stories of trauma and recovery, the stories of suffering and healing. If you need help and healing, Jesus is waiting to listen, to bless, and to heal. Amen.

  • Preaching in Iowa, 2024

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    Page 28

    Preaching in Iowa, 2024

    David Feltman

    Waterloo, Iowa

    “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” This is the gracious invitation of Jesus in Matthew 11, the gospel reading for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A. I am currently serving as the transitional pastor for a congregation of fifty-plus faithful folks who are carrying heavy burdens as they work to keep their ministry vital with few members and the age of the membership against them. This assignment sent me to my ancient filing system, which referred me to The Gift of Peace: Personal Reflections by Joseph Cardinal Bemadin. He was, in his words, “dying publicly” after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer back in the mid-1990s.

    On August 3 P‘, 1996, the day after I announced that the cancer had spread to my liver and was inoperable, I presided at a communal anointing of the sick at Saint Barbara Church in Brookfield, Illinois. I told my fellow sick that, when we are faced with serious illness (or any serious difficulty), we should do several things—things that have given me peace of mind personally.

    The first is to put ourselves completely in the hands of the Lord. We must believe that the Lord loves us, embraces us, never abandons us (especially in our most difficult moments). This is what gives us hope in the midst of life’s suffering and chaos. It is the same Lord who invites us, “Come to me

    99 (123-4).

    Cardinal Bernardin’s paraphrase of Matthew 11:28 is, “Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome.” I found his re-articulation of the Good News refreshing and applicable for my fifty burden-carriers. When I think of preaching in rural Iowa, the rural Midwest, my thoughts go immediately to context and those who are “weary and carrying heavy burdens.” A brief bio may be helpful. I was raised on a small farm in Iowa. My great grandparents purchased the land in 1919 for my grandparents to farm. My parents took over in 1952 when it became physically too much for my grandfather. It became a “Century Farm,” recognized by the state in 2019. When my siblings wanted to sell, I could not let it go, and my spouse and I took on more debt in our late 50s than most thinking people do. We are still active in the farming operation with the help of my cousin. I believe it was the poet and environmentalist Wendell Berry who said, “I know best who I am when I am close to the land.” My ministry has mainly been in rural Iowa and Minnesota, the last thirteen years before retirement in a Presbytery position which placed me in many rural churches. I ache for our rural communities. Like most stoic Midwesterners, the residents say, this is the life, we have our roots, we have our faith, we know who we are, we know our neighbors, and have a

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    depth of connection most Americans will not replicate. It is our privilege to be close to the land and see the sun rise and set. They readily claim the title “real Americans,’ 99

    a label Sarah Palin gave rural folk in the 2008 campaign, intending to divide. George Packer, in his book Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal defines the “real Americans” as the ones who grow our food and fight our wars. But they are weary. Weary from all the loss. The loss of neighbors, as the smaller farmers retire or sell out to the larger farmers and more corporative entities. The loss of the grocery store and the hardware store. The loss of children in the classroom and the pew, the closing of the school, cuts to the heart of a community. The abundant churches have to learn how to share pastors or merge, the loss of a precious sanctuary is always painful. The loss of emergency services and medical clinics could be added to the list. The purpose of this article is not to restate the decline of rural America. I refer to the book The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Small-Town America by the so­ ciologist Robert Wuthnow for further reading. I point to all the loss … loss … loss. When I was in high school fifty years ago, small communities were vital. Our parents urged us, the baby boomers, on to college, and many of my generation be­ came the first in our families with college degrees. We moved on. The brain drain is palpable. The lack of support for education, especially public education and uni­ versities, in my state makes it hard to stay, especially for someone in the Reformed tradition which holds the development of the mind is a part of our service to God. We are all weary, grieving the loss of civility and the growing division. Wuthnow writes of the “group think” of small towns which makes it difficult, if not impossi­ ble, for minority voices. If I could have another ten-year run, in this time of great divide, I would challenge my congregation, whether rural or urban, to walk into the chasm. Imagine a rural congregation partnering with an urban or suburban congre­ gation, committing to meaningful dialogue and participation in the ministry of the other church for an extended period of time. Are we open and willing to partner with the Spirit to heal this great divide? I suppose this is a digression for this article in a preaching journal, but the need is massive. And the rural communities are heavily burdened. The retired folks are carrying much of the load of keeping a community and the churches going, add extended family responsibilities to the beleaguered seniors. Consider who is preaching in the rural communities these days. Several years ago I sold an old pickup truck on Craigslist. The man who bought it is a preacher in his very small community. He is a recovering addict, with a high school education, and when the Roman Catholics abandoned the community and sold their building he bought it and started a church. It is the only church in town. Most of the mainline de­ nominations have developed training so the more serious laity can preach and offer leadership in their churches. Many of those trained lay preachers have not lived out­ side of their counties. Education and worldview are limited, they are prone to support

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    Journal for Preachers

    the Christian nationalism movement, with the flag front and center in the sanctuary. Seminary-trained preachers feel isolated and are often out of their element culturally, leading to short-term calls which frustrates even the most faithful members, who say, “I will not serve on another pastor nominating committee.” After the pandemic and the exodus of many pastors, flnding a new pastor is nearly impossible. Holding them in a small, rural church is way outside of the norm. What will help preaching in rural Iowa in Lent 2024? I humbly offer a sug­ gestion for rural preachers as well as those in urban or suburban contexts. There is power in pastors meeting together regularly for support and education. I personally give testimony to this truth. When I was in my first preaching call I sought guidance from seasoned pastors who were unwilling to commit to a structured schedule. I floundered navigating the shoals of ministry and preaching. The next call, in a community of twenty-five thousand a door opened. I was invited to participate in an ecumenical support group which met weekly for an hour. When I moved from that call to the presbytery position seventeen years later, I read­ ily affirmed that it was my colleagues who saved me and enabled me to live my call­ ing. I would have been sidelined by the challenges of ministry without their support, direction, and encouragement. The friendship combatted the loneliness of ministry, and our unity was a witness to the community. On September 11,2001, we trusted each other and had an immediate connection to organize a response for our community. The relationships fostered a partnership as we brought our congregations along to address the needs and injustices in our community. When we realized five of our churches were celebrating our Sesquicentennials in the same year, we planned a combined worship service, during the week of Christian unity, progressing from one sanctuary to the next. The following day, the local newspaper headline read, “Hundreds gather for ecumenical service.” It was as if the community knew this was the way it should be. The Christians lingered over the coffee in the time of fellowship which followed, A Roman Catholic nun, full of gratitude, shook my hand as she was leaving and said, “The Spirit just kept getting sweeter.” This could all be traced back to 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning where six or seven colleagues gathered for support, friendship, and prayer. 1 understand it is a different time but our efforts in ecumenism have never been more crucial and relationship depth will not happen without time and commitment. Our time together could have been more beneficial. We needed a trained facilita­ tor from outside of the group. The loudest, neediest pastor in the group monopolized the conversation, forcing the rest of us to squeeze in around the edges. Devoting time for intentional learning would have also added depth to my ministry. When I was in the denominational position, I stumbled into the pastor cohort model of Macedonian Ministries, now called The Ministry Collaborative. We asked each pastor to give four hours a month, meeting with the same pastors and lay pas-

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    tors. Time was given to worship, content, support, and fellowship over a nice meal. The seminary-trained pastor met alongside the lay pastor. The seminary-trained of­ fered their perspective on the Lenten texts; the homegrown lay pastor helped the seminary-trained stranger with the Iowa culture. The budding friendships combatted the rampant loneliness. It became easier to draw pastors to a rural presbytery when the reputation spread of the collegiality, “how they love each other.” I realize I have stretched far beyond preaching into ministry, I am unrepentant. Preaching and ministry is complicated, challenging, and opportunistic these days, complicated with apathy, pandemics, natural disasters, and political divides. Howev­ er there were also days, back in my forty years of ministry, when I considered follow­ ing my big brother into truck driving. Now, in hindsight, 1 stand with the testimony of Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver in their book This Odd and Wondrous Call­ ing, and affirm it was worthy of a life. When I preach Matthew 11:28-30 in Iowa in 2024, I will give attention to the yoke, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” It is a shared yoke; Christ is in the lead position. It is a fitted yoke, tailor-made for each Christian and preacher. And, in this article I affirm we need a broader understanding of yoke; we are in this together. Finally there is the rest, “And I will give your rest.” I conclude with commentary on Matthew 11:28 from Twenty-Four Hours a Day [Hazelden Meditations, Septem­ ber 25], a resource to help those who are addicted and a simple, basic Christian resource for all.

    “God’s everlasting arms are underneath all and will support you. Commune with God not so much for petitions to be granted as for the rest that comes from relying on His will and His purposes for your life. Be sure of God’s strength available to you, be conscious of His support, and wait quietly until that true rest from God fills your being.”