John 6:51-58

⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;⁵⁵ for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.

 

“Ultimate Gratification”

Rev. Jeremy Watson (8/16/15)

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

 

We’ve talked a lot about bread lately. The Gospel reading from the lectionary has been about bread for 4 weeks in a row now, as we’ve journeyed through John, Chapter 6.

That (very long) chapter of John is all about bread, actually. It starts with the feeding of the 5000+ and continues on, even after Jesus walks across the water, he keeps talking about living bread.   This long sequence of bread stories is used to show the inability to grasp the living bread that Jesus offers. That is why this long Chapter keeps . . . . talking . . . about . . . . bread. The people just don’t get it, and the author wants us to recognize that, neither do we. They, and we, and humanity in general can’t seem to understand it, no matter how much Jesus talks about it.

Why is that? Why do we have such a hard time with the living bread of Jesus? Brett summarized this very well a few weeks ago, proclaiming that the living bread is Jesus. It does have a lot to do with feeding our world and food justice, but the bread that Jesus is talking about is himself. He makes this graphically clear in today’s passage, using flesh and blood language that is shocking to our sanitized culture. What he’s saying is this is about him, about us taking him into our lives. We are what we eat, and we should nourish ourselves on Jesus. It starts with the life that we are called to live, as members of Christ’s flesh and blood. He promises us that this bread of life will sustain us and our world and community forever . . . when we grasp hold of it. Yet time and time again, the people ask for something less, for the immediate gratification of ordinary bread to satisfy our immediate appetites.

One of the greatest pieces of literature that we have talks about this problem of grasping the living bread of Jesus. In the great novel, some would say the greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, there is a little parable within that novel that is called “The Grand Inquisitor”[i] and the entire story hinges on it.

This parable is told by Ivan, the 2^nd brother Karamazov, to his younger brother Alyosha. Ivan is an atheist and Alyosha is a Christian, their family is in the midst of very complex struggles and wrestling with deep questions. So, over dinner, Ivan tells Alyosha this parable of “The Grand Inquisitor.”

It is set in Spain during the Inquisition, in Seville where the stakes are burning all around. It starts with Jesus showing up, reappearing to the masses where he is immediately recognized. Those who touch him are healed, he raises a 7-year-old girl from the dead, and then Jesus is arrested by the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor. The Inquisitor immediately sentences Jesus to burn at the stake.

The next morning he shows up to talk with Jesus. And in this talk, the Grand Inquisitor condemns Jesus for all of this bread of life talk and action that we see in the Gospels. In particular, he argues that Jesus made the wrong choice when he was tempted in the wilderness by Satan. He should have turned the stones into bread, in particular. As the Grand Inquisitor lays out his case, he claims that Jesus made the wrong choice with all 3 of the temptations, and his entire earthly life for that matter, and so the Church has corrected his mistakes. They have taken it upon themselves to claim “the miracle, the mystery, and the authority” that Satan had originally offered to Jesus. And they have done this for the sake of humanity.

And, before you get thrown off by the whole “church joining with Satan to condemn Jesus” storyline, the Grand Inquisitor actually makes some good points. His entire argument is actually driven by his recognition of human suffering and a desire to end that suffering. And this makes complete sense as a parable told by Ivan Karamazov, for that is the reason that he is not a Christian. Human suffering/the problem of evil is the roadblock to his faith. As you can see quoted on the front of your bulletin today, Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor makes the claim that,

“That day must come when men will understand that freedom and daily bread enough to satisfy all are unthinkable and can never be had together, as men will never be able to fairly divide the two among themselves.”

 – The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoevsky

And I have to say that this claim is hard to argue against. I certainly can’t argue against it. Freedom or daily bread? The human race has not shown the ability to share those commodities for all. Someone who goes by the name of Ghandi echoed the Grand Inquisitor when he said, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”[ii]  Daily Bread or freedom. What do we do with our freedom? What do we do with our daily bread? Those of us who have it?

The Grand Inquisitor claims that Jesus took the wrong approach to this problem, precisely because he thought too highly of us. Jesus kept insisting that we are free to choose how we will live and worship and be. Jesus has faith in us, as he calls us to choose faith in Him. The Grand Inquisitor argues that Jesus is foolish. His case is laid out and punctuated by this claim,

“Thy refusal to come down from the cross when people, mocking and wagging their heads were saying to Thee — ‘Save thyself if Thou be the son of God, and we will believe in Thee,’ was due to the same determination– not to enslave man through miracle, but to obtain faith in Thee freely and apart from any miraculous influence.  Thou thirstest for free and uninfluenced love, and refuses the passionate adoration of the slave before a Potency which would have subjected his will once for ever.  Thou judgest of men too highly here, again, for though rebels they be, they are born slaves and nothing more.”  -The Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

            The Grand Inquisitor has spoken and laid out a compelling case that we are better off without freedom. Free will is the problem. He offers the counter argument to what Jesus said to us in today’s Gospel reading. While Jesus continues to call us to a freely chosen life of loving him, of living like him, the Grand Inquisitor says, “It ain’t gonna happen.” He looks around at the world and at the reality of human suffering and says that Jesus’ efforts are futile and that we will all be better off as slaves, driven by authority to live orderly, safe, and secure lives.

He echoes the Israelite people, by the way. Remember when they were maybe 5 steps into the wilderness after leaving the brutal slavery of Pharoah. “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:3) This is what they said to Moses. They craved slavery, and remembered it (or misremembered it) fondly. The Grand Inquisitor takes that verse as Exhibit 1A in his case against Jesus. People just want security and meat and bread. They truly want to be slaves. Is he correct?

That is the question we are faced with? Throughout the story of Israel, we see this struggle between freedom and slavery, and we see it again in the story of Jesus and his followers, even between Jesus and his closest disciples. We see this played throughout John, Chapter 6. Jesus gave them bread, walked on water, called them to a life of faith and sacrifice that he will demonstrate fully on the cross very soon. The people want more of the bread and the miracles, and Jesus wants them to live fully.

“Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” – John 8:31-31

What do we want? Do we want the immediate gratification that is offered to us? The secure, safe life that fills our belly in the moment. Or do we want freedom? The freedom to love freely, to risk a life of faith in Jesus that demands everything from us, and promises life abundant, life to the fullest, for us and for those we touch? Are we willing to love as Jesus loved, and witness abundant life? Do we want immediate gratification or ultimate gratification? That is the question we are left with in this argument between the Grand Inquisitor and Jesus, and in our own lives.

I feel the weight of this question every day. When I’m faced with a choice of loving another person, and becoming vulnerable in some way, the desire for safety and security battles with the desire to follow Jesus. When I recognize the racial and class inequality in our country that has created so much frustration in minority communities. When I realize that what we have seen in Ferguson, Missouri over this past week and this past year is one symptom of massive injustice, I feel torn between the vulnerability of love and the security of maintaining the status quo. What do I do with my freedom? What do I do with my daily bread? Do I make efforts for all to have the same?

These are the questions that are raised by Jesus and the Grand Inquisitor. During their discussion, Jesus said nothing. When the Inquisitor had finished talking, he waited for Jesus to respond, eagerly hoping for a bitter response, for a battle. But Jesus simply looked upon him with warmth and compassion, “he rises; slowly and silently approaching the Inquisitor. He bends toward him and softly kisses the bloodless, four score and ten year old lips. That is all the answer. The Grand Inquisitor shudders. There is a convulsive twitch at the corner of his mouth. He goes to the door, opens it, and addressing him, “go, and return no more . . . do not come again . . . never, never!’ and — lets Him out into the dark night. The prisoner vanishes.” And the old man? “The kiss burns his heart, but the old man remains firm in his own ideas and unbelief.”

The parable is echoed in the broader story of the Brothers Karamazov. Ivan, like the Inquisitor, leaves a path of destruction and sadness in his wake, while Alyosha, the simple, gentle soul, absorbs abuse but brings grace and healing wherever he goes. He lives an abundant life. And so it is with us.

We are blessed in this church family to witness counter-arguments to the Grand Inquisitor, in flesh and blood, all around us. We don’t have to look any further than Jean Calhoun, who passed from this life into the next on Friday morning. Her son, John, wrote a beautiful encomium about her life, in which it is clear that she lived an abundant life. And it is not the 101 years and 11 months that show abundance to us, but it is her consistent efforts to serve others, especially to serve “the least of these” throughout her long life. What a beautiful response to the human condition her life was. We are all called by Jesus to seek this same living bread, the freely chosen love of one another, wherever we go.

[i] Dostoevsky, Fyodor The Brothers Karamazov Book V, Chapter V

[ii] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/427443-the-world-has-enough-for-everyone-s-need-but-not-enough

2 Samuel 7:8-13

⁸Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel;⁹ and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ¹⁰And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, ¹¹from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. ¹²When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Ephesians 2:11-22

¹¹So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” —a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,²⁰ built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

“The Treason of Peace-Making”

The 2 passages that we read today are contradictory. I have a hard time understanding them any other way. In the first passage, we hear of God’s love for Israel as the Chosen people. God chooses to be with Israel, in contrast to those who are not Israel. They will be planted and blessed. Their name will be great. Their enemies will be defeated. They will be left alone, disturbed no more by those “other” people, those evildoers.

This is great news . . . for Israel. If you are part of the “chosen” people, what else would you want to hear? God’s blessing is upon you, which means God’s blessing is NOT upon your enemies.

In the second passage, however, we are told that Christ came to tear down the walls that separate the chosen from un-chosen.

¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 

That is how Paul explains the mission of Christ in this world, speaking specifically about Jews and Gentiles. We know from reading the book of Acts that this is just the beginning of a continual widening of the circle. And this is a rebuttal of the earlier passage. The Son of God seems to contradict what God had done in and through Israel.

This is a difficult contradiction for us Bible-readers. Did Christ come to undo what God had done over the course of centuries through the nation of Israel? And at a deeper level, can we understand God’s choosing of Israel without including an inherent racism or tribalism? What does this say about the nature of God? The nature of God’s people?

Maybe it was necessary to build a strong nation first in order to then be a blessing to other nations. Sort of a “trickle-down economics” of love?  That is one possible answer. Perhaps the tribal nature of that ancient and dangerous world made it impossible to conceive of unity between people groups who were competing for survival. Or maybe the people of Israel misunderstood at least part of what God was doing, and that misunderstanding is reflected even in the Bible.

When we look deeper into that history, we see that there were strong hints of radical inclusion throughout the history of Israel. The wife of Moses was a Midianite named Zipporah, which means that the inclusion of others into this chosen-ness was already present before the Israelites escaped from Egypt. Before God’s people walked across dry land and before they saw Pharaoh’s army do the dead man’s float. Israel was already welcoming others. When Moses delivered the Law to God’s people, it included provisions for the foreigners in their midst. And then we hear the stories of Rahab of Jericho and Ruth of Moab, not only welcomed, but included in the lineage of King David and Jesus. There was certainly a strain of inclusion within the story of Israel. But that’s all it really is, a strain. It is an abnormality, something rare and out of the ordinary. As we see from today’s reading from 2 Samuel, the overarching story of Israel is that they are chosen and others are not chosen. That is, until Jesus came along, bringing peace by breaking down walls that had mostly been affirmed up to that point.

The way that I understand this contradiction is that Christ brought to completion what God had always desired for Israel and for the world. But it was always a struggle against our nature, and it still is. In this very contradiction within God’s people, we get a more complete story of what welcoming others really means, what it costs us. In order to even grasp what it means to break down the walls that separate us, we have to understand how deeply those walls are part of us. Our natural inclination is to have walls. Our survival instinct pushes us to form unity with those like us. Our need for human connection encourages us to engage in tribal conflict, is there a better way to create unity than a common enemy?

When we read the story of the Bible, the story of God’s engagement with our world throughout the centuries, we see the truth of our own lives. We see the ongoing struggle to welcome all as God’s children, while driven by nature and instinct to separate ourselves. Especially when we see the story of Jesus Christ, the crucified God, face off against the Roman Empire, we see the truth of our own lives. Jesus is proclaimed as the true peace in the midst of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire dominated hundreds and thousands of people groups with a proclamation of superiority that could not be questioned. They enforced peace upon the world by dominance and by assimilation. They destroyed and stripped way all foreign gods and culture that threatened peace, as they understood. They enforced peace. And then Jesus came and brought a peace that came through sacrifice.

For Jesus Christ to be proclaimed as the true peace went against everything that defined Rome. Jesus sacrificed his life to break the cycle of hostility. He chose sacrifice instead of dominance. He chose loving others as more important his own survival. This sacrificial way of Jesus led to inevitable conflict with the Roman Empire.[i] That’s why it was treasonous to even read this letter from Paul from within that empire. What we have done this morning by the reading of that Scripture would have been punishable by death in that world. Jesus was in direct opposition to the core of Rome. And if we’re honest, this is in direct opposition to the core of us. This message runs counter to who we are. It is a revolutionary understanding of life. It goes against the grain of how our world runs, how our governments and political structures operate, and how we live.

What the life of Jesus Christ proclaims is that we live in a world that desperately needs the destruction of walls, and that it is difficult work.

This past week I lived in the midst of this. The Youth Group took part in a local Mission Trip this year, serving in an around Portland each day. On one of the days we went to a transitional housing agency to provide childcare for the residents who are moving from homelessness into better living situations. We arrived and set up, and then went to put up posters around the complex and went door-to-door inviting any kids to come and enjoy a few hours of fun and enrichment activities. Most doors did not open, though we heard kids inside and saw strollers and children’s toys in the entryways. In the few cases that doors opened, I was surprised that people were just waking up, groggy and confused, though it was late morning.

For over an hour, we waited for kids to show up, before we got bored enough to track down a staff member and asked if we could spread a delivery of mulch that was sitting out front. And then 3 kids showed up, of course, soon after we started that project. And, to be completely honest, my gut reaction to that situation was to judge those who we came to serve. Why would they not want a few hours of free childcare, with enrichment activities and snacks, teenagers to play with? When given this chance, maybe their only chance, to better their lives, to escape homelessness and poverty, why would they not be awake on a Tuesday morning, ready to take advantage? This is a chance offered to them, to work on their GED or improve their job skills, or at least do some shopping or house-cleaning while the children are cared for.   And I could not stop these thoughts, these judgments, from coming into my head. Maybe this is why “they” are in their situation, while those who are more like me are not. My instinct, the easiest path, is to separate people into “us and them” and to elevate myself above them. My response is to create a wall between us. I can do it without even thinking, and I do.

Thankfully, for me, we had a different experience later in the week. On that day, the room was full of kids and a few parents. And I had the opportunity to talk with a few of the moms as we played with the little ones. And I am not able to share the stories that I was given, I can tell you this . . . those women are fighting battles that I can hardly conceive of. Their ability to press forward as best as they can is astounding to me. My judgments were rendered as foolishness. My instinct to separate people into “us and them” was revealed as cheap, easy, and sinful. I am in need of Jesus to break down the walls that I continually build.

What the life of Jesus Christ proclaims is that we live in a world that desperately needs the destruction of walls, and that it is difficult work.

These walls have been made abundantly clear to us in recent weeks. Both the Charleston Massacre and the polarizing debates that followed have shined a spotlight on the racial divide in our country and in our churches. Whether it has been confederate flags or rainbow flags, a presidential candidate demonizing entire people groups, the celebration of Caitlyn Jenner and the backlash that followed, or an undercover video of a Planned Parenthood executive, it is clear that there is much that divides us.

What the life of Jesus Christ proclaims is that we live in a world that desperately needs the destruction of walls, and that it is difficult work.

When we latch on only to the first Bible reading from this morning, it can lead us toward separation, toward hostility, toward racism, classism, and xenophobia of all types. It can even lead well-known church leaders like Franklin Graham to call for our country to bar Muslims from our society, based on fear, judgment, and hostility. When we fail to see the richness in the paradox in the broad witness of Scripture and of Jesus Christ, we end up missing the point.

Whether the walls that we build are based on race or gender, tribe or class, orientation or political party, we are called to follow Christ. We are called to break down the walls of hostility that separate us as brothers and sisters, as fellow children of God. And it is difficult work. It is treasonous work, treasonous against the way that our world operates, treasonous even against ourselves and our destructive instincts. It is so difficult that even the witness of Scripture is torn by contradiction, or paradox.

Whether it is a broad societal wall that you are thinking about right now, or a specific, personal separation, we are called to follow Christ, for the sake of all. As we seek to do that, let us listen again to the guidance of today’s Scripture lesson.

            ¹⁴For (Jesus) is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,²⁰ built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Click to hear sermon            Amen. May it be so. Amen.

[i] See especially Sally Brown’s commentary http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1332

Works Consulted:

Rev. Dr. Janet Hunt “Breaking Down the Dividing Wall” http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2012/07/breaking-down-dividing-wall.html

Rev. Hyveth B. Williams – African American Lectionary http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupLectionaryReading.asp?LRID=114

Martin, Ralph P.             Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon (Interpretation Series)

Wright, Tom                        Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters

Dunnam, Maxie D.            The Communicator’s Commentary: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon

June 14, 2015

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

Rev. Jeremy Watson

 

Mark 4:26-34

²⁶He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

³⁰He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ³²yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

³³With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; ³⁴he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

“Mustard Trees, Toothbrushes, and Grocery Stores”

            Many of us, when we hear this parable of Jesus about the mustard seed, immediately think of a bright yellow plastic bottle, always paired with ketchup, that we use at backyard barbecues on beautiful days like today. When I was a kid, I used to imagine that those bottles came somewhat directly from a large tree, and probably because of this Bible story I always heard about the mustard seed becoming a great tree. That makes sense, doesn’t it? This delicious hot-dog condiment must come from the same tree that Jesus talks about in 3 of the Gospels, right? It was a little bit disillusioning to learn later on that French’s Classic Mustard is actually made from the ground up seeds of a small, spicy herb that is far from a tree or a shrub. If you plant one of those small, spicy seeds expecting a tree to grow, you will be sorely disappointed.

So what is Jesus talking about in this passage about the Kingdom of God?

It turns out that there is something called a mustard tree, and it is completely unrelated to the spicy mustard plant. This mustard tree has been common throughout the Middle East for centuries, and it is quite a plant. The scientific name is Salvador persica and you can see what it looks like on the screen and on your bulletin cover. There is some debate about whether it is classified as a tree or as a large shrub. Either way, this is the plant that Jesus uses to describe the kingdom of God. So why did Jesus choose this plant? What does this plant have to teach us about God’s Kingdom? How does this mustard tree show us how God engages our world?

The first thing to realize about this plant is that Jesus chose it on purpose. He was making a statement that this mustard tree is an alternative to a massive, noble cedar tree. We know that because the language that he uses is an unmistakable reference to a passage from Ezekiel 17:22-24. In that passage, the nation of Israel is compared to a noble cedar tree, planted high on a mountain, massive, awe-inspiring, and life-giving. Every Jew who heard Jesus say this would recognize the reference from Ezekiel, and they would notice the ironic twist. It would be like someone today teaching about our country, starting to quote “America the Beautiful” but then replacing “amber waves of grain” with “olive waves of corn.” You might notice that, and you’d wonder, what point is he trying to make? That might seem intentional.

So what is a mustard tree? And why did Jesus choose this plant to describe God’s kingdom, in contrast to a cedar tree?

Another name for this plant is the “toothbrush tree.” When you break off a branch, you’ll find out that it’s pretty stout, and you can chew on it for a while before it starts to break down. And, over time, people have realized that this acts as a natural toothbrush. It has physical and chemical properties that promote oral health. The Prophet Muhammad, back in the 7^th century, as well as the World Health Organization today, both encourage people to chew on the branches of the mustard tree to keep your teeth healthy.

But there’s more! Seriously, researching this plant is a lot like a late-night informercial. For the low, low price of a tree branch toothbrush, you also get a wealth of healing properties. According to the Pharmacognosy Review[i], (which I assume you all keep up with and read every issue) between the fruit, leaves, seeds, and bark of this tree we can find these properties, “antiplaque, analgesic, anticonvulsant, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antimycotic, cytotoxic, deobstruent, carminative, diuretic, and astringent.”[ii] In places where this tree is common, it is a vital source of healing. It will settle your upset stomach, clean your wounds, keep you regular, battle infections, and is used to treat rheumatism and tuberculosis. The fruits of this tree are used as an antidote to poison, even from a snakebite.

But there’s more! This wonderful plant, which can grow to upwards of 25 feet tall, is as close to drought-proof as you can find. It can survive and thrive in regions with an annual rainfall of just 8 inches. In difficult times in unforgiving parts of the world, the mustard tree is a primary source of nutrition for sheep, camels, and as we’ve heard from Jesus, for birds. It is tall enough to provide a high place for nests, wide enough to offer shade for large animals, with branches that hang low, offering leaves and fruit.

If you can believe this, there’s more! The roots of this mustard tree act as a natural herbicide, allowing for the growth of cool grass in the shade while inhibiting the growth of weeds and invasive species.[iii]

I really want a mustard tree in my yard. If I ever end up living in a desert region, or if climate change continues on its’ current path . . . I’m going to plant some mustard trees.  This tree provides an astounding amount of sustenance and healing to all who come to its broad branches. But the true beauty of this Kingdom of God/mustard tree analogy is even beyond what we’ve heard. But just wait, there’s even more!

The primary difference between the cedar tree described by Ezekiel and the mustard tree described by Jesus is this . . . This mustard tree is a perennial. It can grow to its’ full height of over 20 feet in one year. The cedar tree grows about 1 foot per year. If a mustard tree is destroyed, it can replace itself many times over by the next growing season. If a cedar tree is destroyed, it’s gone for a generation. That, in itself, is a powerful statement about the Kingdom of God.

This is not like any other kingdom. The strength of God’s kingdom is not found in dominance, or common understandings of power, influence, and strength. The strength of the mustard seed is in its’ apparent weakness. It can be destroyed and it will come back stronger. Its’ very nature is to be destroyed and to regenerate. It is designed to die and to bring life. To be crucified and then resurrected.

When we talk about the kingdom of God, Jesus says, we need to separate it from the other connotations of “kingdom.” What do you think of when you hear the word “kingdom”? Do you think of a king? A powerful dictator who is hopefully benevolent, but is most often corrupted by power? Can a kingdom be anything but dominant? Hierarchical? Existing through the exercise of power over the subjects of said kingdom? A massive cedar tree describes a kingdom; stout, stable, taking many years to grow increasingly strong and majestic, withstanding storms, proclaiming dominance from on high.

The mustard tree is a demonstration of a far different kingdom. The king in this kingdom sacrificed himself on the cross. The apparent weakness of God’s kingdom turns out to be its’ true strength. Looks are deceiving. Things are not what they seem. True power is found in unlikely places, in God’s Kingdom. A tiny seed brings vast amounts of life and healing. Jesus brought life through death, and calls us to do the same, to have a mustard seed of faith and watch it grow! The mustard tree kingdom of God is about healing, sustenance, and protection. The kingdom of God offers astounding amounts of life-giving, far-reaching power, and it cannot be destroyed. Its’ very nature is to be sacrificial. Death and resurrection are the DNA of this “kingdom.”

So what does this mean for us today? What does it mean to live and die like a mustard tree?

Here are 2 thoughts on that. The first is that this life involves sacrifice. It involves sacrifices both large and small. Brett pushed us to consider part of that in last week’s sermon, as we heard some of Jesus’ words about families and households. We were pushed to consider what it means to follow our vows of baptism, claiming that this household of God really is our household. We are called to sacrifice for one another, called to be authentic and vulnerable in front of one another, to come as we are. We are called to be welcoming of others, even when they challenge our own sense of security and order. We are called to welcome those who are often rejected into our household, even when it is uncomfortable. We are called to sacrifice, placing our allegiance to God and God’s household over and above our own. We are asked to continually step out in faith, allowing small seeds to grow into wide reaches of life-giving power, whether it is in the broad stage of our communities, or in our individual hearts. God’s kingdom brings life and healing through sacrifice.

My second thought on living like a mustard tree is that it is beautiful to see. When the seed of a simple idea and a small act of faith comes to fruition, it is astounding. I recently saw a great example of this that I want to show you. A simple but profound idea about food and justice has grown into wide-reaching life and healing in our city. Let’s watch a segment of this video about “My Street Grocery”

Show Video “My Street Grocery” 0:00 – 4:31   [iv]

This is one of many examples of a simple idea, an act of faith “that there are a lot of people out there who care” and an attempt to let a seed grow. This is a picture of God’s kingdom.  She has inspired me, and given me great hope in the many seeds that are planted in this household of God each and every day and week that we are together.  Whether it is a career choice based on helping others, or a simple act of kindness, a timely smile, or a moment of full attention given to a stranger, may we plant mustard seeds of faith today.  May we all grow in our faith. May we emulate the mustard tree in bringing life, hope, and healing to all who we encounter, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[i] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249923/

[ii] ibid.

[iii] learn more at these sites:

http://www.gardenguides.com/124943-mustard-tree.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadora_persica

[iv] for full video click here: https://vimeo.com/103123527

“Death and Breath and Life”

Rev. Jeremy Watson – St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

 Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ²He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” ⁴Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” ⁷So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.⁹Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” ¹⁰I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. ¹¹Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

            This passage is a vision that the prophet Ezekiel had of a battlefield in a valley.   It is possible, and many believe, that this vision was based on a real life experience. It is a vision that flows from what he and his people had experienced as they were marched out of Jerusalem and into exile.[1] Ezekiel was a temple priest whose job description changed dramatically when Israel was crushed by Babylon. Rather than performing religious rituals in the expansive, prestigious, and safe confines of the Temple, Ezekiel was now priest to a defeated people living in exile. It is therapeutic for those who survive traumatic events to talk about what they have been through, to draw pictures of what they have seen and experienced. Child soldiers who have been rescued from that brutal life even play-act what they have experienced as a way to process it all and to move toward healing. Maybe that is what is happening here.

The dry bones in this battlefield in the valley are the remnants of war. Israel was the losing side of this battle and this war, and their veterans were left . . . dishonored . . . .unburied . . . on the battlefield in the valley of dry bones.

This is a vision of all hope being lost. Israel sees itself in those dry bones of their fathers and brothers and uncles. They see themselves as dead, lifeless, and hopeless. And this is the vision that their priest and prophet, Ezekiel, has, in the midst of their hopelessness.

⁴Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” ⁷So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together,

The voice of God comes into those dry bones. The breath of God. The wind of God. The Spirit of God. The word is used 10 times in this passage. The same Hebrew word ruah. Twice it is translated as Spirit, 7 times it is translated as breath, and once as wind. It is a rich Hebrew word, as Bible scholar John Bernard Taylor says,

“no English translation can do justice to its variety of meaning . . . At its’ root, ruah denotes the sense of ‘air in motion’, i.e. wind or breath. This can extend from a gentle breeze to a stormy wind, or from a breath that is breathed to a raging passion. It comes to mean both a human spirit, or disposition, and also emotional qualities like vigor, courage, impatience, and ecstasy. It covers not only a person’s vital breath, given at birth and leaving their body in a dying gasp, but also the Spirit of God who imparts breath. Such is the rich variety of the word used here by Ezekiel.”[2]

The ruah of God. This is the voice of God that called creation into being. It is the spirit of God that hovered over the waters and separated the land from the sea. It is the breath of God that gave life to humankind in the Garden. The ruah of God comes from the 4 winds, the 4 corners of the earth. It is the global, universal power coming into the particular. And here it enters the battlefield in that valley of very dry bones.

The battlefield. Today we are celebrating the rare confluence of Pentecost and Memorial Day weekend. The joy and miracle of God’s Spirit giving birth to the Christian Church and the honoring of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice on battlefields. We end up with the Old Testament passage where these 2 intersect. The Spirit of God comes to a battlefield where many have given the ultimate sacrifice. What does it mean for the Spirit of God to enter the remnants of a battlefield? The battlefield is the place of human brokenness in its most tangible form. When conflict escalates to the point of violence between nations. When groups of people seek to destroy each other, to end the breath of the other. It is the most visible and tangible form of our brokenness. War is noble and it is tragic. It is noble to sacrifice oneself on behalf of others, on behalf of country or tribe. It is tragic that this is what people do to one another, that we find no alternative outside of destroying one another. No one knows this more clearly than our veterans of war.   And this is what the Spirit of God enters into. The dry bones of a tragic battle. There were many bones and they were very dry, as Ezekiel tells us. This was a big and a deadly battle. A Gettysburg, Normandy, Saigon, Fallujah.

Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” ¹⁰I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. ¹¹Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’  ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.

O my people. They say that our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. O my people. God loves people. God’s people, you and me and all people, God meets us in the midst of our hopelessness. Whether it is;

the battlefields between nations,

or the battles within our nation,

the battlefield between cancer cells and chemotherapy,

maybe the battle in your own family that brings pain to all involved,

or the battle within yourself that eats away at you.

Battlefields come in all sizes and manifestations. The dry bones of hopelessness are all around us and within us.

Yet Ezekiel tells his forlorn people, and he tells us that the ruah of God speaks to those dry bones, and brings resurrection . . . God knits those bones back together and adds muscle and flesh and tendons, and God breathes life and strength and vigor into our brokenness with the same Spirit-wind that called our world into being. God’s breath brings life where there is death. God brings hope where there is despair. There is nothing that is outside of God’s loving reach, O my people.

This vision of Ezekiel testifies that God is life and there is no depth where that life cannot reach. We see the ruah of God, the Holy Spirit, continue to bring life to our world. That breath entered the body of our crucified Lord, Jesus Christ, who had laid himself on the crucible of our battlefields, sacrificing himself to the depth of our despair. Jesus’ resurrected life testifies to the power of God. And that same Spirit entered the mouths of the disciples at the Festival of Pentecost. Peter, who a few weeks earlier had been afraid to admit that he knew Jesus to the woman who asked him. He was the first to stand by the power of that Spirit of God, and speak to the crowd on that Holy Day. The church was born on that day and called to the Spirit-led mission of bringing life where there is death, believing in faith that the dry bones will stand up and walk again, no matter how dry they are and how numerous the bones are. We have been doing that for 2000 years, so far. This church family here does that.

We are part of that life-giving work. When death comes, we celebrate the life as we grieve together. We give help where it is needed. This past week our Deacons Fund paid a vital bill for someone in desperate need. Many of our members volunteered at local schools and service agencies, as they do every week. Others offered a listening ear, a word of comfort to a neighbor, a friend, a colleague, or a stranger. Our Village Support team is deeply engaged in helping a family, Christina and Victor, move from shelter living into an apartment and toward self-sufficiency. Today’s Pentecost Offering will help those in desperate need, including important scholarships for those at Stephens’ Creek Crossing who are bettering themselves through education. And that is but a taste of what happens in this Spirit-led family of Christ.

We are called to the Spirit-led mission of bringing life where there is death, believing in faith that dry bones will stand up and walk again, and we do it in the hope that God will one day restore all of creation. As a later prophet named John proclaims,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

God will dwell with them;

They will be his peoples,

And God himself will be with them;

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

For the first things have passed away.”

– Revelation 21:3-4

[1] See Taylor, John Bernard. Ezekiel: An Introduction and Commentary, p. 237

[2] Taylor, John Bernard Ezekiel: An Introduction and Commentary, p. 237

Acts 3:12-19

¹²When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? ¹³The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. ¹⁴But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, ¹⁵and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. ¹⁶And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. ¹⁷“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.¹⁸In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. ¹⁹Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out,  

“Faith, Hope, and Conflict”

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (4/19/15)

Rev. Jeremy Watson

 

Last Sunday, Brett shared a great sermon with us about doors and closets, and he promised us that Jesus can and does walk through those doors and into our closets, as he did with the disciples who were hiding in a locked house 3 days after he had been crucified. Jesus’ ability to walk through doors to be with us also allows us to come out of those doors, and out of those closets. Jesus calls for and leads us to be who we are, to come out of hiding, to be loved and welcomed and healed. And I’m hoping that happens today, as in our Scripture passage, Jesus calls me out of the closet.

I don’t know if there’s a diagnosis to be had, or a combination of diagnoses, but at my core I’m a Grade A conflict-avoider. I can find a dozen reasons for why this is true, and I can try place the blame in a number of directions.

           

At the end I can’t deny that this sign is fit for me. This is my gut response to most situations, if I’m honest. Keep calm and bottle up emotions. Find a way to deflect the conflict with humor. Be the good middle child. Ignore it, it’s really not really that important. Be a peacemaker, even if that peace might be shallow. Anger and sadness are not Christian virtues, right?

At the core of who I am, this is what I revert back to. And I think it might be hereditary.

There is a great children’s book that is useful and necessary for my household these days, and maybe forever.   It is called “A Nifflenoo called Nevermind.”

           

I’m still not sure what Nifflenoo is, but this little story is about this guy who says “nevermind” in every situation; when someone smashed jam into his hair, when his best friend turned on him, and when someone called him smelly. Eventually, his hidden sadness and anger exploded in a dramatic way, as it often, or always, does.

            This insightful little story is helpful for a person like me, or a little people-please who kind of looks like me. Maybe you’re with me, to some extent. And surprisingly enough, we see the same lesson in today’s New Testament Scripture passage. Let’s review all that happened in this little story.

            In today’s reading, we have a short sermon given by Peter to a crowd of those who were gathered at the Temple, near the Gate called Beautiful. Don’t you wish your Pastors could give such a succinct sermon, all of 8 sentences long! But the story starts earlier, as this sermon points us directly back to the crucifixion of Jesus. At that point in the story these same people had all been involved. These Jewish diaspora living in Jerusalem, had been part of the crowd of people who screamed “crucify him!” to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who was looking for a way out of having Jesus’ blood on his hands.

But, as Peter says, these people rejected Pilate’s offer to free Jesus and instead asked for the freedom of a man named Barabbas, who was apparently a murderer. And here we have Peter and John, the primary disciples of Jesus, among this same crowd of people. Why were they there at the Temple?   Now is probably a good time to remember these challenging words from Jesus, found at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5.

            Slide #4

“But I say to you, ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:44-45)

Peter and John had heard these words many times. “Love your enemies” is probably the most challenging of all of Jesus’ words to us. Peter and John were among their enemies at the temple. They were preparing to worship WITH those who had called for the crucifixion of their Rabbi, their teacher, and their Lord. That is an important detail in understanding this particular episode. At this point, the miraculous Pentecost event had happened. The Christian Church was “born” one chapter earlier, with at least 3,000 members. But this church, their leaders in particular, did not separate from the synagogue. They continued to worship as they always had, within Judaism.

Now I stand pretty firmly against churches splitting. I think it is sad and, almost always, unnecessary to split a church family or to leave a denomination. It goes against everything that calls us to be a family, broken and dysfunctional, sure, but united, committed, and loyal to our covenants. But . . . in the case when your fellow worshipers successfully called for the crucifixion of your leader, I think that might be grounds for divorce. But they stayed, connected, united. That blows my mind.

A second part of this story happens at the beginning of chapter 3. Peter and John were stopped by a man who had been crippled since birth. That’s an important detail. Crippled since birth. In Jewish understanding, he was crippled as punishment, cursed by God for some sin of his parents or grandparents. He was an outcast, to be pitied and helped, but clearly not welcome in the sanctuary of God, who had judged him unworthy for some reason. Peter looked intently at this man, and asked him to look back at him, and he explained to the man, “I have no silver or gold . . .” Those of us who are reading the story remember from one chapter earlier why Peter and John have no money to give to this crippled man. That early Christian church of 3,000+ people had pooled all of their money and resources and shared everything in common. The early church shared EVERYTHING in common. And that blows my mind, as well.

You may have heard the news story this week of a business owner in Seattle named Dan Price, who ensured that every employee in his company, Gravity Payments, would make at least $70,000 / year in salary. He has over 100 employees with an average salary of roughly $43,000/year, prior to this move. In addition, he reduced his own CEO salary from over $1 million to match that $70,000. The reaction has been widespread shock at this “drastic” move.[i] Dan Price has explained that this move is a response to the growing inequality in our country, with CEOs making an average of 300 times as much as their average employee, among the highest rates of income disparity in the world. “Price [also] explained that he got the idea after reading a [2010 Princeton University] study which shows that emotional well-being rises with incomes up to an amount of $75,000 annually.”[ii] It should not be surprising to us to learn that Mr. Price started his company as a 19 year old from his dorm room at Seattle Pacific University, a profoundly Christian institution, and that he has a widespread reputation as a humble and generous boss who has always cared about the emotional well-being of his employees.
            The generosity of Dan Price still pales in comparison to Peter and John and the 1^st century church, who shared everything in common. They looked at the man crippled from birth, explained that they did not have money, but they had something better. By the power of the name of Jesus Christ, they told him to stand up and to walk, for the first time in his life, which he did. The man stood, and he jumped, and he clung to Peter and John, and he entered the Temple with them.

It was these acts that drew a crowd to Peter and John and lead to the sermon of Peter. And in this brief sermon, Peter cut straight to the heart of the matter. It was by the power of God that this man had been healed, the God that we all worship together, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and our ancestors, who glorified his servant Jesus. And speaking of Jesus . . . Peter says this. “You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead” (verses 14-15).

Peter was not a conflict-avoider. Wouldn’t you say?

So let’s review all that has happened here. These Jewish people had called for the crucifixion of Jesus, who rose from the dead, the Christian Church was formed, but they chose to remain united with their Jewish brothers and sisters who had him killed. Peter and John came to worship with them and met an outcast who was healed in Jesus’ name and then invited him to be an “in-cast,” welcomed into the synagogue to worship God for the first time. As this caused a scene of conflict, Peter engaged as directly as possible. He engaged the smaller conflict of inviting an outcast inside, but he also engaged in the deeper conflict, the elephant in the room, of their role in causing the crucifixion of Jesus. In doing so, he did not mince words, he did not sugar-coat what had happened. He called them Christ-killers. And then he offered forgiveness and invited them to repent, to turn around and join them in welcoming all to receive the blessings of God.

Now that “Christ-killer” part is really important to understand correctly. When misunderstood and taken out of context, these words have been used to promote anti-Semitism. And that is an incredibly terrible tragedy. Anyone who grasps this story recognizes that those words of conflict are driven by a deep love and commitment to those Peter spoke to. Peter and John’s presence at the synagogue is a statement of devotion and love. They were loyal to their faith family. They were loyal enough to speak the words of truth that needed to be spoken in order for healing and reconciliation to ever happen. Peter’s harsh words were driven by love, by a desire for unity. Peter and the early church leaders were committed to healthy conflict as the only path to restoration and unity in the church and world.

These words cannot be taken out of that context. In this very sermon and throughout the book of Acts, everything that happens is driven by a desire for Christian unity. [iii] And all of it involves the necessary conflict, driven by love. This is the picture that we are given of what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus had started this way of life, and his disciples were following him. As Will Willimon has said so well, “When confronted by God’s Messiah, humanity got together and did what it often does in the face of truth – violence and crucifixion.”[iv] And this pattern did not end with Jesus, it was, as we heard on Easter morning, just the beginning.

Throughout the book of Acts, the disciples continue to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God that Jesus had ushered in. This Good News is welcome and available to ALL, and it creates the same reaction from those in power. Peter and John were arrested after this sermon in the synagogue, and many more times, and they continued to preach. They later welcomed the Gentiles into the fold, and the church had bitter conflicts about circumcision and kosher foods, as the tent continually widened with inclusion. An Ethiopian eunuch, as culturally and sexually other as could be, was welcomed and baptized on the spot by Philip. At each and every turn, we see welcoming of others, followed by conflict, which is engaged directly and leads toward healing and reconciliation. This is the picture that we are given of what it means to follow Jesus.

Dallas Willard wrote this in his seminal book, The Divine Conspiracy, “Jesus is not just kind, he is brilliant.” Jesus truly is the Author of life, the master of what it means to live as we are created to live. And this is not just pop psychology or “tips for successful living.” The example of Jesus’ life ushers in the Kingdom of God, calling us to live as Jesus lived, as we were created to live. We are created to receive God’s love and grace, to know we are loved by God, to welcome others to do the same, to sacrifice, to fight injustice, to practice selfless love And part of that is engage in deep, painful, and healthy conflict for the sake of unity. This is the Kingdom of God in our broken world. The unity of those who follow Jesus is a demonstration of God’s Kingdom. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Conflict comes in all shapes and sizes, and is part of each of our lives. Marriages, families, companies, teams, neighborhoods, communities . . . none are immune to conflict. Whether it’s national politics or your best friend. Whether it is with a parent or a child, a neighbor, or a stranger, conflict happens. We are all involved in some conflict in some part of our lives right now. That’s a guarantee. And it is difficult. Conflict is painful and hurtful. It is complex and frustrating. It can be crippling. Conflict can feel hopeless. It’s easier to say “nevermind” for a while, sometimes for a quite a while. But all are called by Jesus to work toward healing and unity. That is a mark of the Kingdom of God. It is what Jesus modeled for us, going as far as death on a cross to bring reconciliation for us and for the world that God loves. In the name of Jesus Christ, who brings healing, Amen!

[i] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/business/owner-of-gravity-payments-a-credit-card-processor-is-setting-a-new-minimum-wage-70000-a-year.html

[ii] http://www.christianpost.com/news/gravity-payments-owner-drastically-cuts-1m-salary-and-sets-70000-minimum-wage-for-staff-even-the-clerk-137501/#KQZH65hTuVBt673I.99

[iii] See Wall, Robert W. – New Interpreter’s Bible: Volume X

[iv] Willimon, Will Acts: Interpretation Series, p. 43.

“Driven”

March 8 2015

Rev. Jeremy Watson

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

            When I was 20 years old, in my second summer back home from Whitworth College, I became part of the college group at my home church, and we became a very active group. Many of us were signed up to go on the summer mission trip with the youth group, and we worked together to help lead Vacation Bible School. A number of the members of this college group were also part of the local Scandinavian society. It seemed like an odd thing for college-aged kids to be part of. But a couple of them had grown up with this as part of their family, and had invited others to join in during the school year, and at some point they had all gotten into the Scandinavian society, and especially into Scandinavian dancing. They took lessons and taught others, and it became kind of a thing in that group. That was the late 90s in Lewis County, Washington!

At some point, those of us in the college group decided that we should put on a Scandinavian dance in the church gym. Those who could would dance and teach, and we would use it as a fundraiser for the upcoming mission trip. We started to make plans and spread the word, and were very excited about it. But before too long, we were told by our youth pastor that the event couldn’t happen. The church board had voted that we could not hold a fundraiser in the church because Jesus had turned over the money-changers’ tables and driven them out of the Temple. A fund-raising event in the church was understood as a modern day equivalent to the money changers in the Temple that we heard about a moment ago.

This is the primary example that everyone gives when they want to show that Jesus got angry sometimes. And he was clearly angry, even violent, in his words and actions. Sometimes it is nice to hear that even Jesus got angry. Kids, listen to this, especially if you’ve ever had a temper tantrum. The next time that happens and you get in trouble, you can tell your parents this. Tell your parents that even Jesus got angry. But don’t stop there. If you tell your parents that Jesus got angry, but you  also name the book and chapter where it happened, and explain why Jesus got angry, I guarantee you will help your case. So remember this. John, Chapter 2 is where this story is found. And why did Jesus get angry? That’s what I’m going to tell you now. Jesus showed us that anger isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There is such a thing as righteous anger. There is a godly purpose for anger. But what is it? Was Jesus condemning fundraisers in church?

Why did Jesus make a whip, overturn tables, pour out coins, and drive the money-changers and the dove sellers out of the temple? Why was Jesus so angry? And what was he trying to accomplish?

There are a number of possible reasons for this tirade. Kids, listen up. One of them does have to do with money in a place of worship. The money-changers were there at the temple, because a monetary offering was required of those who had traveled to worship in the Temple. Those requirements are in our Bible, the Old Testament part. But the money that these Jewish travelers came with was Roman currency, which included an image of Caesar. The image of Caesar was forbidden in that holy place, so it had to be exchanged for an acceptable currency. In one sense, the money-changers were providing a service that was necessary, otherwise the people couldn’t worship appropriately. In another sense, they made a profit by charging a fee for this exchange. A more accurate analogy for what made Jesus so mad is the selling of $9 beers at a Timbers game. That is, if we were required to worship at the temple of Jeld-Wen Field, and the purchase of beer was mandatory. The money-changers had a clientele who were required to be there and to use their services and they had a monopoly in the temple courts. Here’s the first answer, kids. The money-changers were making money off of people coming to worship. Is this what made Jesus so angry?

Or was it something deeper? It is no secret from a reading of the Gospels that the religious leaders were in league with their Roman rulers. The entire system of Temple worship was used by the Romans to keep the Jewish people in check. The chief priests and the scribes were allowed the power and authority for the Temple rituals, in exchange for the Temple tax to the Romans, and more importantly, for keeping the people under control, for quenching any signs of revolt.[i] Those zealots who dared to challenge this arrangement were quickly condemned and convicted as “enemies of the state” the penalty for which was crucifixion. During the Festival of Passover, which commemorated the freeing of Jewish slaves from their Egyptian masters, the Temple rituals were being used to keep the Jewish people enslaved under their Roman masters. Here’s a second answer, kids. The temple was being used to control the people, rather than free them. Is this what made Jesus so angry? The zeal that consumed him?

And there is one final explanation worth mentioning. At the end of this account, we have Jesus’ boast that if they tore the temple down, he could rebuild it in 3 days. This is followed by the editorial note that the disciples remembered this (spoiler alert!), they remembered this after Jesus was raised from the dead. They understood at the end that Jesus was referring to himself being raised from the dead, replacing the Temple and challenging the religious system that had become co-opted for other purposes. Here’s the third reason, kids. Jesus had come to show us a new way to worship, without requiring the Temple and the sacrificial system.

This explanation makes a lot of sense when we look at the bigger story of the Gospels. This story is in all 4 Gospels. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they have this story happening just after the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday, during the final week of Jesus’ Life. This angry tirade causes the death (and then resurrection) of Jesus, and puts him in contrast to the Temple and its’ rituals. This is emphasized further when the curtain around the Holy of Holies, the very center of the temple, where the presence of God was to be found, was ripped open at the moment of Jesus’ death. In this account, we see that Jesus saw himself as the revelation of God in our world, revealing that the temple and the sacrificial system were no longer necessary in order to worship God. The first 3 Gospels make this point pretty clearly.

But in John, the version that we heard today, the episode is in Chapter 2, the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, immediately after he turned water into wine. While some find this order contradictory, I believe John was making a statement that makes the same point as Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and makes it even further. John was written much later than the others, and he used editorial license to make this point. It was not only Jesus’ death and resurrection that changed everything, it was also Jesus’ life. Jesus came to LIVE before he died and lived again. It was not just his death that changed everything, it was also his life. And look at what John shows us about Jesus’ life in the next few chapters.

Immediately after he clears out the Temple, we have Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be born of the Spirit and that the Spirit, like the wind, blows wherever it chooses (see John 3). Jesus challenges the religions to become spiritual. In the next chapter Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, and listen to what he tells her. “the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem . . . true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.” (John 4:21,23). This is who Jesus was, and who Jesus is. Jesus challenges the religious to become spiritual.

And from that point on, we are shown Jesus breaking all the religious, healing people on the Sabbath, hanging with the outcasts and the unclean, revealing God to the world, challenging the religious system left and right, until it landed him on the cross. Jesus was condemned by religious leaders for threatening the system that enslaved people rather than freed them. Just as Jesus drove the money-changers from the Temple, he drove the people from the confines of religion toward its’ ultimate purpose, throughout his life. This was not an isolated incident. It is who Jesus is. Jesus is driven to reveal God, and to break down the all barriers that stand in the way.

So what does this have to do with Scandinavian dancing?

I believe that all 3 of these explanations are true. That is the richness of being given stories rather than regulations.

In one sense, I believe that the leaders of my childhood church used a story in which Jesus challenges legalistic religion, and then became legalistic about it. They turned a narrative into a set of rules, and then followed the letter of the law rather than the Spirit of the law, in my opinion. I think that’s part of human nature.

But they didn’t completely miss the point. The actions of Jesus do challenge us to be careful about the purpose of our church, especially when it comes to money. There is a place for rules and regulations. Rules that force us to ask; are we working to sustain our religion or are we worshiping God? How do we ensure that our religious structures and rituals point people toward God, and do not become an end in themselves?

Secondly, we should be wary of using our faith as a source of control over others. Are we using the faith community to achieve our own goals or are we encouraging everyone to simply worship God? The actions of Jesus in the Temple should cause us, religious leaders, especially, to lead with humility.

Finally, and most importantly, this episode challenges us all to recognize that the presence of God is bigger than our religious institution. Do our religious rituals lead us to a deeper spirituality, or do they get in the way of our spirituality? These are dangerous questions to ask here, but they are also vital questions. And many of you recognize that these are the questions that are being raised in our Lenten Study of Animate:Faith. In those studies we have wrestled with the connection of spirituality and religion, and the importance of balancing each for the sake of the other. We have explored how our religion supports and sustains our spiritual health and how religion can become a barrier to spiritual health? And we have questioned the purpose of this worship gathering.

In Session #3 of Animate:Faith, we were given this image as a way to consider those questions.[ii] Pastor Mark Scandrette used this illustration as a way to challenge what we are doing here right now. In this image, we see a sanctuary for worship transformed into what he calls a “Jesus dojo,” a karate studio. While this is an extreme example, his point is this: If what we are doing here does not translate into changed spiritual lives, following Jesus out in our world, our community, our home, our workplace, our school . . . then we are missing the point. We need to consider how this sanctuary can be like a dojo, a place where we practice the life that Master Jesus teaches us, so that our whole lives are changed outside of these walls. We are called to recognize the presence of God in this place and in this community, but not as an end in itself. As Jesus has shown us, we are called to worship and experience God wherever we go, we are called and we are sent from this sanctuary into our world. [iii]

One of the ways that we seek to do that in this community is through our emphasis on Neighborhood Ministries, our effort to serve our community, our effort to be the hands and feet of Jesus wherever we are. As a way to recognize and encourage our call to do that, I’d like to invite Becky and Chuck White to come up here and to share some of their story of where they have been called and sent from here:         

3 Questions

• What led you to follow the call to serve in our community?

• How have you been changed through building a relationship with [name]?

• What is your hope for our church family as we follow God together?

Thank you for your story and your willingness to share some of it with us.

As the ushers come forward to receive our offering of worship, may we all be aware of God’s presence in our lives, may we all be sent as the hands and feet of Jesus in our communities.

[i] For a further discussion of this, see http://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2012/03/occupychurch-jesus-threw-out-the-moneylenders-for-a-reason-a-progressive-christian-lectionary-commentary-on-john-2-for-march-11/

[ii] See http://www.wearesparkhouse.org/adults/animate/faith/

[iii] See http://www.davidlose.net/2015/03/lent-3-b-igniting-centrifugal-force/

“Walk and Don’t Faint“

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church 2/8/15

Rev. Jeremy Watson 

Mark 1:29-39

29 As soon as they^* left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. ³⁰Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. ³¹He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

32 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. ³³And the whole city was gathered around the door. ³⁴And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. ³⁶And Simon and his companions hunted for him. ³⁷When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ ³⁸He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ ³⁹And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Isaiah 40:21-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

 

This passage from Isaiah is a pretty good pep talk, if you ask me. One of the reflections that I read called it “the most sublime passage of Scripture in the Old Testament.”[i] It is beautifully poetic and deeply philosophical at the same time. The very words can lift us up from despair. These are the kind of words that can help a person recover from the metaphorical interception thrown from the 1-yard line with the championship on the line. When all seems lost and we need to be lifted up, these words are often called upon. They’ve been shaped into wonderful music, as our choir testified to a few minutes ago.

In the middle of this pep talk, we are given some insight into the reason for these sublime words, the situation into which they spoke and still speak. I like how the Contemporary English Version translates this part best. “You people of Israel, say, “God pays no attention to us! He doesn’t care if we are treated unjustly”

God pays no attention to us. God doesn’t care . . . is what the people were saying. This is a response to their cries wondering where is God in the midst of this? Have you ever said that? Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever questioned whether God is paying attention or whether God cares?

The people of Israel, in the time of Isaiah, have a pretty good reason for these questions and these feelings of abandonment. They are standing in the midst of ruins, their own ruins. They are 50 years removed from a series of brutal defeats at the hands of the Babylonian empire. They were crushed in a series of bloody battles, and those who survived were taken away as captives to live in exile. They’d lost everything and endured devastating trauma. And at the point when Isaiah wrote these words, the exiles had been released to return to their homeland, to the city of Jerusalem, the once glorious city of Jerusalem.

If there was a Hebrew phrase for “PTSD trigger”, it would be found here. The oldest of those who returned saw the land of their youth and their strength decimated. They were reminded of those brutal battles, and horrified by the state of their once glorious empire, reminded of how much time had passed. The youngest were overwhelmed by the struggle that lay ahead of them to survive in this place that they had heard about for their entire lives. The buildings and the land were laid waste, fallow, and never rebuilt. The fabled city of David offered no protection, but instead reminded them at every turn of what, and who, they had lost. “God pays no attention to us! He doesn’t care if we are treated unjustly!”

Where is God in the midst of all of this suffering? It is a question for that time and place, and those people, and it is a question that reverberates throughout all times. Have you ever asked why God pays no attention? Why God doesn’t seem to care? Maybe you watched the news coverage, this week, of the Jordanian pilot who fell into the hands of ISIS, and the cycle of unspeakable violence and retribution that continues on in that region. Maybe you read a story in the New York Times about the village of Bagega, in Nigeria, where unsafe gold-mining practices caused massive lead poisoning. It caused the death of over 300 children, and caused blindness and seizures in dozens of others. Perhaps you watched a documentary on PBS last Sunday night about the cycles of poverty in West Virginia and Haiti that seem impossible to escape from, powerful enough to render millions of dollars of intended aid useless in the grand scheme of things.

Or you may be too overwhelmed by a struggle in your own life or family to be weighed down by these heavy events in our nation and our world. Suffering and tragedy are not confined to those dramatic and visible situations that find their way into our newsfeed. They are equal-opportunity participants in our lives, and perhaps more hidden and shameful in our neighborhoods. Last week I helped a friend move from his home into an apartment, in the midst of a divorce that is far-reaching in its’ pain and confusion. Where is God? Is God paying attention to what is going on here? Does God care?

It is a timeless question, and so this pep talk from Isaiah 40 is also timeless. It was life-giving for Israel then and it continues to be life-giving for us now. So where is God?

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? The first response is an appeal to look high and far and wide, in wonder, at our world. Consider the foundations of the world, and try to grasp how it all works in harmony to support life. Earlier in this chapter, Isaiah wrote, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?” Have you ever looked at the ocean and tried to grasp how much water is there, and considered the complexity of that ecosystem which sustains all of life as we know it? 329 million cubic miles of water are in our oceans, we now know.[ii] Who can conceive of that mass? And yet it can be measured in the hollow of God’s hand.

While scientific advancements have reduced the amount of wonder in our world in many ways since that time, the study of the heavens has only increased our wonder. We can measure the earth, climb Mt. Everest, and predict the weather (sometimes), but we have also found out just how small we are. We now know that if we could travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles/second) for 100,000 years, only then could we travel across our Milky Way galaxy, which is but a small galaxy and 1 of millions of galaxies in an ever-expanding universe.[iii]

The presence of Life is mind-blowing . . . is how this argument goes. For us to question the Creator of the world is kind of like a grasshopper questioning one of us. We are told to stop and to first consider what it means to question One who can create this mind-blowing world. God is transcendent, and we are wise to remember that when we question God. God acts beyond human understanding. A God who can create photosynthesis and galaxies and wire the human brain knows infinitely more than we do about when to intervene in our lives.

Listen to where Isaiah goes from here,

“The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.” God’s understanding is unsearchable, and . . . God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. God is transcendent, but God is also imminent, to use philosophical terms.[iv] God is bigger than we can ever imagine, but God is also here, with us. God suffers with those who suffer. God is with you in your despair. This is how God has been revealed throughout history. That is a striking idea, to move from the splendor of the heavens to the pain in your heart and soul.

Isaiah testifies that those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They will rise up on wings as eagles, as our Choir reminded us this morning! Those who wait will be lifted up on wings as eagles. When Isaiah said this, it was much more than rhetoric. He was quoting Exodus 19:4, giving a quick history lesson . . .^“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”[v] Remember the Exodus, says Isaiah. Those who waited in exile in Egypt were lifted up. God has been revealed as the one who gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Do not lose sight of the long arc of God’s actions throughout time.

Those of us who look at Isaiah through the lens of Jesus Christ have an additional story, THE story of God in our world. In the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have seen what Paul Tillich calls the Divine Order intersect with the Historical Order.[vi] We have seen God revealed in our world, as strength shown in weakness. We have seen God as redemption shown in suffering. We have seen God as Life shown in death. The nature of a God whose understanding is unsearchable, is to give power to the faint and to strengthen the powerless. We look at the Historical Order, as we understand the world with our finite minds. But we are reminded that there is a Divine Order that supersedes and expands this narrow 3-dimensional understanding. God is revealed as strength in weakness, as redemption in suffering, as life in death.

With that in mind, let’s look again at the finale’ of this poem;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.

When there are 3 line sequences like this in Hebrew poetry, they are intended to grow in emphasis with each line. Each line trumps the one before it in a rising crescendo. And this is just beautiful poetry, and not my insight by any stretch. Almost every commentary and reflection that I read pointed out this brilliant move by Isaiah the Prophet.[vii] We would expect the sequence to move from walking to running to flying like eagles. But Isaiah writes in the opposite order. From wings to running shoes to “they shall walk and not faint,” as the dramatic crescendo!

What Isaiah wants us to see is this. We have all had our high-flying moments, our mountain-top experiences. And those tend to be fleeting. And we have all had our times of running without weariness, full of strength and energy. But that doesn’t last forever, especially for those elderly Jews who were returning to Jerusalem, in all of its’ barren rubble. The strength of the Lord is seen when we walk and we don’t faint, when we continue to put one foot in front of the other when that is all we can do. That is the true power of God, when we keep moving forward in hope when all seems lost. Have you not seen? Have you not heard? Those who wait on the Lord will be renewed!

Earlier I briefly mentioned a story that I read about the village of Bagega, Nigeria, where lead poisoning has caused massive suffering. The title of that story, which caught my attention is “The App That Saved 1000 Children.”[viii] An important part of that story is the work of a tech-savvy 24 year old named Hamzat, who lives 300 miles from Bagega. Hamzat heard the story of Bagega and the unsafe mining practices, and he created a website and a smartphone app called “Follow the Money” which was used to spread awareness quickly to millions of people in Nigeria and around the world, who were able to pressure the government and the mining company to intervene, and to track their progress. Today, Bagega is free of lead poisoning, and medical treatment is available for all, as a result of those efforts.

The very fact that Hamzat, and the millions he mobilized, were troubled by this injustice and moved to action, is a testimony to the Divine Order. We know in our hearts and in our souls what we know from the vastness of our world; that we were created for more than this. The echoes of the Divine Order are within us, calling us to wait on the Lord, to hold onto hope, and in the midst of all things, to walk and not faint. In the name of God who gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless . . . Amen!

[i] Self, William “What it Takes to be a Winner” http://www.sermonsuite.com/freebk.php?i=788016245&key=hVeylbIrjv8lbdn9

[ii] West, Ralph D. “Lectionary Commentary: Sunday, August 19, 2009” http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupLectionaryReading.asp?LRID=99

[iii] ibid.

[iv] Hays, Christopher B.            “Commentary on Isaiah 40:21-31” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2359

[v] Thanks to the Pulpit Fiction Podcast (Episode 101) for this insight.

[vi] Tillich, Paul “The Shaking of the Foundations” found at http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=378&C=67

[vii] Melissa Bane Sevier said it best at https://melissabanesevier.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/to-be-able-to-walk/

[viii] http://storychallenge.pageflow.io/the-app-that-saved-1000-children

January 25^th 2015             St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

Jonah 3:1-5, 10 

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ²“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” ³So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. ⁴Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

⁵And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. ¹⁰When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Mark 1:14-20

¹⁴Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, ¹⁵and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” ¹⁶As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. ¹⁷And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” ¹⁸And immediately they left their nets and followed him. ¹⁹As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. ²⁰Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

“Without Hesitation”

Rev. Jeremy Watson

1/25/15  

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a conference at the Oregon Convention Center. It was a conference of the Gay Christian Network, a gathering of about 1500 people representing the LGBTQ community and their allies. This particular conference has grown in the past 14 years, from 40 people meeting in a church fellowship hall to a conference of 500 people two years ago, and suddenly this gathering of 1500 in our city. It was a new and profound experience for me, as I heard keynote speakers and workshop leaders and participants share their life experiences. They shared their journeys of seeking to follow Jesus while being told that to be a Gay Christian is an oxymoron, while being barred from church participation, membership, and leadership. It was humbling to be at a conference meeting people who have endured serial rejection, while continuing to seek. I learned a lot about reconciliation at that conference. I experienced a welcoming community that humbled me.

And on the Saturday morning of the conference, I got a small taste of the life of an LGBTQ person in our society, as protesters showed up outside of the Convention Center. These protesters have become well-known, unfortunately, grabbing headlines with their extreme messages of hate and judgment. And so it fell to the people of Portland to counter those protests, to offer support to this conference and its participants. I was encouraged to hear that a counter-protest was being organized to form a “wall of love” that would shield our guests from the protesters with a welcome of love and support.

You can see an image of that counter protest up here, as that morning’s keynote speaker, Vicky Beeching, decided to greet some of the protesters. She is a British singer, songwriter, worship leader and television commentator who came out of the closet this past August. In this image, she was greeting some of the protesters and telling them that she loved them. After posting this image on her twitter account, she became the focal point for the online harassment and attacks that accompany this type of protest.

I am proud of standing with Vicky and those who formed the “wall of love” including Pastor Brett and a few of you who joined us there, and many of you who shared your support. That was my first time to participate in a protest like that, and I’m glad that I did. It was a moment when I had a clear opportunity to participate in what I believe that Jesus would do, showing love and welcome in the midst of fear, hate, and judgment. And I believe that I did that, as best as I could, in the moment I was given.

I have always wondered what I would have done had I lived in the 1960s in the hotbeds of the Civil Rights Movement. I will wonder that again this afternoon as many of us gather to watch the movie “Selma” and enter into that important part of our nation’s history. Looking back, I can see the hand of God in the Civil Rights movement, leading our society, through the sacrificial acts of many thousands of people, toward love, justice, and peace. Looking back, I can see that. But in the midst of it, what would I have done? Would I have joined those who followed Jesus in opposing racism and working toward love and justice? Would I have stood on the sidelines? Defended the status quo? Would I have recognized the importance of those actions? Would I have had the courage to risk my safety and security? And that begs the question, am I doing that now? Am I following in the places where God is leading now? Am I acting as the hands and feet of Jesus in the time and the place where I am?

“As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me . . . and immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:16-18).

Just like that. Immediately. Without hesitation. Simon and his brother Andrew left the family fishing business, which had likely been the family business for many generations. They left the comfort and security of the only life they had ever known, their livelihood, their family, their community, they left it all and they followed Jesus . . . immediately. In Luke’s telling of this story, there was a little bit more to it. Jesus told them to throw their nets to the other side of the boat, which they did, and it led to a massive, net-breaking haul. But in Mark’s Gospel, the earliest version, as well as Matthew’s, that part is skipped. There is no impressive display of power, or at least fishing expertise, on Jesus’ part. But Simon and Andrew followed immediately, without hesitation. And I actually don’t know which is more striking. Maybe the fisher-people here fan help me out. Is it harder to leave the shore where you are trying to catch fish? Or is it harder to leave a boat full of the biggest catch you’ve ever had? Either way, the fact that they left immediately is a vital part of the story. Jesus came, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near, and Simon and Andrew joined him, immediately.

In the way that Mark tells us the story of Jesus, this sense of urgency never goes away. The word for “immediately” or “straightaway” is used 40 times in the 16 chapters of Mark’s Gospel. Everything happens quickly in this story. The Kingdom of God comes near, in the person of Jesus, and people respond immediately. Things happen, the movement of following Jesus grows. It is clear that this is all incredibly compelling. There is an immediate reaction of joining with Jesus, of deciding with conviction, that following Jesus is superior to whatever else was going on. There is an immediate decision that life with Jesus is the life that they were created for. And, in Mark’s account, for Simon and Andrew, this happens 18 verses into the story, before we know much of anything about Jesus.

Later on, it starts to make more sense. We see Jesus heal people, show compassion, preach compelling sermons about the Kingdom of God, and we see him speaking truth to power, challenging the legalism and dogma that dehumanized people. We see him reach out to the outcasts and the marginalized, with grace and empowerment. Later, we hear Jesus proclaim, and model, that he came “not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (10:45). And later we see Jesus crucified and resurrected, as our Savior and Lord. But, in this moment, Simon and Andrew, have not yet seen all of that, or had they?

This reminds me of a great little book written a few years ago by Malcolm Gladwell, called “Blink.” In that book, Gladwell explores the practice of what he calls “thin-slicing.” That is the remarkable ability that our brains have to gather a vast amount of information, most of it subconsciously, in order to make quick and decisive judgments, in the blink of an eye. This ability allows us to survive in situations where quick actions are needed. This ability is often referred to as “trusting our gut” or our “instinct,” or “intuition.” This is why people talk about “falling in love at first sight,” because, as Gladwell argues convincingly, we’ve decided if we are attracted to another person or not within 2 seconds of meeting them. This ability is called thin-slicing, because our brains use a variety of senses to take thin slices of information across vast planes of observation, and we quickly make sense of that information to form a subconscious, instant judgment on what or who are in contact with. A judgment that, if we trust it, proves to be remarkably accurate.

Thin-slicing is a remarkable human ability, and it seems like that is what happens with Simon and Andrew as they stood on the shore of Sea of Galilee, and encountered Jesus. Whatever the thin slices were, they led these 2 fishermen to trust him as Gods’ Kingdom come near.

It was enough for Simon and Andrew to know that this Jesus was THE Good News of God. Because of that moment and their individual decisions to follow him, we now stand in a place called St. Andrew’s, named after one of those fishermen.

Andrew was so compelled by what he witnessed in Jesus that he left everything to follow him, and to keep following him. That decision in that moment led him to a life he could never have imagined, to the life that he was created to live. He experienced the grace and love, the hope and life of Jesus, in such a powerful way that he joined with Jesus in spreading it to others.  And he continued to follow Jesus for the rest of his days, including the sacrifice of his life, on a cross shaped like an X, for the sake of this Good News.

St. Andrew would never have imagined that on this day we’d be worshiping in this church family, named after him. But what he could do was live and act in that moment, knowing that following Jesus was THE way he was created to live. It was deeper and better and more authentic and more joyful than his previous life. He “repented,” literally, turned around, and followed a new path of life, a life that led to the creation of the Christian church spread to every corner of the world, including the corner of Dosch and Sunset.

And that is what Mark, the Gospel Writer, wants us to get from the urgency and the immediacy of the story of Jesus. When people encountered the Good News of God in Jesus Christ, it was, and is, so compelling that people join immediately, without hesitation! Mark wants us to know that the only time that we have, the only time we will ever have, is right now, this moment. And in this moment, we should follow Jesus. The story started with a few people who experienced Jesus, turned around, and followed him, and it has maintained and expanded for thousands of years in this very same way. When individuals choose to follow Jesus in this moment, we become his hands and feet in this broken world. As Dr. Lamar Williamson writes, “For us, as for them, the heart of discipleship and the actualization of the Kingdom of God in our lives lies in following Jesus.”[i]

This moment is our gift, and we are called to follow Jesus in this moment. We will never know what the next moment will bring. We don’t know if it will be a chance to impact our world in a historic moment, like those who marched from Selma to Montgomery. We don’t know if we will have a chance to show love and acceptance to someone who has been serially rejected. We don’t know if a neighbor in crisis will cross our path, or maybe an enemy. We don’t know if we will be faced with injustice or hatred at our next turn, or if our own prejudice will rise up, needing to be turned away from. But we can be ready, without hesitation, to follow Jesus, as best as we can, in that moment.   We can know that following Jesus is the path to salvation, that is; love, justice, peace, hope, and life, for us, and for our world. In the name of our Loving God, made present in Jesus our Savior, Amen!

[i] Williamson, Lamar Jr. Mark: Interpretation Series, p. 48.

Consulted:

“Pulpit Fiction” Podcast 99: After Epiphany 3B

Wright, Tom“Mark for Everyone”

Hooker, Morna D. “The Gospel According to St. Mark

www.textweek.com – various online articles

 Luke 1:46-55

“And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

“Love in the Midst of Rejection”

12/21/14

Rev. Jeremy Watson

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

 

Today we are blessed by the Magnificat. This is the first Christmas carol ever composed. This is the longest set of words spoken by a woman in the New Testament.[i]   And it is so much more than that. These words were proclaimed by the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ as she prepared for his birth, pregnant with anticipation. We were blessed to hear them proclaimed by our Tracy Gerhardt, for who else in our community could do them justice at this particular time?

These words echoed the hopes of the Jews throughout the centuries. They were proclaimed by the woman whom God had chosen to bear the life of God into our world. Let’s just let that sink in for a moment. The woman whom God has chosen to bear the life of God.

And who was this woman, Mary? A young girl, not yet married, surely a teenager. Her fiancé almost called off their upcoming wedding, in shame and embarrassment, before the Angel Gabriel convinced him otherwise. And who could blame Joseph? This young girl had so many strikes against her. She was a Jew living under the brutal Roman regime, an oppressed and powerless people. Not just a Jew, but a Jew from a little backwater town called Nazareth. “Could anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46) And not just a backwater Jew, but a Jewish . . . girl. A pregnant Jewish girl, ostracized now from an already rejected people. She was rejected in spades, a second-class citizen in the lowest class around. But she was also a girl who dared to believe the Angel Gabriel when he said that she was worthy, blessed and loved by God. Mary dared to believe that this child, this miracle child, was God-in-the-flesh, living within her flesh! Her soul magnified the Lord.

There is something about Mary!

She lived in Judea, and as she began to show, she traveled to the hill country to stay with her relative Elizabeth, probably to escape the accusatory looks of her neighbors and even her family. Elizabeth was also pregnant, in her old age, joining Mary as the unlikely source of God’s action in our broken world. In a few months, in her 3^rd trimester, Mary would travel to Bethlehem, forced to by her Roman rulers, who could not be disobeyed whatever the circumstances. And from Bethlehem, she would look 3 miles to the southeast, where she could not miss a resort palace on a hill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see here what it looked like in that time, as well as what it looks like today. The resort palace was called Herodium. It was built by, and named for, Herod the Great, the Roman-appointed “King of the Jews.” This palace was built on a man-made hill that was 2500 feet tall. It was most likely built through the blood and sweat of slave or conscripted labor. Do you have any guesses on who would provide labor to the King of the Jews? This was a man who didn’t hesitate to order the slaughter of innocent babies shortly after this. There is no question that Herod was a tyrant leader, and Herodium, this palace on a hill, was his statement to the people. It was, and is, an impossible site to miss from anywhere in that region.   “At the time, it was the largest palatial complex in the Roman world.”[ii]  It included mosaic floors, elaborate frescoes and extensive artwork throughout, as well as an impressive theater that held over 600 people, or twice the population of the little Jewish village of Bethlehem.

And in Bethlehem, in the shadow of Herodium, we have a young, pregnant girl who proclaims these words;

^“51[God] has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Tom Wright translates her words this way,

“He routed the arrogant through their own cunning. Down from their thrones he hurled the rulers, Up from the earth he raised the humble. The hungry he filled with the fat of the land, But the rich he sent off with nothing to eat.” [iii]

Imagine these words being spoken by a young, pregnant, outcast Jewish girl in the shadow of the imposing palace of Herodium. In the past century, there have been at least three separate instances of governments banning the public recitation of this Magnificat.  Its message, they feared, is too subversive.  This was true during the British rule of India, and again in the 1980s in both Guatemala and Argentina. Those who were in power feared that these words would inspire the poor that change was possible.[iv] These revolutionary words are a threat to those in power.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this, “The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”[v]

When we hear these words, we should not picture a peaceful and serene Mary. This is a young girl screaming through her tears with conviction that God is up to something, and the powers of the world be damned! She’s been oppressed, shamed, and almost divorced. She is a powerless girl in a dangerous world.

But Mary is also empowered by God. God’s choice of Mary is a statement of God’s power. God works through those who have no “power” in order to show the nature of power. As Fred Craddock says, “God works through the unable, an old couple and an unmarried girl. Elizabeth and Mary will have sons because God is able.”[vi] Just as God created Israel through the unlikely duo of Sarah, who was barren, and Abraham, who needed Viagra, God continually proclaims to us that with God nothing shall be impossible.[vii]

This proclamation echoes through the history of God’s activity in Israel and the world. As Tom Wright says, “It was the ancient dream of Israel: the dream that one day all that the prophets had said would come true. One day Israel’s God would do what he had said to Israel’s earliest ancestors: all nations would be blessed through Abraham’s family. But for that to happen, the powers that kept the world in slavery had to be toppled.”[viii] We sang their words this morning, as the lone light of Christ flickered down the aisle, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.  That lonely mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.”

In the shadow of the imposing fortress of Herodium, a young, pregnant girl proclaimed that this dream was arriving, as the heartbeat of God grew stronger in her belly. The lowly are being raised up and the lofty are brought down.

How do we experience this revolutionary message today, in this time and in this place? Are we the lowly or the lofty? Do we have more in common with Mary or with Herod?

I’m guessing that most of us will admit that we are somewhere between Mary and Herod, and if we are honest, we are probably closer to Herod. We are citizens of the most powerful nation in the world, regardless of how we have been humbled by North Korea’s threats this past week. In recent months, we have been struggling as a nation, and as people, to come to grips with who we are. We have been embracing our Mary-ness, as we recognize and join with those who are oppressed, but we have also been embracing our Herod-ness, as we fight to maintain the status quo. And we have been caught as victims in the crossfire, like those 2 police officers in Brooklyn yesterday morning.

Our situation is more complex than what we see in ancient Judea. Herod is an easy target, with his slave labor, imposing palace, and killing small children. Herod today is surely less obvious and more insidious. I have no doubt that we’ve all seen, and felt, the struggle of questioning who we are, as Americans. Does our society target young men based on their skin color and minority status, with mass incarceration and violence? Who is responsible for this and what can be done about it? Do we really torture human beings who are our enemies? Are we fighting terror or have we become tyrants? Am I complicit in this? Are we part of the imposing fortress on the hill, built on the backs of slave labor? Or are we the courageous young girl in the stable whose soul magnifies the Lord? As we reflect upon the actions of God in our world throughout this Advent and Christmas time, raising up the lowly and bringing down the lofty, where do we fit in? Are we the lofty or the lowly? Are Herod or are we Mary?

I believe that we are both, and that God’s actions are always loving. When we are oppressed by power, it is dehumanizing. It is a rejection of our humanity. And when we, in turn, oppress others by holding on to power, it is also dehumanizing. It is a rejection of the humanity of the other and also denies our own humanity. As one of our American prophets, Martin Luther King Jr., said, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”[ix] Both sides are harmed by the broken relationship, while God’s actions bring love to all in the midst of our brokenness.

The liberation theologians proclaim, truthfully, that God is on the side of the oppressed. But God is also on the other sides. We see throughout Scripture that it is dangerous to hold power and wealth. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God” is how Jesus says it once. All are in need of God’s love and justice. The justice of God brings liberation to the oppressed and the oppressors, the poor and the rich. The ministry and preaching of Jesus addresses all. He gave sight to the blind, whether it was Bartimaeus, physically blind, who begged for assistance, or Zaccheus, morally blind, who climbed a tree seeking a fulfillment that had always evaded him in his privilege. The gift of God in Jesus is love for all the world. When the lowly are raised and the lofty are brought down, we end up in the same place, with healed and restored relationships.

As we hear the words of Mary, mother of God, this morning, may we be given the courage to work for love and justice from wherever we are at. Sometimes that courage is shown by proclaiming hope, despite the ways that we have been rejected. Sometimes that courage is shown by humbly recognizing the ways that we are complicit in harming others. It takes courage and conviction to challenge the society that sustains us. There is a great cost to speaking truth to power.

It also takes courage and conviction to challenge the ways that this plays out in our personal lives. This power is not only systemic, it is personal. There are people who we have power over. We have and we exercise the power to reject and push down, to demean and harm. Whose humanity have we rejected, through our actions and our inactions?

There are also people who have power over us, who have rejected us, leaving wounds and scars that stay with us forever. Is anyone here marked by a rejection during your Jr. High years? Wounds from a loved one? Scars from an authority figure? It takes courage to overcome, to let those wounds fuel our desire to love others well rather than retaliating or transferring that pain to others.

We are Herodium and we are Bethlehem. We are Herod and we are Mary. We are lofty and we are lowly.

The good news is this, that God has come to us in Jesus Christ, promising to raise us up where we are lowly and to bring us down where we are lofty. The good news is that God brings love to our broken world, for each and every one of us. May we pass on that love in the face of rejection. May we hear the good news of Jesus Christ throughout this time, and for all times.

[i] http://enemylove.com/subversive-magnificat-mary-expected-messiah-to-be-like/

[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodium

[iii] Wright, Tom Luke For Everyone, p. 13.

[iv] http://enemylove.com/subversive-magnificat-mary-expected-messiah-to-be-like/

[v] http://enemylove.com/subversive-magnificat-mary-expected-messiah-to-be-like/

[vi] Craddock, Fred Luke: Interpretation Series, p. 27

[vii] see Genesis 18

[viii] Wright, Tom Luke For Everyone., p. 15

[ix] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth403521.html