On Vaccines and the Cross…

Tags

Coronavirus, cross, dignity, freedom, Jesus, joy, love, neighbor, pandemic, respect, sacrifice, vaccine

Last week I got my first vaccine shot.  Although I am relatively young and healthy, our commonwealth updated the 1B category to include clergy.  So, when my email came to setup an appointment, I was giddy with excitement.  A flurry of joyful texts went out to friends, I had a permanent smile for the day, and there might have been some dancing.  The day of the vaccine was not much different.  Long lines usually bother me, but I have never smiled so much while just waiting.  Had we not still been in a pandemic, I might have hugged every volunteer and staffer who processed me through the various stages.  And though I have had hundreds of shots in my lifetime, I have never so eagerly proffered my arm for a shot. 

But it was not until I got in my car that I lost it.  Tears burst out of me as the emotions from a year of pandemic spilled out.  Not until that moment did I realize how much I had been holding in – trying to be strong for my family, my church, and even myself.  I still have over a month to go before I get my second shot and work my way through the waiting period, but that one little prick of a needle was the first real sign of hope for me.  I may finally get to see my family, after a year and a half of their absence.  I may finally be able to offer hospitality in my home to others without a sense of panic about safety.  I may finally feel a sense of freedom that has been absent for so long and whose value I never fully appreciated.  The tears that were streaming were the release of a year’s worth of weight on my shoulders.

Of course, even with the overwhelming joy of that day, I know our work is still not yet done.  But somehow the gift of that vaccine shifted the weight of that continued work.  Now my mask-wearing and social distancing is not so much out of fear or self-preservation.  Now my mask-wearing and social distancing can be a witness of Christ’s love for others.  From the beginning, I have said our safe practices were an act of loving our neighbor as ourselves and respecting the dignity of every human being.  But now those acts will not just be an added bonus to self-protection – they will be an act of agency, of choosing to care for others when the selfish thing to do might be to value newly regained freedom over all else. 

As we prepare for Holy Week, I am aware of the symbol we will be turning toward next week.  We will be walking toward the cross until the day of resurrection on Easter.  We will watch, and pray, and sing, and grieve as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ witnesses the ultimate form of sacrificial love.  In this season of COVID, the cross is our invitation to love like Jesus taught us.  I look forward to making that walk with you this year in new and profound ways.

Photo credit: https://signsofthetimes.org.au/2020/04/the-power-of-the-cross/

Sermon – John 3.14-21, Numbers 21.4-9, L4, YB, March 14, 2021

Tags

belief, choice, cross, glory, God, grace, Israel, Jesus, Lent, light, Moses, salvation, Sermon, serpent, sin, transform

Our scripture lessons today offer two contrasts:  a story from the Hebrew Scriptures which might be unfamiliar to you or at least may seem wildly strange, and a story from John’s gospel that is so familiar, you can probably quote a portion of the text if I simply tell you the citation, “John 3.16.”  What is strange about this combination is the unknown, uncomfortable story is a window into the overly familiar, commonplace story.  If we have any hope of understanding either of them, we need to dive into both.

At the point where we join the story from Numbers, God has been infinitely patient with God’s people.  Some might argue too patient.  God has saved God’s people time and again, wresting them from brutal slavery, miraculously helping them flee through the Sea of Reeds, helping sweeten bitter drinking water when they murmured, granting them manna when they complained of being hungry, giving them water out of a rock when they grumbled about being thirsty, offering them birds to eat when they whined of manna-fatigue.  Grace and patience abound with God.  Until this day.  The Israelites throw yet another fit, and God snaps.  This time, God sends poisonous serpents among the people, and many of them die.  When the people beg for help to Moses, God instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole; if people gaze upon the serpent, they will live.  For a God who asks the people have no idols or gods before God, a serpent on a pole is, quite frankly, just weird.

Meanwhile, we have a super familiar text from John.  “For God so love the world that he gave his only Son.”  We love this verse because the verse reminds of our abundant, loving, graceful God.  Of course, we sometimes gloss over the rest of the troublesome parts of this text.  The rest talks about how Jesus saves the world – as long as the world believes.  Here is where the questions start to pile up for us.  Do we really believe that some people are condemned?  Is God’s love conditional?  What happens if we doubt?  Does that count as not believing?  Can eternal life be given and taken away based on the seesaw of my behavior?  The trouble is if we focus on God’s grace, we can make salvation seem arbitrary, with no essential place for human response.  But if we focus on human faith, we may be in danger of making salvation a human accomplishment, restricting God’s initiative universally.[i]  The only thing that seems to be clear is that God gives us a choice.  When we commit evil deeds, when we deny God through our behavior, when we linger in the darkness, we are making a choice.  And the text tells us today that the consequence of that choice is condemnation.

The answer to so much in these texts seems to lie in verse fourteen of John.  Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  As scholar Debie Thomas writes, “In the Old Testament story, God requires the Israelites to look up.  To gaze without flinching at the monstrous thing their sin has conjured.  It’s the thing they have wrought, the thing they fear most, the thing that will surely kill them if God in God’s mercy doesn’t intervene and transform the instrument of pain and death into an instrument of healing and life.  In order to be saved, the people have to confront the serpent — they have to look hard at what harms, poisons, breaks, and kills them.”[ii]  The same seems to happen with Jesus on a cross.  Thomas goes on to say, “In the cross, we are forced to see what our refusal to love, our indifference to suffering, our craving for violence, our resistance to change, our hatred of difference, our addiction to judgment, and our fear of the Other must wreak.  When the Son of Man is lifted up, we see with chilling and desperate clarity our need for a God who will take our most horrific instruments of death, and transform them, at great cost, for the purposes of resurrection.”[iii]

The truth is, I am not sure either of these texts answer some of our basic questions, especially around those of belief.  But tying them together today, we do find an invitation – to change our gaze away from the judgment of others, the wondering about who is in and out, the questions about God’s retribution, and gaze on the cross – the body that reminds us of the goodness of God in spite of our sinfulness, that reminds us of God’s grace in spite of our lack of deserving, that reminds us of God’s unconditional love despite our inability to keep failing.  Our invitation is to take seriously the words of that old hymn, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.”  As we continue on the path of Lent toward the cross, today’s texts remind us of where we are going and why.  Our invitation is to look up at the horrible, wonderful truth of what Jesus does in the cross, and stand in the light of his glory and grace.  Amen.

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[i] Joseph D. Small, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 118.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “Looking Up,” March 7, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2944-looking-up, on March 12, 2021. 

[iii] Thomas.

Sermon – Luke 23.18-26, People of the Cross, March 3, 2021

Tags

autonomous, cross, dependence, discipleship, hope, Jesus, love, need, pandemic, Sermon, Simon of Cyrene, Stations of the Cross, transformation, vaccines, vulnerability

This sermon was preached at New Zion Baptist Church, Williamsburg, Virginia, as part of the Upper James City County Lenten Ecumenical worship series. The series was entitled, “People of the Cross,” a journey with the characters of the Stations of the Cross.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of this pandemic, we have begun to fall into some dangerous patterns.  The more time we safely spend in isolation from others, the more the notion sneaks into our psyche that we do not need others – that we are solitary actors in the world.  The more safety measures become recommendations as opposed to mandates, we begin to think we have power over our destiny – freedom to wear a mask or not, freedom to spend time with people when we want, freedom to take a vaccine or not.  The more time we spend not gathering in our worship spaces, away from our communities of faith, the more distant we can begin to feel from God, slowly no longer watching those digital offerings or joining those Zooms because we are just tired of everything.

Sometimes I wonder if Simon of Cyrene was a man who thought of himself in similar ways.  Now, we have to remember where we are in Jesus’ story.  Jesus has already been betrayed by Judas, arrested in Gethsemane, been shuffled around by religious and secular authorities, undergone trial with Pilate, been sentenced to death, and is heading toward Calvary with a cross.  This is the point in Jesus’ story where we meet Simon of Cyrene.  We know very little about Simon.  He is only mentioned in the three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and even in those gospels, his story is told in just a verse.  Matthew says, “As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon; they compelled this man to carry [Jesus’] cross.”  Mark says, “They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry [Jesus’] cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.”  And finally, Luke, who we heard tonight, says, “As they led [Jesus] away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus.” 

That is all we have.  One verse from each synoptic gospel.  We learn a few things though.  Simon was not from Jerusalem – he was coming in from the country.  Simone of Cyrene was a father of at least two sons.  And we know he did not volunteer for the job of helping Jesus.  He did not have compassion, see a man struggling, and offer to help.  He did not see the incorruption of the state and fight back or bravely step in to mitigate the injustice.  All we know is he was compelled or seized and put to work.  And Luke adds that he carried the cross behind Jesus.  The rest of the story we just do not know.

But here is what we do know.  We know the times where we have collided with Jesus, sometimes against our will or even our knowing.  The phone call from the needy friend when you just need some alone time.  The homeless person, who seems slightly unstable, who you know is going to ask you for something, even if they just start with conversation.  That person being bullied on the playground or in the board room, that if you stand up for them, the bullies may turn their evil on you.  The pastor who asks you to take leadership on a new ministry when you are already feeling overwhelmed.       

Author and Dominican brother, Timothy Radcliffe, reminds us that we Americans have a strange relationship with “the ideal of a self-sufficient person who does not need anyone else.   We should stand on our own feet.   It is humiliating to need others, especially strangers.”[i]  That very kind of thinking is what has led us to where we are in this pandemic – where my behavior, my choices, my agency to mask, socially distance, and vaccinate are my own, made in a bubble of self-sufficiency.  But in the heart of Simon of Cyrene’s experience with Jesus, we see how our own American ideals crumble.  We are not wholly autonomous peoples of self-sufficiency and self-actualization.  We are people who need each other.  Jesus shows us in this strange, forced encounter with Simon that vulnerability is not a burden to be scorned, but the place where holiness is encountered – where we see God.

Of course, Jesus taught us this lesson before.  In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus told his followers that when they see a stranger, the least of these, and see they are hungry and give them food, they are thirsty and give them something to drink, when they welcomed a stranger, they clothed the naked, and took care of the sick, and visited the prisoner, they did these things to Jesus.  We know our wearing of masks is not for our own protection, but for the protection of others.  We know in our keeping distant from our loved ones, including from our beloved churches, we are protecting others.  When we get vaccines, we do not take them for ourselves, but for the power of herd immunization to stop the ravaging of our whole country. 

Julian of Norwich, the Middle Ages mystic, once wrote, “If I look at myself alone, I am nothing.  But when I think of myself and all my fellow-Christians joined together in love, I have hope.  For in this joining lies the life of all who shall be saved.”[ii]  Simon of Cyrene may not have wanted to be a part of Jesus’ story.  We may not want to be a part of the work of saving one another, this community, the commonwealth, or even this country.  And yet, here we are, a pandemic having stripped us of all notions of our self-sufficiency and self-actualization, being forced to look at each other in vulnerability and mutual dependence. 

We may not choose this reality, this time, this country in all its sinfulness, but this is where God has placed us.  But just like Simon of Cyrene, even in those times when we are forced into encounters with the holy One, our lives can be changed.  Several scholars have argued that Simon of Cyrene, in this forced encounter, in being forced to carry a stranger’s cross, becomes a disciple of that same stranger.  Pastor Patrick J. Willson argues, “Simon follows Jesus carrying the cross, thus becoming an icon of Christian discipleship. Luke’s vision is not that of an imitatio Christi; only Jesus is crucified. Simon follows the way Jesus has walked bearing the weight of the cross.  Jesus going before him makes discipleship possible.”[iii]

That is our invitation through Simon of Cyrene.  Simon’s story – his one moment with Jesus, his one verse in the entire canon of scripture – offers a powerful invitation to, even in this moment, take our cross of discipleship and follow Jesus.  We do not have to go with an eager spirit.  We may not even go willingly.  But the promise of going is radical transformation:  transformation from a people whose primary concern is for self to a people who know we will encounter Jesus when we finally realize that only when we look at ourselves as joined with fellow-Christians in love can we look to the world in hope.  Jesus humbled himself, making himself vulnerable enough to walk to Calvary and die on a cross for us.  Our invitation is to walk humbly behind and allow the weight of the cross to transform us into people of love and hope.  Amen.

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[i] Timothy Radcliffe, Stations of the Cross (Collegeville:  Liturgical Press, 2014), 30.

[ii] Julian of Norwich, Stations of the Cross:  A Devotion Using The Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich (Norwich:  The Friends of Julian of Norwich, 1998), 13.

[iii] Patrick J. Willson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Pt. 1, Additional Essays (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 4.

Sermon – Matthew 18.21-35, Genesis 50.15-21, P19, YA, September 13, 2020

Tags

cross, defensive, forgiven, forgiveness, God, heal, Jesus, messy, Peter, reconciliation, Sermon, sins, time, unforgiveable

Forgiveness is a funny thing.  Forgiveness is at the heart of our gospel proclamation.  We regularly talk about how Jesus the Christ died for the forgiveness of our sins.  We spend six whole weeks in Lent repenting of our sins, making the long journey toward Good Friday and the empty tomb, where our sins are forgiven.  We want to be forgiven.  We admire others’ displays of forgiveness – retelling stories of victims who should never have to forgive, but somehow valiantly do.  We sometimes condescendingly tell others they should forgive.  We even ardently require our children to accept apologies, without really explaining what forgiveness is.  But when we are facing an injustice, an injury, an event that pierces our heart when remembered, and we are told to forgive, our immediately response is, “Whoa, now!”

Perhaps that reaction is at the heart of Peter’s inquiry today.  The disciples and Jesus have been talking about reconciliation within the community of faith when someone has harmed another.  At the end of that conversation, Peter wisely asks, “Yeah, but how many times do I actually need to forgive someone.  Seven times should be plenty right?  That’s a good, holy number.”  And Jesus says, “Seventy-seven times,” or as some translators say, seventy times seven.[i]  Whichever number we use, Jesus is not just setting some higher number to track; Jesus is saying forgiveness must be offered constantly, in an ongoing way.

The problem when we talk about forgiveness is we can think of endless examples of things that should be unforgiveable.  In our news streams this week, we saw conversations about institutional racism, stemming from the centuries-long practice of slavery in our country; we remembered the horror of September 11^th and the thousands of people who died, were traumatized by, or whose health was permanently impacted by that event; we saw cases of abuse by spouses or those in positions of power.  And that is just on the meta-level.  In truth, even on the micro-level, we struggle.  We struggle with those instances where someone hurt us personally – the breaking of our trust or the hurtful things said and done by friends, family, or even strangers.  When we need to be the agents of forgiveness, somehow our gilded concept of forgiveness begins to crack.

Part of the problem is our definition of forgiveness.  When we talk about forgiveness, we forget to talk about what forgiveness is not.  Debie Thomas does an amazing job of walking us through what forgiveness is not.  Forgiveness is not denial:  pretending an offense does not matter, the wound does not hurt, we should just forget, or our merciful God cannot be angered or grieved.  Forgiveness is not a detour or shortcut:  forgiveness cannot be offered without repentance, discipline, and confession – there is no grace without the cross.  Forgiveness is also not synonymous with healing or reconciliation:  healing can take a long time and sometimes reconciliation is not possible – in this way, forgiveness is a beginning, not the end.  Finally, forgiveness is not quick and easy:  forgiveness is a non-linear, messy process, that takes time.[ii]

When we let down our defensiveness about forgiveness, we can see those same lessons in Holy Scripture today.  In our Old Testament lesson, Joseph’s brothers come to him after their father’s death, fearing Joseph will finally enact justified revenge for them selling him into slavery.  Now, Joseph has already forgiven the brothers before his father’s death – and is explicit about his forgiveness.  But the brothers know what we just talked about – forgiveness is not quick and easy.  They fear Joseph’s forgiveness has limits.  And in our Gospel lesson, when Jesus uses a parable to talk to Peter about forgiving seventy times seven, he does not tell a story about someone forgiving again and again.  Instead he tells the story of a man forgiven an unimaginable debt – one he could never have paid off in his lifetime, who then refuses to show forgiveness to another in a much smaller, manageable debt.  The parable highlights how forgiveness is not denial – how God is merciful, but can still be angered by our actions.

As one scholar reminds us, “Forgiveness is hard, really hard.  But the good news is that where God calls, God also equips.  God gives us in Christ the gift of forgiveness and helps us to share that gift with others.  And in doing so, God opens doors that are shut.  God opens a future that is shut.  By forgiving those who have sinned against us, we do not allow the past to dictate our future.  Forgiveness breaks the chains of anger and bitterness and frees us to live new lives.”[iii]  The hard work of forgiveness is no joke.  Forgiveness takes time, is hard, and is a winding path.  But the cross of Christ enables us to keep going, enables us claim love – not a love that relativizes evil or negates the justice that is also of God – but a love that can transform both the oppressor and the oppressed – can heal both us and them.  And Jesus tells us today that despite the fact forgiveness is hard, forgiveness is also work we can do through him.  Thanks be to God.

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[i] Lewis R. Donelson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 69.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “Unpacking Forgiveness,” September 6, 2020, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?fbclid=IwAR1uTVaenGNYgJX-mpph8V_97k_S-kIWEbuuSMwkzJKLohX0XbYvuveEk9k on September 11, 2020.

[iii] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Forgiveness is at the Core,” Setpember 6, 2020, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5454 on September 11, 2020.

Sermon – Matthew 16.21-28, P17, YA, August 30, 2020

Tags

control, cross, follow, God, Jesus, life, listen, love, Messiah, pandemic, Peter, resurrection, Sermon, suffering

I have to tell you, I have been dreading this gospel text all week.  We are in a season of life that feels completely out of our control:  whether we direct our attention to the looming presidential election in just ten weeks, the fires and hurricanes bearing down on our neighbors, the impending start of a new school year – whose daily schedule is still unclear, or the ever pervasive global pandemic and the way the pandemic has disrupted our physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial lives.  Even planning this year’s church calendar with our Vestry this past month felt like a game of pin the tail on the donkey – as we tried to guess where our lives would be in two, four, or even six months.

As experts in living an out-of-control life, we can totally understand Peter’s actions in our gospel lesson today.  An impending sense of doom and the anxiety-provoking lack of control lead Peter to rebuke Jesus, declaring vehemently that Jesus must never experience the great suffering and death Jesus predicts for himself.  Peter, who literally two verses before this text is praised for his bold proclamation of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, is severely scolded by Jesus.  “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus yells.  Peter, who has just been called the rock on which Jesus would build his Church, is now a stumbling block, getting in the way of Christ’s mission.  We understand Peter’s actions though.  When Peter declares Jesus the Messiah, he means a triumphal, redeeming Messiah, not one heading to death.  Peter’s Messiah is not supposed to behave this way, and Peter will not stand idly by and let his Messiah self-destruct.

Our tendency is to look at Peter and shake our heads.  Poor Peter – always getting things wrong:  sinking in the water when walking to Jesus, misunderstanding what Messiahship means, getting confused at the Transfiguration, insisting he will never abandon Jesus at the end.  But we have to be really careful with Peter because Peter is not that much different than each of us.  We have all had those instances where we rebuked God for one reason or another.  We too have faced hurricane forecasts and have rebuked God.  As we have watched our political life crumble, we have rebuked God.  As colleges close, mandated technology gets delayed two weeks after school starts, and school schedules are still unknown, we have rebuked God.  As friends are infected, lose jobs, or die from the pandemic, we have rebuked God.  Like Peter, we too have yelled out, “God forbid it!”  We have seen the darkness and pain looming ahead and have desired with every inch of our being to stop the suffering.

And yet, suffering is what Jesus predicts for all of us.  Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”  Jesus’s words make us very uncomfortable and confuse our notions of a loving, grace-filled God who beckons us to come to God when we are weary.  We hear these words about suffering, recalling all of the pain in our lives – the loss, the heartache, the loneliness – and we cannot imagine that God plans for us to suffer in these ways.  Predestined suffering does not fit our understanding of who God is.  And yet, here we are with Jesus’ words today.

What helps me with this text is to go back to Peter.  What is interesting about Peter’s rebuking of Jesus is that he seems to rebuke all of what Jesus says without actually listening to all of what Jesus says.  Jesus says he, “must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”  Peter hears the suffering and the killing part and seems to totally miss the part about being raised on the third day.  If Peter had been listening, he would have heard the good news imbedded in Jesus’ words.  He would have heard the promise of resurrection, the promise of everlasting life, the promise of resurrection life for all of us.  Yes, the road will be dark and painful – maybe even unbearable – but there is goodness at the end of that road.  God’s promise of salvation, of resurrection on the third day, is good news for Peter.  Suddenly Jesus’ scolding of Peter seems much more justified.

The invitation for us today the same:  to listen.  Listen to the entirety of what Christ is saying to us.  If we get lost in the words about suffering and death, then we become like Peter.  Now I am not arguing Jesus is encouraging us to go recklessly surfing in this hurricane of life.  Instead, Jesus is inviting us into a life that matters – a life lived not inwardly guarding our own comfort, but a life that lets go of control, not worrying about the cost for self, but a life that is poured out for others.  We can enter into that ambiguous place because God promises us that even if our lives end in the process, God has more life in store for us.  Jesus’ invitation to take up our crosses is not an invitation into death, but an invitation into life.[i]  This week, boldly take up your cross; knowing that on the third day, Christ will be raised.  Resurrection life awaits!  Amen.

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 80.

Sermon – Luke 23.33-43, P29, YC, November 24, 2019

Tags

Christ the King, cross, fairness, humility, image, Jesus, justice, king, Mr. Rogers, need, Sermon, victory, want

Fifty-one years ago, Mister Rogers Neighborhood debuted on public television.  Many people criticized the show, saying the show was too slow and too boring to keep children engaged.  For critics, children’s programming needed to be loud, action-packed, full of silly gimmicks, perhaps with a few characters that were made fun of or teased.  Knowing how frenetic young children can be, television producers had decided to mirror young children’s behavior in their television programming.  But not Mr. Rogers.  In the midst of frenetic behavior, Mr. Rogers sought a different environment for his show – something slower and more thoughtful, something kind and engaging, something simple and attentive.  Critics said the show would never last, that Mister Rogers Neighborhood was not what children wanted.

On this Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the Church year, this Sunday of jubilant triumph, we find a similar conundrum.  As we read from Luke’s gospel, we do not find Christ the King on a throne – we find him on a cross, leaders scoffing at him, soldiers mocking him, a criminal deriding him, and a crowd of people just standing there watching.  Nothing about today’s lesson connotes victory or royalty.  Jesus’ critics put a sign over his head that read, “This is the King of the Jews.”  The inscription is written as a declarative statement, but I wonder if there should have been a question mark at the end of that sentence.  This is the King of the Jews?  This is what royalty looks like?  This is what a savior is to you?

Of course, I am not sure the people of God were any surer about what having a king should be like.  The people of God never really had a king until they reached the Promised Land.  They saw the neighboring countries with their armies and their admirable kings, and they wanted one for themselves.  That was their first mistake.  God granted them a king to rule over them, but inevitably, the kings, like all humans, were flawed – some more than others.  Hence, there are four books in the Hebrew Scriptures about the kings who ruled and the judges who tried to correct their behavior.  Most of the kings were corrupted by power, money, and greed.  Many abused the people.  Even the most revered king, King David, was a mess.  He was the one who coveted Bathsheba, slept with her, and then killed her husband when he got her pregnant and realized he would not be able to get away with it.

Having been through a horrible patch of awful kings, the prophets predicted the coming of a Messiah – the king of kings and Lord of lords.  This king would be triumphant and would make the people of Israel dominant at last.  You can imagine that with such a great promise, the people of Israel are not too pleased with the man who finally claimed be the Messiah.  Nothing about Jesus says “king.”  He is nonviolent, hangs out with sinners of all sorts, and travels with a sorry band of misfits.  Even his grand entrance into Jerusalem where he is heralded as a king is not so grand – he rides in on a donkey, for goodness sake!  This could not possibly be the king Yahweh had promised them.

And yet, this is exactly the king God sends.  The Lord, who never wanted God’s people to have an earthly king anyway, makes a king that represents everything that is kingly:  a man who loves the poor and cares for the sick, a man who sees through the pretenses of the temple and calls for authenticity, a man who loves deeply and forgives infinitely.  So why are the people of God not excited about this king?  Why can they not love this countercultural king as much as the king they think they need?

In talking to a William & Mary student a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of one of the first Political Science classes I took in college called Political Theory.  When we started reading the first book in our Political Theory class, I knew I was in trouble.  We read John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.  In the book, he presents the best way to create a just political system.  He imagines gathering a random, diverse group of people who are essentially blindfolded about what their lot in life will be.  They have no guarantees about whether they will be old or young, rich or poor, male or female, member of a minority group or not.  In the midst of this blindness, the people gathered are given the task to create a set of rules to govern society.  Rawls’ basic argument is that if those people are truly blind about what their lot in life will be, they will be more likely to come up with a system of governance that is the fairest for all – since no one would want to take a chance on being the one victimized by an unfair system.  Although I appreciated what Rawls was saying, I was immediately annoyed at his argument.  How could we ever recreate a system of justice from scratch, and truly blind anyone enough to create such a system?  The entire premise seemed impossible, and thoroughly frustrating.  Needless to say, my focus in Political Science did not become Political Theory!

That being said, many years later, I think I may finally understand what Rawls was trying to communicate.  Our political system, or even this earthly life in general, is governed by a set of human-made standards that do not look out for the poor, create injustices, and benefit very few.  This is why so many of us get frustrated when we talk about justice or trying to make a difference – we see the system of injustice that fights against us and we can end up feeling helpless.  This is the very injustice that our king – Jesus – comes to fight.  Maybe Rawls saw this too.  Perhaps this world we can only achieve through blindness is the same world Jesus could see through God’s eyes.

In Rawls’ argument, when the blinded people make the rules, and then have their blindfolds removed, some are relieved to be well-off and others are dismayed to see themselves in poverty or at a disadvantage.  But all have some sense of acceptance because the rules they made do not make rich-life as advantageous and do not make poor-life as unbearable.  This is the kind of fairness into which Jesus invites us.  Jesus shows us a world where a humiliated man can look at his persecutors and forgive them.  Jesus shows a world where a man is willing to suffer for the salvation of others.  Jesus shows us a world where even a criminal can see truth in the last hour, can admit his guilt, and turn to Christ for leniency.

This is why we celebrate Christ as King today:  not because he is victorious in putting us in control over others, but because he invites us into a life that evens the playing field – the life of the kingdom of God.  There are certainly going to be days when we wish Jesus would just mount a mighty horse and triumph over evil.  Lord knows, in these days of political strife, of country-wide division and derision, of a time in our country where we say nasty things to one another, and the actions of the other side (whichever side we see as “the other”) are seen as the cause of all our troubles, we could use a Messiah, a king to come in and just “fix it” – to be a decisive, strong, powerful king to clean the slate.  But what Christ the King Sunday invites us to remember is we do not need a king on a throne; we need a king on a cross who enables us to create a world of fairness here and now – a world that is much more similar to the kingdom of God than the kingdom of humankind.

So why do we honor this not-so-kingly king today on the last day of the liturgical year?  I think the very best reason we close one year and prepare to start another with today’s gospel lesson is so that as we can more humbly approach the Christ Child.  If we can imagine ourselves gathered around that manger on that most holy of nights, not eager for vindication, but instead humbled by the path we will all walk with this king, then we enter into Advent with more reverence, less arrogance, and a healthy dose of gratitude.  This king – Christ the King – is the most sobering, challenging, merciful, joyous, steadying king for which we could hope.  He is not the king we always want, but he is certainly the king we always need.  Today we celebrate the wise gift by God of a true King – a king who makes us all better versions of ourselves, who helps us see there are no easy solutions, and who encourages us to embrace justice as fairness, not justice as vindication.  Our invitation today is to take a seat at the foot of the cross, to prepare our place in the hay surrounding the manger, to change out our shoes, to take off our jackets and zip up our cardigans, and to make a calm, quieter space for ourselves to hear how a real king can help us create not the kingdom we may want, but certainly the kingdom we need.  Amen.

Sermon – Luke 14.25-33, P18, YC, September 8, 2019

Tags

blessing, community, cost, cross, decisions, discipleship, easy, hard, hate, Jesus, light, possessions, priorities, rainbows, Sermon, sunshine

One of the things I enjoyed about living on Long Island was the directness of communication.  Now do not get me wrong, having been raised in the South, I know all too well that when your mom says, “You’re wearing that?” or if your grandma says, “Don’t you want to wear lipstick?” or if your friend says, “Well those new shoes are utilitarian,” they are not actually saying what they mean.  On Long Island things are much clearer.  Instead you’ll be told, “Don’t wear that,” “Put on some lipstick; I’ll show you which one,” and “Those shoes are awful.”  The words always sting, but at least you know you what people think.

Today’s gospel has me convinced some of Jesus’ relatives were from Long Island.  In these short eight verses, Jesus says if we want to follow him, we will need to sell our possessions, carry our cross, and hate our parents, spouse, children, siblings, and even life itself.  I have to say, on this Rally Sunday, on the day we return to the fullness of Hickory Neck, and we feast and laugh and worship together, I could have used a little more southern-speak from Jesus today.  At least Jesus could have saved the hard sell for Stewardship season!

But as we start putting our calendars together for the fall, as our children sign up for the extracurricular activities, and as we think about what ministries we may want to try at Hickory Neck this fall, I suppose there is no time like the present to get real.  This is a season of hard choices.  I know in our household alone, there were two awesome opportunities for afterschool activities that fell on the exact same time and day.  And so we had to make a hard decision.  As I have mapped out my own calendar, I have realized that there are things I can say yes to and things to which I have to say no.  And on the really tricky days, there are times when our family has to bring in a third adult to help us juggle four people’s commitments.  This is a season of hard choices and consequences.  This is a season of priorities.

I do not actually think Jesus is being harsh today.  I know we sometimes get so used to the inclusive, loving, embracing God that we forget that following Jesus is not all rainbows and sunshine.  Jesus, like our beloved Long Islanders, is not harsh – just honest.  And Jesus is not saying there will be no health, healing, and wholeness; no justice, mercy, and grace; no forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.  But Jesus is saying those things will cost us.  All those rainbows and sunshine we will receive come at the cost of redistributing wealth, of being faithful even when being faithful gets us ostracized from our social circles, of being intolerant of injustice even if doing so risks our most valued relationships with others.

If we can agree that Jesus is just being honest, understanding why he is setting such a high standard can be helpful.  Starting with one of the trickier things Jesus says today may be best.  Jesus says in the final verse today, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”  Though money is a taboo subject for most people, Jesus talks about money perhaps more than any other subject in scripture.  Jesus talks about money so much because Jesus knows the power money has over us.  Jesus tells us to give up our possessions, to stop worrying about what is mine because my obsession with owning, possessing, or claiming things as my own can make me think ownership is my exclusive, inviolable right.  Jesus knows having possessions can make me think all things are my own:  my money, my time, my comfortable lifestyle, my political or religious beliefs, my closest relationship, my independence.  Jesus knows when I get possessive, I cling to things that are not God, and create habits in myself leading me to smother, not love; to exploit, not steward; to hoard, not appreciate.[i]

On the podcast “On Being,” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie retells an old Talmudic parable.  In the parable there is “a ship that is sailing, and there are many cabins.  And one of the people in the cabins on the lower floor decides to dig a hole in the floor of his cabin, and does so, and sure enough, the ship begins to sink.  And the other passengers suddenly discover what’s going on and see this guy with a hole in the floor.  And they say, ‘What are you doing?’ And he says, ‘Well, it’s my cabin. I paid for it.’  And down goes the ship.”[ii]  What this parable and what Jesus are trying to do is help us see that possessions tempt us to live like the man in the cabin – to believe our ownership negates our relationship to others.  Our possessions can create an obsession with “me, me, me,” with a disregard for the “we” to which we belong as followers of Christ.

Jesus also says in verse 27, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  Part of Jesus’ cross is a redefining of the “we,” we were just talking about.  If you have read your September Nuggets, our newsletter, you know one of the rallying calls of stewardship this fall is going to be “We are Hickory Neck!”  When I thought about that call, I immediately thought about the movie We Are Marshall.  In the film, the rally call “We Are,” answered vigorously by “Marshall!” is a definitive moment about not letting tragedy overcome goodness – not letting death squash life.  When we start our own rallying, “We are Hickory Neck,” we probably all have things about Hickory Neck that are dear to our heart, that inspire our belonging here, and motivate our involvement here.  One of the things we are doing in the call, “We are Hickory Neck,” is also defining who the “we” is in that call.  In carrying our cross as Jesus invites today, we are not just talking about personal sacrifice.  We are also asking, to whom and for whom we are responsible.  We are widening the circle of “my people,” to consider who the people are we will love, welcome, serve, and for which we would make sacrifices.  We are taking on the task of widening our “we” to be broader and riskier than we have previously embraced.  By taking up our cross, we are saying the whole ship, not just my cabin on the ship, but the whole ship has an irrefutable claim on my life.[iii]

Perhaps the hardest thing Jesus says comes right at the beginning, in verse 26.  Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  Hate is a strong word – a word we have banned in our home, especially when talking about other family members.  I will not be going home today and telling our children they can pick up that word again.  But I do think Jesus uses a powerful word because the power of discipleship will involve taking on some powerful experiences.  We will need to be willing to hate some things about this life.  We will need to ask which customs, beliefs, or traditions we have inherited we need to renounce in order to follow Jesus.  We will need to look at what baggage we need to abandon, what ties we must loosen, what relationships we must subordinate.  What scholar Debie Thomas says is “Jesus spoke his hard words about ‘hating’ one’s family in a cultural context where the extended family was the source of a person’s security and stability.  Jewish families in first century Palestine were self-sustaining economic units.  No one in their right mind would leave such a unit behind in order to follow a homeless, controversial preacher into some uncertain future.”  What Thomas asks us to consider is what sources of modern-day security and stability we trust more than we trust God.[iv]

So if this is what discipleship looks like, where is the Good News in Jesus’ challenge today?  Why would we do all this hard stuff?  We do all the hard stuff of discipleship because of the rainbows and sunshine.  We give up a sense of possession, we take on crosses, and we renounce things we have loved because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of Hickory Neck:  we have experienced life-altering community here; we have experienced love, joy, and blessing we did not know we needed here; we have found purpose, meaning, and value here.  We also take on Jesus’ intense notion of discipleship because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of the world around us:  we have experienced the profundity of loving our neighbor as ourselves; we have experienced the blessing of seeing God in someone we thought unworthy of our love; we have experienced being transformed by walking right out of our comfort zones into life-giving discomfort zones.  We accept the invitation of illogical discipleship because of the more cosmic rainbows and sunshine of faith:  of being known and accepted by a loving, living God; of the promise of forgiveness of our most heinous sins; of the reality of eternal life made possible through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  Once we start thinking about the rewards of the life of discipleship, the cost seems surmountable.  Once we look at the depth of Christ’s rainbows and sunshine, letting go of possessions, taking up crosses, and hating the stuff of life that only brings death seems much less scary.  Once we realize we may not be able to do whatever we want to in our cabin, we realize we have a ship full of people ready to hold our hands as we take on the burden of discipleship together – because the burden is easy and the yoke is light.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “What It Will Cost You,” Journey with Jesus, September 1, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2346 on September 4, 2019.

[ii] Amichai Lau-Lavee, “First Aid for Spiritual Seekers,” On Being with Krista Tippet, July 13, 2017, as found at https://onbeing.org/programs/amichai-lau-lavie-first-aid-for-spiritual-seekers/ on September 6, 2019.

[iii] Thomas.

[iv] Thomas.

On Resurrection and Race…

Tags

anxiety, comfort, cross, Easter, Jesus, kingdom of God, light, light of Christ, privilege, race, racism, resurrection, shade

Photo credit:  https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/august-web-only/reflections-on-cross-and-lynching-tree.html

This Sunday at Hickory Neck, we kick of a three-week series on James H. Cone’s book The Cross and the Lynching Tree.  Only a few pages into the book, and I confess this will be a heavy discussion for us as a parish.  You might be wondering why we chose such a book in Eastertide – isn’t race and violence a better topic for Lent?  Or maybe you are wondering why we are talking about race – again – at church.  Surely we can move on to talk about other topics!?

When my family I visited the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in April, something poignant happened to me as I shepherded our young children through the museum.  There was an exhibit about the Jim Crow era in Mississippi.  As you walked through the exhibit, there were motion detectors that triggered recordings.  The recordings were of white men and women saying or shouting the things that were said or shouted to persons of color – about not belonging, about watching out, about even just existing in a segregated world.  Since I had small, active children, the motion sensors were triggered a lot, meaning these voices were shouting at me constantly.  I found by the time we exited that portion of the museum, my nerves were totally shot.  The exhibit was a powerful reminder of how, even when civil liberties were won, African-Americans were still not treated equally.  In fact, their existence then (and I suspect even today) was one of walking on egg shells – never knowing when someone would say something offensive, physically-threatening, or even life-threatening.  That kind of lifelong anxiety must do things to your psyche and mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

But as a Caucasian, I have the privilege to not experience that egg shell kind of life.  I have the privilege to decide when “we’ve talked about race enough.”  I even have the privilege of deciding when a good season to talk about race is – lest we confuse happy seasons with sad or contemplative ones.  And that is why we try at Hickory Neck to engage in at least one book or film study a year – to remind us of the privilege we hold because of something totally out of our control:  our skin color.  And if we are an Easter people, then celebrating resurrection life means bringing about the kingdom of God here on earth.  One of the ways we advance the kingdom is to live out the gospel – to live out the life of Jesus, instead of one that is counter to the life of Jesus.

I know the reading will be hard, and I know you have hundreds of things to do.  But for the next three weeks, I invite you to join us.  Join us in setting aside the comfort of our privilege in life, and stepping into the shady places of life.  Join us in being open to hearing other experiences, learning new things, and seeing race and reality differently.  Join us in living into the true meaning of Easter – a life where the resurrection means reconciliation and renewal.  Walking into the shady parts of life will allow us to more authentically proclaim the light of parts of life – the light of Christ.

Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YC, April 19, 2019

Tags

broken, community, cross, darkness, disciple, find, God, Good Friday, humanity, identity, incomplete, Jesus, lost, passion, prayer, Sermon, sin

When I was in college, I would occasionally find myself sitting in the back of the enormous Chapel.  Sometimes I do not even remember actively choosing to go inside the Chapel.  Somehow my body seemed to know I needed something before my brain did.  The cavernous, quiet building rarely had large crowds.  Or maybe my late-night study sessions meant I was there after everyone had left.  Regardless, I would find myself on a hard, wooden pew, just sitting there.  I am not sure I was there praying necessarily.  At least not in the traditional sense.  More often I was sitting there in desperation.  Sometimes I was at the end of a semester, completely overwhelmed and feeling incapable.  Other times, I was feeling a deep sense of loneliness, despite being surround by tons of friends and classmates.  Other times, I simply felt lost, not sure about my purpose or what in the world God was doing with my life – if God was even there at all.  But mostly, when I sat on those pews, surrounded by magnificent beauty and architecture, I felt a profound hole in my heart.  That Chapel was sometimes the only place I could go and be honest about my profoundly weak humanity.

I think worshiping on Good Friday is a little bit like that.  Unlike other times of worship, we do not usually come to this service looking for praise and joyful singing.  Instead, this day is a day where we willingly come to acknowledge and honor those parts of our lives where we feel a profound sense of brokenness, sinfulness, and incompleteness.  We read Scripture that speaks to our deepest pain and suffering.  We say prayers that address the fullness of need for ourselves and the world.  And we venerate the cross – staring at the object that brings into sharp focus our weakness and humanity, and our need for something bigger than ourselves.

On a day like today, I am grateful for John’s Passion Narrative.  All the Passion Narratives from the gospels tell a similar story – the last moments of Jesus’ time with the disciples, his trial and crucifixion, and his death.  And despite the fact that the story in all four gospels is heart-wrenching, something about John’s version digs deeper – shines a light into those dark places we prefer to keep hidden from the light of day.  But in John’s gospel, there is nowhere to hide.  We experience a deep sense of being bereft of our own sinfulness as the sins of those in our narrative mirror our own.  These are not just the common, everyday sins of life.  The sins of the characters today are the sins of denying our very own identity.

Often when we talk about Judas, we think of his failure as a thing he did to Jesus.  But Judas’ sin goes deeper than betrayal of Jesus.  Judas denies his very discipleship.  After all those years of following Jesus, trusting the salvific work of the Christ, believing and proclaiming Jesus’ Messiahship, Judas denies his discipleship by no longer following and instead trying to control the work of God.  You see, Judas follows Jesus because he believes Jesus is starting a political revolution – is becoming the conquering Messiah.  Jesus is not living into that identity as much as Judas wants, so Judas gives Jesus a push.[i]  But when Judas brings all of those soldiers to the intimate place where he discovered his identity as a disciple, we see how deep Judas’ sinfulness goes.  The garden had been a home for the disciples – where they had gathered regularly, in intimate community.  To bring those soldiers there – to the place that defined his own discipleship – is the marker not of an indiscretion, but of a complete denial of who he is.  In John’s gospel, the last appearance of Judas is not of remorse, or suicide, or judgment of Judas.  John simply says, Judas stands “with them.”  With them is not just a physical location; with them is a theological one.  By seeking to control Jesus, by walking away from relationship with Christ, and by standing against Jesus in the very place of intimate identity-making, Judas takes a new identity.  He denies his discipleship, and instead stands with them.[ii]  And as much as we might want to judge Judas, we all know that there have been times when we were fed up with God, and decided to take matters into our own hands.  The more we think we know better, the further we step away from following Christ, denying our own identity in Christ.  The more we seek control, the further we step away from our intimate relationship with Jesus, and instead stand with someone or something else.

Peter denies his identity in a slightly different way.  When we read John’s gospel, we can easily conflate John’s version with the versions from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  In those gospels, Peter is asked whether he knows Jesus.  His response is he does not know the man.  But in John’s gospel, the question to Peter is different.  He is not asked if he knows Jesus, but whether he is Jesus’ disciple.  To say, “I am not,” is not just a denial of knowledge.  Peter is denying his very identity.  As Karoline Lewis asserts, “In the Gospel of John…Peter’s denial is not of Jesus but of his own discipleship.  …To deny discipleship is to deny one’s relationship with Jesus and the intimacy that makes Jesus and his followers virtually inseparable.  Peter does not deny Jesus, but denies being a disciple.”[iii]  Because we live in a time when we are rarely asked about our identity as people of God, we think of ourselves as immune to Peter’s temptation or somehow incapable of such identity denial.  And in some ways, we may be right:  our denial of identity is not usually as straightforward as Peter’s.  But that doesn’t mean we do not regularly reject our identity.  In small, everyday ways, we find ourselves making accommodations that fracture our intimacy with Christ – decisions that we can rationalize at the time, but when we look back realize have become of slow pattern of denying whose we really are.  And before long, we get so far from discipleship that no one even knows we are Christ’s disciple.

But the denials of identity are not just limited to Christ’s disciples.  Even the religious authorities lose themselves in their attempt to squash the Jesus movement.  The leaders of the faith community are so convinced that Jesus is wrong, they negotiate with a secular leader to get what they want.  And when Pilate, who knows what they want is wrong, pushes them to recognize they are wrong, the religious authorities say something that seems innocuous enough.  But saying, “We have no king but the emperor,” is the ultimate denial of their identity as a people of God.  The people of faith, who were once freed from a king over them, who journeyed forty years, claiming God as their king, who have an everlasting covenant with God, deny the covenant to get what they want.  By claiming the emperor, they deny their very identity.  The people of God, who are about to prepare the Passover feast – the feast that celebrates their release from Pharaoh, “embrace a latter-day Pharaoh whose overthrow the Passover is intended to celebrate.”[iv]  Although we like to demonize the chief priests, we too have pledged loyalties to things other than God.  Perhaps not as dramatically as the religious authorities, but we have all known those moments when a declaration slipped out of our mouths that we later come to realize was denial of everything we claim to be.

On this most holy of days, we can journey so far into the darkness of humanity, of the ways we deny our very own identity, that we can walk out of this beautiful historic chapel feeling lost – having received no encouragement for our bereft hearts.  But I do not think the point of Good Friday is to walk with us into the darkness without giving us a sliver of light to hold onto in these next hours.  Though our reading ends with the finality of Jesus in a tomb, where we are better left is at the foot of the cross.  At the foot of the cross is where we find identity again.  At the foot of the cross, we find a new community being formed.  Jesus gives his mother to the beloved disciple; and to the beloved disciple, he gives his mother.  In other words, Jesus creates a community of mutual care – a new family, a place of forming identity in Christ, even as Christ is departing.[v]  The very reason we gather in community on Good Friday is because we need this group gathered here – this group gathered at the foot of the cross – to bring us back from the denials of our identity, and help us reclaim whose we are.  Today is certainly a day for claiming how deep our own betrayal of God is, but today is also a day of claiming a community who can help us walk back.

I think that was what I was doing all those years ago in college as I sat on those cold, hard pews of the Chapel.  I knew I was lost, that my angst was not just the anxiety of tests and deadlines, but was a much deeper angst about identity.  And although that Chapel was mostly empty, that Chapel reminded me of all the times I had gathered in sacred spaces with the community of the faithful.  Even when the Chapel was empty, the Chapel was somehow a reminder of the mothers and brothers who gathered with me at the foot of the cross.  The only difference today is you do not have to imagine a community gathered with you at the cross.  We are right here with you.  We are struggling right along with you on this journey called discipleship.  Together, starting at the foot of the cross, we will find our way.  Amen.

[i] Jim Green Somerville, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),300, 302.

[ii] Karoline M. Lewis, John (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 218-219.

[iii] Lewis, 222.

[iv] C. Clifton Black, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),303.

[v][v] Lewis, 229.

Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YA, April 14, 2017

Tags

betrayal, blasphemy, chief priests, confession, cross, denial, evil, failure, God, Good Friday, Jesus, Judas, passion narrative, Peter, scapegoat, Sermon, sinfulness, transform

I have been thinking this week about how every year we read the same story of Jesus’ death.  Unlike the Christmas story that we eagerly anticipate hearing each year, this story seems like a masochistic practice of hearing the same devastating story over and over again.  And we do not just read this story on Good Friday.  In addition to John’s version of the passion narrative, we read one of the synoptic versions on Palm Sunday.  Twice in one week we relive the painful story, catching interesting variations.  But the ending is always the same:  death, finality, failure.  At least on Palm Sunday, we use various voices, making the story feel like a performance.  But today, one sole voice, tells the achingly raw story – a story we would rather skip, or soften, or cry out to the reader, “Please stop!”

In hearing the story this year, I was struck by the failures of three characters.  The first is probably the easiest culprit:  Judas.  In Mathew’s gospel there is at least a feigning of loyalty as Judas greets Jesus as “Rabbi,” and kisses his cheek.  But John does not play such games.  In John’s narrative, Judas is fully on the side of the persecutors.  He boldly brings and stands with the soldiers and police.  He does not greet Jesus, or apologize.  He is confident in his decision.  He stands proud, even as we now are able to see his profound failure.  His ignorance of the depth of his betrayal is almost worse than the actual betrayal.  His confidence that this is for the best, is the first crack in our hearts as we hear this painful story.

Then we have Peter – precious, passionate, pitiful Peter.  For all the times he gets things right, and all the endearing times he gets things wrong, today is just a spirit-crushing failure.  In Matthew’s gospel, Peter denies knowing Jesus.  In John’s gospel, Peter denies his discipleship – his very relationship with and dedication to the Messiah.  In the face of Jesus’ “I am,” claim[i] today, Peter’s claim is “I am not.”[ii]  For all the wonderful, powerful, sacrificial moments in Jesus today, Peter is shameful, cowardly, and self-serving.  Even after being warned that he will deny Christ, Peter denies Christ in spite of himself.  That cock’s crow is the second crack in our hearts as we hear this brutal story.

The third character today does not always get as much attention, but their failure is perhaps the worst.  Whereas Judas and Peter deny and betray a friend, the chief priests deny their very God.  They say seven words to Pilate today that should be more shocking than anything said.  “We have no king but the emperor.”  We often get distracted by their words, because we know that they are meant manipulate Pilate’s sense of authority.  But the chief priests, the religious, moral guides of the people of faith say today, “We have no king but the emperor.”  Of course, we have to think back to remember why this statement is so profoundly painful.  You see, once upon a time, God was the king of Israel.  The people worshiped Yahweh, and Yahweh alone.  But the people got greedy, and begged Yahweh for a king like the other nations.  And so God anointed kings through God’s prophets.  But the chief priests take their self-centered sinfulness a step further than our ancestors.  They deny God today.  Their claim to have no king but the emperor is treason against our God – blasphemy.  And with their claim, our heart lies cracked in two as we hear the rest of the awful story.

Of course, blaming Judas, Peter, and the chief priests would be an easy way to scapegoat our way out of this dark day.  There are even Christians who claim that the Jews crucified our Lord.  But we know the truth.  We know that we are the Jews.  We know that we are Judas and Peter and the chief priests.  We know that our heart fractures with each vignette because they remind us of times when we have stood on our soapboxes, certain of our moral claims, only to later look back and see whom we betrayed and trampled in the process.  We know that that our heart fractures because we are reminded of those times when we knew the right thing to do, said we were going to do the right thing, and then failed to do the right thing – over, and over, and over again.  We have heard that same cock crowing.  We know that our heart fractures because we have put other gods before our God.  Sure, the gods have varied:  money, power, security, ego.  But we have gotten so lost in our gods that we said and did things that would have inspired a gasp from anyone more faithful than ourselves.  The failures of Judas, Peter, and the chief priests are not just failures of those men, two thousand years ago.  The failures of Judas, Peter, and the chief priests are our failures.[iii]

I think that is why we tell this story year after year, twice a week from different gospels.  We tell this story over and over again because we fail over and over again.  Though the specific characters are important, the characters live and operate in us centuries later.  That is why the story is so compelling – not because we can gather together and wag our fingers at those people.  The story is compelling because the story is eerily close to our own sinfulness.  Part of the devastating nature of this story is how complicit we are in the story.  Though the powers of evil might want us to deny our culpability in this story, what is hardest about this story is how close to home the story really is.

Now, you I do not ever like to leave the pulpit without a word of hope, a reminder that risen Lord redeems us all.  But today, I encourage you not to rush to the empty tomb.  Take time to sit in our collective confession, to tarry on those things done and left undone which are separating you from God and one another.  Bring your failures or sense of failure to the cross and lay them there today.  Grieve the ways that you cannot help yourself, year after year, from sin and shame.  The whole season of Lent has been building up to this day.  The whole reason we took on those disciplines and came to church for confession was because we knew, ultimately, that this is where we keep tripping up:  in betrayal and denial of our very identity as beloved disciples and children of God.  We are the ones bombing others.  We are the ones racially profiling.  We are the ones denigrating women, the poor, and the oppressed.  We are the ones, century after century repeating the sins of the faithful.

Lay all that sinfulness at the cross today.  Whether you venerate the cross in the liturgy today, wear a cross around your neck, or pray with the cross on your prayer beads, the power of the cross is to absorb all those failures and to transform them into something worth living.  You can, and perhaps should, feel the powerful weight of your sinful patterns today.  But let them die at the foot of the cross with Jesus.  Lay them naked at the cross, for all the world to see.  There is relief in that confession, the depth of which you may not feel fully until our Easter proclamation.

[i] Susan E. Hylen, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 299.

[ii] Karoline Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 222.

[iii] Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis, and Matt Skinner, “SB 535, Good Friday,” April 7, 2017, found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=873 on April 8, 2017.