Sermon – John 18.33-37, P29, YB, November 22, 2015

Tags

ambiguity, angst, bizarre, Christ the King, communion, divinity, Eucharist, evil, faith, follow, Jesus, king, mystery, Pilate, Sermon, terrorism, uncomfortable, violence

Every once in a while, I am reminded of how bizarre our faith can sound to others.  When a child asks a seemingly basic question, or when a non-believing stranger asks me a question that is not easy to explain, I can imagine how strange my responses sound.  But having been raised in the faith, the strangeness never bothered me.  And if I really was not sure about something, I found myself comfortable with the explanation, “It’s a mystery.”

But lately, I have been barraged by incidents where “It’s a mystery,” just does not cut it!  The first instance was the First Holy Communion class I did with David and William a few weeks ago.  David and William actually went pretty easy on me.  But those classes are always challenging because they do not allow you to simply experience Holy Eucharist – I have to explain Holy Eucharist:  from why we process and reverence an instrument of death (the cross had the same purpose as our modern-day electric chair); to what to do when we don’t necessarily believe everything in the Nicene Creed; to why the priest holds out her hands during the Eucharistic prayer.  The second instance of “It’s a mystery,” not cutting it was in Bible Study class last week.  The group is reading John and John’s rather gory discussion of eating flesh and drinking blood.  The group wanted to know what Episcopalians believe about what happens to the bread and wine when the priest consecrates the elements – and how that differs from what other denominations believe.  I am fairly certain that if I had told the group that what happens in Eucharist is a mystery, they would not have let me off the hook so easily.  The final instance of “It’s a mystery,” not cutting it has been in reading the book, The Year of Living Biblically.  In this past week’s assignment, our author, A.J. Jacobs finally makes his way into the New Testament.  As an agnostic Jew, the author discusses his fears about trying to live the Bible literally if he cannot get behind the idea of Jesus as the Messiah and the idea of Jesus being both human and divine.  As a cynical New Yorker who confesses he has no desire to convert, I am sure my “It’s a mystery,” explanation would get him nowhere.

The challenges of our faith are not limited to worship, Eucharist, and Jesus’ divinity.  Today we celebrate yet another bizarre element of our faith – Christ the King Sunday.  On this last Sunday of Pentecost, before we enter into the season of Advent, we declare Christ as our King.  On the surface, that is not a bizarre claim, I realize.  Many communities have kings, and the way we venerate Christ is not unlike the way many kingdoms venerate their kings.  Given the familiarity of that image, we might imagine that Christ the King Sunday is about regal processions, festive adornments, and praise-worthy songs.  In fact, we will do some of that today.  The problem though with Christ the King Sunday is not that Jesus is our King.  The problem is what kind of king Jesus is.

We have seen evidence of what kind of king Jesus is.  Most famously would be the Palm Sunday procession.  Jesus does not ride into Jerusalem on horseback with a sword and an army.  No, he rides into town on a borrowed donkey, accompanied by a little crowd – nothing newsworthy really.  There are other clues too.  There is that time when the Samaritans refuse housing to Jesus and his disciples.  The disciples ask, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”[i]  But Jesus just rebukes the disciples and keeps on going.  Even when Jesus knows Judas is going to betray him, he does not stop Judas.  Instead of stopping Judas or outing Judas, Jesus quietly lets Judas leave to betray him.

So we should not be surprised today at the interaction between Pilate and Jesus and why this passage, of all passages, should be selected for Christ the King Sunday.  Pilate is perplexed by this man who is being labeled (or more accurately, is being accused of having claimed to be) the king of the Jews.  So Pilate asks repeatedly whether Jesus is indeed the king of the Jews.  Jesus mockingly explains that if he were a traditional king, his people would be fighting to save him – which they are decidedly not doing.  Jesus cryptically further explains that his kingship does not look like kingship in the traditional sense – and in fact, his version of kingship is the only kind of kingship that can save anyone.  Violence, retaliation, and revenge will not work.[ii]  A battle of wills will not win control.  The only thing that will win is sacrifice, selflessness, and ceding.  Jesus will not overcome the evil of the world by matching wills with rulers like Pilate.  Jesus will only overcome by allowing himself to be overcome.  When we really think about Jesus’ kingship, his kingship is yet another bizarre thing about our faith.  Who pins their faith on a weak, non-violent, forgiving man?

Given the multiple terrorist attacks we have witnessed over the past week, the irony of Christ the King Sunday is not lost on me.  Just this past week, at Lunch Bunch, we were discussing the challenges of engaging in war to stop terrorism verses isolationism.  The discussion we had was the same discussion that hundreds of theologians have had for centuries.  I have even witnessed top scholars debate the ethics of intervention versus non-violence.  We watch Jesus turn the other cheek – in fact, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, give away our tunics, go a second mile, give to borrowers, and love our enemies.[iii]  But we watched what happened in World War II when we stayed out of the war as long as possible – a genocide happened.  And we have seen what sanctions do in foreign countries – though they are non-violent, the brunt of the restrictions hit the poorest of the country.  And yet, we are also only one country.  We cannot possibly fight every force of evil, have troops in every country, and wage war every time evil emerges.

This is one of those times when I would love to say, “It’s a mystery!”  We say that phrase because the answer is beyond our knowing – or because we just do not know the answer.  Any kind of guessing about “What Would Jesus Do,” is not likely to get us very far.  We know that Jesus does not fight Pilate today, and has no intention of answering evil for evil.  But we also know that Jesus is wholly other – the Messiah, the Savior, the sacrifice for our sins.  His death is different from our deaths, and the kingdom he brings is both already and not yet.

Despite the fact that I cannot give you answers about what we should do about ISIS, about terrorism, or about violence, what I can tell you is that the ambiguity of Jesus’ identity as Christ the King is actually good news today.  Now I know ambiguity does not sound like a gift.  But in this instance, I believe ambiguity is where we can put our faith today.  Ambiguity is a gift today because ambiguity makes us uncomfortable.  Because we do not have definitive answers, we are forced to stay in prayer and keep discerning God’s will in this chaotic world.  Because we do not have a king who answers violence for violence (which is quite frankly, a very easy black-and-white formula to replicate), we are forced to contemplate our faith in light of the world.  Because we follow Christ the King, we do not get to say, “It’s a mystery,” as an excuse not to wrestle.

As I think about the conversations I have had with David and William, with our Thursday Bible Study Group, and even the conversation I would have with A.J. Jacobs, I realize ambiguity is the most honest, vulnerable, real way we can start any conversation about faith and Jesus Christ.  And if we ever want a young person, a non-believer, or even someone wise beyond their years to trust that they can have an authentic, meaningful conversation with us about faith, then we have to be willing to step into the ambiguity of faith.  One of Jacobs’ advisors talks about the “glory of following things we can’t explain.”[iv]  That is what Christ the King offers us today – the opportunity to follow things we cannot always explain.  Jesus invites us share our ponderings and struggles with knowing this king who is sometimes counterintuitive.  He invites us to relinquish our angst about the ambiguity, and instead to celebrate the King of ambiguity.  Amen.

[i] Luke 9.54.

[ii] David Lose, “Christ the King B:  Not of this World,” November 16, 2015 as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2015/chirst-the-king-b-not-of-this-world/ on November 19, 2015.

[iii] Matthew 5.39-48.

[iv] A. J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically (London:  Arrow Books, 2009), 203.

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Sermon – John 20.1-18, ED, YB, April 5, 2015

Tags

community, Easter, Episcopal, intellect, Jesus, John, Mary Magdalene, mystery, personal, questions, realness, Sermon, theological, visceral

Growing up in the church, I always had a lot of questions.  There were a lot of things in the Bible that I found confusing, and downright contradictory, and I wanted someone to explain them.  Often the answers were unsatisfactory, and I struggled to understand why the adults in my church did not just have clear answers.  So imagine my delight in adulthood when I discovered the Episcopal Church and the way that the Church seemed to embrace questions.  Of course, the answers were still not always clear, and priests used words like “mystery” and “I don’t know.”  But at least I was in a place that welcomed the questions, and that fact gave me hope that one day, I might actually figure out all this “God stuff.”  And of course, going to seminary was a dream – I could actually spend 24-7 steeped in my questions, in textbooks, and in my favorite spot, the Library.  And though I discovered that there is rarely one answer to a question, the fact that there were myriad answers that one must hold in tension was just fine.  I was just happy to have developed some of the language and ideas around those big questions.

So imagine how proud I was when my first child finally started asking questions about Jesus.  I was going to be the parent who did not have to use words like “mystery” and “I don’t know.”  I did know, and with her first question, I launched into an explanation of epic proportions.  It was not until I looked in the rearview mirror of the car and saw her eyes glazed over and her attention fading that I realized I had lost her.  Somehow my accumulated knowledge and reference to the debates of scholars was of no help with a three-year old.

What I probably should have done was taken a cue from John’s gospel that we hear today.  The funny thing is that John’s gospel is usually pretty heady – his sentences are often convoluted and complicated.  And to be honest, sometimes my eyes glaze over and my attention fades when I read John’s gospel.  But today’s lesson is a little different.  Today, as we hear about the most significant fact of the Christian faith – Jesus’ resurrection – John is not abstract or intellectual at all.  Quite the opposite, the encounter between the risen Lord and Mary Magdalene is visceral, emotional, and deeply, deeply personal.[i]

This kind of revelation about God is not what we expect from John’s gospel.  This is the same gospel that begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”  No mangers, angels, or kings.  John is all about theologically explaining Jesus.  So why then does John give us a story about Mary, Peter, and the beloved disciple running around like crazy people?  Why does John have Mary repeatedly not being able to see past her grief to realize that not only is she speaking to angels who are trying to give her good news, she is also talking to the very man whom she is grieving?  John beautifully transitions today from being a writer who consistently presents Jesus in heady, intellectual ways, to being a writer who also shows us that Jesus is most known in the tangible, realness of life.  In the story, Mary is desperate to see her Lord’s body – what she imagines is the last tangible piece of him left.  She is so distraught that she cannot even see clearly when he is looking at her straight in the eye.  Only when she has turned away in despair, is she able to find Jesus.  Jesus says, “’Mary,’ and the sound of his voice saying her names helps her to see him.  He does not offer a general address; no, he uses a word that applies to her and her alone, a word that captures the utter particularity of her individual life – her name.”[ii]

We do not get a distant, transcendent Jesus in John.  We do not get some flowery, academic description of a concept of Jesus.  We get a real man, addressing a real woman, using the sound of his raspy voice, calling a woman by her very own name.  The gospel does not get much more real and tangible than that.  John’s gospel is such a relief to us today because who among us cannot relate to the busyness of this text?  Before we get to the part of Jesus saying Mary’s name we have Mary and disciples running back and forth, people walking past one another without a word, Mary misinterpreting things because she is so singularly focused on what she thinks should be happening.  Of course she could not see Jesus.  Neither can we.  We are running from work to home to meetings to practices to church.  We are answering emails, hearing headlines on the news, and eating dinner.  We are on the phone, driving the car, and scarfing down lunch.  How can we connect to Jesus in the chaos of our lives?

We can certainly try to connect to Jesus through the study of academic readings and theological debates.  We can try to mentally work our way toward Jesus.  But more often, Jesus is revealed to us instead through embodied, physical ways.  As one scholar explains, “As he did with Mary, Jesus comes to us not as a general idea or an imagined ghostly figure, but as a presence that reaches beyond our mind’s overt powers of knowing and touches our lives in ways that we cannot see.  They are felt – tasted, touched, smelled, heard, seen in image, and as such, often as unconscious as they are visceral.”[iii]  Sometimes we will experience God through study and the use of our minds.  But sometimes, we will come to know God through the emotional and personal – like being called by name.

Once we are willing to accept that there are some things that are beyond our knowing, we can perhaps lessen our grip on our Episcopal embrace of the intellect, and realize that some things of God have to be experienced.  In order to do that, we are going to need some help.  We are going to need to “go to church and be in a space where we physically, emotionally, communally, experience Jesus in our midst.”[iv]  Whether in the taste of the communion wine, the smell of the Easter flowers, the sound a favorite old hymn, or the feel of hard wooden pew, church is one of those places in which the familiar tastes, smells, sounds, touches, and sights stirs up something deep inside of us.  Though church can certainly feed our minds, we can feed our minds anywhere.  But our bodies need to be fed too.  And sometimes the only way to feed our body is through our physical, visceral experiences that can only be had in church – so that our bodies might be reminded of Christ too.

Of course, that means we are going to have to give up some things.  We are going to have to give up on the notion that our brains will be able to answer all our questions.  We are going to have to give up some time on Sundays so that we can place ourselves in the position to taste, touch, feel, see, and hear Jesus.  And we might even have to be willing to say the occasional, “I don’t know,” when our children ask us really hard questions.  But my guess is that children, and even adults, when they are willing to admit it, might be relieved to hear us say, “I don’t know.  But sometimes in my gut, I can feel Jesus with me.  And every once in a while, though the thought may be really strange, I really can hear Jesus calling my name.”  My guess is that the ambiguity, the visceral, tangible concept of Christ, and the sense of wonder and mystery you share might make for a more engaging answer anyway.  Amen.

[i] Serene Jones, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 376.

[ii] Jones, 378.

[iii] Jones, 378.

[iv] Jones, 380.

Homily – John 1.43-51, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, June 13, 2013

Tags

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, God, homily, humility, Jesus, mystery, Nathanael, skepticism

Today we get the wonderful story of Philip and Nathanael’s calling.  I love Nathanael, partially because he is such a natural skeptic.  That may sound strange to say – who would want to idealize someone skeptical of our Lord and Savior?  I am not saying we should try to be more like Nathanael – I am saying we already are like Nathanael.  Somewhere deep inside of us, in places we don’t like to talk about, all of us have a little dose of skepticism about our faith.  Just think about the last time someone really tried to challenge you on your faith – the truth is, our story, the story of our faith is pretty fantastic and hard for our 21st-century minds to believe.  Nathanael’s skeptical and ultimately sarcastic tone can be found in all of us.

That is why we celebrate Gilbert Keith Chesterton.  Born in 1874, Chesterton was one of the intellectual giants of his day.  He was a writer of different genres, but he eventually focused on the defense of “orthodoxy” – the acknowledgement of the mystery and paradox of Christian faith in an age of increasing skepticism.  His writings utilized both his wit and religious fervor, and he often satirized those who saw faith as irrational and unnecessary.  Chesterton influenced many of the greats, like C.S. Lewis and Ernest Hemingway.

What both Chesterton and Jesus do today is a little light ribbing.  They tease those around them, who presume to know something about a God who, at the end of the day, is quite mysterious.  They remind others of their finitude and their limited knowledge, reminding them not to get too “puffed up” with their own assumptions.

I don’t think Chesterton or Jesus Christ are sending us a message to tear us down – quite the opposite, actually.  God endowed us with great minds that God expects us to use – much like Chesterton did.  But God also wants us to held in tension with our gifts a sense of humility and wonder.  Only when we hold our power and our humility in tension can we begin to fully engage the mystery of God and then share that mystery with others.  Amen.