Sermon – John 14.15-21, E6, YA, May 21, 2017

Tags

abide, Advocate, Bible Study, hard, Holy Spirit, Jesus, love, Paraclete, promise, relationship, separation, Sermon, sin, work

If you could have any person, living or dead, over for dinner, who would it be?  We have all played the game.  Either you were asked the question at a job interview, you used the question as part of an icebreaker, or you shared the question at the family dinner table as a conversation starter.  The answers are always telling – some would like to have dinner with their favorite celebrity or sports hero; some would love to talk to a famous figure in history, like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Abraham Lincoln; while others would want to have dinner one more time with a loved one who has died.  Invariably, though, someone will give the answer we all get to eventually.  If we could have dinner with any person, dead or alive, we would want to have dinner with Jesus.  We could finally ask Jesus all the answers to our questions!  We could ask Jesus what that one parable means that we can never figure out.  We could ask Jesus what death and eternal life are like.  We could ask Jesus why things are the way they are today and what he plans on doing about them!  The options are endless and the gift of that time with Jesus seems like the gift a magic decoder ring for life.

Except, I am not sure that dinner with Jesus is the best answer to that age-old question about dinner guests.  If you remember, Jesus was not always the easiest to understand.[i]  Think about all those parables that no one understood.  Think about all those times Jesus said something to the disciples that they could not comprehend.  Think about all those times that Jesus was challenged by Pharisees, foreigners, and faithful alike, only to get cryptic, unexpected answers.  Though we like to think we would have understood better than all of those, I suspect that even a modern-day dinner with Jesus would leave us with way more questions than answers.

That’s why I love our gospel passage today.  Jesus is preparing to leave his beloved disciples.  He has gathered them for a last meal, has washed their feet, and is sharing with them all his last instructions and words of wisdom.  The anxiety of his disciples is rising as they start to piece together how Jesus is giving what we now call his “Farewell Address.”  To those anxious, confused, uncertain disciples, Jesus offers a promise.  Jesus says, “I will not leave you orphaned.”  Instead, Jesus will send the Advocate.  Actually, he says, God will send, “another Advocate, to be with you forever.”  The first Advocate is Jesus himself.[ii]  Unlike Jesus, who is limited by time and space, the next Advocate will be with us forever.  The text tells us that the Advocate will abide in us – will actually be in us.  That word, “Advocate,” is alternatively translated as “counselor, comforter, helper, mediator, or broker.”[iii]  The word in Greek is Parakletos or Paraclete, which literally means “to call alongside.”  This Holy Spirit, this second Advocate, is the one who is called to be alongside us.[iv]

In just a couple of weeks we will celebrate the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise today.  The celebration of Pentecost is a significant feast for us because what Jesus promises in his Farewell Address finally comes to fruition.  Not only does the Spirit fill for us a spiritual need, the Spirit also fills for us a practical need.  You see, throughout his final instructions, through both word and deed, Jesus gives the disciples one final instruction – to love.  Jesus wants his followers to embrace, “not an abstract philosophical concept, but the lived reality revealed in the life, relationships, and actions of a simple Nazarene who looks and talks like them and lives simply among them.”[v]

This past week, our Tuesday night Bible Study group invited a Bible Study group from New Zion Baptist Church to join us for a mutual Bible Study.  After having talked quite a lot about race relations here at Hickory Neck, and having watched our country struggle with race, our Bible Study group decided the best thing they could do was to start building relationships with people of color.  Intentionally or not, the group selected 1 Corinthians 13 as their text for study.  Most of you who have been to a wedding will know this text by heart.  “Love is patient, love is kind…”  On and on we hear Paul talk about the characteristics of love – how love is not envious, boastful, or rude; how love does not insist on its own way, and is not irritable or resentful.”  Just like with a wedding, on the surface, the text was quite romantic for what we were trying to do – talk about loving each other and how we could do that as two different communities.  But what we realized as we studied and reflected on the text is the more we talked about love, the less romantic love felt.  Quite the opposite, we realized the love we Christians are called into is hard work.  We talked about how hard being patient and kind are.  We talked about how hard not being irritable or resentful can be, and how often we insist on our own way.  What seemed like a simple text for a simple gathering – an interracial Bible Study on love, suddenly felt anything but simple.  As we shared our stories, we realized not only did we have a massive amount of work to do on ourselves, we would also have a massive amount of work to do if we were even going to attempt to love each other.

That is why Jesus’ promise today, the promise of the one who comes alongside of us, is so incredibly powerful.  Because if the disciples recall the ways that Jesus feeds the hungry, touches lepers, heals the sick, speaks and acts with care and regard toward women, shows compassion and fiercely protests against injustice,[vi] and then realize that Jesus wants them to do the same in his absence, they could indeed become overwhelmed.  They cannot even seem to get through Jesus’ farewell address without one disciple departing to betray him, and the promise of another disciple who will deny him.  How in the world will they manage to master the simple and yet enormous work of love?!?

Toward the end of our Bible Study, as we became more and more sober about the enormity and humbling nature of living a life of love, someone finally stood up and said something quite simple.  He confessed he did not have any answers and perhaps was not sure he could do what Jesus would want for us.  But what he would do is go and have coffee with anyone who was willing.  That’s all.  Coffee.  It was a simple offer, and maybe seemed like nothing on the surface.  But that offer of coffee was profound.  In that offer was an unspoken confession of sin and separation, and a commitment to turn toward love and relationship.  After over an hour of talking about love, that offer of coffee was a commitment to not just talk about love, but to act on love.

I believe the ability of that parishioner to offer coffee came because the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Spirit was abiding in him.  Jesus had not left him an orphan.  Jesus sent another Advocate who empowered him to be an agent of love.  That is the power of the gospel today.  We will never likely get that dinner with Jesus, even though I am not convinced that dinner would help us anyway.  But we do get dinner with the Spirit – everyday, offering us God’s presence and spirit of truth, empowering us to be agents of love.  We get a dinner with our Advocate, who invites us to pull up another chair, so that we can share that love with our neighbor – one coffee at a time.  Amen.

[i] N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 63.

[ii] Linda Lee Clader, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 491.

[iii] Larry D. Bouchard, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 492.

[iv] Karoline M. Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 191.

[v] Nancy J. Ramsay, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 492.

[vi] Ramsay, 492.

Sermon – Jonah 3.1-10, Psalm 51.11-18, and Luke 11.29-32, Ecumenical Lenten Worship Series, March 8, 2017

Tags

change, ecumenical, God, hero, immature, Jonah, journey, judgment, Lent, listen, neighbor, Nineveh, renewal, repent, repentance, Sermon, sin, temper tantrum, together, witness

I have always loved Jonah’s story.  He is probably one of the most juvenile characters in the Hebrew Scriptures.  When God tells him to go to Nineveh, he runs in the opposite direction.  Only when God makes the seas roar, and he is swallowed by a fish, does Jonah call out for God’s mercy.  Jonah finally submits to God and goes to Nineveh as he is told, but then he throws a temper tantrum at God when God forgives Nineveh.  He is angry God doesn’t punish the city, and so he storms off to pout.  When a bush giving him shade withers, he ramps up his tirade.  God asks if Jonah has any right to be angry, and Jonah, in classic toddler style, whines, “Yes! Angry enough to die!”  You can almost imagine him stamping his foot, pouting his lower lip, and furrowing his brow.

Jonah is easy to make fun of because his behavior is so incredibly immature and self-centered.  We laugh at his adult-sized temper tantrum because we all know adults are too old for that sort of behavior.  But that is what is tricky about Jonah too.  Deep down, in places we do not like to talk about, we know Jonah’s experience all too well.  When we are really honest, we can confess that may or may not have thrown an epic temper tantrum in our adult lives too.  Whether over the reoccurrence of an illness, the death of a loved one, a lost cause, the job we did not get, or the love that was not returned, we have all had our Jonah moments.  Though we publicly all can say, “Silly Jonah, when will he learn?!?”, privately, we all think, “That sounds uncomfortably familiar.  I hope no one noticed my temper tantrum!”

Of course, at the end of the day, Jonah does what he is told – witnesses to the people of Nineveh, as God requests.  But in the drama of Jonah’s story, we often forget one minor, and yet central component of Jonah’s story.  Nineveh is the Rockstar of this story.  Nineveh, for all its sinfulness and shame, has no problem admitting Nineveh is wrong.  When Jonah tells Nineveh the city will be overthrown if Nineveh does not repent and change its ways, the people immediately believe God.  They proclaim a fast, and everyone – adults, elders, and children, put on sackcloth.  Even the king of Nineveh immediately rises from his throne, puts on sackcloth and sits in ashes.  He decrees that everyone in the city – humans and animals – will fast, be covered in sackcloth, and cry out their repentance to God.  He declares, “All shall turn form their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.  Who knows?  God may relent and change God’s mind; God may turn from God’s fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

The king of Nineveh and the people of Nineveh are quite unlike most modern recipients of judgment.  In Nineveh, no one holds a press conference to defend their motives and actions.  No one holds a counter-protest to the judgment.  No one even argues with Jonah or asks, “Are you sure?”  Nineveh is told a cold, hard, ugly truth that exposes their deep sinfulness and grievances, and instead of getting defensive, Nineveh drops everything.  They stop in their tracks and change their ways.  They take the judgment with sobriety and honesty, and they make a change.  Though we like to give Jonah the attention, the real heroes in this story are the king and people of Nineveh.

When Jesus talks about repentance in Luke’s gospel today, and when the Church talks about repentance in the season of Lent, this is the kind of repentance we are talking about.  Jesus basically shares that he is to the people of Israel as Jonah was to the people of Nineveh.  He is their sign that repentance is needed.  The people of God are to use Nineveh as their guide for what true repentance looks like.  Jesus’ instruction and Nineveh’s example come at an opportune time for us.  We have managed to work ourselves into a time of finger pointing and name calling.  Our division is found on the political scene, between denominations of churches, and even in our families.  We have presumed that we are Jonahs and everyone else is Nineveh.  The reality, though, is much scarier.  We are not Jonahs.  We are Ninevehs.  Jesus is the Jonah of our time, calling us into repentance and renewal.  We can follow the model that Nineveh set for us, dropping everything to evaluate our sinfulness and changing our behavior immediately.  We can sit in sackcloth and work to deeply understand the role we play in sinful behaviors.  We can invite our neighbors to sit with us as we both work toward repentance.  That is what Lent is all about.

So how do we repent?  How do we take this time of Lent as a time for intentional, dramatic, meaningful change in our lives?  The psalm appointed for today gives us a few clues.  “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy Spirit from me.  Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.”  First, we ask God for help.  We ask God for help, because we know our God will enable us to do the work God has given us to do.  The psalm also tells us to bring others into our journey, “I shall teach your ways to the wicked, and sinners shall return to you.”  We not only bring our broken, sinful, hurtful selves to God, we witness our work to others, using our own vulnerability and humility as an entry to shared journey.  And then we sing.  “Deliver me from death, O God, and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness, O God of my salvation.  Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.”  We use our mouths to praise our God – a God who can change course, who can see the repentance of God’s people and take away the horror of judgment.

That’s why I am grateful that we are together tonight.  We come to God across denominational differences and we sit together in worship.  We hear the witness of Nineveh tonight, and then we start the work of emulating Nineveh.  First, we hear Jonah and Jesus’ word of judgment, letting God create in us clean hearts and renewing right spirits in us.  Then, we turn to our neighbor, and work on creating a community of repentance, working to love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves.  Finally, we turn to those not gathered here tonight – those who may not have a church home, and we share our witness.  We share our witness of how we have been a people of sin, and how we are hoping to change our ways.  And we ask if they might help us on that journey – not taking the judgment of Jonah out into the world, but taking the repentance of Nineveh out into the world.  Listening to our neighbors, working together for meaningful change, and creating a city that is humble enough to know that God may relent and not let us perish.  God will renew a right spirit within you, will give you the joy of God’s saving help again, and will sustain you with God’s bountiful Spirit.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon – Matthew 4.1-11, Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7, L1, YA, March 5, 2017

Tags

church, corrupt, disciplines, doubt, evil, God, goodness, identity, insecurity, Jesus, Lent, question, relationship, repentance, Satan, Sermon, sin, temptation, trust

On this first Sunday in Lent, I usually like to talk about Lenten disciplines.  The season of Lent is one of the few times in the Church that we take a hard look at our faith life and then actually commit to doing something tangible to strengthen our walk with Christ.  When I hear about your disciplines, I get some clue as to what feeds each of you spiritually – whether you long to connect with Holy Scripture, or hope to deepen your prayer life; whether you know that denial of certain parts of your life will create a needed discomfort or disruption, or instead find taking up something to create needed transformation; whether you are motivated by something fun and engaging (like Lent Madness), or you prefer something more philosophical (like our Lenten study group focusing on the spirituality of the Eucharist).  Lenten disciplines also give me a tiny clue about what sinful behaviors have been pulling you away from God.  As we prayed the Great Litany today, there were countless options:  pride, vainglory, hypocrisy, envy, hatred, malice, desires of the flesh, and hardness of heart.  Or, perhaps you are inspired to help one of those we prayed for in the Litany:  the lonely, the sick, the homeless, the imprisoned, broken families, the oppressed, or those suffering injustice.  There really is no wrong way to approach Lenten disciplines – that we are taking them on demonstrates a commitment to enriching our faith and growing closer to God.

Given the beginning of those practices, the text of Jesus’ temptation every year on this first Sunday in Lent has always seemed most appropriate.  How better to encourage us to engage in repentance and reformation than to remember that Jesus too was tempted – tempted to ease the discomfort of hunger, tempted to test God’s loyalty and support, and tempted to take on power – even if ill-gotten – for the greater good?  And even better that this year in Lent, we get that powerful lesson from Hebrew Scriptures of Adam and Eve’s temptation – the temptation to eat beautiful fruit, to learn what God knows but won’t tell us, to take control of our destiny.  And all of those temptations would be plenty.  But what has been striking me more powerfully this year has been what is at the root of the temptations of Satan.  You see, in all of those tests for Jesus, and even in the simple offering of forbidden fruit, Satan does something even more insidious.  Through his temptations, Satan works to undermine our relationship with God – to sow the seed of mistrust that promises to unravel the very foundation of our faith.

We can talk all we want about deepening our faith, working on our sinful behaviors, or becoming better Christians in Lent.  But much scarier to talk about is the power of evil to undo our faith altogether.  Many of us know the darkness of this power from Satan.  If we have not had a spiritual identity crisis in our lives, someone we know has.  Enough people around us die, enough suffering happens in the world, enough pain comes our way that slowly we begin to wonder if God cares at all.  We watch what Christians do to one another or how they fail to care for one another, we see the misdeeds of the Church, or the Church’s clergy disappoint us, and slowly, slowly, we begin to doubt God is even present.  As I have been watching the news, as our country becomes more deeply divided, as suffering seems to be epidemic, and as we dehumanize one another, sometimes institutionalizing that dehumanization, I see the power of evil planting seed after seed of mistrust.  Who hasn’t asked, “Where is God?” in the last year?  Who hasn’t thought, “Maybe I should stop trusting God, and start taking care of things myself.”?  Who hasn’t wondered if God is slipping into irrelevance as the world falls apart around us?

As I have pondered the temptations of Adam, Eve, and Jesus, the power of evil to corrupt has been much more powerful, potent, and pressing this year.  The “crafts and assaults of the devil” and the desire to “beat down Satan under our feet”[i] we heard in the Great Litany are much more powerful in our current climate.  I am much less worried about Adam and Eve’s original sin than I am worried about their original insecurity.  The serpent comes along and sews mistrust among Adam and Eve.  He starts out with a simple question, “Did God really say…”  And so begins the serpent’s assault on their relationship with God – misrepresenting and undermining God’s instructions, suggesting God is keeping something from them.  And as scholar David Lose suggests, once this primary relationship is undermined, Adam and Eve are “susceptible to the temptation to forge their identity on their own, independent on their relationship with God, and so take and eat the forbidden fruit… [They] forget whose they are and so lose themselves in the temptation to secure their identity on their own.”[ii]  Though Adam and Eve’s sin is grave, how the serpent gets them there is much scarier to me.

Satan attempts to do the very same thing with Jesus.  “The devil also tries to undermine Jesus’ relationship with God by suggesting [the relationship] is not secure, that he should test [the relationship] by throwing himself off the mountain, or that he should go his own way by creating food for himself, or that he should seek the protection and patronage of the devil rather than trust God’s provision.”[iii]  Satan is good!  He even tries to twist Jesus’ use of scripture to convince Jesus of God’s unworthiness of trust.  What is frightening about Satan’s tactics is that he is not just about tempting us to do bad things.  He is meddling in our relationship with God, sewing distrust, confusion, questioning our identity as beloved children of God.  And that kind of meddling leads to much worse problems than poor behavior.  Satan tries to upend who we are.

Last week, we baptized two members into the household of faith.  We talked about how baptism marks for us who and whose we are.  We gave thanks for the reminder and celebrated as a community.  We were not unlike Adam and Eve, who upon their creation, God says it is very good.  We were not unlike Jesus, who at his own baptism, which occurs immediately before his temptation today, God says, “This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  But Satan takes goodness and blessedness, and tries to taint that goodness and blessedness with doubt, mistrust, and insecurity.  He tries to confuse us, making us forget who and whose we are.

Several years ago, the movie The Help debuted.  In the film, there is a maid who cares for a child who gets a lot of verbal abuse from her mother.  In several key scenes, the maid takes the child aside and teaches the child a mantra of sorts.  In her rough grammar, she reminds the child, “You is smart, you is kind, you is important.”  Eventually the maid is fired, and the audience is left hoping that the mantra she taught the child will remind her that no matter what verbal abuse she receives, she can remember who she is – smart, kind, and important.

We do not always have caretakers in our lives who will instill in us a mantra that holds us in the face of adversity.  But we do have a church.  We have a church that will tell us we are made in the image of God, that our very creation is rooted in goodness, and that we are beloved children of God.  When we begin to be assaulted by the power of evil, which would rather us question our identity, the church reminds of us of our baptismal covenant, our identity-making set of promises, which tells us we are enough, there is plenty to go around, and we need not live in fear.  While the forces of evil will try to isolate us and send us into questions of identity, the church comes together every week to remind us that we are beloved children of God – a people of value, worth, and purpose.[iv]

I do not know what spiritual discipline you are taking up for Lent this year.  But if you do nothing else this Lent, come to church.  Come gather with the community that reminds you who and whose you are.  Come be with a people who are also assaulted by the doubts, questions, and fears of the day, but who ground themselves in their identity, and find meaning, encouragement, and purpose in this place.  Come.  Together, we will stamp down Satan under our feet as we shine light on our God who redeems, reveres, and renews us.  Amen.

[i] BCP, 151-152.

[ii] David Lose, “Lent 1A:  Identity as Gift and Promise,” February 28, 2017, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2017/02/lent-1-a-identity-as-gift-and-promise/ on March 2, 2017.

[iii] Lose.

[iv] Lose.

Homily – Luke 7.37-8.3, P6, YC, June 12, 2016

Tags

awkward, extravagant, foolishness, forgiven, generosity, gratitude, homily, hospitality, Jesus, little, love, Pharisee, scandal, Simon, sin, woman

Most of you know that before I went off to seminary, I worked with a Habitat for Humanity affiliate.  My time at Habitat taught me a lot about politics, about motivating volunteers, and about organizing people for change.  But some of the more profound lessons came from the homeowners themselves.  The Habitat program includes sending homeowners to financial counseling so that once they purchase the home they are financially stable enough to stay in the home.  I remember getting feedback from one of our financial counselors.  You see, in looking at one particular homeowner’s budget, the counselor realized that the homeowner was giving 10% of her income – a tithe – to her church.  The counselor tried to reason with her – that the 10% could really get her out of the hole – even if she only gave 5% to church, the homeowner would be able to manage some of her debt.  But the homeowner refused.  The Lord had gotten her this far – and there was no way she going to stop giving to the church now, she argued.

Our staff conversations were all over the map about the issue.  We wondered what arguments might convince her – the welfare of her children, the parable of the talents, or something else.  We wondered whether her pastor had guilted her into her tithe.  We wondered how much of the issue was cultural, as most of us were of Caucasian descent, while the homeowner was African-American.  While most of respected her decision, and did not pressure her to give up her tithe, what we never talked about was our own practice around giving.  Being people who work in nonprofit, one might argue that we were already big-hearted people.  But our discomfort with and unwillingness to talk about our own financial generosity probably said more than we ever realized.

That is what is so hard about our gospel lesson today.  The sensationalism of the story tempts us to be distracted from the heart of the story.  I mean, what this woman does with Jesus is scandalous on so many levels.  One, she is a known sinner in the community, so she has no place at the table.  Two, she is showing a level of intimacy that makes us uncomfortable even by today’s standards – kneeling by Jesus, crying on his feet, using her long hair to dry his feet, touching him in a vulnerable way.  Three, she shows no sense of shame – she does this in public, in front of everyone, and she, according to Jesus, does all of this because she knows that she is forgiven[i] – she claims her forgiveness boldly like a slap in the face.

But while our minds are filled with visually stimulating, scandalous images, the real story is happening off stage.  The Pharisee, Simon is exposed as a mess.  He disregards conventional hospitality norms, neglecting to offer Jesus water for his feet, a kiss of greeting, and oil for anointing.  He judges the woman (muttering about her known sinfulness).  He judges Jesus (muttering about his claim to prophecy).  He begrudgingly admits that the answer to Jesus’ parable about the forgiven debts is that the one with bigger debts is more grateful than the one with few debts.  To all this commotion, Jesus says, “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

This is the turning point in Jesus’ interaction today.  Jesus does not say, “Watch out, Simon, because the one who loves little is forgiven little.”  But rather than render judgment, Jesus instead simply offers a description:  Those who have been forgiven little love very little.”[ii]  Now, it could be that Jesus is not talking about those who are not forgiven, but those who don’t notice their forgiveness.  Or perhaps those who don’t even think they need forgiveness.  If we cannot admit our need, we cannot receive the remedy for our lack, will not experience the gratitude of those who have received, and so are unable to love with abandon.[iii]

If, then, we are people like Jesus says, who need little forgiveness but then risk loving little, what can we do to find a well of gratitude and generosity that goes deep into the soul?  The number one thing we can do is to surround ourselves by people for whom much has been forgiven.  That means not just helping other people or those less fortunate than ourselves, but really getting to know those less fortunate than ourselves.  That means listening to the stories of those whose struggle is not like our own.  That means examining our lives in light of those experiences, and turning our hearts to abundant gratitude too.

I often think back to that experience with the Habitat staff and wonder whether we could have asked each other different questions.  We could have asked each other how much of our own budgets are designated for church giving – and what that says about our priorities.  We could have had longer conversations about what our financial practices say about our lives of faith – where our sweet spot is between trust, responsibility, and faithfulness.  But mostly, we could have trusted the homeowner – perhaps even admired the homeowner.  The implication was that her tithing was foolishness – but perhaps her tithing was extravagant generosity in the face of threat.  Those questions, like the interaction between Jesus and this woman, are going to feel awkward sometimes.  But the tunnel of awkwardness leads to the freedom of abundance.  Amen.

[i] M. Jan Holton, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 144.

[ii] David Lose, “Forgiveness & Gratitude,” June 9, 2013 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2601on June 9, 2016.

[iii] Steven J. Kraftchick, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 143.

Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YC, March 25, 2016

Tags

Adam, cosmic, crucified, fall, garden, Garden of Betrayl, Garden of Eden, Garden of Redemption, Good Friday, gospel, Jesus, John, Sermon, sin

One of my favorite places is the garden at a monastery called Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina.  The trees are old and large, many dripping with Spanish moss.  There are a few statues and pieces of artwork that are artfully nestled in the gardens.  There is an old, small cemetery surrounded by a rusty wrought-iron fence.  But the most wonderful part of the garden is the river that runs along the edge of the gardens.  Benches are strategically placed near the water’s edge so that visitors can sit and listen to the lapping water, hearing the whir of insects, and rustle of the breeze.  The gardens of Mepkin Abbey are one of the most peaceful places I know.

Or at least, they are supposed to be.  Everything there, from the beauty of God-made creation to the beauty of man-made art, is supposed to invite the visitor into holy contemplation.  But I rarely find contemplation peaceful.  Contemplation usually leads me to a quiet conversation with God – which certainly sounds peaceful and serene.  But the trouble is that more often, my prayer life is about talking to God.  When I make space for the kind of quiet I need to actually listen to God, I sometimes hear things I do not want to hear.  God uses the rare gift of silence to put before me the things I have been avoiding with all my busyness.  So what should be a time of peaceful bliss more often becomes a time of sobering reflection.

The agonizing story we tell this day is rooted in gardens too:  three of them to be exact.  As the story opens we are told that Jesus and the disciples go to a garden – one where they had frequented, as Judas is familiar with the garden where they often met.  The garden was a place of peace for Jesus – the place where he retreated for prayer after long days of teaching, preaching, and healing.  The garden was a place of familiarity – a home for the man who really had no home.  The garden was a place of affirmation – a place where he and his closest companions went together without pressure to perform or do, but to just be together.  Into that peaceful garden violence erupts.  “Sinful men, violent men, men with weapons, come to the garden in the dark, looking for someone,” as one scholar writes.  “The someone who was the father’s only son.  Like all humans, they are looking for God, but they don’t know that’s what they are doing.  They think they are only doing their job…”[i]  But unlike in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospel, John does not paint the garden as one of agony.  No, Jesus has already done his grieving.  In this garden, Jesus is ready.  We hear his resolve in his conversation with the armed men.  Jesus has no intention of hiding or grieving in the darkness.

The story of that garden is laced with the story of another garden:  the garden in which John’s gospel is rooted.  If you remember, John’s gospel is the gospel which starts on a much more philosophical note than the other gospels.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  In the beginning there was a garden too – the Garden of Eden.  In the Garden of Eden, the roles were reversed.  Instead of men coming to look for God in the person of Jesus, God goes looking for man – Adam, specifically.  N. T. Wright describes that day in Eden artfully, “[God] came on the evening breeze, came as he had always come.  Came because they knew each other, and used to spend time together.  Came to the garden because that’s where they always met.  That’s where he was at home.  And there was no answer.  The man had hidden.  Something had happened.  The friendship was soured.  There was a bad taste in the air, a taste made worse by the excuses and feeble stories that followed.  Love, the most fragile and beautiful of the plants in that garden, had been trampled on.  It would take millennia to grow it again.”[ii]

In the garden of Eden, God comes searching for a sinful man.  In the garden of betrayal, sinful men come looking for God.  The first Adam entered into sin, forever straining the relationship between humankind and the Creator.  John’s gospel presents Jesus as the true Adam, the man without sin, who is sent to his death by sinful Adams, so that “the garden may be restored, and instead of bloodshed there may be healing and forgiveness.”[iii]  From the beginning of our story today, the two gardens are ever intertwined, holding for us the tension of the significance of this event.  For although this story today is the story of our Savior crucified, the story today is also a cosmic one, one we understand to be rooted in the oldest of stories – the fall of humankind that is not redeemed until the fall of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Of course, Jesus standing boldly in the garden of betrayal is just the beginning of our story.  We listen intently as we hear the painful story retold – of God’s chosen ones betraying God by putting Caesar in the place of God, of Pilate sacrificing his ethics because of peer pressure, of disciples abandoning and denying Jesus, of Jesus’ suffering to the very end.  And where do we end our story, but in another garden – the garden that holds a new tomb that Joseph of Arimathea offers.  This is the garden that will host sacred events.  The redemption begins right away.  Though Joseph and Nicodemus were ashamed and afraid of their discipleship, when the opportunity comes to show their loyalty, they do not waiver.  Their shame is washed away by their royal care of Jesus’ body.  With enough spices for a king, in an untouched tomb, in the beauty of a garden, they put to rest the new Adam, who redeems the age-old Adam in us all.

Now I said initially that there are three gardens in our text.  That number is still true.  But today, we create our own garden as well.  Our garden is bare – stripped of beauty and adornment.  But our garden is still here – a sacred place of comfort, companionship, and company with God.  Stripping our garden of its usual adornment allows us to strip ourselves of our normal busyness and sit with our God.  That is what gardens do for us anyway.  No matter how many beautiful pieces of art or flowering beauties we see, at some point we have to sit down, take a deep breath, and listen to our God.  That is what we do today.  We come to the garden of the redeemed to ponder how we got here.  We come to remember our roots in the sin that severed our relationship with God in the Garden of Eden.  We come to remember those times when we have taken up arms as we stormed into the Garden of Betrayal.  And we also come to remember those moments of redemption when we did the right thing, placing our Lord in the Garden of rest.

Our time in the garden of redemption will not necessarily leave us feeling fulfilled.  In fact, our leaving here pondering the cosmic nature of what Jesus has done to remedy the sin of humanity is all we are given today.  We know good news is coming – that the garden of rest will become the garden of resurrection.  But not today.  Today we leave this place pondering our own participation in the action of the gardens of today’s story:  those times of our sinful fleeing from God, those times of our sinful persecution of God, and those times of our abandoning God or our fear of proclaiming God.  We are blessed by the garden of redemption, the garden of St. Margaret’s, to sit and listen.  We share the experience and draw strength from one another.  Our joy will come soon.  But not today.  Amen.

[i] N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 102.

[ii] Wright, 102.

[iii] Wright, 104.

Sermon – Luke 22.14-23.56, PS, YC, March 20, 2016

Tags

burden, church, depravity, Easter, failure, gift, gratitude, Holy Week, Jesus, liturgy, Palm Sunday, profound, release, Sermon, sin

What strikes me this year about the passion narrative is the profound depth of failure.  We start off today with the glorious action of waving palms and declaring Christ to be the King, only to betray him and to deny that truth over and over again.  Judas, one of Jesus’ faithful disciples, fails Jesus by betraying him to the authorities.  The disciples fail Jesus by getting caught up in an argument about whom among them is the greatest – a self-centered argument on the best of days, but an utter failure of focus on Jesus’ last day.  Later the disciples fail Jesus by falling asleep while he prays in Gethsemane – when he had specifically pleaded with them to pray with him.  One of the disciples fails as he resorts to violence, striking one of the slaves of the high priest.  Peter, one of Jesus’ most loyal and insightful disciples, three times denies having known Jesus before others.  The leadership of the faithful fail over and over as they insist on Jesus’ death out of fear.  Pilate tries three times to release Jesus but succumbs to peer pressure and has Jesus killed despite the fact that he knows Jesus is innocent.  All the people gathered are willing to release a known murderer and insurrectionist in order to kill innocent Jesus.  Hanging in death, one of the two criminals by Jesus’ side derides Jesus to the end.  Even the soldiers mock Jesus as he hangs helplessly approaching death.

Jesus’ death on the cross is a grave enough sin to mourn today.  But when that sin is preceded by failure after failure after failure of the people to right their relationship with God, we see more clearly the deep recesses of human depravity.  The staggeringly long list of sins would be easy enough for us to dismiss as “those peoples’ sin.”  But that is part of the reason that we participate so tangibly in the liturgy today: waving palms, reading parts of the passion narrative, shouting “crucify him!”  We play an active role in the liturgy today so that we can understand how active our role is in the same sin of “those people.”  Listening to the story is heartbreaking – not just because watching others sin is hard to do, but also because we see ourselves in their sinfulness.  We know their failures because we fail too. We fail to honor Christ in our own day, we deny our Lord, we betray our God, we fail to be faithful disciples.[i]  Though there is a part of us that wants to claim we would never have been bystanders or participants in Jesus’ death, the scary reality is that we know we would have.[ii]  Their failure is our failure.

Acknowledging our utter depravity is important today.  We have spent the last six weeks pondering our sinfulness and working on amendment of life.  But perhaps we can never truly amend our lives without recognizing how deeply our sinfulness goes.  Our Lenten disciplines are meant to help us focus on one specific area of life that needs amendment, and in that way, our disciplines are effective means of bringing us closer to God.  But today, the Church reminds us that we have so much further to go.  Even if we managed to see amendment of life this Lent, today we are reminded of how our very nature is one of repetitious sinfulness that knows no bounds.

So why does the Church have us wallow so deeply in our sin today?  The primary reason we journey through the dark tunnel of our sinfulness and failures is so that we can more fully appreciate the enormity of next week.  Next week, our tone and content is almost the opposite – total joy and jubilation that our Lord is risen from the dead.  But in case we were tempted to become jaded by Easter – to be distracted by our new suits and dresses, the festive songs and flowers, or the bountiful meals – the Church wants us to remember how profoundly full of blessing Easter is.  The profound depth of our sinfulness is matched by the profound depth of love and forgiveness offered in Christ’s resurrection next week.  So although the depravity of this day may feel like overkill, that overkill is necessary for us to understand the shocking gift of Christ’s resurrection.  Although today’s sense of failure may feel overwhelming, I invite you to absorb the sobering reality of this day.  Carry that weight with you this week as we journey through the Holy Days.  If you are able to do that, the release of that burden on Easter Day may be more profound than any of the surface trappings of Easter.  And your cries of rejoicing will be born out of a place of deep gratitude and appreciation for the Lord our God, who loves us despite our failings.  As a people who know how little we deserve our Lord, we will rejoice with newfound appreciation of the God of love – the God who gave his only begotten Son, so that all that believe in him might have eternal life:  a tremendous gift indeed!  Amen.

[i] William G. Carter, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 182.

[ii] H. Stephen Shoemaker, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 181.

On hope and falling…

Tags

Christ, cross, Easter, falling, God, hope, Lent, love, rejoice, repent, resurrection, sin, trust

Photo credit:  http://fscaston.org/events/advent-retreat/

This time of year, clergy and parish offices are in the throes of Lent and Easter planning.  Although the average parishioner will ease their way into the Lenten journey, the clergy and parish office are already ordering supplies for Holy Week and Easter celebrations, having mostly confirmed everything for Lent.  Though that reality may not be a surprise, what you may not realize is how challenging it is to hold two very different seasons in one’s heart and mind with authenticity.  It is hard to plan for Easter when we haven’t journeyed through the forty days of Lent.  It is difficult to jump to the command to rejoice, when we have not yet mourned Christ’s death.

Many of my parishioners will be the first to tell you how much they loathe Lent.  They love the joy of Christmas and Easter, and even enjoy the beauty of Epiphany and the season of Pentecost.  But Lent feels like a season of imposed darkness and gloom.  They do not like the dreary hymns and the long, sad journey and examination of our sinfulness.  My response is always the same:  how can we celebrate at the tomb if we haven’t mourned at the cross?

But as we have done our planning for Easter this year, I realized how insensitive I have been in my question.  The truth is I am only able to sit at the foot of the cross because I am fortunate enough to know what waits on the other side.  The disciples, followers, and family of Jesus did not have that luxury.  Their darkness was real, their fears justified, and their doubts reasonable and expected.  I do not mean to suggest that we “pretend” our way through Lent as some sort of contrived experience in repentance.  Instead, what I realize is that the only way I am able to explore my own sinfulness and depravity so deeply and authentically is because of the promise of and hope in the resurrection.  I am able to fall because I know Christ will catch me.  That does not mean the falling is any less scary.  No one likes to really delve into their brokenness and confess their faults to our God.  But we do so out of the promise of a God who loves us no matter what.

I hope you will explore our Lenten offerings at St. Margaret’s this year and take full advantage of a time for true self-examination and prayer.  Our God and the Church are journeying with you.  You are not alone, and you can trust in the never-failing love of Christ to catch you!

On being good…

Tags

Advent, Barth, behavior, Christ, church, forgiveness, good, Paul, repent, Romans, sin

Driving home from school this week, my daughter and I talked about some challenges she is having with poor behavior in the classroom.  We talked about some strategies to help her work on it.  I encouraged her to just keep trying.  Exasperated, she said to me, “I am trying.  It’s just so hard being good!”

Her words to me were both funny and profound.  I felt sympathy for this little first grader who is trying her best.  But I also felt an odd sense of relief.  I thought to myself, “I’m so glad I am an adult and don’t have to worry about ‘being good’ anymore!”  Then today, we read the lessons for the feast day for Karl Barth.  The epistle was from Paul’s letter to the Romans (7.14-25).  Paul says, “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”  It dawned on me that I was being self-righteous with my daughter.  As adults, we do not ever “grow out of” struggling to be good.  Adults struggle with our sinful nature as much as children do.

Karl Barth knew a little about sinfulness.  During the rise of Hitler, Barth argued that the Church’s allegiance to God in Christ gave the Church the moral imperative to challenge the rule and violence of Hitler.  In fact, when Barth refused to swear an oath to Hitler, he lost his professorship.  One of the greatest theological minds of the twentieth century, Barth argued about sin that the Incarnation was the bridge between God’s revelation and human sin.

Photo credit: http://www.sacristies-of-the-world.com/?tag=advent-wreath

Talking about sin during Advent may seem strange to some.  Most of us are more focused on buying gifts, preparing our homes, and going to parties.  But the reason we have to celebrate in the first place is the nativity of our Lord – that bridge between God’s revelation and human sin.  Even in the first weeks of Advent, we hear from John the Baptist telling us to repent of our sins.  The time of Advent is not the Church’s way of delaying the gratification of Christmas.  Advent is an invitation to prepare our hearts and minds for the Christ Child.  Part of that preparation is examining our own sinfulness – to right our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with one another.  Being “good” is not easy.  But Advent is our reminder to keep trying – even when being good is hard.  My suspicion is that our work of repentance will not only warm our hearts with the forgiveness we receive from God, but also help us to be agents of forgiveness.  Lord knows we’ll need a heap of that too when the holidays come!

Sermon – 2 Samuel 18.5-9, 15, 31-33, P14, YB, August 9, 2015

Tags

Absolom, Christ, confession, cross, David, God, guilt, judgment, loser, losing, loss, redemption, sin, tragedy, victory, We Are Marshall, winning

I recently watched the film We Are Marshall.  The film details the true story of a tragedy in 1970 that happened to Marshall University.  After an away football game, most of the team and coaches, as well as several boosters, took a private plane back to the university.  The plane crashed just minutes from landing, killing everyone onboard.  The town was bereft as they mourned their sons, friends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, and teammates.  The University’s Board was set to cancel the 1971 football season, when the few surviving players petitioned to play anyway.  The president was then tasked to find a coach who would be willing to step into this tragic situation – coaching a season that many thought was inappropriate given the deaths, to find enough players when Freshmen were not yet allowed to play per NCAA rules, and to find a supporting coaching staff, including trying to recruit the only assistant coach who had not been on the plane.  The season moves forward and after the first game, which Marshall loses, the head coach and the surviving assistant coach have a heart-to-heart.  The assistant coach explains that the deceased former head coach had always said that the most important thing in football was winning.  And if the current team was not going to win, the assistant didn’t want to coach, because they would be dishonoring the former coach’s memory.  After a long pause, the current head coach confesses that before he came to Marshall, he would have said the same thing:  that winning is the most important thing.  But now that he was there, in the midst of the Marshall community, the most important thing to him was simply playing.

We are a society that glorifies winning.  Not just in sports, but in all of life, we want to be winners.  No one likes to lose because losing, when we are really honest, is not fun.  Of course, we try to teach our children that we cannot always win.  Many a play date argument is settled by the conversation that sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.  We even have a word for being comfortable with losing.  We say we are being “good sports.”  But being a good sport takes work.  We do not like losing.  Losing itches as something deep inside of us – both internally and externally reinforced.  We want to be winners.

Of course no one knows more about losing than King David.  History labels him as a winner, but as we reread his story, we know that David was an intimate friend of losing.  We hear the deep pain of his losing in his final words today, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!  Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”  We know the pain of losing a child – the sorrow and the grief of that kind of losing.  But David is not just mourning the loss of his child in these words.  He is morning the loss even more deeply because he knows he is indirectly guilty of his son’s death.[i]  If you remember, in the reading we heard last week, Nathan told David that because of his sinfulness with Bathsheba and Uriah that his household will be plagued by a sword.  Through Nathan, the Lord proclaims, “I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun.  For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.”[ii]

God stays true to God’s judgment.  Between last week’s reading and this week’s reading, David’s family starts to fall apart.  His first child with Bathsheba dies.  One of David’s sons rapes his half-sister.  When David does not punish that son, another son, Absalom, takes action, killing his half-brother.  Absalom then flees, and spends years amassing a revolution against David.  Absalom manages to take Jerusalem, and further humiliates David by sleeping with ten of David’s concubines in front of everyone.  David is forced to battle against Absalom to restore the kingdom, but he does so begrudgingly.  Today we hear David trying to make victory as painless as possible, asking his men to deal gently with Absalom.  But Absalom had made too many enemies in the family and kingdom, and when the time came, he was killed in battle.  Though many saw Absalom’s death as a victory, David knew the truth.  Victory in this case was not winning for David.  Victory was just another reminder of the ways in which David’s life had become about losing – about the painful reminder of his sin hanging over his head.

David reminds us of what we have all learned about losing.  Though none of us like losing, we know losing is a necessary and probably valuable part of life.  You see, losing helps us in many ways.  First, losing reminds us of our finitude.  Though we might like to think we are without limits or we can control everything, losing reminds us of the “futility of our personal striving and the frailty of our existence.”  Second, losing gives us the opportunity to reexamine our goals and outlook on life.  Losing can help us see when perhaps we have become overly self-serving, have developed unrealistic expectations, or we have just become distracted by the wrong things in life.  Finally, losing reminds us that our lives are in need of redemption.  Losing can give us a much-needed opportunity to renew our relationship with God.  As one scholar explains, “In this moment of realization, we are liberated to renew our trust in God’s power and in [God’s] purpose for our lives.”  That does not mean we should give up, stop trying, or be overcome by the fear of losing.  Instead, maintaining our trust in God gives assurance that “ultimately, there is no losing without the possibility of redemption.”[iii]

Think for a moment about the ultimate symbol of our faith – the cross.  The cross is both a symbol of loss and victory.  We always remember the victory of resurrection and redemption, but first, the cross was a symbol of death and defeat.  The cross was a humiliating reminder of the brutal death of the one we insist is the Messiah.  Our main symbol was the symbol of ultimate loss – the place where losers go to lose:  lose their life, their dignity, and their power.  That symbol of being a loser is only redeemed because the Redeemer redeems it.  Of course, we should not be surprised.  Every week, we as a community gather and remind ourselves at how we are losers when we confess our sins.  We kneel down and young, old, male, female, single, partnered, good, and bad confess that we lost.  Every single week we confess how, once again, we have lost.

I sometimes wonder how David coped with the sword in his house.  Sure, he had moments of redemption.  Solomon taking the helm at David’s death was one of the best redemptive moves in his family.  But I wonder, on that deathbed, how all the losing in David’s life weighed on him.  In last week’s lesson, David did what all of us do.  He confessed.  He confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord.”  His confession did not make Absalom’s death any less painful.  But his confession, like ours, is redemptive.  Like David, when we acknowledge and confess our senses of incompleteness, “we are able to be freed from the entrapments of a win/lose culture.  God accepts us despite our failings.  This relationship is not earned; [this relationship] is a divine gift.  Accepted and forgiven, we are liberated to celebrate life.  Affirmed and fulfilled by God, we are released to care for others.  These affirmations point to the redemptive side of failure, to the God who accepts losers.”[iv]

When we wear a cross, or we reverence the cross in church, we reverence both the winning and the losing of the cross.  We honor the ways in which the cross represents not just the loss of Christ, but also the brokenness in each of us – the ways in which we have failed.  Only when we honor that loss can we then hold that cross as a symbol of victory.  That cross becomes a symbol of the ways in which Christ redeems us, but also the ways in which we too made new through our losing.  When we embrace the cross in its fullness of expression, we also recognize the fullness of our lives – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  We know that without the embracing of our losing we can never fully claim the victory of our winning through the cross.  Amen.

[i] Ted A. Smith, “Commentary on 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33” 2009, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=365 on August 6, 2015.

[ii] 2 Samuel 12.11-12.

[iii] The ideas in this paragraph and the quotes within come from Carnegie Samuel Calian, “Theologizing in a Win/Lose Culture, Christian Century, vol. 96, no. 32, October 10, 1979, 978.

[iv] Calian, 979.

Sermon – Ephesians 4.1-16, 2 Samuel 11.26-12.13a, P13, YB, August 2, 2015

Tags

Bathsheba, Black Lives Matter, body, calling, Christians, David, denigrate, dignity, God, Jesus, Nathan, one, Paul, power, shame, sin, Uriah, women

A short film circulated about a year ago[i] about the role of all religions to protect women.  The film starts out with a young woman, walking along a dirt road with books in her arms.  We presume she is walking to school to further her education.  She walks past two young men who covetously watch her pass by.  The viewer can surmise what is going to happen next.  The two men get up from the wall and start to follow her.  The young woman glances over her shoulder and sees the men following.  She speeds up, but they start running, managing to pass her, and block her way.  She comes up short and starts to back up, calculating how she is going to get away from these two men to safety.

The anxiety and dread of the young woman in that film has reminded me of Bathsheba these past two weeks.  Most of us are familiar with the David and Bathsheba story.  When we started hearing David’s story this summer, we knew this part was coming.  The story starts out in a totally different place.  When we first meet David, he is an unsuspecting, seemingly innocent, wholesome boy.  We watch David bravely take on the giant Goliath with just a bag of stones.  He is the loving friend of Jonathan and Michal, despite the fact that their father Saul tries repeatedly to kill him out of jealousy.  And when David finally becomes king, he joyously dances before God.  David has been towing the “blessed” line for most of the summer.

But these last two weeks, the story changes.  You see, David has gotten complacent and a bit self-important.  When all the other kings are going out to battle, David stays behind, letting others do his fighting.  When the rest of the kingdom is busy working or tending to life, David is lounging around the palace.  That’s where he first spies Bathsheba.  David should not have been there, and he certainly should not have let his eyes linger on a bathing married woman.  And then something awful takes over David.  He sends his men to take Bathsheba, and he sleeps with her.  Though the text never says so, we know the act must be against Bathsheba’s will, given the “enormous power differential between the violator and the violated, the intuitional background in which the crime [is] committed, and the cunning with which it [is] executed.”[ii]  Later, when Bathsheba becomes pregnant, David deepens his shame by trying to trick Bathsheba’s husband to sleep with her so that he will think the baby is his.  When that doesn’t work, David sends him to battle, having him killed in the line of fire.

I know most of us know this story.  Many of us think of this story as David’s little indiscretion.  But for some reason, reading this story this year has enraged me.  I don’t know if I am angered because I have been hearing too many stories lately about the way we treat women.  Or maybe I am angered because I expect more from David – this king who is the ancestor of our Messiah.  Or maybe I am just outraged by one more example of the powerful overpowering the powerless – taking whatever they want, ruining lives along the way.  This story is about more than an indiscretion.  This story is about a violation of the created order – a violation of the body of God.

Today, as Paul is teaching the Ephesians, he holds them to a higher standard.  Paul says, “I…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”  Paul says we are one body.  This calling that we are to live worthily is not the vocation we have.[iii]  The calling Paul is talking about is the calling we have as Christians to be one body in Christ – of being a loving, caring, humble body in the Lord.  Nothing David does today reflects the dignity of every human being or the one body in the Lord.  In fact, David does not even seem to see the humanity in Bathsheba or her husband, Uriah.

I think why I am so angry at David is because I am angry with myself.  As much as I want to chastise and critique David, I know that my judgment of him comes out of deep sense of my own brokenness.  David makes me acutely aware of my own failings to see the dignity of every person, to honor the ways in which we are all a part of the body of Christ.  I have become aware of my own complicity with sin as the campaign “Black Lives Matter,” has arisen over the past few years.  As more and more cases of the oppression black men and women have arisen in our country, and as more and more stories have been told about the separate reality these men and women experience from white men and women, I have been feeling more and more convicted.  If we are all one body, when black lives are denigrated, all of our lives are denigrated.  When parts of our body are shamed, abused, or live in the shadow of fear, the rest of our body is not whole.  When I participate in that abuse, whether consciously or unconsciously, I am a part of that sinful denigration of our collective body.

The same was true for Bathsheba.  When Bathsheba is taken by David, the whole body of God is denigrated.  When David sins, everyone loses favor.  And the only way to correct for sin is repentance.  The initiator of repentance today is not David, but Nathan.  Now Nathan is a smart prophet.[iv]  He does not storm into the palace, wagging his finger at David.  No, he tells a story.  Nathan tells a story of a poor man and his beloved sheep.  Of course, David is drawn in by the story.  As a former shepherd himself, he knows the beloved relationships that can happen with animals for which you care.  And so when David hears of a rich man taking that sole, beloved animal, David is outraged, and proclaims that justice must prevail.  Without hesitation, Nathan now is able to quietly, but pointedly say to David, “You are the man!”  You see, Nathan remembers his calling.  He remembers the way that God taught us to live as a community of faith – that when one of our members sins, we are all denigrated by that sin.  What David would hide, and cover, Nathan exposes and corrects.

In that short film of the two men pursuing the young woman, a turn happens.  As the woman starts to slowly back up, another man is passing by.  He sees what is happening and he quickly runs over to stand between the young woman and the two men.  The two men threaten him, but he stands firm.  A Sikh man in a turban also sees what is happening and joins the protesting man, grabbing his hand and joining him in front of the woman.  A Muslim man comes along and joins hands with the men too.  Then a Christian man joins the other men.  Slowly, eight men join hands together, forming a circle of protection around the woman.  The two pursuing men back away and retreat.  A smile crosses the young woman’s face, and she lifts her head a little higher.

What this short film captures is the power of the body acting as the body.  When Nathan pronounces judgment on David, Nathan is participating in holding up the health of the whole body.  The story at this point could have gone a different way.  Nathan could have been tossed aside, and David could have kept up his deception.  But David’s last words are simple and profound.  “I have sinned against the Lord.”  Truthfully, David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah.  But what David understands even more profoundly is that when David sins against members of the body, David sins indirectly against the Lord.[v]  We hear his fuller confession in the words of the Psalm we read today.[vi]  But what David’s words teach us is that healing and wholeness are possible.  David does not just say “I am sorry,” but David repents – or as the Hebrew word connotes, David changes his way, and returns to the Lord.  David moves back toward health and wholeness.

The redemption in David’s story for me comes not through David, but through Nathan.  Like those men in that video, Nathan stands up for those without power.  When that action happens, the body is able to move toward wholeness.  When Paul tells us to remember our calling today, Paul is talking about all the parts of us.  For those times when we are Davids, those times when we are pushed to be Nathans, and for those times when we are the Bathshebas and Uriahs, Paul’s words are simple.  “I…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called….  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”  There is one body.  I beg you:  lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.  Amen.

[i] “Every Religion Protects Women, Protecting Women Is Religion,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D51_GQqVfSk, July 21, 2014, as found on July 30, 2015.

[ii] Eleazar S. Fernandez, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Yr. B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 9.

[iii] N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone:  The Prison Letters (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 43.

[iv] Lloyd H. Steffan, “On Honesty and Self-Deception:  ‘You Are the Man’,” Christian Century, vol. 104, no. 14, April 29, 1987, 405.

[v] Carol J. Dempsey, OP, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Yr. B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 10.

[vi] Kathleen A. Robertson Farmer, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Yr. B (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 6.