"Sound Logic" (Sixth Sunday of Easter)

Acts 17:22-31

22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, "To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For "In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "For we too are his offspring.' 29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

            I don’t know what possessed me to do it: maybe it was a sudden urge for attention; maybe it was the felt need to stand out; maybe it was the most recent of Garth Brooks’ NBC concert specials…whatever it was it got a hold of me and caused me to tell my third grade teacher, Mrs. MacArthur, that I could in fact play the guitar. Now, I also don’t know what possessed her: perhaps she genuinely believed that some kid in dollar store shoes had enough money to buy a guitar and take guitar lesson—IN THE THIRD GRADE; perhaps she had a great deal of faith in me and believed I could actually do it (when I look back on my childhood, it is always my teachers who stand out as those cheering me on and pointing me forward); or perhaps she thought she’d call my bluff and make me prove I could play the guitar in front of the whole class. Whatever it was, Mrs. MacArthur told me to bring my guitar to class and I could play a song for everyone.

            Now, I should probably stop here and fill you in on a few things. First, I wouldn’t necessarily say I actually owned a guitar back then; what I had was really more of a toy—it was a toy. It came with a microphone and a little, red speaker so you could pretend to be a rock star (so long as you were ages eight and up). It did have six strings though. Second, I did once own a guitar, but it fell victim to the influence of one of those previously mentioned Garth Brooks specials from the ‘90s: I thought it would look cool to smash it on the brick steps of our carport (it did, by the way). Third, I cannot now, nor have I ever been able to play the guitar. But I brought my red and black plastic guitar-toy to school, put it in the same closet where we all kept our backpacks and jackets, and when the time came I went and got it out.

            I remember Mrs. McArthur’s face sort of melting from an expression of anticipating joy to concern. If the quality of my instrument hadn’t given it away, my attempt at playing certainly did. I remembered that if I simply plucked the top four strings it’d sound an awful lot like the beginning of “Friends in Low Places” (obviously Garth played a pretty heavy influence in my wild, rebellious pre-teen years…). So, I plucked those four strings, looked around to see if anyone noticed what I was doing…then I did it again…and again…and again…I’m not sure what I thought was going to happen. Would I suddenly be indwelt with the power to play the guitar? Would the world end and I would be forced to stop as a meteor crashed into the playground? Would I go on playing those same four “notes” until the bell rang at three o’clock and I could go home and hide in my closet until the fourth grade? Fortunately, Mrs. MacArthur was a kind and gracious teacher; she said something like, “Well, Chris, I know it was short notice for you. Maybe you can practice a song and play one when you’re ready.” She was too kind. I was too dumb. I never did practice a song.

            I felt like I blew my shot, my one chance to really impress someone, several someones. Like I had mustered up the courage to do something that would have been embarrassing to me even if I did know how to play the guitar and I fell flat on my face. You know, I wonder if maybe—just maybe—Paul felt like that after his sermon at the Areopagus.

            In our text this morning we find Paul’s words in his sermon at the Areopagus. He’s been brought there by the Athenians because it seems to them he has a new teaching, and as Luke writes in verse 21 just before this morning’s text: “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” To them, Paul was the new daytime soap opera, the new album to drop, the latest book released; what they heard him say sounded new, so they wanted to hear it all, to see if this new thing was to their liking (there’s probably a sermon for another time in there about always liking and wanting the “new” thing). They take Paul to the Areopagus (or Mar’s Hill), an outcropping of rocks, often used as a courtroom, a place for debate, and it’s there that Paul delivers this sermon.

            Now, it’s a pretty good sermon: Paul gathers his thoughts around the observations he’s made around the grand city of Athens: "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” He’s given them the reason for his speech and prepares them for what he’s about to say, good rhetorical form. He then moves on to state his thesis: “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” Perhaps from somewhere in the back, Paul hears a familiar voice shout, “Amen! Tell it, preacher!” So, Paul continues on, citing a common ancestry for all humankind and thus a common creator: “From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.” Playing to a shared sense of longing for the divine…good stuff here, right? The apostle continues, using familiar, illustrative words from their own culture—a move many modern homileticians would tell you is very wise and effective: “For ‘In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.'” These are borrowed words from the ancient philosopher Epimenides (6th century BCE) and the ancient poet Aratus (3^rd century BCE) respectively.[1]

            Paul then brings the whole thing home as he denounces idolatry, proclaims the need for repentance and announces the coming judgement on an appointed day in the near future—a concept entirely different to what many of the ancient philosophers believed, for they saw time and existence itself as cyclical, without an “end date.” Paul nearly has the musicians coming to the front, ready to play the first stanza of “Just As I Am” when he rounds the rhetorical corner of his sermon in verse 29: “Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

            That last line would have some folks standing in the pews of a church shouting: “and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Those words make me think of what I heard Otis Moss III say this past week, words I read in his book Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World; he said, “There is no shouting like the shouting in a Black church about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, you can say the same thing every week. ‘They hung Him high. They stretched Him wide, and then He died. But early on Sunday morning…’”[2] To talk of Christ’s resurrection—that ought to move some people, stir some folks up.

            But Luke says, in the verses following our text this morning, “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” This isn’t the type of evangelistic response one would hope for from such an event. This is Athens, the Areopagus, the “big show,” a mainstage in a big city, where someone like Billy Graham would sell out the arena and have hundreds of folks flooding down the aisles. But Paul—all Paul could muster was a couple of women (which would have been seen as a pitiful response indeed in the first century) and a few nameless others. There’s no church left to grow in Athens, no chapter of the Jesus movement meeting in the home of Dionysius, nothing more than a sort of nod to Paul’s eloquence as they say, “I guess we could listen to this one more time…”

            What happened? Was Paul off his mark that day? Were his references not relevant enough? Was his delivery not formal enough? Not casual enough? Did he forget to wear a tie? Were his skinny jeans clashing with his sneakers? Was he not loud enough for the folks in the back who refused the hearing devices? Did he preach too long or was his sermon too short? Was the air too cold in the Areopagus, or were people too distracted with fanning themselves in the heat? Was he too political? Not political enough? Were his references obscure or too folksy for the audience? Maybe; I know those are certainly some of the reasons me and my preaching colleagues often hear, but what was it, really? Why didn’t Paul’s message cause a massive upheaval and revival right then and there?

            Now, some will say it’s because the message Paul preached was so radically different from the kinds of things the Athenians were used to hearing. Maybe. Maybe the notion of time being less cyclical and more linear messed them up. Maybe the very idea of a person dying and not staying dead was just too much for them to wrap their heads around. Maybe.

            Of course, others will say it’s because Paul left out two very important items in his sermon. I remember the first time I heard this idea (one, frankly, I like a lot): it was in the chapel at Truett Seminary and Dr. Gardner C. Taylor was the guest preacher. Dr. Taylor was a giant among preachers, and still immensely influential after his death. Dr. Taylor pointed out that Paul left Athens and travelled to Corinth, and in his correspondence with the church there, Paul reveals his shortcomings at Athens. You see, in his sermon at the Areopagus, Paul mentions God creating the world, appointing a day of consummation, and raising “a man” from the dead, but he never mentions Jesus by name, nor does he mention the cross, which is why (Dr. Taylor suggests) Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2, “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” It’s a convincing argument, but I don’t think it’s the whole story. You see, I have another idea, one that is also grounded in Paul’s response in Corinth, after his perceived failure at Athens.

            At the Areopagus, Paul engaged in a public display of rhetoric, a free debate with those who loved to sit around and discuss politics and philosophy. There was no shortcoming in Paul’s approach; it’s often cited as an exemplary model of apologetics. There is no short-sightedness in his theology (save that which we’ve already covered with Dr. Taylor’s observations). In fact, I would argue that Paul could have been right on cue with everything from the pace, pitch, and projection of his voice to the use of metaphor and narrative language, right down to how he dressed and his posture. Paul could have gotten everything right with his presentation before the people at the Areopagus and still had the exact same response. He could have framed his argument perfectly, presented the facts as they were, connected the dots and left every possible question answered—and still would have left Athens in no different shape. Why do I believe this? Well, maybe my thoughts are best summed up in words attributed to author Philip Yancey: “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.” Yet how so many of us think our chief charge in the faith is to argue!

            Paul gives a perfectly framed argument, but it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans! And I think Paul realized it when he arrived in Corinth. You see, not only does Paul decide to know nothing among the Corinthians but “Jesus Christ and him crucified,” Paul also realizes what it truly takes to communicate the full-orbed truth of the gospel. It isn’t carefully crafted sermons; it isn’t thoroughly rehearsed apologetic strategies; it isn’t the memorization and regurgitation of Bible verses; it isn’t even well-timed sermons with three alliterative points, a joke, and a poem at the end. It’s none of that. It’s not political ideologies we place upon our favored politicians to carry into legislative sessions on our behalf. It isn’t bumper stickers or “Jesus fish” emblems on our cars. It isn’t faith-based production companies or “family friendly” radio stations. It isn’t anything that’s called a “worldview,” doctrine, or dogma, and it sure isn’t drawing an uncrossable line! While not all of these things are bad (in fact, many of them are good, right things), none of them can fully communicate the whole-truth of the gospel, and Paul knew that way back when, in the shadow of his shortcomings at Athens.

            Yes, he says in 1 Corinthians 2:2: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified,” but what he says further on into that reflective letter says more about the lesson he learned at the Areopagus, for after standing in the midst of those who loved lofty words, academic debates, political posturing, and ideological demonstrations, Paul writes to the sisters and brothers at Corinth and says (likely with Mar’s Hill on his mind): “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” In the words of Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God!” I think he got that from Paul, and I think Paul may have gotten that from Jesus.

            You see, Paul came to learn that all the fancy words in the world will never move the needle on the dial of one’s soul without love. All the posturing about what makes one a true Christian doesn’t mean a thing if one isn’t willing to cross over the lines we draw in order to love a neighbor, a stranger. Paul came to learn what we’re still learning, that this Christian faith is not a philosophy upon which to ponder, nor is it an ideology to defend and debate. Why Id’ even go so far as to say it’s so much more than a view with which to see the world. If this faith we have in Christ is anything, it is an embodied ethic of selfless, life-giving love. If faith in Christ is anything, it is life, breath, bread, and water; it’s room at the tale for everyone; it’s dirty feet and unwashed hands; it’s grace and forgiveness, peace in the midst of trouble, laughter in the midst of pain, hope when there’s absolutely nothing left in which to hope. If faith in Christ is anything, it’s life, a life lived in the reckless pursuit of perfect love, for without love (as Paul came to understand, and I hope we do too), without love, we’re nothing. Amen.

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[1] See Matt Skinner’s commentary on workingpreacher.org: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=886

[2] Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015). p.35.

"Proof" (Fifth Sunday of Easter)

John 14:1-14

1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

            Have you ever had a friend say to you, “How’s it going?” and instead of the usual, “Alright I reckon,” you tell them how it’s really going? “Well, things aren’t so good: been working sixty hours a week at work the past three months, and I’m still behind; had a pipe burst at the house while we were out of town, so we had to pay thousands of dollars to get everything fixed (it ruined our antique Naugahyde sofa); our little girl has chicken pox, my father-in-law’s been in ICU for the past week; and I’m pretty sure my car blew a head gasket this morning. So things are pretty bad.” You tell your friend exactly how it’s going, releasing that pent up frustration and exhaustion, hoping to find some catharsis in the simple act of just telling someone all that’s been weighing you down, only to have them respond by saying something like, “Well, worrying about it won’t help.”

            Doesn’t that just drive you crazy?! It’s as if they have dismissed your frustrations, anxiety, and fears as nothing more than just idle chatter, as if those things that concern you and cause you to fret are childish problems that aren’t worth losing sleep over. I suppose, if you have the kinds of friends who are inclined to baptize their conversations in a thin veneer of theology, they might respond a bit differently; they might say something like, “Oh, bless your heart. You’ve got a lot on your plate, but don’t worry, God has everything under control…God will never give you more than you can handle (which is a bold face lie, a theological fallacy!).” I mean, you want to believe those sorts of things—and maybe you do, but too often the present stress of reality is far more persuasive than the untried claims of spirituality. It’s rough when a friend responds that way, almost casting your troubles aside as if they’re meaningless, as if you are foolish to worry about them. It’s hard when a friend says such things…but what about when Jesus says them?

            That is, after all, what happens at the very beginning of our text this morning, isn’t it? In the very first verse of chapter fourteen Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” In other words, “Don’t worry. Trust God. I got this.” Now, I suppose that’s all well and good as a verse plucked out of context. After all, we most often hear this passage when we’re gathered in this room, the funeral home chapel, or around a hole in the ground under a green tent. These verses are often heard within a message about the needlessness to worry about those who’ve gone on before us because they have gone on to a “better place.” While these verses may provide us with some comfort in moments like those, that isn’t the original context of Christ’s words. No, when Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me,” he is speaking to a group of disciples who have an awful lot over which their hearts may be troubled.

            One doesn’t have to look far back in the text of the Fourth Gospel to find such sources for troubling hearts: in chapter thirteen Jesus tells his disciples about his death; Judas (one of the twelve, one of their friends, one of Jesus’ closest followers) will betray him; Peter (the rock upon which the Church is supposed to be built) will deny Jesus, not once (as if it were a mistake), not twice (as if he might have slipped up, forgetting his previous error), but three times (the rhetorical equivalent of claiming truth, for if one says something three times, one must surely mean it). This is enough to have the collective hearts of the disciples deeply troubled, for it surely seems like this whole movement is about to crumble…it’s in that anxious atmosphere that Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled..

            As if that weren’t enough, Jesus tells them (again) that he’s leaving, that he’s going to prepare a place for them [“In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”] Jesus is leaving them; he’s going to prepare a place in which his followers may abide in the eternal love and presence of God. Oh, he’s coming back to get them, coming back so that everyone will be together again, but he’s got to go first. But before Jesus’ departure can be added to the list of heart-troubling events for the disciples, Jesus almost casually adds, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Do they?

            It’s here where the apostle Thomas (it’s almost always Thomas in the Fourth Gospel) says what we’d all be thinking: "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Thomas sort of has a point, you know: Jesus doesn’t actually tell them where he’s going; he doesn’t give them a physical address, not even so much as a zip code. It’s as if Jesus just assumes the disciples should know, as if he’s told them before, but he hasn’t—at least not the way Thomas (and if we’re honest, we) want to be told. You see, Thomas thought Jesus was talking about some literal location, a place (even in Jesus’ absence) the disciples could find. Thomas wanted to know a final destination—he wanted to know where all this winds up…and don’t we?

            We want to know the end-game, the ultimate resolution, the address of the finish line. We spend all kinds of time, energy, and money on books, lectures, and all kinds of things trying to figure out where this whole wild ride of existence will wind up in the end. We want to know a final formula, an ultimate expression of purpose or salvation, a definitive doctrinal list, a thorough explanation of where we’re going and how to get there. We want a line drawn—in black and white in permanent ink. But why? Why does Thomas want to know where Jesus is going? Well, because there is a sense of security in knowing where things are headed, isn’t there?

            After all, I’d be willing to bet you’d be more likely to board a plane with a final destination printed on the ticket, than one headed towards an unknown destination (even if you trusted the pilot). Why, I bet you’d be more willing to take on difficult tasks, if you knew with some level of certainty, how it would wind up. That’s really why Thomas speaks up and says to Jesus, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" He’s saying: “Lord, we’re confused by all of this. We’re not really sure where all of this is heading. How in the world are we even supposed to know?” I don’t know about you, but I have found myself praying that exact sentiment more than once in my own life, especially in those times when the way forward is unclear, and it seems as if the weight of all of this life just might be too much to bear. There have been times when I’ve prayed to God to just show me where all of this is going, to clue me in on what’s ultimately going to happen. If I knew how it would all wind up, maybe I’d take a few more chances (but are they really chances if I know how they’ll end up?); maybe I’d be a bit bolder; maybe I wouldn’t be so unsure of myself, anxious about the future, concerned about the direction things are headed. If I knew how it would wind up in the end…

            Here’s where some might say, “Well, we know how it’ll end. Just read Revelation!” Maybe. But I’d wager those same folks are willing to get worked up over things outside of their control if they happen to be made uncomfortable. Now, I know—I know, God is God, and the grand narrative of Scripture tells us that God is triumphant in the end, but that still doesn’t keep us from wanting to know the way there, a few more details, does it?

            It is in response to Thomas’s confusion (our own confusion) that Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."  Jesus’ words here are not meant to be wielded as a weapon or means of exclusivity in the centuries following his resurrection. No, if we read his words in context, they are words spoken to Thomas about finding the way—the way to the “place” where Jesus is going. You see, this “place” isn’t a dot on the map or a set of GPS coordinates: this “place” is a state of abiding with God, a way of living that brings one into the real, eternal presence of the Almighty. Jesus doesn’t give Thomas a location; instead, Jesus says, “There’s no address, no directions to get there. If you want to go, though, just follow me. That’s how you get there.”

            It’s as if Jesus is saying to us in these words that when the reality of life is too much to bear, when we want to know the reason or purpose for all of this good, bad, or ugly stuff we deal with in our lives, to just follow Jesus and we’ll get to where we need to be, or maybe the whole point is that where we need to be is following Jesus, and not solely concerned about some imagined, ultimate destination…I don’t know, but I do know that God doesn’t really seem to be the type to hand down a map from heaven with a giant “x” to mark the spot. After all, when God called Abram from Haran, God simply said to Abram, “Go…to the land that I will show you.”[1] I also know that when Moses led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, God didn’t send Moses a list of directions with landmarks and outlined steps; no, instead, “The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and night.”[2] I also know that before Jesus ever showed the disciples that he could walk on water, heal the sick, feed thousands, before he ever mentioned the cross or his resurrection, the first thing he said to them was “Come and follow me.” No, it doesn’t seem that God is the type to give us a destination with an address. Rather, God seems to be the type to call us along for the journey, to abide in God’s presence along the way, wherever that way may lead…

            Even so, we’re still people who want something more than just a call to follow; we want more than the assurance that the one steering the ship knows what’s up. No, most times, when life’s waters begin to get rough, we call out asking for a sign. It’s what basically what Philip says to Jesus in the text in front of us. After Jesus responds to Thomas, Philip pipes up, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." “Just give us some proof of the existence of God, some evidence that God is behind all of this, and we’ll leave you alone about it; we’ll come along for the ride, but we’re going to need some proof.” We may not know where we’ll wind up on this ride, but if we could have some signs along the way to let us know we’re on the right track, that’d sure be nice! There’s a problem with such thinking, you know, a problem with wanting a sign to encourage you or correct you, a sign to let you know you’re on the right track or wandering from the path. There’s a real problem with wanting some sort of signal, some proof that everything is running on the rails and not at risk of going astray. You see, when you want a sign, you’ll find one, or should a sign come your way you don’t want, you’ll find a way to ignore it, to explain it away.

            This exchange between Jesus and Philip is a great example of what I’m talking about. You see, Philip says to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Will they be satisfied though? I mean, what exactly did they think Jesus would show them? A picture from his wallet? What did they expect Jesus to show them? One of the biggest problems with wanting such signs right there: when we ask for proof, for signs, we already have some idea of what we want to look for, and if a sign comes any differently to what we expect, well then it certainly wasn’t from God! Right? Really, what did Philip expect Jesus to show them?

            You can almost hear Jesus’ disappointment (frustration?) with Philip in his answer (Philip is, after all, one of the first disciples Jesus calls in the Fourth Gospel): "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?” Jesus has to remind Philip that he’s been with him all this time, a witness to all of Jesus’ signs of power: turning water into wine, healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, making the lame to walk, not to mention Philip most certainly would have known about Jesus resuscitating Lazarus. Philip had witnessed all of these things and heard Jesus’ teachings, and still he wanted Jesus to show them the Father in order to be satisfied.

            I can’t help but wonder how many times we find ourselves asking for a sign from God when we’ve already been through so much with God, or rather, God has been through so much with us. I suppose it’s no different from those Israelites in the wilderness who had witnessed ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, water come from a rock, bread form on the ground, and all the other signs God performed in the desert only to constantly complain and grumble. Even if we come to accept that we won’t know the final destination, we still want signposts along the way to tell us we’re on the right track, yet all the while God has shown us such signs, sometimes even when we weren’t looking.

            We want a final answer, and if we can’t have that, we want to at least know we’re on the right track. It may be the most difficult part of this life if faith, trusting Jesus enough to follow him wherever he may lead, when we can’t see the road ahead, when we don’t have a clear picture of the future. It’s enough to trouble our hearts. Yet, there is Jesus, always calling us to follow, always assuring us of God’s love, even when we can’t see the way ahead, even when the signs we pray for don’t show, even when we’ve had more than we can handle, there is Jesus. When the weight of the world seems too great to bear, when the way forward is too clouded with the fog of uncertainty, when you find yourself desperate for a sign, for proof, remember that maybe—just maybe—the point of all of this isn’t where we wind up, but perhaps it’s all about the journey, this grand journey of faith, following the one who calls us ever on the way, through truth, and into everlasting life. Amen.

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[1] Genesis 12:1

[2] Exodus 13:21

"Peace Be with You" (Second Sunday of Easter)

John 20:19-31

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin  ), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

            You know, it has always interested me how people tend to get more “religious” in the wake of tragedy. Television reports and newspapers run stories with titles like “Finding God in the midst of Devastation.” People who would never darken the door of a church or bend a knee in prayer suddenly show up at the front door of the church asking for someone to pray for them or give them shelter. Sometimes people get more “religious” by becoming more vocal in their disgust with the divine. They blame God for the tragedy that has struck. Who can blame them, though? There are, after all, those on the television and radio telling them that God brought such devastation as a judgement upon a wicked nation, so they curse the heavens and the God they imagine dwells there; they may even reject the assistance of a church because somehow they think that the church is subtly behind their misfortune and is seeking to profit from it by adding another body in the pew on Sunday morning. Whatever the case may be, it seems that when tragedies such as these strike, people begin to see them as signs—signs of God’s presence in their midst.

            Of course, who can blame folks for wanting a sign? My grandma used to tell me: “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.” It’s not an uncommon philosophy for many people today in this era of “fake news.” Folks have a difficult time believing what their told. Don’t believe me? Well that would just prove my point wouldn’t it? We don’t believe what we’re told because we’ve been let down too many times, whether it’s been by politicians unable to live up to their campaign promises or loved ones who have told us time and again they’ll get help, they’ll get sober this time. We just don’t believe them anymore. We need proof, something tangible. We want some collateral when it comes to believing someone’s word, and perhaps that is why people tend to wax religious when tragedy strikes. Because somehow, in the midst of the confusion, despair, and horror there is some kind of tangible proof of something greater, something bigger than us.

             I suppose that very same sort of feeling had crossed those first followers of Jesus when the tragedy of Good Friday struck. For years life seemed to be heading in a positive direction: they had a Messiah now; he did miracles, taught with wonderful stories, and even walked, laughed, and ate with them—right there in the midst of them! They had proof of a genuine Messiah, because he was there; they could hear him, smell him, touch him. What more could a follower of Christ need to prove his or her faith than the Christ himself?! But then that Friday came, and as Mark tells us in the fourteenth chapter of his gospel, “All of them deserted him and fled.” They left, right when Christ could have needed them most and right when their faith was most directly put to the test. Then…tragedy: Jesus was crucified. The movement was surely doomed to be over as Christ was crucified,  his disciples long gone, and none of them seemed to believe what Jesus had said when he told them he’d be back on the third day.

            Sunday dawned, and with it came the hope of all humankind—Christ’s resurrection. The disciples, however, didn’t see it; no one saw it. None of the gospels tell us exactly how it happened; we’re only left with the stories after, in the dim hours of Sunday morning. We’re only told about it (“Don’t believe anything you hear.” Right?). So it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that, (20:19-20) “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Jesus just showed up! And not in some David Copperfield sort of way with smoke and mirrors, but in a supernatural way beyond our comprehension. He shows up, through the shut doors, three days after his very public death. Jesus appears and shows them his hands and his side: here’s proof, tangible, physical evidence of his existence.

            Of course, the timing is important. This is after the devastation of Good Friday, and here Jesus is giving his troubled disciples proof. However, there is so much more he gives them than just some visible evidence, for he continues on in verses 21 and following: “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” In the wake of Good Friday’s tragedy, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit onto his disciples and gives them peace. Consider the magnitude of such a thing: not simply comfort, not just an explanation as to what has happened, not some sort of systematic theology of atonement. He gives them peace, and then breathes the Holy Spirit upon them, charging them with the duties of a follower of Christ. In the wake of tragedy, Jesus offers peace and the comforting commission of the Holy Spirit. Of course, the disciples gathered there that first day saw Jesus when he granted them peace and gave them the Holy Spirit—they had visible evidence! So really, Thomas’ action in the following verses shouldn’t come as so much of a shock to us.

            In verses 24 and 25 the Bible says, “But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’" Now, perhaps Thomas had in mind Jesus’ words from Mark 13:5-6: “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!'  and they will lead many astray,” so maybe he just wanted to be sure that it was Jesus and not one of these others who would lead them astray. Maybe, but I doubt it. Thomas just wanted what we all want and what the other disciples had—proof. He wanted to see the telling signs of Jesus’ crucifixion and his physical body that would prove resurrection. He wanted to see them because the other disciples had gotten to see them. Of course, the odd thing is (at least to me) that Jesus gives Thomas exactly what he asked.

            “A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’” We’re not told if Thomas actually does it, if he actually touches the scars, places his hand in Jesus’ side. All we know is Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” Jesus not only showed up, but offered Thomas to touch his wounds. Here is undeniable proof! Yet I wonder if Jesus wasn’t just a little disappointed with Thomas. You can almost hear it in verse 29, can’t you? “Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me?’” While the NRSV translates this sentence as a question, other translations render it as a declarative statement: “You have believed because you have seen me.”  The existential theologian, Rudolf Bultmann went so far as to claim that the resurrection appearances of Jesus occurred simply because of the weakness of the disciples’ belief. Jesus shouldn’t have needed to appear to the disciples, but they had to have some sort of proof to “seal the deal.” And that brings us back to looking for signs.

            Thomas, along with the other disciples desired some sort of proof of Jesus’ resurrection after the despair of Good Friday. They wanted a sign. That, my friends, is truly irony at its best, especially in John’s gospel, in which Jesus performs no miracle; no, the writer of the fourth gospel prefers to call them signs. In fact, the last words of our text this morning sum up the author’s use of signs quite well:  “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” The author wrote down these signs so that we may believe, yet there are still countless people, particularly in the midst of such troubled times, who turn their gaze towards heaven asking for a sign.

            I think sometimes we all find ourselves looking, praying, hoping, asking for a sign.  But we should not give into the simplistic idea that faith is based on what can be seen and therefore proven. After all, if faith can be proven with tangible evidence can it really be called faith any longer? No, in the midst of those times when find ourselves needing a sign from God,  we hear a better word from Jesus, for just as he appeared to Thomas for the sake of his faith, Jesus also spoke these words: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

            If you are one who is looking for a sign, the truth is you could find one. You can find Jesus’ face in grilled cheese sandwich; you can see a sign in the rain this morning; you can find a sign in the clouds, in the chance timing of a song on the radio. If you’re one who wants to prove God’s existence in the terrifying forces of nature, you could easily do that too, claiming it was God in the storm. Of course, for every sign you can find, there is always the doubt—the doubt that maybe this isn’t a sign, maybe this is just coincidence, maybe this is just an attempt to practically explain away the miraculous. You can always find a sign.

However, we are called to a faith in things unseen, to a faith witnessed for us in the pages of Holy Scripture and in the lives of those saints who have gone on before and are in our presence now. Jesus says those who believe without seeing are blessed, and in the midst of tragedy and despair he offers peace and the comfort of the Holy Spirit to those who believe. So do you really want a sign? Do you really want some tangible, recordable evidence of the existence of God and the presence of Christ, something that can be ignored, explained away, or forgotten? Or will you this day let go of that human desire for proof and cling to Christ who offers you peace that surpasses all evidence and hope that is greater than all that we could hope to see? If you call on his name this day, you will truly find joy in the midst of heartache, love in the midst of grief, and a spirit-breathed life of Christ’s peace with you. That’s more than what can be captured by a “sign.” Amen.

"Fear and Great Joy" (Resurrection/Easter Sunday)

Matthew 28:1-10

1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, "He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

            One early, fall afternoon, Sallie and I were taking a walk around the neighborhood where we lived, when we turned the corner onto a narrow street and came upon an elderly woman who appeared to be in some sort of distress. She was obviously delirious, perhaps she had forgotten to take her medication, and she was terribly distraught. I seem to remember her telling us that she had been locked out of her house and that the men who had locked her out had spray-painted her windows so she couldn’t see inside. I had my phone in my hand, ready to dial 911 in case we couldn’t find where this woman lived and hopefully a relative inside her house. As it turned out, she wasn’t far from her home at all, just in front of it in fact. She lived in the last home in a row of neat, brick townhouses, each with a hip-high brick fence around the front lawn. Sallie and I walked her through the little wrought iron gate in her front yard, down the short sidewalk, and up to the front door. I asked her one more time if this was her house—just to make sure before I rang the doorbell. I heard the sound of hurried footsteps inside. I saw a figure in the privacy glass of the front door as I heard the deadbolt turn and the doorknob twist. I was caught off guard when Harold answered the door.

            You see, Harold was a member of the church where I was the pastor, and as it turned out, this scared, confused woman was his wife. Harold invited us into his home, and as I walked through the front door, he began apologizing to me, saying that she “got out” and that she “has these sort of spells.” After assuring him there was nothing to worry about, and that we were glad she was alright, we sat in their tidy living room and visited for a good while. When Sallie and I got up to leave, we thanked them for welcoming us into their home, told Harold’s wife we were glad to have met her, and as Harold showed us to the door he was still apologizing for her actions, saying, “She hasn’t always been like this.”

            A few months later, I was standing with Harold next to a hole in the ground as his wife’s body was being lowered into it. I had visited with the two of them a few times since the day we came across her in the road. Her health faded quickly, and Harold’s wasn’t too far behind. I went to see him a few days after her funeral; he was in the hospital. I remember him telling me about his wife, about the things they used to do together, how, because they were not able to have children, they spent their time and money on each other and extended members of the family. And I remember Harold saying to me—right there from that hospital bed—“I just want things to go back to normal, back to the way they used to be.” I remember telling him words I would repeat at his funeral a few short weeks later, “We can’t ever really go back to what once was ‘normal.’ This is the new ‘normal.’” Isn’t it something: when life throws us a curve, when things aren’t the way we would want them, we just want things to go back to “normal?” But things can’t ever really go back, can they?

            Perhaps those first followers of Jesus had hoped things would just go back to normal after everything seemed to run off the rails. I can hear them, Peter and his brother, Andrew, talking about how things used to be. Peter might have said something to Andrew like, “Don’t you miss how it used to be? You know, back when things were simpler, when it was the two of us out on the lake in Dad’s boat, throwing the net out, hauling the fish in. You remember how the folks would wait for us on the shore and how thrilled everyone would be when we had a good catch? Don’t you wish we could just go back, back to before all of this ever started, back when we knew what we were doing, when the world made sense, and we didn’t have anything to be afraid of expect flipping the boat over or not catching anything?” I can hear them. I can hear them just wanting things to go back to normal…but things can’t ever really go back, can they?

            I can imagine Levi, the tax collector, thumbing through his contacts, trying to find the number for the tax assessor’s office, hoping he could get his old job back, wishing he could just pretend all of this never happened and he could pick right up where he left off. Why, I can imagine Simon the Zealot, wondering to himself if it wasn’t too late to rejoin the movement, to join with the other zealots longing to overthrow the Roman oppressors. I can see him mulling over the possibilities, going over the scenarios in his head of how he might find his way back to normal...do things ever really go back to “normal” though?

            Maybe normal was a bit different for some of the other disciples. Perhaps for Philip and Bartholomew, they just wanted things to go back to the way they were before Thursday, when Jesus was still drawing a crowd, when he was a healer, a prophet, a wildly popular teacher, and worker of miracles. Perhaps there were some among the disciples who wanted things to go back to the way they were when Jesus was just an itinerate preacher, one who said some radical things, but hadn’t taken them to their ultimate conclusion. If things could just go back there, back before it all got out of hand, back before Jesus got himself in all that trouble, back before they had to lay low in fear for their own lives—if things could just go back to safe, reliable, “normal”…can they go back?

            Of course, for a few of Jesus’ followers, the desire to go back to normal was about more than their own safety or a wish for steadier times. We Protestants tend to overlook the reality that Mary—his own mother—was among his disciples. I can’t imagine what pain and terrible grief she must have been experiencing in the night Friday, on through Saturday, and into the dim hours of Sunday morning. Perhaps she left the tomb Friday night, made it home in time for the Sabbath, and after supper, in the restless hours of the night, she pulled a photo album from the shelf. There’s a picture of her husband Joseph, the one who had stayed with her despite her questionable pregnancy, the one who raised Jesus as if he was his own: he’s been gone for a while now. There’s a note tucked in the pages where the memories of Jesus’ early days are kept; the note says, “Enjoy the frankincense and myrrh. Don’t let him spend the all the gold in one place,” and it’s signed “From the Magi.” Maybe Mary gazed at the pictures of Jesus growing up, pictures of him playing with his cousin John, his brothers and sisters, pictures of him working alongside Joseph as he learned his trade, and pictures of Mary holding him as a baby, pictures of Jesus nearly holding her as he had grown to be a man. I can’t help but believe that Mary wanted things to go back to normal too, back to when her son was her son and she didn’t have to share him with the world, back when he was hers, when he was growing and learning and it seemed he’d never grow up into the promise spoken to her by the angel all those years ago. I can’t help but believe that Mary just wanted things to go back to the way they had been, to the way they used to be…but they can’t go back. They can never go back.

            Matthew tells us of two other disciples—two other Marys—who find themselves on the way to Jesus’ tomb in the early hours of the first day of the week, after the Sabbath, in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning. Matthew says they went to see the tomb. Notice, he doesn’t mention anything about them buying spices (along with Salome) to anoint Jesus’ body; there’s no conversation about who will roll away the stone (those things appear in Mark’s telling, yet they are absent in Matthew’s account). No, Matthew simply says the went to see the tomb. Now, while many commentators say this is a continued emphasis from Matthew around the notion of seeing, I think there may also be something else involved. Sure, Matthew may be calling our attention to what we should be seeing, but I think that these two Marys are doing what so many of us do from time to time.

            Every once in a while, on your way home from work, you take that short little detour. You turn onto the narrow drive, park your car, and then walk through the field of headstones looking for a name—his name, her name. You stop by the grave, maybe kneel down to brush away the dry leaves and grass clippings, and you just stop for a moment. There are the dates: “Born___Died___,” words like “Beloved Father…Loving Mother…Dearest Friend.” You stop just to see the grave, to visit where they buried the body of your wife, your husband, your mother, your son—you stop just to see it because every once in a while you need to feel like they’re still close by, like you can still talk to them, like they’re sitting right there to tell you what you need to hear one more time. Maybe that’s why the two Marys simply went to see the tomb: they weren’t expecting Jesus to be there, alive again. Perhaps they wanted to just see where they laid him one more time, to remember how it used to be one more time, to reminisce just one more time the way it was when he was still there, because it’s those times when we wish the most that things could just go back to normal, back to the way they used to be…but if Easter morning teaches us anything, it’s that we can’t ever really go back, that this life of faith is a life lived in an ever-forward fashion.  

            Can I tell you something, though? The truth of Easter, the truth that things can’t ever go back, that this life of faith is lived in an ever-forward direction, it’s troubling. It unsettles so many of us, especially in a day when so many long to go backwards, back to times colored by our selective memories in a rosy tint. It’s troubling to think that the wheels of time only go forward, that things won’t ever go back to the way they once were, that we’ll never have it like we once had it, that things change, that things will always change. It’s so troubling to some folks that they’ll do whatever they can to try to stem the momentum of history, to assuage the ever-advancing march of time. Why is it so troubling to us? Why do we long so often to go back, when the call of Christ and the inevitability of God’s kingdom call us forward? Isn’t it obvious? We long to go back for the same reason the first words to the Marys from both the angel and Jesus are “Do not be afraid.” The truth of Easter, the ever-onward call of the resurrected Christ, can be frightening.

            It’s frightening because it’s a call to trust a God we can’t see to lead us to a place we’ve never been, most likely with people we’ve never met. The reality of Easter can be frightening as it calls us outside of those familiar spaces where we are comfortable, in control, places where we know the lay of the land and feel we’ve got it all figured out. The ever-onward call of Christ is frightening perhaps most of all because it requires trust—trust in the one who calls us out into the unknown, into uncertainty, into a world that may not always have our best interests in mind, to people who may not like us (or in fact, hate us). It requires faith, faith to stare death in the face, trusting that it will not have the final word. That’s frightening. That’s why the first words from the risen Christ on that first Easter morning are “Do not fear.”

            The truth of Easter, however, isn’t only a source of uncertainty and fear. No, thanks be to God it is a source of joy! After all, doesn’t Matthew tell us that after the women heard the news from the angel about Christ’s resurrection that “they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples” ? Did you catch that? Fear AND great joy! How can two seemingly contradicting emotions take place in the same heart in the same moment? How can someone possibly be filled with “great joy” at the news that things won’t be the same, that things will never go back to normal, that things won’t return to the way they once were? How?! By faith; that’s how.

            Yes, the women were overcome with fear at the news—the reality—that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and yes, some of that fear is grounded in the notion that things won’t ever go back to the safe, predictable, certainty of so-called “normal,” but there is joy to be found in the truth that this same resurrected Christ, this same savior who calls us ever on, this same God who raised Jesus out of the grave has done so with the promise that the best is still yet to come! The truth of Easter is that Christ calls us always forward because there is always more to show us, more to give us, more to which we are called. The truth of Easter is that we should never want to go back, because what God has instore for us will always—ALWAYS—be better than anything we’ve experienced.

            The truth of Easter is that there’s no going back to normal, because God calls us to a higher way, above whatever we may label as “normal.” The truth of Easter is that there’s no going back to the “good old days,” because Christ is calling us ever on to better days, even beyond the reach of death itself! The truth of Easter is frightening as it calls us out of our places of comfort, out of our certainties, out from whatever tombs of complacency we have carved for ourselves, yet the truth of Easter is full of joy, for while it calls us out of our comfort, control, and certainty, it raises us to a new life of abundant joy and possibility with Christ! The truth of Easter may lead through death and a grave, but friends it leads through them! The ever-forward call of Christ does not end with death, and it does not end with this one day. It is an eternal call, a call that we follow even through death and on into resurrection. It is a call that fills us with fear and great joy. It is a call that Christ puts forth to you today. Will you answer? Will you seek to follow that ever-forward call of the resurrected Christ, or will you needlessly cling to the false hope that one day it’ll all go back to normal? Amen.

"Life where there once was Death" (Fifth Sunday in Lent)

John 11:1-45

1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7 Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." 8 The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" 9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." 11 After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." 12 The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." 17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 27 She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world." 28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" 37 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" 38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." 40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." 45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

            This story is the hinge upon which the entire narrative of the fourth gospel swings. It is a story rich in Easter allusions, not-so-subtle winks at Jesus’ own death, burial, and resurrection. It is this very event which causes the high priest Caiaphas and the rest of the religious establishment to decide to put Jesus to death (it says so just beyond our text in verse 53: “So from that day on they planned to put him to death”). It is a story that shows us the power of Christ, the power to resuscitate a man who had been four-days-dead and sealed in a rock-hewn tomb. I suppose some would argue it’s the most powerful of all of Jesus’ signs; it tops healing the sick, restoring site to the blind, causing the lame to leap, and even feeding more than five thousand people with a handful of fish and bread.

It’s a story that captures our imaginations as we visualize Jesus standing before the cavernous tomb, the smell of death hissing from the behind the stone as its rolled away, breaking the seal between the deceased and the living. We see him standing there like the great concrete statues strewn about cemeteries: strong, determined, yet with a calmness that can hold back the cosmic power of the Creator of the universe. He calls out Lazarus by name and we can swear the very onion-skin pages of our Bibles flutter at the power in his voice. Then, almost comically, wrapped in strips of cloth, with a handkerchief over his face, out hops Lazarus—the one who had been dead, but is now alive. Why, we may even pause to marvel for a moment at the evangelistic outcome of verse 45: “Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.” We may pause there to ponder over the persuasive power of Jesus’ reviving of Lazarus. This is no doubt one of the most memorable and captivating stories in all of Scripture, but I have to tell you, it captures my attention in a different way this morning.

You see, while it is easy to get swept up in the resolution of this story, to focus one’s attention on the powerful outcome of Christ’s presence at the tomb of his beloved friend Lazarus, I’m more than just a bit…distracted by the beginning of the story. It’s almost like an itch you try to ignore, hoping it’ll just go away, but eventually you just have to scratch it. You see, I can’t help but wonder: why did Jesus “stay two days longer in the place where he was” after getting word from Mary and Martha that “the one whom he loved was ill”? Seriously. Now, I know—I know—some folks will say, “Well, Chris, Jesus knew Lazarus would die, and he knew he was going to raise him from the dead, so Jesus just hung out a little while as a part of God’s plan and then went on to Bethany.” I suppose there’s room for that argument, but if I’m honest, it’s sounds a little too much like those easy one-liners some preachers give at funerals, those sort of theologically-veneered words that only attempt to speak to the spiritual complexity of the moment: “God needed another angel in his heavenly choir, so he called your boy home…God’s ways are higher than ours…(and I swear a friend of mine told me he heard a preacher say this at the funeral of a little child) God needed another flower in his garden, so he picked yours.” I suppose there’s room in the text to say that Jesus tarried two days more because it was part of his plan (perhaps verse four suggests such a position), but if I’m honest with you, that just doesn’t sit well with me and what I believe about Jesus.

It just doesn’t seem right that Jesus would let his beloved friend die, that he would allow Mary and Martha to go through the pain of losing their brother, that he would stay in the place where he was long enough for the family to gather, for the mourners to come around, for the tomb to be opened, for the body to be prepared, for the funeral to be held, for the casseroles to be dropped off, the jugs of sweet tea and baskets of fried chicken to be left on Martha and Mary’s counters, for the stone to be rolled back over the entrance of the tomb, and the body of Lazarus left to decay. It just doesn’t seem right.

I’d like to think that if it had been me it would have gone differently, because, friends, I’m telling you right now, if Denise and Charis (my best friend John’s two sisters) sent word to me that my best friend was ill, lying in the ICU, and didn’t have long to make it, I believe I’d be in the truck heading south! Sure, there’s the Lord’s work to do, but isn’t that part of it too? I’d bet most of you in this room would do the same of you got such a call. I tell you, it just doesn’t seem right to me—especially given all the trouble the fourth gospel goes through to tell us how much Jesus loves Lazarus. It just seems like he would have headed on down to Bethany as soon as he got word: “Lord, the one whom you love is ill,” to which Jesus would’ve answered, “Alright boys, pack it up; we’re heading back to Bethany; Lazarus isn’t doing well and I’m going to go heal him.” After all, wouldn’t healing his sick friend have been a powerful sign too, one he had done before, one he knew he was capable of doing? Wouldn’t healing Lazarus avoided the broken hearts of two sisters, family and friends? I’m telling you, it catches me every time I read this story, but I think another verse in this text may shed some light on this quandary.

In many English translations it’s the shortest verse in the whole Bible, John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” The New Revised Standard Version captures the proper conjugation a bit better: “Jesus began to weep.” It’s interesting to me what causes Jesus to begin weeping. In verse 32 it says, “When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." It’s important to notice these are the same words Martha uses in verse 21, after which, Jesus gives Martha a compact lesson on eternal life and resurrection, offering her one of the “I am” statements laced throughout the fourth gospel. The story goes on to say in verses 33-34: “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’"

It’s that phrase—uttered just before we’re told Jesus began to weep—“come and see,” that is filled with more meaning that we may first realize. In three other places in the fourth gospel that exact phrase is used: Jesus speaks these words when we calls Andrew and Peter in 1:39; Philip speaks them when he calls Nathaniel to join him in following Jesus in 1:46; and the Samaritan woman at the well speaks these exact words in 4:29 when speaking to the people in her village about Jesus. In every case (including the one before us when the weeping mourners respond to Jesus), these are words of invitation, words that invite one to draw closer into the life of God’s kingdom, to witness the inbreaking reality of God. It’s at the speaking of these words that Jesus begins to weep, and I think it may be because they are words that have triggered something deep within our Lord, the emotional straw that broke the camel’s back. These were the words used to call people into the kingdom, perhaps words Jesus had used to call Lazarus, and now they were being spoken to him. And maybe, just maybe, those words—those three words—released in Jesus what he had been holding on to since he got word from Martha and Mary at least four days before.

I don’t really have to imagine what that’s like. I don’t have to imagine, because I’ve been there. I remember when I got the message. It was almost eight years ago. I was sitting in my office, getting somewhat settled for the day, when my cell phone rang. It was my dad—Dad doesn’t call me, or anyone, really, for that matter. When I answered the phone, I heard my dad say on the other end, “Son, your grandma ain’t doing too good. It won’t be long now. Just wanted to let you know and ask if you’d do the funeral.” I hadn’t really done a funeral at that point in my time as a pastor—I had been to a few, but hadn’t actually put one together, but I told my dad I would because I couldn’t imagine who else would and I didn’t want some preacher who didn’t know my grandma trying to preach her into hell and everybody else into heaven. Dad told me they weren’t sure how long Grandma would hold out, but it could be a week or two. It wasn’t—it was a day or two.

The next phone call came, and I packed a suit, a white shirt, black shoes, and a tie along with my black leather bible, and Sallie and I drove down to Enterprise. Looking back, I wasn’t really upset; I was fine. I mean, I went to my home church and talked to people like nothing bad had happened. Showed up at the visitation, and there was my dad, my two aunts, and my uncle standing by this rather showy casket that I was sure one of my aunts or uncles picked out, because there was no one Grandma or Dad did. I was fine. I shook hands with people who knew me even though I didn’t know them, saw people I hadn’t seen in years—maybe decades, was hugged by total strangers and people I had known my whole life. Still, I was fine. I saw Grandma in that box wearing a dress (I didn’t know she still owned one; most of my life she wore jeans, t-shirts and flannel shirts, and if she wore shoes they were black rubber boots or old, worn-out white tennis shoes); her hair was fixed, and she was wearing makeup—I was quite sure she didn’t know what makeup was. I remember too, her glasses were clean: Grandma’s glasses were never clean. I saw her in that box, but still, I was fine.

The next day came, and I put on my suit, my white shirt, tie, black shoes, and I carried my bible and the five by seven note cards I had scratched the service down on. I was fine. I arrived at the funeral home the hour before with the rest of the family; there was time for more awkward handshakes and hugs, more introductions of people who knew me without me knowing them, more time to look at Grandma in that box, but still, I was fine. Eventually, the funeral director asked all the friends to have a seat in the chapel; he pulled the stiff, accordion divider closed, and shut the doors leading into the parlor. He told us we’d have a few more minutes with Grandma before the service. A few of my folks stepped out the side door to burn one more cigarette before the service (I suspect they thought I might be long-winded), while the rest just sort of mumbled to each other or counted the threads in the carpet. I was fine though.

After a few minutes passed, the funeral director walked back in and gave a few instructions about the service, and then he said, “Before we go out, I’m going to ask the minister to offer a word of prayer.” I was the only one looking around; I forgot I was the minister! I was fine.  A prayer is easy. I did the same thing I have done countless times before and since: I took a half step forward, looked around the room and said, “Let us pray.” In that moment, I saw people I know hadn’t darkened the door of a church in decades, folks who drank, cussed, smoked, ran around, lied, cheated, and stole, folks who were decent enough, but likely wouldn’t make anyone’s list of “outstanding citizens” bow their heads and close their eyes like it was something they did every day after lunch. I said, “Let us pray,” and the next word out of my mouth was “God…”

That was it. Turns out, I wasn’t fine after all. My throat closed up, my jaw felt like it was going to shake loose from my head, my eyes were burning and heavy. I tried to say more, but I couldn’t. All I could say was “God…” I had put off the inevitable for as long as I could. I had resisted the urge to mourn believing there was something more important, some task that needed tending to first, but I couldn’t hold it back any longer. That word broke the emotional levy, and in that room, in that moment, there were no easy one-liners that could console me, no bumper-sticker religion that was going to make me feel better. No, in that moment I needed the kind of faith that made it ok to weep, the kind of faith that made it alright to mourn, the kind of faith that recognizes the reality of pain and grief that comes with life and death. I need that kind of faith, and I believe we all need that kind of faith.

Because when the time comes, the quaint sayings we offer to others won’t be enough to sustain us. We need a faith that tells us it’s ok to be overwhelmed, that the weight of the world is impossible to carry alone, that when our hearts break and our minds are troubled, we have a God in Christ who has been there too and will go there with us time and time again, because he’s never going to leave, never going to give up on us, and never means even beyond death itself! That’s the kind of faith we need, and thanks be to God that is the kind of faith we have! That’s the kind of savior we have in Christ Jesus, whose heart breaks when our hearts are broken, whose mind is troubled when our minds cannot be still, whose eyes weep when we can’t hold back the tears anymore. That’s the kind of savior we have, the kind of God we have in Jesus, one who doesn’t dismiss our distress as a lack of faith, but is always there, calling us back, reminding us in winks and whispers that death does not have the last word, that a grave is only a temporary plot, that there will always be life where there once was death. Amen. 

"Blessing not Curses" (Second Sunday in Lent)

Genesis 12:1-4a

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

            To read the story of God and God’s people in Scripture is to read a story with a rocky beginning. Oh sure, it sounds lovely and mesmerizingly mysterious in those first two chapters, with God speaking the universe into existence or getting God’s anthropomorphic hands dirty in the act of shaping human beings from dust and rib bones. A lot of ink rests on a lot of pages in a lot of books about those two chapters to be sure, but it doesn’t take long—not long at all—before the story starts to go off the rails.

            In the first verses of chapter three the story takes a dark, more dramatic turn. The woman the Lord has created has a theological debate with a snake that winds up with her and her man eating fruit which had been forbidden by the Lord. Their eyes are opened; they see their nakedness; they cover themselves up and hide—they hide from God. It’s the very moment in the story of God and God’s people where the needle scratches on the record, where the tires screech, where sin slips so seductively out of the shadow of human will and into the light of day. What’s the result of this crack in creation? What is the sum of sin’s arrival into Eden’s perfection? Expulsion…punishment…curses. The man and woman (along with the snake) are cursed by God in chapter 3, verses 14-19:

The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel." To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to the man he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, "You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

            With the arrival of sin in God’s garden came death and punishment and curses. One might think that such a dramatic turn of events over the consumption of fruit would have some lasting effect on the man and the woman, such an effect that might cause them to remember the Lord’s anger and teach their offspring the right way. We don’t even have to turn the page, however, to see that such a lesson is not so easily transmitted to the next generation, for in Chapter four of Genesis murder makes its way through the cracked door left ajar by that first sin. Cain, in his jealousy, kills his brother Able. And what is God’s response? Curses: “And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth."[1]

            I’m afraid it doesn’t look much better from here, for after a chapter of genealogy in chapter five, we’re told in chapter six that “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”[2] We’re not even into double-digit page numbers and already God is sorry to have ever even fooled with the idea of creation. God’s had it to the back teeth with the sin and wickedness in the world, the way things seem to have spun out of control and away from what was perhaps a higher plan. So God set out with a plan, a “reset” on the world; God was going to punish sin and ultimately curse those responsible for it in one, grand, final way—God was going to drown them all! Well, all of them except Noah and his family.

            Yet even after building an arc and surviving a devastating flood, after witnessing firsthand the enormity of God’s power and desire to rid the world of wickedness, after covenanting with God God’s self, Noah puts things back in the gutter before the puddles are even dry! Noah plants a vineyard, gets drunk on his own wine, and after passing out naked, something happens that causes Noah to curse his own grandson.[3] It seems humankind can’t shake this whole cursing and punishment thing because even in chapter eleven, all the peoples of the world (having obviously not learned anything from Adam and Eve, or Cain, or the flood) decide to come together to build a tower in another attempt to reach some god-like status. When the Lord catches wind of their scheme, however, God scatters them across the land and confuses their language—a punishment meant to keep the people from ever attempting such a feat again. [I’m not sure what page your Bible is on by now, but I’m barely on page ten!]

            This whole punishment/curse way of existence seems to have imprinted itself in the foundational sequences of our human DNA. At the first inclination of wrongdoing, many of us are quick to call for punishment, for the proper sentence to be handed down. We seem to be hard-wired with this retaliatory response, with lightning-quick defense mechanisms that allow us to return blow for blow and curse for curse. Why we even seem to celebrate this way of existence by rejoicing in the news of the failure of our foes and what we believe to be their “just deserts.” Punishment and curses seem natural to us: after all, what would the world be without such things to set the sinners straight? Do such things really set sinners straight?

I wonder if perhaps such a thought had occurred to God. You see, for the first eleven chapters of Genesis, God is pretty handy with the “punishment/curse” way of governing creation. However, no matter how many times God curses or punishes, humankind still slinks back into sin; we still find a way to conveniently forget the lessons of our own history. I mean, even a flood that kills EVERYTHING doesn’t do it! I wonder if perhaps God decided to shift the approach of control over creation, or if maybe God had another way in mind all along…

By the time we arrive at the part of God’s story in the text before us this morning, we’ve been through the cycle of curses and punishment enough times to see the pattern. You get the sense that God may be a bit tired of fooling with us fractured folks, that maybe God is ready to throw in the towel and let us run creation into the ground, take care of the destruction ourselves. We might be tempted to come to such a conclusion, but that is before we really read these three and a half verses before us (listen to it again):  “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.”

            Notice anything different? This isn’t the Eden imperative, a restriction followed by a threat. This isn’t the Lord who curses the ground should Abram fail to comply. No, this doesn’t even seem to be the same God who was sorry to have made humankind in the first place. In fact, there’s no mention of what would happen if Abram didn’t go “as the Lord had told him.” No punishment. No curse. What is there then? BLESSING! Blessing: for the first time in the story of God and God’s people we hear that word. After generations of punishment and curses—blessing. It’s almost as if God was through trying it the old-fashioned way and took creation in a new direction, one where curses only come to those who curse the ones who have been charged with doing the blessing, one where people are not threatened with punishment and curses from the angry Almighty, but where they are promised blessings from the God who calls on human agents to carry out such blessings.

            Sure, it may be a bit messier this way. After all, we’re still cracked creatures, broken vessels who seem to spend more time searching for our own blessings than we do bearing blessing for others, but still, it seems to be the way God has ordered things, especially in the light of the text before us. It’s blessings, not curses. It’s a promise for the future, a promise that is only truly fulfilled in the unseen future, which means it is a promise bigger than Abram himself, a God-sized promise. It’s the kind of promise, the kind of blessings, that can only truly come from God, even if they may come by way of human agents. In these three and a half verses, God has shifted the entire course of creation, changed the trajectory of the story by abandoning a method of threatening commands laced with curses for the way of blessing. God has focused on a way of blessing that is about action, trust, faith, and the promise of things yet to be seen.

            Isn’t that really what this season is about too? Aren’t we reminded, as we draw closer to the cross, closer to Holy Week, closer to Easter’s empty tomb, that God has made a way through blessing, a way towards life, a way of hope in the promise of those things yet to be seen? Is not one of the predominant lessons of this season that the cruel curses of punishment and death, manifested in Christ’s execution on the cross, are overcome by the power of Christ’s resurrection? It seems to me that this may have been God’s way from the begging—at least the beginning with Abram. It seems to me that we human beings seek to right the wrongs of this world, the wrongs committed against us and our kin, by enforcing punishments we feel fit the crimes or by cursing those who dare step a toe out of line with our definition of what is right. Of course, the truth is as long as we have done this it has never really solved anything. Punishment and curses have not rid the world of wickedness—it didn’t with God’s flood, why should it with our feeble attempts? Punishment and curses have not healed broken relationships or fully restored or rehabilitated those who have gone astray—it certainly didn’t seem to work with Cain’s descendants. As one scholar puts it in addressing this text: “In short, curse and punishment have solved nothing.”[4]

So it’s no surprise to me that God changes tracks in the story with Abram, a track that leads all the way through Canaan, through Egypt, on into the wilderness, through wars, wicked and selfish kings, through division, through exile and dispersion, through occupation and oppression, through a virgin womb and a feedbox baby bed, through the calling of fumbling disciples and the misunderstanding of miracles, through the provoking power of parables and scandalous encounters with those who are unclean, through betrayal, arrest, abandonment, accusation, assault, and even death. No, it’s no surprise to me that God changes tracks with Abram, that God moves from a God of curse and punishment to a God of promise and blessings. It’s no surprise to me, for that is the God I see—the God I know—in Christ Jesus! That is the God I see when I am tempted to believe in a dark world filled with anger, hatred, and ignorance, yet I hear joy in the laughter of a child and witness love in the interaction between strangers. That is the God I see when I am tempted to think the worst of everything, yet God reminds me that I am a part of bringing about the best of everything. That is the God I see when I look upon a cross meant to curse and see a promise and a blessing that fills the world with hope! Amen.

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[1] Genesis 4:11-12.

[2] Genesis 6:5-6.

[3] Genesis 9:21-27. The passage simply says “Ham…saw the nakedness of his father,” which could be a reference to something sexual and incestuous, or it may refer more to the shame of Noah in his nakedness being broadcast as Ham “tells his brothers.” (NIB, Vol. 1, p.404.).

[4] Niedner, Frederick. "Second Sunday in Lent: Genesis 12:1-4a (Theological Perspective)." In Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 2 (Lent through Eastertide), edited by David L. Bartlett, & Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010 (p52).