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SENT ... TO DO WHAT?

4/28/2019

John 20:19-23 (The Message)
Later on that day, the disciples had gathered together, but, fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, “Peace to you.” Then he showed them his hands and side.

The disciples, seeing the Master with their own eyes, were exuberant. Jesus repeated his greeting: “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you.”

Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?”

Later on that day ... but which day?

As with everything else that has do to with this story, there are multiple versions. In all four gospels, there is mention of the women going to prepare Jesus’ body and finding instead, an empty tomb. Some are long and involve. Some are fairly short with no involved narrative.

Mark’s gospel basically ends here in it’s original version. There is a piece, known as “the Longer ending of Mark” that throws together various appearances by Jesus taken from other accounts, but it is generally considered to be an add-on from a later date. The original version simply stops with the women running back to tell the others.

In Matthew’s version, the women receive a message from Jesus, passed along by an angel at the tomb, for the disciples to go to Galilee and wait there for Jesus to come to them. When Jesus arrives, he gives them the Great Commission (“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”) and ascends to heaven.

Luke’s version is the one we read last week for Easter Sunday, which ends with the women running back to tell the men what they had found and the men basically doing nothing. At the point Luke’s story continues directly on with the Road to Emmaus story, where two men are walking home from Jerusalem and chatting with a stranger who turns out to be Jesus. Later that evening, Jesus also appears to the disciples in the upper room where they are hiding.

Every gospel account is different and it is easy to get confused by them, because of that “straight line thinking” I talked about last week. We just can’t help ourselves, we need to gather all these bits and pieces and string them together in a chronological straight line – and there is no straight line. We are dealing less with historical fact than with inflated memories. As with last week’s story the importance lies, not in how or when it happened, but that it happened.

The reading we just heard for today is from John’s gospel, which has probably the most Easter-related stories of any of the four gospels. John’s version has this appearance by Jesus happening on Easter day, later in the same day.

The bit we just heard is pretty much a set-up for the longer story of Doubting Thomas but I cut Thomas out and focused on this introductory part because it has two very important points that tend to get overlooked with our attention focused on Thomas.

The first point is from the last sentence. Jesus gives them (and by extension, us) the ability to forgive sins. I love the way it is phrased in The Message: “If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” That is such an amazingly sensible question.

You have the ability to forgive the sins of others. If you don’t forgive them, what are you going to do with them? I guess you can hold them against people forever. You can use them as a club to beat people up. You can forbid them entry into “your” heaven. Why do people want to do any of these things? Just forgive people and let God deal with them.

The second important point in this reading is this: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” The commission is never to just sit. The commission is to do. Serve. Care. Comfort the weary and grieving. Love one another, just as Jesus loves us.

But How? What? How do we know what to do, and then, how do we know how to do it? There is so much need in the world. Physical needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs. How do we know where to start?

I have always found this quote from Frederick Buechner to be helpful: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” What brings about your “deep gladness”?

I know that my area of deepest urgency lies in feeding people and in seeing the homeless and the rest of society’s throw-aways as real people – brothers and sisters in Jesus -- and not just as problems. I recognize other areas are urgent as well, but they’re not the ones my heart most frequently calls me to.

I have pastor friends who are totally involved in racial justice – that is their passion. I recognize that urgency and support it when I can but it is not the thing that drives me most strongly. Other friends are deeply involved in fighting sex trafficking – again, I support as I can, but it’s not primary for me. I know of a musician who spends much of his life visiting prisons and detention centers, just bringing music to those held there. That is clearly his "deep gladness."

The thing we’re called to can be big or it can be small. Size doesn’t matter. The rightness is what matters. If you can travel around and teach nationally, as one friend does, that’s wonderful. If you can only help someone on a one-to-on basis, that’s wonderful too.

Simply remembering to look someone in the eye and smile is a ministry and often an act of mercy. As writer and teacher Parker Palmer puts it, our task is: "not to enlarge [our] membership, not to bring outsiders to accept [our] terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way – to love the world as God did and does."

Whatever you can do, whatever you are called to do, do it as you can. Fund a new outreach program. Write a letter – to a shut in or to your congressperson. Smile. Share, as you can. Love one another -- every single other -- as Jesus loves us.

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EASTER MORNING: A NOT SO IDLE TALE

4/21/2019

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Luke 24:1-12 (NRSV)

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.

While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, wondering about what had happened.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! It is Easter morning and all the grief and loss of the past week is now turned to joy!

Well, maybe. The disciples did get to joy, certainly, but it probably took a while for them to get there. And, to be honest, we know perfectly well it would have taken a while for us, too. After some passage of time they were all saying, “of course I never doubted it. I wasn’t really worried. After all, he told us this was going to happen, didn’t he?" But right at first? Maybe not.

The women at the tomb were despairing at this further loss – not only had they watched Jesus die but now they couldn’t even do this last thing for him because his body had been removed! Even after an angel reminded them that Jesus himself had foretold this very happening, they still didn’t get it for a while.

The men, in their turn, just dismissed the women’s story as “an idle tale.” Even Peter, who did at least get up to go see for himself, just went home and wondered about it all.

And again, to be honest, we would have done the same. We are a “straight line” people. We firmly believe that time starts “here” and moves in a straight line to “here.” Our minds tend to boggle at the idea of time doing loop-de-loops or any other kind of weird things. We know that people are either alive or dead and we don’t move back and forth between the two. There are things we believe as absolute truth – rock-solid fact – and this story doesn’t comfortably fit in that construction. We may eventually get there with things that appear to break all the physical laws of our world – but we don’t get there quickly.

But besides being a hard facts, straight-line people, we are also a story-telling people – not in the sense of telling lies – but as a people who make sense of our world through sharing our stories with each other. We share our feelings, our hopes, our dreams, and, most importantly, we share our wonders – those moments when some world other than our straight-line world breaks through and becomes part of our present reality. That, I believe is when Jesus lives again among us.

Did Jesus die on that cross but somehow miraculously rise again on the third day? Maybe. I wasn’t there; none of us were. God is certainly capable of bringing that off if God so wished. I have no argument with those who believe it happened in just that way, but whether it took three days or even years, makes no difference to me, personally, because it is the wonder that it happens at all that is important, not how many days.

In the same way that the world might have been created in six days or maybe it has taken 14 million years, the length of time doesn’t determine the miracle. Neither point of view is more or less miraculous than the other. The miracle is simply that it IS.

We exist.

Jesus lives.

In the end, what matters is not a missing body, but a living presence.
Jesus lives.

Jesus, who, in human flesh, embodied God’s very own self, but chose to live as fully human – frail and weary, fallible, and ultimately unable to even hang on to life.

Jesus, who never owned a house or a donkey, or even a bed of his own. Jesus, who went to the cross owning nothing but his oh-so-human body, and even that was taken from him.

Jesus, who put himself in our power, to live or die as one of us – not to be in power here, but to be as powerless as the rest of us.

And all of this – every aspect of this Jesus was shared as those who loved him gathered to remember him, to talk about him, to tell their “hey, were you there the day he did this...” stories. And as they talked and remembered they began to feel his presence with them, and Jesus lived among them again.

And as they talked, they remembered his love for them. They remembered and recognized things they hadn’t even noticed when he was living among them. They began to understand how he had changed their lives. They began to recognize how very deeply he loved them.

They heard things they might not have noticed at the time – things that made it amazingly clear that he was with them to love them and teach them that it didn’t matter that they were slow – that they sometimes argued with him – that they could be silly or mean or selfish ... and he still loved them, and that was what it was all about.

Jesus lives and loves and travels with us on our journey through life. Every moment every joy, every grief – every success, every failure, Jesus is here wrapping God’s love around us.

Jesus lives – and so shall we.

In the words of John Paul II, “we are an Easter people and Hallelujah is our song.”

Christ lives. Alleluia. Amen.

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PALM SUNDAY: WALKING INTO TOWN

4/14/2019

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Luke 19:28-40

Jesus headed straight up to Jerusalem. When he got near Bethphage and Bethany at the mountain called Olives, he sent off two of the disciples with instructions: “Go to the village across from you. As soon as you enter, you’ll find a colt tethered, one that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says anything, asks, ‘What are you doing?’ say, ‘His Master needs him.’”

The two left and found it just as he said. As they were untying the colt, its owners said, “What are you doing untying the colt?”

They said, “His Master needs him.”

They brought the colt to Jesus. Then, throwing their coats on its back, they helped Jesus get on. As he rode, the people gave him a grand welcome, throwing their coats on the street.

Right at the crest, where Mount Olives begins its descent, the whole crowd of disciples burst into enthusiastic praise over all the mighty works they had witnessed:

Blessed is he who comes, the king in God’s name!
All’s well in heaven! Glory in the high places!

Some Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, get your disciples under control!”

But he said, “If they kept quiet, the stones would do it for them, shouting praise.”

We’re back to Luke again for our scripture today and Luke’s version of the return to Jerusalem seems rather stripped-down in comparison with some of the other gospel versions. For instance, there’s not a single palm branch to be found here in this Palm Sunday reading.

Last week’s story of the gathering at the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary came from John’s gospel, not Luke’s, because there is no version of that particular story in Luke (although there is a very similar one with a different cast of characters), and there the “triumphal” parade does come directly after leaving Bethany. But in Luke’s version of things, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem by way of Jericho where he invites himself to dinner with the reviled Zacchaeus before continuing on with his journey.

These things are just a reminder that it is very hard to piece together a coherent story-line when what we know of Jesus’ life and death comes from four different sources written at four different times for four different communities. The best we can do is take an educated guess at a progression of events.

The story of Palm Sunday, with or without palms, is told in all four gospels although the accounts do not completely tally up. In some versions there are palms, in others, no palms, just cloaks. In some there’s a large crowd, seemingly well-planned. In others the crowd appears to be much smaller and somewhat ad hoc.

These are the things we can surmise:
Jesus wasn’t headed into Jerusalem because he’d been told that he was scheduled to be the star of the big parade that day. He was simply heading into Jerusalem. Period. The palm fronds and the cheering were not penciled into his agenda. He was just leaving the outlying country and going into the city, for his own reasons.

The crowd likely was not waiting for him, all lined up in advance. The people probably just showed up, one or two at a time as they heard he was there.

Some, perhaps, were there because they had heard him teaching or seen him heal a leper or a blind man and they wanted to see more of him. They were excited to see and hear him again.

Some were possibly the first-century equivalent of ambulance chasers—ones who had heard that the authorities were out after him and were ghoulishly excited at the prospect of a little violence and maybe bloodshed. Human beings are, unfortunately, not always nice.

Some most likely knew nothing of what was going on and simply got caught up in the exhilaration of the moment.

What we do know (based on the Bible) is that the reaction of the crowd and their cheering for Jesus were most likely the final turning point in our story. Especially since in at least two of the gospels, Jesus appears to go straight from the welcoming to the Temple, where he kicked out the moneychangers.

The religious authorities could not and would not allow this to pass. Jesus now had to be stopped or there would be open insurrection, and the Roman empire was not known for its tolerance where any perceived threat to its dominance was noted. Retribution, when it came, would be swift and brutal.

The Temple leaders immediately gathered to discuss how to deal with the threat offered by this teacher/healer named Jesus. The answer they came up with leads us into Holy Week.

This week I was especially taken with Thursday’s meditation reading, the one based on Psalm 31. The last words that Jesus spoke from the cross, according to Luke, would be taken from this psalm: 'Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.' As an aside, these were also the last words spoken by the martyr Stephen, as he was being stoned to death.

Psalm 31 is a prayer to be delivered from one’s hateful enemies, but it is also a prayer of ultimate faith in God’s unfailing care.

I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
    those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;
    I have become like a broken vessel.
For I hear the whispering of many— terror all around!--
   as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.

It is not a stretch to imagine Jesus praying this prayer throughout this last week of his life—even in the midst of those gathered to praise him and welcome him into Jerusalem. Jerusalem! where kings and messiahs belong—but also where prophets are killed.

Jesus was educated in the scriptures. He knew the history of Israel and it’s frequent rejection of those sent from God. He would have been something of a fool to not be afraid of where his storyline was leading. But he also knew his God, enough to trust the promises in spite of the path on which he was being led.

So, yes, there was praise on this day. There were belief and trust and even love in the eyes of those gathered to greet him. There would have been the knowledge that he had reached this many, at least, touched their lives and changed them in some way. But there must also have been the question of whether or not it would be enough. Did they truly understand what he tried to teach them? Would there be enough of his followers to carry on his work?

But there would also have been, that day, as every moment of his life, an absolute trust in the one he knew as intimately as “Abba.”

His times, in the words of the Psalm, were in God’s hand. It was enough and more.

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EXTRAVAGANT, OVER-THE-TOP LOVE

4/7/2019

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John 12:1-8 (The Message)

Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living. Lazarus and his sisters invited Jesus to dinner at their home. Martha served. Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table with them. Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house.

Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, even then getting ready to betray him, said, “Why wasn’t this oil sold and the money given to the poor? It would have easily brought three hundred silver pieces.” He said this not because he cared two cents about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of their common funds, but also embezzled them.

Jesus said, “Let her alone. She’s anticipating and honoring the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you. You don’t always have me.”

Last week, as you’ll recall, we read and discussed the story of the Prodigal Son, which I’ve always believed should be called the Prodigal Father. We tend to define prodigal by only one of its several meanings – I suspect because it’s not a commonly used word and the only time we hear it is in relation to this bible story. That definition defines prodigal as wasteful and reckless which definitely fits the standard understanding of the wayward son.

There is, however, another definition which defines prodigal as lavishly abundant, extravagant, or profuse. This definition certainly applies to the father in the story – the father who loved without limits.

So, why am I talking about last week’s reading when we just read this week’s story? Last week our reading was from Luke’s gospel as was to be expected in Cycle C of the lectionary readings – it’s Luke’s year -- but this week's story comes from John’s gospel. Because John doesn’t have a year of his own in the three year lectionary cycle we end up getting John’s stories scattered around through the other three years – mostly on the occasion of high holy days like Easter. A lot of the Easter season readings will come from John, and we’re getting very close now to Easter.

Okay, that was a side note...back to the question: why am I talking about last week’s reading when we just read this week’s story? It’s because I want you to note the common theme of extravagant love. Last week we had the father who just went completely over the top with his welcome for the son he thought he’d lost – fancy clothes and jewelry, a feast of rich foods, bring in the neighbors, find some musicians – the son I thought I’d lost has been found! His extravagant joy was totally without limits – driven by his extravagant, prodigal love.

This week’s story takes place shortly after Jesus had called his dear friend Lazarus out of the tomb, back from the dead, in a preview, if they only recognized it, of what lies ahead for himself.

They probably didn't recognize it at the time, but the raising of Lazarus from the dead would be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back for the religious authorities. As long as Jesus stayed out in the hinterlands the Temple could ignore him and hope the Romans were doing the same. But raising someone from the dead was the kind of story that got talked about a lot -- told and re-told, it was a tale that traveled fast and far. And people were using words like "king" and "savior" now and the Romans would not tolerate that.

It scared the temple authorities beyond any question of continuing to ignore Jesus. If the Romans heard what people were saying about Jesus they would come down hard against him and everyone -- even the Temple authorities -- would get caught up in their reprisal. Jesus had to be stopped...and soon.

Still, here on this quiet day in Bethany, Jerusalem’s power battles seem far away and our reading provides what is still a pretty low key story. The first excitement of the raising of Lazarus has passed but the happiness of the two sisters, Martha and Mary, can’t be repressed and they throw an impromptu party.

The text says they invited Jesus to dinner, but because we see Judas turn up as a wet blanket later in the story we can assume the other disciples were there, as well.

Bethany lies just outside Jerusalem. Jesus’ presence here means he is no longer avoiding the authorities and has turned his path away from the outlying regions and toward Jerusalem. His time has come and he is ready to face the powers that be. For those who understand what is happening (and it’s clear that a great many do not) this is a frightening time.

So on this day in Bethany there is both joy and fear. Mary, in her own way, acknowledges both. She brings out a jar of expensive perfume which I suspect she’d been hoarding to make it last, and instead of using it sparingly, in an act of extravagant love, and probably some fear for what may lie ahead, she pours the whole thing out to clean and massage Jesus’ feet and then dries them with her own unbound hair. Extravagant, prodigal love.

In the story of the prodigal father it’s the elder son who tries to rain on everyone’s parade and refuses to be any part of the love-fest. In today’s story that role is played by Judas who gets all (fake) grumpy because the oil was “wasted” instead sold for cash. As treasurer for the group, cash would mean money in his pocket even though he tries hard to pretend his concern is for the poor.

Being a small, jealous man, he’s also not about to let Jesus and Mary have this moment between them. Since he himself can’t seem capable of loving anyone else he needs to take this act of giving away from Mary who gave and from Jesus who received.

But Jesus is having none of that. “Leave her alone,” he says, “she’s the only one here who recognizes what is coming and she is preparing me for it.” While an oil like this could be used for cleaning and scenting, and also as necessary moisturizer in a dry land, its other traditional use, and the one Jesus was undoubtedly referring to, would be in preparing a body for burial. Mary may be the only person who loved Jesus enough to acknowledge the fearful possibility hanging over him. Her love could encompass even that terror. Her trust and her love were absolute.

God tries so very hard in our lives to teach us that extravagant, lavish, open-handed, prodigal love is what our existence is about. I have known, and I suspect that you have too, sad, broken people who appeared to be incapable of giving or receiving love. People who were so afraid of having love taken from them that they were terrified to receive love. People who are so convinced that they themselves are unlovable that they build walls so dense that love can’t get in or out.

Maybe we've even been that person.

A dear friend of ours many long years ago had, after being single for years, finally found a woman to love and who loved him in return. One day he bought her an expensive bottle of perfume. It was a gift meant to show how much he loved her. Unfortunately, she refused to accept it and insisted he return it because it cost too much and she wasn’t worth it. I think it broke his heart that she would not allow him to show his love to her. She didn’t feel worthy and could not/would not not allow him the joy of giving his gift.

We can be so broken when we refuse to see ourselves as worthy recipients of love.

This whole thing of God and churches and scripture and prayer is often our attempt to control love because we are scared to death of it. We prefer to put it in a box where we can contain it – a box of rules – and think we are in charge – and safe.

And all the while the world around us is shouting out that God loves us wildly, lavishly, extravagantly, prodigally! If only we could get over our fear of being unworthy, maybe one day we will actually be able to believe in that great love.

May it be so.

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SENT ... TO DO WHAT?

EASTER MORNING: A NOT SO IDLE TALE

PALM SUNDAY: WALKING INTO TOWN

EXTRAVAGANT, OVER-THE-TOP LOVE

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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