Day of Pentecost [Year C] - May 19, 2013 (Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-21)

 

Today is Pentecost, commonly called the “birthday” of the church, the day we remember how God’s Spirit was poured out on the apostles, but let’s go ahead and be honest about something: it is difficult to understand the power of the Holy Spirit, or even describe what the Spirit is. It’s the person of the Trinity that, at least I suspect for many of us, presents the biggest challenge to our intellect. God the Father and God the Son are, for the most part, easier to grasp, even if belief in them is weak at times. But God the Holy Spirit? It’s often depicted as a bird. A bird can be seen…maybe even photographed…but never tamed. Or look at the Spirit’s other metaphors in Scripture: fire and wind. Neither of those can be touched, much less held. They don’t really have substance or volume, yet their presence can always be felt. And while they can at times be harnessed and channeled, they can never be fully controlled. I mean, who can control the wind?

This is how God’s Holy Spirit seems to function: it is energy, able to go anywhere, able to touch anyone, and, most importantly, able to bring about change. It’s the side of God that we find the most unpredictable, especially when we get in the habit of trying to predict God. It’s the aspect of God’s nature that reminds us most of God’s inherent inaccessibility, especially when we get in the habit of trying to access God. The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who draws us in to the community of God’s people when we would rather make a name for ourselves.

The ' Little' Tower of Babel (Pieter Bruegel, 1564)

That, as it turns out, was the root problem at the Tower of Babel: humans wanted to make a name for themselves. The ancient Hebrews had this pre-historic tale tucked away in the early part of the book of Genesis that told about the time the human race tried its hardest to access God, to literally climb into the heavens to reach him. In direct defiance to God’s joyous command that they disperse after the flood and fill the earth, humans decide instead to band together and build a tower. Instead of fanning out with the Spirit’s power and trusting his promise wherever they went, humankind opts for clumping together in one place and, to symbolize their power, to build a tower up into the sky. It was all about making a name for themselves, rather than thankfully receiving the name God had given them.

Ozymandias?

The idea of “making a name for themselves” was as well-known technique in ancient architecture, which we know now from archaeology. The pyramid-like structures in Mesopotamia, where this tower story originated, were often constructed by the rulers who wished to be known forever. They would have the slaves inscribe the despots’ names in the brick and cylinder seals that were placed in the foundations of these towers. But like the toppled statue in Percy Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias,” eventually the rulers would die and, like their temples, succumb to the sands of time. So much for making a name for themselves.

For ancient Israel, the story of what happened at the Tower of Babel helped explain several things, including the diversity of world languages and cultures, and the difficulties in human communication. Most of all, however, it illustrated how speech, as glorious a development as it was, was just another arena where sin could wreak its havoc. In other ancient religions’ pre-historic stories, diverse human languages came about, for example, as a result of a war between the gods in the cosmos. But for Israel and its one God—the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob—it was a result of human selfishness and pride and our desire to use whatever means necessary to reach God on our own terms.

Eventually the whole scheme is undone when God causes everyone to start speaking gibberish. What had begun as a plan to consolidate human strength becomes an accident of confusion. All that’s left of Babel today is the term “babble,” a word that means incoherent speech.

We are no less familiar with the gifts and challenges of speech in our day: words can build people up and words can break people down. Language has the power to bring us together, just as it has the ability to alienate. In fact, I you think about it, speech and language are in the same category as fire and wind. Words have energy and power, but no volume or substance. And no one can hold a word or really harness its power once it’s been spoken, can they? But, by golly, a word can bring about change, can’t it?

So, altogether it really fits that on the Day of Pentecost, as the disciples are, once again, gathered into one place, speech becomes a conduit or catalyst for the work of the Holy Spirit. There is fire and there is wind—the traditional hallmarks of the Spirit’s presence—but there is also speech…loads of it, in all kinds of languages! But this time there is no babbling. Instead, it’s intelligible. Each of the foreigners gathered there is able to understand what the disciples are talking about in their own native tongue.

In ancient times, humans had striven to ascend to God by their own might. In the life and death of Jesus and then again at Pentecost, God descends to us in our weakness. At Babel and at countless times throughout history, humans had formed bricks to construct a grand but lifeless monument that eventually goes unfinished. Here at Pentecost, God uses people as living stones and assembles a temple which will finish his work of creation. Long ago, people and their languages were scattered out of their desire to make a name for themselves, and I presume we are still scattering, even as I speak. Now, by God’s grace, we are also being gathered back up  through the only name we need ever to be concerned about: the name of the one who gives himself for the world.

Several years ago I was on on a trip to China with a group of seminarians where we witnessed to a Pentecost-like outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We had traveled to one of the most remote, interior locations in China. No roads were paved there, and some of the villages we visited still did not have electricity or running water. The churches in which we worshiped, which had been built decades before when the first missionaries had arrived, were very primitive and bore almost no resemblance to our grand buildings in the global west. We sat through hours of worship services spoken in tribal languages almost no one could translate accurately and which were accompanied by no organ or guitar or drum. We were served food that I couldn’t identify or name but which tasted, for the most part, fairly good.

our group in Yunnan Province, China (January 2000)

On the whole our group was feeling very tired and very foreign, as if God had, in fact, scattered us rich, Anglo-Saxon westerners to the end of the earth. I had started to focus on myself and my own fears and needs quite a bit during those long hours of incomprehensible worship in the un-air-conditioned heat when one little quartet—two middle-aged men and two middle-aged women—formed in the middle aisle and faced each other like a square. “What next strange custom am I going to have to endure now?” I remember thinking to myself. Then the leader of the group lifted his hand as if to direct a choir and when he dropped it, the four of them threw their heads back and began to sing, in perfect harmony,“Hal-lelujah! Hal-lelujah…!” Unbelieveably, and without a single hiccup, they then went on to finish the entire piece from Handel’s Messiah:

           

“And his name shall be cal-led, Wonderful Counselor! Almighty God!
The Everlasting Father! The Prince of Peace!”

 

Once again, there in that far-flung mud hut, we found ourselves drawn in by the name on earth that matters the most: the one who has been crucified and who is raised to bring all of God’s people into one communion. In spite of my boredom, in spite of my pride, in spite of my self-centeredness, the Spirit still managed to reach out and draw me in again. Like fire and wind, those words of gospel created a change in everyone who was there, and that same Holy Spirit desires to bring ever more into this God’s embrace, especially those who’ve never heard it before.

We look today at these young people on the front row, we look at their youthfulness and bright eyes, we look at these confirmands with their talents and their gifts just beginning to blossom and we are tempted to say: the world is yours, O child of God, go make a name for yourself! Of course, we want them to prosper, but if all they are to do is make a name for themselves, then it might end up turning out like Babel in the long run.

No, no, no. On this Pentecost, the Spirit teaches us to say to them—to say to everyone, in fact—don’t worry about your own name so much, but instead the name of the one who saves us.

Call on his name and go make his name known. Don’t waste too much energy building monuments that reach to the sky, that attempt to dominate the world or escape from it. Hold back on that desire to leave a mark that promotes your own self above all others’. Rather, build monuments of compassion and justice that have his name inscribed on every action, every prayer, and every word you speak. Those are the monuments that will last. Jesus himself says his disciples will be capable of greater works than he is. Ha-lle-lujah, my friends! Stand up, for God’s sake, and lend your voice to the quartet that draws the scattered world in.

 

 

Thanks be to God!

 

 

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Seventh Sunday of Easter [Year C] - May 12, 2013 (John 17:20-26)

 

In 2009 our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, decided to hold its triennial youth gathering in New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans had hosted national Lutheran youth gatherings at least twice before, but in 2009 our denomination saw an opportunity to send 38,000 youth into the hurricane-devastated city to perform thousands of hours of community service. Epiphany sent 24 youth and four adult chaperones to that 2009 Gathering. The planners who organized all those service projects for all those youth groups decided it would be a great idea if all the youth wore the same colored t-shirt on the day they went out into the community to work. So, they gave us—all 38,000 of us—orange shirts to wear. On any given day during the three days of service projects, there were about 13,000 youth interspersed throughout the city doing some sort of service work all clad in orange.

Fast forward to last summer, when our denomination decided to return to New Orleans for another youth gathering and complete even more community service. It was the first time in the history of Lutheran youth gatherings where the same city had hosted twice in a row. This congregation sent 30 youth and eight adults to the 2012 Gathering. It was another very successful event, and yes, we all got another orange shirt to wear while we were working.

What I found most remarkable about the Gathering last summer, however, was the fact that the gift shops and souvenir kiosks in hotels and throughout the French Quarter (and even on Bourbon Street) had orange shirts for sale for us when we got there. Throughout the city, designed and produced specifically for us ahead of our arrival, were thousands of orange shirts of all kinds, usually with some reference to Lutheranism on it. The reason why dawned on me pretty quickly: the residents and merchants of New Orleans think Lutherans wear orange! Thanks to our visible witness throughout the city three years earlier, they associate Lutherans with orange t-shirts.

In fact, I didn’t even realize how strong that realization was until I got home. When we returned to Richmond from New Orleans this past summer, I happened to be wearing my orange shirt. I was tired and hungry after the long 22-hour bus ride, so before I got home I stopped at the Martin’s up on Staples Mill Road. As I was checking out—and I’m not making this up—the cashier who rang me up looked at my orange shirt with the word “New Orleans” on it and asked, “Are you Lutheran?” Shocked that our reputation had even reached Glen Allen, I said, “I am!” She responded, “My husband’s brother lives down there, and he said the city was overrun with a bunch of Lutheran kids wearing orange.” I still think someone from Clemson got on the planning team.

If only it were that easy, right?! If only Christian identity and mission were as simple as a t-shirt uniform. Unfortunately, Jesus never says that our identity as his followers will be associated with our clothing. He doesn’t even say that the world will recognize us as his disciples chiefly by the works of mercy we will do, or how many hurricane-ravaged cities we help rebuild. In the night before his crucifixion, as he prays to his Father for the sake of his disciples, Jesus doesn’t even seem to be the slightest bit concerned about how brightly our individual lights of faith may shine. Instead, Jesus prays that we may be one. Our unity and how we live out our common life will be the main way the world will know Jesus is from God the Father and come to believe in him: “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

This is a foundation of Christian theology: that whatever God is, Jesus is somehow a part of it, somehow united with it. Jesus is not something separate and different from God. The two of them are one. They are a unit: wherever Jesus goes, God is also there. Jesus makes it clear that this miraculous relationship of one-ness is now also going to be given to the people who follow Jesus, the community he has claimed and called out with his mercy and forgiveness.

The church, the community of disciples, therefore, is not just some social service organization that goes about doing works of charity…although that is part of what we do. Nor it is it primarily some kind of educational institution that instructs its students on how to live from the Bible…although we do some of that, as well. Rather, the community that arises by the Spirit’s power out of the death and resurrection of Christ bears the very glory of God, and that glory is made known in our common life, our common faith, our common love for each other.

We must pause and reflect on this, because I think it’s very popular theology these days to talk a lot about how it is possible to see Christ in other individuals. We talk at length about ways that we glimpse God or God’s love in the lives of other people. There is nothing wrong with this expression of people’s faith, but we must not forget that Jesus—especially in John’s gospel—wants us to be far more aware of the ways God is made known not through individuals and individual’s actions, but through the life of the whole group.

There is an African proverb that goes, “If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together.” It would seem from his prayer on the night before his death that Jesus is far more concerned about the distance his community of disciples will travel than its speed.

Yet what does it mean to be “one”? How strictly do we interpret Jesus’ prayer for unity? Does it mean we are always in agreement about everything? Does it mean we have no conflict, especially on major issues? Or does it just mean that Christians should promise not to go about killing each other? (I propose that would be one place to start!). What about all the dizzying array of different denominations and divisions that already exist among us, which are increasingly confusing and off-putting to the culture at large? There have been different interpretations of Jesus’ prayer for about as long as there has been the church—how exactly this unity is embodied and when we can be sure it’s been compromised.

One thing is certain, however, and we didn’t need Jesus to pray it for us to learn it. That is, our mission and the vitality of the gospel depend on it. In other words, how you and I relate to each other—how all of the groups of Christians relate to other groups of Christians—is going to have a direct effect on what other people think of God. Our unity will not sound and look like some large-scale version of the closing credits of The Waltons—“Goodnight John boy, Good night Mary Ellen”—but it should at least give the impression to the rest of the world that we somehow value each other, that we don’t routinely write each other off.

What is so striking to me about this portion of Jesus’ prayer is that he prays to God not just on behalf of his current followers, but also on behalf of those people in the world who have yet to believe in him. He prays on behalf of all those in future years who will hear the truth of the gospel and be opened to God’s grace through it. The mission of the church is tied directly to our unity. Notice how many times the word “sent” appears in these verses alone! We aren’t closed off in our unity: our life together becomes the chief way we interact with the world.

Think of it this way: the world is already riven by conflict and unhealthy ways of dealing with it, isn’t it? Why would a non-believer join up with a cause that doesn’t offer anything better at dealing with it? Salvation probably wouldn’t feel or look much different than what’s being offered by the world.

The glory of God is made known in the reconciliation of the cross, and if we, the people claimed by that cross, are not committed to living reconciled with one another, to embodying that forgiveness at least with our own pew-mates, then that glory of the cross will be diminished in our witness. Jesus’ death, after all, is about God’s willingness to go the distance—to travel as far as it takes—to have us to him.

It seems to be that Epiphany Church has a unique challenge and opportunity in the coming weeks and months to delve deeper into the life that is prayed for by Jesus. It is easy for a congregation to build its identity around its leadership, or its strongest ministries, or its clarity of theological confession, all of which are important. You have experienced thirty flourishing years of all of those. In fact, we could push it back even farther: the sixty-some-odd years of Epiphany’s life have all been graced with all kinds of growth. Now that you find yourselves in a transition and soon at the beginning stages of a call process to find a new pastor, it will be critical that you are committed to the words of this prayer. Jesus knows that it will be critical for your witness, your faith, and your identity as God’s children that you continue love and value one another, that you pay attention to those ties that bind, that you nurture instincts of patience and forbearance with one another.

quilts for Lutheran World Relief

For I would guess we’re all in this for the long haul…not just the search for a new senior pastor in this congregation, that is, but committed to walking with Christ for the length of your days with all the Christian followers on earth. As such, we’d probably rather be known for the distance we’ll traveling, and not the speed…

a distance symbolic of the path of the quilt behind your back to a village somewhere in south Asia…

a distance that reaches out in service to neighbors…

a distance that spans human hearts that are estranged by fear and mistrust…

a distance that involves passing the faith down to yet another generation, and the generation after that, and the generation after that…until Jesus, who is surely coming soon, returns.

May we be one, as God the Father and God the Son are one in love, in forgiveness, in word and deed.

And if you’re dying to wear a bunch of matching T-shirts as we do it, then I happen to know a place where we can get some.

 

 

Thanks be to God!

 

 

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Third Sunday of Easter [Year C] - April 14, 2013 (John 21:1-19)

 

Old habits die hard. That is certainly one way to view the scene  in this morning’s passage from John’s gospel. Old habits—like fishing for a living or fishing for a chance just to be busy with something—die hard. Jesus has just risen from the dead, which is the first time in history that had ever occurred. He has shown himself to the disciples two times already, bursting through locked doors and bestowing upon them the Holy Spirit. He grants them something the world cannot give—his other-worldly peace—and sends them into the world just as his Father had sent him. They are sent out to forgive sins of others and, like Jesus, to bring glory to God through lives of service and abundant love. This is what they are to do, and they turn around and…go fishing. Morning may have broken, but certainly not the patterns of the old life.

Do they still have a grip on you, too? I know they do for me. How often do we still open the newspaper, the web browser, the front door and greet the barrage of each day’s bad news with the same old cynical attitude? How often do we still struggle to believe in the power of God’s peace? How frequently do we really give forgiveness and reconciliation a chance? Yes, we revert to the old ways, too, tossing in yet another net on the same old side of the boat. Easy come, easy go…Easter come, Easter go.

Well, if the disciples are just going to fish, then what will Jesus do but show up and proceed to demonstrate how his Father would send them into the world to fish! They put their net on the “right” side and haul in so many they have to leave the boat to bring them in. When they come to the shore they are fed with a new meal of bread and fish. And in Peter’s conversation with the risen Jesus, the disciple receives a new direction and a new vocation. When he was younger, he could fasten his own belt and go wherever he wished. But now he will go where he is led, into places he doesn’t wish to go.

You see, old habits may die hard, but when they die to the Lord, they rise to all kinds of new life.

In this gospel account alone, which comes right at the end of John’s gospel, we see that Jesus’ resurrection is the powerful beginning to a new world, a new road, a new purpose. It is a world where desperate cases find hope, where bread for the journey shows up in the most unlikely of places. It is a road where the Sauls of hatred and persecution can see the light and become the Pauls of nurture and compassion. It is a purpose that gives shape to the ministry of this very congregation and the lives of the people in it—not just as you perform hours of service to the community and to each other, but also as you begin to dream about and envision the next big mission where the Lord may be sending you.

To live in the world brought about by Jesus’ death and resurrection is to live knowing that everything is redeemed. It means realizing that what we often think is the end is actually not the end. An unproductive night of fishing, for example, can still be salvaged. There is an old cliché that says something like, “Don’t put a period where God has placed a comma.” I don’t often find clichés to be helpful theologically, but there is something about that one that seems to makes sense with this morning’s text. Maybe somehow the disciples have placed a period at the end of everything that has happened. They’ve mulled over the events of Good Friday and the cross and even the appearances of the risen Jesus and come to the conclusion that it all amounts to a big period, an end. Perhaps, racked by fright or confusion, they just don’t know how to go forward, they don’t know how to imagine a new future where even death no longer has a period after it.

This meal of bread and fish beside the sea is an eye-opening experience, one where they fully realize that Jesus—yes, the one who was crucified—is yet with them in bodily form, so much so that no one even needs to ask him “Who are you?” They just know it. The first miraculous meal of bread and fish beside the sea—the one that had happened before he had died, the one where he fed five-thousand—there wasn’t a period at the end of that day, either. Here he takes bread once more and gives it to the disciples so that they may be fed for this new future. And here, at our table each week, the Lord summons us to another meal, feeds us with his life, and places yet another comma. That which looks like his last supper becomes a meal that may be celebrated again and again.

Peter's Denial of Jesus

However, out of all the things that die and rise to new life in the presence of the risen Lord, our denials and our betrayals are perhaps the most amazing. It is not just old patterns or old paradigms that fall away in the light of Christ’s resurrection. Our own shortcomings and failures, our tendencies to turn our backs on faith—yes, all that, thank God, dies too, to give way to new affirmations.

It’s hard to get inside Peter’s head, but I imagine that he thought his denials of Jesus on the night of the crucifixion amounted to a period made in permanent ink. Three separate times Peter had been confronted and questioned about his association with Jesus and three times—which, in the understanding of numbers back then, symbolizes a done deal—he had denied even knowing Jesus. And, what’s worse, this had come after Peter had put himself out there as the disciple that would never desert or abandon Jesus. He had posed as the disciple that loved Jesus more than the others, but when the going had gotten tough, that had all been thrown into question.

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these [other disciples love me]?” Here, on the beach, after the breakfast, Jesus uses Peter’s own words to confront him once more, and graciously enlists him to service. Peter’s own denials will not be enough to hold Jesus’ love back. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks three times in the early morning light nicely mirroring the three denials Peter had offered by that other charcoal fire on that dark afternoon. The old denials die and rise to new life in the form of the charge to feed Jesus’ sheep, to follow the Lord.

It is hard not to get obsessed with the failures, with the denials, with the lack of fish in the net and the long hours laboring empty-handed. It is challenging to work out on the lake of life and avoid discouragement with what we didn’t get accomplished, how we fell short. It is so difficult to think of wasted opportunities, to mistakes we’ve made and think there could be another future where wounds are healed and where wrong things are made right.

In her recent blogpost about sharing the gospel with others, author Rachel Held Evans expresses her guilt about ignoring one preacher’s suggestion she witness to the people who sit next to her on the airplane. After all, it’s a captive audience. It’s the perfect chance, says the preacher, to make the gospel pitch and watch them give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. However, Evans writes, such a one-and-done offer, however well-intentioned, just does not work for her. “At the end of the day,” Evans says, “the gospel doesn’t really fit on a billboard or a Facebook status or an elevator pitch; it has to be experienced, in community, through the day-in-and-day-out work of following Jesus.

I know that I, for one, have been guilty of stressing out far too much over the never-ending stream of data that tells us the church in our culture is in some sort of decline, that our young people are leaving in droves and seeking spiritual nourishment elsewhere, if they even seek spiritual nourishment at all. But I wonder if my worry can somehow come across as sanctimoniousness, as if I believe the whole world will be lost if it doesn’t get its hiney back in church. Then again, perhaps we’ve gone and done what the resurrection has told us not to do: put a period where God clearly puts a comma, that silly old cliché. We’ve declared an ending where God still has plans to enlist people in his service, even people we may think have deserted.

That’s my old habit, I suppose. It's not just the act of deserting Jesus, myself, but forgetting that God still has plans to draw people, often slowly and surely, to the gospel promise through a community that realizes it never completely has it completely right, a community that hasn't fully arrived but is nevertheless on the Way, a community that can deny Jesus just as many times as it professes its love. The world, you see, can never be lost because God doesn’t, in fact, lose things that are his, whether that is you, me, or the person next to us on the airplane. God keeps after them--one time, two times, three times…whatever it takes for us to be a done deal and wrapped up to feed the sheep and follow the Lord.

 

 

Thanks be to God!

 

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

Maundy Thursday - March 28, 2013 (Exodus 12:1-4 [5-10] 11-14 and John 13:1-17, 31b-35)

 

They were familiar with slavery, although none of them had likely ever been called “slaves” before. They were familiar with it because it was part of their story. In fact, that is what this whole night was about: the fact that they used to be slaves, but now they weren’t anymore. At one point they had been Pharaoh’s slaves, down there in Egypt—down there in the brickyards of Egypt—but miraculously and magnificently they had been freed. Moses had stood up to Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s top-down regime of power and brutality and eventually won their release. It was an utterly implausible situation: that the slaves on the lowest rung of society had been set free from one of the most ruthless systems of dominance.

"Agnus Dei" Francisco de Zurbaran c. 1640

But they had managed it. Actually, God had managed it for them, and that, specifically, is what this night was about. It was about remembering that they had not won that release themselves. Passover was all about recalling that they had been slaves. Year after year it was about gathering for this solemn meal and remembering how God had heard their cries of despair and stooped to answer them. The sacrificed lamb, the blood on the doorposts which indicated slaves lived inside, the bread made without leaven so that it didn’t need to rise—it was a meal that in every way indicated God was on the move and their captivity was over. Participation in the Passover was a reminder that they lived a new life of freedom, a freedom marked not by doing whatever they pleased, but a freedom marked by praise and thanksgiving faithfulness to God’s commandments.

Yet now, in the midst of this meal, in the midst of this retelling of the story that meant freedom these disciples hear their rabbi call them slaves again. It must have been a little jarring, especially when he then gets up from the table and begins washing their feet, a task reserved for slaves, the lowest, the people on the bottom rung, where they once had been. “Very truly, I tell you,” he says, “slaves (or servants) are not greater than their master.” They knew they had been slaves, that it was once part of their identity, but they thought they had gotten beyond it, past it. Now he gives them an example to live by, but it smacks of being on the bottom rung again.

If it hasn’t sunk in already, here in the final hour we get a very clear demonstration: following Christ, being a friend of Christ, as it turns out, is about being received into new kind of slavery, a new kind of servanthood. Just as the journey from Egypt had freed the ancient Israelites for one type of life in the world—that is, a life of praise and thanksgiving in devotion to God their Father—the journey as a disciple gives people a new kind of freedom, a freedom only found in love of neighbor, in humble devotion to each other. For just as God had once heard the Israelites’ cries in Egypt and stooped to their rescue, their master this night had heard their cries of selfishness, their questions of doubt and confusion, and yes, their whispers of betrayal and had stooped once more.

This time, however, he stoops with towel and washbasin and becomes a model for service. Rescued the first time through the mighty waters of the Red Sea, now they are rescued through the waters of humility and servitude. It is a new way of being God’s people, freed into the world for service and love to neighbor. “By this,” he says, “everyone will know that you are my disciples.” To paraphrase one of the great theologians of the early Church, Maximus the Confessor, we don’t assign one form of love to God and another to our neighbor. “The activity and clear proof of perfect love towards God is a genuine disposition of voluntary goodwill towards one’s neighbor.”^[1] Here the Master embodies that.

And don’t forget the eating of that meal. In fact, it would be his last one. Although firmly rooted in the Passover tradition and recalling the actions of that old covenant, this meal will embrace them with a new covenant. The bread they share will actually be his own body, again hastily offered up and broken and dispensed with: offered up through betrayal, broken by nails and whips, and dispensed in a tomb. The cup they share will actually be his own blood, shed for the lintel of their hearts.

Here’s what it comes to: at some point we recognize ourselves as slaves, too. At some point we realize this is not just those people back then. This is also about us. This is about all people who are slaves to sin, people who are slaves to the habits of egotism and selfishness and mistrust and hatred.  This meal, this moment, is about those living in 2013 who need to be washed clean from the dust of a dirty life, who need to be called children of God again, who, like Peter, may not always know it but who desperately need to be released.

Several years ago I was attending a Tenebrae service on Good Friday. Like all Tenebrae services, over the course of the worship we listened to readings of Jesus’ crucifixion and then, one-by-one, extinguished seven candles on the altar. It was already very dark outside that evening, and as we put out the candles, the lights were also dimmed in the sanctuary so that the whole place got progressively darker. It got down to the final candle, and it was so dark we could no longer read our bulletin or the hymnal. The acolyte eventually went up to the altar to snuff out that last little bit of light, and when she did, the place went black…except for one thing. There, over the door beside the altar, glowing brighter than ever, the big red emergency EXIT sign.

There was no way to turn it off, too, so that we could reflect in complete darkness, but perhaps it unwittingly proclaimed the gospel…like a brush of neon blood over the door frame.

This meal, this moment, this sacrifice, this death, these holy Three Days—this is our exit, our release, our passage from all that enslaves us, too. And here, again, is a God who stoops down not only to wash our feet, but who stoops even farther down—to the cross—and gives himself away. It is a God whose rescue will be so complete  that we will even be saved from that which eventually soils all of us, death.

So, we share this meal again. As children of this new covenant, we celebrate our miraculous release into a new way of living: stooping, ourselves, to the needs of each other. Forgiven and released from all that has held us captive, we rise to a new freedom that transforms the world and proclaims God is on the move. Starting at the bottom rung.

Yes, we may call ourselves slaves…or servants, if you must. But not servants who are bound by force that pulls us inward, or bound by guilt or powers of domination. We are now servants who are bound by love. This (+) love.

 

Thanks be to God!

 

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

 

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[1] “Letter 2,” Maximus the Confessor: The Early Church Fathers. Andrew Louth. Routledge (London and New York) 1996. p. 90

The Fifth Sunday in Lent [Year C] - March 17, 2013 (John 12:1-8)

“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”

The gospel writers often don’t give us a whole lot of sensory data—what things looked like, for example, or how a particular scene was laid out, the sights and sounds of daily life. Then again, the gospel writers weren’t writing in order to paint vivid pictures of life in first century Palestine. Rather, they were writing with one objective alone: to tell us who Jesus was and why he matters. Instead of concentrating on the surroundings, they focus on things Jesus does and things Jesus says and the effects they have on the world around him. That’s why they’re called gospels: they focus on the good news about Jesus. Every word and sentence is carefully chosen to communicate that point.

Every once in a while, however, a very specific description creeps in. This brief story where Mary anoints Jesus’ feet is one of those occasions. Here, in the midst of a dinner party at the home of Lazarus, Mary breaks open a pound of perfume and John adds the little detail about how it makes the whole house smell good. Can you just picture it…or, better yet, breathe it? Every room is permeated with this thick, sweet scent, like when you walk into the Yankee Candle Company Store at the mall. In a story that is typically lacking in these kinds of extra details, it almost takes you off guard.

But after a deeper reading, maybe the detail isn’t so little, after all. One might remember, with a bit of prodding, that the last time this particular group of people was together, there was talk of another aroma. In fact, just prior to this chapter, Mary and Martha are at Lazarus’ tomb, weeping and wailing with devastating grief because death has taken him. Just after Jesus asks for the stone to be removed, Martha blurts out, “There’s already a stench. He’s been dead four days.” And so, you can see that this little detail about the aroma of Mary’s perfume filling the house actually proclaims something big about the power of Jesus and the life of thankful discipleship. The former odor of death has gone and is now replaced by a new, beautiful fragrance of luxuriant life.

That kind of imagery and symbolism is nice—the contrast between the death and life, that decay and this revival, that crying at the tomb and this merriment at the dinner party—but it’s probably not the main thing we’re supposed to take from this. John, you see, slips in another little detail: the perfume is expensive, and there is a whole pound of it. It’s not the smell of it that gets Judas worked up. It’s the cost. Some biblical historians have estimated that a pound of pure nard would have cost the equivalent of one full year of wages. A little bit probably would have gone a long way, but Mary uses it all.

icon of the raising of Lazarus
(note the person holding his nose) 

But…can we blame her? She has her brother back. Thanks to Jesus, this visitor in her house, Lazarus is alive again! Thanks to Jesus, the tomb and four days of decay did not swallow up her brother forever. Through the resuscitation of her brother, Mary has come to a deeper understanding of just how valuable Jesus is. What is a pound of nard compared to the presence of a man who can conquer death? What is a year’s worth of wages compared to the man who can call forth life from a tomb?

Last week at our youth group gathering, a panel of adults from our congregation who ranged in age from mid-40 to mid-70 was invited to talk a little bit about the ways they serve the congregation and how they find joy in serving. Among them we had a pair of council members, a former Sunday school teacher, the church gardener, a women’s circle member, community service team member, and the financial secretary. One question the panelists were asked in front of the youth was, “How is your service an expression of your faith?” I really hadn’t thought through how I’d respond to such a question, but one of our panelists, however, didn’t hesitate with her reply. She looked up and said with humility and honesty, “God has been so good to me and it is the way I say thanks,” before her voice broke with emotion and she passed the microphone on.

I think that’s the kind of connection is what’s going on with Mary here. God has been good to her. She is truly, deeply thankful for the presence of Jesus in her life, and she wants to respond by giving her best. The fact that Jesus won’t be around too much longer makes her act that much more sacred and meaningful. Ironically—because Mary doesn’t know yet—Jesus’ is about to become even more priceless. In the moment of his own death—when he himself pours out everything he has—God’s glory will finally be fully revealed.

All of this is lost on Judas, one of Jesus’ own disciples. The wonderful aroma wafting through the room, Mary’s moving act of devotion, the dinner celebrating Lazarus’ new lease on life—Judas essentially dismisses it all because of greed, cynicism, and fake concern for the poor. It makes us think about how close one can be to Jesus and still not fully get who he is. It makes us ponder how near one can be to the gift and still not value it—how one can see the things that Jesus does and not realize why he matters. Perhaps our own lives fluctuate between the examples of Mary and Judas. At times we are deeply devoted, spending the best of what we have (or at least wanting to), emptying all of what we are, as our guest panelist said, because God has been so good to us. Yet at other times we step back from our Lord maybe even rationalizing what is really a lack of faith in terms of how much good we do in the world, how "relevant" we think we’ve made the church to the world’s needs.

I’ve been fairly intrigued by some of the early remarks made this week by the newly-elected bishop of Rome, Pope Francis. As the first Jesuit Pope and the first from the global South, he is being hailed as a leader who might understand the reality of poverty, who believes the church should be “poor and of the poor.” It remains to be seen what kind of leader he will be, but for what it’s worth, he has already waived off the use of the papal limousine and carries his own luggage. In the homilyat his first mass in the Sistine Chapel, he said, "[We, the church] can walk all we want, we can build many things, but if we don't proclaim Jesus Christ, something is wrong. We would become a compassionate NGO [non-governmental organization] and not a Church.” To let this morning’s lessons put a spin on that: without primary attention to Christ, we would become an organization that lavishes attention on the world’s problems, but neglects the very One who has given all of us life. We would become a group of committed followers who idolize the thought of “making a difference,” but who somehow forget the Lord who has made all the difference for us.

Mary sacrifices her pound of nard to Jesus feet and participates in the sacrifice of Jesus life on the cross. In losing it all, she gains everything. How are you pouring out your life for the glory of God? How are your days devoted in thanksgiving toward the one who has rescued you from death? How are your riches, your heart, your talents, being given up at the foot of the cross so that, as the apostle Paul says, you “may be found in him.”

Saturday mornings, as I have come to know, are a valuable commodity in the life of a teenager. They may not equate with an entire pound of nard…but maybe a decent sliver of it. It’s the one day of the week to sleep in and rest up, eat a nice breakfast, veg out. Saturday mornings can also be cashed in for any number of sports activities, or even spent with the family. All of those are good uses of time, I suppose, in their proper amounts. Several Saturdays ago a group of Middle School- and High School-youth chose to pour out their precious Saturday morning here at Epiphany performing various service projects like volunteering through HHOPE pantry and with the quilters’ group. And they did all that on empty stomachs as they were fasting to raise awareness for world hunger.

One small group of youth ended up going off site and volunteering at a homeless shelter downtown. Their task involved throwing a birthday party for the residents of the shelter who were born in February. The youth baked cupcakes, blew up balloons, decorated the place, and then when the guests arrived, sat at the tables with them and helped them celebrate their special day. It wasn’t exactly strenuous labor, but at one point during the party, one of the guests, a middle-aged woman, leaned over to one of our high school boys and said, “No one has done anything for my birthday in twenty years.”

I believe that was the moment that youth realized he had broken open a jar of perfume and was bathing her feet in it, the feet of Christ. It was a party, too…and the fragrance of a sacrificed Saturday morning filled the room.

Maybe that’s our goal: to let our lives be like that fragrance that fills the air in every room, as if it’s the Yankee Candle Company store in every room we enter. In thanksgiving for all God has done, our actions and our words and our choices—and, yes, our care for the poor—are poured out, and we become breath of fresh, new life, an aroma which that proclaims death will not have the day. In Jesus Christ, we say, there is life to be had!

And that would be no little detail at all.

 

Thanks be to God!

 

 

 

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

Watermarks: Faith Conversations (John 4:1-14)

 

Today in our Lenten series we explore a third Watermark, a third basic faith practice that draws on the promises made by God in our baptisms that enrich our lives as children of God. The first week we focused on Bible study, and two weeks ago the Watermark we discussed was prayer and the ways it forms faith of a Christian. In one simplified view, we could say that Bible Study is like God’s conversation with us. Revealed in Scripture, the living God speaks to us through his Word that we may grow deeper in our understanding of his Son, Jesus. Prayer, by comparison, is our conversation with God. As we pray, our hearts and minds become open to express our thanksgiving, awe, and confession in words that are spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit. Today’s Watermark, faith conversations, focuses on the dialogues between us, the children of God. Faith in God becomes even fuller and stronger as we take the conversation that goes on between God and us and begin to share it with one another. But how does that happen? What does that look like, especially if you’re Lutheran and typically keep that kind of stuff to yourself?

About two years ago I had to travel to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to attend a training and orientation session for the servant trip our youth group was going to make there later that summer. The orientation was run by the mission organization that was setting up the service experiences for our youth—things like building handicap ramps and putting new roofs on small houses. At this orientation I was surrounded by youth groups and leaders from different denominations. In fact, I was the sole Lutheran, and Epiphany was the only Lutheran youth group signed up that summer. I learned that the organization itself, although it served all kinds of youth groups who wished to do mission projects, had deep Southern Baptist roots. I also learned that while Epiphany was going to be performing construction projects for our mission work, all of the other groups were registered for trips where they would be directly interacting with people on the beach or in strip malls and sharing the gospel through conversations. After we devoted a whopping 10 minutes to the particular details of our work duties, we then spent the rest of the orientation listening to presentations on how to finesse methods of approaching total strangers and begin having cold conversations about Jesus and faith.

Now, I don’t know how you would have reacted, but I sat there in that room, I thought, “Well, this is interesting, but…nope. I think I’d rather build ten handicap ramps than have to talk to someone about my faith.” It’s a stereotype, perhaps, but we Lutherans prefer to share our faith with our hands, not out mouths. For example, we make quilts or distribute food to the hungry, or clean up after a hurricane. We write checks, raise foster children, we build houses. To be sure, there is absolutely nothing wrong in such an approach to sharing one’s faith. These real, concrete expressions of God’s love in Jesus are the things we’re compelled to do because of what we know Jesus is alive and doing in the world. Yet, at the same time, we could all be challenged—not just our Baptist brothers and sisters—to finesse our ability in conversation and dialogue to draw attention in to the faith that helps us build those handicap ramps. The occasional voiced connection between belief and action is important both for deepening our own faith and passing it down to future generations.

Is your family, for example, diligent about recycling? Do you explain your practice because the world’s energy problems are leading to global warming and future generations will be doomed?  Or do ever mention something about God’s call to be good stewards of creation?

The mention of Jesus or God or church does not always need to be so explicit, so in-your-face, nor do Scripture verses need to be constantly quoted or referenced. However, it is probably easier than we realize to let a foundational understanding of God’s grace inform many of the conversations we have, to let a perspective of faith and hope in Christ shed light on many things we do and say. If not, we run the risk of sending the message that faith is purely private, something almost to be ashamed of, a light to be hid under a bushel.

Annibale Carracci "The Samaritan Woman at the Well" (16th c.)

Sometimes we just need the right entrée, the right setting for these kind of conversations to occur. One of the aspects of this scene between Jesus and the Samaritan woman that has always stood out to me is their location. In Jesus’ day, wells were not only public spaces, but gathering places where people—usually women—congregated to draw water for their families and livestock. People would rest at wells and spend time catching up on local news and share community concerns. While, as a Jewish male, Jesus’ approach of a foreign woman during the middle of the day would have crossed many social boundaries of the time—certainly a very eyebrow-raising entrée—the fact that he uses a well-known but welcoming public space to begin a conversation is significant. The well in this story, of course, becomes not just a location, but a metaphor for the living water that Jesus brings, but the point remains that in Jesus, God finds ordinary occasions to enter our lives. We don’t need to limit our faith conversations to places like the sanctuary or even the church parking lot. Home, work, and school include many different “well” occasions where Jesus can drop by, often incognito.

What are those “wells” in your life? Where might it be easy for you to strike up conversations with your loved ones or close friends—and maybe even strangers—that could deepen relationships and appreciations for each other’s perspectives? Just before bedtime? The weekly card game with your buddies? The gym?

As a child, I remember the car was one place where conversations happened. We were often taking trips every summer that involved long stretches on the highway. Sometimes we would read or listen to the radio. Once Walkmans became affordable, my sister and I would listen to tapes and CDs. However, every once in a while, books would be put down and the music would be turned off and we would just talk. This happens to be precisely why I discourage iPods and personal music listening devices on youth group trips. They significantly impede conversations and sharing.

I distinctly remember one occasion when we were in the car as a family returning from church. My parents were in the front seat and my sister and I were in the back. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I tuned into what my parents were saying and realized they were discussing the day’s sermon and what the pastor had said. I figure I was only eight or nine years old at the time, but I to this day I still remember exactly what they talked about and how they commented on the structure and content of the sermon. I hadn’t even listened to the sermon, but I eagerly eavesdropped on my parents’ discussion of it. It wasn’t an in-your-face faith conversation, per se, and they didn’t really get into a debate, as I remember, but it did make a mark on me—a Watermark, if you will—that my parents were listening and taking home something they’d heard. That day I realized Jesus could show up just as easily in my dad’s blue Buick as he could at the altar and pulpit in worship…or by a well in Samaria.

It goes without saying that faith conversations don’t need to be so overtly about faith. Relationships, identity, and character can be built and strengthened whenever meaningful conversations can occur, when people are allowed to scratch beneath the surface of superficial interactions. The point is to seize those opportunities when you can, especially when the pressures and schedules of life in this age make us feel as if we’re bouncing off once another, always moving in opposite directions. Family and youth ministry experts Paul Hill and David Anderson have uncovered research showing one of the few common denominators among National Merit Scholars is that they tended to come from families that ate dinner together.^[1] I imagine learning the nuances of a faithful discipleship could be the same. The high school Sunday School class here at Epiphany regularly begins by going around the circle and giving each student the chance to rate their week. I know some families in the congregation find some point during the evening simply to share highs and lows. They may sound like simple, ordinary entrées, but isn’t that the type of place we should expect Jesus to show up? I can say from experience that you never know how deep some of those conversations might actually go. All these are all examples of what Martin Luther termed “the mutual conversation and consolation among the brethren [and sistren,]”^[2] ways through which the power of the gospel heals and restores the soul and human relationship.

That day at the well in Samaria, Jesus reveals his identity incrementally. Only as their dialogue continues do they reach deeper levels of understanding and authenticity. By the end, she has rushed off to city to share with others in their traditional networks of communication and gossip what she has learned about the visitor at the well. Conversations about God’s love in Christ and his activity in our world may take many forms. But one thing is for certain: this faith that we’ve been given is something to be shared. You have drunk from his gracious well, and been claimed in the conversation between God and creation through the waters of baptism. A hammer and nail on a youth service trip, a needle, thread, and donated fabric pieces on quilt-making day…these things certainly leave a mark of God’s kingdom in the world. But so do the words of the faithful…so do the words of people just like you…maybe every once in a while wielded like a hammer at the appropriate moment, but also woven delicately like one of those quilt threads through the heart of any conversation.

Give us, Lord, the courage to do it.

 

Thanks be to God!

 

 

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

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[1] David W. Anderson and Paul Hill. Frogs Without Legs Can’t Hear Augsburg Fortress, 2003. p 119.

[2] Martin Luther. The Book of Concord, “Smalcald Articles” Part III, Article IV