The Second Sunday of Easter [Year B] - April 15, 2012 (John 20:19-31)

Norman doorway at Aberdoran, Wales

Christ is risen…and a community is formed. Such a concept is so commonplace to us now, so second-nature. As a matter of fact, it probably doesn’t even register with us as essential because we’re so accustomed to practicing our faith together, in a group, but it still needs to be said. Christ is risen…and a community is formed. A community is formed because that is what we humans do when calamity strikes, when momentous events occur, when we’re hit with news that knocks us down.

The most recent example I can think of to explain this was the Louisa County earthquake last August. Like many of you, I was alone when it struck. Sitting in the office here at church, I first thought someone was on the roof working on the air conditioning again. But as the rumbling wore on, getting worse, it dawned on me what might be really happening. For a split second I thought, “Am I supposed to get in a doorway or in a bathtub? One of them applies in this situation…the other applies in a tornado.” But then I couldn’t resist: I rushed to find other people. It was a natural reaction, an instinctive consequence to tragedy: go find others. Hanne, our administrative assistant, was out in the main office. Together, we looked into the Commons for others. Two women we didn’t even know who had just left a meeting in the church had also felt the earth move and began asking us questions. Within moments, we were all trying to call family. Unfortunately, but for obvious reasons, the networks at the time were either down or busy. And then, of course…the Facebook and Twitter posts began. All afternoon people were checking in with one another—whether on-line or in person, or both—to verify stories, to soothe fears, to clarify facts.

This is precisely the scenario with the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection. They gather. No stopping to stand in the doorway or get in the bathtub first. The New Testament is clear that the news about Jesus’ resurrection from the dead immediately brings about community. In John’s gospel this community of disciples, which was in all probability not limited to the main Twelve, meets behind locked doors. A community is formed for sure, but it is a community based in doubt and fright. They gather to verify the story, to soothe fears, and to clarify facts. Can’t you just hear their questions as they consult with one another?

“Did this really just happen?”

“What’s going on?”

 “Hey, are you OK?”

“What, in God’s name, do we do now?”

I imagine you can hear those questions because they are essentially the same ones we are still, in some ways, asking. Maybe I should speak for myself, but I have a hunch that many of you are here on Sunday because of the same mix of doubt, faith, and astonishment. Each of us feels somehow compelled to gather…almost as if someone might be gathering us. And we come and hear the story of that unique early morning after the Sabbath when the women went to anoint his body with spices and the body wasn’t there. And although almost 2000 years separate us from that first earthshattering morning, and although by now we’ve come to understand that Jesus’ resurrection does not constitute a calamity for us, we gather and we hear and we share our stories with one another and, even when we don’t say a word to each other, on some level we still seem to be asking,

“Did this really happen?”

“What’s going on?”

“Hey, are you OK?”

“What, in God’s name, do we do now?”

Ever since that first night in that locked room, it has been apparent that the news of Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t only mean something to individuals. That is to say, Jesus doesn’t rise from the tomb simply so that individual believers can rest in peace that their souls are somehow sealed for heaven, although that is certainly how it has often been interpreted. No, Christian faith is never a completely private affair. It is a community event. The news about Jesus resurrection is something that happens to us; it is something we hear and respond to. And even if, like Thomas, we are not, for whatever reason, immediately drawn to community when we hear the news—even if we are left out because of our doubt or other circumstances, we are still at some point pulled in to verify, fact-check, possibly even poke holes in the theories. The news about Jesus’ resurrection brings us together because that it where we will find solace. That is where we will be able to question each other and sustain each other with hope.

But more than that, this news of Jesus’ death and resurrection forms a community because that is how Jesus is going to continue to work in the world. Jesus does three things in that room with his followers on the night of his resurrection: he grants his peace, he sends them in the same way his Father has sent him, and he breathes on them the Holy Spirit, giving them—as a group—the power to forgive and retain sins. All three things—living in God’s peace, spreading the message about God’s love in Christ, and embodying forgiveness—all but require gathering and living as a community in order to live out and practice. Jesus does not return to say, “Be at peace with yourself and find enlightenment on your own.” He gives them commands that will necessitate community living and gathering. When in our confusion we gather and ask the question, “What, in God’s name, do we do now?” the answer becomes clear: this community’s life and work will be an extension in the world of Jesus’ own life and work. As Jesus is sent by the Father, so are we sent to bear to the world this unconditional love. This is what we do…and we do it in God’s name.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the community that is formed as a result of Jesus’ ground-breaking resurrection helps make room for those who doubt, helps those who linger on the border between faith and disbelief, those who still want to ask those questions, “Did this really happen?” The community of disciples becomes a borderland between the disbelieving world and the true existence of God, a place where God’s Spirit is very alive and active, drawing people in and opening hearts. As it turns out, we do find ourselves standing in a doorframe.

It is a funny thing about this story: Thomas seems to get all the credit for being the doubter, for needing to see with his own eyes that Jesus is risen, when, in fact, all of the disciples are actually shown Jesus’ wounds as proof that it was him. The gospel writer John makes sure to tell us that it isn’t until after Jesus shows them his hands and his side when they rejoice in his presence. And when Thomas finally finds his way that next week to the community of the disciples, Jesus addresses his doubt with love and patience, offering up his body once more for the sake of another.

"The Incredulity of St. Thomas" Rembrandt (1634)

When the church becomes a place where doubters are condemned or shunned, where questions about faith are not welcomed and lovingly dealt with, then the church remains frozen in fear, locking its doors to the very world to which Jesus has sent it. Jesus will still be able to enter and appear, just like he does that first evening, but it will be difficult—if not impossible—for others to find the hope and comfort in the community that his resurrection has brought about. Likewise, that community of fear and suspicion will never be able to practice fully the mission of forgiveness and peace that Jesus’ Spirit has given it. Yes, Jesus is risen and a community is formed…a community that is gathered to hear, time and again, the stories of their faith, ask their questions, and hear the promise of Jesus’ constant presence even when our fear and confusion have locked him out.

Each spring I give the seniors of the youth group a letter I’ve written. It changes a bit from year to year, but the basic message is still the same. It is a letter trying to explain, in my own words, why the Church is important (This year’s group of seniors could have written such a letter to me.  I’ve learned so much from them). We all know that those first years of independence—away from parents and out of the Epiphany bubble—are times of testing, changing, dealing with all kinds of new challenges and excitements. Statistics show that many young adults fall away from the faith entering some period of doubt and less than regular church attendance. I’d like to think I might get one last word in there before they go off, sent like Jesus was sent by the Father into new horizons. The letter is probably too rambling and preachy (like this sermon), but, for what it’s worth, this is one of the paragraphs I’ve included:

“There is another big reason why we become anxious that you may wander away too long from this imperfect but nevertheless gracious community: we don’t want you to forget the stories…the stories of our faith—like how God gave Israel manna to eat in the desert on their way to the Promised Land even though they complained about it, and how God once saved Noah and the animals with the ark. Or the one about Jesus’ feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fish, and the one about the shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep. The church tells and re-tells itself those stories not simply because they are powerful and fun, but because they help us remember the most important thing of all: through Jesus, God gives true meaning for the entire world and rescues it from sin. Let me tell you, there are times you will feel like that lost sheep (as we all do, from time to time), and you will need to know God has come for you and will carry you back on his shoulders.”

Given this morning’s readings, I should add, And there are times when, when you are wracked by unbelief, hearing these stories will be like reaching your hands into the Risen One’s wounds.  You will need to be with others who are grappling with the same and wonder together at what this all means.  I propose that is one big thing the church is doing every week, doubters and believers and everyone else gathered in the doorway: hearing the story of his resurrection, allowing his words to fall fresh on us once again, and asking ourselves, once again, those same familiar questions:

 “Did this really happen?”

“Are you O.K.?”

“What, in God’s name, do we do now?”

And, because we’re here, and because we’re together, we hear the responses as they resound:

“Peace be with you.”

“This is my body, given for you.”

 “You are sent…just as I have been sent.”

“Do not doubt, but believe.”

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion - "The Cry of the Whole Congregation" - April 1, 2012 (Mark 1:1-11)

As they say, everyone loves a parade. Richmond loves a 10K.

How about a quick show of hands? How many of you participated in some way in the Monument Avenue race yesterday—or any year, for that matter—either running, jogging, walking or cheering folks on? Race officials tell us that just over 40,000 people registered for the event of the year yesterday, which coincided, somewhat appropriately, with the weekend of Palm Sunday this time. Many thousands more stood and cheered on along the route or waited at the finish line to support friends, family members and colleagues, or to enjoy the free-handouts of bananas and water bottles. Rain and chilly weather would not deter them, because, after all, everyone loves a parade.

To a degree, that’s what it felt like, at least to this participant. Maybe I just had Palm Sunday on the brain, maybe I got too caught up in the moment, but as I ran along the tree-lined avenue, the well-manicured lawns of the stately homes on my left and right, my mind drifted to the similarities and stark differences between what we were doing and the procession Jesus made into Jerusalem around 2000 years ago.

I looked hard, but I didn’t see anyone waving palm branches or “leafy branches” yesterday, not even the Jimmy Buffet cover band and fan club that was stationed just before mile marker 1. Instead, people waved things like signs and held out cups with water and Powerade. Some of the signs included messages to those I assumed were fighting cancer or signs made in memory to those they had lost. No one was strewing articles of clothing at our feet, but when I saw the elaborate and well-coordinated costumes that some people wore, I realized clothes did play an important part in the event for many people.

And about all those people! It’s difficult to pin down specific numbers, but historians tell us that during Passover, the population of Jerusalem could swell by an extra hundred thousand or so. In the gospels, it seems even Jesus can’t find a place to stay within the city walls and keeps going out of the city each night and then returning during the day. Jews would come in from all over the place—from as far away as Libya, Crete, Babylonia—to participate in the annual Jewish festival. You couldn’t stir ‘em with a stick yesterday in downtown Richmond, and I know for a fact there were runners from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco because they won the race. To celebrate Passover according to Jewish tradition, hundreds of thousands of lambs would be sacrificed within the city and in its immediate environs. There is no telling how much enjoyment of junk food and hours of morning sleep over the past year were sacrificed to the modern idols of health and fitness to complete yesterday’s race. And although I didn’t hear anyone shouting “Hosanna!” (which means “God save us!”) we runners and walkers felt a little heroic, symbolizing for many of those on the sidelines the hope of beating a life-threatening disease, or the power and grace of the human body, or simply the promise of setting goals and achieving them. Then it ended, and we left feeling justified, upbeat, tired perhaps…but happy.

And, as you can guess, that’s about the end of the similarities between the two parades. For as excited as the people of ancient Jerusalem were that day when Jesus sat atop a borrowed donkey and made his way along Jerusalem’s monument avenue, the feelings of joy and accomplishment would not even last a week. By the way, Jesus was not riding that donkey because it was April Fools’ Day or because Jesus was being made to look like one. The sturdy pack animal was actually the beast of burden that kings traditionally rode during times of peace. It may have symbolized humility, to some degree, but it was not altogether humiliating, as I’m afraid we’ve made it out to be. Jesus was being hailed as “King” by the people of the city, and therefore a donkey ride would have been appropriate.

In his recent book about the history of Jerusalem, Simon Sebag Montefiore paints a vivid picture of a Jerusalem that, with the exception of about a hundred years here or there, never was able to rule itself. Greeks, Romans, Persians all took turns ruling the city from the colonnaded fortresses in and around it in the centuries leading up to Jesus. Even the Hasmonean dynasty—a dynasty of the Jewish people themselves, which ruled for not even 100 years—relentlessly repressed the people who actually lived in the city. The people in power always feared those masses, and Montefiore explains that the Romans during that particular Passover were more jittery than usual. A recent Galilean rebellion around the Tower of Siloam, put down by Pilate, had resulted in some casualties. The people were ready for someone to save them and, at long last, let them have a go at power. Jesus of Nazareth symbolized that hope, that promise. They were there to acclaim him as king and help prop him up as the next strongman. But as the story plays out, enthusiasm turns into disillusionment and then bloodthirsty anger: voices that cheer him along his route and offer him Powerade start shouting “Crucify!” instead.

So, if our Monument Avenue 10K means for us a chance to gather together and celebrate a noble medical cause or a chance to make a personal record—a “P.R.” in runners’ jargon—what does Jesus’ Palm Sunday procession mean for us, especially if it turns out so badly in the end? Are we still gravitating to forms of power that dominate and control? Are we still enamored with force and symbols of oppression and military security? Are we still prone to look for salvation from a superhero god of glory, one with the abilities to outsmart the opponents who shows no weakness in defeating them? How can we look at the events of Holy Week, which begins with such promise and fanfare, and be anything but disappointed in what God has sent us in Jesus of Nazareth?

Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “the God of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with what God, as we imagine him, could and ought to do.”^[1] For us, remembering Holy Week gives us a chance to remember, once again, just that: that the reality of who God is and the ways God loves us are, more often than not, different from the ways we want God to. And by that I mean that in Jesus of Nazareth, God gives up traditional forms of power and success and joins us in our suffering. He doesn’t impress us with earthly glory. He comes not to control or even beat the occupiers at their own game. He comes to experience what it’s like when things go horribly wrong and show us God is still present there. He comes to undergo tragedy so that the power of tragedy may ultimately be undone. That God chooses to identify himself with this man, this story—when a relative nobody enters the city to cries of hope only to be denied, betrayed, and crucified—is something that we would never, ever imagine. Whereas in most parades the main focus of attention is on the person moving along the course, in this parade it’s different: his attention is focused purely on us. You might say it’s God’s own P.R. in humility. He “empties himself, taking the form of a slave…and humbled himself…to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2).

Therefore, with the script in hand, provided by gospel writers who themselves were so taken with the peculiarity of this God’s love that they recorded it in remarkable detail, let’s join the crowds on the sidelines.  Let's cheer, then mock him with scorn, then demand his death.  In the process, let us be reminded not so much of our love for parades, but of this parade’s love for us.

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

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[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison.

Jesus' Final Words from the Cross: "iThirst" (John 19:28-29)

²⁸After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty." ²⁹A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.

“I am thirsty.”

I’m going to come right out and say it: of all the words Jesus utters from the cross, I find these the most realistic. That’s not to say, of course, that Jesus didn’t say all the other things, too, or that the other words from the cross about forgiving his executioners and pardoning the thief aren’t equally important or true. Scripture is a reliable source of truth even if the gospel accounts are not direct eye-witness recordings, and those other final words from Jesus on the cross we’ve already heard about this Lent are vital for our faith in and understanding of who Jesus Christ was. It’s just that all of those other words—for example, “Woman, behold your Son,” or, in Luke’s gospel, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise”—all sound like things you’d expect a Son of God to say. They all seem to come from a deeper and more eternal point of view, spoken through the wisdom and experience of someone who is divine. They ring of godliness.

“I am thirsty”: well, that sounds like something a Son of Man would say. It sounds surface-oriented, borne of primal mammalian response. It echoes a need of the body, not so much of the soul. When Jesus looks at his tormentors and asks his Father to forgive them, “for they do not know what they are doing,”  that sounds like a matter of the spirit. It deals with something that has long-term implications. “I am thirsty,” sounds rather elemental, right-here-right-now. It is such a simple, humble, earthy request: I am dying and my mouth is dry. The other words place Jesus, in some way, almost above the people around him. This one places Jesus underneath them, simply asking for a drink.

Crucifixion (Diego Velasquez, 1632)

So this all seems more realistic to me, given the realities of a crucifixion. Crucifixion was a death sentence specifically designed to humiliate the victim and draw out death for as long as possible. In fact, it’s where we get the word “excruciating.” Scientists and historians disagree when it comes to the precise way that a crucifixion actually did someone in. Some say victims bled to death or died as a result of infection in the blood. Others say that they died from extreme dehydration. Still others say that they most likely died through asphyxiation, because their permanently outstretched arms made it difficult to expand their lungs properly and breathe. Regardless of how it happened, long and humiliating exposure was the objective, so it is entirely believable—realistic— that, at some point, Jesus, man on the cross, would feel the need to re-hydrate.

As it so happens, for the gospel writer John, Jesus’ desire for something to drink—and the subsequent offer of sour wine—was also a fulfillment of one of the Hebrew Scriptures. John sees an echo of Jesus request in the words of the 69^th Psalm, which was a prayer for deliverance from enemies, and we, like John’s initial readers, can use the words to paint the picture Jesus of the cross:

                        “I looked for pity, but there was none;

And for comforters, but I found none.

                        They gave me poison for food,

                        and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

Historians tell us that this vinegar or sour wine that the soldiers offered would likely have been on-hand. It was a crude, cheap version of wine that had basically already gone bad, and so it could offer some relief, but not much. They offer it on a sponge extended on a branch perhaps because no soldier wanted him drinking out of one of their cups. For those who’ve paid close attention to Jesus’ life, the irony is overwhelming. Jesus’ first miracle had involved changing water into wine at a wedding at Cana. He had said then that his hour for glory had not yet come, yet the wedding guests then had made special mention of the wine’s high quality. The best wine had been saved for last! Here we find Jesus in his hour of glory, lifted on the cross, and the wine is almost undrinkable. But Jesus drinks it anyway, as I assume any human would.

This is more important than we might initially think. Many of the earliest and thorniest controversies in the Christian faith actually had to do with the relationship between Jesus’ divine and human natures. We think little of this these days, aware of the teaching that Jesus was somehow totally human and totally divine at the same time.  However, some early believers could only make sense of Jesus and his life by saying that he was not truly human at all, that his body was some type of illusion. They looked at the crucifixion and denied that if God was actually hanging there he would be feeling anything at all. People with this viewpoint eventually lost their argument, partly because of Jesus’ human desire and ability to drink while he was dying.

As it turns out, not a single word from Jesus is insignificant. If Jesus says he’s thirsty, it means something huge, even if it just means he’s thirsty. Because if he’s thirsty, he is feeling human pain. He is looking around and feeling the effects of this torment. He is looking for comforters and finding none. And if he is feeling human pain, looking and finding little comfort, then he can be truly with us…not above us or outside of us, but with us, beneath us, in us. That is the miracle of Christ. That is the gift of Son of God: that he is also a son of men.

Early Church theologian, a man named Gregory of Nyssa, put it this way:

“God’s…power is not so much displayed in the vastness of the heavens, or the luster of the stars, or the orderly arrangement of the universe or his perpetual oversight of it, as [it is] in his condescension to our weak nature.  We marvel at the way the sublime entered a state of lowliness and, while actually seen in it, did not leave the heights.”^[1]

It’s important that we listen to such words, especially when we’re prone to place our wonder at God in anything other than the cross. It’s important that we listen to Jesus words, even when he’s just telling us he’s thirsty, because when he does, it means God is in human lowliness with us.

And that means, for example, when a cancer patient aches for respite from the chemo and radiation, Jesus aches for that respite, too. Or that when a protester on the street somewhere in the Middle East thirsts for her basic civil rights to be honored, then Jesus is somehow thirsts for human dignity with her, as well. When an abused child craves the love of a parent who will truly care for them, Jesus craves that love alongside of them. When famine strikes an African village, and people hunger for basic necessities, Jesus is present, thirsting and hungering, too.

There was a memorable editorial in The Lutheran magazine a few years ago written by David Miller, then its editor-in-chief . In it he describes a visit to a refugee camp in southern Sudan where people were dying of starvation and disease because the food convoy had not yet showed up. While he was there he crawled into a makeshift hospital, which was little more than a dirt hut with no beds and no medicine—fifteen gaunt people were lying on the floor in some stage of dying.

“I came upon a woman in her twenties,” Miller writes, “sitting by a small lump under a fray, dirty cloth. With one hand she absently fingered a braided string hung around her neck; with the other she held the cloth close around the ‘lump’—a little girl, shrunken by hunger and disease. We sat together helpless, looking at the extinction of her beloved. Then I noticed that she was fingering a cross, crudely fashioned from a piece of twisted wire. Touching her arm, with my other hand I made the sign of the cross full and large across my chest. Her eyes widened, and immediately she pulled at my hands, drawing them to her child. I didn’t know what she was trying to show me. Then I knew: she wanted me to bless her child—as if for dying. I placed my hands on the little girl’s head and commended her to the gentleness of God.

I prayed that in the next life this precious child would find a mercy that had so badly escaped her in this life.” Miller continues, “A power had been released in the bunker’s darkness, and the tears we brushed from our eyes were not only of sorrow, but of joy, hope, and gratitude. We were transported beyond the dismal present to a future where everything was shaped—finally—by the mercy of the One whose pleasure it is to wipe every tear from every eye.”^[2]

Miller’s reflection on that experience illuminates perfectly the power of a God who condescends to human weakness. The world needs a savior who forgives from the cross…who offers words of pardon, words of eternal hope and Paradise where, yes, every tear will be wiped away. But, as we know, we thirst for a savior who himself can thirst like us, who can somehow be in that tent with that mother in her pain and sorrow as he can in heaven’s heights. It is a savior who, even as he sips this sour wine—in fact, the worst around—at this final hour is serving up for us what will turn out to be his resurrection finest.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

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[1] St. Gregory of Nyssa, “The Address on Religious Instruction,” Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. by E. Hardy, 300-301 in David Yeago’s typescript, vol. 1, The Faith of the Christian Church.

[2] “Even Here, Even Now,” David Miller in The Lutheran, April 2000

The Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B - March 18, 2012 (Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-21)

Anyone who has seen Disney’s The Lion King—either the movie or the musical—is very familiar with that iconic scene that comes right at the beginning. All the animals of the African savannah have assembled around the base of the lion’s home on Pride Rock, an imposing rock formation which juts out over the surrounding Pridelands like the bow of a ship. They’ve come from miles around to witness the birth and anointing of their new lion king, upon whom no animal has yet laid its eyes. At the critical moment, just as the opening music reaches its stirring crescendo, they lower their heads in respect and adoration as the young cub is taken from the lion family by a priest-like ape and thrust into the air, lifted high so that all can see him. Not a word has yet been spoken in the movie. No mention of good or evil—or light or dark—has been made. And yet this gesture of lifting up is so clear in its symbolism, so unmistakable in its message. At that point we know a new king has arrived. It is a judgment upon the state of things: a new day has begun and all may rest peacefully and secure in the great circle of life, as Disney calls it. Of course, this circle of life aspect is driven home once more at the end of the movie as the exact same scene is repeated with a new generation’s lion king.

On a somewhat of a side note, there was a priest in the Roman Catholic parish in the part of Pittsburgh where I served who basically re-enacted this type of pose with every baby at a baptism. It was even colloquially referred to as the “Lion King” pose, and I saw it with my own eyes once as he took one of our friend’s daughters—four months old and very squirmy at the time—and bravely lifted her up seven feet or more over the hard marble floor after he poured the water on her head. He was a sturdy man, but most parents found the symbolism a little too breathtaking at that point.

Lifting up: it’s what we do to things that need attention. It the universal gesture for ‘this is important.’ For ancient Israel, especially in the story to which Jesus refers in this morning’s gospel lesson as he speaks with Nicodemus, it is also the gesture for ‘this is life.’ Moses once lifted up a serpent in the wilderness so that people could look at it and live.

Visit of Nicodemus to Christ (La Farge, 1980)

Nicodemus is a Pharisee who has come under the cover of night to see Jesus and get to the bottom of Jesus’ teachings, if such a thing can be done. We don’t know specifically why Nicodemus is drawn to Jesus. Perhaps Nicodemus is feeling a stirring of new faith because of the signs Jesus has performed. Perhaps Nicodemus wants to nail down the essence of Jesus’ relationship with God and clarify how the Pharisees’ understandings of God differ from Jesus’ so that he can better describe and define the coeternal nature of the second person of the Trinity, whether he is begotten or made…OK, maybe that’s not what Nicodemus is thinking…but whatever Nicodemus’ motivations, the conversation reaches a point where Jesus compares the Son of Man to this otherwise obscure story about the snakes in the wilderness.

In that occurrence, which is recorded in the book of Numbers, the people of Israel had been complaining about what they had to eat in the wilderness. They complained about this several times, in fact, but this time God is provoked to send venomous snakes in their midst. As the snakes bite the Israelites they begin to die. Interestingly, historians have often wondered whether the “fiery serpents” in this account might not have been snakes at all but perhaps an outbreak of guinea worm, a debilitating but preventable parasite that lives in unclean water that still afflicts people in some remote parts of Africa.



Moses and the Brazen Serpent (Bourdon, 1653-54)

Whatever the case, in order to save them God instructs Moses, their leader, to make a serpent out of bronze and hoist it up on pole so that everyone could look at it. And there you have it: lifting up the bronze serpent means life. All the Israelites who are gathered out on the plain of the savannah can look at it and be saved. Life can go on.

As a Pharisee, someone familiar with the Law and the history of his people, Nicodemus would have known that story well. What would have seemed strange was to hear Jesus, this new and confusing rabbi, compare himself to that story. Jesus, you see, would not just come to teach something new about life in God, or to impart some novel understanding through signs and wonders, like changing water into wine (Pharisees lap up that kind of stuff, you know). Rather, Jesus would come as the Son of Man to be lifted up. Jesus would come to be lifted up as important, to be lifted up as life. Furthermore, what Nicodemus could never predict is that here Jesus really means “lifted up”…that he, too, would be attached to a crude pole and lifted high for all to see.

The act of lifting Jesus up, as it turns out, is one of the chief themes in the gospel of John. Like the recurring imagery that serves to anchor the story in The Lion King, this action is referred to and repeated at various key times in the gospel story. This conversation with Nicodemus is one of those occasions, and as we read on, we learn that “lifting up” is the word that Jesus uses for his death on the cross. Where in the other gospels, Jesus speaks about his death in terms of humiliation and suffering, here Jesus repeatedly mentions it in positive terms. When Jesus is lifted on the cross, God is saying “This man is important, this event is significant.” And more than that: God is saying, “This man is life. Look at him and live.” By being lifted up on the cross to die, Jesus is later able to be lifted up in the resurrection in victory over death and then, again, lifted up in his ascension to the Father. Being lifted up: for Jesus, it’s all one continuous motion that is directed at you and me, and we may live as a result of it.

It all seems a little intellectual and heady, doesn’t it? Much of John’s gospel comes across that way—at least, it does to me. What it all comes down to is this: when Jesus is lifted on the cross, we see the effect of what is truly killing us. We see in Jesus’ crucified body the result of our sin, that fiery serpent that will not leave us alone. We see in Jesus’ crucified body the incredible pain our brokenness causes, both to ourselves and to God. In this sense, the cross is also God’s judgment. We see and understand that, left to ourselves, we are doomed people, wandering aimlessly towards certain death. An essential part of Christian faith is a realization of how much help we need, how dead we really are, how hopeless our situation is until God does something to save us. I dare say that is not a popular point of view these days—that is, the admission of the failures and utter helplessness of humanity and of the fact we can’t save ourselves. Yet this is what we see when Jesus is lifted up.

Crucifix (Michelangelo, 1492)

However, we also see in Jesus’ cross that which brings us life. And what brings us life, true life? The love of God brings us life—a love so great that we see God will give his only Son to have us back on the journey toward home, and that everyone gathered on the savannah of this planet may see him lifted up and, believing in him, have eternal life. Indeed, a new day has arrived. Life may continue in the presence of God, now and forevermore.

At the center of Lutheridge, a Lutheran camp and conference center just south of Asheville, North Carolina, there is a small lake (or large pond, depending on your frame of reference). At one end of the lake a large, white cross has been lifted up and placed at the point where shorelines come together by the feeder creek. Even if you’ve never been there before, you can imagine what it looks like: I suppose it looks similar to any other cross that’s been placed at any other water’s edge. At night it’s particularly beautiful because a bright floodlight placed in front of it helps the cross form a reflection on the water below.

One summer as I was working as a counselor there, a pastor who had brought his confirmation students for a week at camp led some staff devotions before we all turned in for the evening. Normally these devotions would take place in a room or on the balcony of some lodge or cabin, but that night this pastor decided to take us all down to the lake to look at the cross.  And rather than lead us to a nice spot across the lake, this pastor traipsed us through the woods to the back of that cross. Standing there in the stark shadow that was formed by the floodlight hitting the cross at such close range, he asked us to look up at the cross and tell us what we saw. In the presence of a pastor, we all spouted out our best theological answers: “Forgiveness.”  “Love.” Someone I’m sure mentioned that old Lutheran standby answer, “Grace.” None seemed to be the exact answer he was looking for. He let us go on for a few seconds before he said, “Sure.  That all sounds good. What I see is simply God, on the other side, looking back at us. Remember this: whenever God looks at us, he is viewing us through the cross of his own Son, Jesus.”

What that pastor was saying is that, in Jesus, God judges us dead in sin and, at the same time, loves us…loves us for all time, even through death. Like much of John’s gospel, the meaning of the cross can difficult to summarize, difficult to grasp, and like Nicodemus, we may be totally puzzled by the ways of a God who would lift up his Son in this humiliating way. We, too, may ponder it more often than we understand it, and fade away from his conversation in the same way Nicodemus does, only to arrive at a deeper faith later in our story.

No matter what—whether we’re by a lake at a church camp or maybe here, on Sunday, receiving his body and blood in the shadow of this wooden replica—my prayer for each of us is that on the journey through this wilderness we may eventually find our place not, as Disney hopes, in the circle of life, but rather at the foot of the One who has been lifted up for us, in the graciously bright light at the cross of life.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The First Sunday in Lent, Year B - February 26, 2012 (Genesis 9:8-17, Mark 1:9-15)

I realize she may not technically be classified as a “wild beast,” but our cat, Luna, does have a tendency to go wild on us most mornings at about…oh, 5:00am. She usually starts by purring in my face. Soon she is standing on my chest, head-butting my chin. If I don’t wake up, she begins walking around on my stomach to make the point. I can shove her off, but then she’ll just repeat her tactics with Melinda, who is usually much more patient with her. If we shut Luna out of the bedroom, then she impatiently and noisily scratches at the door until we let her back in. It’s enough to confirm my sensibilities as a dog person, although I hear they’re not much better about this.

beastly Luna on the prowl

It wasn’t until a few days ago, however, that we started connecting the dots of this animal behavior to realize that Luna’s morning antics correspond to our children’s restlessness. Sure enough, if Luna wakes us up, it is because she has sensed some stirrings in the kids’ bedroom…perhaps a wet bed or a nightmare or playing with toys before they’re supposed to. It’s all like a miniature version of the well-documented phenomenon that animals can sense something is up in the hours and minutes before the strike of a natural disaster. We’ve all heard the stories. No one really knows why or how this happens. Perhaps it’s their superhuman sense of hearing or ability to sense changes in the atmosphere. Call it raw instinct, call it some special inner sense, but animals seem to know, in many cases, when something is up. They respond to certain critical situations often before humans do.

In fact, I wonder if something along these lines might be happening in this account of Jesus’ temptation. After he is baptized, Jesus is driven into the wilderness where he is with, of all things, the wild beasts. It is the only place in all of Scripture, in fact, where Jesus is with animals,  with the sole exception of the donkey he rides on Palm Sunday. I would guess most of assume there were animals and beasts at Jesus’ birth:

“I,” said the donkey, shaggy and brown,

"I carried his mother uphill and down,

I carried his mother to Bethlehem town."

"I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown.

But, truth be told, neither Matthew nor Luke, the two gospel writers who record Jesus’ nativity, say anything about animals in the stable, even a donkey, shaggy and brown. In the way that Mark tells the gospel of Jesus, the friendly beasts show up just following Jesus’ baptism when he is in the wilderness being tempted by Satan.

And, yes, it is a critical situation. Something, you might say, is up.  This, my friends, is a turning point, not just in the life of Jesus as he heads out to an intense time of trial, but in the life of the entire world. This is a new beginning. God had once before cleansed the world with water. God had made a covenant with Noah and all the animals of the ark after forty long days of rain that a fresh new day of promise had dawned. The heavens had opened and hope had shone through in the form of a rainbow. God would never again destroy the earth in order to restore it. Now, once again, after forty long days in the wilderness, after the heavens had torn open and hope had shown through in the form of a dove, God is restoring creation through the life of his Son.

Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom (1826)

This, Mark means to tell us, is moment all of creation has been waiting for, even, it seems, the wild beasts. In the baptism of Jesus and his subsequent temptation in the wilderness, a brand new day has begun. God has announced a new chapter—the final chapter, in fact—in his plan to reconcile the entire cosmos to himself, and strangely, even before Jesus has called his first disciple, the wild beasts are gathering around him as a sign of the peacefulness and promise to come, a vision of Paradise regained. It’s fun to imagine that some of them may even be purring and head-butting his chin in playful expectation that something important is about to happen.

How about you? Do you feel the draw to gather around Jesus, to respond to his announcement that the kingdom of God has come near? Do you long, too, for a fresh beginning, a total do-over of your life, another start? Are you, worn down by years in the wilderness, searching the skies for a sign of hope? The good news from the gospels is that in Jesus this fresh start, this new beginning, is always possible, for each and every one of us. Your age does not matter. Your personal background does not matter. In Jesus, God has come to contend with the fears, the temptations, the dark forces that estrange all people from God and the good that God desires for us. This new day begins that day by the Jordan River and reaches its conclusion at the cross in a new flood of grace where God own Son takes all the all the sin the world and drowns it in love.

river baptism

For the sinner, this is made real in the waters of baptism, regardless of our age when that occurred. Whether we were a tiny infant or a college student or an older adult, our baptism is a sign that we’ve been forever included in this new covenant established by Jesus’ life and death. God has claimed us as a member of his new creation and we are united to Jesus’ life eternally. Even if we forget it or were too young to remember it. Even if we, at times, act like it never happened. Out of God’s amazing grace we are chosen and gathered as his children. And each time we reflect on our own baptisms we are provided the opportunity to reflect on just how powerful and permanent God’s love for creation is: that Jesus will be driven into the wilderness to save it. That Jesus will die on the cross to claim it. That he will rise again to show his power for it. And so,baptism is a chance to begin again. Even remembering it, as Martin Luther says, is a chance to start our lives anew and, once again, take part in the kingdom of peace and righteousness that Jesus has begun.

One Easter in the first congregation I served we baptized a man who was in his fifties. He had first ventured into our congregation with his wife earlier that year in January after having driven by the front door regularly for about six months. It took him that long, he said, before he finally got up the nerve to come inside. We used that Lent as a time to have some intentional conversations about his life and his faith and where he had perceived God’s activity in his life. We came to the conclusion that it was time for him to be baptized. For reasons unknown to him, his parents had never taken that step with him when he was young.

That Sunday, as the water was poured over his head, a new thing for that congregation occurred. He began to weep.   It caught everyone by surprise, although perhaps it shouldn’t have. The people in the choir, who were standing nearest to him, were affected by his visible show of emotion. Some of them began to cry too, confronted with the seemingly un-Lutheran reality of a grown man moved to tears in worship. I’ll never forget a comment one of them made after worship was over as she reflected on the event:  “It was like it meant something to him,” she said.

Indeed, something had happened. Something was up, and we watched as over the next months and years the splash created by his baptism rippled throughout the entire congregation, just as the same grace ripples throughout this congregation when Pastor Chris or I walk a new child of God up and down the aisle after a baptism. Something is up in the life of Jesus Christ, the likes of which this whole world has never experienced or seen before. Whether our baptism occurs as an infant, as a child, as an adult God’s purposes are made clear: Jesus is on the scene.  He has come for us.

And even when powerful emotion is not there in our faith, it is still true that the days where sin has complete power are now behind us. The days of hope and promise have arrived. God has claimed us for his grand new restoration project on earth, and each person—be they young or old, be they intimidated by the front doors of the church or as comfortable in a pew as in their family room sofa—has the Spirit-given gifts to join in on the effort.

This does not mean, it should be noted, that the Christian life will be easy, that taking part in this restoration flood will involve no tests and trials. After all, once his own baptism is over, Jesus is driven by the Spirit not into a field of daisies, but into the wilderness for a time of testing. As members of his body, we should expect the same type of experience, subjects of a kingdom whose existence and goodness is not yet completely recognized by the rest of the world.

In one of his books, former Divinity School professor and United Methodist bishop Will Willmon tells the story of a newspaper clipping he once read about a woman somewhere in Louisiana who had raised somewhere around a dozen foster children despite her low, meager income as a domestic worker. Why did she do it?  Why did she suffer so? She responded, “I saw a new world a comin’.”^[1]

A new world is a comin’. Something, brothers and sisters, is up. And as far as Mark is concerned, the animals might already sense it. You can see it in the ministry and in the lives of people in this very congregation. By the grace of God, we have a new beginning in Jesus Christ. It starts with a splash, then forms a ripple, until all of creation is caught up in the flood.

Wake up!  Turn around!  And believe in the good news.”                

Amen!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

---

[1] Will Willimon, Pastor: the Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry.  Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002. Pg 127

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B - February 12, 2012 (Mark 1:40-45)

In life there are things we’ll touch and things we won’t…and sometimes things we must.

Several years ago, when Melinda and I were first married but didn’t have any children, our close friends asked us if we’d babysit their two kids—ages 4 and 20 months—while they went away for an interview at a congregation. We were happy to help them, and I was glad to spend some time getting to know the younger one, my godson. It didn’t occur to me until they showed up to drop them off with a diaper bag, that saying “yes” to this request was going to entail something I’d never done before: changing a diaper.

The total time they were with us was two days and two nights, and I prayed fervently that if James, my godson, had a “movement,” it would occur when Melinda was home on duty with me. But despite my fervent pleas, it still happened. First, I smelt it. Then, he began to complain about it. Melinda was still a good 6 hours from arriving home from work, so I figured I had to be the man with the plan. And if that diaper was going to get off his body, I was going to have to touch that diaper. So, I did, but I confess that once I touched the filled diaper (it was…shall we say?...still warm), I gagged immediately.  I think I gagged about 4 times in rapid succession, actually. I walked into the other room and gave myself a pep talk. Then I decided that it had to be done, and I needed to reach down and find whatever courage I could and get that dirty thing off him. I was the only option.

Jesus is confronted with a similar situation in this morning’s gospel text, but in his case, there doesn’t seem to be any balking, any gagging, and any reaching down into his soul for courage.  He’s Jesus.  He simply reaches out and touches the man, who knows Jesus is his only option. And the implications are much greater than touching a dirty diaper, too. Leprosy (and other skin diseases which were often lumped together under the same title) was considered the most debilitating and alienating of conditions.  People with a skin disease in those days, regardless of how transmissible it actually was, were themselves lumped together and forced to eke out a meager existence at the outermost margins of towns and villages, unable to approach anyone else without first yelling out, so that everyone could hear them, “I’m a leper! Leper, here!”

In the ancient hierarchical understanding of the way the human body was ordered, skin disorders were considered the worst kind of disorders to have. They affected one’s outward appearance, which was thought to be a reflection of what was inside. Grotesque, contorted features were thought to indicate a grotesque, contorted soul. On top of that, somewhat contradictorily, those with leprosy were thought to be highly contagious. Those determined unclean because of skin disorders had no hope of ever being assimilated into society again because no one would come near them, look at them, much less come into some kind of physical contact with them.  They were one of those things that must not be touched.

And that was precisely what I imagine sent this particular man over the edge, causing him to blab as much as he could about what had happened. It was one thing that he had been healed. It was another that Jesus had done it by reaching out and touching him. It was one thing that Jesus had removed a terrible affliction. It was another that Jesus had dignified the man by making physical contact with him. Jesus had not just cured him of a painful and incapacitating disease. He had somehow restored his humanity and restored him to his community.

The image on the front of our bulletin today shows Jesus almost embracing the man. Perhaps that’s what it was like—that particular posture does suggest compassion or pity—but from what I’ve read about leprosy in the ancient world, even a slight pat on the shoulder or a handshake with the infected man would have broken all kinds of boundaries. In one simple yet profound motion, Jesus demonstrates his willingness to “go the distance,” so to speak, to save this man and restore him to life. So, can we blame him for getting a little loud and excited about it? If a leper had been touched by someone, you can expect he’d want to announce it.

Christ Healing a Leper, Rembrandt (1657-60)

In fact, the man who is cured of his leprosy is just one voice in the mob of people who are spreading news about Jesus. Things, as far as that’s concerned, had gotten out of hand pretty quickly. Based on the kinds of things Jesus was doing, there was a growing awareness that God’s own special representative was on the scene. That is, the flurry of healing activity that begins Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s gospel would have left no doubt among most about Jesus’ power and authority. He teaches with conviction, he casts out demons, he raises the sick, and here, in a case that would have put an exclamation point on his special relationship to God—because only God was thought able to heal skin diseases—he cures someone of leprosy and instructs that person to present himself to the priests so that they may make full recognition of his healing. All in all, it is a systematic undoing of the forces that isolate and alienate humans from God and from one another. God’s kingdom has come near.

Yet these opening scenes are meant to establish more than just his identity and authority. They also indicate how Jesus will use this authority and what that kingdom will look like, and that is just as important. That’s why that touch, however slight it might have been, is so crucial. Jesus comes not to lord over creation as some sort of divine dictator. Nor will he somehow snap his holy fingers and magically erase creation’s pain like some kind of traveling faith healer. Rather, Jesus shows he is willing to “go the distance” in order to reach us where we are, to bridge whatever oceans are there that strand humankind from the wholeness God intends.

Jesus will use his identity as the Son of God to show us how human he is. He will use his authority as teacher and healer by humbling himself and putting himself at great risk in order to save us. And God’s kingdom will look like one where people are, one by one, rescued from the segregating forces of sin and put back into true communion with each other, even when that involves touching those we’ve determined “untouchable”—especially when that involves touching those we’ve determined “untouchable.”

Yet we must resist making this story into a lesson about the virtues of human touch, however powerful it may be. Just this week our youngest daughter came down with an illness that, thank God, can easily be healed with a round of antibiotics. We knew once we got some of that medicine in her she’d feel so much better. But we also knew if we held her and rubbed her head she’d feel a lot better, too. It occurred to me someone would have to have a heart of stone to see her languishing on her bed in misery and not want to hug her, not to have compassion on her. However, it’s not entirely clear, at least in this instance, that Jesus was moved by pity or compassion. Some of the earliest sources of Mark’s gospel actually say, “Moved by anger, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the leper.” That may sound strange to us, even a little off-putting, but in a way, it makes perfect sense. It’s not the leper or the leper’s request that Jesus is angry with, but rather the condition that has afflicted him so, as well as the misused laws of religion that have banished him so harshly to the edges. Jesus’ touch is a rebuke of that condition and that banishment—almost like a slap in the devil’s face. Again, in this scenario, he shows he is willing to “go the distance” to restore this man to dignity.

Whatever his motivation—be it pity or anger and frustration—we are still left with the uncomfortable information at the end of this story that Jesus doesn’t want him talking about it, that Jesus wants it kept a secret. We are still left with the peculiar situation at the end of this account that Jesus can’t walk around openly anymore. A man who has already traveled such great distance in his opening hours of ministry is left somewhat isolated himself, stranded out in the country. After such remarkable displays of power and such daring examples of “going the distance,” why wouldn’t Jesus welcome this man’s praise and adoration? Isn’t that the point of the gospel, to share it with others?

Night at Golgotha, Vasily Vereshchagin

It is strongly suspected that the reason Jesus wants his disciples and others who have witnessed his love to remain silent about it is because at this point they have no idea yet just how far he’s going to go to save us and establish God’s kingdom. That is, when they see him, for example, touch the man with leprosy, they’ve gotten a big and important part of the picture of Jesus’ identity and mission.  But they still have no idea of the defining brushstroke, the one which will demonstrate the true depth of his love and compassion and anger at the powers of sin. Jesus bridges a great distance when he risks his own health and scorn from breaking religious and social taboo when he touches the leper, but it pales in comparison to the distance he’ll go on the cross. There he will die in order to bestow ultimate life. There he will fully define his identity and reveal his authority as one who suffers  in order that God may rescue all creation from sin and death. That is the picture he wants us to have in regards to who he truly is. That is the message we are to share with others and seek to embody as his people.  Spreading the word before that picture is fully composed risks finding a short cut to the great distance he means to travel.

A couple of years ago, a member of our congregation shared a story with me about her childhood in North Carolina during the Great Depression. Her father owned a small store in Charlotte that was not too far from the airport. Those were the days of segregation, when black Americans were not permitted to eat in most restaurants or eat with whites, which meant that most of the employees on the runway at the airport had nowhere to eat or even buy a meal. Moved somewhat by the potential to increase his business but no doubt also by compassion for them and maybe even a little anger at that system, this man began driving his truck out to edge of the terminal where they worked to sell them some food. In the winter, his wife would cook hot soup, and he’d load that, too, in big pots in the back of the truck,  drive out to the edge of the runway, and ladle it out to them. The men were deeply appreciative of his efforts.

But then came plans to expand the airport’s service, which meant a longer runway and more construction. Apparently not caring (or knowing) about the plight of the black employees, the airport cut off his access to the workers in order to achieve the airport expansion. When he protested, they demanded that he drive an alternate route around the perimeter of the airport each day to reach them. He told them his soup would be stone cold by the time he got there. Persistent in arguing his case to the authorities and in presenting the need of the segregated workers, they finally agreed to close down the runway for a few minutes each day at lunchtime and halt all airplane traffic so his little truck could serve soup. Unable to figure out how they’d achieve the necessary communication to set that up, it was decided that his daughter, our member, Martha Gladfelter, would run across the runway every day and up the air traffic control tower to tell the controllers to stop the planes. When he was finished, his truck safely off the runway, she’d scurry down and return.

Across the runway and up the tower so a segregated population could be served: I think that’s symbolic of the kind of effort Jesus would like from his church, followers who know and begin to understand the risky efforts Jesus has gone to for us. Aware of the human pain that still strands so many, outraged by injustice and all that cuts us off, and choosing, like Jesus, to go the distance.  That may mean reaching out to the sick infant on the sofa, the refugee in the camp, the sixth-grader being bullied, the person feeling trapped by mental illness--indeed, all those who must be touched, so that all will know Jesus is on the scene.

Yes, the Lord of life is risen and on the scene.  He has arrived, I tell you, and is out in the country here, healing and working.  We know this because we, too, have been restored to life.  We find ourselves compelled to tell others. 

And, considering that great distance, can they really blame us when we do?

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.