Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion - "The Cry of the Whole Congregation" - April 17, 2011

Four voices. Four distinct and unique voices from four people who, as far as we can tell, never knew each other or even came into contact with one another. Yes, the voices are distinct and unique, but each is uttered with an urgency and clarity untarnished for roughly two-thousand years. And, despite their differences, their individual perspectives, all four speak with remarkable similarity, especially given their independence of each other. As it happens, we know their names—at least, the names that got attached to each voice fairly early on—but we know blessed little else about them or their original audiences. The stories they told with their voices took precedence over anything they would tell us about themselves.

Mark, who probably spoke first (or at least got written down first) was most likely Greek, and most likely speaking in or around Rome in the first century to a group of believers who were unfamiliar with Jesus’ Jewish roots. The stories he had heard and assembled about Jesus paint the picture of a servant Savior who is at once swift and forceful in overturning the powers of evil. For Mark, the impact of this Savior’s words is almost overshadowed by the number of miracles and healings he performs.

Then there is Matthew’s voice, which for a long time was thought to belong to one of this Jesus’ original Twelve followers. We figure Matthew was most likely a Jewish Christian who wrote in a locale much closer to where his subject actually lived. Matthew saw Jesus primarily as a teacher—a teacher, moreover, who was skilled in interpreting Jewish law and forming a community of followers. And so Matthew’s voice presents a Jesus who tells more parables, gives clear instruction about forgiveness and church discipline, and likes to stress the moral implications of Jesus’ kingdom.

Luke is the softy of the bunch, choosing to stress Jesus’ concern for the least, the lost, and the little. He’s the one who collects and records Jesus’ parables of the lost coin, the Good Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son…and what would Christianity be without those? Luke is the most educated of the voices, most likely a doctor who travelled with the apostle Paul around the Mediterranean for a while, and his sophisticated grammar and style show it.

And then there is John, the outlier. He is the most poetic of all the voices, accomplished in the use of metaphor and irony. Unlike the others, John chooses to tell a few stories in depth rather than hashing out everything he ever heard about the man. For John, Jesus’ signs were of utmost importance. We typically call them miracles, but for John they were signs because they signaled something about God’s glory that was being revealed in Jesus. John wrote for a congregation or a group of congregations who were likely Jewish but who had been ostracized from the religious community because of their claims about Jesus. John often gets a bad rap because people find him the most difficult to understand, but somehow his voice would really be missing if it were lost.

All four had their special emphases to make, their theological points to drive home, their particular perspective. And all of them are telling the truth. Yet something profound happens to these four distinct voices when they get to the part of their story where Jesus enters Jerusalem just before the Passover. Differences in their perspectives begin to fade away and their voices start to unite. All at once, they start telling the same story with some of the same key details. Yes, there are some discrepancies in a few words now and then—signs of their distinct perspectives creep in here and there—and some of them record Jesus’ encounters with the temple authorities more fully than others, but, by and large, the four voices start to tell the same story.

Something happened—something momentous—surrounding this man Jesus from Nazareth as he came from the backwater villages of Galilee into the fevered Passover celebrations of Jerusalem during the time of the Roman army’s oppression. Something was happening—something worth remembering correctly—as he borrowed a room for one last meal with his disciples. Something significant was happening as he faced betrayal and denial from these same disciples and was handed over to his enemies. Something miraculous was happening as he was stripped and hung on the cross and treated like a nobody.

It is as if all four voices know that, regardless of what else they communicate about the man and his ministry, this part containing his last days is the most important. It is the crux of his mission, his identity. This part will define him, more than any of his teachings, miracles, signs, or parables…even the parable of the Prodigal Son. Likewise, all those parables and miracles and teachings must be interpreted in light of what transpires to Jesus in Jerusalem. Jesus of Nazareth, these voices mean to tell us, came in to the city highly regarded by his people as a new king but ended up getting crucified instead after a charade of a trial and laid in a borrowed tomb. And somehow the news articulated by these voices changed the world and the destiny of all creation.

At our high school Bible study this week we put on our theologian hats and took a look at what have come to be called “atonement theories.” Fancy word, I know. Atonement theories are essentially assessments of these events that seek to explain just why Jesus had to die and how his death makes us one with God. In short, who was this Jesus and why did his death matter?

Did Jesus need to die, for example, because someone needed to pay the price of human sin? That is one theory. Or did Jesus die because that is how God needed to conquer evil and darkness once and for all? That is another theory. Or perhaps Jesus died because God needed to give his people an example of how they are to love one another completely; that is, by laying down one’s life for another? The youth looked at Scriptures passages and hymn lyrics and even a Kanye West song that seemed to suggest and support any number of these theories for how Jesus’ death restored us to God.

What we discovered, however, is that there is no one right or wrong theory; they all contain some element of truth and honesty, and the all kind of overlap and blend together at some point. Maybe the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection is simply too profound to be wrapped up neatly in a few words, or contained in one voice. What is interesting, though, is that the gospel voices themselves never seem to be too concerned with exactly how Jesus’ death reconciles us with God. They simply get down to the facts of what happened on that fateful week and let the power of the story speak for itself. They do their best in communicating the chain of events that allows us to understand that in the person of Jesus God himself is somehow intersecting with this world in a way no one can fully comprehend. They do their best in lending their voice to a story that is so crucial to creation’s existence and future that even had they been silent, the stones themselves would have found a way to proclaim it.

For even though words to explain it often fail us, we know it is this story of Jesus in Jerusalem that lets us know how completely God loves us. We know that it is this story of Jesus at his Last Supper which compels us to serve our neighbors whether they live here in Crestview or on the cost of Japan. We know it this story of Jesus in Gethsemane that reminds us it is not our will that will eventually have sway over our lives, but rather the will of the God who sends him. We know it is this story of Jesus before Pilate that frees us from the need to justify ourselves before God. We know it is this story of Jesus on the cross that allows us to look even into the tragedies like that of Blacksburg four years ago and speak a word of comfort and promise that God does not forsake his children even in the hour of death. We know it is this story of Jesus in his last days in Jerusalem that somehow wraps up all our shortcomings and presents them to God and offers us, in exchange, a new way of living that is filled with hope.

And so this morning we hear a rendition of those events, and you’ll be asked to lend your voice to the story. The particular version we recite does not belong to any one of those four voices; rather, it is a compilation of all of them together, like they are speaking in harmony. Specifically, note what your voice does as our worship plays out. Pay attention to the particular words that come out of your mouth, how they begin with praise but end with death threats.

And when today’s reading of that story is finished…when the last nail has been pounded through weakened flesh, when the last bystander has left the scene, when the taste of that wine and bread on your tongues has begun to fade, and when, on Sunday, the women hurry to the tomb with their embalming spices, the four ancient (yet modern) voices will want to know…what will we do with ours?

Will we join our voices and our lives with theirs in the urgency of proclaiming these events and how they change the world?

Or will we shut up and be silent and leave the stones to speak in our place?

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

Maundy Thursday - April 1, 2010 (John 13:1-17; 31b-35)

“What kind of mark is it going to leave?”

It’s just one of the many questions we ask when, for example, we’re confronted with the injury from an accident or perhaps the incision from a surgical procedure.

“What kind of mark is it going to leave?” we wonder in horror as we view the elaborate crayon designs a child has scribble-scrabbled across the wall or the coffee table.

“What kind of mark is it going to leave?” we ask ourselves as we consider the ramifications of a heated argument, or the falling apart of a marriage, or the untimely death of a loved one. In our more clear-thinking moments we consider the possible long-range implications of any number of events—both good and bad—as they happen to and around us. Although the acute, immediate effects of an event may not linger very long—like the pain of an operation or the turmoil of a tragedy—we know there might also be long-term consequences, like the ripples that form as a pebble is dropped in a pond.

The question reaches further applying to far more than particular events. “What kind of mark am I going to leave?” becomes a question by which we might take stock of our whole lives. “What kind of mark will I make on this planet? On the lives of those who love me? On the lives of those who come after me?” In other words, “What about me will ‘stay on’ in some way after I’m gone?”

It surely seems to be something Jesus is considering as he gathers for his final meal with his disciples on the night before his death. He does not come right out and say that such a heavy question is on his mind, but why else would he get up from the meal, tie his robe around his waist like a slave, and stoop to wash his disciples’ feet? Why else would he disrupt the flow of the austere Passover Seder and illustrate his new commandment with such a profoundly humiliating act? Jesus full well knows that his hour has come to depart from this world and go to the Father. It is almost finished. He has loved his own right up until the end. He is no doubt wondering, “What kind of impression will I make—can I make—on this small gathering?”

It is an altogether appropriate choice of occasion for Jesus to be wondering about his mark. The Passover itself was a meal of a “mark.” The crimson blood of a freshly-slaughtered lamb marked on the door lintel of Jesus’ ancient ancestors in Egypt signaled them for deliverance from slavery. And the act of eating the Passover meal was, you could say, a mark. No other event or celebration defined Jesus’ Jewish people as a community more than the Passover did. For generations it was observed as a perpetual ordinance. “Who were these people?” the world would ask. What was their mark? They were the ones who gathered for this meal, a statement of God’s mighty act of redemption.

So, in the context of this sacred legacy-molding meal, Jesus stoops down to wash the dirty feet of his disciples. He is trying to leave a new mark on them—a new commandment for them—and, in the process, leave his own mark about who he is and what God’s love is like.

It’s not simply that foot-washing is a humbling act, dirty work in an age when society’s chief mode of transportation is barefoot walking on sandy streets. Foot-washing is a slave’s job. It is fit only for someone who really doesn’t have status in the household, or in all of society, for that matter. And so when Jesus, the Teacher and Lord stoops to perform it, then how more fitting is it for the Teacher and Lord’s disciples to take part in it? How more fitting is it for his followers to humble themselves before each other and tend to the acts of service that build up community? The acts of foot-washing are those that remind us not to take ourselves too seriously, not to exalt ourselves too high in relation to our neighbor. They are the tasks of love that bind the disciples together in humility. When they are willing to be acquainted with the gritty toe-jam of their fellow brothers and sisters, the world will take heed. There is an inherent witness involved when Jesus’ followers learn to remove their robes of distinction and learn to serve the basic needs of the neighbor. It all helps to illustrate this new commandment that they love one another the way he has loved them.

This is what will stay on after Jesus is crucified. This is the mark Jesus will leave on them. “Who are these people?” the world will sometimes ask. What will be their mark? They are the ones who love each other.

The dean of one of our ELCA seminaries tells of an experience she had not too long ago as a part of a delegation of the Lutheran World Federation to rural Africa. In reaching a very remote part of Africa, Lutheran World Federation workers spent time in a village where they brought medicine, drilled wells, improved sanitation, provided caring ministry, and helped people rebuild their lives after years of drought and disease. A couple of years later, this seminary dean was a part of another Lutheran World Federation delegation that made its way through the same area en route to an even more remote region. The villagers came and lined the road with cheers and celebration. The delegation workers were confused by the response. They got out of their caravan of trucks and greeted the people, wondering what was the reason for all this joy. The villagers thanked the workers for rescuing them earlier, for bringing new life to their village by tending to their most basic, human needs.

As the villagers expressed their thanks, the LWF delegation workers explained that they were not, in fact, the workers who had done the work in their area. One of the village leaders said, “Yes, you are the workers who were here.” The delegation leader insisted that not one of the current workers had ever been in that village to do anything. At that point, the village leader took a group of the workers to the side of one of the trucks and said, pointing to the Luther seal, with the cross in the center of the heart, “Yes, it was you. You are the people of the seal. You are the ones.”

People of the seal, people of his mark. Those who pass the cup and break his bread remember that they are engaged in loving each other, that they are committed to humble service. They are the ones who have Jesus’ love placed at the center of their hearts and, like their Master, stoop to place their hands at the feet of their brothers and sisters. I first heard this story as an example of the church’s love for others, but such a love can only be borne out of a community that has practiced true charity for each other. People will see and know.

Jesus’ mark of love and service, however, will not stop at foot-washing. As his response to Peter’s protest suggests, there is more to come. For this meal of deliverance, this commandment of love—these precious final hours establishing a new covenant—are really a build-up to the hours upon the cross. That is where Jesus will really claim his destiny and glory, and he’ll do it by laying it all aside. The cross is where Jesus will secure his place as king by dying as a nobody. The cross is where he stoops to the level of death to clean the ugly feet of the entire universe, and in the end, the marks for which Jesus will be better known will be the ugly marks our sins leave on his hands.

So, then, will this foot-washing-lesson turn out to amount to anything? Will the sharing of the bread and the wine have its intended effect? In the aftermath of such a tumultuous turn of events, what will be the mark that Jesus leaves behind—on us, on the tragedy-torn villages throughout the world.?

As it turns out, he is still leaving it. In a miracle that only God can explain, the meal that was to serve as his final chance to make his mark becomes the event that will allow him to continue washing, to continue feeding his people with forgiveness and deliverance. Whenever this community gathers to pass the cup and loaf, Jesus will not merely be remembered, as if as if that had been is the end, as if he had his one chance to “strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then [be] heard no more" (Macbeth, Act V, scene v).  No, he will be present with them. Risen, he will enter their lives once again, stoop to serve, and empower them to do so in his name. Risen, he will still be with them, bearing the marks of their sin.

No need to worry, then, about how he will “stay on” after he is gone, for he will never really be leaving. Therefore it will not be entirely up to us to carry on his legacy, because he will be with us. “Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found" (Latin hymn, 9th century, ELW #359) He is present with us, loving us right up to the end. And, thanks to Good Friday, beyond.

So, on this night of deliverance, as we take our Lord’s body and blood into our very hands, let us again ask ourselves: “What kind of mark are we going to make?” As our little caravan of gospel workers threads its way through the remote corners of each individual life, let us consider his living legacy being born again in us. And as we take the feet of each other, let the cross be at the center of our hearts, for we are people of the seal. We are people of his love.



Thanks be to God!




The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.