The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 7C] - June 20, 2010 (Galatians 3:23-29)

Only very rarely does my wife like to dress our two young daughters in matching outfits when they go out in public. Because they are separated in age by only eighteen months—and because they both have the same hair and eye color—they are often mistaken as twins. I suppose she thinks that they already have so many things in common that at least what they're wearing might help with differentiating the two, or might develop their sense of individuality. I know, however, that there will likely be a time in their life where they won’t be caught dead wearing the same clothes together. In their youth it might be cute and adorable, but when it comes time to choose that first ball gown or prom dress, I can imagine considerable effort will be made to put on something very different from each other. One must only glance out at our own congregation this morning to learn that, if given our preferences, we will always choose to wear something different from everyone else. Even the stereotypical Fathers Day necktie gift is selected with an eye to make dad stand out in some way.

But what if everyone were to wear the same thing? What if we did pull ourselves out of bed each Sunday morning, stuff down a bite of breakfast, and arrive for worship to find that someone had put us all in matching outfits? Well, as it turns out, the apostle Paul said that’s precisely what has happened. “As many of you as were baptized into Christ,” he says in his letter to the Galatians, “have clothed yourselves with Christ.” As it turns out, our baptisms have clad us each in an identical garment, a pure, resplendent one that sets us apart not from each other, but from the world.

At one part in his letter to the church in Galatia, when he is trying to explain how they are to regard each other, Paul reaches for this metaphor of clothing. The point is that Christ’s death and resurrection has formed a new creation in which many former distinctions are no longer ultimately valid, where people view each other simply as another sinner for whom Christ died and rose again. “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, no longer slave nor free, no longer male and female,” Paul continues, elaborating his point. These individual ethnic, social or gender distinctions that would normally be divisive no longer set the believers apart because Christ has united them in his death. When we pass the waters of Christ’s death and resurrection, we essentially receive a uniform, of sorts, matching outfits which enable us to cover over any distinction the world may place on us and instead take on his characteristics of faithfulness and love. That’s what we wear. It’s the inspiration for the utterly un-fashionable robes that we worship leaders wear. It’s also speaks to the white robes that all people traditionally wore right after their baptism, like the one that two confirmands helped Greg Parker step into a few weeks ago immediately following his baptism.

This point Paul is making is radical. He lived in a world that was no less prone than ours to find stability in labeling people and sticking them into different boxes. To proclaim that Christ had effectively done away with those distinctions and put everyone on the same level with everyone else not just in God’s eyes but in each other’s eyes, as well, was earth-shattering. It was life-giving, of course, but also earth-shattering. In fact, the church in Galatia had found it a little too earth-shattering, and they had begun to retain some of those earlier distinctions within their membership.

Apparently what happened is that after Paul had brought them the gospel and helped to set up their congregations, some other missionaries came after him who convinced the Galatians that in order to be a real follower of Christ, all men needed to submit to a certain Jewish practice, the one where they receive a certain little snip. It was a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, obedience to the law.

When Paul gets word that the Galatians were doing this, it sends him into orbit.  He is furious. Nothing, he reiterates, can add or detract from the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. No law, no practice, no custom, was useful in establishing their relationship with God. Christ alone had accomplished that for them. Jesus had brought about this new creation of righteousness based on faith, and the church is charged with living out that new reality, much like a group of people who have all received the same new clothes to wear. Making people submit to any aspect of the law and its requirements only served to break apart that community by setting up distinctions. “All of you are one in Christ Jesus,” Paul says at the homiletical climax of his letter to the Galatians. “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” Done deal.

Written two-thousand years ago to a group of smallish congregations in Asia Minor that may not even exist anymore, Paul’s words about the gospel are no less radical and no less hard to live today. That is because the new community that the gospel creates is no less radical today. The gospel does not seek to create a homogeneous community, where everyone is a mindless clone of everyone else, but it does create a community where Christ’s faithfulness alone binds us together. It strives to be a place where no one labels another or creates the atmosphere where one group seems more “saved” than another. Any distinction that we bear due to ethnic group or language group or nationality or socio-economic class or even gender does not ultimately matter in our faith. The church now may not be guilty of the particular problem that the Galatian congregation had—and we can thank heaven for that!—but we still fall short of the vision that Paul puts forth.

The congregation I served on my internship was partly made up of two ethnic Sudanese refugee congregations who had been bitter rivals in their former southern Sudanese homeland. Even though they were both Christian tribes, they remained mutually suspicious and distrustful of each other in Cairo. We found they had brought their old divisions with them into our congregation. They regarded each other as different tribes. Eventually my supervisor had caught on to their conflict, especially when it came time for them to divide the offerings and Christian aid packages among the members of their respective congregations. They were unable to do it without accusing the other congregation of malpractice. So, my supervisor withheld their authority to divide the offerings themselves until they each agreed to worship together once a month with Holy Communion. Within only a couple of months, something amazing happened. They began to regard each other as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, recognizing each other not mainly as Dinka or Nuer, but as a community which had received the extraordinary gift of faith. Pretty soon, they not only took on the authority of dividing the offerings, but even started planning other events together.

That is perhaps too easy example to get our heads around—pointing out the mistakes of others—but what about the different tribal and affiliations that affect us here in the United States, or even within our denomination? There are many ways in which we still have a hard time realizing we all wear Christ. I think that keeping this in mind is highly important, for example, in the current debate our denomination is having about issues of human sexuality and the definition of marriage. Without realizing it, we can use terms and language that immediately set up unhelpful distinctions within the body. When one group, for example, repeatedly describes themselves as “progressive” or “reconciling” Christians on this issue, they immediately set up a pejorative distinction, leaving others who don’t agree with them feeling as though they are backward or reactionary. As my colleague Pastor Price has noted, when still others set themselves forth as “orthodox” Lutherans, they imply that others who don’t agree with them are heterodox; that is, outside the Christian family. The disagreements that congregations and denominations are having are indeed important, and thoughtful dialogue is vital, but a community of the new creation in Christ should not, as Paul notes, use language and create distinctions that denigrate or belittle a brother or sister who has put on the same baptismal outfit as everyone else.

On the other hand, another pitfall the church must avoid, is in thinking that the church should merely look and feel like an episode of Glee, the new hit series on Fox which follows the triumphs and tragedies of a hapless show choir in a high school in Ohio. For those who haven’t seen an episode yet, the show choir in Glee contains a member of just about every racial, social, and gender group or clique that you can think of in the American high school. There are cheerleaders, jocks, nerds, a guy in a wheelchair, a couple of Asians, an African-American, a homosexual, a townie, and a prep. Part of the reason why I think the show is such a phenomenon is because it does embody and project onto the small screen all the images of a new community based on a Hollywood’s idea of diversity, a world where social and racial and gender distinction don’t seem to matter. As the show choir rallies around the common goal to perform musical pieces with creative gusto, they learn to appreciate one another’s differences.

The community created by the show choir’s director is an inspiring one. They are a new group that somehow manages to eke out a name for themselves by being an intentional hodge-podge of outcasts and misfits, and they genuinely learn to “get along.” But where the community in Glee falls short of the new creation in Christ, by contrast, is that it is still a community based on each member’s trumpeting what they perceive as their own individual identity—and the rest of the members just have to make space for it. In short, they haven’t “put on” any meaningful unifying characteristic. For all the choir director’s efforts, no one has made the choir members truly one: they are members simply because they want to be, and their individual distinctions still seem to matter.

That, in short, is where all human community devoid of Christ falls short, and a church that continues to seeks to lift up such differences as hallmarks of diversity is still missing the point. We can not truly be made one by any other person than Jesus Christ, and the only new creation worth living is the one where we learn to regard each other not as loveable or worthwhile in our own right, but loveable and worthwhile purely because Jesus Christ has died for us. We are loveable and worthwhile, and we learn to live together, because Christ is our ultimate common ground. And our unity is based not in our ability to overcome our obstacles, but in Christ’s victory over even the greatest obstacle. Said another way, if we preach the gospel of Christ, all diversity will take care of itself.

As many of us who have been baptized into Christ, have clothed ourselves in that awesome reality. I don’t know if you’re as happy with this new garment as I am. To be honest, it doesn’t always fit like I know it should, but wearing it with you here on a regular basis is helping to take it in where it’s loose and let it out where it’s a little tight. I can’t help but notice the first thing Luke says about the man from Gerasene who is miraculously cured of his demons: he is found “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind.” That’s us, clothed and in our right mind—when we’re sitting at the foot of the one who has made us one. I’m quite glad we’ve got these new clothes, because in a world that is increasingly fragmented and apt to live by labels, to break us apart into little isolating islands of personal preference, I’m pretty confident that Jesus Christ and his wonderful garment of unity is the only thing out there that can pull us together.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Day of Pentecost [Year C] - May 23, 2010 (Acts 2:1-21 and Romans 8:14-17)

“When the Day of Pentecost had come, the apostles were all together in one place.”

That is how Luke begins his 4-verse account of the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. He does not explicitly say why they were all gathered together in one place, but we can assume it is because that is what the Jewish people did on the fiftieth day after Passover. Pentecost, which literally means “fiftieth day” in Greek, was actually the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the commemoration of Moses’ reception of the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai.

According to the time tables given in the Old Testament, the Israelites arrived at Mt. Sinai fifty days after having left Egypt through the Red Sea. They had persevered through the harsh landscape of the desert, escaped the brutal Egyptian army only by the grace of God, and had found themselves camped out at the base of a rather nondescript but yet imposing mountain in order to get further directions from God as to what he wanted them to do and what type of people they were going to be. That was the basic idea behind Moses’ tablets: a definition not only of what they were to do, but also who they were to be. They were but a hapless little community of brick-laying slaves, yet the law would give them clear identity and purpose. It was an instance of divine grace. The Israelites knew they had done absolutely nothing to receive these gracious laws and commands, but having them—and living them—would set them apart from the rest of the world.

As it happened, in Jesus’ day, the festival of Pentecost, or Shavuot, was one of the three main pilgrimage holidays whereby families would gather themselves together and take a trip to Jerusalem. I suppose you may think of it like Thanksgiving, except everyone who had the resources to make the trip was descending upon the same place, and things in Jerusalem could get a little rowdy. So, in a way, I guess it was like Spring Break. Thanksgiving and Spring Break, rolled into one, all on the occasion to celebrate God’s gracious outpouring of his law.

So, it is in this context—in a Jerusalem filled with pilgrims from all over the known world—that we find the disciples of Jesus gathered together in one place. Little did they know that as they would gather—as, in fact, as their risen Lord had directed them to—God would once more miraculously pour out his grace yet again, showing them what God wants them to do and what kind of people they are to be.

This time, however, God would really not hold back. The very bond of love and power that had radiated between the Father and the Son from the beginning of creation would be issued down upon the believers not like stone tablets, but like a mighty rushing wind. The very entity that had given life and shape to the Father’s relationship with the Son would be sent to dwell among human beings. Here, at Pentecost, when most of the people around the city would be remembering the day when Moses came down the mountain with his face glowing like fire because he had been in God’s presence, God would shower tongues of fire to light up the faces of all believers.

So, then, what does Pentecost for those apostles turn out to be? It turns out to be about receiving God’s grace, once more, in the form of God’s own Spirit. It is about receiving a new law, but this time one that is written upon people’s hearts and that is how they are set apart from the rest of the world. Pentecost is about the formation of a new movement, a new pilgrimage of faith that will take the message of Jesus and his resurrection not to the city of God, but in the other direction—to the ends of the earth. All types and groups of people will be drawn in to know what it means to know that Jesus is risen: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, and all those other far off places that are difficult to pronounce. We may as well add residents of the West End and Glen Allen, and parts of Richmond technically belonging to Chesterfield County. All of these diverse, different peoples are brought into the family of the Spirit known as the Church. Just as Jesus, in his resurrection, has declared victory over sin, death, and all that separates creation from God, the Spirit, in its outpouring, has put an exclamation point on that victory by drawing people into this movement and giving them the power to share the good news.

This is what Pentecost now celebrates, for those who follow the Lord. This is what the Holy Spirit does. It gathers. It unites. It calls together. It breaks down barriers. It helps embody forgiveness and selfless love among people of all kinds. And just like the Spirit gathered an unsuspecting community of disciples that first Pentecost in Jerusalem, the Spirit is still doing that today.

I ask you this: where else will you find a gathering this multi-generational, this demographically diverse, this…well, let’s be honest…random, on a regular basis? Where else will you find such an otherwise disconnected group of people coming together, week after week, to learn and speak together a new language of love, no less? In this place, and in others like it throughout the world, we share our hopes for our children, our desires for a better world, our prayers for healing and wholeness. Look around you. The church of Christ—this peculiar movement that is 2000 years old and going strong—is the only place where this type of interaction happens, and it is the Spirit who enables it.

In his recent article entitled, “Reasons to Join: In Defense of Organized Religion,” Episcopal priest Garret Keizer remarks, “If I were asked to say in one sentence what was the chief benefit of all my years in church, I might say that it forced me to hang out with people I’d not otherwise have met" (The Christian Century, April 22, 2008, p 30). In a culture that continues to glorify personal preference and idolize the power of the individual, the Holy Spirit draw us back in to each other, forming a community that transcends time and space. In societies that are hell-bent on breaking us apart into groups and getting us to concentrate on our differences, the Holy Spirit speaks to us the word about Jesus, reminding us that in baptism we are all made children of God, “and if children,” the apostle Paul says, “then God’s own heirs.” That is the type of people we are to be—God’s own heirs. Can you imagine it?—and the types of things we are supposed to do will flow naturally from this new identity.

In fact, in this movement we are so renewed by Christ’s grace we will be empowered to go do things for and in the world that, left completely to ourselves and our own desires, we would never normally do: deeds of service and selflessness that will set us apart in their very extravagance. We are so transformed by the words and language we hear here—so free, Paul says, from our old spirit of slavery to sin—that the world will at times think we’re drunk, that we must be out of our minds.

Earlier this week I was at a conference in the Rocky Mountains, invited to be a part of a conversation with other pastors and lay leaders about the future of the church, especially when it comes to Christian education, confirmation ministry, and equipping people to live the faith in their homes. It was a stimulating discussion. We talked about the challenges and the strengths of youth and family ministry, and shared each of our congregation’s best practices. We lamented the statistics that show an appallingly low percentage of Lutheran youth—15 percent—remain active in this movement called the church as they become adults. We wondered allowed about what might be behind that statistic, what trends it might portend, and how it might be changed. We considered a future where this movement includes, for whatever reason, fewer and fewer young people sharing their gifts to be the community of God’s own heirs.

But perhaps what I remember most about the conference I attended this week was that I couldn’t catch my breath. Quite literally, I found it difficult to breathe. My east coast, near sea-level lungs didn’t know quite how to function in the thin Rocky Mountain air. And so I ended up doing all my body knew how to do: I kept feeling the urge to breathe deeply in an attempt to fill my lungs. Air rushed in—first to my lungs, then into my bloodstream, then into my individual little cells to provide the oxygen needed for survival. It was an instinctive reaction to get my body to adjust to life at a new altitude.

Confirmands, as you stand at the edge of your own adult-level participation in the church, may the breath of God rush into your own lungs. And may you never feel like you get enough. May you always find yourselves to be gasping for more of God’s Spirit—that mighty rush of wind—and let it fill you up so you may adjust to life in a new kingdom. Because more than any other aspiration you may have, more than any other career goal or educational priority, the Holy Spirit will determine what you are to do in this big world and what type of people you are to be. God’s heirs. People of a new movement.

Furthermore, this movement will need your gifts. This eclectic, multi-generational gathering will need your input, and without it, we will be deficient. Just a warning: you will never be able to convince anyone that you don’t have any of the Spirit’s gifts. We have seen far too many of them evidenced in you already.

“When the day of Pentecost had come, the apostles were all together in one place.” No, Luke does not tell us explicitly why we are all gathered in one place, but, deep down, we know. It is to breathe. To celebrate God’s grace and to breathe together the Spirit. To breathe together the Spirit and begin the adjustment to a new altitude, a new attitude, a new kingdom that is rapidly approaching and claims us all in the love of Christ.




Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter [Year C] - May 9, 2010 (John 14:23-29 and Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5)

What’s the best kind of “good-bye”?

There are, of course, many schools of thought on this issue. When we had both of our daughters in day-care in Pittsburgh, the teachers of their respective classes told us the best goodbye was a quick one, no matter how much their bawling tugged at our heartstrings. “Don’t linger,” they’d instruct us sternly, “just a quick kiss, tell them you love them, and then turn around and walk out confidently. It’s better for them that way.”

Sure it is. I remember that on most days, as soon as we’d turn to leave, they’d start crying and running behind us with their arms spread open. But, inevitably, the teachers were correct. The more we dragged our goodbye out, the more insistently our daughters would plead for us not to leave, or to take them with us wherever we were going. And then it became more difficult for us to get out the door.

It could be said that, for Jesus, the best goodbye is one that is dragged out. For the better part of five chapters in John’s gospel, Jesus lingers in the presence of his disciples as he prepares for his departure. In one sense, Jesus is preparing them for his departure to the cross, the day of his death. But, in another sense, he is also preparing them for his departure to God the Father after his ascension. At the time, of course, none of this makes sense to the disciples because they could never fully know beforehand the unprecedented events of Good Friday and Easter. To them, it just sounds like Jesus is going somewhere mysterious that they can’t yet go, and instead of just getting on with it, saying “I love you,” and walking out confidently, he drags it out. In fact, it often sounds during his long goodbye that he changes his mind and that he won’t actually be leaving, or that he’ll come back very shortly. All of it is a bit confusing, and, like our childcare providers told us, this leads to more pleading and questioning from the disciples, the ones who are being left behind.

In the portion of Jesus’ goodbye speech that we have today, Jesus is responding to Judas, who asks him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” (For those of you keeping track, this is not the Judas who betrays Jesus. This is another follower named Judas, a non-betraying Judas. I bet he was very insistent on making that distinction clear to everyone after Easter, don’t you? He probably became known as “Not That Judas.”) In any case, this Judas is wondering how Jesus is able to say that he will be able to reveal himself in his absence to his community of followers without also revealing himself in some grand way to the whole world.

From the beginning of his ministry, his disciples had expected that the Messiah, when he came, would give some type of impressive, majestic display of his glory. They were looking for some unmistakable sign of God’s glory and power, and they had been looking for that to be revealed in Jesus. Well, they’re almost to the end here and they really haven’t seen one yet. Surely—Not That Judas seems to think—the grand, magnificent display that Jesus will use to reveal himself after he is gone will be something that the whole world will acknowledge, too? Judas and the others apparently expect that Jesus will do something dazzling for them or to them that will stand out, something that will make a signal as clear as day to them and everyone else that God is present and mighty and glorious, like a fireworks display in the night sky.

Not exactly, replies Jesus. In the interim, in the time when Jesus goes to his Father and is not seen by his disciples—in the time after the crucifixion and then again after his ascension—Jesus will be revealed in the life of the community but not in ways that will always be clear to everyone else. It will not always be clear to everyone because it will involve their own life together. Jesus will reveal himself to them not through something dazzling he does on their behalf but through how they keep his word and love him. Risen, he will dwell with them as they carry out his words, as they embody for each other his selfless love as they recall the glory of his cross and seek to reflect it into the world. He will reveal himself, shall we say, not in the manner of fireworks, something to gaze at passively, but, rather, in the ember of peace glowing in their hearts, something to stoke and tend and nurture.

And it is his peace, in fact, that he leaves with them to tend and nurture. It was customary in those times to part company with the word “shalom,” a Hebrew word of both greeting and farewell that essentially meant “Peace.” Yet here Jesus declares this is no ordinary shalom that he is uttering. His peace is not resigned or complacent. His peace will be undergirded by the eternal love of the cross. His peace, when lived out, will put them at odds with the world, occasionally, calling them to witness to the power of the resurrection. The peace that Jesus gives is never an invitation to escape the world, or to fear the impact that God’s word will have on the world. It is, rather, an invitation to engage the world, to embrace it in love and forgiveness more fearlessly, more confidently, more hopefully. Jesus may be lingering in his farewell here in his final hours before the cross, but he is impressing upon his followers the need for them to carry on with his peace. In their active forms of love, in their steady desire to implement his teachings, he will somehow come to dwell with them.

A few weeks ago I came across a story about a man in England known as the pothole gardener. A 33-year-old amateur gardener by the name of Steve Wheen has taken to planting flowers in the potholes in London’s streets. As a cyclist, the man had become frustrated with the danger they presented, and had grown weary of the fact the city never seemed to patch them. So, instead of ignoring them, he took to using them as tiny flower beds, preferring to use low plants with “bright, colorful flowers in the hope that motorists will see his gardens and avoid them" (“The Man Who Plants Flowers in Potholes,” in www.metro.co.uk, by Joel White, April 21, 2010).

As you can imagine, fruits of his labors don’t last long. Most fall victim to the traffic within a few hours or days. The longest any of his gardens has lasted is three weeks. But he keeps on planting, making a point, but also bringing beauty—even peace—into some of the most broken and overlooked of places. The pothole does not give as the world gives, you might say, which often selects only well-groomed yards with out-of-the-way plots for growing flowers. Those are no less needed or beautiful, of course, but there is something confidently graceful about sowing the seeds of cheer in potholes.

It would appear to be an image for Jesus’ community to emulate in the time after he leaves us, even that turns out to be only temporary. Granting forgiveness in situations that would otherwise call for a grudge. Speaking a word of hope into occasions that seem otherwise desparate. Encouraging love when the world wants to issue hate. Embodying Jesus’ peace—the peace of the cross, the peace of victory in love—when the world wants to resort to war or, perhaps just as bad, surrender and escapism. We are emboldened to do this even in situations that would appear to everyone else to be a waste of time…perhaps especially in situations that would appear to everyone else to be a waste of time.

And in case all this seems like too tall an order, Jesus gives us one last promise: we will not be alone. He will send an Advocate, a Counselor, a Master Gardener known as God’s Holy Spirit. The Spirit will empower us to keep things going in Jesus’ apparent absence. The Spirit will keep us together. He will remind us of who Christ is and what he means to us. He will bestow on us gifts for spreading and keeping Christ’s word. He will be that flame that re-ignites the ember of Christ's peace in our hearts.  In fact, the Holy Spirit will be so real, so present, that it will almost seem like Jesus himself has not really left us. Like Jesus did throughout his life, death, and resurrection, the Advocate will provide us with the words and the confidence to live out Jesus’ peace in the midst of the world.

These are perhaps the most hope-filled words in Jesus’ long farewell: that God will love us and Jesus and the Father will come to dwell with us. There is the clear message, woven throughout Jesus’ goodbye, that it is not really final. In other words, while the Holy Spirit is staying with us, urging us to tend to Jesus’ peace and keep his words, it is all a foretaste of the time Jesus and the Father will come again to us, will meet us and claim us forever.

So the best type of “goodbye,” whether dragged out or short and sweet, is the type of goodbye that actually prepares us for a grand “Hello, again.” The best goodbye is one that assures us with the reality that the bitter end has not really an end, that beyond this separation we now feel there is a promise of some time just out of reach for us, when God will fulfill his word for all his creation. It is the vision of a world renewed, where the city of God will have no need of sun or moon to shine, because the glory of God will be its light, and its lamp will be the Lamb. His servants will worship him, and his name will be on their foreheads. Nothing accursed or unclean will be there—not a pothole to be seen!—for everything will be re-paved and the streets of God will flow with the water of life.

The best goodbye, it turns out, is one that prepares us to look and to work towards that great and glorious day when Christ will rule all in all.

So, in the meantime, I suspect you find yourselves a pothole and get to planting.



Thanks be to God!





The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

photo of flowers from www.thepotholegardener.com

The Second Sunday of Easter [Year C] - April 11, 2010 (John 20:19-31)

A family in our congregation with two young children told me the story of a conversation that occurred over breakfast in their house one morning. This was late October, and the children’s placemats on the kitchen table were decorated with the ABC’s of Hallowe’en: skeletons, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, and the like. The older of the two children, a second-grader, was apparently looking over the ABC’s one by one and eventually came to the letter “Z,” which stood for “zombie.” She could pronounce the word, but she had never heard of the term. Inquisitively, she asked, “Mommy, what’s a zombie?”
“Well,” said the mother, no doubt trying to come up with a definition that would be descriptive and direct, but also not too graphic. “Well, a zombie is a person who’s come back from the dead,” she said.

And then, without missing a beat, the three-year old chimed in and said, “Like Jesus!”

It has been tough getting a handle on Jesus’ resurrection from the start. We know that the risen Jesus is not a zombie—and to even breathe the words together seems like blasphemy—but what exactly did happen after the disciples went to the tomb and found his body was no longer there? What exactly was he? Was he something to be feared? Even his closest disciples were confronted with these very questions, and they don’t all at once make peace with them and know what the risen Christ is or means. We see them struggle not only with confusion and fright, but also with the lack of belief. And in their own experiences with the risen Jesus we see an example of the world coming to grips with the fact that, in the resurrection of Jesus, God has done a radically new thing and broken death’s hold on creation.

On the evening of this astounding, unprecedented event, they are not found joyously dancing around in the streets, giving uproarious thanks for Jesus’ triumph over the grave. They are, rather, to be found locked inside their old meeting place because they were afraid—afraid because of how the leading religious authorities might persecute them with this information. While they are in seclusion, Jesus comes into the room via the locked doors and stands among them. Whether the doors are opened for him or whether he is able in his resurrected state to pass through them is not clear, but what is clear is that his disciples do not immediately seem to recognize him. He passes into the room seemingly unnoticed. It is not until he speaks his peace and shows them the scars in his hands and side that they realize he is with them. As it turns out, getting a handle on the resurrection was tough, even at the start. The risen Christ was not simply a person come back from the dead. He was himself, but somehow different. He was a new creation. The resurrection had changed him, but he was still noticeable by certain identifiable features.

Notice, for example, how things change once they see his wounds. They rejoice! In John’s account of Jesus’ resurrection, joy does not enter the Easter picture until the marks of his death on the cross are shown. That which reveals Jesus as their Lord—and provides the occasion for joy—is nothing other than the tangible signs of his love for them. His risen body—while certainly a bit mysterious—is not a figment of their imagination, just as God’s desire to save and deliver from sin is no figment, either. The marks where the nails have been are what link him unmistakably to them and prove, in their eyes, that God’s new creation is real.

Then, since it seems like the disciples might not have gotten it the first time, Jesus repeats himself: “Peace be with you.” He bestows upon them the Holy Spirit, which will enable them to live as a tangible body in the world, working out the rigors of forgiveness and spreading the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. But, as it turns out, there is still some work to be done in dealing with this astounding piece of news. Thomas was not there that first night. He did not see what the rest of them saw, and so he is not convinced. He must place his hands in those scars they probably tell him about. Then he will be convinced and have a better handle on who this risen Jesus is. Has God really broken the cycle of death and sin by raising up the one who was crucified? For Thomas, and for the others, faith in this will come by sight. When, a week later, Thomas has the opportunity to see his risen Lord he immediately proclaims him, “My Lord and my God!” It is the most profound pronouncement of Jesus’ identity made anywhere in John’s gospel and yet he still is known primarily as “Doubting Thomas.”

In her poem, “To Know Him Risen,” contemporary poet Luci Shaw asks a series of probing questions trying to understand how she might gain a handle on the resurrection. In fact, the entire poem is made up of nothing but a barrage of questions, one after another—questions anyone might ask about this singular event—and she doesn’t include a response of any type. She asks, for example,

“Can I touch him through the cliché crust
of lilies, stained glass, sunrise services?
…Must I be Thomas, belligerent in doubt,
hesitant, tentative, convinced, humbled, loved,
and there?
Must sight sustain belief?” (in Polishing the Petoskey Stone, Regent College Publishing, 1990, p92)

Shaw’s poem of questions underscores the fact knowing Jesus risen is something different from knowing him as a man stuck in history. We don’t need to be locked in that room with the disciples that first night to sense the confusion and doubt that lingers in the air regarding this stupendous claim. In fact, it may even be more difficult for us to sustain this faith because we lack the ability to plunge our hands into his scars. We don’t need to be reminded that we were not there. Like Thomas during that first week, we must base the majority of our faith on what others saw and heard and felt.

Let it be said that we have very good reason to trust all these accounts of Jesus’ resurrection: other, independent accounts of what happened those fateful three days in Jerusalem began to spread around the Mediterranean at about the same time, all with a remarkable degree of agreement. Furthermore, the astounding growth of the fledgling church in a philosophical and religious environment that was by all accounts hostile to it attests to the presence of the risen Christ and his Holy Spirit. Yet, at the same time, we do not see him risen in the same way those earliest apostles did. In some ways, it is more difficult to “get a handle” on him.

What I’ve always appreciated so much about this post-resurrection account in John is that it shows God’s gentleness with our struggles to grasp what has happened in Jesus. It shows God’s patience—at least for now—even with our unbelief. This story does not paint a picture of a bunch of disciples standing around afterwards with all the questions answered and all the definitions figured out. It reveals a community that hears something incredible has happened, but it doesn’t whitewash the part about the doubt. It shows their initial lack of belief, their grasping at the questions.

And then there’s the issue that we always pay so much attention to what they’re doing…even in this silly sermon. What about Jesus? What is Jesus doing in this story? Is he hammering his good news down their throats? Is he chastising or shaming those who are slow to come to faith? Does he ostracize Thomas for his resistance to believe? Is he coming up with pat answers to soothe their bewilderment? No. Rather, we see a Jesus who graciously offers himself, who repeats himself when necessary, who presents his wounds of love again and again. It is worth noting that nowhere does John tell us that Thomas actually touched Jesus’ wounds. It is simply Jesus’ offer for him to do so that leads Thomas from doubt to faith, and from faith to worship.

Which makes me wonder: how do we, as the community of the risen Lord, deal with lack of faith? How do we treat those who stand incredulous at the risen Jesus’ Lordship? Do we tend to look down on them because they haven’t arrived at the same conclusions about Jesus and God that we have, and in the same amount of time? Are they simple objects of our evangelism efforts, or people with whom we need to build loving relationship with so that faith may eventually enter the picture? Do we practice Jesus’ trademark peace and forgiveness, and then offer them the chance to touch their hands into our woundedness?

Do we allow questions, or do we stamp out any kind of dialogue that will open up a place for the Spirit to blow and bring faith? For it is often those, like Thomas, who struggle the most with incredulity, who eventually become the ones who praise Jesus most whole-heartedly.

We may not always have the exact words to articulate our experiences with the risen Lord, a descriptive and direct definition of what happened those first hours after the empty tomb. Truth be told, I bet most of us slide all along that Thomas-like continuum throughout our lives—where we doubt, then trust, then fall down in praise-filled faith. We may not always grasp the fullness of this mystery, but I do hope we always grasp its joy. Those wounds are for us, and by the by, we have come to trust the risen Jesus as Lord…that, as the psalmist declares, “there are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord has done valiantly!”

He has done many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. You know about some of them. “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!



Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

(image: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Caravaggio, 1601-02)

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.

The Fifth Sunday in Lent [Year C] - March 21, 2010 (Philippians 3:4b-14 and John 12:1-8)

It’s quite a fashionable thing nowadays to have something called a “Bucket List.” Popularized by the movie from a couple of years ago by the same name, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as two patients with terminal medical diagnoses, a bucket list is a list of accomplishments one would like to achieve before, well, kicking the bucket. In the movie, the main characters—one of whom is very wealthy—become acquaintances as roommates in the hospital after they’ve learned they will both die within the year from cancer. Throwing caution to the wind, the two then embark on the adventure of their lives, methodically ticking off their bucket list items: skydiving, scaling a Himalayan mountain peak, going on a lion safari in Africa, climbing the Pyramids, and so on. Some of the items on their bucket list are not so far-flung, and include commonplace everyday nuggets, like “help a complete stranger for the common good,” and “laugh till I cry.” It’s an interesting, if not flawed, notion: that a meaningful, fulfilling life can somehow be made up of a string of special accomplishments, that the aim of life is to rack up personal or even altruistic triumphs. The film touches on that tension a bit, but even the touching finale still finds its way revolving around items on the characters’ bucket list.


Whether or not the movie is to blame, I’ve heard more people make mention of their own bucket list. I’ve even fancied a few ideas for myself, experiences I’d like to rack up if I ever have the opportunity. Yet, for all the items I’ve heard—and even considered—for a bucket list, I must admit I’ve never come across the one mentioned by Paul in his letter to the Philippians. And perhaps I should. There, situated in the heart of his letter to his beloved congregation in Philippi, he writes, as if it is the key to a wholesome life, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.”

In a way, it’s his sole “bucket list” item: “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection,” to “share in his sufferings.” It doesn’t exactly make for something to boast about. After all, what kind of exotic adventures could that produce? Who has any great scrapbook photos or slides to show of “knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection”? Yet, for Paul, it is the aim of life. It is that path—knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection—which is greater than any Himalayan mountain-climb or opportunity to jump out of an airplane and yell “Bonzai!”

To be sure, Paul has not compiled a list of things he’d like to do before he dies, but it is clear that he has struggled to define his life by a list of his own achievements. He names them, one-by-one, in his correspondence with the Philippians, and it is a list that would make any first-century Christian or Jew jealous. He hails from one of the most illustrious and law-abiding pedigrees. His claims about his heritage and even his circumcision all serve to paint the picture of someone whose been doing all the right things since the very beginning. He’s gotten his degrees, proceeding through the ranks of rigorous credentialing to become a Pharisee. He’s even made a name for himself in the cause of persecuting the church. In the eyes of most anyone in the ancient Mediterranean world, man, he’s just about done it all!

Yet, it is all nothing, he says—“rubbish”—compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ his Lord. None of those accomplishments, none of those feathers in his cap, none of that former status is going to provide him the essence of a fulfilled life now that he has come to understand the value that his faith provides. Knowing and being known by Christ is something so great and so deep and so extraordinary that it makes him want to forget what lies behind him and only press on to venture further in faith.

In a culture that preaches the virtues of building a resume, of making the varsity team, of getting accepted into a top-ranked program, of having it all look well-put-together, it is important for people of faith to be reminded that knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection is really the focus of our lives. He is of surpassing value to us because he has demonstrated by his life, death, and resurrection that we are of surpassing value to him. Knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and sharing in his sufferings means having a share in the love that eventually turns the world upside down. Knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection means in any given moment, in any given place, no matter how dark, no matter how ordinary, lies an opportunity to bring glory to God.

That is what is happening with Mary’s devotion in the gospel text. Even her jar of expensive perfume, which could be used for any number of things, becomes oriented towards Christ and who he is. Jesus has just raised her brother from the dead. The smell everyone has likely had on their mind is the stench for which they braced themselves when Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. As Mary anoints Jesus’ feet, the whole room is overtaken with the beautiful smell, and the motive of her action it becomes unmistakable: she understands the surpassing value of Jesus. She is sharing in his suffering. To put Paul’s words in her mouth, she is wanting to know the power of his resurrection, because she understands he has come to die and bring salvation to all.

It goes without saying that we all have ways we share in Christ’s suffering and seize those opportunities to model the power of the resurrection. The quilts against your back, the health kits for Haiti relief, the precious hours you put into handbell practice…all are examples of cracking open that expensive jar of perfume, of what Paul calls “straining forward to what lies ahead in Christ.” In doing so, we begin to realize that all other possible achievements and accomplishments pale in comparison to our baptism, to the fact that the Creator of heaven and earth who will eventually bring all the universe under his authority loves us and has redeemed us and made us his. In seeking to know Christ, we realize this gathering this morning—the words we hear in Scripture and the sacraments we behold—is the most formative event of our week. And that’s not because we can go home and check off “going to church” off some list of achievements, but because here we hear and are reminded that our life is not really our own. We don’t need any “experiences” to make our life complete because Christ has already done that and he calls us to press on, to share in his sufferings and know the power of his resurrection another day—to pour out all of our lives for him and not leave any left over.

Truth be told, it was completely unlike any tapestry I’d ever seen. As one of the arts and craft activities at the Seventh Day retreat last weekend, the 5th- and 6th-grade students of our synod assembled a giant patchwork quilt, not too unlike the ones you see draped across our pews this morning. Each participant had been given one cloth square to decorate with markers, and, upon completion, those squares were tied together with small ribbons. That, in and of itself, was nothing out-of-the-ordinary. It was beautiful and colorful and creative—and it hung nicely as a backdrop—but we’ve all seen plenty of quilts or tapestries that are beautiful and colorful and creative. What was so striking about the production of this one last weekend, however, was that the young participants had been learning about Jesus’ command to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. One of the topics of the retreat was “Who does Jesus teach,” and we had been asked to reflect on the fact that Jesus teaches everyone—righteous and unrighteous alike—and that his followers are engaged in loving the world in the way Jesus did, which often entails reaching out to those who seek to do us harm. To make their portion of the tapestry, asked to draw a picture of someone they perceive to be an enemy—someone they are in conflict with whom they might not imagine Jesus teaching. “Oh, my,” I thought to myself, “don’t the craft leaders know they’re asking us to pour out a good bit of our precious perfume?”

Taken individually, each little square did not seem very remarkable, but stitched together and hung as a backdrop for our final worship, they had quite an effect. There in front of us, like an oversized parament, was a piece of cloth decorated with a hodge-podge of stick figures and multi-colored faces depicting playground bullies, classroom tormenters, unfair siblings, back-stabbing friends. As we worshiped, we were stared at a tapestry of the people who were difficult for us to know how to love and communicate with, a visual prayer for those we often have a hard time seeing as “loved by God.”

Could you imagine, for example, if we made one of those tapestries and hung it behind the large cross on the wall behind our altar, so that every Sunday as we sang our hymns, we’d have a visual prayer of all the faces of those with whom Christ came to reconcile us, all those who are being called, along with us, to share in his sufferings? Talk about knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection! Talk about sharing in his sufferings! Talk about filling the whole room with the aroma of love! Even the thought of such sight, added together with all the other offerings of our lives, would send a clear message to ourselves and to the world that we are pressing forward in faith, seeking to know the man of surpassing value. It would send the message that we are moving forward with Paul’s one-item bucket list! Bonzai!



Thanks be to God!




The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

"The Calculus of Forgiveness" - March 10, 2010 (Matthew 18:15-22)

[Speaker enters sanctuary down the center aisle, wearing college-themed hoodie or sweatshirt and blue jeans, carrying a backpack. At the center of the chancel sits a school desk, the kind with the desk part attached to the chair. Speaker sits in the chair and pulls a notebook with the word “Calculus” on it.]


Maybe it was a mistake to sign up for this professor. It’s very likely I could fail. Of all the calculus professors I’d heard about on campus, this one was supposedly the best. As an instructor, he has a reputation for being very demanding, with a good grasp on the material he is teaching. However, he is also one of the most unpopular instructors. For, out of all the calculus and advanced math professors here at the university, he is the only one who offers no partial credit on assignments or exams. Not even a little bit. That is, if the final answer at the end of your four-page solution is wrong—even by a small fraction—he counts the entire problem as wrong.

[face the “front of the class” and act as if responding to a role call]

For those of you who have been lucky enough to escape the purgatory that is calculus, you must know that receiving partial credit is often the only hope of passing a calculus class. Like I said, solutions to problems can go on for pages. It’s not like arithmetic—two-plus-two equals-four, and there you have it. Here, one little misplaced negative sign or one small misstep early on in the process can completely skew the final result. Every step of your logic can be correct and well-thought-out, but the final answer can still be wrong.

Other professors will look at the process you used to answer a problem and grade you on that, overlooking the fact that the end product is off. Other professors will give your thought and intent the benefit of the doubt, saying, “well, up until this point, your solution was on-track,” and reward you for it. In other words, you can take an entire test and still pass without ever getting an answer technically right.

[pause and face the front for a few seconds, as if listening to the instructor]

But this professor doesn’t allow that. He is adamant. He sees no point in partial credit, and it is not uncommon for an entire section of his class to receive a failing grade for the semester. This is not gracious, at least in the eyes of most students, but I’m going to give him a try, anyway.

I suppose I should introduce myself at some point. I’m Peter, college student.  Willing disciple of the academy, going for that degree. My fellow classmates know me as the one who speaks out a lot and gets myself into trouble with some of the questions I ask. Even though it might be foolish for me to be taking calculus from this professor, I suppose I’m drawn to him because something tells me that only someone with truly firm and complete grasp of how to communicate the subject matter can demand such a high standard from his students.

You know, in that sense, calculus is a lot like the business of forgiveness, which I understand is your focus during Lent. It, too, involves grueling work. Like a math problem that goes on and on for pages in search of an undetermined figure, forgiving someone is often a lengthy process striving toward and end result you won’t know until you get there. That’s one of the more frustrating aspects of it. You often have to keep working and working at it and at some point you might even think forgiving someone and re-establishing trust is an unsolvable problem.

Forgiveness can be very complicated. At one point in speaking with his disciples, Jesus lays out quite an extensive, multi-step pattern for how to address sin and brokenness between fellow believers. You begin by going to the offending party alone and address the situation that way. If that doesn’t lead to apology and reconciliation, then you bring a few witnesses along with you the next time. If that still doesn’t help, the larger community gets a say in negotiating the details of the facts and emotions involved. That’s, of course, where it can really get tricky, but the effort of the community in reaching out is powerful. In the end, if the offender still is not regained, Jesus surprises us with the conclusion that “such a person shall be to you like a tax collector or a sinner.” Well, we all know how Jesus treats tax collectors and sinners. Never saw that answer coming!

No matter what occurs, however, Jesus promises that he will be present on the side of whomever is honestly seeking reconciliation. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” he says, “I am there with them.” That would be gathered in the name of forgiveness. All of this is surrounded in prayer of hearts that are earnestly seeking to do their Father’s will.

Let me tell you: calculus requires an awful lot of prayer, too. Especially in the high standards of this professor’s class.

[pause, as if taking notes]

By the way, a freak accident occurred in the city last week that came up in class. At one of the local malls where a lot of people shop, the parking deck collapsed unexpectedly in the middle of the wee morning hours. For no reason at all the thing just pancaked, each floor of concrete and steel dropping to the next one below it. Thankfully, no one was injured because it happened at such an ungodly hour, but if it had occurred during peak shopping hours, there is no telling how many people could have been killed.

As you can imagine, mall officials and contractors were all over the news, trying to explain the catastrophe. We came in for class the next day and do you know what our calculus professor said? He said, “I bet the engineer who designed that parking garage got partial credit in his calculus class.”

As it turns out, there’s no partial credit in forgiveness, either. Jesus has high standards, too, and he means to hold us to it. The standards for its practice must be high because the stakes are also high. The option, I suppose, is to live in a world that collapses like a parking deck under the weight of everyone’s sin and under the stress of everyone’s pursuit of revenge for every wrong done. The standards are high because if the community who follows Jesus can’t dedicate itself to practice complete forgiveness, then the world will just opt for the partial-credit versions it already has.

When Peter, my biblical namesake, wants specifics and asks Jesus if seven attempts at forgiveness is enough, Jesus sets his standards even higher. Like a master math professor, Jesus comes up with an even more terrific number, saying not just seven times, but 70 times that amount.

Well, you and I could calculate 70 times 7. It’s 490. Talk about an easy calculation! But that’s not the point of that number Jesus gives. You see, 70 times 7 is an ancient biblical way of saying “always,” or “the perfect amount,” or “until it’s done. And then some.” Jesus actually reaches into a story in the Old Testament to come up with that outlandish number. There’s a story in Genesis where a man named Lamech pronounces vengeance not seven-fold, but seventy-seven fold, or seventy-fold times seven. He is really forceful about it, as if this mode of eye-for-seventy-seven-eyes will rule his world.

Jesus’ response to Peter, then, is like the kingdom of heaven’s antidote to an unlimited system of revenge. How many times do we forgive our brother or sister? Until the problem is solved. Unlimited, if that’s the case. We put our energy in the vulnerability of forgiveness rather than the power of revenge. We always remain open—truly open—to the fact that God will bring about reconciliation between two or more parties. That doesn’t mean we lay down at the foot of our abusers and enable their harmful behavior. It doesn’t mean we let people walk all over us, but it does mean we take seriously that revenge-seeking and being utterly closed to a future of hope and reconciliation is not an option for those who follow Jesus.

It is something we are compelled to do, you see, because we are part of the Forgiving One. By virtue of our baptism, we’re all in this calculus class section, you might say. We have literally been made a part of his body here on earth, and the practice of forgiveness is the very blood that courses through its veins. He forgives, so we forgive. And there is no partial credit to it. Thankfully, the Spirit is given to aid us in the pursuit of these seemingly incalculable solutions.

Like I said earlier, only someone with a clear and complete grasp of the subject matter could hold us to such a high standard. I think Jesus pretty much proved that on the cross. There’s nothing really “partial” about that event. It may not sound like grace the first times we hear it—to have a professor who will demand so much from us—but it is.

It really is grace. It is grace to be involved in this world-changing force. Costly, incalculable grace. Grace that we first receive.

[pause and listen to front of class again, as if it’s about to come to a close. Begin putting book into backpack.]

Well, I suppose I’ve probably talked too long already. Class is about over, and he’s already handed out homework. As demanding as it is, I’m thankful for another opportunity to learn at the foot of the master, I presume you could say. Another chance, ears open and pencil ready, leaning forward to hear what he might say. Thankful for another day to have my own errors corrected, my own misperceptions of this calculus straightened out.

[leaving chancel, pausing to speak:]

Just like it’s another day to be forgiven. Yeah, that's it: forgiven. One more time.

But who’s counting?

[exit]