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.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent [Year A] - April 3, 2011 (John 9:1-41)

The sermon portion of the closing worship each year at the Virginia Synod’s event for 5th and 6th-graders, which is called “7th Day,” involves a series of skits put on by each group of youth who are attending the event. Each group (and there can be 25 or more) is given a little snippet of Scripture from one of the gospels, and they come up with a way of presenting or portraying that snippet without speaking and without costumes. Each skit usually takes about ten seconds and is performed up on the stage in front of the entire assembly. They shuffle up on one side of the stage, perform the piece of Scripture in somewhat rapid fashion, and then exit the other side of the stage while the next group is coming on stage behind them. As can be expected, the skits are often very humorous, sometimes puzzling, and occasionally very moving.

One skit at this year’s event, held about a month ago, featured a young girl who was blind cast in the role of Jesus for a healing story. I had seen the girl several times during the course of the weekend being guided by a personal aide up and down the steep hills and staircases of the retreat center. She also carried a white cane and she appeared to me to have no vision at all. As her group got ready to perform, I found myself wondering how she might be experiencing the event (especially since the sermon was silent), how challenging it must be some people to be fully incorporated into relatively simple tasks. Suddenly, there she was, hand outstretched, her aide pointing her body in the direction of the people who were pantomiming imaginary ailments. They had to stand right up close, stretching their heads out and pressing them into the palm of her hand.

Maybe she had volunteered to act out the role of Jesus herself, maybe her group members had assigned it to her, maybe they had drawn straws for the part—but, to be honest, it kind of caught me off guard. I must confess that to me she may not have been the obvious selection to play Jesus, especially because navigating the stage could have been difficult, but, man, did it work! It was a beautiful portrayal of the story, and, like all experiences with the gospel of Jesus, it contained a poignant element of surprise. I was humbled to watch from my seat on the front row as the person who probably most often dwells at the margins became the agent of healing and grace.

It’s safe to say that people with illnesses or disabilities were viewed a little differently in Jesus’ day. Rarely were they seen as agents of healing or grace. Rarely were they even incorporated into daily life. Without the aides offered by modern technology and today’s educational systems, such people were often left at the margins of life. Furthermore, their malady was often seen as divine punishment for some sin either they or someone in their family had committed. That made interaction with them even more of a taboo on most occasions. Blindness, especially, was to be pitied and feared, for in ancient Greek culture, seeing was equated with understanding, sight with knowledge. In fact, the verb “to see” in ancient Greek is the same word for “to perceive,” or “to regard” or “to discover.” It was thought that someone who was unable to see could never really comprehend anything on a meaningful level.

So, as you can imagine, the blind man in this gospel story was most of all to be pitied, left at the margins to beg. As they approach him, the disciples wonder whose sin might be responsible for his condition, his or his parents’? Jesus’ grace, however, transforms the scene, complete with the gospel element of surprise. At once, the man born blind is brought into a relationship with God’s own Son and his condition is changed into a display of God’s glory.

And, all the while, the nearby Pharisees react in a similar fashion to my callous first impression of the young girl’s skit at the synod event: surely this man cannot be the Messiah.

There are many interesting elements to this encounter between Jesus, the man born blind, and the Pharisees. Perhaps the first one is that the actual act of healing takes up such minimal space in the story. Only two verses out of the forty-one deal with the man’s gaining of physical sight. Jesus spits on some dirt, rubs the mud in his eyes, and tells him to go wash it off in the water. The bulk of the story, rather, focuses on how people deal with and make sense of the event. What is communicated here has less to do with Jesus’ ability to transform a hopeless situation (which is important, by the way) and more to do with people’s reactions to and reception of Jesus. That is, the light that Jesus brings to the world, as explained by this story, has less to do with physical healing and transformation and more to do with spiritual understanding and a restored relationship with the Creator.

When someone looks at Jesus, when someone perceives Jesus, do they see an imposter, a blasphemer, just another ordinary sinner? Or do they see the Son of God? Do they make little note of him, abdicating any judgment about how important he might be? Do they understand him to be a significant prophet, a godly man? Or do they understand him to be Lord? The entire range of reactions is presented by this gospel story. Those skeptical front-row Pharisees never come to see him as anything more than a sinner or a blasphemer. Never can they even bring themselves to mention Jesus by name! The man’s parents, full well knowing their son has forever been changed and healed, back off from any assertion about Jesus. The townspeople display pure puzzlement, and perhaps some curiosity. And even the man born blind, himself, slowly grows in understanding of just who this Jesus is. It is not until the end of this encounter that he calls Jesus “Lord” and falls down to worship him.

Pool of Siloam

Another interesting thing about this story is that it involves a critical turning point in John’s gospel. Up to this point, Jesus has performed other signs and has gotten into debates with the Pharisees and religious authorities, but here is the first time anyone is driven out of the synagogue—out of the community—because they confess Jesus to be the Messiah. Here is where belief in who Jesus is and why he matters begins to divide people for the first time seriously. In ancient Judaism, the synagogue was central to community and culture. To be cut off from them was to be cut off from life. And so it is a more than a little ironic that the man born blind, who before his encounter is cut off from life because he cannot see or know anything, is now after the encounter cut off from life because of the person who gave him sight.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, retain their position within the religious community, retain their standing in regards to God’s law, but lose out on a deeper understanding of what God is really like and how much their own sin blinds them to it. They turn a “blind eye” to the poignant gospel surprise.

For whatever reason, we can lose sight of the fact that Jesus has this divisive effect on the world, and on us. We can forget that he often creates division between people, just as we can forget that the presence of light, by definition, creates pockets of shadow and darkness. It has the ability to expose and create contrast, just as Jesus has the ability to expose sin and selfishness and the unwillingness to believe in God’s glory. I find that in both private devotion and in public worship we tend to stress Jesus’ inclusion of others who are different or outcast. We emphasize the joy and excitement of responding to Jesus, but we overlook or gloss over the fact that Jesus does cause division and sometimes conflict.

On some level, I suppose that if we were to err in overemphasizing an aspect of Jesus, concentrating on his loving and gracious embrace isn’t a bad one to choose. But on another level, if we ignore the fact that Jesus comes to bring light and expose the darkness we may fail to notice this feature of Jesus’ character and ministry that exists in our own relationships with him. We can forget that even Jesus himself was aware of this power he wielded. “I came into this world for judgment,” he admits, “so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

This does not mean that his love is qualified in any way. As he himself says, he was not given to condemn the world, but to love it, and anyone’s life—anyone’s—may be an opportunity for God’s glory to be displayed. However, Jesus’ judgment does mean that it we must be honest about our sinfulness, too, our ongoing tendency to linger in the darkness about how completely God really loves us. As New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann once put it, “in order to be grace, it must uncover sin.” And in the presence of Jesus’ grace, we can range the whole gambit of reaction, just like the characters in this story…from hostility, to doubt, to disregard, to outright worship.

Realizing the multi-faceted nature of this encounter, I decided to emphasize the healing portion when I shared this story with the nursery school students in chapel this week. But before I could even put down the Bible once I had finished reading it, one of the students blurted out, “I wish I could just jump in that story and tell those people that…that…that God is a good guy!”

As I reflected on this comment with Christy Huffman, who alternates chapel duties with me, we realized that’s the essence of the story—of any story involving Jesus. He is the light of the world, and we are invited to jump right in to the story, his judgment and all, and let Jesus speak with us. We are to jump in and find that being so face-to-face with him will make us aware of our own sin, our blindness to the ways God loves us. Likewise, we jump in and learn he cleanses us anyway. We jump in…and see he makes a habit of turning the most pitiable, most forlorn, most marginalized of situations into arenas where God’s light may shine through. His healings, his holy meal, and of course his cross, all display a God who is at work, transforming the world into a place of new life.

In the end, we are to jump into his story—jump from the front row into the skit—and prepare our own muddied lives to be an opportunity to display God’s glory. Washed, and with our eyes blinking, we press our heads up into the palm of his wounded hands and begin, at long last, to see.


Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

"Stirred, Not Shaken" - Lenten Reflections on the Life of Faith (Guide Our Life)

Texts: Exodus 13:17-22, 2 Timothy 3:14-17

[enter to the "Raider March," complete with whip, fedora, and leather jacket]

Greetings, fellow adventurers!

I was in town to do some top-secret protection for the Picasso exhibit down at your museum of Fine Arts, and I heard about your Lenten Wednesday worship theme this year. Come to find out, it is based on a twist of one of my fellow adventurer’s martini orders. Indeed, my British counterpart, Agent 007, always orders his shaken, not stirred. I suppose I’d take mine the same way. I’ve never met Mr. Bond, but we lead a similar lifestyle: secret missions, international travel and intrigue, and the propensity to display calm, wit, and quick thinking in the face of danger (if I do say so myself). He always prefers things a little shaken up, not just stirred around.

But not you. Oh, no. You, on the other hand, have apparently ordered up a life that is stirred, not shaken. It’s a clever little reversal of wording. I suppose it calls attention to your desire to be stirred up by the Holy Spirit into service and courage rather than shaken into doubt and despair. Apparently you even pray for this type of life. That’s pretty admirable, especially to adrenaline junkies like me. In one of your worship services, the rite of confirmation, you even line up your young whipper-snappers up in front of the church to publicly affirm the promises of their baptism. And right there you pray for God’s Holy Spirit to keep them stirred, not shaken. As they are poised on the brink of adulthood—poised to grab hold of the grace that has been handed them by God—you look the challenges of life square in the eye and pray for the help that will keep them faithful.

Come to think of it, you sound like a fairly intrepid outfit that a guy like me might even fit in! And today/tonight you’re considering part of that prayer that I happen to know a little about: guide our life. Since I have a knack for tracking down my prize by following clues and sometimes raw instinct, I thought might be in order for me to swing by and give you a few pointers about good guidance. You see, I rely on guidance of all types: scholarly knowledge I’ve obtained in the academy, cryptic archaeological symbols, legendary oracles, and an internal sense of where danger might lurk. I know a thing or two about how to navigate adventure, believe you me. Maybe I can help you in your adventure to be stirred, not shaken.

Because, let’s be honest: life is an adventure. Whether you’re ranging all over the planet, attempting feats of daring and danger, or whether circumstances require that you live your whole life within a few square miles, life necessarily involves decisions, and those decisions carry with them the air of adventure. Life involves risk, choices, fear of regret, tiptoeing or diving headfirst into the unknown. What to do Friday night? Where to go to college next year? How to raise a family? What job to take? Which retirement facility to inhabit?—the adventurous aspects of life are inescapable. And for people of faith, there is the added dimension of how to live to the glory of God in each and everything you do. It is nice to know you may pray for some type of guidance in the midst of it all.

And it appears your God is not prepared leave you hanging in that department. Look at the ancient Israelites. As you know, I’ve studied their history very carefully. After God delivered them from their slavery in Egypt, God didn’t just slap them on the rear and turn them loose to their freedom. Against all odds, he found a way to guide them out of a hostile, oppressive environment into an even more hostile desert, right through the middle of a huge body of water, and, eventually, into a land God had set aside especially for them. They were dressed for battle action and carried with them the bones of their great ancestor Joseph as a reminder of who they were.

While they journeyed, of course, two pillars guided them: a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Eventually, when they would obtain the Ark of the Covenant (which, as you know, now sits forgotten in some unmarked box amidst many others somewhere in a government warehouse), the cloud and the fire would rise and fall in the air over the ark. When this cloud would fall over the Ark, the Israelites would set up camp. As soon as it lifted into the air, they knew it was time to move on.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of things on this planet, but I have to say I can’t imagine what that would have looked like. But the Israelites knew it could be trusted. They knew it represented God’s real presence, slogging with them wherever they went.

That’s pretty cool—it’s like some divine GPS device—but what I find most interesting (as a person who likes to get straight to the treasure) is that this long stint in the wilderness was a part of the deal. The wandering is built-in, right from the start. As they get started on this adventure, God is set on leading them a roundabout way. Rather than taking the direct route through the land of the Philistines, God makes them traipse into the wilderness, southward, toward the banks of the Red Sea. And the wandering does not cease once they come out dry on the other side. For a total of forty years they meander through the barren wasteland of the Sinai Peninsula and the northern Arabian Desert before they finally reach where they’re supposed to be. Nevertheless God was with them the whole time, his mysterious pillars of cloud and fire leading the way, but also involved in their own wandering.

I don’t know how you read it, but there are a few things I would take from this account if you’re thinking about guidance. For one, the people of God traveled as a group and were guided as a group. They had leaders that helped mediate the course who struck out on their own occasionally, but the journey of faith was not a “lone ranger” thing. God is clearly interested in guiding a community, not just individuals. To receive God’s guidance, you might not want to stray too far from the desert caravan of your brothers and sisters.

Secondly, wilderness is part of the adventure. In your baptismal journey, you can expect times of wandering and wondering. You can assume there will be days and years you feel lost, miles from where you want to be. You may even feel lost from God. But you should never forget that he has promised to be in the midst of that wandering with you. This is where the sacraments are so important. Tangibility is part of your faith. You’ll need something to hold onto.

Another thing you may want to take from this lesson is to get rid of the idea that every single step of your life has been mapped out by God, and that it’s your job ahead of time to figure out what those steps are. It appears God doesn’t really guide like that, and God isn’t that much of a control freak. People of faith can often get stuck in that trap, though, always waiting for some special secret oracle, some clear signpost that will let them know which path at the fork in the road to take. They worry and wonder about which decision would actually be in God’s will. I mean, sometimes there may be signs, mentors, who can point away. But the danger is getting frozen in your tracks, paralyzed by the thought that your powers of decision may somehow nullify God’s ability to bring good from any circumstance.

There’s one guy who gave some pretty sound advice in this department—I think you may know him. He said, “If you are a sinner, then sin boldly, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.” I believe his name was Martin Luther, and he always had a knack for pointing to the cross.

For that’s really the heart of the matter here. When you Christians are thinking about God’s guidance, about the way through the wilderness, all thinking must begin with that cross. That Jesus…man, was he an adventurer! He thrust himself—body and soul—into his trust in God, and his life and death proved God’s promise to guide his people through any situation. The cross is evidence of God’s ability to redeem any decision we make. It is that guidepost of all guideposts. May I be so bold as to suggest that that the cross is those two pillars—set together—which still lead God’s people, assuring you God is with you at all times, no matter the depth of the danger, no matter the width of your waywardness. Maybe that’s just some crazy archaeologist’s hunch, but I’d run with it. No matter what, it should give you an idea of the form of God’s guidance so that you and all your young whipper-snappers may face life stirred, not shaken.

I suppose our journeying is beginning to look a little different, yours and mine. The nature of my adventure is the recovery of ancient artifacts, the acquisition of rare treasures and secrets. As an archaeologist, my life is committed to the uncovering of truths from the past. The Lost Ark, the Temple of Doom…they all are tokens of by-gone eras. But you, you are called to things ahead. You journey on with the promise of a time yet to come, agents of a kingdom of grace that is being established as we speak.

As the writer to Timothy says, you need to know that you are equipped for every good work. Any adventurer can assure you that in order to be truly guided one must have a place to go. To receive direction, there must be a destination. And that you have! You may walk and wander with the confidence that God will always be guiding you to the place where your gifts participate in the restoration of this world to God through Jesus.

And, just like the ancient Israelites carried with them the bones of their great ancestor Joseph, reminding them of their identity, you travel with the Scriptures in your safekeeping. They are “inspired by God,” as again the writer to Timothy says, “useful for teaching, for reproof…and for training in righteousness.” Let me tell you: don’t forget your own set of ancient texts, and how important those living bones are for your adventure. You may feel sometimes that they burden you down, but don’t ever downplay their ability to guide you and remind you who you are.

Well, it has been with great honor to offer you any words of wisdom tonight. You’ve got your mission as the people of God, rooted in your baptism. I am beginning to recognize that it is far more daring—and, at times, frustrating—than mine ever have been. But also far more exciting, this life of faith. You go forth with a clear vision, drawn ever deeper with your community into God’s redemption of the world. Use whatever gifts you’ve received. And go forth. Boldly make your decisions. Lead the adventure of a lifetime.

Oh, and if you happen to run across any, uh, any snakes—which I hear lurk sometimes in your story—then don’t let them shake you either. Be stirred, stirred to action, ever confident that God has chosen to guide you.

Well, with that, I’m off.  If I don't get back to my post, I can see a fifth episode: "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Picasso."



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

(as the inimitable Indiana Jones)

The First Sunday in Lent [Year A] - March 13, 2011 (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 and Romans 5:12-19)

It was supposed to be an idyllic setting. The spot of earth they had come into was almost perfectly flat, ringed by just enough tall oak trees to provide comfortable shade but containing enough open space for them to till and work the earth in a small vegetable garden. And it was a sufficiently wild but never hostile environment. Animals like squirrels and raccoons and even deer often scampered across the lawn in a somewhat friendly manner, and the woods that abutted the back of the property were home to all kind of birds.

The wildlife teemed there, but the backyard was primarily idyllic because of what it offered the children. The instant they looked at it he and his wife could see their two young girls growing up in it. First, a small sandbox. Later would come a play house in the back corner. In the summer, a pool of water would offer refreshment from the heat and the lack of a slope made rolling snowballs for snowmen easy in the winter. But always: nature’s harmony. It was a place the two of them could envision the innocence and happiness of childhood taking shape.

Until the dead bird last week. It was a Hermit Thrush, white breast feathers belly-up for who knows what reason, right in the middle of the path to the shed. I, of course, had become somewhat hardened to such a sight, but how would I explain this to my daughter as she rounded the corner? Had she encountered something this disturbing, this out-of-the-ordinary before? Would it scar her? What kind of questions might she ask that I wouldn’t be able to answer? I found myself wanting to shield her from it, as if its very presence had marred the whole backyard experience, transforming it into something less-than. At first I tried to convince my wife that maybe I should have found a way to chuck it into the bushes before it was discovered by innocent eyes. But in the end, we confronted its reality head-on, but still not 100% satisfied with their explanation.  How does one really make sense of death? There is always a tendency to shield oneself from these awful realities.

The same can be said for other far more idyllic surroundings that have been marred with far worse: the pristine and picturesque Pacific coastline of northern Japan, the war-torn villages of Libya, the poverty- and AIDS-stricken villages of sub-Saharan Africa. We are speechless at the brokenness of creation, the brokenness of our lives, and we come up with any number of ways to rationalize it, or numb ourselves to it, or stitch together fig leaves to cover it up. One of the parishioners in the first congregation I served is the world’s oldest living hypnotherapist. One of his early assignments as an Air Force officer in the Pacific theater of World War II was to hypnotize soldiers who had served at Iwo Jima who were mentally and emotionally paralyzed by the gruesome carnage they had witnessed there. Wracked by those horrific scenes amidst what should also have been an idyllic setting, they came to him for a last-ditch fig-leaf shield. His hypnotherapy could never erase or undo the atrocities, he always acknowledged, but it offered some kind of relief, some kind of shield.

In a sense, this is what we all do to our gruesome human condition, a condition put into remarkably accurate and perceptive language by the ancient Hebrews thousands of years ago. The first man and first woman, set by God’s grace in the garden of Eden, transgress the law—the one law had been issued intended to keep appropriate and life-giving boundaries between the roles between Creator and the created. Tantalized, and also swindled by the tempter, that crafty spreader of lies, they seek God’s private knowledge, some false form of freedom, and they reach for power—they reach to occupy the role that the Creator fulfills.

And at that moment, as the apostle Paul explains, sin comes into the world. A force enters the idyllic backyard that immediately transforms their surroundings into something less-than. It is a force that has somehow both been unleashed by them and caught hold of them. With sin now free to spread its lies, things will never be the same. And the immediate effect is that their eyes are opened, but only to see their vulnerability. The immediate result of their temptation to sin is not wisdom or power, but shame and, eventually, fear…fear even of the one who created them.

For the apostle Paul, and for countless other people of faith, this story in Genesis explains with perfect truth the story of the human condition. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin…and death spread to all because all have sinned,” he says, tracing our condition back to the near-beginning, to the very first humans, but never taking us off the hook, either. It attempts to tell us something that we all know and feel from our own observation—by that inner sense implanted by the Creator—but that can never explained by even our best science; namely, that we look around and find ourselves in what should be an idyllic place, with life in full communion with God, with creation, with each other, and with ourselves—but which isn’t.

Theologians have long plumbed this story of man and woman’s fall to find the root cause or the main character of our sin. Is it, for example, a sense of rebellion, an urge of disobedience, as when woman and man willingly went against the law that had been established? Or is sin best described as disordered desire, a sense that we want the wrong things and turn away from the very things that are good for us? This would be suggested by the fact that woman sees the tree as good for food, a “delight to the eyes,” rather than as the deadly fare that God had maintained it was. So much of our brokenness is brought about by wanting and seeking the very things that do us in. Or is sin, at its root, pride, a craving to be like the Creator in all the Creator’s power? “When you eat of it,” the serpent promises, “you will be like God,” an offer that was—and still is—too good to turn down.  

Or, as Martin Luther and the other reformers proposed, is our sin rooted in our contempt for God’s Word?  When the serpent presses the woman about what God said, she incorrectly quotes what God originally said.  As Luther noted, man and woman were unable or unwilling to cling tightly enough to God’s Word, and there sin has its opening—with all of us (see typescript The Faith of the Christian Church, part II, David S. Yeago, pp 42-43).

"Adam and Eve" Albrecht Duerer, 1504

Perhaps, though, sin is something so insidious that it defies a tidy explanation. Try as we may, we can never really perfectly point at what has gone wrong. Nevertheless, the fact remains that when we open our eyes wide enough, we realize that things are not as they should be. Things like greed, vanity, and selfishness rule our hearts and our relationships far more than they should. Yes, this Genesis story is the story of our condition. From Adam and Eve to Moses, it is the story of you and me. From Moses and the prophets through the wayward years of Israel, God’s people, who tried to live by earthly definitions of power and who grasped after worldly riches and who lived by testing God’s faithfulness, this brief episode tells the story of our condition. From the blood-drenched shores of Iwo Jima to the awkward conversation about a bird’s death between a father and his daughter, this is the story of our condition, the story that something is not right. This is the story of us.

But—thanks be to God—it is not the end. For now there is the story of Jesus, the free gift. Now there is a new Man among us, one who comes to begin a rescue mission that will not just hypnotize us to sin’s effects, or erase the scars it leaves, but that will that will, in fact, miraculously undo its power. There is a new Man among us, born of God himself, yet clothed in flesh like one of us, who will triumphantly withstand the guile of the tempter and unravel his lies, one who will, on our account, cling to the Word of God so tightly that he will become inseparable from it. Now we have the story of Jesus, the free gift, and he will bring about a new birth that will give us new eyes that, when opened again, will see a world with limitless potential for service and love.

And, foremost, Jesus will prove God’s love for us. His rescue will focus on our hearts, to unspoil that which we have ruined, to put back together that which we have helped tear apart, to forgive that which we could never imagine being forgiven, to raise our blessed dead.

Now, my friends, there is the story of Jesus, the free gift, and it assures us that our story does not have the final word. I suppose this is what the American theologian Frederick Buechner meant when he said, “The gospel is bad news before it is good news,” that it is tragedy before it is comedy (Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, Harper SanFrancisco, 1977, p7).  We first must encounter our state of vulnerability, our state of being lost—in short, the fullness of our sin—before we realize we have been saved. We must come to terms with our need for redemption before we hear the good news of our redeeming. We must first recognize the totality of our filthiness before we hear that God loves us anyway, loves us to the core. We understand that we are wounded, and then we realize that this Jesus is also wounded for us.   

          

It is not just the season of Lent that asks us to grapple with these two stories—the story of us and the story of Jesus. Our entire faith is based on it. Too often we are lulled by the crafty tempter into thinking that nothing is really wrong with us or the world, or, at best, that death and sin are just a permanent part of the picture. Too often we are lured into thinking that belonging to the church or participating in congregational life is simply a way to get some good values and morals, or an avenue for serving others. We must never forget that Jesus’ life and death is not, at its core, about values or morals or even serving others. Jesus goes out into the wilderness to rescue us. He endures the cross to save us, to put a different, beautiful ending on the story we keep writing.

And, in the surprising way God would have it, it is not really a new ending, but, rather, another beginning. It is a beginning that goes on and on with the power to transform creation and our lives, once more, into something good. The challenge of our faith, rooted in baptism, is to see ourselves written into Jesus’ wonderful new beginning, to take hold of this free gift, to cling to his Word that transports us to the idyllic setting of grace that God always intended. 

It is about the challenge of knowing that, yes, we are lost.

But that we also have been found.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.         

The Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany [Year A] - February 27, 2011 (Matthew 6:24-34)

 

“Therefore, do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’…or ‘What will we wear?’”

I hear that line in today's gospel lesson, and part of me now thinks, “Well, easy for Jesus to say.  He never had to dress two little princesses.”  Generally I’m not too concerned with what kind of clothing I put on my own body, but whenever Melinda puts me in charge of dressing our two daughters, Clare (4) and Laura (2 ½), you can almost see my blood pressure begin to rise.  A terrible sense of which flowery outfits go with what, coupled with a mild case of colorblindness and an overall cluelessness as to what their wardrobe options are all have the combined effect of causing me a great deal of anxiety every time it’s my turn to put clothes on their bodies.

When they were just infants, it didn’t much seem to matter what they wore.  I could just slap on any ole onesie and get away with it.  But now that they’re actually having to present themselves in public more often, my lackadaisical approach to apparel is not cutting the mustard.  How many times have I heard, for example, “Phillip, has Clare been wearing her dress backwards all day?” Or, “Phillip, did you realize that the way you did Laura’s ponytail makes her head look like the top of a pineapple?”  And then there was the time I apparently got so flustered with figuring out which pair of pants—excu-u-use me, I meant capris—went with which which appropriately-patterned top that I completely forgot to put on Laura’s diaper.  Melinda only realized it later when her lap got mysteriously wet.  I’ll be honest: It’s not like I’m losing any sleep over it, but I can stand there in front of their dresser and break into a sweat.  Yes, Jesus, I worry about what they are to wear…and something tells me this won’t be the last time this dad will face that anxiety.

And while I’m on the subject, I’ll throw in a confession for my worry about what I’m going to eat and drink, too.  I always like knowing where my next meal is coming from (just ask the Timothy Ministers who keep track of my snack schedules on youth retreats).  And if daily bread, like Martin Luther explains, means more than what we put on our dinner plates, then I worry a good bit about that, too.  I am concerned about clothing, house, homestead, good government, good weather, good friends, trustworthy neighbors, health, and everything else Luther lumps in there.  Like anyone else, I want to receive these things—in fact, I want to possess them—and am on edge when I think they may not be provided.

Who here, in fact,  hasn’t wished for something like the convenience of that giant green arrow on the Fidelity commercials on television—the one that magically appears, turning here, veering there, to form a clear, safe path into a customer’s retirement?  Isn’t that somehow what we’d all like to have, but for all of life: a clear, distinguishable guide that will point our footsteps down the sidewalk of the days ahead, assuring us not just of wise investments for the future, but peace of mind in the present?  If you think about it, it seems like whole sectors of our economy are based on the worry each of us harbors for tomorrow and for today.  Long-range planning, appropriately-balanced retirement portfolios, 529 accounts for the kids so they can step into adulthood on the right foot!  Couple that with our industriousness, and pretty soon it seems that the sowing and the reaping and the gathering is all we’re about.

And that is precisely the point that Jesus is addressing here.  We’re not all about those things—the sowing, reaping, gathering—nor were we ever intended to be.  Life as a disciple, to be sure, is about being continuously aware of God’s providence.  What we are to be about is focusing on the goodness of the Giver and realizing the needlessness of anxiety in the face of that goodness.

Yet this isn’t simply an admonition about the futility of worry.  It is about the dangers of serving two masters.  Jesus’ remarkably tender Sermon on the Mount pep-talk here is set in the context of his own concern that we would learn to place our trust in other things, things that actually may come from the Giver himself.  For Jesus knows that at some point our concern over life’s many material necessities can actually become worship of those necessities.  Jesus is aware that at some point our main role as receivers of God’s grace—even through basic things like food and drink and clothing and shelter—can be overshadowed by our status as consumers and producers of stuff. 

You may snicker at my bouts of worry when it comes to clothing my girls—after all, I do want them to look good—but we all, in some form or another, fall into the trap of serving two masters.  We like the security that all that daily bread provides, so why not nail it all down for the future if we can, especially in a time of such stubbornly high unemployment rates and skyrocketing gas prices?  The reason is because it eventually becomes difficult then for us to live as one of God’s disciples.  So focused on storing up treasure and fretting about the future, we never quite figure out how to balance allegiances between ideas of our own success and self-esteem and the life of faithful obedience to God.  The lilies of the field?  They’re never bothered by this competition between two objects of trust: they just sit there, oblivious to gas prices, praising God 24-7 with their delicate, ephemeral beauty.

Yet this gentle admonition from Jesus about wealth and worry is not permission for disciples to live with frivolity, as if none of that daily bread mattered at all, or that we shouldn’t devote some of our energies to thoughtful stewardship of God’s gifts.  Jesus never denies that each day won’t bring some type of trouble, some concern or grievance that could make it a challenge.  God knows we have needs.

Rather, Jesus words here are a reminder to live with God’s coming kingdom and its righteousness at the center of our vision.  As we look for the wisdom to live through each passing day, we realize the green Fidelity arrow of God’s kingdom stretches out before us—turning here, veering there—to provide us with the strength and courage to embody the love of our Savior, Jesus.  We stand in each moment, looking first to the places and times where God’s grace is breaking in...where the needs of others rise up before us, where suffering is taking place, where love begs for a chance to heal some wounds...and focus there.  It means we stand at the threshold of every opportunity for worry and anxiety and remember the cross; that is, we remember the supreme example of God’s good providing—that in the very moment when we thought all was lost, when the trouble of the day (not to mention the day after that) had consumed us and all our hope, we still had no idea what God the Good Giver was to have up his sleeve that Sunday morning.

You don’t have to be a pastor or some other caregiver in the parish too long to figure out that you hear a good bit of peoples’ bad news.  It can sometimes get a little overwhelming, walking with people in their grief, in their fears, in their dashed hopes.  However, it is also refreshing to serve alongside people like many of you who are likewise so confident of God’s grace, who may actually have plenty to worry about—you know who you are—but who still choose in most instances to praise God for his faithfulness and display commitment to God’s in-breaking kingdom.  It is inspiring to be in a community with so many folks who know we can make God’s kingdom and its righteousness our priority only because God has already, through the cross of Jesus Christ, made us his priority.

It reminds me of a meeting with one of my colleagues in Pittsburgh one day.  We were in a group, discussing plans for an upcoming confirmation camp, and we had just finished business and were wrapping things up.  As is the custom, we all reached for our daily planners in order to schedule our next meeting.  As my colleague’s daily planner flopped open to the new month we were then in, we watched him stop and pull a small, dog-eared and faded Post-It Note from the month before and stick it randomly in the middle of the calendar.  “Can’t forget that,” he said loudly to himself, and he took the side of his fist and pressed the Note firmly as if it were in danger of coming unstuck.

“Can’t forget what, Greg?” someone asked him out of curiosity. 

Somewhat bashfully, my colleague peeled off the Post-It Note and showed us all that it contained the words, “Love you, Dad,” in sloppy handwriting, followed by a simple smiley face.  “When she was home over Christmas break a few years ago,” Greg went on to explain, “my daughter saw my daily planner open on the kitchen table and she wrote this silly note and stuck it between two pages to surprise me.  It reminds me of her every time I see it.  She probably just figured I’d see it and then throw it away, but I like to keep it in here.  It’s become a kind of tradition: every time I turn the page to a new month, the first thing I do is take that sticky note from the old month and put it on the current month.  No matter what the month brings, that little note is there,” he said as he put it back.

 A cutesy little gesture, perhaps, but for me it symbolized a life grounded in grace rather than worry, a calendar centered on the words of Jesus to his stressed-out disciples: “Don’t worry about next month.  Don’t even worry about tomorrow. The smiley-face is on today.  That’s enough.  And strive first for the kingdom of God.”  Greg’s Post-It was a tangible reminder that each day is anchored in the good news of Jesus’ love, the reality that, as the prophet Isaiah says, God has us “inscribed on the palms of his hands.”

Mike, I can give you no pointers on how to dress Sarah Stuart.  You can do what I do and hand it all over to your wife, Leigh.  But both of you should take heart that today you’re clothing her in the only garment she’ll ever really need.  You’re clothing her in Christ, her Savior, who, you may say, has her name inscribed on the palm of his own hands.  With nails.  Worry about her welfare will never completely leave you alone, but today you’re fitting her with the promise that, even though you may not be there to provide for her every day, God yet will.

God yet will, and he will love her and will lay before her her own path, like a big green arrow stretching out before her—turning there, veering there at times, but always pointing straight to her Master in heaven.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany - February 6, 2011 (Matthew 5:13-20)

Moving to Virginia has deepened my appreciation for a number of things.  The amount of history, for example, that took place in this state can’t be beat.  Pivotal events at our nation’s birth and in the War Between the States happened on practically every street corner.  Jamestown, Yorktown, Monticello, Appamattox, Busch Gardens…the list goes on and on.  But it is not Virginia’s unparalleled contributions to American history for which I have developed the greatest appreciation.

Eight U.S. presidents, and four of the first five, hail from this fine Commonwealth—more than any other state—making Virginia the “Birthplace of Presidents.”  But it is not Virginia’s preeminence in producing leaders that has attracted my greatest attention.

Virginia has wonderful mix of both the mountains and the coast.  The stunning beauty of, say, the Shenandoah Valley and the rugged hills of the Cumberland Gap are matched by the pristine beaches of the Eastern Shore.  And I know beauty when I see it, because I come from North Carolina—the vale of humility—the only state in the union that outdoes Virginia in this department.  But it is not the topographical charms of my new home state that has brought about such admiration from this newcomer.

It is, rather, the preponderance of personalized license plates here.  That was, to be sure, the first thing I noticed when I moved from Pennsylvania.  In fact, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, Virginia leads the nation in what they call “vanity plate penetration rate,” which is the percentage of motor vehicles that bear personalized license plates.  Slightly more than 16% of cars registered in Virginia—that’s one out of every six—have license plates that have been specifically worded by the driver.  The next highest is New Hampshire at a measly 14%.  When Melinda and I first reported to the DMV two years ago, the thought crossed our heads that perhaps we might need a personalized license plate to fit in here, but in the end a lack of creativity and a desire for anonymity held sway, and the vanity plate did not penetrate.  I opted instead for XRY-6266, the plate that just happened to be next on the desk clerk’s pile.

I like slipping through traffic and into parking spaces in my otherwise nameless titanium gray hatchback.  It’s just a car: there are plenty of us out there on the roads, and there’s nothing about my vehicle that will call attention to itself.  But in the intervening time, I’ve come to develop an admiration for those vanity plates.  In a way, they spice up the commute, make waiting at a stoplight a little more interesting.  It’s nice to show up at church and park next to a minivan named “D TRICK” and contemplate the meaning of the mysterious “NO MONET.”  Standing for something, they stand out.  They add, you may say, a little seasoning to the ordinary task of driving.

I imagine that Jesus would have liked his disciples to go about with personalized license plates.  In a way, he requested that they do, but not necessarily on their mode of transportation.  Jesus wanted their lives to be seasoning and preservation for the road of life.  His desire was that his followers would stand for something, standing out by the way that they lived.  “You are the salt of the earth,” he said, as he addressed the crowd of followers in the sermon on the Mount.  “You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill could not be hid.”  No nameless titanium gray hatchback here, no random number assigned from the desk clerk!  Jesus knew that his disciples should be known, far and wide.

salt harvest, Bolivia

Like salt, which added flavor and preservative qualities to the food it touched, Jesus’ followers bore the ability to bring out the best in the human race.  Their Christ-like peacemaking and humility would be able to transform those with which they came into contact.  Like a lamp, which would never be lit and then shoved under a bushel basket, those claimed by his kingdom would shine with a righteousness that exceeded that of the law-adoring Pharisees.  Like a city on a hill, their relationships with one another would be a beacon to travelers in the wilderness.  In fact, Jerusalem, with its temple, was a city on its hill.  Jesus knows his followers will be a new mount Zion, a living, breathing Jerusalem that will be home to God’s own Spirit, blessing the world with promise of salvation. Nope, no anonymity here, like salt that has become useless, flavorless granules, or a covered-up candle.  Jesus’ followers would spice up and light up the whole planet earth with good news and good works that would signal to everyone that a Father in heaven loves and extends mercy to all.

 At each baptism, we light a candle and hand it to the baptized or the baptized’s parents and repeat part of Jesus’ words to his followers. “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”  It is a fitting way remind us all that those who have been claimed by Christ are to lead their lives in a way that reflects the grace of God’s kingdom.  That is, the word about Jesus’ death and resurrection has been spoken to us; we cling to that in faith and then show that in our words and actions.  It is a powerful message to convey at the beginning of a Christian’s baptismal journey.  But what has always struck me about this passage about salt and light is that it was originally addressed to a community, an assembly, not to an individual, which is how we often take it.  “You yourselves are the salt of the earth,” is closer to what Jesus said.  If he were from certain parts of Virginia, he might have said, "'Y’all' are the light of the world."

At this point, Jesus has just finished talking about those whom the world typically throws under the bus: the poor in spirit, the meek, those who practice mercy, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, of all things—and he has said, surprisingly, that, in God’s kingdom, those are the ones who are blessed.  Those who are pure in heart, those who practice peace, who are taunted and mocked and thrown in jail for the sake of God’s cause—those are the ones who most embody the righteousness God always had in mind for God’s people.  This was the essence of the entirety of God’s law and the words of the prophets.  What could not be accomplished by the countless efforts of Israel through the years was now going to be fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth and bestowed on this ramshackle group who follows him.  It is those people, gathered around him on that mountain that day, gathered in the various catacombs and underground worship places for fear of persecution, who hear, “You—you guys, y’all—you are going to embody these peculiar blessings of the kingdom—and that makes you, ramshackle following that you are, the light of the world.”

I wonder if the church still understands this about itself today?  We take it to heart as individuals, perhaps, but what about as a community?  Do we understand our light-giving qualities, our duty as earth-preservers?  Do we toil and give witness as a loose assortment of religious individuals, people who think about God and show up on Sunday mornings here and there to do it together, or do we nurture our collective witness more wholesomely, by practicing, let’s say, peace and humility among ourselves?  Do we lift up the importance of our life together, as Jesus so clearly does?

A major study in 2010 on religion in America conducted by The Barna Group, an organization considered to be the leading research organization focused on the intersection of faith and culture in this country, reveals some interesting themes.  One of their overarching findings, in fact, was that the “influence of Christianity on culture and individual lives is largely invisible.”   While, historically, the contributions of Christianity to society have been prevalent, people of faith in modern times seem to be unable to identify, even for themselves, the ways in which Christian faith makes a difference on the world.  The obstacles Christianity faces nowadays, the study suggested, had little to do with the content of Christian faith, or its styles of preaching or worship or public relations, but how Christians implement their faith in public and private.  The rushed, frenetic pace of the American life, the overpowering effect of busy schedules and sound-byte media have whittled to a minimum the type of reflection that faith’s integration requires.  “In a society in which choice is king, there are no absolutes, every individual is a free agent, we are taught to be self-reliant and independent and Christianity is no longer the automatic, default faith of young adults, new ways of…exposing the heart and soul of the Christian faith are required,” the study said.

The point of the study, I believe, was not to give people of faith more ammunition for railing against the prevailing culture, something that is all-too-easy for us to do.  Followers of Jesus do have the responsibility to call the world’s values into question from time to time, but the power of our witness is not in our ability to break apart and cut down or slash and burn.  It is in our capacity to shine—not just as lone rangers, but as a group, as a communion.  Jesus instigates us, in surroundings both harsh and inviting, to wear that personalized license plate and to touch the rest of the world with our life-saving selflessness.

St. Andrew's United Church of Cairo

I confess that I have not been able to concentrate fully this week on the witness of our community here like perhaps I should.  As the events of unrest and possible revolution unfold in Egypt, many of my thoughts and prayers have been with the people of Cairo and those in my internship congregation there, the tiny but fiercely salty St. Andrew’s United Church of Cairo.  St. Andrew’s began in the late 1800’s as a Scottish church, but has been served by ELCA pastors and supported by our denomination’s offerings for most of the past  half-century.  It has survived every other major outbreak of upheaval in that country, steadily tending to its gospel tasks, and we have no reason to believe it will not survive whatever is happening now.  The ELCA staff in Egypt, including the pastor, have all been evacuated, leaving the small congregation and its vibrant outreach to Muslim and Christian refugees to fend for itself a while.  Unnamed perpetrators, armed with semi-automatic weapons entered the church compound this week and fired a round or two, demanding money from those who were there.  I have faith that, buoyed by prayer and the tenacity of a minority people who’ve learned to live in a rough and tumble city, they’ll be fine.

 I am thankful God showed me so much that year about the church’s role to be salt and light, to live by Christ’s righteousness alone.  It has helped me to be able to stand in this pulpit each week and look out at you not simply as individual flames of potential, flickering one-by one, but more as a glow, together, with the power to light up much more than an outdoor Christmas display.  For it’s not just your license plates that have won my appreciation, but your own unique saltiness in the ways you take care of and support one another and spur each other to bear the faith into a world that is different from Cairo, but no less oblivious to the message of peace you bear.

I fear that the studies and the researchers and the statisticians will continue to bring us what we will perceive as bad news.  We can hear the threat of decline and wring our hands, shuffle our feet, claim the world around us is going to hell in a bushel-basket.  We can drive around this place anonymously, as in a titanium gray hatchback, trying to slide in here and there without notice, going with the flow, all the time losing our saltiness and dimming our light.

Or we can shine.  We can shine, all of us—the poor in spirit, the peacemakers, the meek, the mercy-needers as well as the mercy-givers—we can shine so brightly that others will see Christ’s great work in us and have no choice but to give glory to our Father in heaven.

Thanks be to God!                                                

 The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.                                                        

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A - January 16, 2011 (John 1:29-42)

There is a contrast in this story of the opening days of Jesus’ ministry as recorded in John’s gospel between things said about Jesus and things said to Jesus. That is, this account with John the Baptist and the first disciples contains both conversations concerning who Jesus is as well as conversations with the person of Jesus, himself. It’s a little like the difference between reading the quotes from other famous writers and publishers about a book that appear on the back of a book jacket and then opening the book and reading it, yourself. The quotes and reviews on the back are true and helpful.  Reading them helps you understand the importance of what is contained within, but reading the comments is not exactly the same as reading the book itself.

John the Baptist gives us the best examples of the former—the comments on the back of the book about Jesus. For one, John says that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At another point, John says that Jesus is greater than he (John) is even though Jesus is appearing after him, because Jesus was actually before him. John also says that he saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and remaining on Jesus. And, lastly, John also claims that Jesus is the Son of God. A little later, Andrew, one of the new disciples, remarks to his brother that Jesus is the Messiah, which is enough to pique Simon’s interest into investigating Jesus, himself.

Many of these things that are said about Jesus are highly metaphorical; that is, they point to something else that helps us understand some aspect of Jesus and his ministry. For example, when John the Baptist calls Jesus the Lamb of God, we know he doesn’t mean that Jesus is actually a bleating farm creature whose fur is occasionally shorn and made into clothes. Rather, one thing that John might mean is that Jesus is like the unblemished lamb that ancient Israel once offered up during the Passover in order to be freed from slavery in Egypt. That remark, to be sure, had a resonance to it in Jesus’ Jewish culture that doesn’t necessarily exist in ours. Jesus will die to set us free. Likewise, when John the Baptist mentions that Jesus was before him we know he is making a statement about Jesus’ eternal nature—that the Son, long before he became incarnate as Jesus, actually existed alongside with the Father from the beginning of time.

Ecce Agnus Dei, Dieric the Elder, 1468

 All of the things that John the Baptist tell us—and his disciples, of course—about Jesus are certainly true, and they help his disciples make the transition to following Jesus. They help us in understanding who Jesus is sent by God to be. However, it is the disciples themselves who model the conversations with Jesus, himself. They are the ones who, you may say, open the book and begin reading. They follow after him and wind up in the place where he is staying. They hang out with him, staying until late in the day, talking and conversing with him, asking him questions. And, as we see with Andrew, they include others in the process as they go. All along, the disciples remain with him, reading this new, never-ending book called Jesus who has come to take away the sins of the world.

Both of these types of conversations are necessary and valid. Christian faith employs them both. We need to hear the testimonies that people make about how God is active in Christ just as we need to learn how to remain in conversation with Christ, ourselves. The danger is when religious devotion becomes too focused on the former and not enough on the latter—at least, that is the trend I can notice in my own life, so perhaps I should speak for myself. A lot of effort can be put into talking about Jesus without actually talking to him. It is often easier to point to him and make claims about his identity—whether we believe in him or not—than it is to pick up our lives and follow after him for a deeper conversation.

When it comes to being a disciple, there is no getting around the need for those conversations with Jesus, of learning, day by day, a little more about him. To be sure, that is what Jesus is after. Jesus is continually drawing us into that conversation, repeatedly inviting us into that relationship. When we forget this part of Christian faith, it helps to remember that the first words from Jesus’ lips in the entire gospel are in the form of a question: “What are you looking for?” The disciples of John the Baptist run up to Jesus and he turns to see them following along. Before they even address him he asks, “What are you looking for?” It’s a question that both invites us into deeper dialogue and causes us to reflect on our own intentions, for some of the things we’re seeking at the moment may not be offered by Christ the Messiah.

And if that response isn’t open-ended enough, then come the next words from his lips. Asked where he is staying, Jesus responds, simply, “Come and see.” This all suggests to me that what we’re invited into when it comes to faith in Jesus is not always so many answers but, rather, deeper questions. It conveys that we are summoned by someone who is really most interested to learn what we’re seeking, what makes us tick, what drives us onward, what might be missing. Such an introduction implies that we are called by a God who just might be more invested in a relationship with us than in our potential for spouting doctrine and dogma.

Not too long ago one of my close friends entered a prolonged period of doubt in his faith that he describes as intense and painful. I am not aware of the details of what brought his current crisis on, but in our conversations I hear him struggling honestly and openly about some of the basic tenets of Christian faith…both the claims about Jesus and some of the claims Jesus makes. While I am thankful he shares this with me, I am also aware of my own ineptitude at how to handle his questions. It is often a struggle to put into words what I have come to believe and why, especially up against his particular questions, which, in many cases, are questions I’ve never been inclined to ask. I asked him one time, in the midst of one of our conversations (and frustrated with how I was responding to him), what had he had found helpful in any conversations with other believers in easing his heart and possibly restoring his faith. One of the first things he responded with was, “When people simply ask questions, rather than just doling out answers. Openness to dialogue.” There, in the heart of a non-believer, I found one of the truest examples of a disciple: one who understood the nature of a God who, in Christ, doesn’t just stick to doling out answers, but rather enjoys the give-and-take of questions and, at the core, deeply wants to know what it actually is that we’re seeking.

What about you? Do you hear the things about Jesus and take them (or leave them) at face value, or do you pursue him Do you reflect on what others testify about Jesus, and do you then linger with him in conversation through worship and through prayer, and through the service to others in his name?

detail, The Crucifixion, Matthias Gruenewald, 1515

What are you looking for? The nature of Christian discipleship begins here with the testimony of John the Baptist and the curious conversations of Andrew, Simon Peter, and the unnamed third disciple. As it turns out, it is not a command to decide, but an invitation to come and see. We hear the promise of Jesus and are called out of our selves into a journey that is rooted in community, dialogue, sharing, and the hope of a new identity as people who are forgiven and set free.

That is one of my dreams for the church: that we can serve as John the Baptists as well as we serve as disciples. That we can be people who boldly point to Christ as the one who comes to take away the sins of the world as well as the community who helps the world engage Christ in face-to-face dialogue. It is my hope that, by the strength of the Spirit, we can reach out to include the world in Christ’s mission of love as well as standing up in the midst of the world to testify to him.

For if there is anything which the news events of the past week have reminded me it is that the self can be a very lonely, dangerous place. Regardless of how much our society tends to glorify the power and even the sanctity of the individual, humans are wired for community and honest, open dialogue. The blame game that ensued after the shooting in Tucson only proved that point even more. It is vital in our national and personal discussions after tragedies like this that we do not neglect to recognize that, truth be told, there is some of Jared Loughner in all of us, just as there is some of Gabrielle Giffords, too. None of us is immune to the decay of sin, and all of us are vulnerable. We all have the capacity to blow things apart and to fight for life. As Bono sings in one of my favorite U2 lines, “I’m not broke [sic], but you can see the cracks.”

And therefore, it is important that in our urge to point fingers and assign fault for any great sin that we do not ignore that finger of John the Baptist, which is ever focused on Jesus who comes and takes away the sin of the world, who comes to repair the cracks and make us whole. It is important that, in our desire to have our arguments and ask our questions that we not forget to spend time in conversation with this God who comes down and personally gets involved in the tragedy of human-being and miraculously rises to new life. In the invitation to a life of self-sacrifice and forgiveness, Jesus does take away the sins of the world.

That is what we discover when we come and see.

That is what we find out when we, in times of hope and times of despair, in times of faith and in times of doubt, open the book that is Jesus and begin to read.

(And, for now, this is one pastor who has spoken too much about Jesus, and feels it’s time to sit down.)


Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.