The Transfiguration of Our Lord [Year C] - February 14, 2010 (Luke 9:28-36 [37-43])

I have this hunch that the story of Jesus’ transfiguration strikes listeners of today as extremely bizarre. Maybe I’m just projecting my own impressions onto everyone else, but I’ve often wondered how we make sense of this account that is attested by three of the four gospel writers. Jesus goes to the top of a mountain with a few of his friends. Then, strangely, his appearance changes, his clothes start glowing crazy white and then two ancient figures from Israel’s history suddenly appear and hold a conversation with him. Before they know it, a cloud descends, out of which a voice is heard to say, “This is my Son, my Chosen! Listen to him!” And then, as soon as that last word is spoken—poof!—Jesus is left alone.


I mean, let’s be honest: this is not an ordinary day in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This is not, by contrast, Jesus at a wedding reception, or eating in a house with his disciples. Modern ears can make sense of so many parts of Jesus’ story. The nativity, even with all the angels and the shepherds, is familiar to us. We hear, with considerable ease, Jesus’ teachings and parables. They include references and images that we know from our own life experiences: fishing…sowing seeds in a garden…dysfunctional family relationships. Even events like his baptism and his miracles and healings don’t seem altogether too other-worldly and ethereal. We can get a handle on them. We can, in some sense, “relate” to them.

But Jesus’ transfiguration is another story. It’s too short on the details our modern, scientific minds would like to know and too long on mystery—details like, how exactly did his features change? Or, how was he different after this metamorphosis? A hazy account of Jesus’ convening with two of Israel’s most famous prophets is jarringly out of place in the life of a man who hangs out with some of the earthiest people around, and who frequents some of the most common places around. This ascent into the clouds is just not something that happens to regular human beings, which is what we come to understand that Jesus is: One of us. Flesh and blood. God as human.

One of the reasons, perhaps, that this transfiguration account is so remote to modern ears is that we are not as familiar with Moses and Elijah as earlier congregations, and certainly not as familiar as Jesus’ disciples. Here were two figures who loomed large over the Jewish and early Christian mindset. Moses, Elijah, and their individual stories factored some way into the faith and even identity of each and every Jewish person. They were the big guns, the holy head honchos of the Hebrew faith.

The most contemporary thing I might compare this to would be like being on the field, playing in the Super Bowl with Drew Brees as your quarterback, and then looking up in the huddle to see him discussing his next play with Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana. The association made between Jesus and these two figures would have made a profound statement about his identity and about which direction his life was going to take.

What’s more, Luke tells us the three of them are discussing his upcoming departure. Interestingly, the word in the Greek is “exodus”: Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are speaking of his exodus, “which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Just prior to this trip up the mountain, Jesus had made the first prediction about his suffering, death, and resurrection. Referring to that event, then, as an exodus would have rung even more clearly in the ears of earlier audiences, for that is what Moses was known for. Moses had led his people in their deliverance from captivity in Egypt through the Red Sea and the wilderness of the Sinai to the freedom of the Holy Land. Now Jesus comes to lead God’s people out of captivity through the wilderness of death. It will be an exodus to true freedom.

All of these aspects of the Transfiguration, including the cloud that becomes like a veil to the disciples and the voice that thunders from inside like the words from an ancient prophet—things that may seem mysterious and peculiar to you and me—would have had a profound effect on those who first heard about this day in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

It appears from our text that they do. Peter, James, and John are terrified as they enter the cloud. Peter, amazed at Jesus’ glory, is likely reminded further of the Feast of Tabernacles, the yearly festival during which the Hebrews commemorated the Exodus by constructing makeshift dwellings, or tabernacles, like the ones that had sheltered them in the wilderness. He doesn’t even understand what he’s saying, but he senses how good it is for them to be there and see this transfiguration, but, at least for now, they come down the mountain. There is, after all, an exodus ahead.

And, as they come down that mountain, they run into a man whose only son is overtaken by a demon. As they come down that mountain, they are confronted with the needs of the people, As they come down that mountain, they come face to face with their own failures as disciples, their own powerlessness over the true wilderness of the human experience.

It seems to me that as difficult as it may be for people like us to make sense of this particular transfiguration event, we do have plenty of similar situations in the wilderness of our own lives. In fact, I wonder how often Eagle Eyrie, the Baptist retreat center outside of Lynchburg that serves as the location for our Synod’s youth events, is thought of as Virginia’s own mount of Transfiguration. Several times a year, youth and adults from all over Virginia trek to the top of the hill for a closer encounter with God. Those of us who make the trip often claim to experience while we’re there a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and why he matters. I notice that it is difficult for many youth to leave the sense of intimacy of faith they receive there. I know that, as I read this account, I recognize quite a few sensations I, myself, have at Eagle Eyrie: a trancelike state of sleepiness; stammering and stuttering incomprehensibly with exhaustion; and an inability to articulate exactly what we saw and heard to those who weren’t there.

Our synod youth events, our congregational worship, our pilgrimages of faith and wonder bring us, in some sense, closer to God. We, like the disciples, experience wonder, amazement, an out-of-the-ordinary encounter with faith. Yet for all the excitement and terror that the transfiguration brings, the exodus of faith cannot be continued until they come back down. For all the glory we glimpse on those mountaintop, the glory we will really need to see is that which happens when Jesus confronts the demons in the valley, when Jesus confronts the demons of all on the cross. For all the thrill we get from gazing at Jesus in these moments of grandeur, the truly crucial part of our faith will come when Jesus graciously looks at us, and, in doing so, heals us.

It happens that today, February 14, 2010, is the twentieth anniversary of the most distant photograph of earth ever taken, higher than any mountain view.  On this day in 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1 rotated in its orbit and clicked its shutter to make one final a snapshot of our solar system from almost 4 billion miles away before it disappeared into the vastness of the universe. Did you say “cheese”? The resulting image has become iconic, and I bet most of you have seen it somewhere before in either books or in movies, or on television. Very different from the famous photograph taken by early space voyages that showed earth as a large round ball of swirling blue, white, and green, the photo taken by Voyager 1 showed just how vast the universe is in comparison to our planet. The photo has been titled “The Pale Blue Dot,” named so because, in it, earth is barely distinguishable among a dizzying number of other tiny flecks as a pale blue dot.

For many who have seen it, the picture of the pale blue dot is humbling, disorienting, and incomprehensible. They are, in a sense, transfigured by what it reveals: that the surrounding universe is so gargantuan and we occupy but a microscopic speck. To them it says we are nothing special, perhaps…just one dot among many, the vista of some remote deity.

For us, I reckon the snapshot could hearken our minds back to our Lord’s Transfiguration when the disciples saw briefly what God’s ultimate glory was like before he resumed his journey back down the mountain to look on us with compassion. For us, it can remind us that an experience with God’s love and glory, though breathtaking and powerful, is not really complete until viewed from the vantage point of the cross, from the vantage point of the boy who is freed from his demon. For us, the distance from that spacecraft to earth is but a fraction of the voyage God undertakes from the top of that mountain.  For the sight of the pale blue dot communicates nothing about the fun of a snow day, or about the smile of a Valentine, or about the joy of holding a newborn baby, or about the suffering of war and torture, or struggling with demons, or the loneliness of grief. But places like that is precisely where Jesus’ exodus will take him. Places like that are on that journey from the splendor of God’s Son on the mountaintop.  Jesus is the true Voyager, going the distance in our direction.

And one day—we are promised—when his new creation is finished, we will once again glimpse him in that splendor from that land of eternal freedom. The veil will be removed from everyone’s eyes and the image of who God is and who we really are in relation to him will be revealed, once and for all. Transformed by his glory, we will share communion with all those who’ve travelled human footsteps before us and after us. I suppose, on some level, that seems incomprehensible, too. From here in the valley on this pale blue dot, it’s mighty hard to grasp. Yet it is true. Just as sure as the words are spoken and the bread is held in our hands, and just as sure as he stands risen Easter morning, it is true.

Let’s listen, then, to the Chosen. He is true.



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

(image: The Transfiguration, Pietro Perugino, 1498)

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany [Year C] - January 24, 2010 (Luke 4:14-21)

A story is told of a married couple one Sunday morning. The alarm goes off to get ready for church, but only the wife gets out of bed and begins to get ready. After she comes into the bedroom from washing up and dressing, she sees her husband still lying in the covers, trying to go back to sleep. Worried that they’ll be late, she shakes him and says, “Honey. Wake up. We’re going to church, remember?”

He rolls over and with sleepy eyes and says, “Aw, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to sleep in instead.”

Disgusted, she tries again: “Honey, we have got to go to church. Now get out of bed and get dressed. There’s no sleeping in.”  Again, her husband shows no signs of getting out of bed.

He says, “No, sweetie, I just don’t feel like going to church today. I don’t like the service, the sermons are boring, and, what’s more, I don’t like the people. I can’t stand being around those people.”

His wife looks at him and says with much determination, “Now get out of bed!  You are the preacher and that whole congregation is expecting you to be there this morning!! And I don’t want to hear any more of it!”

What exactly do you expect when you come to worship? In fact, why are you here this morning? What type of experience are you hoping to have, or are you hoping to have one? What words are you expecting to hear? Are you expecting the type of experience that the Israelites have in our first reading today, who weep with emotion as the priest Ezra reads God’s law to them? Suffice it to say, our answers to those questions might be as numerous as the people in this room. They might range from the most self-serving of reasons to the very altruistic.

Such questions are rumbling through my head this morning because I bet that the folks who showed up at that synagogue in Nazareth to hear the Word of God never in their wildest dreams expected to hear what they heard that morning when Jesus rose to read from the scroll. Never in their wildest dreams did they roll out of bed on that Sabbath to hear that that day’s reading of Scripture had been fulfilled. Never in their wildest dreams did they show up for worship with the expectation that God would be bringing his kingdom’s gracious climax to completion in their very synagogue. To be sure, faithful members of the house of Israel had long hoped for the Messiah, the one anointed by God to lead the people in glory, but I’m fairly confident none of them in Nazareth ever expected a local townsman to have the audacity announce it right then and there. Had they expected it, I surmise every last husband and wife—young and old, and everyone in between—might have set the alarm clock and found reason to be there that morning.

When first-century Jews gathered on the Sabbath, worship and prayer was centered on the readings of Scripture. The Hebrew Scriptures, at the time, already pretty much looked a lot like our Old Testament. They began with the Torah, or the Law, which were the first five books of the Bible There were books known as writings, which included some histories of ancient Israel as well as some wisdom literature like Ecclesiastes and Job. Their book of prayers, known as Psalms, was included. Then there was the collection of prophets’ writings, which included the writings of people like Jeremiah, Amos, and, of course, the great Isaiah. All of these Scriptures were recorded on giant scrolls, and each synagogue usually had its own set.

During worship, a scroll was removed from its housing and unrolled in front of the assembly. Different people took turns reading from an appointed portion. The readings were usually followed by periods of teaching and prayer. You can see that early Christian worship had its origins in Jewish worship practices. The doughnut-eating portion was added much later.

So, on that particular Sabbath day Jesus goes into the synagogue, like any other ordinary, faithful Jewish man. (Luke tells us it was his custom.) Jesus stands up to read—like any other ordinary, faithful Jewish man—and they hand him a scroll from Isaiah. It happens to be one of the most beloved parts of the scroll, the segment in the sixty-first chapter where Isaiah highlights what God’s kingdom will be all about. It is the part where the prophet lays out the best, most hoped-for visions of God’s deliverance of his people: good news to the poor and oppressed, release to the captives, sight to the blind and the year of the LORD’s favor. And this vision is furthermore so special and revered because its words are delivered on the lips of God’s anointed, the holy servant of the Lord who will see to it that these things are brought about.

This, incidentally, is the portion that Jesus gets to read, and he hands back the scroll when he’s finished and sits down. Apparently he reads it with such commanding authority because we’re told no one has drifted off into daydreaming. Or maybe their rapt attention is a sign of how tightly gripped they are by that particular Scripture. In either case, “the eyes of all in the synagogue are fixed on him.” They can’t take their eyes off him. Will they weep with emotion?

Then, the bombshell: “Today,” he says, “in your hearing, this Scripture has been fulfilled.” It’s not “Here ends the reading,” or even , “the word of the Lord: thanks be to God.” Jesus’ audacious conclusion to the reading announces, without a doubt, that the year of the Lord’s favor is now. Release is proclaimed to the captive now. The oppressed may go free now. And good news is brought to the poor now. No more waiting. No more wondering when and where God will act in this surprising and gracious way. Right then and there, in that backwater synagogue, what appears to be a plain, ordinary man is claiming that the hopes and dreams of entire generations of Messiah-waiters have been fulfilled as he reads that very Scripture. God’s holy kingdom is beginning. And the only logical conclusion to make, then, is that the plain, ordinary man who delivers such an announcement must be the one whom God himself has anointed to begin it.

A great danger in the Christian faith is to downplay this idea that something glorious and audacious is happening in the life of Jesus Christ. All too often, I find, we come to our places of worship with the sense that we will get something out of the experience, that this whole enterprise of prayer and singing hymns and reading words from the Bible is designed to solely to edify us in some way. I, too, slip into thinking that church, that gathering with the assembly of God’s people, is somehow about me and my needs. And, to an extent, it might be. God certainly provides an abundant life for God’s people, one where the poor are given good news and where the blind are given sight and the one captive to sin is released.

Yes, God is in the business of providing and giving, but participation in the worship and ministry of the community into which we were baptized is never really about us, but about what God is doing in Jesus Christ. As audacious as it sounds, it is from him and his life, alone, where we receive the forgiveness that sets us free, where the world gains the sight to cure its blindness, where the poor hear the news that they have not been forgotten. Even though they lay buried in the rubble of an earthquake, they have not been forgotten.

In his ingenius little book called Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes to a fledgling Christian community that is struggling to be faithful amidst the worsening cultural landscape of Nazi Germany. At one point he states,

“It is not in our life that God’s help and presence must still be proved, but rather God’s presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today" (Life Together, HarperSanFrancisco, 1954, p54).

I imagine those words kind of fall a little harshly on a faith expression that is a little too self-centered. Nevertheless, the wide-eyed Nazareth townsfolk on that regular, ordinary Sabbath are presented fact that which we need to hear again and again: that the life of faith is not about wondering how God fits into my life but how does my life fit into God’s. It’s not as much about considering the ways Scripture applies to our busied lives, but, rather, about considering the ways in our busied lives might apply to God’s story. It’s not so much about figuring out how God is a part of what is going on in your life or my life or our life, but about praying how we might be a part of what God is doing in Jesus Christ for the sake of this world.

Some people may claim this is semantics, that I’m just playing with words, but I maintain there’s a big difference. Ben Larson, the twenty-five-year-old Lutheran seminarian who died last week in Haiti as he was serving in an orphanage, wasn’t trying to fit God into his life. I didn’t know Ben, but I have learned enough about him from his friends and from reading about his life in the last days to know that he was there, serving among the poorest of the poor, because he was learning to fit his life into what God was doing in the world. He was there, on a short trip before his final semester before he’d become a pastor, helping to set up the Lutheran church among the people of Haiti when the walls crumbled in on him, along with the hundred thousand others among whom God was and is striving to work. Although he, like many others, was taken too soon, Ben Larson serves as a witness--even in his death--of what it means to show the world that Jesus has announced the year of the Lord’s favor.

Come to think of it, this is what’s at the heart of this metaphor of the body in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. We are a part of a body. None of us is a body unto him or herself, as if a body could function all as an eye or entirely as a foot. We are a body, and Jesus is the head that moves us. This image runs roughshod over the idea that we are somehow the center of the world and God’s kingdom needs to edge its way in.

And, so, the guiding question becomes not “where does this all fit in with me?” but rather, “where do I fit in?” It’s not “What part does God play in my life?” but “What part am I to play?” It is the question that guides the life of that young, seemingly ordinary man who has the gall to stand up in his hometown and claim the Scripture pertains to him. “Where do I fit in?” It is essentially the question that eventually will take him to the cross, where he becomes most determined to live a life dedicated not to the will of his own self-interest, but to the will of a God who has promised to set the captive free, to give sight to the blind, to proclaim that this year is the year of the Lord’s favor.

“Where do I fit in? What part do I get to play?” These are the questions that confront the faithful at Epiphany Lutheran Church, because this morning they know God moves and works. This very morning they sense it—that even they are claimed in this ordinary man’s mission to begin God’s kingdom anew. They can sense it! They have a role to play with all God’s people, for on this morning, this very morning, in their hearing, the word has been fulfilled!

Thanks be to God!


The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Second Sunday of Christmas [Year C] - January 3, 2010 (Jeremiah 31:7-14 and John 1:1-18)

My wife and I have a running joke between the two of us about an additional wedding vow she made me take. In addition to promising her my love and faithfulness as long as we both shall live, she also made me vow that wherever we lived, I would find a way for her to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers. Oh, you may laugh, but I’m not sure you’re aware how important the Steelers are to a person from western Pennsylvania. At least I wasn’t aware of it until I lived there. The tradition of gathering around the television set on Sunday afternoons to watch the men in black and gold is central to what it means to hail from that area. It has to do with the demise of the Steel industry and the sudden loss of thousands of jobs and a whole region having little but a successful football program to cling to. Melinda knew that, as she became the wife of a pastor, there would likely come a time when she no longer lived in her home territory of Pittsburgh. She would be a member of the Steeler Nation-in-exile. As much as a Steeler fan may love living somewhere else—as Melinda and I do Richmond—the sight of the men in black and gold swarming across Heinz Field can take them back to the place they will always consider home. And so part of my duty is to provide this bit of comfort and consolation. Little did I know that the Redskins’ market share in Richmond would make it so difficult for me to be a faithful husband in this regard.

A former boss of mine from North Carolina spent a good portion of her young adult life in Florida. Even though many people would consider Florida part of the south, she still found herself seeking comfort and consolation from the things of home. Every time her family came to visit, she required them to smuggle in case of North Carolina-brewed Cheerwine, which she then carefully rationed out until their next visit.

Exile is really no laughing matter, especially if you’re in it. The one thing that brings comfort and consolation more than anything else is the thought of going home, the vision of being reunited with that place you belong. Nobody could tell you that more than the prophet Jeremiah. He had seen God’s people, the Israelites, repeatedly turn away from the life of promise that God had laid out before them. He had seen them forsake a society of justice and compassion in order to be like the other corrupt, military powers around them. And he had watched them become ransacked and rampaged by the armies from Babylon that came streaming across the desert as God’s judgment on them. The Babylonians had pillaged their villages, looted the treasuries and desecrated the holy Temple. They had killed by the thousands. And those who were left over were rounded up and carted off to live in exile in Mesopotamia, thousands of miles away. They had no one to promise them access to the things they loved or smuggle in reminders of the land they left. They only have the words of prophets like Jeremiah to guide, chide, and offer instruction.

So, imagine, if you will, the comfort and consolation they hear in Jeremiah’s words from the thirty-first chapter:

“See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth.
With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back…

For the LORD has ransomed Jacob,
And has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.”

The homecoming God promises them through Jeremiah’s words is bursting with such joy that young women break into dance and the men young and old make merry right there on the path home. They crack open the cans of Cheerwine and festoon themselves with Steelers gear. God has spoken, and the Word is good. He is bringing them home, and they shall be radiant over the Lord’s goodness, radiant over God’s generosity and grace towards them, radiant “over the grain, the wine, and the oil.”

Even though, in their case, the prophet Jeremiah concludes that it is their own waywardness that led God to scatter them into exile in the first place, their exuberance is not tempered one bit. In fact, this little fact perhaps amplifies it. God, who had first allowed the opportunity for Israel’s self-destructive behavior, is now going to reverse those ruinous effects. Where once they had been scattered by God’s hand, now God was showing them undeserved mercy and grace. Their life will be like a watered garden, and they will never languish again (v.12)

That this text from ancient Israel’s history is appropriate to the message of Christmas should be no surprise to us. In the person of Jesus Christ, God has brought us home. In the Word made flesh, God has brought us back to where we belong, and, as the prophet says, redeemed us from hands too strong for us. In the only Son begotten from the Father, God has gathered each human being from farthest parts of the earth, the darkest corners of sin and self-centeredness, and returned them to himself. It is a perfectly natural fit, as Jeremiah says, “proclaim this message to the coastlands,” because Jesus is our final and full deliverance from the exile. One early church theologian claimed that “the Incarnation is the most blessed and joyful thing that could have happened to the human race” (St. Isaac, in The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos Ware, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, pg 70). God chooses, out of his love, to identify himself with his creation by becoming human and bringing us to the only true home we have: a life in reconciled communion with Him.

In a few days Melinda and I will begin packing up our Christmas decorations, part of which are a few nativity scenes. Like many of you, we like to bring out the nativity scenes at this time of year. I’ve been quite impressed with how the nativity scene out front here at Epiphany changes from week to week, the different characters slowly making their way to Bethlehem. I’m also quite impressed with how well they can withstand the wind. I came to church this week and huge gusts of wind had the wise men practically on their backs before the baby Jesus, like his glory was blowing them down.

But it has occurred to me that at Holy Week or Easter we never unpack and set up our nativity scenes. Or, we rarely see anything like Calvary scenes or Empty Tomb scenes, little depictions of Jesus’ death or resurrection. Can you imagine it? One could be made relatively easily: the cross, the two criminals on either side, Mary and John standing by with a few Roman soldiers. You could even have Joseph of Arimathea, the man who took Jesus’ body and buried it, standing off to the side. The disciples could be facing the other direction, so that the wind would blow them away from the cross, full of denial and fear. A Calvary scene would be easy to set up, yet we never see them, though, ultimately, that is what God’s incarnation means. Because the Word takes on flesh and lives among us, God opens God’s self up to the whole gamut of things that happen to human flesh. He is not just born and set aside Mary and Joseph and the shepherds. He also grows up, suffers pain and, in the end, his flesh dies and begins the decomposition process. Yet, miraculously, God raises his Son’s flesh from death three days later. God sees to it that his begotten Son will redeem us from all the hands that are too strong for us. God sees to it that his Son will go the length of all our self-imposed exiles, no matter where they lead, to bring us home.

What are the hands that are too strong for you? What is it that is holding you back from a life of true communion with God? Hear the word proclaimed to distant islands: God has redeemed you. In Christ, God brings you home to him, where you belong. Be radiant. Grace abounds from this God whose Word becomes flesh to live among us and save us.

Today, little one-year-old Ashley Grayson Mays sees the end of her own exile as she is united to Jesus, the Word made flesh in the waters of baptism. It has been a big day for her as she sits there in the first pew along with three other generations of her family, all of whom have been nurtured in this congregation’s family. Denise and Chris, her parents, are members of a Lutheran congregation in Ohio, but they chose Epiphany for their baptism because of the strong family connection here. Her great-grandparents are founding members. In that sense, you may say Ashley has been brought home. But in a larger sense, Ashley has been brought home to God today. As she is claimed by Christ and marked with his cross forever, she receives the promise of a life when God will always be with her. No matter which path her life takes, no matter how far away she wanders, no matter how distant she may end of feeling God is to her, she has the promised that Jesus has really ended her exile of sin. God has broken her free from all the hands that will be too strong for her.

This is the promise we all have in baptism. It is the promise God bestows on creation with the news of the birth of the baby in the manger. It is cause for great celebration! Be radiant over this good news, over the the lengths to which God goes in Christ to have us back, over the distance he travels to end our exile! The Word becomes flesh lives among us! Make yourselves radiant over this Table’s grain, over this wine, and this oil of anointing! He has brought us home! Young women, dance! Men, young and old, pass the Cheerwine around and make merry!


Thanks be to God!


The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The First Sunday of Christmas [Year C] - December 27, 2009 (Luke 2:41-52)

One of the most popular gifts opened this Christmas at our house was a doll that my parents gave to Laura, our 19-month old. It blinks, drinks a bottle, laughs, and even snores. Clare, our 3-year-old has latched onto it rather quickly, even though it is her sister’s gift. It is Laura’s baby, but she will need to share it with her sister, who cradles it and loves it and takes very good care of it.

Here we are, three short days after Christmas—three short days after our own “oohing and ahhing” over the baby in the manger—and we’re presented with another manifestation of our Lord and God most of us rarely consider: the Pre-Teen Jesus. It is perhaps a little strange to ponder a pre-teenage Jesus, one who is clearly no longer a defenseless, cooing infant, wrapped in swaddling clothes, but who is also not yet the charismatic and critical adult Jesus. He’s there, in-between, still under the guardianship of his earthly mother and father, but, by the by, becoming aware of his special relationship to his Heavenly Father, as well. True, Jesus is given to us, but as he grows we’ll need to learn to share him with his Father, too.

Of all the gospels, only Luke provides any information about pre-teen Jesus in this short account of his family’s yearly trek to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover when he is twelve years old. It becomes the only bridge we have between the early Nazareth days of his youth and the more well-known years where he wanders around Galilee and Jerusalem, challenging people with the good news of God’s kingdom.

If we are a bit unfamiliar with the pre-teen Jesus and don’t know what to do with him, we are plenty familiar with some of what we see in this story: a young man testing his parents’ boundaries and causing them considerable anxiety. A precocious youth displaying a mind and will of his own. A young scholar in the making, thirsty for the knowledge of the elders. A thoughtful boy who shows obedience to his parents. And while this flimsy eleven-verse bridge is all we have linking the two Jesuses we know much better, it does offer some stability and comfort to learn that the Lord Jesus did live there, for awhile, in those often-painful, but very exciting in-between years. Isn’t it somewhat fascinating to consider the God of Heaven and Earth making his way not only through the manger and then the high courts of Pilate and Caiaphas, but also through the obscure, undocumented days of a boy growing up in some border town? It makes you wonder how God might be working even now in the obscure, undocumented days of children everywhere.

That is essentially the topic addressed by the watershed book, Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, researched and written by two sociologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and published in 2005. In it, the researchers develop the first and most comprehensive study of the current religious and spiritual trends and practices of teenagers. They do so by conducting hundreds of in-depth, one-on-one interviews and thousands of written surveys with teenagers all across the United States, covering as many socio-economic and religious backgrounds as possible.

The book mainly breaks down their findings into statistics and observations that can be rather tedious to wade through, but occasionally they work in an anecdote from one of their interviews. We meet “Joy,” a 15-year-old who drinks and does drugs under the nose of her parents who barely know her or her 23-year-old boyfriend. “Joy’s” take on God is vague, at best, perceiving him as a distant, nondescript figure who doesn’t really do much. Then there’s “Kristen,” whose way to a remarkably strong faith comes about after her father’s tragic suicide and her mother’s struggle to keep the family afloat. The stories are compelling, but the researchers’ two main findings are less so. Namely, they present that the great majority of teenagers in America are frustratingly inarticulate about what they believe about God and that the average American teenager follows whatever religious practices her parents have introduced her to and has not thought too deeply about them. As a teen, myself, I figure I would have been in the same category.

This does not appear to be the case with Jesus, who is discovered in the temple as a twelve-year-old, wowing the elders with his answers. This also does not seem to be the case among our own youth at Epiphany, at least from my perspective. Our youth readily participate in all kinds of youth activities, service projects, Bible studies, and worship roles, often boldly praying aloud before their peers. Nevertheless, the book does paint what I suspect is a fairly accurate, albeit worrisome, picture of religious and spiritual trends in our youth today. I am also confident that the God who is the Father of Jesus is, indeed, present and active in the lives of teenagers everywhere—just as he is present and active in everyone’s lives—whether or not they know how to look for him or whether or not they can articulate it. It’s a question about learning where to find him.

That, I believe, is the mistake that Mary and Joseph make in this morning’s story. Their mistake is not in their failure to keep track of him, but in not understanding where he might be found. The whole scene is quite easy to imagine, especially considering how extended Middle Eastern families often operate. The whole family clan had likely gone up to Jerusalem for the Passover, a big caravan of uncles and aunts and cousins, more distant relatives, and probably a couple of unrelated Nazareth townspeople, to boot. Children of all ages would have tagged along, too, fulfilling the ancient decree. Most likely they would have wandered back and forth between relatives and friends, the adults caring lovingly for whichever children happen to be near them at the time. Last Sunday something similar happened here at Epiphany when Laura, our nineteen-month-old, headed right out an open door, making her way for the parking lot. Before we even realized she was out of sight, a loving adult scooped her up on the sidewalk and brought her back inside to us.

For several hours, it’s no big deal that Mary and Joseph haven’t laid eyes on their son, but after a full day goes by with no sign of him, they start to wonder which relative or friend might have him. They search through the whole caravan to no avail before deciding to back-track to Jerusalem, taking another day in the process. “Where could he be?” they worry and wonder. Luke does not tell us each and every place they search, but apparently they take another whole day scouring the city before they happen upon him at the Temple, of all places, holding forth with the learned elders who reside there. Mary and Joseph are astonished and a bit annoyed with his behavior. “Why have you treated us like this?” they ask. If Jesus had a middle name, they probably used it at this point: “Jesus of Nazareth, don’t you know we were searching for you with great anxiety?!?”
It’s Jesus’ reply that makes me wonder whether Mary and Joseph shouldn’t have first considered the Temple, whether Mary and Joseph should not have approached this whole scenario with a bit more faith, deeper understanding that their son is also the Son of God and therefore they are sharing him. He is taking time to strengthen that relationship. “Why were you looking for me?” he simply asks them. “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I would be here, in my Father’s house?”

Jesus, you see, is never really lost, in the sense that he doesn’t know where he is. Jesus never gets himself lost, not here at the age of twelve, nor as an adult when he’s hanging out with ordinary fishermen and tax-collectors. Jesus, to be sure, always knows exactly where he is and our mistake, in our spiritual and religious lives, is thinking that we can always find him when in reality, he has been given to do precisely the opposite: to find us.

It boils down to what the ancient Christians called “the scandal of the particular”: that a universal, all-knowing and all-powerful God who sits at the helm of the universe and all eternity would somehow unite himself with a particular individual and with all the baggage that accompanies that. Just as it may be difficult for us to imagine Jesus as an adolescent, at that stage where they still need the hugs and authority of human parents but can’t always admit it, it is difficult for the world to understand that God has identified himself with this particular, first-century Jewish individual. It is a stumbling block for quite a few that the divine and eternal would choose to tangle itself up with the human and the mortal. As a result, the world will offer up dozens upon dozens of tantalizing option for encountering God never considering that God would stoop this low to encounter us.
And yet, that is what God is doing in Jesus of Nazareth. That is what God is doing in this precocious boy from a small border town. That is precisely what God is doing in the temple with this kid named Jesus.

So, if search we must—and we will certainly feel that urge—let us not do it half-heartedly. One early church theologian, commenting on this passage, said that “the search for Jesus must be neither careless nor indifferent, for those who seek in this manner will never find him” (Origen of Alexandria, On Luke's Gospel 18, 2-4: GCS 9, 112-113). Let us do it with great anxiety, as if our whole life depended on it, as if our hopes and dreams of what is to be was linked to being found in his embrace.

But let us do it in places where we know he frequents. Where might you suggest we start? In the manger? Well, I think we’ve got that one down pat. In the temple of worship, with God’s people? In the words of a Scripture that is ancient, yet somehow also new? In a frugal meal of bread and wine? What about the cross? Could we find him there, seeking us out in death? Seeking us out to forgive? And then, after three long days…when we’ve grown weary with our anxiety, weary with the trials of life, what about looking for him, at long last…in the…tomb?


Thanks be to God!


The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

image: "The Dispute in the Temple" Simon Bening, 1525-30

The Third Sunday of Advent [Year C] - December 13, 2009 (Luke 3:7-18 and Philippians 4:4-7)

Getting ready for Christmas makes a house feel like a home. That’s what I’ve learned over these first weeks of Advent. Pull out a stocking or two, string up some garland, and—presto-change-o!—the place is yours.

As many of you may know, my family moved to our new house in Glen Allen just before Halloween. Once the trucks dropped off our stuff, we began frantically moving and arranging furniture and unpacking boxes and storing away household items so that we could be ready to host our families at Thanksgiving. Things had been coming together nicely, but it really didn’t start to feel like “home” until we took out those boxes labeled “Christmas decorations” that we had packed away in Pittsburgh last year and began strewing their contents all over our house. And it was funny: almost instantly, we felt more settled. When, in the midst of it all, we decided the house needed still a little more Christmas—“right that very minute”—we simply made a quick trip out to Target or Home Depot for more lights or an extra extension cord…I mean, a green extension cord…I mean, a longer green extension cord…a longer green extension cord for outside use.

Decorating. Many would say it is an indispensable part of this Advent season. We don’t just decorate our homes, but our churches, our places of work, our classrooms, even our cars. I had a friend in high school who used to wire a living wreath to the grill of her car. Whatever it is, it seems we can’t properly experience the holiday without it. That is the essence of John the Baptist’s preaching this morning, but it’s not decorating he’s talking about. His message is repentance, and it appears we can’t properly experience Jesus’ arrival without it. It is indispensable.

Repentance is, simply put, a change of direction. Derived from the two Greek words for “change” and “mind,” repentance implies a turning around, a shifting in mindset. John’s appearance in the wilderness is not simply another sign that Jesus is right around the corner, like a another figure we add to the nativity scene as the big day approaches. Rather, John comes preaching a specific message that teaches us how to receive the Lord. When Jesus comes, it appears that things will shake up a bit. Jesus’ kingdom will kind of turn things as we know them upside down, make the world look somewhat different, and John’s message of repentance, if heeded, will involve changing some things about ourselves so we are aligned with that new world.

In order to make his point, John goes a little overboard on the imagery, if you ask me. He’s got an ax and some trees, stones, a winnowing fork, water, fire—a big hodge-podge of rather intimidating farm tools, all employed with John’s trademark fire-and-brimstone gusto. A winnowing fork was this broom-shaped tool that a thresher used in order to separate the grain of wheat from the chaff, those bits and pieces of the plant that could not be eaten. The winnowing fork would toss the wheat into the air, and the grain would fall to the ground, while the chaff would get caught by the wind and blow away. If collected, chaff made great tinder.

Whether it’s that image or the ax at the root of the tree that works better for you, John’s point is still the same: Jesus’ arrival and his reign among us herald a change. We stand to be prepared for this change, not in a way that suggests Jesus will only love us if we repent, but in such a way that our lives comes to reflect the magnificent turnaround Jesus is going to bring. In other words, it’s time to get out the decorations and make this place look like his home.

And what for decorations? What is this garland and stockings with which we deck the halls once we’ve heard the good news that he is on his way? The crowds actually ask John this, point-blank. His response is, “Take your extra coats, clothes, food, and give them to those who have none.” At least try to even things out a bit. Let loose of greed and gluttony. And there’s even better news for those who, up until now, thought they were all but excluded from the kingdom: tax-collectors and soldiers, corrupt and prone to collude and cohabitate with the occupying military power. As it turns out, Jesus’ arms will be open for them, too. This is a gracious kingdom, where even sinners will have a place.

So, instead of unpacking our Christmas boxes and stringing lights around our homes, a more appropriate way to embody repentance would involve handing over our extra boxes to those in need. Getting ready for the gift of Christ and stoking the holiday spirit might not, after all, entail a quick trip to Target for more tinsel, but rather making an extra stop in the Target parking lot to drop some more change in the bell-ringer’s red bowl.

In light of that, consider the amount of “decorating” that has gone on at Epiphany over the last couple of weeks. Cots are set up for our CARITAS guests in the fellowship hall where they will receive shelter for a week. The sign-up sheets for the duties have filled up rather quickly. Shopping lists have also been made—checked twice—for the giving tree in the Commons, which will dispense gifts to those in our area in need. Over the past few weeks, the women’s circles of the congregation have collected household items for St. Joseph’s Villa. And one of our members has asked for pairs of old shoes to send to a young man down in the South side named Juma Semakula.

Juma has a dream to fill up an entire cargo container of old shoes to send to his native Uganda where millions of poverty-stricken children and adults go shoeless. He got the idea after coming to live in America and occasionally seeing old shoes tossed out in peoples’ trash cans. Thinking that any shoes are better than no shoes for those with bare feet, Juma decided to send as many as he can back to his homeland. He estimates it will take 30,000 shoes to fill up one. Our congregation alone donated just around 200 to his cause. That’s as if everyone at this service gave one pair of shoes to folks half a world away. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” John says, and I suppose he would have considered a cargo container full of shoes to be one of those fruits. Maybe he would have considered all of our Advent decorating for what it is: outwards signs of an internal mind-shift that takes place in us, a realization that when Jesus comes to reside here, a holy change takes place. The lame walk, the blind see, and all sinners come to have a place at the table.

But it’s very important to realize that we show forth these signs of repentance chiefly not out of a sense of fear, although John’s frightening farm implements might arouse that emotion in us. The winnowing fork and the ax at the tree may serve their purpose, but I take to heart the words of Paul and the prophet Zephaniah this morning, too. Ultimately, you see, we begin embodying this change of the kingdom, we undertake the words and actions that prepare this place for Jesus out of a sense of joy.

We are joyful for the hope he brings. We are joyful because he comes and makes room in his kingdom for even for us. God is not obligated to do so, but he chooses to have us there. That is the point about these stones in John’s sermon. If God wanted, God could make his kingdom out of the stones on the ground, raising them up, instead of us, to be his children. Rocks could take our place! It could be a rock standing here wearing the fancy Egyptian Advent stole! Yet God, in spite of our hard-headedness, in spite of our stubbornness against bearing fruit, still opens the kingdom to us, still hands us his body and blood, still dies on the cross to release us from sin. And this, my friends, is a joyful thing.

I remember a conversation I had with a close friend a few years ago about his conversion to Christianity. He was a fellow worker with me in a refugee relief program, and I had come to know him as a very thoughtful and committed person of faith, but apparently he had not always been so. He had grown up in a home that did not adhere to a particular faith. He would probably have categorized his religion as “agnostic,” but, he said, his family had never really given much thought to church or religious matters, especially after the tragic death of his father when he was young. One day I finally got the courage to ask him what it was—or what combination of things it was—that caused him to accept the Lord Christ. Why he had changed his own mind about what he believed? Had someone sat him down and explained the story of Jesus? Had he been intellectually convinced of the truth-claims of our faith? Had he, like Paul, “seen the light” in some dramatic, life-changing fashion? His answer was none of those. He said that during his years at the university, he had come to know a group of Christians who met together to worship and pray on campus. As he observed them, he came to realize they had joy in their lives. He said to me, quite plainly, “I wanted that. I wanted that joy in my life, and I eventually came to the conclusion that Jesus was ground in which their joy was rooted.”

Yes, Jesus is near. In fact, he is making the rounds here this morning…at the table, in the words of Scripture, in the forgiveness proclaimed embodied. So, spread the joy. Haul out the holly, especially in Juma’s fashion, 30,000-shoes-strong. Haul out the holly…in CARITAS-style. Instead of exchanging fruitcakes, how about exchanging fruits of repentance? And, as you decorate in the manner of John the Baptist, hear the words “Given for you,” and—Lord have mercy—be ready for a turnaround. Presto-changeo, the place will be his!


Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

Thanksgiving Day - November 26, 2009 (Matthew 6:25-34 and Psalm 126)

“Today’s trouble is enough for today,” Jesus says.

Well, it would certainly seem so! Thanksgiving, as days go, can be a stress-fest: How many people will we have this year around our Thanksgiving table? Will the house be ready in time? Will Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucy’s flight be delayed, like last year? Will everyone get along, or will family tensions dominate the thanksgiving scene? What will it be like without the loved one who just died this past year? Can we afford this feast we feel we must prepare? Will there be enough food? Will there be too much? Will it be done in time? Will the turkey be too dry? Will the turkey still be frozen?

A member of our congregation who works for a local manufacturer volunteers at the phone desk at the Reynolds Kitchen Turkey hotline each Thanksgiving. Overly-stressed or maybe just confused about turkey preparation, people call in with their worries and troubles to get quick, efficient answers. This hotline volunteer explained to me that each year, as the day of Thanksgiving gets nearer, the phones light up with more and more frantic callers. He once coached a person through a crisis that had arisen when her turkey hadn’t thawed out in time. This person wanted to know if, instead of filling a bathtub and changing out the water every thirty minutes, it would be possible just to put the frozen turkey in the commode and continually flush the water over it. I’m not sure how the caller rectified that Thanksgiving predicament, but our steady-minded volunteer strongly advised her or him against that method. Yes, in spite of all the festivities, there is plenty of trouble and worry on our national day of Thanksgiving.

Indeed, there is plenty of trouble everyday, and tomorrow will bring trouble all of its own, especially with the demands of embodying Christ’s kingdom. That’s what at the heart of Jesus’ little pep talk to his disciples about the lilies and the sparrows. He is not preparing them for setting a table and stuffing a turkey, but rather for carrying out God’s vision of a world redeemed. This is his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ inaugural address, as it were, for the kingdom of God.

For quite some time, Jesus makes the kingdom of God sound like a place with a lot of responsibility on their part. His sermon is full of all kinds of moral and ethical expectations that the kingdom will bring. He discusses anger, adultery, and the necessity of non-violence and making peace with your neighbor. There are instructions on the ins and outs of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, loving the enemy. He even includes a warning about the perils of serving two masters, God and wealth. All of this, of course, is based in the hard-to-believe, difficult-to-imagine, upside-down world of the Beatitudes, where the poor in spirit are blessed, and the meek—not the mighty—inherit the earth. The disciples’ heads are likely spinning as they try to conceive of a life this counter-cultural. This will produce anxiety, no doubt. Our heads are spinning…as we try, by God’s grace alone, to live out Jesus’ words.

And, on top of that: to forge ahead amidst times that provoke such worry: risk of a double-dip recession, a stubbornly-high unemployment rate, two wars raging on, budget cuts, and the spread of H1N1. Don’t worry about what you will eat or drink or wear? Give me the trouble of a frozen turkey anyday! And a hotline sure would be nice, in the meantime—something to coach us through a life that puts us at such odds with the world around us, a world that repetitiously trumpets its own version of success, a world that teaches us to fight and hoard and over-consume.

The origins of the national holiday we celebrate today are shrouded in myth and mystery, but regardless of that fact, I suppose there are some glaring dissimilarities between the Thanksgiving most of us celebrate now in America and the Thanksgiving meal that purportedly began this tradition almost three centuries ago. This is not to suggest that we are not as truly thankful for our blessings today as our pilgrim forefathers and foremothers were, but I do believe that the ancestors who first gathered in 1621 to celebrate a bountiful harvest might have been little more aware of the fragility of human life, a little more cognizant of the ephemeral nature of lilies and small birds. During the first year of their settlement in Massachusetts, we are told, almost half of the original 102 settlers perished from starvation, disease, and the hardship of eking out a life in a harsh, new environment. The decimated population that remained was dependent on the whims of weather and the generosity of the local population in a way that most likely pushed them to acknowledge even further their utter reliance on God’s providence.

They were probably a lot like the pilgrims who first sang the words of our psalm today, Psalm 126, as they made their yearly trek to Jerusalem for harvest prayers:

“May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.”

The ancient Hebrews associated sowing and planting with weeping because those actions caused them to throw into the soil that which could be eaten. In order to have grain for another year, grain had to be given up, and one must trust that a harvest would come, and that shouts of joy could then be offered. It was a precarious existence—weeping, sowing, reaping, rejoicing—one that never allowed the illusion that humans were in control.

I doubt the original American pilgrims, whoever they were and whatever they did those first hardscrabble years, were under that illusion either. There was little doubt that God was the giver, and as they built a society based on their version of Puritan values and beliefs, Jesus’ words about not worrying over clothing and food likely hit home in a way that seems quaint and trite nowadays.

Sometimes I think our worry and our trouble grows out of a misunderstanding or a forgetfulness of our real fragility. At least in this country, so many of us can control so much about our surroundings and how those surroundings effect our lives. We are under the impression that we can control our security, or what we think is our security. Myriad choices are placed before us, and we can decide what we want for breakfast, what we want for supper, what we want for retirement. We want to be in control of family finances, of our loved one’s reactions to what we say and do, of the journey through cancer. The basic concept of weeping as we toil, all the while trusting that God will tend the seed of whatever it is we do, is all but lost. And thus our great amounts of worry—because we think it will ultimately all be up to us. We Americans, with our exceptional government, our privileged history, so many abundant resources—we can still be under the impression that our future, our life, is all up to us.

I can’t help at this point but think of yet another group of pilgrims gathered for a meal in an Upper Room, poised at the edge of a daunting future. They have seen their own ranks decimated over the past several days as the once-hopeful crowds turn to thoughts of sacrifice. But for now, these unwitting settlers of a new world gather. They gather, and they worry. They worry as the cup of blessing is passed around and the bread is broken. They wonder and worry, as words of grace are spoken and, once again, not fully understood. There will be a sense of doom and denial that lingers in the air as they are caught and questioned about their associations with Him.

And there is weeping, for sure, as the journey is made up the hill, and the cross is planted into the ground and God teaches, once again, that is isn’t ultimately up to us.

This, my friends, is the kingdom for which we strive—a time and place where God is acknowledged as the source of all gifts, and that nothing—not even our death—will prevent God from bestowing them. This is the kingdom for which we strive—a strange but marvelous system where we can hope that the merciful and the mourning are blessed and those who make peace are called children of God. This is the kingdom which we seek, for it is the kingdom which Christ sought in its fullest sense, handing over every bit of himself, every desire for control, in order that compassion and forgiveness may take over in their fullest measure.

And this pilgrim meal they would come to call thanksgiving—the Great Thanksgiving—“Great” not because of its cornucopia variety, or the offerings we share, but “great” because of what is given. It is a Thanksgiving where we approach with little more than empty, outstretched hands to receive enough for today. Enough for forever. A meal where we learn—often very, very slowly—not to worry, not to fret, as our delusions of perfect control eventually do thaw out, because the best future for which we could ever hope—or for which we could ever be thankful—has been secured for us through Christ.

Yes, in a way, you could say this is our hotline, and the steady voice on the other end is always there, always and ever again proclaiming our value to him.

And I? I…I’m going to go home and take the turkey out of the toilet.

Thanks be to God!


The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

painting: "A Bountiful Harvest," by Gregory Frank Harris

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 27B] - November 8, 2009 (Mark 12:38-44)

Biblical scholars and historians tell us that the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus was a bustling place of business and politics, as much as it was of religion or faith. Mark alludes to this quite frequently in the last chapters of his gospel as Jesus comes into Jerusalem during his final days. Almost everywhere he goes, Jesus is confronted with the oppressive and hypocritical expressions which faith in his Father’s name are taking. Whether it is the Pharisees and their strict, draconian interpretation of cleanliness codes, or the chief priests and their collusions with the Roman authorities, most religious authorities in Jerusalem were not, in Jesus’ view, upholding a true, living, life-giving faith in God. They were, rather, upholding a system of domination and control that often exploited the weakest in society.

That’s what at the heart of this morning’s criticism of the scribes, perhaps Jesus’ harshest yet. As he tours the heart of the capital with his disciples, they observe the powerful scribes hanging out in the marketplaces and in the places of honor in the synagogues. They are recognizable because of their long, flowing robes, and it is clear that they are using their influence as educated, religious clerics to gain status and wealth. They drop names and say long, showy prayers that can give the impression of closeness to God. They stand in the doorways and shake hands with as many as they can. Hmmm…long, flowing robes…showy prayers…shaking many hands…I’m going to have to take a closer look at this text!

Then, as Jesus and the disciples take a ring-side view of the Temple treasury, they watch as the people walk by to drop their alms into the long, trumpet-shaped, bronze collection box. Coins clattered and jingled noisily down its neck, a contraption which was designed, archeaologists tell us, precisely to announce how much each person was giving. Like those change machines in the grocery store which convert your coins to green cash—for a small fee—the collection boxes in the Temple Treasury made donating to God’s cause both a visual and auditory experience…for everyone! How fun!

This is why Jesus and his disciples can discern the amounts different people are giving as they make their donations. Large sums make a large clatter. Two small coins clink pathetically down into the box. Jesus’ final words in the temple are surprisingly not directed at the wealthy contributors or the scribes who maintain the collection, but instead they have to do with the seemingly insignificant contribution of the seemingly insignificant widow. In the new math of Jesus’ kingdom, two coins from a woman with no financial status, little legal status and no social status equal more than all the loud, clattering donations given by all the others.

These are comforting words to hear in this time of recession, of increasing unemployment and decreasing 401k’s, when the concept of wealth and abundance seems to change at every “ding” of the stock market bell. These are comforting words, perhaps, to kick-off a congregation’s Stewardship campaign, a nice instance of timing when the lectionary readings line up with budget realities. Comforting words—and true, no doubt—that God recognizes the wealth in each person’s contribution, regardless of the size of the dollar sign attached to it.

Yet, a closer look at this teaching moment at the Temple treasury might suggest more is going on here than we realize. The widow’s two-coin contribution turns out not to be so much a lesson about how much Jesus wants us to contribute to his ministry as it is an illustration of trust in God. And the widow’s sacrifice is not so much some kind of stewardship sermon from Jesus’ lips as it is an example of where the Church’s true treasure is found.

It would be impossible to prove, but it is highly likely that the two coins that the widow plunks into the Temple treasury were likely the leftover amount of the sum she that she had been given by the Temple treasury to live on. They were not, in any modern sense, her savings, but part of the paltry allotment the Treasury had dispensed to her so she could buy food. In Jesus’ time, that is what the Temple Treasury was intended for: to tend to the welfare and champion the cause of groups like widows and orphans, people who were, in those days, vulnerable and unvalued. Although the scribes denounced by Jesus often helped to maintain a corrupt system that devoured widow’s estates and kept them poor, one of the main purposes of the treasury was still to support them, for God’s law was their defender.

Therefore, we see in the widow not simply someone who is generous with what she has been given, but someone who is wholly dependent upon God’s grace and generosity, and knows it. Two coins in the coffer? She might as well be throwing her whole self in, for that is what she lives. She lives a life utterly dependent on a God who saves, or, as it says in our psalm appointed for today, a God who “watches over the strangers, who upholds the orphans and the widow” (Psalm 146:9). She knows her life is in God’s hands.

Lowell Almen, former Secretary for the ELCA, tells the story of going to sub-Saharan Africa on an official tour to see how the Church was doing in several countries there. Of course, he found congregations that were growing by leaps and bounds and seminaries that were struggling to find enough professors to keep up with burgeoning enrollment. A good portion of the finances that help fund those ministries come from the coffers of congregations in more affluent, western countries. But out of all this that he saw, Almen relates that he was most impressed with the work the ELCA was doing to cope with the ever-prevalent AIDS epidemic. He talks of church workers who go each morning into the villages and bring back more orphans to a children’s home that has been built and is run by the Lutheran Church. Each night, more parents in the city die of the disease. Each morning, more orphans rescued from the streets. Each year, another class of students for the school. Each life given hope and future—a whole community of children literally raised and defended by the Church, Almen reflected—because there is a God who upholds the orphans and the widows, whose hand embraces his true treasure.

As we look at a budget for the coming year, as we consider new leaders and our apportionment to the wider church body—as the affairs of business and perhaps even politics once and ever again enter the picture of religion—the challenge is to see the church’s true treasure with the eyes of Lowell Almen, and not as the scribes. As we seek to re-energize our congregation’s long-range planning and re-consecrate ourselves to the tasks of the gospel, the challenge is to let the widow’s dedication frame our mission. That is, to see we’ve been given gifts, too, and the church’s mission is somewhat compromised when we hold ourselves back.

So often congregations urge involvement from their members only by trying to convince them that participating in church is “worth it,” that taking part in Christ’s ministry can make a difference in their lives—which indeed it does. Congregations focus their message solely on the spiritual experience or sense of belonging that a congregation can offer the individual. Sometimes I wonder if the church shouldn’t couple that message with one modeled on the call to hold nothing back. The church should remember to say to God’s people, “You—each of you—are part of the church’s treasure.” In fact, each of us has a certain constellation of Spirit-given gifts that no one in the history of the world has ever had. Who are we to withhold those gifts from the life of this community and its ongoing work of restoring the world to Christ? Who are we to think that our participation doesn’t really matter, that someone else can just take our place? Who do we think we are? Unvalued?

On second thought, now that I hear it out loud, I suppose that approach sounds a little hard-edged, a little pushy. A little too pushy…in the way that Elijah pushily demands the widow at Zarephath to give him a piece of bread from her last meal. But, you see, she does trust to give it and not hold it back. She miraculously trusts God’s word will suffice when it says it will suffice, and she opens up the jar and the jug. And she sees it miraculously become a fountain of blessing that sustains the community for days.

I imagine that you could testify to this about your own lives—just like the poor, exploited widow Jesus glimpses in the Temple Treasury, just like the unwitting AIDS orphans that overflow Almen’s schools from the streets of Nairobi and Arusha, like each of us baptized treasurers that we are—we each become an opportunity for God’s grace to flow and flow and flow.

And our call is to realize, in the midst of our calculations of copper coins, that we have been claimed by a God who, himself, has held nothing back on the cross, who places his own life in the hand of the Father so that mercy and forgiveness flow inexplicably without end. To us. Through us. Clank, clank, clatter clatter clatter…Body of Christ, given for you, Body of Christ, given for you…loudly and mightily proclaiming there is a God who upholds the widow and the orphan, the stranger, the sinner…there is a God whose true treasure is his people.


Praise Him!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.