Wandering Arameans

February 22, 2010

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.
You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us.”
When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God,
you shall make this response before the LORD your God:
“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.”
You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God.
Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.

Luke 14:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’
and
‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Both texts for the first day of Lent are about wandering. Whether it is 40 years, in the case of Israel, or 40 days in the case of Jesus, both of them beg the question—what does wandering in the wilderness prepare you to inherit?
As we talked about last week, Luke’s gospel is forever struggling with the question—who do you say that Jesus is? This text shows the devil asking that question—if you are the son of God—then let’s see what you can do…
But Jesus refuses to let the tempter define his mission.

He will not make bread out of stones.

He will not accept worldly power.

He will not jump off the temple into the waiting arms of angels.

Notice that the things the devil asks him to do are not bad, in and of themselves—making bread out of stones would allow him to feed a whole lot of hungry people, after all. But if Jesus is to be the son of God, he realizes that there is only one voice he can obey—God’s.
Jesus will go on to feed the hungry later in the gospel. He will proclaim God’s Kingdom. And he will head to the cross with the confidence that the angels will, indeed catch him on the other side.
Jesus makes it through his period of wilderness wandering with a clearer sense of his identity as the Son of God and with a clearer understanding of his mission and confidence in the voice he will follow.

Wilderness wandering is rarely as successful for us, however. It took the Hebrew people 40 years of wandering, of being lost before they finally could see the Promised Land on the horizon. Forty YEARS!

And as they stand at the threshold, they are given some instruction for what they shall do as people who have been delivered, as people who are no longer wandering.
Their first response is to give thanks and to give back, take a share of the first fruit of the harvest and offer it to God in gratitude and praise. And as they do that, they are to recall their story, to remember the journey they have been on. This was the section I had you read with me earlier. The act of giving thanks and offering is intricately connected with the act of remembering.
And you know what they say about remembering—those who forget the past are doomed to fail History class.
No, that’s not it.
Those who forget the past are bound to repeat it.
But the act of remembering the past is not just to remember the ‘good ol’ days’. We remember the past to create a new and better future. Remembering subverts the world of death and pain in which we often find ourselves by insisting that the God to whom we give our praise and thanks is not done with creation.  God has provided help for God’s people in the past. And God is the God whose steadfast love endures forever. So, we’re called to remember as an act of faith for a future in which God will deliver and save again.
Let’s look at the story the deuteronomist wants us to remember.
It begins with “a wandering Aramean was my ancestor”. This would be Jacob. And the word “wandering” in Hebrew implies that he was wandering because he wouldn’t pull off the freeway and ask for directions, even though his 4 wives told him to!
He was wandering because he was lost and his own resources weren’t getting him to his destination. So, we begin our claim with the acknowledgement that we come from a long line of “wanderers”, of people who are lost and who needed God’s help to get where they were going.
There is also the acknowledgement of the difficult and painful part of their past—they were slaves in Egypt—mistreated and oppressed. Remembering doesn’t require to you to whitewash the past, erasing the pain and sadness and loss. There is an acknowledgement here that the Good Ol’ Days were not uniformly good. But notice that the story continues, explaining the deliverance of the people by the mighty hand of God. So remembering the deliverance of the past helps us look for deliverance now and in the future.
So at the moment of offering the first fruits, the people are acknowledging that the faithfulness of God has brought them to this moment in history. That they are where they are because of the provision and gifts of God.
And they have been given this land to possess. But the land is not theirs. It is still God’s. And so the act of offering the first fruits is a reminder for them. And we need those reminders. Because we look around at what we have and our human tendency is to feel proud for what we have done!
Look at this great land we possess! All this milk and honey! Aren’t we amazing!?

The discipline of offering our first fruits to God helps us remember that pride in our successes doesn’t lead us into the Promised Land. It leaves us wandering.
But the other truth implied in offering first fruits is that you can’t offer fruits of a harvest if you are wandering. You have to be settled to grow crops, to tend orchards.

So perhaps our question in Lent is this—how settled are we? Physically, spiritually? How grounded and rooted are you in your life right now? Because, while there is a lot to be said for wilderness wandering, it doesn’t lead to harvest.
How can we, as individuals and a community, be settled enough that we can put down roots, clear weeds and rocks from our fields, nurture the seedlings, water the crops, and harvest the abundance?

The end of our passage from Deuteronomy is about a community in celebration, about taking the abundant harvest in the land God has given us to possess and inherit, and sharing it with our neighbors. The two groups specified—the Levites and the aliens who reside among you—are illustrations of two groups who wouldn’t have had land of their own. Remember the Levites are tending to the temple. And the foreigners may have been day laborers, working in the fields, but the harvest didn’t belong to them. There is a clear call in this text for the community to celebrate together, not just individually.

In the coming months, you will be hearing about some new ways we are going to be involved in our community. I’m very excited about the new directions we may go, because I think this piece of this text is so important. God didn’t give the Hebrew people land to inherit and possess so that they could get rich and give themselves multimillion dollar bonuses. The land is theirs to inherit and possess for the welfare of the community.

As we move into this season of Lent, let us, like our Hebrew ancestors at the edge of the wilderness, remember who we are. Let us remember from whence we have come. Let us work for the welfare of our community. And let us remember the Lord our God who has provided for us all along our wilderness wanderings. Amen.

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Ash Wednesday Meditation

February 19, 2010

February 17, 2010

Southminster Presbyterian Church, Boise, Idaho

Isaiah 58:1-14

Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
“Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10
We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.
For he says,
“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”
See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!
We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry,  but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,  beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;  by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

We are entering Lent, a 40 day period of retrospection, traditionally a time of fasting and prayer to prepare our hearts and minds and lives for the Good News of Easter. And the best way to prepare for new and deeper relationships is to repent. We have a prayer of confession in worship each week, but this is the service of confession and repentance.
And true repentance is rare in our culture. Mark McGwire, the homerun champ, recently acknowledged what everyone could tell just by looking at him. He’d used steroids.
I wonder about the value of his repentance. I hope it will lead to restored relationships. But he acknowledged that he is only coming clean now, despite years of lying about it to everyone –including his family, friends, investigators, and congress—he’s only coming clean now so that he can get a job with the Cardinals as a batting coach. And he still claims that he took performance enhancing drugs only for their health benefits, not to strengthen his hitting. Again, I hope his repentance is true and will lead him to restored relationships.
But if you look around our culture, you see disgraced politicians from both sides of the aisle, telling their constituents they are sorry for their “indiscretions” while their wives stand faithfully behind them. And then many of those same politicians go on with their lives as if nothing has changed. We offer cheap repentance in our culture.
While I certainly believe in second chances, I do wonder what kind of message we are giving to our kids with our cheap repentance. What are they learning from us when we say we’re sorry and then go on with our lives, business as usual?
Apparently, things were similar back in Isaiah’s day. They may not have had steroids, but they seemed to have self-serving repentance too. And these people had some real reasons to seek God’s forgiveness, for they had abandoned the covenant and the ways of their God and ended up in exile. They needed deliverance from captivity and bondage.
Yet the people were going through the motions of fasting, repentance, dust and ashes, but were not changing the way they lived. Isaiah even accuses them of serving only their own interest on fast day and makes it clear that this is NOT the fast that God chooses.
What God wants in our repentance and in the religious acts that surround repentance, is spelled out pretty clearly. We are to seek the welfare of our community by fighting injustice, setting free the captives, sharing our bread with the hungry, clothing the naked, and welcoming the homeless poor into our homes.
Sadly for us, what God wants from us is often far from what we are willing to offer to God. Many people give up things for Lent. And perhaps giving up caffeine, or chocolate, or brussel sprouts might bring you closer to God, but how many of us have decided that for Lent we’re going to invite the homeless poor into our homes? How many of us have decided to actively seek justice as our Lenten practice?

There is a dichotomy in our Isaiah passage between selfish concerns and the concerns of the community. If our repentance is self-serving, worshipping God so that God will do something for us, it will not bring us closer to God.  The repentance God wants is free of the anxiety of selfish concerns. It asks us to freely give to help those in our community, with no concerns for how we will benefit.
Because, here is the truth.
All of our benefits come from God.
They do not come about because of our own actions.
This is the mystery of grace. In grace, we are freed to live more fully in community with our fellow brothers and sisters.
In the fast that God chooses, “we are invited to receive ourselves and others as gifts, discovering in God’s engagement with us a life that can only be a life together.” (Thomas W. Currie in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 2, page 4). Do our acts of repentance help us see the people we meet as God’s other beloved children? Do our acts of repentance help us see how our society has broken down, reflected in the reality of widespread hunger, homelessness, violence, and oppression?

In Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, he seems to be wearing his ashes pretty visibly. Paul has taken such a stand for reconciliation of God’s people and such a stand for the gospel, that he has suffered because of it. Like Isaiah, he understands that our faith should not be self serving, but focused on the welfare of the community. Reconciliation is what we are called to as the church, even with people to whom we don’t particularly want to be reconciled.

But Paul wants us to see that reconciliation is worth it all. Like Isaiah before him, Paul wants to make clear to people that we aren’t fasting for the sake of fasting, or suffering for the sake of suffering. But both of them want us to see the connection between our mortality—our frail human lives—and our eternal lives. From dust we come and to dust we shall return is our story just as is the story of the cross that leads to eternal life.
Ash Wednesday, for Presbyterians at least, is the one day of the year you wear your faith visibly on your face. A little later in the service, we’ll put ashes on our foreheads, and go out into the world with the mark of our cross visible to the world. We will wear our mortality on our foreheads as we proclaim the promise of eternal life. Ashes are an ancient liturgical practice. Job repented in dust and ashes (Job 42:6). In Joshua, the Israelites put dust on their foreheads before the ark of the covenant (Josh 7:6). Daniel repented with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes as he prayed to God (Daniel 9:3).
As we go out into the world with the sign of our repentance on our forehead, I pray that it will not be in vain. That it will lead us to a repentance that will benefit the lives of the people we meet, freeing us to live into the grace that has saved us, with clean hearts and right spirits.
And when that happens, hear the promise from Isaiah:

If you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Amen.

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Transfiguration

February 14, 2010

Exodus 34:29-35

Luke 9:28-43

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church, February 14, 2010

Exodus 34 Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.
But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them.
Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.
When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Luke 9 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.
And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.
Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.
They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.
Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said.
While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.
Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.
Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.
Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.
I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”
Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”
While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.
And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

I’m sure many of you are hoping that I will explain these passages for you. That I will wrap them up in a nice little package of “that makes sense” so we can go on our way, secure in our illusion that things are supposed to make sense.

But I will not be doing that today. Because whether you interpret the Bible literally or more figuratively, these texts are about mystery. They don’t want to be explained. Right before we enter the season of Lent, as we’ll prepare for the mystery of Easter, these texts stand at the entrance and remind us that God is not to be easily understood or categorized.

Our passage from Exodus is the second time Moses has brought the 10 commandments back to the people. Remember the first time? He came off the mountain to discover the people worshipping the golden calf. But Moses continues to talk with God. The text says that God spoke to Moses face to face, as he would a friend. And Moses asks things of God that we would not. He asks to see the glory of God.

But when Moses comes down from the mountain, the people won’t go anywhere near him. Because his face was shining.  Seeing the glory of God leaves him physically altered.

Moses gives the people the instructions from God and then he puts a veil on his face—just so they won’t be freaked out by his appearance. When he is with God, he takes the veil off. This is the opposite of what you think should happen. Moses didn’t need protection from God, but apparently the people needed protection from the glory of God that is evident on his face.

Again, we aren’t sure what the term “glory of the Lord” means, but clearly there are consequences to getting that close to God. It isn’t to be taken lightly. {At the very least, it seems clear that once Moses decided to identify himself that closely with God, once he decided that the veil was more helpful when he was in public than it was when he was with God, he ended up somewhat at odds with his neighbors.}
Whatever the Glory of the Lord is, it clearly leaves us dazzled and blinking from its brightness.

The authors of the gospel accounts of the Transfiguration of Jesus told their story in a way to remind you of Moses. Moses is even there. And Elijah too. The connection between Jesus and the Old Testament Law and Prophets is drawn in bold strokes. They are on a mountain. The word “exodus” is even used, although in our translation, it is “They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure”, speaking of his exodus.

And Jesus face is changed and his clothes become dazzling white. But this isn’t because his momma had access to some really good bleach with which to wash his clothes. This is a reminder of what happens when the glory of the Lord appears to you.
You are transfigured.
You are changed.

And, in Luke’s gospel, this story is placed at the end of a section about Jesus identity. Herod wants to know who Jesus is. Jesus asks his disciples who they say he is.

And Luke answers the question, giving us a very clear answer despite the mystery surrounding the scene. Jesus is the inheritor of Moses and Elijah’s traditions. Jesus is the one on whom God’s glory has shone. Even God gives an answer in God’s own voice—“This is my Son, my Chosen—Listen to him!”

Two thousand years later, we’re still asking that question of ourselves and of each other. Who is Jesus?

A few weeks ago, at our congregational meeting, I shared with you an action the Session had taken in regard to Camp Sawtooth. For this summer, we are not going to send our kids to camp there. We are waiting for the Camp Board to respond when they meet in a few weeks, but many of our concerns about what has been going on at camp are related to this very question. Who do we say Jesus is?
I’ve had some discussions since that congregational meeting about this issue, so perhaps now is a good time to say more. One of our concerns about the camp’s faith statement was the exclusiveness of it. If we didn’t see Jesus exactly the way described in that faith statement, there was not room for us there.
Here is how we described our concerns in our letter:

“While we believe that the birth, life and teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the means through which we understand our salvation, we do not feel it necessary to claim that people who encounter God through other faiths or traditions are “eternally separated from God’s presence,” as stated in the camp Faith Statement. For one thing, it is not our job to determine the fate of other people’s souls. That job belongs to God alone. We commend to the Presbytery and especially to the Camp Board the 2002 document prepared by the Office of Theology and Worship at the General Assembly “Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ,” (available at www.pcusa.org) which reminds us that:

No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus Christ. Yet we do not presume to limit the sovereign   freedom of “God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Thus, we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all     people are saved regardless of faith. Grace, love, and communion belong to God, and are not ours to determine.”

This is a Transfiguration issue.
Regardless of what we think about other faith traditions, our job as Christians is to be good Christians. Our job is to claim our identity as followers of Jesus. It is not our job to make claims for the other faith traditions.

This is a Transfiguration issue because as we approach Easter in the coming weeks of Lent, we have to figure out what it means for us to claim that Jesus is Lord. We follow a Savior who died on a cross, and who was raised by God to eternal life. This is not the narrative that the world tells. In the world’s narrative, we follow people who succeed. People who wield power. But in Christ, we follow someone who continually passed up opportunities to wield earthly power. We follow someone who was humiliated as a criminal on a cross.  What does this mean for you to claim this?

Whether you see the gospel stories literally or figuratively, you still are confronted with the question—who do you say Jesus is?

We’ll enter the season of Lent this week with Ash Wednesday. I invite you to join us this Wednesday for worship at 7 pm. And I invite you to consider adding a question to your spiritual practice. As you’re reading the Bible, as you are praying, I invite you to take time in Lent and ask the question Luke answers in this text—who you do say Jesus is?

I am not going to answer the question for you, but here are a few things I noticed in this text that I’ll leave with you so you can do your own pondering in your heart.

Don’t erase the mystery. When the disciples saw Jesus transfigured, they wanted to build some tents. I personally, want to design a brand of laundry detergent called TRANSFIGURALL—for those Dazzling and Blinding Whites! But we should fight all of our tendencies to just explain the mystery away. Maybe our challenge during Lent should be to learn to live comfortably with unanswerable questions.

Don’t sleep through the important moments in life. The disciples were “weighed down with sleep”, even though their teacher was now blinding white and talking with Moses. They managed to stay awake this time, but will have similar troubles on Gethsemane while Jesus is off praying. How often do we live our lives distracted with our attention divided? I don’t know if the disciples were tired because they stayed up too late the night before watching TV or because they were wasting time watching youtube videos. Maybe they were just busy from working and driving the kids to basketball games and soccer practice.  But they almost missed the mystery of the Transfiguration. While this text is clearly about more than this, I do think this text is a reminder for us to pay attention, and to be present in our lives so that we don’t miss the mysteries when they show up.

And the final thing I noticed is this:
There is a connection between God’s glory and suffering—both human and divine. We are seeing Jesus today at the transfiguration, shining with the glory of God. But in a few weeks, we’ll see him in the midst of suffering, suffering death on a cross.  Jesus’ story doesn’t stop here on the mountain with his shining glory and hobnobbing with Moses and Elijah. He comes down off the mountain, knowing that he is heading for the cross. And when he gets off the mountain, he is faced with human suffering too. A man begs him to heal his child after the disciples had been unsuccessful in their attempts.
Jesus does not say to the man, “do you know who I was just talking with? Do you know how shiny I was?”

Jesus just heals the boy. He doesn’t have any words for the father. But he does have words for the disciples—words for the church. “You faithless and perverse generation—how much longer must I be with you?” The disciples had seen the transfiguration with their own eyes, yet it hadn’t translated into an ability to help someone in pain and suffering.

As we ponder the question about who Jesus is and what it means for us to be the best Jesus followers we can be, we should remember this too—having the best answers and understanding of Jesus doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t translate into helping people who need it.

How does our understanding and experience of Jesus translate into how we treat the people we meet?

I don’t know why the disciples were unable to heal the child. Maybe they were too distracted by the events on the mountain. But I think Jesus strikes such a harsh tone with them because it is so important that they get this right—you have to come down from the mountain and help the people you meet.

We have many blessings here at Southminster. In the midst of this economy, we are stable. We are in a position to really make a difference in our community and our world. But it will take concerted effort on our part to make that happen. I invite you to consider your response to Jesus transfiguration. How can we come down from this mountain and really heal people? I have great confidence that the Spirit will show us the way. Let us have eyes to see and hearts to respond.
Amen.

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To Whom do You Belong?

February 3, 2010

A Sermon preached at Southminster

January 31, 2010

Mark 12:1-27

Much like last week’s text, our passage from Mark’s gospel has some similarities to other gospel texts, but is, in my hearing, a little harsher than the versions told in Luke 20 and Matthew 21.
I had a hard time trying to figure out why Mark told all of these stories in this order, but here is what I noticed.
All of these stories—the vineyard, the emperor’s money, and the seven bridegrooms for one bride—are all about ownership. People trying to figure out who owns what.
In the first story, Jesus tells a parable that isn’t very subtle. Usually, when you hear a parable, you wonder, which character am I? But in this parable, it is so apparent that the religious leaders are the wicked tenants, that they even recognize it about themselves. And they aren’t very happy about it.

So this parable exposes the mistakes of the religious leaders—people who certainly should have recognized the Son when he showed up on the grounds, but killed him, as if that would allow them to inherit the vineyard. This is a pretty scathing indictment about religious leaders who should have been giving the harvest over to God, but were keeping it for themselves.
Most religious leaders, I suspect, when asked, would say, “of course the harvest isn’t ours. We work for God.” But I wonder if there are times when we don’t function that way. When we try to claim ownership for the programs or successes. When we try to claim God’s people as our own. I’m leery of casting judgment here, suspecting it would also be pointed toward me.
But this text starts out with a reminder that the work of the church, the work of God’s people, is not ours. It does not belong to us. This is good news for us. We are just the laborers. At the end of the day, it is God who is in charge. How great would it be if we could really live as if this were true?!
If we get new members—it is not because of us. It is because God wants more people to be with us on the journey. If our worship numbers increase—it is not because of us. It is because God delights in our worship and wants more of us to make a joyful noise. If our budget increases—it is not because of us. It is because God has things for us to do here in the community and in the world.

The second section of our text involves the response from the religious leaders. They recognize that Jesus has just strongly criticized them, but they’re afraid of the crowd, so they walk away. But they send some people to test him, to try to trap him in what he says.
“Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?  Should we pay them, or should we not?”

Can’t you just hear the sarcasm? This is one of those examples in scripture where people are speaking the truth, whether or not they are aware of it.
And their plan is that if Jesus says NOT to pay taxes, then they can go tell the authorities that he’s being subversive. If he tells them to pay their taxes, they can tell the people that he’s in the control of the authorities and doesn’t care about them.
If the question in the first part of the text is who does the vineyard belong to, the question here is who does the money belong to?
So, Jesus, sensing their trap, asks them whose face is on the money. “the emperor’s”.
Then give the money to him.
Now, I know that nobody likes to pay taxes, but this text should remind us not to confuse the kingdom of God with our own political system. Belief in God will not get you out of your civic responsibilities. It is a tricky thing, and even though the religious leaders had ulterior motives in asking the question—I think it is still a fair question.
We talk about the Kingdom of God and we work to make that a reality. Yet we are living in the Kingdom of the United States of America. And the two kingdoms do not have the same goals. I think we can work for God’s kingdom in the midst of this other one in which we find ourselves. But we shouldn’t confuse them.
And, like the question of who owns the vineyard, this is good news for us too. It means that God’s kingdom is not limited by coins, or by what the rulers of this world do or don’t do. “Sure, give this coin to the emperor,” Jesus seems to be saying. “God isn’t limited to this.” He almost treats their question with an attitude, of “aren’t they just precious?”  Or as my friends in the South would say, “bless their hearts. They are comparing God with some mortal.”
So the harvest of the vineyard belongs to the owner of the vineyard. The things of the emperor belong to the emperor.
And our final test for Jesus today is brought by a second group of religious leaders—the Sadducees. This group really ceased to exist within Judaism after the fall of the Temple in 70 CE, but they were very different than the Pharisees. They were biblical literalists—when they read “an eye for an eye”, they would really take the eye. They also didn’t believe in an afterlife. Resurrection isn’t mentioned by Moses in the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures, so they didn’t believe in it. Using that reasoning, I would guess that they also don’t believe in cell phones, HD TV, or sliced bread (other things not mentioned by Moses.
In any case, they ask Jesus a question about the resurrection. The one they don’t believe in.
Talk about a theoretical case. So a guy dies. His widow marries one of his brothers. He dies too….and on it goes. Seven brothers for one bride—and who will she be married to when they get to heaven? There’s an awkward heavenly family dinner party, no? Poor woman.
The Saducees want this question to be about who owns this woman—brother 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7?
But Jesus answers a different question—who owns life? the living or the dead?
And he knows they are strict biblical literalists, so he quotes their
favorite guy to them—

have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

Jesus doesn’t limit God to earth, and he doesn’t answer the underlying concern of the Saducees about the resurrection, but he does tell them to stop worrying about theoretical situations in the afterlife. God is the God of the living. To me, that means that we should spend more time caring about how we treat people now, rather than saying, “I can’t stand to be around so and so, but I’m sure we’ll all get along just fine in Heaven.”
Promising someone great things in the afterlife while depriving them of justice here on earth, would probably lead Jesus to tell us, “He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”
I also saw this part of the text in stark relief this weekend. I flew to Seattle to say goodbye to my Uncle Leonard who has brain tumors and was just placed on hospice this week. As the family gathered around his bedside, I heard Jesus’ claim, “He is God not of the dead, but of the living” in a new way. Death will be a release for my uncle from his disease. When he dies, he will not need any consolation, for he will be whole again. But this weekend, as the family gathered around his bedside, there was great celebration in being together. I could feel God’s presence smoothing over those family relationships that can be stressful and allowing us all to rest in each other’s presence. I was thankful that we have a God who cares for the living.

So we give to the landlord the things that belong to the landlord. We give to the emperor, the things that belong to the emperor. And we give to those around us, to the living, the things you need to live a good life here and now.
This passage is heading toward the end of Jesus’ story in Mark’s gospel. It is as if Jesus is about to make his claim about who he belongs to. He is marching quickly toward the cross, where he will claim with his life that he belongs to God.
We aren’t to the season of Lent quite yet, but we will be in a few weeks. Lent, the season of preparing for the event of Easter, is a time to clean out the closets of your heart, soul, and mind, preparing you to receive the gift of Easter.
Perhaps this struggle about ownership and priorities in Mark could be useful for us as we prepare for Lent.
Do our lives reflect the God we serve?

When worship is over this morning, we invite you to stay for the annual congregational meeting. Only members can vote, but all people who participate in the life of the church are welcome to stay and listen. I think, as we talk about the budget and a few other matters, is you’ll hear confirmation about how well our life as Southminster seeks to reflect the God we serve. Surely we can do better—perfection is only for Jesus, we remember. But through your faithful participation, stewardship, and commitment this year, we have grown and strengthened our commitment to God’s work in this place and in our community. I cannot think of a place I would rather be, than right here with you. And it is such a privilege to be on the journey with you. God is, indeed, the God of the living, and I look forward to working with you in this upcoming year to show God’s love and concern for those living people whom God places into our care.
Thanks be to God.

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Posted by marciglass

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