Tag Archives: Saint Peter

Living with the dead; a poem by William Matthews; and the lessons for Sunday, April 15th

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See the source imageTHIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Holy and righteous God, you are the author of life, and you adopt us to be your children. Fill us with your words of life, that we may live as witnesses to the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Every culture has its own way of living with the dead. As much as we might like to deny it, we are the products of past leaders whose decisions have shaped the world in which we have grown up, parents who, for better or worse, have shaped our character and peers whose unanticipated passing leaves holes in the fabric of our lives. Even if you don’t have a religious bone in your body, you can’t avoid reckoning with the dead. Welcome or not, they are a part of who you are and you ignore them at your peril.

Not long ago I had the opportunity to watch Coco, the animated film recently produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The concept for Coco is based on the Mexican holiday, the Day of the Dead. This multi-day celebration focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. The dead are permitted to return to the land of the living in ghostly form on this special day as long as their loved ones remember to post their picture among the “ofrenda,” a collection of objects placed on a ritual altar for the dead. For the rest of the year, the dead continue their existence in their own separate realm for as long as they remain in living memory. When the day comes that no one remembers them, they expire and become truly dead. In the movie, twelve-year-old Miguel, who lives with his extended family headed by his grandmother, Coco, dreams of becoming a musician. His dream leads him on a journey into the land of the dead where he encounters his ancestors and struggles with his conflicting loyalties to his musical aspirations and his family. That’s as much as I dare say. I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for you.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. In addition to being thoughtful, clever and visually stunning, the story provides a powerful image of what we confess as the “communion of saints.” The commemoration of the Day of the Dead is not so very far removed from our All Saints Day. Just as relatives of past generations live in the shared memories of their living families, so through our lessons, hymns and liturgy, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Debera, David, Peter, Mary and Paul continue to visit us with their witness and teaching. Just as the celebrants in Coco are comforted with the conviction that their loved ones are present with them in their celebration, it is likewise comforting to know that our loved ones are in the company of the saints in light. Yet Coco leaves us with one troubling question: What about those who have no family? What about those no one remembers or cares about? What about the lost pregnancy? The still birth? The infant abandoned at birth and left to die? The unknown and nameless folk who parish from hunger and disease in the corner of some refugee camp?

The good news of Jesus’ resurrection takes us a step beyond Coco. Turns out that there is a life-giving memory far greater than our own. “God is not God of the dead, but of the living,” says Jesus. “For all live to him.” In fact, it is the forgotten, the neglected, the outcast and those with no one to remember them that are foremost in God’s mind and heart. The resurrection of the betrayed, abandoned and crucified Jesus is God’s pledge to bring to completion all lives that have been stunted by poverty and oppression or ruthlessly cut short by violence or illness. Just how that will occur is beyond comprehension. When the scriptural witnesses speak of that new heaven and earth in which the saints of all the ages participate, they must resort to parables, hymns, poems and graphic apocalyptic imagery. Though Jesus assures us that those we deem dead nonetheless live to God, he doesn’t give us any clues about what that life is like. As delightful as Coco’s fanciful depiction of existence beyond the grave surely is, like all human efforts at imagining the mysteries beyond death, it necessarily falls far short of the real thing.

I think Saint John says about as much as can be said in our second lesson for this Sunday: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when [God] is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” I John 3:2. As I have often said before, this isn’t as much as we might like to know. But it is enough.

Here is a poem by William Matthews speaking of the way the dead continue to interact with the living.

Living Among the Dead

There is another world,
but it is in this one.

Paul Eluard

First there were those who died
before I was born.
It was as if they had just left
and their shadows would
slip out after them
under the door so recently closed
the air in its path was still
swirling to rest.
Some of the furniture came from them,
I was told, and one day
I opened two chests
of drawers to learn what the dead kept.

But it was when I learned to read
that I began always
to live among the dead.
I remember Rapunzel,
the improved animals
in the Just-So Stories, and a flock
of birds that saved themselves
from a hunter by flying in place
in the shape of a tree,
their wings imitating the whisk
of wind in the leaves.

My sons and I are like some wine
the dead have already bottled.
They wish us well, but there is nothing
they can do for us.
Sebastian cries in his sleep,
I bring him into my bed,
talk to him, rub his back.
To help his sons live easily
among the dead is a father’s great work.
Now Sebastian drifts, soon he’ll sleep.
We can almost hear the dead
breathing. They sound like water
under a ship at sea.

To love the dead is easy.
They are final, perfect.
But to love a child
is sometimes to fail at love
while the dead look on
with their abstract sorrow.

To love a child is to turn
away from the patient dead.
It is to sleep carefully
in case he cries.

Later, when my sons are grown
among their own dead, I can
dive easily into sleep and loll
among the coral of my dreams
growing on themselves
until at the end
I almost never dream of anyone,
except my sons,
who is still alive.

Source: Matthews, William, Rising and Falling (c. 1979 by William Matthews, pub. by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). William Matthews (1942-1997)  was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He earned his BA from Yale University and an MA from the University of North Carolina. He published eleven books of poetry during his lifetime, one of which earned him the National Book Critics Circle Award. Matthews served as president of Associated Writing Programs and of the Poetry Society of America. He was also a member and chair of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. At the time of his death from a heart attack at age fifty-five, he was a professor of English and director of the creative writing program at New York’s City College. You can learn more about William Matthews and read more of his poems at the Poetry Foundation website.  You might also want to check out his profile on poets.org.

Acts 3:12-19

This passage is part of a larger narrative that begins with Peter and John going up to the temple in Jerusalem to pray. Acts 3:1. The indication here is that the temple and its worship was an important aspect of faith and piety in the infant Jesus movement. Though the composition of Acts took place long after the temple had been destroyed and its worship traditions lost, there is no reason to discount Luke’s account of the early church’s worshiping and gathering there. This anecdote from the Book of Acts testifies to a reality that is hard to grasp from our historical standpoint, namely, that the Jesus movement that ultimately became the church originated as a reform movement within Judaism. Though Luke’s interest throughout the latter chapters of Acts is on the mission to the gentiles, he makes the point that the church’s origin was in Jerusalem, the heart of Judaism.

On their way into the temple, the two disciples encounter a lame beggar asking for alms. Peter tells the man that he has no money, but what he does have he will give him. With that, Peter commands: “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Acts 3:6. As the song we all learned in Sunday School goes, “He went walking and leaping and praising God.” Acts 3:8. This show of divine healing did not escape notice of the crowds in front of the temple, who were “filled with wonder and amazement.” Acts 3:10. At this point, Peter addresses the crowd in the words of our lesson.

“Why…do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made [this man] walk?” vs. 12. From beginning to end, Luke is determined not to attribute this or any other mighty work done among the apostles to the apostles. This miracle of healing has numerous parallels to healings Jesus performed in the gospels. The healing power of Jesus manifest throughout his ministry continues unbroken through the community of disciples. It is, in fact, Jesus who healed the man and Peter would have his audience know that.

“The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our Fathers, glorified his servant Jesus…” vs. 13. Again, probably for the benefit of his gentile readers, Luke makes the point that the God proclaimed by the church is not “the god of our common understanding,” a sort of lowest divine common denominator to which everyone short of an atheist can own. The God and Father of Jesus Christ is the God of the patriarchs and matriarchs, the God of the Exodus, the God of David and the God of the prophets. We do not all believe in the same God and it is not a matter of indifference where God is sought. The God and Father of Jesus Christ is not the anemic, placid and featureless deity of American civil religion. Prayers written with such a high degree of cultural sensitivity as to offend nobody are addressed to nobody. “Nonsectarian prayer” is simply pious slop.

Having said that, Peter’s sermon here alludes to the appearance of God to Moses in the burning bush. There God reveals God’s self as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Exodus 3:6. This affirms, as I said previously, that God is known exclusively through God’s word and covenant faithfulness to God’s chosen people. Moses, it seems, is not entirely satisfied with God’s self identification. “If I go to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What shall I tell them? God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’” Exodus 3:13-14. Depending on the rendering of the Hebrew which is not altogether clear as to the tense of the verbs, this declaration might also be interpreted, “I will be who I will be.” In either case, God will not be limited by any divine name. Surely, God’s saving acts on behalf of Israel are definitive in themselves and in our understanding of the New Testament witness to Jesus. Yet there is a difference between “definitive” and “limited.” A definition is capable of deeper understanding, interpretation and explanation. Only so can the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob possibly be understood as the God of gentile believers in Jesus Christ.

Luke goes further to say that Jesus, the one rejected, handed over to the imperial authorities and put to death is “the Holy and Righteous One,” “the Author of life” attested by God’s raising him from death. Vs. 12. It is the church’s claim that the promises made to Israel and to the world find their fulfilment in Jesus. What does this mean for Jews that did not find in Jesus the fulfilment of the covenant promises? What does it mean for believers of other faiths that do not know or acknowledge Jesus as Lord?

When I was in college I became well acquainted with a Taiwanese Buddhist woman who regularly attended our campus chapel worship and even sang in our worship choir. We discussed our respective faith experiences often, but I was never sure we were understanding each other well. I now know that views of divinity and godhood in the Eastern religions are quite different from orthodox Christian thought. Consequently, I believe we were probably talking past each other much of the time. I do recall, however, that in one of our last conversations she told me that learning about Jesus had helped her become a better Buddhist.

So I was left to wonder about the simple equation we make between salvation and conversion to orthodox belief in Jesus. Is evangelization always about conversion? My friend was never (to my knowledge) converted, baptized and received into membership of any church. She was not a Christian in any proper sense of the word. Yet she seems to have had an encounter with Jesus that deepened and expanded her Buddhist faith and practice. Can Jesus enable Jews to become better Jews, Buddhists to become better Buddhists and Muslims to become better Muslims-just as he enables Christians to become better Christians? Seems to me that disciples of Jesus need not choose between an absolutist position that denigrates all other faiths to the status of false or second class religion on the one hand and sappy, mindless drivel about a “god of our common understanding” on the other. It is enough to do just as Peter does in his sermon: preach Jesus Christ boldly, persuasively and faithfully. Then let that Word of God “multipl[y] the number of disciples” or work in whatever way the Spirit in her wisdom sees fit. Acts 6:7.

Peter goes on to emphasize that he and his fellow apostles are witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. This goes to my oft repeated quote from Rich Barger, President of Trinity Lutheran Seminary: “If the tomb wasn’t empty, we’ve got nothing to talk about.” Much of 19th and early 20th Century protestant theology and biblical scholarship has strained to explain the resurrection in terms that do not insult modernity’s creed of empiricism. Whether or not the tomb was empty, is irrelevant or so we are told. The church’s faith, we are assured, is based on the disciples’ encounter with the resurrected Christ. However that might be, it begs the question: was the resurrection an act by which God raised the crucified Jesus of Nazareth from death into life? Or was the resurrection a completely understandable response to the life and death of a person whose example and teachings proved greater than his mortal life?

As I pointed out five years ago in my Easter post of 2013, we need to be careful about asserting more than we know about the resurrection. Though Jesus appears to his disciples with a body that can be embraced, shares in meals and continues to bear the wounds of the cross, that body is clearly more than a resuscitated corpse. When Luke asserts that Jesus ascended to the right hand of God the Father, he does not mean to say that Jesus has gone away to some distant place. Rather, he is saying that Jesus is henceforth more intensely present than ever before. Jesus is God’s right hand at work in the world through his church. Saint Paul understands the church to be the resurrected Body of Christ. The empty tomb testifies that Jesus lives-not as a religious, theological or philosophical principle that outlasted him, but as God’s right hand bringing to completion Jesus’ work of salvation for all creation. Jesus was the face of God for humanity throughout his ministry and continues to be so with greater power and intensity as the resurrected Lord at God’s right hand.

Though Peter makes no citation to the prophets he claims foretold the suffering of the Messiah, his audience was well aware that God suffers along with the afflictions of Israel. See, e.g., Hosea 12:5-9. Isaiah 1:4-6; Isaiah 42:14-16. Whether a 1st Century Jewish audience would have recognized the Servant Songs (Isaiah 42:1–9, Isaiah 49:1-6, Isaiah 50:4-9a and Isaiah 52:13-53:12) from Second Isaiah as messianic is debatable. Nonetheless, they illustrate, as does the witness of the prophets generally, that prophetic faithfulness to the will of Israel’s God necessarily entails suffering, rejection and sometimes martyrdom. That the messiah should share in the suffering of both God’s prophets and God’s self is a legitimate interpretive step.

“Times of refreshing” in verse 19 may be an intentional allusion to Isaiah 32 in which the prophet foretells the coming of “a king who will reign in righteousness.” Isaiah 32:1. At this time, “the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.” Isaiah 32:15. The “effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.” Isaiah 32:17. Peter means to tie everything that Jesus has accomplished into the most far reaching and wonderful prophetic promises growing out of Israel’s covenant with her God. With what other than prophetic language can one speak of the mystery of resurrection?

Psalm 4

This is a psalm of lament, one of the most common types found in the Psalter. The essential elements of its type are:

  1. Initial Appeal to Yahweh, vs. 1.
  2. Portrayal of inward distress, vs. 2
  3. Expression of confidence, vss. 3.
  4. Witness of praise to the community, vss. 4-8.

See Anderson, Bernard W., Out of the Depths, The Psalms Speak for us Today, (c. 1983 by Bernard W. Anderson, pub. by The Westminster Press) p. 97. Using the categories employed by Professor Walter Brueggemann, this psalm falls under the collection of prayers characterized as psalms of “disorientation.” Such psalms insist “that the world must be experienced as it really is and not in some pretended way.” Nevertheless, they also insist that all “experiences of disorder are a proper subject for discourse with God.” Brueggemann, Walter, The Message of the Psalms, Augsburg Old Testament Studies (c. 1984 by Augsburg Publishing House) p. 52. “It is a curious fact,” Brueggemann notes, “that the church has, by and large, continued to sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented.” Ibid. at p. 51. He goes on to say that:

“It is in my judgment that this action of the church is less an evangelical defiance guided by faith, and much more a frightened, numb denial and deception that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life. The reason for such relentless affirmation of orientation seems to come, not from faith, but from wishful optimism of our culture. Such a denial and cover up, which I take it to be, is an odd inclination for passionate Bible users, given the large number of psalms that are songs of lament, protest, and complaint about the incoherence that is experienced in the world. At least it is clear that a church that goes on singing ‘happy songs’ in the face of raw reality is doing something very different from what the Bible itself does.” Ibid. at pp. 51-52.

This Sunday’s psalm does not begin with a lengthy, pious invocation. The psalmist begins his/her prayer with a demand for an answer! Vs. 1. In that respect, s/he is not unlike my son when he was just a toddler. Occasionally I was distracted with one thing or another when he needed my full attention. At those times, he would literally grasp my head and turn my face in his direction to make it clear where he thought my priorities should be. It is with that kind of forcefulness that the psalmist demands the attention of God.

The dilemma of the psalmist appears to be false accusation. “How long shall my honor suffer shame?” vs. 2. That was a very real question faced by the spouse of a friend, a teacher accused of molesting one of his students. During investigation of the allegations, which took several months, he was suspended from his job. Though the law presumes one innocent until proven guilty, the court of public opinion presumes guilt, often even after a court has declared quite the opposite. This is particularly so when the offense is one we view as the vilest of crimes. Turns out that my friend’s spouse was cleared of any wrongdoing and reinstated, but that could hardly compensate for the toll taken by living for months under such damning allegations. That may reflect what the psalmist is experiencing here.

“But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him.” vs. 2. The psalmist is confident that God, the final court of appeal, sees all ends and will render a just verdict. However heavily the deck may be stacked against him, no human judgment founded on injustice can stand.

“Be angry, but sin not; commune with your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.” Vs. 4. The psalmist began with a call to God for an answer to his/her predicament. S/he then turns to address his/her accusers with the assurance that God will judge his/her case justly. Now the psalmist addresses his/her fellow worshipers with words of advice. “Be angry, but sin not.” The greatest temptation faced by persons undergoing false accusation is to become cynical and hateful. The question is whether one will be shaped by the conduct of one’s persecutors or by faith in the God upon whom one depends.

“There are many who say, ‘Oh that we might see some good! Lift up the light of thy countenance upon us, O Lord!’” vs. 6. It is, of course, easier to live thankfully when life is blessed and times are peaceful. But the psalmist recognizes that the true measure of a person’s soul is taken in times of trial. Thus, s/he can pray, “Thou has put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” Vs. 7. These fair weather worshipers have no understanding of the joy that comes from confidence in God wrought through bitter experience where such confidence is sorely needed. Thus, as uncertain and ambiguous as the psalmist’s situation is, s/he can nevertheless “lie down and sleep” in peace. Vs. 8.

1 John 3:1-7

For my comments on the First Letter of John generally, see my post for Sunday, April 8, 2018. You might also want to check out the Summary Article by Alan Padgett, Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary, St. Paul M.N.

The chapter begins with an affirmation of God’s love and promise that we are God’s children even now. Vs. 1. This relationship to God our heavenly Father is not something into which we grow. It is a relationship into which we are born through the waters of baptism. Yet, in a sense, it is something into which we grow. Verses 3-7 read in isolation from the rest of the epistle might suggest that believers in Jesus no longer sin. John already told us quite the contrary in last week’s reading. I John 1:8. The focus here is on the process described in verse 3 where John says, “everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” Hope and trust in Jesus re-orientates life away from sin and toward a life of love for the sisters and brothers in Christ’s church. This new orientation is a process by which believers and the church as a whole are transformed into the image of Jesus. Sin is still a reality in the life of a disciple, but its power to enslave is broken by God’s promise of forgiveness.

The verse I find most meaningful among the many meaningful sentences tightly packed into this section is verse 2. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” We know from last week’s lesson that Jesus is the face of God that can be touched, looked upon and seen. So while much remains mysterious about resurrected life, we know that at Jesus’ appearing, we will be like Jesus. We will be the sort of creatures capable of living joyfully, thankfully and obediently under the gentle reign of God Incarnate. This is what needs to happen in order for us to receive the advent of God’s reign as good news. A kingdom in which all have enough might not look very attractive to those of us who have grown used to having far more than we need. A kingdom in which all are welcome might seem unwelcome to those of us accustomed to flying first class or living in gated communities. To those of us accustomed to being the center of attention, having all attention directed to the Lamb on the throne might prove an unbearable slight. Unless we finally become like Jesus, the kingdom of heaven isn’t going to be much fun.

Of course, the overall message of these verses and of the epistle generally is that God in Christ Jesus is even now working that transformation in us. We may not be aware of it. We might be tempted to doubt it when we try to measure our progress toward the goal of becoming like Christ. The best advice is not to try and measure. Like a tightrope walker, our eyes need to be fixed on the goal, on Christ who beckons us forward. The minute we take our gaze off him and fixate on the abyss beneath us and the distance we have yet to go, we are toast.

Luke 24:36b-48

This is a scene at the tail end of Luke’s series of resurrection encounters throughout this chapter. By this time, Jesus has appeared to the women at the tomb, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and apparently to Simon Peter as well. This resurrection appearance marks the climax in which Jesus appears to all the disciples, shares a meal with them and commissions them to be his witnesses to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. Vs. 47. If we were permitted to read a bit further to the end of the gospel, we would learn that Luke’s story concludes where it began, in the Jerusalem Temple. As I mentioned in my discussion of our lesson from Acts, Luke is concerned to anchor the good news about Jesus firmly within the covenant life of Israel while expanding its reach to all peoples.

Luke takes special pains to emphasize that Jesus is not a “spirit,” but a resurrected human being. It is important that the tomb was found empty (Luke 24:1-3); that Jesus was recognized in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:30-31); and that Jesus could be handled by his disciples. Vs. 39. Perhaps, knowing his gentile audience, Luke means to emphasize the physicality of the resurrection to counter other near eastern beliefs such as re-incarnation, the immortality of the soul and transmigration to some eternal “spiritual” world. See Schweizer, Eduard, The Good News According to Luke, (c. 1984 by John Knox Press) p. 376. Not mere survival of death, but a new heaven and a new earth is what the prophets proclaimed and what is inaugurated in Jesus’ resurrection.

Verse 44 makes reference to the tripartite “cannon” of Hebrew Scriptures as Law, Prophets and Writings (which included the Psalms). It should be noted that, at Jesus time and thereafter, these writings were not given equal weight of authority. The first and most significant was the Law of Moses consisting of the first five books of the Bible (Genesis to Deuteronomy). The second was the Prophets broadly consisting of Joshua, Judges, I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah and the Twelve (the Minor Prophets). Third, there were the “Writings,” the largest of which is the Psalms. Also included are Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, I & II Chronicles, Ruth, Song of Solomon and Esther.

Luke tells us that Jesus “opened the minds” of the disciples to understand the Hebrew Scriptures. Our minds are not blank slates when we approach the scriptures. It makes a difference how you read the scriptures and how you read the scriptures depends on what you bring to them. You can find support for incest, rape, genocide, slavery and all manner of beastly conduct in the Bible. Sadly, the Bible has been used in just that manner throughout history. The church’s hermeneutical principle, our way of making sense of the scriptures, is Jesus. Jesus opens up the scriptures to our understanding just as the scriptures testify to Jesus. When we depart from this hermeneutic, we wander into a morass of ethics devoid of compassion, doctrine devoid of faith and slavish bondage to the letter devoid of Spirit.

 

Sunday, May 7th

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FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 2:42–47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19–25
John 10:1–10

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God our shepherd, you know your sheep by name and lead us to safety through the valleys of death. Guide us by your voice, that we may walk in certainty and security to the joyous feast prepared in your house, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”

That phrase has taken on more urgency for me over the last decade during which both Sesle and I have lost our parents and now stand with no further familial buffer against the encroaching shadow. The loss of our grandson, Parker, was a cruel reminder that, in reality, there is no buffer. Death leaps over generational lines with the agility of a tiger to snatch lives fresh from the womb, lives that have yet to offer their tender buds to the world. Daily news clips from Syria and northern Iraq bring us graphic images of whole populations that understand with clarity we can never hope to achieve how “even in the midst of life we are in death.”  The Bible doesn’t offer any escape from all this. Death is our only exit. No one gets off this planet alive. But the Bible, and the 23rd Psalm in particular, assures us that we need not pass through that door alone. “Thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

I am not much interested in whether and to what extent the psalmist believed in a resurrection of the dead or any kind of human existence beyond the grave. It was apparently enough for this psalmist to be confident that whatever the end might hold, s/he could count on facing it in the company and protection of the Lord, his/her shepherd. That was enough. Moreover, it must still suffice even in the light of Jesus’ resurrection. For the truth is, none of us know exactly what resurrection is or what new creation looks like. When the Biblical authors speak of it, they must resort to lurid apocalyptic images, parables, limited analogies that, taken too far, always break down. Jesus tells us that those accounted worthy of the resurrection to eternal life are “like angels in heaven.” But what does that mean? Paul tells us that our resurrection life will be as different from our current existence as a flowering plant is different from the seed that gave it birth. So how can we hope to form any reliable image of “the life everlasting” we confess in the creeds?

I find myself confronted with two opposite and unsatisfactory resolutions to this tension. On the one hand, I find a tendency to say more than what we actually know about resurrected life. “Grand dad is looking down at us.” “Happy Birthday Mom on your second year in heaven.” “Good to know that Jeremy is watching over his younger siblings.” I don’t suppose there is any real harm in such sentiments. They can, however, reflect a naïve and inaccurate view of the resurrection’s magnitude and effect. Nothing will be gained if I am resurrected as the same selfish, insecure, bigoted and vindictive cuss I have always been before. If we bring into eternity our old selves with all the wounds, wrongs and bitterness that put us at each other’s throats for all of history, it won’t be anything like “heaven.” If I am going to live faithfully, obediently and joyfully together with all people in a new creation, I need to become a fundamentally new person. I will have to be different-so much so that my new self might not even be recognizable as the old. What, then, does that mean? Who am I without my memories of the events, both proud and shameful, that made me who I am? Will there be enough continuity between who we are and who we will be that we can recognize each other in the new creation? Does that even matter?

At the other end of the extreme I have known plenty of thoughtful and faithful believers who are ready to dispense with any concrete notion of resurrection from death. For them, repentance and faith are death and resurrection enough. The kingdom of God lived out in love under the sign of the cross is as much heaven as they need. It is enough for them to know that they die into God. Borg, Marcus J., Speaking Christian, (c. 2011 by Marcus Borg, pub. by HarperCollins) p. 201. I have some sympathy with this approach. After all, eternal life is not solely or even primarily a distant future reality, particularly as it is described in the Gospel of John. Indeed, what makes life eternal is not its duration, but its quality. Life that is conformed to eternal Trinitarian love is itself qualitatively eternal. For people like myself, who have lived full lives filled with the love of a good marriage, the satisfaction of productive and  meaningful work, the joy of seeing my children grow up into faithful adults contributing much to the health of creation, this life might conceivably be enough. But what about Parker, who did not ever have the opportunity to learn to walk, talk, fall in love, get his heart broken and grow into a man? What about the millions upon millions whose lives from childhood on are consumed merely with day to day survival? It seems to me that the Triune God, the God who is love from eternity, could hardly bear to leave these unfinished, unreconciled, unfulfilled lives in the grave. I cannot imagine a new creation in which these “least,” these forgotten by everyone but God, are not taken up and woven into its fabric.

At the end of the day, it seems to me we must continue to confess the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come-even though we don’t quite know what we are talking about. It is enough to know that the God who called again from death the great Shepherd of the sheep and who brought us all this way will not abandon us at the end, but instead will continue to give us life. It is enough to know that the God who at the dawn of time scooped up a hand full of dust and breathed into it God’s life giving Spirit will again scoop up the dust we must all become and make of us new creatures. “And so we shall always be with the Lord.” I Thessalonians 4:17. That isn’t nearly all I would like to know. But it’s enough for me to live confidently in the valley of the shadow of death.

Here’s a poem expressing hope for memory that is deep enough and compassion strong enough to hold for eternity all that is true, beautiful and good.

Stories in the Trash

This here quilt’s all I still got of Grandma’s.
Watched her make it when I was a kid.
I’d come tearing through the house,
Always on the way to somewhere else,
And there she’d be sitting on the floor,
Surrounded by old coats, cast off clothes,
Bed sheets, coverlets and table cloths.
It all finally came together in this quilt.

Course, that’s a long time ago.
Quilt’s dirty, worn and not fit for much.
But I expect I’ll hold onto it just the same.
Seems somehow sacrilegious,
Just throwing it into the dumpster.
I’ll leave that job to the kids.
They’ll waste no time in tossing it.
To them it’s just a rag with no story.

I’m not an especially religious man.
Don’t know much about God.
As for the Bible, just a verse or two.
Don’t know or much care if any of it’s true.
I sort of hope, though, there’s Someone
Who remembers the stories in things,
Someone who doesn’t forget
What all the old stuff in the garbage means.

Anonymous

Acts 2:42–47

Like Acts 4:32-35 and Acts 5:12-16 this passage gives us what some would call an “idyllic picture” of the early church. See Flanagan, Neal M., O.S.M. The Acts of the Apostles, New Testament Reading Guide (c. 1964 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc.) p. 31. Indeed, there is a tendency among mainline commentators to dismiss this description of the church’s communal existence as Lukan embellishment intended to inspire rather than reflect historical reality. The Anabaptist tradition, however, has taken these texts quite seriously. Hutterite, Amish, Amana and Bruderhof communities have, each in their own way, put into practice the vision of communal life set forth in the Book of Acts. These countercultural movements are often criticized in mainline circles for their clannishness, lack of engagement with the outside world and parochialism. Yet one cannot help but observe that these mainline criticisms of the Anabaptists sound suspiciously similar to criticisms Jesus warned his disciples to expect from the world-precisely because they do not belong to the world. John 15:19. There is nothing more repugnant and threatening to any society than a community within it that does not share its values, priorities and loyalties. Witness Roman imperial culture’s discomfort with the early church and Christendom’s fear of and hostility toward the Jews. Maybe we mainliners are uncomfortable with the communal Anabaptist groups because they remind us just how thoroughly indistinguishable we are from the rest of society at large. We are fond of touting as a virtue the fact that one “doesn’t wear his/her religion on his/her sleeve,” which is another way of saying that you would never guess that s/he was a Christian if you didn’t ask. Does anyone besides me see a problem with that?

A pastor participating in an online discussion I look in on occasionally recently commented on the perennial conflict between children’s sports events and Sunday morning worship. This pastor suggested that, rather than sitting in a church building and insisting that people come to us, we need to bring church to where the people are. Her specific suggestion was that the church hold a brief worship service on the soccer field prior to the game for all who desire to worship, but do not want to pull their children out of the game. I have no doubt this suggestion was made in the spirit of the great commission with the best of intentions. Nevertheless, I have to wonder whether making discipleship easier, less costly and more convenient is a faithful path for us to be following. Do we gain anything by continually downsizing the call of discipleship to fit within the ever shrinking gaps in our increasingly busy schedules? The early church called upon its members to give up their lives for the sake of Jesus’ name. Now we cannot bring ourselves to ask them to forfeit a soccer game! If we don’t believe seeking Jesus in the breaking of the bread is worth a soccer game, is it at all surprising that we cannot convince anyone else that church is at all worthwhile?

It is worth noting that, as outsiders viewed the community in the second chapter of Acts, “Awe came upon everyone…” and “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Vs 43 and vs. 47. I believe that there are many people out there looking for an alternative to the shallow existence our culture of death offers us. The problem is, they simply are not seeing that alternative in the church. We have become so preoccupied with marketing the gospel at fire sale prices to folks who don’t care that we have obscured its lure from the eyes of those who do. Perhaps it is time for us mainliners to take a second look at our lesson from Acts.

Psalm 23

This psalm came up last in the lectionary on Sunday, March 26th. I refer you to my post of that date for my general comments. Specific to its meaning for this “Good Shepherd” Sunday, I note that sheep are not pets and they are not given the protection of the shepherd because they are cute and cuddly. Inevitably, the shepherd will call upon them to give up their lives-just as he puts his life in jeopardy for their sake. The church cannot read this psalm without recognizing the prospect of martyrdom on the horizon. There is no room for sentimentality when preaching on this psalm or any depiction of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

Our familiarity with this psalm can blind us to its discordant images, namely, the shepherd who cares for the sheep and the host who practices hospitality to strangers. In this regard, Professor Bernard W. Anderson has observed: “This problem begins to resolve itself when we project ourselves imaginatively out of our industrial milieu into the pastoral way of life which still prevails in some parts of the world today. The shepherd can be portrayed from two standpoints. He is the protector of the sheep as they wander in search of grazing land. Yet he is also the protector of the traveler who finds hospitality in his tent from the dangers and enemies of the desert. Even today the visitor to certain parts of the Middle East can see the scene that lies at the basis of this psalm: the black camel’s hair tent where the traveler receives Bedouin hospitality, and the surrounding pastureland where the sheep graze under the protection of the shepherd. In Psalm 23, Yahweh is portrayed as the Shepherd in both aspects of the shepherd’s life: as the Leader of the flock, and as the hospitable Host.” Anderson, Bernhard W., Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today, (c. 1983 by Bernhard W. Anderson, pub. by The Westminster Press) p. 208.

St. Augustine’s truly delightful treatment of this psalm as a paradigm of discipleship wherein Christ accompanies the believer from baptism into eternal life is well worth reading.

1 Peter 2:19–25

The lectionary folks, in their paternalistic wisdom, have excised verse 18 from the text so that the congregation hearing this reading would never guess that the admonition to suffer patiently is given to slaves of abusive masters. Granted, this is a problematic text. I wouldn’t blame the architects of the lectionary for leaving it out altogether. But ripping it from its context and making it appear to say something quite other than what it says is, not to put too fine a point on it, a lie.

I plan to stay away from this lesson. If I were going to preach on it, however, I would lay my emphasis on verse 19: “For one is approved if, mindful of God, he endures pain while suffering unjustly.” Mindful, that is to say, of the God of the Exodus. In this context, submission must be taken merely is non-retaliatory. The slave is not called upon to accept slavery. God does not approve slavery, much less abuse of slaves. Yet the struggle for liberation lies in faithful witness to a reign of God not yet complete. Such witness invariably involves suffering. The flip side of recognizing the humanity of the slave is the slave’s recognition of the humanity of the master. In the reign of God, the last are first and the first last. Still, even one who finishes last still finishes. Liberation, not retaliation is the goal.

Finally, it is important to understand that slavery in antiquity, though a lamentable condition, was far different from the slavery that existed in the United States in the nineteenth century. Slavery in the first century Roman Empire was not race based. Racial and ethnic groups were not singled out as inferior or “natural slaves” as was the case for African Americans. If you were a slave in the Roman Empire, it was likely because your parents sold you to satisfy a debt or you were on the losing side of some military conflict. Though few and far between, there were opportunities for slaves to win their freedom and achieve high office in the Roman bureaucracy as the philosopher, Seneca attests. Seneca the Younger, Letter 47. It is impossible to imagine anything like that ever happening in the pre-Civil War south. Thus, there can be no meaningful comparison between slavery in antiquity and that which existed in the southern states prior to the Civil War.

John 10:1–10

In the prior chapter, Jesus gave sight to a man born blind which, in turn, brought on a confrontation. The blind man was finally excommunicated from the synagogue for his dogged insistence that Jesus was responsible for his newfound sight. In the end, the man healed of his blindness worshipped Jesus. This sets the stage for Sunday’s lesson in which the question is posed: Who is the true Shepherd and what is the true community to which the Shepherd grants/denies admission? Clearly, the religious leadership claims to wield such authority and did so with respect to the man born blind. Now these so-called shepherds and the flock they claim as their own are contrasted with the Good Shepherd who also lays claim to the flock.

Jesus employs the image of a sheepfold where several flocks of sheep are lodged for the night. In the morning, the true shepherd can enter and call out his sheep who will follow him as they recognize his voice. Marsh, John, Saint John, Pelican New Testament Commentaries, (c. 1968 John Marsh, pub. Penguin Books, Ltd.) p. 395. Jesus is therefore setting out his claim to be the true shepherd of the people of God. Unlike the coercive power exercised by the religious authorities to keep the sheep in line, Jesus draws his sheep by the sound of his voice which is immediately recognized as genuine. He has no need to employ threats to drive them on. His sheep acknowledge him as their Shepherd and follow him willingly. This image of the shepherd has deep scriptural roots. It is applied throughout the Old Testament both to Israel’s kings and her God. See, e.g. Jeremiah 23:1-8; Ezekiel 34; Psalm 23; Psalm 80.

It is passing strange, then, that Jesus should switch from this familiar and powerful shepherd metaphor to that of the “door of the sheep” in the interest of clarity. For my money, the shepherd image is much easier to comprehend than that of the door. Vss. 1-6. Yet Jesus goes on to distinguish himself from the thieves and robbers who came before him by calling himself a “door.” If the door retains its meaning from vs 2, i.e., the recognized entrance through whom only authorized persons can pass, then this reference to “thieves” and “robbers” could be taken as a) a reference to the leaders of the synagogue that reject the Jesus movement; or b) a warning for the disciples to beware of anyone coming into the church by another name such as false teachers. Brown, Raymond, The Gospel According to John I-X11, The Anchor Bible, (c. 1966 by Doubleday) p. 388. It should also be noted that messianic pretenders prior to Jesus had been characterized both by the Romans and the leaders of the post 70 A.D. Jewish community as “robbers” or “brigands.” Ibid. p. 387. That characterization does not seem to fit the context here, however.

The meaning of the term “door” seems to have changed from verse 2 in verses 7-10. In the latter verses the door is not the entrance through which the shepherd comes to call the sheep, but the door through which the sheep go to find pasture. The door, then, serves a double purpose. It is protective of the flock in that it screens out the thieves and robbers who would harm the sheep. It is also the opening out into good pasture through which the sheep may pass. For what it is worth, one commentator observes that in some Middle Eastern grazing areas it is the custom for the shepherd to sleep in front of the sheep door, his body serving as a barrier to any sheep that might otherwise wander out. Bishop, E.F., “The Door of the Sheep-John 10:7-9,” 71 Expository Times (1959-60) pp. 307-09. That would give concrete expression to Jesus’ saying that the Good Shepherd “lays down his life for the sheep.” Vs. 11 (not included in the reading). But whether that practice existed in the first century or whether this is what Jesus actually meant is anyone’s guess.

Professor Raymond Brown suggests that the change of metaphors comes about as a result of Jesus’ change of emphasis. Verses 1-3a concern the way the Good Shepherd (as opposed to impostors) approaches the sheep. Consequently, the emphasis is on the gate. Verses 3b-5 concern the relationship between the Good Shepherd and the sheep and so focus on the shepherd. Brown, op cit. 395. I think that for preaching I will focus either on the “door” or on the “shepherd.” Mixing these two metaphors seems to have confused the dickens out of Jesus’ original hearers. If Jesus couldn’t make this work, there is a good chance it will prove rough sledding for me as well.

Sunday, April 23rd

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SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 2:14a, 22–32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3–9
John 20:19–31

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty and eternal God, the strength of those who believe and the hope of those who doubt, may we, who have not seen, have faith in you and receive the fullness of Christ’s blessing, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

The internet has something for everyone-even people seeking to “undo” their baptisms. Really. You can’t make this stuff up. At unbaptism.org you can obtain a certificate renouncing your baptism and disassociating you from your church.  At first blush, it seems unlikely that there would be any sizable market for such a document, even though the service is free. After all, if you are convinced that baptism is an empty and superstitious rite, why would you even bother revoking it? If there is no God, the gospel is a myth and the resurrection a hoax, then there is nothing to revoke. Why not just toss your baptismal certificate into the recycling along with that “most valuable player award” you and everyone else on your first grade T-ball team received at the end of the season?

I am not convinced that the militant atheism we see popping up these days is so far removed from faith as might be supposed. At least the individual seeking a revocation certificate from unbaptism believes that his or her baptism has some meaning, some significance, some claim on his or her life that needs to be removed. In a strange way, their determination to dissociate themselves from Jesus testifies to his ongoing potency in their lives. I think that perhaps these folks are a good deal closer to genuine faith than the couples who come waltzing up to my office seeking to get their baby baptized, but have no interest in raising their child within the Body of Christ.

That brings us to our friend Thomas, whose name unfortunately acquired the prefix “doubting” that has stuck for the last two thousand years. As is the case with our baptism revoking friends, so too, I think Thomas’ refusal to accept the testimony of his fellow disciples and his insistence on hard evidence for Jesus’ resurrection reflects a sort of faith. After all, you can’t really have doubts about something unless you have at least some suspicion that it might be true. For all his protestations, we find Thomas still in the company of the rest of the disciples eight days later when Jesus appears again. You wouldn’t think anyone thoroughly convinced that the disciples were lying, crazy or deceived would stick around for even another hour. If Thomas did not believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead, it appears that he wanted to believe-or at least be firmly convinced that he could safely dismiss the disciples’ claim as baseless.

Perhaps, like Thomas, we live most of our lives in that no-man’s land between belief and unbelief called “doubt.” Why else do I sing “I know that my Redeemer Lives” even as I worry about my grandchildren’s future in the shadow of increasingly ominous news here at home and abroad? Why else do I continue preaching, teaching and witnessing although I continue to be concerned about membership decline throughout my church and loss of interest in faith generally throughout society? Why do I confess each day my belief in “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting,” yet grieve so deeply the loved ones I have lost? Often it seems that I am unable to believe with the deep certainty for which I long, yet cannot shake the claim of faith sufficiently to free myself from it. At the end of the day, I continue to believe because Jesus has gotten ahold of my heart and won’t let go. While my faith is hardly unwavering, my doubts never sink to the level of unbelief. That is what keeps me in the church where I encounter the resurrected Lord.

Nobody understood the symbiotic relationship between faith and doubt better than Soren Kierkegaard. Recognition of “despair” or the “sickness unto death” is, according to Kierkegaard, the prerequisite for faith. This “sickness” consists in a sober recognition of human finitude, sinfulness and the impossibility of healing oneself. Faith grounds itself in the limitless possibility God opens up for us in the resurrection of Jesus from death. Discipleship consists in living between judgment and promise, finite human limits and the unlimited grace of God, frank acknowledgment of death’s inevitability and hope based on the conviction that Jesus lives. Here’s a poem honoring Soren Kierkegaard by Dana Gioia.

Homage to Soren Kierkegaard

Work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling.
—St. Paul

I was already an old man when I was born. 
Small with a curved back, he dragged his leg when walking
the streets of Copenhagen. “Little Kierkegaard,”
they called him. Some meant it kindly. The more one suffers
the more one acquires a sense of the comic. 
His hair rose in waves six inches above his head.
Save me, O God, from ever becoming sure. 
What good is faith if it is not irrational?

Christianity requires a conviction of sin. 
As a boy tending sheep on the frozen heath,
his starving father cursed God for his cruelty.
His fortunes changed. He grew rich and married well.
His father knew these blessings were God’s punishment.
All would be stripped away. His beautiful wife died,
then five of his children. Crippled Soren survived.
The self-consuming sickness unto death is despair.

What the age needs is not a genius but a martyr.
Soren fell in love, proposed, then broke the engagement.
No one, he thought, could bear his presence daily.
My sorrow is my castle. His books were read
but ridiculed. Cartoons mocked his deformities
His private journals fill seven thousand pages.
You could read them all, he claimed, and still not know him.
He who explains this riddle explains my life.

When everyone is Christian, Christianity
does not exist. The crowd is untruth. Remember
we stand alone before God in fear and trembling.
At forty-two he collapsed on his daily walk.
Dying he seemed radiant. His skin had become
almost transparent. He refused communion
from the established church. His grave has no headstone.
Now with God’s help I shall at last become myself.

Source: 99 Poems (c. 2016 by Dana Gioia, pub. by Graywolf Press) Dana Gioia has little in the way of formal literary education when he began his career as a poet. Born in 1950, he graduated from Stanford Business School and went to work for General Foods and ultimately became vice president of marketing. He later completed a master’s degree in comparative literature at Harvard University. In 1992, he committed himself to writing full-time. He served as chairperson of the now endangered National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2008.  Gioia was named Poet Laureate of California in 2015. You can find out more about Dana Gioia and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.

Acts 2:14a, 22–32

Our reading for Sunday is taken from Peter’s Pentecost sermon. In Luke-Acts, Pentecost marks the transition from the “time of Jesus” to the “time of the church.” Juel, Donald, Luke Acts: The Promise of History, (c. 1983 by John Knox Press) p. 57. While this reading might seem misplaced from the standpoint of our liturgical calendar, it fits in very nicely with the gospel lesson from John. John’s Pentecost occurs on the evening of Easter Sunday when Jesus appeared to the disciples and “breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 20:22.

In the lesson from Acts Peter, emboldened by the Holy Spirit, addresses a diverse group of Jewish pilgrims visiting Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. His text is Joel 2:28-32. Little is known about the prophet Joel. It is believed that he prophesied to the people of Judah during the Persian period of Jewish history between 539 B.C.E.-331 B.C.E. This group, you will recall, returned from exile in Babylon following the conquest of that empire by the Persians under Cyrus the Great. The exiles had high hopes of rebuilding Jerusalem, constructing a new temple and restoring the land. Contrary to their expectations, however, restoration was difficult, frustrating and slow. Many of the people became discouraged and abandoned the project altogether.

During his ministry the prophet Joel witnessed a devastating plague of locusts which he understood to be a judgment of God designed to call his people to repentance and faith. Such locust swarms, still experienced in the Middle East today, can consume an entire field of crops in a matter of hours. Their numbers are so great and their hoards so dense that they can eclipse the sun and moon much like a dark cloud. According to the prophet Joel, this plague was a portent and a sign of the “Day of the Lord” when the light of sun and moon would be dimmed in earnest.

The Apostle Peter quotes this text, but for him the “Day of the Lord” is not a future event. It has already taken place as shown by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples enabling them to speak the gospel in languages of all nations. The apocalyptic sign of the end, the darkening of the heavens, occurred during the crucifixion of Jesus when “there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed…” Luke 23:44-45. Peter therefore declares to the crowd gathered before him that the Day of the Lord has arrived and the new age has come. I should add that many scholars, perhaps the majority, hold that Peter’s use of this text from Joel is to highlight the anticipated “second coming of Christ” rather than the crucifixion. E.g., Flanagan, Neal M., O.S.M., The Acts of the Apostles (c. 1964 by the Order of St. Benedict, pub. The Liturgical Press) p. 29.) I respectfully take the minority view.

It should be borne in mind that this audience probably knows Jesus or knows about him. What the people know is summarized by Peter in verses 22-23. Jesus was a worker of signs and wonders done in their midst. He was delivered up to “lawless men,” that is, the gentile rulers of Rome. He was crucified. That much is common knowledge. What the people do not know is that all of this took place “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (vs. 23) and that “God raised [Jesus] up.” Vs. 24. What the people assume to have been the cruel death of a tragically misguided prophet, perhaps a prophet with messianic delusions, was in reality the working out of God’s mission of salvation for all people.

Peter continues his sermon by citing to a section of our Psalm for today, Psalm 16:8-11. In this psalm, traditionally attributed to David, the psalmist declares that God will not allow him to see the “Pit” or be abandoned to “Sheol.” Vs. 10. Peter argues that David cannot be speaking of himself because he has, in fact, died and the place of his burial is well known. Consequently, David must have been speaking about one of his descendants as God promised David that his line would endure forever. Thus far, Peter is interpreting the psalm in much the same way as it was widely understood in the 1st Century by many strands of Jewish tradition. The belief that God would raise up a descendant of David to restore Israel was a deeply held hope. But now Peter delivers the knockout punch: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.” Vs. 32. The crucified and rejected Jesus is the promised descendant of David raised up for Israel’s salvation.

Care must be taken in speaking of the “foreknowledge and plan” of God in the suffering and death of Jesus. If this language is forced into the theory of “substitutionary atonement,” we come out with a perverse understanding of God the Father whose treatment of his Son can only be described as child abuse. Jesus’ suffering and death was not “necessary” to appease the thirst of an angry God for vengeance. The crucifixion was not required to enable God to forgive. God does not need the death of Jesus to forgive sins. Jesus’ suffering and death was necessary or inevitable because living a life that is truly human and obedient to the will of God in a sinful and inhumane world can have but one consequence. That consequence of rejection, suffering and death God was prepared to embrace in the person of his Son in order to embrace us with human arms and love us with a human heart. The cross is the price of God’s covenant faithfulness to all of creation-a price God was willing to pay.

Psalm 16

Commentators are divided over the time of composition for this psalm. The majority place it in the post exilic period (shortly after 540 B.C.E.). Weiser, Artur, The Psalms: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (c. 1962 by S.C.M. Press, Ltd.) p. 172. Although perhaps edited and recomposed for use in worship at the second temple rebuilt by the exiles returning from Babylon, this psalm contains elements reflecting a very early stage in Israel’s history possibly dating back to the time of the Judges. As Israel began to settle into the land of Canaan, she struggled to remain faithful to her God even as she was surrounded by cults of Canaanite origin. The urgent dependence upon rain that goes with agriculture in semi-arid regions made the Canaanite fertility religions tempting alternatives to faith in the God of Israel whose actions seemed so far in the past. The prophets were constantly calling Israel away from the worship of these Canaanite deities and urging her to trust her own God to provide for her agricultural needs. The existence of “other gods” is not specifically denied in this psalm and that also suggests an early period in Israel’s development. The psalmist makes clear, however, that these “other gods” have no power or inclination to act in the merciful and redemptive way that Israel’s God acts.

That said, an argument can be made for the claim that this psalm was composed among a group known as the “Hasidim” (godly ones) that was active shortly before the New Testament period. Ibid. Some of the pagan rites alluded to therein have affinities with sects and mystery cults known to exist during this time period. Ibid. Dating the final composition at this time is not necessarily inconsistent with our recognition of very ancient material within the body of the psalm utilized here to address a new and different context.

The psalmist opens his/her prayer with a plea for God to preserve him or her, but goes on to express unlimited confidence in God’s saving power and merciful intent. S/he has experienced the salvation and protection of God throughout life and is therefore confident that God’s comforting presence will not be lost even in death.

As we have seen, the Apostle Peter cites this text (assuming Davidic authorship) to demonstrate Jesus’ messiahship. By virtue of his resurrection, Jesus was spared from “Sheol” and the “Pit”. Vs. 10. It is important to note that this psalm does not speculate about any “after life.” Peter does not use the text in this manner either. His emphasis is not resurrection as such, but on Jesus’ resurrection as vindication of his faithful life and proof that God’s purpose has been worked out through that life. The notion of post death existence was not a part of Hebrew thought until much later in the development of Israel’s faith. Yet one cannot help but sense a confidence on the part of the psalmist that not even death can finally overcome the saving power of God. It is therefore possible to say that the hope of the resurrection is present if only in embryonic form.

1 Peter 1:3–9

The brief verses constituting our lesson are taken from the salutation given to the churches of northern Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) by the author of I Peter. These churches lived at the frontier of the Roman Empire where national security required greater internal government scrutiny. Societies such as the church that met regularly in private homes aroused suspicion. The refusal of Jesus’ disciples to take part in civil ceremonies acclaiming the deity of the Roman emperor seemed to confirm the government’s fear that the church might be a seditious movement dangerous to Roman society. As a result, members of the church experienced persecution ranging from social ostracism to outright violence.

This salutation sets the tone for the rest of the letter. Peter reminds these believers that they have been “born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” vs. 3. This hope is an inheritance that cannot be taken away; thus, believers can rejoice even though their faithfulness to Jesus occasions suffering in the short run. Such rejoicing, as Stanley Hauerwas observes, is unintelligible apart from this community’s firm belief in Jesus’ resurrection. See last year’s Post for April 20th. That resurrection represents not merely the destiny of the church, but of all creation. Consequently, belief in the resurrection means shaping one’s life to fit the contours of the new creation soon to be born rather than to those of the old creation that is dying. Birth does not occur without pain and the shedding of blood. Martyrdom is the church’s ultimate testimony to the reality of God’s kingdom. The persecution of the saints constitutes the death throes of the old order just as surely as it does the birth pangs of the new.

John 20:19–31

It seems to me that John’s account of Jesus’ resurrection differs from those of Matthew, Mark and Luke in this respect: Whereas for the first three gospels Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion are interpreted through the shock of his resurrection; for John, Jesus’ laying down his life interprets his resurrection appearances. Or as one commentator puts it:

“…when we consider the nature of St. John’s gospel, in which the Lord during his ministry has revealed Himself as the resurrection and the life, and the cross, as interpreted by St. John, marks not only the last stage of His ‘descent’ but also His glorification, it should not surprise us that the evangelist is not concerned in ch. 20 to dwell upon the Lord’s resurrection as forming primarily a reversal of the passion. He expects his readers to have learned by this time the secret which he has gradually unfolded to them in the first nineteen chapters of his gospel, the secret, namely, that the Lord at the moment and in the fact of his laying down of His life has revealed the glory of the Father, and therefore His own oneness with the Father, to the fullest possible degree. If one moment of His revelation of the Father in the days of His flesh is to be distinguished from another, then at the moment of His death, more than at any other, He has glorified the Father, and His return to the Father has at least begun (cf. 6:62).” Lightfoot, R., St. John’s Gospel: A Commentary, (c. 1956 Clarendon Press, pub. Oxford University Press) pp. 329-330.

In narrating the resurrection appearances, John takes care to emphasize the physicality of the resurrected Christ. Jesus must tell Mary to cease clinging to him before he can go on his way. John 20:17. He appears to the disciples with the wounds of the cross on his body. Vss. John 20:20. He even invites Thomas to place his hands in those wounds. John 20:27. John makes clear that the incarnation is irrevocable. The flesh of Jesus was not merely a clever disguise. God became human and God remains human. “No one has ever seen God,” says John. But “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” John 1:18. God is known and knowable only through one’s abiding in the fully human Jesus. Nothing makes that point quite as emphatically as Thomas’ confession: “My Lord and My God.” Vs. 28.

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Vs. 23. Exactly what does this mean? In my own tradition (Lutheran), this verse has always been associated with the “office of the keys,” the peculiar power of the church “to forgive the sins of penitent sinners, but to retain the sins of the impenitent as long as they do not repent.” Luther’s Small Catechism, Part V. But is that really what John had in mind here? In my view, the context makes that interpretation extremely doubtful. The focus is not upon the internal workings of the community of disciples but upon the disciples’ mission to the world. Undoubtedly, the two are related in this gospel. It is through the disciples’ love for one another that they will be identified as followers of Jesus. John 13:35. But the principal emphasis is on the disciples’ witness to the world, not to their relationship with one another. So what can it mean to “retain” sins?

I believe that John is emphasizing the importance of the commission that Jesus has just given to his disciples. It is through them that the life giving Word of forgiveness is to be made known to the world. It is “in” them that the Spirit now resides. If the disciples of Jesus do not make known God’s forgiveness of sin, the world will remain in the grip of sin. Those sins will be retained. But if the Word is spoken, it will be accompanied by the Spirit of God that inspires faith and breaks the bondage of sin. I believe that is what commentator Raymond Brown is saying in the following quote:

“In summary, we doubt that there is sufficient evidence to confirm the power of forgiving and holding of sin, granted in John 20:23 to a specific exercise of power in the Christian community, whether that be admission to Baptism or forgiveness in Penance. These are but partial manifestations of a much larger power, namely, the power to isolate, repel, and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus in his mission by the Father and given in turn by Jesus through the Spirit to those whom he commissions. It is an effective, not merely declaratory, power against sin, a power that touches new and old followers of Christ, a power that challenges those who refuse to believe. John does not tell us how or by whom this power was exercised in the community for whom he wrote, but the very fact that he mentions it shows that it was exercised.” The Gospel According to John, XIII-XX1, Raymond E. Brown, The Anchor Bible, Vol. 29a, (Doubleday, c. 1970) p. 1044.

Thomas comes in for a good deal of criticism for doubting Jesus’ resurrection, though to be fair, he was not asking for anything more in the way of proof than the disciples had already experienced. It is worth noting that however doubtful Thomas may have been, he remained in the company of his fellow disciples. That is to say, he remained in the church. That is the best possible advice I can give to people who have difficulty believing. Faith cannot be argued into anyone, nor can it be manufactured. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit that must be given. Still, we know where the Holy Spirit hangs out. The Spirit accompanies the preaching of the Word; the Spirit is poured out upon the bread and wine at the altar; the Spirit is present where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name. If you want to believe, that is where you need to be. Of course, if you don’t want to believe, I can’t help you with that.

Sunday, March 1st

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SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life. Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

This being Lent, it is hard not to talk about the cross. Unfortunately, it is equally hard to talk about it. The cross is a symbol that has become so common place, so iconic and so thoroughly integrated into our art, jewelry, advertising and architecture that it has practically lost all meaning. I see it hanging from the necks of pop idols and plastered on Easter eggs along with flowers, bunnies and other cute and fuzzy beasts. Then, of course, there are the metaphors that make of the cross everything from a minor headache to a crabby supervisor. “This,” I hear people say, “is my cross to bear.” I wonder whether anyone even recalls that the cross was an implement of death by torture. Can you imagine giving children chocolate eggs engraved with a man writhing in the electric chair? Would you wear a hangman’s noose on your lapel?

More insidious than our domestication of the cross as a symbol is our warped understanding of what the cross accomplished for us grounded in the theory of “substitutionary atonement.” At the risk of oversimplifying this deeply held and time honored explanation of Christ’s work, it goes something like this: God is good, holy and cannot abide sin. God created human beings who, regrettably, sinned and fell from his good graces. God, being loving as well as holy, would like to forgive us. But he cannot exercise such forgiveness without compromising his holiness. Only by making atonement for our sin can we find our way back into God’s good graces-something that is quite beyond our capabilities. But what if God were to become human? What if God in human form were to take upon himself the punishment we deserve, paving the way to reconciliation? Bingo! Problem solved. Jesus dies on the cross in our place taking the punishment we deserve and that satisfies God’s need to punish sin while enabling him to receive us back again.

While the math seems to work, the logic breaks down when you start to reflect on it. Why can’t God forgive without punishing? My Mom did it all the time. In my experience, people who insist on getting their payback before being reconciled are not altogether well. So what is God’s problem? Is God the prisoner of his own metaphysic? Is God a helpless parking enforcement officer? As a decent human being, she understands that you were in a rush to get to the hospital where your mom was just admitted for a stroke. She knows how desperate you were, how you didn’t have change for the meter and felt you had no time to find a place to get it. She would really like to let you off the hook but, alas, the ticket has been written. She can’t just tear it up. The rules are the rules, after all. Payment must be made.

Perhaps I am being a tad flippant here. There are articulate defenders of this doctrine who would point out that I am oversimplifying and caricaturing their positions. That is probably true. Guilty as charged. Nevertheless, this is how the preaching of substitutionary atonement comes across to most people. It either makes God into a mean spirited, rule obsessed ogre who will have his pound of flesh, or into a helpless middle manager stuck enforcing rules over which he has no independent jurisdiction. The death of Jesus, in the most horrible, painful and humiliating way imaginable, is necessary to remove some legal or metaphysical impediment to God’s forgiveness. While I believe that Martin Luther sensed the inadequacy of this way of understanding the cross and even moved beyond it to some extent, I don’t believe he ever quite escaped its orbit. It is my humble opinion that the life giving gospel declaration in Our Lutheran Confessions is often clouded by this limiting understanding of the cross.

I am convinced that the first step to overcoming this conundrum is developing a stronger emphasis on Jesus’ Incarnation. We must understand that the Incarnation was God’s intent from before the beginning of creation as the Gospel of John attests. The Word’s becoming flesh was not necessitated by human sin. It was the work of a God whose greatest desire is to “abide” with his people. The cross is the price God was prepared to pay in order to fulfill that desire. God’s being God while also being human for a sinful world in revolt against God could lead to but one outcome. Thus, when the Word became flesh, the devil had his best crack ever at breaking the unity of the Trinity. The devil was betting that, deep down, God is no different than him-or you or me. The devil was betting that Jesus would not go to the cross and die for people who might not even understand or benefit from his sacrifice. The devil was convinced that, when God saw what the world was going to do with Jesus, God would react just as one of us would react to the murder of our children. God would snap. God’s wrath would consume the work of God’s hands. That is what the devil was counting on. The devil was wrong. The love which binds the Father to the Son; the love of the Son for his people; the love which is the unity of the Trinity held firm.

The cross, then, does not pay a moral debt for sin. Reconciliation between God and humanity is not the successful working out of a metaphysical equation. Instead, it takes place in the depths of God’s own heart. The cross is a victory in the sense that even the murder of God’s only begotten Son could not suck God into the vortex of retaliatory vengeance dominating so much of human civilization. Neither the devil’s wiles nor human sinfulness at its worst could turn God’s love away from us. Instead of retaliating for the murder of his Son, God raised up the Son and offered him back to us again. The Resurrection is therefore the ultimate “turning of the other cheek” to aggression.

The good news, then, is that God loves us so much that he sends his Son to abide with us. And there isn’t a thing we can do about it.

In closing, I should add that I owe much of my recent thinking about the atonement to J. Denny Weaver whose book, The Nonviolent Atonement I highly recommend. (c. 2011 by J. Denny Weaver, pub. by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

As observed last week, “Genesis is a rich composite of many different oral traditions, written sources, and editorial hands…The authors incorporated everything from the myths of ancient Near Eastern high culture to the local legends of Palestinian Bedouins. We can identify scores of different literary genres deriving from as many sociological settings.” Mann, Thomas W., “All the Families of the Earth: The Theological Unity of Genesis,” Interpretation, Vol. 45, No. 4, October 1991, p. 350. For more specifics as to written sources, see the online article Documentary Hypothesis; for a discussion of literary genres found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures see Coats, George W., Genesis: With an Introduction to Narrative Literature, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature, Vol. I (c. 1983 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.). Yet as diverse as its literary and written components are, we must focus on “the theological integrity of biblical narratives in their present canonical shape, rather than as dismembered pieces…” Mann, supra, at 343.That is to say, as fascinating as the process of biblical formation may be, it is the finished product that commands our primary attention.

As noted last week, Genesis 1-11 forms the backdrop for Israel’s story. It paints the picture of a Creator deeply in love with his creation, though deeply grieved by the evil and brokenness that have infected it. Chiefly is this Creator God grieved by the violence of human beings made in God’s own image. Because of humanity’s crimes, the earth lies under a curse. Humanity is at odds with its Creator, at odds with the earth from which it was taken and at odds with itself, being divided into nations, tribes and clans separated by language and culture. In Genesis 12:1-3 God begins to undo the curse by calling Abram to follow God’s leading into a land where God will make of him “a great nation” so as to “be a blessing.” It is by Abram, Sarai and their descendants that God will bring blessing to a world lying under the curse of sin. It is therefore not too far a stretch to call the Book of Genesis “a book about dysfunctional families and the ways in which God seeks to use those families as agents of divine grace to ‘all the families of the earth,’” as one commentator has done. Mann, supra, at 341.

This Sunday’s lesson takes us deeper into God’s covenant with Abram. It is part of a larger narrative comprising all of Genesis 17 in which circumcision is introduced as a definitive mark of the covenant people, so much so that “any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Genesis 17:14. The people of God are to be distinguished from all other nations and tribes by an irreversible physical sign. Precisely because it is irreversible, circumcision makes it impossible to deny affiliation with Israel. Moreover, this is a sign normally imposed shortly after birth and so is hardly a matter of choice.

If the whole of this chapter were included in the reading, it might be worth pondering how indoctrination into faith squares with our modern emphasis on individual rights and freedoms. The famed scientist and atheist activist Richard Dawkins recently remarked, “What a child should never be taught is that you are a Catholic or Muslim child, therefore that is what you believe. That’s child abuse.” Daily Mail, April 22, 2013. In a culture where protestant Christianity is so thoroughly integrated into our notions of respectable citizenship, Dr. Dawkins’ assertion comes across as rather preposterous. Yet I think he puts his finger on something important. Our laws are shaped by public consensus on what constitutes responsible behavior. As recently as when I was a child (alright, maybe that isn’t recent!), spanking was an accepted form of discipline. While my parents limited the practice to an occasional front hand swat on the rump, it was not uncommon for fathers to “take the belt” to their children. No one would have considered reporting that to the police and I doubt the police would have intervened if they had. Discipline of children, within reasonable limits, was the prerogative of parents.

Of course, our understandings of “reasonable limits” change and evolve with time. We now understand (or at least we should) that physical punishment is at best ineffective and, at worst, damaging to child development. Accordingly, our laws governing child protection now deem abusive many practices that were common place in my childhood. That, in my view, is a welcome development. But in what direction might our laws evolve should societal consensus conclude that religious indoctrination is harmful? If one assumes that faith, morals and values are matters purely of individual choice, that children should be raised in environments of intellectual neutrality toward competing religious claims so that their choices in that realm are free and uncoerced, where does that leave circumcision?  Infant baptism? Catechetical instruction? Is it perhaps time to consider whether our fierce loyalty to individual freedom is not misplaced? Is freedom to be equated with individual autonomy? Is critical thinking necessarily incompatible with being raised as a member of a faith community? Is not raising a child in an environment of strict religious neutrality also a kind of indoctrination? Some of these questions are addressed in a fine article by Michael Brendon Dougherty published in The Week.

But I digress. My point is to draw out the tension in this entire chapter between the promise to Abram and Sarai that they will be parents of “many nations” and the mark of circumcision that singles out the particular nation of blessing. While the Book of Genesis makes much of the line of blessing traced through Abram (and not Lot), Isaac (not Ishmael) and Jacob (not Esau), we see repeated instances where this special people becomes an agent of blessing to those outside of the covenant. Abram pleads with God to spare the righteous in Sodom resulting in the rescue of Lot and his family. Genesis 18:22-33. Jacob’s service to his uncle Laban brings about a substantial increase in Laban’s flocks. Genesis 30:29-30. Through Joseph, God spares Egypt from the ravages of a seven year famine. Genesis 45:4-15; Genesis 50:19-21. This tension between the uniqueness of Israel among the nations and its mission to the nations finds expression throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. If the books of Ezra and Nehemiah represent the extreme in guarding Israel’s unique identity among the nations, perhaps the prophetic oracles of Isaiah 40-55 best articulate Israel’s mission of blessing to the nations.

This tension is perhaps helpful for the church in rethinking her own mission to the world. To a very large degree we have accepted uncritically the premise that the Christian mission to the world is to make everyone a Christian. We have assumed that the command to “make disciples of all nations” means to make all people of every nation into disciples. The job of a witness, however, is not that of the prosecutor or the public defender. Witnesses do not persuade. They witness to what they have seen and heard. The witness will be made passionately, forcefully and convincingly. But the work of persuasion is left to the Holy Spirit to call into the church those whom Jesus has chosen.

It is important to keep in mind that this “election” is not “selection.” The call to discipleship, like the call to Abram, is one of service to the world for the sake of the world. God is not snatching a few select souls from a sinking ship. God is commissioning a people to bear witness to God’s stubborn determination to save the entire ship! To be chosen is to be elected for the purpose of reconciling the world to the gentle reign of God.

There is a seemingly bitter irony in the change of name from Abram, meaning “Exalted Father,” to Abraham, meaning “Father of a multitude.” The man is ninety-nine years old and childless at this point. Equally implausible is the change of Sarai’s name to Sarah, meaning “princess.” That this barren Bedouin couple should be declared progenitors of a people who one day will possess and rule the land where they now live essentially as illegal aliens seems like a cruel joke. No wonder that the promise invoked bitter laughter from Sarah in the very next chapter! Genesis 18:9-15. The stage is set for the God of Israel to do exactly what God does best: “He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.” Psalm 113:7-9.

“[I]t is obvious that the book of Genesis does not stand on its own but looks beyond its own content to unresolved issues.” Mann, Supra, at 350. Just as the first eleven chapters of Genesis set the stage for the call of Abram and the stories of his extended family, so the Book of Genesis itself sets the stage for the liberation of Israel from bondage in Egypt that will occupy the narrative in the Book of Exodus. The state of slavery under Egypt will find its liberating contrast in the life of freedom embodied in Torah.

Psalm 22:23-31

This is a psalm of lament that begins with the words familiar to us from Jesus’ cry of dereliction on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” vs. 1; cf. Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46. You would never guess that from our reading, however, which begins at vs. 23. Verse 22 marks a transition point in the psalm. Up to this point, the psalmist has been pouring out his or her complaint to God, describing the torment and ridicule s/he experiences at the hands of his or her enemies and crying out for deliverance. Though no such deliverance has yet occurred, the psalmist is confident that God will soon intervene to rescue him or her. So sure is the psalmist of God’s impending salvation that s/he is even now declaring thankfulness, praise and testimony to these saving acts. The psalmist takes delight in knowing that God’s intervention on his or her behalf will bring glory and praise to God from future generations who will learn from his or her experience that God is indeed faithful.

I should add that some commentators have argued that vss. 1-21 and vss. 22-31 constitute two separate psalms, the first being a lament and the second a hymn of thanksgiving. Perhaps that was on the minds of the lectionary makers when they divided the psalm as they did (assuming, of course, that they have minds-something I often question). I am not at all convinced by their arguments, however, which seem to hinge on the dissimilarities of lament versus thanksgiving between the two sections. Psalms of lament frequently contain a component of praise or promise of thanksgiving for anticipated salvation. See, e.g., Psalm 5; Psalm 7; Psalm 13. Artur Weiser, while maintaining the unity of the psalm, asserts that the psalm was, in whole or in part, composed after the psalmist’s prayer has been answered. Weiser, Artur The Psalms, a Commentary, The Old Testament Library, (c. 1962 SCM Press), p. 219. That interpretation does not fit the language of the psalm which speaks of salvation in the future tense. This salvation, though real, is nevertheless an anticipated act of God.

It has been suggested by some commentators that Jesus’ cry from the cross might not have been a cry of dereliction at all, but that the gospel writers meant to say that Jesus was praying this psalm from the cross. Clearly, the body of the psalm reflects at many points precisely what Jesus was experiencing at the hands of his enemies, so much so that New Testament scholars argue over the extent to which the psalm might have influenced the telling of the passion story. However these questions might be resolved, there is obviously a parallel between the psalmist praising God for deliverance s/he cannot yet see and Jesus’ faithful obedience to his heavenly Father even to death on the cross. In both cases, faith looks to salvation in God’s future even when there appears to be no future.

Romans 4:13-25

In this snippet from Paul’s Letter to the church at Rome, Paul lifts up Abraham as an example of saving faith. It is important to emphasize that Paul understands “faith” not as subscription to creedal or doctrinal formulae, but as trust in God’s promises. In Abraham’s case, the promise was to give him an heir and to give his descendants the land of Canaan. As we have seen, the promise was problematic due both to the Abraham and Sarah’s advanced age and their infertility. The biological clock had ceased ticking for both of them ages ago. But for Abraham, age and infertility did not enter into the equation. God had made a promise and would keep the promise. It was up to God, not Abraham, to figure out how to make it all work.

Of course, we know that Abraham was sometimes less than trusting. He even tried to “help God out” by resorting to what amounts to surrogate parenting. He took Sarah’s slave girl, Hagar, as a concubine and managed to father Ishmael with her. But God did not need Abraham’s help and insisted that the covenant promises would be kept through a child of Sarah. This takes nothing away from Paul’s point. However shaky and imperfect Abraham’s trust in God may have been, God’s faithfulness never wavered. That is why Abraham “grew strong in his faith.” Vs. 20. The implication is that his faith was not so strong to begin with. God’s faithfulness precedes our faith and makes that faith possible. It is because God raised Jesus from death that we dare to trust that the reign of God Jesus proclaimed is a present reality despite all evidence to the contrary in the world around us. Because God faithfully returned to Jesus the life Jesus trustingly commended into God’s hands, we can entrust our lives to God knowing that we will receive them back again restored, sanctified and made new.

Paul also makes the point that children of Abraham are those who share the faith of Abraham-not necessarily those who share his genes. Again, Paul appeals to the missional aspect of Israel’s existence expressed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that Paul is not suggesting that the church displaces Israel as God’s people. Recall that Paul is writing at a time when the Jesus movement was understood and understood itself as existing within the larger tradition of Judaism. Paul’s argument is that Abraham is the father not merely of Israel but of many nations and of all who share his faith in Israel’s God through baptism into Jesus Christ.

Mark 8:31-38

This is the first instance in Mark’s gospel where Jesus speaks specifically to his disciples about his coming suffering, death and resurrection. This speech comes immediately following Peter’s declaration of faith in Jesus as Israel’s messiah. Peter is understandably confused and upset. The messiah is supposed to liberate Israel. How can his rejection, suffering and death accomplish anything along the lines of salvation? We might expect Peter to wonder a bit about Jesus’ resurrection and what that might mean, but it seems he cannot get past Jesus’ suffering and death. So Peter does what any good friend would do for a buddy who talks about being rejected, persecuted and dying. He gives him a pep talk! “Come off it Jesus! Don’t be such a Debbie Downer. They’ll love you in Jerusalem just like they do everywhere else!”

This pep talk earns Peter a rebuke-a harsh rebuke. To be sure, Peter was missing the whole point of Jesus’ mission and ministry. But was it really necessary to call him the devil? That seems a little over the top. Yet as we saw last week, Jesus was driven into the presence of Satan immediately following his baptism. There God declared Jesus to be God’s Son. Jesus, and by extension his church, is never in greater danger of Satanic influence than when Jesus’ identity and mission are misconstrued. While we cannot know what Peter had in mind when he declared Jesus to be God’s messiah, a couple of things are obvious. First, the cross had no place in Peter’s understanding of Jesus’ mission. Whatever Peter’s understanding of God’s Kingdom may have been, he was convinced it could be ushered in without the cross-the very argument advanced by Satan according to Matthew and Luke and implicitly in Mark as well.

Second, as will become clear from the story of the Transfiguration to follow, Jesus is more than Israel’s messiah. He is more than even Moses and Elijah. Jesus is God’s beloved Son. Peter should listen to him rather than insisting on advising him. At this point, Peter’s understanding is moribund, limited to what is humanly achievable. Whatever his notion of salvation may have been, it was too small. Satan knows too well that he cannot deter Jesus by tempting him with what is evil. So he tempts Jesus with something that is merely less than the highest good. Listen to Peter. Don’t do anything rash. Stay out of harm’s way. Dead men cannot preach, heal and cast out demons. Peter’s is the voice of reason, but as Martin Luther once said, reason can easily become the devil’s whore.

Ultimately, Peter is seeking to make an end run around the cross. That is why Jesus must make it clear that all who wish to follow him must embrace the cross. This is not an abstract metaphor. The cross was Rome’s ultimate instrument of terror. Execution by crucifixion conformed to a morbid ritual in which the condemned person was required to carry his/her own cross bar to the place of execution, which was always a public area. The condemned was then stripped naked and fastened to the cross by nails through the hands or wrists and through the feet or above the heels. Held immobile for all passersby to see, the crucified was unable to cope with heat, cold, insects or care for his bodily needs. Perker, Pierson, “Crucifixion,” The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 1 (c. 1962 by Abingdon Press) p. 747. Crucifixions were common events throughout Galilee and so Jesus’ hearers knew he was not referring to an aching back, a nagging in-law or any of the other annoyances bandied about in common parlance as “my cross to bear.” As pointed out in a frequently quoted passage from the works of John Howard Yoder, “The cross of Calvary was … the political, legally to be expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling [Jesus’] society.” Yoder, John Howard, The Politics of Jesus, (c. 1972 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.) p. 129.

In sum, God’s reign has come. It is present, not future tense. Nevertheless, the reign of God is being asserted in a world where other powers claim supremacy. Cultural norms, societal expectations and civil obligations make demands upon us that are contrary to the claim of Jesus, the shape of which is spelled out in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. It is for this reason that loyalty to Jesus brings us into conflict with the world around us. In such a world, God’s reign necessarily takes the shape of the cross.

Sunday, June 29th

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THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Jeremiah 28:5–9
Psalm 89:1–4, 15–18
Romans 6:12–23
Matthew 10:40–42

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, you direct our lives by your grace, and your words of justice and mercy reshape the world. Mold us into a people who welcome your word and serve one another, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Though we will be observing the third Sunday after Pentecost at Trinity this coming Sunday, I note that the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul falls on the same day. Because the gospels and the Book of Acts are not biographies, it is impossible to construct anything like a historical chronology of their respective lives. We are told that Peter was a Galilean fishermen. As such, he would have been from humble origins, but by no means the poorest of the poor. Peter was one of the Twelve disciples chosen by Jesus to share most intimately in his ministry. In Matthew, Mark and Luke he is portrayed as the spokesperson for the disciples, voicing questions likely on the minds of both his fellow disciples and the reader of the gospels. All of the gospels confirm that Peter denied knowing Jesus after Jesus was arrested and brought before the high priest. He appears in the Book of Acts, once again serving as the spokesperson for the disciples on the day of Pentecost. Some gospel passages suggest that Jesus conferred upon Peter a degree of leadership among the Twelve, but the nature of such primacy, if it even existed, is difficult to ascertain.

Paul, by contrast, never met Jesus during the years of his ministry in Palestine. He appears to have been a diaspora Jew born in Tarsus, a historic city in south-central Turkey. He was fluent in Aramaic, Greek and possibly Hebrew as well. According to the Book of Acts, Paul was educated in the Pharisaic tradition. He was, by his own admission, an enemy and a persecutor of the church in its early years. But he encountered the resurrected Christ and underwent a dramatic conversion while on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus where he had intended to arrest and prosecute followers of Jesus. Through Paul’s missionary activity the good news of Jesus was carried throughout Greece, Macedonia and Asia Minor to diaspora Jews and to gentiles. According to tradition, both Paul and Peter were put to death by the Roman government.

In many respects, the most remarkable things we know about these two men are their flaws. The New Testament does not airbrush the saints. Peter’s cowardice in the courtyard of the high priest is given no moderating spin in the gospels. His failure to grasp the scope of the gospel is evident throughout the New Testament. Even after Jesus’ resurrection and the miracle of Pentecost, Peter had difficulty seeing past his own ethnic cultural conditioning. That appears to have been the issue that brought him into conflict with Paul according to Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

Paul was equally flawed, though in different ways. The deep seated anger and narrow mindedness that led him initially to persecute the church did not simply evaporate after baptism. While Paul could be generous, compassionate and understanding of human shortcomings, he could also be ruthless in criticizing his opponents, sarcastic when writing to his congregations and just a tad self-pitying in the face of opposition. His letters bear that out, particularly his second letter to the church in Corinth.

Finally, the testimony of both men is flawed in that they are men. I don’t mean to say that they should personally be penalized for their gender or blamed for the fact that the New Testament cannon was not more inclusive. I seriously doubt that either Peter or Paul ever dreamed that there even would be a New Testament, much less that their words would be part of it! The point is, their witness is lacking the richness, harmony and depth it might have had if only their voices had been joined by the likes of Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Prisca, Persis, Phoebe, Lydia and countless others whose names are lost to history, but known to our Lord.

Like all literary works, the Bible is a product of its times. The ugly realities of imperial oppression, slavery and patriarchy are all too evident and they have often distorted the preaching and teaching of the church. Still, they have not been able to suppress the persistent witness to a larger vision breaking through the seams of the text. The Hebrew Scriptures are filled with stories of women who, notwithstanding the cultural, religious and political impediments in their way, nevertheless found opportunities to shape the destiny of Israel in redemptive and life giving ways. Some of them are noted in the lengthy genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel (leading me to wonder whether that gospel was not actually composed by a woman who is subtly letting us know, “Hey, we’re here too, you know!”). The gospels faithfully preserve the fact that women were the first witnesses to the resurrected Christ (though women were legally disqualified from giving testimony in court under First Century Jewish law). Paul acknowledges women as his fellow apostles. That my church (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) is currently led by a seasoned pastor who happens also to be a woman testifies to the potency of these latent witnesses.

At the end of the day, we love and cherish the Bible, not because it is a perfect book or because it was written in some supernatural way or because it answers all of life’s pressing questions. We love the Bible because it has proven over two millennia to be a faithful and reliable testament to the God of Israel who is the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Like the imperfect saints who first preached the gospel, the Bible is likewise an earthen vessel bearing precious good news about the God who sent his only begotten Son into the world, not to condemn the world or enslave it, but that the world might have life.

Jeremiah 28:5–9

Today’s lesson comes from a larger drama in the Book of Jeremiah that could be given the title, “The Dueling Prophets.” Unfortunately, you only get a little snippet of it in the reading. It all begins with God commanding Jeremiah to proclaim to the people of Judah that God is about to bring the Kingdom of David and the Temple to an end by the hand of the King of Babylon whose armies are even now advancing upon Jerusalem. To make the point, Jeremiah is told to wear a yolk over his shoulders, the kind used for oxen. It is God who brings the yolk of Babylonian bondage upon Judah. To resist Babylon is to resist God. Jeremiah 27:1-11. You can imagine how that must have gone over. How would you like to be sent out to meet the Fourth of July parade with a yolk on your neck to tell everyone that God is about give victory in the war on terror to Al Qaeda?

The drama unfolds in Jerusalem where the prophet Hananiah is rallying the people of the city behind the flag. “Salvation is on the way! The Lord is coming to the aid of his people just like he always has in the past! The Lord is coming to rescue Jerusalem! The Lord is coming to save his people! The Lord is coming to whoop those “Babliofascists,” that terrorist scum and give victory to Israel! Within two years we are going to see all the treasures taken from us by the Babylonians returned. We are going to see freedom! We are going to see peace! Do I hear an ‘Amen.’?” (Paraphrase of Jeremiah 28:1-4) “Amen” shouts a voice from the midst of the cheering crowd. Everyone turns to see the prophet Jeremiah-wearing his yolk. “Amen!” shouts Jeremiah. “I hope you are right Hananiah. I hope everything you say comes true. Nothing would make me happier than to be dead wrong about everything I have said. But this is much bigger than you and me, Hananiah. This is much more important than who is right and who is wrong. The question here is, ‘What is the word of the Lord for us this day?’ Don’t forget,” says Jeremiah to Hananiah, “there have been prophets before you and me. Not all of them prophesied salvation. Some foretold disaster and destruction. Remember Elijah, remember Amos, remember Micah who once prophesied that this very city would be laid bare as a mown field. Time will tell what the word of the Lord is, who proclaimed it and who received it faithfully.” (Paraphrase of Vss. 5-9). So ends the lectionary reading, but not the story. Next Hananiah, in a dramatic and brilliant show of oratory, jumps down from the podium, breaks in two the yolk off of Jeremiah’s neck and cries out, “So shall the Lord break the yolk of Babylon from the neck of his people.” Jeremiah 28:10-11. The crowd roars its approval and Jeremiah goes his way. He lost the duel.

It is easy for us two and one half millennia later to recognize Jeremiah as the genuine prophet. But what if instead of being here today, you were among that crowd in Jerusalem at the outbreak of war? Who would you believe? Both prophets have biblical precedent on their side. Hananiah could point to the Assyrian invasion of only a century before. Sennacherib, emperor of Assyria swept down and conquered every nation in Palestine, and most of Judah. Only Jerusalem remained standing-with what was left of Judah’s defeated army cowering behind its walls. God sent an angel of the Lord to slay the Assyrian army during the night and Sennacherib was forced to retreat. Jerusalem was saved against all odds. See II Kings 18:13-19:37. If God could do it then, God can do it now.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, could point to the time of the Judges when the Israelite army, facing an attack by the Philistines, went to the Tabernacle at Shiloh and took the Ark of the Covenant, thinking that God would never let them be defeated if it meant that the Ark would be captured. But God is not one to be manipulated by lucky charms. God handed Israel a defeat and, in fact, permitted the Ark to be taken captive. I Samuel 4. So also, argued Jeremiah, don’t think you can oppress the poor among you, worship idols, ignore the commandments and then go running into the Temple like a band of fugitives from justice to escape the consequences of your deeds. God values holy hearts over holy places. God did not spare the Tabernacle in Shiloh, God will not spare the Temple in Jerusalem either.

So we have two prophets. Both are speaking in the name of the God of Israel. Both have a word consistent with the Bible, but each has a very different message. How can we know which one is speaking the word of the Lord for this people at this time? I wish I had an easy answer for that one, but I don’t. I am not aware of any definitive test that will distinguish between true prophecy and false prophecy. But here are a few observations that might help. First, prophecy is not all about the future. Rather, it is a word that helps us understand what is taking place here and now. For the people of Jeremiah’s time, the big event was the Babylonian invasion. What does it mean? How would God have us respond? What is God’s word to us now? Which scripture speaks to this circumstance?

Second, true prophecy is tempered by humility. If you read further into the story you will find Jeremiah confronting Hananiah again-not in public this time but alone. “And the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, ‘Listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you made this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says the Lord: I am going to send you off the face of the earth. Within this year you will be dead, because you have spoken rebellion against the Lord.’” Jeremiah 28:15-16. I don’t know what to make of that except this: You better be careful what you say after the words, “Thus sayeth the Lord.”

Feminist reformer Susan B. Anthony once said, “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.” I think Ms. Anthony is onto something here. I am afraid we are far too confident these days in our beliefs about what God wills, what God is for and what God is against. That goes as much for mainline “advocacy” as it does for right wing efforts to make government strengthen and preserve family values. If Roberta Combs’ Jesus looks suspiciously similar to Ronald Regan, ours sometimes bears an uncanny resemblance to Fritz Mondale. When I see churches and individual congregations neatly split along the lines of “red” and “blue,” it is hard not to conclude that we have become proxies in the so called “culture wars” and that our ministries are driven less by theological conviction than ideological prejudices.

That is the difference between Jeremiah and Hananiah. Jeremiah was prepared to admit that he might after all be mistaken, that he might have misunderstood God’s word and that he might need to listen more closely to that word. By contrast, Hananiah knew he was right, was sure he had the truth and therefore felt entirely justified in shouting Jeremiah down. Arrogance is the surest mark both of a weak mind and a false prophet.

Psalm 89:1–4, 15–18

This is a royal psalm celebrating God’s salvation as mediated through God’s covenant with David. As always, I urge you to read Psalm 89 in its entirety. Although it celebrates God’s covenant with David as God’s saving act, the psalm acknowledges that the true sovereign of all the earth is God Himself. Vs. 18. God makes a “covenant” with David. A covenant is more than a mere contract. In the ancient near east, covenants were usually made between kings-and generally not between equals. It was common for a dominant king to enter into a covenant with the king of a subservient nation. Under the terms of the covenant, the stronger king would promise to provide military protection from common enemies (and a promise that he himself would not attack!). In return, the weaker king would pay tribute and promise undivided allegiance to the stronger king. The weaker king would often give his daughters in marriage to the stronger. (The fact that one’s daughter is at the mercy of a foreign king would naturally make one think twice about commencing hostilities!).

In the covenant with David, God is clearly the dominant partner. Yet, oddly enough, God promises both protection and eternal faithfulness. God’s love for and support of David is not contingent on David’s past accomplishments or on his promise to be loyal to the Lord. This is a one way covenant in which all of the promises flow from the God of Israel to David and his line.

The Davidic covenant was not universally recognized in Israel as was the covenant made at Sinai. Sinai was definitive both for the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Both kingdoms drew from the traditions growing out of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, the Exodus, the Wilderness Wanderings and the Conquest of Canaan. The David tradition belonged uniquely to the Southern Kingdom of Judah that was ruled by one of David’s descendants from its inception around 1000 B.C.E. until Judah’s final destruction in 587 B.C.E. For Judah, the rise of the Davidic Monarchy represented another of God’s saving acts, solidifying the twelve tribes and uniting them against their many enemies. Chief among these foes were the Philistine peoples whose professional armies and superior Iron Age technology gave them a significant military advantage over the loose confederation of Israelite tribes and their largely volunteer defenders. David’s political skills and his use of mercenaries to lead his armies transformed Israel into a formidable nation state.

But Israel’s view of the Davidic Monarchy was always conflicted. Doubts about the advisability of monarchy in general are reflected in I Samuel 8 where Samuel warns the people that the security promised through the reign of a king will come at the cost of taxation, oppression and military conscription. These very evils came to fruition under the monarchy and were severely denounced by the prophets. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures we find denunciations of the monarchy and its abuses alongside expressions of hope for a messianic descendent of David capable of delivering Israel from her enemies and ruling justly. This hope was burning with white hot fervor during the First Century in which Jesus lived and ministered. Nevertheless, beliefs about where the messiah would come from, what he would do to liberate Israel, how, when and where he would go about doing it were varied and conflicting. Not surprisingly, Jesus appeared reluctant to claim that title. Doing so would have invited a host of misunderstandings about his mission and ministry.

Romans 6:12–23

For my general reflections on the book of Romans and the introduction to this chapter, see last week’s post of June 22nd. In Sunday’s reading Paul picks up where he left off last week. Again, he poses the rhetorical questions: “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace?” vs. 15. As discussed last week, this conclusion follows only if we assume that sin is the mere breaking of law and that successfully following the law amounts to righteousness. As Paul has already pointed out, that assumption is altogether wrong. Sin is not a matter principally of wrong behavior, but of the self-centered orientation of the heart. Because we are incurably self-centered, we wind up bending the law to serve our own selfish objectives even when we keep it to the letter. This is what it means to be in bondage to sin.

Here we come up against the much maligned and misunderstood doctrine of the “bondage of the will.” Nowhere is the brutal reality of this bondage better portrayed than in Martin Luther’s book by that name. To sin or not to sin is not a choice. Sin is the bondage into which we are born. We can no more decide to be free from sin than we can decide no longer to be bound by the law of gravity. Just so, we cannot will ourselves to be obedient or faithful to God. Luther does not mean to say that we are altogether without the ability to make choices. We can, in fact, choose to marry or remain single; to study chemistry or pursue a law degree; put on the plain tie or the striped one. Indeed, we might even choose to put an end to war, eliminate hunger or stem the tide of pollution. Ironically, folks who chafe most insistently at the notion that we are unable to will obedience to God are usually the first to complain that ending war, hunger and carbon emissions are hugely complicated tasks, fraught with opposing political/economic interests and altogether “utopian.” Yet this world with all of its conflicts and challenges is precisely the arena in which the human will is free and enjoined to act. A clearer testament to the fall into sin you could not ask for: Human freedom extends to every corner of the garden but one-and that is exactly the corner in which human nature insists on exercising it to the neglect of everything else!

So, too, Paul points out that human freedom with respect to God is illusory. We are slaves either of God or sin and, of course, a slave is not free to choose its master! Nothing will change unless God acts to alter our bondage under sin. God has done just that in Jesus. In Jesus God puts an end to our bondage under sin and exercises mastery over us. Our legal status has changed fundamentally. We no longer owe anything to sin, but everything to God. This is not simply metaphysical slight-of-hand, a magic number for X that causes the algebraic equation to work out. Sin is inability to trust God and let God be God. God’s righteousness is God’s irrevocable determination to redeem creation and win back the trust of our unbelieving hearts. This righteousness, this determination of God to remain faithful to the covenant promises made to Israel for the sake of the world is not cheap. It comes at a great cost to God. It is because and only because God is faithful to the point of the cross that faith on our side is possible. Faith comes not from any decision on our part to be faithful, but from the wonderful proclamation that God is faithful. Nothing short of this good news of God’s righteousness, God’s determination to save-no matter the cost-can turn our suspicious and distrustful hearts toward faithful obedience.

Paul therefore never conceives of freedom in the abstract. Freedom is not an end in itself, nor can it be. As between God and sin, one of them must be our master. Sin is a ruthless master whose wages are death, but Jesus is a gentle master who gives life-not as a wage, but as a free gift. Vs. 23. In Christ we are thus set free “from” bondage to sin “for” bondage to God in Christ Jesus. Freedom, then, is not the liberty to do whatever one desires, but the power to do that which is good and life giving. Freedom to sin is therefore an oxymoron. Such “freedom” is in reality the worst kind of bondage, leading invariably to death. Vss. 20-21.

Matthew 10:40–42

This brief reading constitutes Jesus’ final words to his disciples before they embark on their mission of preaching, healing and casting out demons throughout Israel. Jesus impresses upon them the profound importance of their task. They are all of Jesus that many people will ever see. Acceptance of Jesus comes through acceptance of the disciples and their ministry. That is profoundly unsettling when one considers the degree to which the church persistently falls short of the community Jesus calls it to be. If the disciples had been exemplary saints with near superhuman goodness, we might despair of our own mission. But in all four of the gospels, we find disciples that mostly fail to comprehend the kingdom Jesus proclaims, mostly fail to be faithful precisely when faithfulness is critical and mostly fail to be the community united in love to which Jesus calls them. The church is at best a poor likeness of its Lord. Yet Jesus seems confident that his half-wit disciples will get it right. Ever so slightly more often than not, it seems they do.

The reading is also a reminder that the disciples’ mission depends upon the hospitality of those to whom they are sent. There is something beautiful about this arrangement. The mission of the disciples is not a one way transaction: “We are here to bring you the gospel. We are the helpers, you are the helped.” The disciples come to their audience with the most basic of needs; food and shelter. Just as they will call upon the villages to whom they have been sent to trust their proclamation of the kingdom and accept its gifts of healing and exorcism, so they must rely upon the kindness and generosity of their hearers. Naturally, then, the rewards of this mission also flow both ways. Not only are the disciples blessed, but also those who support them in their good work. Vs. 42.

This text is also a reminder to me of the hospitality I experience each day of my life. Every week between 25 and 40 people gather to listen to me talk. How many friends do you have who would put up with that? That people are willing to give us pastors an hour of their time to listen is already a huge act of hospitality. Moreover, I am surrounded by people who give of their time, their incomes and their prayers to ensure that the work I do goes on. After almost six years, these folks know my shortcomings, my flaws and my failures. Yet hardly a day goes by without a word of encouragement, a prayer for support or some random act of kindness. Yes, I know how difficult life in the church can be and I spoke about that last week. I know all about “clergy killers” and “alligators.” Some days we need to take more than our share of aggression. “Into each life some rain must fall.” But let’s not choke to death on the camel while trying to strain out the gnat. We preachers have received an enormous helping of hospitality from the people we serve. They are deserving of our thanks and recognition.

Sunday, June 8th

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DAY OF PENTECOST

Acts 2:1–21
Psalm 104:24–34, 35b
1 Corinthians 12:3b–13
John 20:19–23

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, on this day you open the hearts of your faithful people by sending into us your Holy Spirit. Direct us by the light of that Spirit, that we may have a right judgment in all things and rejoice at all times in your peace, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

The church has always been a little frightened of the Holy Spirit. Outpourings of the Spirit tend to cut across racial, ethnic and cultural barriers. The Spirit seems not to respect the distinctions of hierarchy, protocol and guidelines for ministry that are the hallmarks of ecclesial establishments. The “Azusa Street Revival” giving birth to the Pentecostal movement in the United States is a classic example of the Holy Spirit getting out of hand. This movement began in Los Angeles on April 9, 1906 during a prayer meeting conducted by William J. Seymour in a private home. Seymour and seven other persons with him began speaking in ecstatic tongues. News of this event spread throughout the neighborhood and soon crowds in the hundreds were gathering about the house with many people seeking to take part in the meetings. Remarkably for the time, the movement was characterized by racial and cultural diversity that us mainliners still have not achieved, despite our struggles to be inclusive. Worship services were altogether lacking in any regular liturgical format consisting mainly of preaching interspersed with hymns, prayers and, of course, speaking in tongues.

The responses of mainline churches ranged from cautious to hostile. Any movement crossing the color line was bound to draw ire from many different quarters, north and south. The prevalence of lay preachers challenged established doctrines of church and ministry. But more disturbing than anything else was the practice of speaking in tongues. These displays of ecstasy were simply unintelligible to rational, progressive protestant theology forged in the furnace of the enlightenment. What we cannot fit into our frame of reference, we tend to fear and reject. Thus, it is not surprising that established protestant churches dismissed the Pentecostal movement as mere religious hysteria and emotionalism.

The spontaneous and freewheeling stage of this movement was short lived. Some of its participants found their way back into established churches of one kind or another. Others developed into full-fledged denominations. The Assemblies of God is a good example of the latter. It seems that, for the long haul, the church needs some sort of structure to carry on. Paul reminds us that however impressive a gift or manifestation of the Spirit might be, it ceases to be a work of the Holy Spirit when it is used to build up the status of the recipient rather than the Body of Christ. Though we are God’s gifted people, we are nevertheless blinded by our sin and selfishness. We need structures to hold ourselves accountable to Christ and to one another as we exercise our particular gifts for ministry. Moreover, the church must have ways of recognizing and discerning Spiritual gifts and vocations. Just because I believe I am gifted in ministry of one kind or another does not mean that I really am. The tasks of preaching, teaching and worship leadership are far too important to leave for anyone who shows up and feels so inclined. Seminaries, credentialing committees and lay leadership training all have their place.

Nonetheless, the structures we create to facilitate the exercise of mission and ministry can also get in the way. Anyone who has ever attempted to start a new and innovative ministry that runs afoul of denominational guidelines and procedures knows the meaning of frustration. Every pastor or congregational leader that has attempted to introduce fresh approaches to worship, preaching and outreach in an established congregation knows how resistant the church can be to the influence of the Spirit. Throughout the Book of Acts, it always seems that the Holy Spirit is out in front of a church that can hardly keep up. Nowhere is that more evident than in Acts 11 where Saint Peter must explain to the council in Jerusalem why he went ahead and received gentiles into the church by baptism before consulting with leadership. Perhaps the rest of the apostles would have preferred to conduct a five year study on the issue of gentile inclusion and then bring it up for action at another apostolic council. But as far as Peter is concerned, this is an issue that the Holy Spirit has already decided. There is nothing left to study, nothing to vote on.

Perhaps the tension between the Spirit’s leading and the organizations we create in our efforts to follow is inevitable. Perhaps that is why we need always to be in the process of reformation. Today Pentecostal churches are the fastest growing of all others. How different might have been the course of our mainline churches if only we had been more receptive to the Azusa Street Revival? What would our churches look like today if we had entered into earnest dialogue with these believers, welcomed their newfound awareness of God’s Spirit and allowed it to renew, transform and enrich our mission and ministry? Can you imagine a church steeped in a rich liturgical tradition and having a strong confessional heritage pulsing with the soul of Azusa?

Acts 2:1–21

The Book of Acts continues Luke’s story begun in his gospel. Recall that in the Transfiguration Luke describes Jesus’ coming suffering, death and resurrection in Jerusalem as his “departure.” Luke 9:31. This word is derived from the term for “Exodus” employed in the Greek Old Testament known as the Septuagint. Luke means to tell us that Jesus is soon to bring about a saving event on a par with Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Throughout his telling of the story, Luke has sought to demonstrate a history of salvation in the ministry of Jesus and its continuation through the church. This history is told against the backdrop of the Roman Empire that has been lurking in the background from the beginning, takes an interest in Jesus during his ministry in Galilee and moves to crush him as he makes his very determined last trip to Jerusalem. Luke is showing us that history is made not in the capital of Rome, but in the backwaters of the Empire where a homeless couple gives birth to an infant in a barn. The word of God comes not to the Temple in Jerusalem, but to a ragged prophet in the wilderness of Judea. God’s glory is revealed not within the Holy of Holies, but outside the city on a hill overlooking a garbage dump where the vilest of criminals are executed. By way of the resurrection, God makes clear that Caesar is not Lord. Jesus is.

The second chapter of Acts takes us to the next episode of Luke’s salvation history, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. Pentecost, known as the “Feast of Tabernacles” or “Feast of Booths” was intended as a reminiscence of the fragile dwellings in which the Israelites lived during their 40 years of travel through the desert after the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. According to the prophet Zechariah, this feast of booths will become a universal festival in the last days during which all the nations will make pilgrimages annually to Jerusalem in celebration. Zechariah 14:16-19. The gathering of many Diaspora Jews in Jerusalem and their receptiveness to the disciple’s preaching indicates that the long awaited messianic age has arrived.

Some scholars have pointed out that later rabbinic teachers understood Pentecost not merely as a harvest festival or reminiscence of the wilderness wanderings, but a commemoration of God’s appearance to Israel upon Sinai and the giving of the law through Moses.  Gaster, Theodore H., Festivals of the Jewish Year, (c. New York: Morrow, 1952) cited by Juel, Donald, Luke Acts-The Promise of History, (John Knox Press, c 1983) p. 58. Thus, if Jesus’ ministry culminating in Jerusalem was God’s new Exodus, Pentecost corresponds to God’s descent to Israel on Mount Sinai. The mighty wind and flame reported in Luke bring to mind the Sinai appearance accompanied by fire and storm. Exodus 19:16-25. The speaking of the disciples in multiple languages corresponds to rabbinic legends claiming that the law given to Moses was miraculously translated into every language under heaven.  See Juel, supra citing Lake, Kirsopp, “The Gift of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost,”  Beginnings of Christianity, 5:114-16.

Pentecost was understood by some Jewish writers as a commemoration of the renewal of God’s covenant with the earth made through Noah. See Jubilees 6:17-18. Such awareness on Luke’s part is entirely consistent with the universal appeal of his gospel. It is also tempting to read the Pentecost story as the undoing of the confusion of tongues imposed by God as a judgment upon the nations at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9. I don’t believe that it is necessary to select any of these interpretations of the Pentecost event over all of the others. Luke is not building a ridged typology tying the Church’s story to that of Israel. Rather, he is alluding to episodes in the Hebrew Scriptures that illuminate the new thing God is doing through Jesus. Pentecost can therefore be seen as a new revelation from God poured out upon the disciples and spilling over into the languages of all nations. It can be understood as a revocation of God’s judgment of confusion upon a rebellious people bent on storming heaven. It is a new event in which God “storms” into the life of the world. Or Pentecost can be seen as an allusion to the coming of the messianic age through the ingathering of God’s people. Whichever emphasis one might wish to give this story, Luke means for us to recognize in it the mission of the church that will take the disciples to “the ends of the earth.”

One final note: the folks gathered here are all “devout Jews.” Though they come from Jewish communities throughout the Mediterranean world and speak the languages of the localities in which they reside, they are nonetheless people of Israel. Inclusion of the Gentiles, though hinted at throughout Luke’s gospel, is not yet on the church’s agenda. Nevertheless, the mission to the Gentiles can be seen in embryonic form among these diverse Jews through the languages and cultures they have internalized.

Psalm 104:24–34, 35b

This psalm is a remarkable hymn to God, the Creator. Its focus on God’s sovereignty over the earth, sea and sky reflects a date after the Babylonian Exile where Israel was exposed to and tempted by the creation myths from the religion of her Chaldean captors. The Babylonian Enûma Eliš saga relates how the earth was created out of a civil war between the gods and how humans were created from the divine blood shed in that conflict for the purpose of serving the victorious gods. By contrast, this psalm describes creation as a sovereign act of the one God whose merciful and compassionate care ensures stability and sustenance for all creatures. There is no hint of conflict or struggle in the act of creation. Wind and flame are God’s “ministers” (the same word used for “angels”). Vs 4.  The feared sea monster, Leviathan, understood in near eastern mythology to be a fearsome and threatening divine agent, is not a rival god or even God’s enemy in the biblical view of things. It is merely another of God’s creatures in which God takes delight. Vss. 25-26. Everything that lives depends upon God’s Spirit, without which there is no existence. That Spirit is capable not only of giving life, but also restoring it. vs. 30.

This psalm has theological affinities with the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:3, also composed during the period of Israel’s exile in Babylon. Here, too, everything is brought into existence by the sovereign word of God that declares everything made to be “good.” Human beings are created not from the blood of conflict, but from the dust of the earth and in God’s image. They have not been made to serve as a race of slaves, but to be fruitful, multiply and rule over the good world God has made. The sun, moon and stars are not magical entities whose movements and alignments control the fate of people and nations. Rather, they are luminaries created to provide light for the benefit of God’s creatures. This is not a world of haunted horrors in which humans are at best slaves and at worst collateral damage in an ongoing struggle between gods and demons. It is a good world ruled by a generous and compassionate Creator.

While Babylonian religion has long since faded into the dead zone of history, I still believe that in this so called “post-modern” era we are confronted with a secularized paganism. Babylonian religion portrayed a world ruled by warring gods, each having its own sphere of influence and all of which needed to be placated by human beings living at their mercy. So also I believe for us contemporaries, the world seems a soulless place at the mercy of corporate economic interests, nationalist military conflicts and societal expectations for conformity exercising tyrannical power over us. Humans are viewed as “cheap labor,” “voting blocks,” “collateral damage,” “demographic groups,” and categorized by other dehumanizing labels. The earth is viewed as a ball of resources to be used up freely and without limitation by anyone having the power to control and exploit them.  Unlike the Babylonian and post-modern visions, the Bible does not view the world either as a haunted house inhabited by warring demons or as the battleground for competing national, commercial and tribal interests. This psalm testifies to the beauty, goodness and holiness of the earth as God’s beloved creation.

1 Corinthians 12:3b–13

The church at Corinth was a congregation only the Apostle Paul could love. It had every conceivable problem a church could have. It had divisive factions; power struggles; sex scandals; doctrinal disputes; arguments over worship practices; and, of course, money issues. Yet remarkably, Paul can say to this messed up, dysfunctional congregation, “Now you are the Body of Christ.” I Corinthians 12:27. He does not say, “You should be the Body of Christ!” or “You could be the Body of Christ if you would just get your act together!” No, Paul is emphatic that the church at Corinth is the Body of Christ even now, with all its warts and blemishes. This is no metaphor.  Paul means for the church to understand that it is Jesus’ resurrected Body. Nothing Paul says makes any sense until you get that.

In this Sunday’s lesson the issue is spiritual gifts. Understand that Paul is not using the term “spiritual” in the wishy washy new age sense that we so often hear it today-i.e., “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” (Whatever that means.) When Paul speaks of the spiritual, he is speaking explicitly about the Spirit of Jesus. That Spirit can be experienced only through the intimate knowing of Jesus. Jesus is known through communion with his Body, the church. Thus, it is impossible to speak of obedience to Jesus apart from communion with his Body. The church is the Body of Jesus precisely because it is animated by the Spirit of Jesus. Therefore, every ethical decision, every doctrinal teaching, every matter of church administration, every aspect of worship boils down to what does or does not build up the unity and health of Christ’s Body.

The reading begins with the assertion that “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Vs. 3. We need to be mindful of the political implications of this claim. The mantra of the Roman world was “Caesar is Lord.” Because there is room for only one divine emperor, asserting that anyone other than Caesar is Lord constitutes de facto treason. At best, you earn ridicule from the pagan community for making such a claim. In the worst case scenario, the confession of Jesus as Lord might be treated as a criminal offense. The assertion was equally problematic within the Jewish community. According to Deuteronomy 21:22-23, a person put to death by hanging on a tree is cursed. Consequently, confessing a crucified criminal as Israel’s Messiah could be regarded as blasphemy. In sum, making the confession “Jesus is Lord” could result in ostracism from your religious community, mockery from your pagan neighbors and possibly conviction of a capital crime. Quite understandably, then, Paul insists that making this bold confession and living by it requires the support of God’s Spirit.

In the first part of verse 3  (not included in our reading) Paul states that no one can say “Jesus be cursed” by the Spirit of God. I Corinthians 12:3. This might seem obvious. One would not expect such an exclamation from within the church community. Given the hostile environment in which the church found itself, however, it is not inconceivable that a weak member of the church might be tempted to curse the name of Jesus in order to conceal his or her affiliation from family, religious or civil authorities. Some commentators suggest that Paul is referring to the Roman practice of requiring suspected Christians to revile the name of Christ in order to clear themselves of any accusation. Fitzmyer, Joseph A., First Corinthians, The Anchor Bible Commentary, Vol. 32, (c. 2008 by Yale University) p. 456. This approach to the church was evidently taken in Asia Minor as evidenced by correspondence from Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan in 110 C.E. Though this conclusion is plausible and tempting, I rather doubt that Paul had anything so specific in mind. The church was still a tiny sect within and indistinguishable from Judaism in the mid First Century when Paul was active. It is therefore unlikely that the Roman authorities in Corinth during this period would have recognized it or singled it out for any such specialized policy of enforcement.

So now we come down to the specific issue at hand: “spiritual gifts” given to individual members of the Body of Christ for the building up of that Body. There is no hierarchy in the church for Paul. The issue is never “who is in charge.” Jesus is the Head of the church. He alone is in charge. The rest of us are all members of the body.  A little finger might not seem to be particularly important-until you try using a keyboard without it or it gets slammed in the car door. Suddenly, the least important part of the body is commanding center stage! So also in the Body of Christ, the prominence of any person’s gift at any particular time depends upon what is happening. When determining the short term management of a large monetary gift to the church, someone with administrative skill in managing funds is critical. Such persons know how to transfer property quickly, efficiently and without loss to a place where it can appreciate in value as the church decides how to use it. But, when it comes to long range management of these funds, different gifts are required. The mission of the church is not to maximize income on its investments, but to use its resources to build up the Body of Christ and witness to the reign of God. To make faithful use of the church’s resources to these ends, the gift of prophetic vision is required. The gift of discernment is necessary also to evaluate such visions and find within them the call and command of Jesus. When all members of the church work together using their unique gifts to build up the Body of Christ, the gifts complement each other.

Unfortunately, such harmony was not the prevailing mood at Corinth. Certain individuals were convinced that their gifts conferred upon them greater status and authority. They were using their gifts and abilities to advance their own interests instead of building up the church. So Paul begins in these verses an extended discussion about the proper use of the gifts the Holy Spirit gives to each member of the Body of Christ. In the first place, all members of the Body are gifted and their gifts are necessary to the proper functioning of that Body. Vs. 4. So the church must constantly ask itself whether it is recognizing the gifts among its members. Second, it matters not which gift a person has, but how the gift is used. Paul makes it clear that all gifts must be used for the common good of the whole church. Vs. 7. In the example of the monetary gift, a short term manager who loses sight of the big picture and is concerned only with maximizing returns on investment rather than growing the ministry of the church is no longer serving the Body. So also the visionary with great plans for the church’s resources who is unwilling to submit his or her vision to the ministry of discernment within the Body is no longer building up the Body. Third, there is no hierarchy of gifts.  Hierarchy is antithetical to the well-being of the church. Sadly, it seems today that we lack the imagination, creativity and vision to function without hierarchy and my own church body (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) is no exception to that rule. But don’t get me started on that.

John 20:19–23

As I noted last week, John’s Pentecost story is out of step with that of Luke (or the other way around if you prefer). John has Jesus breathing the life giving Spirit into his disciples on the morning of his resurrection. More than any other witness, John identifies the Holy Spirit with the presence of the resurrected Christ in his church. Of course, Saint Paul makes the same identification in referring consistently to the Church as Christ’s Body. Similarly, the Book of Acts makes clear that the mission of the church is in many respects the continuation of Jesus’ ministry of healing, feeding the hungry and preaching good news to the poor. So I believe that the New Testament witness is consistent in anchoring the outpouring of the Spirit with the continued presence of Jesus in the church. Hence, I side with the Western church on the matter of the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed, namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. For the perspective of the Eastern Church which rejects this clause such that the Creed affirms the procession of the Spirit from the Father only, check out this link.

Luke and John are entirely on the same page in their identification of the Spirit with the commissioning of the disciples. In the very same breath (pun intended) that Jesus says “receive the Holy Spirit,” he then says “as the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” Vss. 22-23. So also in Luke’s understanding, the Spirit is given so that the disciples can become Jesus’ “witnesses” to “the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8. In John’s account, Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Vs. 23. Exactly what does this mean? According to Luther’s Small Catechism, this verse refers to the “Office of the Keys” through which the church, through its public ministry, absolves penitent sinners and withholds this benefit from the unrepentant. Luther’s Small Catechism, Part V. But is that really what John had in mind here? In my view, the context makes that interpretation extremely doubtful. The focus is not upon the internal workings of the community of disciples but upon the disciples’ mission to the world. Undoubtedly, the two are related in this gospel. It is through the disciples’ love for one another that they will be identified as followers of Jesus. John 13:35. But the principal emphasis is on the disciples’ witness to the world, not to their relationship with one another. So what can it mean to “retain” sins?

I believe that John is emphasizing the importance of the commission that Jesus has just given to his disciples. It is through them that the life giving Word of forgiveness is to be made known to the world. It is “in” them that the Spirit now resides. If the disciples of Jesus do not make known God’s forgiveness of sin, the world will remain in the grip of sin. Those sins will be retained. But if the Word is spoken, it will be accompanied by the Spirit of God that inspires faith and breaks the bondage of sin. I believe that is what commentator Raymond Brown is saying in the following quote:

“In summary, we doubt that there is sufficient evidence to confirm the power of forgiving and holding of sin, granted in John 20:23 to a specific exercise of power in the Christian community, whether that be admission to Baptism or forgiveness in Penance. These are but partial manifestations of a much larger power, namely, the power to isolate, repel, and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus in his mission by the Father and given in turn by Jesus through the Spirit to those whom he commissions. It is an effective, not merely declaratory, power against sin, a power that touches new and old followers of Christ, a power that challenges those who refuse to believe. John does not tell us how or by whom this power was exercised in the community for whom he wrote, but the very fact that he mentions it shows that it was exercised.” Brown, Raymond E., The Gospel According to John, XIII-XXI,  The Anchor Bible, Vol. 29a, (Doubleday, c. 1970) p. 1044.

Sunday, May 18th

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FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 7:55–60
Psalm 31:1–5, 15–16
1 Peter 2:2–10
John 14:1–14

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty God, your Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Give us grace to love one another, to following the way of his commandments, and to share his risen life with all the world, for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

My first reaction to the kidnapping of two hundred school girls in northern Nigeria was anger. Actually, white hot rage would be a more apt description. Understand that I have daughters of my own. So this is personal. What sort of backwards, knuckle dragging, Neanderthal throwback would sell a girl child into slavery or prostitution for the mere crime of wanting an education? What sort of money grubbing, heartless, sociopath of an arms dealer thought it would be a good idea to put guns in the hands of these mindless ideologues? And what sort of people are we, the nations of the world, if we cannot at least agree that murdering children who only want to learn is wrong and take strong measures to see that this never happens again?

Now that I am through venting, I am left with a feeling of helplessness. Like everybody else, I feel that the government of Nigeria and that of my own country ought to do something to save these girls. I am far from sure, however, what to expect on that score. I am not convinced that sending more men with guns into a jungle already infested by men with guns will contribute to the safety or rescue of these girls. I would favor negotiating their release, but I fear that this may be a case in which there is no one among the kidnappers in a position to negotiate even if s/he were so inclined. It seems we are witnessing an act of gross injustice, cruelty and inhumanity-and there is not much we can do about it.

Israel was well acquainted with such circumstances. The experience of conquest, deportation and exile left Israel seemingly at a dead end. There was virtually no possibility of throwing off the Babylonian yolk; no possibility of returning to the promised land; no possibility even for worship, for “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Psalm 137:4. Israel’s response to this disaster was “lament,” a heartfelt pouring out of the wounded self to God. The psalm for this Sunday (Psalm 31) is a good example of this genre. The psalms of lament express the whole gambit of emotional responses to injustice. They, too, express white hot rage. “O daughter of Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us! Happy shall be he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” Psalm 137:8-9. They question the faithfulness of God. “O God, why dost thou cast us off forever? Why does thy anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?” Psalm 74:1. “They give expression to hopelessness and despair. “For all our days pass away under thy wrath, our years come to an end like a sigh.” Psalm 90:9. Yet these laments are not just a lot of bitching and moaning. The mere fact that the psalmist feels it worthwhile to pray suggests that s/he is still possessed of hope for God’s saving intervention. However dark a picture the psalms of lament may paint, they always leave room for God to do something new and unexpected. Because Israel could never be convinced that God had given up on her, she could never bring herself to give up on God.

That is the sort of faith we need in the face of the Nigerian tragedy. Where our efforts, abilities and imagination end, we do not throw up our hands in despair. Instead, we pour out our anger, fear and sorrow to a God we believe sees beyond our limited capabilities-and we wait. Waiting upon the Lord, however, is not like Waiting for Godot. It requires the exercise of what Hebrew Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann calls the “prophetic imagination.” In her laments, Israel frequently recited God’s saving acts of the past. See, e.g., Psalm 77:11-15. Of course, these recitations reminded Israel of God’s faithfulness and power to save. More significantly, however, they assisted her in looking imaginatively at her present context with an eye toward recognizing God’s saving activity on her behalf in the here and now. It was largely reflection upon God’s salvation for Israel narrated in Exodus that enabled the prophet of the latter section of Isaiah to recognize in Babylon’s fall to Persia a new act of salvation. The prophet saw in this event, not merely a change of imperial control, but a new Exodus. Just as God had once paved the way from bondage in Egypt to freedom in the land of Canaan, so now God was at work in the clash of empires opening a window of opportunity for Israel’s return from exile to that same land of promise. The prophet’s proclamation of this vision convinced Israel that God was making a new start with her and giving her yet another chance to live faithfully under the covenant in the land of Canaan. Ultimately, the seemingly impossible happened. Jerusalem and its temple were rebuilt.

So as hopeless as the condition of the Nigerian school girls might seem, we know that things are always more than what they seem. We need to leave room for another Exodus miracle. We need to think less practically and strategically and more imaginatively and prophetically. In short, we need to lament. So let us pray for these girls. As fragile and vulnerable as they are, I have no doubt that they have inner resources, wells of wisdom and strength of character to see them through the most difficult of times. May God’s Spirit help them tap into these resources that they might thrive even in the darkness of their captivity. Furthermore, the girls’ captors are, after all, people made in the image of God. However wounded and twisted their souls may have become, they cannot erase that image. They cannot drive pity, compassion and empathy altogether from their hearts. So let us set aside our natural feelings of outrage and pray for these children of God, that they may recover that wonderful image in which they were made. Let us pray that God might yet turn their hearts from evil to compassion. Let us pray for the leaders of Nigeria and all the nations seeking to bring this crisis to an end. Save them from tunnel vision that so often leads to rash and misguided action. Give them the gifts of patience, imagination and wisdom that they may know both their own limitations and God’s limitless ability to create new opportunities for salvation, justice and peace. Let us pray for, dream about and imagine a new Exodus for these girls and for all girls throughout the world caught in the jaws of injustice.

Acts 7:55–60

This account of the execution or, more accurately, the lynching of Stephen is the concluding episode to a much longer narrative reported in full at Acts 6:1-Acts 8:1. Stephen is one of seven individuals appointed to oversee the distribution of food to “widows” within the Jerusalem church community. As Professor Gerd Ludemann points out, “Many pious Jews settled in Jerusalem in the evening of their lives in order to be buried in the holy city. Therefore the care of their widows was a problem which came up frequently.” Ludemann, Gerd, Early Christianity According to the Traditions in Acts, (c. 1987 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pub. by Fortress Press) p. 74. Thus, the church’s practice of providing for its widows had Jewish antecedents. Oddly, however, Stephen seems occupied not with such mundane administrative work but rather with “doing great wonders and signs among the people” and disputing with representatives of the “synagogue of the freedman.” Acts 6:8-10. Stephen’s arguments enrage his opponents who bring him before the Jewish high council on charges of blasphemy. His lengthy defense recorded in Acts 7:1-53 so inflames the anger of those present at the hearing that they drag him outside of the city and stone him to death. Stephen dies with a prayer for their forgiveness on his lips. As a consequence of this event, a great persecution arises against the church in Jerusalem scattering the disciples throughout all of Judea and Samaria. Acts 8:2. But so far from silencing the church, the persecution results in the spread of the gospel and the continued growth of the church. “Those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word.” Acts 8:4. This is the context of our reading.

Stoning was the punishment of choice for idolatry (Deuteronomy 17:2-7); human sacrifice (Leviticus 20:2-5);prophesying in the name of foreign gods (Deuteronomy 13:1-5);divination (Leviticus 20:27); blasphemy (Leviticus 24:15-16);Sabbath breaking (Numbers 15:32-36);adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22-24); and disobedience to parents (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). In 1st Century Judaism the sentence of stoning was rarely imposed and then only after strict legal procedural requirements were satisfied. The punishment could be administered only upon the testimony of two competent witnesses. Between twenty-three and seventy-one judges were required to adjudicate such a capital case, depending upon the offense. A simple majority was required to sustain a verdict. It does not appear that these procedures were observed in the case of Stephen whose death looks much more like the fruit of mob violence than a judicially ordered execution. Stoning, it should be noted, remains a legal form of judicial punishment in Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria (in one-third of the country’s states), Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. In actual practice, however, stoning is usually carried out by vigilantes or violent mobs.

This text gives us a look into the anatomy of violence. The whole incident begins with a dispute in which Stephen’s opponents find themselves frustrated in their attempts to persuade him that his arguments are wrongheaded. Unable to meet Stephen’s arguments, they resort to attacks on his character. They call him a blasphemer and bring him before the council. But Stephen continues to press his point until his enemies are so enraged that they actually plug their ears against his reasoning. Predictably, they finally resort to violence. Violence is the last desperate attempt of a frustrated debater to silence an opponent whose arguments he cannot meet. It is what happens when we run out of words.

By contrast, Stephen prays for the forgiveness of his executioners, mirroring Jesus’ prayer in Luke’s passion narrative. Luke 23:34. As the first Christian martyr whose death is recorded in the New Testament, Stephen’s witness has inspired and shaped faithful witness to Jesus in the face of persecution throughout the generations. It reinforces my long held conviction that non-violence is not a peripheral virtue, but a central tenant of the gospel witness. There are things worth dying for, but according to Jesus, nothing is worth killing for. In the face of violent persecution, the church’s duty is to die-as did its Lord.

Psalm 31:1–5, 15–16

This is a psalm of lament, one of the most common types found in the Psalter. As noted in last week’s post, the essential elements of its type are:

  1. Initial Appeal to Yahweh, vss. 1-8.
  2. Portrayal of inward distress, vss. 9-18
  3. Expression of confidence, vss. 19-20
  4. Witness of praise to the community, vss. 21-24.

See Anderson, Bernard W., Out of the Depths, The Psalms Speak for us Today, (c. 1983 by Bernard W. Anderson, pub. by The Westminster Press) p. 97. For further comment on this psalm generally and my disparaging remarks about the common lectionary’s ruthless disembowelment of it, see my comment of April 13th.

Verse 5 parallels both Stephen’s dying prayer in Acts 7:59 and that of Jesus in Luke 23:46. Ultimately, the psalms leave the execution of justice in the hands of God. While the psalmists can be quite explicit in their desire to see vengeance upon their enemies (See, e.g., Psalm 137), they nevertheless leave its implementation in the hands of the Lord where it rightly belongs. Pacifism is not a creation of the New Testament, but the human embodiment of the heart and mind belonging to the same God lifted up in the Hebrew Scriptures.

“Thou art my God; my times are in your hands.” Vs. 14. Verses like this are the source of both comfort and consternation. The verse seems to say that my life is in God’s hands. If I know God as merciful, compassionate and intimately involved with me, that should be comforting. It is when times are good and I know who to thank for it. The problem is that I must then account for God’s management in times that are not so good, even terrible and tragic. Some deal with this by suggesting that God sends trials to strengthen and instruct us. There is a degree of plausibility in that approach. Who of us would deny that the most valuable lessons in life are learned through facing challenges, overcoming difficulties and working through problems? Even the most horrible circumstances can (though they don’t always) make us stronger, wiser and more mature. But do we really want to say that God sends sexual predators to molest children so that they can grow through the experience? Not me!

Some theologians deal with this problem by arguing that God does not micromanage creation. God sets up the universe with certain parameters, natural laws and creaturely limitations and then graciously gives us our freedom to live and make our own independent choices. We are, of course, responsible for the choices we make. Some of those choices lead to tragic results. Of course, God is not a detached watchmaker whose task ends when the watch is completed, set and wound up. God is not indifferent to all that takes place on this planet. In fact, God is deeply grieved by events such as genocide, natural disasters and epidemics. But God does not intervene or only intervenes to let us know that he feels our pain. That might make God less of a villain in the eyes of some, but I am not convinced that having a distant and grossly neglectful parent is much better than having an abusive one.

It seems to me that if we are to get out of this conundrum, we need to think differently about God’s power and God’s saving intervention. In some respects, God gave up being almighty as soon as God spoke the word, “Let there be.” Like a child conceived in love, the creation makes a claim upon its Creator. As soon as there is something or someone that is not God, God is not “omnipotent” in the sense that God is the only power there is (though it is proper to say that God is omnipotent in the sense that God is a potent force in every circumstance). Just as a child grows in complexity and variability, so also creation and its human inhabitants exercise growing potential-for good and evil. This presents God with a choice: 1) that of exercising coercive power to compel creation to comply with God’s desire for it; or 2) that of exercising persuasive power through continuous acts of faithfulness and expressions of love. What God wants is for his creatures to love him as he loves them and to trust him. That is the kingdom in which God would have us live. But God cannot get that result by coercing us. God will not reign over us as a Caesar on steroids. If God cannot implement his reign through love, God will not reign.

I believe this is what Paul has in mind when he insists that the “weakness” of God is in reality the power of God. See I Corinthians 1:18-31. God’s power is God’s refusal to be drawn into the cycle of violence to which coercive force always leads. Rightly understood, divine power is not the ability to “make the kingdom happen,” but the patience to continue loving, forgiving and inviting us into the kingdom in the face of all our hostility to it. The power of Jesus’ disciples is the conviction, borne of God’s own conviction and demonstration through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, that love outlasts violence. The weakness of God (which is in reality God’s strength) is the patience of Christ’s Body living under the peaceful reign of God in a violent world. Suffering, loss and even martyrdom are not the exceptions, but the rule for disciples of Jesus. To be in God’s hands is to take up the cross through which God reigns.

1 Peter 2:2–10

“Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk.” Vs. 2. This is a profoundly feminine image of God the mother, feeding and nurturing her children with “pure spiritual milk.” The disciple is as dependent upon Jesus as a newborn living on its mother’s milk. The image of the “living stone” follows immediately thereafter with an allusion (made quite specific further on) to Psalm 118:22. Like a stone rejected by builders which later turns out to be the cornerstone of the structure, so Jesus is the rejected Messiah who turns out to be the cornerstone of the new age. Attention then turns to the disciples who as “living stones” are built into a “spiritual house.” Vs. 5. This image then gives way to that of “a holy priesthood” offering “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ.” Vs. 5. Unpacking all of this is a daunting task.

The stone is a double image. For the faithful, it is a pillar of strength and, as our psalmist observed, “a rock of refuge.” Psalm 31:2. For unbelievers, however, the rock is a source of stumbling. Vs. 8 citing Isaiah 8:14-15. Even a rock that makes one stumble can be the occasion of salvation, however. If you are running head long down the path of self-destruction, tripping on a stone and landing flat on your face is the best thing that can happen to you.

Verses 9-10 apply to this Christian community in Asia Minor a laundry list of honorary titles for Israel taken from Exodus 19:6 and Isaiah 43:20-21. Yet this church, whose composition is significantly if not predominantly gentile, is reminded that she comes into the heritage of Israel by the gracious invitation extended to her through Jesus. “Once you were no people; but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.” Vs. 10. Of course, this message is even more urgent and essential for the 21st Century church that is all but exclusively gentile!

John 14:1–14

This reading is a frequent sermon text at funerals. Jesus’ assurance that there are many rooms in his Father’s house and that he goes there to prepare a place for his disciples is a powerful and comforting image for all who face the loss of a loved one. Those of us who cut our biblical teeth on the King James Version of the Bible will recall that the word for “room” (mone) is there translated “mansion.” The actual meaning of “mone” is far more modest and thus the RSV rendering of that word merely as “room.” This should not detract from the magnitude of the promise, however. Jesus is offering far more than real estate here. He is promising to make a place for us in the Father’s household. That has ramifications not only for the hereafter, but for the here and now. Eternal life begins now as the disciples begin to believe in Jesus’ promises and shape their lives according to that belief. As St. Augustine puts it, “[Jesus] prepares the dwelling places by preparing those who are to dwell in them.” Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of St. John, Tractate LXVIII, 1, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII, (c. 1978 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) p. 322.

Jesus makes the remarkable claim that his disciple’s know the way where he is going. Vs. 4. Understandably, Thomas objects that he and his fellow disciples do not know the way. Vs. 5. Jesus replies that he is the way. Vs. 6. What the disciples do not yet understand is that Jesus “going away” is not a separation from them, but the porthole to a deeper intimacy and more profound presence. The coming of the “advocate” or Holy Spirit will initiate the oneness between Jesus and his disciples for which he prays in John 17. “The answer given by Jesus [to Thomas] articulates the high Christology of the fourth evangelist. It is not the case that Jesus is ‘away’ from the Father, and must therefore find and tread the way to him; he is the way himself: it is not the case that there is a truth about the Father which Jesus must learn and then pass on; he is the truth himself: it is not the case that the Father has eternal life which he will give to the Son when the Son reaches his home, so the Son can then bestow life; he is the life himself. And no other approach to the Father can be made than the one which has been opened in the incarnation of the eternal Word.” Marsh, John, Saint John, The Pelican New Testament Commentaries (c. 1968 by John Marsh, pub. by Penguin Books, Ltd.) p. 504.

In what I imagine must have been a tone of utter exasperation, Philip says to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and we shall be satisfied.” Vs. 8. Jesus replies that whoever has seen him has seen the Father. Vs. 9. This is a remarkable statement and one that should shatter every notion we have about who and what God is. Jesus, who will soon surrender without resistance to the temple police and die helplessly on the cross is all there is of God to see. There is nothing more, nothing hidden inside or concealed. What you see is what you get. Yet this Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Vs. 6.

It should be clear by now that in declaring himself the “way, the truth and the life,” Jesus is letting his disciples know 1) that his departure is in fact the prelude to his return in a fuller, more robust presence among his disciples than they have known throughout their days of following him on the way to the cross; 2) that the way to the Father is through fellowship with him soon to be had through the coming of the “advocate.” The message of Ascension is on the horizon here. Jesus’ ascending to the right hand of the Father is his coming to fill all creation with the fullness of God. The last supper is not Jesus’ going away party.

Sunday, May 4th

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THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 2:14a, 36–41
Psalm 116:1–4, 12–19
1 Peter 1:17–23
Luke 24:13–35

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, your Son makes himself known to all his disciples in the breaking of bread. Open the eyes of our faith, that we may see him in his redeeming work, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“We had hoped that [Jesus] was the one to redeem Israel.” Luke 24:21. So remarked one of two disciples as they traveled the road back home to Emmaus. “We had hoped…” How many devastating tales of disappointment begin with those words! “We had hoped that this treatment would put Mom into remission.” “We had hoped this new youth program would revitalize our church.” “We had hoped that this time the pregnancy would take.” The road to Emmaus is a highway of heartbreak. I have traveled a stretch or two on that road myself and I expect you have too.

It is tempting to race too quickly down that road toward the end of the story where the resurrected Christ is made known to his disciples. There is nothing we Americans like more than a happy ending. We are a “can do” people who believe that “if you can dream it, you can do it.” This is the time of year for beaming graduates to stand robed and tasseled as a parade of commencement speakers assure them that their dreams are within their reach. We love those narratives about children born with disabilities or into a life of poverty who nevertheless overcome their limitations to achieve success and do great things. They reinforce our deeply held belief that, with enough grit and determination, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

That is an inspiring vision. There is just one problem with it, however. It’s a lie. Indeed, it is a lie so powerfully ingrained upon our psyches that it threatens to distort our hearing of the Easter story. Jesus was not an “overcomer.” His resurrection was not the culmination of hard work, determination and careful planning. Jesus’ life, the life to which he calls us, got him nailed to the cross. By all reasonable standards of success, Jesus was a failure. At least that is how we must judge him if success means achieving your vision. Jesus’ vision was God’s reign on earth as in heaven. That hasn’t happened yet and there is no indication that it will be happening anytime soon. We can only conclude that Jesus’ timing must have been off. Perhaps he didn’t plan as carefully as he should have. Or maybe he just didn’t try hard enough. In any case, he failed.

You need to accept the failure of Jesus before you can hear the good news of Easter. That good news is that God judges Jesus differently. God raised up the man who failed to redeem Israel, the man who could not even get his closest disciples to understand his vision, the man who could not make a dent in the grinding poverty, brutal oppression and hardened cynicism of his day. Success, according to God, is not the highest good. Faithfulness and obedience to Jesus and the kingdom he proclaims are what matter. They matter even when they don’t seem to be effective. In fact, I will say that faithfulness and obedience to Jesus matter especially when they don’t seem to be effective. Such faithfulness might not get you to the Olympics. Such obedience might actually prevent you from getting that promotion you were hoping for. There is no guarantee that obedience to Jesus will make your marriage, your career, your health or anything else in life work out well for you. Those guarantees simply are not part of the discipleship package. The one guarantee you have, and the only one that really matters, is the guarantee that wherever the road to Emmaus might lead, you will meet the resurrected Christ at every turn.

The truth is, there are plenty of dreams beyond our reach. There is much that we will never overcome. Contrary to a well-known saying, life does in fact throw things at us that are too much for us to bear. But here is the thing. Life never throws anything at us that God cannot bear. A lot of religion equates God’s favor with wealth, success, achievement and happiness. If you lack these goods, it must be because you are out of touch with God. But the good news of Easter is that Jesus meets us on the road to Emmaus as we bear the pain of our disappointed hopes. The good news is that Jesus is present in the midst of broken marriages, ruined careers, messed up lives and failing health. He brings the miracle of resurrection to where it is most needed-where all other hopes have been dashed.

Acts 2:14a, 36–41

This week’s lesson is a continuation of Peter’s Pentecost sermon, part of which we heard last week. For an outline of Peter’s argument, see my post of April 27th. The sermon concludes with the bold declaration: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Vs. 36. The crowd responds in the only way possible where credence is given to such a message: “What shall we do?” vs. 37. What is left to be done when you discover that God has offered you his best and you have rejected it? Repentance might seem like the natural response, but it is hardly that. How can one repent after having thrown God’s greatest gift back in God’s face? You have passed the point of no return and now there is no going back-unless God makes a way of return. That is the gospel: God responds to the crucifixion of Jesus by raising him up and offering him back to us, the same people who murdered him.

Again, care must be taken to avoid giving this text an anti-Semitic slant. Peter does not lay responsibility for the crucifixion solely on his fellow Jews. Though Jews, to be sure, this group is made up of pilgrims from all nations. Acts 2:5-11. They may or may not have been in Jerusalem for Passover when Jesus was tried, convicted and executed. More to the point, their diversity foreshadows the church’s worldwide mission soon to include the gentiles. The gentiles are no less in need of the gospel than are the Jews. It is the sin of the world that put Jesus on the cross and the sin of the world that is overcome by the cross. All people are implicated in Jesus’ death on the cross just as all people are so reconciled. The Jews bear no more guilt than the rest of us for what transpired in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. We would be naïve to assume that Jesus would have fared any better had he come to the United States of the 21st Century rather than 1st Century Palestine. (Though, of course, we would put him down by lethal injection rather than by crucifixion and so to that extent, I suppose we can say that we have progressed a little over the ways of Rome.) Repentance, then, is a gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon all flesh. It is freedom to turn away from our death dealing ways to the alternative life Jesus offers to us.

“…be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Vs. 38. Much energy has been expended in speculation over how baptism might have been practiced in the early church and whether a Trinitarian formula was used or merely the name of Jesus. I am not particularly interested in those arguments. What we know is that the Trinitarian baptismal formula was around from at least the writing of Matthew’s gospel toward the end of the 1st Century. There isn’t a scrap of textual evidence to support the spurious supposition that this formula was a later addition to the text. Moreover, the church has consistently spoken of “baptism into Christ” throughout history without implying anything less than fully Trinitarian baptism. There seems to me no sound theological reason to baptize in anything less than God’s Trinitarian Name. As to Peter’s call for his hearers to be baptized “into the name of Jesus,” I agree with St. Basil:

“Let no one be misled by the fact of the apostle’s frequently omitting the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit when making mention of baptism, or on this account imagine that the invocation of the names is not observed. As many of you, he says, as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ; and again, as many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death. For the naming of Christ is the confession of the whole, showing forth as it does the God who gave, the Son who received, and the Spirit who is, the unction.” De Spiritu Sancto, 12:28.

“For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” Vs. 39. This declaration echoes Isaiah 57:19 and Ephesians 2:13-17 emphasizing the breadth of the promise which, referring back to the citation to Joel 2:28-32 at Acts 2:17-21, is the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Something more than terror, sorrow and regret is required for true repentance. In the end, the penitent must cry out, “create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10. Pentecost is God’s affirmative response to that petition. As Peter points out, his hearers are witnesses to God’s pouring out his Spirit “upon all flesh.” Vs. 17. As Peter will soon learn in Acts 10, “all flesh” is a category far broader than he now imagines.

Psalm 116:1–4, 12–19

The prominent Hebrew Scripture scholar, Walter Brueggemann would probably call this a psalm of “new orientation” described in this way: “…the psalms regularly bear witness to the surprising gift of new life just when none had been expected. That new orientation is not a return to the old stable orientation, for there is no such going back. The psalmists know that we can never go home again. Once there has been an exchange of real candor, as there is here between Yahweh and Israel, there is no return to the precandor situation.” Brueggemann, Walter, The Message of the Psalms-A Theological Commentary, (c. 1984 by Augsburg Publishing House) pp. 123-124.

Our psalm for Sunday fits this description to a tee. Formally, it is a prayer of thanksgiving offered by a person who has just come through a very difficult time in his or her life and has reached a level of recovery. It might well be sung by someone who has endured a long and difficult tour of cancer therapy and received news that he or she is finally “cancer free.” Or it might be heard on the lips of someone who has gone through a difficult divorce that brought to an end a relationship that was supposed to last until death, and thereafter found the way back from heartbreak and despair to a healed life of love and trust. This psalm could be the song of a recovered alcoholic or the survivor of an abusive relationship.

The psalm does not explain what caused the psalmist’s suffering. Nor does it suggest that the psalmist is somehow at fault or that his or her suffering is part of some greater plan. Sometimes suffering just is. There is no explanation for it, but one thing is clear. The psalmist knows that God has not deserted him or her throughout the dark times. God has been present all along the difficult journey from darkness into light. It is important to understand, as Brueggemann observes, that this journey does not take the psalmist back to “the way things were.” The scars of surgery remain even after a full recovery. Life after divorce can be filled with love, life and hope-but it does not restore the relationship that was lost. There is no way back to the way things were. There is only the way forward into a better future that God promises. That promise lies at the core of our Easter faith.

The “cup of salvation in verse 13 likely refers to the thank offering given in response to God’s answer to his/her cry for salvation. See Numbers 28:7. It could also simply be a metaphor describing the psalmist’s experience of salvation. Either way, it is a graphic expression of thanksgiving.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Vs. 15. The Hebrew is difficult, but the meaning appears to be that God protects his “saints” (righteous ones) from an untimely death. Such persons must die eventually, but God experiences acutely their passing.

The dating of this psalm is difficult and scholars are divided over whether it was composed before or after the Babylonian Exile. Rogerson, J.W. and McKay, J.W., Psalms 101-150, The Cambridge Bible Commentary (c. 1977 by Cambridge University Press) p. 81. As I have often said before, these psalms have undergone a lengthy history of editing and revision to make them relevant to each succeeding generation. Consequently, the pre or post-exilic dating controversy may be one of degree. Perhaps it is a matter of both/and rather than either/or.

1 Peter 1:17–23

For my comments on the context of this epistle, see my post of April 27th. See also, the Summary Article by Professor Marc Kolden of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN at enterthebible.org.

The opening verse is a little off setting. The reference to God as one who judges everyone impartially according to deeds rubs my Lutheran sensibilities the wrong way. I believe, however, that it was probably heard altogether differently by slaves, women and the poor living in a strictly hierarchical society where class distinctions, the privileges they confer and the burdens they impose went largely unquestioned. A God whose eye is blind to class distinctions, but sharply focused on justice and righteousness offers hope to the oppressed even as he threatens the position of the oppressor. Furthermore, a community that values slaves and free, men and women, rich and poor as indispensable members of the one Body of Christ cannot help but undermine the hierarchical culture in which it exists. Not surprisingly, then, the powers that be eyed this odd community with suspicion.

“You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Vss. 18-19. The Greek word rendered “ransomed,” was used for the manumission of slaves in Greco-Roman culture. The slave’s price could be deposited by the person wishing to redeem him/her in the temple of the local god or goddess. The temple, in turn, would pay the slave’s owner and the slave would henceforth be regarded as free from his/her master, but a slave to the god whose temple paid the manumission price. Beale, G.K. and Carson, D.A., Commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament, (c. 2007 by G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson; pub. by Baker Academic) pp. 1018-1019. So also these believers to whom Peter writes have been bought with the blood of Christ from the tyranny of “futile ways inherited from your fathers.” Vs. 18.

Peter’s reference to “futile ways” suggests that the churches to which he writes are primarily gentile in composition. The Greek adjective translated as “futile” is used throughout the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) to modify words for pagan idols and temples. Ibid. 1019. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the pre-Christian lifestyle of these believers was pagan rather than Jewish. Nonetheless, it is worth remembering that the cultural line of demarcation between Jew and gentile was not as sharply drawn throughout the far flung regions of the empire as it was in Palestine. Certainty about the composition of these churches, therefore, is impossible to establish.

Redemption by the blood of a lamb is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. While it is impossible to link this assertion to any particular text, it seems to me that Peter must have the Exodus/Passover narrative in mind. Although the Passover meal does not have anything to do with the remission of sin, that does not seem to be Peter’s emphasis here. The point he makes is that the believers to whom he writes have been rescued from slavery to their “futile” and destructive lifestyles by God’s costly act of deliverance. Like the Exodus of old, this redemption of the church was not in any sense her own doing. It was brought about by the victory won for her through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Luke 24:13–35

The story of Jesus’ appearance to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus is found only in Luke’s gospel. There are two towns identified in the literature of antiquity as “Emmaus.” One is twenty miles from Jerusalem and the other is about four miles away. Given that the two disciples made the round trip in a single day, the latter is almost certainly the one to which Luke refers. Travel was hazardous along country roads connecting cities and villages in 1st Century Palestine. Bandits frequently attacked lone travelers as Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates. It would not be unusual for travelers to seek safety in numbers and quite natural that a single traveler would join a group of two for that reason.

It is evident that these two disciples have discounted the testimony of the women concerning the message of the angels at Jesus’ tomb. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Vs. 21. The cross represents for these two disciples a ruined hope. Jesus begins employing the scriptures to place the cross in a new context for them. He argues from the scriptures that, so far from signaling defeat, the cross represents the fulfilment of God’s redemptive purpose. It was “necessary” that the messiah should suffer. As I indicated last week in connection with Peter’s Pentecost sermon, we need to take care in discussing the “necessity” of Jesus’ crucifixion. Once again, the crucifixion was not necessary to satisfy God’s need to see sin properly punished. The necessity arises from Jesus’ determination to be genuinely human in a violent and inhuman world. The cross was the cost of Jesus’ faithfulness to his Father’s will in the midst of a sinful world. It is a cost shared by all who follow Jesus.

We are not told what the disciples expected in terms of Israel’s redemption. Whatever those expectations were, they were too small. We can hear echoes here of Isaiah where the Lord says of Israel and his prophet, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6. That, indeed, will be the theme throughout the Book of Acts as the church breaks out of its ethnic shell to embrace the ends of the earth. One cannot read the Gospel of Luke without encountering at every turn premonitions of its sequel.

This narrative again reinforces the nature and purpose of the Bible as faithful testimony to Jesus as Messiah and God’s Son. Jesus and only Jesus can interpret the scriptures for the church and the scriptures are rightly interpreted for the church only as testimony to Jesus. I cannot overstate the importance of making this point at every available opportunity because the Bible is probably the most misunderstood, misused and blatantly abused piece of literature on the face of the earth. It has been claimed as the source of moral norms for the western world; a full proof guide to financial planning; a handbook on marriage/child rearing; a political/social manifesto for America; an oracle for divining the end of the world and probably much more. The Bible does not claim to be any such thing and whoever asserts that it does obviously has never read it. But don’t get me started on that.

“Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” Vs. 30. There is something so pure, so innocent and so beautiful about this simple request. It is hardly surprising that it has found its way into our liturgy for evening prayer. See Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 309. That Jesus is finally made known to these disciples in the breaking of the bread is of course pregnant with Eucharistic imagery. Not only the identity of Jesus, but also the meaning of the scriptures becomes clear to the disciples as they recall how their “hearts burned” as Jesus interpreted them. Vs. 32. Although meal fellowship is important in all of the gospels, it is particularly emphasized in Luke. In Luke’s gospel Jesus seems always to be coming from or going to a meal. He dines with outcasts and tax collectors as well as with distinguished religious leaders. Jesus’ practice of meal hospitality extends to crowds of five thousand. It is fitting, then, that the disciples should finally connect the dots at the table where Jesus presides.

Sunday, April 27th

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SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 2:14a, 22–32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3–9
John 20:19–31

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Almighty and eternal God, the strength of those who believe and the hope of those who doubt, may we, who have not seen, have faith in you and receive the fullness of Christ’s blessing, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

I am 99.99 per cent convinced that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. I am not an expert on that topic by any means. Still, from all that I have ever read about Lake Loch Ness and the extensive measures taken to confirm the beast’s existence, it seems highly unlikely to me that an animal of Nessie’s reputed size could evade detection in a land locked body of water for so many centuries. Nonetheless, there remains that .01 percent between my belief in Nessie’s nonexistence and absolute certainty that we call “doubt.” Doubt will always be present in most cases like this because it is nearly impossible to prove a negative. That is why so many whacky conspiracy theories continue to thrive despite their lack of supportive evidence. They survive in that narrow .01 zone of doubt. No one will ever demonstrate absolutely that there are not and never have been bodies of alien beings at Area 51 or that the real Elvis Presley is not still walking the streets of Toledo or that the genuine Kenyan birth certificate of Barak Obama is not hidden away in some dusty government filing cabinet.

I sometimes wonder whether doubt is not really a species of faith. It seems to me that you cannot doubt something you don’t believe or at least suspect might be so, however unlikely. No matter how convinced I may be that the Loch Ness monster does not exist, my conviction falls short of absolute certainty. I cannot state categorically that Nessie is not lurking somewhere down in the depths of Loch Ness where nobody ever thought to look. So I must keep my mind open-at least .01 percent. To that extent, I suppose you could say I am a believer, albeit a reluctant one.

What if I am wrong about Nessie’s nonexistence? Suppose the Loch Ness monster is finally located? Would that change my life or the way I think to any real degree? As guy who spent much of his childhood mucking around in swamps and turning over rocks on the beach in search of interesting little creatures, dreaming all the time of becoming a biologist, I am sure I would find such a discovery fascinating. I would want to read up on all the research and learn all I could about this interesting new creature. But in the grand scheme of things, my life and my outlook on the world would be unaffected. That is because I do not need the Loch Ness monster to convince me that the universe is filled with wonders, unsolved riddles and marvelous secrets waiting to be discovered. The discovery of Nessie would be just one more of many such phenomena.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is quite another matter. The Novelist Flannery O’Connor once wrote a short story about a vacationing Georgia family that encounters a psychopathic killer known as the Misfit. The Misfit and his gang hold the family hostage. Then the Misfit gets into a conversation with the family’s grandmother. The Misfit tells the old woman all about his troubled childhood and she, for her part, urges him to pray and assures him that he is not yet beyond redemption. The conversation finally boils down to Jesus. “Jesus” says the Misfit. “Jesus was the only one that ever raised the dead…and He shouldn’t have done it. He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”

I am not convinced that doubt about the reality of Jesus’ resurrection is the greatest stumbling block to faith. I think the greater problem is that, whether it happened or not, Jesus’ resurrection seems not to have made much difference. If we don’t disbelieve the resurrection it is likely because, from the standpoint of our daily lives, it doesn’t seem to matter much one way or the other. I believe that a lot of us live our lives as practical atheists most of the time “holding the form of religion but denying the power of it.” II Timothy 3:5. Whether Jesus rose from death is of no more consequence than whether there is a monster lurking in the depths of Loch Ness. Either way, life goes on.

Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit got one thing right: He understood that it makes a difference whether Jesus did what the gospels tell us he did. Thomas understood that much also. I suspect that is why he remained with the disciples notwithstanding his doubts about their testimony to Jesus’ resurrection. As improbable as the resurrection might seem, the stakes are astronomically high. The destiny of the cosmos hangs in the balance. Eventual collapse and non-existence is the fate of the universe; or it is destined for re-creation. Jesus is either the first fruits of the new age or just another casualty of the old. If there is even a .01 percent chance that the disciples really saw what they say they saw and heard what they claim to have heard and touched what they maintain was in front of them, it is well worth investigating further. What better place to begin than where Jesus was said to have appeared the last time? That is, among his gathered disciples? In fact, that was where Thomas finally found him.

Our challenge as Christians of the 21st Century is not to convince a secular world that the resurrection might have happened. Rather, the challenge is to convince the world that it matters.

Acts 2:14a, 22–32

Our reading for Sunday is taken from Peter’s Pentecost sermon. In Luke-Acts, Pentecost marks the transition from the “time of Jesus” to the “time of the church.” Juel, Donald, Luke Acts: The Promise of History, (c. 1983 by John Knox Press) p. 57. While this reading might seem misplaced from the standpoint of our liturgical calendar, it fits in very nicely with the gospel lesson from John. John’s Pentecost occurs on the evening of Easter Sunday when Jesus appeared to the disciples and “breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 20:22.

In the lesson from Acts Peter, emboldened by the Holy Spirit, addresses a diverse group of Jewish pilgrims visiting Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. His text is Joel 2:28-32. Little is known about the prophet Joel. It is believed that he prophesied to the people of Judah during the Persian period of Jewish history between 539 B.C.E.-331 B.C.E. This group, you will recall, returned from exile in Babylon following the conquest of that empire by the Persians under Cyrus the Great. The exiles had high hopes of rebuilding Jerusalem, constructing a new temple and restoring the land. Contrary to their expectations, however, restoration was difficult, frustrating and slow. Many of the people became discouraged and abandoned the project altogether.

During his ministry the prophet Joel witnessed a devastating plague of locusts which he understood to be a judgment of God designed to call his people to repentance and faith. Such locust swarms, that are still experienced in the Middle East today, can consume an entire field of crops in a matter of hours. Their numbers are so great and their hoards so dense that they can eclipse the sun and moon much like a dark cloud. According to the prophet Joel, this plague was a portent and a sign of the “Day of the Lord” when the light of sun and moon would be dimmed in earnest.

The Apostle Peter quotes this text, but for him the “Day of the Lord” is not a future event. It has already taken place as shown by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples enabling them to speak the gospel in languages of all nations. The apocalyptic sign of the end, the darkening of the heavens, occurred during the crucifixion of Jesus when “there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed…” Luke 23:44-45. Peter therefore declares to the crowd gathered before him that the Day of the Lord has arrived and the new age has come. I should add that many scholars, perhaps the majority, hold that Peter’s use of this text from Joel is to highlight the anticipated “second coming of Christ” rather than the crucifixion. E.g., Flanagan, Neal M., O.S.M., The Acts of the Apostles (c. 1964 by the Order of St. Benedict, pub. The Liturgical Press) p. 29.) I respectfully take the minority view.

It should be borne in mind that this audience probably knows Jesus or knows about him. What the people know is summarized by Peter in verses 22-23. Jesus was a worker of signs and wonders done in their midst. He was delivered up to “lawless men,” that is, the gentile rulers of Rome and crucified. That much is common knowledge. What the people do not know is that all of this took place “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (vs. 23) and that “God raised [Jesus] up.” Vs. 24. What the people assume to have been the cruel death of a tragically misguided prophet, perhaps a prophet with messianic delusions, was in reality the working out of God’s mission of salvation for all people.

Peter continues his sermon by citing to a section of our Psalm for today, Psalm 16:8-11. In this psalm, traditionally attributed to David, the psalmist declares that God will not allow him to see the “Pit” or be abandoned to “Sheol.” Vs. 10. Peter argues that David cannot be speaking of himself because he has, in fact, died and the place of his burial is well known. Consequently, David must have been speaking about one of his descendants as God promised David that his line would endure forever. Thus far, Peter is interpreting the psalm in much the same way as it was widely understood in the 1st Century by many strands of Jewish tradition. The belief that God would raise up a descendent of David to restore Israel was a deeply held hope. But now Peter delivers the knockout punch: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.” Vs. 32. The crucified and rejected Jesus is the promised descendant of David raised up for Israel’s salvation.

Care must be taken in speaking of the “foreknowledge and plan” of God in the suffering and death of Jesus. If this language is forced into the theory of “substitutionary atonement,” we come out with a perverse understanding of God the Father whose treatment of his Son can only be described as child abuse. Jesus’ suffering and death was not “necessary” to appease the thirst of an angry God for vengeance. The crucifixion was not required to enable God to forgive. God does not need the death of Jesus to forgive sins. Jesus’ suffering and death was necessary or inevitable because living a life that is truly human and obedient to the will of God in a sinful and inhumane world can have but one consequence. That consequence of rejection, suffering and death God was prepared to embrace in the person of his Son in order to embrace us with human arms and love us with a human heart. The cross is the price of God’s covenant faithfulness to all of creation-a price God was willing to pay.

Psalm 16

Commentators are divided over the time of composition for this psalm. The majority place it in the post exilic period (shortly after 540 B.C.E.). Weiser, Artur, The Psalms: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (c. 1962 by S.C.M. Press, Ltd.) p. 172. Although perhaps edited and recomposed for use in worship at the second temple rebuilt by the exiles returning from Babylon, this psalm contains elements reflecting a very early stage in Israel’s history possibly dating back to the time of the Judges. As Israel began to settle into the land of Canaan, she struggled to remain faithful to her God even as she was surrounded by cults of Canaanite origin. The urgent dependence upon rain that goes with agriculture in semi-arid regions made the Canaanite fertility religions tempting alternatives to faith in the God of Israel whose actions seemed so far in the past. The prophets were constantly calling Israel away from the worship of these Canaanite deities and urging her to trust her own God to provide for her agricultural needs. The existence of “other gods” is not specifically denied in this psalm and that also suggests an early period in Israel’s development. The psalmist makes clear, however, that these “other gods” have no power or inclination to act in the merciful and redemptive way that Israel’s God acts.

That said, an argument can be made for the claim that this psalm was composed among a group known as the “Hasidim” (godly ones) that was active shortly before the New Testament period. Ibid. Some of the pagan rites alluded to therein have affinities with sects and mystery cults known to exist during this time period. Ibid. Dating the final composition at this time is not necessarily inconsistent with our recognition of very ancient material within the body of the psalm utilized here to address a new and different context.

The psalmist opens his/her prayer with a plea for God to preserve him or her, but goes on to express unlimited confidence in God’s saving power and merciful intent. S/he has experienced the salvation and protection of God throughout life and is therefore confident that God’s comforting presence will not be lost even in death.

As we have seen, the Apostle Peter cites this text (assuming Davidic authorship) to demonstrate Jesus’ messiahship. By virtue of his resurrection, Jesus was spared from “Sheol” and the “Pit”. Vs. 10. It is important to note that this psalm does not speculate about any “after life.” Peter does not use the text in this manner either. His emphasis is not resurrection as such, but on Jesus’ resurrection as vindication of his faithful life and proof that God’s purpose has been worked out through that life. The notion of post death existence was not a part of Hebrew thought until much later in the development of Israel’s faith. Yet one cannot help but sense a confidence on the part of the psalmist that not even death can finally overcome the saving power of God. It is therefore possible to say that the hope of the resurrection is present if only in embryonic form.

1 Peter 1:3–9

These brief verses are taken from the salutation given to the churches of northern Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) by the author of I Peter. These churches lived at the frontier of the Roman Empire where national security required greater internal government scrutiny. Societies such as the church that met regularly in private homes aroused suspicion. The refusal of Jesus’ disciples to take part in civil ceremonies acclaiming the deity of the Roman emperor seemed to confirm the government’s fear that the church might be a seditious movement dangerous to Roman society. As a result, members of the church experienced persecution ranging from social ostracism to outright violence.

This salutation sets the tone for the rest of the letter. Peter reminds these believers that they have been “born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” vs. 3. This hope is an inheritance that cannot be taken away; thus, believers can rejoice even though their faithfulness to Jesus occasions suffering in the short run. Such rejoicing, as Stanley Hauerwas observes, is unintelligible apart from this community’s firm belief in Jesus’ resurrection. See Post for April 20th. That resurrection represents not merely the destiny of the church, but of all creation. Consequently, belief in the resurrection means shaping one’s life to fit the contours of the new creation soon to be born rather than to those of the old creation that is dying. Birth does not occur without pain and the shedding of blood. Martyrdom is the church’s ultimate testimony to the reality of God’s kingdom. The persecution of the saints constitutes the death throes of the old order just as surely as it does the birth pangs of the new.

John 20:19–31

It seems to me that John’s account of Jesus’ resurrection differs from those of Matthew, Mark and Luke in this respect: Whereas for the first three gospels Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion are interpreted through the shock of his resurrection; for John, Jesus’ laying down his life interprets his resurrection appearances. Or as one commentator puts it:

“…when we consider the nature of St. John’s gospel, in which the Lord during his ministry has revealed Himself as the resurrection and the life, and the cross, as interpreted by St. John, marks not only the last stage of His ‘descent’ but also His glorification, it should not surprise us that the evangelist is not concerned in ch. 20 to dwell upon the Lord’s resurrection as forming primarily a reversal of the passion. He expects his readers to have learned by this time the secret which he has gradually unfolded to them in the first nineteen chapters of his gospel, the secret, namely, that the Lord at the moment and in the fact of his laying down of His life has revealed the glory of the Father, and therefore His own oneness with the Father, to the fullest possible degree. If one moment of His revelation of the Father in the days of His flesh is to be distinguished from another, then at the moment of His death, more than at any other, He has glorified the Father, and His return to the Father has at least begun (cf. 6:62).” Lightfoot, R., St. John’s Gospel: A Commentary, (c. 1956 Clarendon Press, pub. Oxford University Press) pp. 329-330.

In narrating the resurrection appearances, John takes care to emphasize the physicality of the resurrected Christ. Jesus must tell Mary to cease clinging to him before he can go on his way. John 20:17. He appears to the disciples with the wounds of the cross on his body. Vss. John 20:20. He even invites Thomas to place his hands in those wounds. John 20:27. John makes clear that the incarnation is irrevocable. The flesh of Jesus was not merely a clever disguise. God became human and God remains human. “No one has ever seen God,” says John. But “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” John 1:18. God is known and knowable only through one’s abiding in the fully human Jesus. Nothing makes that point quite as emphatically as Thomas’ confession: “My Lord and My God.” Vs. 28.

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Vs. 23. Exactly what does this mean? In my own tradition (Lutheran), this verse has always been associated with the “office of the keys,” the peculiar power of the church “to forgive the sins of penitent sinners, but to retain the sins of the impenitent as long as they do not repent.” Luther’s Small Catechism, Part V. But is that really what John had in mind here? In my view, the context makes that interpretation extremely doubtful. The focus is not upon the internal workings of the community of disciples but upon the disciples’ mission to the world. Undoubtedly, the two are related in this gospel. It is through the disciples’ love for one another that they will be identified as followers of Jesus. John 13:35. But the principal emphasis is on the disciples’ witness to the world, not to their relationship with one another. So what can it mean to “retain” sins?

I believe that John is emphasizing the importance of the commission that Jesus has just given to his disciples. It is through them that the life giving Word of forgiveness is to be made known to the world. It is “in” them that the Spirit now resides. If the disciples of Jesus do not make known God’s forgiveness of sin, the world will remain in the grip of sin. Those sins will be retained. But if the Word is spoken, it will be accompanied by the Spirit of God that inspires faith and breaks the bondage of sin. I believe that is what commentator Raymond Brown is saying in the following quote:

“In summary, we doubt that there is sufficient evidence to confirm the power of forgiving and holding of sin, granted in John 20:23 to a specific exercise of power in the Christian community, whether that be admission to Baptism or forgiveness in Penance. These are but partial manifestations of a much larger power, namely, the power to isolate, repel, and negate evil and sin, a power given to Jesus in his mission by the Father and given in turn by Jesus through the Spirit to those whom he commissions. It is an effective, not merely declaratory, power against sin, a power that touches new and old followers of Christ, a power that challenges those who refuse to believe. John does not tell us how or by whom this power was exercised in the community for whom he wrote, but the very fact that he mentions it shows that it was exercised.” The Gospel According to John, XIII-XX1, Raymond E. Brown, The Anchor Bible, Vol. 29a, (Doubleday, c. 1970) p. 1044.

Thomas comes in for a good deal of criticism for doubting Jesus’ resurrection, though to be fair, he was not asking for anything more in the way of proof than the disciples had already experienced. It is worth noting that, however doubtful Thomas may have been, he remained in the company of his fellow disciples. That is to say, he remained in the church. That is the best possible advice I can give to people who have difficulty believing. Faith cannot be argued into anyone, nor can it be manufactured. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit that must be given. Still, we know where the Holy Spirit hangs out. The Spirit accompanies the preaching of the Word; the Spirit is poured out upon the bread and wine at the altar; the Spirit is present where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name. If you want to believe, that is where you need to be. Of course, if you don’t want to believe, I can’t help you with that.