Promises to Believe In!*

ALL SAINTS’ DAY - YEAR B 
Isaiah 25:6-9

Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
(homily given at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Harmony, IN)

Today

The feast of All Saints

Came just at the right time this year

I need to be reminded that ours is a God of Life

I need to remember that the God Jesus came to reveal 

Is… just…bubbling over with LIFE

The readings are so rich in imagery

Imagery of Promises

Isaiah… 

Now that is an image worthy of the food channel!

Rich food…dusty wine bottles perfectly aged
and bone marrow…all the rage I hear

I like that promise

And from Revelation

Another glorious image

not at all the LEFT BEHIND sort

no…it goes in the opposite direction
“I saw the Holy City…

coming down…”

God…tenting…with us

Setting up camp with us

Everyone welcome and safe

And echoing Isaiah…tears, sadness…gone 

Again…What a promise

How believable are these promises?  

How are we able to believe in such promises?

The only way…

It seems to me that the only way

Is that we have experienced...
a foretaste

Think of all those meals

…Large family ones

…Intimate romantic ones

…eating McDonalds in the car with a distraught child

…Ones in hospital rooms

NOT to mention the Eucharist

In all these meals

We have surely tasted…a foretaste…a nibble…

            of the richness, the intimacy, the safety, the comfort

            that Isaiah is painting for us

Yes…I believe we have…

            

And tears wiped away for ever?

How can we believe such a promise?

Haven’t we had a foretaste of that as well?

At one time or another

…someone has reached out a thumb

…so small…so simple

Or at times we have been the one on the wiping side

            gently picking up that tear 

It didn’t stop the sadness

But it communicates so much 

So much with no words at all

…It is when we remember those foretastes

that we find that we can believe

Some days,

Are harder than others

And those foretastes give us words:

“That is a PROMISE I can believe in…

         not just because I want to 

but because I have…in fact…tasted it”

My friends this is not ONLY a festival 

which paints for us 

glorious images of a glorious future

It is, in fact more importantly, a promise for our present.

John’s gospel loves the present tense

…remember all those present tense

            I AM statements…things are happening NOW

Just before we pick up the story today

Jesus tells Martha 

I AM the resurrection and the life…here…now…

Mary’s very real grief…is NOW
“if only…if only…

How many times have we shared in that?

“If only…

And Jesus weeps…now

And then there is Lazarus

Four days dead…really really dead

Jesus calls his name

“Lazarus come out”

And Lazarus hears his name being called

            …the really really dead guy hears his name!

But it isn’t just about Lazarus…is it??

Jesus isn’t done yet

He turns to the bystanders…

He gives them very clear instructions:  

“Unbind him and let him go”

Resurrection…the biggest promise of all!

Have we had a foretaste of that!??

I think we have…some of us more intensley than others

But haven’t we?

Some of us have felt four days dead

…deader than dead

…In the tomb…big stone…no light

And something happened

Something happened

…Jesus called us by name and we heard

He called us to life

…and we stood up and walked out of that tomb

And some of us have…at times
found ourselves standing around the tomb

Standing there…Not sure what to do

And WE heard our names 

“Cindy, Rose, Charlie, unbind him

Go on…unbind him”
and again something happened

…Jesus called us by name and we heard

He called us to life

…and we took to unbinding our neighbor

My friends we have tasted Resurrection

On this Festival day

We don’t deny the reality of loss, grief and sadness

But we boldly proclaim

The promise of God revealed in Jesus Christ

That the world is being made new

We believe because 

We have tasted the promise 

We didn’t come here by accident

We came because believing is hard 

Because death, like junk food, leaves a stubborn taste in the mouth;)

…and weirdly…sometimes… I find myself liking it 

A teacher of mine once said  

That church…what we do here…the liturgy

Is the place we come to get in the mood

To get in the mood to become a saint

That just sounds smart

That’s a mood I’d like to be in more often!

In a moment we will read our list of names

This is our tradition for All Saints Day

But we don’t just read them

We pray them

And as we do 

As we read lets keep the promise...right here…in our mind’s eye

Let. 

Us. 

Pray.

It Shall Not be So With You*

29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B/Pentecost 22/Proper 29

Mark 10:35-45

…But I added verses 32-34 which is Jesus’ third and most explicit teaching about what awaits in Jerusalem

 

Our garage is a good fifty yards from our back door

And when our kids were in middle school 

I drove them to school

And without fail

As we were walking toward the garage

At about a third of the way there, as the garage door was raising

I would hear

“I Call Shotgun!” 

And the shouter began to sprint

In case you aren’t familiar with the game

The rules are simple

The first to shout-when in sight of the vehicle-gets to sit in the front.

That front seat…

It was the object of some kind of powerful craving

Is that what James and John were succumbing to

A powerful craving…for a seat…a place of power and prestige?

It’s almost a little too easy

To think of those two…James and John…calling ‘shotgun’

And I think, “really…really…are you really that thick headed?”

For weeks now we have been hearing Jesus 

Patiently teaching the disciples

About just what kind of Messiah he is

And about just what kind of kingdom this ‘kingdom of God’ is

He has picked up the children…using them as metaphors

He has said the last shall be first

Losing your life will gain it

Be a servant

Be a slave 

And today…

As the narrative is drawing nearer and nearer to Jerusalem

…today, this third time…he is at his most explicit

About what lies ahead

And James and John…and the rest of them

Well…their hearts and heads are still stuck in SHOTGUN

But it is a tough message

Last will be first

Be a slave 

Lose your life

Suffer and die

It was a tough message then and it is still tough today
In the face of that message

-especially without knowing the end of the story-

Who wouldn’t run for shelter…calling ‘shotgun’ 

The important thing about this episode in Mark’s gospel 

…It seems to me…

Is the reality of the Cross 

and just how hard it is NOT to run the other way!

I remember in the late 70’s

There was a ‘charismatic’ movement going on in my church

And my friend Kimberly was really into it

And she had posters and jewelry

And of course crosses

But not the crosses I was used to seeing

Not the crosses with Jesus’ bloody and dying body hanging there

No…these crosses were rainbow colored

And sparkly

And they had “Hallelujah” written on them

It was as if the movement was saying

We’ve had enough of Good Friday

Let’s focus on Easter Sunday instead.

And that reminded me of 

Jesus asking James and John “What is it you want?”  

And they say

‘to sit…one on your right…the other on your left…IN YOUR GLORY’

All they are hearing is the GLORY part…

It’s like they are punch drunk on the notion of GLORY

It is easy to poke fun of James and John

But the truth is

I am absolutely certain 

that I would not have performed 

Any better than James and John.  

I would have been all about ‘Shotgun.’
Because honestly

I don’t know a thoughtful Christian who has the whole cross thing all figured out

And just as soon as I think I have my head wrapped around it
---poof more mystery pops up

Today I have two tiny nibbles… 

It had to take the cross…at some level every Christian knows that.
We cross ourselves

We have jewelry and tattoos

And Christmas ornaments and wall art

And shiny Brass processional crosses

There is no denying…it is our central symbol

Why?

Why the cross?

Why not Jesus living to a nice old age and dying peacefully in his sleep?

I need to go back to the scene…

or better yet…the series of scenes that make up Jesus’ passion

There are

Those who mock

Those who spit

Those who scourge

Those who kill

And there are 

Those who betray

Those who abandon and hide

Those who utterly fail

Especially in Mark…everyone fails

Just Jesus…utterly alone

And therein lies tiny nibble number 1

EVEN THERE

ThatEven There…alone on that cross after a terrifying series of events

Hangs our EVEN THERE God

Even There

When it can’t get any worse

For Jesus and at times for each of us

Even There

We are in fact not alone

God is always in it with us

Thinking about EVEN THERE
puts me in Jesus’ place

But Jesus isn’t the only character in the Passion scenes

One great theme of Mark’s Gospel is Discipleship

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

What does the cross have to do with it?

The corollary to Even There is

‘It shall not be so with you’

‘It shall not be so with you’

I think of the scene again

Of the Roman soldiers

Those who mock, spit, scourge and kill

And I think of the disciples

Those who betray, abandon and hide

It doesn’t seem like it

But for us…struggling disciples in the year 2018
that is…in fact…good news

As my Dad would say “there is nowhere to go but up”

In her wisdom

The Church calls us to confess

Publicly…every week when we gather

We check in on our discipleship

We check in knowing full well

That we have both doneand left undone

We have been both Roman Soldiers and Terrified Disciples

But this confession of ours

Is grounded in the sure hope of our EVEN THERE God

We confess our hope to change
…to change just as much as we can handle…for today;)

            

The Gospel is so very realistic!

The cross won’t let us off easy

It confronts us

It sheds light on our human capacity for sin 

But it never leaves us there

The cross pushes us through…it invites us to a new way

‘It shall not be so with you’

‘It shall not be so with you’

When emotions flair

And the swirl of blame and scandal suck us in

And we find ourselves jockeying for position or hiding in fear

Jesus speaks gently…‘It shall not be so with you’

And then we make our way here  

We come here

We fall on our knees

And we confess

And while we do we call to mind 

What we have doneand what we have left undone

And in each other’s company 

We hear that gentle whisper

‘It shall not be so with you’

Liberating Texts*

October 7, 2018

Pentecost 19 - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 10:2-16, Genesis 2:18-24

Three years ago, I was oh so lucky to be scheduled to preach on this liturgical day…

This the 19^th Sunday after Pentecost in Year B;) 

And I remember going through the litany of ways

A multitude of listeners might be offended by our chosen texts 

Both The Gospel Mark and the Genesis reading

It is the real and painful truth
that these words can burn and sting and open up never-quite-healed wounds.

_______

It is also true that

Both of these texts suffer from 
long and oppressive histories of interpretation

But I am happy to report that over the past 30+ years 

There has been some really good corrective scholarship

I found myself eager to preach the Genesis story

But I have been taught that if Mark 10: 2-16 is read

It must be addressed!  

We have Jesus, 

the Pharisees,
the disciples,

and the children

Those children…for three weeks now…they won’t go away!

The Children are the thread 

The Children frame this section of Mark’s unfolding story

The Children are the constant… the cue, the prop 

They remind us that this part of Mark’s Gospel

Is about the HOW of discipleship

The Children are, the example

The example of how to allow oneself to be vulnerable…

…that is how a disciple learns about being the greatest[1]

The Pharisees…trying to test Jesus…ask a question

The word translated ‘asked’ doesn’t quite catch it though

This ‘asking’ is weightier and hotter
Mark uses this word when the mood

…is interrogating and confrontational 

In first century Judaism there was no question about the legality of Divorce

Jewish law allowed for it

But there were different schools of thought about the reasons

Burning the morning toast at one end
On the other...weightier matters---infidelity for instance

Women…Isrealite women…were never allowed to initiate divorce

So any safeguards…any interpretation of the law that added restrictions 

That would add protection for women and children from more acute suffering

The Pharisees are ‘testing’ Jesus

They are trying to get some ammunition to use against him

They ask a question at the level of LAW

But Jesus doesn’t answer questions at the level of their asking

He goes deeper

He answers at the level of the heart

Like the Pharisees… too often we want this text to be about the legality of divorce

We want to know forensics…
What can be justified?

What can be allowed?

What can be tolerated?

And so along with the Pharisees we stay at the level of the law[2]

And miss what is meant to change our hearts

Inviting us to go along with Him

Jesus reminds us that laws aren’t arbitrary

There are principles behind them...a vision

Can you see Jesus…this man who has been going around healing everyone 

Can you see him freeing a suffering woman her from an abusive relationship…

I can

But the thing is, Jesus wouldn’t stop there!

Jesus is concerned with all HUMAN FLOURISHING!

And so

He would seek out that partner…the one doing the abusing

He would seek him out like he seeks out the lost sheep

Can you see Jesus

Having caught up with the abuser? 

He’d sit him down, 
and make him SEE 
Make him see how he is destroying himself, 

and then...
he’d infect him with a new way of being
He'd heal him too

What God joined together, let no one separate

The emphasis is on God

But because I don’t think any of us are perfect 

            at inviting God into our relationship building efforts

What we end up with now and again are relationships that

We humans have wrongly joined together!!!

When relationships rupture with all the pain that entails

…isn’t that just the place for the healing presence of Christ and the Church?

Legalities aren’t interested in the actual persons

In actual relationships

But God is!

God is interested

And that takes us to GENESIS 2

----- 

I used to hate this Genesis text

It always smacked of continuing a story of male dominance 
and female subordination

And indeed over the years it has done just that

I found this example from a 15^thCentury manual…if it weren’t’ true it would be funny

“… she is more carnal that a man, 

as is clear from her many carnal abominations.  

And it should be noted 

that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman,

Since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, 

a rib of the breast, which is bent as it were 

in a contrary direction to a man.  

And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, 

she always deceives.”[3]

Stealing some words from our 15^thCentury interpreter…

I’d like to address the
abominable, defective, bent, contrary, imperfect, and deceptive 

interpretation of what has become one of my favorite passages.

Genesis 2:18-24

The Lord God said,
“It is not good
(In Genesis 1, remember, God creates and ‘it is good, 

and it is good, and it is very good’ 

this is first time anything is NOT good)
that the man (ha-adam…which I like to suggest means an earthling 

or maybe a proto-human
there is no sexual differentiation yet 

so we are short of totally human at this point) 
should be alone; I will make him a helper (helper sounds diminutive…

but the word translated ‘helper’ most often in the Hebrew Scriptures 

refers to God…so NO sense of subservience here) 
as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. 
(There is humor here…a cockroach? Nah…can’t see that.  

A horned Owl? Nah…let’s stay away from horns. 

The tempo suggests a slowly increasing longing) 

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs (God has given up beginning with the ground or the soil.  Let’s use flesh and bone. The word translated rib could also be translated ‘side’…SURGERY TIME) 
and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man (man is no longer 'ha’adam' but ‘ish’ which is gendered)
he made into a woman (‘Ishshah’…gender aka the fullness of humanity now exists!) 
and brought her to the man.
Then the man said, 

“This at last (this is so powerful preceded by all that building longing!)
is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh; 

this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”

This is a story about what it means to be a human person
There is no such thing as a SOLO human

There is no humanity until there is a relationship of equals

I can’t help but think of the Holy Trinity

That God’s very nature is a community of persons

Father, Son and Holy Spirit 

A trio of persons engaged in a loving dynamic relationship of giving and receiving

AND THIS MATTERS!

Because the world…the culture-at-large…at least a good portion of it

Asserts something quite different!

Don’t WE…I’ll say ‘we’ because we are all a part of this culture

Don’t WE prize instead

Independence…individuality…autonomy…

Aren’t they the pinnacle of human fulfillment?

If I am honest

I will admit that while
I can stand here and confess that I believe 

These truths hiding in Genesis 2

About God’s intention for 

Interdividuality

Mutuality

Healthy co-dependence 

Communion

All the while

Secretly hoping and praying that it is 
Just not true for ME!

I don’t want to be a child

Or like a child

Being a child

Means there is a parent close by

It means I am dependent

But that is precisely our stance before God

That is in fact what it means to have a Lord

One Lord

The Lord

My I

My deep and personal I

Only stands grounded…only makes sense

Insofar as I admit to a THOU…

that Ultimate Other who loved me into being

Who continues to love me into being

Who Invites me into communion

And who continually asks me to do the same

In relationship to those around me

That is the invitation to all of us

To become childlike disciples

Childlike in the sense of being dependent on God

We humble ourselves in our communion

We humble ourselves 

when we participate in both sides of giving and receiving relationships 

Making of ourselves an island

Maintaining all those defenses

Expending all that work and energy 

To PROVE that we can go SOLO

That we don’t need anybody…

THAT is the opposite of Christian freedom

The heart of the matter

The vision…God’s vision…that grounds all the law

Is of a human family that lives in communion

We, in fact, participate in the throbbing heart of God 

When we live into that vision 

And we can, always…be better at it 

...with a little help from our friends…

We can be better at opening ourselves to that vision

In truth…
we are most certainly in this thing together

And for that I say
Thanks be to God!

---

[1]Thank you Andrew Prior:
https://www.onemansweb.org/theology/the-year-of-mark-2015/the-children-and-divorce-mark-10-2-16.html

[2]Thank you David Lose:
http://www.davidlose.net/2015/09/pentecost-19-b-communities-of-the-broken-and-blessed/

[3]Thank you Juliana Claassens for your whole wonderful commentary on Genesis 2:18-24 but especially this little quote;) https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3792