A good king is hard to find. As you read the Hebrew Scriptures, the stories of those who ruled Israel usually end on a downbeat note. Saul, the first king, falls upon his sword literally as his reign crumbles to an end. The less kind might say that this pattern will repeat itself, king after king. There will be variations, but always this theme of maligned monarchy serving as a subtext. Even David, the beloved king of Sunday school lessons long ago, is a more complex figure when one reads the text with eyes wide open.

Earlier this year, a short-lived television show called “Kings” took up biblical narrative, particularly the decline of Saul, and the rise of David and recast the story in modern times. Like many good shows, the network did not like the ratings, even though the critics loved it. As I tuned in (thanks to Kerry’s promptings) each week, I became enthralled with how well the narratives speak to modern day. If the show lasted a few seasons, you would have seen David, the earnest “local boy makes good”, become the jaded politico just like “King Silas”, played to malevolent perfection by British actor Ian McShane.

As the text opens, Uzziah, the long-reigning king of Israel, has died. Uzziah offered much to the prosperity and wellbeing of the people, yet he falters toward the end. Uzziah’s reign ends with an uncanny pattern of royal arrogance repeating yet again and his demise decidedly downbeat. He enters the holiest part of the Temple and usurps a role played by the priest.

A king playing priest does not sound like much of political transgression to our American ears, shaped by rulers embroiled in Watergate and all the “-gates” that followed since and surely yet to come. Afflicted by leprosy, Uzziah spent the rest of his reign weakened, needing assistance in ruling the kingdom. Again, a good king is indeed hard to find.

At the end of Uzziah’s reign, a prophet named Isaiah began to be the “bee” in the royal bonnet, decrying the kingdom’s ways. By now, the kingdom was showing signs of wearing thin. The peace and prosperity seemed on the wane, and the nation was becoming a paler shadow of its former glory. Isaiah became the unpopular voice, saying a word few wanted to hear. In other words, Isaiah, like Uzziah, is a perennial character, never “out of season” or behind the times.

As the text opens, Isaiah becomes prophet around the time when King Uzziah dies. Sometime in that pivotal year as one long reign gives way to the sudden and new moment in national life, Isaiah is caught up in a vision, one that brings him into the very presence of God with the seraphim singing and the foundations quaking, and “sensory overload” just begins to describe the scene.

I cannot help but wonder if there is a tweaking of the reader going on here. Uzziah, the one who barreled blithely into the holy temple, thinking himself beyond reproach or limitation, has died. The loyal opposition in the form of Isaiah, lone voice out in the midst of the cacophony, is the one suddenly in the presence of God. God yet again trumps the arrogant king whose royal ways are beyond scrutiny or prediction. The prophet is the only one smart enough to realize that holiness is unable to be domesticated. Uzziah treated the temple as one more thing he could dominate. Isaiah finds himself enraptured into the divine presence and understands immediately that no one, even himself, is worthy to be in the holy presence. Frankly, such humility would have escaped Uzziah.

Biblical scholars call this moment a “theophany”, meaning “an appearance of God”. Thanks to Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments film, our cultural memory recalls the grand appearance of the burning bush while Charleton Heston stands there in his bathrobe. (The lesson to learn: when you come across an inexplicable case of foliage on fire, take off your shoes. It might be holy ground!) The Bible speaks of God being known in the world through small and grand ways alike, however, when you hear of a text being called a “theophany”, sit up straight in your pews, and put on a safety helmet. It is a major moment, one given to grand spectacle.

In times like these, God intends to shake the foundations of Israel’s world. The divine chorus sings praise tirelessly in God’s holy name, and God’s glory shines in ways that overwhelm the senses. In the year King Uzziah died, the nation did not know what they would do as one kingly power faded and another one arose. A sinking feeling pervades: things were on the cusp of unraveling. The ancient world of the Bible starts to sound not so “ancient”….

As Isaiah stands in the midst of the divine worship, the prophet is summoned to speak a word on behalf of God. Isaiah is called by God, yet Isaiah declares himself unfit. It is a humble word from one who makes headlines sneering at “the powers that be” in the royal courts of Uzziah and his successor. God notes this cry of humility with a response of purifying the prophet’s mouth: a glowing hot coal placed in his mouth. (One admittedly has flashbacks to childhood of a mother making good with her threat with bar of soap in hand. For the record, Mother Hugenot used “Lava Soap”, the same stuff my dad used to get his oily hands clean. You know you were squeaky clean once the Lava Soap sat in your mouth for a few seconds. I’m thankful she did not bring the soap to my ordination service….) I have heard many times the exchange between God and prophet quoted when talking of calling people to ministry: “Here I am! Send me!” Sometimes, modern day folk will take on the exuberance of saying, “Here I am! Send me!” to God, not realizing the scope of what it means. The vocation of prophet is bold yet costly.

God asks Isaiah to bear words that will predict the future: the collapse of the nation and the people failing prey to peril. God has chosen to send the purified prophet to speak to the impure people. The catch, however, is just like that of the prophet Jonah: God calls a prophet to share unpopular words that even the prophet will struggle to bear. Isaiah’s call to be the prophet will be one that knows no great honor or great achievement. Going before a country ruled by ones like Uzziah, Isaiah will have the hard task of declaring the failure of the kingdom and the myths of unbridled prosperity and stability it depended upon. As far as callings go, this one is not one that religious folk innately aspire to seek out. The trappings of popularity and power will not be Isaiah’s to claim. Indeed, as Jesus said centuries later, in another time when Israel was ruled by the myths of power called Herod, the Temple Elite, and the Roman Empire, a prophet will be without honor among his own.

Recall this past week as we welcomed our General Secretary to the pulpit. Dr. Medley shared story after story of our Baptist forebears who spoke out and lived out a contrary witness, even at the defiance of royal, national, and even religious power. Dr. Medley recalled Thomas Helwys, an early Baptist, whose writings regularly challenged King James, aka “the” King James” of the Bible translation associated with his name. We learned of Joanna P. Moore, a 19^th-century woman who could not receive any support to go out among recently freed African Americans in the South’s post-Civil War era. What did she hear? The official group said no, so she found another way to move forward. Now we consider Moore a brave woman and a prophet in a needed time. Then, however, even her own people dismissed her vision for mission.

Thus, it takes courage to be God’s prophet. It takes courage to offer a contrary word to a people entrenched in their ways. Undoubtedly, Isaiah suffered in his call, yet as the kingdom approached its fall, he remained the resolute witness, the one able to speak truth even as the nation and its rulers clung to falsehood.

I recall the words of biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann who expands on our definition of a “theophany” as “an appearance of God”. Brueggemann calls theophanies: “an encounter [with God] in the life of a person or community whereby the future is radically and abruptly defined” (Reverberations of Faith, Westminster/John Knox, 215). Indeed, the foundations of Isaiah’s world shake, called to a prophetic task so far removed from what is acceptable or commendable. Trace the story of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry, and you will see that great tumult waits. You will also see that, even though the days are long away, what God tears down will be someday likewise replaced with new growth. The same God who calls Isaiah to condemn the people will be the one who shall also say, “Comfort, o comfort, my people” when the time is right.

We may never experience anything remotely in the neighborhood of a theophany ourselves. In hearing this story, however, can we ponder the sort of faith the story holds for us? The call to live a contrary witness is for all believers. We live in times not far removed from those of the Bible, in the sense of living in nations and ruled by rulers often more transfixed by their own power than their own good. A prophet may never have the same ecstatic moment described by Isaiah. Nonetheless, in the midst of decrying the broken nature of the world, in the midst of casting doubt over the policies that empower some and disenfranchise others, in the midst of reminding the rulers that they are not the final word, we experience a small glimmering of God’s glory being made known to the world.

The ascension of Jesus is treated as mere epilogue to the greater story. The gospels narrate the life, death, and resurrection, and now Jesus offers words of blessings and leaves the stage. Most Christians, though, tend to stop the story here, speaking less about what happens “next” in the story of Jesus. Did you know that the story continues?

As narrated by the Nicene Creed, Christ ascends in glory to sit at the right hand of the Father, where he shall be until he returns to judge “the quick and the dead”. (NOTE: This particular phrase came from the creeds, not Louis L’Amour.) For centuries, Christianity has recited creeds along the lines of confessing belief in Christ, the one born of a virgin, who lived his life among us, and died upon the cross. Then comes the pinnacle of Christian belief. We confess that on the third day after burial, Christ rose from the dead.

We might dismiss the Ascension as an “extra scene”, optional to tell only if there is time left at the end or just a bit of extra story that feels like “filler” to pad out the end. The Ascension is critical to the story of Jesus, serving as epilogue to the Gospel and “prologue” to the sequel, the story we call “Church”. The Ascension is the prologue of what is about to happen in the story ahead. Usually, prologues are brief scenes that set the stage, foreshadowing what is to come. Here, Christ ascends into the heavens above, and the disciples are staring up at the skies above. Now the question looms: “what happens next?”

This day, we find ourselves somewhere between “epilogue” and “prologue”. The story has finished in part, but not in full. The Church can keep staring off into the heavens, hoping for a glimpse of the Christ who shall return. Often, the temptation is to do just that. Baptist activist and New Testament translator Clarence Jordan used to joke most Christians live as if the Lord’s Prayer says “Our Father, who art in the heaven, stay up there”. If we understand the ascension, we live with expectation of the “not yet”, while embracing the call to live in the “here and now”. As Jordan translated Acts: “Get your work britches on! We’ve got work to do!”

In the day of the New Testament writer Paul, the first Christians were dealing with the ambiguity. Jesus said he would return. We believe he will. The world seems to be falling apart, so where is he? It is a subtext of the New Testament, this lingering question of “when?” Paul speaks to it in his writings, affirming that there will come a day when Christ shall return, speaking of death not having the last word, and the day when we shall see in full, not in part, the glory of God. Nonetheless, the New Testament writers, Paul included, do not subscribe to a “wait and see” approach. The New Testament writers called upon Christians to live in the “here and now”. Early Christianity engaged in all manner of care for those in need, sharing resources, and welcoming persons regardless of race, social class, or gender. While they waited, the early Church also “got their work britches on”.

The early Church did so under the shadow of the Roman Empire. Christianity was an often persecuted, barely tolerated movement, only enjoying widespread acceptance when the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion in the early fourth century. In the years of Paul’s ministry (approximately the 40-60s of the first century), Christians endured great persecution and hardship, including Paul’s death at the hands of Romans in the early 60s. Despite the difficulty and adversity, the early Christians did not give up on the here and now. They were an expectant people, but they waited with remarkable faith, not just for Christ to return in judgment and glory. They also kept living out their lives, shaped by the gospel’s call to tend one another and “the least of these, my brothers and sisters”.

It is that radical witness of the early Church, that ability to stick to it, even when one’s hope for Christ’s return wears thin, even when the pressures of living out the contrary witness of the gospel seemed too much, it is this radical witness to Jesus that resounds in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul gives thanks for the dedicated faithfulness of the congregation, celebrating the goodness of what they do together for the sake of the gospel. Imagine these words as ones of encouragement to a little gathering of believers: May you know Christ, the one whom God

raised from the dead and seated at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.

To the New Testament, this is the way the world should be perceived, not as a place where sin, brokenness, and death have the final word. Keep your head out of the clouds and the wonderings of “when”. Live as if the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ provide you the pattern for how you live your life. Let this story of the Ascension be the prologue to a life lived in faith.

In the midst of Paul’s thanksgiving for the distant Ephesian congregation, Paul also imparts a blessing. Being Paul, however, the blessing comes in one long strand of pearly wisdom, a run-on sentence you used to get your knuckles wrapped for writing in middle school grammar. Paul offers:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Vermont writer Frederick Buechner references these words of Paul in his 1999 autobiography The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found. In this book, Buechner writes of imaginary conversations he has with his departed relatives and friends. Buechner’s life has known its share of sadness and loss, yet through his faith, especially in his writing of novels and essays, Buechner has found the gospel there in the midst of his life.

Buechner does not profess to have explored the greater depths of the faith (I argue this point with him, for he writes with such candor and perception). Nonetheless, in his life pondering God in the midst of things, Buechner has glimpsed enough of that rich and abundant hope Paul speaks of that he is satisfied that the gospel is indeed wonderfully true. In the midst of the hurts, fears, loss, and sorrow of life, Buechner claims there is a deeper wisdom and joy to be found if we only but seek it. Out beyond the sum of our fears and loss, our inadequacies and anxieties, there exists a wonderful, abundant, and life-giving way.

We live in a world often prone to feeling its broken down nature, yet Christians are given this vocabulary full of contrary words to live by. Words like peace, joy, love, and hope stand out and ask us to define them, not with wishy-washy triteness, rather through the concrete experience of letting our eyes be open to the world, yet seeing what really matters through our hearts shaped by the great hope we find in Christ Jesus.

Thus, we can look at the world with a perception that is frank and honest. Take for example the reminiscence of theologian Jurgen Moltmann, a German scholar whose work has explored a theology grounded in the same hope Paul speaks about to the Ephesians. Moltmann remembers in 1977 traveling through Argentina as part of a five-week lecture tour of Latin America. He writes,

In Buenos Aires, a ‘third world’ priest took me into a barrio in which refugees from Peru and Chile were sitting in self-built corrugated iron huts, waiting for a future that never came. It was here that I learned the proverb, ‘Hope is the last thing to die’….I came excited and angry [after the Latin American lecture tour]: so much beauty and so much violence, so much fullness of life and so much premature death! (A Broad Place, 226-7)

What Moltmann saw with his eyes was not what the eyes of his heart told him was right or just. More particularly, Moltmann viewed the plight of the impoverished and “invisible” refugees through his belief in a God not removed from the sufferings of this world and continued in his theological career to ask the persistent questions of how the Church should address the needs of those marginalized and disenfranchised by the world.

Through belief in Christ, the one who was born and lived among the marginalized, whose death was at the hands of the “powers that be” of this world, and whose resurrection, Ascension, and promised Return, we learn to tell, and live out, a different story. The response of the faithful is not to turn blind eye toward the sufferings of the world, nor are they to be willing or silently complicit partners to these sufferings taking root in political, economic, or social policies.

The Ascension is part of the greater story of Jesus and those who would dare follow him. We await with anticipation his return, yet we live in the meantime with hearts enlightened and emboldened to speak and live truthfully to the gospel and its mandates. Like the early Christians, we catch ourselves sometimes pondering (and even sometimes longingly so) questions of “when?” Like the early Christians, Paul blesses us to see with the eyes of the heart, and live in the “here and now” as well.

This Sunday, May 31, Christians celebrate the holy day of Pentecost. On this day, 50 days after Easter, the Church remembers its origins when the book of Acts tells of the Holy Spirit descending upon the faithful.

This year, First Baptist celebrates Pentecost with a special guest speaker, the Rev. Dr. A. Roy Medley, general secretary of our denomination, the American Baptist Churches/USA. The service will be grand affair with music and preaching, and, oh yes, we shall eat afterwards. (It's a Baptist thing. Don't ask...But bring a fork!)

It is a time for celebrating what is good about "church," which might seem a bit quaint or out of step, in an era with declining church attendance. Are we celebrating a fading memory or kindling the faith anew?

For a helpful roadmap in living faithfully in changing times, the twenty-first Christian should recall the witness of her first century forbears. In the New Testament book of Acts, one reads of an obscure group of women and men who endure persecution and uncertainty with belief, fellowship, sharing possessions and breaking bread together.

Even though Christ has ascended to heaven, even though the Church struggles with the challenges before them, the Spirit beckons them, enlivens them to go forward, carrying out the commission to be Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth. Despite a fearful beginning, the Acts winds up with its last words coming from one of its number (a remarkable convert named Paul) preaching "with all boldness and without hindrance." In contemporary times, the audacious faith of Acts echoes in a quip from William Sloane Coffin Jr., who once said, "I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, then you grow wings."

When we think that we have everything we know about the Church and its capacities (and limitations) mapped out, the Spirit blows through our midst, sometimes a gale force wind, other times, like a breeze on a summer day. We think the Church can be one thing, when we can be so many other things. The mistake we make is losing sight of the Pentecost story, the day when a group gathers and becomes something diverse yet unified, and sent forth to share the gospel with the world. The Spirit summons the many people to many ways of sharing the Gospel. Whether it is through teaching, dancing, serving meals, construction, advocacy, care giving, singing, and the list goes on and on, the gathered people called Church share the story of Christ and embody the gospel.

I suppose it would be fair game to put it this way: If you think of Pentecost as time long ago, you might have missed the point. The Spirit is still moving in our midst, calling us forth, and empowering us for the many ways of ministry. We are still learning what it means to be a church moving in the power of the Spirit.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot serves as coordinating minister of the First Baptist Church of Bennington. Correspond via: fbpastor@sover.net

I start a new Microsoft Word document and type across the top of the page four simple words: The Worship of God. What happens next in worship planning happens in part by the liturgical time of the year, the scriptures recommended for the day by the revised common lectionary, the needs of the congregation, and last but not least, the awareness that whatever we do in worship, it is inadequate.

I call our worship service “inadequate” not to browbeat others or myself. I simply recognize the humility and audacity that any church on a Sunday morning needs to have when gathering for worship. “The Worship of God” is a time of praise, confession, proclamation, and sacrament raised by our voices, joined together, though none of us are able to give the fulsome praise of God that God truly deserves. The Psalm reading suggests that we are part of a much bigger choir, human voices just the beginning, joining the cacophony of praise as all Creation sings to God.

Alongside Creation, whether to be found over hills and dales, ocean depths and mountaintops, we worship God, Creator of the Universe, the Redeemer of all sinful humanity and mends this broken world, and the Spirit through whom life draws its breath. It is a daring thing to do, to come to this place, and claim we worship God. Coming before the divine Presence is not for the faint-hearted. This time of worship recalls Moses at the burning bush or Isaiah caught up in the divine worship. The awesomeness of God and the overwhelming sense of humans being on holy ground should be treated with due reverence.

The worship of God is inadequate as we only begin to offer worship. Our human frame can lift voice and hands, kneel, and intone prayers of thanksgiving and confession, yet we are just nudging the beginning edges of the awesome mystery we claim to worship.

I return to the wisdom of Thomas Merton, a 20^th-century spiritual writer. He gives us a word of great help: “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners.” Embracing our limitations, we see worship in its appropriate light: we cannot ever completely be in God’s presence (in this life at least), but God welcomes our best and most heartfelt efforts. With the psalmist, we can worship God, and even take the lead in summoning Creation to join the particular song we seek to sing to God. The emphasis is not on perfection, but earnest effort to praise God.

I started with where worship planning begins: four simple words laden with meaning: “the worship of God”. What comes next? The computer screen awaits, ready for a worship order to begin. What will I write down?

A few months ago, I was speaking with an Episcopal priest. In all innocence, the priest asked if it was hard planning worship. You Baptists do not have a prayer book as we do. How do you do it—making it up every week?

To be honest, I winced a bit. There are some Christian traditions that have a prescribed order of worship followed quite closely and with little variation from the prescribed worship order. You juggle a Bible, a hymnal, and a prayer book in some traditions, where in this tradition, certainly what happens in worship varies. Baptists are part of the “free church” worship tradition, meaning that we have the freedom to vary in our worship practices. To a person versed in a “high church” tradition, Baptists might appear to be “making it up”. To use a kitchen analogy, some Christians have recipes for worship they follow. Baptists take worship seriously, however, our tradition errs toward “potluck” even when it comes to worship. We have certain things we do (sing, pray, proclaim the Word, and we gather at the Table less than some Christians); yet there is more openness to varying the form of what we do in worship. We “make to taste” in our worship sensibilities, though like any church ought to do, we realize that it is less about “us” and more about “God” when it comes to deciding whose opinion about our worship service’s style and approach we value most. Christians may differ in their approach to the worship of God, however, our hearts aim to be directed to the right place.

This morning, we are invited to talk about worship. The questions we ponder are open-ended. Your thoughts on our worship service are valued. All voices are welcome, respected, and needed as we prepare to search for a new music staff person. As with anything else we do here at First Baptist, your voice counts, so please share what is on your mind and heart and be prepared to listen to other voices around you as we work together to staff our music position here at First Baptist.

During our conversation, I will move into the role of facilitator, asking questions and assuring that all voices are heard. The music committee will be on hand to listen as they rework the job description for our worship staff person and begin the search process. Before we get to our dialogue, allow me a few moments to share some questions that I have about the worship of First Baptist:

1) Each week, the worship service is largely planned by me with a little input from the music staff person. Some congregations develop worship planning committees comprised of the minister, relevant church staff, and a few laypersons who work collaboratively to plan worship. When I arrived in 2006, the bylaws suggested that it was the chief duty of the minister to plan worship with assistance from the deacons. The deacon board does not function in this manner, nor have the deacons really taken this up as their duties over the past three years. Certainly, the deacons have “deaconed”, but “worship” has not been one of the emphases of the board. Would the congregation like more input on worship and if so, who should be involved in planning worship alongside me? Is it a “staff only” or a staff and laity effort? A good example of worship-related collaboration is the fledging altar guild. Each week, a person takes the responsibility for designing the worship space, with color, greenery, and other ways to beautify the altar. I give a few ideas based on my advance worship planning, however, our volunteers beautify the altar through their giftedness. (Watch the CAT-TV broadcast and you will see with greater appreciation for how much this improves and enhances what we do with our altar area on Sunday mornings.) No one has to be “the” expert, but everyone who chooses to get involved learns and grows in his or her craft and enriches the visual aspect to our worship. We can collaborate in more of our worship service planning! We just need to try our hand at it for a spell.

2) First Baptist has not had a significant conversation about worship in many years. I can account for at least three years without a sustained conversation about worship; however, I have a suspicion it has been longer. Can we look at this morning’s meeting as the beginning of a longer and potentially fruitful conversation? It will take collaboration and conversation. Can we commit to engaging in a sustained time talking about Sunday morning worship? We have been involved in good conversations about our physical plant and our community-based missional focus, and if we look at these conversations as indication, you will see that “big picture” conversations take time, yet they yield results when we choose to engage in conversation. What would worship look like if we set some benchmarks now and worked together (lay leadership, ministry and music staff, and yes, even you!) over the next two years?

3) Can we give one another permission to think “outside the box” while assuring one another that we will not make any quick or drastic changes? We will still sing “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Amazing Grace”. However, can we also explore music written in this era as well? Can we attempt to sing old AND new songs, enjoying the broad and enriching wealth of music sustaining Christians from generation to generation while taking on the responsibility of all Christians to add new songs to the deep well of our tradition?

Can we keep the conversation in balance? Let us talk earnestly about the worship life of First Baptist. It is an important conversation, as worship helps us connect with our lives, making sense of the sorrow and the joy that is Life. How does our worship service connect you with your life, how does our worship service connect us with one another, the gathered people who support and pray with one another? Ultimately, let our conversation return again and again to the main challenge before us: how does our worship experience bring us closer to God and invite others to taste and see that the Lord is good?

As our nation observes the civic holiday of Mother’s Day, many of us undoubtedly think back to mothers and grandmothers now of beloved memory. My grandmother Hugenot would be putting out her flowers this time of year, asking my little sister and myself to help with watering the plants. (She paid us in cookies, so it was a good gig.)

Grandmother’s gardens grew smaller, as she got older, yet despite her age, she still was partial to tending her geraniums. It puzzled many in our family, why of all the plants on God’s good earth did the geranium matter so much to my grandmother. She took delight in them, perhaps a delight you or I could not claim to share. As far as she was concerned, these geraniums were her year-round delight, the plants she placed with pride on her back porch in the summer sun or inside in a warm comfortable place to ride out the winter. They were not just “plants”. They were hers to love and tend.

Imagine if you will that same sort of love and delight is at work as God tends a verdant, fruitful vineyard. God is in the same delightful work spoken about in Genesis as creation springs forth over six days so wondrous that even God needs a good day’s worth of time to rest up. The vine rises up, green and healthy, thanks to good soil, good water, and good care. A great vine with many branches has grown up with God’s handiwork, as God prunes, nurtures, and helps the branches bear good fruit. As he shares this imagery of a well-tended vineyard, Jesus claims this is what life with God is all about.

Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches”. I marvel at the imagery that Christ is our source and we, the many people called “Church”, draw our life and our connection from him. Christ seeks disciples, his branches, so that they may find life and become part of the new life Christ wishes to share with the world. Like an old grandmother fussing over geraniums or a vineyard worker toiling endlessly, God tends us with delight.

One thing you might want to know, however, is the hard work it takes keeping up a vineyard. You have to invest yourself wholeheartedly to keep the vineyard productive otherwise the vineyard falls apart. I have been to a vineyard that was abandoned, and it was a sad scene. During my high school days, my dad was asked to bale about eighty acres of hay up on a hilly area of Kansas. (It is not all “flat” like you have heard.) Up on the hilltop, a small vineyard had been set up, part of an effort to grow grapes for a local jelly company. The little company was doing well, and the owners opted to grow grapes themselves, rather than buying from wholesalers.

When we first arrived with our equipment to start bailing hay, the landowner pointed to the abandoned vineyard with a sigh. “They gave up,” he said. “They didn’t know it would be so hard. Y’all can pick as many grapes as you want.”

The vineyard still produced grapes, even without any intentional work. We picked about a dozen five-gallon buckets’ worth of grapes. In turn, my mother made enough jelly that we did not worry about buying a jar of jelly for years. Also, the birds on that hilltop were the happiest and fattest birds you have ever seen. (When I tell this story to my cats, they always ask me to repeat this part.)

The grapes were wonderful, producing a splendid array of jellies and jams. The vineyard, however, was not long for the world. Without anybody to tend it, to keep up with pruning, tending, watering, and “fussing over” the vines and branches, the vineyard held on, but only for a little longer. The vineyard needs its workers if it is truly to flourish and live up to its potential.

Like the diligent vineyard worker, God will prune the branches back so the plants will yield greater fruit. Throughout the history of the Church, times of growth came on the heels not of success upon success. Instead, Christianity had times where things seemed to go fallow or the branches stopped being fruitful. Nonetheless, when it seemed like all was about to fall apart, the vineyard worker called God demonstrated a flair for gardening, as mystics, reformers, traditionalists, and contrarians rose up to push the faith in fruitful directions.

Consider the origins of Christian monasticism. A man named Anthony withdrew from the noise of the fourth-century’s cities and led a simple life out in the Egyptian desert. Out of a desert sprang forth one of Christianity’s most enduring and rich traditions, providing women and men schooled in prayer and great wisdom. Alternatively, consider the Reformation as Protestants reformers, including a group of “radical Reformers” who founded our own tradition 400 years ago, rekindled the faith. Consider the witness of Letty Russell, a contemporary era feminist theologian, who called for a new approach of being Church, one less concerned with maintaining institutional dominance and embracing a more vulnerable, egalitarian, inclusive, and justice-seeking way. (Here, I am indebted to the theological implications raised by this week’s gospel entry of Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. II.)

Every generation experiences the growth and the pruning. The challenge is to refrain from thinking a less producing year is a sign that the vineyard is dying or left unattended. First Baptist recollects in its own living memory a time where we counted average worship attendance in triple, not double, digits. As a person growing up in churches since the 1980s, I heard more often than not, the adults talking about the church seemed to be dying, or at least a paler shadow of its mid-20^th century glory. Down through the ages, we see the “organic” nature of the Church and the wisdom of Jesus’ image of the vine and branches. Things change, and some ways wither and fade while other ways rise up and help create a new era of fruitfulness. We have to trust that God is preparing the vineyard for yet another season of fruitfulness and in turn learn to recognize and celebrate those signs of new life.

This sort of organic hope is evidenced in the midst of a television show about the Church. A British comedy The Vicar of Dibley, airing on local PBS stations and available via Netflix, shares the story of a country church in England and its delightful vicar, the Rev. Geraldine Granger. In the first episode, delight was not the first reaction of the local parish council when Geraldine arrived. Airing in the mid-1990s, the first episode reflected the difficulty of women’s ordination gaining acceptance in the Church of England. In fact, the parish council chair, David Horton demands that the vicar be replaced immediately and sends a note to the bishop decrying the thought of placing a woman in the pulpit.

Jump forward ten years. It is the tenth anniversary of the vicar’s ministry in Dibley. On Christmas Day, the parish council gathers at the vicarage to give their priest holiday greetings and gifts. David Horton is asked to give a few remarks. With gratitude, David says, “Because of you the church is full, not empty. Because of you, our lives are full, not empty.”

Ten years prior, David Horton thought the church was done for, thinking nothing good could possible be found in this new development. Over the course of the series, the congregation learned to be a different sort of parish while still being a place where all the cast of characters could sing and pray together.

In the language of John’s gospel, the vine kept growing, the branches were pruned back a bit, and the well-tended vineyard continued to grow, bear fruit, and show signs of new life.

Each week under this roof and in the midst of this people, change is happening, slowly but surely. Non-profit organizations find a place here to work with our community in need. For example, healthcare and advocacy for the uninsured is being offered here on a weekly basis. Bright and early this morning, three congregants got on a plane to head for New Orleans for a week’s volunteerism. Yesterday, the mission committee met to talk about what more we could be doing, rather than talking about reining in during a tough economic year. Vacation Bible School is getting ready for the fourth year in a row. Now, some folks are talking less about the pews feeling emptier and more about the challenge of finding parking (and not just on Sunday mornings! Some weekdays are getting fairly challenging to find a space). Most important, we welcome a new member into our fellowship today, the seventeenth person to join this congregation since my tenure began in 2006. Perhaps it is not the track record of the 1950s, when a dozen or more joined each year (or upwards of 90 people in a big year back in the 19^th century), but can give ourselves, the fifty to sixty adults who comprise the present-day “active” congregation, over to the joy of continuing to grow, if even “little by little”? Today, we welcome Carol because she felt welcome and able to be part of the fellowship here, and we hope that we help in her spiritual growth as she helps us with our own.

This past week, two articles appeared in the Bennington Banner regarding the new surveys demonstrating a deepened religious disinterest among Vermonters. The reporter asked for comments from local clergy, and I offered the following comment:

“Churches don’t need to have control of the culture, the politics, and the ideas of the day to have relevance. Dialogue, interfaith cooperation, a bit of humility will do some of our Christian movements a world of good. And I would say if you’re going to make a difference in Vermont, those are some building blocks you need.” (Bennington Banner, “Religious Leaders Find Ways to Reach Out”, reported by Mark E. Rondeau, May 4, 2009)

The church as you knew it, the church as I knew it, is in the midst of being pruned back, the chaff is being discarded, cultivating for a new season’s yield is underway. In humility and joy, we affirm so it has been with the Church and so shall it be.

While it might feel like less can be taken for granted, we are being given this gift of turning over a new leaf, seeing a new path, embracing our future while taking along the best of our heritage, and learning yet again that the Church is never left untended. God is indeed tending the vine and its branches and new life shall be its fruit.

As the little tour buses wound their way around the mountains, the hills were full of peacefully grazing sheep. I took pictures as quickly as I could as the bus moved by, and every photo was postcard quality. I am not a photographer with any great skill, again, the natural beauty of the place overwhelmed any inadequacies of an amateur photographer. (There was a little trouble with these photos. I decided to send photos of Ireland via email to a few friends back home, including one picture of Kerry. I wrote to my friends, “Here is a photo of my lovely wife”, attached the file, and clicked “Send”. The next day, I learned that I had clicked on the wrong file. When my friends read the email about my lovely wife and opened the attached file, it turned out to be a photo of a meadow full of sheep.)

There is a certain peace in this image of Christ as the Good Shepherd. Even though the world’s population tends to live increasingly in urbanized areas, I daresay the open meadow with the sheep grazing peacefully and a shepherd standing watch with his crook still speaks modern day people. In the chaotic hustle and bustle of this noisy global village, I hold out a bit of hope that this image still speaks to us, its simplicity providing a quiet, contrary word while we keep speeding up the ways we live that still somehow leave us feeling rundown.

I keep an image of the Good Shepherd in my office, a simple icon of Jesus carrying a shepherd’s crook and placing a benevolent hand upon a small child. I keep it in my office, in hope that a person visiting my office, especially in need of a good word in the midst of life’s challenges, might see this icon and find a word of peace there in the steady gaze and gentle grace of the Christ welcoming all who come before him.

As a child, I remember seeing the good shepherd long before I knew the story as told by the Gospel of John. When we traveled to Independence, Kansas, we would invariably pass by this church on our way around town. It was a large mosaic of the Good Shepherd, sort of an avant-garde look to it, considering churches in Kansas are modest in their taste. Even as a child, I recollect staring at the image up there on the side of the church, that Jesus standing high above the busy street below, welcoming a little lamb.

That image was of especial help one time when my father went in for surgery. It was minor surgery. Today, he probably sent home same-day, but to a preschool age kid, it was a worry. Dad was away, he was not there at night to tuck me in, and worst of all, he was in a hospital! (Note: Generally, kids are not crazy about hospitals. There are nurses with 80-foot needles awaiting you, and back in the primitive era known as the 1970s, “old school” nurses lurked at every corner, challenging your parents about the propriety of bringing children along for visits. Nowadays, children are more generally welcomed, and the needles are more compact—they only chase you with 20-foot needles.)

I remember going along with my mother and sister to the hospital, fretting about whether dad would come home today as mother promised us that he would. I remember going by the church with the Good Shepherd on the side. In the middle of my pre-K mind’s worry, I remember feeling a momentary calm come over me. I had never heard the story of Good Shepherd at that point in life, but somehow, I found something so comforting in that image. 

Moving into my seminary studies, where I became acquainted with the depths of riches found in biblical scholarship, I learned to read the Good Shepherd with more insight into the first century Greek used by the New Testament writers and the growing study of the cultural anthropology of the New Testament world. In other words, I learned that Jesus is not the “good” shepherd. Technically, John’s gospel uses the Greek word kalos, translated more precisely as Jesus being the “model” shepherd.

Back in the 1960s, the Catholic New Testament scholar, Father Raymond Brown wrote an historic two-volume commentary on John. He notes “Greek kalos means ‘beautiful’ in the sense of an ideal or model of perfection”. Brown calls back to the earlier passage of John’s gospel when at the wedding of Cana, Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine created something considered not just “good” but “kalos”, a “choice” wine. Thus, Jesus is not merely “good”, he is the best, the choice, “the model” shepherd.

Father Brown himself was an example of a “model” scholar—he was so dedicated, so ardent in his love of the gospel and its study that you could not ask for any better example of a biblical scholar. He loved his craft so much that he even lived in the library at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He wrote books and essays on John’s gospel his entire life, even revising his previously held scholarly opinions if he had changed his mind on interpreting the text as he engaged other Johannine scholars. When he died in 1998, his colleague Phylis Trible remarked how appropriate Fr. Brown’s last book, published shortly after his death, was a book exploring the spirituality of John’s gospel, the book’s subtitle “That You May Believe”. I would like to imagine when Father Brown reached the Pearly Gates, the gospel writer John himself was there to meet him with a word of welcome. “You were a kalos kind of scholar, Ray.”

This is the dedication Jesus has for his sheep. No matter what time of day, no matter the task, it is like

a farm hand that never stops before the crop is in, a top business executive who works at her desk until the business day is done, a school teacher who patiently helps that child puzzle out a math problem in third grade, a volunteer who goes down to New Orleans to repair a home or who runs across Bennington to spend the morning stuffing envelopes for a non-profit organization.

That kalos level of dedication is just the beginning of a glimmer of what sort of shepherd we encounter in Jesus. This shepherd shall go to the ends of hill and dale to care for and protect his flock, even if it means going into the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus is not just “proficient” or “good”. He is kalos.

Contemporary New Testament scholar N.T. “Tom” Wright offers us a helpful word. He writes,  "The point of calling Jesus ‘the good shepherd’ is to emphasize the strange, compelling power of his love”. (John for Everyone, Pt. 1, Chapters 1-10, W/JKP, 2004, p. 154) Hearing the gospel in the proclamation of the Church, and better yet, seeing it embodied by Christ’s followers, the world is given the chance, in many wonderful and diverse ways, to taste and see that the Lord is kalos.

To follow this shepherd, we consent to being part of his flock. As far as Jesus is concerned, his flock is the world, but each of us must choose to listen to his voice. Jesus does not turn away anyone, a part of the gospel message the Church is still trying to get right all these centuries later, however, you have to listen. John’s gospel criticizes those who do not listen to Jesus’ voice as those who have chosen to do so. John speaks of “the mark of faithfulness to Jesus and his word” as a sign that a person has chosen to be a disciple by following Christ’s voice. (Gail O’Day, “John”, New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, p. 670)

Return to the words of this morning’s assurance of pardon. We confessed together these words stating our shortcomings and sins, our lapses in faithfulness, and then we heard a word that gave us grace upon grace:

Beloved of God, know that God shepherds you throughout life’s journey, feeding and leading you, tending and calling you by name. Know in Christ’s name, you are the beloved Sheep of the Good Shepherd.

Wherever we are on the journey of life, no matter how far we have wandered, no matter our needs, Christ the shepherd looks after us, each one. Can you hear his voice? It calls across the desk at work, as you stand in line with groceries at the check-out, running across the park with your children, and in the middle of the night when you think you’re the only one awake and worried about the day just past or the day yet to come. Listen for that voice, and follow.

For more years than I care to admit, I have watched the show with a sense of delight, though again, some might think it strange that a minister watches the show. I tell people that I watch the most religious show on television. Indeed, an entire book is given over to the spiritual side of the show: The Gospel According to the Simpsons, by journalist Mark Pinsky.

When you look at most television shows today, the Simpson family is fairly unique. They are one of the few families on television who go to church, and not just when the writers need to do an obligatory Christmas episode. The Simpsons attend the vaguely malinline Protestant “First Church of Springfield”. Most television shows, if they bother with religion at all, use a generic chapel-like setting for a funeral or wedding. (And in the case of soap operas, they can be both at the same time!) The Simpsons are churchgoers, year round.

That is not to say that they are perfect people. Bart occasionally plays pranks, including the time he changed one of the hymns to a rock song parody called “In the Garden of Eden”. Lisa attends worship with her family, yet she is more interested in the contemplative Buddhist tradition. Mother Marge and baby Maggie usually look on in some dismay when Homer, the patriarch of the family, falls asleep in the pews, or says or does something usually inappropriate.

Nonetheless, the Simpson family attends worship, alongside their many neighbors, coworkers, and friends, singing hymns, praying prayers, and keeping each other awake during the sermon. In other words, the Simpsons are not too far off reality.

If you were to visit First Church, how would you spot Homer in the crowd? Just listen for something breaking.

When you visit the First Church of Springfield, the odds are likely that the guy who bumped your car as he pulled in, asked you during worship if it was okay to make change in the offering plate, and then raced past you to get the last doughnut at coffee hour before you could, that guy is Homer Simpson. The person who held the door open for you, said good morning cheerfully, and decided to share his doughnut with you because Homer got the last one, that guy is another regular church-goer: Ned Flanders.

Ned Flanders is the Simpsons’ next-door neighbor, an earnest Christian now widowed, raising two young boys. Flanders is the epitome of what some persons believe Christians are like: naïve to a fault, all “goody two shoes”, and a little detached from the realities of the world. In an episode aired a few weeks ago, when Homer has a raucous backyard Mardi Gras party, Ned is the only one excited (or even aware) that when the clock strikes midnight, the penitential season of Lent begins. He counts down the seconds with excitement, as if Dick Clark watching the ball-drop on New Year’s Eve, and says to the inebriated crowd, “It’s Ash Wednesday, my friends. Time to put down those gins and confess your sins!”

Considering the show is now in Season 20, it has been providential that the ever changing group of writers have left questions of faith part of the mix, rather than just a throwaway gag for an episode. Twenty seasons and counting, The Simpsons takes a moment to tweak religious life while poking fun at politics, home life, and popular culture.

Homer and Ned are often at the heart of the show’s critique of religious life. Ned is a person who tries to live an upright, moral life. Homer is bored stiff by church, and sometimes, he will do the bare minimum to keep his wife happy on Sunday mornings. That is not to say that Homer is without his redemptive points. I believe Homer gets Christianity. In one episode, Bart finds Homer reading a Bible. “What’s it about, dad?” Homer says earnestly, “It seems to be about a bunch of messed up people…well, except for that guy” (i.e. Jesus).

As if in fulfillment of his reading of Scripture, Homer acts as a messed up person in his day-to-day living. He hectors poor Ned across the backyard fence. Homer borrows lawn mowers and everything else from Ned without bothering to return it. (Most recently, a sight gag involves Homer drinking coffee at the kitchen table. The cup’s label reads “Ned”.) You would think that Ned and Homer could not exist in the same room, let alone the same church. Yet, if it’s Sunday in Springfield, you will find Ned and Homer in the pews.

Like I said earlier, the show does not seem too far from reality. In the text from 1 John, we read of an early Christian writer speaking about the choices before us. In this particular passage, we are told abide in God as children of God, or if we choose unrighteous ways, it is as if we are children of the devil. The writer of 1 John reflects on the paths we choose with the life of faith. We can know the words, we can go through the rituals, however, when it comes down to it, will we live out the faith?

Admitted, the language of 1 John sounds a bit troubling: No one who sins abides in Christ. Those who do so are children of the devil. In the hands of fundamentalist Christianity, this sort of text is catnip for stern Calvinists, feeding a worldview where Garrison Keillor claims even the faithful do not feel “saved, just merely on parole”. Where would we fit in? All of us are sinners, and not one of us is capable of leading a perfect, sin free life. As Homer Simpson reads the Bible, indeed, we are a bunch of messed up people.

First John is best read in light of the gospel of John, as John’s gospel is thought to be the most direct influence, and where the epistle gets its likely authorship or at least inspiration. In John’s gospel, we are told that Christ comes as “the way, the truth, and the light”. Following Christ is about one’s intentionality. You follow Christ or you do not. The world will not readily see the way of Jesus. It is only those who choose to do so who will learn the ways of abiding in Christ. Christians still struggle with keeping the faith, however, there are those who will make poor choices, or outright ignore the way of faith offered to us by Christ.

Some scholars suggest that this edgy writing of1 John reflects the angst of a faithful Christian speaking about watching believers who were straying. The language of “children of the devil” might be metaphorical language, sharpened by the exasperation of one person seeing others making the wrong choices, watching people take leave faithfulness to God with little concern or sense of consequence.

In the midst of his grumble, the epistle writer gives us this wonderful word:

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

The Christian faith does have more grace than perhaps 1 John makes it sound. We are all sinners, yet in God’s grace, we are able to be the redeemed and reconciled people of God. At the same time, if we take seriously this hope of God coming back at the end of things, we ought to live each day in hopeful, faithful anticipation and live our days in this messed up world as people striving to be called “children of God”.

We live in a world of Neds and Homers. In fact, we may find ourselves somehow mirrored in the antics of Homer or the earnest yet somewhat neurotic Ned. We even go to church with them. Along the way, though, it is still up to us to decide how to live out our lives. Do we keep the faith perfunctorily, legalistically, or dismiss it altogether? The New Testament tells us of God’s promised end as well as ways to live out life in the meantime. The Church, generation to generation, aims to be that anticipatory, hope-filled people whom embody the best of what it means to live in the now and the not yet. Nonetheless, it is ultimately a matter of personal choice. Do we choose to be God’s children?

Trouble is the text never says anything about Thomas actually touching the wounds of Jesus. While the imagery is quite popular (indeed, just this past week, I suggested it as an appropriate scene for a stained glass panel celebrating Easter), the Gospel of John tells Thomas’ story with a different spin on faith and belief. Read the story carefully again: Thomas hears of the resurrected Jesus and claims he will believe it only if he sees Jesus and even touches his nail-marked hands and wounded side. When Jesus appears before Thomas, Jesus gives a word of peace and then offers himself before Thomas to allay any further suspicion or uncertainty. “Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas immediately replies: “My Lord and my God”, a statement of belief, so instantaneous that he has yet to approach Jesus and touch his wounds. In this moment of encounter, Thomas believes, even when he stated he needed to see and touch Jesus to believe.

If you read John’s gospel, especially the twentieth chapter, you will find that Thomas has gotten centuries of bad press, singled out as the “doubting” disciple. Read chapter 20, the “Easter” story of John’s Gospel, and you will find Thomas is not alone. Here, you encounter a cast of characters who struggle to believe populating the Johannine Easter:

Mary Magdalene, and then Peter and the “beloved disciple” (John himself?), discovering the empty tomb, yet thinking it is a case of Jesus’ body being taken away; 

Mary Magdalene, who confuses at first the resurrected Jesus with a complete stranger, thinking him the gardener, and Jesus patiently helping her “see” him;

The disciples (minus Thomas) hearing all of these reports, yet hidden away, keeping it low key, and jumping in fright when Jesus suddenly appears through the locked door;

Then, Thomas, whose reticence gets singled out unfortunately to the extent he is known primarily as “doubting Thomas”, demands to see and touch before he will believe, yet upon seeing Christ, Thomas forgets his earlier insistence that he must touch the wounds of Christ before he will believe.

Strangely, every single one of them is part of Jesus’ inner circle, those who have heard his teachings, accompanied him all along the way, and yet, in the aftermath of that fateful trip to Jerusalem, these disciples disbelieve the news of Christ’s resurrection. Seeing Thomas in the larger context of John’s story, you realize that there is a bigger story afoot on Easter in John’s gospel. Jesus has been lifted up from death by God, brought into the glory of resurrection, yet each time the resurrected Christ encounters an inner circle believer, they need help believing this has come to pass!

When Jesus stands before Thomas, he says to Thomas, “Do not doubt but believe.” The Greek text does not use the word “doubt”. Instead, the Greek text translates: “Do not be unbelieving but believing” (Gail O’Day, “John,” NIB, Vol. IX: 850) Fr. Raymond Brown, a significant 20^th-century scholar of John’s gospel, renders Jesus’ word to Thomas: “Do not persist in your disbelief, but become a believer”.

Brown suggests that the crisis of belief among these inner circle disciples is part of the Gospel of John’s teachings about belief. Jesus heals people, changes water into wine, and even raises Lazarus from the dead. For some characters in John’s gospel, they find themselves “believing” only in part: drawn to the miraculous element, giving Jesus honor and respect for his powers, but when it comes to the resurrection, they struggle to see the fuller story.

Going back through John’s gospel, we find Thomas appearing two other times, less known than this Eastertide text. Thomas appears in what seem “blink and you might miss him” cameos, but if you know John’s love of telling stories even with the minor characters, you pay attention. This so-called “doubter” is sometimes the braver of the disciples. When Thomas enters the plot, he speaks up at times when he is perceptive and at times when he is struggling to understand, giving voice to the mixed feelings within the inner circle.

When Jesus goes to Lazarus’ burial site, Thomas knows the consequences of Jesus traveling where his opponents among the religious establishment can more easily catch him. In the words of Baptist Johannine scholar Alan Culpepper, Thomas is “the clear-eyed realist who knows that following Jesus back to Judea means risking death”. When Thomas is confused about Jesus’ teachings about his coming death and resurrection, Jesus offers the teaching about his being “the way, the truth, and the light”.

Culpepper suggests Thomas is more of a realist, one interested in the practical and not at all interested in abstract concepts or ideals. In other words, Thomas is far much more like the rest of us. The world works a certain way. Culpepper says, “Realist more than doubter, Thomas stands in for all who, like Mary Magdalene, embrace the earthly Jesus but have yet to recognize the risen Christ” (Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, p. 124) You really should not fault Thomas. His worldview is quite rational: “dead is dead”, end of story.

In John’s gospel, Brown notes there are two types of believers. One type believe due to being “superficially impressed by the marvelous”. One encounters a “light weight” belief in John, those who give belief to the extent you have to be impressed with spectacle (whether it be commenting on the fine taste of the sudden vintage of wedding wine or predicating belief only upon seeing and touching the wounds of Christ). After the resurrection, however, these sorts of believers are unveiled as holding shallow beliefs. If you are to understand the full message of the gospel, a deeper belief is required.

Brown suggests that the deepest belief, the one that embraces with joy the glory of Christ’s resurrection, is the one that understands what is happening beyond the most visible signs. Belief comes by seeing “a heavenly reality behind the miraculous, namely, what Jesus reveals about God and himself” (John, Anchor Bible, Vol. 29A, 1050). It is one thing to see the empty tomb. It is quite another to see God at work in the midst of things, doing something that surpasses all expectations.

During my first year of college, an introductory course engaged students around questions of critical thinking. College takes your worldview and challenges your suppositions, convictions, and myopias alike. Other life experiences can do the same, a time when life challenges you to the extent you learn a new way of seeing things. As part of this college course, we looked at an old woodcut image of a young shepherd boy. Somehow, he has stumbled and fallen to the ground. As he picks himself up, he realizes that he has left his familiar meadow and the hillside full of sheep, discovering instead a strange and different world, a place where the unknown and fantastic lurks in a landscape of unknown planets and stars. The college instructor loved using this image as a teaching tool. The little shepherd has a choice now before him: does he crawl back to what he has known (the meadow and hills of a shepherd) or does he crawl forward into this strange and different world.

This returns us to the question of belief. The cast of John 20 eventually all saw Jesus and believed. Even Thomas, crawling through the world in the valley of the shadow of death, decides to leap up and confess his faith that something new and different was happening. “My Lord and my God!” is the resounding confession of the first Christian believers, the culmination of a theological narrative woven throughout the gospel by John, who tells us in the first chapter, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Belief is seeing the world beyond the obvious, seeking to see God at work in the world even when we feel as if God is absent or we obsess about the signs we expect, even demand, to see if we are to believe. Belief asks us to engage a worldview that surprises us anew and sends us off on journeys previously unimagined. As Raymond Brown translates Jesus’ word to Thomas (and to us): “Do not persist in your disbelief, but become a believer”.

This past week, I listened to a National Public Radio program revisiting the last year of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. During the period from 1967 to 1968, King challenged the Johnson administration’s ongoing war in Vietnam and the critical needs of the poor. King found the result of such prophetic vision resulted with immediate challenge from critics, ranging from the White House down to fellow religious and civil rights leaders. The advice was “stick with your field”. King rebuffed the criticism,

Before I became a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the gospel. When my father and others put their hands on my head and ordained me to the Christian ministry, it was a commission. Something said to me that the fire of truth is shut up in my bones. When it burns me, I must tell it.

King’s social witness is part of that same Easter witness required of those who believe in Christ’s resurrection. The gospel is not just a mere set of beliefs or a collection of wise sayings and tales given by a first century Jew from backwater Nazareth. The gospel is about being a believer in Easter, not just when it is time to break out the Easter baskets and enjoy the beautiful lily on the mantle. The Easter story should be deep down in you, words that confess Christ as Lord and God. The struggle to believe is mighty, for you wrestle with the life of faith all along life’s journey. Yet, there is truth found in the resurrection that cannot be tamed, one that pushes us beyond the world as we know it, beyond a sense of inevitable fate. Belief in Christ, rightfully understood, is one that dances with joy and burns deep down in our bones, knowing that there is a greater reality where God is made known.

Becoming a believer is what the Easter faith calls us to embrace. As John's gospel puts it, these things are written down so that you may come to believe. These words are offered to you so that you, who have never seen Christ as these disciples did, may believe and have life.  AMEN.

The elementary school building hummed with anticipation all day. Just after lunch, a storyteller would visit for an all-school assembly. As we walked into the auditorium, we found him already there, sitting in a big easy chair, reading a book. He kept reading until the entire school was sitting at his feet. After a moment or two of silence, the storyteller looked up with a bit of a start. He leapt to his feet, tossing his book on the chair. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come in! Would you like to tell a story with me?”

Over the next half-hour, the storyteller spun the story of a knight going off to save the damsel in distress. However, he kept pausing in the midst of his story and selected a child from the audience. “Can you tell me what happened next?” The child would offer a suggestion, and the storyteller wove the child’s idea into the story. By the end of the half-hour, the knight had defeated the evil dragon, and the damsel gave him a kiss. Thanks to the intercession of one child, the story even included the knight’s horse getting a carrot for being such a good horse.

I remember that afternoon story-time with great affection. The storyteller treated each child with respect, allowing us to feel like we had part in the great story of a knight, a damsel, and a carrot-loving horse. It was not “his” story to tell. Instead, it was all of us together, telling the story. In return, the storyteller pushed us to see the many different directions a story could go. He engaged our imagination. We learned that day stories take us so many wonderful places!

Today, we hear a story that ends with a screeching halt. The gospel of Mark ends with these words:

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Mark the storyteller gives us a gospel that seems a bit perplexing, even to grownups. Mark’s story of Jesus ends with fear.

The gospel ends with…fear? What happened? Was the original ending lost? Somebody must have thought so. Some scholars ponder perhaps the oldest scrolls of Mark were torn, leaving such an unpolished ending for future generations to puzzle over. Just a few years after Mark’s gospel began circulating around the first century Church, some versions of Mark began to appear with an extra verse tacked on (“the shorter ending”, or Mark 16:8”b”). By the time of the second century, other manuscripts had a “longer ending” added (Mark 16:9-16), adding some rather strange verses noting that believers could handle snakes and drink poison without consequence. (A friendly reminder: do not try this at home!) Surely, the gospel does not end this way!

A fear-filled ending is an oddity, considering how we have shown up in fresh pressed Easter dresses, Easter eggs hidden away for the children afterwards. Regarding Mark’s Gospel, Fred Craddock claims this ending is so strange to hear at Easter. What is the Church, after being encouraged to shout “Alleluia!” all morning long, to do with the gospel story that ends with “fear”?

Scholar Mitzi Minor notes these three women come to the tomb and get “three shocks”. First, they find the stone rolled away from the tomb. Second, they discover a stranger dressed in white. Finally, they hear his word that Jesus is no longer here: not dead but risen and on the move to Galilee. In shock, the women flee, stunned into silence, drenched in fear, overwhelmed by the enormity of what they have encountered. Other gospels go onwards, telling of disciples eventually understanding what happened, doubters turning to believers, and Jesus himself appearing to assure them of his resurrection. Mark’s gospel ends with the image of three women running as hard as they can, off into the distance. (The Power of Mark’s Story)

Just to keep it complicated, the Greek text of Mark’s presumed “original ending” is more maddening. The best translation of Mark 16:8a tends to render the text:

“So they went out and fled the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone. They were afraid for….”

What do we do with this? “They were afraid, for….” Puzzling, isn’t it? The last word of the most ancient copies of Mark’s gospel is “for.…”, the Greek word “gar”. Instead of a conclusion in the traditional sense, we get the impression that something has gone missing. The story ends with dot-dot-dot…, trailing off, and leaving things unfinished. What happened next? Did it end with fear? Did it end with belief? Mark’s gospel, the earliest version known, leaves us hanging! They ran away, terrified and amazed, saying nothing to nobody. They were afraid for….

Now go back to the storyteller from my childhood. A good story engages the mind, taking us to some wonderful places. Jesus himself was adept at spinning a parable that left his listeners, friendly and unfriendly alike, dizzy with the implications of what the kingdom of God is like. Jesus spent his life, indeed “gave” his life, to the teaching and living out of his message. Two millennia later, we gather week after week to learn how to do likewise. There is a power in this story called “gospel”, but what do we do when the gospel vexes us with less than straightforward storytelling?

Let’s do something more common for today’s child to do when caught up in the midst of hearing a story. Let’s hit the “rewind” button and watch the story again. The women come to the tomb, discover the stone rolled away, and encounter this strange male figure dressed in white (note: other gospels claim angelic presence. Mark chooses to be a bit more demure). The man in white tells the women,

Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.

Mark ends on vs. eight, however, it is really vs. seven that presents the narrative complication. Will the women run away and dismiss this word as a hoax? Is death the last word and resurrection a myth? What happens if we leave the empty tomb and, even though dizzied by what we have heard, we summon the courage and the curiosity to look towards Galilee? British scholar Morna Hooker writes,

The ending Mark demands that his readers supply—is the response of faith: it is only those who are prepared to believe and who set off on the journey of faith who will see the risen Lord. (Endings)

The gospel ends on an inconclusive yet demanding note. What comes next? Does fear or faith follow next? Rowan Williams suggests that the “lost ending” of Mark is the reader herself. Williams writes, “We have to discover for ourselves what difference is made by this life, this death, and this disorienting mystery after the crucifixion”. (Christ on Trial) Catholic storyteller Megan McKenna puts it a bit differently. At the end of Mark’s gospel, “it wasn’t enough to hear the words; [the disciples] had to live them”. (On Your Mark!)

The ending of this story, a narrative of Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, the good news He proclaimed, lived, and died for, the end of this story depends on the storyteller stepping aside and saying, “What happened next?”

Later this summer, Kerry and I will attend a continuing education program for clergy and their spouses. The program’s leadership asked for photographs of the church: its people, ministries in action, and the edifice itself. I went around First Baptist, taking pictures of people, activities, and finally, I headed for the sanctuary to take pictures of the altar, the organ, the pews, and the stained glass.

As I scurried around the sanctuary, I found myself standing at the back of the sanctuary, looking up at the four big stained glass panels that now stream with light on this lovely Easter day: these marvelous images of the annunciation to Mary, the child Jesus before the Magi, the Baptism of the Lord, and the Crucifixion.

Despite being minister for three years now and quite familiar with this sanctuary (or so I thought), I had never noticed that there was a scene missing. Where is Easter? There is no “empty tomb” image to be found in the stained glass: no Jesus greeting Mary Magdalene in the garden, no doubting Thomas placing hand on the wounds of the resurrected Savior, no Christ commissioning the disciples to go forth to the ends of the earth.

Where is the image of the resurrection in this place? Like an exasperated reader of Mark, I want to know: Where is the end of the Gospel?

Later, as I am uploading pictures to my office computer, I kept seeing all of the pictures of congregational life flash across the computer screen:

Alyssa and Joe teaching the kids at Vacation Bible School,

Byron, Lisa, and Fran praying at Ash Wednesday service,

The congregation singing in the midst of worship,

Cindy and Bob working at a Habitat worksite down in Louisiana,

The elderly, the young, and the ages in between sharing potluck together;

The children running through Willow Park at the church picnic.

Off in the distance, it sounded as if a parade was happening. It seemed an odd time of day, but whatever was going on, it was noisy!

Getting closer to the hotel, the noise grew louder. The parade seemed to be very close. Rounding the corner, I wondered what we would find: marching bands, a float, perhaps even an elephant or two.

Instead, we discovered a small pickup truck with three guys banging on overturned plastic buckets. A couple of people were dressed up in old, ragged clothes walking behind the truck and shouting something.

A young woman, also dressed up in old, ragged clothes walked up with a plastic bucket and said to us, “We’re raising money for humanitarian aid. Please give!”

What seemed like a great big commotion off in the distance was really a group of college students out raising money for charity. Off in the distance, it sounded like it was a major event with people lining the streets. Up close, it did not look like much was happening at all.

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the parade following him was a ramshackle affair. In Jerusalem, there were parades in honor of the powerful elite. Seeing this out-of-towner perched precariously on a colt with a bunch of Galilean hayseeds waving branches paled in comparison to the big parade to which Jerusalem was accustomed, whether it was a religious festival or some Roman mucky-muck riding through in a show of power. Some people enjoyed the spectacle and joined in the fun. Others kept walking or shopping. It was Passover, the city was crowded, and this little parade seemed almost lost in the shuffle.

Note, however, that Jesus did not intend a low-key or subtle entrance into town. He chose a colt and a grand entrance to make a point. The palm procession is laden with religious symbolism. Jesus starts out from the Mount of Olives, where years ago the prophet Zechariah claimed God will appear in final judgment, standing upon the Mount of Olives and then splitting it in two as a show of divine force and authority. The young colt serves as a symbol of authority and power. No other person has rode this colt, signifying Jesus’ uniqueness as if some sort of royalty. The people following Jesus shout words that are far from political slogans. Shouting out to the Lord and giving praise to the one who shall rule like King David of old, the people proclaim Jesus endued with a higher authority. The cries of “Hosanna” are not mere acclamations. “Hosanna” means “save, please!” While everything looks ramshackle, the parade is the grand entrance to a week that shall know controversy, confrontation, betrayal, great suffering, and tragic loss. This lone figure on a young colt shall be the salvation of the world. “Hosanna” (“save, please”) resounds at the outskirts of Jerusalem just as surely as it shall take on new meaning when the story gets to Golgotha. Up close, though, it did not look like much was happening at all.

The gospel of Mark presents an image of Jesus resolved to undertake the journey into Jerusalem, which will end with his crucifixion and death. Indeed, Mark says many people joined in with the festivities of the parade, shouting and waving their branches, whereas later that same week, Jesus dies alone and abandoned on the cross. Before we get to the unexpected good news of Easter, we have to journey through the hard truths of Palm Sunday turning into Good Friday. Make no mistake: there is a cross looming over this story.

On this side of history, we look at the New Testament as ancient authority of a faith now two millennia old and the festive parade as an old familiar story, recollected through hymns and Sunday morning processions. The Palm procession is an important “plot point” along the journey to the Cross, giving Christians ancient and contemporary valuable insight into Jesus’ resolve to go through with his certain persecution and death, told in common by the four gospels as testimony to Jesus’ faithfulness before God.

Other early Christian writings, especially those called “epistles”, or letters, also speak of what lies ahead of Jesus on the way into Jerusalem. Paul, the most prominent of the New Testament epistle writers, calls the early Christians regularly before the image of the cross. The Philippians’ reading heard earlier in the worship service (Phil. 2:5-11) is part of Paul’s exhortation to the Philippian Christians to live their lives according to the ways of Christ. This particular passage of Philippians is thought to be an early Christian hymn, a song from worship. As I read this passage, I find in its poetic beauty wonderful praise of Christ’s vulnerability equal to Mark in sharing the “why” behind the Palm procession. Even though he was God, Christ took on the limitations, the weaknesses, and the vulnerability of human life. Christ had due claim to “glory, laud, and honor”, yet his kingship is found in humility, lowliness, and servanthood. Living in the midst of the Roman empire, where the ruling class kept “pax Romana” with drawn sword at the ready, the early Christians sang in their worship of the One who was greater than any emperor, whose life is lived in the richness of simple, humble fidelity to God alone. The New Testament writers would ask us to see the great faith in God, not getting caught up in the day’s sentiment or merriment. “Hosanna” (“save, please!”) ought to delight and haunt us over the next few days. 

As Jesus rides through the city, with the people raising their voices in support today and disappearing when things turn tragic, you have some decisions to make as you read the Passion story. To follow Jesus, you undertake a long, strange journey called “the way of Jesus Christ”, challenging you to take on a different sort of life. Will you follow Christ from the outskirts of the city, to the confrontations with the powers that be of religion and state, to the difficult evening of sacred meal followed by disciples who betray as well as deny Christ? Will you follow Christ to the agony of Friday and the hollow despair found on Saturday? During this most holy of weeks, ask yourself the hard question: how will these next few days challenge, inspire, and unsettle you?

This morning, a schedule of the next few days is in your bulletin. Take time in the midst of your life to make these days the center of your week. Go to work, tend the needs of your household, but reframe what you do this week by where Christ is at in the midst of Holy Week. Pray more earnestly. Read the latter parts of Mark’s gospel (chapters 11 onward). Join the gathering on Thursday evening for a common meal and a time of communion. Then on Friday, carve out some time in your day for reflection (St Peter’s invites you to the ecumenical Good Friday service). On Saturday, take the handout provided to you in the bulletin to guide your day. Read my sermon from last year’s Good Friday service and be challenged by its hard word for us. Live in the emptiness of Holy Saturday and consider how your faith summons you to solidarity with the pain of the world. Let the fullness of this week be what it was for Christ: a time of challenge as well as a time for showing the world what life with God is about: living a faith vulnerable and resolved enough to make a difference in an otherwise broken world.

I close with thoughtful words written by Yale Divinity School’s distinguished professor Dr. Margaret A. Farley. As I read Farley’s reflections on Mark 11 for this week, I find she captures the deeper meanings of the day. Of Palm Sunday and the Holy Week ahead of us, Farley writes:

“There is a time to stand before all the world in a word of truth—bearing witness to a life, a love, a dignity so great that neither death nor anything else will destroy it, or even render it silent” (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2, Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009).

May we follow Christ. AMEN.