The Potential in a Child (Luke 2:41-52)

      During the holiday season, perhaps you had a family gathering and saw some members of your extended family tree you haven’t seen in a spell.  You look at that teenager moping around text messaging incessantly on her cell phone, and you catch yourself remembering a Christmas not that so long ago when she was barely able to walk.  Then you look over at the girl’s mother and think, “Oh dear, I remember her when she was barely able to walk….”

      Kids grow up.  We joke a bit about it.  “Oughta put a brick on his head,” we say of a child as he starts going through clothes and shoes at seemingly overnight pace.  In some households, you find curious scratches on the doorpost of a kitchen door, marking the growth of each child.  Or somewhere in the attic or a storage closet, a “baby book” and every single school yearbook is kept safe.  Or with today’s kids, parents hope the computer hard drive crash didn’t wipe out the pictures of Junior’s third birthday party. 

      We love keeping track of the kids and marveling at their achievements, great and small.  I’m sure you have started thinking a bit about your own ways of keeping the kids.  I’m curious to hear a quick memory or two from the crowd.  What have you done to keep track of your kids’ growth over the years?                 [Comments from the congregation.]

      The gospel story today might seem a bit of a surprise.  We just finished Advent and Christmas Eve, and here we are just two days later, and Jesus himself has grown up while we weren’t looking!  We put him in the manger the other night, and we sang songs to him.  And now he has grown up on us!  Heavens!

      The lectionary reading from Luke today moves us away from Bethlehem, and we hear of the only gospel account of Jesus as a child.  And what pray tell is the young Jesus up to?    As far as his family is concerned: mischief!

      Raised an observant Jew, Jesus is on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  The family has caravanned their way to the holy city, made their religious observances, enjoyed their time, and then they started for home.  In the hubbub of an entire clan of people going out, it is highly likely that Mary and Joseph just kept thinking, “Oh, he’s back there playing with friends”.  When enough time passed and still no child to be seen, that is when Joseph and Mary realized he was not with them.

      Have you noticed how children can disappear?  Nowadays, parents have a variety of ways to keep track of their kids, including those leashes that you strap to the kid’s back.  I saw a child so tethered to a parent in New York City a few weeks back.  I kept marveling the family was able to walk through the busy streets and the kid didn’t “clothesline” another pedestrian.

      Of course, parents struggle with keeping track of the kids.  I remember the time I discovered elevators.  Being a farm family, we rarely traveled that far, so being in a store with an elevator was quite the experience. As a five year old, I was fascinated by these doors that would open and close, and what child does not automatically reach up and hit every single button?

      My fascination grew to the point that as soon as my mother and grandmother were distracted, I wandered off to the elevator door.  I got on, and the elevator doors closed. 

      I enjoyed riding it for a few minutes, as the doors opened and closed.  Then I realized I forgot which floor my family was on.  I started asking adults to help me find my family.  One adult asked me, “Did you get on at housewares?”
            “I don’t know,” I said.  “What’s a houseware?”

      Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, where he is engaging the wise religious leaders. The momentary parental anxiety is met with an interesting response.  “Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  (I tried that line on my parents.  It didn’t work….).

      Here, we get a glimpse of Christian theology.  Christianity confesses Jesus as “fully human/fully divine”.  Jesus is in the Temple, even at an early age, engaging the Temple elders in conversation, speaking with an authority far beyond his years.  Can we also read this text with a bit of wonder at Jesus, the one who grew up just like us?   The authority, the power, and the divinity is in tandem with birth, growing up, and becoming an adult.  Jesus did not exempt himself from life, showing up as the babe in Bethlehem and enduring the passage of years.  The one confessed as “very God of Very God” is made known in the gawkiness of humanity.

      Jesus offers himself in the fullness of human experience, as one who struggled to walk those first steps, who fussed a bit when told to go to bed.  He cried and laughed.  Jesus lived the mundane realities of human existence.  Luke alone records a story of Jesus’ younger years, and arguably, he tells the story to fit into the themes of his gospel.  Hearing this story on the Sunday just after Christmas, the text serves as a friendly word to enjoy the season upon us and avoid the mistake of thinking of Jesus only in the contexts of manger and cross.  There is a long journey Jesus takes, the one called “being human”.  This text illumines the fullness of Jesus as Son of God as well as the firstborn of Mary.

      I wonder if we could think a bit about the influence of Mary and Joseph on this young child.  Jesus was raised up in the midst of a household, woven into the fabric of a family’s life.  The gospels do not dwell extensively on Jesus’ upbringing (Mary appears in the gospels later in Jesus’ life and Joseph’s story begins and ends with the nativity narratives), yet Jesus surely must have benefitted from the raising up he received in that little off-the-beaten path town of Nazareth, son of a carpenter. In short, Christ was indeed “Immanuel”, “God with us”. 

            In celebrating Christmas, can we also marvel at the part “family” plays in our faith?  We are blessed with upwards of a dozen children active in our congregation.  I take delight in them.  Ivy will run into my office and jump up into my arms. I believe Tea finds me a bit magical.  Calvin once told his grandmother (“ammu”), “Hey, it’s the church man!” when I came to their home.  Each child we have in our midst is a blessing and part of what makes us “First Baptist”.

            I believe each member of the congregation should have a vested interest in each and every child in our midst. We may not have the dozens of children common in church decades ago, but we have “our dozen”, a group of delightful kids who could benefit from the larger family of faith.  May I challenge us to make this coming year a time for growing our ministry with children?  It would be delightful to welcome more children, and we will work on that.  I would likewise challenge us to be working just as diligently on the nurturing of the children as well. 

            Would you consider this task as holy work?  Jesus grew up in the midst of a web of family around him.  Could we see ourselves as that holy caravan on pilgrimage?  Could we see ourselves as the wise old elders welcoming the child into our midst and marveling at their contributions to the ongoing dialogue?

            I may not have children of my own, but when I come to this place, I have a dozen kids that need my love, care, mentoring, and presence.  I would suggest this way of thinking is limited only to clergy or religious education instructors.  Each one of us needs to be “family” to these kids.  It is indeed holy work.  Will you join in this effort?

Why Jesus isn't merely "good" (John 10:11-18)

When we visited Ireland, two observations especially remain in my mind. First, when you see the verdant green hills of Ireland, you realize there is no such thing as a bad picture of Ireland. Every single photo of the countryside is flawless and picturesque. As I told my friends around the seminary after we got back home, when God created Ireland, God was showing off.

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.

Somewhere between “D’oh!” and the Divine (1 John 3:1-7)

In the midst of the clutter of books and paperwork, you will find a few odd knickknacks in the pastor’s study:  a bit of First Baptist, past and present, with the home communion set used by Dr. Towart alongside my own set;  a commemorative sheet of US Postage stamps celebrating the Star Wars films guarded by a Storm Trooper windup toy found at a ABW tag sale, a modest collection of icons (odd in the sense that “icons” are usually not found in Baptist minister’s studies), and finally, the prize of my collection, action figures from The Simpsons, complete with the playset recreating the church attended by the Simpson family (clergy action figure, but not batteries, included).

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?

A Faith Vulnerable and Resolved (Mark 11:1-11; Philippians 2:5-11)

While on vacation, we were walking back to the hotel when we heard it. Bang-a-bang-bang! Thud-thud-thud! Bang-a-bang-bang! Thud-thud-thud!

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.

What God Really Wants from Us (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

Last Wednesday, I shared with Kerry my idea for this sermon. Sometimes, I find chatting with my wife about various biblical passages in the lectionary to be quite helpful. I told her I would be preaching this Sunday from the greatest passage in the book of Jeremiah. Her response: “You’re preaching about Jeremiah running around in his underwear then hiding it under a rock?”

Not exactly what I had in mind....

The prophet Jeremiah is a strange figure, even in the midst of the many prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, the bit with the linen underwear, or loincloth, did happen. Read the thirteenth chapter of Jeremiah, and you will discover one of the many symbolic actions God called Jeremiah to undertake. Just as underwear worn for days, buried under a rock down by the river, then dug up later, so likewise ruined is the people’s relationship with God. God tells Jeremiah,

For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen. (13:11)

Though tongue-in-cheek, Kerry’s suggestion of “Jeremiah and the ruined underwear” makes a lot of sense. Read this strange little story, and you get a taste of the overall book of Jeremiah, as the prophet rails against a nation ever disinterested in the ways of God and yearns for his people to return to God. His prophetic calling casts him into the midst of the relationship between God and Israel, where God forges covenants that the people will break, where God provides and the people rebel.

How do we hear these words? Seeing the conflicted world around us, one might argue we are not that far removed since Jeremiah buried his underwear. We live in a sin-fractured world, bloated by its greed and thin in its grace. Just as ancient Israel in Jeremiah’s day, the commandments lie broken and discarded in our own day. Without a doubt, the prophetic denouncements of Jeremiah could be easily a word for our day, and likewise, “the people would not listen”.

For instance, read the book Losing Moses on the Freeway. New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges shares stories examining how the Ten Commandments play out in American culture. Idols and idolatry are alive and well as he interviews persons so caught up in following the band Phish around the country that they began losing touch with reality. Follow Hedges to a neighborhood in New York where two bitter business partners now run ruthlessly competitive and petty businesses across the street from one another, and the Ten Commandments’ admonishment not to covet or envy comes all too alive and relevant. Like it or not, we learn that we are the same people as those who danced around golden calves of their own making, prone to sin, formed by habits of exclusion, selfishness, and greed.

From time to time in this country, politicians and jurists suggest placement of the Ten Commandments on federal or state courtrooms. Jeremiah himself would laugh, for he saw firsthand how kings and kingdoms rarely are bothered with such things. Jeremiah operated in a time of national upheaval, where most everything was in flux, yet the Temple and the monarchy, two elements of ancient Israelite religion, were the least likely places to find authentic worship and attentiveness to God. This particular passage of Jeremiah asks for a deeper understanding of following God’s ways. Instead of tablets of stone, God shall write the law upon the hearts of the people.

Why does God choose the heart rather than yet another set of laws as God gave to Moses. God knows humanity sidetracks easily into legalism. The monarchy demanded by the people was like all other theocratic experiments in history: something that did not last, despite claims of being “God’s chosen people”. Add to this the reality of human existence, where like it or not, humans have a hit-and-miss approach resulting more in the day-to-day brokenness of the world. Whether long ago or today, a Far Side cartoon aptly describes humanity: God is in the kitchen pulling a planet out of the oven. The planet is quite obviously Earth, and God seems a bit frustrated. “Hmmm. It looks half-baked.”

Despite our failings, God does not fail us. Abraham Joshua Heschel claims that the book of Jeremiah reveals the deep love God has for these people, even though they disappoint and stray. In the book of Jeremiah, Heschel claims we learn “as great as God’s wrath is [God’s] anguish”. (The Prophets, Harper, 1964, 110) The story with the ruined underpants serves as a glimpse into the wounded heart of God. While broken by infidelity, God has compassion in abundance, offering redemptive opportunity to bring the beloved people back into the fold.

Now we turn to the text I suggest as the greatest text of Jeremiah. Hear it again, now with some of the background story of Jeremiah in your minds:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

In these verses, we learn of God’s great love for the people. Despite their complaining and their rebellious indifference, God will have the last word, and it is not one of dismissal. God will reorder things and bring peace to the restless heart of God’s people. There will be peace where otherwise strife would arise. There will be abiding love where otherwise distrust and worry would arise. There will be love where otherwise heartache would arise.

God promises there is something greater. Jeremiah does not speak “Surely the days are coming” wistfully. In the midst of proclaiming God’s anger and God’s anguish, Jeremiah speaks with certain tenderness and tender certainty. There will come a time where we will not need to hear or teach God’s ways, for they will be planted deep within us. We will not merely know what God wants. We will be who God wants us to be. No need to ask, second guess, or even interpret what God’s ways will be like. Grounded in God, we shall no longer need or want, worry or grasp for anything. Our vanities and anxieties shall go away, and we will be in God’s good hands.

While we wait that glorious day, we should take a cue from Jeremiah for how to live in the meantime. Jeremiah lived in the midst of the world, often in ways the world found perplexing. Persons who dare to take Jeremiah at his word find themselves seeing the world through different eyes, skeptical of the status quo and partisan agendas.

Seeing God’s hope for the world, Jeremiah claims the rich and the poor, the great and the least, the powerful and the powerless will have the same words of God inscribed upon their hearts. The left and the right will no longer scrabble over their turf wars, claiming to speak for God. God will have spoken, and for once, everyone shall know and not worry about “being right” when the dust settles. Jeremiah prophecies a world no longer prone to tearing itself apart. This is indeed good news!