This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 28, 2009, the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
2Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 30
2Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Jesus had again crossed in the boat to the other side. This crossing represents Jesus coming back from the gentile side of the sea back to the Hebrew towns. While on the other side of the world, Jesus exorcised the demons from the Gerasene man known as Legion. He was called that because the demons that dwelt within him were as many as a Roman Legion. Jesus sent the demons into a herd of swine who promptly rushed down a steep bank into the sea where they were drowned.
The no longer demon possessed man wanted to join Jesus and his disciples across the way. Jesus told the man instead to “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” The man almost follows Jesus instructions, but instead of telling the people how much the Lord has done and the great mercy God has shown, he “began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.”
So between the wise teachings on the Jewish side, the miraculous journey across the sea, and the loosing of a legion of demons into 2,000 head of swine in gentile territory, Jesus had established a name. Of course a great crowd had gathered around him as he came ashore.
Jesus is met by Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, who came and when he saw Jesus he fell at his feet and begged and cried for the life of his daughter. It makes me wonder why Mark’s gospel chose to focus on this man. Let’s face it, the multitude came to Jesus as he made landfall. There must have been dozens who fell at his feet begging dozens of supplications, crying in agony for their personal harsh circumstance. Yet, Jesus chose to go with this one man and his one request.
I wonder why scripture focused on this one man and this one request, but this is an answer we will never truly know. This is a question on the order of the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Still, we do know this much. The angels dance on the head of a pin for the glory of God. So too, Jesus chose to go with this synagogue leader for the glory of God; and that’s enough of a reason.
Along the way, we have this second story, the story of the hemorrhaging woman.
According to ancient tradition, this bleeding was menstrual, making her as unclean as the demon possessed swine who just took a header. Her access to conventional society could have been denied. Whether this still applied in first century Palestine is debated by scholars,[1] but for the reader, it was a sign that she was on her own in the wilderness of her own blood.
She is without social standing, she has no one on earth, but she believes; no, she knows that if she can even touch his clothes she will be healed. And she is. “Daughter,” Jesus says, “your faith has made you well.” Dozens were pressing in on Jesus. The crowd was crushing in on him as he walked. Still, the only one who was touched by the power of Jesus was the one who believed something would happen when she touched him, even if it was just his cloak.
Again, I always wondered a couple of things about this healing. Assuming the purity law still applied to menstruating women, how in the world she could be out in polite society, much less in a crowd where she would be pressed to scores of others? Add the intentional touch of a man’s cloak and she is violating enough taboo to shame a Hollywood celebutant.[2] So why this story, why this outcome? Why of all the people who were in contact with the Lord was she the one touched by the power of Jesus? The only proper answer is the answer given for why this man and his daughter. The answer to “why?” is for the glory of God. To God goes the glory for her faith in the healing power of Jesus has made her well.
The troupe continues to the home of Jairus the synagogue leader. While Jesus is still speaking to the woman the people came and said “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” For Jesus, there is no trouble. “Do not fear, only believe.”
It was faith that healed the woman; it was her faith in the power of Jesus that made her well. The crowd knows what happened. Jairus knows what happened. Now Jesus calls on the temple leader not to fear, but to believe.
When Jesus and Jairus along with Peter, James and John arrive, the wailing has begun. The cries of sorrow at the death of the child are ringing like a claxon. In a shocking turn; they laugh when Jesus tells them to stop making a commotion; “The girl sleeps, she is not dead.” He then shoos the people from the room, he takes the girl by the hand and says “Talitha cum.” Get up little girl; and she does.
The thread common to these two miraculous healing stories is faith; faith that Jesus our Lord is able to do all things. We are called to share that faith. We are called to trust the Lord our God. But as we do, as we have faith and as we trust; we are constantly reminded that there is pain in our world.
I am not going to regale you with stories of pain and strife, neither from ancient times nor from ours. By detailing one, we leave behind hundreds of others. On the news we see the strife and discord in Iran only to diminish the spotlight on the happenings in Iraq and Afghanistan. The brutality taking place in Darfur only ends up reducing attention to Tibetan independence from China, the plight of ethnic Albanians in the Czech Republic, and ethnic Turks in northern Iraq.
It is enough to know the simple fact that pain is real, strife is real; death and injustice are real. Yet we are called to know that Christ is victorious over pain, strife, death, and injustice. He experienced these very feelings, these very pains; unto death, death upon the cross. Still, we can take solace that in this horror, there is one place for us to rest. One of the places we see this in scripture is from our psalm reading, today’s Call to Worship.
Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice;
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
I wait for you, O LORD; my soul waits for you;
in your word is my hope.
My soul waits for the LORD,
more than sentries for the morning,
more than sentries for the morning.
The psalm reminds us that the depths of human brutality know not only no physical bounds, but are as old as time itself. In the grasp of human brutality, there is one alone to whom we can turn, so we are to call to the Lord who will hear the voices of our supplication. As David laments the death of Jonathan, as Jesus hears the cries of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman, as Jesus hears our cries of desperation, as we wait on the Lord more than sentries for the morning; in times of pain, in times of suffering; there is no other place for us to rest than in the arms of the ever-loving Lord of life. It is in God alone that we wait. This is where we wait because in God alone, in Christ alone, is victory.
There is blood and there are tears in our gospel reading. It has toil and sweat too. It reminds me of a famous line in a speech made by Winston Churchill in his first address to the British House of Commons on May 13, 1940 after his election as Prime Minister. I want to share with you the end of this speech:
I would say to the House, as I said to those who've joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal.[3]
Churchill asks, “What is our aim?” “What is our goal?” Victory, that is our aim. And in Christ alone is victory. In Christ, through the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of our Lord; in Christ alone is victory. The war Churchill waged was fought by sea, land, and air with ships, planes, and men. The war we wage is fought with love, grace, and the Cross of Christ.
The life, death, resurrection, and promised coming of Jesus Christ have set the pattern for the church and its mission. His life connects him to creation, and creation to him. His service commits the church to work for every form of well-being. His suffering makes the church sensitive to all sufferings so that it sees the face of Christ in our faces in every kind of need. His crucifixion discloses to the church God's judgment on our inhumanity and the awful consequences of its own complicity in injustice. In the power of the risen Christ and the hope of his coming the church sees the promise of God's renewal of man's life in society and of God's victory over all wrong.[4]
We are called to faith. We are called to trust in the Lord our God. In the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of our lives we are called to remember the blood, toil, tears, and sweat Jesus knew in his. We should remember that as God incarnate he could have risen above it all. Being fully divine, he could have dashed away any hint of suffering and pain. But being fully human, there is no avoiding the suffering of humanity, suffering unto death. Through this death and resurrection, his victory, and ours, is assured.
Churchill’s speech ended with this coda:
But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”[5]
We claim the aid of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit as we are called to go forward together with our united strength, united for the glory of God Almighty by God’s grace, peace, and justice.
When Jesus called on Jairus to believe, the words were meant for him alone. Yet this message of “believe” is one that needed to be known to the apostles, the disciples, and all of the followers of Jesus in every time and place. Believe in Christ. Believe in Christ’s victory. Believe in the power of God to reconcile all of creation to God’s own self.
[1] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, page 1817
[2] A portmanteau of celebrity and debutant
[3] Churchill, Winston, Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Blood,_Toil,_Tears_and_Sweat, delivered May 13, 1940, retrieved June 21, 2009.
[4] Paraphrase from the Confession of 1967
[5] Ibid, Churchill
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
One Peace
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 2009, the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
1Samuel 17:32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
2Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
In ancient times, water was the embodiment of chaos. Genesis 1:6 mentions God building a barrier, a firmament, between the waters of order and the waters of chaos. God would later use the waters of chaos to wipe creation from the face of the earth in the story of Noah and the flood. The chaos of the sea is the home of the Leviathan, the ancient dragon of the sea. The Behemoth of Job is a creation of the seas and the waters. The abyss, the depths of the oceans and seas is the place of the bottomless, unfathomed, and unfathomably deep underworld. The sea has been considered the personification of death itself. Ultimately, the scriptural view of the waters and the seas and the storms and the winds is one of danger.[1]
In our enlightened age, even for people who do not know this part of the history of or the mystery; storm-tossed waters continue to be a frequently used metaphor for the turmoil of living.
In 1976, the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, and singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot recorded a haunting ballad in honor of and as a tribute to the ship and the men who lost their lives. He called it “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
The Edmund Fitzgerald was a giant ore freighter, 729 feet in length, and was the largest carrier on the Great Lakes from 1958 until 1971. The Fitzgerald was labeled “the pride of the American Flag.”
On November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald was hauling a heavy load of ore to Detroit when it ran into a severe storm. This storm generated 27-30-foot swells. During the evening hours the ship disappeared from radar screens; apparently it sank in a matter of minutes. It now rests on the bottom of Lake Superior broken in two with the bow upright and the stern upside down still loaded with its cargo of ore and all 29 hands.
In Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad about the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, he asks: “Does anyone know where the love of God goes/When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”[2] That’s quite a question, but it’s not the first time it has been asked. Both the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and today’s gospel reading remind us of one of the most well known stories of the Old Testament, the story of Jonah. In the case of the gospel, this literary flashback is quite intentional.
As the book of Jonah begins, Jonah receives the word of the Lord and does his level best to avoid his vocation. He buys passage on a vessel to Tarshish and goes below deck for a nap. By the fourth verse, the Lord made the sea boil with a storm. In the fifth, everyone on the vessel was praying to one god and another for deliverance. In the sixth verse, the captain of the vessel wakes Jonah pleading, “Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”
Here is the answer to Gordon Lightfoot’s question; the same question asked by the apostles; the same hope that the ship captain had when imploring Jonah to call on his god. The love of God is ever present. In this love lies our one peace. In times like these that doesn’t seem so very likely. In times like these, asking “where has the love of God gone?” or as it is asked in our gospel reading, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?” are the questions that are on our minds. At times like these, we hope and pray the Lord will spare us a thought so we will not perish.
As one of the most problematic questions asked in scripture; its answer is one of the most wonderful. Jesus does not promise that there will be no more storms. He promises that he will be with us in the storms. Jesus doesn’t promise to end the pain. He promises to be with us while we are in pain. In Leipzig, Martin Luther was asked, “Where will you be, Brother Martin, when church, state, princes and people turn against you?” Luther answered: “Why, then as now, in the hands of Almighty God.”[3] So it was with Martin Luther, so it was with Jonah, so it was with the apostles, so it is with us today. Our one peace is in the hands of Almighty God.
Let’s look at Mark’s gospel. In the midst of the storm, in the midst of the sea, in the midst of certain death; Jesus was resting on a cushion. We read that he was sleeping, but scripture goes one step further, he was sleeping on a cushion. The Galilean galley didn’t have a lido deck where Jesus could rest in the stern of the ship. On the contrary, these were working vessels for working men. There wasn’t a place designed on the ship to go take a nap. Still Jesus was resting on a cushion.
Jesus knew there would be a storm. I imagine everyone knew there was going to be a storm. At least one-third of the apostles were seasoned fishermen. They knew how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, as Jesus so aptly notes in Luke’s gospel.[4] Still Jesus takes a nap-on a cushion. Jesus brought or found a cushion on board this fisher’s boat. He lay down on the cushion and went to sleep. He did this intentionally. He knew what was going to happen; he knew there was going to be a blow on the water; and he rested.
Here is what this means to me. In the face of everything that did happen, was happening, and was going to happen, Jesus had a peace about him that was unknown to everyone else on the sea. The disciples knew they were in danger. The waves were breaking over the bow of the ship and it was taking on water. The boat was filling with so much water that it was being swamped by the sea, the wind, and the waves.
The disciples were worried, I am sure; they knew their situation was perilous. In the meantime, here’s Jesus, napping on the stern, on a pillow. So when they were asking Jesus if he cared, were they looking for divine intervention? Probably not, Jesus had yet to share his messianic identity, so there was no reason to think he would still the chaos. The disciples were probably just hoping Jesus would grab a bucket or a line and help stem the rising tide of the storm.
But what they got was different; they got the word of the Lord crying, “Be still.” “Be still;” this is the same phrase Jesus used in the first chapter of Mark when expelling the unclean spirit from a man. Now he uses this phrase to calm the chaos of the wind and the water and the sea. “Who is this?” the disciples ask. “Who is this that the wind and the sea obey him?” They had no idea. But this is where the scripture becomes remarkable. Only now are the disciples filled with awe or, as other translations say, filled with great terror.
Yes, there was fear in the disciples during the storm, but they had an idea of what to expect from this watery chaos. I imagine they had some fear in this perilous situation. They knew what storms on the lake were about; I imagine they had experienced gales like this before. I imagine the fishermen in the group had experienced the loss of boats, catch, and even friends in the chaos of the water. They had never experienced anything like this.
This experience gave them a sense of awe that they had never experienced before, a sense of awe laced with fear. While the word in the original text covers the range from terror and anxiety to honor and respect, it comes with an element of mastery over the experience through reflection. The evaluation of this reflection is closely bound to an understanding of one’s own existence and religious understanding.[5] They knew the danger of the water. They were clueless about the danger of having the one who can still the water and the chaos sleeping on a cushion in the back of the boat.
This is more than a miracle story; it’s a miracle story with a divine epiphany. The apostles knew they needed a miracle, they didn’t know the miracle was taking a nap on the boat. In ancient times, boats were seen as symbols of the church. It was a great ark that saved humanity in the time of the great flood. The boat was integral to the story of Jonah. Jesus spent enough time on the docks to earn his union card. Is it any wonder that we are called to the vessel where Jesus is by the rudder?
Our reading reminds us that we are called to join with the one who brings order to the storms, the rage, and the chaos in the boat we call the body of Christ, the church. We are called to be with and work with the one whom we fear, the one whom we hold in awe. This is what God calls us to do. Just like the lives of the disciples who are called to follow Jesus then, we are called now. We are called to be in the boat with Jesus through the chaos of our lives together.
This is a good ending, but there is one more piece to share before we close this chapter. Our reading includes the words, “they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.” If you understand this perfectly, you have a step up on me. “Just as he was.” Well, he was tired after a long day of teaching. That is one thing we can well imagine, and it would explain his sound sleep in the stern, but I don’t think that’s what’s important about taking him just as he was.
Crossing the sea, they were going from the Jewish side over to the gentile side. They were going from a place they knew well and were going to a foreign place. It would be like being in Fort Smith in the late 1800’s. Yes, locals knew the place well, but all it took was a river crossing to be in Indian Territory. In its own way, Fort Smith was a border town. In the culture of the time and place, crossing the line was like going from civilization to the wild and wooly land of the natives. This is what it was like for the boat load of apostles and their rabbi crossing the sea from civilization to gentile territory too.
But Jesus was taken just as he was; a human being, a Hebrew, a carpenter, and to the amazement and fear of the apostles, God in the flesh. Let us take great joy in this too; Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Even as we are so overwhelmed by our fear that our faith shakes in the presence of both the chaos and the one who brings peace to the chaos, Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Just as we are, we are called to stay in the boat of the church which is his body.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? Yes, we do. The love of God is with us in the waters of our baptism, the very waters that were separated at creation by the firmament; the waters which Jesus stills by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the love that promises to remain with us through the storm, even though the storms continue. In this and this alone is our one peace.
[1] Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Chaos entry
[2] Illustration from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=93000145, retrieved June 16, 2009
[3] Luther quote from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2723, retrieved June 21, 2009.
[4] Luke 12:56
[5] Kittel, TDNT, vol. IX, page 192
1Samuel 17:32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
2Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
In ancient times, water was the embodiment of chaos. Genesis 1:6 mentions God building a barrier, a firmament, between the waters of order and the waters of chaos. God would later use the waters of chaos to wipe creation from the face of the earth in the story of Noah and the flood. The chaos of the sea is the home of the Leviathan, the ancient dragon of the sea. The Behemoth of Job is a creation of the seas and the waters. The abyss, the depths of the oceans and seas is the place of the bottomless, unfathomed, and unfathomably deep underworld. The sea has been considered the personification of death itself. Ultimately, the scriptural view of the waters and the seas and the storms and the winds is one of danger.[1]
In our enlightened age, even for people who do not know this part of the history of or the mystery; storm-tossed waters continue to be a frequently used metaphor for the turmoil of living.
In 1976, the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, and singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot recorded a haunting ballad in honor of and as a tribute to the ship and the men who lost their lives. He called it “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
The Edmund Fitzgerald was a giant ore freighter, 729 feet in length, and was the largest carrier on the Great Lakes from 1958 until 1971. The Fitzgerald was labeled “the pride of the American Flag.”
On November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald was hauling a heavy load of ore to Detroit when it ran into a severe storm. This storm generated 27-30-foot swells. During the evening hours the ship disappeared from radar screens; apparently it sank in a matter of minutes. It now rests on the bottom of Lake Superior broken in two with the bow upright and the stern upside down still loaded with its cargo of ore and all 29 hands.
In Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad about the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, he asks: “Does anyone know where the love of God goes/When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”[2] That’s quite a question, but it’s not the first time it has been asked. Both the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and today’s gospel reading remind us of one of the most well known stories of the Old Testament, the story of Jonah. In the case of the gospel, this literary flashback is quite intentional.
As the book of Jonah begins, Jonah receives the word of the Lord and does his level best to avoid his vocation. He buys passage on a vessel to Tarshish and goes below deck for a nap. By the fourth verse, the Lord made the sea boil with a storm. In the fifth, everyone on the vessel was praying to one god and another for deliverance. In the sixth verse, the captain of the vessel wakes Jonah pleading, “Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”
Here is the answer to Gordon Lightfoot’s question; the same question asked by the apostles; the same hope that the ship captain had when imploring Jonah to call on his god. The love of God is ever present. In this love lies our one peace. In times like these that doesn’t seem so very likely. In times like these, asking “where has the love of God gone?” or as it is asked in our gospel reading, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?” are the questions that are on our minds. At times like these, we hope and pray the Lord will spare us a thought so we will not perish.
As one of the most problematic questions asked in scripture; its answer is one of the most wonderful. Jesus does not promise that there will be no more storms. He promises that he will be with us in the storms. Jesus doesn’t promise to end the pain. He promises to be with us while we are in pain. In Leipzig, Martin Luther was asked, “Where will you be, Brother Martin, when church, state, princes and people turn against you?” Luther answered: “Why, then as now, in the hands of Almighty God.”[3] So it was with Martin Luther, so it was with Jonah, so it was with the apostles, so it is with us today. Our one peace is in the hands of Almighty God.
Let’s look at Mark’s gospel. In the midst of the storm, in the midst of the sea, in the midst of certain death; Jesus was resting on a cushion. We read that he was sleeping, but scripture goes one step further, he was sleeping on a cushion. The Galilean galley didn’t have a lido deck where Jesus could rest in the stern of the ship. On the contrary, these were working vessels for working men. There wasn’t a place designed on the ship to go take a nap. Still Jesus was resting on a cushion.
Jesus knew there would be a storm. I imagine everyone knew there was going to be a storm. At least one-third of the apostles were seasoned fishermen. They knew how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, as Jesus so aptly notes in Luke’s gospel.[4] Still Jesus takes a nap-on a cushion. Jesus brought or found a cushion on board this fisher’s boat. He lay down on the cushion and went to sleep. He did this intentionally. He knew what was going to happen; he knew there was going to be a blow on the water; and he rested.
Here is what this means to me. In the face of everything that did happen, was happening, and was going to happen, Jesus had a peace about him that was unknown to everyone else on the sea. The disciples knew they were in danger. The waves were breaking over the bow of the ship and it was taking on water. The boat was filling with so much water that it was being swamped by the sea, the wind, and the waves.
The disciples were worried, I am sure; they knew their situation was perilous. In the meantime, here’s Jesus, napping on the stern, on a pillow. So when they were asking Jesus if he cared, were they looking for divine intervention? Probably not, Jesus had yet to share his messianic identity, so there was no reason to think he would still the chaos. The disciples were probably just hoping Jesus would grab a bucket or a line and help stem the rising tide of the storm.
But what they got was different; they got the word of the Lord crying, “Be still.” “Be still;” this is the same phrase Jesus used in the first chapter of Mark when expelling the unclean spirit from a man. Now he uses this phrase to calm the chaos of the wind and the water and the sea. “Who is this?” the disciples ask. “Who is this that the wind and the sea obey him?” They had no idea. But this is where the scripture becomes remarkable. Only now are the disciples filled with awe or, as other translations say, filled with great terror.
Yes, there was fear in the disciples during the storm, but they had an idea of what to expect from this watery chaos. I imagine they had some fear in this perilous situation. They knew what storms on the lake were about; I imagine they had experienced gales like this before. I imagine the fishermen in the group had experienced the loss of boats, catch, and even friends in the chaos of the water. They had never experienced anything like this.
This experience gave them a sense of awe that they had never experienced before, a sense of awe laced with fear. While the word in the original text covers the range from terror and anxiety to honor and respect, it comes with an element of mastery over the experience through reflection. The evaluation of this reflection is closely bound to an understanding of one’s own existence and religious understanding.[5] They knew the danger of the water. They were clueless about the danger of having the one who can still the water and the chaos sleeping on a cushion in the back of the boat.
This is more than a miracle story; it’s a miracle story with a divine epiphany. The apostles knew they needed a miracle, they didn’t know the miracle was taking a nap on the boat. In ancient times, boats were seen as symbols of the church. It was a great ark that saved humanity in the time of the great flood. The boat was integral to the story of Jonah. Jesus spent enough time on the docks to earn his union card. Is it any wonder that we are called to the vessel where Jesus is by the rudder?
Our reading reminds us that we are called to join with the one who brings order to the storms, the rage, and the chaos in the boat we call the body of Christ, the church. We are called to be with and work with the one whom we fear, the one whom we hold in awe. This is what God calls us to do. Just like the lives of the disciples who are called to follow Jesus then, we are called now. We are called to be in the boat with Jesus through the chaos of our lives together.
This is a good ending, but there is one more piece to share before we close this chapter. Our reading includes the words, “they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.” If you understand this perfectly, you have a step up on me. “Just as he was.” Well, he was tired after a long day of teaching. That is one thing we can well imagine, and it would explain his sound sleep in the stern, but I don’t think that’s what’s important about taking him just as he was.
Crossing the sea, they were going from the Jewish side over to the gentile side. They were going from a place they knew well and were going to a foreign place. It would be like being in Fort Smith in the late 1800’s. Yes, locals knew the place well, but all it took was a river crossing to be in Indian Territory. In its own way, Fort Smith was a border town. In the culture of the time and place, crossing the line was like going from civilization to the wild and wooly land of the natives. This is what it was like for the boat load of apostles and their rabbi crossing the sea from civilization to gentile territory too.
But Jesus was taken just as he was; a human being, a Hebrew, a carpenter, and to the amazement and fear of the apostles, God in the flesh. Let us take great joy in this too; Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Even as we are so overwhelmed by our fear that our faith shakes in the presence of both the chaos and the one who brings peace to the chaos, Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Just as we are, we are called to stay in the boat of the church which is his body.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? Yes, we do. The love of God is with us in the waters of our baptism, the very waters that were separated at creation by the firmament; the waters which Jesus stills by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the love that promises to remain with us through the storm, even though the storms continue. In this and this alone is our one peace.
[1] Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Chaos entry
[2] Illustration from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=93000145, retrieved June 16, 2009
[3] Luther quote from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2723, retrieved June 21, 2009.
[4] Luke 12:56
[5] Kittel, TDNT, vol. IX, page 192
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Mysterious Sermon
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 14, 2009, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
Mark 4:26-34
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
[1]Storytelling of any sort, amusing anecdotes or tragic tales, is an unrepeatable art form. The variety of people listening, the inflections in voice, the mood of the day, the color of the sky—they all combine to create a one-time-only atmosphere for the spoken word. A story may bring a tear or a smile at one telling, and yet, the very next listener experiences the same words in a completely different way.
Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus chose to speak in parables. Some people find that very annoying. Why didn’t Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings, loaded with innuendo, destined to be interpreted and reinterpreted, instead of a crisp code of laws or a stack of essays with titles like “How to Be a Good Disciple,” “A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God” or “Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You.”
Instead we have this culturally ancient, cross-eyed, cryptic, incomplete, awkward, and at times seemingly absurd yet eternally true collection of sayings known as Jesus’ parables.
A list of rules never changes, never adapts. Written essays are like insects encased in amber—beautiful and precisely formed, but no longer vital and alive. According to pastor and author Barbara Brown Taylor, even sermons, the Word of God proclaimed, have the shelf life of homemade mayonnaise.[2] It takes the fluid format of a story—a tale that can never quite be told the same way twice—to keep breathing mysterious and glorious new life into the Good News.
If you still think Jesus would have gotten his points across better with hard and fast rules, I ask you to try remembering the last time you sat down and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers.
Consider this; if the hard and fast rules and customs of family status and inheritance were followed in our reading from the Old Testament, the Call of David would never have happened. If Samuel had just anointed the eldest son as tradition dictated, Jesse’s eldest, the boy whose name means “God is Father,” Eliab[3], would have become king. Instead, the Lord is in charge and Samuel follows. He anoints the eighth and youngest son of Jesse. The rules were broken, but it worked out pretty well in this case.
Despite these shortcomings, people still try to develop rules based on scripture. Only now we call them creeds, catechisms, and confessions. The earliest forms of the earliest of the confession, The Apostles’ Creed, were spawned about 150 years after the death and resurrection of Christ while the most recent of the particularly Presbyterian Creeds, A Brief Statement of Faith, isn’t even thirty years old.[4] From the first to the twenty-first century, we never really change how we try to replace mystery and glory with interpretation and legalism.
Without the easy ability Jesus’ parables have to engage us and entice us into their world, even God’s Word becomes a hard read. How these stories which are foreign to our lives become the fabric of our earthly life and heavenly salvation is wonderful and glorious.
But the process of how these stories are still vital 2,000 years after they were first told, with their many interpretations, is far more illusive and mysterious than hard and fast rules.
We come to know that by preaching to his followers in parables, Jesus lets us make the Good News become our own story, our own experience. As we are swept up in the story, we ourselves become part of a new parable—the parable of our lives. Taken all together, our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God’s work and witness in our lives, end up creating a new gospel.
We are mistaken if we think our tradition stems from only the four gospels of the scriptural canon. As well as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the church has two millennia of other gospels to celebrate; the books of Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Bonhoeffer and Barth. These “gospels” have become vital parts of our tradition because of their eternal reliance on the power of God and the reconciling work of Christ.
There are still other gospels that may not be quite so well-known, but have tremendous influence in our lives in this part of the body of Christ. We must remember that the personal parable stories that make up “The Gospel According to Grandma;” or “The Gospel of Pastor Mark, the Reverend Doctor Hal, and Pastor Pam;” or “The Gospel According to That Kid at Camp Whose Name I Can’t Even Remember;” have affected our lives dramatically.
All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels—our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst. Writing a gospel through the very act of living is part of being a disciple of Christ. Sharing our gospel through the very act of living is also part of being a disciple of Christ. It is why Jesus gave the power of the parable to all those listening to his words. Storytelling is one of the most basic practices common to all human communities.
Stories connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our Lord. In this week’s gospel text, Mark notes that when Jesus spoke to the crowds around him, he “spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables.” Jesus knew that only parables had the ability to make the Good News of the kingdom a potent reality for every listening ear.
The mystery of how this works is glorious. People want proofs, rules, and standards; and Jesus gives us parables. William Sloane Coffin, creating a godly monologue, shared these words in a 1980 Advent sermon:
Demonstrating this power of witness, Andrew Young, former American ambassador to the United Nations, tells this story,[6] this parable of power, grace, and reconciliation; about an experience he had in South Africa when he was visiting at the invitation of Nelson Mandela. For years Mandela was a leading opponent of apartheid, South Africa’s official policy of racial segregation. In 1964, the white establishment locked him up for life. But as his legend grew, so did the worldwide campaign to set him free. He was released in 1990. When apartheid was abolished, and South Africa held its first democratic elections in the spring of 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected president.
Thirteen months later, Mandela invited Andy Young to be his guest when South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup Tournament. Now rugby is a white man’s game. The South African team, like most rugby teams, is entirely white. And South Africa is about 80 percent black. So, even though the world championship was being played right there in Johannesburg, there was a deliberate absence of support for the team.
As the tournament approached, a heated debate broke out about the South African team symbol -- a leaping gazelle called a “springbok.” Most of the white Afrikaners said, “The springbok has been the symbol of every rugby team we’ve ever had.” Most black South Africans said, “Exactly! It reminds us of South Africa’s racist history, and we want it changed.” It was an explosive situation.
Now, Nelson Mandela has impeccable political sensibilities. More importantly, he understands the saving power of grace. A few days before the opening game, Mandela visited the South African team. After the visit, he called a press conference. Mandela showed up wearing a rugby jersey and an athletic cap with the team mascot, a springbok, on it. The newspaper and TV reporters were there and recorded it all. Mandela said that until the elections, he and most other black people in South Africa had always supported whoever was playing against the Springboks. “But regardless of the past,” he said, “these are our boys now. They may all be white, but they’re our boys, and we must get behind them and support them in this tournament.”
The next day, the Springboks’ coach sent word for his players not to show up in their practice gear. He told them to wear their suits and ties. He took them out to Robben Island, to the prison where Nelson Mandela had spent nearly three decades of his life behind bars. The coach and every player on the team walked into Mandela’s cell.
As they stood there, the coach said, “This is the cell where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. He was kept here for 27 years by the racist policies of our government. We Afrikaners tolerated his imprisonment for all those years, and yet he has backed us publicly. We can’t let him down.”
The tournament opened, and the Springboks played above their heads. To everyone’s surprise, they won their first game. In fact, they made it into the final game against New Zealand, a perennial power in rugby. It was like Arkansas State playing USC. And yet, at the end of regulation, the game was tied.
President Mandela was in the stands, wearing a Springbok jersey. During the timeout, he brought a South African children’s choir out of the stands. They sang an old African miners’ song which to them is sort of like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was to the slaves in this country. Within minutes, 65,000 people in the stadium were standing and singing this black African miners’ song. Andy said, “I don’t know anything about rugby, and I don’t understand the words of the song, but I was in tears.”
When the Springboks took the field, they were unstoppable. They won the World Rugby Championship. And for the next 24 hours, whites danced with blacks in the streets of South Africa. One of the most divided nations on the planet was united by something some people consider insignificant—a rugby match. But God used it to help heal a nation.
What was in the minds of black South Africans when they saw Nelson Mandela take the podium in a Springbok jersey and cap? What was in the minds of the Springboks when they were standing in Mandela’s cell? We may never know. That is the mystery of this story is how these two earthly symbols of division became symbols of racial reconciliation.
The story begins with the work of reconciliation between God and all creation begun by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is extended by a man who was a prisoner of national sin for twenty-seven years; and a prisoner of Afrikaner culture long before his incarceration. It is received by a grateful nation. It is celebrated by dancing in the streets.
What is it about games that can make us the best people we can be, physically and spiritually? How is it that the stories of a Jewish carpenter recorded so long ago resonate so clearly now? How is it that God walked the earth as we do still today? If I knew, that would be the end of the mystery, wouldn’t it?
[1] This is an edited version of this sermon idea from HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2711, retrieved June 8, 2009.
[2] Reported by Sallie Watson in the Presbytery of Arkansas newsletter, June 2009, link found at http://presbyteryofarkansas.org/frmNewsletter.aspx, retrieved June 9, 2009.
[3] Brown, F.. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, The. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001, page 45.
[4] PC (USA) Office of the General Assembly, “The Book of Confessions, Study Edition.” Louisville: Geneva Press, 1996.
[5] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Vol. 1, Louisville, Westminster-John Knox Press, 2008, page 387.
[6] As told by Bishop Bevel Jones in a sermon before the 1996 United Methodist General Conference in Denver, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2711, retrieved June 8, 2009.
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
Mark 4:26-34
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
[1]Storytelling of any sort, amusing anecdotes or tragic tales, is an unrepeatable art form. The variety of people listening, the inflections in voice, the mood of the day, the color of the sky—they all combine to create a one-time-only atmosphere for the spoken word. A story may bring a tear or a smile at one telling, and yet, the very next listener experiences the same words in a completely different way.
Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus chose to speak in parables. Some people find that very annoying. Why didn’t Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings, loaded with innuendo, destined to be interpreted and reinterpreted, instead of a crisp code of laws or a stack of essays with titles like “How to Be a Good Disciple,” “A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God” or “Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You.”
Instead we have this culturally ancient, cross-eyed, cryptic, incomplete, awkward, and at times seemingly absurd yet eternally true collection of sayings known as Jesus’ parables.
A list of rules never changes, never adapts. Written essays are like insects encased in amber—beautiful and precisely formed, but no longer vital and alive. According to pastor and author Barbara Brown Taylor, even sermons, the Word of God proclaimed, have the shelf life of homemade mayonnaise.[2] It takes the fluid format of a story—a tale that can never quite be told the same way twice—to keep breathing mysterious and glorious new life into the Good News.
If you still think Jesus would have gotten his points across better with hard and fast rules, I ask you to try remembering the last time you sat down and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers.
Consider this; if the hard and fast rules and customs of family status and inheritance were followed in our reading from the Old Testament, the Call of David would never have happened. If Samuel had just anointed the eldest son as tradition dictated, Jesse’s eldest, the boy whose name means “God is Father,” Eliab[3], would have become king. Instead, the Lord is in charge and Samuel follows. He anoints the eighth and youngest son of Jesse. The rules were broken, but it worked out pretty well in this case.
Despite these shortcomings, people still try to develop rules based on scripture. Only now we call them creeds, catechisms, and confessions. The earliest forms of the earliest of the confession, The Apostles’ Creed, were spawned about 150 years after the death and resurrection of Christ while the most recent of the particularly Presbyterian Creeds, A Brief Statement of Faith, isn’t even thirty years old.[4] From the first to the twenty-first century, we never really change how we try to replace mystery and glory with interpretation and legalism.
Without the easy ability Jesus’ parables have to engage us and entice us into their world, even God’s Word becomes a hard read. How these stories which are foreign to our lives become the fabric of our earthly life and heavenly salvation is wonderful and glorious.
But the process of how these stories are still vital 2,000 years after they were first told, with their many interpretations, is far more illusive and mysterious than hard and fast rules.
We come to know that by preaching to his followers in parables, Jesus lets us make the Good News become our own story, our own experience. As we are swept up in the story, we ourselves become part of a new parable—the parable of our lives. Taken all together, our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God’s work and witness in our lives, end up creating a new gospel.
We are mistaken if we think our tradition stems from only the four gospels of the scriptural canon. As well as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the church has two millennia of other gospels to celebrate; the books of Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Bonhoeffer and Barth. These “gospels” have become vital parts of our tradition because of their eternal reliance on the power of God and the reconciling work of Christ.
There are still other gospels that may not be quite so well-known, but have tremendous influence in our lives in this part of the body of Christ. We must remember that the personal parable stories that make up “The Gospel According to Grandma;” or “The Gospel of Pastor Mark, the Reverend Doctor Hal, and Pastor Pam;” or “The Gospel According to That Kid at Camp Whose Name I Can’t Even Remember;” have affected our lives dramatically.
All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels—our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst. Writing a gospel through the very act of living is part of being a disciple of Christ. Sharing our gospel through the very act of living is also part of being a disciple of Christ. It is why Jesus gave the power of the parable to all those listening to his words. Storytelling is one of the most basic practices common to all human communities.
Stories connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our Lord. In this week’s gospel text, Mark notes that when Jesus spoke to the crowds around him, he “spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables.” Jesus knew that only parables had the ability to make the Good News of the kingdom a potent reality for every listening ear.
The mystery of how this works is glorious. People want proofs, rules, and standards; and Jesus gives us parables. William Sloane Coffin, creating a godly monologue, shared these words in a 1980 Advent sermon:
These creatures of mine are very clever. They are always looking for evidence to make intelligently selfish decisions. That’s why their evangelists, instead of the freedom they need, give them all the proofs they want. I have told these evangelists there are no proofs for my existence, only witnesses. Nevertheless they go on proving one ineffable mystery after another with all the ardor of orthodoxy stamping out heresy. But I am the Lord God, and will not seek to overcome selfishness by appealing to selfish motives. So, as the prophet promised, I will send my people a son. I will seek to captivate their hearts, not conquer them. I will seek to open their minds, not crack their skulls. They, of course, will continue to fight me as they always have, but the contest between us will not be one of power—only of endurance. I will show them that true conquerors are not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most. I will show them that love never ends.[5]
Demonstrating this power of witness, Andrew Young, former American ambassador to the United Nations, tells this story,[6] this parable of power, grace, and reconciliation; about an experience he had in South Africa when he was visiting at the invitation of Nelson Mandela. For years Mandela was a leading opponent of apartheid, South Africa’s official policy of racial segregation. In 1964, the white establishment locked him up for life. But as his legend grew, so did the worldwide campaign to set him free. He was released in 1990. When apartheid was abolished, and South Africa held its first democratic elections in the spring of 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected president.
Thirteen months later, Mandela invited Andy Young to be his guest when South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup Tournament. Now rugby is a white man’s game. The South African team, like most rugby teams, is entirely white. And South Africa is about 80 percent black. So, even though the world championship was being played right there in Johannesburg, there was a deliberate absence of support for the team.
As the tournament approached, a heated debate broke out about the South African team symbol -- a leaping gazelle called a “springbok.” Most of the white Afrikaners said, “The springbok has been the symbol of every rugby team we’ve ever had.” Most black South Africans said, “Exactly! It reminds us of South Africa’s racist history, and we want it changed.” It was an explosive situation.
Now, Nelson Mandela has impeccable political sensibilities. More importantly, he understands the saving power of grace. A few days before the opening game, Mandela visited the South African team. After the visit, he called a press conference. Mandela showed up wearing a rugby jersey and an athletic cap with the team mascot, a springbok, on it. The newspaper and TV reporters were there and recorded it all. Mandela said that until the elections, he and most other black people in South Africa had always supported whoever was playing against the Springboks. “But regardless of the past,” he said, “these are our boys now. They may all be white, but they’re our boys, and we must get behind them and support them in this tournament.”
The next day, the Springboks’ coach sent word for his players not to show up in their practice gear. He told them to wear their suits and ties. He took them out to Robben Island, to the prison where Nelson Mandela had spent nearly three decades of his life behind bars. The coach and every player on the team walked into Mandela’s cell.
As they stood there, the coach said, “This is the cell where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. He was kept here for 27 years by the racist policies of our government. We Afrikaners tolerated his imprisonment for all those years, and yet he has backed us publicly. We can’t let him down.”
The tournament opened, and the Springboks played above their heads. To everyone’s surprise, they won their first game. In fact, they made it into the final game against New Zealand, a perennial power in rugby. It was like Arkansas State playing USC. And yet, at the end of regulation, the game was tied.
President Mandela was in the stands, wearing a Springbok jersey. During the timeout, he brought a South African children’s choir out of the stands. They sang an old African miners’ song which to them is sort of like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was to the slaves in this country. Within minutes, 65,000 people in the stadium were standing and singing this black African miners’ song. Andy said, “I don’t know anything about rugby, and I don’t understand the words of the song, but I was in tears.”
When the Springboks took the field, they were unstoppable. They won the World Rugby Championship. And for the next 24 hours, whites danced with blacks in the streets of South Africa. One of the most divided nations on the planet was united by something some people consider insignificant—a rugby match. But God used it to help heal a nation.
What was in the minds of black South Africans when they saw Nelson Mandela take the podium in a Springbok jersey and cap? What was in the minds of the Springboks when they were standing in Mandela’s cell? We may never know. That is the mystery of this story is how these two earthly symbols of division became symbols of racial reconciliation.
The story begins with the work of reconciliation between God and all creation begun by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is extended by a man who was a prisoner of national sin for twenty-seven years; and a prisoner of Afrikaner culture long before his incarceration. It is received by a grateful nation. It is celebrated by dancing in the streets.
What is it about games that can make us the best people we can be, physically and spiritually? How is it that the stories of a Jewish carpenter recorded so long ago resonate so clearly now? How is it that God walked the earth as we do still today? If I knew, that would be the end of the mystery, wouldn’t it?
[1] This is an edited version of this sermon idea from HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2711, retrieved June 8, 2009.
[2] Reported by Sallie Watson in the Presbytery of Arkansas newsletter, June 2009, link found at http://presbyteryofarkansas.org/frmNewsletter.aspx, retrieved June 9, 2009.
[3] Brown, F.. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, The. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001, page 45.
[4] PC (USA) Office of the General Assembly, “The Book of Confessions, Study Edition.” Louisville: Geneva Press, 1996.
[5] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Vol. 1, Louisville, Westminster-John Knox Press, 2008, page 387.
[6] As told by Bishop Bevel Jones in a sermon before the 1996 United Methodist General Conference in Denver, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2711, retrieved June 8, 2009.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Wordplay
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 7, 2009, Trinity Sunday.
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
In 1981, Kurt Vonnegut published a sermon called Palm Sunday. One of the points he makes is that any joke translated out of its native language is doomed. He goes as far to say that any joke told in the King James English is doomed to sound like Charlton Heston. Reading this week’s gospel lesson I am inclined to agree. Admittedly, the New Revised Standard translation does not sound much like Charlton Heston, but it isn’t Larry the Cable Guy either. Lost in the translation of this text are some well crafted puns.
The first pun Jesus shares with Nicodemus is found in verse three. Ordinarily, this is translated “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” This is the translation found in the New King James, the Revised Standard, and the New International Versions. The majority of translations read like this, but not the New Revised Standard Version. The NRSV says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” How in the world do hundreds of years of translation move us from “again” to “from above?”
In a metaphysical, theological conversation, we might be able, after some contention, to concur that these readings can be equivalent, in a broad philosophical sense. In a broad way, the “again” of traditional translation can lead us to say that this rebirth comes “from above.” Frankly, this sort of argument sounds like the sort of thing philosophers talk about after cocktails during a soiree at a conference. Honestly though, this isn’t very funny and I promised you a pun.
There’s an easy explanation really; the Greek word used can either mean “again” or “from above.” It’s kind of boring, isn’t it? It’s just a translation thing. But did Jesus mean: “again” or “from above?” The Greek word used here is found five times in John’s gospel, and only in this instance is it ever translated as “again.” Every other time this word appears in John’s gospel, it is translated “from above.” So by the “majority rules” school of linguistics, we should say “from above” instead of “again” in all of these cases. Also, there is another Greek word for “again” which is used in John’s gospel. So with consistency in mind, it would make sense that if John had meant to say “again” here, the other word would have been used.
But here’s the joke… Perhaps Jesus wanted Nicodemus to consider both “again” and “from above.” What does it mean to be born “again?” What does it mean to be born “from above?” I like to think that Jesus was using the pun here. Perhaps he meant both. We must be born again—from above. Jesus uses a bit of wordplay to force Nicodemus out of not one, but two comfort zones. To be born again and born from above must have been unnerving for the Pharisee. Nicodemus even asks “how can a man be born after growing old?” Jesus answers Nicodemus by talking about birth in the Spirit, as well as from the womb.
The second pun is found in verse eight. Jesus tells Nicodemus that “the wind blows where it chooses and you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Here again, the pun gets lost in the translation. The word for wind and Spirit are the same. Everywhere in scripture you find the words wind and spirit, they come from the same ancient Greek or Hebrew word. So everyone who is born in the Spirit is moved by a force that we can neither see nor discern. We are also not able to discern where the wind will take us.
The third pun is found in verse fourteen, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” This pun is easier to find in English. The Old Testament reference about Moses and the serpent is found in Numbers 21. Here, the Lord gives Israel victory over the Canaanites. Israel promptly offers thanks to the Lord by complaining about food and water.
So the Lord sends a brood of vipers to bite the people. Some even die. The people promptly recognize the error of their ways. “‘We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you [Moses]; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’”[1] Moses did this, he lifted a bronze serpent upon a pole and all who saw it were revived.
When we read that the Son of Man must be lifted up, often (and rightly) we think that he must be exalted. And this will come to pass in John’s gospel; Jesus will be lifted up by his Father after his resurrection and glorious ascension. He will be lifted as our Lord and Messiah first by Peter, then by the apostles and disciples and we continue to lift, to exalt, the name of Jesus. The Lord God even lifts Jesus during his baptism and the transfiguration.
Jesus will be lifted up, just as the serpent was lifted up—upon a pole, upon a tree, upon the cross. And just as all who saw the snake lifted up upon the pole were healed, all who know the sacrifice Jesus made on behalf of all creation are made whole and participate in the healing of creation. Jesus was lifted up, Jesus is exalted.
One of the truths of translation is that every translation is also an interpretation. Beginning with the Latin of the early Roman church and moving into the English translations authorized by King James and beyond, every time the bible is translated, it is also interpreted for a different society and culture. This is unavoidable. It is the nature of language; words are symbols that point to things and concepts. Shakespeare said “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,”[2] but it was Mad Magazine who added, “yes, but would you pay the same price for a dozen stink weed?”[3]
We all use words as symbols in our daily lives. But sometimes, some of the symbolism is lost. In this case, it’s a matter of not knowing the nuances of ancient languages and cultures. We can be informed about these things, we can learn. We now know that we must be born again from above. We know that the words for wind and Spirit are the same in both Greek and Hebrew, and the Spirit moves us as the wind moves us. We also know that the lifting up of Jesus is done in our hearts and our hands and our voices, as well as on the cross.
In verse three, Jesus tells us about the person of God. Jesus tells us that we can only see the kingdom of heaven when we are born again from above. Only when we receive this second birth, a birth that comes from God, can we ever see the kingdom of God. Jesus tells us that the Spirit that blows us like the wind is in control of our lives. We can never control the wind; we can only be controlled by it. Finally, Jesus tells us that just as the serpent was lifted up, Jesus would be lifted up. And yes, Jesus is lifted up on the pole of Roman execution as he is lifted up in exaltation by his father and by us. Three little pieces of wordplay we receive from a very smart, very witty Messiah.
In this wordplay, John gives us a taste of what the trinity looks like. Here we get a look at how Jesus describes himself, and the rest of the Godhead to Nicodemus, a teacher who believed.
This is Trinity Sunday. It is the day that the church celebrates the triune God, God in three persons. To discern the Triune God, God who is three in one, we have to look beyond individual words of scripture. We can only discern the trinity through additional interpretation, a little more word play. So let me begin by saying we testify that there is one God, and God is presented in scripture in three different persons traditionally called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
One of the controversies of the trinity is that people of other faiths see “God in three persons” and think we believe in and pray to three gods. This is not so. We recognize that God is present in three distinct persons, but are all from the same essence of God. God exists in separate persons in eternal relationship with one another. They are distinct, but inseparable. They are present in different means, but in only one way. One may send another, but this does not suggest subservience of one to another.
We also testify that each of these persons participate with the others in every realm of the creation. Some in the church have quit referring to the trinity with the gender specific names of the persons. Instead, formulae like “creator, redeemer, and sustainer” are used to refer to the modes in which God operates. This “God in three modes” does not accurately describe the scriptural witness of the triune God. All three persons of the trinity behave as creator, redeemer, and sustainer. These roles are not delegated to any one person of the trinity.
It’s said that Jesus doesn’t answer questions very well. And this is true for us, but this is how Rabbis talked to one another. This conversation with Nicodemus is an example. It’s confusing for us; it is probably confusing to other Rabbis too. Maybe this is the point, trying to seek and find deeper truth; the Rabbis play a theological game of “Stump the Band.” So here Jesus stumps the Pharisee Nicodemus with his words. Jesus shows Nicodemus the seed of the trinity so that he may understand and believe. And believe so that he may not perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, as our reading ends, God sent the son so that the world may be saved through him.
[1] Numbers 21:7-8
[2] Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
[3] Unknown, I was very young when I read this
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
In 1981, Kurt Vonnegut published a sermon called Palm Sunday. One of the points he makes is that any joke translated out of its native language is doomed. He goes as far to say that any joke told in the King James English is doomed to sound like Charlton Heston. Reading this week’s gospel lesson I am inclined to agree. Admittedly, the New Revised Standard translation does not sound much like Charlton Heston, but it isn’t Larry the Cable Guy either. Lost in the translation of this text are some well crafted puns.
The first pun Jesus shares with Nicodemus is found in verse three. Ordinarily, this is translated “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” This is the translation found in the New King James, the Revised Standard, and the New International Versions. The majority of translations read like this, but not the New Revised Standard Version. The NRSV says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” How in the world do hundreds of years of translation move us from “again” to “from above?”
In a metaphysical, theological conversation, we might be able, after some contention, to concur that these readings can be equivalent, in a broad philosophical sense. In a broad way, the “again” of traditional translation can lead us to say that this rebirth comes “from above.” Frankly, this sort of argument sounds like the sort of thing philosophers talk about after cocktails during a soiree at a conference. Honestly though, this isn’t very funny and I promised you a pun.
There’s an easy explanation really; the Greek word used can either mean “again” or “from above.” It’s kind of boring, isn’t it? It’s just a translation thing. But did Jesus mean: “again” or “from above?” The Greek word used here is found five times in John’s gospel, and only in this instance is it ever translated as “again.” Every other time this word appears in John’s gospel, it is translated “from above.” So by the “majority rules” school of linguistics, we should say “from above” instead of “again” in all of these cases. Also, there is another Greek word for “again” which is used in John’s gospel. So with consistency in mind, it would make sense that if John had meant to say “again” here, the other word would have been used.
But here’s the joke… Perhaps Jesus wanted Nicodemus to consider both “again” and “from above.” What does it mean to be born “again?” What does it mean to be born “from above?” I like to think that Jesus was using the pun here. Perhaps he meant both. We must be born again—from above. Jesus uses a bit of wordplay to force Nicodemus out of not one, but two comfort zones. To be born again and born from above must have been unnerving for the Pharisee. Nicodemus even asks “how can a man be born after growing old?” Jesus answers Nicodemus by talking about birth in the Spirit, as well as from the womb.
The second pun is found in verse eight. Jesus tells Nicodemus that “the wind blows where it chooses and you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Here again, the pun gets lost in the translation. The word for wind and Spirit are the same. Everywhere in scripture you find the words wind and spirit, they come from the same ancient Greek or Hebrew word. So everyone who is born in the Spirit is moved by a force that we can neither see nor discern. We are also not able to discern where the wind will take us.
The third pun is found in verse fourteen, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” This pun is easier to find in English. The Old Testament reference about Moses and the serpent is found in Numbers 21. Here, the Lord gives Israel victory over the Canaanites. Israel promptly offers thanks to the Lord by complaining about food and water.
So the Lord sends a brood of vipers to bite the people. Some even die. The people promptly recognize the error of their ways. “‘We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you [Moses]; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’”[1] Moses did this, he lifted a bronze serpent upon a pole and all who saw it were revived.
When we read that the Son of Man must be lifted up, often (and rightly) we think that he must be exalted. And this will come to pass in John’s gospel; Jesus will be lifted up by his Father after his resurrection and glorious ascension. He will be lifted as our Lord and Messiah first by Peter, then by the apostles and disciples and we continue to lift, to exalt, the name of Jesus. The Lord God even lifts Jesus during his baptism and the transfiguration.
Jesus will be lifted up, just as the serpent was lifted up—upon a pole, upon a tree, upon the cross. And just as all who saw the snake lifted up upon the pole were healed, all who know the sacrifice Jesus made on behalf of all creation are made whole and participate in the healing of creation. Jesus was lifted up, Jesus is exalted.
One of the truths of translation is that every translation is also an interpretation. Beginning with the Latin of the early Roman church and moving into the English translations authorized by King James and beyond, every time the bible is translated, it is also interpreted for a different society and culture. This is unavoidable. It is the nature of language; words are symbols that point to things and concepts. Shakespeare said “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,”[2] but it was Mad Magazine who added, “yes, but would you pay the same price for a dozen stink weed?”[3]
We all use words as symbols in our daily lives. But sometimes, some of the symbolism is lost. In this case, it’s a matter of not knowing the nuances of ancient languages and cultures. We can be informed about these things, we can learn. We now know that we must be born again from above. We know that the words for wind and Spirit are the same in both Greek and Hebrew, and the Spirit moves us as the wind moves us. We also know that the lifting up of Jesus is done in our hearts and our hands and our voices, as well as on the cross.
In verse three, Jesus tells us about the person of God. Jesus tells us that we can only see the kingdom of heaven when we are born again from above. Only when we receive this second birth, a birth that comes from God, can we ever see the kingdom of God. Jesus tells us that the Spirit that blows us like the wind is in control of our lives. We can never control the wind; we can only be controlled by it. Finally, Jesus tells us that just as the serpent was lifted up, Jesus would be lifted up. And yes, Jesus is lifted up on the pole of Roman execution as he is lifted up in exaltation by his father and by us. Three little pieces of wordplay we receive from a very smart, very witty Messiah.
In this wordplay, John gives us a taste of what the trinity looks like. Here we get a look at how Jesus describes himself, and the rest of the Godhead to Nicodemus, a teacher who believed.
This is Trinity Sunday. It is the day that the church celebrates the triune God, God in three persons. To discern the Triune God, God who is three in one, we have to look beyond individual words of scripture. We can only discern the trinity through additional interpretation, a little more word play. So let me begin by saying we testify that there is one God, and God is presented in scripture in three different persons traditionally called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
One of the controversies of the trinity is that people of other faiths see “God in three persons” and think we believe in and pray to three gods. This is not so. We recognize that God is present in three distinct persons, but are all from the same essence of God. God exists in separate persons in eternal relationship with one another. They are distinct, but inseparable. They are present in different means, but in only one way. One may send another, but this does not suggest subservience of one to another.
We also testify that each of these persons participate with the others in every realm of the creation. Some in the church have quit referring to the trinity with the gender specific names of the persons. Instead, formulae like “creator, redeemer, and sustainer” are used to refer to the modes in which God operates. This “God in three modes” does not accurately describe the scriptural witness of the triune God. All three persons of the trinity behave as creator, redeemer, and sustainer. These roles are not delegated to any one person of the trinity.
It’s said that Jesus doesn’t answer questions very well. And this is true for us, but this is how Rabbis talked to one another. This conversation with Nicodemus is an example. It’s confusing for us; it is probably confusing to other Rabbis too. Maybe this is the point, trying to seek and find deeper truth; the Rabbis play a theological game of “Stump the Band.” So here Jesus stumps the Pharisee Nicodemus with his words. Jesus shows Nicodemus the seed of the trinity so that he may understand and believe. And believe so that he may not perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, as our reading ends, God sent the son so that the world may be saved through him.
[1] Numbers 21:7-8
[2] Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2
[3] Unknown, I was very young when I read this
Monday, June 01, 2009
Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment
Marie and I were in Texas this year on Pentecost Sunday, so here is the sermon I preached three years ago at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Pentecost Sunday.
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Sin, righteousness, and judgment, that’s quite a mouthful. The title of this sermon should rightfully remind us of every crime drama books, movies, and television have ever given us. These terms themselves, sin, righteousness, and judgment, were legal words in the first century. These are the words of the courts yesterday and today.
Before we explore the big three, sin, righteousness, and judgment, we need to consider the legalistic format of the beginning of the verse. In the version we read from today, “When he, the Holy Spirit, comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment.” Instead of “prove the world wrong,” other translations say convict the world instead. The nuance what these phrases mean to us is quite different. The word used here, translated as “convict,” or “prove” can mean a number of things. It can mean examine carefully, or recognize wrongdoing, or express strong disapproval, or even penalize for wrongdoing. In the possible range of translation, the Spirit can do all manner of things in relation to sin, righteousness and judgment in the world. From a simple pointing out to administering discipline, there is a broad range in how the spirit exposes the world to the big three of sin, righteousness, and judgment. How we use this phrase says much about how we discern the role of the Holy Spirit.
Sin, I’m not sure if there is a stickier word in theology than sin. People tend to think of sin in two main categories: first, those thoughts, words, and deeds that are horrendous and dramatically outside of the norms of society and second, those we commit ourselves. As horrible as this is to stereotype people, based on information from groups of Presbyterians trying to vie for our attention before the General Assembly meets, this point of view is not wholly inaccurate. Horrifying, yet there is a grain of truth. This oversimplification of mine is another way of saying that people tend to forget that sin is the reality which determines the nature of the world.[1] If placed in relative terms, if horrible sin sits in the very depths of Death Valley and the least of all sins sits on the summit of Mount Everest, then one sin seems to be far graver than the other. Based on how our culture’s views of height and depth, while sin is found in all parts of the world, the sins of the summit might not seem as bad as those in the depths. What is neglected in this little example is that the sun is still 93 million miles away. There may be thousands of feet difference here on earth, but there are still millions of miles to the light of the world. Because of all sin, humanity is millions of miles from the light of God. Redemption is summed up in remission of sins, all sins regardless of their relative shame and horror. This feature is distinctly Christian. Since any sin is a rejection of God’s claim on our life all sin must be confessed and turned from.
Righteousness is based on just judgment and rule—right conduct before God.[2] According to John’s gospel and epistles, all right action must be linked to Christ.[3] John’s gospel tells us that without Christ, we can do nothing; this is never more obvious than in pursuit of righteousness. His resurrection and ascension declare his righteous being. Compared to these works of God, our righteousness is just a shadow. Yes there are some who think they know all that God knows. This sort of esteem is dangerous because it is rooted in nothing more than who we are, what we know, and what we do. Instead, all true righteousness is based on who we are in God. In Acts, we saw a beginning of this when the Apostles began to testify in the native tongues of all in attendance. They did not speak in the language of angels. Angelically, they spoke in the languages of other peoples. And when the people heard, they were amazed, they were utterly astonished. Pentecost allows us a glimpse, a touch of this righteousness. Through the Holy Spirit, God completely transformed the cowering disciples who changed the world.[4] Amazing! And yes, the ability of the Holy Spirit to transform individual people, collections of people and the world are still in effect.
Judgment in the ancient world looks an awful lot like an episode of Law and Order or CSI, starting with discovery and ending with discipline, there is a procedure to judgment. In the ancient Mid East, judgment can come from either divine or human sources. Often it is penal in nature. But in John, judgment comes from Christ. And as seen in Matthew’s gospel, judgment of the world always involves separation.[5] From the parable of the vine, John 15:6, Jesus threatens judgment on the world when he says that vines that are not fruitful will be pruned and burned. Yet one of the most famous pieces of scripture ever quoted comes to us from John 12:48 where Jesus says he comes not to judge the world, but to save it. This may be explained in John 16:11 where Jesus says (literally) the ruler of the world will be judged. This judgment took place the hour when the Son of God resolved to sacrifice himself to the Glory of the Father and God promised to glorify him.[6] Both sides of judgment, discovery and discipline, are present in this single motion. This form of judgment is unique to John’s gospel: the world is judged and the sacrifice is made in one fell swoop. This judgment and offering were made outside of our world in the eternity of the relationship between Jesus and his father, a relationship we talked about last week. A relationship we are invited to join into.
So there is the formula, when the Spirit comes he will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment. Because of how humanity responds to the world and to one another, we must be proven wrong, corrected, about the big three. The scripture says “we will be proven wrong about sin because we do not believe in Jesus.” Sin permeates our beings to the core, there is no way we can know of the depth of sin without the leading of the Spirit. Righteousness only comes with the return of the Son to the Father. While Jesus, God walking the earth, God with us, is the perfect teacher—there is one more step needed on our development, the coming and conviction of the Holy Spirit. Finally, judgment comes in the eternal judgment of the ruler of this world. Since before the beginning of time, from the hour when the Son of God resolved to sacrifice himself, the world was judged.
So when the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will guide us into all truth. This guide, this advocate, counselor, helper, is the one called alongside us to guide us into the way of all truth. This advocate walks beside us on earth by the guidance of what he hears. This advocate indwells us with the truth of life and life eternal with the words of God the author of creation. This advocate is the one who is called to be alongside humanity as a source of the light of God. This concept of the advocate is exclusive to John’s gospel. From the Greek word, often this person is called “the Paraclete,” the one who is called alongside.
The Presbyterian Church USA has been held for years under a cloud of uncertainty and mistrust because of one particular issue, the ordination of gays and lesbians. I cannot tell you how long this has been an issue in the church. I can only say it has been a hot button issue for as long as I remember. This year, the General Assembly in Birmingham will vote on the recommendations contained in a report called “A Season for Discernment: The Final Report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Purity, and Unity of the Church.” Much of the discussion about the task force has been on two of its recommendations. One allows ordination standards to remain as they are today, excluding practicing homosexuals from ordination in the church. The other would allow ordaining and installing bodies the responsibility to determine their membership by applying these standards to those elected to office. In a report that is to help the church with its striving toward peace, purity, and unity, I must admit a guilty pleasure. What I like about this report because it has something to make everybody at the church’s theological extremes upset. Those who seek a repeal of sexually based ordination standards will not be satisfied, and those who seek strong and swift disciplinary action in the event of violation of these standards will not be satisfied either.
It is all too easy to see how stereotyping and demeaning others hurts those who receive these slings and arrows. But because of the sins of human judgment against one another humanity hurts not only the opponents, but the whole church as well. The task force sees this and says in its report:
It is not possible for us to claim that we recognize all the ways the church and its members hurt one another. Nor can we claim that we have amended our lives adequately to signal full repentance for the harm we have done. What we can report is that as we became more deeply acquainted with one another’s thinking and life situations, we were chastened and humbled by the recognition that insofar as the body of Christ in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) is broken, we have all played a part in betraying and denying our Savior and in inflicting the damage from which the church, as His body, is suffering today. The recognition that the travail of the church is our fault as much as it is others’ sobered and saddened our task force but also brought us closer together.[7]
The Task Force, twenty people from all walks and political inclinations of the church, came together and through a covenant of worship, celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and prayer. In the end, they did not “find the solution” to the problems of “peace, purity, and unity” in the church. This was not their charge. Instead, what they found in their faith journey with one another in discerning peace, purity, and unity in the church, is that they needed the Paraclete, the one who walks beside all of us to come back into the life of the church. It is time for fresh listening to the tongues of the advocate in the words of those who share the pew and the world with us. It is a very difficult, very challenging call we have been given by the task force and by God. But we have the advocate who walks beside us here on earth in the Holy Spirit and the advocate who stood on the cross for us in Jesus Christ.
There is an old saying, if you are not a part of the solution; you are a part of the problem. We must reject the notion. Because of sin, we are all a part of the problem. We are unable to achieve righteousness, the solution, on our own. Our judgment against one another will always be clouded by our imperfect human nature. When we try to assert a sense of self rignteousness, the Holy Spirit is with us to prove us wrong about our sins and judgments against others. Jesus’ and his redemptive work in life and death and resurrection is the solution. He is the one who sends the Paraclete who stands beside us on earth and he is the Paraclete who stands beside us in eternity. This is the solution. When we try to be the solution, we will eternally fail because what we do is fully infused with sin, we are a part of the problem regardless of how hard we may try. God in three persons is the solution. Yes, this sounds like a platitude and it probably is being offered like one. But we need to take it at full face value. Let us give up our attempts to live into our own solutions and seek the source of the power of the true solution, just like the apostles did on that fateful day two thousand years ago.
[1] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament v. I p. 305
[2] TDNT, v. II, p. 198
[3] Ibid. p. 200
[4] PC (USA) Mission Yearbook, Day of Pentecost entry
[5] Matthew 25:31-46
[6] Interpretation Commentary, John, p 193
[7] PUP Report, lines 340-349
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Sin, righteousness, and judgment, that’s quite a mouthful. The title of this sermon should rightfully remind us of every crime drama books, movies, and television have ever given us. These terms themselves, sin, righteousness, and judgment, were legal words in the first century. These are the words of the courts yesterday and today.
Before we explore the big three, sin, righteousness, and judgment, we need to consider the legalistic format of the beginning of the verse. In the version we read from today, “When he, the Holy Spirit, comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment.” Instead of “prove the world wrong,” other translations say convict the world instead. The nuance what these phrases mean to us is quite different. The word used here, translated as “convict,” or “prove” can mean a number of things. It can mean examine carefully, or recognize wrongdoing, or express strong disapproval, or even penalize for wrongdoing. In the possible range of translation, the Spirit can do all manner of things in relation to sin, righteousness and judgment in the world. From a simple pointing out to administering discipline, there is a broad range in how the spirit exposes the world to the big three of sin, righteousness, and judgment. How we use this phrase says much about how we discern the role of the Holy Spirit.
Sin, I’m not sure if there is a stickier word in theology than sin. People tend to think of sin in two main categories: first, those thoughts, words, and deeds that are horrendous and dramatically outside of the norms of society and second, those we commit ourselves. As horrible as this is to stereotype people, based on information from groups of Presbyterians trying to vie for our attention before the General Assembly meets, this point of view is not wholly inaccurate. Horrifying, yet there is a grain of truth. This oversimplification of mine is another way of saying that people tend to forget that sin is the reality which determines the nature of the world.[1] If placed in relative terms, if horrible sin sits in the very depths of Death Valley and the least of all sins sits on the summit of Mount Everest, then one sin seems to be far graver than the other. Based on how our culture’s views of height and depth, while sin is found in all parts of the world, the sins of the summit might not seem as bad as those in the depths. What is neglected in this little example is that the sun is still 93 million miles away. There may be thousands of feet difference here on earth, but there are still millions of miles to the light of the world. Because of all sin, humanity is millions of miles from the light of God. Redemption is summed up in remission of sins, all sins regardless of their relative shame and horror. This feature is distinctly Christian. Since any sin is a rejection of God’s claim on our life all sin must be confessed and turned from.
Righteousness is based on just judgment and rule—right conduct before God.[2] According to John’s gospel and epistles, all right action must be linked to Christ.[3] John’s gospel tells us that without Christ, we can do nothing; this is never more obvious than in pursuit of righteousness. His resurrection and ascension declare his righteous being. Compared to these works of God, our righteousness is just a shadow. Yes there are some who think they know all that God knows. This sort of esteem is dangerous because it is rooted in nothing more than who we are, what we know, and what we do. Instead, all true righteousness is based on who we are in God. In Acts, we saw a beginning of this when the Apostles began to testify in the native tongues of all in attendance. They did not speak in the language of angels. Angelically, they spoke in the languages of other peoples. And when the people heard, they were amazed, they were utterly astonished. Pentecost allows us a glimpse, a touch of this righteousness. Through the Holy Spirit, God completely transformed the cowering disciples who changed the world.[4] Amazing! And yes, the ability of the Holy Spirit to transform individual people, collections of people and the world are still in effect.
Judgment in the ancient world looks an awful lot like an episode of Law and Order or CSI, starting with discovery and ending with discipline, there is a procedure to judgment. In the ancient Mid East, judgment can come from either divine or human sources. Often it is penal in nature. But in John, judgment comes from Christ. And as seen in Matthew’s gospel, judgment of the world always involves separation.[5] From the parable of the vine, John 15:6, Jesus threatens judgment on the world when he says that vines that are not fruitful will be pruned and burned. Yet one of the most famous pieces of scripture ever quoted comes to us from John 12:48 where Jesus says he comes not to judge the world, but to save it. This may be explained in John 16:11 where Jesus says (literally) the ruler of the world will be judged. This judgment took place the hour when the Son of God resolved to sacrifice himself to the Glory of the Father and God promised to glorify him.[6] Both sides of judgment, discovery and discipline, are present in this single motion. This form of judgment is unique to John’s gospel: the world is judged and the sacrifice is made in one fell swoop. This judgment and offering were made outside of our world in the eternity of the relationship between Jesus and his father, a relationship we talked about last week. A relationship we are invited to join into.
So there is the formula, when the Spirit comes he will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment. Because of how humanity responds to the world and to one another, we must be proven wrong, corrected, about the big three. The scripture says “we will be proven wrong about sin because we do not believe in Jesus.” Sin permeates our beings to the core, there is no way we can know of the depth of sin without the leading of the Spirit. Righteousness only comes with the return of the Son to the Father. While Jesus, God walking the earth, God with us, is the perfect teacher—there is one more step needed on our development, the coming and conviction of the Holy Spirit. Finally, judgment comes in the eternal judgment of the ruler of this world. Since before the beginning of time, from the hour when the Son of God resolved to sacrifice himself, the world was judged.
So when the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will guide us into all truth. This guide, this advocate, counselor, helper, is the one called alongside us to guide us into the way of all truth. This advocate walks beside us on earth by the guidance of what he hears. This advocate indwells us with the truth of life and life eternal with the words of God the author of creation. This advocate is the one who is called to be alongside humanity as a source of the light of God. This concept of the advocate is exclusive to John’s gospel. From the Greek word, often this person is called “the Paraclete,” the one who is called alongside.
The Presbyterian Church USA has been held for years under a cloud of uncertainty and mistrust because of one particular issue, the ordination of gays and lesbians. I cannot tell you how long this has been an issue in the church. I can only say it has been a hot button issue for as long as I remember. This year, the General Assembly in Birmingham will vote on the recommendations contained in a report called “A Season for Discernment: The Final Report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Purity, and Unity of the Church.” Much of the discussion about the task force has been on two of its recommendations. One allows ordination standards to remain as they are today, excluding practicing homosexuals from ordination in the church. The other would allow ordaining and installing bodies the responsibility to determine their membership by applying these standards to those elected to office. In a report that is to help the church with its striving toward peace, purity, and unity, I must admit a guilty pleasure. What I like about this report because it has something to make everybody at the church’s theological extremes upset. Those who seek a repeal of sexually based ordination standards will not be satisfied, and those who seek strong and swift disciplinary action in the event of violation of these standards will not be satisfied either.
It is all too easy to see how stereotyping and demeaning others hurts those who receive these slings and arrows. But because of the sins of human judgment against one another humanity hurts not only the opponents, but the whole church as well. The task force sees this and says in its report:
It is not possible for us to claim that we recognize all the ways the church and its members hurt one another. Nor can we claim that we have amended our lives adequately to signal full repentance for the harm we have done. What we can report is that as we became more deeply acquainted with one another’s thinking and life situations, we were chastened and humbled by the recognition that insofar as the body of Christ in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) is broken, we have all played a part in betraying and denying our Savior and in inflicting the damage from which the church, as His body, is suffering today. The recognition that the travail of the church is our fault as much as it is others’ sobered and saddened our task force but also brought us closer together.[7]
The Task Force, twenty people from all walks and political inclinations of the church, came together and through a covenant of worship, celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and prayer. In the end, they did not “find the solution” to the problems of “peace, purity, and unity” in the church. This was not their charge. Instead, what they found in their faith journey with one another in discerning peace, purity, and unity in the church, is that they needed the Paraclete, the one who walks beside all of us to come back into the life of the church. It is time for fresh listening to the tongues of the advocate in the words of those who share the pew and the world with us. It is a very difficult, very challenging call we have been given by the task force and by God. But we have the advocate who walks beside us here on earth in the Holy Spirit and the advocate who stood on the cross for us in Jesus Christ.
There is an old saying, if you are not a part of the solution; you are a part of the problem. We must reject the notion. Because of sin, we are all a part of the problem. We are unable to achieve righteousness, the solution, on our own. Our judgment against one another will always be clouded by our imperfect human nature. When we try to assert a sense of self rignteousness, the Holy Spirit is with us to prove us wrong about our sins and judgments against others. Jesus’ and his redemptive work in life and death and resurrection is the solution. He is the one who sends the Paraclete who stands beside us on earth and he is the Paraclete who stands beside us in eternity. This is the solution. When we try to be the solution, we will eternally fail because what we do is fully infused with sin, we are a part of the problem regardless of how hard we may try. God in three persons is the solution. Yes, this sounds like a platitude and it probably is being offered like one. But we need to take it at full face value. Let us give up our attempts to live into our own solutions and seek the source of the power of the true solution, just like the apostles did on that fateful day two thousand years ago.
[1] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament v. I p. 305
[2] TDNT, v. II, p. 198
[3] Ibid. p. 200
[4] PC (USA) Mission Yearbook, Day of Pentecost entry
[5] Matthew 25:31-46
[6] Interpretation Commentary, John, p 193
[7] PUP Report, lines 340-349
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