A Real-World Ransom (1 Peter 1:17-23)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 30, 2017, Easter III)

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Our Inheritance…

It’s a jungle out there, a dog-eat-dog world, a rat race. Every man for himself. Look out for number one.

If it isn’t making dollars, then it isn’t making sense. If you are not moving units, then you’re not worth the expense. Time is money. If you snooze, you lose. Get rich quick.

What’s the bottom line? Get to the point. Results speak the loudest. The ends justify the means. It’s not a crime unless you get caught.

If you believe in it, then fight for it. Don’t take no for an answer.

All of these are anonymous echoes in my head. Anonymous, because I don’t know where I heard them first. But I have heard them all so often that they have become a part of me. You might say that I’ve inherited them, just as a person inherits genes or traits from a parent. Which is to say, they are as much a part of me as my curly hair or my hazel eyes, whether I like that or not. If I didn’t like my curly hair, it’d still be there. Even if I disagree that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, or that the ends justify the means, there will still always be that voice in my head.

I would be surprised if you had not inherited similar voices. All of these voices are part of our cultural inheritance. These are dominant traits in our world. Independence. Competition. Efficiency. Results. Strength. Whether we look at our schools, our businesses, or our government, we see these same basic values. This is part of our inheritance.

…Is What We Need Salvation from

Our scripture today has a most curious way of talking about salvation. The author of this letter is writing to a persecuted community of Christ-followers in the first century. This is a community that needed a pep talk, a spark. And the author gives them one, but with strange words. He talks about salvation, but not salvation from sin or death or evil. What we really need salvation from, he says, is our own inheritance.

You—he says, speaking to his audience—when you were born, you inherited a way of life. But it was hollow. You did what everyone around you was doing, what the whole world was doing, but it left you feeling empty. What was the point? It was almost like you were a slave to a meaningless cycle, to the same empty things day after day

But then something happened. Something so world-shattering that you were let loose from what you knew, what you had inherited.

We All Need to Be Unlocked

Something happened to Dan Hamann in Seattle, Washington. Something world-shattering. Dan was born into a family with a father, a mother, and a brother. His brother had Down Syndrome.

I’ll let him tell the story from here:

We were the perfect family with the suburban home, two cars, a picket fence [and] money, and then there was Paul. I didn’t really know how to relate to that. All my friends were very affluent, even more affluent than we were. Paul was a complication.

[All the way] through junior high I [struggled] with trying to make Paul a part of my life…. I was trying to fit in. I was trying to be one of the guys…. I just wanted to be accepted. I just wanted to be normal.[1]

As Dan tells the story, things just changed inexplicably one night at a football game. There he forgot about what his friends thought or expected, and he cared only for his brother Paul. “I sat next to him,” he says. “I…held his hand, then I walked him around…and I introduced all my friends to him. From that moment on I was changed.”[2]

I take Paul out a lot. He and I do things now. I take him to church. I take him to get ice cream cones. We go to basketball games. He doesn’t know what the heck is going on at those games, but he likes being with me. I like being with him.[3]

Paul is like the rest of us. He likes to be touched. He is warm. He’ll reach out and he’ll hold and he’ll hug. He always wants to hold your hand. I don’t know if that is typical of Down Syndrome people or if it is just Paul.[4]

Paul has opened up a world, a new world for me….[5]

He is gentle. He’s got nothing but good things in his heart….There is no deceit….There is no struggle, no ambition to step on anybody to get to the top. These are all things that are produced in our society. Paul doesn’t have any of those things….[From our world’s perspective] he is…ugly and…deformed and…inarticulate, and here he is opening up the whole world to me….[6]

I myself cannot help but observe how different Paul is from our world. Whereas most people inherit the values of independence and a competitive spirit, Paul lives dependently on others and treats strangers as friends. Whereas most of us have inherited the values of efficiency and results and strength, Paul lives slowly and patiently and without regard for social success or triumph. Paul teaches Dan and his family a strange, new way of life. They learn patience and compassion. They learn that time is not money but a precious gift to be shared. They learn that love is not an objective, something that they can buy for Paul at an institution, or something that they can achieve through other means. Love is the means. It is the way. And the truth and the life.

In Dan’s words:

[Paul] is an ambassador sent from the heavenly family to change us forever so that we won’t be what we would have otherwise been.[7]

There is a need to be unlocked. We all need to be unlocked. It is a question of who has the key. Paul had the key.[8]

An Inheritance at Odds with Love

Whoever wrote 1 Peter couldn’t have put it better himself. We all need to be unlocked. We all need to be ransomed, unchained, unbolted, unfastened, set free from the empty ways that we’ve inherited. Because the good news of God’s love stands in stark opposition to much of our world today.

“Love is patient,” but our world is not. Our world of fast cars, fast food, fast computers, the “fast track,” instant messaging, instant replays, instant access, is rather impatient. If it’s not now, it’s not worth it. The gospel of love begs us to slow down. To be inefficient. To enter into the difficulties and sufferings of others. To put people before profit or productivity.

“Love is kind.” But in our world of business and politics, competition and achievement, kind people often finish last.

“Love does not insist on its own way.” But our world proclaims the opposite. Have it your way. Make your own way. Compassion is, at best, an extracurricular activity, a distinction of community service that can be stamped onto your certificate.

We all need to be unlocked.

A Real-Life Exodus

How? According to our scripture, it is Christ who unlocks us. Our author compares Jesus to the Passover lamb, whose blood spared the lives of the ancient Israelites before they were set free from their slavery in Egypt. To be clear, he is not saying that Jesus is a one-time sacrifice that supernaturally cleans us of our sins. He’s saying that Jesus spares us from the death of our empty ways and invites us into the journey of freedom, which is also a journey into the wilderness, where we must learn new ways of living.

Such an event is catastrophic. It is, in our author’s words, “the end of the ages,” which is to say, Jesus Christ marks the end of one story and the beginning of another. Or in the words of Dan Hamann, he “opens up a world, a new world.”

As I consider the state of our world and the church in it, what concerns me these days is not so much that we get our theology right, that we know all the right words to say about Jesus. What concerns me is that we encounter the living Christ, who actually sets us free from the empty ways that we’ve inherited. The reason I love Dan’s story is that it shows in flesh and blood what a real-world ransom looks like. It is a real-life exodus from the world of independence and competition, results and efficiency, speed and strength; and it is a journey into the wilderness of love and compassion, patience and kindness, selflessness and wonder.[9] A journey into a new life where what matters most is touch and ice cream cones, sharing time together and church.

The living Christ who ransoms us from the empty ways of the world, will look different for each of us. For Dan, it looked like his brother Paul. (And Dan’s not alone. We have several paintings from the 16th century that depict angels as having Down Syndrome, suggesting that persons with Down Syndrome have been ransoming us from our empty inheritance for hundreds of years. One such picture sits on the narthex table, and I invite you to take a look on your way out.)

What does your ransom look like? Chances are, we haven’t translated all of our own experience into story. But it’s worth stopping and thinking about every once in a while. If our faith is real, then what does our ransom really look like? Where have we encountered the living Christ? How are we being ransomed, even right now, from the dominant and empty traits of our world? Who, or what, are the Pauls in our life?

Prayer

Living Christ,
Who sets us free
From our empty inheritance
And shares with us
God’s inheritance of love;
Bless all the little and unexpected ways
Through which we are ransomed,
And lead us onward
From the last page of our world’s story
Into the new chapter of your kingdom. Amen.

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[1] Christoper de Vinck, The Power of the Powerless (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 127.
[2] De Vinck, 127.
[3] De Vinck, 129.
[4] De Vinck, 127-128.
[5] De Vinck, 122.
[6] De Vinck, 131.
[7] De Vinck, 131. Dan’s reference to Paul as “an ambassador sent from the heavenly family” finds an intriguing parallel in several works of Renaissance art, which depict angels and possibly even the Christ-child as having Down Syndrome. See “Down Syndrome Depicted in Renaissance Art, http://www.confessionsofthechromosomallyenhanced.com/2013/05/down-syndrome-depicted-in-renaissance.html?m=1, visited April 29, 2017.
[8] De Vinck, 123.
[9] It also shows us what our scripture calls “reverent fear” (1:17) which sounds rather ominous but in reality is rather life-giving: for in the case of Dan, it is an eternal earnestness and commitment and curiosity where everything matters, not just what we do on Sunday morning or in our private devotions, but what we do in the real world.

A Pregnant World (1 Peter 1:3-9)

(Homily with the Help of Children for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 23, 2017, Easter II)

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Different Than Usual

It was a normal day at school. No assemblies, no special events, no early dismissals. But Jason was different than he normally was. It was almost like he was living in a different world. When one of his friends teased him in the hallway about his new haircut, he didn’t even seem to hear the joke. He just smiled and kept walking. When the class had a little free time at the end of the day, and the teacher allowed the students to have silent time to read or write or draw, he wasn’t tempted to talk to his friends. Instead he was busy with his pencil and his eraser. He drew pictures of himself and someone else. He wrote out a list of games. All the while, he was smiling. When the bell rang, he was first out of the door.

Why do you think Jason was different than usual?

It’s a lovely day out on the farm. The sun is out, there’s hardly a cloud in the sky, and there’s just the occasional breeze. But the animals are acting strangely. Down by the pond, the frogs are croaking louder than they usually do. Across the sky, the birds are flying unusually low. In the fields, the cows are agitated and anxious, swatting flies with their tails, and the sheep are all huddled together. The garden by the house, where the bees and the butterflies usually buzz about, is oddly quiet. On the ground, the ant mounds are bigger than they normally are.

Why do you think the animals are acting strangely?

Karen has had a really busy day. She had a doctor’s appointment in the morning. Then she went to the supermarket and stocked up on groceries; she’s been really hungry lately. After the grocery store, she had to go shopping for clothes. From one thing to the next, she has hardly had time to catch her breath. Normally after a day like this, she would drop on her bed and fall right to sleep. But tonight, she does not. Instead, she lies on her bed and rests one hand gently on her belly. A smile grows on her face. Her eyes are aglow. She hums a favorite song from her childhood.

Karen knows things that no one else knows. What does she know?

Living in a Different World

Jason, the farm animals, and Karen all remind us that there is more to life than what we can see. They all know something that the rest of the world does not know. And this changes them. It’s almost like they’re living in a different world because they know something that they cannot see.

Think back for a moment about Karen, the pregnant woman. How do you think she knows that she is pregnant? She feels the baby kicking within her. She feels extra hungry now, because she has to eat food for both her and the baby. How do you think she will prepare for the baby’s arrival? Maybe she will prepare a crib, paint a room, sew some clothes.

It’s almost like she’s living in a different world than everyone else. She’s living in a world that she cannot see. She cannot see the baby, but she loves the baby. She cannot hold the baby in her arms, but she lives like the baby is alive and with her already.

The World Is Pregnant

It’s a bit funny to think about…but the early followers of Christ thought that the world is pregnant (cf. Rom 8:22; 1 Pet 1:3). They said that there is much more to life than we can see. And for them, it all has to do with Easter. When they think about Easter and Jesus coming back to life, they begin to feel a little bit like a pregnant woman: they can feel a kick inside them, and they get really hungry. God’s love is alive! Life is on the way!

Listen to the way that our scripture describes Jesus. It sounds a lot like a baby to me: “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy” (1:8).

Easter: 

A Kick in the Womb, a Deep Growl of Hunger

I can’t speak from experience here, but I’ve heard that pregnancy is sometimes a difficult and painful process. Your body changes shape, it needs a lot of nutrients, there’s something new and not-you inside you! But I also know that it can fill the future mother with love and with an indescribable and glorious joy. She begins to live in a different world—loving what she does not see, smiling at what she cannot hold, laughing and singing songs into thin air.

When Jesus came back to life on Easter, the world trembled a little bit. Like a kick in the womb. Like a deep growl of hunger. Because of Easter, we Christ-followers know that the world is pregnant, that it is filled with God’s love, that life is on the way—even to the saddest and most difficult places. And so we love what we cannot see, smile at what is not there, laugh and sing songs into thin air. We take special care of the world and ourselves because something special is on the way. All creation will be made new. We can feel it kicking inside us! We are hungry for it!

Prayer

God of new birth,
Whose love makes our world
Tremble with hope:
Bless us with hearts
That can feel
The gentle kick of life
In all creation.
May we cherish
The unseen goodness
That fills all people and things.
In the name of the risen Christ: Amen.

"...But She Did Not Recognize Him" (John 20:1-18)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 16, 2017, Easter Sunday)

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Recognition: A Life-and-Death Matter 

“She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.” She did not recognize him.

Recognition can be a matter of life and death. The ancients knew this well.[1] Their stories dramatize the moment of recognition as the moment that life returns. A face is not just a face; it becomes the doorway from death to life.

We see this in the ancient Hebrew story of Joseph and his brothers. When Joseph finally reveals himself to his troubled brothers, when they finally recognize him, the tension in the story lifts. There are tears. There are embraces. There is life once more.

We see this in the ancient Greek tale of Odysseus. Odysseus leaves his home to fight in the Trojan War, and a number of adventures delay him on his way back. By the time he actually returns, much has changed. His wife Penelope, who has just about given up hope on him, has many admirers trying to win her affection. Only when Odysseus finally reveals himself, only when Penelope recognizes him, can life be made right. Only then, can he and his wife return to their life together.

Just as recognition brings life in these stories, non-recognition often proves tragically fatal. Years after Odysseus has returned to his home life with Penelope, he confronts a stranger who is killing his sheep. The confrontation escalates into a fight, and the stranger kills Odysseus. How tragic: for this stranger is none other than one of his sons, Telegonus, whom Odysseus had not seen since birth. Telegonus had made a long journey to reunite with his father. But he had been hungry, so he had killed some sheep for food.

Of course, the famous tragedy of non-recognition is the tale of Oedipus. Separated from his father since birth, Oedipus encounters him one day on a road, but neither recognizes the other. All that they see is a stranger, an enemy. And so it is that Oedipus kills his father.

According to the ancients, recognition is the difference between life and death.

Recognition Instead of Resurrection 

Our gospels, I think, would agree.

Today we celebrate resurrection. But have you noticed? Not one gospel presents us with a story of Jesus’ resurrection. We never see Jesus himself come back to life. Instead, we hear the personal stories of others who encounter a stranger and then come to life themselves. And they come to life precisely at that crucial moment of recognition: Mary hears her name and recognizes the gardener and cries out, “Rabbouni!” (John 20:16); Thomas touches the wounds of Christ and exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:27-28); Cleopas and his friend encounter a stranger on the way to Emmaus and don’t recognize him until he has blessed bread and broken it and gave it to them, so that afterward they say, “Were not our hearts burning within us?” (Luke 24:13-35).

The gospels do not show us Jesus’ resurrection. They show us others’ recognition. No resurrection. Only recognition.

Without Recognition, There Is No Resurrection 

But what if Mary had not recognized Jesus? What if she had just mistaken him for some eccentric gardener? What if Thomas had dismissed the man with the wounds as a meticulous imposter? What if Cleopas and his friend had simply identified their traveling companion as a wise rabbi?

What if no one had recognized Jesus?

According to the ancients, non-recognition is a tragedy. It is potentially fatal. The gospels, I think, would probably agree. Without the stories of Mary and Thomas and Cleopas and the disciples, without their stories of recognition, there would be no resurrection to speak of. For a resurrection to mean anything, it must be shared. It must catch on, spreading like wildfire through moments of recognition, moments that become indistinguishable from resurrection, so that really one must begin to wonder if recognition is not itself part of the resurrection.

The gospels do not show us Jesus’ resurrection. The new life that they show us in their final scenes is not the breath miraculously coming back into Jesus’ lungs. The new life that they show us is the wonder and joy that miraculously seize his followers in that moment of recognition. A moment of burning hearts and embrace and wondrous exclamation. According to the gospels, this is the meaning of resurrection. It is not a meaning of physics or biology, but the spiritual meaning of coming back to life, coming into new life.

Recognizing Resurrection: 

Looking Beyond the Way Things Were, Looking for Love 

When I was younger and surer of myself and the world, I would roll my eyes whenever I heard stories of grief like the kind you read in Reader’s Digest, where someone loses a loved one but then somehow senses the loved one’s spirit in the appearance of a butterfly or the music of a bird’s song. Nowadays, I roll my eyes at that younger self. For now, I myself have had such experiences.

What else are those butterflies or those singing birds, but sacred moments of recognition, a recognition that is somehow part of a resurrection—because it undeniably brings new life.

In today’s scripture, Mary does not recognize Jesus straight away. We don’t know why. I have my own suspicions though. Jesus asks her, “Whom are you looking for?” (20:15). My guess is that Mary was looking for a dead body. She did not recognize Jesus because she was looking for the way things were, not the way things could be. Moments later, when she does recognize Jesus, Jesus says to her, “Do not hold on to me” (20:17). Which is, I think, his way of saying, “For resurrection to happen, to continue to happen, one must not hold on so tightly to things as they were; resurrection means new life.”

Our own experiences of recognition—butterflies, singing birds, or whatever else—affirm this truth. If we were looking so hard for simply the physical things as they were, the body as we held it, as it held us, we would never recognize the loved one elsewhere.

What are we really looking for? We are looking for the loved one’s love.

“I Have Seen the Lord!” 

“She turned around and saw Jesus standing there,” but she did not recognize him (20:14). At that moment in Mary’s experience, Jesus is still dead. It was Easter morning, but she did not know it yet.

We are all Mary, this morning and every morning. We hear a voice, “Whom are you looking for?” If we’re fixated only on what happened nearly two thousand years ago, I’m afraid we’ll actually miss out on the resurrection, which is to say, the coming back to life that catches on and spreads like wildfire whenever we look love in the face and recognize it. Resurrection without end.

“Whom are you looking for?” I’m looking for Jesus. I’m looking for him whose loving words and touch have haunted me with longing and inflamed my heart’s desire. I’m looking for his love: a love that is uncalculated, a love that forgives, a love that believes and hopes for the best while it bears and endures the worst, a love that looks for redemption in every single created thing, a love that never ends. And I’ve seen it! I’ve caught glimpses of it! In the face of my parents, who even on days when I had been quite a pain tucked me in and said “good night.” In the face of my brother, who has this silly, unquestioning belief in me whenever I doubt myself. In the face of this church, whenever we serve and give without return. Even among the faces of my “heathen” friends, who sometimes have a keener sense than the faithful for the sanctity of life in the downtrodden, the poor, the helpless. I know that this love lives—I have seen it!

Have you? Can we together with Mary say, “I have seen the Lord”? Come, then, let us go announce these things to the world!

Prayer 

Beloved Christ,
Whose love knows no end,
Who calls us tenderly by name:
Open our eyes to your risen body in our world;
Awaken us to new life with you;
Whip up the wildfire
Of your resurrection
Until all live by your love. Amen.

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[1] This is most famously discussed by Aristotle in his Poetics, particularly chapter 11.

Love Stops at Nothing (Luke 23:34; John 19:28; John 19:30)

(Reflections for Second Baptist Church's Worship on April 14, 2017, Good Friday)

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Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” 

(Luke 23:34) 

The cross holds aloft the helpless humanity of Jesus. On the cross, Jesus knows pain. Jesus knows thirst. Jesus knows death.

On the cross, Jesus is as human as can be.

This is why, I think, the people around Jesus mock him. If he is from God, then why is he here, suffering such a human fate? Why not put on a divine demonstration for them all? The leaders, the soldiers, even one of the criminals beside him—they all mock Jesus. If he is God’s chosen one, the king of the Jews, the messiah himself, then why not show his divine power and save himself?

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” we often say of great persons who finally hit their limit and show their fragile humanity.

Hanging helpless on a cross, as human as can be, Jesus has nothing left but a decreasing supply of breath. All he can do now, is to utter his last words—the first of which is about as far from human as you can get.

The leaders, the soldiers, the criminal beside him—they all fantasize about Jesus putting on a display of might and muscle and magic, as though that would demonstrate his divine character. But their fantasy suggests the very opposite: to call down a host of angels, to save himself and perhaps exact a bit of self-indulgent retribution on his offenders, would in fact be an all-too-human response. It is the sort of thing that humanity dreams of.

The scandal of the cross isn’t that Jesus failed after all, that he is helplessly human. The real scandal is that the cross reveals Jesus at his most divine. The cross reveals God as savior—not through might and muscle and magic and getting his own way, but through something much more powerful, something we hear in his labored last breaths:

“Father, forgive them.”

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After this, when Jesus knew that all was finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I thirst.” 

(John 19:28) 

I wonder if there were any backspin on these words of Jesus, if they brought back memories of the other times he had spoken about thirst.

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me” (7: 37). “Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (6:35). “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

How can this be, that the thirst-quencher is thirsty? Has the eternal spring of living water run dry?

From where we stand today, the answer is simple: “Yes.” The spring is now but a trickle. It is at its last drop.

And yet…Jesus’ very thirst proclaims otherwise.

To thirst is to say, “Yes,” while present circumstance says, “No.” We say, “Yes,” to water precisely when we do not have water. Thirst is an inverted blessing. It is a blessing in absentia. A “Yes” that dwells defiantly in the land of “No.”

“I thirst.”

With life spilling out from his body by the second, Jesus does not proclaim the end of life. He cries out, “Yes!” to life. God saw that life was good, very good, in the beginning, and even now in the very face of death, at the very end of things, Jesus declares so too, “Yes, life is good. Yes, I want more of it.”

Is it any surprise? Jesus could never conceal his love for life. When he taught, when he told stories, all he could talk about was this life: the serenity of the birds, the grace of wild flowers, the sun that rises on us all, and the rain that falls on us; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts. If the few whispers we’ve heard are true—that Jesus is the messiah, the son of God—then we might have expected someone more inclined toward heaven, someone ready to get back to heaven. But Jesus is firmly rooted in the soil of this life, insistent that heaven come to earth.

“I thirst.” “Yes, life is good. Yes, I want more of it.”

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When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. 

(John 19:30) 

“It is finished.” So says the painter after she puts the finishing touch on her masterpiece. So says the teenager after his mother asks him about his homework. So say the business executives after they conclude negotiations over a new deal.

“It is finished.” In our world, these words mark an achievement, an accomplishment. They declare what we have done.

Jesus did a lot in the months and years before his crucifixion. He taught, told stories, answered questions, healed the sick, challenged hypocrites, consoled the sorrowful, wept, called the dead back to life.[1]

Jesus has done a lot. But the last few days bring about a bitter twist, a turn from action to passion, from being active to being passive—being acted upon. Jesus is arrested, imprisoned, led before leaders, whipped, crowned with thorns, made to carry a cross, stripped of his clothes, nailed to the wood, and mocked.

Jesus had done a lot. But he doesn’t say “It is finished” after what he has done.

“The great mystery of Jesus’ life is that he fulfilled his mission not in action but in passion, not by what he did but by what was done to him.”[2] He says “it is finished”—it is fulfilled—not after achievement or accomplishment but after having been passed from hand to hand, after ending up on a cross.

In a world that seeks fulfillment in results and returns, profits and the bottom line, the cross that we see before us today proclaims something radically different: love. Love does not seek accomplishment or achievement; it does not find fulfillment in a return or a profit. Love is fulfilled simply by having given itself for others, come what may.

What happens after love gives itself, is out of love’s hands. What happens next might be the end of things. This might be the very end of things. No matter. Love stops at nothing.

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[1] Henri Nouwen, Adam: God’s Beloved (2nd printing; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 83.

[2] Nouwen, Adam, 84.

Longing Remembrance (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

(Reflection for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 13, 2017, Maundy Thursday)

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Things That Are More Than Just Things

Our world is enchanted. We knew this once as children. Deep down, we still know it.

There are things in this enchanted world that are more than just things.[1] For me, tomato soup will never be just tomato soup. It will be my mother’s love for me on a sick day. A soccer ball will never be just a soccer ball. It will be my father kicking about with me in the backyard. A basement will never be just a basement. It will be the gleeful space of conspiracy between my brother and me, our shared secret joy.

Surely you know such enchanted things yourself. Maybe they are places. Smells. Tastes. Photographs. Sounds.

Memory puts a sacred spell on our world, filling the present with what is absent, filling our hearts with longing.

Water, Bread, and Cup

On that last night, Jesus wove a sacred spell on water, bread, and cup, making a memory that would ever haunt us and fill us with desire.

The water would never be just water again. It would be Christ getting on his knees and washing our feet. The bread and the wine would never be just food and drink. They would be Christ loving us with all that he had, body and blood.

Water, bread, cup. They are now only memories, absences that linger over the elements.

And yet the aching absence that we feel is sometimes more real to us than the visible world. The absence in water, bread, and cup, pulls us like an invisible force, like the longing that draws two lovers together.

The power of this absence is stronger than the powers of this world. It is the one power that cannot be extinguished. Love. Stronger even than death, they say (cf. Song 8:6).

A Body Long Ago That Fills Us with Longing

Water, bread, cup. Enchanted things. The church calls them sacraments. They remind us of a night long ago, a body long ago, a body whose loving touch still haunts us with longing today.

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[1] Much of this homily finds inspiration in the theopoetic dynamite of Rubem Alves, particularly in I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body (Eugene, OR: Wipf, 2003; orig., Fortress, 1986).

With a Word (Isaiah 50:4-9a)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on April 9, 2017, Palm Sunday)

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Words Have Great Power

I may have mentioned before that my family loves Mexican food. As a kid, I always looked forward to Friday evenings, because that’s when we’d go out to eat at one of our many favorite Mexican restaurants. El Chapala, Casa Grande, El Paso, Don Pedro III. When my parents moved last year to Powhatan, the first restaurant we dined at together was their fine local Mexican joint, El Cerro Azul.

No one in my family knows a lick of Spanish. But that doesn’t stop us from trying. We’re pretty good now with the conversational Spanish that you’d expect to hear at a restaurant: gracias, de nada, salsa verde, mas agua por favor. We learn these words by experience. For example, when our waiter or waitress would bring out our meal, he or she would always say, “Caliente, caliente—careful, it’s hot!”

My mom, who not long ago taught first grade at Carver Elementary, would occasionally try out her newfound language skills with the students in her class for whom Spanish was their first language. When she said something like gracias or por favor, their ears would perk up and they would smile. Well, one day they were all out on the blacktop for recess. It was late in the school year, the sun was out, and the heat was nearly unbearable. Standing next to one of the Hispanic girls in her class, my mom fanned herself and said, “Soy caliente.”

The look my mom received told her immediately that caliente had connotations that she did not know. Needless to say, she was quick to clarify that the weather was hot.

Words have great power—whether you get them right or wrong. As a teacher, my mom already knew that well. This experience taught her nothing new; it simply confirmed a deep truth.

A Suffering Savior—Who Talks

We see the same truth on display in today’s scripture. Today’s passage comes from a special collection of prophecies in the book of Isaiah. Scholars today often call these prophecies the Suffering Servant songs. They all describe a mysterious character who is simultaneously a sufferer and a savior. According to Isaiah, this suffering servant will save the world: he will be “a light to the nations, so that…salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49:6).

But just how he will save the world remains a mystery. In the Suffering Servant songs, including today’s passage, this peculiar character only ever suffers. He’s not an underdog character like those wrestlers who get beaten to a pulp only to somehow summon the strength to emerge triumphant. His suffering is not a trick. There’s no card up his sleeve. He suffers to the very end (cf. Isa 53, the final song).

But all the while, he talks. And as we already know, words have great power. In the passage that precedes today’s scripture, the suffering servant proclaims, “[God] made my mouth like a sharp sword” (49:2). And in today’s scripture, he declares, “God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word” (50:4). A mouth like a sharp sword, and tongue that sustains the weary with a word. Words have great power: in the case of this mysterious figure, words are sometimes a “sword” that stings and sometimes a support that “sustains.” One might say that his words afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

How Does a Savior That Suffers Save?

Perhaps by now you have your suspicions about who this mysterious suffering servant is. If so, you’re in good company. Christ-followers have long observed a certain resemblance between this servant and Jesus. Isaiah himself may not have known whom he was prophesying about. But at the very least, he had a holy hunch that salvation would come about in a rather upside-down or backwards manner: not by the power of the hand but by the power of a loving, long-suffering heart. While most of the Israelites saw the world as a playground for foreign empires, with little Israel caught up unhappily in a game of power, Isaiah saw something startlingly different. A world needful not of an all-action hero, but rather quite the opposite.

But even if we identify Isaiah’s mysterious servant with Jesus, the question lingers: how does a servant who only ever suffers save the world? For some folks, it’s all too simple. We are sinful and God demands a payment to counterbalance our sin. Jesus saves us by suffering in our place, by giving this God the only appropriate recompense.

But as we approach the cross this week, I would invite us to reconsider such a belief. Did Jesus come to save us from God? Or did Jesus come to reveal God as a loving, long-suffering savior?

If we affirm that Jesus comes to reveal God as a loving, long-suffering savior, the question still remains: how does a savior that suffers save?

Suffering Because Jesus Said To

I heard about an exchange that took place once between a chaplain and a woman who was concerned for her friend. The woman’s friend was a victim of abuse. Rather than tell you all the details, I’ll let you listen in on their conversation.

“Chaplain, I just don’t know what to tell her. When I ask her to get help, or even to leave her boyfriend, she says she can’t.”

“Why can’t she?” the chaplain asks.

“She says it’s because of Jesus. She forgives him every time because that’s what Jesus says to do. She says she turns the other cheek because that what Jesus says to do. She says that she’s denying herself because that’s what Jesus says to do.”

The chaplain listens with a pained look in his face. Finally he says, “Your friend has a good heart. But to deny yourself, you have to have a self.”

Is the Way of the Cross, the Way of the Doormat?

For a faith that proclaims the greatness of the cross, it is easy to identify the way of Jesus with suffering. It is easy for the way of the cross to become the way of the doormat. Isn’t that what Jesus is saying, when he blesses the downtrodden and preaches unconditional forgiveness and loving your enemies?

Let’s take a closer look at our suffering servant. As we’ve already observed, there is one thing he’s not afraid to use: his mouth. He doesn’t just spout off whatever he wants; he listens closely to God—“morning by morning,” he says, “[I] listen as those who are taught” (50:4)—and he shares what he hears. Whatever he says must be pretty upsetting to some people, because suffering follows. But notice who initiates the suffering: “I gave my back to those who struck me,” the servant says, “and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard” (50:6).

This is no doormat. Doormats don’t speak out, don’t talk back. Our servant may be downtrodden, but only because he has spoken out, only because he’s actively welcomed the consequences of his word. Our servant has an unbreakable sense of mission; he is always an active agent; even when he suffers, it’s not because others oppress him but because he “sets [his] face like flint” and gives himself to their oppression (cf. 50:7).

The Word of God

For the suffering servant, it all begins when he opens his mouth. It all begins, as he himself says, “with a word” (50:4). We might say the same for Jesus. The gospel of John even goes so far as to call Jesus “the word,” as if to say that his entire life—his body and blood, all that he did and all that was done to him—centers on a word.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus comes to the people “with a word” that is as sharp as a sword, double-edged, lifting up the lowly and threatening the self-secure: “The Spirit of the Lord…has anointed me,” he says, “to bring good news to the poor,…release to the imprisoned and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18). Already we can see dark shadows in the distance. “With a word,” Jesus threatens the programs of power in Jerusalem and Rome both, which would prefer to keep its imprisoned in prison, and which relegates to the sidelines all who do not or cannot buy into its game, including the poor and the blind. “With a word,” Jesus welcomes all sorts of outsiders: women, Samaritans, Roman soldiers, tax collectors, prostitutes, little children. “With a word,” Jesus turns his world upside down.

Let it not be said that God or Jesus glorifies suffering. Jesus does not come to suffer. Jesus comes to us with a word. For that word, he will endure the wrath of the powers-that-be, Roman and Jewish alike. Suffering comes as a consequence of the love that he proclaims, a love that challenges the power and privilege that keep some up and others down. Power and privilege will do anything to cross out their enemies, to keep their place.

But rather than fighting back, which would be to abandon the word that he proclaims, the word of love, Jesus welcomes the suffering even at its most bitter. And he welcomes it “with a word”:

“Father, forgive them.”

Where Life Begins

Today, on Palm Sunday, we celebrate Jesus entering Jerusalem as a savior. What will follow this week will show us just how our savior saves. It may surprise us a little bit, even today, even knowing the story already as we do.

Jesus saves us with a word. A word of love. A word of forgiveness. Just simple words. But isn’t that where life begins? A body hears a word, and it trembles. (Or in the case of my mom’s student, a body hears a word, and it quivers with laughter and embarrassment.) That’s the thing about words. They take root in flesh. You might even say that words become flesh.

Jesus saves us with a word. A word that he will say, come what may. A word that he will stop at nothing—not even a cross—to say.

Prayer

Courageous Christ,
Who enters Jerusalem
As you enter
The stronghold of our lives,
With nothing but a word:
Morning by morning,
Waken us
To the beauty
Of your message.
Teach us to live,
To speak,
Like you.
Amen.

Resurrection Now (John 11:1-45)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on April 2, 2017, Lent V)

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Life Now or Later?

As Svetlana finished packing the last box, she looked across her room. It looked how she felt: empty. Where once had stood the desk that she and her friend Julie had turned into a castle, was nothing but bare wooden floor. In the place of her bed, where she and her friend Sarah had staged countless gymnastics tournaments, were nothing but dust bunnies. Where her mirror had hung and where she had once innovated hairstyles that had left her mother and father in tears of laughter, was nothing but the chipped paint of her wall. The window where Whiskers would sit and watch the squirrels, was vacant. Even worse, Whiskers would not be making the move.

A tear quivered on the edge of her eye. How could life go on?

The next day she slouched sullenly in the back of the van as her family pulled out of the driveway for the last time.

Hours passed before finally her mother ventured a word into the back of the van. “Svetlana, I know it’s not easy.”

“Not easy?” the twelve-year old responded. “It’s impossible. I don’t know when I’ll see Julie or Sarah again. And I know when I’ll see Whiskers again—never.”

Her mother gave a deep sigh. “Yes, it will be very difficult. I know. But I promise that you’ll make new friends, and once we’re settled we’ll get a new cat. Why, I imagine that in a few years’ time, your life in our new home will be just as wonderful as the one you’ve had here.”

“Yes,” Svetlana responded, “but that’s just the point. I don’t want a wonderful life in a few years. I want a wonderful life now.”

Hours later, the van approached its new home. Svetlana woke with bleary eyes. A girl outside the house next door stared at the van and gave a timid wave. Svetlana blinked with a flutter of curiosity. Her mother reached back and rested a hand gently on her knee. Svetlana felt something—a little lift, a small ripple or rising.

“Here we are, Svetlana. Our new life.”

From a Story of Power to a Story of Life

Our text today proclaims the good news of resurrection. But to get there we have to make a few detours, because whoever wrote today’s text had, I think, a slightly different agenda: namely, to demonstrate God’s power and to compel belief. This agenda comes to light early in the story, when our storyteller shows Jesus contemplating the imminent death of his beloved friend Lazarus. Jesus weighs his options: heal his friend, or wait and demonstrate his power.

I’ll confess, this picture of Jesus disturbs me. This is not the Jesus I know. This is not the Jesus who is moved to compassion by the sick and the hungry. Nor is it the Jesus who refuses Satan’s temptation to prove his power. This is a calculating Jesus who sanctions a suffering friend’s death, and the grief of many other friends besides, all so that he might demonstrate God’s power and strong-arm folks into belief (cf. 11:4, 42, 45). Such a Jesus cries little more than crocodile tears. His compassion is little more than a magician’s ruse.

Let me put my cards on the table. I am trying to read today’s story not according to the interests of the writer, who sits outside the story and has his own designs on it, but according to the experience of the characters, who actually lived the story. What concerns the writer of this story is the strong power of God—a power that looks less like love and more like a magician who demands applause. What concerns the characters in the story, however, is an entirely different matter, I think. What concerns Martha and Mary, Lazarus and Jesus, is the same thing that concerned Svetlana: life.[1]

What Martha Wants…

Just to be clear, I believe this scripture is as God-breathed as any other scripture. I believe the heart of God is pulsing somewhere underneath it, just as it pulses underneath all the words in the Bible. This is why reading the Bible requires interpretation. The words are human. But what they are trying to say, what they mean to say, comes somehow from God. To read the Bible, we must bring our stethoscope and hold it up to the text; we must listen closely for the heart of God.

When I slide my stethoscope over today’s text, I first hear a muffled thump-thump when Martha confronts Jesus with her disappointment that he did not come sooner.

You may remember the stories about Martha and her sister Mary. Mary is the spiritual one. She is the one who can put her earthly troubles out of sight and mind and contemplate higher things. Martha, on the other hand, is the more earthy sister.[2] The gospels portray Martha as a woman very attuned to the present needs: when we see her elsewhere, she’s immersed in the middle of life, cooking and serving, tidying up and preparing (cf. Luke 10:38-42; John 12:1-2). Whereas you might be able to console Mary with spiritual platitudes—such as, “Your brother, Lazarus, is in heaven now. God wanted him there”—I doubt these would fly with Martha. Martha, remember, is rooted in this world. She is immersed in life. When her brother, Lazarus, lost his life four days ago, she must have loss much of her life, too.

Martha, I think, shares a kindred heart with Svetlana and many of us today. We love life, even with its many imperfections. When we lose it, as Svetlana lost her home, as Martha lost her brother, we do not simply settle for some heavenly deferral or exchange when we will get our lives back. Life is more sacred than we know. Something inside us cries out for more life now—somehow.

That’s what we see with Martha, who addresses Jesus with her honest hurt: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (11:21). Jesus’ response—“Your brother will rise again”—is little consolation to her in the here and now. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” she concedes, as if to say, “But that’s not what I’m talking about.” What Martha is talking about is not the afterlife, the life hereafter. She is not concerned for Lazarus’ eternal salvation. What Martha is talking about is life here, for Lazarus and her both. She doesn’t want the final resurrection later. She wants a little resurrection now[3]—I say “little,” because of course this resurrection won’t last forever; Lazarus will have to die again.

…Is What Jesus Wants

As I let my stethoscope drift across the text, the next place I hear a hushed thump-thump is when Jesus cries. Tears tell us what really matters to a person. And this is one of the precious few scenes where we actually see tears on Jesus’ face.

Why does Jesus cry? According to our story, it is not for Lazarus. Like Martha, Jesus knows that Lazarus will rise again on the last day. According to the story, Jesus cries because he sees the tears of Mary and all the people with her (cf. 11:33-35). What grieves Jesus is the loss of life—not just in Lazarus but in all the people around him.

In other words, what concerns Jesus is the same thing that concerns Martha: not the life hereafter but the life right here.

Little Resurrections

What happens next in the story is a mystery. It is the mystery of an empty tomb. It is the mystery of life from death. It is the mystery of our faith.

I don’t know a thing about the mechanics of resurrection. If you want, you can google that. I’m sure you’ll find scientists who have proven it and scientists have disproven it, believers who proclaim it and unbelievers who disclaim it. All I know from today’s story and from my own faith journey, is that the good news doesn’t just mean resurrection later; it means resurrection now! The good news is not insider information on some heavenly exchange rate that we’re hoping to cash in on—ch-ching! The good news is that Christ is the resurrection and the life, unbinding us and letting us go now from losses that entomb us.

What that resurrection looks like, how it feels—that is the stuff of experience. Maybe you’ve felt it before. Maybe you’ve felt it when someone has shared your tears. Maybe you’ve felt it in someone else’s touch. Maybe you’ve felt it when someone else has persuaded you, or even dragged you, outside the cave of your loss.

These are all little resurrections, yes. Does that diminish the truth of the more dramatic resurrections? I don’t think so. If anything, the Jesus in today’s story shows us that what matters just as much as any final resurrection are the little resurrections—the kind that helped Martha and Mary live beyond the death of their brother, the kind that helped Svetlana live beyond the loss of her home, the kind that help you and I live beyond what seems like the end.

Prayer

God of empty tombs,
Who calls to us today
As Christ called to Lazarus,
“Come out!”—
May we, like Martha,
Trust defiantly in the good news
Of resurrection and life,
Not later but now;
Plant our faith firmly
In the goodness of this earth and this life,
To which your kingdom comes.
Amen.

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[1] This angle of interpretation is inspired largely by John D. Caputo, The Insistence of God: A Theology of the Perhaps (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 231-232.

[2] Case in point: she’s the sister who complains about her dead brother’s stench (11:39).

[3] “Even now,” she says, “I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him” (11:22).