"Rather Strange" (Acts 17:16-31)

Because of a Table

Caleb Campbell grew up in church, but as a teenager he became resentful toward Christianity. At the time, he understood the gospel primarily as a negative message, a list of don’ts: “Don’t do these bad things, or else God will punish you.” But Caleb noticed that many people who went to church were also doing things on the don’ts list: smoking, drinking, dancing, R-rated movies. In his adolescent mind, Caleb decided Christianity was a farce and its followers hypocrites.

One night at a party in high school, a group of tough-looking guys invited Caleb to join them: “Hey bro, come here. Have a beer.” Caleb felt “a thrill at being seen and chosen and eagerly took up their offer.” These guys were neo-Nazis, and before long Caleb had shaved his head and joined their crew, happy to be accepted without a purity test, happy to have found what seemed like real camaraderie. Of course, some other stuff came with the territory: getting into bar fights, heckling interracial couples, proclaiming white supremacist propaganda. But for a while, it felt worth it to Caleb. It felt like a family.

In his 20s, however, Caleb saw cracks in the surface of this happy community. “As I surveyed my skinhead peers,” he says, “I saw they had no real joy, financial stability, or actual strength. Instead, they were running from the law, ruining their careers, and destroying their families.” Disenchanted, Caleb gradually drifted from them and found himself in a lonely place once again.

Today, Caleb is a pastor. He remembers with awe and wonder what changed everything for him. A church had seen his information in the local classifieds for musicians (Caleb was a drummer) and had called to ask if he’d help out with their music. He did for a little while, figuring even if he didn’t believe in Christianity or the church, it was something good to do. But eventually one of the guys on the music team, Seth, invited him over for dinner. And then again the next week. And the next. “No agenda, no pressure,” Caleb recalls. “Just warm hospitality.” Finally, when Caleb was ready to talk, Seth asked him about his anger with Christianity. The floodgates opened. Caleb had so much resentment that it all came tumbling out. Rather than argue with him, Seth simply nodded and agreed. He said, “I share some of your concerns. I think Jesus does too.” Over time, Caleb came to hear a different gospel than he had before. Not the fearful old story of a punishing judge, but the genuinely good news of a God whose unconditional love was changing everything. Caleb’s heart softened, and he became a follower of Christ.

And not, he insists, because of an argument or a debate. But because of a table.[1]

From Contempt to Compassion

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)

Remember how Paul (previously named “Saul”) used to treat with contempt the people with whom he disagreed? How he “breathed threats and murder” against those Christ-following heretics (Acts 9:1)?

We see a completely different person today. The translation we have, which includes words like “argued” and “debated,” can be a little misleading. The Greek words themselves can also simply mean “discuss” or “converse”—one of the Greek words, symballo, literally means something like “to throw back and forth,” suggesting that the dialogue is a friendly game of conversational catch.

What’s most revealing to me is what Paul says in these games of conversational catch. “He was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18). That is a far cry from “threats and murder” (Acts 9:1). Paul’s transformation in Christ—“it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” he writes in one of his letters (Gal 2:20)—this transformation manifests in a dramatic change of attitude. Toward those with whom he does not see eye to eye, Paul no longer shows contempt. He shows compassion. He no longer breathes curses against them, but blessing.

He desires that they hear the good news of God’s love. 

“It Sounds Rather Strange to Us”

19 So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

What do you think sounded “rather strange” to the Athenians?

I imagine the idea of a crucified God struck them as rather strange. In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul himself acknowledges that the crucified God seems like weakness and foolishness to the world (cf. 1 Cor 1).

The Greek tradition is no stranger to the idea of the divine. Greek mythology is full of gods and goddesses. But they behave very differently than the crucified God. They frequently act like petulant children, impulsive and prideful, putting themselves first and giving little thought to the consequences of their actions. What we learn from the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses, is not unlike what we learn from our popular culture today. Greek mythology teaches lessons like: it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Better to strike than be struck. Better to be feared than loved. If you want peace, get ready for war.

So yeah, when Paul starts proclaiming the good news about a crucified God, whose compassion for the world is so great that he endures death rather than to inflict it on a single soul—I imagine his audience are scratching their heads.

Paul Believes in the Athenians

22    Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as 

unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

Remember how at the start of today’s scripture, Paul was “deeply distressed” by all the idols he saw around him. On top of that, his audience shows perplexion toward his message, referring to it as “strange.” I imagine that the old Paul (which is to say, “Saul”) would have reacted with bitter accusations and denunciations, telling these idol-worshipping Athenians they were godless and destined for God’s wrath.

But this new Paul, transformed by Christ, begins instead with an affirmation, with words that might even be construed as praise: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (Acts 17:22). Some readers think that Paul is cunningly employing a rhetorical strategy. He’s buttering them up, ingratiating himself to them, only so he can pull them more persuasively to his side in just a moment.

But what if his words are no strategy? What if they are genuine? To me, Paul’s affirmation of the Athenians’ religiosity is a beautiful expression of love. Remember how Paul writes about love in his letter to the Corinthians: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7)? Well, here we see Paul believing in the Athenians. Put more colloquially, he’s giving them “the benefit of the doubt.” He believes that they are faithful, even if maybe they have misplaced their faith a little bit. (Paul, after all, is no stranger to misplaced faith, as we might recall from his earlier days as a zealous persecutor of Christ-followers.)

All this to say, Paul builds a bridge between himself and his audience. “We are both people of faith,” he seems to say, before going on—“Let me share a little more about mine.” And then he shares his faith in the one God who created all things.

Pointing to the God Already There

26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

                    ‘For we too are his offspring.’

For me, today’s scripture provides a model for how we as Christ-followers might relate to our surrounding culture. Tragically, the prevailing model today seems to be what is known as “the culture wars,” where the idea is that Christianity is losing ground in our culture and must fight back to preserve its dominance in society. Hence the legal struggles and legislative battles and bitter debate, as Christians seek the force of law to impose their way again on society.

But what we see in Paul is not a denunciation of the surrounding culture nor an argument against its misguidedness, but rather the spirit of a companion who begins by affirming the truth he sees. Paul quotes twice here from Greek tradition, both times to shore up his assertion that God is indeed near.

Paul’s response to culture is neither fight nor flight. Instead it is a patient discernment of where God already is already at work in the culture. Paul points out how God is already present. Paul does not presume to bring God to the Athenians. He has already been at pains to emphasize the misguided idea of idols: no one can hold or handle God. Paul’s role is not to introduce the Athenians to God, but to point out where and how they are already acquainted with God—and to invite them deeper into that relationship.

I can’t help but think here of how Caleb was graciously welcomed into the church. How the friend who hosted him for dinner week after week did not try to change his mind or correct his thinking, but rather how he affirmed the truth of Caleb’s experience and suggested that Christ was already with Caleb in this experience. Perhaps Christ was also disappointed with the superficiality and hypocrisy that Caleb saw in much of the church. Perhaps Christ also wanted something more than that. At that dinner table, Caleb discovered Christ was already with him—and it changed his life.

For the Salvation of the World

29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

It is difficult to read this passage and not immediately imagine a scene of punitive judgment. It is difficult to read this passage and not envisage Caleb’s childhood picture of Christianity, namely “Do what’s right, or God will punish you.”

But I am convinced this is a case of our domesticating scripture according to our own ways. I think that this picture of punitive judgment is one that we humans, who are prone to judge and condemn, have superimposed on scripture. We have made God in our own image. In the gospel of John, Jesus insists, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47), and “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). In other words, when the world is “judged in righteousness” by Jesus, it is not for the condemnation of the world but for its salvation.

The Greek word for judgment (krino) refers literally to a process of discrimination or discernment, a process of determining what is good and bad, of keeping what is good and letting go of what is bad. Christ is judge not as a punisher but as the criterion that shows us what is good and what is bad. The strangeness of Christ (whose vulnerable way of love seems weak and foolish) surprises us: what we thought was bad is good. What we thought was weakness is strength. What we thought was losing is winning. As Caleb discovered in his transformation from neo-Nazi to follower of Christ, it is not power and fear that bring life, but patience and compassion. It is not fistfights and force that bring life, but a table and hospitality.

So when Paul calls his audience to repent, it is not with a threat hanging over their head, but with a promise that pulls them forward. He is not breathing “threats and murder” as he did in his earlier life, but “good news.” And the good news? It’s “rather strange.” A crucified God whose forgiveness covers the sins of the world and brings life from death. A crucified God who comes not with contempt but with compassion, not with condemnation but as a companion. A crucified God whose kingdom gains ground on this world not on a battlefield, but at a table.

It is this God who turns lives upside-down in the best of ways: Paul’s and Caleb’s. Yours and mine.

Prayer 

Christ of the cross,
Christ of the empty tomb,
Who is near to each of us,
Whether we know it or not
…
Grant us eyes to see
Your strange spirit
At work in our world,
And hearts hospitable
To others,
That we might affirm your presence with them already
And share the good news of your love.
Amen.

 

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[1] This story comes from Caleb Campbell, “The Gospel Comes for a Neo-Nazi,” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/05/gospel-neo-nazi-skinhead-christian-nationalism-pastor/, accessed April 27, 2026.

"Shaken Foundations" (Acts 16:16-34)

The Gospel Is Not “Nice”

Years ago, when my dad was sorting through some boxes of old family documents, he came across a newspaper clipping from Memphis, Tennessee, where his grandfather (my great-grandfather) had once served as a pastor. The article reported on a recent demonstration of the Ku Klux Klan. They had staked a cross into the front yard of my great-grandfather and then set it on fire. Apparently his preaching had upset some of the folks in his church, and they’d decided to let him know.

This event reminds me of what Oscar Romero says about the gospel. Oscar Romero, who was the archbishop of El Salvador in the late 70s, spoke frequently in support of the nation’s poor, advocating for their basic rights in the face of a repressive military regime. Romero said: “A church that doesn't provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that? … The gospel is courageous; it’s the good news of him who came to take away the world’s sins.” Less than two years after he preached these words, Romero was assassinated at the Lord’s table (in the middle of communion) by Salvadoran commandos who had been trained at the United States School of Americas.

All this to say, the gospel is not nice. It refuses to play by the rules of this world—not only the obviously wicked rule of things like racism or militarism or xenophobia, but also the rule of cultural values like meritocracy and materialism. The gospel does not abide by the rules of this world that enslave and detract from life. Rather, the gospel upsets the present order of the world. God’s good news for the poor and the homeless and the imprisoned—the folks to whom Jesus first announces good news (Luke 4:18-19)—may well be heard as bad news by some people. By the folks who have plenty and still want more. By the folks who call all the shots and don’t want anyone else at the table. 

Free Publicity

16   One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. 17 While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” 18 She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

Today’s scripture opens with Luke (the author of Acts—hence the use of “we”), Paul, and Silas, on a missionary visit in the Roman colony of Philippi. On the face of things, they are recipients of some free publicity. A fortune-telling slave-girl—presumably a popular figure, as we learn here that she turns a good profit for her owners—follows the missionaries around and announces them to be servants of God who are proclaiming a “way of salvation.” Everything she says is true. In our modern age, this might be comparable to having a commercial on prime-time television, or several young influencers name-dropping you on their social media networks. What’s not to like about this unpaid promotion? Why does Paul put an end to what seems like a profitable arrangement?

To put it simply, Paul sees an evil spirit behind this profitable arrangement. No amount of gospel or god-talk—no amount of truth—can conceal for Paul what’s really going on here, namely the enslavement of an individual. This nameless girl is treated as a commodity, not a person. Her owners use her gift of insight to their own benefit, not hers. If I might do a bit of cultural translation here: when Paul demands that the spirit leave the girl, what he is really denouncing is a spirit of slavery. And lest we think here of slavery as a simple moral issue, as a human shortcoming that we’ve since transcended and consigned to the past, it may help to see it (as the book of Acts sees it) as an issue that is inextricable from economic and social forces. Slavery here is a spirit of greed that puts profits above people, a spirit by which profit is sought at the expense of other people (even under the guise of pious god-talk, even under the guise of the gospel).

Today there’s a lot of talk about the idea that our nation is Christian. Not only does this idea neglect the reality that our founding fathers were fastidious to preserve a separation of church and state, lest the very situation that plagued them in England come to plague them here again; but this idea also ignores the very un-Christ-like economy through which our nation first prospered, namely slavery. There is very little that is Christian about this profitable arrangement in our fledging nation grew. And if such an idea stings, it’s worth asking whence the sting. Could it be the gospel that’s getting under our skin?

Unpatriotic

19   But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. 20 When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews 21 and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23 After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

The city of Philippi learns quickly that the gospel is not nice, that it upsets the proverbial apple cart. And its response is quick and brutal. Because Paul and Silas will not play by the rules of their economy and their society, because Paul and Silas challenge the spirit of slavery that wins profit for some at the expense of others, they are beaten severely and thrown into prison. I want to draw attention to the particular accusation that is made against them, namely that they are “advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe” (Acts 16:21). In plain language, this is the accusation that Paul and Silas are unpatriotic. It remains one of the quickest, surest accusations leveled against anyone who does not play by the demonic rules of a given society. To be sure, pastors and other people who spoke out against slavery in the Confederacy were labeled traitors or turncoats. They were no patriots.

Free Before Their Chains Are Broken

25   About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”

It’s worth remembering that, not long before today’s episode in the book of Acts, it was Paul (then Saul) who was beating and imprisoning others. Now he’s beaten and thrown inside a prison. From a worldly vantage point, Paul’s transformation seems to have been for the worse. It does not pay to follow Christ.

What happens in prison, however, suggests an alternative vantage point for understanding Paul’s new life. The standout moment in today’s scripture is an earthquake that unfastens every prisoner’s chains and opens every locked door. Miraculous, right? “God is good,” a chorus of Christians might proclaim in response to this unexpected turn of events. Paul and Silas were unjustly imprisoned, but God broke them free. Hallelujah, amen.

But look more closely at what happens. Even with their chains undone and the doors unlocked, Paul and Silas do not escape. This is not a jailbreak. They remain for the sake of the jailer. While the businesspeople of Philippi gladly exchange people for profits, Paul and Silas exchange a profitable turn of events for the life of a single person (a person who put them in chains, no less).

So, I wonder if the real miracle happens before the earthquake. I wonder if the real miracle is that, even with their limbs chained and their bodies imprisoned, Paul and Silas are actually already free. Notice what they’re doing before the earthquake. “Praying and singing hymns to God” (Acts 16:25). We read in Paul’s own letters how, even when he’s imprisoned, he gives thanks to God for the opportunities to bring light into the darkness, good news to places of despair (e.g., Phil 1). It would seem he’s doing the same thing in today’s scripture, where the author of Acts tells us that the other prisoners were listening to Paul and Silas as they prayed and sang. Contrary to the mythology of our nation, real freedom is not being able to do whatever one wants to do. It is not the fantasy of endless choice. I think we have enough evidence by now, judging by reports that our citizenry is among the most anxious and depressed in the world, to see that in fact we often become enslaved by our desires, by being able to do whatever we want. Real freedom is not being enslaved by our desires. Real freedom is being able to live well and intentionally whatever the circumstance. Which is what we see in Paul and Silas as they pray and sing in prison. It is almost as though the earthquake becomes but a piece of divine confirmation, showing to everyone else what is already true for Paul and Silas. They are free…even in prison. They are free…not just for their own sake, but for the sake of the people around them still captive to a spirit of slavery.

Transformed

29 The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. 34 He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Just as the risen Christ transforms Paul from a persecutor into a peacemaker, so the risen Christ transforms a jailer who brought harm to others into a host that heals the wounds of others. This is the last we see of the jailer, so we can only wonder how his life unfolds from here. But I imagine that just as Paul and Silas would not play by the rules of a society that put profits over people, a society that understood justice to be imprisonment rather than liberation, so too the jailer once he commits his life to Christ.

In the earliest communities of Christ-followers, new converts were often called to leave behind professions that seemed contradictory to the way of Christ. This included everything from prostitutes to government officials (those who “wore the purple”) to soldiers to merchants selling idols and sacrificial animals. For the early church, following Christ could not be isolated to a private piety, a matter solely of the heart. For the early church, following Christ meant living in God’s kingdom, which meant not playing by the rules of a society that opposed God’s kingdom.

This is admittedly a touchy topic. Generally speaking, our society views today Christianity (and other religions) as a sort of cultural add-on. That is, religion does not change your life so much as it enhances it—just like getting a coffee from Starbucks might enhance your day. But what we read in Acts suggests that following Christ will often entail a sharp divergence from commonly accepted values and practices in whatever society in which one lives. I won’t speculate any further on what those values or practices are, but I would invite you to ponder a bit further for yourself. What are the rules by which our culture plays that do not accord with the kingdom of God? What common ideas or practices invite us to see others as anything less than children of God? Where in our businesses, our governments, our technologies, our entertainment industry—where might we see an evil spirit, a spirit that privileges profits over people, a spirit that accuses rather than affirms, a spirit that prefers punishment or retributionn to restoration?

As Archbishop Romero said, the gospel is the proclamation “of him who came to take away the world’s sins.” We might do well to ponder: where does the gospel touch the sins of our society today? Where might we, like Paul and Silas, be called to refuse to play by the rules? 

Prayer

Christ Jesus,
Whose truth sets us free—
Encourage us,
As you encouraged Paul and Silas,
To object to the rule of sin and death
And to proclaim instead
The unruly rule of your love,
In which we all are your children.
Amen.

"By His Wounds" (Acts 9:1-19a)

The Season of Resurrection

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the children’s sermon in which the pastor patiently plays a guessing game with the circle of children gathered around him. “What’s small and covered with fur and has a big, bushy tail?” Silence. “It climbs in trees.” More silence. “It gathers nuts to prepare for the winter.” Finally a little girl timidly raises her hand. “It sure sounds like a squirrel,” she says, “but I know that the right answer must be Jesus.”

The Easter season is a bit like this little girl’s answer. Easter is the season of resurrection, and so we look for the risen Christ in everything that we see. It is common, of course, to read stories of the risen Jesus himself appearing to his disciples after his crucifixion. (We’ve read two such stories the last two Sundays.) But we don’t stop there. We also read other stories from the New Testament where it becomes clear that the risen Christ lives in his followers. Resurrection is not a reality that ends when Jesus departs. It is a reality that begins…and that grows in the faith of trusting hearts.

Saul the Persecutor

1   Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

When the book of Acts first introduces us to Saul, we find him presiding over the first documented execution of a Christ-follower, the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-8:1). According to the book of Acts, that execution initiates “a severe persecution…against the church” (Acts 8:1). And at the heart of that persecution is Saul, who according to Acts “ravag[es] the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3).

All this to say, Saul seems to be the principal persecutor of the first followers of Christ. He is their chief threat. Public enemy number one.

Christ the Persecuted

3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

In the most literal sense, these words are a contradiction. Paul is not persecuting Jesus; he is persecuting Jesus’ followers.

But that’s just the point for Jesus. He identifies so fully with the human family that when they suffer, he suffers. We heard this already in the gospel of Matthew when Jesus identifies with the “least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46)—the hungry, the homeless, the hurting, the imprisoned. Of course, in today’s story Jesus is referring more specifically to his followers, like Stephen who was recently stoned. Later, Saul-turned-Paul will tell the church that they are “the body of Christ.” It may well be this encounter with the risen Christ that inspires that profound metaphor. Jesus does not ask, “Why do you persecute my followers?” He asks, “Why do you persecute me?” Paul connects the dots to realize that Jesus’ persecuted followers are inextricably a part of Jesus—his “body” here on earth.

“No Body but Ours”?

6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

There’s a popular saying in the Christian tradition, often attributed to Teresa of Avila, that Christ has “no body but ours.” No hands but ours, no feet but ours, no eyes but ours, no voice but ours.

On the face of it, however, today’s story would seem to suggest otherwise. Because the risen Christ intervenes in Saul’s life in a miraculous, seemingly supernatural way, without the aid of our bodies—a blinding light, an unidentified voice. This is not a natural, everyday experience. (If it is, you should probably see a doctor!) It would appear in today’s story Christ can supernaturally do things on his own without our help, without our bodies.

This supernatural view of God, however, has the unfortunate tendency of evicting God from our “natural” world. It leads to the view that there are really two worlds: the “natural” world where we’re left to fend for ourselves and the “supernatural” world (or “heaven” if you’d like) from where God will occasionally stoop down to intervene in our world. At its extreme, this two-worlds view of things is a “pie-in-the-sky” theology. It’s a theology that has lost its nerve, maybe even lost its faith, as it’s unable to see God in this world, unable to trust in the way of God’s non-violent love in this very violent world.

I would like to suggest an alternative, namely a one-world view of things, in which there is no separation between God and the world. In a one-world view, God does not “intervene” in our world. Rather God is continually moving in it, continually “at work in [us]” (as Paul will say in Phil 2:13); God is the one “in [whom] we live and move and have our being” (as Paul says later in Acts 17:28), and God’s great purpose is not an evacuation from one world to another but, as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, the reconciliation of all things in creation to Godself (Col 1:20). In a one-world view, Christ indeed has “no body but ours,” which is really intended to say not that Jesus is gone (although that is true in a bodily sense) but rather that our bodies—this one world—is the only place where Jesus really matters, where Jesus has any real effect.

If everything I’ve said in the last minute or two seems besides (or beyond) the point, then please leave it behind. Because what I really want to say is this: I strongly believe that Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ does not happen on the road to Damascus. It happens before then. It happens, paradoxically, at the execution of Stephen. In Stephen’s fallen body, Saul catches a glimpse of the risen Christ. For me, Stephen’s death is the real miracle, not what happens on the road to Damascus (which I think is just the fulfillment or completion of the real miracle). The real miracle is that when Stephen dies, he does not do so with cries of pain and vengeance but with faith and forgiveness. He is truly a disciple, or “learner,” of Jesus. He dies as Jesus died, entrusting his life to God (“receive my spirit” he prays) and forgiving his executioners (“Lord, do not hold this against them”). These are decidedly not natural words to utter as one dies a violent death. If we insist on talking about the “supernatural” in this story, I would point to Stephen’s death. Only a person who has been thoroughly changed, inside-out, by Jesus, could utter such words.

All this to say, I think Stephen’s radical witness at his death plants a seed in Saul’s heart. Saul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus does not come out of nowhere, out of the blue, out of a miraculous divine intervention from on high. No, I think God has already been “at work in” his heart since the moment he caught a glimpse of the risen Christ in Stephen’s extraordinary faith and forgiveness.

Last week, we saw the risen Christ present his wounds to his followers at the same time that he declared “Peace” to them. Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that today Saul first encounters the risen Christ by his wounds. When on the road to Damascus he hears the voice ask, “Why do you persecute me?”, he is confronted with the wounds of  Christ that he first saw in the wounds of Stephen, wounds that he himself administered. And those wounds become an invitation, an open door, into a radically different way of life. For in those wounds he caught a glimpse of God’s way—not force, but forgiveness; not retribution, but peace.

Christ Risen in Another Disciple

10   Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, 

“Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

If Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ begins with Stephen, then his next encounter with the risen Christ happens with Ananias. The book of Acts privileges us with a glimpse inside Ananias’ heart prior to his visit with Saul. In a vision, Ananias feels compelled by Christ to go lay hands on Saul to heal his loss of sight. From where does this vision, this calling come? Again, I don’t think it comes out of nowhere. I don’t think it’s a supernatural intervention from another world. What’s “supernatural” in this event is not the vision but the very notion of approaching public enemy number one to touch him tenderly so that he might be healed. By our world’s logic, Ananias would have had every right to think that Saul’s blindness was an act of God’s justice, a bit of karma, his evil deeds finally catching up with him. “Serves him right,” the world would say.

But like Stephen, Ananias is a disciple or “learner” of Jesus, who has been so thoroughly transformed by the Jesus way that he has left behind the worldly notions of retributive justice, of God as punishing judge. In Paul’s later language, we might say Ananias had “died” to the world—to its way of seeing “us versus them,” its way of judging and condemning. What we see in Ananias is not the world but the risen Christ. His vision is no out-of-the-blue-divine intervention; it is simply the blossoming of what was already in his heart, namely that as a follower of Christ he would pray for his persecutors and love his enemies.

How the Church “Fights” Its Enemies

17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Just to make the contrast as stark as possible: Saul pursued his enemies with threats and violence. He approved of their execution.

Ananias approaches his enemy—public enemy number one—and addresses him, “Brother.”

One commentator muses that today’s scripture shows us how the church “fights” its enemies. The world fights with fists, with swords, with guns. The body of Christ “fights” with tender touch, with trust, with care.

Paul’s “Conversion”: Persecutor to Peacemaker

Readers have traditionally labeled today’s story “the conversion of Saul.” In one sense, this label is misleading. It suggests that Saul (who becomes Paul) went from being a Jew to a Christian. But Saul does not abandon his Jewish faith. Rather he comes to reinterpret his Jewish faith in light of Jesus, who was himself a Jew. At this stage in history, there is no such thing as Christianity. There is simply a movement of Jesus-followers, most of whom are Jewish. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to see this movement as a sect within Judaism, just like the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the zealots.

So, no, Paul’s conversion is not a case of switching sides, of swapping jerseys, of moving from “Team Jewish” to “Team Jesus.” His conversion demands much more of him than simply ticking a different box for religion on the census form. Think about it for a moment. Simply switching sides would not have necessarily entailed a different way of life. Paul could have switched sides but continued playing the same game. He could have decided this Jesus fellow was right, and everyone else needed to be forced—by hook or crook—into the same camp. He could have continued breathing threats and violence, just against a new enemy.

But he doesn’t. His conversion is deeper. More profound. This is not the tale of how Saul the Jew became Paul the Christian. It’s the story of how Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the peacemaker. Because if you think about it, that’s what Paul becomes in the early church. Not only does let go of his violent ways, but he also proclaims the reconciliation of all creation into the family of God: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Of Christ, he proclaims: “He is our peace; … he … has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Eph 2:14).

And Paul’s “conversion” begins in the weirdest, seemingly weakest of ways. It begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in the executed Stephen who nevertheless proclaims forgiveness upon his executors; it begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in Ananias, who as part of the wounded body of Christ receives him in a tender embrace and calls him “brother.”

There is a prophecy from Isaiah that the early church cited time and again about a mysterious figure known as the “suffering servant.” One such citation actually appears in the story that immediately precedes today’s (Acts 8:32-33). Isaiah insists that somehow this suffering servant’s wounds will heal us all: “By his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). In today’s scripture, I see just such a healing. The wounds of Christ transform Saul, snapping him out of his distorted, worldly thinking, and showing him a different way, God’s patient way of mercy and forgiveness.

Saul’s real conversion—not from Jew to Christian, but from persecutor to peacemaker—suggests just how radical the Jesus way is. Think about the worldly logic that prevails today, from the schoolyard to the world stage. It’s stuff like “survival of the fittest,” and “it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and “the one with the most toys at the end wins,” and “better to be feared than loved.” It’s the worship of power. That’s the logic the young Saul followed. (You could be a Jew or a Muslim or a Christian and underneath your religion this is what you really believe. There are plenty of religious people who really believe in this worldly logic of power.) But the logic of the wounded yet risen Christ is antithetical to this worldly logic. It’s stuff like “blessed are the poor and the meek,” stuff like “God will provide,” stuff like “love is better than life” (to quote a psalm), stuff like “all of life is a gift.” In a word, it’s the worship of Love, which is another name for God. (“God is Love” as John says).

The wounds of Christ show us—as they showed Paul—not only the hurtful consequences of our worldly logic. They also show us the way of God…and the way we are healed, if we would believe it.

Prayer

Crucified and risen Christ,
Whose woundedness offers us
An invitation into your healing love
…
Work in our hearts
As you worked in Paul’s,
That we might be
Not conformed to this world
But transformed by the renewing of our mind.
Lead us in the way of your mercy. Amen.

The Story of a Scar (John 20:19-31)

Not a Safe Bet

There once was a young man who fell in love. After some time, he began to wonder about marriage. But he agonized over the idea. How could he know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his beloved was in fact “the one”? So, one day he visited his father and asked, “How can I know if she’s the one?”

His father chuckled, shook his head, and said: “You can’t.”

“What do you mean?” the son asked. “Didn’t you know Mom was the one?”

His father shook his head and said, “Love is not something you know. It’s not a safe bet. It’s something you do, come hell or high water. If I had known everything that would have happened between your mother and me, then marriage wouldn’t have been such a big decision. It would have been about as big a decision as where we’re going to eat dinner tonight. In other words, we know exactly what we’re going to get at each restaurant. But when I asked your mother to marry me…I had no idea what was coming.”

Over the next hour, the young man’s father opened up and shared about several disappointments. He shared how, in moments of misunderstanding, he and his wife had said and done hurtful things, things that had since been forgiven but could never be forgotten. He shared how their desires for the future sometimes conflicted and how they had both given up on some of their own dreams. He shared how raising children and caring for parents had placed a heavy tax on their own time together.

His father said, “No…I had no idea what I was getting into. There’s been a lot of joy, but there’s also been a lot of hurt…hurt that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. If you look closely enough, you’ll see that this marriage has a number of scars.” He paused here, with a pensive look. Then his face relaxed, and he said, “But a scar is not just a wound. It is a wound that has been healed. And what heals a wound…is love. Every scar that we bear is a story of our love.”

“Love is not a safe bet,” he concluded. “It’s not something you know. It’s something you do. And it changes you, and it changes the world.”

The Desire for Certainty

Today’s scripture is well known particularly for its depiction of a single character, Thomas. “Doubting Thomas,” as he is now known in teh Christian tradition. We all have a little sympathy for Doubting Thomas, because we can all relate to the desire for proof. “Seeing is believing,” as we sometimes say. Or as our youth might exclaim, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen!” But even as we might reserve a little private sympathy for Thomas, we recoil from him too. “Oh, they’re just a Doubting Thomas,” we might say to describe someone who expresses reservations or has not fully committed to an idea. No one wants to be singled out as a Doubting Thomas. We would prefer to be grouped with the other disciples.

But today I wonder: are the other disciples really any different than Thomas? Remember, they have already heard the good news from Mary Magdalene that Jesus is risen. But where we do find them? Behind locked doors. They are too afraid even to leave the house. At this stage, they are just like Thomas. They have heard the good news that love is stronger than death, but they do not trust in it. Just like Thomas, they desire certainty.

Thomas desires the certainty of knowledge, the certainty of proof. “Unless I…put my finger in the mark of the nails…” (John 20:25). The rest of the disciples desire the certainty of safety, the certainty of locked doors and known quantities. They are holed up in a small space, “for fear” of other people, John says (John 20:19). Thomas and the disciples are the same. What characterizes their doubt is the desire for certainty. They both want to know—to know that they will be safe, to know that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

When Jesus speaks to Thomas, he does not chastise him or any of the other disciples for doubting. Jesus is human, after all. I imagine he sympathizes with their natural reflexes of fear and doubt. Instead of chastising them, Jesus simply reminds them all that real blessing is to be found not in certainty but in faith, in trust: “Have you believed [trusted] because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe [trust].” (John 20:29).

A Brief Aside: Of Weddings and Bets

It’s a little bit like the father’s advice to his son, who desires the certainty of knowing that his beloved is “the one.” The father suggests that this desire for certainty misses the point. Love is not about a safe bet. It’s not about knowing what you’re getting. Love is something you do, not something you know.

I find it extremely fascinating that our word “wedding” actually derives from the same root as our word “bet.” In a very real sense, love—whether it’s love that leads to a wedding or just love for your family or your neighbor or your friend—is a bet. But unlike modern gambling, where bets are made on the outcome of things far outside the realm of our responsibility, love is a bet that we ourselves strive to make good on, that we ourselves strive to make true. That it’s a risky bet is made plain in the traditional vows: “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health….” In other words, this is a bet where we don’t know the material outcome, we don’t have certainty over how things will pan out. But we make the bet anyway because—and this is the wager—we trust that however things unfold, it will be worth it because love is worth it. It boils down to our trust in the way of love. As followers of Christ, we bet—we stake our lives—we trust that love is worth it.

Empowered, Not to Know but to Love

There’s a curious pattern in today’s scripture. Jesus repeatedly does the same two things. He shows his scars, and he says, “Peace be with you.” He does this first with the disciples, and then again with Thomas. What is going on with this demonstration? I wonder if it is a response to the disciples’ desire for certainty. He shows his scars not only as evidence of his identity, but as evidence that love is indeed a risky, uncertain thing. “Here’s what you can expect,” he seems to say. Yet he follows it with a stunning proclamation, “Peace be with you.” In other words: “You have nothing to fear. Look, I was wounded. But these wounds have been healed. They are scars now. Trust me. Love can bear the pain, and it can transform it.”

Jesus is empowering his disciples. But he’s not empowering them as knowers, as people who can plan and calculate and be secure in everything they do. He’s empowering them as lovers, as risky agents of love who can heal and transform the wounds of the world. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he says, meaning that he is sending them outside their locked doors into a perilous world of power struggles and hurt feelings and crucifixion. It’s not that God does not care for them or their safety, but that God cares for the world and has empowered them to help the world in the same way that Jesus has helped the world. When Jesus breathes on them, on this first day of the week, he is doing the same thing that God did at the beginning of creation. He is empowering them with the divinely creative spirit. God empowered Adam, the earth creature, to become a partner in caring for creation. Jesus empowers his followers to become partners in a new creation, companions in welcoming the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

And right after he breathes on them, he reminds them of their secret power as agents of love. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). Forgiveness is the strongest demonstration of love. It is what turns wounds into scars. It is risky, and it is messy, and it is the only way our world will ever be healed. If we only ever stay behind locked doors or do what is a safe bet, if we never risk love for others because of all the liabilities that it entails, if we never take the risk of love, the wounds of our world will only fester and we will be further and further divided against every potential threat or difference. And worse, we will never know real love and real life.

The good news of the risen Christ, is that love can bear the pain that it will encounter, and indeed it can heal it. Wounds can become scars that tell the story of love. If it’s difficult to see this in the risen Christ, then perhaps we can begin with stories closer to us, which are no less real and reflective of God’s love. Perhaps we can look at the saints around us—maybe our parents, or good friends, or mentors—whose love was indeed wounded and yet jubilant and undefeated. For like Jesus, they show us their scars, not as warnings, but as reassurances of love’s power. Like Jesus, they can say, “Peace be with you” as we leave the locked doors and embark on the risky way of love.

Prayer

Wounded God,
Whose love is not a safe bet,
Sometimes we, like the disciples, are afraid.
Sometimes we desire the certainty
Of knowledge or safety
…
Help us to see your scars
As emblems of healing.
Inspire us to trust in your love and forgiveness
And to be agents of your healing.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

"Supposing Him to Be the Gardener" (John 20:1-18)

Self-Limiting Beliefs 

I recently heard the story of a young man in his 20s who runs into an emergency room with a pill bottle in his hands. He collapses on the floor just as he arrives, and the medical staff hurry to pick him up. Amid his gasping, he exclaims, “I took all the pills, I took all the pills!” They rush him to an operating room to observe him. His vital signs are poor. Blood pressure dangerously low. Heart rate failing. They think it must be a case of overdose.

The doctor looks at the pill bottle to see what he’s taken, but there’s no information on the label. The young man mumbles that the pills were given to him in a drug trial. So the doctor calls the people who are running the trial and asks, “What was in those pills? We need to know so we can help this young man get better.” The researchers ask for his name. After a long pause, they respond, “Oh…he was in the placebo group. There’s nothing in those pills.” Dumbfounded, the doctor returns to the operating room and informs the young man. And within fifteen minutes, his blood pressure, his heartbeat—all his poor vital signs—have returned to normal.

It’s a rather extreme example of a rather common truth. What we believe determines what we experience. The student who believes he’s not a good learner and is destined to fail…he doesn’t study and then fails. The woman caught in an abusive relationship who believes that she’s somehow to blame for the abuse…she stays trapped in the destructive cycle. The young man growing up in the projects who believes he’ll never be able to get a “real” job…he settles for life in a gang, selling drugs.

Is Life Cyclical?

In the ancient world, people understood our experience in cyclical terms rather than linear. What that means is, they saw time as a circle. They saw that things are always repeating themselves. And so ancient mythology is filled with stories that explain these cycles. There are stories explaining the cycle of the seasons, why spring follows winter, and fall follows summer. There are stories explaining the stages of human life, how birth and growth give way to decline and death, how sons and daughters take the place of fathers and mothers. There are stories explaining the cycles of empires, how they rise and fall. The common denominator in all these myths is one simple idea: life repeats itself.

It’s not too difficult to see how this ancient way of understanding our experience persists today. As the self-limiting beliefs provided in the earlier examples suggest, we tend to see ourselves as bound by the patterns of our life, destined to repeat our past. I have a Buddhist friend from Burma who likes to say that we humans are like clay. At the very beginning of our lives, we can be molded and shaped. But as we get older, the patterns of our lives seem to fix in place, getting more and more rigid.

Perhaps we can notice this in the some of the self-limiting beliefs that we tell ourselves: “I’m just a procrastinator,” some of us might say, and so we proceed to procrastinate. Or “I’ve missed the boat” on this or that, some of us might say, and so we give up on an old dream. Or “the system is rigged—why even bother?” some of us might say, and so we resign ourselves to the status quo. Just as the ancient myths tell us that life repeats itself, so our own self-limiting beliefs keep us trapped in a cycle.

Gardens

There are so many things that could be said about Easter. Today, I want to narrow our focus to one element that we find only in the gospel of John. In other words, John has something special to say about resurrection that none of the other gospels do.

It all begins before the crucifixion. We find Jesus in a garden. He could flee if he wanted. He knows what’s coming. But he doesn’t. After he is crucified, we find Jesus in a garden again, this time being buried in a tomb. And then finally this morning, we have Mary mistaking Jesus for a gardener. Now, none of the other gospels make any mention of a garden in any of these scenes. Only John. So what’s going on? Why this emphasis on gardens?

If you’ll remember, John’s gospel begins differently than the other gospels. While Matthew and Luke begin with the birth of Jesus, and Mark with the beginning of his ministry, John goes all the way back to the beginning of everything. “In the beginning was the Word,” John intones, taking us all the way back to when God created everything that is in the heavens and on the earth. And if you’ll remember, in the beginning…was a garden. The world as God intended it. A landscape of care, where everything we needed was provided, and where God entrusted us to care and provide for the earth around us. God entrusted us to be “gardeners” in a broad sense. Gardeners with God. Remember that—God created us to be gardeners who would care and provide for the earth around us.

Of course, we know how that story ends. Adam and Eve do not trust God entirely and seek instead to be in control of things. Their overreach results in a catastrophic breakdown of relationships: between each other, between them and God, between them and the earth. This episode comes to be known in both Jewish and Christian traditions as “the fall,” in which humanity is put under a “curse.” As though we’re doomed to live in conflict. Doomed to live in alienation. Doomed to live in hard, fruitless labor. In one sense, this “curse” that we see at the beginning of our story comes to define our story, to limit it. All those self-limiting beliefs, all those self-accusations—I’ll never break free from this habit, I’ll always be rejected when it matters, I’ll always fall short at the end—are just part of the larger circle of sin that we believe ourselves doomed to repeat.

But another way to read the story of what happens in the garden of Eden—and “Eden” by the way, is just a word that means delight, so that the original garden is a garden of delight—another way to read what happens in the garden is to recognize that the conflict and alienation and hardship that follow from humanity’s failure to trust God is not so much a curse as a consequence. God simply tells the humans the results of their lack of trust—how life will be when they do not live in God’s care and in care for one another.

In fact, the rest of the biblical story can be read as God’s attempt to restore the garden, to renew the original paradise that humanity enjoyed with God and all creation. What else is the story of Abraham, whom God charges to be a blessing so that all the families of the earth might be blessed, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? What else is the story of Israel, whom God charges to be a holy people modeling the way of God for all the world, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? The problem is that humanity seems to believe itself doomed. It seems to believe itself destined to repeat the past. To live a life outside the garden.

All the Difference

The good news according to John is much more than a tale of isolated resuscitation. It’s much more than a single heroic figure, rising up from the ashes. For John, the resurrection is absolutely cosmic in scope. It changes the narrative completely. It changes the story the world has been telling itself. When Mary encounters the risen Jesus in the garden, her mistaking him to be the gardener is no mistake. It’s part of John’s message: in Christ, we have returned to the garden.

That ancient, deeply engrained way of thinking—that life is cyclical, that we are doomed to repeat the patterns of the past, that we are trapped in a cycle of sin—that way of thinking that has us rushing into the emergency room like that young man, thinking we’re on death’s doorstep…that way of thinking is ruptured in the garden that first Easter morning. It’s no coincidence that Paul refers to Jesus as “the last Adam.” Whereas the first Adam led us onto a path that we felt doomed to repeat, forgoing God’s care in order to wrest what control we could over our surroundings, Jesus as “the last Adam” has broken the cycle and brought us back to the garden. In Jesus—whom Mary supposed to be the gardener—humanity has a clear path, a clear way, to return to being who we are created to be. “Gardeners.” Not just in the literal sense, but in the full sense of people who live in and care for the life of the world around them.

Early Christian paintings and depictions of the resurrection regularly show the risen Christ in a garden paradise, Adam in one hand and Eve in the other. The message is clear: Christ has restored us to paradise. Not just later, in some afterlife, but now, if we would have eyes to see it. These paints show sheep, doves, shrubs, streams of water, starry skies. And at the center: Christ. The good news of Easter is that Christ is alive, and all the world in him. Christ leads us back to the garden.

As we saw with that young man who rushed into the hospital, convinced that his life was ebbing away, the story that we believe about ourselves and the world may make all the difference between life and death. If we believe ourselves doomed to repeat the past…then we very likely will. But in the risen Christ, we discover that our stories of doom are misplaced. God never wanted us out of the garden. In Christ, we receive God’s clear invitation to return.

Friends, wherever you are in life this Easter morning, please hear this good news: we are not doomed to a circle of sin and suffering. Life is not destined to repeat itself. There is a way back to the goodness of life that sometimes seems so distant.

And it all begins with the risen Christ, who restores us to be the “gardeners” we were always meant to be.

Prayer

Loving God,
Who does not leave us doomed
To repeat the patterns of the past
…
May the risen Christ inspire us
To see your garden of paradise in our midst
And to live as your gardeners
In the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

In whose spirit we pray: Amen.

Into Our Hands (John 19:23-30)

Today is called Maundy Thursday because traditionally on this day the church has reflected on the final “mandate” that Jesus left his followers. (“Mandate” is where the word “Maundy” originates. You can hear the similarity: “Mandate”...“Maundy.”) A simpler way to think about Maundy Thursday is that it is Jesus’ last lesson. The last “mandates” he gives to his disciples. Typically on Maundy Thursday we read the story of the Last Supper, where Jesus issues several instructions, or “mandates.” Such as when he gets on his own knees and washes his followers’ feet and tells them to do the same. Or when he says “Love one another as I have loved you” (cf. John 13).

But the Narrative Lectionary, the scripture calendar we’re following, invites us this year to read a different set of mandates. Tonight, instead of reading about the Last Supper, we read about Jesus’ last words on the cross. While this breaks with longstanding tradition, it is not entirely without reason. If Maundy Thursday is meant to be about Jesus’ last lesson, his final mandates, then we might indeed look to the cross. Death often reveals the truest character of a person’s life. On the cross, Jesus is not serenely reading from a script. He’s not following a lesson plan he drew up the night before. On the cross, we see Jesus’ most natural reflexes.

When on the cross Jesus beholds his mother and the disciple whom he loves, two of his most cherished companions, he sees beyond the despair of the present moment to the new family that God is creating, a family defined not by blood but by love. And so he says, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” Which is another way of saying, “In the kingdom of God, we all belong to one another. Like family.” It is not a coincidence that the earliest Christ-followers were frequently accused of living a promiscuous lifestyle. Outsiders could not otherwise understand how it was that people from such different backgrounds of race and class and occupation could regularly come together and care for each other. They could not understand this new family.

Jesus next “last word” is in fact a single “word” in the Greek: “I thirst.” It is a remarkable thing to me, that as Jesus dies, he does not despair of his incredible pain and wish for a quicker death. Instead, he clings on desperately to life, even as he knows it will soon be gone. “I thirst” is a way for Jesus to say—despite all the evil he has encountered, despite all the pain: “I want to live. Life is good. I want more of it!” And is it any surprise that Jesus would say this?  He could never conceal his love for this life.  When he told stories, all he could talk about was this life: the serenity of birds, the beauty of wild flowers, the sun and the rain that fall on us all; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts.  On the cross, Jesus was not looking forward to heaven.  He was insisting that heaven had come to earth—was this not his life’s prayer? (Matt 6:10).  He was insisting, despite all appearances, that this life already contains all the goodness of God’s love.

Jesus’ final “word”—“It is finished”—should be heard in the same register as an artist pronouncing the completion of his masterpiece, or a composer declaring her satisfaction upon writing down the final note of her song. In other words, “it is finished” is Jesus’ defiant pronouncement that this death is not about defeat and suffering. Rather it is the ultimate act or deed in his life’s work—the finishing touch to his masterpiece. It is the capstone, the final achievement, completing and fulfilling all that has preceded it. Popular theology has frequently made the cross out to be part of some sacrificial equation, which stipulates that Jesus must die so we can live. This leaves us with some disturbing implications, such as a God who demands the blood of his own child, which in our world we would call “child abuse.” But what I read in this passage is not the outworking of some complicated sacrificial equation. The cross is a symbol not of mortal suffering but of an immortal love. As Jesus himself put it earlier in the gospel: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

The word “mandate” literally means something like “given into one’s hands.” To give a mandate is effectively to say, “It’s in your hands now. I have done what is mine to do, but I cannot do what is yours.” If that sounds rather bleak and lonely, well—I suppose that’s how Jesus’ followers felt when they saw Jesus on the cross. I suppose it’s how we all feel from time to time when it seems we are up against it all on our own. Maybe we feel this loneliness when a loved one or we ourselves receive a troubling prognosis. Or when we see injustice and suffering in our world. Or when our own plans fall to pieces and we can’t see a way forward. Is this difficulty and grief ours alone to bear? Is Maundy Thursday saying it’s all in our hands now, it’s all up to us?

Far from it. Jesus’ last words—his final lesson—are not without hope. First, he gives us to one another, reminding us of our divine heritage and that we are all brothers and sisters in God’s family. We do not walk alone. No burden is ours to bear alone when we live in God’s family. Next, he affirms the goodness of life no matter how dark things get, inviting us to see God’s gracious hand in all creation and to treasure life’s many gifts and to “thirst” for what is good. And lastly, he insists that the cross is not his passive defeat, but in fact the crowning demonstration of his love, the final touch to his masterpiece of a life, a witness to the way God works in the world—not by overpowering force, but by a love that endures to the end.

"Hosanna!" (John 19:16b-22)

“What Is God’s Job Description?”

Within the previous church whom I served, there was a woman named Lu. (She passed away a few weeks ago and has been on my mind lately.) Lu’s mind was as sharp as a tack and her heart as soft as a sponge. She cared deeply for the needful, especially for the homeless and the hungry, and she readily swatted away all of the easy excuses that people give to justify the reality of poverty and to ease their own conscience. Lu had little patience for people who wouldn’t acknowledge the plight of those less fortunate. But when I first met Lu, the person with whom she had the least patience…was God.

I still remember how Lu confronted me after an early sermon. “I really wish,” she said exasperatedly, “someone could tell me what God’s job description is.” Lu had grown up in the church, where she had learned to see God as a divine butler. She recounted her experience as an editor for a religious journal, where she once read a pastor explain the importance of praying as specifically as possible. The pastor wrote, for example, that if a people prayed for rain but did not specify the amount of rain that their fields needed, then they might experience a drought. This pastor also explained their righteousness factored into the equation. If they’d been living sinfully, then God might not hear their prayers.

This picture of a divine butler really troubled Lu. She could not reconcile it with her experience. See, Lu had a father who had a crippling form of mental illness and ended up living on the streets. He had a childlike faith and prayed regularly, trusting that God would provide for his needs. But what Lu saw, was a God who didn’t listen, who didn’t respond. If God really was this divine butler she’d been taught to believe in, then he was pretty miserable at his job.

Hence her question: “Just what is God’s job description?”

Living Up to His Name

Today is Palm Sunday. The Narrative Lectionary—the scripture-reading calendar that we’re following this year—has already advanced in the gospel of John well beyond Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which is the main event of Palm Sunday. In fact, it has led us to the beginning of the crucifixion.

But not entirely without reason. The beginning of the crucifixion in John echoes with the cries of Palm Sunday. In fact, the gospel of John sees the two events as inextricably linked. Notice how in today’s text the main theme is Jesus’ kingship. Pilate makes a sign that reads, “Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews” (John 19:19). But then the religious leaders protest that it should read instead “This man said, I am the king of the Jews” (John 19:21). If we look back to Palm Sunday, however, we see that it is not Jesus proclaiming his own kingship. Rather it is the crowd of people welcoming him to Jerusalem who shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the king of Israel!” (John 12:13).

All this talk in today’s scripture about Jesus as “king of the Jews” points back to Palm Sunday. It points back, specifically, to the people’s expectations of Jesus. They see him as a king. Their shouts of “Hosanna” are literally a cry for Jesus to live up to his own name (John 12:13). In Hebrew, hosanna comes from the same root as the name Jesus (or Yeshua), the root yasha, which means “to save.” The na on the end of hosanna is an additional particle that conveys a sense of urgency, similar to the words “now!” and “please!” in English. So when the people proclaim Jesus to be “King of Israel,” they’re doing so with the expectation that he’s going to live up to his name, that he’s going to make good on his job description—that he’s going to “save” them…now!

What Is “Salvation”?

But what is “salvation?” How do the people expect to be saved? Remember, this is the day before the Passover celebration. Many of the people in the crowd have journeyed tens, even hundreds, of miles to gather in Jerusalem to commemorate when God delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. I imagine their expectations for salvation are for a repeat performance, a Passover: Part Two, a miraculous deliverance from the Roman occupying forces. Perhaps some of the people gathered have also witnessed or at least heard about some of the extraordinary healings and feedings that Jesus has accomplished, and they expect more such accomplishments—just on a social or political level. Whatever their expectations are exactly, I think it’s safe to say that they are imagining salvation in this life rather than in some afterlife. When Jesus tells Martha that her brother Lazarus will rise again, she responds that she knows he will rise on the last day (John 11:24); her concern is the here and now. In the biblical mindset, the ancient Jewish mindset, salvation is for this world, this life.

Popular Christian thought has largely deferred or postponed salvation to a later time and place—a heavenly afterlife when everything will be fixed. Salvation still rests on the expectation of some desired result; it’s just that the desired result has been delayed or pushed back. In one sense, this postponement of salvation results in a very weak or anemic faith. For some Christians, Jesus “saves,” but not until you die. Before then, you’d be better off trusting in your own savings account than in Jesus’ saving you. Before then, you’d be better off learning to wield the sword than to bear the cross.

But whether we think of salvation as something that happens in this life (as people in the Bible do), or as something that happens in the next (as many Christians do), we humans seem to take it for granted that what “salvation” really amounts to is an expected outcome or result. God’s job description is that of a divine butler, a holy fixer, who ultimately gives us what we want.

Not What We Expect

Whatever else the cross does, it firmly dispels any simplistic notions of God as a divine genie who grants our wishes. In Christ on the cross, we discover that God’s salvation does not look anything like our great expectations.

It’s worth noting that when Jesus first shares with his disciples the news that he will eventually be crucified, he also issues an invitation: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). In other words, the cross is not something that Jesus bears so we don’t have to. It is, rather, an experience in which Jesus invites us to participate. It is a way of living. (For this reason, the earliest Christ-followers were called not Christians, but members of “The Way.”) Jesus describes the way of the cross as the way of salvation, saying, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who [take up their cross and] lose their life for the sake of the good news will save it” (Mark 8:35).

I find the wisdom of the Desert Tradition especially instructive for how we understand salvation. (By “the Desert Tradition,” I refer to the third and fourth century movement, in which many followers of Christ fled society to practice their faith in the wilderness—in large part because they saw Christianity becoming domesticated by its increasing collaboration with the Roman empire.) There is much conversation in the Desert Tradition about “salvation.” A novice or beginner in the faith will often approach their elder (their abba or amma) with the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Not once does the elder respond with that well-known line from Paul, favored among many contemporary evangelicals, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Instead they offer practical instructions that are tailored to the individual and that invite them to live more fully in the way of Christ, which is the way of the cross. Listen to a few of their responses: “If you want to be saved, whenever you go to see anybody do not speak until he asks you something.” “Sit in your cell, and if you are hungry, eat, if you are thirsty, drink; only do not speak evil of anyone, and you will be saved.” “Like the dead, take no account of the scorn of men or their praises, and you can be saved.” “Do no evil to anyone, and do not judge anyone. Observe this and you will be saved.” “If you observe the following you will be saved: ‘Be joyful at all times! Pray without ceasing! And give thanks for all things!’”

As I read today’s scripture and reflect on God’s strange salvation, I hear Lu asking her question, “Just what is God’s job description?” The cross suggests that it’s nothing like our expectations. On the cross, Jesus does not give us what we want: namely, control. He gives us what we need: namely, love. And it’s not a transaction, as though our account has received a credit, as much as it is an invitation, as though we are being invited to dance, to give as we have received. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

The beauty (and irony) of Lu’s life is that, even as she frequently voiced her doubts and protests against the divine butler “God” whom she’d been taught, she embodied a faith in the crucified God. Which is to say, she walked the way of the cross, putting love of others before her need for control. In her words, Lu was always contesting a God she didn’t really believe in; but in her deeds, she gave flesh to her true faith—her trust in a God who does not control things but rather cares for all creatures. Always mindful of the plight of her homeless father, she poured her life into ministering to the homeless. She was  a shining example of a motto popular among the earliest Christ-followers in northern Africa, who regularly said, “We do not speak great things. We live them.”

What is God’s job description? I think it is nowhere clearer than on the cross, where Christ relinquishes all control and loves us to the end.

Prayer

Christ Jesus,
To whom we cry, “Hosanna! Save us please!”
…
Grant us eyes to see the cross
Not as the frustration of our expectations
But as the way of your love,
Which is redeeming all things.
Amen.