Monday, April 28, 2025

Sermon: In the Breaking of the Bread

First Presbyterian Church

April 27, 2025, Easter 2C

Luke 24:13-35

 

In the Breaking of the Bread

 

 

One of the characteristic features of Luke’s gospel is that Jesus and the disciples spend an awful lot of time at the dinner table or otherwise gathered around food.

More broadly one could argue – and at least one author has – that one of the underlying themes of the gospel is hospitality – both the ways in which Jesus sought to minister to those around them through the practice of welcome, the practice of enabling others to feel “at home” in his presence, and the ways in which such hospitality was (or was not) extended towards Jesus – whether Jesus was made welcome or not. 

But the specific hospitality context of a meal does come up awfully frequently in Luke’s gospel. There are at least ten different accounts in Luke in which the action taking place is either a meal, or is something that takes place in the context of a meal; six of those stories are unique to Luke, not found in any of the other gospels. In addition, another seven accounts in Luke feature meals or eating or food in the context of Jesus’s teaching to the crowds or to the disciples, or sometimes in the context of conflict with the religious authorities, such as the incident in which Jesus’s disciples were criticized for plucking and eating heads of grain on the Sabbath.

So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that the first appearance of the risen Christ that Luke records in his gospel features a meal as its turning point.

We start on the road, though. Two of Jesus’s followers – not among the twelve, but clearly followers who had been with Jesus for some time – were, for reasons we don’t know, walking from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus. 

This is on the third day. We find out later that this is after the women have come back from the empty tomb, as recorded in the first part of this chapter, but at this point no one has actually seen Jesus. We have accounts from the women of the tomb being empty, but no sign of the risen Christ.

We hear that these two men, one of whom will be called Cleopas a few verses later, are talking about “all these things that had happened.” We tend to presume that “all these things” are those events that happened in Jesus’s last week in Jerusalem, particularly from the Last Supper forward through the crucifixion. It might also have included that curious report from the women and Peter, who each went to Jesus’s tomb and saw it empty. 

Whatever their subjects of discussion, they were so caught up in them that they didn’t notice the man who had caught up with them from behind. (Remember, we know it’s Jesus, but they don’t.) When he asks what they’re talking about, the two followers act as if it should have been impossible for anyone in Jerusalem to have missed the events surrounding Jesus and his crucifixion. They recite those events to him (again, not recognizing that it is Jesus), including the odd reports about the empty tomb. In doing so they reveal, in the words “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” that after all this time they might not have truly understood just what it was for Jesus to be the Messiah – not the military conqueror, but indeed a suffering servant and a true spiritual redeemer of Israel and of all. 

It is this that Jesus picks up on and expounds upon as he begins to teach them, one more time, how all the things that he had said and done had been “necessary.” Going all the way back to Moses and working through all the law and the prophets he proclaims to them once again how all of his life and his teaching and, yes, his suffering and death, had been “necessary.”

What happens next, as the two travelers come to their destination, demonstrates that for all that the two disciples might have forgotten or misunderstood, they had remembered one thing, perhaps the most important thing. They had remembered how Jesus taught and showed them how to be his followers.

They remembered the table.

Not just the table at which Jesus had only days before broken bread and poured a cup and talked about his body and blood, and kept using words like “do this in remembrance of me.” Surely they remembered that one, but they remembered all those other meals and all those other tables – the one with five thousand fed by just a few loaves and fish; the one at Zacchaeus’s house, where a skinflint tax collector suddenly started making alternate plans for the distribution of his estate; the banquet at the home of another tax collector, Levi, who had dropped his whole business at a word to follow Jesus; the evening at the home of Mary and Martha, with Martha fussing over every detail while Mary presumed to sit at Jesus’s feet with the other disciples.

They remembered, and they wouldn’t let the stranger go without breaking bread with them.

The rest of the story is fairly familiar; the stranger, the guest, takes over as host and breaks the bread – I know that breaking of the bread – that’s Jesus! – only for him to disappear from his sight; the rushed return to Jerusalem, where the disciples tell them about Jesus appearing to Simon (we tend to assume they’re speaking of Peter, but we don't know for sure); and then, in the remainder of the chapter beyond this reading, Jesus himself appearing before them and teaching them, one last time. 

In the breaking of the bread they recognized Jesus, yes; but it was in Cleopas and the other disciple reaching out to the stranger, inviting them into their own meal and their own room and sharing their resources with him, that Jesus was welcomed and able to break the bread. 

One is reminded of the stories from Genesis, how Abraham and Sarah unwittingly entertained angels and even Yahweh himself in welcoming the stranger. We are also reminded of Jesus’s own words in Matthew 25, that what we do (or don’t do) for or to “the least of these,” we do to Jesus himself.

Our call, at its most elemental and most basic (and one it seems that a lot of Christians today reject), is to make welcome for the stranger, for the guest, for the disaster victim, for the refugee, for the migrant, for the sojourners among us, whoever they may be. This, even more than our prayers and offerings and worship, is how we welcome Christ among us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal); #248, "Christ Is Risen!" Shout Hosanna!; #500, Be Known to Us in Breaking Bread; #254, That Easter Day with Joy Was Bright





Sunday, April 20, 2025

Sermon: Don't Hold On

First Presbyterian Church

April 20, 2025, Easter Sunday C

John 20:1-18

Don't Hold On

 

 

If the Revised Common Lectionary had its way, we would hear this version of the Resurrection story every year on Easter Sunday. As much as I am typically a lectionary preacher, this seems foolish to me. There are four different narratives that describe that first Easter Sunday, and each one brings us something different. Mark leaves us with the cliffhanger; do the disciples go to Galilee to find Jesus? Matthew throws in some conspiracy to cover up the Resurrection and finishes off with the Great Commission. Luke's account, more expansive than either of those two, includes that first appearance as well as the Emmaus Road story (which we will hear next week) and Jesus's appearance to the disciples gathered behind locked doors. 

This story, too, has its distinctive features. At first the only one we see is Mary Magdalene, alone at the tomb before sunrise. She sees the stone out of place and runs to tell the disciples. (Why didn't she go look in the tomb? If you're a woman by yourself and you think there might be grave robbers about, would you go look in?) Two disciples get into a footrace to get to the tomb; one looks in but stops short of entering; Peter (no shock) rambles right in and looks around and then the other disciple enters as well. They take stock and they believe. What they believe is hard to know, since their only reaction is that "they returned to their homes." They believed Mary Magdalene's report that Jesus's body was missing, I guess. At any rate, they left, and Mary was again alone at the tomb with her sorrow. 

When she finally looked into the tomb, she saw something that the disciples had evidently not seen - do you think they would have "returned to their homes" if there had been angels inside the tomb when they looked? Apparently, they waited for Mary Magdalene to be alone to ask their question of her, the question "why are you weeping?" that would seem to have a blazingly obvious answer. Even here Mary's answer makes clear that the whole idea of resurrection hasn't entered her head any more than it had entered the heads of the disciples; she asks where Jesus's body has been taken. 

Her distress is severe enough that when she turns and sees Jesus, she doesn't recognize that it's Jesus; she thinks he's a gardener. Honestly, he piles on a little bit by asking her why she's weeping and adds the more practical question of who she's seeking. By now, it seems that Mary is getting a little hysterical, and not without reason; she pleads to know where the body is and offers to take it off their hands.

If you see this scene in some movie or other, Jesus is most likely depicted as saying Mary's name in the most tender and sweetest tone of voice possible for the actor playing Jesus to achieve. Personal opinion here: I don't buy that. At this point Mary Magdalene's distress is likely enough that Jesus has to speak her name just a little bit sharply - "Mary!" with an exclamation point - in order to break through her distress and get her to see him. At last she does see him for who he is and calls out "Teacher" at that recognition. 

Based on what comes next, we kind of have to guess that she grabbed hold of him in some way, probably some kind of embrace - a risky thing to do in a culture that was quite rigid about keeping unmarried men and women separate from each other. What is striking, though, and what is perhaps the most discordant note in this passage is what Jesus says in response:

"Do not hold on to me."

Jesus hasn't been the type to be bound by strictly human mores and rules, so this seems an odd time for him to get all uncomfortable about this. No, what in fact he says is that she can't hold on to him "because I have not yet ascended to the Father." To be blunt, this probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to Mary Magdalene at this point, having lurched from the fear and confusion at the disappearance of Jesus's body to the amazement and shock of seeing and touching not only Jesus's body but Jesus himself very much alive in that body. 

Sometimes a good way to help a distraught person get focused is to give them a task or a job to do - not always, but sometimes it does help. He gives her a message to take to the disciples and she does so, announcing that "I have seen the Lord" and repeating to the disciples what she has heard from Jesus. She becomes, in effect, the first Christian evangelist - bearer of good news.

When later in this chapter Thomas is invited to touch Jesus's scars to get over his unbelief, it's hard not to flip back a few verses to Mary Magdalene's being told not to hold on to Jesus. It might sound a little bit unfair at first blush. Why does that unbelieving Thomas get the special treatment when Mary Magdalene had been so faithful to be at the tomb when nobody else was? 

Well, for one thing, there's a difference between touching and holding on.

There are times when a great big embrace is really the best response to someone, perhaps seeing them after a long time apart, or in congratulations for good news or getting out of the hospital or any number of other things. 

Holding on, though, can be a way of limiting or constricting. Here Jesus says that he has "not yet ascended to the Father." His task is not finished, and to the degree that holding on to Jesus constricts him from completing his work, it has to be forbidden. 

It isn't just Mary Magdalene who has to be kept from "holding on to Jesus" in this restrictive or preventative sense. We may not be able to hold on to Jesus physically, but be honest; have you ever found yourself "holding on to Jesus" in the sense of resisting or pulling back from what Jesus is calling you to do or to be? 

Churches can certainly be guilty of "holding on to Jesus" too. Trying to cling to the way things have always been? That's every bit as much "holding on to Jesus" as anything Mary Magdalene was guilty of, let's face it. We aren't called to "hold on" to Jesus; we are called to follow Jesus, even if the way Jesus is leading isn't The Way Things Have Always Been. It goes without saying that a church looking to welcome a new installed pastor sometime soon should especially beware of such holding on.

A little confession time (that probably shouldn't be part of a sermon, but oh well): I've had to learn this lesson in my own vocation. It would be easy to stay put in one church and enjoy what is comfortable and familiar for however long it lasted. I had to learn that it wouldn't be faithful to what God is calling me to do, not faithful to however what's left of my vocation needs to go. And so, sometime soon when this church has a new installed pastor coming in, I'll be moving on (once we can get a whole house packed up). I believe it's what I'm called to do, but that doesn't make it any less scary of a leap into something different and a little bit challenging, in a place as yet unknown. And yet, to try to deny this call would make me guilty of "holding on to Jesus," of being every bit as restrictive and obstructive as Mary Magdalene threatened to be. 

Individuals, churches, just about any kind of human anything can fall into this trap. When Mary Magdalene let go and followed the command Jesus gave her, she became that first evangelist - the first one to proclaim the good news of the risen Christ (a bit of scripture that somehow gets ignored by a whole lot of so-called followers of Christ who insist that women can't do that). The longer she clutched on to Jesus as she knew him, the longer she kept not only Jesus but also herself from fulfilling what God had called them to be and do. 

Way to put a bummer on Easter Sunday, right? But it has to be said: Jesus doesn't call us to cling; Jesus calls us to obey, Jesus calls us to follow. And you know what? When we do that, Jesus will be there as well.

For teaching us not to hold on, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #245, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!; #247, Now the Green Blade Rises; #233, The Day of Resurrection; #232, Jesus Christ Is Risen Today

 







Friday, April 18, 2025

Sermon: In the Presence of the Betrayer(s)

First Presbyterian Church

April 17, 2025, Maundy Thursday C

1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 22:17-34

 

In the Presence of the Betrayer(s)

 

 

In hearing the reading from Paul's letter to Corinth, we are reminded of those words we typically hear as part of what is liturgically called the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, words that typically precede the breaking of the bread in the sacrament of communion. Paul felt it necessary to write those words to the Corinthians because their practices at the meal had degenerated badly, more closely resembling the reckless practices of the Greco-Roman world around them than Jesus's last meal with his disciples, the one which church's meal was meant to remember.

Paul's letter was written well before Luke's gospel (Paul was dead by the time Luke wrote it), and his bare essentials account differs dramatically from Luke's fraught description of Jesus's meal with his disciples. While not quite to the degree that the Corinthians' meal went far off track, it seems that the disciples weren't on their best behavior as they shared this final meal before his crucifixion. Indeed, one can spot three distinct hints of betrayal.

We do hear in Luke's storythe familiar words we continue to associate with the Lord's Supper - "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." He starts to speak the words about the cup but can't even get to the "do this in remembrance of me" part before he breaks down, with the chilling announcement that "the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table." After another moment he again sounds like someone who knows what is coming but concludes with "woe to that one by whom he is betrayed!

No surprise that the disciples are alarmed by this and start wondering who among themselves could do such a thing. But if we read only within the framework of this passage, we share their uncertainty. Who could do such a thing, indeed?

So who at this table with Jesus - one of whom Jesus says "his hand is on the table" - is the betrayer? This is where we have to both look backward and forward, and when we do that, we are almost compelled to ask "who is not the betrayer?"

Let's take the obvious answer first. Back in verse 3 of this chapter we are told that "Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot" and that he sought out the authorities who had wanted Jesus dead. All he needs now is the opportunity to give Jesus up to them. The betrayal is already set in motion. That's the technically correct answer, but maybe not the only answer.

By verse 31 we know something is up with Simon Peter. Jesus calls him out seemingly without provocation, as if to charge Peter with encouraging his colleagues when all this is over. Peter has glorious martyrdom on his mind, though, saying (probably quite loudly) "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!" Jesus's response is almost cutting, telling Peter that he'll swear he doesn't even know Jesus - not just once, but three times before sunrise. Of course, as we continue to read Luke's account, it really does happen just as Jesus describes, even before we move on to chapter 23. Peter is left weeping at his own failure.

But is that all? Right there in verse 24 we read: "A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest." Really, right after Jesus has announced that someone would betray him, after Jesus has been talking about how he's never going to eat or drink of these things again "until the kingdom of God comes," you start arguing about who is greatest among you? Has anybody been paying attention to Jesus? Has anybody really been faithful at this point? 

That table was not the place for the disciples to try to show off their greatness or their superior faithfulness. It isn't that place for us either. At this table Jesus calls on his disciples to take on the humility of servants. And Jesus makes this call in the very presence of the one who would betray him (or should that be the ones who would betray him?). We don't come here to show off how righteous we are, how much more faithful than someone else we are, anything like that. We come as servants, as Jesus came to the table as a servant; we are served so that we might serve. We come to follow only Jesus, and only to follow Jesus, no matter what others at the table or other tables around the world on this night might do. We come knowing our own weaknesses, our own faults, and our own small betrayals, and Christ serves us, and we go serve.

Thanks be to God. Amen.
















Sunday, April 13, 2025

Sermon: The Colt, the Cloaks, and the Crying Out

First Presbyterian Church

April 13, 2025, Palm Sunday C

Luke 19:28-44

 

The Colt, The Cloaks, and the Crying Out

 

 

 

Here we are again, time for another iteration of an extremely familiar story out of the gospels. Each one has its own quirks, as is generally true of any event that is covered in multiple gospels, and yet the fundamental outline and thrust of the story is immediately recognizable, perhaps to the point that we don't always catch the differences and nuances of each gospel's account, and therefore we might miss the particular and specific things that each gospel writer is being moved by the Spirit to convey to us.

So, let us pay particular attention to Luke's account this morning, even if - contrary to everything that has come to represent this particular occasion on the church calendar - Luke gives us a "Palm" Sunday without any actual palms of any kind. Go back and read it again if you don't believe me. No palms. Not even branches.

You could divide this story into three decidedly unequal parts, at least unequal in terms of length. The account of the two disciples fetching a colt is the longest part of the story by number of verses, longer than the actual processional part of the story and substantially so. The section at the end, four verses added to the appointed lectionary reading for the day, is shorter but significant. 

Luke begins this account, after a couple of challenging parables earlier in the chapter, with the dispatch of two unnamed disciples to fetch a colt, for reasons we don't yet know if we're following Luke's account without all that we already know about this story. Jesus's instructions are almost painfully specific: which town to go to, a colt that has never been ridden, what to say if anyone catches you in the act. Sure enough, everything plays out exactly as Jesus seems to have scripted it, down to telling the owners of the colt "The Lord needs it.

Why so specific? In John's gospel Jesus "found a young donkey" - none of the elaborate scheme found in Luke. Matthew, on the other hand, has the disciples fetching an older donkey and her foal, while Mark at least includes a promise that the colt would be returned immediately. 

One could suggest that Luke, even though he doesn't include the specific reference, is alluding to the same prophetic source as his fellow gospelers Mark and Matthew. Zechariah 9:9 describes the entry of a king into Jerusalem, in a time of judgment on God's enemies, with the description" "triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." While Matthew actually quotes from this account in his description, it's pretty clear that this snippet of prophetic oracle figures heavily into how this processional account is reported, and perhaps it's also on Jesus's mind. 

One could also argue that there's a certain amount of parody going on. Jerusalem was fairly well accustomed at this point in its history to large, rather bombastic processionals into the city heralding the arrival of whatever important Roman official was coming into town for whatever occasion. Given the impending observance of Passover and the Roman tendency to suspect an uprising might break out during that festival, it's quite possible that such a processional might be taking place this same day as Jesus's entry. The contrast between the stout, well-armed Roman soldiers and their imperial war horses and Jesus on a donkey colt with a bunch of scruffy ragtag followers would be hard to miss. 

Whatever the case, we move from the carefully prepared procurement of the colt to what at first looks like a rather haphazard start to the processional itself; Jesus's followers are first found placing their cloaks on the colt for Jesus to sit on, and then spreading more cloaks on the road as Jesus rode along on the road. Again, no palms in Luke's account.

While this might seem a bit out of nowhere, even the cloaks have precedent in Hebrew scripture. 2 Kings 9 contains an account of the prophet Elisha appointing one of his company to go to a man named Jehu, a commander in the military, and anoint him as king of Israel, finally removing the house of the notorious king Ahab from rule. The prophet does as he is told, and when Jehu's fellow officers learn what has happened, verse 13 of that chapter records that the commanders "all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps; and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed, 'Jehu is king.'" Again, what looks a bit random turns out to be a marker of a king's arrival. While can't be certain that everyone in Luke's intended audience would have automatically known these references from Hebrew scripture, for those who did, the signs are clear. 

More scripture references come into play in the cries of the followers of Jesus who accompanied this processional. The first part of their proclamation takes us to Psalm 118:26, heard in today's first reading. There is a difference, though; here, the disciples are making explicit what has been implied so far, in proclaiming "blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" The next part sounds recognizable without reference to Hebrew scripture; one can simply think back to the angelic proclamation to the shepherds in chapter 2 of this very gospel to remember why this sounds familiar. Again, though, there is a difference; we now hear "peace in heaven" instead of "peace on earth." 

But there is more crying out to come. When some of the Pharisees who are in the crowd, probably fearing Roman retribution, try to prevail upon Jesus to quiet this chant, he responds that the stones would cry out if they did not - suggesting, on the surface, that all of nature would be in on this praise. Again, though, Hebrew scripture gives us a reference to think about. Habakkuk 2:9-11 describes those who "get evil gain for their houses" for their own gain at the expense others; the prophet proclaims that "the very stones will cry out from the wall and the plaster will respond from the woodwork" at the shame those have brought upon themselves. Maybe the stones would be crying out if the disciples were silent not in praise, but calling out the shame of not acclaiming Jesus as king here?

There is one more bit of crying out to hear. Jesus himself weeps as Jerusalem comes within sight, lamenting how that city, so long favored of God, had never truly lived up to what God had called it to be. The description of the destruction of the city in verses 43-44 indeed recalls prophetic accounts of the city's destruction at the hands of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, as found in Isaiah (29:3, 37:33) and Jeremiah (6:6, 15).

For Luke's readers, though, there might be a more immediate image in mind. Luke's gospel was likely written years after the burning of Jerusalem and its temple by the Romans in the year 70. Quite likely the stones of those buildings and streets still bore the burn scars from that event. Indeed, even in Luke's own time, one might say the stones were crying out.[1]

What to make of this web of seemingly random scripture somehow being knitted together in this odd story of Jesus's ride towards Jerusalem? Simply this: this is no random cute story. If anything, this is a quite subversive action, full of pointers to this Jesus as nothing less than a king; not just some random rabbi from the Galilean hinterlands, but a king. Those Pharisees weren't wrong about the potential for the Romans to be ticked off by such a thing, if they saw and heard it. And of course, those claims of Jesus as king would indeed come back into prominence by the end of this week, when Jesus is arrested; when he is tried before Pilate, who asks him "are you the king of the Jews?"; when at his crucifixion an inscription was posted on his cross, just above his head, proclaiming "This is the King of the Jews."

What happens on this day reverberates all through this week, this last week in the earthly ministry of Jesus. And the claims that this day makes are strong; though they may be scorned and mocked and ultimately punished by the end of this week, they are irreversibly and unmistakably redeemed by what happens on the first day of the following week. 

"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord." 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): Processional #196, All Glory, Laud, and Honor; #---, Prepare the way, O people; #199, Filled With E; #198, Ride On! Ride On in Majesty

 

 



[1] William Loader, "First Thoughts on Year C Gospel Passages from the Lectionary: Palm Sunday," https://billloader.com/LkPalmSunday.htm (accessed 9 April 2022). 

















































Sunday, April 6, 2025

Sermon: New Things

First Presbyterian Church

April 6, 2025, Lent 5C

Isaiah 43:16-21; John 12:1-8

 

New Things

 

 

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

This challenge to the people of Judah, as delivered by God through the prophet Isaiah, came during their period of exile in Babylon. In particular, it came at a point when that exile was starting to seem permanent; there was no sign of movement that their conquered home kingdom would ever be able to do anything about it, and their Babylonian rulers showed no signs of ever letting up and releasing exiles to go home. But lo and behold, Babylon was conquered by Persia, and the ruler of that kingdom ultimately decided, for whatever reason, to repatriate those exiles out of Babylon and back to Judah and to Jerusalem. 

This wasn’t a normal decision on the part of the Persian king. Whether it was some kind of bizarre impulse of kind-heartedness on his part or a more pragmatic decision that keeping these exiles under control while also pacifying the native Babylonian population wasn’t worth it, the exiled people were able to return, finally perceiving the “new thing” of which Isaiah spoke. 

Isaiah’s oracle was pretty striking in its almost extreme level of insistence – telling the people of the Torah “forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” was a radical way of getting the people’s attention. The “past” here was nothing less than the very identity of that people of the Promised Land, now divided into Israel and Judah – the story of Abraham, called to strike out for a home he had never seen; the captivity in Egypt and the exodus back to that Promised Land; those “former things” were no less that the story of their people; Isaiah couldn’t possibly mean to forget those, could he?

But God really was doing a new thing, without which the people might have remained in exile…who knows how long? Getting caught up too deeply in the old things and missing the new thing would have been a tragic result.

Anyway, it sounds great, right? Going home after all these years?

Right?

The first of three stages of deportation out of Judah had occurred in around the year 597 BCE; a second stage happened around 587 or 586, and the third around 582 or 581. The repatriation to Judah began after the Persian conquest in 539. That’s as many as fifty-eight years for those deported first. That’s time for one or even two generations to be born, generations who had no experience of Judah or Jerusalem. That’s plenty of time for many of the original deportees to have died and been buried in Babylon. That’s plenty of time to have, as we might say today, “made a life” in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah had delivered an oracle from God to those exiles telling them pretty much to do that, after all:

 

Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. (Jeremiah 29:5-7)

 

 

So if you’ve been doing that, and all this “doing a new thing” talk suddenly starts coming from another prophet, maaaaaybe you’re not completely convinced after all. After all, what condition is Jerusalem in after all this time? (The answer is “it's in ruins.”) Where will we live? How will we eat? What about those who were left behind in Judah – will they be hostile to us? Or have new peoples moved in and taken over? These aren’t necessarily easily answered questions, especially to those of the Judean population who had been born in exile. What’s the point of giving up the life you know, rough as it may be, for one full of questions and uncertainties?

Now jump forward to the reading from John’s gospel. In considering this account it is vitally important to remember what is recounted in chapter 11: the death and raising of Lazarus, possibly the most expansive story in John’s gospel outside of the Passion narrative, and indeed a pivotal one – the religious authorities were now determined to get rid of not only Jesus but also Lazarus, because many were following Jesus because of Lazarus and his unprecedented not-dead-anymore condition. Now here Lazarus is, reclining at table in the home he shared with sisters Martha and Mary, hosting the man who had brought him back to life for dinner. Lazarus is living a new thing, and is a living “new thing,” and his life – his newly-restarted life – is under threat for it.

The story of this dinner unfolds in two acts: Mary enters with a highly fragrant perfume and anoints Jesus’s feet, and dries them with her hair; Judas then responds with indignant scolding for the waste of such an expensive perfume when the proceeds from it could have done a lot for the poor, only to be rebuked by Jesus, who commends Mary for her act, also observing that she had gotten it for “the day of my (Jesus’s) burial.” 

It’s easy to jump on Judas here, and John strongly encourages you to do so with the added note about his unethical actions with the community treasury. His basic statement, though, is correct, even if he is saying it in something less than earnest; the sale of that perfume could have provided a lot of CUFF meals, to be sure. Still, Judas is totally missing what’s going on, or perhaps he actually is seeing it and is not happy about it. Perhaps he is the type novelist Upton Sinclair spoke of in his observation that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” If Jesus is going to die, where does that leave Judas (whether he’s dipping his hand in the till or not)? What position does he have? Such status as he has, meager as it might be, is gone if Jesus is gone.

It’s easier to praise Mary. Here she is again, off doing her own thing while sister Martha is diligently serving away. (Unlike the other such encounter of this type, over in Luke, Martha seems content to keep quiet in this case.) At any rate, she performs the act of anointing, and the whole letting-her-hair-down thing is enough to make the event scandalous in that culture, but that seems to pass unremarked. 

As Jesus notes, such an act was part of the burial ritual of the time; Mary and Martha had probably performed that act on the body of Lazarus only a short time ago. It was familiar. It was known, and as such it might even have been a comfort. And it was on some level in this case correct; Jesus’s burial would not be far off at this point.

And yet…

Lazarus, the dead man no longer dead, is right there at the table. Did this not register? Mary may have prepared Jesus’s body for burial, but was she any better prepared for Jesus not to stay buried than Judas was, or anybody else in the room?

When God does a new thing, it is so, so difficult to grasp it, to know it, to trust it. How do we know this isn’t just wishful thinking? Well, if the “new thing” seems in fact rather comfortable and easy to accept, then it probably is wishful thinking. If it’s discomfiting and upsets the seeming order of things, on the other hand, maybe we’d better pay attention.

Still, the “new thing” God does is almost always going to be uncomfortable, maybe even threatening. It may not include the stuff we like. It may not even include this church, or any of the other things about our Christian life we know and love. But God moves when God moves, and God never moves for anything other than our good (even if we don’t get it), and we either keep up or get left behind.

I promise you that these readings were part of the lectionary for today; I didn't go hunting for them to preach a sermon to a church looking towards calling a new pastor. That next step is highly anticipted, no doubt, but maybe also a little apprehensive? God may lead us to places where we never thought we’d go, or never wanted to go, but it is God who leads, and we who are waiting better figure out how to follow. 

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Thanks be to God. Amen.


 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #645, Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above; #201, A Prophet-Woman Broke a Jar; #---, Do not hold on to former things 






 

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Sermon: Great Rejoicing at the Lost and Found

First Presbyterian Church

March 30, 2019, Lent 4C

Luke 15:11-32

 

Great Rejoicing at the Lost and Found

 

The trouble with these extremely familiar stories from the Bible is that, after we’ve heard or read them a few times, we quit listening. For example, today in churches across this country, there are (I am quite sure) thousands upon thousands of people sitting in pews whose minds all completely checked out, or will tune out, when they read or heard the words of verse 11 of this reading: “Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons.’” I also expect that some number of such checked-out listeners are in this very sanctuary here. Oh, yeah, this one. We know this one. So what shall we do for lunch?

In truth, no preacher can truly hope to thwart that checking-out save for the intervention of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and minds of those listening. Nonetheless, we will go forth, supplying a fuller background for this familiar story, and hope that we’re all still around at the end just in case the Spirit shakes something loose in us that perhaps we haven’t heard or understood before.

We need to take note, for example, that this oh-so-familiar story is provoked (and that is the word) by those Pharisees again (probably not the same Pharisees who warned Jesus about Herod in the lesson a few weeks ago), this time joined by members of another group of religious leaders known simply as scribes. They witness a sight that was nothing less than offensive to them: tax collectors, and that vaguely defined class known only as “sinners” in their eyes. Truly this grumbling of theirs needs tone of voice to appreciate it fully, something that words printed on a page can’t quite supply: “This fellow welcomessinners and…and…and EATS with them!!!”, so rich is their disgust.

This is what provokes the telling of this very familiar parable. Keep this in your head here, no matter what.

In fact it provokes three parables, all with some connection to the theme of things (or people) lost and found. Besides the losing and the finding, each parable is also characterized by what might be called outsized joy, joy at the finding of what was lost that spills out onto friends and neighbors who might not have even had any idea what was going on. The one who lost the sheep: did his neighbors even know, and frankly, did they even care? And yet this man, leaving behind the “ninety-nine in the wilderness” (which really sounds a little bit irresponsible) and searching all over to find the lost one, then turns and goes to his friends and neighbors (did shepherds even have “friends and neighbors”? Their fellow shepherds, maybe?). His cry is “rejoice with me!” And then, here as in the next parable, we get this “moral of the story” that so great is the rejoicing in heaven over just one sinner who repents. Just one.

The parable of the woman and the lost coin unfolds similarly. It is lost; she searches all over the house; the coin is found; she calls the friends and neighbors to rejoice. Such coins (sometimes identified as “dowry coins”) might have been, for a woman in this time period, the last line of defense against utter poverty and destitution should her husband have decided to dispose of her with the speaking of a word, which was all a man had to do to divorce a woman at this time (the woman, naturally, had no such option). So yes, it was very important to her, but the rejoicing seems outsized still. But we get that same tag line idea again: “I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” What we find suitable for indifference, or maybe even outright disdain, is cause for massive celebration among the heavenly host.

And finally comes the story we all know. There are so many details that could be unpacked. The utter humiliation that the younger son visits upon his father by making this brash and disrespectful request could be its own sermon (and frequently is). Remember what kind of land these dwellers dwelled in; it was, from ancient time, the Promised Land, the land that God had delivered to their ancestors Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all that ancient story that told of how they even came to live on that land. This son is throwing away no less than a sacred birthright, and does so in what the King James Version so memorably calls “riotous” living. That might make it sound like too much fun, as might your NIV's "wild" living; maybe the NRSV’s “dissolute” living captures the futility of it all better. 

Also, look at the son’s moment of realization, when he “came to his senses.” We might have built it up into this grand tableaux of repentance in our overwhelming familiarity with the story, but let’s be real here: as “repentance” goes this is pretty weak sauce. Where is the contrition in realizing that he’d be better off living as one of his father’s hired hands, which really is about all the son manages to think and say? He’s been reduced to tending pigs (something no self-respecting Jew would have done) and being jealous of their slop, and this is the best “repentance” he can come up with? Is it really the best he can do, memorize a line to sell to his gullible old dad?

And yet…there’s this outsized rejoicing again. The father runs to meet his son (completely undignified), orders up a new robe for him and a great feast with the fatted calf (utterly humiliating, given what this son had done to him), and generally makes a fool of himself with rejoicing over this one lost son.

Oh, yeah, that other son shows up, and calls out his father for making a fool of himself, vilifies his brother (notice that there’s something in older brother’s accusations that we are never told the younger brother does?) and also complains about how dad never threw such a party for him. But don’t miss the father’s reply: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” This has always been there for you, my child; did you ever accept it? (And yes, for the most part, this older brother is the character in the story that most captures us “good church folk,” if we can stand to admit it.)

But don’t miss how the first two parables inform this one. The rejoicing over the one lost son is extravagant, over-the-top, maybe even wasteful, but the rejoicing over a lost sheep or lost coin was pretty over the top as well. It provokes scorn from the father's own son and maybe even bafflement from those neighbors who got called to the feast over that one ungrateful son, but did the neighbors really get that extreme rejoicing over the found sheep and coin? It is joy that seems to us inexplicable, maybe even if (maybe especially if) we’re the son who had abandoned the father instead of the one who stayed home. And it’s done over bare-minimum repentance from the younger son at that. 

This is the rejoicing over us, when we at last come home; this is the rejoicing to which we are called over one who at last comes home. It defies summary, really; God loves us, pursues us, and rejoices over us, and so much more. 

If we can’t manage to say it for such effusive and overwhelming rejoicing, maybe we should never say this: Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #415, Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy; #440, Jesus, Lover of My Soul; #418, Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling

 





Sunday, March 23, 2025

Sermon: Current Events and Ultimate Things

First Presbyterian Church

March 23, 2025, Lent 3C

Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9

 

Current Events and Ultimate Things

 

 

The beginning of this particular passage just seems…odd. On the surface it seems very much a non sequitir. It’s as if in the middle of a difficult, intense lecture or speech or sermon with a challenging question-and-answer session, someone suddenly blurted out “hey, didya hear what happened to Uncle Milton and those boys from over in Caney when they went down to Dallas?”

Jesus has been teaching, just before in Chapter 12, about avoiding hypocrisy, not being arrogant, avoiding worry, being watchful and not being caught, Jesus himself as a cause of division, and settling grievances with your adversary. It’s difficult stuff, to be sure, all these hard teachings one right after the other. And Jesus isn’t being at all sideways or sparing in his teaching; it’s all imperative – “bewaredo nottherefore I tell youbeknow.” No wiggle room, no fudging, no passing the buck to anybody else. It’s all on you, dear listener, to hear and to change.

Given that background, one could argue that somebody in the crowd miiiight just have been feeling a bit stressed by all of this talk and looking to at least provide some distraction or relief. Having heard of an awful incident in the Temple in Jerusalem, where a group of Galilean pilgrims had been massacred while there to offer sacrifices; perhaps he first told it to his companions, and maybe somebody got up the courage to bring it up to Jesus. Luke doesn’t tell us much about how this happened aside from that vivid metaphor of their blood “mixed with their sacrifices.”

One thing about Jesus in the gospels and is that he is an extremely effective teacher. A lot of folks across Galilee think so, anyway, since his teaching – not just the miracles or exorcisms, but the actual straightforward teaching – was drawing and holding crowds across Galilee for hours or even days at a time. Some of you out there know just how startling an accomplishment that is.

In this case, Jesus takes this out-of-left-field interjection and makes it a teachable moment, in two parts. 

Part I: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no!” Here Jesus addresses a rather pervasive belief in the Jewish culture of the time. In short, without a lot of foundation, the folk tended to assume that if something really bad happened to you, you must have been really bad or done something really bad to deserve it. That belief has spread even today.

The late TV preacher Pat Robertson, for example, used to get a lot of attention for blaming natural disasters on the affected city’s or area’s sinfulness – and it was usually a “sin” that was a favorite of Robertson’s to pick on. New Orleans got that treatment from Robertson after Hurricane Katrina, for example, and it wasn’t for tolerating so much poverty. The New York/New Jersey region also got such accusations after Hurricane Sandy. On the other hand, Robertson never seemed to blame horrible tornado outbreaks on the sinfulness of Alabamians or Mississippians or Missourians.

So first Jesus takes down that old belief, but then continues to use that interjection to make a point that brings the discussion back to his sermon subject, Part II: “…but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Wait, what? If those interlocutors had hoped to distract Jesus or get him to let up on them … well, it didn’t work. Jesus is right back on the subject he had been teaching, all of which can be understood as part of the broader theme he now names as repentance

As if this weren’t enough, Jesus himself brings a second “current event” into the discussion, one in which a tower had collapsed at the town of Siloam, killing eighteen. Unlike the previous story, in which the Roman governor Pilate is clearly identified as the villain, this looks to be a tragic accident. A tower collapsed. As far as we can know, it just happened. But again, Jesus hammers the point home: “unless you repent, you too will all perish.” 

“Repent” and “repentance” are words that get used a lot in religious circles without much definition. You get told to “repent of your sins,” which sounds as if you go down a laundry list of bad things you did and say “I’m sorry,” you’ve repented. No. What Jesus is calling for is far beyond that. 

To give one example Jesus turns to a parable, in which a rich landowner is quite done with an unproductive fig tree. The gardener, though, pleads for one more year to give some extra attention to the tree. He’ll agitate the soil and add some extra fertilizer, and if it still doesn’t bear fruit, it can be cut down.

Unlike some of Jesus’s parables, this one is bluntly obvious. We – each of us – are the tree, and Jesus is the gardener pleading for us and promising to nurture us even more. Still, though, there is that looming “promise” that our time to bear fruit is not infinite. 

And here also is the “repentance” Jesus commands of the disciples, and of us. A fig tree exists to bear figs. If it doesn’t bear figs, it’s kind of pointless not to cut it down and replace it with a tree that will bear figs. Even the gardener doesn’t pretend that the tree should be given forever to bear fruit.

So, to get to the point: what does it mean to “bear fruit”?

Again, that’s a term that gets used a lot without a lot of clarity of definition. For some, it consists solely of turning other people into "Christians" – conversion is all, nothing else matters. For others, it’s all about good deeds or charitable giving or other obvious outward gestures. Those are good things, but in Luke, “repentance” cannot be reduced to outward changes. In true repentance, everything changes, both in each of us individually and in all of us as the body of Christ. We live differently, and we live together differently.

It’s possible that one of the best ways to understand how fully a repentant life changes might just be what we see in today’s reading from Isaiah. For some this presents an utterly joyful picture, while others are probably horrified by it (the idea that wine and milk are just being given away, with nobody profiting from it? That’s socialism, right?). <note: sarcasm>

Anyway, as Isaiah’s picture unfolds, we see what is really going on; the people have, at long last, accepted the providence of God, and submitted to God’s provision for their lives. We are called no longer to chase after what cannot satisfy, but to receive the true stuff of life from the Lord. Even here, though, the theme of repentance is sounded clearly: 

Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their ways, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (55:6-7, emphasis mine)

 

Nothing changes without change. Turning away from the desire for what cannot fulfill, the desire for stuff and money and comfort; this is where repentance is found. And repentance brings pardon; we are given a double statement of this – the Lord will have mercy, God will pardon – for extra emphasis. 

And that providence of God? This isn’t barely-get-by stuff. Don’t miss that last half of verse 2, and the invitation to “eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” To appreciate this one we need to lay aside our modern dietary scruples and understand what God provides is good stuff. We aren’t being asked to starve ourselves or deprive ourselves for God (which makes this a strange Lenten reading, I guess, but still); God wants to give good.

But repentance is still there, waiting for us to take it up. 

Our lives being reoriented, turned upside down (or inside out, more likely) and faced only towards our Lord; it may seem an odd place to end up when one starts talking about current events, but when Jesus the teacher is in charge, the lessons you learn are not always what you think.

For The Great Teacher, Thanks be to God. Amen.


Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #307, God of Grace and God of Glory; #435, There's a Wideness in God's Mercy; #800, Sometimes a Light Surprises