Sermon: What Are You Looking At?

First Presbyterian Church

June 1, 2025, Ascension C

Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23;

       Luke 24:44-53

 

What Are You Looking At?

 

“What are you looking at?”

You can hear that in the voice of someone trying to keep something a secret, annoyed at being caught in the act; maybe in the voice of a stereotypical tough-guy movie or TV character (though a Robert DeNiro or Joe Pesci character might turn it around to say “you lookin’ at me?”); or a more casual, “hey, what are you looking at?” It’s a pretty flexible phrase. 

You don’t expect to hear it as angelic proclamation, though. 

But the end of the Acts account here features “two men in white robes” who suddenly appear beside the disciples (that’s a pretty characteristic way of the gospels describing angelic appearances) uttering a much more formal query: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” But really, they’re asking “What are you looking at?” Seriously, you have to wonder if one of the disciples was fighting the urge to turn on the two men in white and exclaim “are you kidding me? Did you not just see what happened here? People don’t just pick up and float off into the sky, you know…”

If one of the disciples did that (my money would have been on Thomas, with his contrarian attitude), Luke did not record it. Instead, the men in white issue a promise; the Jesus they just saw lifting up into the sky would, and will, return one day in the same fashion. Something to hold on to, I guess, in the now-inarguable absence of Jesus from his followers. 

Already Jesus had left this little band with plenty of instruction, and also a reprimand in the bargain. Luke’s account of the Ascension here at the beginning of Acts is a bit more expansive than that at the end of the gospel that bears his name, and there’s at least one really logical possible explanation for that: Luke learned more in the meantime. At the beginning of the gospel we call Luke the author admits very frankly that the gospel is not an eyewitness account. He advises his recipient, “most excellent Theophilus,” that he has set out to gather the best information he could to pass on an “orderly account” of the evens of Jesus’s life. The end of Luke’s gospel sounds frankly a lot like the end of Matthew, with an account of the Ascension thrown in. 

But by the time Luke started into the book we call Acts, he has a few things to add to the Ascension story. For one thing, we learn he was around for forty days, which the Luke account doesn’t really suggest. For another, there is more instruction included here. The disciples aren’t to rush off, but to return to Jerusalem and wait for the “promise of the Father,” wait to be “baptized with the Holy Spirit” before too many days have gone by. It turned out to be ten days until the event called Pentecost lit a fire in the disciples (almost literally) and initiated the work of the church on earth in a way that, quite frankly, none of the disciples could have anticipated.

As for the rebuke, one of the disciples (this could have been Thomas too) had to ask, as Jesus drew his remarks to a close, the most oblivious possible question in the context: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Even at the very end somebody is trying to press Jesus about when he’s going to Make Israel Great Again.

Jesus answers with one of the most ignored (and outright violated) scriptures in the whole book: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” For all these so-called ministers or biblical authorities spitting directly in the face of Jesus trying to work out some code or clue that tells them exactly when Jesus is gonna come back: it’s written right here, in Jesus’s own words: THAT’S NOT YOUR JOB. That’s not your place.

Your job is this: 

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

 

That’s the disciples’ job; wait for the Holy Spirit and then go! Go all over the world, says Jesus. And the church, in fits and starts, sometimes ruinously and sometimes beautifully, has been doing that ever since.

But what about the Ascension itself? What’s the point of this story with Jesus lifting off like a slow-moving rocket and being taken from the disciples’ sight? One of the best explanations in scripture is actually found in this passage from the letter to the church at Ephesus. Towards the end of today’s reading we get the rundown of why Christ’s ascension matters; the same Jesus who walked the earth with his followers now is at God’s side above – “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,” not just now but for all time, with all authority over the church, and everything else under his feet. To be short about it, we have no business – at all – giving our allegiance to any authority but Christ. None. (For all we talk about wanting to be followers of Jesus, we sure do skip over a lot that scripture instructs us to do to be about that very business. Seriously, Christ’s church isn’t nearly radical enough.)

Still, though, you have to feel for the disciples, at least for those ten days. They’ve been told to go back to Jerusalem and … wait. What do you do when you wait for the Holy Spirit to overtake you (whatever that means)? 

You have to figure there was some remembering what Jesus said and did, maybe some arguments about those things, some impatience to be sure. You have to wonder if they gathered around a table for a meal at times (they needed to eat, after all) and were reminded again, and again, and again of that last meal with Jesus, the bread and the cup; or the encounter on the Emmaus Road, or back in Jerusalem; you have to wonder if picking up that loaf and that cup could possibly have ever been the same for them, especially now, with their Teacher and Lord physically gone for good.

This meal is handed to us even today, to remember; to take to heart and to remember the words and deeds of Jesus in our very beings. With the church in every age, from Ascension to now, we take this bread and this cup and show to the world the Lord’s saving death until, like the men in white promised, he returns that very same way, to be with us and us with him for all time.

For Jesus who departed, and will return, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #260, Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!; #---, When Jesus knew his time had come; #262; Since Our Great High Priest, Christ Jesus

Sermon: Macedonia

 First Presbyterian Church

May 25, 2025, Easter 6C

Acts 16:6-15

 

Macedonia

 

“Macedonia” is the name applied generally to a region of southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. That more general region includes two current political entities with the same name: a region in northern Greece, and an independent nation once a part of Yugoslavia. Historically, Macedonia was perhaps most famous as the home and kingdom of Alexander the Great, from whence he set out to conquer the world. In later years the region was a significant province in the Roman Empire.

One of the important cities in that Roman district was Philippi. First founded by one of Alexander’s successors, the city was re-established during the Roman Empire. It was the site of the climactic battle of Marc Anthony and Octavian, successors of Julius Caesar, against his assassins Cassius and Brutus. Under Octavian (later known as Augustus) Philippi became a city for retired soldiers and was slightly modified by the addition of a Roman-style forum and the division of land among the soldier-colonists, becoming in effect a “miniature Rome.”

It was into this territory and this city that Paul and his fellow travelers were more or less forced by the Holy Spirit in today’s reading, an event which marked the first known foray of early Christian proclaimers of the Gospel into what we now define as “Europe” – a fact much more interesting to us today than to Paul and his co-workers. For us, a church like most Presbyterian churches made up of mostly white European stock, it’s an origin story. To them it was all Roman Empire, but Philippi, due to its unique origins, might have been just a little more Roman than other places on their journey.

To say that Paul and his company (which now included Silas and also Timothy, who had joined the group earlier in this chapter) were “forced” into Macedonia isn’t really a stretch. When the party had sought to move towards Asia (not the continent we know today, but another Roman province occupying what we would call western Turkey), Paul had been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” from proclaiming the Gospel there. They tried to go to another region “but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” 

What does that even mean? Luke doesn’t give us any details here, but don’t you wish he had?? Whatever form these divine roadblocks took, Paul and Silas and the whole traveling group were stuck in a place called Troas, wondering what to do next. 

Think about this. They were prevented from moving forward. They were “forbidden,” they were “not allowed” to go. Those are very strong words. We modern Christians have this perhaps overly catchy phrase about how “when God closes a door, God opens a window” – maybe you’ve heard it? We tend to forget about the door-closing part of that phrase in our eagerness to get to the open window, but we do need to pay attention. If Paul and Silas – the great missionary team of the book of Acts, and most prolific proclaimers of the good news – had doors divinely slammed in their faces, we need not think we can just make up our minds and charge off in whatever direction looks good to us. Whatever path this church or any church seeks to discern for itself and for its future, that particular church needs to be ready for some doors being shut in our faces. (Apropos of nothing, this can also apply to pastors seeking a call.)

At this point comes the dream, or if you prefer, the open window. A “man of Macedonia” (you know how in a dream you just know who someone is, even if you have no reason to?) appears calling the group to come to that region and “help us.” It’s a fairly meager dream as Luke describes it, but given all the preventing and forbidding that has been going on so far it sounds like a great positive, and Paul and his party undertake the voyage. This was no short journey. The trip involved several ports of call and a couple of days’ sailing, before a short overland journey to Philippi, that leading Roman city and old soldiers’ home.

And once they got there … “we remained in the city some days.”

Again with the delay. Really, one might be excused for wondering if God is really with these folks or just messing with them.

Up to this point Paul’s usual practice had been to seek out a synagogue when arriving in a town to speak first to the members of that synagogue. Frequently many would be receptive to their word, but others would reject it, and sometimes violently. In Philippi, though, it doesn’t appear that Paul and Silas and company found one, hence they “remained in the city” for those several days. Finally, somehow, they got wind of a gathering, outside of the city gate and down by a river, that might be what they were looking for.

Well, sort of. What they found was a group of women led by Lydia, a wealthy woman (a dealer of purple cloth was inevitably wealthy) described as a “worshipper of God,” a term sometimes used to describe persons who were not part of the synagogue of the time but took an interest and directed their worship towards the God represented in the synagogue (similar to the centurion Cornelius from last Sunday's reading). So where was the man of Macedonia from the vision? Anyway, Lydia received the gospel with her whole household, and then pretty much took over, prevailing upon Paul and Silas and the whole party to stay in her home for the duration of their stay in Philippi. You know the folks who can do that kind of thing? They won’t take any of that nonsense about you staying in a hotel, we’re going to put you right up in the guest rooms and let’s make sure you’ve got everything you need while we’re at it? That was Lydia. Real Presbyterian Women energy.

So Paul and his party intended to go into Asia, perhaps cover some familiar territory with the familiar territory of the synagogue in doing the work of the gospel. Instead, they ended up in an entirely new place, much more in the heart of the Roman Empire, working without their usual safety net, and in the care of an independent woman of means. So much for best-laid plans. 

And yet, if we truly want to seek God’s vision for the church – this individual church or the church universal – we’d better be ready for something similar to happen. 

The hymn we will sing in a few moments, “Be Thou My Vision,” is rather dangerous if you actually pay attention to it. You know how it starts, right?

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art...

 

 "Naught," (that is, nothing else) matters but God. If we’re truly going to give ourselves, our prayers, our time, our gifts, our energies, our very being to God’s vision, we run the risk of ending up in unfamiliar places, among people who are unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable for us, doing a work we could not possibly have expected. If we’re truly going to be about God’s vision, we have no idea where we will end up. And really, that’s as it has to be. We follow Christ, after all. Christ doesn’t follow us.

This week's lesson really is a lot like last week's account of Peter and Cornelius, but more so; Peter was after all still on that far end of the Mediterranean Sea, close to home, even if he was sent to receive Gentiles. Paul, in today's story, is being not-so-gently prodded to go to an explicitly Roman city, a place he never imagined going, with no safety net, and his group's well-being ended up in the hands of this group of previously unknown women. 

The Spirit gives us absolutely no assurance that our church in five or fifteen or fifty years will look anything like it did five or fifteen or fifty years ago. That’s not the point. The point is to be faithful, and to follow. The church doesn’t get to “go back to” anything. Our call is to be faithful and to follow, even if we end up in places we couldn’t have possibly imagined. We end up at tables with God’s children we’ve never met or never imagined, not necessarily comfortable for us but absolutely who God calls us to serve and love.

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, 

Still be my vision, O Lord of us all.

 

For the vision that drives us forward, even when we have no idea where we are going, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal) #375, Shall We Gather at the River; #450, Be Thou My Vision; #757, Today We All Are Called to Be Disciples

 

Sermon: **Those** People

First Presbyterian Church

May 18, 2025, Easter 5C

Acts 11:1-18

 

Those People

 

First of all, let’s make sure we get one thing straight: that’s not a typo in your bulletin. The sermon title is exactly as I instructed Alberta to enter it, so don’t go fussing at her (as I know some of you do). Leave her alone.

It’s printed this way because you need to read it this way. It’s not “those people,” it’s “those people.” You know how the conversation goes: “…oh, one of those people.” The inflection has a world of meaning.

And that world of meaning, and how it gets broken down and exposed, is what you need to understand about this story, a story of Peter making a leap he never expected, in today’s lesson from Acts.

The part we heard a few moments ago is basically Peter’s defense speech, given when he is summoned (a much more sinister-sounding word than merely “called”) before the council of the church in Jerusalem to account for his actions regarding a certain Gentile named Cornelius, whom he had first encountered while staying in Joppa in the days after the raising of Tabitha, (also known as Dorcas) from the dead.

While staying at the home of a tanner named Simon, Peter gets hungry one day. In this case, though, getting hungry becomes the occasion for the Holy Spirit to visit and show a vision to Peter, a vision which called upon Peter to take a step that he could never have imagined taking, one that, literally, charged Peter to do something that went against the way he had been raised and against everything he had ever been taught about scripture.

In the vision, which is recorded directly in chapter 10, Peter sees something like a great sheet being lowered from heaven, containing animals of every kind, including all the creeping things and bottom-feeders you could imagine, and hears the divine voice – at least that’s clearly how Peter hears it, as his reply makes clear in one of the few times in Acts that Peter falls into his "speak first, think later" pattern that happens so often in the gospels: “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” This time, though, the voice of the Lord says virtually the most shocking thing possible: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 

Let’s not try to soften things here. Peter is not wrong or just making stuff up. You can, if you’re so inspired, look to Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14 for a starting point in surveying the amazing and very particular detail on dietary law in the Torah. And this wasn’t minor stuff in Jewish thought of the time. Peter’s response might have been heated, but it was also virtually a reflex – “we don’t do that.” And yet here God is telling him to do exactly that and getting in Peter’s face about it just a little bit – “must not” is never wishy-washy language in scripture, and that’s what Peter has just been hit with.

As if all this wasn’t shocking and destabilizing enough, Peter sees this vision a total of three times. If you remember Peter’s story, you remember that he has a bad history of things happening three times.

Finally, the visions are done, no more sheets full of unkosher food descending from heaven. Peter is left trying to sort out just what he has seen and just what it means. Little does he know that the Holy Spirit has already been at work well before this set of visions. The messengers who come from Cornelius, the Roman – and very Gentile – centurion, are there because the Holy Spirit has already been at work responding to the earnest prayers of a God-worshiper.

Apparently, Cornelius was a Gentile who nonetheless claimed allegiance to the God worshiped in the synagogue community but had not become a Jew. The extent of such dedication was that he was a generous giver and was constantly in prayer, and that “the whole Jewish nation” spoke well of him, according to 10:22. Those prayers got a dramatic answer when Cornelius – at least a day before Peter’s vision – received instructions to send for Peter. Of course, his messengers arrive as Peter is trying to sort through his own vision, one that must have seemed far more nightmarish to him than Cornelius’s to him.

For all his confusion and distress, Peter at least seems to get that his vision must have something to do with these visitors. That doesn’t mean he’s immediately comfortable with what he’s being asked to do; even if the spirit tells him to go with these visitors “without hesitation” that doesn’t mean he’s going with comprehension or ease. Nonetheless he does something quite remarkable, giving them lodging for the night before making the trip with them the next day to Caesarea, a seat of Roman power and a thoroughly Roman city.

Why is all this so remarkable? Well, Peter is associating with those people. The regulations in the Torah about associating with Gentiles and purity are as precise and fixed as the ones about food and purity. You didn’t just have Gentiles in your home, and you certainly didn’t go into their homes and share meals and things like that. Torah was quite clear that one was not to be cruel to Gentiles, and that one was not to abuse them if they were travelers in their land, and that one was to live in peace with them. But there were limits, and Peter, if still a bit uncomfortable as he makes clear in 10:28, was about to do all those proscribed things and more. 

And it was this choice that had caused Peter to be brought before the church leaders in Jerusalem, which is where his account is given that is recorded in Acts 11. Notice how in verse 3 of that chapter, the leaders in Jerusalem had thoroughly failed to understand what has happened; all that they can think about is not that Gentiles have received the word of God, but that Peter ate with Gentiles. As you might have noticed, we today live in a world, and in a church, where God’s work is too often and too easily ignored in favor of humans taking offense.

So Peter has to relate his experience to them. In the end, what finally gets through to the church authorities is that the story is not really about Peter, as much as he is the one telling it. The actions that matter here are not Peter’s, but God’s.

It was God who answered Cornelius’s prayers and instructed him to send for Peter. It was God who gave Peter that strange and disturbing vision. It was God who told Peter directly to go with those messengers from Cornelius. 

And it was God the Holy Spirit who came upon Cornelius and his household, right in front of Peter. Peter was at Pentecost; he knew what it looked like. He knew exactly what was happening. And it happened at the Spirit’s own initiative, without waiting for any cues. The Spirit came upon them while Peter was still speaking, giving what might have been his more-or-less standard introductory sermon. Other unexpected converts had received the Holy Spirit upon being baptized, but not Cornelius and his household; the Spirit didn’t wait. Peter called for their baptism, because after what the Holy Spirit had just done, how could he not?

We moderns really aren’t always any quicker than Peter to catch on to what the Spirit is doing in the world. We are more prone to seek comfort and familiarity rather than be open to those among whom the Spirit is moving. To put it rather bluntly: when was the last time you invited someone to this church who was in some demonstrable way – in race or ethnic background, or class, or orientation, or national origin, or (shudder) even political party – different from you? Clearly we do not reject persons of different races or backgrounds; we have welcomed, we do welcome, we will welcome – but do we invite? Do we take the initiative to reach out? 

The silos in which we live in society can be composed of very nearly anything, not just the classifiers noted above, and we in our homes, our workplaces, our social circles (and most certainly our churches) can fall into the trap of sticking with what’s comfortable, what’s familiar, instead of practicing the welcome of Christ, or following the initiative of the Holy Spirit. But we can’t do that, and not just because – not even primarily because – the church dies if we don’t follow. We’ve got to open ourselves to where the Spirit will lead us because that’s how we follow. That’s how we submit to the Lordship of Christ, not by memorizing rules, but by being active followers of Christ and seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit always.

We worship a God who does a new thing. We worship a God who makes clean. What God has made clean, we dare not - must not - call unclean.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #234, Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain; #---, The Holy Spirit fell; #282, Come Down, O Love Divine

acts 11 1-18

if the same story appears 

in some fashion 

three different times 

in the same book of scripture 

we should probably consider 

that it is a

very important story 

acts 10

narrates the original event 

peter will refer to that event 

one more time 

in acts 15

acts 11 is the defense when peter gets summoned 

(not merely called or invited)

to appear before the council 

of church leaders 

in jerusalem 

they are apparently 

bent out of shape 

over peter’s eating with gentiles 

so what does peter do but

tell the story 

more specifically 

tell the story of what God did

right down to 

the Holy Spirit tripping out

on cornelius and his household 

after all

you have to figure some of them 

had been at pentecost 

there was silence

and then there was praise 

that what God had done for them

God had now done for gentiles too

sadly though 

I can’t shake the feeling 

that even through the silence 

and then the praise 

some of those council members 

were still trying to figure out 

a way to get peter in trouble 

for eating with gentiles

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

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

 

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.