Sermon: The Work of Refining

First Presbyterian Church

December 8, 2021, Advent 2C

Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 1:68-79; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

 

 

The Work of Refining

 

This Christmas finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by our misuse of our own instruments and our own power.

 

 

These are the opening words of a sermon preached by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Christmas season of 1967. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that they have every bit as much relevance now as then; if anything, the “paralyzing fears” are perhaps more intense and more present than ever. War has not gone away; violent attacks across the world jolt our sense of security; even the most sober-minded and emotionally restrained individual has to consider the possibility that, no matter where they go, a mass shooting could break out. No, we are not at peace, within nor without.

If we turn to the scriptures seeking consolation, today’s offerings are a mixed bag. The reading from Philippians, one of Paul’s more effusive and loving greetings found at the beginning of his letters, seems a cheery prospect, as Paul rejoices in the Philippians, giving thanks for them, saying he “always prays with joy” for them, expressing confidence that “he who began a good work among you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” and so forth. It does, though, take a slightly less joyful turn by its end, when Paul expresses the hope that “you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,” which carries the implication that something will put that purity and blamelessness to the test.  

The other readings offered for the day put that difficulty, or at least potential difficulty, more in the foreground. The gospel reading for today from Luke 3 features John the Baptist beginning his work of stirring up trouble, while citing the words of Isaiah about one crying in the wilderness and rough places being cleared out. On one level, such a word - "the crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God's salvation" sound hopeful enough, but there's a lot of demanding work to be done before that happens. 

The morning’s canticle offered in the place of the psalm, from Luke 1, takes us back to John’s father, Zechariah, and his prophetic exaltation upon John’s birth. The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth is a heck of a story itself, as two senior citizens are jolted out of their comfortable if lonely lives by the announcement of a son to be born to them. When Zechariah’s doubts come tumbling out of his mouth in unguarded fashion, he is struck mute by the heralding angel, his tongue to be released only upon his son’s birth and naming. 

The words Zechariah utters are words of rejoicing, yes, but that rejoicing in the gloriousness of God and celebrating of the newly-born child is underscored with danger. God has been required (yet again) to redeem his people, to save them from enemies and those who hate them; the newly born son John will be called upon to give light to"those living in darkness and in the shadow of death.” This newly-born herald of the Messiah is not being born into a peaceful and calm world, and the word John will be charged to bring (as we see in Luke 3) will not be an easy word to bear.

And then, there is this passage from Malachi. Yikes.

It sounds promising at first. The messenger will come (we Christians have tended to interpret this a prophecy of John the Baptist), and then the Lord will come to his temple. Indeed, the one “whom you deaire” is coming! Joyful stuff indeed, and entirely suitable to our celebratory impulses as the day of Christmas approaches.

But then, the ominous question: “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?”

This passage makes up one of the familiar early sequences of the oratorio Messiah, by George Frideric Handel, that is often heard from large choirs this time of year. Handel, of course, is working from a different translation so the text will be different, but he clearly gets the difficulty and portent of this passage – [sing] “But who may abide the day of his coming, and shall stand when he appeareth?” Not a song of comfort.

It’s as if Malachi has taken the encouragement of the first verses and turned it on his head. The one in whom we delight is coming … and we cannot possibly endure it? 

Novelist and Presbyterian pastor Frederick Buechner got at something like this in his book The Alphabet of Grace, writing about doubt:

Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a genuine, self-authenticating religious experience would be. Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.

 

We have, in modern Christianity and particularly in modern American Christianity, become rather saturated with the notion that Jesus is our buddy, our best friend, maybe even our boyfriend in some settings. The ancients would have been utterly baffled by this idea. For all that Jesus undoes our understanding of God by coming down to walk among us in human form, what does not change is that God is a mighty God, powerful, fearsome, even terrible. To be before the face of such a God was not, in the mind of the ancients, something a human could expect to withstand without being fearfully and terribly changed by the experience, even in the face of a God who is also loving and merciful and compassionate. The love and mercy do not erase the fearfulness and terribleness. 

What comes next is also a challenge: (from the Common English Bible)

He is like the refiner's fire or the cleaner's soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. They will belong to the Lord, presenting a righteous offering.

 

Being refined by fire and purified by the harshest soap there is, again, seems in discord with the Lord in whom we delight appearing in his temple, and certainly seems at odds with the shepherds and angels and Baby Jesus and all we associate with Christmas.

And what does all that have to do with peace?

Perhaps it has to do with the things that prevent peace.

We know we are not at peace. We know ourselves, when we’re honest to be fallen, to be corrupted, even if we don’t use the theological language. We know ourselves to be sinful. And that sin, no matter how great or small, leaves us unable to know genuine peace.

We cannot stand before God in that state. But who may abide the day of his coming?

But we are not destroyed, Frederick Buechner’s concern notwithstanding. The Lord is like a refiner’s fire. A metal like silver, or gold, was in those times purified by fire. The silver or gold was changed, but it was not destroyed. The corruptions and impurities were removed, purged away by the fire. The worst stains were purged away by fuller’s soap. As in the reading from Philippians, we are made ready to be "pure and blameless" after all.

So it is with us, in the day of the Lord. 

If we truly seek the child of the manger, we cannot avoid the purifying and refining God. As much as it seems a paradox, it is all part of the same package. The terrible and fearsome purging away of our fallenness and corruption is that end to which the babe of Bethlehem takes us, even if we dare not contemplate it. And this is our deliverance, this is our hope, and yes, this is our peace, even amidst the refiner’s fire.

For the refiner’s fire and the fuller’s soap, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise noted): #666, O Splendor of God's Glory Bright; #109, Blest Be the God of Israel; #---, The Lord began a work in John; #106, Prepare the Way, O Zion 

Sermon: Advent, Part II

First Presbyterian Church

December 1, 2024, Advent 1C

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

 

Advent, Part II

 

 

Well, here we are again. At the inauguration of a new season of the church, even a new year in the life of the church, with the trappings of the season now on display in our sanctuary, somehow we’re right back where we were two weeks ago; instead of looking backward to the birth of Jesus, as Advent is popularly portrayed, we are looking ahead, into the same apocalyptic discourse we covered then, albeit written by a different gospel writer. Advent does both, we are reminded, and as the scriptures of the season are typically arranged, it looks forward before it turns its gaze to the past. Part II comes before Part I, you might say. It’s a season Doctor Who would love.

Before we plunge into Luke’s version of Jesus’s apocalyptic discourse, it might help to step back into the prophetic literature – not for the apocalyptic predecessors of Jesus’s speech, but to a word of hope given in the midst of an apocalypse in progress. 

For one often called the “weeping prophet,” and one whose name was turned into a descriptive term for the kind of accusatory tirades against wrong that pepper his writing, Jeremiah turns out to have a way with words of hope as well. Chapters 30-33 of this prophetic volume have been known as the “Little Book of Comfort” since Martin Luther’s time, for good reason; amidst the storm of prophetic outrage and the devastation of prophetic warnings fulfilled (and then some), these three chapters speak of comfort, based on the needed reminder that even in the worst of situations the Lord is still acting. 

This particular passage gets its place in Advent mostly because of its promise of “a righteous Branch to spring up for David” who “shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” It’s not hard to leap to a conclusion (from a much later perspective) that this must somehow be a reference to Jesus, born of the house and lineage of David as the gospels tell us. There are two problems with this; one, it’s misguided to assume that this is the statement Jeremiah means to make, and two, it distracts us from the meat of this passage, the part that actually makes demands upon us.

It is today far too easy to dismiss the word “righteousness” in modern thought. We are frankly more likely to hear the word in combination with the prefix “self-” as a criticism than to hear it on its own. Pastor and biblical commentator Deborah A. Block reminds us that this is a key concept of the coming of Christ as portrayed in Advent: 

…”righteousness” is one of the first words of the language of Advent. In Matthew’s gospel, “righteousness” is Jesus’s first word, spoken to John the Baptist: “Let it be so now … in this way to fulfill all righteousness” (Mt. 3:15). Righteousness is not an attitude or an absolute standard. It refers to conduct in accord with God’s purposes. It is doing the good thing and the God thing: right doing as opposed to wrongdoing, and doing as opposed to being. Self-righteousness is the inflated ego of self-approval; righteousness is the humble ethic of living toward others in just and loving relationships.[1]

 

Here is the challenge for us in Advent, particularly on this first Sunday when apocalyptic stuff gets thrown at us again. 

The language of this reading from Luke is the kind of stuff that has been lifted by writers and others over the decades to make a quick buck off a best-selling book (or in recent years movies as well). The images are fearful enough; the suggestion of “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars” is ominous and foreboding; the suggestion of natural disaster run rampant resonates too easily in our own time. After the images of fear and destruction comes the line, found in very nearly these words in Mark’s “little apocalypse” from two weeks ago, that should be the impetus for our reassurance: “Then they shall see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.” 

It should be noted that this expectation has been baked into the church's thought since its very earliest days. The short excerpt from Paul's first letter to the church in Thessalonika demonstrates this expectation in a rather matter-of-fact fashion, as Paul simply prays for his hearers and readers there that their hearts might be strengthened "that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints." 

Back to Luke, what follows after all the signs and disasters is the part that all those Left Behind books and movies don’t include: “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” The illustration of the fig tree that follows is one we can grasp well enough if we substitute a tree more familiar in these parts; when it sprouts leaves and turns green, you know what season is coming. Likewise, when we see these signs that have been laid out in this chapter, we know that “the kingdom of God is near.” 

To borrow a line from Mark 13, all those signs are only “the beginning of the birth pangs.” And Luke, like Mark, makes sure to remind us that everybody on the earth will see it come – no getting lifted away to miss the bad stuff. And yet the directions are the same: be on guard, keep watch, be awake. Pray for strength to endure it all and to be ready to “stand before the Son of Man.” After all, the very word “apocalypse” that we have so associated with destruction and chaos is in fact derived from a Greek word that means “unveiling,” “revealing,” or “revelation.” That’s how that last book of the New Testament got its name. And this reminds us that for all the fearful imagery in these apocalyptic readings, the point of it all is revealing – revealing the Son of Man, revealing the kingdom of God coming near. Revelation, not destruction.

Here’s where Jeremiah’s words connect. To live in the righteousness of God – not that nasty self-righteousness we rightly condemn, but the real thing – is going to be the thing that keeps us ready and mindful and watchful and aware as the signs of the approaching kingdom of God keep piling up. And we need to be reminded of this now, right at the beginning of Advent, lest we mistakenly start to think that the coming birth of the Messiah is the end of the story.

What we commemorate in Advent, the birth for which we prepare and celebrate, is a beginning, not an end. And for that matter, the events of Holy Week that come along in a few months, even including the Resurrection we celebrate on Easter Sunday, are not an end either. Seeing the working of God in the world will require great endurance on our part, doing justice and righteousness and being on guard and keeping watch while the signs of the times keep unfolding. 

Another biblical commentator, Michal Beth Dinkler of Yale University, summarizes our task as the season of Advent leads us towards the Christmas event:

As we move into the Christmas season, let us not get so myopic in single-mindedly over-preparing for Christmas that we forget God’s vision for the world — a vision that is God’s to control, a vision that is far broader and more expansive than either/or thinking can allow. What is at stake is not just another annual celebration or making Christmas memories with friends and family. What is at stake is the coming of the kingdom of heaven, which, Jesus reminds us, is both already and not yet here.[2]

 

Even that birth we will celebrate ere long points to this coming and here and now and not-yet kingdom of God. For all our sentimentality over the event, it is the challenge that follows that we need to take from and live into during this and every Advent season. Living in God’s justice and righteousness; that’s how we remain on guard and keep watch for the coming of the Son of Man, in power and great glory.

For even the challenging and difficult words of scripture that are, after all, words of hope, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless indicated): #93, Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates; #87, Comfort, Comfort Now My People; #---, For lo! the day will surely come; #102, Savior of the Nations, Come

 

 

---

[1] Deborah A. Block, “Pastoral Perspective” commentary on Jeremiah 33:14-16, in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, 6. 

[2] Michal Beth Dinkler, Commentary on Luke 21:25-36, Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-luke-2125-36-4 (accessed November 30, 2024).

Sermon: To Be Thankful

First Presbyterian Church

November 24, 2024, Thanksgiving

Deuteronomy 8:7-18; Luke 17:11-19

 

To Be Thankful

 

 

I confess that I’m not used to Thanksgiving worship services. I’ve seen them before, mostly during my childhood and only a few as a member of the clergy. I should also acknowledge Thanksgiving as a national holiday does not necessarily have specifically religious origins (it was declared and fixed on the calendar by presidents ranging from Washington to Lincoln to FDR), and there were Thanksgiving observances in the Virginia colony as early as 1607 and even in Florida before that – well before those New England Pilgrims even showed up. But regardless of origins, Thanksgiving – or gratitude, to use the more theological word – is certainly a Christian ideal, one worthy for all of us to pursue.

Admittedly, at this time of year it’s possible to feel, perhaps, a little hectored or pestered about overtly displaying gratitude – maybe you grew up in a family where you had to say something you were thankful for before you finally got to dive into the turkey? I can’t rule out the possibility that the ancient Hebrews miiiiiight just have felt that way when Moses was delivering the speech recorded in our reading from Deuteronomy. (I’m sure we probably tend to view it like a scene from The Ten Commandments, with everybody looking reverently at Charlton Heston, but I’m not so sure that's how it happened.) Yes, Moses, we promise, we’ll remember. Really. We promise. But of course, continuing to read the history of that people in Hebrew scripture reveals that, in fact, they didn’t do such a good job of remembering; forgetting their God and pursuing idols almost as quickly as they settled down in their newfound home, then rejecting God's kingship in favor of a human king during the time of the prophet Samuel. So much for gratitude, hmm? So being reminded to be grateful is probably a good thing every now and then. 

But it’s also worth being reminded of what that gratitude was supposed to look like. That's a pretty fierce warning in verse 14, about how "your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God." The Hebrew people would hardly be the only nation in history to get all caught up in its own strength and forget about the God who gave in the first place. So evidently that's challenging enough; and there's a reason that verse 17 warns us about congratulating ourselves for accumulating wealth (a warning that quite a few people ignore completely today). 

But let's go back to verse 11. "Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws, and his decrees..." That puts a different spin on things. Gratitude, it turns out, isn’t just a frame of mind. It involves action. It means doing things, particular things. It involves living a particular way. 

In the story from the gospel of Luke, we do see action – we see a direct expression of gratitude. Of the ten lepers who are healed by Jesus, one of them turns back to offer his thanks to Jesus for that healing. 

When we tell this story we often make a point of singling out this one for extra praise. Often we do so as much by shaming or scorning the nine who did not return as by praising the one who did. It’s possible that’s not the best lesson on gratitude to learn from this account, though. 

For one thing, the nine were doing what Jesus told them to do. As far as we know, since they don’t show up again in the gospels, they went to the priests and showed themselves to be clean. Presuming the priest did his job properly, the nine were then “cleared” and allowed possibly to return to their families and freed from the isolation and expulsion that victims of leprosy suffered in that time period. You might say they got their lives back, and to them, that must have been the best thing ever.

The one, on the other hand, would have gained no benefit from a visit to the priest. You see, even if he was no longer a leper, he was still a Samaritan. The priest would have likely refused such a proclamation of health to a Samaritan. Even a return to Samaria might not have been of any benefit if Samaritan authorities found out that he had been healed by a Jew. In turning back to Jesus, the one in fact turned back to the only One who would receive him, and would in his final words acknowledge him as not only being made healthy, but also being made whole – so much more than simple physical healing. 

You can be healed of your physical infirmity and still be quite broken. What Jesus gives to those who turn to him is so far beyond physical healing. And that is most certainly worth our thanksgiving and gratitude. And what that gratitude looks like in practice? There are so many possible answers to that question.

One of them (yes, you probably saw this coming) involves this church. For many of you here it has been a locus of your faith and witness for years, decades even. Whichever is the case, being a part of this church is, on a very basic level, part (maybe even the main part) of your witness. It is part of your testimony to the goodness of God in your life, to the ways in which you have been blessed by God and supported and sustained by God, even how you’ve been picked up and been given new life by God when it all seemed to be over, maybe. So, yes, (here comes the stewardship part) how you support this church, this particular church in this particular place with its history and its present and its future, is a part of your witness to the goodness of God. Simple as that. 

[Distribute cards/envelopes with instructions, etc.]

The nine got their lives back, which is itself an amazing thing. The one received new life. In the difference between the two is all the motivation for gratitude we should ever need. 

For new life, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #336, We Gather Together; #367, Come, Ye Thankful People, Come; #643, Now Thank We All Our God

 

 

 

Sermon: Signs of the Times

First Presbyterian Church

November 17, 2024, Pentecost 26B

Mark 13:1-8

 

Signs of the Times

 

 

Every lectionary cycle ends basically the same way. The final Sunday of any lectionary cycle is celebrated as Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday. What happens the Sunday before that, however, can be a bit wild. 

Year A, on the gospel of Matthew, culminates with the barrage of parables Jesus lets loose in Matthew 25, just before all Hell breaks loose, in about as literal a sense as that phrase can be used, in chapter 26. Mark and Luke, on the other hand, choose to put forth a bit of apocalyptic teaching from Jesus. (Matthew also includes such an apocalyptic discourse from Jesus, but the lectionary framers chose not to include it; apparently two years out of three is enough.) Curiously, the start of the next lectionary cycle will also touch on an apocalyptic theme; we will be on to the gospel of Luke at that point, but the text will address Christ’s return, “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Don’t worry, after this you won’t have to hear about apocalypse for the rest of the lectionary year. 

But for this Sunday we come to this seemingly out-of-nowhere discourse from Jesus on What to Expect When the End Is Coming. As unfamiliar and different as it may seem, though, it is prompted by something very familiar in Mark’s gospel; a disciple vocally and obviously Not Getting It.

Hot on the heels of Jesus’s denunciation of the power structure of the Temple and its exploitation of those who partake in its worship (at the end of chapter 12), one of the disciples (mercifully unnamed) goes off in a tizzy over the Temple building itself: “what massivee stones! What magnificent buildings!” Jesus ends all discussion with the blunt assessment “Not one stone here will be left upon another; every one will be thrown down.” Only when the group has reached the Mount of Olives do Peter, James, John, and Andrew (something of an executive committee of the disciples) dare to ask Jesus for an explanation.

There is a bit of history, though, that can keep us on track here and keep us from going off on apocalyptic tangents too soon. While you can get a good argument among biblical scholars on the exact date, those scholars agree that Mark’s gospel was written some uncertain time around the year 70 – maybe a little before, maybe a little after. That date is very significant, as it was the year that, after extended conflict between Judean rebels and the imperial Roman occupiers of Judea, the Romans destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem. Jesus’s words here as recorded by Mark are describing an event that either is imminent or has just happened. There’s no forth-telling here; Mark’s readers will know exactly what this is about.

The aforementioned four disciples seek an explanation from Jesus on the Mount of Olives, but instead Jesus presses on with more detail and warning. Emilie Townes, biblical scholar and dean of Vanderbilt University’s theology school, summarizes the horrors described like so: 

The ebb and flow of creation as we know it, the relationships we have established, the cultural markers that help define us – these and more are now obliterated. This is total destruction at its sharpest. It is unrelenting and unforgiving, and no one – not even the faithful – can escape its devastating blows as the old age is swept away for the new one.

And that’s just these first eight verses, which Jesus, clearly pushing beyond that initial shock, describes as just “the beginning of the birth pangs.” The rest of Mark 13 gets even worse, at least until that appearance of the Son of Man with great power and glory (v. 26). That’s the thing about these apocalypses in the gospels; they end with the very thing we’re looking forward to, right? We long for Jesus to be present among us again, right? 

In the meantime, though, things aren’t easy. And here’s the kicker; no one gets off scott-free, not even the faithful. No one gets raptured away to be “kept safe” in the dark and dangerous times. And yet notice also that there is no “call to arms” here, no summons to battle. There’s nothing here about fighting to save … well, anything. 

What are we called to do, then? Keep watch. Beware. Keep bearing witness to the gospel. Endure to the end. Don’t be led astray by false witnesses or would-be messiahs. Pay attention to the signs of the times. Don’t be stupid enough to think you know when this is all going to happen. And one more time, in verse 37, “Watch!”

There are two things about this passage we’d do well to remember, lest we get too distressed or hopeless over it all. One: this is not new talk. Frankly, what Jesus is saying here is, more or less, boilerplate apocalyptic with a long, deep history in Jewish tradition. And at least in these first eight verses, the events described are, well, not all that uncommon. Would-be messiahs? Check. Wars and rumors of wars? Check. Nations rising against nations, kingdoms against kingdoms? Earthquakes? Famines? Check, check, check. We can certainly claim these things, but so can frankly almost any age.

Point two to remember is found in verse 8: all of this that Jesus describes is but “the beginnings of the birth pangs.” As one who has never experienced nor will experience that particular sensation, I would not dare to comment upon it. However, we have to note that the birth pangs are not the end-all and be-all of pregnancy; birth pangs give way to birth, new life, new love.

So it is with these times. The birth pangs of conflict and trouble give way to the new birth of life in the unending presence of Jesus, the Son of Man coming with great power and glory.

The times of trouble can be stressful indeed. Even the poet William Butler Yeats was struck by the sense of turmoil and discord and the loss of innocence that comes with these, in his poem “The Second Coming”; 

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

 

If that doesn’t sound familiar just from a glance at daily headlines, I don’t know what to tell you. And yet…and yet…and yet, here we are promised that for all the birth pangs, for all the trials and conflict and violence, our end is promised in the returning of our Lord among us. 

In the meantime, we endure. We keep listening to the Spirit, we keep studying what we have been given in scripture – not hunting and cherry-picking for stuff that gives us an excuse to do what we want, but taking what Jesus says and learning how to live it, taking what the early church experienced and learned and figuring out what that teaches us, paying attention to those signs of the times without obsessing on them or using them as an excuse to launch a holy war. We endure, we wait, we keep awake, we keep faithful. And we await, even await with joy, what comes after the “birth pangs.”

 Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #352, My Lord! What a Morning; #361, O Christ, the Great Foundation; #629, Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee

 

 

Sermon: Finally, Someone Gets It!

First Presbyterian Church

November 3, 2024, Pentecost 22B

Revelation 21:1-6; Mark 10:46-52

 

Finally, Someone Gets It!

 

 

What makes a saint? 

This isn't about the technical qualifications for sainthood in the Roman Catholic church, nor even those qualities that we attribute to "saints" in a more informal sense, the types who would be first in line to get into that Holy City depicted in our verses from Revelation. Maybe you've seen the paintings, utterly pure-looking with eyes cast longingly upward, as if in constant seeking prayer. Even when the painting is depicting the martyrdom of such a saint, you can count on those eyes being directed piously upward.

This is, of course, not a tradition in which all corners of the church participate. Presbyterians, for example, don't "do" saints; if they did, however, you could probably find a large swell of support for one Rev. Fred McFeely Rogers, once ordained by a presbytery in the Pittsburgh area with a charge to minister to children and their families through the media. You might have heard of that show, ultimately titled Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

So what is it about Mister Rogers, for example, or about anyone who comes to have so touched so many with good, to the point of being so highly regarded by so many? 

Perhaps in its simplest form, these "saints" get it, in ways that so many of us do not.

The gospel of Mark gives us a lot of examples of Jesus’s disciples demonstrating that they just don’t get it. Chapters 8-10 in particular bring this point about the disciples home with extra force, as they falter again and again in the face of Jesus’s repeated insistence on his coming suffering and death. Even the rare occasion of one of them seeming to “get it,” Peter’s proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah back in chapter 8, is immediately followed by Peter’s demonstration that he really doesn’t get it. As we noted two weeks ago, Jesus isn’t going to give up on them, since at that point he is literally in the process of giving his whole life, his very being, his soul for them. Still, you have to figure that it got frustrating.

We (along with Jesus) finally get a break from this relentless downer streak in today’s reading, when at long last we encounter a person who, in ways that are rare in this gospel, gets it. And it’s a person you might least expect to do so, to boot.

This passage begins curiously, with the terse statement that “they came to Jericho” followed immediately by the declaration that “as he (Jesus) and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho…”. What happened in Jericho? Is this like that popular line that got its start in TV commercials, the one about how “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”? What happened in Jericho that suddenly there is this large crowd traveling along with Jesus and the disciples? What do they think is going to happen, so that they choose to drop whatever they’re doing and follow Jesus? What do they want from Jesus? Do they get it any better than the disciples do?

Whatever the case may be, this newly enhanced crowd is making its way out of Jericho and comes within the range of a common fixture, one we ourselves can see often enough: a beggar on the side of the road. Mark gives us his name, Bartimaeus, and also helpfully translates the Aramaic name to tell us that he is “son of Timaeus.” We also learn that Bartimaeus is blind. 

Somehow, in the hubbub of the crowd, Bartimaeus picks out the fact that this person passing by is the one called “Jesus of Nazareth.” At this he springs into action. Notice that in his calling out, he doesn’t cry out to “Jesus of Nazareth,” but to “Jesus, Son of David.” Now that sounds like a common enough reference to us Christians two thousand years later, but this is the first time that term is used in the whole gospel of Mark. The second time it comes up is in the next verse. The only other time it appears is a couple of chapters from now, when Jesus is in dispute with some of the religious scribes and authorities. And as far as Mark is concerned, that’s it. It’s not a typical name for Jesus, at least not in this gospel, and that tells us right away something about Bartimaeus. 

In a way that almost nobody in this gospel has shown so far, Bartimaeus gets it. 

To call Jesus “Son of David” is to tap into some of the deepest, longest-held prophetic teaching of Judaism at this time. It reaches back, obviously, to one of the most revered figures in Hebrew scripture. It ties Jesus not only into a royal line, but also into one of the most treasured promises of that scripture, the promise of a deliverer, a redeemer, who would come to save his people Israel. A Messiah, in other words. 

We can’t claim that Bartimaeus gets everything, but he gets that much, and determines to call out to this Son of David. Getting shushed and shamed by the crowd (beggars weren't supposed to be this noisy) only jacks up his determination that much more. He calls out “Son of David, have mercy on me!” even more loudly. 

And Jesus stops. 

The crowd, quite likely, grows quiet at this unexpected stop.

Jesus says, “Call him here.” 

The crowd, up to now the ones shushing and shaming Bartimaeus, now calls him forward, and Bartimaeus does not hesitate. He throws off his cloak – quite likely his only earthly possession – and springs up from his blind-beggar position and makes his way to Jesus. 

Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for you?”

We’ve heard this before, just a few verses earlier in this chapter, when James and John come to him with their request for seats of honor in glory, a request born of their spiritual blindness. That’s what Jesus asks them, and Jesus asks that question again here, to a man pleading from his position of physical blindness. 

Bartimaeus keeps it simple. “My teacher, let me see again.” Notice: my teacher. Not the generic “Teacher” more commonly heard throughout this gospel, even from Jesus’s disciples. My teacher. Again, to a degree not seen so far in this gospel, Bartimaeus gets it. We still don’t fully understand just how much he gets it, not quite yet, but somehow, more than what we’ve seen so far, Bartimaeus gets it.

And Jesus seems to realize this. The last time he restored a blind man’s sight, back in chapter 8, the process was rather involved: spitting in the dirt to make some mud (sounds like an awful lot of spitting), applying that mud to the blind man’s eyes, then repeating the touch when the man reported seeing people looking like trees walking around. Not this time. The striking reply comes: “Go; your faith has made you well.” Then, Bartimaeus could see – no rinse-and-repeat necessary. One moment he couldn’t see, the next he could. 

Still, though, that wasn’t the final evidence that this once-blind man understood. That comes in the final phrase; once Bartimaeus had regained his sight, he “followed him on the way.” So far as we are told he didn’t even pick up his cloak. Leaving behind what, again, was probably all he owned, he followed Jesus. If this sounds like an inverse echo of the story of the rich man from earlier in this chapter, the one who left sorrowing at the thought of selling off all he owned, you’re right. Unlike that rich man (so far as we know), Bartimaeus gets it, and not only does he get it, but he also acts upon that understanding. 

Maybe this is our caution for the day. Whatever image of "saints" we may carry around with us, be they the pious ancient saints of those paintings or the ever-so-upright "saints" of our more recent church history, they probably don't include a blind beggar sitting on the side of the road. And yet it was exactly that man who "got it," and acted upon it, when so few others did.

For, finally, the one who got it, and what he teaches us, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #326, For All the Saints; #517, Hear, O Our Lord, We See You; #772, Live Into Hope

Sermon: Always in Need of Being Reformed

First Presbyterian Church

October 27, 2024, Reformation

Mark 12:28-34

 

Always in Need of Being Reformed

 

 

October 31, 1517 is commonly reckoned as the day on which a young monk named Martin Luther nailed a document to the door of the cathedral in Wittemburg, now part of Germany. The document outlined ninety-five “theses” or arguments against what he saw as corruptions in the established church of his time. Even amongst the many other documents or broadsides likely nailed to that cathedral door, this one did get attention, and the established church did exactly what you’d expect; set out to discredit and then disfellowship Martin Luther. Nonetheless his arguments caught on with many, some from genuine theological or ethical concern, others from political expedience. Eventually most of Germany and other northern reaches of Europe took on Lutheranism as their establishment church. In later years differing reformation movements broke out in France and Switzerland and later in England and some in a handful of other places; the former of those is the tradition from which our own Presbyterian denomination was born (after a side trip though Scotland).

Some observers have suggested that this is something the church goes through every five hundred years or so. About five hundred years before the Reformation (and these numbers are extremely approximate) was the Great Schism, when the eastern and western branches of the church separated, resulting in the traditions we know now as Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches. Five hundred years before that, give or take, came the fall of the Roman Empire with which the church had become closely intertwined, ultimately progressing over many decades to the great reform of the church initiated by Pope Gregory. (You might say things moved more slowly then.)

Even rudimentary ability at math will tell you we’re right in that 500-year-give-or-take window following the Protestant Reformations. With all this in mind you’ll not be surprised to hear that more than a few observers of the church are suggesting that it is due for reformation, if not right smack in the middle of one already. To be fair, it’s hard to blame folks for that suggestion, as the state of the larger church these days is frankly low-hanging fruit for its critics:

Ø  A large segment of the church has disintegrated into little more than an appendage of a political party. 

Ø  A large segment of the church more closely resembles a media/entertainment empire than an agent of mission or worship.

Ø  A large segment of the church, in the face of evident decline in membership and finances, has taken up the mantra of “survival at all costs,” again without regard for mission or worship.

Ø  A segment of the church (perhaps not so large) resorts to social outlets and “gatherings” without much commitment or challenge.

Ø  And a segment of the church has basically given up, resigned to playing out the string the same way they always have.

Ø  To be sure, these characteristics overlap and intermingle across all reaches of the church.

And that’s just the church in the United States. We’re not even getting into what challenges the global church faces.

What has any of this, you might ask, to do with today’s reading from the gospel of Mark? Perhaps everything, if we pay attention to what question is asked, and how it is answered.

Since last we left Jesus in Mark 10, a lot has happened. Jesus and his newly-enhanced crowd of followers have entered Jerusalem (that thing we celebrate on Palm Sunday), and Jesus has disrupted the commerce surrounding the Temple. A fig tree got cursed. Jesus has since been under siege from one group or other of the religious elite of Jerusalem, putting up with “gotcha” questions and attempted rhetorical trappings. Jesus fended them off with some straightforward traditional answers right out of the Torah, some debunkings of the questions themselves, a parable about wicked tenants overthrowing their landlord that was clearly directed at those religious authorities, and probably a few facepalms – you know, that gesture that happens when it’s all you can do not to exclaim how ridiculous or just plain stupid someone else is being. 

One of the scribes has been observing the humiliation of his fellow scholars and perhaps wondering if he truly wants to be affiliated with them right now. He cuts in with the most basic question possible: “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus’s answer, far from being radical, is about as Torah as you could get, directly citing what we have in our Bibles as Deuteronomy 6:4-5. There are two interesting additions here: Jesus adds the phrase “with all your mind” into the mix, which likely pleased a scholar of the law, and added a second commandment from Leviticus 19:18; “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The scribe agrees, sounding out his agreement even that loving neighbor as self “is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus’s semi-cryptic answer, “You are not far from the kingdom of God,” ends not only that conversation but the whole trap-question campaign – “no one dared to ask him any question.” 

As cryptic as Jesus’s last comment might have seemed in that instant, it’s not so hard to figure out in context. Think back to chapter 10 two weeks ago and the rich man who went away sorrowing when Jesus told him to sell all his stuff, give the proceeds away to the poor, and follow Jesus. Think also of Bartimaeus, later in chapter 10, who “immediately followed him on the way” after his sight was restored (and was presumably among the crowd that had accompanied Jesus into Jerusalem; we'll get to him next week). The difference, you’ll remember, was in the doing. We get no indication at all of how this scribe responds; Mark’s account moves on quickly to more teaching, and we never hear of the scribe again – after all, we are just three days before Jesus’s crucifixion. 

The implied challenge before the scribe is, I submit, where a modern impulse towards reformation might be centered. How much of what the church does and says and clings to in today’s world and across this country can’t be reconciled with those two greatest commandments? How much of the behavior of the church or its members across this country looks at all like loving God with all one’s heart and soul and mind and strength, and loving neighbor as self? 

You know what? I’m going to give our denomination credit. The PC(USA) is trying. It might not always be clear or effective, and you can be sure not everybody is on board, but with such efforts as the Matthew 25 initiative, there is at least the attempt to act upon that commandment about loving neighbor as self. It is, at the least, not going away sorrowing over the call to give up our possessions.

Two caveats need to be applied here. Other commandments don’t go away. Jesus doesn’t dispose of the law with this statement, even if he does assign a hierarchy to it. Loving God and neighbor comes first. Any one thing, anything at all that puts us in a position in conflict with loving God and neighbor needs to give way, no matter how righteous it might seem or might have been intended to be. 

The second caveat applies to the whole idea of reformation itself. One of the earliest quotables from the Reformed tradition – the branch we come from, that is – is the catchy Latin phrase ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda. It commonly gets mistranslated as “the church reformed, always reforming.” That’s a problem, because reformanda doesn’t really translate as “reforming,” but as “being reformed.” Grammar fans understand the difference, hopefully. Is the church acting, or is the church first being acted upon? From whence comes the initiative for being reformed, as opposed to merely reforming? 

Whether or not the church is truly entering (or amidst) a season of reformation depends tremendously upon this understanding. Given some of the behaviors and characteristics noted earlier, it’s not unfair to wonder whether much of the church has at all, at any even remotely recent point in its history, engaged in the simple yet profoundly challenging exercise of waiting upon the Lord. How often does the church or its leaders simply read scripture, instead of hunting and cherry-picking passages to prop itself up or denigrate its chosen enemies? How often does much of the church or its leadership, instead of praying for a lot of smiting of those chosen enemies or for the appointment of judges who will do what they want, simply pray “your will be done”? How often does the church love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength? How often does the church love its neighbor as it loves itself?

Any 500-year upheaval, any new reformation in the church will almost inevitably have to be preceded by a season of listening. Listening to God. Listening to those neighbors. Listening to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned. Listening to those who aren’t white, or male, or straight. Listening to those who know what it means to be under somebody’s heel, and who have too often seen the church propping up that somebody instead of lifting up the oppressed. 

And all of this goes not just for the larger church, but for the individual church too. Without such a season of listening, of being in scripture and in prayer, and of making ready for and seeking the prompting of the Spirit, no church is going to come out on the other side of this pandemic time or this post-uprising time with much of a future, or even much of a reason to go on. There’s a challenge for everybody and every church, from the smallest family church to the largest megachurch. 

Let us pray, let us listen, and let us await being reformed.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise noted): #624, I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art; #---, O love your God with all your heart; #275, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God