Homily: The In-Between

First Presbyterian Church

April 4, 2026, Holy Saturday A

Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; John 19:38-42

 

The In-Between

 

 

It isn't often we hear the kind of desperate, unadulterated, almost unhinged kind of lamentation we hear in this reading from the book of Lamentations. And yet, with the gospels remaining resolutely silent about anything on this day between the awful Good Friday and the terrifying morning of Easter Sunday, this depths-plumbing wail of suffering and, well, lament isn't the worst possibility for filling that gap.

Friday ends with the unexpected disciple Joseph of Arimathea and the unexpected sympathizer Nicodemus showing up to perform a nearly-royal burial on Jesus's body, in Joseph's own tomb at that. The narrative then goes silent until the morning of the first day of the week, when (in John's gospel at least) Mary Magdalene shows up by herself, waiting for who knows what.

What Mary Magdalene, along with Peter and the other disciples and fellow travelers might have noticed on that day in between was that the world did not stop for their grief. Just as the world is not stopping for this small observance today, just as traffic on 7th Street never stops, the world keeps doing what it normally does. Faithful Jews are not necessarily out and about because it's the Sabbath. The Romans? They're probably doing what they usually do most days: either whatever their commander tells them to do, or whatever they want. Aside from being Sabbath, it's just another day out there.

You have to wonder if these words from Lamentations came to mind for Jesus's followers on this day. Imagine Peter, three times verbally and quite loudly having denied Jesus, alone somewhere in his grief. Not to let the other disciples off the hook; at least Matthew's account makes sure we know they "deserted" Jesus, just as he said they would. For Mary Magdalene and the other women, who followed Jesus and might well have provided for the whole party out of their own resources, the one man they knew who treated them as fully human was now dead. Where could they possibly turn to now?

And yet, in even this bleakest abyss of despair, our lamenter can't avoid hope; "but this I call to mind...the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end...". You have to wonder if any of the disciples or followers of Jesus managed to have even a tiny bit of such a moment on that bleakest of Sabbaths.

For this day, Jesus was dead. We of course know what happens tomorrow morning, but for this day, Jesus was dead.

This is our day, you know, the in-between day in which we live our lives. We have seen Good Friday happen; we know Easter Sunday is coming (or at least we're about to go decorate the church for Easter Sunday, so we're acting like it's coming), but it doesn't take much of a look-around to see that we don't live in an Easter world. And our headlines remind us that some of the worst anti-Easter things out there are being done or endorsed by religious authorities and those who seek their protection, and those day-after followers of Jesus would recognize that as well.

And in this dark in-between, our Lamentations reading amazingly offers the word of hope for the day: "the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end...". Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Sermon: Can These Bones Live?

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

March 22, 2026, Lent 5A

Ezekiel37:1-14; Psalm 130; John 11:1-45

 

Can These Bones Live?

 

 

You might be caught off guard by the tone of that psalm we read earlier.

It's a psalm, at least until those last two verses, that is about as frankly bleak and despair-laden as anything you might see in scripture. That opening phrase - "Out of the depths" - has proven awfully alluring for many kinds of artists seeking to portray a state of despair or darkness. It shows up on four different Sundays in the Revised Common Lectionary, has been set to music many times (sometimes under its Latin heading "De profundis"), and has inspired writers such as Elizabeth Barret Browning, Oscar Wilde, Federico Garcia Lorca, and C.S. Lewis.

It's probably not an accident that this psalm is paired with these two scriptures offered up for the church on this fifth Sunday of Lent, readings that come a little bit like a slap in the face (or maybe a slap in the faith) at this time of the liturgical year. Both of them have the temerity to offer up, two solid weeks before the observance of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, stories of new life being brought to that which was dead. "Out of the depths," indeed.

The obvious move, the one most pastors I know are likely making, would probably be to go to John’s account of Jesus’s raising of Lazarus. After all, that’s a whopper of a reading, both in terms of its sheer length (forty-five verses!) and the impact it has on the story of Jesus’s earthly ministry. Honestly, one of these years I might be tempted to take this story and break it up over the first five weeks of Lent; I honestly think there might be about five sermons in there.

You get Jesus dawdling about going to see Lazarus, and he gets a bit of what-for over that - "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." You get what was in the KJV the shortest verse in the Bible – “Jesus wept” (every kid I knew was quick to claim that as one of their "memory verses" in Sunday school). You get the warning that if Jesus really goes through with having the tomb opened after four days, it would, well, smell, as un-embalmed bodies do after a while, even today. You get, above all, Lazarus coming out of the tomb. If you push later into John's gospel, you find that his raising of Lazarus is part of why the religious authorities are so intent on getting rid of Jesus. There's so much possibility in this account, and I have no doubt that a lot of those sermons getting preached today are going to be about the best sermons that those preacher friends of mine are going to preach this season.

But I still can’t look away from Ezekiel’s story, the one that prompted James Weldon Johnson to create the song "Dry Bones" and get his brother to set it to music.

Ezekiel is, to put it in modern vernacular, one messed-up dude. He was a priest in Jerusalem who got carried away in the first wave of exile to Babylon, when the occupying forces chose only to “cut off the head” of Jerusalem – that is, take away its leaders, including its religious leaders. The puppet king installed after this turned out not to be quite such a puppet after all, and when he stopped paying tribute the Babylonians returned and destroyed the city.

This experience seems to have taken a particular toll on Ezekiel. Ezekiel was most likely, in modern terms, a victim of psychological trauma, most likely resulting in what we would call clinical depression. The outlandish nature of some of his visions (including this one), some of his prophetic behaviors that make even Jeremiah look tame by comparison, and his sometimes-extreme tone in calling out his people and their kings for their sinfulness and rebellion suggest a man who would at minimum be deep into therapy in modern times, if not something more intense.

And it is to this broken, traumatized old priest that God brings this deeply creepy, and yet deeply hopeful, vision of death being raised up into new life. Actually, that’s not quite right. This isn’t Lazarus still more or less in one piece just waiting for the call. This is not mere death; this is a destroyed, desiccated, disassembled, dehydrated kind of death, way beyond any kind of haunted house or Hollywood horror movie. And before this scene of absolute lifelessness, God asks old messed-up Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these bones live?”

There’s a lot of wisdom in Ezekiel’s answer: “O Lord God, you know.” God was clearly up to something, and Ezekiel (perhaps all the more because of his trauma) had the wit not to get in the way. God gives Ezekiel the command to “prophesy to these bones,” and maybe only someone who had seen too much, someone as broken and hurting as Ezekiel, could take such a command seriously enough to carry it out. He does, and behold, the bones find their way back to each other, they take on all the tissue and flesh that had long ago dried up and rotted away, and there are…bodies.

Not people, not yet: just bodies, bodies that were reconstructed and whole, but “there was no breath in them” – no wind, no spirit. It’s not quite like in the account from John, in which after Jesus called to Lazarus he was indeed alive, but still all bound up in the burial cloths in which he had been wrapped. Lazarus needed release; he still needed to be cut loose from the old trappings of death that still clung to him. These bodies in front of Ezekiel still needed breath, spirit, life itself. They aren't just dried-out old bones anymore, but there is still no life in them.

So, of course, God tells Ezekiel to “prophesy to the breath.” Ezekiel obeyed (what else was he going to do at this point?), and from “the four winds” came the breath that breathed life into these lifeless bodies. As Ezekiel recounts it, they stood up, a “vast multitude,” waiting.

Waiting. Is that where we are?

Verses 11-14 bring Ezekiel's bizarre experience home. In this vision, for that is what all this has been, those dried-up bones are nothing less than God's people, the ones conquered and exiled and occupied and crushed and living without any kind of hope whatsoever. All that Ezekiel has been commanded to do before the valley of the dry bones, God will do for God's people, says God to Ezekiel. It's not just about the bones taking on flesh; it's about the breath, the spirit, being placed within them. It's about being brought back to life again.

That message of hope has come through across the centuries, not least as that previously mentioned song that connected to the still-developing civil rights movement in the United States in the early twentieth century. In the early 1920s the great poet and dramatist and author James Weldon Johnson seized upon this story to evoke a movement that was itself still coming together, complete with lyrics about the foot bone connecting to the heel bone and the heel bone connecting to the ankle bone and you know how the rest of it goes. His brother Rosamond Johnson created the tune, and the rest is history (it certainly got altered in later years).

So, where are we in this trio of readings? Are we the psalmist, reduced to crying "out of the depths" but still waiting on the Lord despite it all, still not quite letting go of hope? Are we Lazarus, newly alive again but waiting to be freed from the bonds that keep us from moving and doing? Are we Martha and Mary complaining that Jesus didn't come quickly enough? Are we the dried old bones, without hope? Are we the reassembled bodies made physically whole but without breath, without spirit? Are we the newly breathing and living, standing ready, waiting for whatever God calls us to do?

Or, maybe, are we Ezekiel? Seen too much, been broken too much in too many places by too many things? Are we too broken to hope even a little bit, and yet so broken that we have nothing left to do but hope? Are we so broken that the moment we see or hear any little thing, any sign or word from God, we're going to cling to as if our lives depend on it, because maybe they do? Can we respond, along with the old prophet, with that kind of obedience to the most ridiculous or insane-sounding commands (I mean, really, "prophesy to these bones"?)? Are we desperate enough for that?

Or are we still too sure of ourselves, too much in control, too "sane" to think that any such outlandish (and kind of gruesome) command of God could be real? Are we too much "good church folk" to find a thing to hold on to in such horrific scenes, to hear God, to hear any word from God in such bizarre circumstances?

“Mortal, can these bones live?” “O Lord God, you know.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #424, Out of the Depths; #---, Rise Up; #286, Breathe on Me, Breath of God

 

The Ballad of the Democracy Destroyer, or, Let It Slide

There came a man, wealth was his god;

And vain and boastful was his play,

But still the people did applaud

And send him on his merry way

To fame and fortune, wrongly earned.

But he the power of fame had learned.

But when his star began to fade,

Ill fortune raised him up anew.

So to TV he turned, and played

A corporate mogul, strong and true.

But when off-camera, lust ran wild - 

It mattered not woman or child.

But those who fawned him let it slide

And helped his heinous deeds to hide.

Though fame was fun, he wanted more,

So power he ventured next to seek.

He sought it as he had before:

Suck up to strong and crush the weak.

The simpering haters joined his cause,

Ignoring all the rules and laws. 

Though all the girls he'd groped before 

Bore witness and called out his ways,

And others named the Russian shore

As stoking his demented haze,

Still half a nation followed him;

Liberty's light grew faint and dim.

Somehow this nation let it slide; 

Democracy just up and died.

Four years his ego rampant ran

Before the voters turned him out.

But four years on it was his plan

That put plain decency to rout.

Now regained his tainted height,

He turned to put his foes to flight.

A goon squad serving him alone

And minions spouting garbled lies?

Ere long, pretense was up and gone.

See, this is how a nation dies.

But still the ones with legal power

Failed oh, so badly in that hour.

Again the cowardly let it slide

And left him on his throne of pride.

He waged his war yet undeclared

On all who dared to disagree,

And rained foul hate throughout the land

From sea to no-more-shining sea.

E'en as his mind grew weak and pained, 

His minions siezed his power and reigned.

And so we stand at Hell's own gate - 

Or is it Heaven's? But who can tell?

Are we defunct? Is it too late?

Or can this story yet end well?

Will evil be cast out for good,

This nation yet be what it should?

Or, since vain Congress let it slide,

Has this country, at long last, died?

(January 2026)

Sermon: The Refugee Jesus

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

December 28, 2025, Christmas 1A

Matthew 2:13-23

 

The Refugee Jesus

I wish I could simply preach a simple, carefree, Christmas-y sermon today. I wish I could just ignore this story and keep it cheerful. But this story resists easy cheeriness, and in the world and time in which we live, to ignore this scripture and the way it warns us would be an act of pastoral abdication on my part.

It is one of the most horrifying stories in all of scripture, and possibly the most horrifying in the New Testament, possibly aside from the Crucifixion. The “Slaughter of the Innocents,” it’s called. A frightened and angry tyrant, lashing out in his fear and embarrassment, ordering the death of an untold number of infants and toddlers – all those age two or under in the town of Bethlehem – out of a raging desire to protect his own title and power. Surely we could never imagine such a ruler, or the kind of figure who would commit such an atrocity.

This story slashes across Matthew’s nativity account like the sharp blade of a sword wielded by one of Herod’s men. It all seems fairly innocent at first, if a bit convoluted, as Joseph has to be persuaded in a dream to take his unexpectedly pregnant wife, bearing the Son of God by the Holy Spirit. The appearance of the Magi from the east, how much later we’re not really sure, adds both a curiosity and an element of danger to the event; the so-called “wise men” blunder into Judea asking the sitting king for the whereabouts of the new king, and have to be warned in another of those provident dreams to go home by a different route and not play into Herod’s hands by leading him to the child. (More about the Magi next Sunday when we observe Epiphany.)

At any rate, it would be so tempting to wrap up the story at verse 15, with the Magi following their alternate route and Joseph and Mary left wondering what to do with frankincense and myrrh on the way to Egypt. (the gold, on the other hand, you figure they might have an idea what to do with). Everyone’s safe, Matthew gets to make another of his “fulfillment” references by citing Hosea 11:1 as another prophetic box that Jesus checks off, and we all go home happy.

Herod wasn’t happy, though. And Herod didn’t know when he was beaten.

If the story ever appears in most Christmas celebrations (particularly when the lectionary doesn’t include it as it does this year), it happens only if the “Coventry carol” is sung. That carol dates from no later than 1534, as part of a “mystery play” performed in that city in England, and probably much earlier. This is the one that begins “lullay, lulla, thou little tiny child” which you might have heard before, but the whole carol lays out the horrible story, particularly in the second, third, and fourth stanzas:

 

O sisters too, how may we do, 

For to preserve this day

This poor youngling for whom we sing,

Bye, bye, lully lullay?

 

Herod the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might in his own sight

All the young children to slay.

 

That woe is me, poor child, for thee,

And ever mourn and may

For thy parting neither say nor sing

Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

 

It is, if we’re paying attention, profoundly hard to read this passage without wanting to cry, or to cry out. Even as we can give thanks that the child Jesus was delivered it’s hard not to cry out with Rachel, whose lament from Jeremiah Matthew invokes here. Why, God? Why did these children have to die?

This story never fails to be horrifying, challenging, and difficult if not impossible to bear; however, in the age in which we live now, we can no longer say it is unimaginable. One of the more striking features of this Christmas season is the appearance of what might be called "ICE nativities" among a number of churches in US cities. In some cases the baby Jesus, or maybe Mary or Joseph, or perhaps all of the are missing from the scene, replaced only with a sign saying "ICE WAS HERE." In others, the nativity figures are present, but masked and weaponed ICE agents are seen approaching with masks on and weapons drawn. 

What didn't necessarily get recognized about those scenes in the press (which really needs more religion reporters out there) or those who complained about the scenes was that, as we see in today's reading, were it not for the intervention of an angel in another dream of Joseph's, our Lord and Savior and his earthly parents were going to be caught up in not a display, but an actual physical act of such violence, and even worse.  

Even in the face of this story, though, I find my voice choking, unable or unwilling to cry out at the injustice of this slaughter recorded by Matthew, if only because if I do cry out “Why do these children have to die?” I am entirely afraid that God’s answer might just be “I was just going to ask you the same question.”

On this day, when the carols and praises get stuck in our throats and wilt in our hearts, we are reminded that Jesus calls us, *all* of us to come; all of us, including Jesus’ fellow refugees, from Gaza or South Sudan or Myanmar or anywhere from which any of God’s children flee death or despair or death or tyranny or death or abuse or death *or death* **or death**, calling them, and us, to life, and life together. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: Three Presbyterian Hymnal iunless otherwise noted): #143, Angels from the Realms of Glory: Carol sing - #144, In the Bleak Midwinter, #110, Love Has Come, #132, Good Christian Friends, Rejoice; #---, What Child Is This, additional verses; #136, Go, Tell It on the Mountain

 

 

 

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

First Presbyterian Church

April 13, 2025, Palm Sunday C

Luke 19:28-44

 

The Colt, The Cloaks, and the Crying Out

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

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

 

 

---

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

Sermon: The Destiny of a Prophet

First Presbyterian Church

March 16, 2025, Lent 2C

Luke 13:31-35

 

The Destiny of a Prophet

 

 

What happens to prophets?

While prophets and their words are scattered liberally across scripture, we often don’t find out in scripture what actually happens to those prophets. The prophet Samuel grows old and dies, and the prophet Elijah is ultimately taken up into heaven in that chariot of fire, but otherwise we generally don’t hear what happens to the likes of Nathan, the prophet who rebuked King David, or those whose names (like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and such) are on so many of the books of Hebrew scripture. 

Clearly, though, those in Jesus’s time seemed to have a couple of “old sayings” on the subject. Earlier in the gospel of Luke, Jesus quotes one such saying, about how a prophet would be respected anywhere but his hometown. In today’s reading Jesus seems to be citing another such popular belief when, in his answer to those Pharisees who come to warn him about Herod, he says “for surely no prophet can die outside of Jerusalem,” from which he launches into a lament for the city, “you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you”.

Much as the biblical record doesn’t tell us much about the accuracy of this statement, the historical record outside of scripture doesn’t help much either. However, Luke’s readers would have some more recent examples of potential “prophets” who did indeed meet their demise in Jerusalem. The earliest example was James, the apostle best known as the first half of “James and John” in much of the gospel. Those who read part two of Luke’s account, what we know as the Acts of the Apostles, would also know the story of Stephen, the deacon turned apologist who was stoned to death in that city. Of course, by the time Luke’s gospel was being disseminated both the apostles Peter and Paul had been executed in Rome rather than Jerusalem, but even then the agitation against them that led to their respective executions had its origins in Jerusalem. The city, and the authorities both religious and political situated there, could be deadly for those charged to speak a word from God.

Besides the saying itself, its delivery to a group of apparently helpful Pharisees is also rather baffling. In the gospels and Acts Pharisees end up with a bad reputation, often portrayed as implacable enemies of Jesus. As is usually the case, the truth is a bit more nuanced. They were the target of much of Jesus’s denunciation, and they were often portrayed as setting “traps” for Jesus hoping to trick him into saying something they could use against him. But also, Pharisees keep inviting Jesus over for a meal, and (as here), there are those Pharisees who seem to want to keep Jesus from harm or at least want to hear more from him. 

Jesus’s response here is less concerned with the messengers than the source of the message, Herod the tetrarch of Galilee. (Tetrarch = “not quite king”, a title meant to remind Herod of the limits of his authority in the Roman Empire.) The term “fox” is not a compliment; foxes were regarded as clever but destructive creatures. While this answer overall is a bit tricky to untangle, the gist of it is this: Herod can’t touch me. I have my work to do, and God is the one who controls that. And my destiny is Jerusalem. 

That last has been the case for a while in Luke’s gospel. As far back as 9:51, shortly after the Transfiguration, we are told this:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. (NRSV)

 

“Set his face” is about as much resolution, determination, and fierceness as one can act upon. Even from this point, Jesus knows his destiny, and it ends up in Jerusalem, at the hands of the authorities there. It won’t necessarily be that direct a route, and there will be a lot of stops on the way, such as we are witnessing here in chapter 13. There is teaching to be done, there are illnesses to be healed and demons to be cast out, but all of these things take place in the context of a determined journey with only one possible final destination. And even here how that finale will play out is foreshadowed, with that oblique “on the third day” reference that Luke’s readers could not miss. None of this was at all affected by anything Herod could possibly do.

Just because Jesus knew what was coming in Jerusalem didn’t mean Jesus held any sort of grudge or animus against that place. The oft-quoted lament, heard everywhere from impassioned sermons to the music of Felix Mendelssohn, contains some striking imagery (the hen gathering her chicks under her wings is a particularly eye-catching and provocative way of portraying God) and makes clear the distress of God at that city’s long historical unwillingness to be gathered in. His reaction to Jerusalem is one of grief, not anger.

Even if this passage makes a little more sense in the context of Jesus’s resolve to go to Jerusalem, it’s still an awkward fit in our ears in some ways. What exactly does this mean for us? What do we do about all this? What does it mean? What does it mean to follow a Jesus who determinedly “set his face” towards a violent fate?

Maybe this is where the “journey” part matters. As noted before, on this journey it’s not as if Jesus has suddenly stopped teaching and healing. There are still a lot of meals to be shared. There’s still the Lord’s Prayer to be taught to his disciples. In this last portion of Luke, after 9:51, we get the parables of the Good Samaritan; the thief in the night; the banquet, and the lost sheep, coin, and son (we call that one the “prodigal” son); the dishonest manager; the rich man and Lazarus; and many more (and that’s just through chapter 15). Zacchaeus’s story is still to come, as well as that of blind Bartimaeus. 

Maybe the point of this passage is to listen to what Jesus teaches, and to “go and do likewise.” Maybe the point is to see what Jesus does, and to “go and do likewise.” 

Maybe we are supposed to be following Jesus in order to be like Jesus, not by ending up slated for an execution but by speaking and teaching good news and ministering healing to those who suffer; by standing up for and standing with those the world deems expendable and oppressable; by being the agent of Christ’s work in God’s world. Maybe that, more than anything, is the point. It’s uncomfortable and challenging, but it’s hard to see how it’s not the point here.

The only journey we’re really interested in is Jesus’s. The only fate or destiny that really matters to us is Jesus’s, especially that “on the third day” part that is the whole reason we can even bother with enough hope to minister this way in this world, where the only ones who seem to care about our ongoing ruin of our planet are the children who have to live with the consequences. 

So, we minister, we proclaim, and we wait with Jesus, and we watch for that third day, when despite all opposition and oppression Jerusalem can muster, Jesus completes his work.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #396, Brethren, We Have Met to Worship; #213, In the Cross of Christ I Glory; #543, God, Be the Love to Search and Keep Me

farmstead

farmstead

not many such things
on presbyterian properties 
i would guess 

a few chickens 
several goats 
and a pair of donkeys 
plus some garden patches

as i am about to walk away
one of the donkeys eyes me
and starts to walk towards me
carefully 
i approach the fence at an angle 
the donkey comes to meet me 

what happens next 
i’ve seen many times 
from our cats
a slight tilt of the head 
towards my hand
i know that sign

so i stand there for a few minutes 
patting a donkey’s head 

the point
is not that this was somehow a
magical
mystical
cosmic 
spiritual moment 
it doesn’t get special 
just because i’m writing 
one of these 
silly little poems about it

if anything 
maybe the point is to wonder 
that we have created a world 
in which
such a moment *seems*
magical 
mystical 
cosmic
spiritual 
and not
something that happens 
between fellow creatures of God

i mean
we are fellow creatures of God
right?

Sermon: Getting It Wrong

First Presbyterian Church

July 9, 2023, Pentecost 6A

Psalm 119:169-176; Romans 7:14-25

 

Getting It Wrong

 

 

Before plunging into Paul's latest bit of pondering, it's worth a stop in the longest chapter in the Bible, which (perhaps not surprisingly) comes from the longest book of the Bible. 

Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem, with each section beginning with a corresponding letter of the Hebrew alphabet; this means twenty-two sections in all, each consisting of eight verses as our modern arrangement of scripture divides it (if you read along in your pew Bible you saw this structure as it appears in print). Into this extended poetic structure the author has poured what one scholar calls "the exaltation of Torah," most likely a reference to those first five books of Hebrew scripture typically regarded as the law in Hebrew usage.[1] Across these twenty-two stanzas the poet has indeed exalted the Torah, spinning out verses in praise of that law despite whatever sufferings or persecutions the author might experience. The first seven verses of today's reading are relatively typical of the substance of the larger psalm.

But then, what happens in the eighth verse of this reading, the very last verse of this "exaltation of Torah"? For the first time in this extended psalm the author acknowledges "I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commandments." 

Notice that the author doesn't claim to have forgotten the law; in fact the author very specifically says "I have not forgotten your commandments"; nonetheless the author has gone astray "like a lost sheep." No matter how diligent and how joyful and how consistent the author's pursuit of the Torah has been, still at the very last the psalmist has to confess to straying from the path of Torah. All the study and all the law wasn't enough to keep the psalmist from getting it wrong.

To this, the Apostle Paul could relate. 

Already in this trip through his letter to the churches at Rome, we have seen Paul make the point more than once that the law is in no way capable of casting out or eliminating the condition of sin. It was (and is) good for naming particular sins, and to some degree for painting a picture of what a whole and good life in God might look like, but knowledge of the law was no guarantee of keeping the law, as our psalmist experienced by the last verse. We have also had occasion to be reminded that Paul's own life gave evidence of how his very zealousness at keeping the law had led him into the horrifying point of persecuting those who followed Jesus in Jerusalem and into Damascus as well, interrupted only by literal divine intervention in the form of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In this case the law had not only not prevented him from sinning; it had in fact led him into sinning.

We need for a moment to make clear just what Paul is talking about when he speaks of "sin" in this singular sense. Modern rhetoric about "sin" tends to speak of individual actions of violation; even our typical Confession of Sin in the liturgy most often names out or at least suggests particular actions or non-actions for which we confess. This is not what Paul speaks of here; instead, he is writing of a larger, overwhelming condition in which humanity is bound save for the intervention of Jesus. We might think of the word "sinfulness," though even that word doesn't quite capture the totality of human bondage to sin. The word "fallenness," tracing the human condition back to the fall of Adam and Eve, comes closer in some ways; John Calvin's doctrinal formulation of "total depravity" is not completely off the mark, but the altered shades of meaning of that word "depravity" make this term harder to explain in modern theological formulation.

In certain modern theological traditions this condition of sin gets personified, in the form of "the Devil" or "Satan" (both of which are used in slightly different ways in scripture). Such usage is rather easily twisted into comedic farce, perhaps never more effectively than in the 70s-era comedy of Flip Wilson, the one who punctuated much of his comedy with the phrase "the Devil made me do it." Nowadays, we might almost be able to apply a term borrowed from a very popular modern science fiction/fantasy movie series, in which some characters are considered to be bound to "the dark side of the Force" (let the reader understand). 

It is in this understanding of "sin" that Paul's twisty monologue in chapter 7 (and for that matter the condition of the psalmist in 119:176) is best understood. Paul upholds the law as good and strives himself to keep to it, but the sin that resides within him not only causes him to fail to keep the law, but also twists his keeping of the law to bring harm and to achieve the results of sin (as in his persecution of Christ-followers prior to his conversion). 

The way Paul chooses to express all of this in this particular passage is itself distinctive, particularly considering that this is a collection of churches Paul has not visited (though we will learn later that Paul is familiar with some of the members there). While Paul has occasionally gotten personal in some of his letters, this is seemingly a much more personal and even intimate bit of sharing Paul does here. It is not without parallels in Greco-Roman rhetorical style and practice, but it's not typical of Paul, for the most part. 

The culmination of this confessional is therefore appropriately emotional and charged with anguished struggle and something close to despair: 

 

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!

 

So then, what might have been a formulaic recitation, of a type Paul uses frequently in his letters, is reconnected to the emotional charge and challenge of this passage. In short, it sounds like Paul really means it, as a matter of the heart and not just of the head.

Finally, we are reminded that, as much as we would like to think of sanctification as a one-and-done process, we are forced to remember that it is ongoing. Our minds may want to cling to God's truth, but our physical natures are still not escaped from fallenness or even "the dark side of the Force." Our only hope of that is in the ongoing and unending sanctification made possible in the work of Jesus. 

Things do get better in this letter. Chapter 8 will mark a change of tone and of content, to some degree, and Paul's rhetoric won't need to be quite so dark and tangled. Even so, this is a thing to remember. We don't get free of sinful nature through our own efforts. One might remember the example of John Nash, the mathematician played by Russell Crowe in the movie A Beautiful Mind, who was convinced that he could with his own mind escape the bondage of the mental illness he confronted, only to find out that the very mind that was so bound could not possibly free itself unaided. We do not escape sin, fallenness, or the "dark side" of our own efforts; our only way out is "through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #32, I Sing the Mighty Power of God; #440, Jesus, Lover of My Soul; #53, O God, Who Gives Us Life

 

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[1] David Noel Freedman, Psalm 119: The Exaltation of Torah, Biblical and Judaic Studies, vol. 6 (Winona Lake: Eisenbruns, 1999).