Sermon: Everyone Everywhere All at Once?

First Presbyterian Church

April 28, 2024, Easter 5B

Acts 8:26-40

 

Everyone Everywhere All at Once

 

 

Things have changed a great deal since we last looked in on that fledgling community of Christ-followers back in Acts chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 5 brought another attempt by the Sanhedrin to shut up the disciples (all of them this time), only for one wise member of that body to counsel that trying to silence them only made them stronger, so maybe don't do that? In Chapter 6 we get our first introduction to the deacons, assigned to bring order to the distribution of resources. One of those deacons, Stephen, turned out to be a lot more of an evangelist than table manager, and that got him in trouble, but this time no one was going to stop a lynch mob from stoning him to death. That set off a larger wave of persecution that resulted in the scattering of much of this body out of Jerusalem, while the apostles somehow remained there. Chapter 8 introduces all of this while also introducing a wannabe Pharisee by the name of Saul, who launches his own personal campaign against these followers of the Way; his story will change greatly in chapter 9, which we regrettably won't get to in this Acts run.

We are also introduced to Philip, another of those deacons (not to be confused with the apostle Philip), who is among those scattered and dispersed from Jerusalem. He finds himself in a town in Samaria, and comes to the conclusion that there was no reason not to proclaim the good news here just as they had been doing in Jerusalem. It went extremely well, and many were saved and joined the dispersed but still growing community of Christ-followers. Things went so well, in fact, that word got back to the Twelve in Jerusalem, and Peter and John came to check things out.

For Philip, this must have seemed like his big break. A new community of believers was coming together, and there was plenty of potential for more witnessing and ministry. It must have seemed like this was a situation in which Philip could settle down and do the Lord's work.

So of course, God called him to pick up and go. Ministers will tell you: this happens a lot.

Even for all that these instructions from "an angel of the Lord" in verse 26 must have seemed downright strange. As our author helpfully reminds us in parentheses, the road to which Philip was sent was a wilderness road, one might say in the middle of nowhere. Whatever his compunctions might have been, Philip got up and headed south for that road. 

It turns out he wasn't the only one headed that way. A chariot draws near, and a fine one at that. 

On the chariot is no less than a high official of the queen of the Ethiopians, the Candace (the official title for that queen). He oversaw her treasury. He was seated in this chariot, driven by another man, trying to read from the book of Isaiah; as the custom of this time was that such reading was done out loud, Philip quite likely heard him and possibly recognized what was being read. 

A couple of clarifications: "the Ethiopians" refers to those from an area that would have included the modern-day nation of that name but much more; at its most expansive usage the term encompassed all of sub-Saharan Africa. It's worth noting that the modern-day nation of that name has a Christian history that dates back well into the first centuries of the first millennium, and it's quite possible that this story plays a role in that happening. It's also worth noting that the region, for many citizens of the Roman Empire, constituted the farthest known realm at least to the south; it was, for all practical purposes, "the ends of the earth."

Another point involves something that Philip probably didn't know, but that Luke (the author of Acts as well as the gospel by that name) seems keen to emphasize. In some nations and cultures, it was held that a high woman official could not be served safely by a man who might be tempted to some form of sexual aggression against her. As a result, such high officials were often served by eunuchs, who because of that alteration could not so threaten the queen. Whether this official had been so sexually altered as a youth in preparation for such service, or was so eunuched only before taking office, we don't know.

This complicates the story somewhat. According to the law, a person who had been so altered could not be accepted as a man, much less as a Jew, but some teachers, reading from Isaiah and other prophetic sources, were inclined to grant some grace to such individuals and welcome them into the community. Again, it's not clear how Philip would know this about this visitor, but Luke is quite emphatic about making this clear, perhaps in light of what it means for this emerging faith community (and faith communities of the future, perhaps). 

Philip, again taking the divine prompt, offers to help the traveler with his reading and finds that the passage in question just tees up the chance to introduce this man to Jesus, and the story culminates with the traveler excitedly spotting a pool of water in the desert and begging to be baptized with the question "what can stand in the way of my being baptized?" Philip quickly concludes that the answer is "nothing," and baptizes the man. When he comes up from the water, Philip isn't there, but the man rejoices and resumes his journey home, where for all we know he started the process of spreading the good news among the Ethiopians, down at "the ends of the earth."

Philip, meanwhile, found himself (which is how "appeared" is translated in other modern translations) in a town called Azotus, much closer to the Mediterranean coast and not far from Caesarea, the center of Roman governmental authority in the region. Like he had done in Samaria, he concluded that he might as well preach, and set about spreading the good news in those towns from Azotus to Caesarea. If nothing else you have to credit the man with some serious resilience; no matter where God diverts him to go or to "appear," he gets up and dusts himself off and sets about proclaiming the good news. 

For what it's worth, Philip will show up one last time, in Acts 21, when Paul and his party visit him on their way to Jerusalem. Apparently, he got to settle down in Caesarea and had fathered four daughters, who were all evangelists or prophets, depending on what translation you read. 

But back to what happens in chapter 8, with a brief detour to Acts 1. Remember that when Jesus was about to ascend into heaven, his last words were:

It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (1:7-8)

 

Philip had first ended up in Samaria, where he bore witness to Jesus. Then, when God sent him elsewhere, he gave his witness of Jesus to the Ethiopian, a man from somewhere like "the ends of the earth" in the perception of a typical occupant of Roman territory. Look at Philip, taking on two of those ultimate destinations in Jesus's final words, and all because no matter where he ended up or found himself, he got up and dusted himself off and started bearing witness. It's a small start, to be sure, but it is a start to the word being proclaimed everywhere, to everyone. No, it's not quite all at once, but it's a start, and at least part of that start is attributed to one deacon-turned-evangelist who, no matter where he "found himself," dusted himself off and set about the work of proclaiming the good news.

May God show us how to do likewise. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #611, Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee; #482, Baptized in Water; #541, God Be With You Till We Meet Again.

Sermon: Rock and Cornerstone

First Presbyterian Church

April 21, 2024, Easter 4B

Psalm 23; Acts 4:5-12, 18-20

 

Rock and Cornerstone

 

 

Yeah, I know, I could have preached on Psalm 23. Everybody loves Psalm 23, right? 

Or I could have turned to the day's gospel reading from John 10, the part that starts off with the declaration from Jesus that "I am the good shepherd." Or I could even have pulled those two together, around that common "shepherd" theme.

But there's still this ongoing story in Acts, one that takes a dramatic and threatening turn as we come into today's reading. While those other two readings about good shepherds place us in the role of sheep, today's Acts story reminds us that there are times when following Jesus and being moved by the Holy Spirit results in actions that are, after all, not very sheep-like. And it turns out this passage has its own pretty significant quote in here, even if it's borrowed from one of the Psalms and shows up in the gospels too.

Peter continued to teach the people who had gathered at the sight of the long-paralyzed man walking and jumping around, finally living up to that name Jesus had given him all those years ago (remember, his name roughly meant "rock").  They only stopped when the priests and the Temple guard captain (the Temple has a guard?) showed up. The priests were highly agitated at just what Peter had been saying about Jesus and his being resurrected from the dead, not to mention how the power that healed the paralyzed man had been in the name of that same Jesus. The priests presumably had Peter and John seized by that captain of the Temple guard and thrown in jail for the night.

(An aside: not only did the Temple have a guard with a captain and everything, but they had the power to arrest people? I really don't like the idea of some kind of church guard corps that could come in and arrest me if I said something they didn't like in a sermon or prayer or something. Anyone who would advocate for such a thing would clearly be rejecting any idea of religious liberty, which has been kinda important in this nation's history. But I digress.)

The next day Peter and John are brought forward before an impressive array of priestly power, both past and present. The list of names given would likely have been familiar to any Jewish folk of the time, especially those with any connection to Jerusalem or the Temple. Their question to Peter and John was simple and direct: "By what power or what name did you do this?" Its simplicity offered Peter and John an escape clause; just don't keep going on about this Jesus that they clearly don't want to hear about. 

So of course, Peter and John doubled down. Not only is Peter "filled with the Holy Spirit" again, that Holy Spirit seems to have added a gift of something like sarcasm or snark for Peter this time. "If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed ... ". OK, fine, if you're really going to arrest us for healing a paralyzed man, here goes. It is a masterful stroke of reframing that would leave a modern p.r. consultant blushing with envy. It's very unlikely that this escaped the notice of the high priests.

With that established, Peter keeps on doubling down: "then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man who stands before you healed."

You can't be much more direct than that, but Peter has one more rhetorical trick up his sleeve, one that is even more direct at the assignment of blame for that crucifixion. In chapter 3 Peter would have been speaking to a crowd who, for all we can know, were not part of that mob that the religious leaders riled up to demand Jesus's crucifixion. Maybe they were, or maybe some of them were, but we really can't know. This audience, on the other hand, would have been exactly the group that gathered to condemn Jesus and send him off to Roman officials for crucifixion. Peter knows this, and pulls out a passage that will turn extremely accusatory.

Psalm 118:22 reads in its original form "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone...". Versions of this verse also show up in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in that final week of Jesus's earthly pre-crucifixion life, which Peter and John would have been around to hear. Peter's version of that verse is a little different; he declares that Jesus is "the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone." [emphasis mine]

And to top it all off, in verse 12, Peter asserts that there is no other name in which such a feat could have been accomplished. 

All of this is enough to provoke the priestly group to withdraw into a private meeting - an "executive session," we might say today - to figure out what to do. The answer to that question was: nothing, pretty much. The man was still out there walking and leaping when everyone who ever came near the Temple knew that he had been unable to do that in his lifetime before. That man was still making sure that everybody knew this had happened, if not by Peter and John, then at least through them. And no, it wouldn't look good to "blame" the healed man. 

All they could come up with was to order Peter and John not to keep talking about Jesus, which went about as well as you would expect it to go by now. Notice one again how the two frame their answer. They don't say "we're not going to stop." If anything, their answer makes it clear that it wasn't up to them:

Which is right in God's eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. 

 

It's not up to us. We can't refuse to talk about what God has shown and taught us. And even then, all the priestly cohort could do was mumble another couple of threats and let them go. 

Later in Acts, there will come threats to the followers of Christ that will do actual harm. The deacon Stephen would be executed by a lynch mob, and violence against the other followers would drive many of them out of Jerusalem. Then in chapter 12 the Roman puppet king Herod would discover that punishing these disciples gained him favor with the locals, and had the disciple James (John's brother) killed with the sword, and arrested Peter with the intent to do the same to him.

However, those followers who scattered after Stephen's lynching just kept telling what they had seen and heard, with the result that the good news spread farther and farther out from Jerusalem. As for Herod, after an angel helped Peter escape from prison, Herod came to his own bad end. 

Still, filled with the Holy Spirit and founded upon the cornerstone that is Jesus, these disciples (now becoming known as apostles) and deacons and other followers without names kept telling what they had seen and heard. And the body of the followers of Jesus kept growing, possibly up to five thousand by now. 

There would be persecution to come. There would be challenges for the growing fellowship to face. And yet, after its first major confrontation with the religious authorities, they were not only still together, but they were still growing and still bearing witness, both to their own contemporaries in their own time, and also to us today.

For the witness of the early followers of Jesus, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #624, I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art; #353, My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less; #394, Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation

Sermon: Who Are You, and What Have You Done with Peter?

First Presbyterian Church

April 14, 2024, Easter 2B

Acts 3:12-19

 

Who Are You, and What Have You Done With Peter?

 

 

Our reading for this morning begins in the middle of a particular story, one that begins at the beginning of this chapter and continues through chapter 4. We will pick up later in this same story in next week's reading, as the echo of what happens in this account leads to trouble with the Temple authorities and some excellent witness bearing in the fledgling community of followers of Christ. 

It's worth remembering here that to some degree, this community doesn't have a name yet. You might find some reference to "followers of Christ" or "followers of the Way," but the word "Christians" isn't applied to this community until chapter 11 of this book of Acts. We need to remember that, at this point in the story, the dispute that will come of this event is a "family argument"; that is, it is an intra-Jewish disagreement taking place here. The very fact that Peter and John had come to the Temple at all should help us understand that when Peter addresses the crowd as "fellow Israelites" in verse 12, it isn't merely a rhetorical device; as far as Peter is concerned, he is addressing his fellow Jews. 

He does this in the Temple to a crowd that has gathered around him and John and one other man, who the Temple-goers recognized, but not like this. They knew him as the man who was always seated at one of the entryways into the Temple, seeking alms. He was seated there daily, with the help of some sympathetic fellow Jews, because he could not walk; he was born paralyzed. When he asked Peter and John for money, Peter (probably truthfully) said he had none. He instead told the man to get up and walk and reached out his hand to help the man up. The man indeed did get up and walk, and even threw in a little jumping just because he could. It was this sight, as recounted in the beginning of this chapter, that drew the crowd looking for an explanation for this unexplainable event. 

Peter's address to the crowd, of which we have the first half or so, can sound accusatory as it is translated in most English translations, especially after his initial statement that this man was healed, not by Peter or John, but by Jesus, the one whom "You handed ... over ... You disowned ... before Pilate ... You disowned the Holy and Righteous One ... You killed the Author of Life ... You acted in ignorance." You can probably imagine a courtroom lawyer in some kind of TV drama hitting that word "you" with increasing emphasis with each repetition. 

Notice that beginning with verse 17, Peter's tone shifts from accusation to something like empathy, a "but you didn't know what you were doing" tone that opens the door to a call to repent of that ignorance. The accusation is not any kind of final condemnation, but the opening of a door, inviting those listening to follow the One whose power had raised up this paralyzed man to walk for the first time. 

The story is itself compelling, and we will hear more of it in next week's reading. Before going too much further, though, it's worth noting just who it is that is delivering this strong proclamation and witness to the power of the risen Christ. It is, of course, Peter, one of the twelve. You remember Peter, right?

You know, the one who used to be called Simon. The one who was the first to call Jesus the Messiah, only to turn around and mess up what "Messiah" meant so badly that Jesus basically called him the Devil. The one who put his foot in his mouth on the mountaintop when Jesus was transfigured. The one who denied Jesus not just once, but three times. You know. That Peter.

What has gotten into Peter? Or, to borrow the modern slang idiom suggested in the title of this sermon, who are you, and what have you done with Peter?

Let's retrace Peter's steps for a moment.

In the gospel reading from Mark that we read two weeks ago, the account that ends with the charge to follow Jesus to Galilee, the messenger at the tomb told the women there to repeat this instruction to the disciples and specifically, by name, to Peter.

In John's gospel, when Jesus meets some of the disciples by the lakeside, he asks Peter "do you love me?" three different times, you might imagine once for each time Peter denied Jesus. Each time, once Peter had answered in the affirmative, Jesus told him "Feed my lambs," "Take care of my sheep," "Feed my sheep." Despite his multiple failings, Peter was never shamed out of the community. If anything, Jesus put that much more of a charge on him. 

As we move out of the gospels and into the record of the development of the early church in Acts, we first see Peter as more or less the leader of the disciples in the first chapter of Acts, an account we will come to read in a few weeks. Then of course comes the Pentecost event, at which Peter first steps forward to speak to the startled crowds. Only a few days later, the healing that sets today's reading in motion happens at the Temple. 

In the span of about two months' time as we would count it, Peter has clearly changed. How do we account for this?

For one, as noted above, Peter wasn't thrown out or abandoned by Jesus despite all those stumbles and shortcomings, even if that encounter on the lakeshore was a rather hard and bitter one for Peter. The modern church could stand to remember that sometimes.

We also have to acknowledge, especially for this post-Pentecost story, that the one speaking through Peter is no less than the Holy Spirit. 

Due to the oddities of the Revised Common Lectionary we won't get to that account for a few weeks. For now, we should remember that the disciples, gathered in a room waiting as they had been for ten days since Jesus's ascension, were touched by "a sound like the rush of a violent wind" and "divided tongues, as of fire," after which they "began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability."

As far as we can tell, that was, in Peter's time frame, just a few days ago. 

Peter knows firsthand what the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy Spirit can do, and because of that Peter can speak with boldness and give good testimony to the work of Jesus, and people hear, and people are changed. The response to that first sermon, at Pentecost? Three thousand people. As we'll see next week that number goes up after this speech.

 We have safely cordoned ourselves away from anything so rash and disruptive as the Holy Spirit. At most it's one Sunday of the year when the pastor tries to get people to wear red and some different hymns or songs might get sung. But the idea of actually living under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, well, that's risky. You might get in trouble, as we'll see with Peter and John next week. Things might <shudder> change. Can't have that.

As we will see through these next few Sundays, our earliest ancestors in the faith went through some shocking and extremely disruptive things under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, some of those things extremely difficult for us to comprehend or accept. But without these ancestors and their willingness to be led by the Holy Spirit, to put it bluntly, there's no church today. It doesn't spread out from Jerusalem into all of Judea and Samaria and then to Syria and Asia Minor and even all the way to Rome and then beyond. We don't exist without the Holy Spirit and those who welcomed that Spirit and were led into things they would never have imagined.

What about the church if we won't be led by the Spirit? Let's not find out.

For the Spirit that incited the first believers, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal); #234, Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain; #494, Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts; #629, Jesus the Very Thought of Thee

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: The Unfinished Gospel

First Presbyterian Church

March 31, 2024, Easter Sunday B

Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Mark 16:1-8

 

The Unfinished Gospel

 

 

Really, this is the word of the Lord. No fooling.

OK, I’ll admit it’s not the most satisfying ending, but there it is. Every shred of evidence insists that the original material we have of the gospel of Mark, or the author of what is in fact an unsigned gospel, ends with what we label the eighth verse of this chapter, with the announcement that the women who came to the tomb and saw it empty were on the run because they were afraid.  Yes, you can probably look at your pew Bible and see a bunch of other verses, but you can also see some the longest footnotes in your Bible explaining that the best evidence shows that these verses were added later, by another author.  While it is possible that some original material was lost, we cannot know that for certain. Therefore, despite the title on this sermon, this gospel really does seem to finish with this strange ending.

C’mon, pastor, is this really the scripture to preach today? I mean, there might be visitors present.  

Just hang on, folks.  If this is how Mark meant to end his novel, there might just be a really good reason he did so. But in one way this gospel of Mark is a lot like those tricky mystery novels my wife likes to read so much; you really do have to remember what happened in previous chapters for the ending to make any sense.

It helps if we spend a moment with verses six and seven of this chapter.  The unnamed messenger waiting at the tomb breaks the news to the women – “he has been raised; he is not here” – and even invites them to see the place where he had been, now empty.  It’s simple enough, and not unlike similar accounts in other gospels Matthew and Luke. 

But the messenger doesn’t leave the news there; there are instructions.  “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” “Just as he told you?” Here we need to look back to several verses from this gospel; from chapters eight, nine, and ten, in which Jesus repeated his warning that he must be rejected by the religious authorities and be crucified and raised again.  We also need to look back to chapter fourteen, the night when he was betrayed, the night he broke bread and poured a cup of wine to give those disciples a sign and seal to hold them (and us) together as the body of Christ.  It was that awkward moment when Jesus told them that “you will all be deserters; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” But even here, Jesus instructs them again, “but after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”  Even in that bleak and despairing moment Jesus is preparing them for what is to come, for a resurrection – one that at this point is just assumed, “after I am raised up” – and the order to go out to Galilee to meet him.

Now I’m not going to pretend that after this, verse eight and its portrait of fear is anything but a disappointment.  After what should be news both joyful and familiar, we get instead something quite the opposite.  Still, as strange and uncomfortable as it sounds, it might be exactly the message we need to hear this day of all days.

For one thing, in the context of Mark’s gospel it completes a theme that was apparent from its early chapters; the ones closest to Jesus repeatedly don’t get it.  Just to give a few examples; in those three examples in chapters eight, nine, and ten in which Jesus foretells his death and resurrection, in every case the disciples immediately reveal themselves to be more concerned with very earthly ideas of power and influence.  Another example follows after not one, but two miraculous feedings recorded in the gospel.  The famous feeding of the five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish is recorded in Mark 6, and two chapters later comes a second feeding, in which four thousand are fed off of seven loaves and a few small fish.  Still, just a few verses after that second feeding miracle, the disciples think Jesus is lecturing them over forgetting to bring bread on a boat trip across a lake. If anything happens here, these women who had been following Jesus from very early in his ministry have their moment of weakness every bit as much as the twelve who fled when the authorities arrived to arrest Jesus in the garden.

And if these disciples, these women, who shared so much time and so much travel and so many meals and so many miracles and experiences during the ministry of Jesus, if they failed and fell short so spectacularly in the time of trial, we who follow at a remove of so many centuries, cannot necessarily expect to do better. When we fall short in following, we can at least know that we aren’t the first to do so, and that we are preceded in this failing by those closest to Jesus.

Of course, logically we can guess that at some point, somebody must have said something.  After all, if nobody had ever announced that Jesus was out of the tomb, if nobody had ever followed up on Jesus’s command to meet him in Galilee, why would Mark even be writing this gospel? Why would there even be some community, some church to whom Mark would be compelled to write?  The word is out, and people are gathered together in community around the life and teaching, the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Mark has his reasons for not sharing these things or relaying the kind of post-resurrection appearances that Matthew and Luke and John do. Today's reading from Acts offers us an early example of Peter bearing witness to Jesus's life and death and resurrection.

Our reading from 1 Corinthians also points out that there are stories about the life and death and life again of Jesus that our gospel authors don’t necessarily tell.  In his letter to the church at Corinth (which was actually written down before any of the gospels were) Paul, in this chapter near the end of his first letter, lays out the most basic tenets of the faith as shared by Paul and countless others, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.” Then, to support this story, he cites witnesses; Cephas (or Peter), and later to the twelve; and then Paul mentions an appearance to “more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time,” and another to James (whether the apostle or to his earthly brother Paul does not say).  Some of these we can possibly equate to appearances recorded in the gospels, but they don’t contain anything quite like that appearance to more than five hundred.  

So if Mark is choosing to withhold any stories of Jesus appearing to his followers, what is his purpose? What’s he’s trying to do? Maybe the answer has to do with what Mark wants his readers and hearers - in other words, us - to do in response to this gospel.

The women were charged to tell the disciples – and Peter, even Peter, poor foolish Peter who denied Jesus three times – that Jesus was going ahead of them to Galilee, and that they should get on their way. What if that’s our challenge as well?  What if we come to the end of this gospel, and we are confronted with the question of whether we will follow Jesus who has gone ahead of us, not content to wait around an empty, useless tomb?  What if that’s our question to answer today, this holiest of days?

What if, instead of a comfortable, happy ending, Mark is intent on provoking us to action?  What if our calling is not to linger at that empty tomb, but to go where Jesus is leading us? Not to seek closure, but to continue the story?

For indeed, in perhaps the most important way, this is an unfinished gospel after all.  Mark has no intention of wrapping up the story and putting a pretty bow on it so we can feel good that it “all came out right in the end.” We, like those original followers, like those in the community to whom Mark writes his gospel, have a job to do. We have a living Christ to follow back to the place where it all began, to following and living with Christ and living with one another in a Christ-like community of faith.  Death took its best shot and could not keep Christ down. So for us, it’s time to get back to work, to get back to proclaiming the good news, to be about the business of telling the world about how “the kingdom of God is near,” as Jesus proclaimed back at the very beginning of Mark’s gospel, and how now is the time to “repent and believe in the good news.”  

Ultimately there is joy and celebration at this news, but unless we are following where Jesus is leading us, breaking through the surprise and the fear and telling this good news, that joy and celebration ends up a bit pointless. This tomb is empty, and Jesus is gone ahead of us; it’s time for us to follow, to continue this unfinished gospel and live out and live into this kingdom of God come near.

For the empty tomb, the unfinished gospel, and Jesus gone ahead of us, Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

Hymns: (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #246, Christ Is Alive!; #245, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!;  #232, Jesus Christ Is Risen Today; #239, Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing!

Sermon: The Colt and the Crowds

First Presbyterian Church

March 24, 2024, Palm Sunday B

Mark 11:1-11

 

The Colt and the Crowds

 

 

One of the great challenges of Holy Week is that, to be blunt, the stories featured in the major services of the week – Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday – are awfully familiar. After all, we tell them every year, and they do represent the climactic events of the life of Jesus, events that shape the faith and theology of Christianity itself (at least when we’re doing it right. 

It is the final three, of course, that are the focus; today, Palm Sunday, is something of a curtain-raiser on this final act of the drama of Jesus’s life and ministry. That is not to say, however, that this event is itself devoid of significance for our faith or our theology, nor that it is devoid of significance to us who seek to live out our lives as disciples of this Jesus, not merely name-droppers of Christ whose lives and actions adhere far more to social attitudes and customs than to anything biblical or spiritual.

Every gospel tells this story slightly differently – for example, the palms that give this day its name are mentioned only In John’s retelling of the story. There are a couple of particular elements of Mark’s account that might hold greater significance for us than we are accustomed to hearing. One of those has to do with how Jesus specifically entered into Jerusalem; the other, with those (in addition to the disciples) who joined him on the way. 

We get in the first half of this account the curious story of Jesus sending two of his followers to find and bring a colt, specifically one that “no one has never ridden.” If anyone questions their taking the colt, they are told what to say; they say it and are able to proceed.

Now other gospel accounts differ here. Matthew has the two followers going to fetch a donkey *and* her colt. John specifically mentions a donkey. But taking Mark at his word, we have only the word “colt” (especially one that “no one has never ridden”) to work from, which could indicate a young donkey or even a young horse. Here’s the thing, though: either way, choosing to enter the city on a colt is a strange choice.

A horse would have been the likely choice for an important person, say, the Roman governor of this district, who would likely have been riding into Jerusalem from the Roman seat of government at Caesarea Philippi to serve as a reminder that, while y’all may be having your big festival and all this coming week, don’t forget that we’re in charge. If you do, we have ways of reminding you, ways that you won’t enjoy.

A donkey was much more likely to be the mode of conveyance for an average joe, if such an average person were riding any animal at all. Not flashy or fancy, but dependable, reliable, all that. 

Of course, many people simply walked wherever they went, including (for most of their time together) Jesus and his disciples.

The one occasion on which a colt might be the transport of choice might (and I cannot stress enough "might") was the case of a foreign leader entering a city to seek peace between his country and the one being visited. Putting such a ruler on a colt instead of a full-grown donkey or horse might have been meant as a form of humiliation or embarrassment. 

Riding an untrained colt, though, messes with all these pictures. The degree to which it undermines the pomp and spectacle of a Roman triumphal entry is likely clear enough, but even the average joe on his well-trained donkey gets called into question here, if for no other reason than the comfort or safety of the old well-trained donkey over the young colt. The idea of seeking a peace treaty doesn't quite seem to fit, especially when one considers that the next day (in Mark's gospel) Jesus would go run the moneychangers out of the Temple. And for all the humility of the entry otherwise, Jesus is still riding – that is a gesture of a person of some significance, on some level worthy of the adoration to come, as a crowd of people gather around and begin to prepare the path.

Ah, yes, the “crowd.” Again, different gospel accounts portray it differently. John’s story suggests that the “great crowd” that had come to Jerusalem for the festival heard that Jesus was coming to town migrated over to greet him (12:12). Matthew speaks of a “very large crowd” in 21:8. Even Luke (19:37) speaks of the “whole multitude of the disciples” cheering and shouting their “hosannas” to Jesus. 

Mark, on the other hand, speaks of “many people” who were spreading their cloaks on the ground, or breaking off branches to mark the way for Jesus to ride. “Many people.” So we know that there are more than just the twelve disciples, but this doesn’t quite carry the force of numbers that phrases like “great crowd” or “very large crowd” or even “whole multitude” have. 

Even more cautious is the relating of what happens when Jesus and his followers and the “many people” get into Jerusalem. They went into the city, Jesus looked around at the Temple, and then…he went back to Bethany with the disciples. No sign of the “many people" from before. The fireworks wouldn’t start until the next day, in Mark’s reading, when Jesus came back to the Temple and disrupted the commercial establishment there.

In short, the way Mark tells the story, it’s a pretty decent crowd, but not quite anything like the “multitude” other gospel accounts suggest. Hearing the story from this perspective might cause us to consider another question, one that should give us caution: which crowd are we with?

As noted earlier, it would not have been uncommon for large-scale processionals to enter Jerusalem, particularly coming from the Roman center of Caesarea Philippi, with numerous soldiers and horses and chariots and all the fine stuff that makes a tremendous impression on, well, impressionable crowds. Such processions would enter Jerusalem at a different gate, not the same portal to the city that Jesus and his followers used coming from Bethany and the Mount of Olives to the east. Such processions tended to attract large crowds, maybe even “very large crowds,” because it was sometimes useful to stay on the good side of the Romans, or because the procession overtook you and you had no way to get away from it, or frankly because they were large and impressive. While there’s no way to know for certain if such a processional was entering Jerusalem the same day or even the same time as Jesus and his followers, it’s not necessarily impossible that this was the case, or that such a processional might have entered days before or would enter days thereafter. 

This puts forth the challenge to future generations of Christians. Which crowd are we with? Are we spreading out branches and cloaks on Jesus’s way, or are we out there paying homage to the Empire and its claim to ultimate power? 

If we expand our view, however, there’s one more crowd we might need to ask ourselves about: the crowd that calls for Jesus’s crucifixion, after Pontius Pilate has questioned him at the end of that week. 

The chief priests and other religious authorities had brought Jesus in and questioned him, frankly to no avail, but they handed him over to that Roman governor of the time anyway with their charges against him. Pilate, frankly, wasn’t terribly impressed, even though Jesus mostly kept silent before him. Rather than release him outright, though, he decided to play a political card and offer him as part of a traditional prisoner release for Passover, one of those ways he (like any skilled politician) curried favor with the people. 

Behind Pilate’s back, though, those religious authorities had already been playing those crowds gathered to witness that spectacle. In a scene that is unbearably resonant with contemporary culture, they persuade the crowd to demand that, instead of Jesus, Pilate release to them Barabbas, an insurrectionist and killer. Blindsided by this turn, Pilate finds himself backed into a corner, and orders Barabbas released, and Jesus crucified. 

Which crowd are we with? The ones resounding “hosanna” to Jesus that day, or the ones later that week, stirred up by madly jealous religious leaders to demand that Pilate “Crucify!”? Indeed, which crowd are we with?

We tend to read this narrative as if the “many people” following Jesus on what we call Palm Sunday were demanding his death only those few days later, but we don’t know that for certain. Jerusalem was a large city for its time, and with numerous visitors coming into the city for Passover, there were plenty of people around to make up the angry and violent crowd at the trial before Pilate. Good religious folks, too, the lot of them; that's why they were in Jerusalem for Passover after all. We should not therefore excuse ourselves with the excuse that “everybody else did it." No, we can’t assume that everybody else did it. We can’t justify ourselves by claiming to have gotten caught up in the hysteria and claiming that ‘we didn’t really mean it’. Our call is to follow, right to the very end, no matter what other crowds or Important People demand of us. 

What crowd are we with, as we come to this week of weeks? What is our cry? 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

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

 

Sermon: The Grain that Bears Fruit

First Presbyterian Church

March 17, 2024, Lent 5B

John 12:20-33

 

The Grain That Bears Fruit

 

Am I the only person who reads this passage from John’s gospel and wonders what happened to the Greeks?

You know, there at the beginning of the reading, simply “some Greeks” who had come to the festival of Passover and approached Philip about seeing Jesus? Philip goes and tells his brother Andrew and then the two of them go to Jesus with the request and…Jesus starts talking about being glorified and grains of wheat and saving or losing your life, and then even more stuff that somehow feels a little bit out of left field? All of this happens, and we never hear about those Greeks again. 

There is a lot in this discourse that can get frankly confusing or disorienting to keep track of in our study or hearing. There is the business of those who seek to hold on to their lives instead losing them, and those who do not cling to life in this world instead holding on to eternal life There is the business of serving and following. There is what appears to be a quick exchange between Jesus on earth and a voice from heaven, and finally the line which in many studies or commentaries is held up as the key takeaway from this lesson: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John is even nice enough to add one of his little parenthetical explanatory comments here, to make sure that we understand that Jesus “said this to show the kind of death he was going to die,” that is, crucifixion – a mode of execution in which the one being killed was truly lifted up for all to see. And yes, the echo of last week’s reading, with the serpent and Son of Man both being lifted up, is pretty clear.

This does come at a turning point in John’s gospel. The events of Palm Sunday are recorded just before this portion of chapter 12. The next chapter, chapter 13, begins with the event we commemorate on Maundy Thursday, although John’s story speaks of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet rather than bread and cup being shared. The rest of the gospel marks that final week of Jesus’s earthly life and ministry, with lots of private teaching time thrown in. 

So, this is the climax. That crucifixion – Jesus being “lifted up” – is only a few days away. 

This is an important image. The idea that Jesus being “lifted up” in crucifixion would be anything but the ultimate humiliation must have seemed naïve if not downright delusional to anyone who picked up on the image. Crucifixion, as the Romans devised it, was meant not only to be physically agonizing, but also to provide the ultimate humiliation indeed: stripped naked, nailed up to this cross, exposed for all the world to see and mock.

To suggest that such an event would be, far from a humiliation, an exaltation – a moment in which Jesus’s being “lifted up” would actually “draw all people” to Jesus – would have drawn a snort of derision from those Roman soldiers tasked with carrying out the execution, and probably a derisive laugh from those religious authorities who had had enough of Jesus by this time. And yet Jesus proclaims it exactly that: the moment, or the impetus, or the act in which all people are drawn to him. 

It doesn’t make sense.

And it's not as if Jesus couldn't have put all of this to a stop. Remember that, for all he used the phrase "Son of Man" to identify himself, he was also the Son of God. Jesus didn't have to submit to all the pain and torture that was coming. Except that, as Jesus says in verse 27, "it was for this very reason I came to this hour." Drawing all people to himself was his very reason for being here, and that was accomplished only by being "lifted up."

And yet there is a key that is easy to overlook in this passage, back in the first part of the reading: that small line about a grain of wheat. 

It’s hard to do much with a single grain of wheat. You get a lot of such grains and grind them into flour and use it to bake bread, you have something good, but a single grain? Not so much.

In fact, as Jesus tells it, the only thing for a single grain to do is die. 

The grain that falls into the earth, and “dies,” that’s when the new life happens. The one grain becomes many grains. Each one grain begets many grains, bears much fruit, bears new life, and many are fed. Here’s an image of hope for this long slog to the end of Lent; new life from old, new fruit from one seed. 

But this isn’t just an image of hope: it’s also a calling. The one who can’t be like that single grain, well, is dead. The one who yields to the soil, to the nurturing and watering and care visited upon the field, yields much fruit, a bountiful harvest. This was Jesus’s path; and if we claim to follow Jesus, it’s our path too. We quit clinging to the comforts and benefits of this world, the things that allow us to be secure in our own rightness and aloof to the cruelties around us; when we lay aside that comfort and yield our lives to Jesus’s life, that’s when we bear fruit. 

But it begins with the single grain, one that falls into the earth and dies.

[SING “Now when a grain of wheat”]

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #247, Now the Green Blade Rises; #250, In the Bulb There Is a Flower; #450, Be Thou My Vision