“Faces of faith – Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well”
3 Lent A
John 4:5-42
27 March 2011
As we continue on in our Lenten walk with Jesus , the characters we meet along the way are in an outward progression …
… first, Jesus himself, dealing with his own demons, the temptation to be someone, anyone other than the One who Can Save Us …
… then, last week, Nicodemus, and questions about whether there’s room in the Kingdom for those who come from their own darkness, questioning, seeking, wondering if God is a God of punishment and condemnation, or a God of love and salvation.
Now, this week, we have a story about a woman coming to Jesus from her own darkness … and an explanation, a living out by Jesus of what, precisely, last week’s theme verse means: “For God so loved the world … God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The darkness in this week’s text is more figurative than literal. Last week, Nicodemus came by night to Jesus. Today, this nameless Samaritan woman comes at the height of the daylight to find Jesus at the well.
Ah … but she brings her own darkness with her.
It’s a multi-layered darkness.
First, it’s cultural. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” And then … that perfunctory, John-the-Gospel-writer-trying-to-be-explanatory note, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”
It’s not a very good explanation. So I’ll try to give a better one.
Jesus and the disciples were traveling through the hill country north of Jerusalem … “Samaria” was a catch-all phrase used to describe this area. Several hundred years earlier, this was the Northern Kingdom … when Israel split in half following King Solomon’s death, the North set up its own capital, Samaria, with its own kings and royal line, and its own religion … a mix of traditional Judaism and the religions of the non-Jewish people surrounding them. Nowadays we would call it “syncretistic” meaning “mixed together” or “not pure,” and that’s certainly how traditional Jews saw their northern cousins … as “unclean” country bumpkins, deluded, misguided, worshipping another god in their own religious places … not in Jerusalem, and the Temple there, which the Jews held as the center of their religion.
Had Jesus been a “good” Jewish rabbi … first of all, he wouldn’t have spoken to a woman at all … second, he wouldn’t have spoken to a Samaritan woman, let alone asked her for a drink of water.
That’s why the woman acts, sounds so surprised. Here is one, obvious to her by his dress, his mannerisms, his pattern of speech, that he isn’t a Samaritan, but a Jew; more, a rabbi, from the south. Why should he be talking to her?
And so her first layer of darkness slips away.
But there is another, second layer of darkness, which this woman has drawn around herself tightly, as protection … the reason that she’s at the well at noon … the brightest part of the day, but also the time when most people would be home, away, out of the heat of the moment.
Even in the bright light of day, this woman is hidden in darkness.
For Jesus, it is another opportunity to pierce the darkness with the light and life of his Word of love and grace … though, at first, it sounds like “tough love,” to be sure.
“Go, call your husband, and come back.”
“I have no husband.”
Jesus knows what is this woman’s darkness. She slinks around in the bright day-darkness of high noon because she’s one of those women … one that the neighbors point to and talk about, one that the mothers speak of, when they warn their daughters, “you had better watch out, or you’ll end up like her.”
Right here – right now – Jesus reaches deep into this woman’s darkness … and brings her into the light.
Today we’d say that Jesus is “breaking the cycle of abuse and addiction.” Where’s the abuse? What’s the addiction? We don’t know, and the text leaves the particularities in the darkness … maybe it’s alcohol … maybe it’s substances (yes, they had those even back then) … maybe it’s serial monogamy, abusive relationship after abusive relationship …
… it doesn’t really matter, this poor woman, living in her darkness, slinking around in the darkness, being spoken of by others in the darkness … this poor woman, Jesus loves her. And he calls her into relationship with him … and then, necessarily, with others.
Jesus speaks with her – he initiates the conversation. He’s authentic and honest and truthful – he says who he is and isn’t apologetic at all. And he gives this woman the gift of community, where before there was none.
Why does he do it? Why does he go out of his way, go outside of what’s seen as acceptable behavior, risk his own reputation, for her?
Simple. To save her. To rescue her from the mess her life has become. To save her neighbors, too. To create life – growing relationships where before there were none. Here is the Son who won’t glare at her, but who will water this woman with his Word, water which will cause the parched ground of her life to spring forth with newness, “gushing up to eternal life.”
It’s a great story … the woman’s life is changed, and through her, the whole village is given real LIFE.
“Yeah, but that’s Jesus,” we might say. “It doesn’t work that way for us.”
It’s true … relationships take work, community building is an effort. It takes humility and courtesy and honesty and trust and time for relationships to form and community to grow.
And what about the relationships we have already, the community or communities of which we’re already part? Sometimes, because we’re human, we annoy each other … and the relationships that we do have go sour and get broken and need extra work to put back together again … work and energy we might well feel we don’t want to spend – it makes us uncomfortable - we’d rather be doing something else – and so the relationships suffer and community gets broken.
Again, it’s all about our priorities, our life drive. With anything else but Jesus at the center, without life lived in this attitude of humility and worship into which we’re called into … well, it will be difficult to have the kind of relationships and community which will give us life, real LIFE as God intends for us.
The reasons we gather with friends, the times we do form community … it will be more and more about US.
That’s why it’s little wonder that some people who are outside the community of faith sometimes call us “hypocrites” and “duplistic” – saying one thing and doing another. They rightly point out that we who are called by Jesus’ name often are the worst examples of the life he calls us to live – when we’re not disagreeing with each other, we’re drawing tighter and tighter circles of doctrine, denominational correctness, rules and regulations as an excuse to keep us from really reaching out to others.
So how many of us have relationships with people who are outside the church as well as inside? Have we drawn the circle of relationship and community so tightly that we’re cutting ourselves off from the Samaritan women of our place and time?
In the end, “church” is no more and no less than this … being about the life-attitude of worship … hearing the call to repentance, receiving the Word of LIFE, and responding in humble service to others … … and part of that response is being to others just as Jesus was to the Samaritan woman at the well.
Because relationship and community aren’t an option for us who have heard the call of Jesus, who has pulled us into this new way of living.
They are this new way of living.
And what about the benefits?
They’re as rich and full as this LIFE into which we’re called.
Authenticity. In a world of phoniness and posturing, masks and facades, we’re real people. The Samaritan woman heard it from Jesus: “He told me everything I have ever done.”
Mutuality. We support one another. Always.
Sympathy. More than just a card and flowers, we’re there with one another … when one suffers, we all suffer together … when one rejoices, we rejoice along with them.
And mercy. There’s forgiveness aplenty and time for fresh new starts in life, as we who are in this LIFE-giving attitude around Jesus call others to join us … no matter where they are in their own lives, we do not judge and condemn, we just say, along with that Samaritan woman, “Come and see! Come and see!”
It means being open, personally and as a faith community, to the movement of God’s Spirit in our lives. It means things might be surprising … we may well be called to do things, or be led into places, we never thought possible before.
Surprising … but all part of this journey with Jesus … the journey of moving from darkness to light, moving outside ourselves and toward others, responding in love because of the One who gives our lives meaning and purpose … so we can be, will be, the Faces of Faith in others’ lives.
Amen.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
20 March 2011
“Faces of faith: Jesus and Nicodemus”
John 3:1-17
2nd Sunday in Lent
20 March 2011
When we last encountered Jesus – one week ago – it was in Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus being tested in the wilderness – his “time of trial” with Satan – and Jesus’ proving himself worthy of his Father’s praise, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Now – today – we make the move into the rest of the season of Lent – four Sundays’ worth of stories from John’s gospel – four conversations, visitations, between Jesus and some unforgettable characters in his- and our- faith story; people who, in their time spent with Jesus, come from darkness into the light of the Son of God.
The Samaritan woman at the well. The man born blind. Mary and Martha, and their dead brother Lazarus.
And today … today, the first of those “darkness to light” encounters … between Jesus and the Pharisee, the leader of the Jews named Nicodemus.
Nicodemus has heard about Jesus – the Word about him had gone out, first from John the Baptist; then, Jesus calling his own disciples; and finally, word about Jesus coming into the Temple in Jerusalem – a story which happens at the beginning of John’s gospel, rather than at the end – Jesus’ coming into the Temple and raising a ruckus, overturning tables, kicking out the moneychangers and trying to straighten out the mess that people had made of their religion.
Nicodemus had heard about Jesus … but, being a member of the religious elite, the religious leadership, he couldn’t be seen publicly going to Jesus, listening to him, being discipled by him … his fellow Pharisees did not believe Jesus had any authority to do what he was doing … indeed, they were demanding a sign from Jesus that he was really sent from God.
Nicodemus saw something in Jesus which set him apart from the rest of the religious establishment. He remained in the darkness, but wanted to know more. He was a seeker, a stumbler in the shadows, trying to find out more about faith.
Which, going by the standards of the Pharisees … those of every time and place, who are absolutely convinced of their own rightness and righteousness … this kind of behavior should make Nicodemus a candidate for criticism and ridicule. Faith, so they say, is a matter of certainty. God said it, the Scriptures reinforce it, I believe it, period. No need for questions … just get on with your life.
And yet Jesus welcomes this seeker, this stumbler, this one who is in the darkness and clings to the darkness to protect himself and keep safe. Jesus doesn’t try to rip away his protective darkness … he doesn’t ridicule or make fun of Nicodemus … no, he enters into relationship with him, enters into his struggle, walks with Nicodemus from the darkness to the light.
It is a direct result, outcome, of last week’s story, Jesus’ enduring and conquering trial and temptation.
Fully God, Jesus didn’t need to have that encounter with the devil and the temptations to hubris … he could have taken all these on just fine … for he is fully God.
But he is also fully human … the only way Jesus could, can, save us, rescue us in and through our times of trial, and offer us the forgiveness of God when we give in … fully human, Jesus knows what this search, this struggle, this stumbling in the darkness is like … for Nicodemus, and for us …
… So do not criticize the seeker in yourselves … or the seeker in our midst.
Jesus welcomes Nicodemus as he is, where he is … so please, feel welcomed in your questioning, your wondering, your doubting. This is precisely why Jesus came … for you.
That being said – though – Nicodemus shows how far off he is from the Way of Jesus, the Way of the Kingdom, the Way of the Cross.
But don’t get angry at Nicodemus for this, either. He gets hung up on that phrase which is translated here as “born from above.” He understands it as “born again,” and of it Nicodemus makes a legalism, a rule, which he just doesn’t get how anyone can live into perfectly, as he understands we are to be before God.
But remember … Nicodemus has been raised in a religious system which is all about rules, and acting, and doing from our side of the God / us equation. He doesn’t know anything else.
Jesus hears Nicodemus’ questionings and wonderings, and takes it right back to his fellow Pharisees’ demand for a sign.
“Do not be astonished” – literally, “don’t go looking for a thaumaturge … a wonder worker … here.” Don’t go making being “born again” into some kind of a new law, a new rule or set of rules which must be followed perfectly, literally, to “get into” the Kingdom.
And then … a little later … Jesus makes things even more clear … shining the brilliant light of the Gospel into Nicodemus’ darkness.
“For God so loved the world … indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The conventional wisdom of the age looked for a heavenly Messiah-deliverer to come and enact the Deuteronomic principle onto the earth … that he would come bringing God’s wrath and judgment, to condemn, to eternally punish, even to destroy the masses for their unfaithfulness, while gathering a remnant of the faithful people of God, to save them and bring them home to Paradise.
But Jesus … here, Jesus blows that wrong-headed religious notion away. Yes, it’s an earthquake … not of condemnation … but of Gospel … and a tsunami … not of punishment, but of grace, washing over Nicodemus and all people … if we would but listen to him.
For too, too long … the new Pharisees of every time and space … including our own … so, totally, our own … have commandeered the bandwidth of faith, using John 3.16 like a cudgel, “For God so loved the world … dammit … so BELIEVE IN THE JESUS WE PROCLAIM TO YOU OR ELSE! Turn … or BURN!”
“Be born again … and of course, that means living your life … all aspects … political, economic, social … JUST LIKE US … or else, be condemned to hell for all eternity … YOU HEATHEN.”
And seekers like Nicodemus … lost in their darkness, their doubt or just wonder … they are simply driven away.
To this … we must say … ENOUGH.
It is time … it is high time … for the pure, sweet Word of Grace to once again be heard in our land. Lived out without shame, without apology … even shouted from the rooftops … this is our time … the time for quiet, timid Lutherans to be quiet and timid no more … and stand up to these spiritual bullies, these fearmongers and liars …
… as they speak lies and brood fear about God, the world, our nation … and themselves ...
… it is high time we stood up, to stand and deliver, loud and clear, for God’s Word in Jesus … the truth and love and grace of the Gospel … the true Word in the Word of John 3:16 AND 17 …
“For God so loved the world … indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
This is the Word of a God who welcomes questions and doubt; a God who calls and welcomes sinners … all of us, no one better than another … all of us, to come to him, to confess, to be forgiven, and to believe in him, and in his Beloved Son Jesus the Christ.
This is the Word of a God who takes broken people, struggling people, people like Nicodemus, and makes them whole.
Guess who shows up to help claim Jesus’ body from the cross at the end of John’s Gospel. NICODEMUS. Called and welcomed by Jesus in his questioning, his wondering, his doubt, Nicodemus GETS IT, and receives it, and lives it … that wonderful, amazing grace which flows through Jesus from the heart of God to all people.
This Word is also for you and me. Not to bank, not to protect, not to hide away, not to huddle around in buildings on Sunday mornings … but to carry forth as the light and love of God in Jesus Christ, into and for the world.
Just imagine what we might do, where we might go, who we might welcome, embrace, call to new life, through this amazing grace, grace in Jesus’ name.
Friends, IT IS HIGH TIME.
So LET US DO IT. Let us go forth and speak and live so that the world may truly hear of this One, this Jesus, who comes, not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
In his love, and in his name. Amen.
John 3:1-17
2nd Sunday in Lent
20 March 2011
When we last encountered Jesus – one week ago – it was in Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus being tested in the wilderness – his “time of trial” with Satan – and Jesus’ proving himself worthy of his Father’s praise, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Now – today – we make the move into the rest of the season of Lent – four Sundays’ worth of stories from John’s gospel – four conversations, visitations, between Jesus and some unforgettable characters in his- and our- faith story; people who, in their time spent with Jesus, come from darkness into the light of the Son of God.
The Samaritan woman at the well. The man born blind. Mary and Martha, and their dead brother Lazarus.
And today … today, the first of those “darkness to light” encounters … between Jesus and the Pharisee, the leader of the Jews named Nicodemus.
Nicodemus has heard about Jesus – the Word about him had gone out, first from John the Baptist; then, Jesus calling his own disciples; and finally, word about Jesus coming into the Temple in Jerusalem – a story which happens at the beginning of John’s gospel, rather than at the end – Jesus’ coming into the Temple and raising a ruckus, overturning tables, kicking out the moneychangers and trying to straighten out the mess that people had made of their religion.
Nicodemus had heard about Jesus … but, being a member of the religious elite, the religious leadership, he couldn’t be seen publicly going to Jesus, listening to him, being discipled by him … his fellow Pharisees did not believe Jesus had any authority to do what he was doing … indeed, they were demanding a sign from Jesus that he was really sent from God.
Nicodemus saw something in Jesus which set him apart from the rest of the religious establishment. He remained in the darkness, but wanted to know more. He was a seeker, a stumbler in the shadows, trying to find out more about faith.
Which, going by the standards of the Pharisees … those of every time and place, who are absolutely convinced of their own rightness and righteousness … this kind of behavior should make Nicodemus a candidate for criticism and ridicule. Faith, so they say, is a matter of certainty. God said it, the Scriptures reinforce it, I believe it, period. No need for questions … just get on with your life.
And yet Jesus welcomes this seeker, this stumbler, this one who is in the darkness and clings to the darkness to protect himself and keep safe. Jesus doesn’t try to rip away his protective darkness … he doesn’t ridicule or make fun of Nicodemus … no, he enters into relationship with him, enters into his struggle, walks with Nicodemus from the darkness to the light.
It is a direct result, outcome, of last week’s story, Jesus’ enduring and conquering trial and temptation.
Fully God, Jesus didn’t need to have that encounter with the devil and the temptations to hubris … he could have taken all these on just fine … for he is fully God.
But he is also fully human … the only way Jesus could, can, save us, rescue us in and through our times of trial, and offer us the forgiveness of God when we give in … fully human, Jesus knows what this search, this struggle, this stumbling in the darkness is like … for Nicodemus, and for us …
… So do not criticize the seeker in yourselves … or the seeker in our midst.
Jesus welcomes Nicodemus as he is, where he is … so please, feel welcomed in your questioning, your wondering, your doubting. This is precisely why Jesus came … for you.
That being said – though – Nicodemus shows how far off he is from the Way of Jesus, the Way of the Kingdom, the Way of the Cross.
But don’t get angry at Nicodemus for this, either. He gets hung up on that phrase which is translated here as “born from above.” He understands it as “born again,” and of it Nicodemus makes a legalism, a rule, which he just doesn’t get how anyone can live into perfectly, as he understands we are to be before God.
But remember … Nicodemus has been raised in a religious system which is all about rules, and acting, and doing from our side of the God / us equation. He doesn’t know anything else.
Jesus hears Nicodemus’ questionings and wonderings, and takes it right back to his fellow Pharisees’ demand for a sign.
“Do not be astonished” – literally, “don’t go looking for a thaumaturge … a wonder worker … here.” Don’t go making being “born again” into some kind of a new law, a new rule or set of rules which must be followed perfectly, literally, to “get into” the Kingdom.
And then … a little later … Jesus makes things even more clear … shining the brilliant light of the Gospel into Nicodemus’ darkness.
“For God so loved the world … indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The conventional wisdom of the age looked for a heavenly Messiah-deliverer to come and enact the Deuteronomic principle onto the earth … that he would come bringing God’s wrath and judgment, to condemn, to eternally punish, even to destroy the masses for their unfaithfulness, while gathering a remnant of the faithful people of God, to save them and bring them home to Paradise.
But Jesus … here, Jesus blows that wrong-headed religious notion away. Yes, it’s an earthquake … not of condemnation … but of Gospel … and a tsunami … not of punishment, but of grace, washing over Nicodemus and all people … if we would but listen to him.
For too, too long … the new Pharisees of every time and space … including our own … so, totally, our own … have commandeered the bandwidth of faith, using John 3.16 like a cudgel, “For God so loved the world … dammit … so BELIEVE IN THE JESUS WE PROCLAIM TO YOU OR ELSE! Turn … or BURN!”
“Be born again … and of course, that means living your life … all aspects … political, economic, social … JUST LIKE US … or else, be condemned to hell for all eternity … YOU HEATHEN.”
And seekers like Nicodemus … lost in their darkness, their doubt or just wonder … they are simply driven away.
To this … we must say … ENOUGH.
It is time … it is high time … for the pure, sweet Word of Grace to once again be heard in our land. Lived out without shame, without apology … even shouted from the rooftops … this is our time … the time for quiet, timid Lutherans to be quiet and timid no more … and stand up to these spiritual bullies, these fearmongers and liars …
… as they speak lies and brood fear about God, the world, our nation … and themselves ...
… it is high time we stood up, to stand and deliver, loud and clear, for God’s Word in Jesus … the truth and love and grace of the Gospel … the true Word in the Word of John 3:16 AND 17 …
“For God so loved the world … indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
This is the Word of a God who welcomes questions and doubt; a God who calls and welcomes sinners … all of us, no one better than another … all of us, to come to him, to confess, to be forgiven, and to believe in him, and in his Beloved Son Jesus the Christ.
This is the Word of a God who takes broken people, struggling people, people like Nicodemus, and makes them whole.
Guess who shows up to help claim Jesus’ body from the cross at the end of John’s Gospel. NICODEMUS. Called and welcomed by Jesus in his questioning, his wondering, his doubt, Nicodemus GETS IT, and receives it, and lives it … that wonderful, amazing grace which flows through Jesus from the heart of God to all people.
This Word is also for you and me. Not to bank, not to protect, not to hide away, not to huddle around in buildings on Sunday mornings … but to carry forth as the light and love of God in Jesus Christ, into and for the world.
Just imagine what we might do, where we might go, who we might welcome, embrace, call to new life, through this amazing grace, grace in Jesus’ name.
Friends, IT IS HIGH TIME.
So LET US DO IT. Let us go forth and speak and live so that the world may truly hear of this One, this Jesus, who comes, not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
In his love, and in his name. Amen.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
13 March 2011
“Faces of faith – Jesus and the Devil”
Matthew 4:1-11
First Sunday in Lent cycle A
13 March 2011
It is a troubling part of the most familiar, comforting Christian prayer …
“Lead us not into temptation.”
For some, those words are so disturbing that they would just as soon never use the “traditional” language version of the Lord’s Prayer, but rather, always the “contemporary” one … as we are using here in worship during this season of Lent … in which those words “lead us not into temptation” are retranslated as “save us from the time of trial.”
As one who expressed their disturbance to me, once said, “why would I ask God not to lead me into temptation – why, God doesn’t try to pull a bait-and-switch on us, does God?”
Well, does God?
That question, it must be an old one … certainly as old as the time of Martin Luther. For, in his Small Catechism … specifically, his explanation to the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Luther writes thus:
It is true that God tempts no one, but we ask in this prayer that God would preserve and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief,despair, and other great and shameful sins, and that, although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.
Although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.
That’s certainly a great summation of our First Sunday in Lent Gospel reading, isn’t it?
We have once again begun the liturgical season of reflection and renewal … and, once again, just as in every year on the first Sunday of Lent, our story is about Jesus’ experience away, by himself, in the desert wilderness of Palestine.
And right away, we are presented with the dilemma with which we began our message-time this morning.
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.”
What is happening here?
Chronologically, we’ve gone back in time … long before last week’s trip up and down SonShine Mountain of Jesus’ transfiguration … before the Sermon on the Mount, in which we spent most of the Epiphany season … even before Jesus called his first disciples … here we are, right after Jesus’ baptism by John, and the first hearing of those words we also heard last week … “THIS IS MY SON, THE BELOVED, WITH WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED” …
So what happens to the beloved Son? Where does the well-pleased Father’s Spirit lead him next? Into the wilderness … the dry, desert places … to be tempted by the Devil.
It is a strange sentence … especially given our understanding that “God tempts no one.”
But that still holds. It’s not going to be God that is doing the tempting.
And second … the word Matthew uses in his Greek language, which we translate as “tempt,” can also mean “test.” Here, I think that’s more the meaning. God’s Spirit, fresh from lighting on Jesus in his baptism, a sign that God is with him and well pleased with him … God’s Spirit is going to lead Jesus into the wilderness to test him … to show him what being God’s Son is truly going to be all about … and, in that other, not as often used sense of “test” – for which we use a similar word, “temper” … the one we used to hear in those aluminum foil commercials that went “oven tempered for flexible strength” … God’s Spirit is leading Jesus into the wilderness to be strengthened for service.
But perhaps we don’t even get that far into the story … maybe we stumble on that name, the personification of the Tempter, the Tester … the one Matthew, here, calls “the Devil.”
Well, we’ll take a look at that in a minute … I don’t want to get stuck on the personification of the Tempter first.
Instead, let’s look at the individual temptations or testings themselves.
They are, really, innocent enough. Not “pushing the envelope” for the Beloved Son of God, not by a long shot.
For, what’s wrong at turning stones into bread to feed the hungry? Would we not expect this of the Beloved Son of God?
What’s wrong with believing the Scriptures so strongly that Jesus would trust the angels to protect him, even in the most severe of situations? Would we not expect this level of trust of the Beloved Son of God?
And what’s wrong with Jesus – the “King of kings and Lord of lords” – assuming control and leadership of all the kingdoms of the world? Don’t we expect this of Jesus at the end of all things anyway? What would be so bad if he took hold of things now, at this point in the story?
These are terribly logical choices, laid out before Jesus.
If Jesus took them, he’d certainly be living into what we would expect of the Beloved Son of God, wouldn’t he?
It’s just that … that’s it.
The reason Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness is to see how he’s going to go about being fully God AND fully human, in walking in the way of the Cross.
Though we-people might expect a Superman-Messiah, this isn’t what God wants at all. Or, what we humans need.
Because, if you haven’t noticed … we’re not supermen or women. We’re all very, very human.
So we need a fully human Messiah to show us A Different Way out of our temptations.
Actually, I should have said, Temptation. Because if you get to the root – commonality – of these temptations Jesus encounters … they are the same as those we encounter … the core of which is hubris.
Hubris. We hear that word a lot lately, but maybe we don’t know exactly what it means.
So here it is … hubris is “extreme arrogance.” “Not being realistic.” “Overestimating one’s competence or capabilities.”
In other words … putting one’s self in the place of God.
That’s what each of these temptations does. “Oh, just make yourself bread out of these rocks, Jesus, and break your long fast … who cares anyway.” “Go throw yourself off the highest building around, Jesus, … you won’t die.” “Become the ruler of the world, Jesus – who wouldn’t want that?”
That’s hubris.
Of course, for Jesus, fully God … being Godlike was, is, would be OK.
But for Jesus, also fully human … sent to save us from our sins … well, giving in to those temptations would also be totally self-serving … there’s no “for us” in them at all.
That’s why he didn’t give in.
And for us – who give in to temptations to hubris in so many, many ways every single day … Jesus’ not giving in shows us another way … another way through which, as Luther says, “although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.”
Attacked … by …Them. What tempts us to hubris … putting ourselves in the place of God …
Once again, in Luther’s words …
…the devil, the world, and our flesh.
OK – NOW we can talk about the Devil.
Matthew uses two words here -- “devil,” or diabolos in his Greek language … and what Jesus himself calls the “tempter,” … “Satan.” It’s no surprise Jesus uses that word Satan, because it’s Hebrew - Sa’tan – and Jesus was a Jew, of course – Sa’tan is the Hebrew term for “adversary.” In the Old Testament – and this would have been the sense in which Jesus knew and used the term – Sa’tan is that which opposes God and the coming kingdom or reign of God. People are primarily the source of this satanic behavior. So when Peter speaks to Jesus in chapter 16 of Matthew’s Gospel, and says things which oppose Jesus continuing in the Way of the Cross – “God forbid it, Lord, this (suffering and dying on the Cross) must never happen to you” – well, Jesus calls Peter “Sa’tan” or adversary … “Get behind me, Satan!” You – Peter – are opposing God’s will and way, in me.
And that is really all that is going on here, between Jesus and diabolos or Satan. He – Jesus – is encountering opposition as he seeks to continue in the Way of the Cross, opposition which comes in the form of these three temptations ... and, rightfully, he calls it as such.
But something happened with how people used those words, “devil” and “Satan,” soon into the history of the Christian church. Instead of understanding the meaning of those names as descriptors for those who oppose the way of Jesus … Christians soon started using them in another way …
… to label – demonize, if you will … those who opposed them.
Elaine Pagels, in her book “The History of Satan,” outlines this shift. We start to see it in Luke and John’s gospels, where Satan – evil personified – is said to enter into Judas, leading him to betray Jesus. But then other church fathers start using the label for those who opposed what they interpreted as “orthodox Christianity.”
Certainly Martin Luther understood things in this way. His was a very different medieval world view … where demons were palpable and temptation was around every turn. But Luther was also terribly guilty of labeling anyone who opposed the Reformation … or him - Luther, as he interpreted God’s word, as “Satan” – from the Pope and the Roman Catholic church … to the Jews.
And so today- how do we use the words, the terms … devil, Satan? Most likely, either as a “passing the buck” excuse for our own sin – “the devil made me do it” … or, in the demonization of our opponents … Democrats, Republicans, “Religious Right,” “Religious Left,” large corporations, Congress, the Supreme Court, the President … “our opponents” are “evil” … meaning, “of the devil.”
Which, conveniently, removes the personal responsibility of our own shortcomings … wrongdoings … omissions … sins … removes the personal responsibility from us, and slathers it all over “them.”
They did it. It’s their fault.
Which couldn’t be further from what Jesus is intending in our Gospel reading … which is … pointing out the inevitability of our temptation to sin … and his “other way” through it … the Way of the Cross which leads to his reconciling sinful shattered people with a “perfect” whole God.
Contemporary author Jim Crace – he, undoubtedly, tired of the “traditional” approach to today’s Gospel text … leading to people “using” Satan as a convenient scapegoat for their sins … or as a hateful label hurled at political enemies … Crace wrote a book which has become the epitome book for “post-modern theology,” called “Quarantine.”
The title refers to that forty day period Jesus spent in the Wilderness … remember “Quarantine” means “forty.”
In the book, the temptations Jesus encounters while on his Quarantine end up being more of a struggle with his own demons, if you will … Jesus’ time of resisting temptation is truly a battle against himself, and his fully human desires.
Though Crace’s approach is different – even, perhaps, disturbing to some readers – his point is well taken.
Temptation … hubris … wanting to be like God …
… in the end … the one with whom we truly have to do battle, as we fight that tempting, which leads us from the wholeness, peace, shalom of God … is … none other than … ourselves. Me, myself, and I.
And this is why we have Lent. Lent calls us to what theologian Paul Tillich called “the crisis” … the realization that we are all searching for meaning in everything else other than God … that we at base do not want to admit that we are ultimately powerless in the face of everything which tempts us … and that we need God to be God in our lives, not us.
It is the Crisis which brings us back from hubris to reality … that “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves” … that, as we sing in that Holy Week hymn, “twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee, I crucified thee” … that, as we confess our sins and hear the words of forgiveness, as we gather around the table of the Lord, we come back together from our shattered brokenness, our selfish singularity, and form a new community, forgiven, freed, to live, refreshed, reborn, in him.
Granted, that’s not a popular word today … nor, would I offer, at any time in human history. Maybe that’s why the Lutheran Church … those Lutheran churches where the Cross is central and the word of confession and forgiveness is truly and rightly proclaimed …
… those churches are never the humongous cathedrals of the Gospel of Glory and Success … places where we hear that “if we but follow Jesus, it will all be ours” … and where anyone who doesn’t agree with the preacher’s political or social views are demonized as “evil” …
… but rather, we are most often small congregations of humble people, quietly, faithfully living out their, our salvation in service to others.
This is after all, where Jesus is, and does, and goes, in our Gospel text.
Jesus leaves his baptism … arises and goes into the wilderness, the desert, where he successfully navigates the dangerous currents of temptation and hubris … he does not serve himself in his Godliness, but lays that aside for his humanity … for our humanity …
And guess what … Jesus ends up “getting it all” anyway. The bread, the life, the Way of the Kingdom. “And suddenly angels came and waited on him.”
He is surrounded by his community of care, and is cared for, restored, strengthened for the journey … the journey in the way of the Cross, the journey he and we will make together as we continue in this Lenten season …
… and we, too, we are surrounded here by our community of care, as we make our own way through the wilderness of this life … the times of trial … the temptations … the worldly pull to hubris .. the little voice inside our heads which says “you are the master of your own destiny.”
Our community of care in which, through which, we are held accountable to and by the Word of Truth …
… forgive us our sins … even as we forgive those who sin against us …
Our community of care in which, through which, we walk with each other, through the temptations and trials of our lives …
…save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil …
Our community of care, where we are given true food, true life, true leadership, true companionship, to walk in the Way of the Cross, together with Jesus, true God and true human … God for us.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Matthew 4:1-11
First Sunday in Lent cycle A
13 March 2011
It is a troubling part of the most familiar, comforting Christian prayer …
“Lead us not into temptation.”
For some, those words are so disturbing that they would just as soon never use the “traditional” language version of the Lord’s Prayer, but rather, always the “contemporary” one … as we are using here in worship during this season of Lent … in which those words “lead us not into temptation” are retranslated as “save us from the time of trial.”
As one who expressed their disturbance to me, once said, “why would I ask God not to lead me into temptation – why, God doesn’t try to pull a bait-and-switch on us, does God?”
Well, does God?
That question, it must be an old one … certainly as old as the time of Martin Luther. For, in his Small Catechism … specifically, his explanation to the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Luther writes thus:
It is true that God tempts no one, but we ask in this prayer that God would preserve and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief,despair, and other great and shameful sins, and that, although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.
Although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.
That’s certainly a great summation of our First Sunday in Lent Gospel reading, isn’t it?
We have once again begun the liturgical season of reflection and renewal … and, once again, just as in every year on the first Sunday of Lent, our story is about Jesus’ experience away, by himself, in the desert wilderness of Palestine.
And right away, we are presented with the dilemma with which we began our message-time this morning.
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.”
What is happening here?
Chronologically, we’ve gone back in time … long before last week’s trip up and down SonShine Mountain of Jesus’ transfiguration … before the Sermon on the Mount, in which we spent most of the Epiphany season … even before Jesus called his first disciples … here we are, right after Jesus’ baptism by John, and the first hearing of those words we also heard last week … “THIS IS MY SON, THE BELOVED, WITH WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED” …
So what happens to the beloved Son? Where does the well-pleased Father’s Spirit lead him next? Into the wilderness … the dry, desert places … to be tempted by the Devil.
It is a strange sentence … especially given our understanding that “God tempts no one.”
But that still holds. It’s not going to be God that is doing the tempting.
And second … the word Matthew uses in his Greek language, which we translate as “tempt,” can also mean “test.” Here, I think that’s more the meaning. God’s Spirit, fresh from lighting on Jesus in his baptism, a sign that God is with him and well pleased with him … God’s Spirit is going to lead Jesus into the wilderness to test him … to show him what being God’s Son is truly going to be all about … and, in that other, not as often used sense of “test” – for which we use a similar word, “temper” … the one we used to hear in those aluminum foil commercials that went “oven tempered for flexible strength” … God’s Spirit is leading Jesus into the wilderness to be strengthened for service.
But perhaps we don’t even get that far into the story … maybe we stumble on that name, the personification of the Tempter, the Tester … the one Matthew, here, calls “the Devil.”
Well, we’ll take a look at that in a minute … I don’t want to get stuck on the personification of the Tempter first.
Instead, let’s look at the individual temptations or testings themselves.
They are, really, innocent enough. Not “pushing the envelope” for the Beloved Son of God, not by a long shot.
For, what’s wrong at turning stones into bread to feed the hungry? Would we not expect this of the Beloved Son of God?
What’s wrong with believing the Scriptures so strongly that Jesus would trust the angels to protect him, even in the most severe of situations? Would we not expect this level of trust of the Beloved Son of God?
And what’s wrong with Jesus – the “King of kings and Lord of lords” – assuming control and leadership of all the kingdoms of the world? Don’t we expect this of Jesus at the end of all things anyway? What would be so bad if he took hold of things now, at this point in the story?
These are terribly logical choices, laid out before Jesus.
If Jesus took them, he’d certainly be living into what we would expect of the Beloved Son of God, wouldn’t he?
It’s just that … that’s it.
The reason Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness is to see how he’s going to go about being fully God AND fully human, in walking in the way of the Cross.
Though we-people might expect a Superman-Messiah, this isn’t what God wants at all. Or, what we humans need.
Because, if you haven’t noticed … we’re not supermen or women. We’re all very, very human.
So we need a fully human Messiah to show us A Different Way out of our temptations.
Actually, I should have said, Temptation. Because if you get to the root – commonality – of these temptations Jesus encounters … they are the same as those we encounter … the core of which is hubris.
Hubris. We hear that word a lot lately, but maybe we don’t know exactly what it means.
So here it is … hubris is “extreme arrogance.” “Not being realistic.” “Overestimating one’s competence or capabilities.”
In other words … putting one’s self in the place of God.
That’s what each of these temptations does. “Oh, just make yourself bread out of these rocks, Jesus, and break your long fast … who cares anyway.” “Go throw yourself off the highest building around, Jesus, … you won’t die.” “Become the ruler of the world, Jesus – who wouldn’t want that?”
That’s hubris.
Of course, for Jesus, fully God … being Godlike was, is, would be OK.
But for Jesus, also fully human … sent to save us from our sins … well, giving in to those temptations would also be totally self-serving … there’s no “for us” in them at all.
That’s why he didn’t give in.
And for us – who give in to temptations to hubris in so many, many ways every single day … Jesus’ not giving in shows us another way … another way through which, as Luther says, “although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.”
Attacked … by …Them. What tempts us to hubris … putting ourselves in the place of God …
Once again, in Luther’s words …
…the devil, the world, and our flesh.
OK – NOW we can talk about the Devil.
Matthew uses two words here -- “devil,” or diabolos in his Greek language … and what Jesus himself calls the “tempter,” … “Satan.” It’s no surprise Jesus uses that word Satan, because it’s Hebrew - Sa’tan – and Jesus was a Jew, of course – Sa’tan is the Hebrew term for “adversary.” In the Old Testament – and this would have been the sense in which Jesus knew and used the term – Sa’tan is that which opposes God and the coming kingdom or reign of God. People are primarily the source of this satanic behavior. So when Peter speaks to Jesus in chapter 16 of Matthew’s Gospel, and says things which oppose Jesus continuing in the Way of the Cross – “God forbid it, Lord, this (suffering and dying on the Cross) must never happen to you” – well, Jesus calls Peter “Sa’tan” or adversary … “Get behind me, Satan!” You – Peter – are opposing God’s will and way, in me.
And that is really all that is going on here, between Jesus and diabolos or Satan. He – Jesus – is encountering opposition as he seeks to continue in the Way of the Cross, opposition which comes in the form of these three temptations ... and, rightfully, he calls it as such.
But something happened with how people used those words, “devil” and “Satan,” soon into the history of the Christian church. Instead of understanding the meaning of those names as descriptors for those who oppose the way of Jesus … Christians soon started using them in another way …
… to label – demonize, if you will … those who opposed them.
Elaine Pagels, in her book “The History of Satan,” outlines this shift. We start to see it in Luke and John’s gospels, where Satan – evil personified – is said to enter into Judas, leading him to betray Jesus. But then other church fathers start using the label for those who opposed what they interpreted as “orthodox Christianity.”
Certainly Martin Luther understood things in this way. His was a very different medieval world view … where demons were palpable and temptation was around every turn. But Luther was also terribly guilty of labeling anyone who opposed the Reformation … or him - Luther, as he interpreted God’s word, as “Satan” – from the Pope and the Roman Catholic church … to the Jews.
And so today- how do we use the words, the terms … devil, Satan? Most likely, either as a “passing the buck” excuse for our own sin – “the devil made me do it” … or, in the demonization of our opponents … Democrats, Republicans, “Religious Right,” “Religious Left,” large corporations, Congress, the Supreme Court, the President … “our opponents” are “evil” … meaning, “of the devil.”
Which, conveniently, removes the personal responsibility of our own shortcomings … wrongdoings … omissions … sins … removes the personal responsibility from us, and slathers it all over “them.”
They did it. It’s their fault.
Which couldn’t be further from what Jesus is intending in our Gospel reading … which is … pointing out the inevitability of our temptation to sin … and his “other way” through it … the Way of the Cross which leads to his reconciling sinful shattered people with a “perfect” whole God.
Contemporary author Jim Crace – he, undoubtedly, tired of the “traditional” approach to today’s Gospel text … leading to people “using” Satan as a convenient scapegoat for their sins … or as a hateful label hurled at political enemies … Crace wrote a book which has become the epitome book for “post-modern theology,” called “Quarantine.”
The title refers to that forty day period Jesus spent in the Wilderness … remember “Quarantine” means “forty.”
In the book, the temptations Jesus encounters while on his Quarantine end up being more of a struggle with his own demons, if you will … Jesus’ time of resisting temptation is truly a battle against himself, and his fully human desires.
Though Crace’s approach is different – even, perhaps, disturbing to some readers – his point is well taken.
Temptation … hubris … wanting to be like God …
… in the end … the one with whom we truly have to do battle, as we fight that tempting, which leads us from the wholeness, peace, shalom of God … is … none other than … ourselves. Me, myself, and I.
And this is why we have Lent. Lent calls us to what theologian Paul Tillich called “the crisis” … the realization that we are all searching for meaning in everything else other than God … that we at base do not want to admit that we are ultimately powerless in the face of everything which tempts us … and that we need God to be God in our lives, not us.
It is the Crisis which brings us back from hubris to reality … that “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves” … that, as we sing in that Holy Week hymn, “twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee, I crucified thee” … that, as we confess our sins and hear the words of forgiveness, as we gather around the table of the Lord, we come back together from our shattered brokenness, our selfish singularity, and form a new community, forgiven, freed, to live, refreshed, reborn, in him.
Granted, that’s not a popular word today … nor, would I offer, at any time in human history. Maybe that’s why the Lutheran Church … those Lutheran churches where the Cross is central and the word of confession and forgiveness is truly and rightly proclaimed …
… those churches are never the humongous cathedrals of the Gospel of Glory and Success … places where we hear that “if we but follow Jesus, it will all be ours” … and where anyone who doesn’t agree with the preacher’s political or social views are demonized as “evil” …
… but rather, we are most often small congregations of humble people, quietly, faithfully living out their, our salvation in service to others.
This is after all, where Jesus is, and does, and goes, in our Gospel text.
Jesus leaves his baptism … arises and goes into the wilderness, the desert, where he successfully navigates the dangerous currents of temptation and hubris … he does not serve himself in his Godliness, but lays that aside for his humanity … for our humanity …
And guess what … Jesus ends up “getting it all” anyway. The bread, the life, the Way of the Kingdom. “And suddenly angels came and waited on him.”
He is surrounded by his community of care, and is cared for, restored, strengthened for the journey … the journey in the way of the Cross, the journey he and we will make together as we continue in this Lenten season …
… and we, too, we are surrounded here by our community of care, as we make our own way through the wilderness of this life … the times of trial … the temptations … the worldly pull to hubris .. the little voice inside our heads which says “you are the master of your own destiny.”
Our community of care in which, through which, we are held accountable to and by the Word of Truth …
… forgive us our sins … even as we forgive those who sin against us …
Our community of care in which, through which, we walk with each other, through the temptations and trials of our lives …
…save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil …
Our community of care, where we are given true food, true life, true leadership, true companionship, to walk in the Way of the Cross, together with Jesus, true God and true human … God for us.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
6 March 2011
“SonShine Mountain”
Transfiguration of our Lord
Matthew 17:1-9
6 March 2011
Hmn.
Perhaps today’s Gospel reading has you confused.
I mean, wasn’t Jesus up on a mountain last Sunday, and the three or four before that … giving “The Sermon on the Mount,” after all?
Why does he need to climb another mountain today, with his disciples, anyway?
Well, in the sometimes wacky way of things that happens when we follow the liturgical year … in one Sunday we’ve jumped from being with Jesus and his disciples and the crowds on top of the Mountain of the Sermon on the Mount … right to the Mountain of Transfiguration, with Jesus, the disciples, Moses and Elijah.
In between … the 10 chapters we skipped … we missed a lot!
We missed the end of the Sermon on the Mount … Jesus’ practical advice for every time and place … “don’t judge” … “beware of false prophets” … “everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”
We missed Jesus healing a leper … a centurion’s slave … Peter’s mother in law … a man wandering among the tombs of the Gadarenes, possessed by demons.
We missed Jesus’ sending out the disciples to act and preach and heal in his name.
We missed parables like the sower and the seed, and the weeds among the wheat.
We missed a lot!
But regardless … here we are … today … moved from the Sermon on the Mount to the Mount of the Transfiguration. And in breezing over the ten chapters between where we left off last week (Matthew 6) and where we are today (Matthew 17) … we are now at a bridge to what comes next … a bridge out of this season of Epiphany … this season of light, of “letting the Son shine,” now, we move into the introspective, meditative, self-examining season of Lent. A time to think, to ponder, to go deeper in our faith walk with Jesus as he moves, surely, steadily, toward the Cross.
You may remember that we entered this season of Epiphany way back on Baptism of our Lord Sunday, January 9, in much the same way as we leave it today.
Back then, just as today, Jesus, surrounded by friends … then, John the Baptist; now, his disciples Peter and James and John … both then at his baptism, and now up on the mountain … a heavenly voice gives us an epiphany of Jesus … it makes Jesus known … “This is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased” … now, on the mountaintop, the voice adds, for emphasis, and, perhaps, pointing us in the direction of what is to come … “LISTEN TO HIM!”
Listen to him? Listen to him? Why, that’s all we’ve been doing, during these past few weeks of the Sermon on the Mount.
We’ve heard Jesus describe the Parallax view, the light of and from his Word, showing, telling us that in the way of faith, things are not as they immediately appear to us. “Blessed are the meek … the merciful … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”
We’ve heard Jesus speak of salt and light … encouraging those who follow him to be obvious in their “saltiness,” our faithful acts of service and love toward others as we follow him.
We’ve heard Jesus say some hard words, words about divorce, revenge, loving our enemies … words which often get bent around by the prism of how we would rather hear and receive them, than in the Spirit Jesus truly gives them to us.
And we’ve heard Jesus tell us, in the midst of a time, a season of life, in this nation, in this world, filled with words and images, occurrences, happenings which trouble us … we’ve heard Jesus tell us, “don’t worry.”
We’ve been listening to Jesus, that is for sure.
So why does this voice exhort us to more of the same?
Hear how and why it was first given … up on that mountain …
The voice interrupts Peter while he is still speaking … and what is it that Peter’s saying?
Exactly the opposite of what Jesus has been saying, what he and we have heard him saying, in the Sermon on the Mount.
“I will make three dwellings” … tents, really … Peter says, and in saying this, he shows how little attention he’s really been paying to Jesus this whole time.
Because … if we boil down the message of the Sermon on the Mount we’ve heard these past few weeks, and take it in the context of our theme “Let the Son Shine” – what we get is:
The glow which we see coming from Jesus, he gives off to show us … each other.
Jesus hasn’t just spent all this time giving the Sermon on the Mount as a lesson in self-preservation for his followers. Neither does he come and give and do all that he has done to set himself up as some kind of a new Moses / lawgiver or new Elijah / prophet. He comes, as he himself says, “to fulfill the law” and to exemplify the new, “perfect,” whole life of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is en-fleshed and lived out in him.
And so the voice … the voice interrupts Peter because what Peter is calling for is nothing less than a return, a keeping of the old way of things. Compartmentalized, neat, clean religion … not messy, not involved in human foibles or sins or sufferings … “God in a box” which can be rolled out and put on display for special occasions.
As the voice points out, this isn’t the way of Jesus.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; LISTEN TO HIM!”
Pay attention Peter … pay attention, the rest of you, you who would keep God in a box, controlled, measured and measurable, surveyed, noted and annotated … good for only an hour here or a day or two there … My Son, the Beloved, Will Not Be Like This. LISTEN TO HIM!
And so we shouldn’t be surprised that the first thing that happens in the verses following today’s text, once Jesus gets down off the mountain, is that Jesus runs into the rest of his disciples, left down there below, they who tried to cast a demon out of a boy, to heal him … but they couldn’t do it … so Jesus does. Jesus heals the boy.
Right away … after his mountaintop experience … Jesus is there, engaged, connected, plugged right in with the messiness of human life.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; LISTEN TO HIM!”
And so, down the mountain we go, too, with Jesus, down into the messiness of human existence, down with him into this Lent, this time of sidling up beside our Lord and watching, hearing, observing, learning, being discipled in what life in the Kingdom of Heaven is really like.
And guess what.
We’re going to wade into the messiness right along with him.
The glow of Jesus shows us … not a separate and separated “holiness” … a set apart “otherness” … no, the light of God’s Son shows us … each other.
On our Lenten walk with Jesus this year, we’re going to meet some unforgettable characters … and see, and hear, how they work toward, influence, show forth faith.
Next week, we’ll hear how Jesus receives temptations … temptations common to every person ... and see what he does, in and through them all.
We’ll meet a teacher, scared of being seen publicly with Jesus, who comes to him by night … a woman of bad reputation at a well in Samaria … a man born blind, who suffers the blame and ridicule of his handicap … and Jesus’ friends, Mary and Martha, who along with Jesus, mourn the death of their brother Lazarus.
And we will hear from each other, our brothers and sisters here, as they share with us ways they practice, walking with Jesus, listening to Jesus, as he calls them, calls us, to come out of our dwellings, our booths and tents, separate and separated, and engage … engage faith with life ...
Life, right here, right now … Life which is not at all neat, nor perfect, nor pretty …
But listen to him! We are being given a Word and a Way which is Real …
Real for us who are really, truly Messy as well … sinful, sick, worrying, suffering …
The ones Jesus comes down off the mountain for… are … US … his light, warming and healing us, shining forth so we can see others, and walk with them, in the way of the Cross, in their ways of suffering and death … bringing them the Word of Life even as Jesus has brought us to life …
We … Us … You and I … who may well be the only faces, the only hands and feet, the only caring arms, who ever show them Jesus.
That’s … an awesome thought. A scary thought.
And it is A True Word.
So let us prepare … prepare to Be Like Jesus … together let us take the Lenten path down off Son Shine Mountain.
Take time … spend time with Jesus, as he comes to you in and through your times of Lenten contemplation … through the words of others, calling you, showing you, discipling you, in the Lenten way of going deeper in your faith walk, our shared faith story.
Turn down … for 40 days and 40 nights … turn down the din of a world which drowns out the cry of the poor and suffering, lost in the noise of foolishness and glory, politics and power, denial and lies … turn down, turn off, tune it out … and LISTEN TO HIM! … follow Jesus in the Way of the Cross.
Set aside your Alleluias for a season, and ponder the Who, What and Why which is behind them … the Cross-shaped “gift” which gives us real, true, everlasting life … and allows us to shout them forth in triumph at the Feast of Jesus’ Resurrection.
Let the Son Shine … through you … to and for the world.
Amen.
Transfiguration of our Lord
Matthew 17:1-9
6 March 2011
Hmn.
Perhaps today’s Gospel reading has you confused.
I mean, wasn’t Jesus up on a mountain last Sunday, and the three or four before that … giving “The Sermon on the Mount,” after all?
Why does he need to climb another mountain today, with his disciples, anyway?
Well, in the sometimes wacky way of things that happens when we follow the liturgical year … in one Sunday we’ve jumped from being with Jesus and his disciples and the crowds on top of the Mountain of the Sermon on the Mount … right to the Mountain of Transfiguration, with Jesus, the disciples, Moses and Elijah.
In between … the 10 chapters we skipped … we missed a lot!
We missed the end of the Sermon on the Mount … Jesus’ practical advice for every time and place … “don’t judge” … “beware of false prophets” … “everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”
We missed Jesus healing a leper … a centurion’s slave … Peter’s mother in law … a man wandering among the tombs of the Gadarenes, possessed by demons.
We missed Jesus’ sending out the disciples to act and preach and heal in his name.
We missed parables like the sower and the seed, and the weeds among the wheat.
We missed a lot!
But regardless … here we are … today … moved from the Sermon on the Mount to the Mount of the Transfiguration. And in breezing over the ten chapters between where we left off last week (Matthew 6) and where we are today (Matthew 17) … we are now at a bridge to what comes next … a bridge out of this season of Epiphany … this season of light, of “letting the Son shine,” now, we move into the introspective, meditative, self-examining season of Lent. A time to think, to ponder, to go deeper in our faith walk with Jesus as he moves, surely, steadily, toward the Cross.
You may remember that we entered this season of Epiphany way back on Baptism of our Lord Sunday, January 9, in much the same way as we leave it today.
Back then, just as today, Jesus, surrounded by friends … then, John the Baptist; now, his disciples Peter and James and John … both then at his baptism, and now up on the mountain … a heavenly voice gives us an epiphany of Jesus … it makes Jesus known … “This is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased” … now, on the mountaintop, the voice adds, for emphasis, and, perhaps, pointing us in the direction of what is to come … “LISTEN TO HIM!”
Listen to him? Listen to him? Why, that’s all we’ve been doing, during these past few weeks of the Sermon on the Mount.
We’ve heard Jesus describe the Parallax view, the light of and from his Word, showing, telling us that in the way of faith, things are not as they immediately appear to us. “Blessed are the meek … the merciful … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”
We’ve heard Jesus speak of salt and light … encouraging those who follow him to be obvious in their “saltiness,” our faithful acts of service and love toward others as we follow him.
We’ve heard Jesus say some hard words, words about divorce, revenge, loving our enemies … words which often get bent around by the prism of how we would rather hear and receive them, than in the Spirit Jesus truly gives them to us.
And we’ve heard Jesus tell us, in the midst of a time, a season of life, in this nation, in this world, filled with words and images, occurrences, happenings which trouble us … we’ve heard Jesus tell us, “don’t worry.”
We’ve been listening to Jesus, that is for sure.
So why does this voice exhort us to more of the same?
Hear how and why it was first given … up on that mountain …
The voice interrupts Peter while he is still speaking … and what is it that Peter’s saying?
Exactly the opposite of what Jesus has been saying, what he and we have heard him saying, in the Sermon on the Mount.
“I will make three dwellings” … tents, really … Peter says, and in saying this, he shows how little attention he’s really been paying to Jesus this whole time.
Because … if we boil down the message of the Sermon on the Mount we’ve heard these past few weeks, and take it in the context of our theme “Let the Son Shine” – what we get is:
The glow which we see coming from Jesus, he gives off to show us … each other.
Jesus hasn’t just spent all this time giving the Sermon on the Mount as a lesson in self-preservation for his followers. Neither does he come and give and do all that he has done to set himself up as some kind of a new Moses / lawgiver or new Elijah / prophet. He comes, as he himself says, “to fulfill the law” and to exemplify the new, “perfect,” whole life of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is en-fleshed and lived out in him.
And so the voice … the voice interrupts Peter because what Peter is calling for is nothing less than a return, a keeping of the old way of things. Compartmentalized, neat, clean religion … not messy, not involved in human foibles or sins or sufferings … “God in a box” which can be rolled out and put on display for special occasions.
As the voice points out, this isn’t the way of Jesus.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; LISTEN TO HIM!”
Pay attention Peter … pay attention, the rest of you, you who would keep God in a box, controlled, measured and measurable, surveyed, noted and annotated … good for only an hour here or a day or two there … My Son, the Beloved, Will Not Be Like This. LISTEN TO HIM!
And so we shouldn’t be surprised that the first thing that happens in the verses following today’s text, once Jesus gets down off the mountain, is that Jesus runs into the rest of his disciples, left down there below, they who tried to cast a demon out of a boy, to heal him … but they couldn’t do it … so Jesus does. Jesus heals the boy.
Right away … after his mountaintop experience … Jesus is there, engaged, connected, plugged right in with the messiness of human life.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; LISTEN TO HIM!”
And so, down the mountain we go, too, with Jesus, down into the messiness of human existence, down with him into this Lent, this time of sidling up beside our Lord and watching, hearing, observing, learning, being discipled in what life in the Kingdom of Heaven is really like.
And guess what.
We’re going to wade into the messiness right along with him.
The glow of Jesus shows us … not a separate and separated “holiness” … a set apart “otherness” … no, the light of God’s Son shows us … each other.
On our Lenten walk with Jesus this year, we’re going to meet some unforgettable characters … and see, and hear, how they work toward, influence, show forth faith.
Next week, we’ll hear how Jesus receives temptations … temptations common to every person ... and see what he does, in and through them all.
We’ll meet a teacher, scared of being seen publicly with Jesus, who comes to him by night … a woman of bad reputation at a well in Samaria … a man born blind, who suffers the blame and ridicule of his handicap … and Jesus’ friends, Mary and Martha, who along with Jesus, mourn the death of their brother Lazarus.
And we will hear from each other, our brothers and sisters here, as they share with us ways they practice, walking with Jesus, listening to Jesus, as he calls them, calls us, to come out of our dwellings, our booths and tents, separate and separated, and engage … engage faith with life ...
Life, right here, right now … Life which is not at all neat, nor perfect, nor pretty …
But listen to him! We are being given a Word and a Way which is Real …
Real for us who are really, truly Messy as well … sinful, sick, worrying, suffering …
The ones Jesus comes down off the mountain for… are … US … his light, warming and healing us, shining forth so we can see others, and walk with them, in the way of the Cross, in their ways of suffering and death … bringing them the Word of Life even as Jesus has brought us to life …
We … Us … You and I … who may well be the only faces, the only hands and feet, the only caring arms, who ever show them Jesus.
That’s … an awesome thought. A scary thought.
And it is A True Word.
So let us prepare … prepare to Be Like Jesus … together let us take the Lenten path down off Son Shine Mountain.
Take time … spend time with Jesus, as he comes to you in and through your times of Lenten contemplation … through the words of others, calling you, showing you, discipling you, in the Lenten way of going deeper in your faith walk, our shared faith story.
Turn down … for 40 days and 40 nights … turn down the din of a world which drowns out the cry of the poor and suffering, lost in the noise of foolishness and glory, politics and power, denial and lies … turn down, turn off, tune it out … and LISTEN TO HIM! … follow Jesus in the Way of the Cross.
Set aside your Alleluias for a season, and ponder the Who, What and Why which is behind them … the Cross-shaped “gift” which gives us real, true, everlasting life … and allows us to shout them forth in triumph at the Feast of Jesus’ Resurrection.
Let the Son Shine … through you … to and for the world.
Amen.
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