palm/passion sunday

the two main readings i reference in my brief sermon for this sunday were:

palm processional: mark 11:1-11.

the passion according to mark 14:1-15:47.

This Sunday is probably the busiest liturgical day of the church year.

We journey from what is deemed the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, although what we have on Palm Sunday is not one, but two entries into Jerusalem.  At the west gate of Jerusalem, Pilate, the governor and enforcer of Roman rule, comes in for the Passover.  Pilate comes with a full parade of Roman power, soldiers everywhere, horns blasting, powerful and majestic horses, and everyone, of course, bowing down to the power of the empire, peace by threat of violence.

Through the east gate,            comes the true ruler.  Jesus borrows a donkey—stubborn, tough, and certainly not pretty—and enters to his own cries of praise for God’s reign, God’s dominion.  And so the people proclaim the one who is to be true ruler in what becomes a mockery of the one who thinks he’s in control.

Our cries of Hosanna are joyous and excited for the one we believe will overthrow the Romans, the one we want to lead us into a final, violent battle for freedom, for victory.  And yet, as we journey with Jesus’ followers toward the Passover and what we will come to know as Holy Week, our Hosannas are quickly left echoing on the road as we gather in an upper room for a last supper with our Teacher, where we hear of betrayal from within our own community.  In the meal where Jesus feeds us with the bread and wine that is life for us, he binds us together in his one body.  Preparing us for our journey of discipleship, for the betrayals to come, and for the terror of the night ahead of us.

Confronted with the reality of our failings, we are quick to say “Surely, not I?”  As Jesus speaks truth to us of the reality of our sins, the reality of our humanness, that we will fail, we will mess up, we will even mess up big time, we begin our denials.

“Surely, not I?”  I will not be the one to fail.  I will not be the one to mess up.  I have the courage to follow you.  I will not—cannot fail.  I can do it.  I can be it all.  I will not betray you, I will not deny you.  I will die for you.

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “this day, this very night, you will deny me.”  And even though Jesus knows the sad truth that we can’t admit to, he still feeds us with bread and wine.  He still gives us his body and blood.  He gives his life in love for us.  

 Jesus lets us try to live up to our words and ultimately stands by us even as we, crumbling under the pressures around us, under nerves and stress, give in and say with Peter, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about.” “I do not know this one you are talking about.”  And in that moment, perhaps we really don’t know.  Perhaps we really don’t understand that man named Jesus.  How could he be so faithful?  How can he allow this torture?  How is he not gathering the troops?  How can he win when all we see is him losing?  How can he rebuild from this?  How can this already be the end?

As the night grows deeper, bringing us into the morning dawn, we witness Jesus’ situation grow graver, until we are given a choice between one who has brought terror and death in the insurrection and The One who brings life.  We chose right in our Hosannas on the road into Jerusalem, but this time we have chosen wrong.  We choose violence over life, war over peace, calling out “Crucify him!”

Torture and death will be his lot.

As we see him bleed, as we see him suffer, as we see him die, we see love poured out, we see life.  We see God, who chooses to come to us, dwelling with us, even in our pain, our brokenness, our denial, suffering, and sorrows.

Christ dies, the curtain tears, all separation between us and our God is finished.  And then—then we hear from the ones who do not belong.  The ones who have not been following this man named Jesus.  They have been more enemy than friend or fellow disciple.  Yet it is Pilate who calls him the King of the Jews and it is the Roman centurion who proclaims that “truly this one was God’s son.” 

Out of the unlikely mouths of babes, perhaps, come sweet Hosannas.  And from even more unlikely sources we receive the assurance that this man we follow, Jesus the Christ, is truly God’s son.  Even in the midst of this death and despair, this cannot be the end of the story.  It cannot, because, in fact, it is just the beginning.

Amen.

god always forgives: 5th of lent

the first reading was jeremiah 31:31-34

the psalm was psalm 51:1-12

the second reading was hebrews 5:5-10

the holy gospel according to john (12:20-33)

²⁰Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.

       ²¹They came to Philip,

              who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,

       and said to him,

              “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

²²Philip went and told Andrew;

       then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

              ²³Jesus answered them,

                     “The hour has come for the Son-of-Man to be glorified.

                            ²⁴Very truly, I tell you,

                                   unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,

                                          it remains just a single grain;

                                   but if it dies,

                                          it bears much fruit.

                     ²⁵Those who love their life lose it,

                            and those who hate their life in this world

                                   keep it for eternal life.

                     ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me,

                            and where I am, there will my servant be also.

                     Whoever serves me,

                            the Father will honor.

²⁷“Now my soul is troubled.

       And what should I say—

              ‘Father, save me from this hour’?

       No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.

              ²⁸Father, glorify your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven,

       “I have glorified it,

       and I will glorify it again.”

²⁹The crowd standing there heard it

       and said that it was thunder.

       Others said,

              “An angel has spoken to him.”

       ³⁰Jesus answered,

              “This voice has come for your sake,

                     not for mine.

                     ³¹Now is the judgment of this world;

                     now the ruler of this world will be driven out.

                            ³²And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,

                                   will draw all people to myself.”

                                          ³³Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

the gospel of the lord.

-----

our final covenant this lent takes us to holy week.  it is a promised new covenant.  throughout the hebrew bible, or old testament, god has made covenant after covenant:            with the noah family and all living creatures, with sarah and abraham, with the israelites journeying out of egypt.  throughout all of this covenanting, god has been the one who is always faithful to the covenant.  

the israelites broke the 10 commandments before god was even done presenting them, and the bronze serpent became an idol to whom the israelites sacrificed for years to come.  the israelites continued to mess up, and yet god was faithful to the covenant and to the israelites.  god initiates the covenants and god chooses limitation to honor those covenants. 

and then, when we break the covenants,            as we, being human, are apt to do, god forgives us and renews the covenant again. 

god knows that we are a forgetful people.  we forget who created us.  we forget that god gives us all we need, that god gives us gifts and talents to do god’s work in the world.  we forget the love that grounds us and empowers us, the love that connects us to each other and to the world.  we forget the love that holds us in sorrow and exile and cheers with us in joy and excitement.

we forget that god surrounds us with others who care about us.  we easily forget so much and so, god keeps coming to us.  god continually comes to us in love, renewing covenants and making new covenants.  even when we turn our back on god, god continues to come to us.

the new covenant that god makes with the israelites today in jeremiah comes as they return from exile.  it is a covenant based entirely on god.  yes, there are expectations of loyalty and obedience, but it is grounded in god affirming the israelites as god’s people and in god’s forgiveness. 

god sets the terms for the new covenant.  it is, after all, god who is pursuing the israelites again after their unfaithfulness.  god is the faithful spouse in this relationship and continues to come back, seeking reconciliation, seeking right and renewed relationship with god’s people.

why?  because god has never had to operate on our terms, according to our logic.  in covenants, god chooses to operate on our terms, hoping that our response will lead us more deeply into god’s terms and into loving relationship with god.

god brings us back from exile.  god gives us second, third, even hundredth chances.  god gives us new ways of being in relationship, new ways of understanding the world.  god writes god’s love on our hearts.  god’s covenant becomes a living relationship, a commitment that grows and changes with us.

as god continues to “forgive our iniquity, and remember our sin no more,” it is a countercultural way of living.  our culture, our economy, is a tit-for-tat one.  we give things and expect something in return or receive things and feel indebted to the other.  our relationships are based on mutuality, and also an economics of accountability.  i scratch your back, if you scratch mine.  we keep track of favors and debts, things owed to us and things we owe.

god            doesn’t work that way.  god doesn’t keep score, because if god did, we would surely lose.  three strikes and we’d be out in no time.  we can never live up to the love that god pours out on us.  and we don’t have to.  god scratches everybody’s back.  god’s love is for everybody.  god hopes and works for the best for all of god’s creation, and doesn’t expect perfect reciprocation.  god gives first, grateful for responses, but not expecting or necessitating them in order to be satisfied.

this doesn’t work within our society.  our economy demands reciprocation, demands payback for all goods and services.  our economy even differentiates between the deserving and the undeserving poor.  says that only some deserve adequate health care, food, or shelter.  to get anything done in politics, there has to be clear, concrete benefit to the ones making the decisions.  laws are no longer passed because they are good for communities or for the country or world.  laws are passed for the sake of the next election.

and yet, jesus says, “²⁶whoever serves me must follow me, and where i am, there will my servant be also.  whoever serves me, the father will honor.”  following jesus means following jesus into the road home shelter, through detox, through the lines at the soup kitchen, into circles held for grieving, and even into our own homes and families. 

god’s way of life, god’s covenant with us is not the covenant we are used to.  it is not the social contract we live out each day.  it is a covenant of abundant life and abundant love for everybody and with everybody.

ultimately, god makes the everlasting covenant with us by coming to be with us—born in a feeding trough to peasants, walking among us—befriending the outcast, the sinner, the hopeless, and being tortured and killed on a cross—executed by powers of this world. 

in the crucifixion, god makes the ultimate sacrifice, joining us in suffering and death, so that the new covenant might last.  this covenant is a covenant of abundant life for all people.  as jesus draws all people to himself, he brings us all back into relationship with the god of second chances.  the god who never gives up—even after we’ve blown five or ten chances. 

still we know what we have learned by heart: “jesus loves me, this i know, for the bible tells me so.  little ones to him belong.  they are weak and he is strong.”  god is still with us, writing on our hearts the covenant that says “you are my child, whom i love.  you are worthy of that love.  i will always love you.”

thanks be to god.

our uncontrollable god turns sin into healing: 4th of lent

the first reading is from numbers 21:4-9

the second reading is from ephesians 2:1-10

the holy gospel according to john (3:14-21)

Jesus said,

       “¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,

              so must the Son-of-Man be lifted up,

                     ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

       ¹⁶“For God loved the world in this way,

              that God gave the Son,

                     the only begotten one,

                            so that everyone who believes in him may not perish

                                   but may have eternal life.

       ¹⁷“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.

              ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned;

                     but those who do not believe are condemned already,

                            because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

                     ¹⁹And this is the judgment,

                            that the light has come into the world,

                            and people loved darkness rather than light

                                   because their deeds were evil.

                                   ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light

                                          and do not come to the light,

                                                 so that their deeds may not be exposed.

                                   ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light,

                                          so that it may be clearly seen

                                                 that their deeds have been done in God.”

the gospel of the lord.

-----

many times when we think about god, we tend to think of god as a pretty consistent, dependable, even comfortable deity.  god is that.  god is dependable and a consistent source of love and forgiveness, but god is much more complex than that.  god can do more than any of us could imagine and yet we frequently try to box god in. 

we try to make god in our image instead of realizing that together all of humanity is made in the image of god.  it is our way of trying to find some control in a world that feels uncontrollable.  we make everything simple, so that there are black and white answers to god and to our world, even when the world is not only made up of shades of gray, but of rainbows of hues and tones!  and as much as i would occasionally really like to control god, to box god in, i cannot.

in the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, by c. s. lewis, lucy, susan, and mr. beaver are talking about aslan, the lion and christ-figure in the story, before the children meet him.  upon finding out that he’s a lion, lucy asks if he’s safe.  mr. beaver responds, “safe? …who said anything about safe?  ‘course he isn’t safe.  but he’s good.  he’s the king, i tell you.”

that’s god.  god is good.  but god is not safe.  god is more complex than i could imagine.  martin luther talked about the left hand of god, or the hiddenness of god.  there is a certain amount that we can know about god from scripture, from our experiences, and from the right hand of god, god incarnate: jesus.  there is much, however, that we can’t know about god, because it’s too much or too foreign to us.  that’s the left hand. 

god is just too complex for us to fully understand, which also means that god can hold the full complexity of me.  god can handle all of my emotions, from ridiculous joy and excitement to my whining and complaining with the israelites of the unfamiliar freedom that god brings.

this complex god is also, as mr. beaver points out, not safe.  good?  yes.  but not safe.  the story of the exodus which we talked about a bit last week is a story of an unsafe god who displays power and might with walking sticks that become serpents, plagues that terrorize all of the inhabitants of egypt—israelites included—massive clouds and fire by day and night.  and now: snakes. 

god is not controllable.  god is caring and puts up with our whining and complaining and even our anger, yet when the israelites grumble about god’s gift of manna—sustenance in their wilderness journey, god has had enough and lets the poisonous serpents roam free.              this is a god i am uncomfortable with.  god who sends poisonous serpents among the people.  poisonous serpents that cause death.

but perhaps the poison was there all along.  the self-centeredness and doubt that curve us in on ourselves to choose sin, death, captivity in a world that doesn’t value us, because at least that’s something we know and are familiar with.  we begin to see only our country, only our community, then that is still so uncontrollable that we focus on our own family or our own selves, ignoring the rest of the world, ignoring the future that we share.  the poison seeps into our lives, slowly increasing until before we know it, that’s all we eat, drink, and breathe.

and then, with a start, we realize that there are poisonous serpents all around us and people are dying—of homelessness and hunger, of ignorance and hate, of violence and spite, of depression and anxiety.  and so we pray.  we pray to an uncontrollable god to take the poison away, but that’s not how god works.  the poison is a consequence of sin and evil—of the brokenness of our world.

instead, god takes the poisonous serpent, the result of our sin, and transforms it into the source of our healing.  not only that, but lifting it up brings our curved in selves and our eyes up to see god, to see the gift of the world as god creates it to be: full of healing, life, and love.

“even when we were dead through our trespasses, [god] made us alive together with christ—by grace you have been saved.”  even in the deepest depths of our sin, god has the power and transforms our sin into salvation.  god brings healing and wholeness even when we only see death.

when we are able to honestly face our sin and brokenness, then we can begin to heal.  god knows this and makes it possible.  god gives the israelites a bronze serpent, a source of separation since the beginning in genesis with the garden of eden, and a symbol of sin and brokenness as the israelites grumble about the gift of food.  and this becomes the source of healing for the israelites and us even until today.  our medical symbols are snakes on a pole for a reason.

so too does facing our sins and brokenness on the cross, bring healing.  when we face the facts of our imperfections, then we can stop trying to be perfect and rest in the comfort that “we are what god has made us, created in christ jesus for good works, which god prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”  

perhaps the scariest thing for me about god is that god creates us to be ourselves, not to be perfect.  when we stop thinking that everything and everyone depends on us, when we stop trying to control the uncontrollable world, then jesus reveals himself as the true savior, lifted up on the cross, for the healing of the whole world.

we still do not have a docile, tame god.  just last week we heard of jesus flipping tables and chasing everyone out of the temple with a whip.  our god is fierce and uncontrollable.  i can’t contain god, god is not safe. there will always be poisonous serpents in our midst.  god won’t keep us from all harm…but god does keep us in all harm.  god is fiercest against evil and god fights with us.  god comes to be with us and to be lifted up, crucified and glorified on the cross.

there are many small ways that we get caught up in sin and brokenness each day, getting bit and biting others, and god is always there, raising sin into the light so we can see it for what it is.  as we lift our eyes to jesus on the cross, we recognize the brokenness and name it as sin and evil, and receive healing as god makes “us alive [again] together with christ—by grace you have been saved.”

thanks be to god.