Palm Sunday     (March 24, 2002)

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14-27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54

The Marvel of the Cross

"Equality with God" Paul says.  John remembered that phrase, "For this
reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not
only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby
making himself equal to God." (John 5:18)  Jesus chose not to exploit it,
Paul says, but John reminds us that Jesus could not help but manifest it.

What is it, this equality with God?  Is it the gift of being grounded
outside the universe?  "The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been
disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall
not be put to shame;  he who vindicates me is near."  (Isaiah 50:7-8)   But
I trust in you, O LORD; I say, 'You are my God.'"  (Psalm 31:14)  "Then
Pilate said to him, 'Do you not hear how many accusations they make against
you?'  But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the
governor was greatly amazed."  (Matthew 27:13-14)

A part of the meaning of Jesus' equality with God was the fact that he stood
on a bedrock our feet don't touch.  The best of our footing is quicksand by
comparison.  His ministry was a walk without waver and without intimidation
from this world.

But Paul isn't pointing to the way Jesus was God, but the way God submitted
to being Jesus.  We can marvel either direction, the God-likeness of Jesus
or the Jesus-likeness of God --  Jesus undaunted by the threatened horror of
the cross, or God submitting to the humiliation and torture of the cross.
Let that marvelous way of thinking and acting be in us, he says.

But the crucifixion is only marvelous if Jesus is, in some sense, God,
because if Jesus were just a human being, then he was the stubbornest human
being that ever lived.  Not only was he stubborn, but he was obsessive.  He
didn't have to be in Jerusalem.  He didn't have to beard the lion in his
den.  He chose to do it, and he got just what any ordinary human being could
expect to get.  Nothing marvelous about that.  People cover themselves with
gasoline and light a match because they want to make a statement.
Missionaries get caught and murdered by guerilla.  It is sad, but it is no
marvel.


This execution was a marvel.  It was a marvel because of the way Jesus stood
both outside and inside the action, subject to all the horror but none of
the intimidation.  It was a marvel more because of the shudder at the end,
not his, not just ours, but that of the earth.  "At that moment the curtain
of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the
rocks were split.  The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints
who had fallen asleep were raised.  After his resurrection they came out of
the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.  Now when the
centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the
earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, 'Truly this
man was God's Son!'"  (Matthew 27:51-54)

Consider the terror of realizing that you have just murdered God's Son,
murdered God in some sense.  It is not just the horror of the human action,
what about the horror of realizing that the ground of your being can be
snuffed out!

We are not ready to see the glory of God in the resurrection until we have
meditated on the marvel of the cross.
 

Fifth Sunday in Lent -- Page 287, March 17, 2002
Paint the Resurrection

Ezekiel 37:1-4
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
    Bones without flesh, flesh and bones without spirit - that was
Ezekiel's nation, dead on the battle field or dead on its feet. Out
of the depth, out of spirit, the Psalmist cries out to God. Without
the spirit of God, flesh and bones may as well just be bones, Paul
says. And Jesus returns to Bethany to find Lazarus just bones and
turning flesh. Who can do anything about this?
    The one who breathed life into the man of clay on the first day,
who breathed his own breath into the man of clay, can do something
about this. Is it harder to believe that God can bring a clay man
to life in the first instance than bring a cadaver to life
generations later? The process of procreation is well known, so
that the beginning of that process is easier to believe. The
process of resurrection is not known at all; therefore, its
beginning is hard to believe. That is why God told Ezekiel to
prophesy to the bones, prophesy! Paint a picture of the end of a
process no one has seen. Paint a horizon not otherwise visable so
that people who saw nothing begin heading toward it. Paint a
horizon that only God can see, a horizon not yet created, a horizon
that is promise. Paint, Ezekiel, paint. This is the challenge of
every funeral message.
    Jesus gets back to Bethany about time to preach Lazarus' funeral,
the first day to make arrangements with the mortuary, the second
day to give family members time to get there, and the third day to
hold services. Yes, Jesus arrived in time to preach, but Martha
didn't want preaching. "Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you had
been here, my brother would not have died.'" (John 11:21) She
didn't want any preaching about the sweet by and by. "Martha said
to him, 'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the
last day.'" (John 11:24) She wanted Lazarus back. Ezekiel wanted
Jerusalem back. The Psalmist wanted his spirit back. Parents want
their children back. Children want their parents back. And Jesus
said, "If you have me, you have back whatever you lost."
    The one who breathed life into the man of clay can breath life
into Lazarus three days dead. John reasons it backward. If Jesus
raised Lazarus, then he is also the one who brought to life the man
of clay. He is also the one who restored the children of Israel,
restored Jerusalem. He is the only one who can restore the
creation. Therefore, seek him, not the restoration of what you
lost. He will replace what you have lost. He embodies the
replacement of what you have lost.
    Many times I have read the dialogue between Martha and Jesus at
funerals and wished I could do for the grieving family what Jesus
did for Mary and Martha. "Come out! Push up the lid. Slip the
massive floral arrangement onto the floor and come out." But I
didn't breathe my breath into the man of clay, and I can't raise
the dead. Who am I? What can I do? I can prophesy. I can paint a
picture of Jesus. If I lack talent, I can paint by numbers - John
11:25-26. When Ezekiel prophesied, no one thought there would be a
new Jerusalem, but he painted anyway, and when the message was
finally embraced, there was a New Jerusalem.
    There ought to be soft, fuzzy, stuffed toys in the pews for
funerals, so we could embrace something throughout the service. My
chest felt so concave it was collapsing into inner space. Like a
black hole in space, it sucked every comforting word into the
emptiness. I had an emptiness no dictionary of words could fill.
Saturn and all its rings would have disappeared in my void. My
emptiness was larger even than the loved one torn out. Only God is
big enough to fill what I have lost. That is why Jesus doesn't talk
to Martha about Lazarus. He talks about Jesus. "Jesus said to her,
'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even
though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in
me will never die. Do you believe this?'" (John 11:2526)


Fourth Sunday in Lent -- Page 286, March 10, 2002
Turn On The Lights

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41
    "Thou anointest my head with electricity," David might say today.
Olive oil was the energy for lighting the house, the basic
ingredient in healing balm, the ceremonial sign of the transfer of
power and nourishment for the body. We think of its just lying
there in a bottle in the kitchen, but the Biblical view is more
dynamic, more like electricity. It makes the lights come on. That
is, God uses it to make the lights come on.
    Samuel was in the dark trying to annoint one of the Sons of Jesse
until God turned the light on for him. After being anointed, the
light came on for David. He saw the Lord as his shepherd. Paul
reminds us that when the light comes on, sin is seen for the
repulsive thing it is. John walks us through the process of the
lights coming on for the man born blind, how Jesus turned the light
on and how the man then could see Jesus as Lord, "Son of Man." It
is not so important that the man with sight could see the chicken
cross the road, but that he could see Jesus as Lord. That point is
highlighted by Jesus when he says that the ones who can see the
chicken cross the road but cannot see him as Lord are the blind.
"Jesus said, 'I came into this world for judgment so that those who
do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.'" (John
9:39)
    Illusion is worse than darkness. It is the real darkness. Eliab
looked like the Lord's anointed to Samuel, but God told him that
was an illusion. The twentythird Psalm reminds us that
disillusionment with life is an illusion. Eve found the forbidden
fruit to be a delight to the eye, but it was an illusion. She was
actually in darkness. "Take no part in the unfruitful works of
darkness, but instead expose them." (Ephesians 5:11) Joe Camel made
smoking look cool. How can our young people see smoking in its true
light? Advertising makes consumption look desirable. How can we see
consumption in its true light? Sex is displayed among us as a
casual delight. How can we see it in the light of our need to love
and be loved, to procreate? Politics looks like a shell game. How
can we see it as a tool for building community with sound
decisions? The promise of the future is always portrayed in
material terms. How can we see a promising future in spiritual
terms?
    It is not so much sight that we need sight as insight. We are
inundated with sights, video everywhere. What we need to be able to
see is Jesus Christ as Lord, the Lord as our shepherd. What we need
to be able to see is the kingdom of God at hand. We were born blind
to this sight, but Christ can heal our vision, can turn on the
lights.


 

Second Sunday in Lent  -   (February 24, 2002)

Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
.
Yielding To Be Born

Trust is implicit in birth.  What does an infant remember of yielding to
mother's contractions?  Perhaps nothing, perhaps a yielding trust that is
the foundation for faith.  Abram yielded to God's call (God's push?) and was
born by God as a blessing to many nations.  The pilgrim reciting Psalm 121
yields to God's protection pressing her/him on to Jerusalem.  Paul sees
through righteousness as a human work to righteousness as a yielding to God
in trust.  Only the righteousness of God is worthy of this yielding trust
and efficacious for salvation.  Nicodemus, mistrusting his own
righteousness, is directed by Jesus back to his life's original lesson.

Nicodemus asks,  "How can anyone be born after having grown old?"  The
concept was harder for him than it is for us because we have seen God in
labor and delivery.   "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life."  (John 3:16)  We have seen the crucifixion in the flesh.   "What is
born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit."
(John 3:6)  We have seen the risen Lord in the spirit.  We know we must be
born again to inherit the resurrection.  We will yield to death.  We have no
choice.  But, we know that in death we will be yielding to a new birth at
God's hands.

As people of faith, the spiritual descendants of Abraham, we have great
confidence in death.  All the more for that reason we have great confidence
in life.  For to be born again is to be born again and again, not in the
sense of reincarnation but in the sense of renewal throughout life.  What is
confession and forgiveness before God but renewal, rebirth?  What is holy
communion?  What is the yielding of our will to God's will?  What is an act
of charity?  All are the experience of being born from above, feeling God's
push, God's contraction, yielding to the new life that is born from above.
It is living in this faith that makes dying in faith possible.  It is faith
in the face of death that makes this living possible.

This yielding in faith to the grace of God is a yielding trust in God but no
other.  It is a meek willingness to be born along the way that leads to
life.  We do not go softly into that night some call good, a death that is
nothing but oblivion.  We kick at the traces of that way and make a horrible
commotion.  Faith in God is not a general credulity; meekness is not
gullibility.  Just as Jesus was absolutely defiant of the evil powers of
this world, our faith is defiant of birth's opposite.  Just as our yielding
trust in God finds birth, Jesus found life for us through the cross.

First Sunday in Lent  -   (February 17, 2002)

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

Whatever Happened to Sin?

"You will not die;  for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (Genesis 3:4-5)
The serpent invites us to define ourselves and displace God.  Jesus, on the
other hand, insists on being defined by God, "It is written,  'One does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
(Matthew 4:4)  Paul finds a synthesis of these two positions in the Gospel.
Whereas Adam dared to define himself by transgressing and thus became the
archetype of human transgression; and whereas Jesus submitted himself to the
cross and thus became the archetype of human righteousness; a new
possibility has emerged, Adam justified by the free gift of God's grace.
God has embraced Adam, the one who would define himself, and has redefined
him justified.  The existentialists would cheer for Adam.  The tenderhearted
would cheer for God.  And, the legalists would stomp off in a huff.  Is that
the last word on sin?

"Whatever Happened To Sin" was the title of a book by Karl Menninger.  The
answer, not in the book, is "democracy and determinism".   Adam and Eve can
out vote God now.   Murder is not a willful breaking of God's commandment.
It is a bad choice some people make because of deficient rearing or
insanity.  (This is a secular version of predestination.  Nothing is
anyone's fault because everyone responds to stimuli in a predetermined way.)
Determinism makes right and wrong moot. Democracy puts the majority in
charge of right and wrong. These may fool all of the people some of the time
but they don’t fool our interior life any of the time.  Within my own mind
there is no democracy, I cannot out vote God.  I only have one vote.  Within
my own heart, I cannot eliminate guilt by rationalizing my actions as
responses to stimuli.  Rationalizing corrodes my interior life just like my
sinful thoughts and acts do.    I can say, "I'm OK," but I can't make it
true.  I can make myself the measure of goodness, but that is like drawing
the target around the arrow, and I know it.  Down deep, I know it.   "While
I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long."
(Psalm 32:3)  But, if I let God's law define me, then I am shown up for the
sinner I am.

If, however, Christ can be my righteousness, then I can cope with the
original Adam, strive to live like the new Adam and claim my reconciliation
with God, the free gift of God's grace.  If Christ can be my righteousness,
I can measure myself against God's law without becoming defensive.  If
Christ is my righteousness, then I can strive to live up to his image out of
love for God rather than fear of condemnation.  This is the dynamic of the
interior life of the Christian.  This is the appropriate spirit for a proper
observance of Lent.