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A sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Genesis 45:1-15

“I will be with you.”  God’s promise to Jacob had not gone unfulfilled.  God had indeed been with Jacob, and now God was with Jacob’s offspring – in this case, Joseph.

 

But what was going through Joseph’s mind during the encounter in our reading from Genesis this morning. 

 

Standing before him are his 10 brothers who betrayed him.  Because of their jealousy, they had faked Joseph’s death and sold him off into slavery, causing their father, Jacob, untold grief, not to mention the years of suffering Joseph endured.  And now, many years later, Joseph is ready to reveal himself to his brother, and, suddenly his emotions get the better of him, as we would say in the vernacular, he “loses it.”

 

Can we blame him?  I think not.  He weeps so loudly that the Egyptians whom he sent outside could hear him – not very dignified for a governor of Egypt.  You see, Joseph was wise during his first years in Egypt, inheriting perhaps some of his father’s usurping ways, and he had risen to prominence. 

 

Now Joseph has the upper hand.  He is a ruler in Egypt.  He has influence and great power.  With one word, he could have his brothers killed.  He could have his revenge, but instead he has only tears.

 

Certainly he was tempted to seek revenge when he first met them.  They had come to Egypt looking for grain when a great famine struck the region.  They had not recognized Joseph, and so he tested his brothers.  We don’t have time to go into the story of the three tests this morning, but it is a remarkable story – he tests them for jealousy, for loyalty, and he awakens within his brothers a sense of responsibility.

 

What is important for our purposes here is this encounter.  In one of the most dramatic moments in all of Scripture Joseph reveals his identity to these brothers who had betrayed him, and, instead of revenge, he shows them mercy.

 

And not only does he show them mercy by not killing them, which he certainly could have done, but he makes provision for them, his family.  His first concern is for Jacob, his father.  They are literally speechless.

 

Joseph’s response at this point is critical.  He calls them close, a gesture that might have scared some of them.  But in reality he is making himself vulnerable.  They far outnumber him, which had gotten him into trouble in the first place.

But here, his heart is full of compassion for them.  And Joseph has what we have come to call a “moment of clarity.”  “Now…I see” Joseph is saying. 

 

Can you imagine the emotions that had brought Joseph to this point?  Years of rage, of anger, of feeling betrayed, perhaps feeling abandoned even by God – this God who had done such miraculous things for his father, Jacob, and grandfather, Isaac, and even his great-grandfather Abraham.  Joseph may have considered himself left out of God’s promises, exiled to Egypt.

 

Can you imagine what the brothers were feeling at this moment?  But Joseph tells them, “Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

 

I’m a bit frustrated with the lectionary crafters this morning, because they stopped short, leaving out one of the most powerful and beautiful lines in all of scripture.  Joseph goes on to say to them about their betraying him into slavery, “You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good—to save many lives."

 

There is great comfort in these words, but there is also great mystery.  This is the interplay of human free will and God’s purposes.  The brothers did not have Joseph’s welfare in mind when they sold him into slavery.  Yet despite their actions, God intervened to rectify the situation.  This evil on their part could not stop God’s good purposes from prevailing.  “God intended it for good—to save many lives."

 

Joseph then sends for his father and the rest of the family.  They would survive the famine – Joseph would see to it.

 

If you get a chance, when you are in the commons, note the illustration of this story that Elizabeth Foster has on the bulletin board.  The caption is very poignant and emotional, the brothers are worrying, “Will Joseph have his revenge?”  But Joseph responds,  “I will provide for you and your little ones.”

 

In the face of this personal evil that had caused him so much pain and grief, Joseph saw the bigger picture.  God’s ultimate purpose was to save life, and Joseph’s journey into slavery made that possible.

 

The choice not just to forgive, but to bless – surely, this is not to Joseph’s credit alone, God’s fingerprints are all over this encounter.

 

Little did any of the men gathered in that room know, nor could they have known that this move to Egypt would end up plunging them back into the grasp of evil – and not just one member of the family, but all of their offspring would become slaves.  And yet again, God would bring one man, Moses, to redeem them all.

 

This interplay between God’s will and man’s evil is surely one of those subjects that have been debate since humans began to consider the “larger” questions.

 

We look for God in the face of tragedy.  Some immediately want to blame God for the evil – it was God’s will!  Others simply ask, “Why didn’t God stop it?” 

 

These are hard questions, no doubt about it.  No, we don’t want to believe in a God who would make bad things happen.  That truly does seem out of the character of the God we worship here this morning.  The harder and less black and white option is to believe that God allows the evil that humans are capable of causing to affect all of our lives, but then to believe that God may bring ultimate good out of the evil.

 

C.S. Lewis wrote an entire book about it.  His wife, Joy, whom he had married late in life, died of cancer—a slow and agonizing death.  In the immediate aftermath of her death, he wrote the book, “A Grief Observed.”  If you haven’t read it, let me assure you, it is very difficult to read. 

 

Lewis the greatest Christian apologist of his day was angry at God.  He accused God of experimenting on us like a scientist uses rats in a laboratory.  The book was so upsetting and raw that Lewis published it under a pseudonym so as not to upset his faithful readers.  Ironically Lewis later had to publicly acknowledge writing the memoir after so many of his friends and even fans sent him copies of the book to help him through his grief.

 

I read through some of the reviews it has received on Amazon.com, written by average people.  Some of them are quite touching.  This book continues to touch people’s lives, I believe, simply because of its brutal honesty.  If such a man of faith as C.S. Lewis could experience such doubt and grief and anger at God, perhaps our doubt and grief and anger at God aren’t so unique, so wrong.  Maybe they are even appropriate.

 

In the end, Lewis rediscovered his faith, but after much heart-wrenching doubt and grief.  And the faith he rediscovered was not the faith he had had before.  It was changed.  He had changed.  Lewis concludes, "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality.  He knew it already.  It was I who didn't."

 

We certainly are not strangers to the pain that humans can cause to each other.  Many people asked, “Where was God on April 16^th?”  just as many asked “Where was God on September 11^th?”

 

The same answer applies in my estimation – do not look for God’s hand in the violence and the death – look for God’s hand in the aftermath.  Look for God in the wake of the terror and violence.

 

God purposes were being worked out in St. Paul’s chapel, just steps from the World Trade Center.  There the people of God made a miracle happen – rescue workers were fed and were able to sleep.  People had a space to grieve and pray.  God was there.  God’s will was being revealed not in Norris Hall, but in War Memorial Chapel and the Alumni Center.  God’s people reached out to each other and incarnated the love of Christ in the face of unspeakable grief and horror.  God was there.  That is where you will see God’s hand.  Just as Joseph, in his moment of clarity, saw God’s hand in the midst of the evil his brothers had done. 

 

I believe God’s presence is often most keenly felt in the lives that must go on. 

 

Joseph probably had many moments where he wondered whether God had abandoned him.  Joseph probably experienced the despair and doubt so many of us face.

 

And yet God turned these evil circumstances for good, despite Joseph’s doubt and his lack of perspective.  This scene in Genesis is so full of emotion perhaps because we are witnessing this epiphany in Joseph’s life.  He sees at last God’s purposes fulfilled – his suffering had not been meaningless or pointless.

 

Our ultimate example of this is, of course, the death of Jesus Christ.  Falsely accused, sold for a few pieces of silver, and then unjustly tried, Jesus is murdered.  Why didn’t God stop it?  Certainly Jesus questioned God’s purposes, if no place else but the garden of Gethsemane with hours of sleepless prayer in the face of evil.  Jesus himself was not afraid to question God. 

 

Instead of clear answers, we are often left with mystery – God’s divine purposes.  But Jesus’ death was not the end of the story, and that is what we commemorate each time we receive his body and blood.  Life in the midst of death.  In the end we believe death itself was conquered because of Jesus’ own suffering and death.

 

In our limited perspective we have no choice but to trust God in the darkest of hours.  In the face of evil we may seek revenge, but Joseph didn’t.  Not only did he forgive, he blessed those who had done evil to him.    But Joseph’s journey had been a long one in response to evil – years…  We cannot expect ours to be any shorter.  Go ahead, rage, doubt, question God.  Joseph did.  So did Jesus.  God’s purposes will be accomplished, and God’s goodness will prevail.  Amen.

A sermon for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost -- Genesis 32:22-31

A first-grade Sunday School teacher seated her students in a circle, and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up.  One by one, each child announced, "I want to be a doctor, like my father," or "I want to be a pilot, like my mother."

 
All the students in the circle had shared their dreams, when the time came for the most shy and timid boy in the class to speak.  He said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a lion tamer in a circus.  I'm going to face those ferocious animals with my whip and chair and make them leap through hoops of fire.  They will obey all of my commands."

The stunned silence and looks of disbelief on the teacher and his classmates was followed quickly by his reassuring, "Well, of course, I'll have my mother with me."

 

God was with Jacob.  A few weeks ago we heard God promise to be with Jacob, do you remember?  Jacob dreamed of a stairway connecting Earth to Heaven, and in that dream,  God drew very near to him and promised to be with him.

 

Well, perhaps that promise and that encounter seemed like a distant memory to Jacob where we find him in the reading this morning.

 

Let’s look back over his life, just a bit.  Jacob was the younger twin brother of Esau, the sons of Isaac and Rebekah.  Jacob was a usurper, a trickster – and he had managed to trick his brother and his father into getting the birthright and the blessing that should have been Esau’s.

 

Jacob had fled from Esau’s wrath.  He had gone to live with his mother’s people, namely Laban, her brother.  Twenty years have passed.  Jacob had married Laban’s two daughters, Leah and Rachel, and now had eleven children by these two women and their maids.  But Jacob was not content with all that he had.  He had tricked his way into gaining much of what belonged to Laban, to the point that Laban’s sons complained that Jacob had more of their father’s possessions than they had.

 

Jacob had to go.  Suddenly, he was homeless again due in large part to his trickery.  But now he had wives and children and servants and huge flocks of animals with him.  He set out to return to his homeland, which was now the territory ruled by his brother, Esau.  Would 20 years be enough for Esau to cool off?

 

Do you think Jacob was rushing back for a tender reunion?  No, the account shows him hedging his bets, sending messengers ahead to find out what Esau’s reaction to his brother’s return would be.

 

Jacob receives word that Esau is coming to meet him, and not alone, but with 500 men!

 

At this point, Jacob decides to send peace offerings ahead.  He sends some of his best flocks on ahead with word that these are gifts to Esau.  Finally he is left with just his family as they cross into Esau’s territory.  As our reading recounts, he ultimately sends his family ahead of him, with “everything that he had.”

 

The text makes clear, “Jacob was left alone.”

 

Suddenly it was like it had been 20 years before, when Jacob encountered God in this same desert, homeless and fearful for his life.

 

In the beginning of this chapter, Jacob makes an impassioned plea to God to remember the promises that God had made to Jacob.

 

And what happens at this point?  Jacob finds himself in a wrestling match.

 

Now, remember that the origin of his name may imply a wrestling move, grabbing the heel, getting your opponents feet out from under him.

 

Well, here the heel-grabber is in the fight of his life.  He and this strange man wrestle until dawn.  Who is this mysterious stranger?  An angel, Jacob’s Freudian subconscious, is it God?  Regardless of who it is, the two wrestlers come to a draw.  And then this man pulls a dirty trick – he cripples Jacob.  But does Jacob let go?  No way!

 

Clearly Jacob senses that this is no ordinary man – he demands a blessing from him.  Where any of us might be relieved when the man asked to be let go, Jacob refuses.  Perhaps he sensed that this man could provide him with something for his impending reunion with Esau.

 

The man asks Jacob his name.  This may seem odd to us, but names were very significant in that ancient middle-eastern culture.  Your name provided not only a family link, but it often referred to a trait unique to you.  Abram’s name is changed to Abraham.  Sarai to Sarah.  And we shall soon hear how God’s own name is important.  Some scholars have suggested that to know someone’s name was to have some measure of control over them.  They were no longer anonymous, their identity was revealed.  So here, Jacob, the usurper, the heel-grabber, gets a new name.

 

Will this mark the beginning of a new era for Jacob?  Is his life as a usurper over?

 

The name he is given is “Israel,” literally “a man who has contended with God.”  And the stranger adds, “a man who has contended with God and has prevailed.”  Jacob has proven his tenacity and his will to survive.  Rather than tricking his opponent for a blessing as he did in the past, here he has won it fair and square.  Remember he asks for the blessing after this man has crippled Jacob.

 

Then Jacob demands to know the name of the man he had been wrestling with.  We don’t hear the man’s answer, but we do hear Jacob’s response.  Like he had at Bethel, he consecrates this place.  Jacob knew that in some way he had encountered God and yet had lived to tell about it.

 

But Jacob, now Israel, does not leave that encounter the same as when he began to wrestle with this man.

 

He sets off to meet Esau the next morning, limping.    

 

This encounter with God not only changes Jacob’s name but it more importantly changes his way of getting around in the world.  This clever usurper had met his match.  He came away with the blessing of his opponent, but he came away with what we might call in today’s parlance, a “career ending injury.”

 

Why would God do this?  This God who had promised to be with Jacob, had promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the sands on the seashore, has just wounded Jacob!  Now he is vulnerable, and visibly so – Esau would be able to see from a distance that his crafty younger brother was in no shape to wrestle him.

 

Yes, God had promised to be with Jacob, but had it ever occurred to Jacob that God’s presence might also mean affliction and opposition?

 

Jacob had had it pretty easy so far in this story.  But suddenly he is humbled, crippled, slowed down.

 

What does Jacob have left as he turns his steps toward this reunion with Esau and possible death?  He doesn’t have his possessions anymore.  He has sent his family on ahead.  And now he doesn’t even have his physical prowess.  Jacob is left with no option but to place his absolute trust in God and the promises God had made to him.  His schemes can no longer be his first recourse.  He won’t be able to grab at Esau’s heel.  Not this time!  He is humbled – forced to plead for mercy.

 

In the end, this encounter with God just before his encounter with Esau should have told Jacob, now Israel, that he needed to be reconciled with his brother.  Rather than pull a trick, he must ask for mercy.  The pain he suddenly finds himself in has transformed not only Jacob, but it has transformed his relationships – with Esau and with God as well.

 

God had Jacob’s undivided attention wrestling on that desert floor all night, the night before he was to meet his ultimate fate.

 

Would he approach Esau, whom he had so ruthlessly tricked, with his wits and his cleverness, or with humility and a limp?

 

Remember that this man, Jacob, now Israel, would become the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.  An entire nation was waiting to be born in this man.  What then might this say to us about how we engage with others, whether it is on an individual and personal basis or in the realms of international diplomacy?  Some approach confrontation with a swagger, itching for a fight.  Others limp.  Should we confront the opponents in our life ready to get the upper hand, to grab for their heel, or should we allow our vulnerability to show?  Should we not try to hide our limp?  These are remarkably different approaches to human interaction, and will no doubt bring about remarkably different outcomes.

 

In this encounter with God, Jacob was given yet another glimpse of the character of the God he, once Jacob, now Israel, was serving.  As he approached Esau in the distance, if Jacob led with his cleverness and strength, he would have been living out of his old name and identity.  But instead, thanks to God’s intervention, Israel was now forced to rely solely on God’s promise as his defense.  He began to live into his new name, his new identity and his new purpose, one closer to God’s intentions and closer to God’s own heart. 

 

In the end, the reunion is a peaceful one.  Esau, who had every right to be furious with Jacob, greets him with respect.  Was it because of the limp?  Who knows?  Jacob, now Israel, has many more miles to go in the adventure of his life, an adventure that will take him all the way to Egypt.  But that story is for another Sunday.  Amen.

A sermon for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost -- Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139

Over the past few weeks we have been hearing some of the great stories of our faith, and not just our faith, but that of Jews and Muslims as well.  Often called the stories of the Patriarchs, we certainly haven’t neglected the Matriarchs involved either.  This morning we have heard another quite familiar story from the Hebrew Scriptures, one immortalized in song and imagination – the story of Jacob’s ladder.  Now, the lectionary, or the schedule of scripture lessons we read from week to week, keeps moving quickly through the narratives of the lives of the patriarchs and matriarchs, so, in the summer months of vacations and lazy Sunday mornings, it is all too easy to miss one of the pivotal plot developments along the way.  So bear with me if I recap a little.

 

Our story so far…

 

In the days after Noah, God called a man named Abram and his wife Sarai to leave their home and move to a new land.  In faith and obedience Abram and Sarai moved as God had told them.  God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah and promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky.  One problem – they had no children.  In the first of many miracles, Sarah became pregnant in her advanced age and gave birth to Isaac.

 

One day God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, this miraculous gift from God.  In faith and obedience, Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac, with God staying his hand at the last second, providing a substitute sacrifice instead.  Isaac matured and took a wife, Rebekah.  Rebekah gave birth to twin boys whom she said had wrestled in her womb.  The first one who managed to be born first was red and hairy, named Esau.  The other who emerged holding his brother’s heel was smooth and fair, named Jacob.  The name Jacob actually derives from a wrestling move, you guessed it – grabbing the heel of the opponent, and had the characteristics of a usurper, an over-thrower.

 

Esau, the rugged outdoorsman and hunter, was Isaac’s favorite.  Jacob, more domestic and subdued, was his mother’s favorite, but he was not the first born son – therefore he did not have his father’s ultimate blessing, nor did he have the birthright that entitled him to all of his father’s wealth and lands.

 

You may recall the story of how Jacob, egged on by Rebekah, had masqueraded as Esau, wearing animal skins on his arms so his blind father would think he was his brother.  Jacob, this usurper, successfully tricked Isaac into giving him the blessing that was due to his elder brother Esau, from whom Jacob had already secured the birthright, leaving Esau with nothing.  Esau, perhaps true to his nature, saw this trickery as a declaration of hostility.  His anger burned, and he was intent upon killing Jacob.  A family feud had begun.

 

Now their mother, Rebekah, told Jacob to flee to Haran, her ancestral home, to live with the family of Laban, her brother.  In fear, Jacob leaves his home in search of another, and it is on the way to Haran that Jacob has the encounter with God we heard in the reading from Genesis.

 

Jacob, who had seemed to be the winner so much of late, tricking his way into both blessing and birthright, was suddenly a fugitive.  He was without a home, forced to leave his family.  He may have the birthright and blessing, but he had to flee the family’s land.  What good are a birthright and a blessing if you have no land?

 

One could imagine Jacob filled with fear, regret and probably feeling utterly alone.

 

You see, we know what happens to Jacob later in the story, but he doesn’t.  It’s the not-knowing that can be the most discouraging and frightening.  This is so early in the story.  If we didn’t know the rest of the story, we might not be so sure that things were going to work out for Jacob.

 

It is in this place of doubt, fear and uncertainty that God meets Jacob.  In his dream, Jacob sees what we have come to call a ladder, but the Hebrew would be better translated as a ramp or even a stairway.  On it, angels are ascending to heaven and descending again to the earth.

 

And then suddenly the LORD is standing beside him.  And what does God promise to this fugitive, this usurper?  God reiterates the now familiar promise that God had made with Abraham and Isaac before him.  God promises this childless, homeless man that his descendants would be like the dust covering the ground.

 

By appearing to him, God has endorsing Jacob as the rightful heir of the promises made to Abraham, and then God promises something new – I will be with you.

 

God has promised to abide with Jacob – not forsaking him but guiding him.  And God further promised to bring Jacob back to this very place.  God has heard the prayer of this fugitive man, a man with only a promise and no land.  God would give him land, and children, and most of all God’s presence.  In the classical language of the Hebrew Scriptures, God has made a covenant with Jacob.

 

The symbol of this covenant is this stairway connecting heaven and earth.  God used other symbols when previous covenants were made – with Noah God has hung up his war bow in the sky promising never to make war again on the human race, with Abraham God provided an alternative sacrifice so that Abraham would not have to kill Isaac his son.  So now God is making a statement about this new relationship with Jacob, symbolized in this stairway.

 

So what about this ladder, or stairway?  Scholars have debated its meaning about as long as any other biblical symbol.  What I think is important to take away from this encounter is a vision of Heaven and Earth in relationship.  Angels are ascending and descending, drawing closer to God and then drawing closer to humankind.  There is a give and take.  One scholar even suggested the beings on the stairway represent both our prayers and our actions.  We draw closer to God through our prayers, and God communicates to us through prayer as well.  Our choices affect God as well, and God interacts with us in return.  Again, a divine give and take, drawing near and returning.

 

Jacob doesn’t seem to do much theological reflection when he awakes from his dream.  Indeed his first reaction seems to be fear.

 

He says he did not know that God was in this place.  God’s point may have been to remind Jacob that God indeed was with him and would be with him wherever he went.  This omnipresence of God is beautifully recounted in today’s Psalm – “Where can I go then from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?”

 

It seems God is present with the fugitive in the wilderness just as much as God seems to be with a king in his palace.

 

God interacts with Jacob at this precise moment, a moment full of fear and isolation and doubt.  And God reminds Jacob of his promises – he makes sure Jacob knows what he needs to know.

 

Now God doesn’t tell Jacob everything.  Probably Jacob could not bear to know all the details of his immediate future, how he would have to marry TWO wives, and how his 12 sons would quarrel, plunging the family into strife and grief. And they’d all wind up in Egypt!

 

Instead God told Jacob what he needed to know at that moment, to get him through to the next stop on his journey, and this is a turning point for Jacob.

 

Remember, these characters don’t know the rest of the story.  This is an example of what is known as God’s progressive revelation.  Throughout the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, we witness this constantly growing self-revelation of God as God’s relationship with the people of Israel deepens and grows more complex.

 

Things they couldn’t imagine lay before them – the Egyptian captivity, the Red Sea, Mt. Sinai, the conquest of Canaan, David, Solomon, exile – all of that is in their future.  God reveals more and more to Israel about their relationship as the story unfolds.  God tells them what they need to know now…

 

In the ladder or stairway, God encountered Jacob in an unexpected and very intimate way.  It was in his fear and loneliness and isolation that God broke through to Jacob.  It was as if to say to him, "This very sense of alienation and disconnection you feel may yet lead you to find me in entirely new ways."  This is a private, intimate meeting between God and a man.  No sacrifice.  No audience.  Just Jacob and God.

 

When he awakes, Jacob’s exclaims, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!”  After the shock and fear wear off Jacob turns to praise and blessing and what does he do?  He builds a shrine.

 

We may think, how odd!  How culturally quaint!  He erects a stone and pours oil on it.  He even calls it, Beth-el, which literally means, “The House of God.”

 

We may think it odd, but we are no different.   Jacob set up a stone for remembrance of God’s goodness and promise toward him, to memorialize that space, that encounter and that promise.  Over the centuries since God has continued to meet with people, and in response, we have established places to remember this fact about God.  We are in one right now, one made of stone. 

 

We are in the midst of remembering and commemorating the founding of this parish, some 150 years ago, when planting a parish was sometimes a very risky venture, especially on the frontier in the wilderness, so far from Richmond.

 

Of course, when we call buildings like Christ Church the “House of God,” we know that God cannot be contained in a box, and yet what does a house represent?  Something that God promised to Jacob, something Jacob did not have – a place where a family dwells.  This is “God’s house” in that this is where God’s family gathers, here and in thousands of other places of worship across the planet.  This is not to say that we cannot be with God in our homes or that God is not with us wherever we are, but this building this “house of God” represents a marker, in our case a marker made of stone, where we can remember how God has visited us.  The great archaic term is an Ebenezer, a stone raised for remembrance.  We in this community know all too well what it means to raise stones in remembrance.  And yet this church building is a similar monument, but what we recall when we gather here, is the goodness of God over the years, in trials and sorrow and in joy and celebration. 

 

For those on the outside of this or any house of worship may miss the point entirely – until someone has personally experienced God’s presence, this may just seem like a building.  But once we have had an encounter with God, whether it be in the quiet of our own hearts or in the love of God’s people that gather here, we know that this place is “special.”  It is “set apart” in some intangible but deliberate way.  The church was here before us, built by the faithful people of God, and it will go on after we have departed this life.  Generations after us will encounter God in this place, hearing God’s promises and teaching them to their children.

 

God is with us.  God has drawn near.  We remember this fact in an ultimate sense when we approach the Lord’s Table this morning.  God has not forsaken us.  We may not know the rest of the story.  We may feel like homeless fugitives at times.  We do not know what the next chapter holds, but we can trust God – the God who has been with us in the past will be with us in the future.  We as the family of God have gathered in God’s house to celebrate that fact and to thank God for his goodness.  With Jacob we say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”  Amen

 

A sermon for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Gen 21:8-21; Psalm 86: 1-10; Rom 6:1b-11; Matt 10:24-39)

This morning we have a wealth of great texts.  This is not to say that the scripture we hear other mornings is somehow less important or inferior, but there is just so much that “will preach” here.  The calling of Abraham, Paul’s midrash on the calling of Abraham, the Exultate of Psalm 33, and then this gospel lesson of calling and healing – all very rich stuff.

I want to mention the text from Genesis primarily because of the weeks ahead of us in the lectionary cycle.  In Year A, the year when Matthew is our primary companion for the Gospel lesson, we are also privileged to hear some of the greatest stories ever told in the lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures, what we commonly call the Old Testament.

Last week we heard the account of Noah, the great flood and the ark.  Now this week we have witnessed the birth of Israel – God’s first call and promise to Abraham that his descendants would be a great nation.  Not only would they be great and be blessed, but they, the people of God, the children of Abraham, would be a blessing to the nations.

Paul’s commentary on this call highlights the faith of Abraham in the face of God’s call to him, and that it was his faith that produced righteousness, not adherence to the Law.  Over the coming weeks we will be hearing more of these amazing stories of the founders of the faith, Abraham and his descendants, even a few women!  We don’t often hear these stories outside of Sunday School or the Easter Vigil, so I hope you will enjoy hearing them, and not just enjoy them, but look forward to them from week to week.

And in the Psalm we hear one of the great hymns of praise, a text these same children of Abraham had been singing long before the birth of Jesus.  We are still singing these words today in our own tongue.

Despite all these amazing and rich texts, my focus this morning will be the gospel lesson, which should come as no surprise to most of you who have heard me for any length of time from this pulpit.  In seminary, my more low-church and Evangelical friends would marvel – “why do you Anglo-catholic types love the Gospels so much?”  Well, I don’t consider myself worthy to be called truly Anglo-catholic, even though I may look like one from time to time, but I do particularly treasure the narratives connected to the life and ministry of Jesus, and given the chance to preach, I’m more likely to focus on the stories and the sayings of the Lord.

Turning then to Matthew’s account, we have before us three episodes in the life and ministry of Jesus that come in quick succession in the narrative this morning.  All three of these episodes take place in the synoptic Gospels – that is, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but not quite in the same order.  John doesn’t record any of these stories.  In all three of the other gospel accounts, the call of Matthew, aka Levi, to become a disciple happens immediately after Jesus heals the paralytic man.  You know the story – his friends have to tear open the roof of the crowded house where Jesus is so that Jesus can heal him. It is right after that episode that Jesus calls Matthew.

The healing of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of this woman who touches Jesus’ robes occur later in Mark and Luke, but the important thing is that these two healings are always put together in the gospels, juxtaposed, as it were.

In our account this morning we first hear of Jesus calling this man Matthew or Levi, to be his disciple.  Now, Matthew, we are told, is a tax collector – a profession that is held with great contempt in that culture.  Tax collectors were considered to be collaborators with the occupying Roman force.  So what does Jesus do – he has dinner with Matthew and Matthew’s friends – other tax collectors and sinners!  Be careful, Jesus, this might hurt your reputation.  Jesus says, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

It is here in Matthew’s account that a leader of the synagogue approaches Jesus, he is identified as Jairus in Mark and Luke.  In Mark and Luke, Jairus’ daughter is ill, and he begs Jesus to come quickly.  In Matthew’s account, his daughter has already died and he is asking for Jesus to come and raise her from the dead!  Regardless of these differences in detail, the point remains the same – this is a bold step for Jairus to take.  He was a very public religious leader, and to seek Jesus’ help is tantamount to endorsing his ministry, which might cause him some trouble with his fellow Jewish leaders.  In some ways, Jairus’ desperation is forcing him to put his prestige on the line.  His love for his daughter and his faith in God’s power have made him choose between his reputation in society and the possibility of a miracle.  Stories of Jesus’ miraculous healings have been spreading throughout the region, and his desperation is driving him to seek Jesus’ help.

So Jesus agrees to go with Jairus.  Now, just when the story is getting good – will Jesus be able to raise this girl from the dead, into the narrative this woman intrudes, literally.  The contrast would have been much clearer to the original audience.  Jesus is accompanying an important religious leader who needs his help.  Suddenly, an unclean woman, a woman of no status in Jewish culture, gets in the way. 

Because of Jewish sexual purity codes, any woman who is menstruating is considered unclean, and is treated so.  She must separate herself from her husband and be cleansed at the end of her cycle.  But this woman has a condition where he has suffered from hemorrhaging for twelve years.  She has been “unclean” this whole time and has been condemned to a life of rejection by society.  In a sense her life has been a living death – always sick, never healed, always outcast, never clean.  As in the case of lepers, no one could touch this woman without themselves becoming defiled.

Now, it seems that she does not intend to interrupt the proceedings – Jesus has already agreed to go to the home of this important Jewish leader, and I’m sure there was a great procession.  But, this woman is all alone.  Unlike Jairus’ daughter, she has no one to go and get Jesus for her.  She has no father, no husband, no advocate.  She is unclean, an outcast.  If she is going to seek healing from Jesus, she is going to have to make it happen all on her own.  From the distance that had defined the last twelve years of her life, she thinks, if I can just touch his clothes, I will be made well.

Can you see her faith?  She doesn’t need Jesus to acknowledge her presence.  She doesn’t even need Jesus to say anything – she only needs to touch his clothes.  And it is her faith that truly makes her well. 

In the other Gospel accounts there is this almost amusing moment when Jesus, surrounded by a mob of people, asks, “Who touched me?”  What did Jesus sense, her healing or her faith?  Regardless, life has returned where there once had been only death.  And what’s more, Jesus gives her something she hasn’t had for twelve years – not just life but status.  Jesus calls her “daughter.” 

Before she touched Jesus, she was alone.  But now, Jesus speaks to her as one who has worth, no longer outcast, because of her faith.  Jesus calls her “daughter.”  Jesus shows her to be part of his family, if no one else’s.  Is it any wonder the good news of Jesus spread even when he asked people not to say anything?  This woman’s life is transformed in an instant, from sick and outcast to whole and part of Jesus’ family all in one instant of faith.  And Jesus doesn’t leave it as a private matter – he makes her faith public.  This outcast woman is suddenly an example of faith to this throng of important religious leaders, the very leaders that had kept her at a distance.

The kind of faith this woman has demonstrated is very soon going to be in short supply and Jesus knows it.  The faith of this outcast and desperate woman has just brought about a miraculous healing.  Will Jairus have this same faith as well?

When they arrive at Jairus’ house, the professional mourners are there, in full display.  It’s interesting to me that this time Jesus gets rid of the crowds – here, he opts for privacy, but not before he turns their mourning to laughter, quite unintentionally.  He tells them that the girl is not dead, but asleep.  They laugh at him.  Faith, faith like the woman whom Jesus just healed, seems to be in very short supply.

It is now in this more intimate setting, Jesus brings this young girl back to life.  In the other gospel accounts, we hear that she is twelve, the same number of years as the woman suffering with the flow of blood – another connection between the two healings.  In both cases, life has been restored, daughters have been healed.  One family has been restored, and another family has welcomed a new member.

So we have before us these two stories of healing and faith.  Life has been restored.  Thanks be to God.  We need to visit stories like these again and again.  Faith requires action.  We, like the woman with the flow of blood, like Jairus, must seek Jesus.  We must reach out in hopes of touching him, for all too many here, in hopes of being healed. 

This is why we gather here, not just to receive grace from God in worship and the Eucharist, but to minister God’s presence to each other.  It is hard thing sometimes to receive love and compassion from others.  It requires great patience. 

Let us always remember that we need each other, whether we feel more like a religious insider or a societal outcast.  Jesus saw no difference, and neither should we.  Like the woman, we need the faith to reach out.  Like Jairus, we need the faith to allow our need to be on display, to be vulnerable.  Like Abraham, sometimes we need the great faith to leave our comfortable lives behind and follow God’s call into new places and new lands.

May we learn to live by faith, with these examples to lead us, to reach out, to touch and to be touched, to step out in faith.  And then may we move from death to life as Christ calls us to stand before an amazed world, healed, whole, and fully aware that we are all daughters and sons of God.  Amen.

 

A sermon for the second Sunday after Pentecost; Matthew 6:24-34

It was one of those images, something about it caught my eye.  While surfing the web I saw an image of a young newly married couple standing in front of a magnificent cathedral.  The caption read, “Wedding Photo Shoot Witnesses Earthquake’s Destruction.”  I clicked on the story and found a series of images documenting the aftermath of the massive earthquake in China’s Cheng Du province.

It seems the cathedral was part of an abandoned Roman Catholic monastery, and it had since become a very popular location among local residents for taking wedding photos.  The wedding photographer captured some pretty harrowing images, among them an unforgettable picture of the cathedral’s tower collapsing.

When the shaking stopped, the cathedral was in ruins, but the photographer continued to snap pictures.  One of the most moving, for me, was a picture of the bridal party, clearly shaken, standing amidst debris, the bride’s dress and hair disheveled with a look on her face that defies easy description.

We have become quite good at documenting disaster these days.  With cell phone cameras that also shoot video and with the ability to send these images around the world in a matter of seconds on the internet, we find footage of destruction on our television and computer screens nearly every morning these days.  Storm chasers drive along side dangerous tornados, hoping to get a really good shot.  The news programs rerun this footage in endless loops.

We have become all too good at documenting disaster these days.  But I have to stop and ask myself, “What is the story here?”  Is the story the devastation and destruction or is it the people left standing in the rubble.  Sure we are attracted to dramatic images of tornados and collapsing buildings, but when the dust settles, the real story begins.

There were an estimated 80,000 killed in that earthquake in Cheung Du.  Cyclone Nargis has left 200,000 dead or missing in Burma.  And dozens have been killed in this country in this tornado outbreak over the past few weeks.  But the earthquake also left 1.5 million homeless in China.  There are 2.5 million homeless in Burma.  In a scenario that seems all too familiar these days, many of these victims have never heard of a thing such as insurance.  No claims adjusters are on their way to Burma.  They are simply wiped out.  All that they once had is gone, leaving nothing.

“Consider the lilies of the field,” Jesus says in today’s gospel.  “How they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”  How might these words sound in the ears of congregations whose buildings were destroyed in the recent tornados?  How would people still living in the devastation in the aftermath of Katrina hear these words?

“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”

Where’s the story here, Jesus?  We need some good footage!

“Do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’  Indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”

To those gathered to hear the Sermon on the Mount, these words may not have meant at that moment what they would come to mean in the lives of those listening.  We often hear the words of Jesus but lack the immediate context for using them in our own lives.

Jesus tells us, “God provides,” and we understand that concept.  But can we understand it as intimately as someone who has seen everything they ever owned taken away by a cyclone or an earthquake or a hurricane?

Jesus words probably wouldn’t make headlines today, as perhaps they didn’t when he first spoke them.  But to those left with the clothes on their backs, these are not words easy to ignore.

Jesus is describing a God who is not remote, removed from the world, but rather a God who is intimately involved in life.  Like a Father, he said to them.  We might just as easily add mother here.  This passage begins with language that seems to set this father/mother God up against material power and wealth.  You can’t serve both, Jesus says.

When all your possessions are taken from you, which one of these masters will not forsake you?

Money and wealth are ephemeral, but God’s provision starts at the level of the soil, from the dirt up. This immanent God provides for plants and birds, and they aren’t just surviving, Jesus reminds his listeners – they are more beautiful than even Solomon in all his glory.

The writer of Matthew’s gospel paints a portrait of this caring God throughout the gospel – this God who suffers with the least of these, who identifies with the sick, the homeless, the persecuted.

“Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”  Often we hear these words of Jesus used to scold us for being too materialistic in the west.  Rightly so – we do build great barns to house all our stuff.  But Jesus wasn’t speaking directly to us, nor did the gospel writer have us in mind.

The early Christians who heard these words in the gospel were themselves a homeless people.  In the year 70, the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans.  Not just Christians but the entire Jewish nation was essentially homeless, Diaspora.  How would these words have sounded to their ears.  Solomon’s glory was no more.

But this language Jesus used must have calls their minds and their hearts back to their sacred stories – it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things.  We aren’t like them, remember?  The Jewish people had seen God’s provision in the past.  They intimately knew the character of this immanent, suffering God.

Through times of famine and war and exile, God had always provided.  This was not news to them, this was part of their sacred story.  If God has cared for us in the past, this same God, like a father, like a mother, will care for us in the future.  Nothing has changed that.

I wonder if we rehearse our sacred stories enough.  Do we have stories to share about how God has provided for us in the past?  Surely in a parish founded in the frontier has stories of lean times but also times of abundance.  God has not forsaken us in the past.  This same God will not forsake us in the future.

But we have other stories to tell as well.  These are stories Jesus alludes to at the end of the lesson today.  “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

We have a story to tell about how we, both as individuals and as a parish, have worked for that very goal – seeing God’s kingdom, God’s commonwealth here on earth.  We have participated in the bringing about of God’s righteousness, bringing about justice, making things right, and we have stories to tell.

When earthquakes and tornados and disasters take life away and leave so many in desperate need, many evangelists and prophets will affix blame for why it happened.  God must be punishing someone for something.  But where I find God in disasters is in their aftermath.

“Will God not clothe you?”  Jesus asks.  So often, God does clothe the naked by using our hands.  God provides for the homeless, using our hands.  God feeds the hungry, using our hands.  This is what it means, in part, to seek God’s kingdom.  This is how we can bring righteousness and justice and peace to the world.  That’s the news story if you ask me.

Yes our future is uncertain.  The recent disasters that have shaken this globe should remind us of that, if we needed reminding.  But even in our lives there is anxiety.  If Jesus were speaking these words to us today in our context, he might say, “Do not worry about the price of gas, or airline tickets.”  He might then point to animals that walk as a means of God’s provision.   Despite the context of our anxiety or our need, Jesus words remind us that God provides.

Make your choice between the masters, wealth and power that can be taken away in a whirlwind or flood, or the God who has provided and will provide.  In God’s commonwealth, with us serving as God’s hands, anxiety can be exchanged for hope.  Amen.

A sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter -- John 14:15-21

 

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Commandments/Love

This juxtaposition of love and commandments repeated in Jesus’ teachings seems less like a paradox than a non sequitur.  It doesn’t follow.

Love? / Commandments?

Some would say, if Jesus was truly loving he wouldn’t have made so many demands of us – and he certainly would not bring up “commandments” in the same breath as love.  Still others would see these words as an example of Jesus establishing a holiness-code for his followers.  The true disciples of Jesus meet a strict test of purity, right living and adherence to the law, and those who fail the test are second-class Christians, at best.  And they certainly shouldn’t be a bishop!

So the fray ensues.  One group shouts, “Jesus came to free us from the Law!  It’s all about love!”  Others shout back, “Love doesn’t equal license – what we need is some old-fashioned rule-keeping!”

My, how very Anglican – a family fight!  Clearly what Jesus meant by loving one another.  It would behoove us to heed the words of that great theologian of our time, Burt Bacharach, as he observed, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”  In the late 1980s, toward the end of the Cold War, another great theologian, Sting, released a song called, “The Russians Love their Children Too,” leading to one of my college professors annoyed retort, “Hmmm.  Yes, I do suppose the Russians do love their children.  So did the Nazis!  What’s your point?” 

So then others get out their dictionaries in an effort to define love.  What do we mean by love?  Truly love is one of the most often cited but least clarified words in the English language.  As I am wont say in wedding sermons, love is a word we throw around pretty easily these days.  You love your dog, you love your country, you love pizza.  Love, love, love.  We try to dress “love” up in degrees:  ranging from “I like you” to “I really, really, really, really, like you a lot.”  But is anybody really sure what they mean by love.  We love God, we love NY, we love a rainy night. 

Ultimately it seems these days love means what it does in tennis – absolutely nothing.

Did the early church, those who first heard these gospel accounts, suffer from this same confusion?  It would seem not nearly to the same extent.  You see the original language of these documents, Koine Greek, has no fewer than four verbs for love.  It’s still true today in modern Greek.  I asked a good friend of mine from Cyprus if this were still true, and though it took us a minute or two to get the pronunciation straight, the vocabulary is intact.  Greeks speak of AGAPE, describing the ultimate love, divine and transcendent, best exemplified in Jesus’ self-sacrificial death.  Then there’s PHILEO – closely related to agape, describing the affection between friends and family members, also known as “brotherly love”.  Of all these terms the one that needs the least explanation to today’s world is EROS, describing both emotional and sexual intimacy. And finally STORGE – which describes the nurturing, protective love of a parent for a child.

So while we English speakers today still understand these varied kinds and conditions of love, we lack the language to succinctly express them.  Instead use the same word for both divine love and romantic affection, parental nurturing with gastronomical preference.  I love my mother, and I love the Hokies.  It’s all “love” to us.

In the gospel reading today, Jesus actually begins to define love on his terms.  When he tells the disciples, love one another, he goes on to tell them what that means.

Jesus doesn’t define his terms with a list of rules.  Nor does he say, “Just love each other and it will all work out ok.”  Instead Jesus lived his life as an example of this love.  This particular passage is part of the Upper Room Discourse, which stretches for chapters in John’s Gospel. 

It begins with Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, giving them an object lesson in love.  He says to them, “See what I am doing?  Do this to each other.  Just as the father has loved me, so I have loved you, now go and love each other in the same way.  There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  Jesus would give himself as the ultimate example of love in his death, an example that continues to speak to today’s world, whatever words we use to describe it. 

Perhaps we can begin to understand a bit what Jesus means by love in this passage.  But we have to go back to the original dilemma – Jesus links love with commandments.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

What exactly does he mean, when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments?”  He really means “behave yourselves,” right? 

Well, just earlier in this lengthy discourse on love and commandments, Jesus said these words, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In the other three Gospels, we hear Jesus being challenged to name the greatest commandment.  Surely it would be one of the Ten Commandments, right?  We hear Jesus’ answer every time we use Holy Eucharist Rite I, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus is actually quoting Deuteronomy here – the original commentary on the Law.  The essence of the Law is this – Love God and love one another.  In the Law and the commandments of the Old Testament, God provided a commentary on love. How do we best love God?  – by worshipping God first and foremost, not taking God’s name in vain, following God’s example by setting aside the Sabbath day.  How do we love our neighbors? – by not coveting, by honoring our parents, by truth telling, by being faithful in our relationships.

At the core of these laws is love.  They weren’t meant to become the controls based on God’s love, as if God’s love ends where our sin begins.  Tony Campolo put it this way, "I want my children to obey me, not because I have the power to beat them up, but because they love me."  This is the love that Christ modeled for us, a love marked by obedience, not fear.  This isn’t a master/slave relationship.

In the new covenant, this commentary on love would be fulfilled by Jesus, who would become for us the very lesson of love.  Jesus’ life was characterized by love, but like the peace God gives, the love Jesus lived is not like the world lives.  Jesus’ love was perfect and it was revolutionary.

Jesus’ call to obey his commandment of love is not obedience tied to a threat, but obedience laced with a promise.  The beatitudes were Christ’s list of the promises that would accompany those who love God and who keep God’s commandments.    Lack of love has its consequences.  Love born in obedience has its blessings.

But the love Christ modeled was not the transient love of a child for a new toy, soon forgotten.  It wasn’t the warm and fuzzy “love” of an adolescent crush.  Christ’s love was marked by obedience and self-sacrifice.

God’s love for the world is this agape, this ultimate transcendent love.  The love Jesus is describing to his disciples.  There is not greater love than to lay down your life for your friends.

This is the love that casts out fear.  This is the love that transcends emotion and circumstance.  This is love marked by obedience and sustained by commitment.

And so we are called to love.  If we are fully to obey Jesus’ commandments, we must love God, we must love our neighbors, and we must love our selves with this ultimate transcending love.

When it comes to love, most of us are still struggling to get it right.  In a world that opts for hate and discrimination so readily, it’s hard to always answer with love.  Love is not the first reaction for most of us when we are faced with violence or betrayal.  It takes time to love.  It takes a commitment born in obedience.  We must choose to love.

Working out love in our lives – the love for God, the love for others and especially the true love for ourselves is the messiest, most time-consuming, most heart-wrenching and yet the most rewarding part of life’s journey.

We get bruised and battered along the way trying to love each other.  But this is God’s call to us.  Jesus has set the example and called us to follow him in it.

If you keep love me, you will keep my commandments.  And what commandments are those, Jesus?  To love.  How do we love?  What does it mean to love God with your whole being?  What would it look like if we truly loved our neighbors, the neighbors Jesus meant like the poor, the marginalized, Samaritans?  You fill in the blank.  What would it look like if we truly loved those neighbors and not just the people we are comfortable with? 

Figuring out every day what it means to love—that is what living the Christian life is all about.  May God forgive us the times we fail to love, and may God give us the grace to keep pursuing love.  It is, after all, the best way we can obey.  Amen.

A sermon for remembrance on April 16th, 2008
Psalm 23; John 11:17-45

Did you hear the news?

When did you hear?

Our rector, Scott West, opened his sermon on Easter morning with these words.

News travels fast these days, faster than Mary Magdalene or the disciples ever could have imagined on that first resurrection morning.

When did you first hear the news on April 16^th?  For many of us those will always be moments frozen in time.

This was not good news, not the kind of news that was escaping fevered lips on that morning so long ago when they found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.

This was bad news, unthinkable news.

I will always remember where I was, standing in front of a TV in the customs area of JFK Airport in New York City, having just returned from a week’s vacation in Germany.  I remember all the busyness around me – people retrieving their bags, jockeying for position in the passport control lines.  There I stood in front of this TV, jetlagged, shocked, feeling quite alone, wondering what to do next.

This was not good news.

Bad news came to Jesus about his friend Lazarus.  Mary and Martha had sent word to Jesus some days before saying, “Please hurry! Please come heal our brother.”  Jesus did not hurry.  Rather, Jesus came four days after Lazarus had died.

Can you hear the frustration and grief in their voices when both Martha and Mary say to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died”?  How many times had they asked such questions aloud in the days before – “Where is Jesus?  Why isn’t he here?”

What is Jesus’ response?  He does not scold them.  He doesn’t get defensive.  Instead, to Martha he draws forth hope from her grief, saying, “Your brother will rise again.”  But later when Mary asks him this same question, the writer of John’s Gospel says some of the most amazing words written about Jesus – “when he saw her weeping…he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”  And then follow words even more unforgettable – “Jesus began to weep.”

What do you hear when you hear these words, in the older translation, “Jesus wept.”  Do you think it is a clear testimony to how much Jesus loved Lazarus, as some of the by-standers thought?  Do you think Jesus’ tears are remorse for not coming sooner, as some of the others wondered?

What I hear in these words brings me hope.  Jesus grieved.  Jesus was not a stoic, unmoved superman, but rather a vulnerable human being who allowed others to witness his emotions, quite “unmanly” some would say.

Mary and Martha were those sisters whom Jesus had visited some time before and while he was with them, he taught them things about themselves and what it truly means to serve.  Jesus was teaching them again, whether he intended to or not.

Jesus’ heart was broken.  Jesus wept along with those gathered outside Lazarus’ tomb.

If you go into almost any theological library, you will find stacks and stacks of books dedicated to the question – why does God allow suffering?  Why does a good God allow evil to exist?  I’ve read a few of these books, paged through a few others.  Every generation seems to need to write its own set.  But all the finely nuanced theological arguments are basically worthless on a morning like April 16^th one year ago.

If someone asks me, “why?” my answer is not much more than these words, Jesus began to weep.

God grieves.  We see it time and again in our sacred stories, this God who is moved by human suffering, this God who hates evil.

It is in this divine grief that I find hope, I find connection.

During the past few weeks I have been leading the members of the Canterbury Fellowship through some of the classic theories of the atonement, asking the question, “Why did Jesus die?”

Whether they liked it or not, I haven’t spooned out easy answers, and I hope I have challenged them to think beyond the normal answers when it comes to such a question.

“Why did Jesus die?”

One of the ideas I encouraged them to explore was that by suffering torture and death, Jesus, God’s son, identified with us in a way that should give us pause.  What does it mean for us to say that Jesus suffered and died?  What does it mean that the very real flesh and blood of Jesus’ body, a body which once was wrapped in swaddling clothes, was as vulnerable as yours or mine?

The tears of Jesus in this passage from John and the blood of Jesus we hear of so powerfully on Good Friday are marks of God’s identification with us.

God grieves with us on mornings like April 16^th, September 11^th, December 7^th, and yes, the morning you got very personal bad news, news that didn’t make the headlines.

Where, then, is the good news?  After all, that is what the word Gospel literally means – good news.

Where is the good news on mornings like April 16^th?

Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb.  Unbind him and let him go.

This moment in the life of Jesus and his friends is a foretaste of Easter morning.

Death could not hold him.  Death is swallowed up in victory.  Life is changed, not ended.  Jesus ransomed us from sin and death.  By his death, he destroyed death and made the whole creation new.

These are comfortable words indeed.  Words we should hear with fresh ears every time death touches us or we are confronted with grief.

What is God’s answer to death?  Life.

We are about to have a foretaste of that heavenly banquet, where, in God’s commonwealth, there will be no more crying or pain.

We want that now – we want to get beyond this dark place, this veil of tears.  But this day let us come to the Lord’s Table not just for solace but for strength, strength to endure the days and weeks and months and years ahead of us.  The path of life often takes us into the valley of the shadow of death, but our shepherd has walked this path before us, and knows the way out again.

Pray God we never have experience another morning like April 16^th, but even if we do, we must return to this place, to receive from the hands of the one who suffered like us, and in receiving, gain a foretaste of life everlasting.  Amen.

As many of you no doubt know, last week this parish was very privileged to host a delegation from our Sister Parish in Guatemala, San Andres Itzapa.  Basilia, Lucia and their translator Ellen even honored the Wednesday evening Canterbury service with their presence and made us a wonderful and hearty Guatemalan dish for dinner.  During the sermon time of that worship service I invited Basilia and Lucia to share their thoughts and reflections on some of the texts we have heard this morning – texts about “The Good Shepherd.”

I will be the first to admit that I was motivated by a mixture of curiosity and, yes, cultural chauvinism when I asked them to share their understanding of a passage such as the one we heard from John this morning.  I guess I was expecting them to share a thoroughly “Guatemalan” tale of shepherds in the mountains caring for Guatemalan sheep or goats.  I expected to come away with a rich sermon illustration that shows how other cultures contextualize this theological metaphor.

Basilia, the senior and more extroverted of the two women, shared that when she hears this passage from John, she thinks of the clergy who serve in Guatemala.  Clergy!  I was caught with my cultural presuppositions showing – nothing about sheep or quaint shepherds, but rather clergy.  Of course, in my naïveté and faltering Spanish, I had forgotten that in Spanish, the words are one and the same – pastor means both shepherd and religious leader. 

Basilia shared how the people of Guatemala have been both protected by and lead astray or betrayed by their clergy, their shepherds.  Quickly our discussion turned to the courage and dedication of their clergy – those who would stand up against oppression and unjust governments and those who would comply out of fear or corruption.  Some shepherds, she said, were willing to lay down their lives for the sheep, especially Roman Catholic priests during their civil war in the 80s.  She spoke of some shepherds as martyrs.  Soon other names like Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King, Jr. were being shared.

Pastors as shepherds – truly the concept is universal, just as the experience of good leadership and bad leadership among these people whom God has called to lead the flock.

Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter is traditionally known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” as anyone, even those unfamiliar with our tradition, could tell from the readings and hymns.  As I typically do as I prepare my sermons, I will look back through the archives to see if I have preached on these particular texts before, and if so, was it a good sermon?  To my surprise I discovered that this is the fourth time I have preached on Good Shepherd Sunday at Christ Church.

Three years ago, I preached in the wake of a visit to campus by Eli Wiesel, and I preached against political indifference, the very kind of indifference that Wiesel had experienced from his neighbors in Romania as he and thousands of other Jews were taken away by the Nazis.  This deportation was met with only silence.

Two years ago, my title was “Wanted: A Good Shepherd,” preached in the wake of Clare’s announcement that she was leaving.  I offered a potential job description of sorts, what we would be looking for in our next shepherd – the interim period, the summit and the search still months away.

And, of course, there was my sermon one year ago on this Sunday.  Easter was later last year, and so Good Shepherd Sunday fell on April 29^th, a time when we were all still reeling from the unthinkable tragedy that had shaken us so profoundly, that cruel morning in April that changed so many lives forever.

So here we are this morning.  We have a new shepherd on the job, guiding us and learning the quirks and joys of herding this particular flock.  We stand on the brink of electing a new shepherd to lead us as a nation.  And we in this community are about to pause to remember, as much as some would like to forget.  We cannot forget what happened.  We dare not.  On this Sunday last year, emotions were running high and our personal reactions were all over the map, ranging from shock and denial, to rage and remorse.

I have been reflecting on my job, my role as your “junior shepherd.”  Surely I have not been perfect, but I must say I could never have imagined when I first stood in this pulpit over five years ago now, what challenges and trials lay ahead of this congregation, how much we all would change and be changed simply because we have chosen to come together in community and walk our life’s journeys together.

My heart tarried on the 23^rd Psalm as I prepared this sermon.  This Psalm is among the most familiar in all of western Christianity, second only perhaps to the Lord’s Prayer.  It is this psalm that so many people want said at their funerals or read to them as they lie in pain and fear.

“The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not be in want.”  The words are so familiar to us, but I wonder if we have lost the ability to hear how distinct this image is from so many others in the psalms.  God is so often called “my king,” “my judge,” “my defender.”  But here God is portrayed as a shepherd, in this text so readily identified with David, who himself had been a shepherd in his boyhood.

And that’s just it – the great and powerful men of their culture weren’t shepherds – they were warriors, kings.  Shepherding sheep was left to boys and often adult men of lower competency or status in society.  The job didn’t require great intellect, but it did require dedication and just the right amount of courage.  It was hardly a vocation, and yet, it is clear that there were “good shepherds” and “bad shepherds.”  It all seems to have come down to the level of dedication the shepherd had, whether he be a boy or a man.

The good shepherd, protected and guided the sheep, laying down his life if need be.  The bad shepherd was more likely to run away in the face of danger, abandoning the sheep to predators such as wolves, allowing some sheep to wander off and die of injury or starvation.  The good shepherd carried a rod and a staff – the rod being a club of sorts to drive off predators and the staff, which we still see today in the bishop’s crosier, allowed the shepherd to take a stray or disobedient sheep by its neck and bring it back into the fold.

While preparing this sermon I came across a lecture by Kenneth Bailey, a Presbyterian theologian who lived for forty years in Palestine and Israel.  He shares cultural insights which can often turn passages on their heads as he helps us understand how a person in a cultural context much closer to the original audience’s context would hear this passage.

When the good shepherd leads the sheep to green pastures and beside still waters, Bailey points out that this would be like heaven for both the sheep and the shepherd – pastures are only green in that arid landscape about two months out of the year and the waters, when there is water, is often turbulent and dangerous.  We have grown up with images of these green pastures and idyllic brooks because we see them in paintings and illustrations.  We cannot understand what a rare and otherworldly image it would have been for those who grew up like David.

But the image that has stuck with me from Kenneth Bailey’s lecture is that of God, the good shepherd, feeding sheep in the presence of predators.  We have talked before about the importance of hospitality in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern culture.  Here it is again.  As God prepares a meal for us, taking on the traditional role of a woman, Bailey points out, God shows this hospitality as a host in the presence of those who would do us harm.  God serves this dual role – host and protector and it is a powerful image.

The sheep need not fear because of the character and the dedication of the shepherd.  This shepherd is not simply punching a time-clock or biding time while he comes into full manhood.  This shepherd is dedicated and courageous, and the sheep are the better for it.

This morning we are facing a difficult week ahead for many of us.  Memories and emotions have already flooded back.  Some of us live with both the burden and the responsibility of shepherding the students of Virginia Tech.  Some members of this vast flock are feeling indifferent this morning.  Big deal…  Others are experiencing renewed feelings of fear and anxiety.  Still others are hiding, choosing to stay far away from the well-traveled paths.  Faculty and staff and administration are facing a challenging week as well, full of mixed emotions and personal struggles with role – how to be a mourner and a leader at the same time.

Yes, like it or not, we as a community are beginning our descent into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  We wear the vestments of Easter and proclaim Alleluia, and yet we are chastened by memories of loss and unthinkable sorrow.

Scott and I are here, your shepherds for hire.  I pray that you have found us to be good shepherds.  We may not always be as courageous as we could or as skilled with the instruments of our profession, but here we are – your shepherds.  Some of you may find you are stronger than others this coming week – that is an opportunity for you to as scripture admonishes us – bear one another’s burdens.

Be patient.  Have hope.  Seek those peaceful places, those green pastures.

May God give us grace to walk alongside those who are in greater pain with compassion and a gentle step.   But may God also prove once again how the community of God’s people can provide a place of refuge, a home in which we can feast on God’s grace with no fear of predators.

The good shepherd knows the path ahead of us.  May God fill our hearts with peace and make our footing sure.  Amen.