“But We Had Hoped” - April 26, 2020

Luke 24:21

            Before we understand – no, before we experience – Easter, the resurrection of Jesus and the new and indestructible life that puts into us, we have to look at the far more universal experience of disappointment and loss.

            You know what disappointment is.  The high school seniors can tell you all about it.  It’s the baseball season that barely started.  It’s the prom that never takes place.  It’s the senior trip that’s off.  It’s the graduation ceremony that is a ghost of what it could be.  It’s a bunch of older people posting their senior pictures on Facebook “in solidarity with the Class of 2020” that rubs it in that everybody else had these rituals and they don’t.

            You know what disappointment is.  It’s the wedding plans that have to be cut way back.  It’s the new job that never starts.  It’s the years of hard work and long hours and doing without that went into a business that was finally taking off and now may not reopen.  It’s the 401(k) that has declined by more than you want to think about.  Disappointment is the future than more than likely will not be born.

            For at least two of Jesus’ disciples, his death was not only an injustice and an outrage but it was also a great disappointment.  As one of them remarked,

“we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” [Luke 24:21]

They had thought that Jesus was the one that so many of the people were waiting for.  He was going to be the one to toss the Romans out of the country.  He was going to be the one who would give voice to the needs of the poor and the people who were pushed aside – which he did.  But they thought that he was going to be the one who would do that in a way that would really be heard and that would change things.  Hadn’t the crowds backed him up just a week earlier when he rode into town and people shouted,

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord” [Luke 19:38]?

Hadn’t he been the only one who had had the guts to do what so many wanted to do when he overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple and chased them out?  Where was the follow-up?

            They were to learn that redemption is not a matter of seizing power and punishing enemies.  In fact, redemption comes from setting expectations of glory aside and from putting forgiveness in place of retribution.  Jesus brought redemption when he set aside the things he could do to do the things that he should do.  King, yes – but servant first.  Ruler, yes – but one who wants people to follow him out of love, not fear.

            If you consider what is going on in our lives right now, who is redeeming the situation?  Who is turning trouble and struggle into constructive channels?  Who is doing something that will have a lasting, admirable effect?  Who is bringing about results that are worthwhile?

            I would submit that it is not the people whose names are in the headlines or who stand in front of the cameras.  Those who speak the loudest are not those who speak the most clearly.  No, those are the ones who have no time for that because they are busy in the labs and in the hospital rooms.  They are stocking the shelves in the grocery store and keeping the kids out of trouble.   They are just trying to keep things running smoothly as possible today.  They are figuring out how to keep people safe in the future. 

            If anyone looks for the world to be transformed from what it is into what it could be, by God’s grace, there is going to be disappointment and loss.  Jesus was clear about that.  He said,

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” [Luke 9::23]

It’s a daily activity.  It’s a way of life.  It’s not a one-time, heroic act that has a clear start and a certain end, or even a definite outcome.  There are no definite measures of success and failure except the internal conviction of the Holy Spirit that we are on the right track.  Hold that up against the measurements that the world uses.  The world has clear definitions of success.  How much money are you making?  Do you have connections that can get things done?  Do people recognize your name and your face?  Are you an influencer?

            We all fall into that trap, in how we judge others and even in how we judge ourselves.  The two disciples on the road to Emmaus even judged Jesus that way, and when it didn’t work out for him, it meant that they had misplaced their hopes.  They had bet on a loser, and that made them losers, too.

            Or so they thought.

            Yet that is where the power of the resurrection comes upon us.  That power begins when it forces us to set aside our assumptions about success or status and rethink what matters.  Real redemption begins.  “To redeem” is one of those really loaded terms.  It can mean to set free, or to buy back, or to ransom, or to make the best of, or to bring good from.  It can mean a little of all of that at the same time.  To explain what the Messiah’ job really was would take Jesus going through the scriptures with those two from start to finish.

“Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” [Luke 24:27]

Jesus’ role as Redeemer wasn’t even just what they were looking for,

“the one who would redeem Israel.” [Luke 24:21]

He would be the one who would redeem the whole world.  It would take in more than establishing a political kingdom.  It would mean buying back and setting free the human soul.

            What I see in the depredations that this pandemic has laid bare is a chance of renewal.  What I see is a painful exposure of how misplaced our values have become.  Yet along with that arises clarity about what they should be, and a call to realign our lives with the love of Jesus.  I do not see some sort of cosmic punishment from God, but I do hear the warning that we cannot keep going the way we have been.

            Senior portraits don’t matter as much as the students who sit for them.  Prom dresses and tuxedoes don’t matter as much as the people who wear them.  What school you get into doesn’t matter as much as what kind of education you get; and getting a degree is not as important as being a decent human being.  The job you have is not as important as knowing we cannot even function without the worker who is paid the least.  Leadership isn’t the same thing as fame.  Respectability is not the same thing as position.

            Resurrection is more than life going back to the way it always was.  Resurrection is going back to a life that has been redeemed and is made better, truer, wiser, more authentic, by a Savior whom the world does not recognize but who is out there on the road with his people.

            As the spiritual says,

“I want Jesus to walk with me.

I want Jesus to walk with me.

All along my pilgrim journey,

Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.”

“Presence, Pandemic, and Peace” - April 19, 2020

John 20:19-23

 

            All of us are affected by the covid pandemic in different ways, but we are all affected.  There is no easy equation between what one person endures and another person’s problems. 

Some people go through the actual suffering of someone in a hospital bed, and many more before this is over will not have that luxury.  There are homeless people in our country who have nowhere to go or no one to take them to help when they get sick.  There are countless people in India who live in crowded conditions where distance is not possible who will pass away surrounded by people who watch fearfully, thinking, “That will be me in a week or two.”

There are those who are well, but grieving the loss of a loved one, perhaps several.

There are those who deliver food to the sick and think, “I have to be careful; I have to be careful.”  There are those who drop off groceries or drive delivery trucks who wonder about the condition of the people behind those doors.  Theirs, and others’, is the constant anxiety of infection.

There are the people, though, without jobs.  They are laid off for now, and for now may have enough to get by, but they know it won’t last forever.  If they have work when the quarantine is lifted, will their salaries be cut?  If they need help, will the food banks and assistance programs have enough to offer?  Once the moratorium on evictions ends, will they be able to pay their rent before the extra charges and back payments catch up with them?

What if there is a second wave of infection when this first one has passed?  Will a weakened system be able to handle it?  How far do we hang back in the meantime to see when it is safe to resume some – not even all – activity? 

There is no single, universal level of pain or anxiety.  Nor do people handle what comes to them the same way.  Some people just naturally worry more, in the same way that some people have a higher threshold for enduring physical pain.

As we respond to any of it, however – and this is part of the cruelty of this pandemic (and I do mean cruelty) – anyone’s instinct is to reach out to the sufferer and touch them.  If you have ever been with someone who is dying, you have seen whoever is closest to their side reach out and hold their hand or brush the hair back on their forehead.  It is one of the gentlest, kindest ways of conveying the love that is in the room.  But this disease forbids that.

If you have ever been with someone who is in extreme anxiety, you know that words may make things worse, and the best thing to do is to hug someone or put a hand on their back or shoulder.  Not these days.  And be aware that not being able to do that will increase your own unease and maybe leave you feeling guilty about knowing what could have helped and not having done it.  But hold back all the same.

There are times that those walls and those doors between people have to stay closed.  It will not be forever.  Sometimes fears are justified.  There really is danger, and we are not always able to assess it well from our own vantage point. 

But neither are we able fully to assess the help that is on its way in those moments, and that is where today’s gospel lesson speaks.  It was the very day that Jesus rose from the dead, John tells us, and

“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” [John 20:19]

Those were his first words to them.

“Peace be with you.”

            The door that was closed to everyone else did not keep Jesus out.  Later on in the encounter Jesus would show the disciples his wounds to prove it was really him, and he would repeat the process again for Thomas a week later because he wasn’t there the first time.  In another visit with them he would eat with them, to demonstrate that he wasn’t a ghost or a zombie, but if you get tied up in all of the metaphysical stuff that nobody is ever really going to be able to resolve, you miss the real point anyway.

            That point is that the disciples were locked away from the outside world by a justifiable fear.  Jesus had been killed, and his followers, if caught, would likely also be killed.  So they hunkered down with their fears and worries in a place of danger that they could not leave.

            That was when Jesus reached out to them in a way that nobody else could, and offered them the peace that they desperately needed when no one else was able to give it.  And really, when we want to help someone in the deepest way, and find that we cannot do it, it is best to remember that it is our place ultimately to point people to him, not to ourselves.  Sometimes we can provide what someone needs, but only sometimes.  Jesus can provide it always.

“Peace be with you,”

He said that to the disciples in that locked room.  Three days earlier he had said the same thing to them in the same place, before they knew just how much they would need it.  Then he had said it this way:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” [John 14:27]

He said it then and I believe that if you listen, you can hear him say it now.

“Jesus Got Up” - April 9, 2020 (Maundy Thursday)

John 13:4

            It was customary for guests arriving for a banquet or special occasion – and for the people who streamed into Jerusalem for the Passover, there was no more special occasion than the seder meal – to be welcomed at the door by someone who would wash the dust off their feet for them.  It was sometimes a servant, but whoever was assigned the job, it was somebody low on the status ladder.  We are talking here about welcoming guests who have walked through unpaved streets where animals sometimes roamed freely. 

            At the Last Supper, the last meal of any sort that Jesus would eat before his death, the last time he would gather them all together, and the last time that Judas would be part of the group, this detail was overlooked.  You can understand how it happened.  It had been an overwhelming kind of week, and it was amazing in many ways that they were even able to pull it all together.  I have friends now who have had to plan their seders this week and have managed to get most of what they need, but it hasn’t been easy.  So if no one was assigned the job of washing feet, it seems understandable.

            In fact, the meal was underway and Jesus was entering some very treacherous and demanding territory that the disciples didn’t know anything about, when, John tells us,

“during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to was the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”  [John 13:2-5]

It would be like a Thanksgiving dinner where the host or hostess jumps up from the table in the middle of the meal and went outside to clean the guests’ windshields.  It’s an incredible gesture, but is it really the time to do it?

            Now, on the one hand you could say that it was the last opportunity that Jesus would have.  They did not know that, but he did.  Maybe he was feeling his own need to express his extravagant, intimate love for these people who had left house and home to follow him and who would face dangers and trials of their own for his sake in the days and years to come.  He had asked a lot of them, and would ask more.  I wonder, though, if he wasn’t also trying to show them how much he was prepared to do for them, and give them an opening into what he had already done.  

He

“got up from the table.” [John 13:4]

He left his place of honor as the host, and went to work doing the dirty job.  And he did that in the middle of a celebration of his people’s freedom from slavery. 

He

“got up from the table.” [John 13:4]

He could have stayed comfortable, but he set that aside.  He left off conversation and singing, a good meal, and relaxation.

He

“got up from the table.” [John 13:4]

He put a pause in the familiar prayers and religious observance.  He put substance ahead of ritual.  Living God’s love meant more than talking about it. 

He

“got up from the table.” [John 13:4]

He literally got his hands dirty.  He did not stand aside as if he were too good for that.  In fact, doing that was the essence of his goodness. 

Jesus was doing no more and no less than what he had done in the most profound way.  He was continuing to do what he and he alone could do.  He had left eternal joy in the presence of the Father to become truly human, knowing that betrayal and suffering and denial and rejection and physical pain and death were all part of that.  He had gotten up from the table, as it were, and gone out into the night to find us.  He had given up his place of eternal light and happiness to find those who are out here in the darkness, with dirty feet and runny noses, crying instead of singing and pushing one another away – even pushing him away when he offers help.  Jesus, from all eternity, heard the human cry and he

“got up from the table.” [John 13:4]

            What he asks of his followers is to do the same thing.  As he told them,

“I have set you an example, that you should also do as I have done to you.  Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their Master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.  If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” [John 13:15-17]

Following him means that we, too, have to get up from the table. 

Privilege, safety, comfort, and all the things we are used to having on our plate are things we need to leave there.  It is downright embarrassing to read about people who call themselves Christian who will not, for the sake of other people’s lives, forgo the trappings of our usual Easter Day.  Didn’t Jesus himself interrupt a religious observance in order to serve before getting back to it when the need was fulfilled?  Can we not express solidarity with those who are endangered by giving up a few traditional observances for one time?  Is our faith so weak as to be dependent on chocolate eggs and marshmallow peeps?  Did Jesus die to cleanse us of our sins, or to give us one more way to express our ego?

            Now is not the time to think of ourselves, but of others.  What helps them?  What do they need?  In the third century, when a plague was running through the entire Roman Empire, and it reached the city of Carthage in North Africa, the Christian bishop, Cyprian, wrote that the disaster

“searches out the righteousness of each one, and examines the mind of the human race, to see whether they who are healthy tend the sick; whether relations affectionately love their kindred; whether masters pity their languishing servants; whether physicians do not forsake the beseeching patients; whether the fierce suppress their violence.”[1]

Does any of this sound contemporary?  Hear also what Cyprian observed about what it means to get up from the table to serve as Jesus served:

“These are trainings for us, not deaths; they give the mind the glory of fortitude; by contempt of death they prepare for the crown.”

            In the same section of John where Jesus washes the disciples’ feet he also tells them,

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” [John 14:27]

---

[1] Cited by Elizabeth Palmer in The Christian Century: “Reproach and Pleading” (vol. 137, no. 8, April 8, 2020), 11.

“Don’t Give Up Praising” - April 5, 2020 (Palm Sunday)

Luke 19:29-40                                                                                                                                         

            Palm Sunday: a day for processions and singing, a day for raising palm branches in the air and shouting, “Hosanna”!  Palm Sunday: a sort of coming-attraction for Easter. 

“All glory, laud, and honor to thee, Redeemer King,

to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.”

Not this year.  No, this year we are stuck inside, avoiding anything even suggestive of a crowd.  We do that as a precaution, hoping to slow down the spread of Covid-19, being protective of those children, of our families and our friends and our neighbors – and rightfully so.  But it just isn’t the same.

            Or is it?

            The Pharisees who told Jesus on that day itself that he should order his followers to stop, and who would probably have been pleased had he told them all to disperse, were acting from their own sense of caution, aware that what was going on in front of their eyes could easily have brought the wrath of the Roman legions on them.  Caesar did not like crowds shouting,

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  [Luke 19:38]

That implied that there was a king other than Caesar, and a Lord other than him.

            There was an underlying edge of fear on that day.  Whether or not it was warranted, you can judge by what happened in the days that followed.  Jesus was betrayed by one of his inner circle and arrested.  His followers went into hiding.  He was put on trial before both religious and civil authorities, subjected to torture, sentenced to execution, and killed.  So, yes, the people who wanted Jesus to tell the crowd to shut up had a point.

            But so did Jesus when he answered,

“I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”  [Luke 19:40]

The praise, the giving of glory to God, the ascription of majesty and power, the recognition of God’s awesome being cannot be silenced.  If it goes quiet in one way, it rings out in another.

            The stones beneath our feet are a good example.  Do you remember ever looking at a piece of sandstone and noticing the shiny flecks of gold and silver along with the flakes of gray and white?  As a kid, I marveled at that.  Now I barely think about it anymore.  Too bad.  Or how is it that a smooth stone thrown just right can skim and skip across the top of a pond?  Why do some stones change color when they get wet, with a dull surface suddenly shimmering?

            Maybe when circumstances force us to slow down, we get a chance to see and hear how the world beyond humanity offers its own praise.  Francis of Assisi, who emphasized simplicity of life as part of discipleship, wrote a poem that we sing as the hymn “All Creatures of Our God and King”.  Let me read a translation of the original.

“Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord, All praise is Yours, all glory, all honor and all blessings.

To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name.

Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather's moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.

Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.

Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You my Lord through our Sister,
Mother Earth
who sustains and governs us,
producing varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Praised be You my Lord through those who grant pardon for love of You and bear sickness and trial.

Blessed are those who endure in peace,

By You Most High, they will be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death,
from whom no-one living can escape.

Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will.
No second death can do them harm.

Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks,
And serve Him with great humility.”

            This morning there are no crowds around us to sing, “Hosanna!” but the birds.

            There is no one to wave a branch except the trees.

            There is no one to hear us but God.

            For once, let that be enough.