We Keep Our Fear in Check

4^th Sunday of Easter

April 26, 2015

Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18

            In case you hadn’t guessed from the readings, today, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is Good Shepherd Sunday.  Each year the lectionary readings include the 23^rd Psalm and a selection from John 10.  This means that what’s different is the Acts passage and the Epistle lesson from 1 John.  Rather than all the passages having sheep in common, what they all have in common is love, such as the love the shepherd shows for the sheep.  However, John’s letter says “let us love, not with words or speech, but with action and truth.”[1]  That is, after all, how a shepherd shows love for the sheep, through his actions.  Simply telling a sheep “I love you” doesn’t really do much, whereas saving a sheep from a wolf really shows the sheep how much the shepherd cares.  So, let’s look at loving with action, pulling actions from our other readings this morning. 

            First, we need to trust the shepherd.  Jesus says directly at the beginning of our Gospel passage, “I am the good shepherd.”  If we accept Jesus is our shepherd, we need to trust him to shepherd us: to lead us, to provide for us, and to protect us.  We also need to get over being compared to sheep.  It turns out that sheep aren’t really all that dumb and that was a myth started by cattle ranchers.[2]  You see, you can’t herd sheep the same way you herd cattle.  Cattle are herded by cowboys and dogs at the rear of the herd, driving the cattle from behind to go where you want them to go.  But you can’t drive a sheep the same way; sheep must be led from the front, and they will follow a leader.  Rather than being pushed from behind, like cattle, we look forward, keeping our eyes on Jesus, “the author and perfecter of our faith.”[3]  Jesus will lead us, if we will trust him enough to follow, and he will provide for us.  “The relationship to God that God intends for us is not possible if we hedge our bets about the sufficiency of God’s love or depth of God’s mercy.  We cannot keep [riches and wealth] on speed dial, fearful that God might fail to deliver”[4] Either we trust God is enough, or we don’t, and our actions will show it.  I’m sure you’ve heard as well as me that if you want to see where your priorities are, look at your checkbook.  See where you spend your money.  Do your spending patterns reflect trust in God’s provision?  Or are you keeping money on speed dial in case God doesn’t? 

            You see, trusting the shepherd means that we keep our fear in check.  As the 23^rd Psalm puts it, “I will fear no evil.”  The translation we read this morning simply says, “I will not be afraid.”  Another version says, “I fear no danger,” putting this action in the present tense rather than in the future.  This isn’t an action for the future, this is something for now.  I am not afraid.  I fear no evil.  What this means is that I do not give in to runaway fear and panic.  At some point in time we all have, with something that just overwhelmed us, whether a medical diagnosis or losing a job or losing a loved one or an event in our community or some other thing that just took the rug out from under us and, rather than remembering God’s promise to provide and protect, all we thought was, “What do I do now?”  It’s human nature to panic for self-preservation when our existence feels threatened.  But the faithful response is to say with the psalmist, “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” or “even if I go through the deepest darkness,” I am not afraid.[5]  I fear no evil.  I am comforted and protected by God.  You see, evil is going to come.  The devil is going to try his best.  We all know that.  Just because there’s a shepherd doesn’t mean there are no wolves.  God doesn’t promise no danger, he promises protection in the midst of the danger.  So, “to accept God as the good shepherd means to live in the presence of evildoers, mindful of the life-destroying harm they can unleash against us and our loved ones, and determined to keep our fear in check.  The relationship to God that God intends for us is not possible if we are constantly soul sick in fear of evil.”[6] Living in fear is no way to live. 

That’s why, instead, God prepares this table, this feast, for us in the presence of our enemies, in the midst of evil.  God calls us to abundant life, but we can’t claim it if we’re living in fear.  So instead, God sets this banquet for us where everyone can see us.  That’s why the Bishop asked that our prayer this morning for our community be outside, on the front steps of the church, where everyone can see us.  We are a witness to our community that we stand with them and that we stand in spite of the fear of evil.  The table is set in the presence of our enemies, and Satan’s going to do his best to undermine it, like the feast at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia.  The last book is called The Last Battle, and a chapter near the end of it is titled, “How the Dwarfs Refused to be Taken In.”  Almost everyone enjoys the banquet feast that Aslan sets at the end, everyone except the dwarfs.  They insist on believing that they are in a dark, stinky pig pen eating rotten food and cannot believe that it is a beautiful, delicious feast.  The dwarfs lived in fear of being taken in and deceived, to the point that they could no longer see God’s goodness, either.  In contract, we keep our fear in check.  We fear no evil, because we trust in the Good Shepherd. 

            Finally, Jesus says that love means laying down one’s life for another, self-sacrifice.  There was a point in the latest Divergent movie, Insurgent, where a character claims to be selfless by sacrificing his family, and my friend commented that that’s not really what it means to be selfless.  Self-sacrifice is giving up yourself, not someone else, and that’s the kind of costly discipleship Jesus calls us to.  To quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” I can remember the first time I felt love this strongly; I was in college.  One summer my sisters, who are both younger than me, and I were in horrible car accident that totaled my car and the emergency responders told us we were lucky to not be hurt any more than we were.  In the aftermath of the accident, I felt that I would rather die than let either of my sisters go through anything like that again, that’s how much I loved them.  Love so strong that you’d rather die than see someone get hurt.  Laying down one’s life for another, in practical terms, though, doesn’t usually involve death.  Laying down one’s life on an everyday basis means putting others first and living for the good of others, not selfishly, not thinking only of how something would benefit you, but thinking of others first.  It is sharing with those in need, which is also what our reading from 1 John tells us.  “If a person has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need and that person doesn’t care – how can the love of God remain in him?” 

Brothers and sisters, our community is in need.  First and foremost, it is in need of our prayers.h The leaders of our community need our prayers, as well its members.  We, the church, have a unique place in the community as we represent Christ here, in the midst of the people.  We represent Christ, who laid down his life for us.  We represent Christ, who is the good shepherd, who doesn’t run away when the wolf comes, who knows his sheep and leads his sheep and gives up his life to protect the sheep.  We represent Christ who prepares a banquet for us, where all our enemies can see us, and that is what we do for others.  We do not let fear get the best of us.  No, even when we walk through the deepest darkness, we still fear no danger, and that calm and that peace and that reassurance we share with our community.  Christ welcomes us as honored guests and fills our cups to the brim, and that is also what we offer to our community.  We welcome and treat everyone as honored guests, and fill their cups to the brim.  Christ promises a glass that is full to overflowing, abundant life, an extravagant and generous love, and that is also what we have to share with our community. 

Let us pray…

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[1] 1 John 3:18

[2] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2, p. 450

[3] Hebrews 12:2

[4] Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Year B, p. 219

[5] Psalm 23:4, NKJV and GNT

[6] Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Year B, p. 219

Who Are We?

3^rd Sunday of Easter

April 19, 2015

Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48

            It’s funny, I was given a bookmark about the names of Jesus this week, you know, Alpha and Omega, Emmanuel, King of Kings, Morning Star, Prince of Peace, and so on, and I took it as a sign because I had already been thinking about names.  That was the word that had jumped out at me from the Acts text: “His name itself has made this man strong. That is, because of faith in Jesus’ name, God has strengthened this man whom you see and know.”[1]  Asking the question, “What’s in a name?” leads us to Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet asks, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.”[2]  The problem for the star-crossed couple, of course, being that their families were fierce rivals, much like the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s here in the U.S.  Juliet wishes that Romeo’s last name weren’t Montague and Romeo says he’s willing to change his name for her.  And so, what’s in a name?  Is it who we are?  And who are we? 

            I can tell you about the psalmist who wrote Psalm 4.  He feels forsaken.  “How long… shall my honor suffer shame?  How long will you love what is worthless and go after lies?”  “Many people say, ‘We can’t find goodness anywhere. The light of your face has left us, Lord!’”[3]  Can you identify with that?  We can’t find goodness anywhere.  The light of your face has left us, Lord.  We are forsaken.  This psalm is a lament, and yet it ends in hope.  “I will lie down and sleep in peace, because you alone, Lord, let me live in safety.”[4]  The psalmist recognizes that while he feels forsaken, he is not, actually, forsaken.  He says that “the Lord will hear me when I call out to him” and that “the Lord has filled my heart with joy.”[5]  The psalmist is not forsaken.  We are not forsaken. 

            So, who are we?  1 John tells us that we are God’s children.  “See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God's children – and so, in fact, we are.”[6]  What does it mean to be God’s children?  It means we’re all part of his family, as we talked about last week.  It means that we have the confidence to pray to him.  If you listen closely the next time we have communion in a couple weeks, or if you want to turn to the front of your hymnal now to look at it, right before we pray the Lord’s Prayer together, the directions to introduce it say, “with the confidence of the children of God, let us pray.”[7]  Knowing that we are God’s children gives us confidence.  It gives us confidence to “approach the throne of grace with boldness,” as the book of Hebrews puts it, “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”[8]  Knowing we are God’s children also gives us confidence in ourselves.  It doesn’t mean we should be too self-confident such that we become arrogant, but we can rest assured, or live in safety, like the psalmist, secure in the knowledge that we are God’s children. 

            Our Gospel reading tells us one more thing about who we are.  The resurrected Jesus says, “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and a change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”[9]  We are witnesses.  It means we testify to these things.  We share about suffering and how resurrection and victory over death come after the suffering and death, that death is not the end.  We talk about how a changed life has to include repentance and forgiveness.  And we take this message to all the world, beginning here, locally, in our home town.  Finally, we do all this in Jesus’ name.  That’s what’s in a name, and what it means that we are witnesses. 

            So, who are we?  We are not forsaken.  We are God’s children.  And we are God’s witnesses.  But let’s talk a little more specifically about who we are.  I’ve been here almost a year now, a solid six months in a row since coming back from maternity leave, and this is just what I’ve observed. 

We are Cowenton, a community that was planted along the railroad tracks, which were brand new at the time, connecting Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York.  This development was named in honor of John K. Cowen, the President of the B&O Railroad.  Unfortunately, the post office refused to recognize Cowenton because they already had a town with that name in the area.  So the official town name was quickly changed to White Marsh.  Not much is left that still bears the name Cowenton, but we are still Cowenton. 

Back in 1895, this church was started out of a concern for Christian education for youth and so it began as a Sunday school.  Children are one of our key values that I have identified as something that is extremely important to us.  I have heard lots of stories about how the Sunday school was full to overflowing, about past Vacation Bible Schools and other children-oriented ministries.  There Terrific Tots program was an outside program that we hosted, because we like having children among us.  Children are important here and are valued here.  That’s why we’ve started staffing the nursery again and put it on our sign outside.  It doesn’t matter if our volunteers are down there by themselves and all the children stay in worship; just by having it we are offering hospitality to young families, letting them know there is a place for them here.  We welcome them and their children.

A related core value is education.  We didn’t start with worship for those youth back in 1895 or a playground; no, we started with Sunday school, with education.  We wanted to teach the youth about Jesus, and at one time our Christian education program began with children as young as 2.  In cleaning things out, we have found old curriculums for children and old attendance sheets for adult classes.  At one point things were so full there was an adult class that met here, in the sanctuary.  Beginning this fall we are going to renew our push for all of our members to be in some time of Christian education, whether as a teacher or student, whether Sunday school or bible study or some other format.  Education is important here, which means we also know the importance of being lifelong learners.  We never stop learning and God is never done teaching us. 

Finally, the third core value I’ve noticed here is music.  The music library over here to my right is impressive, by anyone’s standards.  And it says that music is very important here.  When we were cleaning out our closets and such, we found some old pictures of past choirs, from Christmas cantatas, and when the choir went on tour.  We’re going to frame some of these pictures, and others, and put them up downstairs so that we can remember and celebrate our history, especially our musical history.  Music makes a difference in the life of this church.  You may have noticed, the choir robed up and processed in and sat up front here with me on Easter, and you know the comment I heard later?  The difference that a clearly visible choir makes?  Choir members, here’s the difference you make: I was told that simply by having the choir robed and processing, it looked like the first time in a long time that the church cared.  Not that it was the first time in a long time, simply the appearance of caring.  The choir represents the church as much as any other group here and the effort they put forth simply to robe and process reflected an effort on the part of the church as a whole.  Music makes a difference here, and seeing our musicians put forth effort inspires the rest of us to also put forth effort. 

Now, if you think I’ve incorrectly identified these three core threads that run through our congregation’s history and values, please let me know.  Perhaps I’ve placed too much importance on one of them or I’ve missed another thread that’s equally important.  I may be wrong about children and education and music, perhaps I’ve missed something and I’d like to know what you think it is, because this isn’t just a pointless exercise.  When we can say who we are, and what our core values are, what it means to be Cowenton, then we can also identify our next steps forward because we know then where to focus our time and energy and resources.  It gives us a sense of our particular purpose for being planted here in this place and the particular mission that God has for us in this community.  What’s it mean to be Cowenton United Methodist Church?  What are our key values?  Let’s play to our strengths and develop and focus on what’s important to us and not dawdle on what is less important.  Just because it’s a good thing doesn’t mean we have to do it.  If children and education and music are our core threads, then everything we do as God’s children and God’s witnesses should have something to do with them. 

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We are Piney Grove.  We began as a worshiping group in 1872 in a pine grove, where we get our name from.  Two years later, the Pennsylvania Railroad deeded the land to the faith community.  We grew exponentially during World War II because of the influx of workers at local defense plants.  Unfortunately, when the jobs dried up, many of the people left.  And that was perhaps the first time we started sending people out to serve.

            You see, we have a history of sending people out from us into ministry.  Some of our members have gone on to become pastors.  Pastors have gone on to become District Superintendents. This is one of the core threads in our history, and while it hurts to see people leave to serve God elsewhere, and we miss them, this is a vital mission of the church.  Not that many churches can say that they have sent out as many people as we have.  This means that there is something going on here, something to do with spiritual formation and an openness to hear God’s call and a willingness to respond to it. 

            A related thread in our values is what it says out in our Fellowship Hall – “We are mission-minded.”  The amount of outreach and mission projects that this church is involved in is impressive by anyone’s standards.  Every week we serve dinner to the homeless.  Once a month we have a soup kitchen, that is housed here in our building.  During the winter, we feed the men of Streets of Hope once a month.  At other times we have clothing give-away's.  We give away Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets.  This is a church that is there for the poor of our community.  And that’s exactly where Jesus said we should be.  No, it’s not easy.  Sometimes we feel worn out.  Sometimes we want to throw in the towel.  We do a lot of mission work; it is definitely one of the core threads of this church. 

            The third core value I’ve noticed here is hospitality.  We aren’t just involved in a soup kitchen, we have it here, in our building.  We host AA once a week.  We have shown incredible hospitality toward Pastor Jorge and welcoming him as well as a new faith community into our midst.  We even have a Hospitality chair, which not many churches have.  We are known for being friendly, because hospitality is important to us. 

We are a church who sends people into ministry, who is not just mission-minded, but active in mission, and for whom it is important to show hospitality.  Now, if you think I’ve incorrectly identified these three core threads that run through our congregation’s history and values, please let me know.  Perhaps I’ve placed too much importance on one of them or I’ve missed another thread that’s equally important.  I may be wrong about sending and outreach and hospitality, perhaps I’ve missed something and I’d like to know what you think it is, because this isn’t just a pointless exercise.  When we can say who we are, and what our core values are, what it means to be Piney Grove, then we can also identify our next steps forward because we know then where to focus our time and energy and resources.  It gives us a sense of our particular purpose for being planted here in this place and the particular mission that God has for us in this community.  What’s it mean to be Piney Grove United Methodist Church?  What are our key values?  Let’s play to our strengths and develop and focus on what’s important to us and not dawdle on what is less important.  Just because it’s a good thing doesn’t mean we have to do it.  If sending people out and reaching out to the least in our community and welcoming are our core threads, then everything we do as God’s children and God’s witnesses should have something to do with them.

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[1] Acts 3:16

[2] Act II, Scene 2

[3] Psalm 4:2, 6, NRSV and CEB

[4] Psalm 4:8

[5] Psalm 4:3, 7

[6] 1 John 3:1

[7] UMH 14

[8] Hebrews 4:16

[9] Luke 24:46-48

There Is No ‘They’; Only ‘We’

2^nd Sunday of Easter

April 12, 2015

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133

There comes a point in Star Wars, Episode V, “The Empire Strikes Back” when Luke is training with Yoda and Luke says he’ll give something a try.  Yoda responds, “No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.”  This quote has now been slightly altered in the bestselling young adult book, The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, to say, “There is no try.  There is only do.”  Today’s sermon title is another twist on the same quote, “There is no they.  There is only we.”  That is to say, in the church we are all on the same side.  Our reading from Acts this morning is about the early church and it says that “the community of believers was one in heart and mind.”[1]  Now, before you say, “yeah, right, that’s impossible, and certainly never going to happen in any local church,” let’s elaborate on that a little.  It’s extremely unrealistic that it means that everyone got along and everyone always agreed on everything all the time.  God made us too diverse for that.  There is no group on earth like that because that’s not how human nature works and that’s not how we were created.  This unity in the early church isn’t a unity of opinion.  Instead, this is a unity of purpose and mission and values.[2]  What the author of Acts is saying here is that they were one in heart and mind because they were all focused on the same thing, they were united around a common cause.  They came together for worship and they took care of one another.  There were some arguments among them, which you’ll find out if you read later on in Acts, but they all worked together as a team.  Perhaps you’ve heard the quote from then-Senate-candidate Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  The future President Lincoln is quoting Jesus.  It’s Jesus who says, “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand,”[3] or, in a different translation, “If a family divides itself into groups which fight each other, that family will fall apart.”  This early church was not divided into groups.  They didn’t have a concept of us v. them; it was all ‘us’.  There was no ‘they’; there was only ‘we’. 

            One of the ways they accomplished this unity was by sharing their resources.  In the church, there was no private ownership; everything belonged to the church as a whole.  It was communal property, not personal.  Since this smacks of communism, some commentaries suggest that perhaps it was not so much joint ownership of property as an extremely lavish sharing of resources.[4]  Either way, it does say that no one was in need, which means that everyone was sharing what they had.  They were taking care of each other.  This isn’t like our society today, where Forbes reports that “Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.”[5]  Or, if we talk about consumption instead of ownership, where the world’s richest 20% consume 76% of the world’s resources.[6]  No, the early church aspired to a 1:1 ratio, and they must have succeeded if there were no needy persons among them.  Imagine what our community would look like if we shared all our resources such that there was no one in need!  Now that’s a cause to unite behind!  Could you get behind that?  Sharing our resources so that no one in White Marsh goes hungry?  What would it look like if we all pooled our resources, instead of each doing our separate thing?  What impact would we have on our community if we shared more?  What impact would we have on our church if we held all things in common and ministries became known by what they did rather than who headed them up? 

            Now, as I mentioned before, even with all this unity around a common purpose, there still wasn’t a complete lack of conflict in the early church.  Even when everyone is on the same team, there is still conflict, because it is natural and not only natural, but necessary.[7]  This is part of what I learned at our Baltimore Region Leadership Day in February.  Conflict is natural because of the diversity of creation and because all of us who are created different try to live together and be in relationship with each other.  Conflict is also necessary to overcome injustice, oppression, and evil.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with conflict.  What’s key is our attitude toward conflict.  If we think it’s bad and should be avoided at all costs, then we’re not going to deal with it well.  But if we embrace it as a God-ordained consequence of diversity, then we learn more about God and how he made us.  Some conflict is healthy.  It keeps us from growing stagnant.  Either we change and adapt and grow, or we die.  So, rather than seeking the absence of conflict, what works better is to seek the presence of a just peace.  Conflict resolution doesn’t actually work all that well because then you expect a definite end to the conflict and a winner and loser.  Instead, working towards transforming the conflict means that we’re committed to staying in relationship no matter what, like a married couple for whom divorce is not an option. 

A music analogy might be helpful here, if you think about a chord of music.  If I ask the pianist to play a chord, she wouldn’t just play one note, but a combination of notes that sound well together.  Being united in heart and mind doesn’t mean all singing the same note, it means all being part of the same chord, with all our different notes together.  Or if you think about the choir, each section has a part to sing: bass, tenor, alto, and soprano.  Not everyone sings the soprano part, and the sopranos don’t sing so loud so as to drown out the other parts.  We need all the parts to form the choir.  And because the parts are different, there is occasionally going to be conflict.  We’re not all always going to get along.  But if all the choir members are committed to the choir and committed to making beautiful music that honors God, then each one puts in the hard work of learning their part and knowing when to sing and when not to, as well as what to sing.  That’s what it means to be united. 

Now, today, someone new is joining our family.  And just like the early church took care of one another, in a little bit we will commit to taking care of our new member.  It’s in the vows that we as the congregation make.  After I go through the part with him, then I will ask you, the congregation, some questions.  It’s open-book, you don’t need to worry.  The answers are already given in the hymnal.  And the answers are a vow to support him, to surround him with a community of love and forgiveness.[8]  Think for a minute what that looks like.  What does it mean to be a community of love and forgiveness?  That we are united the midst of our diversity.  That we don’t let our differences become barriers and walls between us.  That we forgive each other when someone does us wrong.  The last vow includes a promise to increase his faith, confirm his hope, and perfect him in love.[9]  We are all on this Christian journey together.  We don’t do this alone.  That’s why the community of faith is present for a baptism.  We’re welcoming him into God’s family and the family has to be represented.  The lesson to learn from the early church is that we are to share our resources, whether they are gifts of money or time or prayers or what have you.  We all have resources to share, and we are to share them with each other.  We are all on the same team.  There is no ‘they’ in church.  We are all ‘we’.  There is no us v. them.  Here in God’s family we all belong to us.  There is no they; only we.  Thanks be to God, who unites us in his love to serve him.  Amen.

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[1] Acts 4:32

[2] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, p. 382

[3] Mark 3:25

[4] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, p. 387

[5] http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/

[6] http://public.wsu.edu/~mreed/380American%20Consumption.htm

[7] Much of this paragraph is from material from the JustPeace Center.

[8] UMH 35

[9] UMH 38 

“Tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Easter Sunday

April 5, 2015

John 20:1-18

“Mary said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have put him.’”[1]  This statement of Mary’s gained new meaning for me last August.  Not many of you know this, because we didn’t tell hardly anyone; we were too overwhelmed.  Even most of our family didn’t know, unless they happened to call during this time.  My son, A.J., who was born last August, spent his third and fourth days of life in the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care.  Everything went normal, he came exactly on his due date, and we were all set to be discharged on time.  I was discharged on time.  The night before we were to be sent home, the nurse came to get A.J. around 1 a.m. to run some final tests and bloodwork to get him ready to be discharged.  Around 3 a.m. she came back with him and another nurse to say that they were moving him to the NICU.  A.J. had started breathing abnormally while they were doing the tests and it hadn’t resolved itself after over an hour, so they wanted to keep him under closer observation.  They had brought him back for me to kiss good-bye before taking him to the NICU for observation.  I was then supposed to go back to sleep until morning – yeah, right!  I called my husband to let him know.  I pulled out my Bible to try to read and find comfort.  I pulled out my devotional book to try to pray.  “Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night.”  And I couldn’t do any of it.  They had taken my baby away and I didn’t know where to find him.  The NICU wasn’t included on our tour of the hospital.  I knew, rationally, that it couldn’t be far, but I had no idea where it was.  I tried calling my best friend, who’s a night owl, but she didn’t answer.  And then I called my mom.  My mom’s a nurse, and she works in the newborn unit of a hospital in Raleigh.  She told me to call my nurse and ask to be taken to the NICU.  Best.  Advice.  Ever.  It was as simple as that.  They had taken my baby away and I didn’t know where to find him, [pause] until I asked the right person.  Mary first tells the angels, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they put him.”  Then she speaks with Jesus, who she doesn’t know is Jesus and who she thinks is the gardener, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”  Then she finds out it’s Jesus.  Then she finds out where he is: standing right in front of her. 

The first point here is that old saying that people usually find what they’re looking for.  That saying is so old, it’s even in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs: “Those who seek good find the goodwill of others, but those who look for trouble will surely find it.”[2]  Unlike the band U2, who still hasn’t found what they’re looking for, most of us usually find what we look for.  The car keys eventually turn up.  The reading glasses are most likely on top of our head.  And I’ve learned the best place to look for something missing in my household these days is in between the car seats.  We usually do find what we’re looking for, whether it’s a lost item or lost pet or expecting people to behave a certain way.  It’s like the story that is told of the Greek philosopher Socrates:[3]

Socrates was sitting on a hill overlooking Athens, when a man stopped to talk with him.  The man asked, “What are the people like down there in Athens?”  Socrates said, “Where are you from?”  The man replied, “Sparta.” “And what are the people like in Sparta?”  The man replied, “Rude, mean-spirited, not nice people.”  Socrates said, “You will find the people in Athens just the same.  I would not go there.” 

Later, another man approached Socrates and asked, “What are the people like down there in Athens?”  Socrates said, “Where are you from?”  The man replied, “Sparta.” “And what are the people like in Sparta?”  The man replied, “Kind, generous, good people.”  Socrates put his arm around the man and said, “Let’s go to Athens together.  You will find the people in Athens just the same.”

If you look for the best in people, you’ll find it.  If you go looking to stir the pot and create chaos, you’ll find that, too.  Mary came to the tomb looking for the Jesus who had died, and she found him. Peter and John came looking in response to news of a possible grave robbing of Jesus’ body, and that’s what they found: a missing body.  What do you look for when you come to church?  To be bored?  Then you probably will be.  Or do you look, like Mary, for an encounter with the risen Savior?  Then you will probably find him and be found by him. 

I say “be found by him” because we don’t always recognize Jesus when we see him.  Mary thought he was the gardener.  On the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his friend thought Jesus was just a fellow traveler, until he broke bread with them.  When Jesus stood on the shoreline and called out to his fishing disciples, Peter and the others could not recognize him. And in our Gospel reading in a couple weeks we’ll hear that when the eleven first saw the risen Jesus, they believed they had seen a ghost.[4] Mary was even looking for him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him,” and doesn’t recognize that it’s him.  We have trouble recognizing Jesus sometimes, so it’s a good thing that Jesus finds us and lets us know, “hey, it’s me.” 

Along with Piney Grove, I was part of a Lenten service series on Wednesdays at St. Matthew’s Lutheran in Bowley’s Quarters this Lent and the sermon series was on how Jesus meets us.  We don’t meet Jesus; he meets us.  In a variety of places, in a variety of ways, but the initiative is his.  Our part is whether we recognize him when he meets us, because he doesn’t always look like the pictures we have hanging up here.  In our Bible study on why a sense of humor is important in the spiritual life we recently looked at a couple pictures of paintings of Jesus laughing.[5]  And not just a big smile, but Jesus’ head is tilted back and his mouth is open and his teeth are showing, that’s how much Jesus is laughing in these pictures.  

It’s a very different image of Jesus than the ones we usually see.  Do you recognize Jesus in the good and happy and laugh-filled moments in your life?  Do you think he’s laughing along with you at a good joke?  And then what about the other times in life?  That last Wednesday at St. Matthew’s the title was “When Did We See You, Lord?” and the Scripture reading was the one from Matthew 25, where Jesus promises his followers that when he reappears it will be as the homeless, the hungry, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner.  Do you recognize Jesus when that’s how he shows up?  And yet Jesus says that when we feed the hungry and give clothes to those who need them and welcome the stranger and visit the sick and imprisoned, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.”[6]  Or to put it a different way from the book of Hebrews, “Be sure to welcome strangers into your home. By doing this, some people have welcomed angels as guests, without even knowing it.”[7]  We don’t always recognize Jesus when we see him.  Mary thought he was the gardener, but you can see, she still spoke to him politely, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

The point is this.  We go looking for Jesus, but we don’t always recognize him when we see him, so, mind your P’s and Q’s.  In my previous appointment I was the associate pastor at a church that averaged around 500 people in attendance each Sunday.  On my second week there, I volunteered with the church at the local homeless shelter, only I didn’t tell any of the regular volunteers I was coming.  I arrived in the kitchen and said, “Hi, how can I help?” and I was put to work before one of the other volunteers whispered to her husband, “Psst, that's the new associate!” I wasn't trying to be secretive, I'm just more comfortable saying, “Hi, what's your name?” than “Hi, I'm the new associate pastor.” Later on, I was talking with another church volunteer (who was smart enough to ask back, “What's your name?”!) and another church volunteer joined us just as we were talking about my predecessor. The two talked about how they missed the previous associate and the second one said, “But I hear our new associate has her own gifts and talents.” I didn't interrupt her, just introduced myself to her when she was done. I suppose it was a good thing she had only heard positive things about me!  My point is that you never know who’s listening and you never know who the stranger is at your door.  If you treat everyone like you would treat Jesus, if you roll out the red carpet for everyone you encounter, if you treat everyone with respect, and mind your P’s and Q’s all the time, then you don’t have to worry about whether it’s Jesus or not, plus you’re carrying out his commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.  That’s all Mary is trying to do, anyway.  “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”  That’s all Mary wants to do, is finish taking care of Jesus’ body.  She’s not there for herself, she’s there for her friend. 

“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”  Mary has gone looking for Jesus.  He’s not where he’s supposed to be.  (Imagine that, Jesus not where he’s supposed to be?)  She goes looking for him only to be found by him.  The catch is that she doesn’t immediately recognize him, because we don’t always immediately recognize God in our midst.  That’s why hindsight is 20-20 and we say with Jacob from the Old Testament, “Surely God was in this place and I didn’t even know it!”[8]  If we live, though, as if we are always in the presence of the risen Christ, which we are, then that should make a difference in our lives.  If we remember who we are and whose we are, and that the One with the final say on that is God, not anyone else, then it changes how we live and how we treat others.  If “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have put him” becomes “Tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”  If we remember and believe that because of this Sunday death does not have the last word nor does it have any power over us, then we can go share like Mary told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”[9]  Thanks be to God.

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[1] John 20:13

[2] Proverbs 11:27

[3] Author Unknown

[4] List courtesy of http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/5919/you-may-not-recognize-jesus-this-easter

[5] Based on Between Heaven and Mirth by James Martin, SJ

[6] Matthew 25:40, CEV

[7] Hebrews 13:2, CEV

[8] Genesis 28:16

[9] John 20:18

Part of the Crowd

Palm/Passion Sunday

March 29, 2015

Mark 11:1-11; 15:1-39

            Crowds.  Sometimes we like them, like being part of the crowd at Camden Yards when the Orioles have just scored the game-winning run!  There are times crowds are great things.  There is safety in numbers.  Crowdfunding has caught on on the Internet.  My husband and I even donated to the re-launch of Reading Rainbow, one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever.  

Many of my colleagues use crowdsourcing on social media to gain ideas for sermons.  And who doesn’t like a good surprise flash mob?  I actually joined one at Annual Conference last year in North Carolina.  A friend of mine from seminary had gained the bishop’s permission to ask for a moment of personal privilege during a business session, if you can believe it, and that was the cue for the rest of us to make our way to the front of the room to sing “Our God” by Chris Tomlin.  It’s the one that goes, “Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.”  And by the end of the song, almost everyone there was standing and joining us in singing.  It can be a lot of fun to be a part of a crowd.  Other times, though, we’d rather avoid them, like the malls in December.  Being on the outside of the in-crowd is lonely.  Hanging out with the wrong crowd can be problematic.  Being part of a crowd gives you anonymity and can make it harder to take personal responsibility for your actions.  There’s a saying about how persons are smart, but people, as a collective, can be dumb.  Following the crowd can result in doing something you wouldn’t normally choose to do.  In today’s Gospel readings we have quite a few different crowds and we’re going to imagine ourselves as part of each one.

            First, there’s the crowd in the Palm Sunday Gospel where Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey.  This crowd is pretty easy to imagine ourselves joining, especially since we just reenacted part of it!  This is a fun crowd, with everyone happy and cheering and yelling “Hosanna!” and waving palm branches.  Everyone loves a celebration and this is a celebration.  “Hosanna” traditionally means “save now” and so these are shouts of joy welcoming Jesus, the Savior, the One who comes in the name of the Lord.  This is hailed as a “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem and in all the excitement of this crowd, we often miss the subversive details.  Jesus is on a donkey, for one.  Who sees a donkey in a parade?  Usually it’s big, noble steeds, or at least a horse, for crying out loud.  Second, Jesus’ entry mirrors Pilate’s entry into Jerusalem just a couple days before, and that would have been a grand entrance; it’s a big deal when the Governor comes to town.  The local leaders would have been out to welcome him with flowery speeches.  Roman soldiers would have accompanied Pilate.  And here we have Jesus, on a donkey.  But there’s such a good feeling in the air, it’s easy to put ourselves in this crowd.  After all, where else would we be, but waving our own palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!”

            That’s why being in the next crowd is a little bit harder.  It doesn’t have that happy, upbeat feeling.  This one is a mob that’s ready to riot if it doesn’t get its way.  This is the crowd that has gathered at dawn at the Governor’s mansion, the courtyard of the palace, to see what Pilate will do with Jesus.  It is daybreak of the day before the Passover festival and the previous 12 hours have been busy.  If there had been 24 hour news coverage, we would have been glued to our TVs, or turned it on first thing to see what had developed overnight.  The chief priests and scribes had been looking for a way to quietly arrest Jesus, so that there’s no uproar about it, at least not until it’s too late.  Ideally, they want to have Jesus killed, and they want to have it done before the holidays.  So, the chief priests and scribes manage to arrest Jesus at night, in the dark, and they hand him over to Pilate, since he’s the one with the legal authority to do something.  Jesus’ chief offense is blasphemy, which is not punishable by death under Roman law.  But any threat to the Roman Empire is, which is why it’s emphasized that Jesus called himself the “King of the Jews.”  There can be no king but Caesar, so that is a serious offense.  And by dawn, there is a crowd at Pilate’s house.  There is no TV or internet to find out the latest news, you heard it word of mouth or you went to see for yourself what was going on.  There is a crowd that has shown up to see for themselves what’s going to happen.  Now, it was Pilate’s custom to release a prisoner at the holidays and he wants to let Jesus go.  After all, Jesus hasn’t really done anything wrong; this charge of being “king of the Jews” doesn’t really stick.  So Pilate offers to let him go.  But the chief priests and scribes have stirred up the crowd; see, now it’s favorable to them to have a riot, because the crowd isn’t upset with them.  I did a little research and it takes only approximately 6% of a crowd to change the entire direction of the crowd.[1]  So, if you put yourself in this crowd, which initially started out as curiosity, wondering what’s going to happen, now this crowd is getting restless, and the general direction of it has changed.  Instead of wondering what’s going to happen to Jesus, we don’t want him released.  Someone whispers the name “Barabbas,” and that becomes the prisoner we want Pilate to let free.  Barabbas, who, if we were thinking straight, we’d remember is a criminal, a guy who hung out with murderers, a guy who himself is in jail for being an insurrectionist, someone who has revolted against the authorities.  We want him released, not Jesus.  It seems like a case of “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know,” although you’d think that some of this crowd knew Jesus.  I guess they got carried away with the crowd. 

            So, then Pilate asks the crowd, not that he needs their permission, but he’s trying to calm down the anxiety and the general mood, he asks the crowd what he should do with Jesus.  And it is the crowd’s idea to crucify him.  This is the same crowd that welcomed Jesus to their city just a few days before.  Now, we want him dead, and not just executed, but crucified.  We’re comfortable enough saying that it was our sins that nailed Jesus to the cross, but it’s hard saying we’re part of the crowd shouting, “Crucify him!”  It is not easy to imagine ourselves part of this crowd.  Part of a mob borderline rioting?  Not us.  Part of those who know Jesus but deny him now?  We say with Peter, “Surely not I, Lord!”  We don’t want to imagine ourselves here, and yet why not?  Where else would we be?  Everyone deserted Jesus, and that would include us, too.  The Palm Sunday crowd is easy.  The Good Friday crowd is hard.  Surely, if we were part of this crowd, we wouldn’t join in the shouting.  Surely, if we knew Jesus personally, we wouldn’t go along with the crowd.  And yet, everyone does.  Even Pilate has Jesus whipped and ordered crucified in order to appease the crowd.  The crowd has gotten out of hand, and the crowd got its way.

            Finally, we find ourselves part of the third crowd in our reading this morning, the people who see Jesus hanging on the cross, those who physically witness the crucifixion.  Jesus has been beaten so badly that some people die from being scourged.  He was too weak to even carry his own cross to Golgotha.  They hung him up on the cross and it was six hours before he died.  Most legal execution scenes today are pretty somber.  They’re in sterile environments and doctors and lawyers are present to make sure it goes right.  Others who are present usually are respectful, but not those who witness Jesus’ crucifixion.  Mark says the people walking by insulted him.  The chief priests and scribes made fun of him.  Even those who were crucified with Jesus insulted him.  Talk about adding insult to injury or pouring salt in the wound.  We haven’t just gone from a celebratory welcome to an almost-riot, now that we’ve gotten our way, we’re still stomping on him while he’s down.  I have trouble imagining myself as seeing anyone hanging on a cross, much less Jesus, and making fun of them.  I think it’d be too bloody and too painful that I want to think I’d have compassion on them, instead.  And yet if I think of someone I really can’t stand and put them up on the cross instead, well, I think that at my best, I’d keep my mouth shut.  Or maybe mutter under my breath that he deserved it.  Or maybe that’s because my personality is quiet, anyway.  Perhaps if I weren’t a quiet person to start with, then I’d be louder, and if the filter was off, then who knows what I’d say.  I’d probably yell and hurl insults at him, too.  This is another crowd it’s hard to be part of, because we know it’s Jesus.  We know better.  And when it’s an abstract idea, just an exercise of imagining ourselves there, our head still knows what the right thing to do and say is.  It’s a lot harder when you’re actually faced with it, when it’s in person, when you hear the shouts yourself, whether they’re shouts of “Hosanna!” or “Crucify him!”  If it’s a crowd you usually agree with, it’s a lot harder to turn the other way and not go along with them when they cross a line. 

            Holy Week is a week that starts off happy and great and ends happy and great, but we’d rather avoid the middle part.  We like being part of the crowd laying down their cloaks and waving their palms and we like being part of the crowd that gets to see the resurrected Jesus.  But being part of this crowd in the middle, man.  We don’t like to admit how fickle we can be.  We don’t like to think that we’d be among those ready to riot if Jesus didn’t get crucified.  And yet, where else would we be?  We may not always be those who follow the crowd, but in this drama, there is nowhere else to stand.  “Were you there, when they crucified my Lord”?  The answer is yes. 

The good news, though, is that the crucifixion is not the end.  The good news is that the crowd at the cross is not the last crowd we are part of.  We’ll move this week through Holy Week, and come back next Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, his defeat over death.  Because, ultimately, the last crowd we will be part of is the crowd in heaven.  The last crowd we’ll join is the one who has eternal life thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection.  With God’s kingdom fully come, singing praises in heaven throughout eternity, inside the pearly gates, where there’s no more hunger or sadness, or however it is that you imagine heaven, that’s the last crowd.  And ultimately, that’s the one that matters most.  Our final hymn goes through from creation’s beginning to its completion, the first day back in Genesis 1:1, to what is called the eighth day, the new creation, creation completed and made right, a world without sin and riots and jeers.  That’s the end game.  That’s the end of the story.  That’s the last crowd, and the most important crowd, we’ll be part of. 

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd