March 24, 2012
Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year B
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
So here is Jesus visiting the home of his friend Lazarus in Bethany. Bethany is just a couple of miles outside of Jerusalem. Jesus and his friends had just returned to the area after fleeing to Ephriam about 20 miles north of there. They had fled because Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead like a week or two before, and was attracting a lot of attention, particularly the attention of the chief priests and Pharisees. These religious leaders were getting nervous. Healing a few demoniacs, curing a blind man or two, that is fine, but raising someone from the dead; that was going to draw some attention. It was drawing attention. In fact, John tells us that the chief priests were plotting to kill Lazarus, too. They wanted to hide the evidence of the deep miracles Jesus had been performing, for too many were deserting and believing in this Jesus character. Remember, there were a lot of these Messianic figures wandering around the Levant at that time. Lots. What our messiah was doing was a bit better than the others. He was gaining a reputation; that would not do.
It is so sordid; this affair, the journey towards the passion. The suspicions, plots and intrigue of the collaborators, the priests and Pharisees. The imperial domination of the Romans. The treachery of Judas. Sordid… And it is so beautiful, this affair, the journey towards the passion. The faith of the disciples and their supporters. The adoration of Mary who at Lazarus’ house broke open the jar of nard and anointed her Lord’s feet. The joyousness or at least good humor of the people of Jerusalem, welcoming Jesus riding on a young donkey into the city to shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord…” The Greeks in our Gospel today, the ones who wanted to speak with Jesus, they were walking into the city with Jesus during that first liturgy of the Palms.
And there is Jesus. He’s had these crazy three years and is now more or less on the run. They are fugitives. He knew that he had gained the attention of the authorities and surely knew that his life was in danger, and the lives of his friends as well. He must have sensed betrayal lurking in the background. His soul was troubled, how could it not be? And what does he do? He leads his band of friends right into the heart of it, right to the center of religious power in Jerusalem. And he does it in a way guaranteed to draw attention. They put on that fantastic parade, mocking earthly kings and even emperors. There are those who suggest that on the other side of the city Pilate was processing into Jerusalem from his headquarters in Ceasarea, the seat of Roman power. He did this every year, marching into the city with two or three legions aimed at keeping the peace during the annual Passover Festivals. Jesus and his friend’s entrance parade was a mockery of the martial pomp and circumstance that Pilate would have demanded. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel,” they shouted, waving palms and laying down their cloaks. Jesus must have known that His days were numbered. He must have known that His was going to be a hard end. And He asks rhetorically, “What should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No,” He answers, “it is for this reason I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
So that’s the context. That is what is going on in this scene as these Greeks seek an audience with Jesus. And in that moment, in that chaotic moment, what does Jesus say to them? “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
Loving our life. What does that mean, to love a life? First off, it means that we have to consider it ours. It is something, some process that is possessed 0-po9by our self. Which of course posits that there is a self, that the self is an autonomous being separate from others, separate from God, even. That is one of the ways to describe the doctrine of original sin, that existential separation from God that we all experience, well, almost all of us. There those few rare saints who achieved the Christian equivalent of Enlightenment. The technical term is Union with God. Read the words of St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich. Each of these people found union with God primarily in following Jesus’ admonition to hate their lives. They didn’t hate life, each of these and any saints love life, they love life as deeply as you can imagine, but hating life as Jesus teaches means that they lost the sense that the life they lived was theirs to begin with. It is God’s life. A songwriter I appreciate writes “these are not my tunes/ but they are mine to use.” They come for the universe, they exist and by our work they come together in the form we hear, but they are not our creation. It is just like life. It is not our life, but it is ours to use. What we call our life is actually God’s, it is part of the immeasurable fabric of existence, you are an eddy of energy in the ocean of being, a swirl of consciousness in relationship with an infinite whirlwind, a bubble of reason, memory and skill in the cloud of unknowable vastness. God graces us with life. It is a gift. Like I said last week, Sam Smith’s sweatshirt with the picture of the Milky Way and the sign saying “You are here.” Our tiny little lives are not even a hiccup in time-space when we take them for granted. Our lives are worth hating when we take them for granted, when we fail to see the infinite implications of every life, every sentient being. We are myopic critters. We are so enthralled with our own lives, our own issues, our own stories and ideas and habits. We are more distractible then the magpie at the Raptor Center with all of her cat toys and bits of shiny stuff. So many of us walk around thinking, “O! I am so interesting.” Or “My problems are so interesting, so pressing, so important. The most important thing in the world, actually.”
The thing is, though, you are important. Desperately important, actually. It is our myopia, our disctractions, our narcisimsm that gets in our way. It is our attachment to the story of our life, to the control of our life, its management and micromanagement. The life that Jesus tells us to hate is not the infinitely valuable and important blessing of life which we have been give by grace alone. The life we need to put aside, to hate, as Jesus puts it, is this distracted, self-referential, self-important treatment of life. We need to walk away from that kind of life, if it is even life at all.
That is what Jesus is teaching us here. That is what Jesus is doing in His relentless journey towards the passion. Jesus is leading us to this lesson. He loves life; your life, my life, the life we share together in our families, in this community and the communities we radiate out into the world through. He loves the pulse of life itself, what Dylan Thomas called “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” He loves that kind of life more than we can ask or imagine. As He leads us He is being led by God to do what needs to be done. Why did it happen this way? Why is He being led to the Cross? Of all places, a Cross? I do not know. Why is childbirth so painful and bloody? Why does producing food depend on killing other creatures? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that life, the will to live, ruah, the breath of God is so deep, so vast, so penetrating and insurmountable that even the evil of the Cross, the evil of the oppression, violence and imperial injustice it represents, even that cannot extinguish life, not the eternal life, not the inevitability of life that God intends. It is this radical living of life that Jesus is leading us towards.
We must die to this life, this crowded, crunched up, inward life that most all of us take for granted, we must die to it and be born anew into the spacious life God in Christ wishes for us. A life lived fully, authentically, joyously. A life lived to serve others. A life lived with dignity, with purpose, in community. A life lived with meaning, and not for us, not meaning of our own making, but the making of the world, the meaning God makes of things. This sort of life is eternal. This sort of life is the sort of life God wants for us. May we get out of our own, and God’s way as we trudge onward to Easter. “Have Mercy on us, O God, according to you loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out our offenses.” AMEN
Friday, March 30, 2012
March 18, 2012, 4th Sunday in Lent
March 18, 2012
Fourth Sunday in Lent
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have life eternal.”
What verse is that? John 3:16. Is there any other verse besides the 23rd Psalm that anyone here recognizes by chapter and verse? For Christians who do not treat scripture as the literal words of God, John 3:16 is complicated. It is very specific. It is hard to make sense of outside of a literal framework. And it attracts a lot of energy. If you ever see a Bible verse anywhere, chances are it is this one. Church of the Harvest over on Fox Hollow has it on a big banner. There has been a woman on the corner of 29th and Willamette with it on a sign. You see it on bumper stickers. It is everywhere.
Some years ago I was in a hospital chaplaincy training program. We did a lot, I mean a lot of group process work, and it was great. In particular, it was great because folks came together from very different religious backgrounds to do this training. There was a Roman Catholic who worked as a hospital chaplain, a liberal Baptist (married to a Shia Muslim), a run of the mill Boston area Congregationalist; these three were women. There was a classmate and friend of mine, a pretty whacky Methodist who when he wasn’t in divinity school was a comedy writer. There was me, the resolutely seeking and confused Anglo-Catholic Buddhist Unitarian, and finally a woman from a very, very conservative black Pentecostal church. We had lively conversations, as you could imagine.
One day though, our Pentecostal member was very upset regarding me. Not upset with me, but for me and my immortal soul. In group check-in she was crying because she realized that I was going to Hell because I did not believe in Jesus; well not properly at least, being a Unitarian. In her eyes, so she told me, I was essentially godless, I had abandoned Christ and she was genuinely scared for me.
I had a lot of thoughts about that episode. I still do. I was amazed that this woman had such deep feelings, really deep emotions on my behalf. Being in the presence of a true believer, let alone receiving the prayers of a true believer is powerful medicine. Whenever you receive such an outpouring of emotion it affects you. It affected me. And not all badly, it was very moving.
And I was also so deeply offended. I was offended that she was so confident that her way was the only possible way. I was offended by the judgments she made about me and my life and my destiny. I encountered a lot of the same religious bigotry in the Marine Corps, bad religion, “God is an angry God who likes wars sometimes” kind of bad religion. If you were not in on it you were an unbeliever, and worse was if you believed differently, then you were somehow apostate. But what I think offended me the most deeply had nothing to do with her and her beliefs, but arose in my own longing for beliefs so sure and simple, so cut and dry, so easy that everything would be ok if I could just believe this one thing truly enough. She lived the fantasy that I was searching for and seeing it I recoiled, but still felt denied something. All extremely mature thoughts.
But these feelings of judgment, religious judgment, they are common. Has anyone else here had an experience like this?
The result of all of this for me was that it took me another full year to leave the UUs and come here, to the one true church (that is a joke). This encounter scared me off for a while while I tried to figure out if I believed Christian enough to really call myself Christian. And it was this specific question, the issue of John 3:16 that was my primary stumbling block. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have life eternal.” It was a stumbling block in part because of the actual words of it, I did not know if I believed that. I didn’t even know what it meant. More so though, it was a stumbling block in the way that these words are used. If you don’t believe in these words fully enough, or if they mean something to you that is different than is generally accepted, your beliefs don’t count. They are used to segregate the true believers from the less true believers, the authentic Christians from the less serious, the sheep from the goats.
And I’ll tell you, some of those fears are deeply imbedded in my heart, I still wrestle with them. First are the specific questions: What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? What does eternal life mean? What would it mean if our God really did sacrifice an only child to a horrific, violent death to atone for the sins of the world? That’s pretty gruesome, and I think untrue, but we’ll wait for Easter to get into that. And then I get into the bigger picture of beliefs in general. Do I believe rightly enough? Do I even believe enough? And most importantly, does it matter what we believe?
To this last question, “Does it matter what we believe?” I will risk an answer. In a word the answer is yes and no. The specifics of our beliefs, let’s say our opinion on the words of the Nicene creed, or our ideas about the factual accuracy of Biblical narratives, or literal meanings of symbols, rituals or sacraments, those I would say do not matter. It might be interesting, it surely is, but it does not matter to God because they are unidimensional things, ideas, thoughts, beliefs. They are based on the individual. They are very narrow in their scope and their impact on the world.
Take for instance the question, “What is God?” A great question. A desperately meaningful question that we all need to ponder deeply in our hearts, but the answers we come up with, the specific answers we deduce from prayer, reflection and deep thought matter to us; but to our community, in and of themselves, they do not matter. We do not do a lot of testifying in Episcopal churches. We don’t witness to each other or the world the specifics of how we believe God in Christ has touched our lives, or how we believe God is supposed to touch our lives. Those kind of specifics are generally more divisive then they are community building. The whole experience I had in that chaplaincy group was that. I did not believe rightly and was therefore not acceptable to the group. No matter how much genuine sadness was expressed, those beliefs excluded, those beliefs diminished the beloved community that God in Christ desires for us. What we specifically believe I do not think matters.
That we believe, this is another matter entirely. And by this I mean it is not about what we believe, it is not about specifics, but it matters decisively that we have faith. Beliefs are based on ourselves, our observations, our educations, our upbringings, the specifics of our faith tradition’s teachings, the books we call Holy, even the specific religious teachers we have in our past and present. Beliefs are human creations. Faith, though, faith is a gift from God. Faith comes to us by grace alone. Paul wrote to his Ephesian friends, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Faith is our mind, body and spirit opened to take God inside of ourselves deeply, deep enough to change our lives. We do not change our lives by changing our minds, there has to be an opening. That opening is faith. Faith is our whole selves opened to intimacy with other people, with other creatures, with our own complex inner worlds. Beliefs lead to judgments, delineation and separation from others and from ourselves. Faith is trust in the true nature of things. It is trusting that we know Goodness when we meet it, Truth when we hear it, Beauty when we see it. It is trusting that we will recognize the Word of God when it is written on the wall in front of us. It is not about us, not in the least. It is about shedding presuppositions, putting ourselves in a posture of receptivity to learn from God directly and through those we share this life with. We know that faith is a gift of God because it is incredibly simple and is terribly difficult, always a hallmark of true holiness. If you doubt it, think of turn the other cheek, give away everything that you own and follow me, and do not worry about tomorrow because today has enough worries for itself. Those are words I have faith in. I know they are true. Do I believe them? How could that possibly matter?
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have life eternal.” Have faith that God so loves the world that whatever needs doing will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Have faith. AMEN.
Fourth Sunday in Lent
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have life eternal.”
What verse is that? John 3:16. Is there any other verse besides the 23rd Psalm that anyone here recognizes by chapter and verse? For Christians who do not treat scripture as the literal words of God, John 3:16 is complicated. It is very specific. It is hard to make sense of outside of a literal framework. And it attracts a lot of energy. If you ever see a Bible verse anywhere, chances are it is this one. Church of the Harvest over on Fox Hollow has it on a big banner. There has been a woman on the corner of 29th and Willamette with it on a sign. You see it on bumper stickers. It is everywhere.
Some years ago I was in a hospital chaplaincy training program. We did a lot, I mean a lot of group process work, and it was great. In particular, it was great because folks came together from very different religious backgrounds to do this training. There was a Roman Catholic who worked as a hospital chaplain, a liberal Baptist (married to a Shia Muslim), a run of the mill Boston area Congregationalist; these three were women. There was a classmate and friend of mine, a pretty whacky Methodist who when he wasn’t in divinity school was a comedy writer. There was me, the resolutely seeking and confused Anglo-Catholic Buddhist Unitarian, and finally a woman from a very, very conservative black Pentecostal church. We had lively conversations, as you could imagine.
One day though, our Pentecostal member was very upset regarding me. Not upset with me, but for me and my immortal soul. In group check-in she was crying because she realized that I was going to Hell because I did not believe in Jesus; well not properly at least, being a Unitarian. In her eyes, so she told me, I was essentially godless, I had abandoned Christ and she was genuinely scared for me.
I had a lot of thoughts about that episode. I still do. I was amazed that this woman had such deep feelings, really deep emotions on my behalf. Being in the presence of a true believer, let alone receiving the prayers of a true believer is powerful medicine. Whenever you receive such an outpouring of emotion it affects you. It affected me. And not all badly, it was very moving.
And I was also so deeply offended. I was offended that she was so confident that her way was the only possible way. I was offended by the judgments she made about me and my life and my destiny. I encountered a lot of the same religious bigotry in the Marine Corps, bad religion, “God is an angry God who likes wars sometimes” kind of bad religion. If you were not in on it you were an unbeliever, and worse was if you believed differently, then you were somehow apostate. But what I think offended me the most deeply had nothing to do with her and her beliefs, but arose in my own longing for beliefs so sure and simple, so cut and dry, so easy that everything would be ok if I could just believe this one thing truly enough. She lived the fantasy that I was searching for and seeing it I recoiled, but still felt denied something. All extremely mature thoughts.
But these feelings of judgment, religious judgment, they are common. Has anyone else here had an experience like this?
The result of all of this for me was that it took me another full year to leave the UUs and come here, to the one true church (that is a joke). This encounter scared me off for a while while I tried to figure out if I believed Christian enough to really call myself Christian. And it was this specific question, the issue of John 3:16 that was my primary stumbling block. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have life eternal.” It was a stumbling block in part because of the actual words of it, I did not know if I believed that. I didn’t even know what it meant. More so though, it was a stumbling block in the way that these words are used. If you don’t believe in these words fully enough, or if they mean something to you that is different than is generally accepted, your beliefs don’t count. They are used to segregate the true believers from the less true believers, the authentic Christians from the less serious, the sheep from the goats.
And I’ll tell you, some of those fears are deeply imbedded in my heart, I still wrestle with them. First are the specific questions: What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? What does eternal life mean? What would it mean if our God really did sacrifice an only child to a horrific, violent death to atone for the sins of the world? That’s pretty gruesome, and I think untrue, but we’ll wait for Easter to get into that. And then I get into the bigger picture of beliefs in general. Do I believe rightly enough? Do I even believe enough? And most importantly, does it matter what we believe?
To this last question, “Does it matter what we believe?” I will risk an answer. In a word the answer is yes and no. The specifics of our beliefs, let’s say our opinion on the words of the Nicene creed, or our ideas about the factual accuracy of Biblical narratives, or literal meanings of symbols, rituals or sacraments, those I would say do not matter. It might be interesting, it surely is, but it does not matter to God because they are unidimensional things, ideas, thoughts, beliefs. They are based on the individual. They are very narrow in their scope and their impact on the world.
Take for instance the question, “What is God?” A great question. A desperately meaningful question that we all need to ponder deeply in our hearts, but the answers we come up with, the specific answers we deduce from prayer, reflection and deep thought matter to us; but to our community, in and of themselves, they do not matter. We do not do a lot of testifying in Episcopal churches. We don’t witness to each other or the world the specifics of how we believe God in Christ has touched our lives, or how we believe God is supposed to touch our lives. Those kind of specifics are generally more divisive then they are community building. The whole experience I had in that chaplaincy group was that. I did not believe rightly and was therefore not acceptable to the group. No matter how much genuine sadness was expressed, those beliefs excluded, those beliefs diminished the beloved community that God in Christ desires for us. What we specifically believe I do not think matters.
That we believe, this is another matter entirely. And by this I mean it is not about what we believe, it is not about specifics, but it matters decisively that we have faith. Beliefs are based on ourselves, our observations, our educations, our upbringings, the specifics of our faith tradition’s teachings, the books we call Holy, even the specific religious teachers we have in our past and present. Beliefs are human creations. Faith, though, faith is a gift from God. Faith comes to us by grace alone. Paul wrote to his Ephesian friends, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Faith is our mind, body and spirit opened to take God inside of ourselves deeply, deep enough to change our lives. We do not change our lives by changing our minds, there has to be an opening. That opening is faith. Faith is our whole selves opened to intimacy with other people, with other creatures, with our own complex inner worlds. Beliefs lead to judgments, delineation and separation from others and from ourselves. Faith is trust in the true nature of things. It is trusting that we know Goodness when we meet it, Truth when we hear it, Beauty when we see it. It is trusting that we will recognize the Word of God when it is written on the wall in front of us. It is not about us, not in the least. It is about shedding presuppositions, putting ourselves in a posture of receptivity to learn from God directly and through those we share this life with. We know that faith is a gift of God because it is incredibly simple and is terribly difficult, always a hallmark of true holiness. If you doubt it, think of turn the other cheek, give away everything that you own and follow me, and do not worry about tomorrow because today has enough worries for itself. Those are words I have faith in. I know they are true. Do I believe them? How could that possibly matter?
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have life eternal.” Have faith that God so loves the world that whatever needs doing will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Have faith. AMEN.
March 4, 2012, 2nd Sunday in Lent
March 4, 2012
Second Sunday in Lent, Year B
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things… If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Lenten scripture really puts things in perspective. Think about Jesus and where He was, and where He knew He was going. We’ve begun our own journey towards the passion in our Lenten devotions, the purpose of which is to help us remember Jesus and His journey towards the passion. At this point in Mark’s account, Jesus and his friends were operating in Galilee, the crowds were growing, he couldn’t even go into some towns by now, there were so many people. This activity attracted the attention of the authorities. They knew all about him; the religious hierarchy, the collaborators in the government and maybe even the Roman imperial overlords. If this story was contemporary, there’d be a file on Him for sure, He’d be on some FBI list, Jesus probably could not fly. Scary stuff. He knew that before it was over He would suffer, and terribly. He knew that before it was over that those who went with Him would suffer, and terribly. And He knew that after three days He would rise from the dead and be seated at the right hand of God. And He knew that those who stuck with Him, who committed themselves to living, to being the Good News that was being revealed in the world, they would get their reward. “…Those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel, will save it.”
Lent is a time to consider our vocation as Christians; in particular, to take stock of our Christian commitment. How committed do we have to be? What is a reasonable expectation to have of ourselves? How literally do we need to deny ourselves and take up a “cross”? A cross… These are very, very important questions. These questions get to the very root of why we are here in Church, individually at least. And, well, Our Lord and Savior is pretty clear on this. We have to be fully committed. There is no half way. He says directly, “Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…” Fair enough, He is being very clear with us. But then again, He was talking to fellow members of a radical religious splinter group, fundamentalist peasant revolutionaries, they took their holy books, as we would say in Boston, wicked seriously. They were harassed, persecuted, executed on behalf of the theocratic, collaborationist authorities. What does it mean to us, in polite contemporary society, sitting together here in this room, about as far from Galilee, year 33, as we could get in time or place. What does “take up our cross” mean for us?
What Jesus is telling us is that we have to live out our beliefs. Not even our beliefs exactly. What we “believe” isn’t that important, what is important is that we have to live as we know we are supposed to live. We know right from wrong, we have to live in that knowledge. We have to Be what we are supposed to be. Honestly, I do not think Jesus’ meaning changes based on context, historical, geographical, whatever. If anything, the less our behavior endangers us, the less risky it is, the greater the commitment we are expected to have.
We must deny ourselves and pick up our cross. Denying ourselves, the way it is written here, implies acting in a selfless way, giving up one’s place at the center of things. It is not about me. It is not about you. It is about others, the world, God.
And our cross… that is the work you have been given to do, the burden you have to bear. It can be seen as the hand you have been dealt, the genes you carry, the habits and tendencies your family has so generously gifted you with. It is injuries your wear on your body, mind and spirit. It is the set of skills you have been blessed with or that you were not blessed with. It is knowledge of your life situation AND knowledge that you still have things expected of you. Some of us are sick and poor and miserable, and we still need to get up each day, wash our face, and try our best to be and do what we know God expects us to be and do. Some of us have easy, comfortable lives, blessed by God for sure, and we still need to get up, engage a suffering world, sacrifice our time and comfort and wealth and privilege and be and do what we know God expects us to be and do.
Some of us have begun reading a little book by the English religion writer Evelyn Underhill. You might remember her from our conversation about prayer and mortification back in Advent. One of her legacies is directly related to the level of her commitment to her beliefs, her knowledge of what God required of her, the cross she had to bear. She died in London in 1941. What was going on in London in 1941? The Blitz. At that point, they were alone, the British, alone against Hitler. Can you imagine a more complicated place to be a committed, evangelical pacifist? No. But she was. She became extremely unpopular. But she understood certain requirements of the Christian Life, chief amongst them that war was the antithesis of Christian living. She was unequivocal in her language. The Christian life requires, requires that we love in the face of horror, that we accept all others, that we practice boundless love, that we are willing to embrace and share the suffering of others, even to the point of death. To do less, she says, “Is striking a deal with the Devil.” She uses strong language: requirements of the Christian life, deal with the devil. But this is what Jesus is talking about. The commitment that is required of us as Christians is clear: We must deny ourselves, making it not about us; we must take up our cross, doing the work we have been given to do. And get up each day, each inglorious Tuesday morning and be the child of God, the servant of Christ that we are.
Taking up our cross is not always as dramatic as this. I struggle mightily with taking up my own cross. Doing what I need to do when it needs doing. Most of us are faced with crosses that are long, slow, cumulative burdens. With little ones at home, it is endless. They need to be fed and cleaned and dressed and loved on every single day. A beautiful clean house lasts exactly until the next morning when we all wake up. Piles of laundry stack up religiously. And it doesn’t matter if I had a long day and do not feel like picking up the puzzle pieces that are scattered across the kitchen, or feel like cooking dinner, or doing the dishes or running the tub for them or for Willow to clean the mud caked in his paws. Surely Windy has had a long day too; she doesn’t have an office door to close, or adults to have conversations with. So you lean in, remember that it is not about you and you do what needs doing. And I find that sometimes impossibly hard, but that is the Christian life in a nutshell. That is denying ourselves and taking up our cross and it happens in grand and in very small ways.
Our crosses can take many forms. Take care of your body better. Lose that 20 pounds the doctor has been telling you about. Spend that extra 20% on organic food, maybe even more on local organic food, the future of the planet depends on decisions like that, certainly the future of our community depends on it. Buy less of whatever it is you buy. Put on a sweater and turn the heat down. If you can, walk more, drive less, bike more or use the bus. Use the library. Go to contradances. Participate here. Build community. Cook from scratch, it doesn’t take that much longer, it costs a lot less, tastes better and is better for your and everyone else’s body. Volunteer at the Eagan warming center. Don’t turn the other way when police are rousting a homeless person downtown. Stop and pay attention, everyone in that situation is very vulnerable. When something in the paper boils your blood, when injustice is just so obvious, get involved. Get active with a political candidate, campaign or movement. Do something. Be the person God expects you to be.
What I am saying is that we matter in the world. Our intention, our activity and our presence matters in the world. It matters to God and the world how committed we are to living as we know we are supposed to live. As the baptized, as Christians, we are God’s agents, just like those disciples whom Jesus told to deny themselves and take up their crosses. What is your cross? When will you take it up? Thanks be to God we are not alone in bearing it. AMEN
Second Sunday in Lent, Year B
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things… If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Lenten scripture really puts things in perspective. Think about Jesus and where He was, and where He knew He was going. We’ve begun our own journey towards the passion in our Lenten devotions, the purpose of which is to help us remember Jesus and His journey towards the passion. At this point in Mark’s account, Jesus and his friends were operating in Galilee, the crowds were growing, he couldn’t even go into some towns by now, there were so many people. This activity attracted the attention of the authorities. They knew all about him; the religious hierarchy, the collaborators in the government and maybe even the Roman imperial overlords. If this story was contemporary, there’d be a file on Him for sure, He’d be on some FBI list, Jesus probably could not fly. Scary stuff. He knew that before it was over He would suffer, and terribly. He knew that before it was over that those who went with Him would suffer, and terribly. And He knew that after three days He would rise from the dead and be seated at the right hand of God. And He knew that those who stuck with Him, who committed themselves to living, to being the Good News that was being revealed in the world, they would get their reward. “…Those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel, will save it.”
Lent is a time to consider our vocation as Christians; in particular, to take stock of our Christian commitment. How committed do we have to be? What is a reasonable expectation to have of ourselves? How literally do we need to deny ourselves and take up a “cross”? A cross… These are very, very important questions. These questions get to the very root of why we are here in Church, individually at least. And, well, Our Lord and Savior is pretty clear on this. We have to be fully committed. There is no half way. He says directly, “Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…” Fair enough, He is being very clear with us. But then again, He was talking to fellow members of a radical religious splinter group, fundamentalist peasant revolutionaries, they took their holy books, as we would say in Boston, wicked seriously. They were harassed, persecuted, executed on behalf of the theocratic, collaborationist authorities. What does it mean to us, in polite contemporary society, sitting together here in this room, about as far from Galilee, year 33, as we could get in time or place. What does “take up our cross” mean for us?
What Jesus is telling us is that we have to live out our beliefs. Not even our beliefs exactly. What we “believe” isn’t that important, what is important is that we have to live as we know we are supposed to live. We know right from wrong, we have to live in that knowledge. We have to Be what we are supposed to be. Honestly, I do not think Jesus’ meaning changes based on context, historical, geographical, whatever. If anything, the less our behavior endangers us, the less risky it is, the greater the commitment we are expected to have.
We must deny ourselves and pick up our cross. Denying ourselves, the way it is written here, implies acting in a selfless way, giving up one’s place at the center of things. It is not about me. It is not about you. It is about others, the world, God.
And our cross… that is the work you have been given to do, the burden you have to bear. It can be seen as the hand you have been dealt, the genes you carry, the habits and tendencies your family has so generously gifted you with. It is injuries your wear on your body, mind and spirit. It is the set of skills you have been blessed with or that you were not blessed with. It is knowledge of your life situation AND knowledge that you still have things expected of you. Some of us are sick and poor and miserable, and we still need to get up each day, wash our face, and try our best to be and do what we know God expects us to be and do. Some of us have easy, comfortable lives, blessed by God for sure, and we still need to get up, engage a suffering world, sacrifice our time and comfort and wealth and privilege and be and do what we know God expects us to be and do.
Some of us have begun reading a little book by the English religion writer Evelyn Underhill. You might remember her from our conversation about prayer and mortification back in Advent. One of her legacies is directly related to the level of her commitment to her beliefs, her knowledge of what God required of her, the cross she had to bear. She died in London in 1941. What was going on in London in 1941? The Blitz. At that point, they were alone, the British, alone against Hitler. Can you imagine a more complicated place to be a committed, evangelical pacifist? No. But she was. She became extremely unpopular. But she understood certain requirements of the Christian Life, chief amongst them that war was the antithesis of Christian living. She was unequivocal in her language. The Christian life requires, requires that we love in the face of horror, that we accept all others, that we practice boundless love, that we are willing to embrace and share the suffering of others, even to the point of death. To do less, she says, “Is striking a deal with the Devil.” She uses strong language: requirements of the Christian life, deal with the devil. But this is what Jesus is talking about. The commitment that is required of us as Christians is clear: We must deny ourselves, making it not about us; we must take up our cross, doing the work we have been given to do. And get up each day, each inglorious Tuesday morning and be the child of God, the servant of Christ that we are.
Taking up our cross is not always as dramatic as this. I struggle mightily with taking up my own cross. Doing what I need to do when it needs doing. Most of us are faced with crosses that are long, slow, cumulative burdens. With little ones at home, it is endless. They need to be fed and cleaned and dressed and loved on every single day. A beautiful clean house lasts exactly until the next morning when we all wake up. Piles of laundry stack up religiously. And it doesn’t matter if I had a long day and do not feel like picking up the puzzle pieces that are scattered across the kitchen, or feel like cooking dinner, or doing the dishes or running the tub for them or for Willow to clean the mud caked in his paws. Surely Windy has had a long day too; she doesn’t have an office door to close, or adults to have conversations with. So you lean in, remember that it is not about you and you do what needs doing. And I find that sometimes impossibly hard, but that is the Christian life in a nutshell. That is denying ourselves and taking up our cross and it happens in grand and in very small ways.
Our crosses can take many forms. Take care of your body better. Lose that 20 pounds the doctor has been telling you about. Spend that extra 20% on organic food, maybe even more on local organic food, the future of the planet depends on decisions like that, certainly the future of our community depends on it. Buy less of whatever it is you buy. Put on a sweater and turn the heat down. If you can, walk more, drive less, bike more or use the bus. Use the library. Go to contradances. Participate here. Build community. Cook from scratch, it doesn’t take that much longer, it costs a lot less, tastes better and is better for your and everyone else’s body. Volunteer at the Eagan warming center. Don’t turn the other way when police are rousting a homeless person downtown. Stop and pay attention, everyone in that situation is very vulnerable. When something in the paper boils your blood, when injustice is just so obvious, get involved. Get active with a political candidate, campaign or movement. Do something. Be the person God expects you to be.
What I am saying is that we matter in the world. Our intention, our activity and our presence matters in the world. It matters to God and the world how committed we are to living as we know we are supposed to live. As the baptized, as Christians, we are God’s agents, just like those disciples whom Jesus told to deny themselves and take up their crosses. What is your cross? When will you take it up? Thanks be to God we are not alone in bearing it. AMEN
February 26, 2012, First Sunday in Lent
February 26, 2012
The First Sunday in Lent, Year B
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on Him.”
Let’s pause for a moment for a moment for a lesson on Biblical criticism. It is Lent, after all. Does anyone here know what Q is? Just raise your hand. If you are seminary trained, lower your hand. OK. I heard a story on Krista Tippet’s radio show, it used to be called “Speaking of Faith” not it is called “On Being.” A Bible scholar was lecturing about Q at a church and at one point asked for questions. A woman raised her hand and was called on. She stood up, and turned around towards her pastor and asked, “Did you know about this, this Q?
“Of course,” he stammered, “it’s New Testament 101.”
With tears in her eyes, she replied, “Why didn’t you tell us about it?”
Selfishly, I don’t ever want to be that pastor. More importantly, I don’t want you all to feel in that position; the position that you do not understand some basic tenants of our faith and theological inheritance, basic understanding of the history and traditions of our church, and basic understanding of the history, form and content of our Holy Scriptures. Knowing with our heads, intellectual understanding I believe is important to a full knowledge of God. It is far less important that feeling, it pales in comparison to our ability to relate to others, and in the end, it is actually irrelevant when compared to how important being kind is, but knowledge helps us get to those places, knowledge helps us plan routes to those places, helps us recognize that we are on the right path or have even arrived. Knowledge is a means, not an ends; but it is a potent means.
So, Q. What is Q? Q is shorthand for Quelle, which is the German word for Source. It is a theory that explains in part how the Synoptic Gospels came to be written. (Which ones are Synoptic?) A German scholar back in 1838 noticed and described a series of passages found in Matthew and Luke that are not found in Mark. The theory goes that both Matthew and Luke (whoever it was that wrote those two books, and chances are they were not named Matthew or Luke, or that it was even a single person but any way), both had a copy of Mark, and both had another source, some manuscript, a collection of stories and sayings that has never been located; this manuscript has been called Q. Think the Gospel of Thomas, Q may have been something like that. So things that are in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark are Q. This includes the Golden Rule, the parable of the talents, the lilies of the fields, and little things like the Lord’s Prayer. Important stuff. Of course there are things in Matthew that are not in Mark or Luke. These things are called Special Matthew. So it would stand to reason that things found in Luke but not in Matthew or Mark would be called??? Special Luke. Very good. Q.
I bring up Q because today’s gospel is a great example of Q. Mark, who we are sharing much of Lent with, Mark tells us of Jesus and his baptism, then the Spirit immediately driving him out into the wilderness where he was tempted or maybe a better translation is tested by the devil, and surrounded by wild beasts and waited upon or ministered to by angels. In those short few verses, in the sparse language of Mark, a lot is going on.
So think about Matthew and Luke’s telling of this same story. Think about what is lacking in Mark that Matthew and Luke go into great detail about? The Temptation of Jesus… In Matthew and Luke Satan has a speaking role. There is significant detail about the temptation or test. “If you are hungry, turn these stones into bread. But Jesus said, ‘Man does not live on bread alone.” The devil says “Worship me and you’ll have everything.” And Jesus replies “It is written: you shall love the Lord your God and serve only him.” Then they are whisked to Jerusalem, and the devil tells him that he could fling himself from the pinnacle of the Temple and would be bourne to earth on wings of angels but Jesus resists, “It is written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Q. Sort of fleshes out the story; gives potent imagery to a crucial moment in Our Lord’s life and formation for ministry.
All the bible scholarship, all the delving into ancient texts with contemporary tools and understandings, all that is good for is deepening our ability to understand, relate to the texts, how to take them deeper into our hearts, how to go from reading scripture to meditating, even feasting on the Word of God.
The Temptation of Jesus as related by Matthew and Luke is a powerful story. While there is a lot of detail compared to the Markan version, questions still draw us in. Does this story tell us that literally, physically Satan tempted Jesus? Did Satan maybe visit Jesus in his dreams? A good question is whether Q is carrying the story of a conscious Evil One tempting our Lord or the story of a vision brought on by extreme ascetic practice? Would that make the story any less “real”? 40 days of meditation let alone 40 days of meditation while fasting significantly changes our understanding of and ability to perceive reality. There are multiple realities. Think of St. Jerome, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Francis, the Buddha.
Mark’s version, though, leaves a lot more room for our imaginations. Forty days in the wilderness Satan tempted, tested him. How? It may have been like Q narrates, it may have been sleepiness. It may have been depression or the vacuous boredom and despair that often comes with extreme isolation. That is certainly one way of understanding Satan, demons, evil, the ways our consciousness and subconsciousness works or doesn’t work. And surrounded by wild beasts, that is probably a reference to evil spirits. Bumps in the night sound a lot different when we are alone, a lot different sitting on the side of a mountain in a desert wilderness, a lot different after not eating for a couple of weeks. And being waited on, ministered to by Angels, little tiny things can become blessings upon blessings. Gifts from Angels for sure. I remember freezing cold nights on my tank in the high deserts of Southern California. We wouldn’t sleep for a few days, and you’d sit there in the turret in the darkness on watch waiting, waiting, like in the psalm, the watchman waits for the morning, waiting for the new day which always seemed forever from then. Then, then there would be that first glimmer of the dawn, Begin Morning Nautical Twilight is the meteorological term, a gift of the Angles is another way to describe it. Those were some of the happiest moments of my life, sitting on top of the tank, watching the sun creep out of the dark horizon, feeling the warmth drive the chill out of my body as little stoves would alight in the cover of sunlight and coffee would begin to find its way to us. It felt like another lease on life. It is too bad that we then used that lease on life to train with our tanks, blowing up plywood silhouettes in the desert, learning to kill more efficiently. In any case, we can be ministered to by Angels in many ways.
It is Lent. One thing I am noticing about us, this community of Resurrection, is that we are not a very Biblical people. I get the feeling that a lot of us struggle with our relationship to the Bible, I get the feeling that most of us do not spend a lot of time involved in Scripture, thinking about scripture, even casually reading scripture. I can understand. Our scriptural inheritance is exceedingly complicated. There are parts of it that we don’t want our kids to be exposed to. There are contradictory parts, confusing parts, parts we just don’t believe or don’t want to believe. There is a lot of violence and a lot of scoundrels. And there is overwhelming life, and beauty, and loyalty and sacrifice and mystery enough to make you tingle. The archtypes of Abraham and Issac, Moses, “let my people go.” Job in his suffering. David and Goliath and on and on and on. And add to that the whole record of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I often look at scripture as a record of the human experience encapsulated in the story and stories and poetry and mythology of a people, and is transmitted to us in our language and as a sacred, a holy thing that we need to approach with gravity, with reverence. Most importantly, we need to approach it.
This is Lent. As we walk together these next 36 days towards the Cross and Passion, I encourage you to dig out your Bible. Put it on your bed stand. Before you fall asleep, read a chapter, just one they are short. Maybe start with the first chapter of Mark. Or maybe begin at the beginning and open up Genesis. Or Exodus – it had 40 chapters, one for each day of Lent. Read the text. Ask questions of it. Notice where details are missing and imagine what filled them in. Maybe that was what whomever wrote Q did. And we are the better for it. AMEN
The First Sunday in Lent, Year B
The Rev. Dr. Brent Was
“The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on Him.”
Let’s pause for a moment for a moment for a lesson on Biblical criticism. It is Lent, after all. Does anyone here know what Q is? Just raise your hand. If you are seminary trained, lower your hand. OK. I heard a story on Krista Tippet’s radio show, it used to be called “Speaking of Faith” not it is called “On Being.” A Bible scholar was lecturing about Q at a church and at one point asked for questions. A woman raised her hand and was called on. She stood up, and turned around towards her pastor and asked, “Did you know about this, this Q?
“Of course,” he stammered, “it’s New Testament 101.”
With tears in her eyes, she replied, “Why didn’t you tell us about it?”
Selfishly, I don’t ever want to be that pastor. More importantly, I don’t want you all to feel in that position; the position that you do not understand some basic tenants of our faith and theological inheritance, basic understanding of the history and traditions of our church, and basic understanding of the history, form and content of our Holy Scriptures. Knowing with our heads, intellectual understanding I believe is important to a full knowledge of God. It is far less important that feeling, it pales in comparison to our ability to relate to others, and in the end, it is actually irrelevant when compared to how important being kind is, but knowledge helps us get to those places, knowledge helps us plan routes to those places, helps us recognize that we are on the right path or have even arrived. Knowledge is a means, not an ends; but it is a potent means.
So, Q. What is Q? Q is shorthand for Quelle, which is the German word for Source. It is a theory that explains in part how the Synoptic Gospels came to be written. (Which ones are Synoptic?) A German scholar back in 1838 noticed and described a series of passages found in Matthew and Luke that are not found in Mark. The theory goes that both Matthew and Luke (whoever it was that wrote those two books, and chances are they were not named Matthew or Luke, or that it was even a single person but any way), both had a copy of Mark, and both had another source, some manuscript, a collection of stories and sayings that has never been located; this manuscript has been called Q. Think the Gospel of Thomas, Q may have been something like that. So things that are in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark are Q. This includes the Golden Rule, the parable of the talents, the lilies of the fields, and little things like the Lord’s Prayer. Important stuff. Of course there are things in Matthew that are not in Mark or Luke. These things are called Special Matthew. So it would stand to reason that things found in Luke but not in Matthew or Mark would be called??? Special Luke. Very good. Q.
I bring up Q because today’s gospel is a great example of Q. Mark, who we are sharing much of Lent with, Mark tells us of Jesus and his baptism, then the Spirit immediately driving him out into the wilderness where he was tempted or maybe a better translation is tested by the devil, and surrounded by wild beasts and waited upon or ministered to by angels. In those short few verses, in the sparse language of Mark, a lot is going on.
So think about Matthew and Luke’s telling of this same story. Think about what is lacking in Mark that Matthew and Luke go into great detail about? The Temptation of Jesus… In Matthew and Luke Satan has a speaking role. There is significant detail about the temptation or test. “If you are hungry, turn these stones into bread. But Jesus said, ‘Man does not live on bread alone.” The devil says “Worship me and you’ll have everything.” And Jesus replies “It is written: you shall love the Lord your God and serve only him.” Then they are whisked to Jerusalem, and the devil tells him that he could fling himself from the pinnacle of the Temple and would be bourne to earth on wings of angels but Jesus resists, “It is written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Q. Sort of fleshes out the story; gives potent imagery to a crucial moment in Our Lord’s life and formation for ministry.
All the bible scholarship, all the delving into ancient texts with contemporary tools and understandings, all that is good for is deepening our ability to understand, relate to the texts, how to take them deeper into our hearts, how to go from reading scripture to meditating, even feasting on the Word of God.
The Temptation of Jesus as related by Matthew and Luke is a powerful story. While there is a lot of detail compared to the Markan version, questions still draw us in. Does this story tell us that literally, physically Satan tempted Jesus? Did Satan maybe visit Jesus in his dreams? A good question is whether Q is carrying the story of a conscious Evil One tempting our Lord or the story of a vision brought on by extreme ascetic practice? Would that make the story any less “real”? 40 days of meditation let alone 40 days of meditation while fasting significantly changes our understanding of and ability to perceive reality. There are multiple realities. Think of St. Jerome, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Francis, the Buddha.
Mark’s version, though, leaves a lot more room for our imaginations. Forty days in the wilderness Satan tempted, tested him. How? It may have been like Q narrates, it may have been sleepiness. It may have been depression or the vacuous boredom and despair that often comes with extreme isolation. That is certainly one way of understanding Satan, demons, evil, the ways our consciousness and subconsciousness works or doesn’t work. And surrounded by wild beasts, that is probably a reference to evil spirits. Bumps in the night sound a lot different when we are alone, a lot different sitting on the side of a mountain in a desert wilderness, a lot different after not eating for a couple of weeks. And being waited on, ministered to by Angels, little tiny things can become blessings upon blessings. Gifts from Angels for sure. I remember freezing cold nights on my tank in the high deserts of Southern California. We wouldn’t sleep for a few days, and you’d sit there in the turret in the darkness on watch waiting, waiting, like in the psalm, the watchman waits for the morning, waiting for the new day which always seemed forever from then. Then, then there would be that first glimmer of the dawn, Begin Morning Nautical Twilight is the meteorological term, a gift of the Angles is another way to describe it. Those were some of the happiest moments of my life, sitting on top of the tank, watching the sun creep out of the dark horizon, feeling the warmth drive the chill out of my body as little stoves would alight in the cover of sunlight and coffee would begin to find its way to us. It felt like another lease on life. It is too bad that we then used that lease on life to train with our tanks, blowing up plywood silhouettes in the desert, learning to kill more efficiently. In any case, we can be ministered to by Angels in many ways.
It is Lent. One thing I am noticing about us, this community of Resurrection, is that we are not a very Biblical people. I get the feeling that a lot of us struggle with our relationship to the Bible, I get the feeling that most of us do not spend a lot of time involved in Scripture, thinking about scripture, even casually reading scripture. I can understand. Our scriptural inheritance is exceedingly complicated. There are parts of it that we don’t want our kids to be exposed to. There are contradictory parts, confusing parts, parts we just don’t believe or don’t want to believe. There is a lot of violence and a lot of scoundrels. And there is overwhelming life, and beauty, and loyalty and sacrifice and mystery enough to make you tingle. The archtypes of Abraham and Issac, Moses, “let my people go.” Job in his suffering. David and Goliath and on and on and on. And add to that the whole record of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I often look at scripture as a record of the human experience encapsulated in the story and stories and poetry and mythology of a people, and is transmitted to us in our language and as a sacred, a holy thing that we need to approach with gravity, with reverence. Most importantly, we need to approach it.
This is Lent. As we walk together these next 36 days towards the Cross and Passion, I encourage you to dig out your Bible. Put it on your bed stand. Before you fall asleep, read a chapter, just one they are short. Maybe start with the first chapter of Mark. Or maybe begin at the beginning and open up Genesis. Or Exodus – it had 40 chapters, one for each day of Lent. Read the text. Ask questions of it. Notice where details are missing and imagine what filled them in. Maybe that was what whomever wrote Q did. And we are the better for it. AMEN
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