A Humble Victory

Today’s scripture: Mark 11:1-11

How many of you would say that your life has gone the way you thought it would? How many of you would say this year has gone the way you thought it would? Okay what about this morning? Has your morning gone the way you thought it would? Anyone that has kids in here probably isn’t raising their hands- unless you expected total chaos and then kudos to you for being realistic about your life. I know Sunday mornings in my household growing up consisted of us children sitting on the steps crying and begging our parents to let us stay home from church. My next question is rhetorical-  Have you guys figured out how to deal with this? How to deal with maybe the disappointment that comes with the unexpected or the anxiety or fear? I can’t even begin to explain how the last 3 months have gone differently than I expected ( not having as much control over my life as I used to, I have a feeling is playing a big part in this) and I am not quite sure how to handle it. The closest thing I have come to an answer and we will touch on this today is that often fear and excitement or fear and amazement are emotions that are so intertwined it is hard to decipher between the two. If when things go unexpectedly, we could begin to feel the excitement over the fear now then maybe the unexpected wouldn’t be so bad.

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday (notice I’m wearing my palm shirt-I like to think this shirt makes up for the other 51 Sundays of the year when I don’t wear “pastoral clothing”) -On this Sunday we are celebrating Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I want to spend time today talking about the journey or journeys that take us to the temple courts in our scripture. In some ways this passage is very uneventful and doesn’t give me much to go on but in other ways I think there is a lot to explore in Marks rendition of the journey to this event that will take place.  I think there are multiple different journeys all culminating in Jerusalem on this day.  I want to talk about these journeys as pilgrimages.  Thomas Merton describes a pilgrimage as, “the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both.” I chose the word pilgrimage because I think people are journeying into Jerusalem at this time for different reasons, all with different inner meanings about why they are making this journey. These pilgrimages I believe symbolize the road to new life and whether these different parties realize it or not this will prove to be truer than they could have ever imagined.

We go on pilgrimages as a way to help us step into new life. It’s as if without this pilgrimage we don’t feel like we will be able to fully live into what’s in front of us. So we go on cross country road trips or backpacking through Europe as ways to find ourselves or get the answers we are looking for. People most often take these trips to help them process a grievous event in their lives or to help them prepare for a big change they are about to encounter. It is a time where we intentionally take time to get in touch with who we are and how we respond to the world. We set off on a pilgrimage with a particular set of questions we want answered but I would argue that rarely are the answers we get the ones we set out to find. Many of my friends have taken these pilgrimages and have found them to be freeing and healing.

I am reminded of this episode in Gilmore Girls when Lorelei, the mom of the infamous mother daughter duo chooses to take her own pilgrimage. She read this book called Wild, maybe you know it, where this young woman goes on a thousand mile hike to find herself. Lorelei if you know anything about Gilmore girls is the least likely person to do something like this but at this point in her life, she feels as though she is suffocating and needs some air and so this is what her solution is. At first it appears she is taking this backpacking trip ( again something she would never be caught dead doing- the closest she’s ever gotten to nature is when she pretended she knew how to fish to impress a potential suitor) to help her figure out if she wants to marry her long-time boyfriend but on the course of her journey which actually doesn’t even last that long she realizes her current confusion in life is caused by her reluctance to grieve the death of her father and fully acknowledge what he meant to her. It is in this realization that things become clear and she is able to live into the new life in front of her.

Even though pilgrimages seem to be the new trendy way of finding ourselves, pilgrimages originated from a desire to reconnect with the holy, the creator. In our text today, there are multiple pilgrimages happening. The first pilgrimage I believe is made up of the crowd or rather all the bystanders, Most of this crowd is made up of people who have begun the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish Passover. This is a point of interest because Passover is the celebration of deliverance from when God liberated his people from Egypt and from the rule of Pharaoh. People are coming in to commemorate the new life that God had given them back in the exodus. The crowd is also made up of people who have been following Jesus’ journey. They have seen Jesus perform miracles and they have heard rumors that He is the Messiah they have been waiting for. These are the people we see in our passage that are yelling hosanna, laying down their cloaks and waving their palms.  People have followed Jesus on this last leg of His journey because they anticipate that He is bringing about something new. All of these people find themselves in Jerusalem with the hope to be renewed. What they expect of this pilgrimage is to be reminded of new life but what this pilgrimage will actually give them is so much more than they expected- They will receive a new way of being in the world.

This is just one of the things I love about the biblical narrative. There is always so much more going on than what meets the eye. How scandalous and intriguing that both the Passover and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem are occurring at the same time. Time and time again people think one thing is happening when really something so much more is happening right under their noses. In the Exodus, this pilgrimage to find new life, God invites Moses to envision this new life and now here in Jerusalem, Through Jesus, God will again invite us to envision what new life looks like. This time though for good. At first as we know, it will look like death and destruction and defeat. But if we look deeper we see that new life looks like love and communion and ongoing liberation and redemption for all of creation.

So the first pilgrimage is that of the crowds or bystanders.

Theologians, Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg suggest that there are two more processions entering into Jerusalem on this day. In the book, The last Week, they say, “Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. It was the beginning of the week of Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish year… One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers. Jesus was from the peasant village of Nazareth, his message was about the kingdom of God, and his followers came from the peasant class…  On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus’s procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire… Pilate’s military procession was a demonstration of both Roman imperial power and Roman imperial theology.”

So now in addition to the pilgrimage of the crowd we have two more parties on a journey to Jerusalem. For Jesus this pilgrimage is to liberate humankind once and for all and it is done through a humble king, riding in on a humble animal to to die a humble death ultimately resulting in the greatest victory of all time. For Pontius Pilot this pilgrimage, is to further lock in oppressive power by the Roman empire by riding in on a warhorse, to present himself as a mighty king who will use violence to instill fear in his people.

How do we know Jesus’ journey to the cross is one of humbleness? Over half of this passage is Mark spending time talking about a donkey.  Mark wants to emphasize what this entry into Jerusalem looks like because it will foretell what this victory will look like.  In this description of the colt, Mark is referring to the passage in Zechariah that says,

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River [Euphrates] to the ends of the earth.”

Crossan puts it so well in his simplified explanation- Jesus rides the most unmilitary mount imaginable: a female nursing donkey with her little colt trotting along beside her.

Think about what that tell us about who Jesus is.

So what do these three pilgrimages tell us? They tell us a lot but for me they tell me that 1. God and these stories we find in scripture are uniquely ingenious and 2. They also tell me that people rarely get what they expect. I think we let new life pass us by if we don’t make room for life to take us by surprise, for God to take us by surprise. With God it is never what you think and once you get past the fear, past the extremely difficult task of letting go of control there is so much beauty in that. Our God is so much bigger than we are. This is a God who flips the worlds idea of power and victory and life upside down and challenges us to a new way of being in the world. God challenges us to try on humbleness, on vulnerability, on weakness and see where that gets us.

Jesus creates an empire that includes all of humanity- that requires all of humanity to partake in. In a way that legitimizes that God lives in everyone. My roommate recently brought to my attention how Christian feminists are using the word kin-dom rather than kingdom when referring to the reign of God. It is thought that a woman named Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz is the woman that coined it. In an article by Reta Haltman Finger, she says, “I think “kin-dom” is a good word and better reflects the kind of society Jesus envisions—as a shared community of equals who serve each other. This is actually a radical political statement. It is Jesus’ alternative to the Roman Empire. It is asking God to set up God’s reign on earth instead of the martial, stratified, and repressive reign of Caesar.”

People were expecting Jesus to bring forth the Kingdom of God but what they got was the kin-dom of God. In this sense, Jesus did not meet the expectations of the people- where we get tripped up though is that we deceive ourselves into thinking that somehow Jesus failed our expectations when really He surpassed them.

This whole Lenten journey has been a pilgrimage. As we step into this Holy week and we celebrate new life now available to all, what do you expect that to look like? How might these expectations be misguided? How do we grieve the disappointment that new life looks different than we thought it would? How do we enjoy the new life given to us and learn to live into it?

To Follow Christ is to Suffer

John 12: 20-33

John’s words and messages have a social justice bent- he says whoever hates his life IN THIS WORLD will keep it for eternal life and whoever loves his life will lose it. One of the cool things about the Gospels is that sometimes we have the same story in each of the 4 gospels and we can see how each author portrays the same story differently. This story is what they call Jesus predicts his death for the 2^nd time.  In all the gospels, they all use different words and analogies to make a point.-Luke says, whoever welcomes this child welcomes me,  Matthew says, whoever wants to save his life will lose it, Mark says whoever wants to be first must be last.  Listening to these we might think we are talking about the concept of deconstructing our faith to build it up again, or giving up everything we own to find joy in non-material things or we could be talking about an “eat, pray, love” experience of going to find yourself when your lost type of thing. But if we look closer at the wording here in John, I don’t think we are talking about any of those because John’s gospel uses very specific language to communicate to us- three simple words that make up a preposition phrase that change the meaning- in this world. What does this mean? It does not mean that God is saying if you find yourself enjoying your life well you should feel guilty. But it is saying that if your heart doesn’t break for the despair, violence, and hatred that we see every day then maybe we are blind to what it means to live in this world. Look around. Everywhere we look we see injustice- hate crimes on every color and ethnicity, every sexual identification and preference. There is sickness and death and cruelty and pain. You can love your life but hate that it is in this world with so much despair.

 In this passage with the wording, I think John is making a point about the people who find themselves unscathed in this world verse the people who are just trying to survive. If we don’t see the pain, feel the pain hear the pain- are we really living in this world? How can people have so vastly different experiences? Is it possible we are part of what is causing some of this pain for some people? When I hear people not understanding why people get upset about racism I realize they probably have not experienced hurtful things pertaining to their identity. And this is what privilege is. It’s like- if you can’t think of your late friend or family member ( we all have one)- it’s probably because it’s you. I can see you’re all rapidly thinking of someone to be sure it cant be you.  This is a harsh passage. These are Jesus’ words and if I felt like I could in good conscience give us a watered-down version I would. But I don’t think there is a watered-down version. To piggyback on last week maybe this is also what it means to live in the light- to step out of the ignorance and face the reality of our world.

So I am going to tell you an embarrassing secret about me that I will probably regret- it’s a tiny pastor confession time. I watch the bachelor/bachelorette shows. I watch it for a couple of reasons- it is so mindless- it gives my mind a break. 2. I like analyzing people’s behavior and how they interact in certain situations with each other and the world. It’s people watching but in an interesting social experiment for all the world to see. The Bachelor this season was a microcosm of what is happening in the US. The Bachelor this year was Matt-  the 1^st black bachelor. He ended up picking Rachael who was white and it later came out that she had attended some racist events and shared some racist social media. People wanted to know most why she took so long to apologize. She told them she had to first educate herself on why people were upset. She had been privileged enough to not know what it feels like to be treated unfairly for no reason at all. She said her ignorance however is not an excuse- it was no place or no ones job to educate her or teach her what is right and wrong. She is now going to use her social media platforms and time to educate herself and share resources on how to be anti-racist. This girl could have chosen to stay ignorant- but she chose to see what was right in front of her and start to address it- and that will mean her life is harder now, filled with more despair and will look different than she anticipated.

This is the most difficult work- you choose to be aware of the realities of the world and understand what that means- it is lack of avoidance or hiding, pretending, ignorance. It’s exhausting, emotionally. It requires faith and hope and strength. It’s not always fun. You have to constantly understand why you do it. In some helping professions they call the constant empathy and “suffering with” other people Compassion fatigue. But you do it because to love other people is to empathize with them and once you open yourself to this- you can’t go back. We are all in this boat together. Howard Thurman says, “the first step toward love is a common sense of mutual worth and value. This cannot be discovered in a vacuum or in a series of artificial or hypothetical relationships. It has to be in a real situation, natural and free.” We either all rise together or all fall together. Unfortunately, if we are doing this God thing right- here on this earth we will all hurt to some extent or another. If we are doing it right- people don’t hurt alone. And this my friends is part of the good news that is the already but not yet. We know God is victor and yet we still hurt. Romans tell us- “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” We are called co-conspirators with Christ and conspire means to breathe with- if we are called to share in breath with God, share suffering then we will also share in God’s glory. We are part of the plan in getting us from the already to the full glory. We are in the process of already making sure people are not alone. We are in the process of already working towards justice ignited by righteous anger seeing our loved ones harmed. We are already learning what it means to fully live into the not yet. It is good news in the making. And while it might look different than the way we envisioned- making sure we do this together is one of the best gifts you can give someone. Ask yourself or someone else when they suffered- what the greatest help was during that time. God is redeeming the world through us.

In Matthew’s version of this text is where we hear the infamous line of pick up your cross. Is this suffering with our cross to bear? On the cross God chose to be with his people, to suffer with his people rather than leaving them. If we are co-conspirators with God and called to be like God then this is our burden to carry too. It’s hard work. It’s not fun. As I get older and I continually ask myself what does it mean to be a follower of Christ and I keep coming back to being willing to sit in the suffering and not avoid or escape the bad things happening around me. Be there for the people that hurt, learn how to be a part of the solution. This is what I think my cross is- I could choose to be blind to the suffering and avoid it and focus on all the things that make me happy and would make my individual life better and you know it would be more relaxing and less stressful and more peaceful but that my friends is not what it means to follow Christ. I have tried convincing myself that this isn’t my burden to carry and I deserve to not have to think about these things all the time. It’s easy to ask myself, “Why would God not want me to be happy all the time” and come up with a convincing answer but if you read the bible without the blinders the answer is simple.

How can I be happy when my fellow man is hurting? If it’s not my responsibility then who’s is it? Why should these people be left to fend for themselves? Isn’t it our job as Christians to help comfort and support our neighbors- that whole love your neighbor as yourself thing? Again it’s not fun but this is what God has instructed us. So we can either take up or cross and commit to doing this hard work- of suffering with or we can say no thanks and go on with our lives as we please. This is our choice. This is what it means to hate your life in this world at times.

If we are continually present to the hardship in this world- we will strive to change the world-. If you like the world you would not care to change it. When people like their lives they will not change them. If you like making lots of money, getting every opportunity you try for, never feeling oppressed or disappointed or judged by the world then why would you want anything to change?  On that same note- if you love your life more than you love the life God is calling you to or you love the things God is asking you to give up more than you love your neighbor then maybe Christianity isn’t for you. I’m going to talk about Christianity in a way maybe people haven’t thought of before. You don’t have to be a Christian- you don’t have to believe in God. Like love- it is a feeling but more than that it is a choice you make every day. You choose to love God- and you do that by loving God’s people. And again it’s a choice so you can choose not to. No one is forcing love.

This past week an Asian hate crime took place in Atlanta where a white terrorist killed 8 people in a massage parlor- 6 of whom were Asian women. He lives in a town of 2% Asian and would have had to go looking for this population instead of targeting any old public place. It is also mentioned that he might have felt rejection from women and took out his hate on these women. This crime may have been one of racist, sexist, toxic masculinity thought and behavior. To think that such hate and mismanaged emotions could have the power to take other’s lives is enough for me to not feel safe in this world.  This last week was also the one-year anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s death in which was unjustly took. We live in a world where justice is often not achieved and we are left feeling powerless and helpless to do anything about it.

This is a hard passage today. The good news is- Jesus tells us that he will draw all peoples to himself. Glory is promised to us. We will find ourselves one day in a world where there are no tears and suffering is no more. Until then though- it is up to us to sit in the suffering with one another as Christ has done for us. This morning we are going to do that by sitting in silence as I read a list of the names of the victims from this past week’s attack.

One was a newlywed bride getting a massage with her husband. Another was an immigrant from China who proudly built her business from nothing. The youngest was 33. The oldest was 74.

• Soon Chung Park, age 74
• Hyun Jung Grant, age 51
• Suncha Kim, age 69
• Yong Yue, age 63
• Delaina Ashley Yaun, age 33
• Paul Andre Michels, age 54
• Xiaojie Tan, age 49
• Daoyou Feng, age 44

Amen.

Living In The Light

John 3:14-21

So I used to love the darkness. Growing up we lived in a culdesac with woods behind our house and at sleepovers and such I would get people to dare me to walk into the woods alone. I loved the adrenaline and I liked doing things other people were scared of. For some reason, I did not find the dark to be scary. It was a little frightening but in an exciting way- in an adventurous way. I’ve since learned not to walk alone in the dark. It was fun when I was naïve but now I know it’s not worth the risk.

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” Light is illuminating- you see the truth of everything. That is terrifying. It exposes us- our thoughts, our past actions, our doubts. To be in the light is vulnerable. I think a movie theatre and how often I would feel more free to cry in one knowing it was pitch black. Would I be as emotional if the lights were on?  On the other hand in the light, we have- flashing cameras in the spotlight,  boss sitting in on your presentation, or an onlooker assessing your parenting skills. We are so scared that they will see how much of a fraud we are- that we don’t really know what we are doing. We are in a constant state of fake it until you make it. To be exposed by the light might mean we have to admit that we don’t know how to do this thing- be in relationship, do this job, be a parent, love yourself.

God presents the light as this freeing, honest beauty but we don’t know how to live in the light- we know how to live in the shadows. With our secrets. With our demons.

The undoing- Spoiler alert. In this show, a woman is killed and you quickly find out that she was having an relationship with the husband of the main character. This husband is good-looking, an oncologist for children- charming. We see that he flees and because of this becomes the main suspect. Throughout the series, you begin to believe that he didn’t do it. He made a vow to save lives not take them. But then you learn that he had told his wife that he was estranged from the family because he had accidentally killed the family dog because he wasn’t watching the dog and he was run over by a car. This is the story he told but what actually happened was that his sister was the one that was hit by a car on his watch. His family said they waited for guilt and the remorse but it never came. This shame, this secret buried for so long manifested into an unspeakable evil. He lived in the shadows so long he changed into someone different. He didn’t know how to be his true self. His whole life was a lie and this secret caused him to cause great pain. Now this isn’t a perfect analogy because this man is also considered a psychopath and it is an extreme example but the point holds that when we live in the shadows and out of our shame it gets harder and harder to show who we are and be willing to accept grace and forgiveness.  There is truth that the longer we live in the shadows and let shame consume us the more it will override who we really are. It is relentless in convincing us we someone else than who we actually are.

What does it mean to stand in the light? Vulnerability? Immense amount of courage and trust- trust issues.

This invitation to live in the light is the invitation to allow grace to wash over you. It is a willingness to lay it all out there- not to be punished for it but to be forgiven for it and have the light wash away the darkness.

The invitation of this passage is radical grace or radical hospitality- it’s an invitation to accept grace for yourself and all peoples. But this hospitality is enough to make us run and hide. And if we don’t hide ourselves we make sure other people hide- if we find we can’t handle God having grace for others we do everything we can to keep them in their shadows- not allowing them to come into the light to accept the grace God has for them.

How can we make room for us to step into the light? How can we make room for others to step into the light?

What is John actually getting at here? To reject the light is to reject love and to reject God and it says if we do that we live in death. Is this an actual death? Some have taken it that way- when you die and if you don’t believe in God you don’t get that everlasting life deal. We can tackle that theological question at another time. I don’t think we are talking about an actual death or physical death here. I think we are talking about a symbolic death. Is living a life void of love and grace really living? When God or scripture talks about life – its talking about vitality- experiencing the things God has for us. Being alive is different than really living. I think this passage is instructing us on how to truly live. Living happens in the light- not the shadows and yet we spend most of our time in the shadows. Because it’s comfortable, safe, known.

To live in the light is to be exposed. It’s too be real. Honest- your true self. Bare to the world. It is vulnerable. I love brene Brown and her work because her work on how our human emotions factor into our quality of life so closely resembles the teachings of Jesus. I think Brene Brown would say that the more we understand our emotions and live into them appropriately the more we are able to accept and love other people which for us as Christians is the whole ball game. I am more and more convinced that the more work I do on myself the more it will translate into me being a better Christian.  Brene brown says connection is not possible without vulnerability, The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous. When we spend our lives pushing away and protecting ourselves from feeling vulnerable or from being perceived as too emotional, we feel contempt when others are less capable or willing to mask feelings, suck it up, and soldier on. We’ve come to the point where, rather than respecting and appreciating the courage and daring behind vulnerability, we let our fear and discomfort become judgment and criticism. Our rejection of vulnerability often stems from our associating it with dark emotions like fear, shame, grief, sadness, and disappointment—emotions that we don’t want to discuss, even when they profoundly affect the way we live, love, work, and even lead. What most of us fail to understand and what took me a decade of research to learn is that vulnerability is also the cradle of the emotions and experiences that we crave. We want deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper or more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

So what does vulnerability look like? What does living in the light look like? It means slowly showing your true self-the imperfections, the mistakes. It means not categorizing things as failures but as steps in the right direction- it means changing your mindset about what fulfills you as a human. If what fulfills you is status, money, material possessions, power, authority well then vulnerability will never be possible and thus authentic connection. If what fulfills you is being seen for who you are, being accepted and loved. If it is finding purpose in relationship and connection and being a part of something bigger than yourself then vulnerability is the only way to do that. Being willing to accept that grace that comes from showing your true self is how you get to experience these gifts.

So you all know I also work for Georgetown University with he college kids. I know you all see me as young but I am old compared to them. I have no idea what they would find interesting or what is trending in their world. So each week in order to connect I have to do some research. And normally what I do is see what is “trending”. This week on Youtube the song Lost by a rapper named NF was trending. I have never heard of this guy but he’s like a modern version of Eminem without the cursing. I listened to this song and read the lyrics and was surprised although not really because rappers are pretty deep at how vulnerable his song was. Much of this song talked about this idea of living in the shadows verse living in the light. Here are some of the lyrics:

‘Cause we’re too embarrassed to admit the fear is that we’re lost The heart of a savage, I’m quiet when I lurk in the shadows But somethin’ don’t add up, I don’t wanna be overdramatic But look at the data, it’s obvious that humans are fragile We tend to get mad at the ones that call us out but the fact is we need someone that’ll be honest when we fly off the handle I admit I throw a fit when I begin to unravel

Yeah, manifested this Do not treat me like some adolescent kid I am prayin’ to the Lord with the Book of James hopin’ he gon’ add my testament This dark cloud, that’s my residence Demons knockin’, I don’t have to let ’em in I done made mistakes, day to day, you probably can’t relate I just ain’t the same when I’m lost

Wow, these burdens are heavy And I’m hopin’ it don’t bury me I used to be joyful and skip so merrily But now I’m too cautious and tiptoe carefully My mind left and it’s nowhere to be found Am I a big ol’ parody? ‘Cause it’s not fair to me And now I’m at the point where I’m spending a grand a week on hypnotherapy Look, I’m tryna wash away my sins I got a group of loved ones that ain’t my friends And if I ever take an L then they might grin And they all wanna see me stay in the cage I’m in So when it come to anybody, there’s no trust for no one Man, so what? My whole plan’s to go nuts My shoulders ready for more shrugs, I’m gon’ judge Anybody tryna enter my circle with no love (Hol’ up) My sanity’s gone, I’d rather be torn from this planet they planted me on Yes, that’s a reward, I’m actually bored with having a sore heart

I’ve referenced a tv show that would be something you all might watch, I’ve referenced a researcher that many different kinds of people are pulled to and now I’ve referenced a rapper that speaks to the current generation of teenagers. Everywhere we look, we see signs of humanity yearning to live in the light but finding the shadows more comforting. The idea that we can step into the light- show our flaws and be accepted with grace is foreign to us because it rarely happens between us, humans. It’s the exception to the rule in our society. But it’s the rule when it comes to God. You will be met with grace every.single.time. How God sees you matters infinitely more than how anyone else sees you. The gifts God has to give you are worth measurably more than anything one of us can give you. Let us together be bold enough to step into the light and move in for a while. Let us help each other move out of the shadows, the darkness, the shame. Today scripture asks us if we want to live in the light or be dead in the darkness. This isn’t a threat or a judgment or an ultimatum- we are always inside God’s embrace. But this is an invitation, a hand reaching out offering us life to the full. This is God saying- I can make your life better. You think your life is already good? Well give me a shot and see what I can do. If your life is not that great, let me help. I don’t wish to control you or judge you or reprimand you. I want to show you the way- give you the resources- build you so high up, I want to offer you life and this is how. Step into the light. That is where you will find me.

Jesus in the Temple

John 2:13-22

I personally really like this story in the Bible because it shows Jesus’s humanity. I like that Jesus is angry- it’s refreshing. I am an 8 on the enneagram which is a well-known personality test that helps you understand your motivations for doing the things you do, making the decisions you make. The 8’s are the challenges- we are passionate people who easily get angry at injustice.  I think this congregation has a few 8’s. Anger is our go-to emotion. We like to be challenged and challenge other people.  So this story helps me feel just a tad closer to Jesus. Makes Jesus seem a little more human- makes me feel like he would fit in at one of my family functions.

The wedding at Cana which happens earlier in John’s Gospel shows the new life that Jesus offers and now here in the cleansing of the temple we see the challenge and threat that new life poses to the existing order. And I say threat because it is a threat but not in a bad way. It threatens what they know to be true. It’s a threat because it holds in question how much control and power they have. Some things are meant to change, to transform. I think it would be a dishonor to this scripture to downplay what is happening.

The temple was sacred because it was the locus of God’s presence on earth. According to the way the Passover usually went the people in the temple weren’t doing anything wrong. This is a big point because people assume that these people knew that what they were doing was wrong and they did it anyway. No, they are like you and me going on our merry way thinking everything is fine and dandy. Cattle, sheep and doves needed to be slaughtered for the burnt offering and people would have had to buy them. Since people came from afar they would have had to exchange money in order to buy these animals. They were just trying to worship God the only way they knew how. The people in these scriptures are not bad people- they are you and me. This text is fitting for us because we are coming up on 1 year of worshiping outside of church walls. It has caused us to emotionally understand even if we already logically understood that God does not dwell only within the walls of a church. In Jesus’ rising from the dead we see that God does not just dwell in the temple but everywhere on earth. We were forced to realize things could be different.

I know people are so excited for things to back to normal but we should ask the question if that normal was the most faithful? I wonder if we are called to go back to the way things were. If and when things go back to “normal” should not mean that we forget that “the way we have always done things” is more for us than it is for God. We have learned that we can do things differently and still worship God. I have empathy for yearning to do things the way we have always done them- like the people in this story, they thought they were worshipping God but maybe knowingly or unknowingly they were also comforting themselves. I am also sympathetic to this because in this time of Covid we are desperate for familiarity and comfort but I don’t want that to take away from the rich lessons this season has for us.  That’s what rituals are for, right? At least in part. Rituals bring a sense of familiarity and comfort which is not bad- many are very helpful. But if they become more important than the reason you are doing them then I think we have missed the point.

To the evangelist John, Jesus is a challenger and throughout his Gospel, he makes it known that if we aren’t feeling challenged then we aren’t paying attention. Jesus was challenging the meaning of temple worship and the cultic system of sacrifice. Today I think Jesus would challenge the meaning of church worship and the cultic system of tradition. Well, friends, I think that has happened this past year, and guess what? You survived. You are still here. Look at how many things have changed and you are still able to worship God and God is still able to receive that worship. I wonder what else could change and the purpose of worship would stay the same?

In one of the commentaries, I read it said, “Jesus challenges a religious system so embedded in its own rules and practices that it is no longer open to fresh revelation from God. All religious institutional embeddedness- whether in the form of temple worship, unjust social systems, or repressive religious practices- is challenged by the revelation of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.” I’ve said it before that these stories have so much value to us because we can see where the disciples got tripped up and learn from that. We have the opportunity to embrace God in a way they were not able to.

Jesus again foretells his death and resurrection but this time using the metaphor of the temple.  He says if the people destroy the temple, 3 days later he will raise it- just as he knows the people will crucify Him and three days later he will rise. The theological point that he is making is that because of his life, death, and resurrection, the temple is no longer needed. Jesus is the locus of God’s presence on earth and with the ascension and the coming of the holy spirit, Jesus is everywhere. This is the new life that God speaks of. At the time, this had all not happened yet so they could not grasp what this new life Jesus was talking about looked like. We can grasp it though- the question for us is, are we willing to? It is going to cost a lot, so are you willing to pay the cost? For them, it was the cost of the way they worshipped God, the way they understood God.  Doesn’t sound all that much different than today. They had let their worship practices become idols- they valued those practices more than they valued God. This is one of the biggest problems facing the church today and why many people may be interested in spirituality but not in a religious system.

You might have noticed some small changes I have made- one being communion. These things while they may be very important to some of us- are just details in what it means to truly worship God. That might be hard for some of us to hear but that is what this scripture says- I think the only thing God cares about is if we are worshipping the God of Jesus Christ- not the way in which we do it.

Communion is an excellent example of the newness change might bring to creating connection with God. Some communion presentations are so elaborate and the liturgy is very extravagant. But the first communion was with a bunch of grimy dudes- they didn’t shower much then. In a bare room with simple elements. But it was intensely intimate and meaningful and profound. It was because of the words, not the appearance.   What matters is the meaning- not the presentation. Everywhere else it is about the presentation- but not in the church, not in relationship. There is presentation in the workplace, in politics, everywhere you look in society. In the church, It shouldn’t be about presentation, about practices, about rules- not if they get in the way of us being attentive to how God is working.  

So I ask you, living a new life will come at a great cost, what cost are you willing to pay? Are you willing to think about how church looks different today than it did 10 years ago? Are you willing to engage people you would have never engaged 10 years ago? Are you willing to let go of some things that you hold very dear to your understanding of God?

Peter Rollins who is a philosopher and theologian was interviewed on a podcast called, The Bible for Normal People in which he talked a lot about the difference between Christianity and Christendom. Christendom is the traditions and creeds that we use in order to live into this life God has given us. It is the language and order we use to understand that which we can not conceptualize. The problem arises when these things become idols- when we emphasize as the commentary said the rules and practices of Christendom so much so that they become more important than being in relationship with God.

Christianity he says is, the understanding that the God that dwells in the temple does not exist.  Jesus dies on the cross and the curtain is torn and the one behind the holy of holies is not there. Christianity is the radical understanding that God is not the sacred object that takes away our suffering but that God helps us hold and carry our suffering. Christianity is about the death of the understanding that God will take away our suffering and instead offers a new understanding that God is present in love as we engage the world which yes will include suffering as I know every single one of you has experienced.

The disciples tried so hard to keep God in their pocket- to understand God. But we will never understand God and that is okay. We have misunderstood Christianity as the pursuit to God but it is actually the pursuit from God. In this, we are free- free to get to know God as God is and not put him in a box. Free to ask questions. We are free from the myth that if we are holy enough or moral enough or faithful enough that we will be more complete. The church should be a place where we do not have to strive for anything. It is a place where we love each other we humanize each other and live into this life God has given us.

This is hard stuff. It is difficult stuff to follow but Rollins gives us a helpful way forward in digesting these radical realizations of what it means to be the church and what it means to be a Christian. When we start to question God and our lives we feel we are unraveling and we are terrified- and we try to find ways to protect ourselves but what we need to do is, we need to go deeper into our place of doubt- not put up a wall of fear. This place is what the mystics called The dark night of the soul. What we will discover is that we are unraveling but it’s not negative. The trick is to Revel in it. We are free from the pursuit of perfection, of all the answers. This is the new life, are you willing to be uncomfortable for it?

What does being in relationship with God look like for you if you were to take out the building of IPC- if there was no building at all? Or Bible Study? Or committee meetings? Or hymn singing? Or no sermon. I’m not saying we should take these things out, but I think we should have a relationship with God apart from these things to keep them from becoming Idols. If one of the things I mentioned caused your heart rate to rise- you might to ask yourself why. Being in relationship with God is a commitment and in some ways, it is not that much different than our other relationships. What does your relationship with your spouse or your kids or your friends look like? What if that one thing you did together, wasn’t possible anymore? What if the person moved or changed? Would you still have a relationship with them or is it dependent on “these things you’ve always done” together. I’ve heard before that people who have been married to one person for a long time say they have had 3 different marriages of sorts- it’s like they have changed and their lives have changed that they feel like they have had 3 separate marriages because that is what it feels like when you decide to change with one another. I know I have had many different relationships with God. My relationship with God now looks vastly different than it did in high school and college and I hope that in 10 years I can say the same of now. So I leave you with this, I wonder, what different relationships have you had with God? What number marriage are you and God on?

A More Redemptive View of Humanity

Mark 8:31-38

Intro: You all don’t know me that well but if you ask those that do they will tell you that I am very stubborn. For those of us that are stubborn, I think it is our Achilles heel. Life would be so much simpler if I wasn’t so insistent on doing things the way I wanted. An example of this was one weekend I was in Colorado visiting my best friend Kristen and she took me to an ice castle. So we could assume it was going to be pretty cold with the whole being surrounded by ice aspect. So we are getting ready to go and I’m wearing these shoes- and she says to me in a hesitant voice are you sure you don’t want to wear a different pair of shoes? I have a weird thing about shoes- I always have in mind what shoes I want to wear and I will wear them no matter how impractical or out of place they are. For instance, I wore these to mow my parent’s lawn in and to cut down a Christmas tree. On some level, I recognize the absurdity of that, but once I get in too deep, me doing “what I want” becomes more important than well any amount of common sense. For some reason, to me, these shoes serve as activity shoes although most people who have weighed in on this have said they belong in the “heel” category. I don’t see it- they are clearly boots. So I wear these shoes and Kristen just lets it go because she knows me and knows I’ve made up my mind so there is no use. So I get to the ice castles and they are really cool and really cold. And what I didn’t consider is that there is a lot of snow on the ground- and my shoes aren’t waterproof. Pretty quickly I feel my toes go from being very cold to not being able to feel them because they are numb- probably because I’m standing in an ice castle in the mountains of Colorado with snow all around us in shoes that might be classified in the heel category, not the hiking category. All of this to say, I don’t like doing things a different way even if it means I am miserable. Once I decide something is a certain way, it’s really hard for me to see it a different way.

In this passage we aren’t talking about shoes- we are talking about the Messiah but I think Peter’s stubbornness is his Achilles heel as well. His insistence on putting Jesus in a box is more important to him than who Jesus actually is. Up until chapter 8, Jesus mainly expresses his divinity through healings and miracles. Eventually, by chapter 8 we see that these works did convince the disciples and other followers of Jesus that he was in fact the Messiah as Peter confesses. This is certainly a victory because there are so many options of who Jesus could be-a a prophet? The Son of man, the Son of God, the Messiah? Which one is it and what are the differences? The healings and miracles might have played the primary role in showing that Jesus was in fact the messiah but what they don’t portray is what it means to be the Messiah?

In the same passage that Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus makes the bold claim that he will be rejected, suffer and die. Without knowing what we know- which is the whole story, one would think these two things are contradictory. To be the messiah means victory- not death.

So we see Jesus spending all this time trying to get his disciples to understand who he is, and finally, Peter responds with the right answer… You are the Christ. Up until this, the disciples have not been able to profess who they think Jesus is. And now Peter does, but just because he knows the answer doesn’t mean he understands what the answer means. As soon as Peter professes this revelation, Jesus begins to explain what that means and Peter is not having it. Because Peters’s idea of what it means to be the Messiah is different than Jesus’ definition of what a Messiah is and he doesn’t want to hear it. (you would think that he would listen to who the messiah says who a messiah is- but then again we see people all the time not validating who people say they are.) Maybe Peter refuses to listen to Jesus’ words because he feels like he finally got it and now he is confused all over again… maybe it’s out of fear of not knowing what this confession he just professed means. Regardless though, this confession leads to more questions.  The question that now arises is…if being the messiah doesn’t mean what we thought, what does it mean?

Peter’s understanding of the Messiah includes victory, power, status. Jesus tries to help us correct this view by proclaiming the messiah will suffer- which clearly doesn’t fit into Peter’s current understanding. Jesus also helps us out by the questions that he asks us. A mentor of mine always says, Jesus doesn’t guide us by giving us answers but by asking us questions. At first, these questions are just nonsensical and over philosophical but they are intended to get us thinking that what we think we know to be true and what is actually true are different. Jesus has all these contrasting statements…Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? The things of God vs. the things of man. Whoever loses his life will save it vs. whoever saves his life will lose it. I think seeking out these answers is important because they aren’t just answers about who God is, they are answers about who we are. Our understanding of who we are is so closely connected to our understanding of God. So I don’t challenge us to ask these questions because it’s some theological game, I challenge us to ask them because I think they are the key to finding contentment and peace on this earth.

A few years ago I was talking to someone at a gathering on spiritual direction. This guy was in a doctoral program on rhetoric and writing a thesis linking the connections between theology, race, and artificial intelligence. Fascinated I asked him to explain more the connection between theology and AI. As we talked, it became clear that I was very fearful of humanity’s ability to use AI for good. I was convinced we were too corrupt to put this technology to good use. And he said to me- knowing that I’m a pastor- and newly ordained at that point that I need a more redemptive view of humanity. What if my curiosity was less fear-based and more hope-based? What if we could use AI to help people become more self-aware? What if we could use AI to help people become more in touch with their emotions, how to be in relationship better?

I was letting my fear of something I didn’t know very much about dictate the possibilities of what could become of it. It never occurred to me that the church could use AI as a tool to create and sustain relationships. ( ironic that years later here we are doing church in a virtual world) Honestly, I felt like technology such as AI was doing more in the work of severing relationships. He asked me, what if the church could finally get ahead of the curve and use AI to bring people together, to bring about the things of the Gospel? He made me realize that even I “the don’t put God in a box girl” was putting God in a box.

And so was Peter. Peter needs a more redemptive view of Jesus- it’s like he is trying to save Jesus from himself except Jesus doesn’t need to be saved. Peter’s understanding of a Messiah is one of achieving victory by way of violence and oppression. It is one that values winning and being right over anything else. The understanding of the Messiah that we see in Jesus is that of achieving victory by way of peaceful resistance. It is one that values relationship above all else.

Sadly, I think many of us have the same view as Peter, or at least we are in the process of recovering from that view. What is really concerning about this is, whatever view we hold of our Messiah directly affects our view of humanity. We are created in God’s image, but if we believe that God is only for us in as much as it benefits him, what does that say about our view of who we are and how we treat other people? But If we believe that God is for us even at the cost of suffering and rejection and that his love is the key to victory, now then what does that say about our view of ourselves and our capacity to love other people? If we believe that God is the redeemer of all things and that includes us then We believe we are redeemable, our actions are redeemable and our relationships are redeemable. I think only once we start professing God as this type of Messiah, then can we have a more redemptive view of humanity.

We may be in agreement that this sounds nice and sounds accurate but why is it essential? Why is it essential to believing we are redeemable creatures? Well because we need hope. I don’t know many people who take action or work towards a goal unless they have hope that they can one day achieve that goal. Many times we are motivated by anger but anger that isn’t righteous is just anger for the sake of revenge- not for redemption and as Christians, we aren’t called to action to get revenge but we are called to action for the possibility of redemption- that something good can and will come out of unfathomable evil.

The beauty of the Gospel is that these stories are here for us to learn from the character’s experiences and shall I say their mistakes. I think this is what we mean when we say that scripture speaks to us today- we can continue to learn about how to do this life. You see, unlike the disciples, we know the whole story- in the cross, we see what it means to be the Messiah. Being in relationship is the ultimate form of victory. We do not need to let fear rule our lives anymore. Granted sometimes we live as if we don’t know the end of the story. But we need to remember that we do and so we don’t have to live lives ruled by fear. In the cross, we have all been redeemed. I know it might not seem like it, but we all have the ability to open our minds, accept different truths and allow ourselves to be changed.

Peter realizes a truth that is true for him and as soon as that gets challenged he objects and gets angry. It’s hard to listen to truths that differ from your own and it’s hard to let go of what you thought you knew but it’s the only way if we want to save us from ourselves.

So we are in this season of lent- A season where we ask the question,  “what would life be like if the cross never happened?” That is why we hold off on the hallelujahs, and victory screams and praises- because we need to imagine what the world we look like without Jesus. I think many of us live our lives as if it is the season of lent 24/7. We don’t live as if redemption is possible here and now. God is the redeemer though, the cross did conquer all for the sake of relationships, and Lent is a season that ends. Before we get there though we need to do the hard work of preparing ourselves for that Easter celebration. Last week, I talked about how the wilderness is a time of emptying ourselves. I really like the analogy of A flute to further demonstrate the essentialness of emptying ourselves. A flute is empty inside and it has holes- only in it being empty inside is it able to be used for its purpose- to make beautiful music. I want to encourage us all this Lenten season to think about what it means to empty ourselves to make space for God to change your mind about what victory looks like and to make space for hope that we are a redeemable people because we serve the God that is redeemer.