THIS GATE SWINGS BOTH WAYS

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET
The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

THIS GATE SWINGS BOTH WAYS

by Jack D. Sypal

Dateline Jerusalem, May 7, 10:01:10

In court Sunday, Jesus of Nazareth (J.o.N.) responded to charges brought by Mr. I. Seituwel of stealing that man’s identity and life. Representing himself, J.o.N. pled innocent to all counts. In his defense, he offered an alternative scenario, confronting our city’s citizens and visionaries as the perpetrators of the theft. Claiming privilege for sheep and shepherds, J.o.N. protested his innocence while charging the greater part of society as thieves and bandits, raising the issue of, “What is a thief and a bandit?” 


In revealing testimony, the Pharisee, Rabbi Dick Highosooner responded, “Thievery is both active and passive. The active thief compels one to give up their possessions by force. The more clever, passive thief obtains wealth and power by withholding what rightfully belongs to the poorer person or to those who are not able to defend their property and rights from more powerful neighbors. This form of thieving and banditry is usually more profitable because it can be done within the law.”


J.o.N. continued to speak out against the people who made the gift of sight he gave to Seituwel a nightmarish, misanthropic reaction of alienating isolation. Claiming himself to be a gate that swings in to allow entrance of sheep and shepherds, then out to allow shepherds and sheep egress to pasture, J.o.N.  challenged Roman citizens and people of Judea, along with the Pharisees, to examine their place and role among those who have a vision of the Kingdom and their participation in it.


As a gate, J.o.N. stated that it was not his intent “to restrict the movement of those whom he protected, but to provide shelter from the storm, safety from the predators of life, to create a safe place for rest so that the flock under his protection could be equipped to go out into the world for pasture community.”


In reply to Seituwel’s charges, J.o.N. pointed to the crowds, accusing them with, “It is this community of gatekeepers that has put the fly in the ointment, the worm in the apple, the stick in the spokes of the wheel. The gift of sight was to make Mr. Seituwel more accepted, but their actions have eventuated further alienation, causing him unintended and unnecessary loss of communal identity. By their suspicious, doubting, abandoning, and faithless, exclusionary behavior, these people stole his community from him and cast him out with less than he had in the first place.” 


“As gatekeepers, they performed their duties flawlessly. They kept everybody out, even those who should be let in. But the other duty of the gatekeeper is to open the gate for those who would enter. In this duty they failed miserably.
“And, it is in their failed duty that they take greatest pride. In their pride, they demonstrate a kind of latch envy—envy of the power of the bolt to imprison the unsuspecting and secure the status quo thus preventing participation in the fullness of life’s opportunities. There is much more to life than Plato’s dismal cave of shadow verisimilitudes. There may be safety inside the walls, but the fullness of life is known in coming out. A gate is the ultimate trans-state between the when of the past, the now of the moment, and the then of the future.”


Then, almost singing, J.o.N. exclaimed, “I am the gate! I swing both ways! I swing back and forth. In comes the Southern breeze or cold wind from the North. The Holy Spirit blows where it wills, and the gate must always be ready to swing in the most advantageous direction for the sake of the sheep and their shepherd. I let the shepherd and the new members of the flock in, and I let the shepherd and the sheep out to feed. I am not a wall that stands fast against the world on the outside while imprisoning those within. I am active in the way to life and growth as well as care and protection.”


In his closing remarks, J.o.N. said, “A gate always leads the way to life. Those who dream of walls only are thieves and bandits seeking personal good at the expense of those contained by walls. They seek to steal, to kill, and to destroy life even crushing the spirit of hope. 


“I am a gate that offers hope always with the promise of abundant life beyond. Don’t you know? The grass is always greener on the other side, and the gate gets you there.”

Jesus Dies on the Cross

Good Friday

John 19:16b-18, 28-30 (NRSV)  Jesus Dies on the Cross

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.

… After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

A few years ago I saw a proverb that read, “Cry, and you cry alone. Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Smile, and everyone wonders what you’re up to.”

How we think about the three words near the end of John’s Gospel, “It is finished,” says a lot about how we think about the rest of the Gospel and God’s kingdom.
Many people throughout the centuries have understood them as saying, “My life is over.” But Jesus’ life isn’t over; there is more to come. God is not done with Jesus’ life, or with us yet. It is true that Jesus dies on the cross. It is difficult to understand, but God truly dies. But when we hear these words, it is important to remember the beginning of John’s Gospel (“In the beginning was the Word”).
It is important because we need to remember what that Word brings. It brings the creation of the universe and everything in it. God’s Word creates us.
But the word “finished” in Greek is teleo. The teleo “finished” does not carry the hopeless, final statement death usually carries. This is more like getting the last bale made and covered, or maybe, finishing the yard work just before the rain begins. One can look back over the day and say teleo, “Well, that got done just in time.”
This understanding of teleo—finished or accomplished—conveys in Jesus’ words a much more complex, but satisfying, conclusion. They do not only speak of the end of Jesus’ life, but they point to a completion of our salvation.
Teleo provides a faithful conclusion to the first words of John (the beginning words of creation and all that is to be), just as God’s words of being finished conclude creation: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.” (Genesis 2:1-3 NRSV)
More than that, as the fulfillment of Scripture, Jesus’ teleo “finished”, introduces the possibility of the resurrection, re-creation world, “all has been accomplished—made ready. Let’s go forth making disciples of all nations.”
As God spoke our world into creation and acknowledged the end of work each day, recognizing the work and declaring it good, so Christ on the cross surveys the world at his feet and says, “it is teleo—finished.” I can’t help but think that he smiled.

Prayer

In the midst of life and death, Lord, help us know accomplishment at the end of each day, hope for tomorrow, and joy in the present moment. Lord, help us smile so that the world wonders what you are up to. Amen

Remembering the Future John 11:1-53

I am sure that many of you have heard the story of Lazarus coming out of the tomb, or parts of it, numerous times. You have probably heard it at funerals, in general sermons, through your personal Bible reading, and possibly in study groups. If this is the first time that you have heard it, I welcome you into some of the most encouraging and heartening passages of the New Testament. At the same time these are some of the most troubling and confusing passages.

This past week, I was again amazed by the number of shifts in time that take place and the bizarre behavior on Jesus’ part. To begin, we hear John tell the story of Mary to identify her: you know, she is the one who anointed Jesus with oil and wiped his feet with her hair, even though in the narrative of John’s Gospel, we will not be told of Mary anointing Jesus until the next chapter.

As I was reading, I noticed how the verbs do not always agree with the rest of the context of the sentences and that there are other allusions to events that have not occurred. Yet we, as the readers and hearers of this story, both when it was written and today, are to remember the future has already happened.

We hear that Lazarus is sick and a message is sent to Jesus to inform him of the fact with the desire that he come immediately. Does Jesus go to this person he loves? No. He decides to stay where he is for two more days. In the background of our “already, but not yet” memories, we hear “And on the third day, he was raised up from the dead.” But wait, that is not Lazarus; that is Jesus.  

Lazarus is four-days-dead when Jesus and the disciples arrive outside the village, outside the house of Martha and Mary. When Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus will rise again, she looks ahead to the future, to the coming messiah. Jesus tells her that the resurrection is not something to come; it is before her in that moment. Jesus says, “I am I am, the resurrection.” This is not some future thing that will happen; it is loaded with the history of the “I Am” of Moses encountering the burning bush, and it is happening again as Jesus speaks with Martha and as we hear it.

Then we come to that classic line all translators of this text wrestle with. Jesus looks to heaven and says, “I knew that you always hear me.” This past tense certainty comes with a present tense understanding “for the sake of the people standing here”, both those hearing Jesus that day and throughout time. This construct that begins in the past has a life in the present of the speaking that assumes the future of all of you gathered here today.  It is nothing short of spectacular how this short passage prefigures our language of Eucharistic mystery, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” We feel, more than hear, that “Jesus’ time has not yet come”, in the language of John. We are reminded that this story is about Lazarus, meaning God’s mercy.

The next instance is after Martha goes out to meet Jesus when we hear Martha whisper to Mary that Jesus is calling for her and yet there is no evidence in the text that Jesus has called her.

Then we hear the people respond to Jesus’ question, “Where have you laid him?” with the words that reveal the messiah earlier in John ch. 1, “Come and see.” Yet this time the words “Come and see” are not an invitation to find new life, they are an invitation to witness death—real death—stinking, rotting death. Again, John reminds us that Jesus truly died, but this story is about Lazarus, God’s mercy, not Jesus’ Easter victory.

Or, is it? Amid the seemingly poorly told, mixed-up tenses, and out of sequence events of this story of Lazarus, we encounter resurrection and the resurrected one who has the power to destroy death, to raise the dead of the world from their places of death into new life. We encounter the one who has the authority to command the stone to be removed from the tomb and lay it as the foundation stone of what is to come. In this spectacular way, we are called to remember, not the past, but the future. For the world of the resurrection is all about seeing the possibilities of what is to come—the realization of hope in the future, a world of anticipating  the true state of nothing separating us from God’s “Lazarus mercy and love”, that is, God’s everlasting grace.

No wonder that there were some who believed because of what they saw. No wonder there were those who had to go and tell the authorities what was happening. No wonder there were those who thought that this Jesus had to be stopped because, if more people understood that Jesus had the power to put death to death, everybody might come to believe in him.

Several years ago, a pastor I know had a young man who was new to the faith come to her office to tell her that he had enlisted and was being shipped out to Afghanistan. He asked for the prayers of the community while he was gone.

The pastor asked if there was anything else she could do for him before he left. He asked if she could tell him how to get a copy of that book they read from on Sundays. The pastor asked if he meant the book of hymns. He said, “No, that book that you read from every week.”

She said, “You mean the Bible?”

He said he didn’t know, but he would like to get a copy of it to take with him. He thought that he could read it while he was gone. It would remind him of the people he had met at church. She took him into the sanctuary where she gave him their Bible, The Message translation, saying, “This is a gift to you from us. We will get another and read it with you.”

Well, time went by, and the young man came home. He came back to worship and then showed up at the pastor’s office one afternoon. He asked, “Pastor, do other people know about this book?”

“Yes,” the pastor said.

“Do other people read this book?” the young man asked.

“Yes. Why do you ask?” the pastor responded.

“’Cause, after reading it, I couldn’t help but think, if more people read it, it could change the world.”

The writer of John, in this story, challenges us to witness the authority of Jesus who puts death to death. We are called to remember the future—the events that are to come—the world that invites us to imagine life abundantly, hopefully, joyfully, and prayerfully. We are called then, to tell the story in all times and in all places confessing the resurrection of the body and the life of a world, as yet unknown, to come. And so, in those words that we have been taught, we pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Martin Luther reminds us that God’s will will be done—God’s kingdom will come without us praying for it—but, in this prayer, we pray that we might know, that we might know God’s will and know God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, not sometime in the future, but right here and right now.

This is a precious story that grows when we find ways to share it. Today we heard Brandon join us in telling the story. With his voice, we learn that the story is not only for the old but for the young. And we give thanks for his voice in our midst, that voice of youth and promise.  It is the voice of here and now and the voice of the future. It is another voice that invites us to hear the story of Lazarus’ rising. Telling the story is not about remembering the resurrection in the future but of Christ’s presence in our lives today, lifting us up into new ways of living. It is a story of love and hope that our world needs and longs to hear. It is a message that can change the world. In God’s Lazarus mercy, “Come out!”.

Former Dead Guy Suing Jesus Also!

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET           

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

 

Former Dead Guy Suing Jesus Also!

Dateline: Bethany, April 2, 11:01:12:11

by Jack D. Sypal

Late Friday, Lazarus of Bethany, who we reported Jesus has brought back from the dead, joined I. Seituwell in suing Jesus for unwanted care. There seems to be considerable pushback against this miracle worker’s activities. Speculation has arisen that Lazarus and Seituwell may join forces with others in a class action suit. As political tensions rise and governmental pressures come to bear, could-be followers may choose to seek deep-pocket recompense.

Following is an interview account of the latest person to lay claim against Jesus.

“I mean, I thought [Jesus and I] were close. We had this real bromance going. So, when I was told that Jesus was going off without me, I was really hurt, like cut to the core hurt. I thought that we had something special going on there, and then he was gone with the rest of the guys.

“It wasn’t long after they left me, I was feeling pretty low, and then I got sick. I felt pretty lousy and had to go to bed for the day. My sisters, Mary and Martha, came in with some of that good Jewish penicillin around supper time, but it didn’t seem to be very appetizing. And if you know my sisters’ cooking, you would understand how unusual that was. In the middle of the night, I got this terrible stomachache and sweat started pouring out of me. That is about the last thing I remember for a while.

“My sisters would tell me they sent a message for Jesus to come, but no … I don’t know, maybe the message got crossed up or something, but he thought that he would hang for a couple of days.

Apparently, I got a lot worse. My temperature went sky high. I remember some time on the second day it felt like someone poured ice water in my belly. It hurt a lot; it was excruciating! When I asked my sisters about Jesus, they shook their heads. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t come.

“The next thing I remember, I was being called out. I was in this really peaceful place. I didn’t have any pain, and I was just totally chill, ya know? And then, this annoying voice started calling me out. I really just wanted to lay there. Then I noticed this stink. It was awful. It was sort of like being down at the slaughter yard on a hot day, standing near the fresh hides on one side and the blood pool and feces on the other. Yeah, it was pretty bad.

“And that voice kept nagging me, ‘Lazarus; come out, Lazarus; come out.’

“I finally recognized the voice as my man, but I thought, ‘What the hell? Why is he calling me now? He was the one who left me behind.’

“But finally, the smell got to me and I had to get out of there. That’s when I discovered that I was the smell. When I got out of the cave, I was struck by the sun, and the stench really took on a life of its own. And then I got a whiff of my own breath. Lord have mercy! It was enough to blow a fly off a gut-wagon. You know what I mean?

“Finally, people came and started stripping the wrappings off of me. I had to show my nakedness before all of those people. Public nudity is one thing, but I had pustules erupting on my body and skin sloughing going on. It was pretty disgusting.

“Most people looked at me with horror. They were petulantly pronouncing prognostications of pernicious, purulent, pustule pestilence. Penitents were prostrating themselves on the property, proposing persistent, pietistic popcorn-prayers of propitiation. Everyone was trying to hold their noses, and as soon as they could, they built a proper pyre for burning everything I had on. Even that smelled pretty preposterous.

“I spent hours in the bath trying to scrub the stink off, but after my skin started sliding off, I resorted to wiping my body off in nard. It didn’t get rid of the smell, but it masked it pretty well.

“Everybody thought that it was so cool; that I should be so thankful, but somehow, when I really needed [Jesus], he didn’t show. When I didn’t need him anymore, then he showed up, to do what? Leave me again?

“A couple of nights ago, my sisters invited him to supper; ‘To thank him,’ they said. Apparently I was still smelling pretty bad, so Mary went and got my nard and covered Jesus’ feet with it. The fragrance filled the whole house

“All I could think was, ‘Thanks, sis. Now what am I supposed to do tomorrow?’ I mean the stuff isn’t cheap. We may be wealthy, but we aren’t rich, if you know what I mean.

“Today I find out that there’s a contract out on me. Half the people are treating me like I’m a god, which I’m not; and the other half of the people treat me like I’m this zombie creature who will hex them for the rest of their lives, which I won’t. I can’t go back to work. I’m not even able to hang with my friends. It feels like the bromance is truly over, and I can’t get rid of this stink. If I can’t get my life back, I want pay back.”

New World Vision

March 26, 2017

John 9 “I am the light of the world.”

Leviticus 19:14 “You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; You shall fear your God: I am the Lord.”

Deuteronomy 27:18 “”Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind person on the road.” All the people shall say, “Amen!”

New World Vision

When, in a world of fearful darkness where disability and misfortune are regarded as signs of sin, Jesus and his disciples encounter a man born blind, Jesus sheds new light on the condition of blindness. It is not about sin, but “that the works of God might be revealed....” In a world of darkness, Jesus claims a place of light and vision: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

 

Jesus’ bold, challenging statement continues to lead Christians in their faith. In the Eucharist service, the assembly proclaims the great mystery of their faith: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” With this proclamation they recognize the historicity of the crucifixion, Christ’s continued presence in the world, and an eschatological future that includes Christ in all of history.

 

For a world that does not see the opportunities of community wholeness, but instead maintains a place of separateness, blindness continues to be a choice rather than a physical condition. In this darkness, however, Christ’s light continues to shine showing us a new way to live.

 

Christ continues to take the creative dust of the world and makes mud for the eyes of the blind to be washed away to enable them to see new ways of living. And from the baptismal waters, the cleansed, just like the blind man sent to wash in the pool of Siloam, see new ways of living and are sent into the world to witness to and cooperate in revealing God’s work of healing wholeness.

 

This new way of interacting with the world will not always be easy. There will be those who, like the Pharisees, challenge this new vision, but, with Christ’s presence before them, the faithful continue to believe and worship in their churches and daily lives in the daylight of Christ’s resurrection world.

Correction: Former Blind Guy Sues Jesus!

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET           

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

 

Correction

Former Blind Guy Sues Jesus!

 

Dateline: Jerusalem, March 26, 09:01:41

by Jack D. Sypal

Some may not be able to admit that they are wrong, but we at The AngelUS Trumpet value revealing the complete truth. What follows is a corrected copy of Mr I. Seituwel’s statement published in today’s earlier edition. We apologize for this extreme case of parablepsis and over-correction resulting in mishandling the first paragraph in his statement of the situation. The full article is included for your convenience.

On Sabbath Day last, it is alleged that Jesus gave sight to a man who was blind from birth. Now this same former blind man is suing Jesus for lack of income, loss of companionship, and severe emotional distress.
I spoke with this man at length. What follows is Mr. I. Seituwel’s story in his own words. It is a rather lengthy statement, but I think you will find it enlightening, both as to how this itinerant “do-gooder” works and the ramifications of his actions.

“I was minding my own business, begging as I always did outside the city wall, when this guy came up and spit on me. It wasn’t the first time I had been spit on, so I was prepared, sort of, but then this guy smeared mud all over my face. Afterwards he said, “Your face is dirty. Go wash your face in the pool of Siloam.” He wasn’t as nasty as some have been, so I went.

“Little did I know that, when I washed my face, my sight would be given to me and that getting my sight would be the beginning of myriad, nightmarish problems.

“The first thing that happened after I washed my face was that this excruciating pain hit me in the head. I now know that it was light, but who would have thought that it would be so painful. When things started flying at me from all directions, I suddenly fainted. I guess it was sensory overload, or at least that is what some of the doctors have said.

“After that, the guys I used to hang with refused to talk with me because I didn’t belong anymore. Other people refused to recognize me at all. My friends have left me. Even my family turned on me.

“In the meantime, my means of making a living is gone. Having sight means that I can’t beg outside the city wall.

“Some think that I had been faking it all along, and so they have brought fraud charges against me, and the police are after me.  

“The temple is after me because they think I’m a new disciple of this Jesus guy, and they want me to point him out to them. I can’t get them to understand that I never saw the person and probably couldn’t identify him anyways.

“I still don’t know what half of the stuff I see is. I have to close my eyes and listen to stuff or touch it in order to know what most stuff is. I’m terrified of moving around the country because I don’t know if what I am seeing is safe or not. The other day I saw something dark in front of me, and, when I stepped on it, I fell all the way to the bottom of a cistern. I could have broken my neck. As it was, I was pretty scraped up. Who knew? If my eyes hadn’t been opened, if I had been using my stick, I would never have had that problem. Everyone wants me to be sighted, but I have no idea what that means!

“If I had asked for this, it might be different. But, I was just sitting there minding my own business. I want my life back. Short of that, I want compensation for all of the insults and disparaging comments I’ve endured. I never had much before, but I had blind faith and a good reputation. Now what do I have?

“People ought to be more considerate before they start showing off with their special powers. Did I ask for this? No!!! So, I think that it is only right that he ought to pay for my troubles.”

Former Blind Guy Sues Jesus!

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET           

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

 

Former Blind Guy Sues Jesus!

Dateline: Jerusalem, March 26, 09:01:41

by Jack D. Sypal

On Sabbath Day last, it is alleged that Jesus gave sight to a man who was blind from birth. Now this same former blind man is suing Jesus for lack of income, loss of companion-ship, and severe emotional distress.

I spoke with this man at length. What follows is Mr. I. Seituwel’s story in his own words. It is a rather lengthy statement, but I think you will find it enlightening, both as to how this itinerant “do-gooder” works and the ramifica-tions of his actions.

“I was minding my own business, begging as I always did outside the city wall, when this guy came up and spit on me. It wasn’t the first time I had been spit on, so I was prepared, sort of, but then this guy told me to go wash my face in the pool of Siloam. It’s not as nasty as some, so I went.

“Little did I know that, when I washed my face, my sight would be given to me and that getting my sight would be the beginning of myriad, nightmarish problems.

“The first thing that happened after I washed my face was that this excruciating pain hit me in the head. I now know that it was light, but who would have thought that it would be so painful. When things started flying at me from all directions, I suddenly fainted. I guess it was sensory overload, or at least that is what some of the doctors have said.

“After that, the guys I used to hang with refused to talk with me because I didn’t belong anymore. Other people refused to recognize me at all. My friends have left me. Even my family turned on me.

“In the meantime, my means of making a living is gone. Having sight means that I can’t beg outside the city wall.

“Some think that I had been faking it all along, and so they have brought fraud charges against me, and the police are after me.  

“The temple is after me because they think I’m a new disciple of this Jesus guy, and they want me to point him out to them. I can’t get them to understand that I never saw the person and probably couldn’t identify him anyways.

“I still don’t know what half of the stuff I see is. I have to close my eyes and listen to stuff or touch it in order to know what most stuff is. I’m terrified of moving around the country because I don’t know if what I am seeing is safe or not. The other day I saw something dark in front of me, and, when I stepped on it, I fell all the way to the bottom of a cistern. I could have broken my neck. As it was, I was pretty scraped up. Who knew? If my eyes hadn’t been opened, if I had been using my stick, I would never have had that problem. Everyone wants me to be sighted, but I have no idea what that means!

“If I had asked for this, it might be different. But, I was just sitting there minding my own business. I want my life back. Short of that, I want compensation for all of the insults and disparaging comments I’ve endured. I never had much before, but I had a good reputation. Now what do I have?

“People ought to be more considerate before they start showing off with their special powers. Did I ask for this? No!!! So, I think that it is only right that he ought to pay for my troubles.”

Well, Well, Well John 4:5-42

I had a professor in college who used to start the first class after an exam with “Well, well, well, it’s time to pretend that you are all students and that you can learn something that matters.” Then he would start passing out the tests. To some he would say, “You really gave me a bucket full.” To others he would say, “You didn’t strain yourself on the crank.” And to a very few he would say, “Your well was dry.”

Today I stand before you, and I want to say, “Well, well, well.” It’s time to deal with the issues at hand. It’s time to pretend that we really understand this story and talk about the things that matter. It is time to stop being so darned clever about what we think is happening in this story and deal with the story itself.

You see, when I was in seminary and for much of the time I have been in the public ministry of the church, scholars and commentaries on this text begin with the back story of the characters in this text. It seems like people have this uncontrollable urge to fill in the gaps.

The commentaries begin with why Jesus happened to be walking through Samaria. Why would he have been tired, needing a rest by the well? The scholars want to tell you what kind of a woman would be coming to the well at noon with her pitcher. These same people want to tell you that the impact of this story is concerned with Jesus’ need to forgive those who do not believe as they should. They want this text to be about baptism and dying to the old ways and living into the new ways.

I know, because I have been one of those who have chased that rabbit all the way down the hole only to find more and more puzzles to be solved. I tell you today, that although it is an entertaining road, there is nothing there. It is like pealing an onion. When each layer of the onion is peeled away, what do you have?

Well, let’s take a look at the onion. I think that there is more than enough for us to deal with there. At the time of this story, the Samaritans and the Judeans have been distancing themselves from one another. It is not really a feud, but it is more than an argument. There are all kinds of political and sociological issues at hand, but these are just another rabbit hole.

What matters is that Jewish men are not supposed to talk with Samaritan women. BUT, Jesus does. We do not know why Jesus has so much less energy than his disciples, why it is that he alone needs to rest by the well while his disciples go into town to get food. What we know is, Jesus rests there and the disciples go to get food.

What we know is that life requires water and this well has water. People are drawn to the well and people draw from the well. It is a gathering place. Wells in Jesus’ time gathered people like gas stations gather people today. You may not like everybody that pulls into the gas station, but you recognize that people need gas. Even if we are not driving, there are items of convenience that we find at the local gas station. We might want a doughnut, a bottle of pop, a gallon of milk, the daily newspaper, a cup of coffee, directions, a bathroom, local gossip. All of these are available at the local gas station, quick mart, or convenience store. Well, that is what the well was in Jesus’ time.

Well, Jesus is resting by the well when a woman comes to draw water from the well. Jesus breaks social conduct rules by speaking to this woman, and, in the course of their conversation, Jesus tells her what she needs to know in order to claim him as the messiah.

This woman returns to the town to share the knowledge of the newfound relationship she has with Jesus, and the town comes out to the local gathering place to meet him. They too enter into a relationship with Jesus, and because of this new relationship, they invite Jesus to stay with them. Because of his staying, they live different lives.

In the midst of this new relationship that is begun, the disciples return with food and are confused. They like the old borders. They like the security of believing that Jewish people are in a right relationship with God and the Samaritans are not part of that relationship. Well, they have to learn new ways too.

What we learn from this story is that Jesus is not only able to build relationships that break through our self-protective boundaries, he is willing to break through to the other side in ways that claim people as being sacred—more sacred than places. The day is coming and is now here when we will not worry about having a place to worship, but that the relationships we have with people will be the center of how we worship.  Worship will not be a where, but a who.

In the 7^th and 8^th articles of the Augsburg Confession, Lutherans proclaim that the church is nothing less than the people who are gathered, where the Word and the sacraments are rightly proclaimed and administered. Martin Luther and his learned associate Phillip Melanchthon understood, 500 years ago, that the church, in spite of what we think about our buildings, is God’s people gathered together for prayer, praise, and thanksgiving throughout the world.

Somewhere deep inside us, we too know that the church is not a building, that the church is all about people. For we have heard this story, and we are witnesses to the turf wars that can arise when we say that God can only be worshipped here; that God is here but not there. Well, Jesus lays the groundwork for our Lutheran understanding of the church to come.

 Well, when we strip away all of the “maybe this” and “maybe thats”, we are left with Jesus revealing himself as the Messiah for the first time in the Gospel of John. A woman, and this is important, is the first person to bear witness to Jesus’ messiahship, and because of her testimony, others come to be in relationship with Jesus.

This is not the only time in the book of John that women will be the proclaimers of Jesus as the messiah. We will hear these words again from Mary and Martha in a couple of weeks and we will hear the proclamation of the resurrection from Mary Magdalene a couple weeks after that.

What we are left with is the importance of women’s voices in the proclamation of the Gospel; of women’s voices identifying who Jesus is; of women’s voices calling us to the centers of social exchange as places where Christ’s presence can be found with new relationships of welcome and acceptance.

Another thing. It confuses the disciples and challenges them to think of the world in new and different ways; to embrace a world where the outsiders are welcomed into relationship with God’s covenant people.

Jacob’s well has not failed yet, and the life-giving living water of God’s word revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ has not failed either. Give testimony to that relationship that gives you life, for indeed, we know that Jesus Christ is the salvation of the world.

A Story Looking for a Home John 7:53-8:11

The Story of the Adulterous Woman, or at least that is what we have come to know it by, is one of those really interesting stories of the Bible. We read it tonight from the Gospel of John, but its place in the longer proclamation of John’s Gospel is somewhat tenuous. It carries with it a footnote stating that the earliest accounts of John do not have this story in it. It further states that some Bibles place this story at the end of John and others place it in the Gospel of Luke.

 What we know is that, after Jesus was crucified and raised up from the grave, stories were told about him and about the contacts that people had had with him. Many of these stories were collected into what we now know as the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), but there were some stories that were not immediately included. In fact, there are a number of stories that have never been included. We know this from the end of the Gospel of John when the Gospel writer states, “These stories have been told so that you might believe. There are other stories, but if they were all told, they could not be contained in a book.” Apparently, this story is one of those extra stories, and the importance of it for the early Christian community was so important that it was eventually included in the accounts that we have about Jesus. It was an orphan story that was crying out for a place, and it has eventually found its place here in the Gospel of John.

 Let us understand that there are a number of problems with this story. For instance, if we read the laws concerning adultery and the penalties for committing adultery in Deuteronomy, we see that, if a woman is to be punished for adultery, the man she committed it with should also be brought forward and stoned. Yet here we find no man. The scribes and Pharisees have only brought the woman. What to do?

 Another problem is we see Jesus writing on the ground, not once but twice, yet we are never told the significance of the writing. What about that? (I had a classmate in seminary that used to draw cartoons of various biblical passages, and he drew one for this story. In the first frame, you see Jesus and a woman and an angry crowd. In the second frame, Jesus is facing the crowd saying, “Let the one without sin throw the first stone.” In the third frame, you see Jesus with his finger on the ground, and you see what he is writing. It’s a tic-tac-toe board.)

 This is an orphan story looking for a place, and, as I looked at this story more carefully, thinking about what is going on, I came to believe that what we have is a story that is not about sin but rather of repentance and forgiveness. That is why it’s importance was great enough to merit inclusion in our greater narrative of God’s love and caring. For indeed, it found its way into our spiritual narrative; it demanded to be included in our Scripture place; and, although its place is tenuous, it is a part of our spiritual identity today.

 I have come to think that this story is like us. Each of us has our own story of how we came to be here this evening. Each of us has our own story of faith and challenge, of sin and the need for forgiveness. We hear these words of Jesus, “Let those around you without sin be your judge.” And with these words we discover that we are incapable of being judges. We seek and find a place of forgiveness and the need for that forgiveness. In that time, we find our place in the faith story and our stories of community, of our need for one another, and the work we need to do to be forgiven and the work we need to do to forgive.

 This challenging story is not just looking for a place in Scripture, it is looking for a place in our hearts. And with this story, we too cry out for a place of inclusion with our own stories. We too cry out with the need of recognition and value and peace.

 So, we come to this place, gathered together, sharing our stories of joys and sorrows, our successes and our failures; sharing our lives, that communal creation story, that continuous narrative of our need of God’s love, that thing we call the living word of Christ among us, being the living word of God’s hope-filled activity in the world. We are not seeking to be the ones who judge but the ones who seek to proclaim Christ’s words of grace and love.

 Jesus stooped down, and he wrote on the ground. He wrote in the dirt, in the humus, and, through this, we are reminded of our humanity. We are reminded of our first ancestor being handcrafted from the dirt and God’s breath being breathed into us and the words that created us. As the spoken word gave life to us from the goodness of the humus, so now the writing in that humus promises new ways of living for all humans, and we find our own human identity. Through this earthy writing, we find the words of life, and light, and loving forgiveness.

 We stand before Christ, always in a state of needing forgiveness and always in that state of grace, of God’s underserved love and forgiveness. This unusual status calls us, names us, and holds us as God’s children in God’s world. May we always know God’s love and forgiveness as we go out among God’s people, as we gather here, as we share our stories, as we live into the ages in Christ’s living word for the sake of the world.

A LONG AND WINDING ROAD

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET           

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts  

A LONG AND WINDING ROAD

Dateline: Deadwood SD, March 5, 04:01:11

by Matt Hughes

Today Biblical Archeology Digest (BAD) archeologist O. Toby Norske was again in the news when he revealed the most recent set of runic records found near Jordan Creek, in Harmony, Minnesota. According to these records, Jesus left a life in Harmony and traveled into the western wilderness.  He may have been the first to follow the advice, “Go West, young man.”

Norske’s work is important because it moves research from the Jordan Creek area in southern Minnesota into the greater North American setting. Norske said, “We started looking for places where Jesus might have gone, based on Biblical accounts of course, and other ancient sources. New findings in the ghost town, Deadwood, SD, suggest that the wilderness west journey could have ended there. At an average 15.7 miles per day (a very reasonable walk in those days), Jesus could have ended his forty-day journey in the wilderness crossing most of Minnesota and South Dakota.”

Ayne Shent (St. Olive, ‘02), one of BAD’s Norwegian antiquity scholars, helped with the research and was present when some preliminary diggings were initiated. The whole team was shocked when they found a stone with identical markings as the Jordan Creek find. This tends to confirm Norske’s hypothesis.

The writings on this stone purport that Jesus traveled into the western wilderness and was tested. Jesus rejected spells as ways to solve the world hunger issue, but Shent notes that this part of the nation has been known as the “great bread basket” for many years.

The stone further claims that Jesus was taken to the pinnacle of what we now know as the Corn Palace where he refused to leap without an appropriate bungee harness and line. Lastly, he was taken to the highest point in the Black Hills, where he surveyed the wonders of the western lands, and he again declared them good.

After the mountain-top experience, Jesus found himself where angels ministered to him. Norske now believes that the end of the testing time concluded in Cactus Flat (a popular stop today to visit a prairie dog village) because, he explains, “From the rune stone, we now understand that the word we usually think of as ‘angels’ really means ‘prairie dogs’. This would suggest that Jesus was transubstantiated or teleported in some way from place to place. Otherwise, he wandered all the way to the Black Hills and then returned part way, and then proceeded to Deadwood, another five- or six-day journey by foot.“

The terminal location of Deadwood is suggested by the cross event itself. The dead wood is the signature name of the cross and has been made famous because of it. Norske said, “What comes out of these new writings is how maniacally focused the inquisitor is and how casual Jesus is in the midst of it.”

As scholars continue to process this new information, Shent shared that some wonder whether this narrative suggests a first uprising of aboriginal first-nation people against the misunderstood intentions of an early Viking expedition or whether the leadership of that fated expedition was in fact Jesus and that he was a Viking rejected by an unknown adversary.

Maybe Jesus is Norwegian after all.

PERFECT, Matthew 5:38-48

As we come to the end of the fifth chapter of Matthew, roughly 1/3 of the way through the Sermon on the Mount, we encounter some of the most difficult language thus far. “Do not resist evil doers.” Really? I am just going to say that this is a less-than-helpful translation from the Greek. The people who heard these words first had a great advantage.

1. They knew the times they lived in; therefore, they did not need to have the context of the times explained to them.
2. They understood Jesus’ words and didn’t have to have them translated.
3. They knew that just these eleven verses were not the whole sermon. They knew more was coming that would more fully explain what it meant to live in the kingdom of heaven, and
4. They didn’t have someone standing in front of them trying to explain what Jesus meant without the context of the whole sermon.

So, as we come to the end of our reading of Jesus’ words for us in Epiphany, understand that we will be coming back to other parts of his sermon throughout the year. Indeed, part of the sermon is assigned for Ash Wednesday, just a week and a half away. These words will continue to challenge us as we wrestle with what it means to be the body of Christ for the sake of the world.

Before talking more about Jesus, let me tell you a story. Emma stood in the middle of the room screaming with tears running down her face. Her mother came into the room and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Johnny hit me,” Emma shrieked.

“She hit me first!” Johnny retorted.

“That’s enough.” Mom said. “Say you’re sorry to one another and give each other a hug.”

Emma and Johnny looked at each other for a long time, and then each of them mumbled, “I’m sorry.” Then they hugged. As they hugged, Johnny whispered, “Tattle-tail,” and then he began to squeeze as hard as he could. Emma held her breath and started to get a little red in the face, but stubbornly refused to say anything. Finally, Johnny released her. Emma stepped back and kicked Johnny in the ankle as she appeared to lose her balance from the hug.

Mom said, “That’s better. Now play nice. Lunch will be ready soon.”

As she left the room, Johnny picked up a block and threw it at Emma. She ducked the block, and, putting her head down, she butted Johnny in the stomach. Suddenly, a hand grasped each of them, and Mom’s voice, no longer conciliatory, said, “That’s it. Go to your rooms and don’t come out until you can be friends again.”

Be honest. Don’t you wish that the problems of Syria could be solved this way? Or, don’t you wish the issues surrounding our last election could be solved like this?

Now I could tell you that the whole argument got started because Johnny broke Emma’s favorite crayon, or I could tell you that Emma wouldn’t answer Johnny when he asked her what she was doing, but little of that will change the fact that Emma and Johnny are living in an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth (plus a little interest) world. It is this tit-for-tat world that Jesus wants to address.

“Stop escalating the violence!” Jesus says. Understand that Rome is in power and returning punch for punch with Roman power will only get you crushed. Power does not rest in muscular strength, power rests in endurance and peace. Therefore, when the Roman soldier tells you to carry his load for a mile, smile and carry it two miles. If you show that you are willing to carry the load, you take away the soldier’s power over you.

“Yes,” Jesus says, “there is evil in the world, but if you are my follower, then you do not need to respond to evil with evil’s methods. Instead of responding to evil with evil, respond in a way that recognizes the person in front of you as a person. Treat that person as you would like to be treated, because, if what you see before you is an enemy and that person is stronger than you, then you are always going to be crushed.”

This is the beginning of what Gandhi understood. This is what Martin Luther King, Jr. understood. If Gandhi had organized an army to fight the British, we would be living in a very different world today, but instead, Gandhi chose to turn the imperial power of the British against itself.

Martin Luther King, Jr. did not organize people around him with great speeches of strategy, planning the overthrow of white privilege and power. He spoke to the nation with words of hope and vision. He did not speak of strategy but of dreams. How differently we would have heard “I have a strategy…” rather than “I have a dream…”.

It is sometimes hard to imagine what a world of de-escalation might look like, and so I wish to share this story with you. In the early days of the Massachusetts Bay colony, John Winthrop noticed that his wood pile was diminishing much faster than he thought it should. Suspecting someone of stealing wood from his wood pile, he was enraged. So, he decided to wait in the shadows one night to see who was taking his prized wood. Around midnight, one of the men from the colony who had fallen on hard times, showed up and started to load up some of the wood. Stepping out of the shadows, John Winthrop said, “Friend, I see thou hast need of wood, and I have plenty. Help thyself to what you need.” John Winthrop wrote, “In this way, I ended the thievery.”

God has given us so much—enough to share. I know that there are times when that sharing makes us feel uncomfortable, but, when we remember that God’s abundance is for all of creation, not just those who believe, or not just for those who believe like us, we begin to have a glimpse of God’s amazing love for all of God’s people and the privilege we have been given to share the news of God’s love—a love that reaches beyond the category of enemy to person; a love that goes beyond our differences and embraces our common needs; a love that does not objectify those around us with labels of black and white, male and female, old and young, gay and straight, abled and disabled, Republicans and Democrats, residents and foreigners, English-speaking and some other language, Lutheran and pick your denomination, but as children of God’s loving creation. Christ died once for all. And we build on that foundation waiting to be tested.

The Lord told Moses to tell the people, “You shall be holy for I, the Lord, am holy.” Indeed, we are separate from the world because God is separate from the world. We are “In the world but not of it,” as Luther has said. And we are perfect as God is perfect—not perfect in the sense of being without sin, but perfect in the sense that we are complete, whole, what God has created us to be. We are one in Christ.

As we have heard in the Sermon on the Mount these last few weeks we are blessed, not by our own work, but in Christ’s love; we have been assured that our saltiness is restored in Christ, and our light shines out in Christ; our righteousness is fulfilled in Christ; and we have learned the ways of Christ; so now we find that our wholeness, our holiness, our perfection, is not from us, but from Christ himself.

As we are gathered in worship today, hear these words of Christ for you.

“You are blessed, that is, you are assured of God’s presence in your life. Christ is with you.”

“You are the salt of the earth and light to the nations.” That is, you are essential qualities needed for the body of Christ to continue in health and to thrive.

“Your righteousness will exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees.” That is, through Christ, all things are possible and our ability to raise people up from the valley of the shadow of death’s darkness into the resurrection of Christ’s light is our mission and ministry by grace, through faith, in Christ alone.

And having learned what it means to be followers of Christ, “Do not escalate the level of violence in the world. Be wholly perfect as your Father in heaven is wholly perfect.”

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Matthew 5:21-37

The old commercial used to say, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.” Today I say, “Sometimes you have to take the Bible literally, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you have to take the Bible metaphorically, sometimes you don’t. And sometimes, you have to take the Bible metaphorically and literally at the same time. Welcome to the Sermon on the Mount.”


For the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about this new community that Jesus is creating and forming. It is a new world vision that includes all of God’s people. So once again, let’s review the people who are gathered on the mountainside. They are the people who have come from all of Syria, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, and the land beyond the Jordan. These people are the diseased and infirm, those who have mental illness, the epileptics, and the paralytics. These people have come with their care takers and followed Jesus up the mountain.


Here, on this mount, as we witness a new community being formed, we are reminded of Moses in the wilderness—how Moses went up the mountain and came back down with the Ten Commandments. When the people, like Moses, come down from this mountain, they too, will have a new understanding of what it means to be God’s people in the world and to be a follower of Jesus. These words will give identity to the people and shape the attitudes and conversations engaging the world. These words will also shape the mission and ministry of the nascent church while developing an ethic and vocabulary for considering our place in the world.


Jesus is speaking to the people gathered before him on the mountain, and, at the same time, he is speaking to us in his distant future. He is using extreme language, setting the bar low enough so that we will attempt to live by them, but high enough so we know that it is only by God’s grace that we will be able to claim these words as our own.


Sue got her degree in economics, and though the subject of economics continues to confuse me in all kinds of ways, she helped me understand at least part of the economic conversation by telling me that there are two major conversations of economics that are always going on; sometimes they even talk with one another. There is the conversation of macroeconomics which is about the financial concerns of the nation and the world economy and there is microeconomics which deals with household spending.


I use this image of macro and micro as a way of suggesting how Jesus is speaking to us, giving these commands as both a macro- and as a micro- ethic. It is not just for the people who are there, but for those that we will come to know as the followers of Jesus. We will call them Christians. Just as Moses gave the Ten Commandments as guides and mandates for the greater community of faith, not for individual piety and self-righteousness, but for the entire nation of Israel, we will claim these words of Jesus as guiding words for ourselves today.


The Ten Commandments were given as an identifying signature symbol to the world stating why these particular Hebrew people were different. They were for all of God’s people who had come out of Egypt and also for the generations of people who would follow them. These commandments were given to help the people live together in peace with a common set of rules among the families and tribes, and guidelines for being in relationship with the nations/peoples around them. These commandments were at the same time, macro- and micro-.


In this sermon, Jesus does not mention all of the commandments, nor does he address the commandments in the order that we received them from Moses. Jesus also references some of the great number of the laws given in Torah as he talks about these new ways of understanding them.


Jesus begins “Don’t murder.” On a micro-, personal level, this commandment seems pretty straight forward. On a macro-, national level, this command becomes much more difficult. Yet Jesus does not stop with that complication, he makes it even more difficult. If you are going to be my follower, if you are going to be the people who will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, then I say, “More than do not murder, don’t be angry with one another. Don’t get trapped in the pettiness of insulting one another. Don’t declare that others are fools.”


I need just a moment to talk about why, when Jesus says, “but I say,” it was so controversial for the people hearing this in Jesus’ time. A rabbi didn’t speak by his own authority but by the authority of other rabbis, past and present, who had influenced his thought, and with the authority of Torah itself. Many of the sayings and thoughts cited were from Moses. A rabbi borrowed the authority of Moses by reiterating Moses’ words, saying, “With Moses, I say …” or, “I will teach you as it is written in Torah (the first five books of the First Testament, sometimes referred to as the law)”. The rabbi also included the opinions of other rabbis who were in agreement with the history of the faith and in agreement with him. Thus, rabbis spoke with the authority of those who had gone before them.


A rabbi traveled around the country seeking out the brightest and the best of the young boys who might be worthy of becoming his disciple. While rabbis were teaching their own students, they offered up their own ideas derived from the arguments and teaching of others. When their students brought those teachings forward, they did so with the authority of their teacher. These students then taught saying, “As Rabbi so-and-so used to say, ‘this is what we should be thinking and doing.’” A rabbi, unlike Jesus’ statements, never really spoke with his own authority, but with that of a consortium of others.


It was understood that the only one who could speak with his own authority and without the voices of other people was Godself. Therefore, now understanding a bit about rabbinical authority, we can understand what authority Jesus claimed when he said, “You have heard it said in ancient times, don’t murder, but I say to you….”. Jesus’ words are so powerful because he is claiming the authority only allowed to the Son of God.


The people, both then and now, having heard these words, must determine whether Jesus was some sort of flim-flammer con artist, or whether he has the authority of God, indeed is God. If Jesus was a flim-flammer, then they, and we, don’t have to pay any attention to him. Today, we could just go home, go eat breakfast or brunch, prepare to take a nap. We could do any number of things that might fill our time in oh so many ways. We might even go to the mall to pick up a few things that we think we can’t live without.


But, today we are gathered proclaiming that the one speaking, one Jesus of Nazareth, is the Son of God, the Word of God incarnate. We are now accountable to living our lives differently: when issues arise that might divide us, we will try to remain friends instead of becoming adversaries. We will seek ways to be reconciled to one another, that is, we will make concessions for the sake of the other.


Just in case you think that this process of being reconciled to your neighbor is only for personal relationships, the micro-ethic, Jesus intends this is how national and local communities should interact with neighbors as well, the macro-ethic. In all relationships, Jesus urges do not be angry or vengeful, do not insult a neighbor, not even pointing out foolish behavior. Rather, Jesus demands reconciliation so that the value of the neighbor is not diminished, weakening the whole body of Christ.


This reconciliation is not “You need to change”. It is “We are willing to change in order for you to be part of us” reconciliation. This language suggests that “being reconciled to” means that we will make accommodations for the needs of our neighbors in order to walk together in Christ.


We know the early Christian worshipping community was divided over different ways of becoming Christian. In First Corinthians, we hear that some claim Apollos, others claim Paul. We know that some thought that it was necessary for a person to convert to Judaism first, and then, after they had become Jewish, they could begin Catechism to become Christian. We also know that the Gospel of Matthew was probably written in Antioch, Syria, and that the Christian community had gathered there to escape the Roman army in Jerusalem. So, as Matthew is recounting Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he is reporting it to a highly polarized, divided faith community. They are people who want to distance themselves from one another in self-righteous fervor trying to say that one faction is better than the other. They are more concerned about their faith positions than they are about what Christ has done for all of them. So, Matthew includes this divided community with all the other outcasts of the world when he speaks about Jesus’ concerns about divorce and adultery.


When Jesus talks about divorce, his words seem to be talking about the breakdown of a personal relationship (like with the person we are married to), but adultery and divorce, in the scriptures we call the Old Testament, have more to do with our communal relationship with God than they do with marital conditions. They are more macro= than micro-. In Jeremiah 31:31-34, God says that, although we have not been faithful to God, God will not divorce us. We may divorce ourselves from God, but God will not divorce us. Instead, God will write God’s laws on our hearts, and God will remember our sins no more. So, when Jesus speaks about adultery and divorce, Jesus cautions us against turning away from God and chasing after other gods for false gratification and salvation and moving outside that relationship that God desires to have with us.


These words are for Christ’s body, that is, the people gathered in worship, and address the divisions that come within that community of faith, with the many gifts of Christ’s body, his hands and his feet, his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, who are gathered together for the sake of the world, seeking wholeness. So, Matthew reports that Jesus has said that when the eye or the right hand has caused the body to sin, remove it. This is not for the personal body, although there are times when surgery demonstrates the value of removing diseased appendixes, cancerous or severely infected organs like gall bladders and more, these words are written for the good order and the overall health of the body of Christ and caution us concerning outside philosophies and faiths.


It is better amid irreconcilable differences that one part of the faithful separate from the other until future discernment can find wholeness again. In this light, the Reformation, started by Luther’s actions 500 years ago, was a better way to go than to continue to fight within the Roman Catholic Church. Although we have not found wholeness together yet, we are now able to understand each other better than we have for many years.


So, at Jesus’ feet on the side of the mountain, seated with the first people gathered there, and with the divided community of Antioch, and within the midst of our own polarized and divided world, let us hear these words again that encourage us to be the new community of faith with new understandings of who this Jesus is. This understanding affects the way we live individually, but, more than that, it calls us as one of many communities of faith to honor those around us in ways that we have not in the past.


This is not a time for warfare and separation. It is not a time of hurling insults at the people who disagree with our communal beliefs. It is certainly not a time to call those who differ from us fools thereby increasing the chasm of distrust that separates us. It is not a time of chasing after easy solutions that dishonor the value of our neighbors. These words of Jesus pledge us to the commitment of seriously engaging the problems of the community we live in, embracing those problems in a way that says, “These are the concessions that we are willing and able to make to accommodate the needs of our neighbors. These are our theological non-negotiables concerning who Jesus is and whose we are, and, if we can’t agree on these things, it might be better for us to go our separate ways for the sake of the health and welfare of the body of Christ.”


Continuing in this community God has given us, as we sit and hear these words with those who heard it first, let us come down from the mountain, to live in the ways Jesus has proposed, not only with the words of “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not swear falsely using God’s name wrongly,” but with those added admonitions that help us live in healthy ways and loving relationships with one another.


In the relationships of faith which we have with one another, let us not swear in ways that dishonor God and God’s children: not by heaven, for that is God’s; not by the earth, for that is God’s; not by the city of Jerusalem, for that belongs to the government; not even by your head because you did not create it. Instead, when we engage with one another in honest debate concerning honest differences, let us openly say, “Yes, we can do this,” or, “No, we can’t.” In this way, we will be able to walk together in new ways. We will walk together in the way of forgiveness that is needed for our own spiritual health and ability to embrace life, not to change the behavior of the other person or group. We will walk together in the new way of making concessions to accommodate our neighbor, not because it will make our neighbor more acceptable to us, but because it will strengthen our community of faith and the body of Christ. We will walk together in these new ways, being honest in our relationship with God and one another, celebrating the gifts we have been given; not divorcing ourselves from God or one another; and not chasing after the new latest thing or idea that draws us away from those relationships.


In a divided world, in this time when the world continues to want to swear by flags and constitutions, by guns and walls that will only divide us, and by the wealth and lifestyle we have, let us remember and recognize God’s authority to create and forgive, and let us remember our calling to be the new welcoming community of God’s people and our willingness to serve in Christ, simply saying yes and no in faith.