ROME IMPROVEMENT 05/30/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!! 

SURVEYING THE SITE—Isaiah 6:1-8

This week we observe Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost. It is part of Ordinary Time, those weeks which aren’t part of the festival seasons of Christmas and Easter and their corresponding preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent. Although the color of the day is white, the color of the season is green. This is the growing season in the northern hemisphere, and green is the color of living plants.

We are told that this takes place in the year that King Uzziah died. The Old Testament reading introduces us to the throne room of God and the attendants surrounding God’s throne. We see the seraphim, fiery serpents with six wings (dragons?), circling above God’s head calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.”

These same seraphim are consulted when querying, “Who will bring God’s message to the world?” With the enthusiasm of John Fogarty’s baseball player, Isaiah cries out, “Put me in, Coach! I’m ready to play today.”

READING THE BLUEPRINT

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Seraphim stood above it, six wings they had, with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew. And cried this [one] to this [one], “Holy, holy, holy, The Name of hosts. Full to overflowing of the earth is his glory.” The posts of the door [between heaven and earth] were shaken by the voice of the one who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So, I said, “Woe me for I am undone because a man of unclean lips [am] I; I [am] in the midst of unclean lips. I dwell for the king; The Name of hosts has seen my eyes. And flew to me one of the seraphim and, in his hand, having a live coal with the tongs he had taken from the altar, and he touched on my mouth, and said, “Behold, has touched this upon your lips and is taken away your iniquity, and your sin purged. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here I! Send me!”

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

At the beginning of Isaiah, so much is happening. The Northern Kingdom (Israel) has already fallen. The great diaspora (scattering of the seed/people) has already occurred. The Southern Kingdom (Judah) is about to be overcome by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, and the judgment of God is about to be spoken. The only question is, “Who will be the bearer of the bad news?”

Isaiah is living in dire times. King Uzziah, who was a great king for many years of his life until his pride got in the way, has died. In 2 Chronicles 26, we read that in his pride, King Uzziah attempts to usurp the authority of the priests by making the sacrifice of incense in the temple himself, thereby taking the power of king and fusing it with the role of priest. The priest Azariah challenges the king with eighty of his closest priests and circumvents King Uzziah’s attempt at taking over the temple and aligning it with his enthroned power. When Uzziah expresses his anger and frustration, he develops leprosy on his forehead (a rash of some sort that stays with him until he dies).

It is this stance of pride that sets the stage for this reading in Isaiah. As the king was prideful, so now, the people are prideful. In the words of Reinhold Niebuhr, “Having been given the ability to transcend self, [humanity] attempts to transcend God.” (“The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, Volume one: Human Nature”, ch. 5). This is the situation when God’s great throne room appears with God’s robe covering the Mercy Seat in the temple.

As a testimony to God’s credentials for making the judgment, the Seraphim with two wings to cover their faces so that they will not look upon the face of God, and two wings to euphemistically cover their feet (more vulnerable parts), and two wings to fly, the seraphim fly above God’s head, crying, “Holy.” Here again, we discover that holiness is not something that places God beyond creation but models the very quality of being engaged in and with creation.

This holiness speaks of God as being active in history, involved in relationship with the seraphim and Isaiah. The relationship does not point away from God’s creation. Rather, God’s holiness points to the overflowing abundance of God’s good creation and the quality of mercy that will be experienced by God’s nature of being “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” The does not mean that correction will not be administered, but that God’s love will win out.

In this throne room of judgment, in consultation with the seraphim, God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for the entire heavenly court, for us?”

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

I can’t ever read this passage without thinking about chocolate chip cookies. One night my sister Jamie was baking chocolate chip cookies. I told her that I loved eating chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven. To this, she said, “No, you don’t.” When I assured her that I did, she said, “Open your mouth.” When I did, she slid a chocolate chip cookie that had just come out of the oven off the spatula. Steam like a smoky mist shot out of my mouth and filled the room. Well, it was probably my scream that filled the room. I spit out the cookie and struggled with a rather sore, burned tongue and lip for several days.

The act of purification in this text has life-long scarring implications, and yet we continue to witness the faithfulness of Isaiah’s response to God’s call. In fact, many who are in the ministry feel a similar response to God’s call. But it is not as savory as one would think. The message pastors often have to bring is the prophetic word of change.

We can’t stay where we are. God requires us to move, to think of things differently, to consider the effects of our opinions and desires. There is a call for humble accountability, claiming our responsibility for the state of the world and a need for a time-out, a time to acknowledge prideful self-interest, a time to get in touch with the rest of God’s good creation, reclaim our relationship with God and one another, and a time to heal and move into the new place God would have us go.

“Here I. Send me,” cannot be made lightly. The sizzle of coal burning purification and the knowledge of painful moments of misunderstanding are there. There will be times when the entire community will hate you, not because they have animus toward you, but because you are charged with holding a mirror up to God’s people, and they do not particularly like what they see.

Most of all, the response is made, knowing that change is a sign of God’s immanent* presence and our relationship with God is about to enter a new phase. It is exciting and terrifying. Maybe there should be a question mark at the end of the great response to God’s call, “Send me?”

HANGING THE TRIM

I really do like warm chocolate chip cookies with the chocolate melting into that crisping shell of sugared dough, but not so fresh, please.  

 

*  Immanent: permanently pervading and sustaining the universe

 

ROME IMPROVEMENT 5/23/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Acts 2:1-21

If any day of the church year epitomizes “more power, more glory, more spirit” it is this Sunday, the Day of Pentecost. The reading for this day and the previous event of the Ascension are covered by the author of Luke and Acts. As Luke ends, Jesus tells the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they are “clothed with power from on high” shortly before he ascends to heaven. As the book of Acts begins, we revisit the Ascension where Jesus tells his disciples that this is the power of the Holy Spirit and that they will be Jesus’ witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria and to all the ends of the earth.”

Two angels come and challenge the disciples to pay attention to what is in front of them and stop looking up to heaven. So, the disciples return to the place of waiting and devote themselves, with certain women, to prayer and choosing a disciple to take Judas’ place. This says that the “waiting” they were doing is pretty active, and the “gathered togetherness” in the one room is less likely due to idleness than to prayer. This gathering together also includes women, so it is a larger group than just the twelve. It may even include Joseph, called Barsabas, also known as Justus.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And in the fulfilling the day of the Pentecost, all were together at the same. And there began from the heaven a sound like a windy violence and filled all the house where they were seating themselves. And there appeared to them dividing tongues as of fire and sat on each one of them. And they were all filled with a Spirit of Holiness and began to speak other languages as the Spirit was giving proper speaking to them.

There were now living in Jerusalem Judeans, devout men from every nation which is under the heaven. The sound of this having come into being, the crowd came together and was bewildered because each one heard their speaking in their own idiomatic dialect. Then they were astounded, and they were amazed, saying, “See here, are not all of these who are speaking Galileans? And how do we hear each in our own idiomatic language in which we are born? Parthians…Arabs [people from everywhere], we hear their speaking in our own tongues the mighty acts of God.” And all were astounded and perplexed, saying one to another, “What does this wish, this hope, intend to be?” Others, jeering said, “They have been filled with sweet wine.”

[Then] having stood up, Peter with the eleven, he raised his voice and began to pontificate: “Men of Judea, and all those dwelling in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen up to what I have to say. For these are not overly imbibing as you suppose for it is the third hour of the day; but this is what is said through the prophet Joel,

‘And it will be in the last days, says God, I will pour out from my spirit/breath upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy; and your young shall see visions, and your elders shall dream dreams; and even upon my slaves, male and female, in those days I will pour out from my spirit/breath, and they will prophesy. And I will give portents in the heaven and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vaporous smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming day of the great and glorious (becoming visible) Lord. And it will be that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be made whole.’ “

 

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

“This train is bound for glory, is this train. This train is bound for glory, is this train. This train is bound for glory. If you want to get to heaven, then you got to get holy. This train is bound for glory, is this train.” Or so the old spiritual says.

 

Like a train leaving the station, Pentecost provides an engine for us to ride the rails of ministry. Coupled to our engine are many cars with people of every nation and the baggage that they carry. This train is bound for glory, is this train. And the glory we are bound for is the glory of witnessing to the resurrection of Jesus. The glory we are bound to is the glory of God among us. The glory we are bound to is the glory of relationship, coupled together with all of the people of the world.

 

This last week I attended virtually some of the Festival of Homiletics. There, the Rev. Dr. Luke Powery presented a sermon on this passage entitled, “And”. He noted that the word “and” describes the relationship of the people involved in this amazing moment in time. Like the couplers that connect the engine to the first car and that to the next, and on and on, this word “and” binds the train together: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, coupled together with the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs; essentially, the whole world is being pulled by the Pentecost train.

 

Each person and every nation are all coupled onto this train by the conjunction “and”. And with this glorious train comes the Holy Wind, the Holy Spirit—God’s holy/sanctified breath—that breath that enlivens, and vivifies, and gives verve to our lives. This breath is the source of our passion and compassion. It is the sound of God’s wind squeezed through our vocal cords shaped by God’s gift of mouth to create the very words we need to describe the wondrous works and love of God.

 

In the old spiritual, the jokers, the cigar smokers, the liars, the prostitutes, even our mothers, sisters, brothers, and fathers may be restricted from the train. But, on this day, on this train, it is all about everyone who can get on board. It is all about coupling up for the ride to glory and being fully involved with all of God’s people, bearing and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

 

Now if our context for this song is the underground railroad of the nineteenth century, then glory is going to be freedom. But in the context of Pentecost, this train may be for…, well, it’s still for freedom—freedom from the racism and prejudice of our world, freedom from the pandemic that has imprisoned us this past year in fear and isolation, freedom from polarization and the biases of conservative vs liberal, freedom from all things that get in the way of our relationship with God.

 

Still, it is not that we are just freed from these powerful divisions, we are freed to something. We are freed to live with one another in new relationships. We are freed to hold on to one another, to get into one another’s cars, to see and listen to each other’s stories of our lives, and then find new ways of faithfully relating to one another. We are freed to know the wholeness that only God can give because this train is bound for glory, is this train.

 

And the glory ride is a ride that involves us in looking for the places of pain and need in our world, to witness the living body of Christ among the unseen people of our world. If we want to get wholly holy, then we are going to have to get down into the reality dirt of the world and witness the violent wind of the Spirit, the violent wind of dusty change. The Spirit is blowing us, breathing us, into new ways of living, new ways of thinking, new ways of being in dusty relationship with God and one another.

 

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

A year ago, our nation was locked down. We were determining who were the essential workers in our society. We discovered that the essential workers were not just the doctors and the nurses. Some of the most important people in our world were the garbage collectors, and meat cutters, and farm workers, and those who stocked the shelves in our grocery stores; and the housekeeping people that make spaces for healing in the hospitals safe; and bus drivers, and truckers, and taxi drivers, and car mechanics; and even tire salespeople who help us know where the rubber meets the road.

 

We discovered that there were ways other than in-person to be together. Many of the “new” ways were already in use by people who live with disabilities—people who were not ever able to meet easily in-person with others because of physical restriction—to be connected/coupled to one another for mutual support.

 

We learned to use our telephones and computers in new ways. We recorded worship services and posted them on YouTube. Connecting with one another in new ways we now thought of ourselves as both the people who had always been around us every day ‘and’ others who now joined us from afar.

 

The wind of the Holy Spirit blew us into new ways of thinking. As the violent rush of wind spoke to each person in their own language, so it is that the Holy Spirit continues to speak in ways that we can hear. This message is not limited to us in our comfortable and safe, lock-down homes. It is heard by all of those who dwell in God’s city of peace—Jerusalem: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and the residents of Mesopotamia, liberals and conservatives, white and black and red and yellow and brown, queer and straight, male and female, slave and free, abled and disabled, joyful and grieving, young and old.

 

This train is not either-or where you are worthy or you’re not. This train is the train of the world for whom Jesus came, not to condemn, but to save. This train is bound for glory, is this train, and it pulls the lives of the gambler, the smoker, the tobacco chewer, the midnight toker, the prostitutes and tax collectors—all who call on the name of the Lord—to know wholeness.

 

The wind of Pentecost is blowing still. The question is, “How is this new way of thinking empowering us for the holy ride ahead of us? And what will glory look like when we get there? How will we talk about it?”

 

HANGING THE TRIM

Many claim Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, but, in fact, that accolade belongs to the period of time the disciples stayed in the room while they waited for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. This day—Pentecost—is the birthday of the Church’s mission. On this day Peter and the eleven and those others in the room that was filled with that violent breath of God, the same breath that causes all disciples to stand and speak in ways that others could hear, the same breath that will continue to give life to our witness to the wholeness we know in the love and mercy of God revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

ROME IMPROVEMENT 05/16/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—John 17:2-19

This week the great Farewell Address ends with Jesus praying. We join Jesus as he prays for himself, his disciples, and the world, but we do not hear the end. We have to wait until next year for that, unless you choose to look it up in the Bible yourself.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

Jesus prays, “As you gave him authority over all flesh, in order that all whom you have given him, he may give to them life eternal.

“This now is eternal life, in order that they may know you, the only true God, and whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on the earth having completed the work that you gave me in order that I should make [it]. Now glorify me, Father, with yourself, with the glory that I had before the world ‘is-ing’ [is, was, and will be] with you.

“I made your name visible to the people you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have held fast to your Word [the Word revealed in the person of Jesus]. Now they know that all things you gave me are of you; for the words you have given me, I gave them, and they seized [them] and knew truly that from you I came forth and believed that you sent me. About them, I am asking, I do not ask about the world, but about those whom you have given me for yours they are. And all my things, are yours; and yours, are mine; and I have been glorified in them. No longer am I [and was I and will I be] in the world, yet they themselves are [and were and will be] in the world, and I am [and was and will be] coming to you. Holy Father, hold fast to them, in your name, which you have given me, in order that they may be one as we. When I was [and am and will be] with them, I was [and am and will be] holding fast to them in The Name of you, which you have given me. And I guarded, and not one of them was destroyed, except the son of destruction, in order that the [Hebrew] writing might come to fruition.

“Now, to you, I am coming, and these things I speak in the world in order that they may have my joy coming to fruition within them. I have given them your word, and the world hated them, because they are not [and were not and will not be] of the world, just as I am not [and was not and will not be] of the world. I do not [and did not and will not] ask in order that you should take them out of the world, but in order that you should hold fast to them from the evil. They are not [and were not and will not be] of the world, just as I am not [and were not and will not be] from the world.

“Make them holy in the truth; the Word, of you, is [and was and will be] truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world; and for them I make [and made and will make] myself holy, in order that they also were [and are and will be] being made holy in truth.”

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

The beginning of Jesus’ Farewell Address outlined our connections with him—we are part of the Father’s household with many resting places, we are entangled like branches on a vine, producing fruit, we are involved in a relationship of equality with God because we are beloved of Jesus. As a result, we are the recipients of the Advocate/Comforter. Now, we are included in the prayer for Jesus’ disciples, not just of the time but for his disciples throughout all of time—even into eternal life. That relationship in eternity begins and ends in knowing our relationship in God, in Jesus, and in the Advocate/Comforter Jesus sends to us.

In this egalitarian relationship, we are invited into that secure ‘holding fast’ place of God’s promised leading. The invisible God has been made visible in the person of Jesus, and in the relationship where the people have cared for, held fast to Jesus—the Word—joy is known.

Jesus calls God, “Holy Father”. He asks that the people be protected against evil, saying that the only one who is no longer part of the world is the destroyer who has been destroyed. In the background I hear, “What advantage do you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death, but now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is [being made holy]—the end is eternal life.” (Romans 6 NRSV) and “Where, O Death is your sting?...The power of sin is death,” (1 Cor. 15).

We know that the power of death has been put to death. The power of death which once separated us from God no longer has the power to separate us from God, and this knowledge brings joy—a joy Jesus desires to share with us. Again, we hear, “Neither life, nor death, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 8). If there is a joy to be shared, that would be it.

Lastly, Jesus asks that the people be made ‘hagios’. This word is variously translated as: holy, sanctified, hallowed, and more. For the sake of this passage, I have translated it as holy or being made holy. But what does this ‘hagios’ stuff mean?

Two years ago, because I am a member of the Disability Ministries Advisory Team, the ELCA sent me to the annual meeting of Queer Christian Fellowship (QCF). There I attended a couple of lectures on “Queering the Gospels”. In one, a very serious, faithful man talked about this ‘hagios’ word as being put aside for a specific task or made different for a purpose. He explained that this special placement was to call people into a right relationship with God. Then, he said that the LGBTQIA+ community was the community that was ‘hagios’ today.

I had immediate push-back within myself. I think I probably even expressed my discomfort with his definition to him. To think of queer folk as being faithful leaders, as companions in faith, as beloved of God, was one thing; but to think of LGBTQIA+ people as being particularly ‘hagios’, holy? Hmm?

Yet, if, rather than claiming holiness for any particular group of people who are different, we think of this holiness word as being a descriptor of who Jesus is, then maybe difference and holiness have something to do with one another after all. As an identifier, look at the people Jesus hung out with. He mostly hung out with people who were different—the blind, deaf, lame, maimed, widowed, orphaned, foreigners, mentally ill, chronically ill, and the poor, and let us not forget the tax collectors—yes, the ‘different’.

If the ‘different’ were the people Jesus hung with then, then why would he not be hanging with the LGBTQIA+ community today?

What if making oneself holy, sanctified, is intentionally identifying with the ‘different’?

What if we then took some time to rest, or linger, with Jesus’ asking the Holy Father to “make them holy in the truth, sanctify them, in truth, …and for them I make myself holy, sanctify myself, in order that they are also being made holy, sanctified, in truth?”

How then might our understanding of holiness, sanctification, and being made ‘right’ with God change?

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

When I first started thinking and talking about the issue of sanctification this week, Pr. Seth Hecox, Our Savior Lutheran Church, Sun Prairie, said, “It’s sort of like being vaccinated”. I hadn’t really gone there, but as he spoke, I started to catch up to him. We don’t get vaccinated in order to separate ourselves from others. We get vaccinated in order to safely be with others.

In the same way, being made holy, or being sanctified, does not put us in some rarified atmosphere, apart from the world. Rather, sanctification, or being made holy, is the very thing that pushes us into the world to be lovingly engaged in the world with ‘different’ people. We get to identify with the ‘different’ people in a way that shows that we are ‘different’ too.

This difference or holy state may not only say something about us, or Jesus, it may say something about Godself. When we pray, “Our Father in heaven, ‘hallowed’ be your name,” we are using the same root word as that of ‘Holy Father’ and ‘sanctify’ in our text today.

What, if when we say these prayerful words, we understood them as, “Our Father in heaven, may your name always be known to be ‘different’ for the ‘different’—the slaves of the world, those who are taken advantage of, the bullied, the beaten, the disenfranchised. May they always know that they, in their difference, are part of your good creation, that they too live in your image and are set aside for your work of living fully into the community for which you have created us?”

What, if instead of setting us apart from the world to be with God by ourselves, holiness and sanctification is an incarnational identifier that engages us with God, in the world for the sake of the world?

What, if sanctification or holiness, like a vaccination, prepares us for serving our neighbor?

What if LGBTQIA+ people are part of the sanctifying holiness of the world we live in?

How would that change the ask Jesus is making when he says, “Sanctify them (the disciples there and all of us disciples today) in truth?”

HANGING THE TRIM

The ELCA has extended a liberal invitation to many who are different, but, as a church, we oftentimes have been reluctant to hear the voices of change these new voices bring. This week we heard the announcement of Meghan Rohrer (they/their) as the new bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod who happen to be trans. As Matthias (gift of God) was elected (Acts 1:12-26), so now this new bishop has been elected. Let us rejoice and be sanctified.

ROME IMPROVEMENT 05/09/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—John 15:1-17

During this Easter season, we have spent some time with Jesus considering what the implications of “resurrection living” might mean for us. To fully understand the implications of this “resurrection life”, we find ourselves going back to those learning moments we had with Jesus before the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection.

This week, following the Last Supper, we join Jesus is in his after-dinner speech, the Farewell Address, already in progress. Here Jesus uses two metaphors. The first—house or household—was in John 14 where Jesus told us that the Father’s house has many places for rest. This week, in the second metaphor, we are told of the vine. Through it the themes of belonging and joy are introduced. Let us listen to Jesus’ words as he tells us for the last time that he is the I AM.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

[Jesus says], “I am, I AM, the true vine, and my father works the land. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he makes clean so that it bears more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word I have spoken to you. Rest in me as I rest in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it rests in the vine, neither can you unless you rest in me.

“I am, I AM, the vine. You are the branches. Those who rest in me and I in them bear much fruit because, apart from me, you cannot do anything. Whoever does not rest in me is cast away and withers, like a branch. Such branches are gathered together and burned.

“When you rest in me and my words rest in you, ask for whatever you desire, and it will be done for you. My father is glorified by this in order to bear much fruit. So, my disciples, ‘Come into being’.

“As the father loves me, so I already love you. Rest in my love. When you keep my commandments, you will rest in my love just as I have kept my father’s commandments and rest in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy might be full, like a fetus fills the womb. This is my commandment in order for you to love one another as I already love you.

“No one has greater love than this—to lay down one’s life for the beloved. You are my beloved when you do what I command you. I do not call you slaves any longer because the slave does not know what the master is up to. But I have called you beloved because I have spilled my guts out to you concerning what I have heard from my father.

“You did not choose me. I chose you! I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last in order that the father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commandments in order for you to love one another.”

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

Rudolf Bultmann and others have suggested that the Gospel of John is a compilation of at least two Jesus narrative traditions that have been brought together into a single story. When you read the end of chapter 13 and then go directly to the beginning of chapter 18 to continue, you notice there is no break in the narrative. The Farewell Address, chapters 14-17, belong to a separate narrative.

In this section, Jesus uses a common speech form known as symposium. It is not a monologue as it welcomes questions from the listeners. As such, it is more of a conversation. Its purpose is three-fold. First, it honors those gathered; Jesus calls his disciples, friends. Second, it instructs; Jesus gives his commandment. Third it entertains; Jesus uses rhetoric to give them things to ponder.

In the assigned pericopes (readings), we read the Farewell Address in chunks. These chunks distance the beginning of the speech from its other parts. So, we do not connect the house of many resting places (usually translated rooms), with the resting places of abiding in this passage of the vine.

When we do this, we see a house that is far away in a land we often call heaven where a place is being held like a reservation at a major hotel. We see the vine as being disembodied from the garden and transplanted into a wine yard (vineyard), pointing us to eucharist.

But, when these stories are connected with the rest of the conversation Jesus is having with his disciples, we can see the retelling of the wilderness journey of the Israelites. In that journey, their clothing, like the fruit, never wears out, and neither do their sandals.

We can see the wilderness journey where the joy of the Lord is the freeing of the Israelites from the oppression of Egypt and the joy of the people is to live with God, where the relationship between God and God’s people is secured with the giving of the Law in order for the Israelites to live in harmony with one another.

We can see the potential of God’s beloved community living into an egalitarian relationship. This is not a relationship of slave and master. It is a relationship of equals.

We can see that our Father’s house is all of creation and that we are on a journey where we will need to find resting places, like the resting places alongside the Roman highways. But while the resting places along the Roman highways were for Roman dignitaries and Roman soldiers, the resting places for the people of the Way are for all people.

We can find resting places in Christ as Christ finds rest in the relationship in the Father. These resting places are places of welcoming hospitality, agape love. Instead of finding that place of belonging in a place far, far away, we can find ourselves connected to Christ and one another, depending on one another for life and fruitfulness here and now.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

Paul Tillich claims that revelation is not of value unless the community can accept it. This means that salvation itself is a communal or corporate condition. It is this corporate, Christ’s body, incarnational presence that Jesus addresses in this extended conversation.

Each “you” and “your” statement in this passage is plural. Jesus is speaking to his disciples at the meal, but he is also speaking to all his disciples (learners and followers) throughout the ages. Ultimately, Jesus is speaking to us. Jesus is trying to tell us that we are connected to one another in order that identity and life might be ours.

In the last of the “I AM” statements, Jesus proclaims that he knows who he is. We may read these statements as an indication that Jesus knew that he was truly divine, but whether that is how Jesus understood it, we will never know. What we are given is that Jesus claims his place as a person among persons. He emphatically says, “I AM.”

In verse 8, he tells his disciples to take up their identity too—"So, my disciples, come into being. (Step into the relationship that is waiting for you. Know who you are) This is my commandment for you. (Know your identity because in that way you will be able to love, welcome, show hospitality to one another.)”

Jesus’ joy comes from knowing who he is and knowing his relationship with the father. This joyful knowledge will also lead to Jesus giving the Advocate, Comforter, Holy Spirit as a way to know his presence in the future.

The central metaphor that links us to God’s constancy is the vine that gives us strength to produce the fruits of the spirit. That connection provides the resting place in God’s love. Through this metaphor we are called, commanded, to enter into the relationship of agape love, to give and receive welcome and hospitality. There, God’s eternal care continues to provide identity, support, and entwined purpose as we continue to bear witness, fruit, of God’s intention for the world—that it might be saved.

HANGING THE TRIM

“We offer in thanksgiving to thee the fruits of our little lives that they may in turn be to those others whose names we do not know somewhat of strength and inspiration that apart from us they may not find fulfillment and apart from them we may not know ourselves. We thank thee, our Father, for so holy a privilege, and we offer our thanksgiving and our dedication as our response not only to thee, but to the life which is ours [in you]. … The deepest need in me must also meet the deepest need in [my neighbor]and then I work for myself. When I work for him [sic], I work for myself for better or for worse. No man is an island. We are tied together in one bundle.”—Howard Thurman

ROME IMPROVEMENT 05/02/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—Acts 8:26-40

In the Easter season, many things get turned upside down. We started with the site of death which became the source of life, poetically speaking, the tomb became the womb. After talking about the resurrection, we went back to some of John’s earlier writings. This week, we leap ahead to after Pentecost. Don’t worry though, we’ll get back to Pentecost at the end of the month. 

At this point in the book of Acts, Jesus has met with the disciples on the Mount of Olives and ascended into heaven, leaving the disciples with the instructions to wait for the Holy Spirit. While they are waiting, the disciples decide they need to replace the witness of Judas; they choose Matthias.

With their numbers restored, they wait to discover what God has planned for them. The wind of new creation comes, and flames like that of fire appear. Many hear and believe the Good News. The disciples gather in Jerusalem where they teach in the temple daily.

The work of teaching, preaching, and caring for the great number of people who have come to believe is greater than the work the twelve can handle. So, the community elects seven to help serve at table. Among them are Stephen and Philip.

Stephen is indicted and condemned for being a follower of Jesus, and after preaching a sermon that ends with forgiving the people who are going to stone him to death, he dies. Saul, who held the coats of those who stoned Stephen, initiates a campaign to destroy the followers of Jesus. (Stay tuned for chapter 9.)

Philip has been healing and teaching in Samaria, baptizing men and women. Simon, a magician, is also baptized. But Philip’s authority is apparently limited because Peter and John are told of the people believing in Samaria and go to impart the Holy Spirit on them.

(The distinction between the baptism into the name of Jesus and the baptism of the Holy Spirit continues in the book of Acts. Simon, who witnesses the works of Peter and John, tries to buy the powers they have. This results in Peter admonishing Simon and causing him to repent. (To this day, those who use the Gospel for financial gain are charged with simony.)

Now, sent by the Holy Spirit, Philip goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza on a dark desert highway, with cool wind in his hair. We join him there.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise! Go South, to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is in the desert. So, Philip got up and went. Now, there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, controlling her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home. Seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and be intermingled with it.” So, Philip ran alongside it and heard the Ethiopian eunuch reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” He invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

Now the passage of scripture the Ethiopian eunuch was reading was this,

“Like a sheep, led to the butchers,

like a lamb, silent before the shearer,

he does not open his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can explain this generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.”

The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or someone else?”

Then Philip began to explain—starting with this writing he spoke to him the good news of Jesus. As they were going along the way, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Behold! There is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

When they came up, out of the water, the spirit of the Lord, snatched Philip away. The eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing.

Philip found himself at Azotus, and, as he was passing through the region, he spoke the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

This text is multi-faceted. It has become one of the central passages of the LGBTQIA+ community as it has considered the import of the Levitical law regarding the place of the eunuch. Whether someone with crushed testicles is able to worship in the temple, homosexuality in general, and the inclusiveness of God’s love facilitated by the Spirit are all part of this story.

This text also expands the evangelical work of the seven who were chosen to serve at table. It also addresses whether Scripture can be understood just by reading it and whether individual interpretation is enough.

Lastly, this story tells us, we may be actors within the story of faith, but we are not the workers of faith itself: faith is truly a gift given through the Holy Spirit. When all is said and done, the Spirit blows where it wills, and we neither know where it comes from or where it goes. This week, we are told that the Spirit blows from Samaria and goes to Caesarea, but this is just the beginning of the new creation wind blowing in our midst. Can you feel it now?

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

This story of traveling from places you don’t belong to those you do is powerful. Embedded within the text is a passage from Isaiah that needs to be looked at both in the context of Isaiah and our world today, as well as that of Acts.

In the violence then and now, who are those who are being led to the slaughter?

Who are being stripped of their value?

Who are those who are being publicly humiliated, belittled, demeaned, shunned?

Who has justice denied them?

Who can explain these times when life is taken away from the earth?

Can we not see the LGBTQIA+ community in these words?

Many come to our centers of worship seeking to know God’s word for them only to be met with words and actions of rejection. They then find themselves on desert highways traveling back to homes of uncertain welcome. The Spirit is calling us to rise and go to those desert places, to be companions in faith. We are called to explain the words, offering hope to those who live in a troubled world. For God’s word of love is for all of us.

I am amazed with what the Holy Spirit is doing in this text; but I am most amazed that Philip didn’t find a way to get in the way of the Holy Spirit’s work, one of the Church’s greatest sins. We think that Philip is the one who makes this story possible; but, in reality, the eunuch is the one who makes this story possible. It is the eunuch’s desire to belong that has brought him to Jerusalem to worship at the temple, but the temple would have had to refuse him because of his life condition.

Given that, the eunuch still carries this text with him. He is returning home in silence, without protest, understanding that this is the way of the world. Then this stranger appears out of nowhere running alongside the horses pulling the chariot.

Philip asks, “Do you understand these words?” The eunuch responds, “No”, and then asks, “Who is the prophet speaking of, himself or someone else?”

Isaiah was speaking of Israel, a people who had been determined to be faithless, and were now away from the land, the earth, God had given them, taken away to die in Babylon. Israel is the suffering servant. They were the ones who could not explain their times and were condemned to die.

In Acts, Philip claims Jesus as the suffering servant. Yet, in the midst of the story, the eunuch is also the suffering servant, silently humiliated and denied justice. Then, in the community of two, Christ’s justifying presence is known. That presence brings wholeness and incorporation. Through this communion with the Spirit, the waters of baptism, waters of drowning-death and new life are known. Rising up, being resurrected, the eunuch is able to take the seeds of this new community with him to Ethiopia. He goes on The Way, rejoicing.

And Philip? Philip continues to serve at the table and waits for all who are marginalized, those traveling on the desert roads of alienation, with the words of Christ’s hope, “Child of God, you have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever. Know that the body of Christ is given for you. Know that the cup of the new covenant, shed for you and for all people, continues to include you and sustain you in all that you do.

HANGING THE TRIM

Today we are challenged to answer the question anew. We have God’s word. We have water. We have wine; we have bread. We have Christ’s command to love one another. What is to prevent us from being the people of God?

On the way, rejoicing, let us forward move. Preaching Christ’s great wisdom and God’s word of love.

ROME IMPROVEMENT 04/25/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—John 10:11-21

This is Good Shepherd Sunday. We will talk about our Good Shepherd, but, as Dr. Karoline Lewis points out, this is part of the Man Born Blind in Chapter 9.

For years I have been trying to tell anyone who will listen that the reading of the man born blind is not about the blind man. It is about our relationship with Christ. It is about living with lost community and finding new communal living in relationship with Christ.

This week, at the end of the story of that reading, we hear Jesus telling the people that he is the door/gate of the sheepfold. The sheep hear his voice, and they follow him. The sheep will not follow a stranger but run from him. When the people don’t understand, Jesus tries again saying, “I am, I AM, the door/gate. Those who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am, I AM, the gate. Those who enter by me are saved and will come and go out and find pasture. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.”

Noticing that the people still don’t understand, Jesus continues the metaphor saying, “I am the good shepherd.” Surely, the image of shepherd should be easier to understand than Jesus being a door/gate, but apparently not.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

“I am, I AM, the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep sees the wolves coming, leaves the sheep, and runs away. The wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because he does not care for them. I am, I AM, the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the father knows me and I know the father. I lay down my life for the sheep.

“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So, there will be one flock and one shepherd. For this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my father.

“Again, the Jewish authorities and the people were divided because of these words. Many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon! He is out of his mind! Why do you listen to him?’ Other were saying, ‘These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’”

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

I am sure that most of you have seen the picture or stained-glass window with Jesus in the foreground walking with a lamb over his shoulders and the flock of sheep in the background. Jesus looks so clean, doesn’t he?

The fact of the matter is that shepherding is a dirty, smelly job. And though the image of shepherd is initially attributed to royalty in Scripture, when Jesus uses this metaphor, the position of shepherd has fallen into disrepute. The testimony of a shepherd was not even allowed in the courts. In general, they were thought to be the lowest of the low.

Still, sheep were needed for sacrifices; the wool was still gathered; and, of course, the people still ate them; but the people’s dependence on them was not what it was when they were wandering in the wilderness before becoming urban dwellers. Those were the days when the life of the sheep and the livelihood of the people depended on one another. Clothing, food, milk, housing, carpets for the floor of the tents, manure for the fires all came from the sheep.

In those days, to be a shepherd meant something. David stood between the sheep and bears, wolves, and lions. In other words, he risked his life for the sheep. No wonder the position of king was associated with shepherding. David brought that job description with him.

This image of shepherd/king radically challenged the understanding of king in the world at the time. It is a lesson that Nebuchadnezzar is taught in the book of Daniel. We read that, in his humiliation, Nebuchadnezzar eats grass. He needs to learn the lesson of being a shepherd rather than potentate. In a world where the emperor is again claiming the place of potentate, Jesus comes reclaiming the title of shepherd/king; not the dishonest, degraded shepherd, but the Good Shepherd.

This position of shepherd is not the pristine shepherd of the stained-glass window. It is the dirty, sweaty, odoriferous working shepherd that is willing to give up his life for us. It is indeed, the beaten, bloody, thorns-crowned, cross-nailed, pierced-sided shepherd who makes salvation real for us. The one who opens our eyes to a new reality. It may be madness, but it is good madness.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

This conclusion of this extended story of the man born blind presents us with good lessons to learn. If we look to sin as the causation of our desperate lives, we will find ways of blaming and shaming. But, if we look to the circumstances of our lives as opportunities of seeing God’s work being revealed to us, then we can live lives of surprising joy.

If we live, looking for the approval others, then we risk alienation and shunning. But in relationship in Christ, we find inclusion, wholeness, and peace. This relationship we have in Christ is liminal; that is, Jesus is the door/gate to a new reality of hope. There are those who wish to make that relationship a legalistic club of abuse, trapping ourselves and others in prisons of judgmentalism, but, when we hear the voice of the one on the the cross, offering forgiveness, we pass through the door/gate knowing our shepherd’s voice, finding the way to green pastures. Indeed, it is the voice of the Good Shepherd.

HANGING THE TRIM

In this Easter season, we declare the mystery of our faith.

“Christ has died.                     [acknowledging the historic death]

“Christ is risen.                        [we claim the ‘isness’ of Christ’s resurrection; the 

                                                         presence of the Good Shepherd is among us today]

“Christ will come again.        [it is Christ’s ‘isness’ that gives us hope for the future coming]”

In this ‘isness’, we discover Christ’s business and follow in his way.

  

ROME IMPROVEMENT 04/18/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 2:1-12

This week, while the much of the Church is hearing about Jesus with his disciples in Luke, I am going to the place Jesus directed us on Easter Sunday—into Galilee, continuing our Epiphany journey from the Gospel of Mark. You may recall during the winter, Jesus coming out of the wilderness and saving the man with an unclean spirit and Jesus saving the man with a withered hand. Then, after Jesus has saved Peter’s mother-in-law and the whole city has shown up at the door of her house, Jesus went out to proclaim the good news to the villages in the area. In this week’s lesson, Jesus and the guys have now returned to Capernaum. A large crowd gathers around Jesus’ home. The crowd is so large that no one can get to the door. We are not told whether this crowd is friendly.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

Coming into Capernaum again, after some days, the word went out that Jesus was at home. A flash mob appeared, and the place was packed; one couldn’t even get to the door.

Jesus was speaking the word to the people when four guys carrying a paralytic came to see Jesus. When they discovered that the crowd was so big that they would not be able to get to the door, they went up on the roof, removed the decking tiles and excavated the roof. When they had a big enough hole, they lowered the paralytic on his cot.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there having an internal debate with themselves. “Why does this man speak like this? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God alone?”

Immediately, Jesus knew in his spirit the things they were saying to themselves; he said, “Why are you internally speaking to yourselves like this? Which is ‘more good’ to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say ‘Be resurrected! Take up your mat and walk’? Just so you know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins on earth, he said to the paralytic, “I say to you, be resurrected! Take up your mat and go home!”

The paralytic was immediately resurrected, took up his mat, and went out in front of all the people. They were all transfixed and glorified God saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

When we hear the angel’s words in the Gospel of Mark, “He has been raised. He is not here.…Go tell his disciples and Peter that he has gone ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you,” we can easily think, “But the disciples never go there.” To see Jesus in Galilee requires us to start reading Mark again. Once Jesus passes through the wilderness, Jesus is in Galilee. This Galilee place is not only a narrative place it is the world in which we live.

Galilee is that place on ancient maps that says, “Beyond this point, there be dragons.” In short, Galilee is that place where we say goodbye to safety and step into the uncertain world where God’s Good News needs to be heard. There is no guarantee that the world wants to hear that Good News, only that it needs it.

This Galilee world is a dismal place. It is filled with demons, deformities, disabilities, imprisonment, food insecurity, the threat of strangers, governmental oppression, false accusations, death, and disappointment. It needs the word of hope that comes from resurrection promise.

When the vassal of the king/queen is declared a knight, the courtiers hear, “Rise, Sir___.” The knight, now glorified,  rises out of his former status into the new place of favor of the king/queen and is never thought of as other than a knight again. He has been raised.

Jesus’ resurrection is more than a knighthood, but the way that we understand who Jesus is is similar. Once Jesus has been raised from the dead, we can never think of him as being other than raised. And when we see him again in Galilee, speaking with the outcasts of the world and with the leaders of his time, we can only see the one who has been raised from the dead.

This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is this resurrected Jesus that we see here in Chapter 2 of Mark. In Chapter 16 we witnessed with the women that the tomb is empty. We heard the words of assurance and commissioning, “Do not be afraid.…Go!” And now we are there.

Or is it here, in Galilee, back at the beginning? We are confronted with Jesus’ words and the scribes’ inner turmoil: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Of course that is who is sitting with them—God alone. And the one who is God alone asks which is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven” or “Be resurrected.” Salvation is given in either case.

It is not the words of Jesus that create the tension in this story of the paralytic. It is our perception of who Jesus is. Are we willing to go to Galilee to see Jesus? Or are we still on a quest to discover the cross?

Are we looking for death and despair? Or are we looking for hope and wholeness in life? Our orientation makes the difference.

While we, and the scribes, are embroiled in our internal speakings, the paralytic takes up his mat and goes home. In amazement, we, with the people gathered, say, “We never saw this coming.”

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

Each time I read this story I am impressed with the fact that it is not the paralytic’s faith that makes the difference. It is not the paralytic’s persistence that makes the difference. It is the faith, the trust, the confidence of the four who bear him that makes this resurrection wholeness possible.

Four people bring the paralytic to Jesus. When the crowd bars the way, they take him up onto the roof of the house. They remove the tiles and excavate the dirt under them to get to Jesus. Then, when the work is done, these four people lower the paralytic through the hole and put him next to Jesus. We are told that Jesus looks at the people who brought the paralytic and, seeing their faith, sees the paralytic himself. Jesus says, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”

This work of putting people near Jesus makes the difference. With Christ in our midst, wholeness comes. When we are in the presence of Christ, we know salvation. In the relationship of trust, with the confidence of the four, and to the amazement of the people gathered, what was impossible becomes possible. The paralytic takes up his mat and goes home.

Like the crowd around the house, we, as a society, are unaware of the community of the physically disabled, creating a state of invisible death around it. While we have started to create a place at the table for those who live with physical disabilities, their status remains—they are dead to the world.

For example, the unemployment rate for the blind and visually impaired continues to hover around 65%. Among those who are employed, about 20% are under-employed. The unemployment rate for the deaf is better, but compared to the general population, people with physical disabilities, with all the gifts they have to offer, are significantly less employed. We have provided government supports for the disabled, but that financial support is marginal, far short of the cost of the accommodations needed for people with disabilities to fully participate in the able-bodied world.

People with disabilities need people who are first able to recognize the value of disabled people. They need people who are willing to bear them up, sometimes to the roofs, to get them justice. And then, they need to be resurrected, lifted up into a full relationship with their able-bodied partners in the body of Christ.

It is this faith that the four have when they bring the paralytic to Jesus. They have found wholeness in the body of Christ, and they want their friend to know that wholeness too. What we discover is that the signs of disability are not needed in the wholeness of Christ’s presence. There amazing things can happen.

We continue to witness this amazing relationship of wholeness in our baptisms where we hear that we have died to sin. As Christ has died, we too die. As Christ is raised, we too are raised up into the new life given. As the burdens of life surround us, Christ lifts them from us. In the community of faith, we are given the opportunity to bear each other’s disabilities and bring one another into that relationship of wholeness that only Jesus can give.

HANGING THE TRIM

Your sins are forgiven. Rise!

The deed of resurrection is accomplished by Christ, and Christ welcomes you into his justifying resurrection world of wholeness. Go home. Knowing that Christ also raises us and gives us our resurrection wholeness, it is now our turn to raise up those who are considered dead. Alleluia!

Rome Improvement 04/11/2021

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SURVEYING THE SITE—John 20:19-31

Here we are back to the Gospel of John. Mary has gone to the tomb. She has told a disbelieving group of disciples that the stone was rolled away and that “they” had “taken the Lord away and we do not know where they laid him.” In a demonstration of anxious energy, Peter and the beloved disciple have a foot race to the tomb where they discover that Mary might be right. At least the body is absent.

We are told, “Then they believed.”  What does this mean? Did they believe that Mary was right? Or did they believe that Jesus was raised?

Later Mary goes to the garden again where she meets the gardener and discovers that he is Jesus. Again, she comes to the disciples with news they find incredulous. She says, “I have seen the Lord.”

Now, at evening, the disciples are gathered where they can lock the door against those whom they fear would do them harm. For some reason, Thomas, one of the twelve, is not there. Forgetting that Jesus told them that he is the door of the sheepfold in chapter ten, they are hiding.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

Now when evening of the day of resurrection had come, the disciples gathered in a place where the doors were shut. They feared the Jewish authorities. Jesus came and stood among them, greeting them, saying, “Peace to you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

When the disciples realized that the one who had penetrated their secure place was the Lord, they were glad that it was he and not the authorities they feared. Again, Jesus said to them, “Peace to you. As the Father has sent me, so now I send you.” And then he breathed on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Breath. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain them, they are retained.”

Now one of the twelve, Thomas, called Didymus (twin), was not there when Jesus came. So, the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas said to them, “Unless I see, in his hands, the mark of the nails, that is, put my finger in the mark of the nails and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

After eight days, the disciples were again gathered, and Thomas was there. The doors were again shut, but Jesus came and again stood in their midst. He said, “Peace to you.”  He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Cast out your hand into my side. Do not be disbelieving but believing.”

Thomas responded, “My Lord! And my God!”

Jesus said, “Have you believed because you have seen? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Now Jesus did a whole bunch of other signs in the presence of the disciples that are not written in this book, but these are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and then, believing in his name, you may have life.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

It is important to note that today’s reading includes two separate stories. The first takes place on the evening of the resurrection; the second a week later. Each of these stories has its own import for us.

As Adam and Eve met God in the Garden, so Mary has met Jesus is the garden where the work of new creation has just begun. In the evening when God would come to talk with Adam and Eve, so now Jesus comes in the evening of the first day of the week to initiate the new creation. As the wind/breath of God breathes on the face of the waters in Genesis, so now Jesus breathes the Holy Breath/Spirit over the faces of the disciples. Though this breath is strong, it is a breath that brings peace, wholeness, confidence.

With this inspiration comes sending. As Adam and Eve are sent from the garden, so now, the disciples are sent from their enclosure. When Adam and Eve hid in the garden, abdicating their full relationship with God, God expelled them from the garden and set a door/barrier to the garden with a guard preventing entry. Today we see the disciples hiding from a full relationship with God behind a shut door. As Adam and Eve hid in fear, so now the disciples hide in fear. As God came and spoke to Adam and Eve in their fear, so now Jesus comes and speaks with the disciples in their fear.

As Jesus says, back in chapter ten, the door/gate is Christ himself. The very thing that the disciples have closed themselves away from is what opens a way to new creation. This way includes all rights and privileges of new creation living—both the forgiveness of sins and the ability to retain them. But, before the disciples should practice these privileges, they need to take responsibility for their own actions and recognize their places of grace. They have locked themselves away in fear just as Adam and Eve did. They have chosen a relationship with one another rather than a relationship with God. And in the evening, God has again come to forgive and send them from their place of safe hiding into the world.

When Thomas returns from wherever he has been, the disciples report that they have seen the Lord. As Peter and the disciples did not believe Mary Magdalene when she reported that she had seen the Lord, and they found it necessary to see for themselves, Thomas repeats the pattern; Thomas needs to see for himself.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

Is the name Didymus mentioned for a purpose? In early Church history a teacher of theology in Alexandria is named Didymus the Blind. Could the designation of Didymus for Thomas refer to blindness? The name of Thomas already means twin. Why say it in again another language? When Thomas says that he needs to see Jesus by touching him, is he asking to see as blind people see?

There are many unanswered questions in Scripture, but, given the above information, I presume that Thomas is either blind or significantly visually impaired. The term “twin” may refer to the habit of those who are blind to hold onto another person while walking. In following another, the one who is blind “twins” the movements of the sighted person.

But setting that aside, the need of touch as an identifier of Christ’s resurrection continues to affirm that these appearances of Jesus are not phantoms, they are corporeal appearances. The body of Christ is something that has substance to it. We can touch it. We can smell it. We can hear it. We can see it. And in the eucharist, we can taste it. The resurrected body of Christ is completely sensual. Thus, our Nicene creed states, “We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” In our Apostolic creed we say, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

How are we able to be so certain? Our certainty comes from Thomas.  He demands incarnational proof. “I must be able to see in the way that I know the world. I must touch it.” The other disciples have seen Jesus through sight, heard his voice, and the smell of his breath upon them, but Thomas is upping the game. Thomas needs touch.

In an ironic statement, Jesus tells Thomas, “Do you believe because you have seen? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” It may very well be that the unseeing Thomas believes because he cannot see. He is the one who sees while not seeing and makes way for the rest of us who lean on his tactile knowledge.

Many know this story as “Doubting Thomas”. This “doubt” is more “without belief” or “without trust”. If Thomas is blind, sighted people may have told him so many things over his lifetime that have been unreliable, that he, still in his grief over Jesus’ death, cannot depend on the testimony of the others.

Maybe, if the others have seen, Thomas needs to see too. And so, Jesus calls us all, with Thomas, to claim his resurrection for our lives, to say with confidence, “My Lord. My God.” Not as a personal statement of salvation but as an affirmation of what the other disciples have come to know.

HANGING THE TRIM

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Or maybe, “Blessed are those who cannot see and yet believe.” In the world of the totally blind, these words create a place at the table, a sense of inclusion in the body of Christ. There will always be those who can say, “I have seen the Lord,” but in touch, Thomas presents a relationship of intimacy that transcends sight. It is not better. It is different, and further demonstrates Christ’s willingness to meet us where we are.

Christ continues to stand in our midst and there are those who will see him, but his presence in known more fully than that. We know him through sound, smell, and taste, as well as touch and sight. Enter into the place where he is laid. Hear the music and the words. Smell the candles and the wine. Touch the bread and the hands of those around you.  Taste the goodness of Christ’s body and blood; let it become part of you. Then, encountering Christ as we are able, let us trust in his name. Let us go out to share the good news:  “’This is my body given for you,’ Jesus says. Peace to you.”

Rome Improvement 04/04/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 16: 1-8

Well, the trial is over. The verdict is in. Christ is crucified, declared dead by the centurion; Christ’s corpse is taken down and laid in a tomb; and a large stone is rolled in front of the tomb to close it.

In the manner of all people, Jesus dies. Like the tide, the disciples who have drawn away from Jesus during the trial and crucifixion, now surge back to grieve, to question, to wonder whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. Was there something else that could have been done?

In the end, the disciples were not able to properly prepare Jesus’ body for burial. There were those conversations recalling the woman who poured the ointment of nard over his head, but that did not fulfill the requirements of respect and decency. The women will have to complete those duties after the Passover celebrations and Sabbath.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

When the Sabbath cycle had ended, Mary Magdalene, James’ Mary, and Salome went to the market for aromatics in order that they might go and anoint him. So, very early on the first day of the Sabbath cycle, they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were speaking among themselves, “Who will roll away for us the stone from the door of the tomb?” Looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back. It was very large.

Going into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right dressed in white clothes. The women were totally freaked. He said to them, “Do not be so freaked. You are Jesus seeking, the Nazarene who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him? Go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. You will behold him there as he told you.” The women left the tomb and fled, for terror and the implications of the moment weighed on them. They were afraid and said nothing to anyone because…

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

Yes, the Gospel of Mark ends with an incomplete sentence. The concern over this incomplete sentence has challenged believers and theologians from the beginning. We do not know whether the first hearers of this Gospel had a better understanding of the intent for this incomplete sentence, but we know that some later hearers of the Gospel story decided to fix what they thought was a shortcoming.

Today we see two distinct endings that follow. These endings put a ribbon on the end of Mark, they are clumsy and lead the Church down some roads best not traveled, like snake-handling, drinking poisons, and faith healing. I am not trying to say that snake bites are not survivable nor that poisons have not been consumed without effect. I am not even saying that faith healing does not occur.

What I am saying is, making these acts necessary signs of faith says that we can do something to receive salvation, that these marks of the church demonstrate your faith. This is inconsistent with the rest of Mark’s gospel. Faith is a quality of lifelong-living, not individual acts of proof. Faith is known by one’s care for the neighbor and speaking truth not flamboyant public acts that elevate the reputation of the person doing them. Faith is following where Jesus is leading.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

It has been about 1950 years since Mark’s gospel was written, and we are still trying to neatly end it. In our English translations, we have made the last sentence of (original) Mark a complete sentence where the sentence had been left incomplete. There continues to be a “Lady and the Tiger” quality about Mark’s ending—"They were afraid because…”.

In a sense, the Church has never adequately addressed Mark’s incomplete opus. We have not addressed the directions Jesus left for his followers. And so, we continue to come to our beautiful sanctuaries with the same questions the women had so many years ago. 

·        Now that we have Jesus locked away, who will roll the stone away?

·        Who will remove those impediments that continue to keep us from following where Jesus is leading?

·        Galilee? Where is that? I can find it on the map, but Jesus didn’t actually leave an address, did he?

·        How can I GPS him? Galilee covers many square miles.

·        The stone is very large; we find that we kinda like that stone. It is so precisely placed and has a certain aesthetic rightness about it. Do we really want to move it?

A couple of years ago, I attended a conference where Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove was the plenary speaker. During our last session, we heard a recorded address from Bishop William Barber asking if we would consider being part of the “Poor Peoples’ Campaign” (PPC). In the midst of the questionnaire he used, was the question, “Are you willing to be arrested?’”

The earlier questions had been concerned with getting information, being willing to support the movement, speaking to others about the goals of the PPC; I was right there. When we were asked to address the accumulated wealth of our nation and how it was accrued through the theft of the land and the theft of the labor of millions of Black Americans, I was a little uncomfortable, but okay. But, arrest? In my privileged, financially secure place, I was saying “No way.”

This is not the first time this has happened to me.  Fifty years ago, I was asked to be part of a demonstration at a church where the pastor would not commune Black people. I was not able to stand up at that time either. There have been several other times when I might have said something or done something that would have led to arrest, but I just could never bring myself to that point.

You see, I find the completed sentence of Mark to be reassuring. As long as I can make the terror, amazement, and fear the issue for Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, I am able to distance myself from their silence, judging them without having to judge myself. But when that sentence is incomplete, “They said nothing to anyone. They were afraid because…”, I myself need to finish the sentence.

Let us not be confused. We have equivocated long enough. Today, we are still amazed, terrified, and afraid. We want there to be a body. We want to see the crucified Christ before us. We want to know that he is arisen, but we want to see the body.

As Jesus-seekers, we do not want to hear that Jesus is not here. For if he is not here, then we are still being called to Galilee. We are challenged to complete the sentence. We are commanded to name our fear and recognize our shortcomings.

Still, the truth is clearly before us. He has been raised. See the table of sacrifice where we lay him and claim him weekly?

Go! Tell his disciples that he has gone ahead to Galilee. There you will find him. Complete the sentence; then proclaim, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Travel into the wilderness land of Galilee, into the land of lepers, withered hands, paralytics, tax collectors, widows, orphans, strangers, the blind, the lame, and the poor. There you will see him.

And as you listened to his teachings, listen to the stories of shunning isolation, of economic inequities and policies that are put in place to insure poverty for some and wealth for others. Listen to the stories of the thousands who are hungry, trying to make do with some bread and some fish. Let us listen to the grief of those who would follow but find no good news in the world around them because there is no one to lift them up in the name of Jesus.

Christ’s final conquest is over death, but the first conquest is over fear. It is only when fear is conquered that we are able to proclaim those Easter words that speak of the “beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.” Are we willing to be arrested for that proclamation?

HANGING THE TRIM

Alleluia! Christ is arisen! You are arrested in his body! There is no bail. This is the Good News. Alleulia!

 

The trial is o’er. The verdict is in.

Christ’s on the cross. Some taunt, some grin.

The veil rends within.

Alleluia!

Laid in the tomb, his body dead,

Now has the stone been rolled away;

New life begins on Easter Day.

And at the last,

temple curtain rends within.

Now has our savior conquered sin.