Monday, April 28, 2025

Forgiveness is a Gift: April 27, 2025

Easter 2, Year C          John 20: 19-31
        When my husband and I got engaged, we were both in the ordination process. We often spoke of what it would be liked to be married to another priest. We decided that while there were several drawbacks, there were also some perks. For instance, we would both be able to understand the hazards of clergy apparel. We could discuss the text that we were preaching on the coming Sunday. We would both find our church humor hysterical. Yet what we were most excited about was the prospect of absolving one another. 
         Absolve is another word for forgive. However, it has liturgical connotations. After the confession, the priest stands in front of the congregation and absolves everyone on behalf of Jesus Christ. It is not the priest who is doing the forgiveness, the priest is sort of the conduit. God is the one who is doing the actual forgiving. We call it a corporate confession, because we all do it together. In the Episcopal Church, people are also allowed to seek private confession with a priest. We just do not have those cute booths they have in the Roman Catholic Church, and no one actually knows it’s available, even though it is in the prayer book. It has become one of those fun trivia facts I like to share with people. 
         Roman Catholic priests trace their beginnings to the 12 apostles. In the Episcopal Church, we do that to some extent---although we don’t put the same importance on it as they do. The Roman Catholic Church has always been more adamant about the idea of the priest being Christ’s representative on earth. (That is one of the reasons that a priest has to be a man.) This idea of the clergy’s authority to absolve comes partly from this reading from John. Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them…” Jesus was giving his apostles something that not only would they need but also something that all Christians would need. The best people to convey this gift of forgiveness were those who had spent the most time with him, essentially been trained by Jesus. 
         The idea of Christian leaders forgiving others eventually became doctrine in the church and was corrupted in some circles. One of the things that the Protestant Reformation sought to do was to remove the priest as a mediator between the people and God. At this time, in the 1500’s and before, a person had to seek forgiveness from a priest. They could not simply confess their sins to God. This paved the way for a corrupt practice called indulgences, where people would “donate” money to the church or the priest to have their sins forgiven, or even forgive the sins of loved ones who had already died. Given how corrosive this practice was, one can understand why the church reformers were eager to get rid of the middleman (and yes, it was always a man). 
         The Church of England (which is our mother church) was just being formed at this point (right around the time of the Protestant Reformation) and as usual they sought the middle way, the compromise between the Protestants and the Catholics. While this middle way has taken on many different forms, the idea has always been the while people can confess directly to God, there is also the provision for a priest to declare this forgiveness verbally. Sometimes it is good to hear it out loud. 
        I have always been a little uncomfortable with this part of my job. I know that a priest doesn’t need to pronounce forgiveness for forgiveness to be granted. It makes me feel a little hypocritical knowing that I am so heavy with my own sin, and yet here I stand pronouncing forgiveness for all of you. Yet where I find comfort, is in the flaws of the apostles themselves. Jesus was very aware of the many imperfections of the men who were cowering in that room. Yet despite their failures, Jesus still asked his apostles to be his representative, to forgive others on his behalf, not because they themselves were not in need of forgiveness, but because they knew that they needed it more than anyone. 
         Even though Conor and I have been priests for almost our whole married lives, we pretty much never absolve each other. A couple of times he absolved me when I did not think I needed to be absolved and that was the end of that. Yet we both know, that it does not take a priest to forgive, just a person. Of course you can always expect it from a priest, because it’s part of the job description. 
         Sometimes I think that we see this call to forgive one another as a labor of love. We think it is something we have to do to be good Christians, that we have to forgive others so we can be forgiven, a kind of quid pro quo. However, if we look at it as something that Jesus gave to his most beloved disciples, then maybe it’s not such a hardship. Instead, what if we saw forgiveness as a gift, a gift that we are empowered to use and share? Because the thing about forgiveness is that it always helps both people. Letting go of anger, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, that is a gift to yourself, even more so than the person you may be forgiving. One of my favorite quotes about forgiveness is, “When you forgive you set a prisoner free. And then you discover the prisoner was you.” 
         I am not saying it is easy. I find it especially difficult when the person does not apologize or seem sorry at all. I rationalize my not forgiving them by saying that they do not deserve it, or that they do not even want to be forgiven, so what’s the point? Well that is assuming that forgiveness only benefits the person who is being forgiven. And we know there is more to it than that. 
         Jesus knew what it was to be hurt by the people who he loved the most. I am sure it was not easy to forgive them when he found them huddled in a locked room after deserting him when he was arrested. But he forgave them, and in doing so gave them the power to forgive others. Before they could forgive others, they had to forgive themselves. 
         That is one of the greatest challenges in forgiving others. We haven’t really figured out how to forgive ourselves. Yet we have to forgive ourselves, not because we deserve it, but because God has already forgiven us. By refusing to forgive ourselves or others, we are rejecting God’s grace. If God has already forgiven, we have no right to hold on to our sins or the sins and offenses of others. 
         And I know it’s not easy to let go. I think sometimes we assume forgiveness is some switch we can just turn on and then walk away. Forgiveness, like so many things, is a process. It’s not necessarily a once and done kind of thing. It’s a decision we make over and over again. But it’s a decision worth making. The power to forgive isn’t some special power Jesus gave to his disciples 2000 year ago. It’s a gift God has given to all of us and it’s a gift that we need to share.

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Mary Magdalene Knew Darkness: April 20

Year C, Easter                                      John 20:1-18                                                                                                   Mary Magdalene is probably one of the most misrepresented and misunderstood people in the bible.  Part of the problem is that the name Mary, was the most common female name in the New Testament.  It is understandable that people might confuse her with the Mary of Bethany who is Lazarus’ sister and is the same Mary who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped it up with her hair.  But it’s not the same Mary. 

A good example of common misperceptions 

Mary Magdalene is commonly described as a prostitute even though there is no evidence to indicate this is true.  It was mostly likely an accusation that was used to discredit her because people didn’t want women leaders in the early church. However, what really sealed her fate was the claim that Pope Gregory the Great made in 591 that she was the same Mary as Mary of Bethany, as well as the unnamed woman who was caught in adultery.  He based this on…absolutely nothing but his own assumptions.

The other common accusation is that she had some sort of romantic relationship with Jesus.  Because obviously a single woman could only be important to Jesus if she was romantically involved with him.  The only slightly negative thing in the actual Biblical text about Mary Magdalene is that she was someone who Jesus released demons from, which could mean any number of things.   

What we know about Mary Magdalene---because it’s in every single Gospel—is that she was at the empty tomb.  In three out of the four gospels, she is also present at the crucifixion, even when every other disciple (except one unnamed disciple who is only mentioned in John) abandoned Jesus to die alone. She witnessed him suffer on the cross, was there to mourn him, and then spread the news of his resurrection. That is the truth of Mary Magdalene. 

It would be hard to be a woman in ministry and not spend some time thinking about Mary Magdalene.  I have studied her over the years, but admit that I forgot she was the same Mary who Jesus banished demons from.  That story wasn’t convenient to the narrative I created for her, so I forgot it.  I wanted to focus on her strength and her role as a leader in the early church. Yet this week, as I considered  her place in the story of the resurrection, I realized that her demon possession made her role in the resurrection that much more profound. 

One of my favorite details of John’s Easter story is that it starts in the dark. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb….”  My day started in the dark today because of our 5:30am service, but I had electric lights to guide me.  I knew that when I got to the church, there would be people around.  Mary Magdalene walked where there were no street lights, no flashlights.  She was going to a tomb of a man who had been killed by the Romans. It was a dangerous place to be. We know this because in the Gospel of Matthew, there were guards posted at the tomb to ensure no one stole the body.

  In the other gospels, multiple women went to the tomb and they went with a purpose. They went to anoint Jesus. But in the Gospel of John, Jesus was anointed by two of his secret disciples right before he was buried. Mary didn’t seem to be going there to anoint his body. She was going there to grieve, to grieve alone.

The Gospels include many stories of Jesus exorcising demons.  Many biblical scholars have concluded that those who were considered possessed were probably suffering from a mental or physical illness, something that could not easily be described or understood. Mary was described as having 7 demons.  We can’t know exactly what that looked like, but I am willing to bet that this woman had known darkness on many levels.  She knew what it was to be controlled by something, to be alone, to be ostracized. She knew darkness.

 We in the church love to talk about light in the darkness, about light conquering the darkness. That is how the Gospel of John begins. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” Yet I wonder if in our desperation for light, we have lost the beauty and the wisdom that can come in the darkness.

When Mary went  to the tomb and saw that the stone was rolled away, she did the most logical thing. She went and told the disciples that Jesus’ body was gone.  She assumed someone had taken it. Because really, that was the most logical assumption.  The disciples needed to see it for themselves.  Peter and the beloved disciple (who by the way, we don’t know who it was) ran to the tomb. The text says, “(the beloved disciple) saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” That’s a confusing statement. What did they believe? It would appear, they just believed what Mary told them as they had now confirmed it.  The tomb was empty.  They did not yet know that Jesus had risen from the dead. They returned to their homes, but Mary stayed. She stayed alone outside an empty tomb because she was the kind of person who understood darkness.  She might not have liked it, but she was willing to sit in it for awhile.

            When the other disciples ran to the safety of their homes, she stayed and wept. No one knows how long. The text makes it seem like it was brief, but I imagine her staying for hours. Then she looked in.  When she first came to the tomb, it doesn’t say she looked in. It just said that she saw the stone was rolled away and immediately went to the disciples to let them know.

I think it took her some time to garner the strength to look in that tomb. It’s not easy to look in the place where your dead friend is supposed to be. It is not easy to confront our own grief. Because she took that time and stayed in that dark place, angels appeared.  Angels appeared and asked her why she was crying.  God bless her, she answered them kindly. (More than I would have done.)  She told them she was crying because someone took away her Lord and she didn’t know where he was.  Then another man, who she assumed was a gardener, asked the same inane question.  She accused him of taking the body.  She was bold. For a woman to be alone with men at that time was a risky thing. 

She should have run as soon as random men showed up asking her stupid questions.  But she stayed.  She stayed and spoke up, as she had no doubt done before.  Because of that…Jesus called her by name.  Then she saw him for who he was, not just the man who had freed her from demons, but her Lord and savior who had now defeated death.

            We all come to the tomb in different ways.  Maybe we come like Peter did.  We run as fast as we can, look in and see the emptiness and then run home and wait for a clearer invitation.  Maybe like the beloved disciple we find the courage to investigate but also return to our homes to wait for Jesus to barge in our front door.  Or maybe we have the courage of Mary to approach in darkness, get the wrong idea and then argue with people who try to help…but eventually drop our defenses enough, cry long enough— to hear Jesus’ voice break through the darkness. 

What I hope and pray, is that you will consider what your own approach to the tomb looks like, feels like, and sounds like.  What does holiness and rebirth look like to you? Where in your life do you need resurrection? Maybe it takes you awhile.  That’s ok.  If it does, I hope you will find some peace in the darkness because God comes to us in all kinds of places.  The more comfortable we are in the darkness, the more likely we are to find Jesus while those around us curse the darkness— the more likely we are to believe that there is hope, long before we see the light.  Light and darkness live side by side and as Christians, we find ways to live with them both.

Icons aren't meant to provide an accurate representation, but they do imply that this is someone who deserves respect, which is why I prefer this over most images. 

Loving in Pain: April 13, 2025

Year C, Palm Sunday                                                  Luke 22:39-23:49                                                                In my first church, we had an elaborate drama for Palm Sunday.  There were costumes and props.  It was my job to orchestrate it all and it was not my favorite job.  Recruiting the people to play the various parts was always tricky.  People would complain if they got Judas or Peter, Pilate or the soldiers... I remember one year someone asked, “Why do I always have to be the bad guy?” I replied, “They are all bad guys, except Jesus and no one want to be him either.”  Now, that’s not really true. Peter wasn’t a bad guy, just someone who was weak, as many of us are.  To some degree everyone in the passion play (besides Jesus) acted poorly (sometimes cruelly), but they weren’t evil. In my experience directing this drama, it was always hardest to find someone to play Jesus.  One year a young father was Jesus and as the soldiers dragged him away, I heard his 4 year old son ask, “Why does my dad have to be Jesus?”

          Each Gospel writer tells the story a little differently.  Every year in the Episcopal Church, we focus on a different Gospel writer---this year it’s Luke.  In Luke, Jesus seems to handle it all with a bit more composure.  For instance, the other Gospels have Jesus getting a lot more frustrated when the apostles fall asleep right before his arrest. In Luke, Jesus only checks on them once and then acknowledges that they are sleeping because they are grieving.  When he is walking to his crucifixion and the women are weeping, he turns to them and tells them not to weep for him, but to weep for themselves. It wasn’t a comforting statement, but it showed that even in the midst of his own pain, he was able to acknowledge the pain and grief of others.

          What really blows my mind in the Gospel of Luke is how he acts when he is hanging on the cross. A few years ago I was in the ICU in extraordinary pain and I have to say, I was not thinking about anyone else.  All I could think of was my pain. It was complete tunnel vision. After that when I was writing my book of irreverent prayers I thought a lot about the pain that Jesus must have been experiencing on the cross. He was nailed to a cross, (and this was after being beaten).  He was in agony, barely able to breathe.  Speaking would have been excruciating. And what did he do with his few remaining breaths? He forgave the people who crucified him and provided comfort and paradise to the criminal who was dying beside him.  In the other Gospels he cried out to God asking why he had been forsaken.  In Luke, his last words were, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” In other words, I give myself to you.

          There is a part of me that prefers the other Gospels where Jesus’ agony feels a little more like my own experiences. I can identify with the Jesus who gets irritated and then feels abandoned when he is in extraordinary pain. Then I remind myself that I am not Jesus. I want to be like Jesus, but I don’t want to be Jesus.  I can just barely pull off being a little bit like him. I doubt any of us wants to be Jesus.  But I am so very grateful that this Jesus who experiences agony and still loves and forgives us the God we worship.  This Jesus we worship is a God who knows pain—not just on the day of his crucifixion— but every day. Despite that pain, his compassion for us runs deep and wide.

Another part of Luke’s version that I love is the moment after Peter denies Jesus for the 3rd time, Luke says “The Lord turned and looked at him.” That is all it says. I want you to think of that look that Jesus gave Peter.  Luke doesn’t tell us what the look was, but I believe it was a look of love and forgiveness.  It was a look that said, “You kind of screwed up there, but I still love you.” It was a look that saw past Peter’s fear and into his heart, a heart that was broken, but also a heart that would serve God as long as it was still beating. 

A lot of my sermons remind us all of why it’s not easy to be a Christian, why we have to commit ourselves to our faith, try harder, be better. But today, in the midst of this story of pain, betrayal, denial, and sacrifice, I want to lift up the God who loves us through it all.  I know we are in a time when many of us feel powerless, helpless, like we can’t possibly do enough, even if we knew what the right thing to do was.  We just don’t know and that feels horrible.

God sees the pain in you and God sees the joy.  God sees it all. Right now, in this moment, I pray that you can release your fear, anger, disappointment, insecurity, grief—whatever is weighing you down and feel God’s compassion and love. That’s what this story, this story we call “The Passion”, is all about. It’s about the way that Jesus’ compassion superseded his pain.  It’s the way that he loved us and still loves us. 

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Wanting to be Found: March 30

 Year C, Lent 4                                                           Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32                                                   

This Gospel reading is one of the most well-known parables in the Bible and also the parable that responsible siblings everywhere love to hate.  It’s often called “The Prodigal Son” which is somewhat of a misnomer.  The word prodigal doesn’t appear in the text, but it refers to the behavior of the youngest son who wasted his father’s money living recklessly.  Later the older brother accused him of wasting his money on prostitutes, but those are just accusations of an angry brother.  There is no point in adding on more sins to those of the younger brother.  If we focus on the sins of the sons rather than the love of the father, we miss the point of the story.  More recent biblical translations refer to this story as the “lost sons” or the “loving father.”

When considering the parable, a good place to start is the first three verses.  These verses show us why Jesus is telling this story.  Jesus didn’t just tell stories because he liked telling stories. They were often in response to questions or even comments that people around him made.  This story is a reaction to the comment that the Pharisees and Scribes were making. They said, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  I think we often read this and think, oh, sinners like me…these weren’t people who did something horrible, they were just regular old sinners.  But what if these people who Jesus was eating with were cruel or violent?  Would you want to share a meal with someone who sold drugs to children, someone who trafficked people?  It’s quite possible that these were the kind of people Jesus was sharing a meal with.  This is not to say that he was condoning what they did. No doubt, he encouraged them to change and be better.

We can better understand where the Pharisees and Scribes were coming from if we imagine these sinners as those people who are hurting others…who are actually causing harm to our world.  Consider the reaction Trump got when he had dinner with a Nazi sympathizer several years ago.  It was a pretty strong reaction. Now, I am not comparing Trump to Jesus, but we definitely judge people based on who they spend time with.  Jesus was becoming kind of high profile by that time which meant that who he chose to dine with, sent a message.

            It was in reaction to those comments that Jesus told this story.  The reason that  people are now calling this story “the parable of the lost sons,” is because there were two parables that came right after the comment from the Pharisees and Scribes, but before Jesus told the story of the lost sons.  The first story is of a shepherd who has 100 sheep.  One wanders off and the shepherd goes after the one and leaves the 99.  Jesus concludes that parable by saying, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.” The next story is a woman with 10 silver coins who loses one and goes to considerable effort to find that one.  She rejoices with friends and family when she finds it and the story concludes with, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  These two parables show the importance of the lost being found and repentance.

            Thus it would make sense that the next parable would also be focused on those who are lost.  The youngest son is literally lost in a faraway place.  They had no idea if he would ever come home. They probably assumed that he wouldn’t.  But what about the older son, was he lost?  In many ways, he was.  Despite the fact that he obviously has a very loving father, who came outside to beg him to come in, he said that he had worked as a slave for him.  That is the way he saw working on a farm and land that he would inherit.  That’s an important point.  While the younger son had a small portion of the inheritance, the older son would inherit all the rest. 

Despite that future inheritance, we can understand why he was resentful.  He had done everything right while his brother insulted his father by asking for his inheritance early (which, at the time, was akin to wishing your father dead) and then wasted it.  Then instead of being reprimanded when he came home, he was given a party. Did the older son get a party? Nope.  The way he saw it, his father had given him nothing.  The way his father saw it, he had given him everything.  He said, “all that is mine is yours.” The older son just wanted a little recognition for being responsible and loyal.  I think many of us can appreciate that.  But the problem with the older son is that his need for appreciation had built into resentment, so much so that he couldn’t even refer to his brother as his brother.  He called him, “that son of yours.”

You know what they say about resentment— it’s like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.  The older son was lost.  He wasn’t bad or wrong, but he was lost.  Remember who was listening to this story-- the Pharisees and the Scribes, the very people who had dedicated their lives to the faith. Had they gotten a little caught up in the rules and judging people? Sure they had.  Many of them were still good and faithful people. I imagine it drove them crazy to see this obviously holy man hanging out with notorious sinners instead of them. They were a little lost themselves.  But notice that Jesus wasn’t telling them they were bad…he was just telling them that there was room in his heart for both sets of people, but the place he was going to put his energy, was with the people who really needed him and were most receptive to him.

In the end, this is a story about the Father’s love for both sons and God’s love for us.  We are all lost in different ways. We might be someone who has walked away from our faith and are afraid to return, or maybe afraid of a church that has wounded us.  We might be the one who has remained committed to our faith over our whole life, but we’ve gotten a little too comfortable, a little too complacent. Maybe we are upset with the changes that we see in the church, especially when they come from those new people who just showed up.  It doesn’t matter what way you are lost, if you are here or watching online, there is a part of you that wants to be found.  Whether you can admit it or not, you want to be found by God.

While the parable about the sheep and the coin both mention repentance, the parable of the lost sons doesn’t. We don’t know if the younger son was sincere in his repentance or if he was just hungry. The father ran to him before the son could get a word out.  I bet it was a lot easier for the younger son to repent when he saw that his father still loved him.  We also don’t know what the older son did? Did he go inside and greet his brother or did he stay outside and stew?  By leaving the story open ended, Jesus was challenging the Pharisees and also challenging all of us. Can we let go of our resentments and anger and accept the love of a God whose love doesn’t always seem fair? Can we admit that we are lost and wanting to be found.  I hope so, because what this story tells us his that God always meets us more than half way.  God never stops searching for you.

Monday, March 24, 2025

Living with Purpose: March 23

 Year C, Lent 3                                 Luke 13:1-9                                                                                                          One of my least favorite things about living near the coast of Virginia was the 3 month period when we were on alert for hurricanes.  Fortunately, in the 18 years that I lived there, we never had a devastating storm.  We had some bad ones, but none that caused severe damage or loss of life.  I was living in Norfolk, which is right next to Virginia Beach.  Virginia Beach was the home of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University, both founded by Pat Robertson.  The joke was that we didn’t have to worry about hurricanes because either Pat Robertson would pray the storm away, or it just wouldn’t affect us because of the moral leadership of Pat Robertson. 

We just got a small piece of the storm.
Robertson often linked disasters to the morality of the people in the places these  disasters affected. When an earthquake killed hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti, he said it was because they made a pact with the devil. When a hurricane threatened coastal Virginia, Robertson claimed that he prayed it away and God would never want to damage his Christian campus and ministry.  Instead, the hurricane hit North and South Carolina, killing 17 people there.


            Robertson is not the only Christian leader to make these kinds of connections.  However, before his death just a few years ago, he was one of the few who had his own television network and university to amplify his views.  There is a part of many of us that connects bad things that happen to what we have or have not done. Whether we admit it or not, we often connect good things with good people and bad things with bad people.  It drives us crazy when bad things happen to really good people. How many times have you said or heard someone say, “They didn’t deserve that.”  Consider the stories of people who give credit to God when they missed their flight on a plane that crashed. The implication is that God wanted that individual to live while letting the others die.  If you look at our Gospel reading today, you will hear Jesus addressing this question of why things happen to certain people and not others.  Unfortunately, he didn’t provide a very clear answer.

            It starts off clear. The people in his midst (probably a mix of disciples and onlookers) mentioned 2 recent incidents, one which was the deaths of a group of people at the hands of Pilate.   We know of Pilate as he was involved in Jesus’ death, but he was well known as being brutal with the Jewish people, quick to subdue any potential insurrection with violence.  When the people mentioned this incident, Jesus guessed that they were bringing this up because they wanted an explanation. Perhaps it was coming from a place of fear.  Were they next? Perhaps just curiosity. Have you ever noticed when something horrible happens, we are all desperate to find an explanation, partly to prevent other bad things happening, but also because we are wondering—how can we avoid this terrible thing from happening to us?  What can we tell ourselves to make us feel better?

            Jesus answered their non-question with a question: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you…” This answer probably made them feel a mix of relief and fear. If they thought they were more sinful then most, it was relief.  If they felt they were actually good people, they probably didn’t like this answer, because this meant they could do nothing to avoid horrible things happening to them.  So far, I like this answer by Jesus.  If I concluded that everything bad that has happened to me was connected to my sins and God’s anger about my sins—I would have a difficult time worshipping that kind of God and it would be a miserable way to live. 

Then Jesus goes on… and here is where things get murky.  “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  This is a good example of why we can’t read the Bible literally. Obviously, not everyone who refused to repent was going to be killed by Pilate.  Pilate just didn’t have that kind of time.  However, it appears that he was saying that there will be consequences when we don’t repent.  That sounds a little scary. We have to be really careful not to make this into some kind of formula. Like, if you don’t repent, bad things happen.  It’s not that simple. We have all seen people who have gotten through life without there being any obvious consequences for their bad behavior.  But just because we don’t see the consequences doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

I believe what Jesus is doing here is shifting the perspective of the crowd.  They wanted this conversation to be about the sins of other people. It’s so much easier to judge other people then look at ourselves.  I think we all know that when we sin, there are consequences, sometimes to other people, sometimes to our planet, but most often to ourselves. When Jesus says, “unless you repent” it looks like a judgment or an ultimatum.  Yet what if we perceive repentance as an opportunity for us to examine our lives and ask for forgiveness?  So many people move through life carrying guilt and shame.  This is Jesus saying, you don’t have to carry that forever. You can repent and wipe the slate clean.  It’s not easy, but you can do it, with God’s help. 

A lot of people think that if we emphasize the God of love and compassion, then we can’t possibly talk about a God who judges or holds us accountable.  If you have a child or remember being a child, you know that life without consequences doesn’t help the child.  When a parent says no to their child or reprimands them, that doesn’t mean they don’t love their child. We are God’s children and God loves us so very much, but God wants us to be better, do better.

That is what the parable at the end of our Gospel is about as well. A fig tree is planted in a garden and after the appropriate amount of time, the owner of the fig tree sees that it’s not bearing fruit and decides to cut it down.  The gardener says, let’s give it some help (manure) and some more time and then we will cut it down if it doesn’t bear fruit.  There are consequences, but there is also grace.  When we find that our sin are building up and stop us from being the people that God want us to be, we can ask God for help and God is going to give us the help and the time we need.  But that doesn’t mean that God has no expectations on us or our behavior. 

There is urgency in this text because as we all know, life is far too fragile.  It’s so easy to put our relationship with God on the back burner because there are always more pressing demands on our time and energy.  What Jesus is doing here is encouraging a faith that is action oriented, a faith that bears fruit.   The fig tree had a purpose, to grow figs. Each one of us has a purpose as well.  It’s probably not always as clear as it is with a fruit tree, but we all have a purpose, one that contributes not just to our own life, but this world that we live in.

 If you are thinking, I don’t know what my purpose is. Loving God, loving your neighbor, sharing the love of God— that is a good place to start.  Having a purpose doesn’t mean we have a life plan that is all figured out. It means that we live with intention and hope. One thing I love about our faith is that Jesus tells us no matter who we are, what we do, how far along we are in our journey of faith, we have a reason for being.  We might not know our plan, but there is a plan. The closer we are to God, the closer we are to our purpose.

Monday, March 17, 2025

Politics and Church: March 16 2025

 Year C, Lent 2                              Luke 13:31-35                                                              

                 When I interviewed for my first ministry job almost 20 years ago, the rector asked me if I could avoid talking about politics from the pulpit.  This was a time when the Episcopal Church was really wrestling with the reality of gay marriage and ordained LGBTQ+ people. It was obvious to me that he wasn’t asking if I was going to preach about politics, he was asking if I was going to talk about controversial things that would upset people.  At the time, I probably had 10 sermons under my belt and I found it relatively easy to agree that I would not preach anything controversial.

Ever since then, I have been struggling with what that means…what it means when people talk about politics in the church.  The word political can mean a lot of things. It can mean something very general, like anything related to the government.  It can mean “the art of science of government.” For many people in means talking about our political leaders. Often when people use that word when talking about sermons, what they really mean is, “Are you going to say something that will upset me?”

For almost every interview for any church job, I have gotten some version of the question about how I handle politics in my preaching.  My answer goes something like this: “I preach the Biblical text. I am open to where the text and the Holy Spirit take me. Some people will perceive that as too political and some people will perceive it as not political enough.”

          The debate over politics from the pulpit is connected to the debate as to whether Jesus was political or not.  To me, that is who we should always return to when having these conversations. Unfortunately, we probably can’t agree on the answer to that question either. I bet we can all agree that Jesus shares whatever allegiance we associate with.  Are any of you voting with a political party you think Jesus would oppose? I didn’t think so.  I am pretty sure that no matter what congregation I asked that question to, no matter what their political affiliation would be, they would all be convinced they were voting with Jesus.

          Was Jesus political? It comes down to how you define politics.  If you are asking whether Jesus was critical of government officials or the actions of the government, the answer would be yes, he was political. We see that in our text today.  Herod was a leader appointed by the Roman government.  He was not popular with the Jewish people.

When the Pharisees told Jesus that he needed to leave the area because Herod was trying to kill him, Jesus said, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.”  Calling someone a fox was not a compliment.  In the Hebrew scriptures, foxes were described as destructive.  This was a critical statement of a political leader.  However, he didn’t say, “And here is a letter where I map about my recommendations about how to lead the government with more compassion.”  He wasn’t afraid to speak the truth, but he also didn’t seem overly concerned with Herod or what he was doing.  He basically said, I have more important things to do. I am casting out demons and curing people and no one will stop me from doing that.

          One of the things that we have to consider when we debate how political Jesus was or wasn’t is the kind of government they had in Israel at the time.  It was not a democracy.  They were being occupied by a foreign power, the Romans.  They couldn’t organize and get better people in leadership. No grass roots campaign was going to change the government. Their only option was a violent revolt which would have cost countless lives and have been unsuccessful.  We know this is true because 30 years after Jesus died and ten years before the Gospel of Luke was written, the Jews tried to overthrow the Romans and failed.  It was catastrophic for the Jewish people. The temple was destroyed, countless lives were lost and the Roman occupation became even more oppressive. 

Many people like to emphasize that Jesus was a revolutionary and that he was killed by the Roman government because they feared him. He was revolutionary when it came to many things, but there is no evidence that he supported overthrowing the Romans. The Romans were afraid of him because they didn’t understand him. They thought that anyone with the following and power he seemed to have would inevitably seek military power.  That was not who Jesus was.  He wasn’t a fierce animal. He wasn’t even a fox. He described himself as a mother hen longing to gather the children of God under his wings so he could protect them.  That is the kind of leader Jesus was.

The other thing we have to consider about this question is what was going on when the Gospel of Luke was written, because it was written about 40 years after Jesus died.  The Christian church was brand new.  At this point, it wasn’t being persecuted by the Romans and many people wanted to keep it that way.  It’s possible that Jesus was much more outspoken then what we read in the Gospels.  However, the author of Luke might have been trying to keep peace with the Romans and therefore didn’t focus on the negative things Jesus might have said. 

We have no way of knowing because the Gospels only contain a fraction of what Jesus said.  We could spend time hypothesizing on what a man like Jesus might have said about an oppressive Roman regime, or we could focus on what is recorded in the New Testament.

One thing that we can say for sure is that Jesus didn’t fear those in leadership.  He knew that he would die and he knew when it would happen. He wasn’t going to be threatened by people like Herod, even though Herod had killed his cousin for speaking against him.  (If you want a political preacher, look at John the Baptist.)

After Jesus left the desert where he was tempted by the devil, his very first public act was to go to the temple and read this verse from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” He then added: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In other words, I am that person who will make these things happen.  He said a few more things alluding to the fact that gentiles would also be recipients of the good news and as a result the people listening tried to run him off a cliff.  That was this kind of thing that made Jesus revolutionary. It was his preaching and actions that showed God’s love and grace was for everyone, that everyone was worthy of God’s love.  That was one of the things that made people really angry.  Could we interpret this politically? I think we could and sometimes, we should.

If you are thinking, wait a minute, she didn’t actually answer the question, then you are kind of right.  What I am hoping is that we can all see the various sides of the argument, not so we can win the argument, but so we can understand one another. Because that is what we are missing in our political discourse today, understanding those who are different.  I am not even sure we are trying to understand. 

If Jesus was here now and was involved in politics, he would absolutely be talking to people who disagreed with him, he would even be loving them. The other thing he would be doing--he would be doing God’s work without any regard for what the current administration is doing.  The work might change a little depending on who is in charge---it might change a lot, but God’s work on earth can and will continue as long as we can endure.  And God’s people can endure. We have to endure.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he says, “But our citizenship is in heaven.”  That doesn’t mean that we stop worrying about what is happening on earth.  However, it does mean that we belong to something far greater than the United States of America.  We belong to the Kingdom of God, the one that we work to bring to earth and the one that awaits us in the next life.  Again, that doesn’t mean we stop working for justice on earth. It just means we have more reasons to hope, more reasons to endure and more reasons to love God and our neighbor.

Is it a Test or Temptation: March 9 2025

 Year C, Lent 1                                          Luke 4:1-13                                                         

            My son was in a Christian school for a few years and he would come home and tell me about the Bible stories that he really loved.  The school often used a show called Suberbook to reinforce the Bible teachings.   One day he came home and told me that his new favorite Bible story was Job.  This surprised me because Job is 42 chapters of suffering and people arguing about why God is allowing the suffering. 

Fortunately we were able to find the show on a streaming service and I realized why he liked it so much.  The Book of Job (the real one and the TV version) begins with a conversation between God and the Accuser. Many Bibles translate the Hebrew word to satan or the devil. The interesting thing about the cartoon is that they actually used the most accurate translation which is the Accuser. However, they took some artistic license when it came to the description of the Accuser. In the Bible, there is no physical description of the Accuser.  Since this is a children’s show, you can imagine how the Accuser is depicted---he’s a large winged creature with horns and fire coming out of his head and he can fly.  It definitely adds some drama to the story. 

This same winged creature returns in many different stories and the next place I saw it (we began to watch many of the shows) was the story we heard today, the story of Jesus in desert.  For many years we have spoken of the temptation in the desert and even the text that we read today used the word temptation.  However, many scholars today are saying that the better word is test.  Jesus wasn’t being tempted as much as he was being tested. The difference is subtle, but it’s important.

            Right before Jesus was led into the desert, he was baptized by John.  A voice came out of heaven and said, “You are my son, the beloved…”  Right after that, there is a little digression and the chapter ends with the genealogy of Jesus. The genealogy starts with Joseph and includes, King David, Abraham and ends with Adam…the first human.   What was the point of this digression?  Well there are several reasons for it, but the one that I find most relevant for today is that it showed that Jesus was not only the son of God, he was the son of man. He was both human and divine.

            A lot of people look at this story of Jesus in the wilderness and conclude that it provides some sort of model for how we are to avoid temptations, perhaps by quoting scripture as Jesus did. While it’s true that Jesus is meant to be an example for Christians, I am not sure that is the best takeaway from this story.  Consider the first test.  The devil asked that Jesus command rocks to become bread.   Here is a good example of why temptation is not the right word. If the devil was tempting Jesus, he would have handed him a loaf of warm bread and encouraged him to eat it.  But that’s not what the devil did, he asked him to perform a magic trick in order to satiate his hunger. Jesus refused and told the devil that life is more than your temporal needs. It also teaches us that Jesus would never perform a miracle just to prove a point or satisfy his own needs.

            The next test was an offer to give Jesus power and glory over all the kingdoms of the earth if only he worship the devil.  This one is a real head scratcher because Jesus is God and already has more power than anyone else, so this seems like a easy test.  Of course he wouldn’t worship anyone other than God. The 3rd test is a little more complicated.  It takes place on the pinnacle of the temple, which is an important place in the Gospel of Luke.  The temple is the center of religious life, it’s where God is most present. The devil asks Jesus to throw himself down from the temple because the angels will save him.  Being the Son of God, means that God will protect him.  Not even a stubbed toe. 

This one is the most obvious test (as opposed to temptation). Jesus is being asked to prove that he in invulnerable. Nothing can hurt him because God won’t allow it.  As the reader (even though I know the end of the story) this is the test that I most desperately want to chime in on.  Jesus could prove his power, in front of not only the symbol of all evil, but every person near the temple.  This would have guaranteed that people would have gotten on board with his divinity. This would have been the most effective marketing campaign to prove Jesus was the son of God. Once again, he refused to take the easy way out. 

These tests weren’t really tests of Jesus’ power.  They were tests of his identity.  What kind of Messiah would he be? Would he win people over with displays of power and might from on high? Would he make deals with the devil? Would he take the easy way out? No. Again and again, he said no. Not only was he the Son of God, he was the Son of Man and he would prove that over and over again.  In doing so, he identified himself with humanity.  Humans don’t have infinite power.  We can’t create bread when we are hungry. When we fall, we get hurt.  He accepted the very same vulnerability that we all share.  He proved what kind of Messiah he would be.

The last line of our Gospel text is a little anticlimactic. It says, “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.”  Now, if I got to choose how this ended, it would have ended something like this: “Jesus passed all the tests and the devil left him never to return again. Evil was conquered.” Alas, no one has asked me for my edits on the Bible because I have a few.  What Luke is telling us is that the test wasn’t over for Jesus, or for his disciples. He continued to be tested for the rest of his earthly life.  He was continually tested on what kind of Messiah he would be.  He always chose the path of the messiah who identified with the vulnerable and the weak. He chose humanity every time.

As Christians, we are continually tested as well. The test we face daily is how we will live our identity as followers of Jesus Christ. Do we take the path of least resistance and easy answers? Do we align ourselves with the powerful and mighty or with the vulnerable and scared?

Because here’s the thing, evil hasn’t given up.  Evil is all too present and when it goes unchallenged, it grows and we confuse it with success or might…sometimes even faith.  That’s why it helps to affirm our identity as followers of Christ every day.  You don’t have to say it out loud, but make sure you hold on to that affirmation as tightly as possible. That’s where we find courage. That is where we find power. That is where we find mercy and grace.