Author: John Langenstein

Who is This? – Palm Sunday 2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

 

Luke 1:26-38

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Sermon Text

When Jesus entered into Jerusalem long ago it made a stir. What is confounding to us looking back on his entry into the city is that so much of that day has become sacrosanct. We have images in our head, built up from years of church liturgy and sermons, from passion plays and movies, that make us think of very particular things when Palm Sunday comes around. It is a day of waving palm fronds, of joining with the crowd who welcomed Jesus into the city. It is our last outright celebration that precedes the solemnity of Holy Week.

The text we have read today speaks to a difficult reality within our reading of the scripture. Namely that we are looking back at people who lived lives that were quite different to our own. More than that, in the crowds of people who lived differently than us there was a multiplicity of voices and opinions. There was no one Jewish opinion or one Roman opinion in the ancient world. In the same way that we live in a divided and diverse world, the people of scripture encountered various people with thoughts, viewpoints, and practices different than their own.

We know of first-century Judaism that in Jerusalem alone there was something like five factions working with or against one another. Zealots wandered the streets staging assassinations of Roman forces. Pharisees lived in every town in the region offering moral teachings to anyone who needed them. Sadducees controlled the Temple, holding sacrificial authority over all the region. Meanwhile, the Greek-speaking Jews lived on the margins, and the new movement of the Nazarene was gaining traction.

All these diverse parties came together around the Passover to celebrate as Moses commanded them. They gathered together in Jerusalem and greatly expanded the population of the city. It was a time when the Jews united in their commonality, but also a time when their differences threatened to bubble up into open conflict. The first century saw several Jewish revolts against Rome and oftentimes these revolts were motivated by intrasectarian disagreements as much as they were motivated by Jewish liberationists.

For Jesus to enter the city as he did, with the crowd going before him and shouting he was a Son of David and rightful king of Jerusalem was to court disaster. If the Romans decided that a significant threat was posed by Jesus and his followers then every one of them, and much of the unaffiliated Jews who were in the city, would be killed as dissenters and rebels. The arrival of someone claiming to be King, that would certainly cause a stir for the people in the city. Fear and worry hung thick over the people within the city as they saw Jesus approaching on the colt, would he and his band of followers be enough to finally stir up the wrath of Rome.

Add to their concerns the reality that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea – unpopular in Rome and he was in Jerusalem – had just arrived to hold court for a period of time. Pilate was known for his cruelty – in shutting down rebellions and dissent in the past he had aired on the side of bloodshed. This upset the population of Judea who saw him as a tyrant, and it upset Rome who saw him as causing more problems than he had fixed. Pilate was desperate for good press and killing a rebellion before it started could give him some clout back home in Rome.

The people of the city, here called the Πολις  (Polis,) are described as, “Trembling,” as the crowd arrives. While many throughout history have taken this to mean that there was excitement at Jesus’ arrival, to read this into the text is to assume that the people of Jerusalem were reacting as we hope we would when Jesus arrived. We project onto them the joy we feel in Christ’s arrival and attempt to clean up an otherwise complex narrative. If Jesus is universally loved upon his arrival, then we do not have to question which group of people we would be in.

When we read the text as though Jesus entering the city caused universal joy instead of anxiety then we can easily picture ourselves among those crying out, “Hosanna!” When we see Jesus triumphantly entering and imagine that he came upon a happy church service waving fronds, then we do not have to think about whether or not we would be among the Crowd he entered with or the anxious city. When we project a uniform image of Sunday School simplicity, we are not asked to evaluate our lives.

When Jesus enters into a situation, Jesus always enters as the rightful King. Jesus is not relegated to any position other than Lordship except for when Jesus does so himself, as we will remember on Maundy Thursday.  Jesus comes into divided cities, nations, even sanctuaries, and all people are made to look at him in that moment and ask whether they will celebrate his coming or be terrified by it. When we speak like this, we are not talking about the end of time, not the final coming of Christ in judgment, but in the day to day moments when Jesus appears to us and we either accept or reject his entrance.

When Jesus came into Jerusalem he had an entourage with him of people who were already convinced of his kingship and his status as Messiah. Among this group were members of all the major Jewish sects. He gathered followers who were Pharisees and even members of the High Council. He gathered Zealots who threw down their weapons to follow the prince of peace. He gathered Greek-born Jews and Hebraic Jews and had them come together as one family. His triumph in coming into Jerusalem was not that he had gotten a unified force together that all agreed on every issue, but that he had gathered together a great multitude of people who had nothing in common except their desire to be with Christ and to follow Christ into his kingdom. They learned to be united because Christ called them to be so, not as a monolithic structure of uniform ideas, but of uniform conviction and desire to see good done in the world.

The reality of the crowd we are presented within Jesus’ triumphal entry is that they were not a large group of people. Elsewhere Matthew uses the term, “Great crowd,” “multiple crowds,” or some other formulation to say when a large group of people is gathered together. Here though, here we see a rowdy band gathered together to welcome Jesus into the city. There are enough there to constitute a gathering, but they are almost lost in the vastness of the city. They are big enough to cause a noise, to put everyone on edge, but they are still a drop of water into a very large bucket.

When we gather together as the Church universal we do so as the Jews did in Jerusalem. We earnestly come together to worship God, we gather to celebrate a feast just like our ancestors did. However, like them, we gather as people of diverse opinions, desires, and worldviews. We come as people who are worried about the powers that exist in our world and whether or not we can stand against them. There is fear, there is prayer and praise, there is uncertainty.

Jesus enters into the church every day. Each morning when we wake up we all face the triumphal entry head-on. Christ presents himself in our lives and we decide every day whether that is an attractive or terrifying prospect. Do we see the arrival of our king and quake in fear that he will disrupt our lives? Or do we cry out to be saved and follow him into a world that has yet to wake up to his light?

The answer is different every day. Somedays we fail to hail our King, some days we choose to protect ourselves from disruption and curl up in resignation about how things are. Sometimes Pilate, the power of the status quo, seems more attractive than Christ, the meek and the revolutionary. The reality of sin is that we will choose one over the other throughout our life, but the promise of Christ is that we never sell out completely to the status quo, not unless we choose to.

Christ came into Jerusalem on a colt only once. Yet, as we have said, Christ comes to us every day, multiple times a day. We never are left unable to join the crowd shouting loud Hosanna! Yet, we must make the choice to follow Christ into the city. Yet we must choose discomfort over comfort, to choose what is right over what is convenient. When Jesus entered the city, the people in it expected a riot, and honestly, perhaps the church should be more like that.

The church should be a group that is excited to do the work of Christ. Organized together out of every rejected class of person in society. Those who have been told time and time again that they are not good enough, that they do not deserve what they have, that they should be treated poorly because of circumstances of birth, position, or happenstance. The church should be a ragamuffin rabble, it should be made up of ne’er-do-well on the path to redemption.

What marks the church as separate from other gatherings of the marginalized is its intent. While the past few years have shown us white supremacists, anti-semites, and other hate groups gathering people who feel disenfranchised to commit evil, we see the Church gathering to scattered people of the earth for good. The Church gathers all the poor and powerless of the world, all those who have been treated cruelly by power, all people of all races and creeds, not because it desires to become bigger or stronger or more powerful, but because it wants to eliminate all these words of domination from our vocabulary.

Jesus comes to us, Jesus calls us daily, not so we can triumphally raze the world to the ground in holy fire. Jesus comes to us meekly, on a colt instead of a chariot, seated on robes and not on fine linens. Jesus models for us what our triumph in life truly is. A riotous group of people, loudly praising God, worshipping a king whose revolution is one of peace, and whose greatest weapon is not the sword but is love large enough to die even for those who hate you. Let us all follow the lead of Christ, let us join the procession of the righteous, and let us all put aside our many differences in the name of truth, the name of love, and ultimately the name of Christ who saves us, the Son of David for all eternity. – Amen.

 

A Nascent Promise – Feast of the Annunciation Observed

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Sermon Text

We come now to our Scripture. The celebration of the Annunciation is an ancient one. It was solidified in our Church calendars as being properly celebrated on the twenty-fifth of March, nine-months before December twenty-fifth and the celebration of Christ’s birth. While there is no actual date recorded in scripture for Christ’s birth, and subsequently of Christ’s conception, there is a tradition of the Church that dates back centuries. Following a Jewish belief at the time that a righteous man would die on the day he was conceived, the early tradition that Jesus was crucified on March twenty-fifth locked in place both the celebration of the Annunciation and Christmas.[1]

Today, though we have waited four days for our observance of it, we celebrate a feast day like no other. The first moment in which a person became a minister in the New Testament, the first moment that Christ was received by a person, the fist transmission of the Holy Spirit in the era of Christ’s earthy ministry. It begins in a simple moment, a conversation between two people in a small room in a small city. A private conversation with a universal impact – the moment that Mary is told of what her life is to become, and the moment that she accepts her place in God’s plan without reservation.

The Annunciation is the starting point of the Christian faith, the first obvious interaction of the entirety of the Godhead with creation. The arrival of the Word made flesh, the Anointing of Mary with the Spirit, as she received her blessing from the Father. The world was transformed as it had never been before – not by general and armies, not by Caesar or Herod, not even by priests, but by the faith of a woman that was sufficient for God to work within her.

What can come as a surprise to us, steeped in various Mariologies that either cast her as the Queen of Heaven or just some woman who happened to be in the right place at the right time for God to work through her. The Scripture does not ask us to make so much or so little of Mary. She is the only woman in the New Testament to speak prophetically. While Elizabeth blesses Mary and Anna is called a prophetess, Mary alone is given voice to shout her praise and prophecy of God. The prophecy that she gives later, the Magnificat, is one of the most powerful pronouncements in scripture – it challenges us to understand what God has done, is doing, and will do. It tells us about a God who is planning to shake up creation, to turn it on its head, to make things right at last.

However, the Magnificat is not where scripture takes us today. We see the moment, months before, in which the incidents that allow for this wonderful song of praise to be sung take place. An angel appears to Mary, tells her that she is going to have a child and that that child will be the Holy. Not only will they be Holy, but they will be called a “Son of God.” This title is used throughout scripture to mean one of two things – either that a person is an angel, as it is used in Genesis or else that they are a descendent of King David and therefore worthy of being called King.[2]

The second title Gabriel bestows upon Jesus is significantly rarer – calling him a “Holy One.” This title is given in some places to all of God’s people, elsewhere to specific anointed prophets, but most interestingly as a title for those who are directly representing God in a situation. Angels who speak for God are given this title, when it is presented in plural it refers usually to God in Godself.[3]

These two titles, one tying Jesus to being King, the other to Jesus being a prophet and envoy of God. They establish what role Jesus is to have in the world as its ruler and as its new mediator between God and God’s people. The angel speaks to Mary and assures her that her child is going to be a spectacular child.  Worthy of a lineage like King David’s, as magnificent as Moses and Elijah before him.

Mary hears all these things and we can imagine that like each of the encounters she has with prophets speaking to her, she contemplated them deep within herself. The reality of her coming pregnancy was now revealed to her. The complexity of her child’s future was laid out before her. The evidence of God’s power was presented in the pregnancy of her elderly relative Elizabeth. The wonders of God were all arranged now to culminate in a grand convergence that required pieces from all of time and space to act in concert – the incarnation of Christ had begun.

Mary provides us all a model for our own faith. From beginning to end of her appearance in scripture Mary is presented as a paradigm of what a faithful servant of God is to be like. She listens attentively to God, to questions God to learn more about God’s will, and she follows God when she is given a direction to go in. Throughout the rest of Luke 1 and 2 we see Mary interact with God directly. Not on a mountaintop like Moses had, not in a chariot of fire like Elijah had, not in terrifying visions. No… Mary saw none of these things when she saw God. Instead she saw God in a child, in her child, nestled up to her and dependent upon her.

God’s magnificent entry into a corporeal form was in the form of a fragile child. All the work of God in this new era of Christ was wrapped up in a child, and before it was wrapped in a child, it was wrapped in the waters of the womb. Jesus begins Jesus’ ministry prenatally. A nascent promise waiting for Advent among us.

Mary is pushed from her life in the city into the wilderness of her close relatives immediately after the angel’s proclamation. Perhaps seeking safety while her child gestates – we have to remember that her and Joseph are not yet married and that the law of the land makes this pregnancy dangerous for both of them. Mary travels to her relative Elizabeth, the one who has received her own miraculous child, and there Elizabeth sings for Joy that Mary has graced her with her presence. Elizabeth, who finally is going to have a child after years of waiting, pronounced Mary more blessed than she is. More than that, she says that Mary’s child is more blessed than any other child.

Upon reception of these words Mary sings a song which we know best as the “Magnificat,” literally meaning, “Magnifies,” from the first words of the prayer. “My soul magnifies the Lord.” This prayer lays out all the wonders of God. God’s taking down of the proud, God’s salvation of the meek and needy, God’s constancy in all conditions, the promises of God which never go unfulfilled. Mary, pushed into a place she does not know, receives support and blessing from someone else in the faith, and she is able then to fully realize what God is doing with her life.

Mary is a model for us because she is the first person to hold the promises of God within themselves. She was the first to have the Spirit transform her body into a temple of God. We are told through the letters of Paul that we too inhabit this state of being. While we are not pregnant with the physical Christ, we all contain within us the Spirit of God – the fullness of divinity wrapped in our flesh. We are not fully divine and fully human like Christ was, our nature is not one of twofold unity, but we are united to Christ’s divinity through Christ’s spirit. We all contain the fullness of Christ’s promise through the Spirit’s participation in our life.

At the beginning of our faith we all receive a word from God. “You will bear Christ into the world. You will tell others about him and show others what his love was like. You will speak against the proud and lift up the humble. You will bear the Most High because the Spirit is with you.” Still we often are unconvinced, “How can this be? I am no great orator, no speaker, no wonder worker. I have not done nearly enough to be worthy of this title – I’ll go even further and say I do not know how it is possible!”

Then comes the word from God, “I have made it possible for thousands of people for centuries. I have seen kingdoms rise and fall and yet I am present in my servants. See the wonders around you, and know that no word that comes from my mouth is impossible.” We hear this, we consent to be workers in God’s economy of grace – but can we really say that we have taken hold of the reality we are now in? Not until we come face to face with grace in action, not until the time is right for us to embrace our future. When we come into hardship and God’s grace appears to us in the kindness of another – in an Elizabeth who sees the blessing within us for what it is.

In that moment we are ready to declare what God has done and will do. “Lord! You who bring down the mighty you have chosen to work with us who are lowly. Lord! You who have kept your promises will not abandon us after saying you will protect us! Lord! You who have destroyed the thrones of power will lift up the poor and the powerless!” The promise which had up to this point been contained within is now free to go out into the world and grow. We, following Mary’s model, not only carry Christ but let Christ out into the world. The wonders that will be completed are let loose, and we in giving up our control join with Mary. In joy, in pain, in ministry, we follow the example of the first great evangelist – Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Amen

[1] Golden Legend, vol. 3, the Annunciation. C.f. De. Pascha Compututs. Pseudo-Cyprian. Latin Text available: https://scaife.perseus.org/reader/urn:cts:latinLit:stoa0104p.stoa009.opp-lat1:1-5/?highlight

[2] Psalm 2 reflects this relationship most clearly

[3] Gehman, Henry S. “‘Άγιος in the Septuagint, and Its Relation to the Hebrew Original.” Vetus Testamentum 4, no. 4 (1954): 337-48. Accessed March 23, 2020. doi:10.2307/1515813.

A Stop Along the Way – Lectionary 03/22/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

Sermon Text

We all know today’s scripture. It is beside us even in the roughest patches of our life. In times of sickness, its words provide a blanket to cover our cold. In our despair, it offers a light to see us through to something better. In our grief, it reminds us of the rest which God has given to our loved ones now departed from us. It has given us all a place to settle into for over two thousand years. It is one of the earliest and most incredible examples of trust in God’s provision.

We who read it now, several centuries removed from its composition find little about it that we cannot relate to. While few of us tend sheep anymore (I know several in this congregation do,) we can see them gathered together on a hillside chewing the grass around them. While we do not often walk through the rift valley of the Levant, we know what it is to be betwixt and between the hollers that dot the state we live in. We can even picture the attentive shepherd perched on their crook. Standing at the gate or walking his flock across from one field to another.

In the ancient world, Shepherd language was usually applied to leaders of the community. A King shepherded all the people in their Kingdom. A landowner was the shepherd of their tenants. The priests were the shepherds of the people of God. Whenever we see the word, “shepherd,” to describe a person in scripture the intent is to establish them as a leader of the community they are a part of. The idea being that a leader should do whatever is best for those they serve.

Despite our warm feelings about Shepherds, the Biblical narrative usually invokes the image of Shepherds negatively. In Jeremiah, the leaders of Judah and Israel are described as shepherds who scattered God’s flock. (Jer. 23:1-6) Likewise, the invading armies of the day were given the same identification. The Psalms talk about how the wicked take on death as their shepherd. (Psalm 49) These examples are always contrasted with God, the Shepherd who brings the scattered people together and sets them at peace. The pastures of God, the rest of an eternal Sabbath, this is the hope offered to all people through God and God’s work in the world.

The promise of this Psalm is not a far-off reality. While there are many descriptions of a future time when God will lead the people of the world into rest, this Psalm speaks to the here and now. God is not going to be our Shepherd. God is our Shepherd. From the moment that we are initiated by God’s Spirit into God’s church, we are a part of God’s flock – protected by our shepherd. The promises of Psalm 23 are here for us now, in our daily life, in the midst of the most profound difficulties and visceral joys. Nothing can keep us from them.

This does not mean that our life is easy. It does not mean that we will never be afraid or upset, mournful or lost. Our shepherd can never lose us, but we have an incredible skill of getting ourselves lost. We run from the safe places we find ourselves in into dangerous waters. We are swept along currents and dragged into pits that we have no hope to climb out of on our own. One of the most profound realities of the human experience is that we are very good at losing the plot. We find ourselves in places of distress, and we look around and see only darkness, the deep darkness like the Shadow of Death hanging over us.

For some people, this reality is closer than it is to others. Those who struggle with mental health can often find themselves put closer to the dark than to the light, if not in actuality than in perception. I myself suffer from dysthymia, a low-grade but persistent form of depression that I can best describe as a draining of life’s colors. No emotion is blocked from me, but the shades that those emotions take are washed out, distant, sometimes completely in black and white. The reality of my mental illness is that I can easily lose track of things that are bright and good in the world because shadow and light are quite similar in a greyscale world.

Even for those of us who are not struggling with mental health, there are obstacles to feeling God’s presence. Life is hard. Life is scary. Right now, as we look around us we see a world that is wild with concerns over COVID-19. There are genuine and warranted emotions and distress at work right now. After all, this is a matter of life and death. On a smaller scale, we must deal with the individual attacks against our wellbeing. Attacks that take the form of feelings of inadequacy, knowledge of our mortality, conflict with loved ones, with ourselves.

Even in the presence of these conflicts, there are many ways we can make ourselves more receptive to God’s goodness. For all of us, not just people with chronic mental health struggles, seeking therapy can do wonders for sorting out our perceptions of the world and one another. Seeking instruction from God’s word and reliable commentators wakes us up to the reality of what God has done in the past and will do now. Community with other people of the faith, of all ages and demographics, allows us to see God in one another. Acts of service carried out in love allow us to become Christ to the world and see Christ in those we help.

We cannot be the church alone. We cannot pursue God without the full community of God interacting with one another. What has probably become clear to all of us in our various states of isolation this past week is that being in a single place and not seeing those we are used to seeing has an effect on us. We are social creatures, and God made us to crave social interaction. Therefore, times when we are away from other people often make us feel distant from God. God lives in the eternal company of Godself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So we who are made in the image of God experience God most fully in communion with one another.

Psalm 23 is important as we come to the second half of Lent. As we worship apart and as we have maintained social distance, it draws us close. As we are praying more earnestly than ever to engage with God’s work of Easter, it gives us a taste of our Sabbath rest. In this year more than many in memory, we certainly need the reality of God’s presence, because in this year we seem to have faced hardship after hardship. We need to rest with confidence, we need to stand with God, with the presence of the whole church.

The message of Psalm 23 is not that someday God will appear to us and we will feel taken care of. It is not that our present problems should never overshadow God’s work. It is that our present problems will seem to surround us, that we will be awash in our troubles, that there is a lot in life we can be distressed about. Yet, God is here with us. Yet, God does not leave our side. Yet, we are on a path that culminates in green pastures, a feast we can celebrate in, all the good things that we could ever want or imagine. We live in a complicated space as people who are members of God’s flock – always stuck between what is now and not yet, always looking to the next step and living in the present moment.

Despite this uncertainty. Despite this disorder. There is a calm that we can find again and again. The familiar words of scripture that spells out for us the reality that God is present with us even when we cannot see God. God is leading us forward even when we feel lost. God never leaves the side of the wandering sheep, even if the sheep has lost all sight of the Shepherd. We can live into the reality of God’s presence even in the darkest night, not by pretending we are not struggling – but by being authentically transparent about it.

We have all been secluded lately – call one another. If you have the means to use skype or zoom or facetime to see one another face to face do so. Take advantage of whatever services you have to connect to people you’ve been meaning to reach out to for a time. If you are in a season of life that leads you to despair confide in someone you trust and who loves you. Share the burden of life with one another and chase after the goodness of God. We are in a dark night, the sun seems faint in the darkness of a world that is broken, but God’s goodness cannot be snuffed out.

Find the opportunity in the silence. Pray when your mind wanders. Turn off the TV and read a book, talk to your family, listen to or play some music. Read some scripture (Mark is only about an hour of reading and we’re doing a study of it soon – just as a suggestion.) Whatever you do, let it be something that seeks life. Whatever you are feeling feel it fully. Whatever good is in your life lift up proudly, whatever distresses you share it freely. Seek help where before you felt fear, seek understanding where before you feared ignorance, and show to the world the acceptance that we are all craving now.

The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall not want. The Lord is our Shepherd, we will walk through the darkest valleys. The Lord is our Shepherd, speak to God all the concerns of your heart. The Lord is our Shepherd, praise the Lord, hallelujah, and amen.

Theologizing Illness and Testing God – A Meditation on Exodus 17:1-7

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

This Sunday many churches will be preaching on Jesus as the living water which, once given to a person, ensures they will never thirst again. The infinite spring of Life which allows for us to enter into the rest of God. Love that transcends people groups and gender, such that all people – whether they are a Jewish man, a Samaritan woman, or any other combination of identifiers – can become part of the new life in Christ. A divine life defined by God-likeness.

However, on the other end of the lectionary we see God giving water in another circumstance. Here God’s people complain against their lack of water and God gives them water from the rocks around them. The stones are named Massah and Meribah – the place of testing and the place of complaining, for the people had tested God and complained to God. The land itself is called “Rephidim,” – Land of Support, Land of Supply.

We lose track often of what it means to test God. It is not simply to ask God for something – or else our prayer would constantly be testing God. It is not simply doubting God’s provision – because we do this more often than any of us care to admit. Despite our uncertainty about what scripture means by, “Testing God,” it is one of the most consistent traditions in scripture. This Massah tradition is so central to the Christian tradition that it is even in the Lord’s Prayer.[1]

 

 

The word Jesus uses to describe, “Temptation,” in the Lord’s prayer is “πειρασμός” (Peirasmos.) This word is more often translated, “Testing.” The testing of a person that leads them to be better is peirasmos. The testing that comes from the suffering naturally in life is peirasmos. However, it is not only people who experience it. After all, Massah in the Greek Old Testament (LXX)  is called, “πειρασμός”

Jesus was sent into the desert to be tempted (πειράζω.) While there the Devil urged him to throw himself from high up, plummeting but being saved by a God who would never let his Son be hurt. Jesus rebukes the Devil, saying that we are not to put God to the test – to not  ἐκπειράζω (2nd Person Future Active Indicative of πειράζω.) This testing of humanity and of God comes down to the same concept of testing.

So, what does this have to do with our theologizing of illness?

We are currently experiencing a pandemic across the world. Many countries are taking steps to prevent its spread through quarantines, closed borders, and social distancing. We in the United States are beginning to feel the effects of these preventative measures. Schools are closing, businesses are conducting work at home, and before long more than just a few churches will likely stop meeting in person. The question has been raised again and again, “Don’t these steps show we lack faith? If the churches close what does that tell people?”

It is irresponsible to relate the church and society taking reasonable steps to prevent infection to a lack of faith. Timothy was told to take medicine when he was ill. (1 Tim. 5:23) The people of God frequently took steps to avoid disaster. (Gen. 12:10, 27:41-46, 46:1-4, Matt. 2:13–23, 24:16, to name a few) The message of scripture is not that we should live recklessly because God will take care of us. We are told we will be saved from serpents, not that we should drink their venom. In the same way, we are told we will see healing from disease not that we should chase after catching it.

We must be willing to take extreme measures. If that means closing churches for a time, then we will meet some other way. We must care for those who are vulnerable, if that means we stay away from them then we must retreat. We must take all the steps necessary to protect those around us.

God will not punish us for our caution, but if we choose to test God by blindly acting against the recommendations of experts then we will suffer. We do not need to give into despair, but we also should not assume we are immortal. God is the giver of life and wisdom. Wisdom demands we make unpleasant choices sometimes. The fact is that we are in a new wilderness, one of contagions and diseases we do not understand. Our responsibility in trusting God is not that we sit silently and hold our worries within, that will not do. Our responsibility in trusting God is not that we chase after new ways to harm ourselves so that God’s grace may abound, that is putting God very plainly to the test.

Pursuing God, trusting God, sometimes means that we step away from the comfort of proximity. Sometimes we have to disrupt our routine. Sometimes we must close ourselves off. Will this impact our life? Of course. Will it lead us into difficulties of income, difficulties of loneliness, difficulties of luxury? It definitely will. However, we cannot afford to sit on our hands when the world grows sicker minute by minute. Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Stay at home, stay safe, and do not let this virus spread beyond our ability to treat it. God will provide, but we cannot chase down streams in deserts and then be upset when we do not find them.

[1] Cornelisu B. Houk. “Πειρασμος, The Lord’s Prayer, and the Massah Tradition” in Scottish Journal of Theology. 19 no 2 Jun 1966, p 216-225

 

Balancing Bitterness – Lectionary 03/15/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Exodus: 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Sermon Text

The rocks of Meribah and Massah are among the most formative moments in the history of God’s people. The long walk through the wilderness has the people of God struggling with Moses, with God, with one another. The constant travel wore down the edges of every relationship. Sometimes this strengthened them, other times it harmed them, but it always transformed them. It was here at Massah and Meribah that an entire tradition within the biblical writings was created.

The pattern of people coming to a time of trouble, complaining to God, and then God responding to that complaint is what some scholars call the Massah tradition. It is a train of thought that is present in several Psalms, the book of Hebrews, and even potentially in the Lord’s prayer.[1] The basic idea being that we all are at risk of engaging in the namesake of Massah – the testing of God.

When we engage with the divine we can do so in nearly infinite ways. We pray to God to work wonders. We praise God for the good in our life. We cry out to God when we are broken and ask for answers, to be healed. God is able to take on all our emotions – good and bad, praise and anger, love and consternation. The work of the prophets attests again and again to God’s willingness to work alongside us in the muck and mire of our most difficult hours. What then separates Massah from other instances of crying out to God? Why is this particular cry for help treated negatively when the Psalmist, the Prophets, and many more in scripture have raised much bigger questions of God?

We cannot, through our reading of scripture create criterion in which a situation is or is not testing God. This creates an obligation based understanding of our relationship with God. “If we use this word we are testing God… If we say it in this way we are testing God…” That does not help us. Imagine any other relationship in your life where the specific words you use were the only part of communication that mattered. That if you had a set of rules to follow that would be enough to promote a good relationship.

Everyone naturally forms boundaries in conversations with people, topics or words you know will make them upset. I personally have an understanding with my friends that they can question anything about me and my actions, but they should not use the word “Naïve,” it is a word that I do not react well to and so I have that understanding with people not to use it. The Rabbi’s talk about a consideration for people that goes even beyond this, “Someone who had a person who hanged in his family, should not say to his fellow, “Hang a fish.” – In other words, simply saying the word, “Hanged” can bring up emotions that a considerate person would not want their friend to be pulled back into.

However, it is rarely a matter of word choice or sentence formation that makes up the meat of interactions between people. Yes, we do a great deal when we learn how to communicate with one another in better more productive ways. Yes, it is better to ask someone, “Can you explain your reasoning?” than to yell, “You idiot! Why would you do that!” But if we are only concerned with the words we choose and the order we put them in then we will inevitably fall into the trap of finding loopholes. “I did not call them an idiot, I just heavily implied they were.” Is not very life giving for anyone involved.

The story of Massah is not one of God’s people failing to meet criteria X,Y, or Z that would allow their complaint to God to be valid. It is not a lesson for us to say, “And thus we should never question God, because if we do God will be cross.” It is instead a lesson in two realities – our need to stop trying to manipulate God and God’s care for us even when we try to do so.

There is a long tradition across most religious systems where people try and persuade a God through trickery to do what they want. The Greeks tell stories of two bags being sorted, one with very good meat on top but nothing but bones and skin underneath and the other with the majority of meat from a cow. The Gods choose the choice meat and are tricked into their lot in sacrifices to mostly be bones while people enjoy the majority of the meat. In Japan the hero Susanoo tricked the Gods many times and so was banned from Heaven till he proved himself. Even in our fiction Gods are frequently tricked, the patriarch of rabbits El-ahrairah in the book Watership Down attempts to trick the great God Frith into blessing him, somehow succeeding in becoming the fastest animal on earth.

The people of God and others throughout scripture are no different. Jacob wrestled with God and would not let him go without being blessed first, trying to strong arm the divine. (Gen. 32:22-32) Moses’ wife, Zipporah, dipped blood on his feet in a seeming attempt to trick God away from killing Moses. (Exo. 4:24-26) Balak the Moabite pays a prophet to prophecy against Israel, attempting to take away the divine voice with money. (Numbers 23-24) Even King Saul of Israel attempted to pull one over on God, by summoning the Ghost of Samuel to try and speak against the rising star that would become King David. (1 Samuel 28)

Whenever people wanted something they would do whatever they could to try and pull the wool over God’s eyes. To make sure that God somehow got confused and worked in their favor, even when doing so would mean that God would be doing something counter to Godself.

For the Israelites in our scripture today the transgression was simple. They were thirsty and they needed water. Yet, when given the chance to pray for God’s provision they chose instead to accuse God of evil. “Is God here or not?” “Are you just trying to kill us?” These questions are certainly the words of people who are concerned about their life, but it is also the words of people who are not prepared for God to deliver something to them. Their first response to trouble was to make accusations, not to ask for direction. That betrays a great deal about the state of their relationship with God.

When we are in relationship with one another we have to be in a responsible relationship. When someone we love comes to us with a problem, we hope they will do so understanding we are not intentionally causing that problem. When we go to a loved one with our own problems, we hope they know we are seeking understanding not making accusations. If on either side of this equation doubt enters in about the good-will of one another things begin to fall apart. If, worse still, one member of the relationship genuinely stops desiring good for the other, then things will also begin to fall apart.

The people of Israel were not wrong to come to God and ask for water. We need water to survive, that was as true then as it is now. However, rather than asking they accused. Rather than seeking understanding they already had made up their mind about God. Rather than seeking an understanding of relationship, they charged onward and fractured the space between themselves and God. It would be like one person accidentally hurting the feelings of another and that person accusing them of ill intent without explaining why they were hurt. It would be like a person being told they had hurt another person accidentally and saying, “Well it wasn’t my intent so it isn’t my fault.” Communication, not intent, is what makes relationships function. Yet, using the right words without proper intent will not produce a healthy relationship either – both are needed.

The complex steps we all must take to communicate with one another are not dissimilar to what happens when we come to speak to God. When we feel we are not having our needs met the solution cannot be to pretend all is well and then sit on our hands. Likewise, it cannot be brazenly charging ahead and demanding what is ours as if God has been playing against us this whole time. Job, perhaps the most afflicted person in scripture questions God for 40 chapters and at the end of it all God said, “My Servant Job has spoken what is right.” (Paraphrase Job 42:7.) God intervenes after a long litany of complaint not to say Job was wrong but to shut down his friends who spoke for God rather than questioned, who assumed they knew what Job needed to do without ever asking how he was.

Testing God can mean a lot of things. Taking unnecessary risk, pushing God to act against God’s goodness. However, most often it manifests in a lack of trust that comes from us not communicating with God. When we come to God with a pointed finger and a raised voice before we ever came to God with a quiet question. Sometimes it is appropriate to yell in relationships. Sometimes it is appropriate to give voice to all our feelings with all the intensity we feel them. More often than not though, it all begins with a question asked in good faith. If we were only willing to ask one another more questions to understand a situation, and less willing to assume we know what’s going on already. What a wonderful world we might create.

So, today, let your desires be known to God. If you are upset tell the almighty. If you have your doubts about God’s goodwill voice that concern. If you have everything joyous in your life let God know. Do the same with your loved ones. Loved ones listen to one another. For God is not an avenger against you, neither should your loved ones be, but when we all come to a place of testing and complaint, let us do so in a land of Support – our own Rephidim to house Meribah and Massah. Test not God, Test not one another. – Amen

[1] Cornelius B. Houk. “Πειρασμος, The Lord’s Prayer, and the Massah Tradition” in Scottish Journal of Theology. 19 no 2 Jun 1966, p 216-225

Rebuking Haman – Sermon for the Week of Purim 2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Esther 3:1-6

After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the officials who were with him. And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and did obeisance to Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or do obeisance. Then the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you disobey the king’s command?”

When they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai’s words would avail; for he had told them that he was a Jew. When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or do obeisance to him, Haman was infuriated. But he thought it beneath him to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So, having been told who Mordecai’s people were, Haman plotted to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Sermon Text

Esther is one of those books of those Bible that we do not give enough time or energy to. Usually, it lives in the realm of children’s storybooks and women’s Bible studies. It will soon be a musical at Sight and Sound theatre, but even then, I have a feeling they will make it sterile and feel good and not really dive deep into what this book can tell us. It is a book of secrets, of silence, of hidden identity and hidden motivations. From start to finish we see men and women, Jews and Gentiles, the powerful and the powerless, put into contrast with one another again and again and again. It is a book that asks us to make assumptions, and then makes clear how wrong we are in having made them.

In particular, we drill in today at the moment in which the stakes of the book become clear. While Ahasuerus’ search for a wife is what allows Esther to come into power, it is Mordechai’s confrontation with Haman that allows for the conflict of the book to begin. A confrontation between two city leaders that results in a demand for genocide and concludes in the massacre of thousands. The book of Esther, with all its reversals in fate and convoluted narratives of responsibility, chooses an inciting incident that does as much to confuse us as it does to establish us.

We are introduced immediately to the person of Haman. We are given no backstory about him and it is not explained whether or not he had worked in the city of Susa alongside Mordechai and the other servants of the King or if he appeared one day. His position before this moment is unknown, but we are told that he has become the highest official in the land, second only to the King. This humble Agagite has taken a position that allows him to rule over much of the Persian world. As powerful as a King, beloved by the true ruler of the nation, we are told that he is to be bowed to whenever he arrives – not by his own command, but by that of the King.

Yet, Mordechai, our hero in this story, refuses to do so. The story does not tell us why he will not bow. Many claim that because he was Jewish he could not bow down to the King, but there is no such instruction in the Torah. Others suggest he was simply too proud to bow to Haman, perhaps because Haman took a position that should have been his – he was a national hero for having saved the King after all. Whatever the reason for not bowing, Haman took note and Haman demanded to have his bruised pride be avenged. As a result, we are told that he sought out to kill not only Mordechai but all those like Mordechai, all his kin, the entire Jewish race.

The transition from anger toward a single person to an entire race of people. That is not a small step for a person to take. Certainly, Haman would have been better off just punishing Mordechai. He had the power to do so. He had all the money needed to finance such a disgusting mission. Yet, he was not content to just eliminate an enemy, his pride was too great for him to consider it an option to simply take out the person he considered to have offended him. No, he decides the only route to remove his shame is to remove every trace of the people his offender belongs to.

Hatred, as much as we do not like to admit it, is rooted deep within our hearts. One of the things that define our initial gut response to a situation is how we demarcate things as a threat and not a threat. The thing we decide is a threat we then decide whether or not we would like it to stay and be tolerated or be removed and be done with. This desire to remove a thing we see as a threat. This is hatred. It is an emotion born out of demarcating someone as other than ourselves and then finding that otherness to be a danger. The attribution of whatever we do not like or find strange about a thing with its essential qualities rather than with its anecdotal occurrence.

Separating out people based on their traits, their place of origin, the culture that they were raised in, is something that our mind does automatically. When we meet someone who has a different dialect of English to us, who dresses differently than us, and of course who is of a different race than us the mind has a tendency to create a distinct category in itself to place these things. Categorizing allows the brain to pull up everything it knows about something and bring it to mind instantaneously. It is this that allows us to look at a loved one and instantly feel better, to look at a food we dislike and know that it is bad, and unfortunately to look at someone of a certain culture or race and decide whether we have deemed them good or bad.

Some of us will say at this point – “Well, when it comes to people its person by person. There is never a time where I make an assumption, I let people stand or fall based on their own merit.” Maybe so, but if we just assume, we can meet and look at people without making assumption we’ll never know if we actually do. So, let’s test if we’re good at processing two pieces of information at once.

Here are some words printed in different colors. Read the color and ignore the word. XMAS. POTATO. WASHBIN. COLLISION. SODA. That was easy. Now, if we do this again color and not word remember. BLUE. RED. ORANGE. PURPLE. GREEN. Again, say the color of the text, not the word. RED PURPLE RED GREEN BLUE. Not as easy.[1] Our brain struggles to process two things at any given time. That is why our brain is dangerous when the two things we are looking at is a person and the assumptions we have made about the group that they belong to. When we look at a person of another race do we seen them, or do we see what our brain has decided to think about them? A person who is wearing dirty or ripped clothes, someone obviously poorer than us, and decided something about their work ethic or place in life? At a woman grappling with several children in the cart and decided what she should have done to prevent such a situation?

Our scripture today shows us two pictures of hatred born within a person. On one hand we have Mordechai. Mordechai is a Jew descended from the tribe of Benjamin, of whom King Saul of Israel was a member. Saul, the most famous Benjaminite was removed from his throne because he failed to kill Agag the king of the Amalekites. Agag, despite later being killed by Samuel, had many children and their lineage became known as the Agagites – of whom we will remember Haman was a member. Haman, the new vizier of the Persian kingdom, was descended from an ancient enemy of Mordechai’s family, and Mordechai decided that because of this he could not bow down to him.[2] This is the most likely reason, given all that scripture has given us, that Mordechai caused all this trouble – because he looked at Haman and rather than seeing a person saw a bloodline, that rather than celebrating difference he decided upon defiance.

Despite the distasteful nature of his assumption, Mordechai is not acting blindly in his distrust of Haman. As a member of a group who suffered under constant oppression, whose people were killed again and again on trumped up charges of one kind or another, he was right to be warry when an ancient enemy reared its head. We would not expect a Jew in Nazi Germany to trust just anyone they met on the street, nor can we expect people of color who grew up in the Jim Crow south to assume that a few decades passing have automatically made the streets they walk to be any safer. For those who have suffered it is not as simple as turning on and off bias, when that bias may save your life.

Yes, Mordechai may have some excuse for his distrust that makes it reasonable but that does not mean it is our ideal. Ideally, we can live in a world where people never have to do as Mordechai did, assuming harm will come to him form someone in power descended from ancient enemies. However, the world we live in today is not a safe one for many people, and that is largely because Haman is still at large in the world.

Whereas Mordechai acted defensively out a very real threat to his existence, one that proved correct we will note, it was Haman who chose to act out of hatred. Haman found someone he did not know, decided he was a threat, and then when the additional information of his race was made known to him he decided to rope all Jews into the conflict rather than just this one person he was having problems with. Haman, with all power and privilege in the world, far removed from any real threat that Mordechai could ever bring against him, decided that he needed to eliminate not only Mordechai, but everyone like Mordechai. He was not experiencing implicit bias like we all might experience; he was actively choosing hatred.

If we wish to see a world without conflict, we must begin by removing hatred from within ourselves. Our minds will always work selfishly against us in this endeavor. Those mechanisms more ancient than we can ever understand that demand we categorize all groups of people as friend or foe, all cultures as good or bad, all races as above or below – those mechanisms of the mind are the enemy we all must combat with day after day after day. If we do begin to seek understanding, if we reject our assumptions and seek the truth of those different to us we will inevitably find ourselves in a better world.

When we enjoy the benefits that come from the experiences of all people of all races and all cultures and all creeds then we will see what loving our neighbors is really about. When we are active about pushing beyond the assumptions of our mind and begin seeking out the soul of those around us. We must also be aware of our failings in life, acknowledge all those moments when we knew better but still did what was worse. We must repent of our brokenness, we must repent of our hatred, and we must rebuke Haman whenever he manifests in our hearts. Then and only then, will we be free from our own misguided minds. – Amen.

[1] This exercise is adapted from Jerry Kang. “Immaculate Perception” Lecture. TedxSanDiego 2013. Available at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VGbwNI6Ssk&feature=youtu.be

[2] Linda Day. “Mordecai versus Haman” in Esther. (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon 2005) 66-67

Uncover Your Sin – Lectionary 03/01/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Psalm 32

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,  and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

While I kept silence, my body wasted away, through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.

I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.

Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

Genesis 3:1-7

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’”

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Sermon Text

Sin is absolutely poisonous. It is that illness deep within our hearts that constantly leeches out and attacks every system within us. The goodness of God, the untouchable image imprinted on us at birth, it cannot be removed. Yet the cancer of sin has covered it up. The deepest darkness of chaos, the primordial ocean which covered the world before creation, exists in each and everyone of us. It covers that image of God, and it keeps us from living the life God has set up for us.

Sin is a mystery. No one has ever been able to completely explain its presence in the world. We all know the story of the first transgression humanity ever committed. Genesis gives us the story of two people, the first two people, and their inability to listen. They do not listen to each other, not to God, even the Serpent that courts them is not listened to fully. The Serpent does not provide any rationale for why what it says is true, there is no interrogation of its words, but both humans rush to believe it. The implication then is that, given enough time, the two would have found an excuse to eat the fruit with or without the words of the Serpent.

Often when we discuss this story we look for culprits to blame. The snake for tempting humanity. Eve for listening to the Snake. Adam for not stopping Eve. The reality of the text is that it does not invite us to put blame on any one party. In the following chapters the serpent, the woman, and the man are punished. They each leave Eden with something having been taken away from them and with many new problems added to them. The blame game that the three parties take part in later in Chapter 3 is not an invitation for us to do the same.

Yet, the Bible does not say why Sin was present in the hearts of humanity, it never says what the Serpents end game was in tempting humanity. We see in later commentaries all sorts of explanations provided. The write of Revelation connected the Serpent of the Garden with Satan, an interpretation that persisted in the Church. Some people began to look for Sin as something predating the temptation of the Serpent. Somehow something living within us, ready to take advantage and rule over us. Some people even began to suggest that God created us with Sin within us already, giving us an opponent from the very beginning.

However, we do not have to hold to any of these ideas fully. Revelation tying Satan to, “that ancient serpent,” is not necessarily a description of the snake in the garden. In fact, it is more likely modifying the word before it  – “The dragon, that ancient serpent,” as both Greek and Hebrew sources imagined dragons to look like anacondas or boa constrictors. There is no indication in the text that Sin was present before this first transgression, the only thing declared wrong up until this point was Adam being alone.

We do ourselves a disservice when we turn to this passage and try to find an explanation of Sin and its place in the world. The story is not trying to provide us a window into the secrets of how God made the world, it is not trying to present us with an explanation of why Sin came to exist at all. It is simply making clear how the first instance of it came to be, how the sickness took hold and began to corrupt the image of God within our hearts, moving us further and further from God’s light and love and goodness.

The reality of Sin is known to every person who ever walked this earth. We know Sin because we see what it does. The anger that has become the most basic emotion we feel regularly anymore. The brokenness that our careless treatment of one another has produced time and time again. The entire history of humanity, from Eden to today is marred by the work of Sin, and our personal history likewise shows the sign of its work. We can never escape the reality of Sin, because it more often than not defines the world we live in. More than this though, our acknowledgement of Sin, our comfort in discussing it honestly, this is what allows transformation in us. Sin is a paradox, and as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “Sin is our only hope, the fire alarm that wakes us up to the possibility of true repentance.”[1]

The fact is that we are sinners. The fact is that we daily transgress God’s instructions in our lives. Not one of us is exempt from it. Not one of us freed from its consequences. Not one of us is given special privilege to do as we like. We must acknowledge sin, we must flee from it, because it is a disease like no other. It is a sickness that we choose whether or not we give into, the only cure is in denying it any purchase in our hearts.

Honesty is therefore necessary. We cannot act as though we do not have a problem. Even the smallest harm that we cause to those around us, even the littlest purchase we give for our wrongdoings, can grow out of control. We must starve it, we must cast it away from ourselves, and we must open up about what it has done to us. We must confess our sin to God, we must confess our sin to one another, we must confess.

When we open up to one another and acknowledge the wrong we do, especially if it is a wrong that we have committed against the person we confess to, then we begin to allow for healing. We become contrite, we feel deep in our heart the weight of our sin and desire liberation from it. We confess it to those we have hurt, those of us who hear the confession forgive it freely and openly, and we who have done wrong must then do more than just say we are sorry but begin the necessary work to be better, to fix the relationship we have broken. Only then can we be reconciled back to one another.

This pattern is as Biblical as can be. Jesus teaches us to make amends before we ever think of worshipping publicly. The Psalm we read today makes clear the great riddle of God. That we wither away when we hide our sin. When we let the darkness cover up the image of the divine within us it will gnaw away and destroy our humanity. But the moment we begin to let the air in, to admit all that is within us, then God comes in. God “Covers our sin,” literally, “gives refuge to it.” We are allowed space to grow, to recover from Sin and to begin practicing righteousness rather than wickedness.

Even as we return to Eden, our initial discussion today, we see this pattern. That God comes into the Garden and shouts to us, “Where are you?” We should not deceive ourselves in thinking God only asked this once. God asks it again and again, “Where are you?” God does not seek to find us to punish us, not to destroy us. Our actions are not without consequences, God is not mocked, make no mistake. However, God does not seek us out as a destroyer, God is not a lion waiting to pounce on you for having transgressed.

Instead God offers to all who confess, all who come forward and name their Sin, to them is given a covering. For Adam and Eve a covering of leather to replace theirs of leaves. For us it is a covering of righteousness to replace our sin. Slowly but surely, out in the open, we will transform, but only if we are willing to take the step forward, to uncover our sin, and to live into righteousness truly in the here and now.

As we gather for the feast of Christ’s grace – listen and find that ancient pattern once more. As we gather at the invitation of God, confess our Sins, are forgiven, and we declare the Peace of God to one another. Only after all these things happen, can we truly gather together and give thanks to God for the work of Christ. In this bread, in this cup, we meet a story as ancient as Eden, one of a God who will meet us where we are and bring us out of the pit. Take hold now of this grace, let us drink deep of a new fruit which brings redemption. Let us come now before the Lord our God. – Amen

[1] Barbara Brown Taylor. “Sin is our Only Hope.” In Speaking of Sin. (Plymouth, United Kingdom: Cowley Publication. 2000.) 48. Taylor provides an orthodox presentation of penance in the same text, which is the basis for the model discussed today.

Repent and God will Too – Ash Wednesday 2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Joel 2:12b-17
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.
Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’
Sermon Text
Today we gather as a solemn assembly. We gather to remember the shortness of our live, the sinfulness of our present state, and the long road we have to attain perfection. The gathering of the church on the first day of Lent is an ancient ritual and one that asks something of all of us. The poor and the rich are both brought low in humility, the powerful and the weak made equal, the good and the wicked united with the imposition of a few ashes, a smearing of palm leaves that have been burned and are applied in a symbol of shame and death.

We take on these ashes today to unite us all together as one in our pursuit of God. Lent is a season where we work to remove the blinders we have put on ourselves. No longer do we let ourselves think we are without problems, that we are yet perfect, here we let go of our pretentions and pursue something simple but very difficult to grasp – namely, humility. The next forty days of prayer, of abstention, of fasting and good works, it is all centered on us letting go of all the compound misconceptions we have built up around ourselves.

True humility, as C.S. Lewis once said, is not found, “in thinking less of ourselves, but of ourselves less.” We look at our failings and our successes honestly. When we do Good, we acknowledge the goodness of the thing we have done and grow toward Godliness. When we sin we acknowledge the evil of the thing we have done, and we move away from it and turn around to move back toward God. The Lenten season can become a period of hectic swirling, evaluating and reevaluating the things we do, the things we thoughtlessly consume, the people we have forgotten or cast aside.

Throughout the scripture which we read today we see a word repeated again and again, although in English it is easy to miss. We are told, each of us, from priest to bride and groom even as infants, to return to God who is gracious and merciful. If we rend our hearts, that is truly feel contrite about our wrongdoings in life, and not simply say sorry and not do anything about it. If we return to God, then we might see God turn toward us – see God turn toward us and offer us blessings in the wake of God’s turning.

These words, “return,” “Turn,” as the King James puts it, “Repent,” all come from a single word. שׁוּב This word means to pull a 180. Whatever direction that a person is going in they snap back around and head in the other direction. It is usually given to us, the people of God, in endless calls to return to the life God has prepared for us rather than the cruelty and death we have sought for ourselves and our neighbors. However, it is not exclusively the work of people to turn.

God too turns back to face us. The prophets frequently describe God in locative terms – coming close to us or moving away from us. When discussing repentance specifically the prophetic imagination sees something twofold. We move away from God, chasing after the empty cisterns that rob us of life rather than the living water that we depend upon. God, upset that we cared so little about the relationship turns away from us and begins to walk away. Here is where the prophets differ in their responses. Some leave us hanging in the moment, questioning if God will turn back. Others assume God will not, as the book of Lamentations does. Elsewhere, Jeremiah suggests that we can only turn back to God because God first turned toward us.

It is this final interpretation which we can find a great deal of life in. Oftentimes when we think about our own sinfulness, and we all do, we see ourselves as horribly lost and making our way blindly back to God’s light. We see ourselves scrambling through the dark to find a light that we lost somewhere along the way. The history of God’s people says something else though. Our Christian narrative says something else. We worship a God who is not content to stand far off and removed from us, but who cannot remain angry because they are too deeply in love. The anger of God is temporary, but the love of God is eternal.

Our scripture today speaks of a God, “abounding in steadfast love.” This is a poor translation. The actual Hebrew says something closer to, “Our God loves with many loves,” or alternatively, “God is loyal in many ways.” God is not only extremely loving, but loves us in innumerable ways. It is this love that leads to the image Jesus gives us in Luke of the Prodigal Son and his loving Father. The sort of love that brings Jewish Philosopher of Religion Araham Joshua Heschel, to describe whole of religious revelation is, “to witness how God is turning toward [us.]”

Today we must affirm a simple truth, provocative as it may seem, that if we repent this season, turning toward God, then we will find that God has already repented before us, turning to face us even before we knew we were able to turn toward God. The Divine assumes that we will choose correctly, God awaits us to come home and live in the fullness of Life, the goodness of Love, and at peace with all around us. God assumes the best in us, can we do the same? Can we take this period of Lent as more than an observance to be checked off our calendars? Embracing it fully, let us return to our God who has already started running to meet us. Let us now prepare our hearts, let our Shuv be a true transformational turning, and let us take hold of the God who has sought us from the beginning of time. – Amen

We are Witnesses – Feast of the Transfiguration – February 23, 2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

2 Peter 1:16-21

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.

So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Matthew 17:1-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Sermon Text

Repentance is the substance of the season we enter into now. Lent comes upon us and asks us to turn around, to come close to God and to recommit ourselves to God’s ways. Lent asks us to give up our selfishness, all those things we want but do not need. We do not do this so that we can look proud, we do not do this to look solemn or impressive, but to free ourselves to do the good work of Christ. The purpose of our earthly life is, after all, to chase God’s will and to truly embrace it. We are to be doers of God’s word, we are to be proclaimers of it, and we all have a responsibility to be witnesses to the goodness and power of God.

It can mean many things to call someone a witness. A witness in a trial speaks to the accuracy of a given situation – either confirming or dismissing the story of the participants in the trial. It would be hard to imagine a trial that did not call witnesses. The second use of witness is more common in Christian circles – it is to “testify,” about one’s faith. To do this is not simply to speak our doctrine, not simply displays of faith in public, but living a life worthy of our calling. This sort of testimony, called ματυρִַια in Greek, is where we get the word Martyr, those who demonstrated their faith even if, and often when, it included their torture and murder.

The sort of witnessing described in 2 Peter is something else though. The word used in this text-only occurs once in the New Testament, and only once in the Greek Old Testament – in a scenario in Esther with no Hebrew parallel. The word which is used means not to testify, not to stand in court, not even to act out faithfully in our calling to Christ. It describes Peter as an “eyewitness” literally as, “The one who looks upon.” Peter is not described here as something grandiose, he picks a rare and simple word. In choosing what to hang his hat on as an apostle of God he says quite simply, “I am an eyewitness to the Majestic Glory of Jesus.” Nothing more and nothing less.

In Peter’s context, the reason for this distinction is important. While we have no idea the particular problem facing the community addressed in 2 Peter, we know that there is a dispute between true and false teachings. Some people connect this to the work of the Judaizers we read about in Galatians, others to the Gnostic heresies which emerged in early Christianity. Reading through the text we do not have to be so specific, we do not have to cleave to either theory. There is a simplicity to this text which is rare in the New Testament. If we let it, this text gives us one of our simplest understandings of the work of the Church, but only if we do not get lost in its esoterics.

Peter is telling his congregations, in the face of a multitude of Christian witnesses that were swirling around them, how to discern good and bad teachings. The letter goes at length in its later chapters about what kind of things false prophets do and what they bring, but in this chapter, he sets up criteria that we can follow not only in identifying what is good teaching but in making sure that we speak and preach the word of God properly. Put in a few words Peter hangs his own authority on two things: the plain facts of his life and the authority of the Old Testament.

To this first point, Peter looks to the moment that defined his ministry. We, as people who have all the Gospels, Epistles, and traditions of the Church, know most of Peter’s biographical information. His call by the sea of Galilee, his walking on water, his denial, his repentance, his ministry in Rome and eventual crucifixion. Of all these moments, 2 Peter puts forward an often-overlooked moment in Peter’s life as his most formative. The Mountain of Transfiguration.

At the Transfiguration, God was fully revealed in the person of Jesus. Christ appeared fully radiant, was declared beloved once again by God the Father, and spoke to the prophets, Moses and Elijah. Here Peter saw his worlds collide. The teacher he knew and befriended was confirmed as the God who created him. The prophets he studied and whose God he worshipped stood in obvious communion with Christ. The mountain, hereto unknown and nondescript, now transformed for him into a “Holy Mountain.” This moment was what secured the faith of Peter and made it clear to him he was right in following Christ.

Still, his vision was not complete. Like when we stare at a bright light and find ourselves blinded for a moment, Peter was not able to understand fully what all this would mean. He wanted to build Jesus and the prophets a dwelling place, but they already had one above. He wanted to stay on the mountain and dwell in the glory of God like Moses had before him, but he needed to return into the world. He saw Jesus as God, yet when the time came would still deny him to save himself. The burning flame of revelation, pure and undiluted, was something he was not ready to fully take in.

The second defining aspect of Peter’s life was his leaning of the scripture of God. One of the first things that the Church tried to do once it became largely Greek was to remove itself from its Jewish siblings. Judaism was often considered a threat to the authorities of the Roman Empire, but it was incredibly popular among its citizenry. Christians, therefore, found it necessary to distance themselves from Judaism to avoid attracting fair weather converts who might betray them. Alternatively, and just as often, Greek Christians found the Jews to be uncouth, not as civilized as they were. Plain racism was often a part in motivating the anti-Semitism that came to define the Early Church.

However, leaders in the Early Church tried to prevent this. Here Peter is calling upon his congregations to stay beside rather than abandon Judaism’s contributions to the faith. Why is this? Because they were people through whom God spoke. The words of the prophets throughout history were from God, unquestionably and without room for discussion. This does not mean that people would not react differently or interpret them differently, but that in terms of interpreting the source the Hebrew Scripture the plain truth was that it was not born, “of human will, but [of] men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

While these two concepts seem at times remote to us they should not be. No one is alive today who saw the transfiguration, no one is alive who saw Christ in his earthly ministry. Likewise, we seldom have to argue over whether or not we will include the Old Testament in our canon of Scripture, although such things do happen from time to time. No, we cannot put ourselves directly in the place of Peter’s congregation, but we are allowed for a moment to see how we can testify to Christ here and now. We are not eyewitnesses to the Transfiguration, but we are eyewitnesses to Christ all the same.

We have stories in our lives of God acting on our behalf. Moments that do not make sense unless someone guided them to happen. We have transformation in our character, habits and hates that we abandoned because of God. God breaking in, chasing us down, working within our hearts. These moments do not have to be grandiose. Most of them aren’t. We all wish we could have moments like the Transfiguration when God in all of God’s glory stands before us. We all wish we could look Jesus in the eye, ask him questions, yell at him when he doesn’t make sense, eat with him, laugh with him. Despite this wish, God usually works more quietly within our hearts. The subtle push in one direction or another. The voice from nowhere that makes us second guess the word we are about to say or the thing we are about to do.

God is not often appearing in flame on a Holy Mountain. God is appearing in those who teach us to be better. In the person we cannot stand who we have learned to love. In the moments of pain and darkness where the candle of our hope just won’t go out. Peter’s message to us is not that we need to have seen “Majestic Glory,” to speak of our faith. Peter is instead saying that when we speak to others we do not need long elaborate stories to tell, because the only ones that will matter are the real ones that have happened to us. The eyewitness testimony of our day to day is what brings the Kingdom of God into the world.

It was common following Jesus’ ascension for fables to be written that told fantastical stories about Jesus. Jesus as a child repelling dragon, Jesus as a teenager helping his father build houses through miracles, a talking cross coming out and telling the disciples Jesus is now in heaven. These were all circulating at the time this letter is written. To all this Peter makes it clear, stories may help us see truth, but they are only stories. He says, “I come to you not with stories of dragons and talking crosses, but with the plain truth that I saw Jesus do wonders. Not only did I see the wonders of Jesus, but I threw them all out. I abandoned Jesus the first second I got, and you know what, he still took me back. I, Peter, the rock of Christ’s Church, am a screwup, I am a hardheaded idiot, but I am beloved of God and an Apostle of the Church.”

Not one person in this room has a story that is not worth telling. Not one act of God in your life is too small to not bring the full power of the Gospel to light. The irony of the transfiguration is that each and every one of us, through the work of Christ, are now vessels of the Holy Spirit. Within us is God, the full glory of God, the Morning Star which rises in our Hearts. The Spirit within, that Majestic Glory that Peter saw, it will make us shine in our due time. When we speak the truth about what God has done for us, with no exaggeration or downplaying, we speak not of human will, but as people moved to speak by God’s Spirit. So, we must follow the Spirit, we must be transformed, but above all, we must speak the story, our story, that the Spirit has given us. – Amen

God’s Greatest Gift – A Typo Lectionary Reading 02/16/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Today’s Gospel reading should have been, Matthew 5:21-37. However, God saw fit to have me write it incorrectly on my calendar and bring a different word from out of the Scripture.

Matthew 25:21-37

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return, I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

Sermon Text

Last week we discussed giving up something meaningful for Lent. Today we will talk about the ultimate good we can do with Lent. The good that, if we let it, will transform us to do good every day. This good, is stewarding our gifts. Gifts are not always things you want or can use. When someone decides to give you a gift, they may not even mean to give you it as such. Sometimes happenstance gives us amazing gifts, sometimes the accidents and mistakes we make in life lead to untold blessings that could only truly come from God. The gifts we receive can take many forms, but too often we cast them in terms of what we value and what can produce value for us.

If someone gives us a piece of furniture we can sit in it. If we receive a picture we can hang it on the wall and enjoy it. If we get a new appliance it ought to make our lives a little easier. All these things are clear instances of us getting something and then making use of it. The form of the thing is irrelevant because at the end of the day it has a function that we can take advantage of, a thing that we can do with it.

When we are given gifts from God, we cannot be so closed off in our definitions. When we see something appear in our life that we are unsure about, or that causes us an enormous amount of stress, we often see it as bad. The emergence of conflict, internal or otherwise, is too often the death knell of our good feelings about a situation and those things attached to it. The sudden assignment from our supervisor that pushes us to work overtime, the unexpected leak in the basement, the family member who said something that we cannot help but be hurt by. These things come and go and oftentimes the lasting effect on our hearts is one of bitterness, of feeling imposed upon, or worst of all getting something other than what we feel entitled to.

There are things in life that are just bad, beyond redemption in terms of the thing itself. The death of a loved one may send them off to Christ’s kingdom, but we would more often than not give anything to have them next to us. The loss of income will almost always push us to an edge of despair that is hard to handle. The sickness of a dear friend. Trauma that rushes from any description. All these things cannot be written off easily as having any value to us.

No, the extremes of life will leave us with more mixed feelings than we handle on our own. It is not in extreme moments that a person defines what sort of person they are though. It is in the thousand little moments that populate our every day. When we get the extra work we did not want, when we are asked to help the person we do not like when we are inconvenienced or hurt or tired or any number of other wretchedly mundane things.

In these moments God gives us a singular gift that is hard to handle. Not the difficulty in itself, but the responsibility we have to see it handled well and with the love of the other party in mind. The opportunity to do good, this is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. We often talk about God blessing us with money or health, friends or family, blessings upon blessings. Can we see a gift in the harder things of life? In the opportunity to serve God in itself, not only in its antecedents and its consequences?

The reality is that we can only reflect on things in life. In the moment we do not know what we are doing more often than not, except that we are trying to do what is best. The consequences are often unknowable, the things that led to that moment and our ability to respond to it only make sense when all is said and done. The call of Jesus not to plan too far ahead and not to get too caught up in our past is lived out anytime we interact with another human being,  but especially in moments where we are called to work and especially in moments where our work does not sound like it will be anything we want it to be. We are to be children of the present moment, in control of this instance of time and responding to it in a Godly way. We are given the great gift of our own responsibilities.

The scripture today tells criteria of the Christian life – that we aspire to good stewardship and that we work to do good on the behalf of those around us. We are to use all that God gives us and in so doing produce abundantly more than we have had. The parable of the talents imagines a master giving his slaves sixteen years worth of wages to invest as a minimum amount, and that the master anticipates them to work with all of it and make back a great deal with it. The servant who buries the money is called lazy, thrown out because he could not even be responsible enough to give his money to someone who was willing to work with it.

The second parable tells us that we are to help those in need. That Christ will make the separation between his siblings and his enemies not based on the holiness of their prayers or the cleanness of their fingernails, but by the mercy, they show to those in need. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, even visiting prisoners, both guilty and innocent, in jail. Those who see in the wretched people of the world, the poor and displaced and ugly and vilified and hated and maligned and no good and difficult and unloved – those people will enter God’s kingdom.

The two parables close out a discourse of Jesus’ in which he describes one last time before his crucifixion what the Kingdom of God is like, and what the Final Judgment will be like. Jesus tells this to his disciples who will soon abandon him to die on the cross. Those who when faced with the most obvious manifestation of Christ in need choose their own safety over his. These people are whom Jesus in this moment entrusts to know what will pass for holy and profane, good and evil, life and death in the world to come.

Jesus does this so that we who read this today can also learn from our running away from Christ. That we who daily fail to respond to those in need, or who use the difficulties of life to cover up our unwillingness to be kind or helpful to others can become willing. That we who love to say how responsible we are with God’s gifts to us, but shirk the ultimate gift of responsibility in favor of the lesser gifts of monetary comfort, of cheap grace, and of shallow Christianity can come to seize God’s promises for us.

The talents that we receive today, the fortunes constantly thrust upon us, are those responsibilities we have to the people around us. The opportunity to submit our lives to Christ and acknowledge that Christ appears to us in the people we meet every day, especially those who are in need. When we respond to the call Christ has to take care of the needs of others, we will live into our stewardship of that great gift, and it will increase in ways we never could understand.

The people in our lives are given to us, friends and enemies, so that we can be Christ to them and they can be Christ to us. Lest we stay to abstract with what that looks like, I have some stories to share that I know about, all true and all vague to avoid incrimination:

The first goes like this:

Once while working at a church we were rushing to meet someone at the hospital. They were stable but hurting, and they were alone at the hospital while their wife worked. So the ministry team went to pay a visit. While we were hurrying into the hospital one of us noticed another couple from the church and they had the good sense to stop and talk to them. Turns out she was going in for cancer tests and he was struggling to get her out of the car. So between those of us there we were able to help her into a wheelchair, park the car for the husband, and pray with them all while still seeing our intended audience. Those two felt strong and loved and that carried them through the next month until she passed, and the next six months until he moved away. That one moment, small as it was, confirmed their church and God loved them.

The second goes like this:

A person who had good reason to oppose the church was talking to some faithful people. They were working on a work schedule and someone offered to take her shifts for her because of her workload and some personal problems going on in her life. She smiled and thanked them but somehow the conversation came to the good the Christian was doing and she said, “You believe in heaven, of course, so you never really do anything selflessly do you?” The Christian took a moment and said, “Well, if God gives me the good work to do, then do I need another reward?” That sort of conversation happened a few times, and they grew to be great friends and love and respect one another even in the midst of differences. God’s love was strong enough to bind them as friends.

Finally, one last story goes like this:

A conversation was held between two people. One was rushing off and realized they could not do both thing A and thing B and they were distraught. Their friend offered to do thing A for them and this busy person said, “No, that’s alright, I can’t make it up to you and it wouldn’t be fair.” The friend responded, “Friends help friends, that’s what they do. I’ve got this.” A year later the person who was helped that day told their friend, “You were the first person to ever put friendship in those terms. I had never heard love described that way before.” One moment, stuck with that person for months and maybe even to this day.

The simple fact about what we do in life is that it has consequences. The simple fact about everything we are given by God is that it is an opportunity to be responsible. The greatest gift of God to us, outside of Godself, if one another. The responsibility we have to each other to be good, to steward one another’s well being, and to above all else love one another as God has loved us. We can give up a lot of things in the name of serving God, we can do a number of things in terms of serving God. However, the thing that bind all our actions is love, and the only expression of it that matters is between us and our neighbor, us and our enemy, us and the least of these. – Amen