Author: John Langenstein

Walking with Christ – Lectionary 04/26/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

John 20: 1-18

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”

He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”

Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Sermon Text

Walking along life’s way we are not always at risk of getting lost. Sometimes we are on the exact road we need to be taking, working our way in our own time from where we have been to where we are going. Long and winding though it may be, the path from the past to the present to the future seems at times to consist of a single path – step by laborious step we head down the road of time.

That simple path that we are on, ever forward and never backward, is contrasted with the day to day experience we have of choice making. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep we have choices to make. What to eat or drink, what to do in X or Y scenario, and what to say to those who we speak to. The forward momentum of time is married to the infinitely branching paths of our own life. Thus, even as we constantly move forward, even with a relatively certain end to the journey, the path along the way is constantly shifting – equal parts circumstance and choice.

Our scripture today captures Cleopas and an unnamed disciple of Jesus taking a literal journey with many shifting parts. They have just left Jerusalem, just seen their Lord crucified and buried. Now, as they are making their way to the town of Emmaus a ways out of the city they begin discussing the news that came to them on their way out of town. “Jesus is risen… Or else his tomb is empty, either way he’s gone.” The two walk along the road, trying to make sense of this tangled mess of emotion and information that has been given them. If Jesus was stolen then they must mourn again, if Jesus is risen then nothing can ever be the same again.

The rest of the story we know, Jesus comes to them and begins to join their discussion. Though it is the same Jesus they knew and loved, the resurrection has altered Jesus in some way or else altered how they see Jesus, and they cannot recognize him. Ever the teacher, Jesus explains scripture and the events of the past week to them in a way that, “opens up,” the scripture to the disciples. They encounter God’s word as they never have before, and they cannot part from this apparent stranger who has come to talk with them.

Finally, over dinner, in the moment Jesus breaks and blesses the bread the disciples are suddenly able to see Jesus for who he is. The revelation occurs simultaneously with Jesus’ disappearance from the scene.

This is the second to last major event in the Gospel of Luke. More than that, it is proposed as being pre-Lukan, that is to say, that Luke had this story as one of his sources for his Gospel and chose to include it. Luke is upfront about his Gospel being an aggregate of other sources. Throughout Luke, there are passages that are identical to Mark and Matthew, yet this story is only in this gospel. More importantly, the language does not quite line up with Luke’s stylistic choices. That Luke placed a source document in his Gospel and with very little stylistic edits left it as is, indicates this story is significant to the overall message of the Gospel.

Indeed, a great deal of ink has been spilled on the discussion of the Emmaus Road and whether or not this person or that could be Cleopas’ companion. It is used as the foundation, along with Paul’s writings and the last supper in Luke’s Gospel, of our eucharistic liturgy. The image itself burned into the hearts of all who read it.

The significance of this text is not in establishing a historical event of Jesus’ resurrection appearance. While the story definitely does so, it is not written just to tell us a thing that happened and who was there. As with many gospel passages, it is equal parts object lesson and historical fact, there is no separation between sign and signifier, The walk along the road is a thing that happened, it is also a thing that constantly happens to us every day.

We often read this passage only in terms of a person’s conversion into the faith. The journey whereby we, en route somewhere, meet Jesus and find the scripture opened up to us for the first time and our hearts on fire. The journey that sees us enter into fellowship with Jesus and the church for the first time. While we often see this passage as only about this moment in the life of our faith, we can push further. The reality is that this is a story about two faithful people making a journey and encountering Jesus. It is about people like you and me meeting the risen Lord as we make our way through life.

Christ, and with him the promises of the Resurrection, is constantly appearing to us, always showing us the way, the scriptures ought to be read. Our heart is not fit to be kindled once and for all, we must have it lit again and again by Jesus’ speech. We never just take a journey with Jesus once, we are constantly walking on our way to Emmaus, constantly with Jesus beside us.

What combines the symbolic language of phrases like, “our own Emmaus,” to our daily life is the weekly pattern we all participate in. We live our lives and do our work separately from one another. We each take our own road to our relative Emmauses. For some of us, that is the simple survival till Friday that allows for our weekend and the Sabbath that comes with it. For others, there are particular destinations that they reach week in and week out. The completion of that case, of those assignments, of X, of Y, and even of Z.

The path we take week by week would only be a rote repetition if not for the people we travel with. The unknown companion of Cleopas allows us to imagine anyone in that position. Several traditions of the church have provided several answers, each to a different theological end. In our own life, we can never be sure who will be in our lives in the week ahead. Yes, our family and friends likely will play a part in the week ahead, but what of the people we do not expect a call from, the people we run into on the street or in the store? Our travel partner week after week will be different, we must take the journey with them, nonetheless.

Then comes Jesus. The teacher of all scripture, the savior of all the world, and now another companion we have along the walk of life. Jesus listens to our discussions, our questions, paying rapt attention to our interrogation of life and God and faith. Jesus also gives us direction if we listen. This is not always in auditory sensation, in fact for many people it is not. More often than not Christ speaks to us through others in our life, through circumstance and providence that is expressly divine.

How do we acknowledge that it was God who told us such wonderful things? Where is our confirmation of God’s presence and activity in our life? The assurance of our divine help comes in the moment that the bread is broken and blessed. In table fellowship, the most common image in Luke for Jesus’ interactions with his people, we see that Jesus never left our side. In liturgy we find this in the Eucharist, in worship in the fellowship of believers. The walk we take from Monday to Sunday is important, because as we gather to worship God, as we bless the gifts we are given and share them with one another, as we meet our eyes are made to see. We understand Jesus and faith as a community, not as islands.

So important is this community to our understanding scripture that Cleopas seemingly misspeaks in describing what Jesus did along the road. While most translations render Cleopas and his friend as saying, “Were not our hearts burning within us…” the text is actually written with “heart,” being singular. Cleopas does not see he and his friend as having separate divine experiences, but a single one. They share a, “heart,” which is now burning because of Jesus’ walk with them.

We gather today in the same way. Our heart, that inner seat of discernment and understanding, is one today. We gather together after our long walks throughout the week and come together to speak about what God is doing in our life. Our eyes are allowed to open up, and we begin to see that our companion was none other than our savior. We cannot help but share what we have received with one another, our revelation significant enough to shake the world. Today we all move back from our own Emmaus’ to Jerusalem. Telling what we have seen to the other disciples, praising God, and fanning the flames that have consumed our hearts. – Amen

Service of Lament – 04/19/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Invitation to Lament

Today, we come together to take time and acknowledge the hardships of life. Whether they be the trouble we face communally in this era of COVID-19, or our personal struggles and the many forms that they take. Whatever the burdens we carry, today we bring them before God. This is a service of Lament, the forgotten language of faith which is God’s gift to those in pain.

Introduction to Lament – Orientation

          Today, we embark on a journey through the waters of lamentation. We gather, Easter still fresh in our mind and the promises of Christ’s resurrection still ringing in our ears. Yet, when the candles are snuffed and the incense clears from where the sermon is filmed, we still face the world. We face hardships again and again, after we already mourned so much last year, we now find new reasons to cry, new people to mourn the loss of, more trouble in the world we live in.

Lament is that Biblical language that we have been given, thousands of years of our spiritual ancestors have granted it to us as a gift. It is the means by which we explore our emotions, interrogate God’s promises, and ultimately begin to heal from the distress that we have suffered. Walter Bruggeman, a scholar of the Hebrew Scriptures, gives three general categories of our human experience.[1] There are the moments in life where all is well, we are happy, and our mind and soul are at rest. All is right with the world, and we can praise God without reservation. This is a place of Orientation in our life. It is from here we can pray out confidently the words of Psalm 16. Let us hear the words of the Psalmist as they proclaim the goodness of a God who gives them security in the face of all adversity.

A Psalm of Security                                                                                                             Psalm 16

Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,  in whom is all my delight. Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names upon my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Introduction to Lament – Disorientation

What a wonderful prayer to pray. What praise offered up to the God who provides… Yet, what happens when we begin to move away from a place of security. When the check doesn’t come in the mail, when the hospital calls us in to hear the results of our latest test, when no matter how long the door is look at, it will never open up with the beloved coming home again.

When the certainty of the world breaks down around us, we move from orientation to disorientation. We look out into the world and cannot find respite. We seek and do not find. We knock and find a door slammed in our face. Provision becomes a fantasy, and we cannot sleep because our tears keep us awake. We are transformed, we shrink into ourselves, we are lost in the wilderness of life and worry. It causes us to cry out to God, as the Psalmist does in Psalm 74.

A Psalm of Lament                                                                                                              Psalm 13

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.

Introduction to Lament – Re-Orientation

The Psalms of Lament all follow a general pattern. While heavily detailed rubrics exist to explain the flow of the Psalm, we will break it down into three main sections. Firstly, the lamenting Psalmist cries out to God. “How long, Lord?!” This usually flows into an introduction of their problem to God, in this Psalm, “my enemy triumph[s] over me.” We will call this – Plea and Complaint

The Psalmist will then make a request of God, “Look on me and answer,” and express what is at stake if God does not act. “My enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’ and my foes will rejoice when I fall.” – this highlights both why God would be good to act and the iniquity of the Psalmist’s enemies. – We will call this Naming the Stakes

Finally, the Psalmist lets God know what they are willing to do in response to God’s work. This is not, as it may seem, an instance of Divine bribery – as if one person who offers to praise is less than a person who offers to praise and give – but is an invitation to God to re-enter the Covenant relationship with the plaintiff.  – This is a section of Praise and Hope[2]

This re-entry is what constitutes the third stage of human experience – Re-Orientation. Here we find ourselves secure again, able to praise God freely and trust as we once did, but not in the same way. It is a re-orientation in a different place and time to the original place of orientation. We have grown, and our relationship with God and self has changed.

What happens when our disorientation extends beyond our limits? What happens when we cannot seem to come back to a place of peace and trust? Do we just grin and bear it? Do we force ourselves to move beyond our problems and force our way into a place of comfort again? Let us look to Lamentations, a book devoted to our crying out to God, and find out.

The Old Testament Lesson                                                                         Lamentations 2:17-22

The Lord has done what he purposed, he has carried out his threat; as he ordained long ago, he has demolished without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes. Cry aloud to the Lord! O wall of daughter Zion! Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street. Look, O Lord, and consider! To whom have you done this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have borne? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

The young and the old are lying on the ground in the streets; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; in the day of your anger you have killed them, slaughtering without mercy. You invited my enemies from all around as if for a day of festival; and on the day of the anger of the Lord no one escaped or survived; those whom I bore and reared my enemy has destroyed.

Meditation on Lament                                                                                 When Refuge Fails

Lamentations, like Lament itself, is a book we do not like to encounter. We fear looking to deeply into a book that begins and ends with desperation. The opening line, “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!” Is never resolved, and the book ends with the terrible question lingering in one final request for help, “Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.”

We encounter the ambiguity of the book, its demand for us to question where God is in the midst of all the problems of this life, and we run away. The ruined city of Jerusalem, destroyed by Babylon, is the place we utterly do not wish to be. To borrow from our celebration of Holy Week recently, we love Palm Sunday and Easter, but we often do what we can to ignore Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The days of Death and Silence are covered up in our desire to put on a happy face. If we do not acknowledge the hurt we feel or the troubles in the world, then we imagine it will go away.

Even the book of Lamentations struggles with this back and forth. Early in the book an observer reprimands a woman, representing Jerusalem, for weeping. “You got what you deserved; you have to move on!” They say. Yet, as the speaker sits in the ruined city, they cannot help but acknowledge the sorrow that they and the city feel. This is where our scripture for today enters in. The voices that once criticized the weeping Zion is now calling on her to cry more.

The grief of the community is finally acknowledged, the once critical speaker is now forced to reflect on what God is doing in the world. They challenge God, “How can you claim to be doing right when innocents are dead! When people starve to death and sickness spreads like wildfire! Behold the ruins of the city and ask yourself, o’ God, how is this right?”

The sight of devastation was enough to move this speaker to join in on the lament. Where Zion was crying out before and initiating the conversation with God, this voice now offers the challenge to God – “Why, O’ Lord! How Long, O’ Lord!” They speak on behalf of Zion who, it would seem, is at a loss for words.

Yet, following our scripture comes what Lamentations is best known for. After still more descriptions of disaster a voice calls out, “God would never mean to hurt us! We must have done this to ourselves somehow. God will come back!” The whole of Chapter 3 almost reads like a lament Psalm. Complain becomes petition because praise of God… Yet, immediately the language falls back into the utter destruction surrounding those who are gathered in the city. The language of praise is quickly lost in a sea of tragedy – the knowledge that God’s love is steadfast was not in itself enough to silence the pain of the people.

Lamentations goes on and concludes in ambiguity and darkness. It is not a book of hope, because it is a book written by people readily suffering disaster. Hope is present throughout, cries that the various speakers throughout are confident (to varying degrees,) will be heard.  Yet, the hope coexists in the pain. The people are not ready to be at peace, their pain is too new, their complaint is too valid. They cannot grin and bear it, they refuse to pretend all is well, and they do not let themselves skip disorientation and land in re-orientation.

We too must not deny our need to lament, our need to mourn. God is in God’s Heaven, that is sure, but all is not right in the world. Grief is all around us – for some a fresh thing poured over them again and again, and for others a new visitor they are just now meeting. Mourning for opportunity, mourning for income, mourning for loved ones gone from us. Mourning overtakes us… Yet, we must not chase it away.

Last week we discussed how we come to Easter as people who are in mourning, yet we can still find the resurrected Christ speaking to us. What we cannot lose in making such a statement is that we will still be weeping in the garden before Christ arrives. Until God makes the showing and the relationship is restored then there is the need to cry out and demand to be heard. The need to let our emotions be plain to God and the need to set on the table what we expect from the Covenant we are a part of.

Lament is not telling God that God doesn’t know what God is doing. It is not a sign of weak faith or immaturity. It is what keeps the relationship between God and humanity strong. The knowledge that we can cry out and be heard, that our concerns are important to God, that even in the midst of all the pain we have an advocate even when we cannot see or hear them.

Lament is necessary, lament is here for us, let us take for advantage of this gift of God. Let us not be afraid to listen to our scripture that demands of us, “Cry aloud to the Lord! Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!” – Amen

Prayers of the People

In acknowledgement of this service’s focus on lament. The Prayers of the People will be different this week. A time will be given following the communal prayer for us to share our concerns with one another and a prayer will be said afterward lifting up our concerns. However, instead of going through petition by petition, this week we are all encouraged to take the template, which is provided in our order of worship, and to give language to our concerns as laments to God.

Given our digital format, this means that after the prayer below is read, the general pattern of lament will be provided, and time will be given for everyone to craft their own lament. These can be shared in the comments of the video after the service, kept privately and prayed at home, or else shared any way you may choose. I will read out my own lament as an example, but other than that the service will conclude with the outline and the opportunity for each person to make their own. Our benediction will be in the prayers of the people, and otherwise your words to God will mark the end of our time together.

Please pray now with me: Most merciful God, hear our prayers when we are in trouble. Come to our aid and prevent us from perishing. Today as we gather together, we do so as people with heavy burdens, in particular we lift these up to you…

Time is given for sharing of concerns

Lord, hear our prayers this day and always, and as we come now to a time devoted to sharing our laments with you, hear to the depths of our pain. Let us learn to experience all our emotions fully and well, and may we take the long and winding road from disorientation to re-orientation knowing that you are with us all the way on the road. – Amen

“Cry aloud to the Lord” Writing a Lament

The following Template is provided for you to pray your own Lament to God.

The template is offered only to remind you of the Biblical models provided,

You may alter it anyway you wish and use it to share your laments or

To pray privately whenever you need to lament before God.

General Structure of Lament:

  •  Plea and Complaint – “Hear me, O’ God! This is my problem…”
  • Naming the Stakes – “If this does not happen then this will…”
  • Praise and Hope – “You will hear me; I want to know peace again… Please hear my prayer.”

Example Lament:

A Lament of Pastor John,

Plea and Complaint

O’ Lord do not forsake your servant! Though the rush of a wild world swirls around me, do not abandon me to the floodwaters. My mind is awash with worry, my bones ache with anticipation of disaster. Release your servant from all concerns, destroy the chains constructed within and for my mind.

Name the Stakes

Remember God your own agony in the Garden. How you wept and sweated blood contemplating the disaster awaiting you. Would you have another suffer as you did? Bring relief to the pain of your servant. Though the cup of your suffering cannot be refused, surely relief can be given to the soul who drinks of it. Do not abandon your servant in their despair!

Praise and Hope

I long to see your courts fully once more. Open my eyes to the joys of your light. Let me delight once again in the spring of your glorious provision. Eliminate all obstacles to our relationship, that no shadow of fear or anxiety should overtake the light of your love. Lord hear your servant’s prayer! Do not forsake and take me once again into your courts! You alone save, Lord! Save me now!

 

[1] Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 19.

[2] These three stages are adapted from Sally A. Brown. “When Lament Shapes the Sermon.” In Lament: Reclaiming Practices in Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square. (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 2005) 29

The Hidden Life – Easter 2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

John 20: 1-18

When Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.

He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Sermon Text

The Resurrection, like so much of Christ’s life – is both a single moment and an eternal reality. When God brought Christ from death and into life there was only one tomb that opened, only one Sunday morning that saw the glorified feet of Christ touch its dew. Only one morning, in a garden so long ago and far from us, where all the wonders of creation were silenced for a moment and God-breathed a deep breath into lungs that had days ago ceased to function. The miracle of the Resurrection, the fulcrum on which all creation turns, is a single event centuries ago.

Yet, the Resurrected Christ does not cease to be active in the world. We are not left out of Christ’s redemption because we are not present to see his body. We are not excluded because of circumstances of particularity but are included through the eternal presence of Christ in the Holy Spirit. The oft-forgotten member of the Trinity that moves among us, that inhabits us, that encloses creation and cares for it. The source of life of all things living, the breath of God that revivifies even our own dead bones.

The Spirit moves over the earth. It seeks out the needy and gives them provision. It seeks out those who mourn and gives them comfort. It meets those of us who are weeping in the shadow of death and it calls us by name. The Spirit is here among us today, in each of our rooms and households, weaving us together into the tapestry that constitutes Christ’s body – the eternal Church which is present in Heaven and upon the Earth.

Our scripture today gives us a snapshot of what the day of Resurrection was like. The women come to Christ’s tomb and are distressed to find it empty. The assumption is that grave robbers have carried Jesus away, perhaps to disgrace his followers even more. To remove him from proper burial and to place him in a place of shame.

The distraught disciples, finding the tomb empty, left the tomb. Death had already robbed them of their beloved teacher and friend, and now they were robbed of proper mourning – of a decent burial for their beloved. All the disciples left the tomb, all but one. Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ closest confidants, remained in the garden surrounding the grave and wept for the loss she had now had to suffer twice.

It is not uncommon that we who are called together as the Church find ourselves in just such a state. When the promises of God seem unfulfilled, with all the hardships of life have overwhelmed us. The reality of death hangs over us, or else of a lack of provision. When the cupboard is empty, or a spot in a chair is left unattended, or else we cannot live our life normally for one reason or another. Our expectations are shattered, we are left in a place of disillusion and disorientation. Falling into such a state is not a sign of infidelity to God, it is a reality of life and its fullness. The onslaught of disaster and horror throughout history cannot leave us unmoved.

Even as we now are in the midst of disaster, even as we prepare to vocalize our dissatisfaction and concern next week in a service of lament, we find ourselves in a mixed place emotionally. We are today celebrating the return to life of Christ, the entry into glory of the human race. Yet we are tramped down. The burden of all that presses in around us is too powerful to ignore. Death hangs heavy over us. Like Mary we are seated in a place of life, a garden of fresh hyacinth and blossoming fruit trees, yet with a tomb casting a shadow upon us from a distance.

Though the particulars of this Easter place us all in this place of mourning, there is no Easter that does not happen in the shadow of death. We always gather as a mixed multitude of people who have more than enough reason to celebrate and more than enough to mourn. Easter is always the first Easter without a loved one for somebody. Easter is always the day after someone’s world is shattered. We experience today universally what is usually a particular reality. We are apart from one another. We are isolated by a need to keep others safe. We sit in cold and terrified anticipation of what comes next – will it be deliverance? Will it be yet more disaster?

Of all the images that place in stark contrast life and death at Easter time what occurred only a year ago in Sri Lanka stands out. As people gathered to worship the resurrected Lord, an explosion went off – killing many who were present. A day of celebration was turned immediately into mourning, where baptisms were planned funerals needed to be held instead. A community lost all that it had – not only its members but its feelings of security and of certainty. The world turned and wept for these people, for the conditions that would allow for such evil to be carried out against people worshipping God in peace.

A year ago, in response to this disaster, I wrote these words, “The beauty of Easter is that before the resurrection came the tomb, that Christ has full knowledge of what it is to suffer and die. Christ does not tell us that this life will be easy, and honestly being Christian should mean that life becomes more difficult for you, but Christ’s command is one of experience – not of despotism.”[1] A year later, I think that these words should settle with us in a different way.

We are people suffering. For some of us, life has gone on as normal and then some. Some of us are working the same job we always have, but with much more responsibility added to it. Many are dealing with this disaster head-on and then working with people they know and love as they too face the disaster. As I have said to many of you during this time, when asked how I am liking having a break from so much work, all I can say is, “For everything I was doing before, I seem to be doing three or four others.” For those whose work has not ceased in this time, the build of still more stress and still more work can seem overpowering.

Others of us are cut off from the normal flow of things. Students especially, who have transitioned to remote classes are now cut off from time with their friends. While the digital age allows us to meet in Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and Discord, there is nothing that can replace seeing someone face to face. If anything the digital world can seem even more isolating, and for those who do not utilize technology or have no access to it, this isolation is even more acute. For those who can be in the digital spaces we inhabit – whether they be chat rooms, video calls, or Animal Crossing islands – we know now they are not enough to replicate our togetherness.      Suffering is our actual greatest obstacle to understanding God and God’s promises for us. We all experience it, some more acutely than others, but none less authentically than any other. When we gather today, we do so in the midst of a tragedy. One which is worse than others we have lived through because rather than a single day of terror we are forced into months and months of it. We are a people who must mourn and will mourn for some time what is happening around us.

Yet, despite all the darkness encroaching around us. We are not alone. Louder than the disaster which crashes in around us is the proclamation of the resurrection. Let no noise cover up your Hallelujah, let your tears mingle with your triumphant cry. Christ is here with us, the Spirit has brought us together today to worship the Risen Lord. We, like Mary, are in a garden of life and potentiality, but we can still smell the grave we have just left. Do not feel shame for your tears, do not neglect to feel all the hurt and confusion you feel. Do not turn away the feelings knocking down your door.

Welcome them in, let them sit in the silence with you. Weep and pray all you people of God. Weep and pray, but do not stop up your ears just yet. For when we turn to God and we beg for deliverance, for presence in the midst of death, for something to guide us out of this darkness… When we do this, we must do so ready to hear the gentle word that comes to us from the Risen One… A gentle voice which says our name and awakens us to what has happened. A gentle voice we recognize as the one we have been seeking. The voice that we lost to death and disaster, to destruction and plague, to all evil and hardship imaginable… We suddenly hear it calling our name… And then, and only then… Does our Easter ring true. Only then is our hidden life revealed to us, and we can praise in all fullness of time. We sit in the garden, let us now weep and listen, let us seek and let us find. – Amen.

[1] The Promise of Easter – Pastor John Langenstein – Available at:
https://teachusto.com/2019/04/22/the-promise-of-easter-easter-2019/

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.