God, Us, and the Natural World

Mt. Lookout – Glenwood, MN

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church – Lowry, MN

Earth Day Worship – Easter 4 | 04.26.2015 | Gen 1:27-2:3, 18-19/Mk 10:42-44

A section of a poem by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.:

Requiem

I think that the Earth’s immune system is trying to get rid of us…the crucified planet Earth, should it find a voice and a sense of irony, might now well say of our abuse of it, ‘Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.’ The irony would be that we know what we are doing. When the last living thing has died on account of us, how poetical it would be if Earth could say, in a voice floating up perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon, ‘It is done. People did not like it here.’[1]

….These are haunting words. They cause us to take a serious look at the world around us, and to do so in relation to what God feels towards this world, and moreover, to take a serious look at who God calls us to be in relation to it all.

And how does God feel about the natural world? For starters we turn to Genesis. When God saw everything that he had made, God stepped back and evaluated: this is “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Perhaps because we’ve heard that so many times, this moment of divine evaluation has lost some of its intensity. To be very sure, this is a stunning moment—this divine response of very good comes from the Hebrew word, tov—which can also mean, “Luxurious,” or “joyous,” or “cheerful.”[2] In other words, as God looked upon the natural world God created, God was neither indifferent with bland reflection, nor unimpressed because humans were not yet made; rather, this was a breathtaking moment of joy for the Creator of the universe. Feasibly, we could read verse 31 as, The Lord saw all that he had made, and said, “Wow!…”

God admiring the beauty and majesty of nature is not just found in Genesis but throughout Scripture; countless passages attest to the sacredness of nature.

Psalm 8, today, is entirely devoted to naming the beauty of God’s creation, and there are plenty more.[3]

In some cases in the Bible the natural world is used to describe the character of God.[4] For instance, one of the greatest saving acts in all of Scripture—the Exodus, and this is what God says: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Exodus 19:4). In describing one of his most mighty and gracious acts, God uses the imagery of a mother eagle. Out of all the ways God could describe Godself…God found it only fitting to use the majesty of the mother eagle. Accordingly, one implication here is that the imagery of nature can reveal God. God’s creation can proclaim God’s gospel—as Martin Luther wrote: “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on the trees and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”

And in the New Testament, even Jesus marvels at God’s relationship to the ‘birds of the air’ and the ‘lilies of the field’ in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:26,30).

The natural world is linked to the divine throughout Scripture. The God of the Bible is consistently enchanted by the natural world.

Not only does the natural world bring God joy, God created in such a way that it can even give us joy. Going back to Genesis, God says, It is not good for man to be alone (2:18). And what does God do to cure such a deficit? What does God do to improve human life? God creates animals. It’s not good that man should be alone…So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air (v. 18-19). This isn’t some hippy jargon!—this is God in the book of Genesis saying that humankind’s connectedness to nature, particularly animals, is what finally makes life better—making life, in God’s words, go from not good to good.

At one point in the beginning, life was incomplete, and to cure humankind’s aloneness, God creates animals. Isn’t that marvelous? Nature is curative and healing, and life is less good according to God without our connection to it.

I want to briefly proclaim, then, that it is perfectly scriptural to find your companionship with animals as sacred. In other words, for those of us who love our dogs, our cats, horses, livestock, birds, and wildlife—this is not some petty superficial love; animals are not simply an accessory to the world, but according to the God of Genesis they are a vital and intentional part of human existence. It’s not good that humankind should be alone, so God created animals. That love we feel or have felt for animals is real, not to be minimized, and is exactly what God intended!

The point is, in Scripture we are revealed God who is deeply joyful over and concerned with the human and the non-human. God loves the world, the whole world, and it was created in such a way that we have an inescapable connection to it.

And so…who is called to care for it?—as the text says, for “the earth…the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, every living thing that moves upon the earth…every plant yielding seed, every tree [and] fruit…every beast…everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life” (Gen 1:28-30); who is called to care for all of this world which God loves?

Us.

And this has been our vocation since the moment God rested. That’s a bizarre thing, isn’t it? What does it mean that God rested? Did God get tired? [5] Is that the point here, to let us know that Creator of the universe needed a breather? Probably not. So, rather, perhaps this is a moment where God is resting back, and those created in God’s image now share the responsibility of loving the created world. Because right around the time that God rested, God gave humankind their call to dominion for the world.

And this word dominion is a complicated word. The Hebrew word behind it is radah. Radah is often a term used for “royalty” or power.[6] On one hand we can view this as the green light to bulldoze the world recklessly for our own good. On the other hand, how are Christian disciples called to exercise power?

For that we turn to today’s Gospel. And, here, how does Jesus define power and dominion?—“whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43-44). So when God gives us dominion over creation, it is a powerful responsibility to serve and care.

To whom much is given, much is expected…And yet…here we are: the Earth’s immune system is trying to get rid of us. The effects of our abuse are evident. Air polluted. Livestock abused. Animals poached. Football fields of forests mowed down every minute. Islands of plastic littering the oceans. The earth gutted for jewelry and fossil fuels. Water contaminated. The list goes on as a finite planet is being battered in the delusional quest for infinite growth.

Our sin is real as our idea of dominion over creation has been to consume it, crush it, devour it and then call it progress. That which takes God’s breath away, that which God created to improve our lives, that which God gave us in order to love us is suffering on account of us. If we destroy that which God calls very good, then elementary logic tells us the result will be not good. Forgive us Father, for we know what we are doing.

The Good News is that we are forgiven. In the death and resurrection of Christ we have been set free from our sin, even from the sin of abusing God’s good creation. And now what? Such freedom is for serving and loving our neighbor, our neighbor in God’s creation, our neighbors of future generations. Sisters and brothers, we have exactly enough time, if we start right now.

AMEN.

     [1] Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country, Recorded Books, CD-ROM, 2005.

     [2] David J.A. Clines, David Stec, and Jacqueline C.R. de Roo, The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, ed. David J.A. Clines (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), 139-140.

     [3] Other examples: Psalms 19, 104, 139.

     [4] Example: Psalms 23, 42, 147, 148, and plenty more.

     [5] Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005).

     [6] Fretheim, God and World, 51.

Faith and Doubt

“Risen with Christ – ‘Christus Victor’” by Fr. Lawrence Lew via Flickr licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Lowry, MN

Easter 3 | 04.19.2015 | Luke 24:36b-48

I doubt it. I doubt the resurrection. I doubt Christianity. I doubt the existence of God. I doubt meaning. I doubt it all.

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word “doubt” as “a feeling of being uncertain.”[1]

I am uncertain within my faith every single day. At its most severe, that doubt sometimes takes me to dark places. Sometimes that doubt just brings me to mild cynicism. And even in my most confident moments of faith, my doubt remains. Even in the moments where my belief has been strongest, even where I have been most vividly experiencing the presence of Christ…I still have doubt. I don’t think I have ever believed anything in the Christian religion with 100% certainty. To adapt a quote from Socrates: the only thing of which I am certain, is that I am uncertain!

I know many of you don’t have this exact same experience. The Apostle Paul did call faith a gift (Romans 12:6, 1 Corinthians 13), so some of us have more of it than others. But I am going to assume by the doctrines of human imperfection that each and every one of us has doubted and doubts within our faith.

I doubt. You doubt. And that…is…okay. Doubt is a part of faith. In fact, I think it is a necessary part of faith. And when we admit that we doubt, that is not something we should regard as unclean. To doubt does not make one’s faith shameful or impure. In fact, major figures of our faith and plenty of biblical figures have displayed doubt at some level.

Martin Luther in his commentary on the third article of the Creed—I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church…—wrote “I believe by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.”[2] Here Luther is claiming that to believe perfectly or fully is impossible.

As to biblical figures, even with God’s help explicitly promised to him, Moses doubts that he can lead the Israelites (Exodus 3:11-4:13).

Uncertainty about God is declared by the author of Psalm 139—“such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it” (v. 6).

The prophet Jeremiah doubts what God can really do with him (Jeremiah 1:6).

Paul openly admits our inability to have certainty in faith, acknowledging that the things of belief can only be seen through a glass darkly. (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Uncertainty is implied when the author of Hebrews offers a definition of faith as “the conviction of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1)—in other words, faith is believing things we cannot prove—in faith there is inherent uncertainty!

And the prophet, Micah, defines faith not as something we do with certainty but with humility; faith is walking humbly (Micah 6:8).

The themes of doubt and uncertainty continue even in the most epic moments of Scripture—even at Christ’s resurrection. The stories of the risen Jesus in the Gospels have many differences, but one thing they all have in common?—the blatant doubt of the disciples.[3]

In Matthew, when the disciples saw the RESURRECTED Jesus in the 28^th chapter, it says, “They saw him. They worshiped him; but some doubted.” (v. 17). And for the record, the word some in that passage does not even appear in the original Greek.[4] It simply reads, “They saw him. They worshiped him…they doubted.”

In Mark, the doubt and uncertainty might not be stated, but it clearly expresses itself as the women ran way not telling anyone what they had seen and heard.

In John, Thomas openly doubts the risen Christ who is standing right in front of him (20:24-29).

And here, in Luke, as the risen Christ, the miracle of the resurrection right in front of them and the Gospel says, “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering” (Luke 24:41). And one scholar notes, “Isn’t that marvelous? That even after all this they still don’t believe. And even more marvelous, that they can be both joyful and disbelieving at the same time.”[5]

This is a constant in Gospels. That same scholar notes, “no one believes the good news of Jesus’ resurrection when they first hear it. No one. And that includes Jesus’ own disciples…In fact, that level of disbelief starts with the disciples.”[6]

Throughout Christian history, throughout the Old Testament, throughout the New Testament, doubt is always present amongst believing disciples.

Now going back to what was earlier said—doubt is a necessary part of sincere faith; uncertainty is not something unclean or shameful.

Because first, to doubt is to care about the truth. To doubt is to practice faith, because Luther says that faith is “a living, creative, active, powerful thing,”[7] and what is doubt if not active, creative, and powerful? Doubt is investigative; doubt agitates us into asking more questions, seeking more deeply, and knocking more loudly. And did Jesus not call faith asking, seeking, and knocking (cf. Matthew 7:7)?

Really, we ought to be more concerned when we think we’re absolutely right than when we doubt. A contributor to The Lutheran magazine wrote about the “popular myth in our day” that faith is about achieving certainty in one’s beliefs, as if doubt is the enemy of faith; he challenged, rather, that it is certainty that is the enemy. It is certainty that is dangerous as “Devout believers start becoming obsessed with being right [, claiming to] know the precise purposes of God. They are absolutely sure […and] There is little question” about it all, and “the journey of faith quickly becomes impoverished…The wonder and glory of mystery will have to be shelved.”[8]

Or worse, when we think of doubt as something ugly to avoid, faith becomes a proving game so that we can escape doubt. Rather than a humble wrestling, an experience, or a contentment with mystery, faith becomes something infatuated with bizarre pursuits of proof. So, Christians begin to embark on things like a quest for certainty as they set out to find Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey (true story), or try to explain away mysteries by drawing children’s picture-Bibles with dinosaurs next to Adam and Eve (also a true story). This ludicrous behavior is what happens when we paint doubt as something unfaithful.

Danish Lutheran philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, railed against those who treated faith this way. He said as soon as we want to try and prove it, we turn faith into something different altogether. It no longer is faith, but a drunken scientific endeavor. He writes that when one turns faith “into another kind of certainty,” then it becomes “delusion;” for Kierkegaard faith is never about certainty; rather, it is an uncertain “leap from unbeliever to believer.”[9]

Maybe we have a “misunderstanding of the place of doubt”—where we think it is the opposite of faith. But maybe “the opposite of faith isn’t doubt;” maybe “it’s certainty.”[10] Maybe doubt is unavoidable, maybe doubt is necessary, maybe doubt is beautiful.

“Faith, by definition, is trust in spite of a lack of evidence. Faith is not knowledge. Faith…is acting as if something is true even when you have no proof that it is.”[11] And because of that leaping faith, we doubting believers—some more or less than others—can be joyful despite questions and disbelief, and just like these disciples in our Gospel today, we can all the same celebrate that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has defeated sin and death in the resurrection, and that our God in Christ Jesus claims us all now and forever. Amen.

     [1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/learner/doubt.

     [2] SC The Creed 6, in BC, 355.

     [3] Cf. R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke, The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1995), v.9, 485.

     [4] Peter W. Marty, “An Appreciation for Doubt: Wonder, Glory of Mystery get Swept Aside by Self-Righteousness,” The Lutheran, August 2010, 3.

     [5] David Lose, “Easter 3 B: Resurrection Doubts,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/04/easter-3-b-resurrection-doubts/.

     [6] Ibid.

     [7] Martin Luther, “Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans,” in Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans and Concerning Christian Liberty (Oxford: Benediction Classics, Oxford, 2010), 5.

     [8] Marty, “An Appreciation for Doubt,” 3.

     [9] Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscripts to Philosophical Fragments, vo. 1, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 11-12.

     [10] Marty, “An Appreciation for Doubt,” 3.

     [11] Lose, “Easter 3 B: Resurrection Doubts,” http://www.davidlose.net/2015/04/easter-3-b-resurrection-doubts/.

What Quenches Our Thirsty Souls?

“Thirst” Image by Raul Lieberwirth via Flickr licenced under CC BY-NC 2.0

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church – Lowry, MN

Easter 2 | 04.12.2015 | 1 John 1:1-2:2

What do you think you TRULY want in this world? What is it, every day, as you go to school, as you commute to work, when you are with family and friends, as you come to church, as you interact with people, as you spend your time on this earth…what is it that you are truly looking for?

Joy? Contentment? Meaning? Empowerment? Feelings of self-worth? And what is going to fulfill all of that?

We all struggle as we engage these questions of fulfillment—of what we deeply desire. Whether or not we’d like to admit it or whether or not we are aware of it, all people here and all people in this world struggle with feelings of worthlessness, or at least feeling not totally satisfied, constantly thirsting for purpose, or completeness. We are all seeking to feel ‘whole.’

Such a struggle is constant in the Bible, seen in the psalmist’s cry: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs…my soul thirsts…” (Psalm 42:1-2). Such a struggle is constant in history: St. Augustine opened his epic book of Confessions with admission of an internal struggle of un-fulfillment, of constantly needing something more: “our heart is restless.”[1] And today, so many of us are in such a soul thirsty and restless struggle.

And the proof of this? For one, look at the self-help industry—from seminars, to films, to infomercials, to books—the self-help industry is a BILLION dollar industry! This indicates something: WE ARE THIRSTY. We are restless. We want fulfillment; we want to know where our joy can be made complete. And the market is trying to respond and many sources are claiming to have the answer to our longing, to have the quench for our thirst. Just look at some of these titles of self-help books I’ve run across:

• H. A. P. E.: Finding and Fulfilling Your Unique Purpose for Life

• And Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need [ALRIGHT! FINALLY!]
• And my personal favorite: 59 Seconds: Improve Your Life in Under a Minute

I’m sure many of these resources have helped some people, maybe even some of you. But as Christians we should be suspicious of such lofty promises of fulfilment, suspicious that there are many siren-calls out there, many false prophets claiming to have the key to life.

The tidal wave of self-help resources is in itself, telling and should raise our suspicion. The sheer astronomical number of self-help books, videos, and programs presents a suspicious irony in and of itself. Because the fact that there are so many ‘self-help’ books, and so many continue to be written, re-written, read, and re-read is suspicious—there is a massive supply, yet the demand remains, even increases! So, perhaps these books promising fulfillment…are unfulfilling? If there are so many, maybe they don’t work that well? Perhaps our lives cannot be completed by a single book, movie, radio-show, or Ted-Talk? Or maybe…we can’t completely help ourselves.

Well my weekly rant about something is somewhat over now, this week’s victim being the self-help industry; my point is this: our individual and collective thirst of our souls remain: so where do we find fulfillment?

Maybe we can never quench our thirsty souls on our own. A book by Rabbi Harold Kushner speaks to this in its very title: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough? So with that said, from where do we drink when we find ourselves unquenchably thirsty? When our materials, our money, our possessions, our self-help resources, and perhaps even our careers finally leave us unfulfilled, where do we go?

Well, a two-thousand year-old letter, one of the shortest in all of Scripture offers us a relevant proclamation as he preambles his letter: “we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:4).

The Greek word, translated here as complete (πληρόω) can also mean fulfill, or make full, accomplish, or even make come true.[2] In other words, the things that are proclaimed by Jesus and written in this letter were spoken and written so that you might be filled, feel joy accomplished, fulfilled, and made true! There is a Hawaiian Pidgin translation of this verse that might capture it best: “John write dis stuff…so dat we can [feel] good inside to da max!”

And…so…two pages of ripping the self-help industry and building up suspense for what can finally give us abundant, soul-quenching life…what finally accomplishes this?

God.

God is finally what the psalmist was seeking: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for…God. My soul thirsts for the living God” (Ps 42:1-2), and finally what made Augustine feel whole: “Our heart is restless”…“until it rests in you,” O God.[3] God alone is the One who created us, and God alone is the one who can finally make us whole. Whether we desire forgiveness, judgment, love, purpose, justice, or hope, we find it in God.

We desire God’s actual presence, even if we do not know it. We desire a complete joy and life abundant—we just often seek it in the wrong places. And so John writes a letter to point a finger for us nomad souls, a finger that points to an eternally flowing water of life for those who are thirsty, and he points to the living God.

Where do we find this living God? We find this living God most clearly in Christ Jesus, the God incarnate, whom we can see, hear, touch, and experience. Because this is so, our God, then, is not ghostly, “neither silent nor invisible;” but “heard…in the words of Jesus and seen…in the face of Jesus.”[4] In Christ we have fellowship with God, and “no higher claim can be made for one’s life.”[5]

In Christ Jesus we have an immeasurably dignifying relationship with the Creator of the Universe—“we have an advocate,” writes John (2:1). And not only are we given unmistakably sacred titles, but we are given the responsibility that comes with those titles. Our identity is made whole as redeemed children of God, and our lives are given meaning as we are sent to love others as we have been loved. In Christ Jesus our identity crises are over and our meaningless is swallowed up. In Christ Jesus is the fulfilling life.

Martin Luther writes, “[This letter of John] is an outstanding Epistle. It can buoy up afflicted hearts…so beautifully and gently does it picture Christ to us.”[6] Indeed this is true. So, for you who have afflicted hearts, the love of God heals and the call of God sends.

So as we search for your self-worth, for purpose, for fulfillment, completeness, and joy, may we not so quickly seek it in the Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need or in 59 Seconds: Improve Your Life in Under a Minute, but find it in what God has already done for us in Christ Jesus, find it in the living God, the risen Christ.

I proclaim these things so that your joy may be complete (1:4).

Amen.

     [1] Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 3.

     [2] Barclay M. Newman Jr., A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament (Germany: C.H. Beck, 1993), 144.

     [3] Augustine, Confessions, 3.

     [4] R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John, in Interpreting Biblical Texts (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), 255.

   [5] Ibid., 257-258.

     [6] Martin Luther quoted in D. Moody Smith, First, Second, and Third John, in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991), 33.

Unfinished Business

“Awakening” by CBEImagery via Flickr licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

St. Paul’s Lutheran, Lowry, MN

Easter Sunday | 04-05-2015 | Mark 16:1-8

The Gospel we just read…what in the world kind of ending is that?

Let me use a movie to clarify why this ending is awkward. Now, I tried to think of a movie where we all know the ending so that the one thing you come away with this Easter isn’t, “That pastor ruined Toy Story for me,” or “That Pastor ruined Hunger Games,” or whatever other “movie for me.”

So, I’m choosing Titanic. We know that ending; if you don’t, well, I am sorry: the ship sinks.

Imagine the drama of that movie, the buildup, the progression of the narrative goes up, up, up, and up…and then imagine the movie ends while the ship is still afloat in the middle of the Atlantic. A bit unfinished wouldn’t you think?

Well, like the Titanic’s sinking, we know Jesus is raised from the dead. That’s why we’re all here. Yet the final chapter of Mark feels unfinished. The whole of Mark has built up, up, up, and up, especially to this point—the ministry of Jesus has concluded, the arrest, the torture, the crucifixion, the death, the burial, the woman arrive at the tomb, it’s empty!!!! He’s not here!!! AND?????…the women flee, they say nothing to anyone, they were afraid, THE END.

WHAT!?

That’s our big story!? We sounded our trumpet and filled our sanctuary for THAT!? Thanks a lot Mark. What about the post-resurrection appearances we get in the other gospels? What about Jesus telling us to baptize all nations, or that he’ll never leave us alone to the very end of the age, or his ascending into heaven? What about the iceberg? What happens to Jack and Rose? Where’s the blue sapphire jewel thingy?

As one professor once wrote, Mark “seems to botch this ending completely: ‘So they went out and fled the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them…they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.’ Do you see what I mean?”[1]—there seems to be some problems with this premature ending.

First problem being this is “the only resurrection story in the Bible where Jesus never actually makes an appearance….Second problem, the two women disciples utterly fail.”[2] They’re explicitly told at the empty tomb to not be afraid and to go and tell. What do they do? They don’t say a thing for they were afraid. THE END.

How is this good news?

Well let’s change our lens a bit, because this is good news…fantastic news. For one, we’re here today. Despite an unfinished ending, we’re here. Despite human incompetence, the news that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead carried on anyway—the proof being that we’re here!

It is crazy to think that these first witnesses, in their weakness and humanness ran away from the news of Christ’s resurrection. But I don’t want to be too quick to judge. If I went to a gravesite expecting to pay my respects to the deceased and some guy in white was standing near an open grave which I expected to be closed and said, “Do not be afraid…got tell people what you see,” I would probably throw my wallet at him and bolt and never say a word to anyone ever again.

Nevertheless, these women fled, they didn’t say anything to anyone, and the fact that we are reading this story today shows that the power of the gospel is not dependent on human efforts and abilities. If it was, then the gospel may have stopped that day with the fearful and trembling women and never heard again.

So, the good news is that this is not the case, because here we are reading this story 2000 years later. That fact alone shows that regardless of human action and inaction, God overcomes, and continues to offer good news to the world. Our human brokenness may try to get in the way, but God’s gospel prevails.

This is particularly and timely good news for us. Because though it may seem like the Christian church is in decline or that religion is waning among the U.S. population, the gospel of Jesus Christ will never die; we may go on afraid and never telling anyone, and the gospel will carry on despite our failings, just like it did here.

“Mark’s ending has no end,”[3] and actually that’s quite beautiful, because like the gospel itself, which works beyond God’s gospel has no end. This is good news.

Now, one other thing. Before, I was saying that the disciples failed, and not just these women. It sounds like I’m throwing the female disciples under the bus, but at least they showed up. At their best, the male disciples went into to hiding. If you were here on Good Friday, it would be made quite clear that Peter and Judas unmistakably failed too. So to be VERY CLEAR, I agree with one biblical scholar who writes: “these women followers already show themselves to be better disciples of Jesus than the rocky twelve who have fled, betrayed, and denied him.”[4]

Nevertheless, here we are at this awkwardly unfinished ending regarding the empty tomb and resurrection. Everyone’s fled. “All the people who should know, don’t. And those who do, can’t be counted on. So it appears we’re in a bind,”…but one scholar points out a subtle detail in the text which requires careful attention; and I quote: “All the people who should know, don’t. And those who do, can’t be counted on…Except…except there’s one other person who has seen and heard everything Jesus has said and done. One other who heard Jesus’ predictions and then watched as they came true. One other who listened to the amazing news at the empty tomb and heard the order to go and tell;” it’s a subtle detail in the text, so I’ll repeat: there’s “one other who listened to the amazing news at the empty tomb and heard the order to go and tell. Do you know who that other person is? […] It’s you. And me”…

…Seems as if “Mark isn’t terrible at endings” after all; “turns out, he’s brilliant.”[5]

Sisters and brothers, He has risen. He has defeated sin and death. We are liberated from sin, shame, guilt, judgment, and being without hope. He has risen. He rises in each of you now and forever. Go and tell. Amen.

     [1] David Lose, “Just the Beginning,” Dear Working Preacher, Workingpreacher.org, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1506.

     [2] Ibid.

     [3] Lamar Williamson Jr., Mark, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1983), 283.

     [4] Mary Ann Tolbert, “Mark,” in Women’s Bible Commentary: Expanded Edition with Apocrypha, ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharonn H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 361.

     [5] Lose, “Just the Beginning,” Dear Working Preacher.

The Cross and ‘Good’ Friday

St. Paul’s Lutheran, Lowry, MN

Good Friday | 04-03-2015

Good Friday…hardly good. Tonight everyone is exposed. The cross exposes us all or our violence, our betrayal, our hypocrisy, our imperfection, our sin.

For that, the lyrics of a Jim Croce song come to mind:

You walk the streets of Righteousness, but you refuse to understand…

You say you love the baby. Then you crucify the man.

You say you love the baby. Then you crucify the man.

There were 215 people here on Christmas Eve. Tonight, there are 50. We love the baby…We all celebrated the nativity on that Christmas night…and tonight we admit (or are forced admit, or stay way so that we don’t have to admit) that we also prepare a cross for that one. And ironically, without Good Friday…there would be no need to celebrate Christmas.

We’re all exposed. The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth does this to us all.

It certainly does it to the characters around Jesus in our gospel today—particularly Peter, Pilate, and the religious authorities.

Of course Peter, probably the most devout and faithfully concerned disciple, blatantly denies his Lord three times. The crucifixion exposes Peter.

Then there is that “moment on the place of the Stone Pavement which exposes Pilate and the Jewish elite;” it exposes them all “for caring for things”[1] other than for what they claim to care—which for Pilate is power and truth, and for the religious authorities is supposedly fidelity to God.

So let’s begin with Pilate. Pilate is clearly not concerned with truth—he knows (19:6b) Jesus is innocent; he states it multiple times; and yet he doesn’t release him. Pilate also claims to have power—Don’t you know I have the power to release you, and power to crucify you? (19:10). Yet clearly he displays no power; he lets corrupt religious authorities make his ruling for him, even when he knows the truth. Pilate, a man of supposed power and truth powerlessly caves and sends an innocent man to death, as the text reads: “he was more afraid than ever…then he handed him over to be crucified” (19:8, 16). So much for power and truth, Pilate. The crucifixion exposes Pilate.

As to the Jewish elite, they are exposed just as blatantly in this scene. They are asked by Pilate, “Shall I crucify your King?” (19:15), and what they could have said was “He is not the one. We are waiting for our king.”[2] Rather they say, “We have no king but the emperor” (19:15). Disturbing.

You see, this is the time of Passover, and on Passover the Jewish people remember the liberation from Egypt and “recite…liturgy that their only king is God,”[3] not Pharaoh, not Pilate, not the emperor, nor any other God; but devastatingly in v. 15, hours before the Passover observance, these religious authorities all to easily confess with blatant infidelity: “We have no king but the emperor.”—the low-point of the gospel. The crucifixion exposes the religious authorities.

A difficult to swallow on this Good Friday is the truth that we are no different than Peter, Pilate, or these religious authorities. We, too, although we celebrated his birth, with our sin and corruption, our action and inaction, have prepared a cross.

Tonight we mourn a loving God who hangs from a tree, and yet we we’re the ones who put him there and continue to put him there. We are guilty of putting Jesus on the cross as we fail to love our God perfectly, fail to feed the poor and hungry, fail to forgive each other willingly, and repent faithfully, as we kill or let die the all the teachings and ministries of Jesus.

Peter, Pilate, the Jewish elite, you, and me…we’re all exposed tonight. That is what the cross does. God came to this world and the world put him to death. As a part of this world we share in that burden of guilt.

Tonight we see “religious authorities…lose faith and governmental officials lose power;”[4] and as we stare at this, and we’re honest, we lose any sense of innocence. The world looks in the mirror and it sees THAT (cross). Tonight Jesus is stripped, and so are we. The cross is ugly because in it we see a violent world, a violent us. It causes us to tremble. It is embarrassing and appalling. The only perfectly loving person who ever lived and we killed him.

And yet…this cross is glorious. Because also in the cross is God, a ruthlessly loving God. Because it unequivocally shows that the God we put to death chooses not retribution, but love and mercy. The cross may show how evil we are, but it vividly displays how loving God is. A Christian activist named Shane Claiborne wrote an article this week that captures this paradox beautifully: “On the cross Jesus made a spectacle of evil – he exposed the hatred we are capable of. And he triumphed over that hatred with love. He died with forgiveness on his lips. Just as he came to set the oppressed free, he also came to set oppressors free.”[5]

The cross is a trembling display of glory in that it reveals that our God clearly does not seek glory, but rather love, that our God does not seek a throne like Pilate’s, but rather a kingdom that is not of this world, one where those who put their God to death are died for and redeemed.

In the strangest paradox, the Cross tells us who we are—an abandoning, self-preserving, self-protecting, hypocritical, violent, broken people…and yet it simultaneously tells us who God is willing to be for us—a merciful Savior.

We are a violent people and we are violently loved. Our God would rather be punished by the world’s sin than punish the world’s sin. It is absolutely scandalous—a scandal which we cannot escape and yet a scandal which sets us free. In the cross, we can’t look away, our sin is exposed yet in the cross the love of God is revealed, our sin wiped away.

Behold, the cross Christ, where sin and love is revealed. May it cause us to tremble with humility and tremble with belovedness. Amen.

     [1] Matthew Skinner, “Podcast #410 – Good Friday,” Sermon Brainwave, Workingpreacher.org, http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=610.

     [2] Ibid.

     [3] Walter Brueggemann, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year B (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), 267.

     [4] Ibid., 266.

     [5] Shane Claiborne, “Holy Week in an Unholy World,” Religion, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shane-claiborne/holy-week-in-an-unholy-world_b_6993740.html.