Tag: Divine Liberation

Exposed and Naked: We are Fragile

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

We are not in control; this bothers us. Further, we are not unassailable; and this terrifies us. To be out of control is one thing, but to be fragile, too? Unacceptable. So, we do whatever we can to build up our fortresses to protect our vulnerable, fleshy existence. We build silos for storing our resources from cash to crops to armaments hoping to fend of both physical and existential threats. We fortify our homes with surveillance systems geared to satisfy the energy of our hyper vigilance always looking for a threat certain that our neighbor is that threat. Our walls and fences get taller and thicker; both the literal ones built around our properties and the metaphorical ones built around our hearts. We are closing down and in; we are pulling back and away. Our lack of control bothers us; our fragility terrifies us.

Looking around at our world, our lack of control wedded to our fragility makes us feel helpless (like sitting ducks). A few people control all the things and none of them really care about you and me; rather, they care about their power, prestige, and position. Being trapped in such a situation—hijacked and held captive by unregulated egos and tempers—provokes our fear responses—flight, fight, freeze, and fawn; we’ll do whatever we need to keep our fragile bodies and existences protected. The sad thing is that we’re buying—hook, line, and sinker—the myth that our neighbor is our biggest threat and not the kids holding all the toys and starting all the fights in the playground. So, in a meager attempt to have some control and to feel less fragile, we turn our attention to our neighbor, look at them with suspicion, and build our walls and silos, and install our surveillance systems. Our lack of control bothers us; our fragility terrifies us.

Is there any hope for such as these?

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

The two creation stories opening the book of Genesis are not connected stories; Genesis 2 isn’t a further extrapolation of Genesis 1. Rather, Genesis 2 stands alone as its own story. Why are they coupled in such a way? Because Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 ask two very specific yet different questions. Genesis 1 asks the big existential question: how did all of this—motions about self—come into being? And, who is behind it all? The answer Genesis 1 provides is that God is the prime mover here; out of nothing God causes all of creation and the cosmos to spin into being from the biggest things to the smallest of things, from the deepest of things to the loftiest of things, from the leftiest of things to the rightiest of things. And if God took so much care to bring into existence these extremes of creation, then humanity—who finds herself right smack dab in the middle—is both the apple of God’s eye and (one of) the main characters on the stage.

Now, Genesis 2 asks a more particular and personal existential question: why am I here? And, why is that person over there here, too? The answer Genesis 2 provides is that community is essential to this particular God’s way of working in the world. And not only community generally speaking—if this were the case, then clearly God could have stopped short of creating humanity for God in God’s self is a community of triunity—but specifically this God created community in the shape and form of humanity who reflects the divine image into the world through all its beautiful variants and differences, amid various interpretations and representations and identifications, caught between crazy similarities and radical diversities. So, where Genesis 1 is impersonal, Genesis 2 gets personal.

So, in the portion of Genesis 2 read this morning, after God has made all the flora and fauna, God takes the man, Adam, and brings him to the threshold of the garden of Eden so that he will have a task: to “till and keep it”—in other words, to have loving dominion and care for it. Before Adam is released to work, God gives him a command (for Adam’s benefit, of course). What’s that command? “‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die,’” (Gn 2:16b-17). At this point, it is just Adam and God. Eve isn’t there yet.

So, Genesis 2 goes on to tell of the story of Eve’s, the woman’s, creation. Adam is lonely; God notices. God makes all the animals to parade by—thus causing Adam’s loneliness only to grow; each time Adam provides a name for each animal, Adam is declaring, “No, this one will not alleviate my loneliness.” Then God intervenes. Adam is put into a death like sleep, and out of this death like sleep God creates woman as (a type of) salvation.[ii] Adam makes his bold announcement, “YES!”! And all is well.

Or is it?

This is where Genesis 3 comes into picture. It answers that little “happily ever after” moment with, “No, everything isn’t fine; it’s painful, it hurts, people feel lost, have guilt, and are unsafe.” Mostly though, Genesis 3 contends with our fragile state, the exposure and nakedness of being fragile human beings in a world where we have no control. The serpent (not a snake) enters the scene and penetrates this vulnerable and fragile moment by addressing Eve and inquiring about the law—the one God gave to Adam back in Genesis 2. The serpent asks Eve, “‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’” (Gn 3:1b). Eve’s response? Sharp and quick; she knew exactly what she was talking about, “‘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,”’” (Gn 3: 2b-3).

Did you catch the difference between her answer and the command God gave Adam?

She added something: nor shall you touch it. I have to ask, where did she get this part from? The only way she was taught the law was by Adam. Therefore, we could say that Adam embellished the commandment not only forsaking eating but also even touching the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. The first error lies not with Eve being backed into this impossible question by the serpent,[iii] but way back when Adam was delivering the law to Eve. Considering that Adam is with her and remains silent when she misspeaks, can indicate that he saw nothing wrong with what she said. Sin had already found an entrance in the mistaught law; the humans are exposed in their (intellectual and spiritual) fragility.

But if that’s not enough, after a few more cunning words from the serpent, Eve sees that the fruit is good to eat and thus she eats first and Adam second. What happens? “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,” (Gn 3:7). And herein lies the second error. The serpent appears to be unearthing the real reason why God is forbidding access to the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: jealousy.[iv] In this way, the serpent was (easily) able to put animosity between the humans and their creator (at first just spiritually and intellectually and then physically). The humans take the bait and eat; in this moment they acquire the very thing they thought they wanted: knowledge of good and evil.[v] Their first act with such awareness? They are exposed unto themselves and their nakedness receives the judgment: evil. They are ashamed of their vulnerable and fragile state and move to hide it, and from each other especially; two bodies now at perpetual war with the other. Animosity begins to breed in the realization that bodies can be different and thus scary, something to be afraid of. The neighbor becomes the threat. So, they hide; they hide not only from each other, they hide from God (Gn 3:8), and if these two then we can say they hid from their own selves, too. God’s curses, which are to come, don’t really create anything too new at this point; rather, God just leaves them to their plight and predicament because they’ve already cursed themselves by taking the knowledge and judgment of good and evil into their own hands. And this they got wrong from the start; sadly, they will continue to get it wrong…

Conclusion

God’s people are trapped and held captive to their inability to determine what is truly good and what is truly evil. Yet, God knows just how vulnerable and susceptible they are and none of that knowledge dissuades God from God’s covenant. But first the people must come to terms with their own situation and status before God: for they are not in control, they are exposed, they are naked, and they are fragile. If they continue forward without acknowledging who and what they are before God, they will continue to participate in and perpetuate the rampant injustices of the kingdom of humanity, forsaking the justice of the reign of God and being harbingers of death and not life, of indifference and not love, of captivity and not liberation.

As it was for Adam and Eve, so it is for us.

Lent commands us into a state of being exposed and naked, into an honesty that will peel back our facades and remove our masks, bringing us to a very naked state that will feel like a complete and total death. We are brought to our most dreaded confession: we are not in control, and we are fragile creatures, scared and angry. But it’s out of this death, this confession, out of this naked and vulnerable place, where God’s word liberates us out of death and into life by God’s love. This word that brings this divine life to dead creatures, God preaches through God’s son, Jesus the Christ; it is this incarnate word that becomes the source of our security when we are our most fragile, most exposed, and most naked. It is the very source of our new life, new love, and new liberation. God is coming to clothe God’s own in the righteous garments of divine love, life, and liberation so they can become creatures who have new eyes and ears to see and hear the pain around them, bringing love where there is indifference, life where there is death, and liberation where there is captivity.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Jackopierce song, “Woman as Salvation”

[iii] Jon D. Levenson, “Genesis,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 16. “His question is tricky and does not admit of a yes-or-no answer. The woman, who has never heard the commandment directly (2.16-17), paraphrases it closely. Why she adds the prohibition on touching the fruit is unclear.”

[iv] Levenson, “Genesis,” 17. “The serpent impugns God’s motives , attributing the command to jealousy. Whereas in the first creation account huma beings are God-like creatures exercising dominion…here their ambition to be like God or like divine beings is the root of their expulsion from Eden.”

[v] Levenson, “Genesis,” 17. “As the serpent had predicted (v.5), their eyes are opened, and they have enhanced knowledge (v.7).”

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Exposed and Naked: We are Not in Control

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Today is about being reminded of death—death in general and death in specific. Ash Wednesday is our sacred and religious memento mori (remember to die); Ash Wednesday brings to the fore the very thing we push back: the reality that all life streams toward death even for those of us who feel very far above and beyond death’s long, cold, bony reach. with the application of ashes on our vulnerable skin, we not only hear with our ears but see with our eyes and feel with our senses the command to remember that we will die. Dying is part of our life in this world where death is not only around us in fits and spurts, but is very much a part of our life cycle.

But it seems that lately we are held hostage by death. We are powerless to the death caused by human beings who have long forgotten that power must be wielded rightly and mercy is more potent than fear. Through the barrage and onslaught of headlines streaming in from around the globe, the national ones decorating our minds like billboards on a highway, and the local ones hitting too close to home, we are made very aware of how much death seems to accompany global and national leaders who are curved in on themselves consumed with their own ego. And even if we turned off televisions, radios, computers, podcasts, and phones, we would not be able to escape the approach and encroach of death. Over the past few months, death has taken loved ones from us (both family and friend) and if not death, then death’s best friends, fear and rage, have stolen people from us in their own way. And if that wasn’t enough, our own bodies remind us about the cool shadow of death lurking closer; whether through the onset of age or by our own hands, things fall apart, breakdown, and come to naught. We are held captive by death; we do not have access to the keys to this prison we are in.

Thus, we are brought to the only confession we have, we are not in control. We are hurt, we are guilty, we are lost, we are fragile, and we are unsafe. Is there any hope for such as these?

Psalm 103:8-14

Yes, there is hope for such as we. Our psalmist writes,

Abba God is full of compassion and mercy,
slow to anger and of great kindness.

Our Psalm is a hymn celebrating God’s steadfast posture towards God’s people and is a commentary on portions of Exodus and Isaiah.[ii] Specifically in our short portion, verse 8, just quoted, is asking the reader to remember Ex. 33:13, “Now, If I have truly gained Your favor, pray let me know Your ways, that I may know You and continue in Your favor.” And if they are to remember Exodus 33, then 32 and 34 must be recalled, too. Exodus 33 marks Moses’s pleading on behalf of the people before and to God in the Tent of Meeting. Why is Moses pleading on behalf of the people? In Exodus 32 he broke the tablets upon his return from communing with God on the mountain when he saw the people worshiping the golden calf that Aaron crafted. Thus, in Ex. 33, Moses is eager to plead to God for God to relent of God’s anger. So, Moses goes to God in the Tent of Meeting carrying the sin of Israel and wondering what God will do with the people whom God has called “stiffnecked.” (33:5). In Exodus 33:13, Moses wants to know God’s own way in dealing with the sin of his people;[iii] how does God deal with the fault and guilt, the hurt and being lost, the fragility and unsafety of God’s people? Reference to Exodus 34 gives us the answer: God does not abandon Moses nor the people; God is present. This God who is present is a God who is compassionate and forgiving, steadfast and patient, “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed: ‘The Lord! The Lord! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin…” (34:6-7a). God does not abandon God’s people. God is faithful to the covenant even when God’s people are not; God is magnanimous and just even when the people are not.[iv] Our psalmist is intentional here in v. 8 (and v.7) in calling to mind the God of Israel who is faithful and just while the people are unfaithful and unjust.

Thus, why the psalmist can go on, singing the praises of God further elaborating on God’s character and posture towards God’s people:[v]

Abba God will not always accuse us,
nor will Abba God keep anger for ever.
Abba God has not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so is God’s mercy great upon those who fear God.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has Abba God removed our sins from us.
As a parent cares for their children,
so does the Abba God care for those who fear God.

Both Exodus 34:7b ff and Isaiah 57:16 (hinted at by Psalm 103:9) are in view here. In the second part of Ex 34:7 God promises that God will visit the punishments of the iniquities of the people on their children and grandchildren, etc. But Moses intervenes in 34:8-9, “‘If I have gained Your favor, O Lord, pray, let the Lord go in our midst, even though this is a stiffnecked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own!’” And Isaiah 57:16 reads,

“For I will not always contend,
I will not be angry forever:
Nay, I who make spirits flag,
Also create the breath of life.”

Moses’s plea from Exodus 34 is met in Isaiah’s prophecy and promise that divine anger and displeasure have a time limit; even in spite of the way the people have acted—insatiable for debauchery and injustice—God will be unselfish and just.[vi] And as the prophet speaks from God’s own pathos toward and for God’s people, these words are as good as done. God’s words are like rain watering parched soil, turning it from a place of death into a source of life, just like God’s own being and breath.[vii] Under and with and by God’s Word, the people will come alive again and will be liberated from death and injustice, from their self-imposed notions of being in control, from their hurt, guilt, lostness, fragility, and unsafety; they will participate with God in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. God will condescend and transcend God’s self to bring God’s ways to the people so that their ways reflect their divine genetic inheritance (like parent, like child).[viii] Where they used to bring injustice they will bring justice, where they were self-consumed they will be consumed by divine passion for their neighbor, God’s beloved.

The psalmist concludes,

For Abba God themself knows whereof we are made;
Abba God remembers that we are but dust.

God knows God’s people. God does not hold them to a standard that is beyond their fleshiness, their fragility, their creatureliness but, rather, holds them to be such creatures who are fragile and fleshy, those who must hold each other gently and kindly as God does.[ix] According to the psalmist, God knows not only where we are and what we are but of what we are made. This is surely good news and every reason to have hope that God is for God’s people (even when things look bleak) and is coming for them to liberate them to life by God’s love.

Conclusion

Thus, even as God’s people are trapped and held captive in their sin, iniquity, and transgressions, God knows just how vulnerable and susceptible they are and none of that knowledge dissuades God from God’s covenant. But first the people must come to terms with their own situation and status before God: for they are not in control, they are hurt, they are guilty, they are lost, they are fragile, and they are unsafe. If they continue forward without acknowledging who and what they are before God, they will continue to participate in and perpetuate the rampant injustices of the kingdom of humanity, forsaking the justice of the reign of God and being harbingers of death and not life, of indifference and not love, of captivity and not liberation.

As it was for the Israelites, so it is for us.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of our determined and slow descent into the tomb of Good Friday. This movement from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday is the season of Lent, and it demands an honesty and exposure that will peel back our facades and remove our masks, bringing us to a very naked state that will feel like a complete and total death. We are brought to our most dreaded confession: we are not in control; we are hurt, we are guilty, we are lost, we are fragile, and we are unsafe. But it’s out of this death, this confession, out of this naked and vulnerable place, where God’s word will liberate us out of death into life by God’s love. And not back into your old life, but caused to be new creatures who have new eyes and ears to see and hear the pain around them, brining love where there is indifference, life where there is death, and liberation where there is captivity.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Adele Berlin and marc Zvi Brettler, “Psalm 103,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 1396. “A hymn of praise for God’s nature (divine attributes) and for His acts on behalf of Israel; it contains quotations from and allusions to Exodus and Isaiah.”

[iii] Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Exodus,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 187-188. “Your ways in dealing with humankind, meaning…the principles by which you deal with human sin. God had said that the angel would be unforgiving…What is God’s own way?…What is Your way, considering that Israel is Your own people?”

[iv] Tigay, “Exodus,” 189. “God grants both of Moses’ requests, passing His presence before him …and proclaiming His ways (33.13). The name Lord [YHVH], that is the attributes it represents. These attributes include both magnanimity (vv. 6-7a) and justice (v. 7b…)…extending Himself to those in covenant with Him…”

[v] Berlin and Brettler, “Psalm 103,” 1396. “Interpreting or elaborating on the meaning and current application of Exod. 34.6, quoted in v. 8.”

[vi] Benjamin D. Sommer, “Isaiah,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 794. “The second complaint: parties instead of piety. Appropriately, the people whose appetite is insatiable will feed the insatiable appetite of Sheol, the underworld…”

[vii] Sommer, “Isaiah,” 895. “Deutero-Isaiah pics up the metaphor of water … in a new way to emphasize a favorite theme: God’s promises and the prophesies God issued through the prophets never fail to come true…The metaphor is significant: God sends rain, which inevitably falls to the ground; then it is absorbed by soil and nourishes vegetation. Humans in turn harvest the vegetation and transform it into food. Similarly, God’s word is sure to have series of effects, the most important of which are indirect and involve human input.”

[viii] Berlin and Brettler, “Psalm 103,” 1396. “The relationship between God and his worshippers is here portrayed as that between a father and a son…The compassionate father also figures in Jer. 31.20.”

[ix] Berlin and Brettler, “Psalm 103,” 1396. “The creaturely and ephemeral status of humanity…and the permanence of God’s covenant with those who fear Him.”

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Being Divine Salt and Light

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Matthew 5:13-20

After promising his disciples that they will be persecuted, Jesus immediately adds,

You, you are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses savor, by what will it be made salty? It is yet worth nothing if not to be tread down under people after being thrown out. You, you are the light of the cosmos. A city situated on a hill is not able to be hidden. No one kindles a lamp and places it under a basket but upon the lampstand, and it shines for all who are in the house. In this way, let your light your light shine before humanity… (vv13-16a).

Keeping in mind that Jesus hasn’t had a week off between his last statement and this one like we have, these verses are a corresponding instructional[ii] product of his promise to the disciples that they will be persecuted and the other blessed statements. The disciples are expected to participate and continue the work of Christ, which is both salt and light in the world. Thus, the disciples will also be light and salt in the world because they will—by faith and the presence of the (coming) Holy Spirit—continue God’s work revealed/made tangible in Christ.[iii] Because of their identity with Christ, because of their faith in him, because of their union with God through the Holy Spirit, the disciples won’t be able to be anything else but salt and light in the world…just like the prophets before them—caught up in the divine pathos. So it happens with those God calls to be disciples (prophets).[iv] Jesus exhorts the disciples: go and be lights, go and be salt; btdubs, you haven’t a choice in the matter (you are salt and you are a light hanging form a lampstand for all to see, not by your own doing but by God’s). And this will bring both wanted and unwanted attention, thus the previous statement about being persecuted.

Thus, the negative statements in these verses are not so much a curse (e.g. be salt or else!), but a practical statement of an either/or situation: salt salts or it doesn’t, when it doesn’t it’s thrown out and trampled; a light lights or it doesn’t, when it doesn’t it doesn’t help anyone. Jesus is setting up a practical if/then: those who are salt and light are those who are called by God to participate in the divine mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation;[v] they are to help the birthing of the reign of God amid the kingdom of humanity (which, by the way, will bring attention and persecution). A world that is void of divine justice, is a world that is awful to live in; the disciples are to bring the salt to make this world a better place to live in; they are to be the light that exposes human injustice and draws people unto the truth of God’s reign and justice.[vi]

But here is an important point: all of this is done by God’s power and presence in and with them. The disciples are not mustering up their saltiness and lightyness of their own free will and choice; they’re being used to salt and to light (they are these things). Without the divine calling (“come and follow me”), without this divine power (baptism of water and Spirit), without the incarnate Word (the gospel[vii]), one can’t be the salt or light of which Jesus speaks—not unlike when the words of a false prophet fall to the ground (there to be trampled upon, words that do not expose and bring to God).

Jesus continues, that your good works might be perceived and might esteem your Father who is in the heavens (v16b). It’s as if the light that they have by faith in Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit will illuminate (for all to see) their being the salt of the earth.[viii] To be salt of the earth is to cause the earth to be savory (tasty;[ix] thus good and well-pleasing) and also to preserve it so it doesn’t rot[x] and become corrupt(ed) (two uses common to the historical context[xi]). To be salt is to be active in the world to the benefit of others[xii] (being unsalty in the world is like being nothing).[xiii] And it’s the light that shines through them that will expose them as salt to the benefit to the neighbor and the entire cosmos; Jesus’s scope of the disciples saltiness and lightyness, according to Matthew, is all encompassing; it’s massive.[xiv] The salt and light born of faith is loving deeds;[xv] those who love, those who participate in bringing life, those who hunger and thirst for liberation from captivity (for others and not only for themselves), are the salt and light making the world better, more enjoyable, a place that not only sustains but causes life to thrive (for both salt and light are necessary for such conditions of grown and thrive[xvi]). And the depth and breadth of their loving (faithful) activity is a (divine intended) result of being members of the blessed ones just mentioned; like Abraham and Sarah and their family, the disciples are a blessing to be a (public[xvii]) blessing to others and the world.[xviii] In this way, God’s name will be esteemed because of the disciples[xix] (a fulfillment of the petition in the Lord’s prayer to come, let your name be hallowed!).

Thus, Jesus continues to speak of the law and of righteousness (justice),

Do not consider that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to destroy but to complete. For, truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth might pass away, one iota or one distinguishing point will not at all pass away from the law until all might come into being. …  For I say unto you, if your justice is not over and above, much greater than the scribes and pharisees, you might not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens (vv17-20).

Jesus completes or fulfills the law and the prophets by being the substance of the promise, in doing what is expected therein, and embodying the heart of the law and not just the words; [xx],[xxi] rather than discard or destroy, he takes up into his being even the smallest strokes of the law (the iotas and distinguishing points).[xxii] Jesus is bringing into being that which the law and the prophets have been pointing to; “carry[ing] them into a new era of completion.”[xxiii] He does so through his orientation in the world that is the product of God’s love for humanity (for God so loved the cosmos…); the law was to be a tool used to structure fractured human love. However, the scribes and Pharisees often missed this component paying attention (instead) to the rubric of the law, the acting out of the words of the law rather than the intent, the “weightier matters” of the law.[xxiv] Thus the law has gone “undone” or not completed; Jesus is here to do such doing and completing. Jesus expects his disciples to participate in this doing and completing, too. How? By being one of the blessed ones, by being the salt and light of the world, by being his followers in the world now (while he is here) and (especially!) after he leaves; by being those who publicly live out what he taught and lived out.[xxv] It is in this way (Jesus’s way[xxvi]) that their righteousness (their Christ defined divine justice) will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (human defined justice). It’s not about doing the law better and harder than the scribes and Pharisees;[xxvii] it’s about doing it the way Jesus did it:[xxviii] by faith working itself out in loving deeds for the wellbeing of the neighbor and the world to God’s glory.[xxix]

Conclusion

The good and not so nice expectations offered in the first part of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, give way to the why…why do the disciples need to be concerned with identifying with the poor and those who mourn, being gentle, seeking and desiring justice in the world, being merciful and clear of heart, having an eye to making peace that surpasses understanding, and preparing for being persecuted? Because this is how they add life-sustaining flavor to the world and preserve it from decay; because this is how they become the light shining the light of Christ into the world, ushering everything it touches into the divine presence.

The beatitudes are not a personal pursuit of individual and autonomous righteousness, a means to a self-centered end. In post-modern America, we—each of us—want to know—before endeavoring to participate in a plan, offering a solution to a problem, fulfilling a request, or doing a task—what’s in it for me? We want to know how we will benefit from our investment (whatever form it takes). But what Jesus laid out in the beatitudes and solidifies here in this portion of chapter five is that our reward lies in being found in and participating with the reign of God that is meant not only to bring glory to God but to also bring well-being to the neighbor. Not our own happy state and satisfaction is in mind here; being so oriented is antithetical, according to Matthew, to the goal of the proclamation of the gospel. As disciples of Christ, those who follow Jesus out of the Jordan, we are to put ourselves aside (not deny ourselves as if we didn’t exist) and to intentionally put the needs of the neighbor first (which is exactly what God does in Christ). It is through this other-orientation that disciples are recognized as the salty salt of the earth and the lighty light of the whole world; and this goal—becoming the salt and light of the world—is precisely the goal of the law and the prophets, it is the goal of our encounter with God in Christ, it is the goal of our faith eager to work itself out in loving deeds.

In other words, Beloved, we are blessed to be a blessing; we are loved to be love, to be salt, to be light in the world bringing everything and everyone whom we touch and encounter into the life giving, loving, and liberating encounter with Godself in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 78. Moving into the instructional portion of the sermon on the mount

[iii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 78-79. “It is prefaced with ‘salt and light’ sayings addressed to the disciples in a way that points them toward their mission in the world. Neither salt nor light exists for its own sake. The salt needs to stay salty to fulfill its function and the light needs to be lifted up to give light.”

[iv] . T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 175. “Here the light which Jesus brings is also provided by his disciples, who will soon be commissioned to share in his ministry of proclamation and deliverance.”

[v] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 94. “Julio: ‘By liberating it. Because a world filled with injustice is tasteless. Mainly for the poor, life like that has no taste.’”

[vi] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “Elvis: ‘…Christians don’t have that Christian taste. They’re simpleminded, insipid. Only the ones who are struggling for a just society are the ones who have that taste of salt.’”

[vii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 95. “Marcelino: ‘I think that “salt” is the Gospel word given to us so that we’ll practice it and pass it on to others, practicing love, so that everybody will have it. Because salt is thing that you never deny to anybody.’”

[viii] France, Matthew, 177. “The metaphor of v. 15 is now explained more prosaically, with the ‘light’ shed by disciples interpreted as the good that they do.”

[ix] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “Adan: ‘It seems to me its because every meal should have salt. A meal without salt has no taste. We must give taste to the world.’”

[x] Cardenal, Solentiname, 94. “And Doña Adela, a little old woman with a weak voice: ‘We are the salt of the world because we have been placed in it so the world won’t rot.’”

[xi] France, Matthew, 174. “The two most significant uses of salt in the ancient world were for flavoring and for the preservation of food, and either or both of those uses would provide an appropriate sense here: the disciples are to provide flavor to the world the live in …and/or they are to help to prevent its corruption.”

[xii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “These metaphors imply a turning outward toward mission in the world. The impact of the followers of Jesus upon others is part of the message here. Something good and desirable is given that will cause them to give glory to God.”

[xiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “These metaphors imply a turning outward toward mission in the world. The impact of the followers of Jesus upon others is part of the message here. Something good and desirable is given that will cause them to give glory to God.”

[xiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The scope of this blessing is the widest possible…”

[xv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 95-96. “Felix Mayorga: ‘Maybe the light is the good people, who practice love. Everyone that has a good spirit and loves others, he is the light of the world.’”

[xvi] France, Matthew, 173. “Sir 39:26 lists salt as one of the essentials for human life…’The world cannot endure without salt.’ Disciples are no less essential to the well-being of ‘the earth,’ which here refers to human life in general.’”

[xvii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The community of disciples cannot be a closed community, an ‘introverted secrete society shielding itself from the world.’ Its witness is public.”

[xviii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The universal scope of divine blessing through the people of God is consistent with the theme in Hebrew Scriptures of ‘blessed in order to be a blessing’ (Gen. 12:2; 22:80) and called to be a ‘light to the nations’ (Isa. 2:2-5, 42:6; 49:6).”

[xix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79. “The gifts/functions of salt and light are not self-contained; they are meant to be shaken out and shining forth. Followers of Jesus need to be salty and we have to shine. Are we ‘salt of the earth’ kind of people? Are we ‘shining examples’ of God’s light in the world? Do people have cause to praise God (v. 16) because of us?”

[xx] Case-Winters, Matthew, 79-80. “Jesus’ fulfilling the law and the prophets can have several dimensions of meaning:

  1. That Jesus brings into being what the law and prophets promised. Reference to the fulfilling of the law is often made just before Matthew quotes something from the Hebrew Bible.
  2. That Jesus himself does what the law and prophets in fact require of us. His life is molded by the law, and it defines his vocation and the conduct of his life.
  3. The Jesus teaches and lives the deeper meaning of the law, which is best understood in terms of the love command on which ‘hang all the law and the prophets’ (22:450). All the laws concerning tithing, ritual purity, and Sabbath observance remain in place, but they are subordinate to the love command. Love exceeds these. It requires more and not less than the law.”

[xxi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 80. “All three of these dimensions seem to be involved in Jesus’ relations to the law and the prophets as variously presented in the Sermon on the Mount.”

[xxii] France, Matthew, 186. “The jots and tittles are there to be fulfilled, not discarded, and that is what Jesus has come to do. They are not lost, but taken up into the eschatological events to which they pointed forward.”

[xxiii] France, Matthew, 183. “In the light of that concept, and of the general sense of ’fulfill’ in Matthew, we might then paraphrase Jesus’ words here as follows: ‘Far from wanting to set aside the law and the prophets, it is my role to bring into being that to which they have pointed forward, to carry them into a new era of fulfillment.’”

[xxiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 80. “The commandments of Torah are not all of the same weight. Jesus argues later that love and compassion for the neighbor outweighs matters such as cultic observance…He chides the scribes and Pharisees because they ‘tithe the mint, dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy and faith.’ Jesus’ own life is an exemplar of attending to the weightier matters.”

[xxv] France, Matthew, 183. “From now on it will be the authoritative teaching of Jesus which must govern his disciples;’ understanding and practical application of the law.”

[xxvi] France, Matthew, 187. A different type of doing the law that is different from scribes and pharisees “That will mean in effect the keeping of the law as it is now interpreted by Jesus himself…”

[xxvii] France, Matthew, 189. “The paradox of Jesus’ demand here makes sense only if their basic premise as to what ‘righteousness’ consist of is put in question. Jesus is not talking about beating the scribes and Pharisees at their own game, but about a different level or concept of righteousness altogether.”

[xxviii] France, Matthew, 182-183. Jesus “the way in which he  ‘fulfills’ the pattern laid down in the law and the prophets.”

[xxix] France, Matthew, 190. “Those who are to belong to God’s new realm must move beyond literal observance of rules, however good and scriptural, to a new consciousness of what it means to please God, one which penetrates beneath the surface level of rules to be obeyed to a more radical openness to knowing and doing the underlying will of ‘your Father in heaven.’”

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Epiphany: God for Us

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

At times, in the cool, dark of January and after all the festivities have wound down and the decorations and ornaments have been packed up, one can feel alone, unseen, unheard. Going from Thanksgiving to New Years is a tour of parties and engagements, concerts and events, gatherings and celebrations. One can feel swept up and out of banalities of regular life, being entertained from one moment to another.

As a parent of three children, each of whom is in a different stage of education, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of sweet returns and homecomings as semesters end and all the kids come home to stay, the onslaught of various concerts and parties threatening to overlap, and the rush of shopping, dining, traveling, and being ushered from one family visit to the next. This energy carries all the way through the first week of January. And then… Silence. And everything slows all…. the…. way…. down as if being caught in mud.

It’s not just parents who suffer the experience of the radical shifts between up and down, loud and quiet, active and inactive. Everyone feels it. The first few weeks of January, in the stillness, darkness, and coldness of the month, pose the greatest challenges for mental health; these can be the hardest weeks for our friends and family working with and through depression and grief, sorrow and loss, anxiety and despair, loneliness and alienation. The big drop after the cessation of the holiday feasts and fests paves the way for a dark cloud to loom over vulnerable humanity.

Thus, our orientation outside of ourselves is even more important as we tumble out of celebrations and land on that regular and blah day to day. Last week, Luke guided us to refocus our attention on the initial vibrations of the beginning movement of God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the tween Jesus. Today, Matthew continues that refocusing outside of ourselves and on to another. Matthew tells us a story of the divine Son, Jesus the Christ, who identifies with us in all aspects of our life from the greatest of great to the lowest of lows.

Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus has no need for a baptism of repentance[ii] like the one Matthew tells us John is offering to those gathering to and in the river Jordan.[iii] And yet, Jesus shows up. Matthew tells us, At that time Jesus arrives from Galilee to the Jordan toward John to be baptized by him (v13). The sinless one, the Son of Humanity and the Son of God, shows up for the purpose of being baptized by John like everyone else. However, everyone else in that river needed to confess, needed to be washed clean, needed to repent.[iv] But Jesus is not like everyone else; John knows this. John nearly refuses Jesus this event, as Matthew tells us, But John was hindering him, saying, “I, I have need to be baptized by you, and you, you come to me?!” (v.14). Our English version makes it sound like John was speaking it as if from a script but not acting on it. I think he was acting on it with all the passion of a Palestinian Jewish man. With the emphasis embedded in the original language, John is (literally) astounded[v] by Jesus coming to him; it wouldn’t be farfetched to imagine Jesus’s cousin holding Jesus back by the shoulders with wet hands, confessing such words. John’s astonishment and confession to Jesus showing up in the Jordan will be echoed in Peter’s similar astonishment and confession when Jesus goes to wash his feet. God on the move is always on the move in a way that defies human reason and common sense.

Jesus (lovingly) replies to John’s passion not with chastisement or offense, but acknowledges that John’s not wrong, but here in this moment God is up to something different, something that doesn’t make sense, something that is new, something that will fracture the stagnant and toxic status-quo (the status quo he witnessed all those years ago in his week-long stay in the temple). Matthew tells us, Now, Jesus answered him and said, “You permit me just now; for, in this way, it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice.” At that time, [John] permits him (v15). Jesus links his being baptized to the fulfillment of (divine) justice. But what divine justice is being fulfilled here in the sinless God-man being baptized like a regular sinful human being? It is the justice of God that is fulfilled in identifying[vi] with the plight and predicament of God’s people.[vii] And it is through this identification with God’s people—in their highs and especially their lows—that God’s justice is manifest among and in those who are oppressed (spiritually and politically).[viii] Divine justice, divine righteousness is not about what one has (as if it is something we can possess on our own right); it’s about having a fleshy heart and a humble mind that drives one to live life before God in a human way with the people of God[ix] for the goal of “keeping human life human.”[x]

Matthew continues the story, telling us about what happened after Jesus is baptized, Jesus immediately ascended from the water. And, behold!, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove coming upon him. And, behold!, a voice out of heaven saying, “This one is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!” (vv16-17). Something new is afoot and God is making Godself known in and through Jesus ascending out of the water and the dove descending to alight on him. Here we have clear images of new creation, of love, of life, of liberation. Jesus ascends from the midst of the water like his ancestors before him crossing the Red Sea to find themselves liberated from the oppression of Egypt; the dove descends and lands on firm ground that is the Christ, the son of God and the son of Humanity, much like Noah’s dove after the flood.[xi]

But what is significant here is the way God makes it known (directly and without mediation[xii]) that God identifies with Jesus and Jesus identifies with God. This is my son, the Beloved…Jesus identifies with the people and identifies with God. In that God identifies with Jesus, who identifies with the people, means that God identifies with the people in and through Christ. In this way, Jesus represents God to humanity and humanity to God.[xiii] In Jesus the Christ, the son of God and the Son of Humanity, humanity and God are united forever. In this way, humanity, the yous and mes of this world, participate by faith in being the Beloved with whom God is well pleased.

Conclusion

We hear this story every year, but do we pause long enough to consider the significance of Jesus taking a baptism of repentance he didn’t need? There’s no logical conclusion except for his desire (thus, God’s desire) to identify with the plight of humanity in its ups and especially in its downs. The Sinless one identifies with the sinful ones, and it’s this profound and earthy and fleshy identification that marks the very beginning of Jesus’s active ministry. If you’ve ever wondered if God is for you, Epiphany gives us a resounding HECK YES, GOD IS FOR YOU!

And not just for you when you are up, when you are “too blessed to be stressed,” when you are clean, neat, put together, organized, straightened up, physically killing it at work and at the gym, spiritually killing it in your quiet time and charity. Epiphany highlights and emphasizes that God is with us at our worst: in our desperate need to confess, to be washed, to repent. God is with us when our acts are not together, when we can barely get out of bed, when we just can’t anymore, when we are depressed and despairing, when we are consumed with grief and emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual pain, when we bare tremendous burdens of loss and sorrow, when we want to quit and when we do. God is with us when we fail. God is with us when our shoulders and backs feel as if they are about to break with the burdens. And what’s more? God is with us when society is against us, threatens us when we are different, and condemns us because we have need, because we lack, because we can’t rise to the demands of a system dead set on devouring us.

Epiphany is the unmediated voice of God telling you, telling us, that we are unquestioningly, undoubtedly, unconditionally accepted by God because God chose to identify with us on no other condition than God’s love and pleasure made known in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 117. “The first appearance of the adult Jesus in Matthew’s story takes place in the context of John’s baptism, with Jesus as John’s Galilean ‘follower’ … who receives baptism along with the repentant Judean crowds.”

[iii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 50. “John has been preaching a baptism that signifies repentance. Why would Jesus need to be baptized? What does he need to repent? Our theological tradition has insisted that Jesus is without sin.”

[iv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 51. “Regular ritual washing with water was widely practiced within Judaism and its symbolism of cleansing form sin was understood. This singular experience of ‘baptism’ that John was practicing is more reminiscent of the practice of ‘proselyte baptism.’ When Gentiles converted they were baptized. In extending this practice to everyone, John is in effect declaring that everyone stands in need of conversion, signaling their repentance and turning to God. Even the religious leaders stood in need of baptism.”

[v] Merriam-Webster “Astounded”, “feeling or showing great surprise or wonder”

[vi] France, Matthew, 120. “The most obvious away in which Jesus’ baptism prepares for his mission is by indicating his solidarity with John’s call to repentance in view of the arrival of God’s kingship. By identifying with John’s proclamation Jesus lays the foundation for his own mission to take on where John has left off.”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “One way we might understand Jesus’ presenting himself for baptism is a sign of his solidarity with sinners. In this context, ‘to fulfill all righteousness’ is to be with God’s people, stand in their place, share in their penitence, live their life, die their death.”

[viii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. Righteousness/justice according to Hebrew thought, “It is about the establishment of God’s will that justice should everywhere prevail. God’s righteousness is connected with ‘vindication,’ ‘deliverance,’ and ‘salvation’…God’s righteousness is seen in God’s special regard for those who are powerless or oppressed and stand in need of justice.”

[ix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “Thus righteousness is not to be conceived as a static quality that one possesses (what one is) but rather a matter of what one does in living life before God.”

[x] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context.

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50-51. “That he is baptized in the Jordan (v. 3) recalls the crossing of the Jordan into the promised land. That when he comes up from the water, the Spirit descends like a ‘dove’ reminds us of the links between water and Spirit in Genesis, as ‘a wind from God swept over the waters’ (Gen.:2). After the flood Noah sends out a dove. Themes of creation and new creation are reverberating here.”

[xii] France, Matthew, 122. Divine voice, “…the most unmediated access to God’s own view of Jesus.”

[xiii] France, Matthew, 120. “Further, as Jesus is baptized along with others at the Jordan, he is identified with all those who by accepting John’s baptism have declared their desire for a new beginning with God.” (representation)

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“Salvation will come”

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

It’s mid-November, and we’re coming to the close of our liturgical year. It’s been a long year. Our socio-political landscape is marked by tumult and chaos, no matter what voting party you ascribe to. The ups and downs, the wins and losses, the intermingling of hope and despair are exhausting. We’re tossed about on the waves caused by those who tromp about leaving bodies in the wake, those who have more power, more money, more authority, more status than we do; we’re left wondering if we, the ones being represented, actually matter in this battle for who has the most toys (read: money, weapons, prestige, etc.). It’s hard to feel the ground under our feet when truth feels downright elusive; anyone else feel more and more skepticism toward anyone claiming to tell the truth? A diet of chaos and tumult with a big glass of skepticism never nourishes and always depletes. Humans are not meant to run on fumes for so long.

I don’t know about you, but I’m existentially and physically fatigued.

And that’s not even including our own personal lives and the things that have come and gone. Over the course of a year, we gain a lot, that is true. However, over the course of a year, we lose a lot, too. Some of us have lost family members, partners, and friends, acquaintances and colleagues. Whether to the cold hands of death or the firey fingers of derisive and divisive ideologies demanding cult-like adoration and adherence, there are people who were in our lives at the start of the year who are no longer darkening our doorways. Sadness, sorrow, grief, and regret are pretty wretched snacks; none of which actually satisfy our hunger and only leave a really bad, lingering aftertaste.

I don’t know about you, but I think I really need an intervention, a divine intervention, a good-news intervention. I need a light to pierce this darkness threatening to consume me, you, us, God’s beloved. I need to be interrupted and divorced from the dominant narratives of fear and anger. I need to be relocated in something new, something firm, something that is steady when everything else is rocky. I need a divine “normal” when nothing is normal anymore.

Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.

Isaiah’s words are a warm comfort to the parched soul. Ancient words to a people eager to know God is still their God; a need to know that they’re still seen by their God, that they’re still heard by the God who led them out of captivity in Egypt into the liberation of the reign of God. Through Isaiah, God proclaims that what was will be eclipsed by a new thing God will do in both heaven and on earth; the world will be changed when God shows up.[i]

I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

Isaiah declares to the people that God’s joy and delight will be with God’s people. Not only will God take delight and have joy in God’s people, God’s joy and delight will be with and among the people; they, the children of God, will have access to and participate in that divine joy and delight. Weeping and distress will be no more. Isaiah’s comments about death highlight that life will be lived to the fullest, celebrated with joy and delight, with mercy and grace, by faith and love. For the one who dies when it is time to die will be the one who has lived well and has been alive all their days and those days will be many. They will also be the one who die in God’s delight and joy and will be taken further into God’s delight and joy; those who survive will celebrate such a one, for there will be no need to mourn.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord–
and their descendants as well.

Isaiahs’ imagery turns to the work of the people when God shows up, and the reign of God takes over. It will no longer be toil; it will be work that’s pleasing not only to God’s eye but to the eye of the one who works. What Isaiah is describing here is a lack of exploitation of the laborer; the fruit of their hands will be the product of their own work, and they will enjoy it.[ii] Children will not be born into systems that steal human dignity, reducing them to things that toil to make others rich and some even richer. Isaiah’s words also point to a satisfaction and satiation. There’s an emphasis on a distribution of satisfaction in the work of their hand and a feeling satiated is hinted at. It’s not about grain silos and treasury vaults to store up for one’s self and keeping it from others. Rather, it’s about everyone receiving what they need all the days of their life, each day blessed by God. And even further, it’s about letting the surplus go to those who lack. All are cared for; none go hungry, thirsty, naked, or unhoused.

Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent– its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

God’s people wonder if they’re heard, and they are heard; God’s people wonder if they’re seen, and they are seen. God not only sees them and hears them, God’s presence, Isaiah prophecies, will be so close to them that even before they pray their prayers will be answered.[iii] The people of God will be seen and heard intimately and vulnerably because God will be accessible by all who are seeking God.[iv] Isaiah tells the people, “Salvation will come…”[v] God comes for God’s people, the curse from long ago will be undone, the exile of recent will be terminated forever. Prey and predator will lie down together, they will stop hunting and being hunted, anger and fear will depart; the new heavens and the new earth will even be a place of refuge for animal-kind. But not for the serpent who is, according to Isaiah, reduced to eating dust; while the world, humanity and animal kind will feel relief from the burden of the curse in God, the serpent will bear it out as was long ago promised by God,[vi]

The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.[vii]

Conclusion

Isaiah tells Israel, “salvation comes,” and it will. Isaiah tells Israel, “God comes,” and God will. Isaiah tells Israel, “help comes,” and it will. Because their God is a God of the people, of the humble people who are at their wits end, hanging from the very bottom of the rope, the ones ready to give up. As Isaiah says elsewhere, “a bruised reed [Abba God] will not break, and a dimly burning wick [Abba God] will not quench; [Abba God] will faithfully bring forth justice.”[viii]

We are not abandoned, forsaken, or alone. We are not ungrounded, destabilized, or uprooted. We are not consumed by grief, sorrow, or despair. We are not ignored, dismissed, or forgotten. Isaiah’s words to Israel become words to us today, where we are and as we are. Beloved, God comes; Beloved, salvation comes; Beloved, help comes. For, behold, Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us will be born to us, to identify with us, to dwell with us, to be God close to us, and he will be the light that pierces the darkness forever.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[i] Benjamin D. Sommer, The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 913. “This passage recalls the initial prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah in its exuberant tone and literary style, but the nature of the prediction goes beyond those found in chs. 40-48: The world itself will be transformed in the new age that God brings.”

[ii] Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Louisville: WJK, 2001), 538. “The imagery of joy and absence of weeping is set in contrast to the sorrow through which the community of faith has come. The planting of vineyards and the enjoying of its fruits is simply the converse of Israel’s experience of exploration and conquest.”

[iii] Sommer, “Isaiah,” 913. “In 51.9-11 and chs 63-64, the people wondered whether God listens to their prayers. God answers this question here: In the future, God will answer prayers before the people even utter them.”

[iv] Childs, Isaiah, 538. “Verse 24 once again repeats the theme of chapter 65 of God’s utter accessibility in his calling and answering those who seek his presence.”

[v] Abraham K. Heschel, The Prophets, (New York: JPS, 1962), 158.

[vi] Childs, Isaiah, 538. “The line ‘dust will be the serpent’s food’ is a play on Gen. 3:14, which describes the curse of the serpent at the Fall.”

[vii] Genesis 3:14

[viii] Isaiah 42:3

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Consider the Cost

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

American Evangelicalism and Western Christianity writ large, have done a huge disservice to Christianity broadly speaking. This morning I’m speaking not only as an observer of our socio-religio-political landscape, but as one who came to faith in it. It has been both my experience and observation that much of American Evangelicalism and Western Christianity conceives of the life of the disciple of Christ that is both comfortable, easy, and aligned to traditionalist conceptions promoted within society. The Jesus peddled therein reflects American Evangelicalism and its ideologies rather than the Jesus the gospel and epistle authors took pains to paint for us.

I remember—specifically—that my faith in and obedience to Jesus was going to make my life easier; that I would find myself in states of existential comfort and bliss. I’d be ushered into the spiritual realm, no longer afraid of where I’d end up in death while (intentionally) remaining indifferent (ignorant?) toward the issues of the world because why worry when Jesus is gonna come back and fix it all? Faith was to make me perpetually happy, nice, and too blessed to be stressed. My only two obligations were evangelism and obedience: I was to be a good Christian which meant telling people about Jesus and how great he’d made my life and obeying my authorities in all things which was God’s will. You might be burning in hell (temporally) or heading towards it (spiritually), and that was none of my business really because that was all your choice. My sins were forgiven and that’s all that really mattered, that was the goal of the gospel and of Jesus’s mission in the world. I was just lucky—blessed!!—enough to have decided to find Christ when I did!

But none of this was true. Like a sports car sold to someone suffering the malaise and banality of midlife, I was sold a saccharine Jesus, having little power and agency in the world because he was so conformed to it, embedded (buried?) in the ideas of yesteryear. Becoming Christian was going to solve all my problems; turns out, becoming Christian created more problems than it solved. Here’s why…

Luke 14:25-33

Luke tells us that Jesus addressed the many crowds that were coming together around him (these many crowds were composed of “neutral” people who may become disciples[2]), and he turned and said to them, “If someone comes to me and hates not their father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yet even their own soul, they are not able to be my disciple (v26). Luke’s emphasis here is implied: those following Jesus must know the cost of following.[3] The “cost of discipleship” is not only the burden of the disciples; it’s the burden of any/all someone/s coming to Jesus.[4] There is no way around the reality: to follow Jesus is to also participate in the mission of God in the world as Jesus does; obedience to God by faith and following Jesus necessarily means that they will be confronted with performing intentional acts of disobedience within their private.[5] In other words, it aint easy being Christian.[6] Not even family ties—a vital component of ancient Palestinian life—can get in the way; the follower of Christ must not even let family loyalty hinder them from pursuing God and God’s mission in the world.[7] (This is what the “hate” means in this verse; it is not about having a feeling of ill will or malevolence.) Not even loyalty to one’s own life/livelihood can get in the way of following Christ.[8]

Luke then tells us that Jesus said, Whoever does not carry the cross and comes after me that one is not able to be my disciple (v27). While we may think of this statement through the lens of Good Friday, it isn’t actually about “suffering”; it’s an equivalent thought to hating the family and oneself and broadens the scope of disobedience: it won’t be just private, it will be public and against the established authorities (ecclesiastical and political) who have power to punish you and take your life because of your disobedience.[9] In other words, the whole life of the follower of Christ will be exposed to the potential ramifications of following this man who is God. Everything is up for grabs.

Luke then tells us that Jesus provides a moment of reflection for those listening,[10] For who of you, willing to build a tower, does not (at all) after sitting down estimate the cost whether he has [enough] to complete [it]? So that, lest while he has laid his foundation and is not having power to finish, all those who gaze at it will begin to mock him, saying, `This person began to build and had not the power to finish.’ Or what king, going to come together in war against another king, will not (at all) after sitting down deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand troops to encounter the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? Now if he cannot, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation asking for the terms of peace (vv28-32). The follower of Christ is not headed toward some sort of comfortable and pleasant and easy life; they must think about the cost, likely conflict and confrontation, and what the end will look like.[11] it’s not going to be easy, in fact, it will be hard; and “hard” may be the lightest way to say it. For those who follow Jesus—according to Luke—they will feel the anguish of the decision deep in their bones as their choice begins—at times—to feel unbearable, lonely, and profoundly demanding in terms of forgoing material glory and honor and forsaking the creature comforts of fitting in and following along, including family and friends.[12] According to Luke and Luke’s Jesus, the Christian will be the one who stands out and not because they are so righteous but because they are so hated by the kingdom of humanity. “Authentic discipleship”[13] will force the follower of Christ into a spotlight and will paint a target on their back not because of their obedience to traditionalist conceptions of society and religion but specifically because of their disobedience born from their new life in Christ[14] marked by new ways of being in the world[15] that grate against the status-quo.[16] Participating in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation will do that; never forget that Good Friday was more than a spiritual event.[17]

Therefore, Luke tells us, that Jesus concluded this discourse with,Therefore, in this way, all of you who do not take leave of all the things that are at hand are not able to be my disciple (v33). This last bit isn’t a new command to sell things but, rather, to loosen one’s grip on all that they have. The disciple of Christ, the follower of the Way, the participant in God’s mission and divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world cannot have loyalties placed anywhere else; their only allegiance is to the reign of God, forfeiting their status and position in the kingdom of humanity.[18] For the disciple of Christ, this is not about being intentionally poor, friendless, and rejecting one’s family. Rather, it’s about holding on loose enough that when conformity to the status quo of the kingdom of humanity is demanded—publicly or privately—the disciple of Christ can let go and proceed on the way of the reign of God, to glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor.

Conclusion

The Christian life is hard; this has been the consistent theme of Luke’s presentation of Jesus these many weeks. It’s not easy. It’s not comfortable. It’s not the sure-fire way to be “successful,” popular, or famous. It will not allow you always to be nice to others, always fun to be around, or always good-vibes-only. It will not be the fool proof way toward material blessings in this world or to acquiring favor of the rich and powerful. To follow Christ means to be intractable when it comes to the kingdom of humanity’s tendency toward not only rejecting but violently attacking God’s reign in the world. Christians, according to Luke’s Jesus, cannot side with nation over Christ, cannot side with the status-quo over the laboring of God to bear something new into the world (stress on new, not a retreat to something old), cannot participate in the captivity of our neighbors over fighting for their liberation, cannot become familiar with indifference over feeling the risk and demand of love, and cannot advocate for death over life.

The Christian—the one who follows and is to be as Christ` in the world—is the one who finds themselves at the intersection and epicenter of the temporal and spiritual realms, with a will conformed to God’s will, hands and feet ready to bring God glory by bringing wellbeing to their neighbor, and an eye keen on spotting and a voice ready to call out the violence and destruction of the kingdom of humanity. It’s not about self-righteous, holier-than-thou, clean and pure, self-imposed glory and boasting; it’s about the radical love of God that is the revolutionary love of neighbor. And while I want to comfort you by reminding you that God is with you—for surely God is with you, Beloved—I can’t solely tell you that in good faith and with a good conscience because the Christian walk is hard and I must tell you that. The world would have me sooth you to sleep (back to sleep?), telling you sweet nothings that let you off the hook. But it’s my job to participate in the prophetic calling of God to wake you up. Luke’s Jesus doesn’t want sleepers, but those who can stay awake, call out the discrepancies between what is and could be, and who dare to step disobediently into the void to protect the love, life, and liberation of the neighbor from the aggressive overreach of authority (ecclesial and political). Beloved, this is what it looks like to follow God; consider wisely the cost of such discipleship.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] Green, Luke, 564. “Often in the Lukan account, crowds are presented as pools of neutral person from whom Jesus might draw disciples, and this is clearly the case here.”

[3] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 183. “…[Jesus] warns those who would follow him of the cost of discipleship.”

[4] Green, Luke, 565. “‘Disciples’ does not refer narrowly in this instance to a select group of Jesus’ followers but…to all who, following him, identify with his missions. Such persons are characterized, first, by their distancing themselves form the high cultural value placed on the family network, otherwise paramount in the world of Luke.”

[5] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “Discipleship requires radical obedience. Love of family must not stand in the way.”

[6] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “Now he turns to the crowds around him. It is not only Jerusalem and all it represents that should take heed of the danger of disobedience; it is also this entire crowd that travels with him. If Jerusalem must be disabused of the notion that it will be easy to be the people of God, now this crowd of followers is also disabused of the notion that it will be easy to be a disciple of Jesus.”

[7] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “…to ‘hate’ the family does not mean to have evil sentiments for them, but rather to forsake them for the sake of the kingdom. A disciple of Jesus will not use supposed family responsibility to avoid obedience.”

[8] Green, Luke, 565. “…in this context, ‘hate’ is not primarily an affective quality but a disavowal of primary allegiance to one’s kind…Jesus underscores how discipleship relativizes one’s normal and highly valued loyalties to normal family and other social ties.”

[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “And this is then paralleled by the saying about carrying the cross. Taken in context, this not just a call to sacrifice, as we often think. The cross is an instrument of legal punishment and torture. So to take up the cross is parallel to ‘hating’ the family. A disciple of Jesus must be ready to carry the burden not only of tensions in the family, but even of civil disobedience to the point of legal punishment.”

[10] Gonzalez, Luke, 183. “Pointing to this idea, Jesus uses two brief parables about counting the cost.”

[11] Gonzalez, Luke, 184. “Likewise, one should not become a follower of Jesus without considering the cost, the opposition, and the final outcome.”

[12] Green, Luke, 566. “What outcomes are proposed if resources prove to be deficient? In both cases, the repercussions are tragic—the one resulting in mockery, the other in surrender; hence, a premium is placed on the inadequacy of one’s resources. By extrapolation, then, Jesus insists that such assets as one’s network of kin, so important in Greco-Roman antiquity, are an insufficient foundation for assuring one’s status before God. Dependence on the resources available to a person apart from ‘hating’ family and ‘carrying the cross’ cannot but lead to a tragic outcome. What is required is thoroughgoing fidelity to God’s salvific aim, manifest in one’s identity as a disciple of Jesus.”

[13] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 564. “As Jesus turns to address the crowds traveling with him, he lists allegiance to one’s family network and the shackles that constitute one’s possessions as impediments to authentic discipleship.”

[14] Green, Luke, 565. “As in 9:23, so here Jesus is calling for the reconstruction of one’s identity, not along ancestral lines or on the basis of sone’s social status, but within the new community oriented toward God’s purpose and characterized by faithfulness to the message of Jesus.”

[15] Green, Luke, 567. “This ‘leaving behind’ is cast in the present tense, demarcating this condition not simply as a potential for which disciples must be constantly ready, but as a characteristic feature of the disciples.”

[16] Green, Luke, 564. Luke “…reminds us that the new practices counseled by Jesus in vv 7-14 are not isolated behaviors but, from Luke’s perspective, must flow out of a transformed disposition, reflecting new commitments, attitudes, and allegiances. That is, the conversion that characterizes genuine disciples is itself generative, giving rise to new forms of behavior.”

[17] Green, Luke, 565-566. “…bearing the cross is used as a metaphor of discipleship—indeed, as a requirement for one’s identity as a disciple. Such persons would live as though they were condemned to death by crucifixion, oblivious to the pursuit of noble status, finding no interest in securing one’s future via securing obligations form others or by stockpiling possessions, free to identify with Jesus in his dishonorable suffering.”

[18] Green, Luke, 567. “As is generally the case in Luke, one’s basic commitments are manifest or symbolized in the disposition of ‘all one has.’ Accordingly, the distinctive property of disciples is the abandonment with which they put aside all competing securities in order that they might refashion their lives and identity according to eh norms of the kingdom of God.”

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Not for Law But for Love

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

What, in our lives, brings God glory? I’ll say two things up front: 1. It’s not what you think; and, 2. It’s harder than you think.

Luke 13:10-17

Luke tells us that Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath (v10). Luke gives us a location that Jesus hasn’t been in a while—not since chapter 4, when he was teaching on the Sabbath about bringing “good news to the poor” and “release the captives.”[2] Therefore, given this new scene and its corresponding component parts, Luke is providing his audience a reminder about how Jesus spoke of and understood his mission from God: liberation of the people from oppression. (This is our backdrop.) Also, since he’s in the synagogue on the Sabbath, we can safely assume that another conflict will emerge between Jesus and the religious authorities[3] as human tradition and power is confronted by divine love and mercy. [4]

Luke then tells us, And, behold!, [there was] a woman having a spirit of frailty for 18 years—she was bent double and not able to lift toward the uttermost (v11). Another character is introduced: a woman who was bent over so severely she could not stand up straight for 18 years. She is “burdened” by a spirit that is causing her to suffer, she is doubled-over under the weight of its presence, she is oppressed by evil and the demonic and this evil spirit has refused her the vitality and dignity of divinely created human life.[5] She was minding her own business, going about her task, and was not seeking either attention or healing. However, Jesus saw her[6]—God of very God saw her and cared about her. Then, Now, after perceiving her, [he] called and said to her, “Woman, you have been released from your malady,” and he placed his hands on her, and instantly she was restored/straightened again and she as giving glory to/glorifying God (vv12-13). The healing Jesus brings to this humble and burdened woman is one of “release” and restoration: she is not only released from her malady of being doubled-over but also from the spirit causing the burden; she is also returned to community (Jesus calls her to him in the midst of the people).[7] In a word, Jesus rebukes the evil spirit by declaring she is no longer oppressed and follows it up with laying his hands on her. The word of God spoke, the hand of God touched, and she was liberated, loosed from/set free from her captivity (ἀπολύω). Jesus’s word and touch bring God glory because God’s praise is found on the lips of the one liberated.

But Jesus isn’t the only one who perceives and calls. Luke tells us that the ruler of the synagogue—being indignant because Jesus healed on the Sabbath—answered and was saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which to toil; therefore on these days come and be healed and not [on] the day of the Sabbath” (v14). The religious leader isn’t wrong, it is his job to faithfully keep and study the law[8] and he’s referring to scripture here (but not quoting it (Dt. 5:13)).[9] The Sabbath was a divinely instituted law of God, what “ought to be done” was rest and not work. Here Jesus finds himself confronted by the evil Spirit in the woman, and the evil spirit[10] deeply embedded in the atmosphere around him personified by the ruler of the synagogue: law has privilege over the people.[11] This ruler of the synagogue—privileging the law over the person thus participating in the evil embedded in the atmosphere[12] —would’ve added “another umpteen centuries” to this woman’s burden rather than “break” the law to release her. Jesus, however—privileging the person over the law and thus confronting the evil embedded in the atmosphere[13]—liberated and released her even on the Sabbath. Which action caused God to be praised?[14]

Not only is Jesus’s ministry being characterized as one of “release,”[15] the very laws of God, God’s word, God’s son, God’s mission in the world is also being so characterized by “release.”[16] Luke tells us that Jesus, the lord, answered and said [to the ruler of the synagogue and the crowd], “Hypocrite! Do not everyone of you releases their cow or donkey from the manger and after leading it away gives it water? But this woman—being a daughter of Abraham—Satan bound her ten and eight years, was it not necessary [for her] to be loosed from this imprisonment on the day of the Sabbath? (vv15-16). Luke emphasizes Jesus’s authority to challenge the authority of the ruler of the synagogue. Even though the ruler of the synagogue tried to challenge Jesus and reassert his authority,[17] Jesus returns the favor. He also quotes scripture, but highlights the hypocrisy in that, according to the text, not even animals are supposed to work, thus Dt. 5:14 goes ignored.[18] Here Jesus becomes the one who has the authority to both interpret the law and scripture and God’s will and purposes in the world and opts to break the law to liberate a daughter of Abraham.[19] Here the ruler and the crowd are exposed as the ones who do not know God’s will and who do not understand the law and it’s purpose.[20] Here Jesus responds to the ruler’s “ought to be done” with his own “ought to be done”: healing, release, restoration, liberation for all humanity,[21] especially those who are a [children] of Abraham. She not only has some place in the children of Israel, but has a significant place marked by being one of the people of God who has dignity and deserves to receive God’s mercy and liberation[22] and is given a voice to glorify God which is the characteristic of the people of God.[23]

Luke closes with telling us that not only did the woman praise God, but so did the people who witnessed the deed and the subsequent exchange.[24] Luke writes, and all the crowd was rejoicing because of all the glorious things that were happening through him (v17b).

Conclusion

So, again, I’ll ask the question: What, in our lives, brings God glory?

I mentioned earlier that it’s not what you think. By this I mean that it’s not by adhering to some austere and severe way of life, it’s not embedded in some form of self-harm/mutilation (either spiritually or materially), it’s not at the end of a pilgrimage or fast or bible-study/reading, it’s not the pot of gold at the end of being strong and powerful, it’s not in our success no matter how much we give God the credit, it’s not about perfect worship and excellent doctrine, and it’s not even by clinging to the law (either human or divine) and upholding it without fail. Why? Because none of those deeds puts God and our neighbor first, and it, frankly, devalues human life to the point of being unimportant and down-right disposable, only any good by ho it serves some law. In any of these actions, as good and holy as any of them sound, there is no room for God and for our neighbor.

I also mentioned, earlier, that it’s harder than you think. By this I mean that even though it’s not about the deeds mentioned above it doesn’t mean that we bring God glory by just going along with the crowd and adhering to the kingdom of humanity and its rules and structures without question. It’s also not as easy as just choosing to be nice and people pleasing. It’s hard because we must find our identity not only in Christ but also find ourselves empowered by the Holy Spirit to be as Christ in the world and this means, in many ways, participating in the mission of God as Jesus did. Thus, it’s hard because we must be curious; we must be willing to be the fodder for challenge; we must find our voice to ask questions—specifically against the powers that control the narratives and institutions of the kingdom of humanity; we must locate the gumption to call out lies and falsehoods knowing that it might/will cause our social, political, ecclesiastical, occupational, and (even) physical demise. We must allow our faith and love of God and others to determine our posture in the world, and we must do so daily and without foreknowledge. Why is it harder than you think? Because to bring God glory caused Jesus to lose his life.

So, what does bring God glory? Jesus forever sets the answer to the question for us: by making sure people are liberated from oppression (both spiritually and materially). This means, quite frankly, that we participate in the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation, being willing to break the law as necessary to make sure our neighbors—burdened by the evil of the age that weighs them down and prevents them from having fully life—are released from their captivity within the kingdom of humanity. As Christians who have been liberated by Jesus to love God, let us also love our neighbor in and through the love that God has loved us in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and let us bring life where there is death, and sweet divine release and liberation where there is captivity. Love releases and sets free; therefore, beloved, let us love as we have been so loved by God through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 520-521. “There, when teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, Jesus proclaimed ‘good news to the poor,’ ‘the good news of the kingdom of God’…Recalling that well-established script, we may assume that Luke has chosen at this fresh point of departure in the narrative to remind us of a the central concerns of Jesus’ ministry and, thus, to present Jesus engaged in the characteristic activity by means of which he fulfills  his divine mission.”

[3] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 173. “This well-known passage is a further sign of the growing controversy between Jesus and the religious Leaders of his nation.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 173. “For in this text we have not just a miracle of healing, but the convergence of ancient and seemingly invincible powers, all coming to meet that Sabbath day in that synagogue.”

[5] Gonzalez, Luke, 173-174. “The point is that the woman cannot stand up straight, and that is demonic…With that woman there comes into the synagogue what we religious folk often try to forget: the reality of the power of evil, the reality of human suffering.”

[6] Green, Luke, 522.

[7] Green, Luke, 522-523. “When Jesus sees her, he does not go to her but calls her to him, thus inviting her to join him in front of those gathered and so to join him at the focal point of this scene. Locating this woman of such low status thus is not unrelated to the healing moment, but is directly relevant as a symbolization of her restoration within her community.”

[8] Green, Luke, 523. “The role of the synagogue ruler was to maintain the reading and faithful teaching of the law…”

[9] Green, Luke, 523. “He does not even cite the relevant texts, but grounds his view in what ‘ought to be done’—that is, in the divine will.” The woman can be healed tomorrow.

[10] Gonzalez, Luke, 174. “The confrontation points to the always lurking possibility that very good religious principles may be turned into allies of the powers of evil.”

[11] Gonzalez, Luke, 174. “On the one hand, in that woman’s suffering Satan himself confronts him. On the other, in the entire atmosphere around him, in the very law of Israel, in the leader of the synagogue, the weight of tradition seems to say that there is nothing to be done.”

[12] Gonzalez, Luke, 174. “The leader of the synagogue was defending religious principles derived from the very law of God. Yet in that very defense he was siding with the powers of evil that held the woman bent.”

[13] Green, Luke, 521. “From this ethnomedical perspective, the, this woman’s illness has a physiological expression but is rooted in a cosmological disorder. Because Luke has presented Jesus as the divine agent of salvation in whose ministry the kingdom of God is made present and in whose ministry the domain of Satan is rolled back, Luke’s depiction of this woman’s illness prepares us for a redemptive encounter of startling proportions.”

[14] Gonzalez, Luke, 174. “Jesus faces the bent-over woman, oppressed by the weight of Satan himself. To her oppression of eighteen years the religious leaders would add another of umpteen centuries: It is the Sabbath! It is a day for religious matters! Jesus saw the woman, and he called her, and he spoke to her, and he laid his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.”

[15] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 518.

[16] Green, Luke, 519. “…Jesus’ encounter with this woman and his ensuing interpretation of her liberation as a necessary manifestation of the divine will, an outworking of the presence of the kingdom, on this day, the Sabbath. That is, the intrusion of the indignant synagogue ruler into Jesus’ encounter with the women bent over (v 14) provides Jesus the opportunity to interpret that healing as a fulfillment of God’s purpose ,and, thus, of Jesus’ mission (vv 15-21).”

[17] Green, Luke, 523. Ruler of the Synagogue addresses the people and not Jesus, “In this way he publicly challenges Jesus’ authority as a teacher and reasserts himself as the authorized interpreter of Scripture.”

[18] Green, Luke, 524. Ruler of Synagogue’s allusion to Deut 5:13 causes Jesus to return to that text “in order to remind this debate partner that the prohibition to work extends not only to human beings but also to oxen and donkeys (Deut 5:14).”

[19] Green, Luke, 520. “…Luke introduces Jesus as ‘Lord,’ then presents him as one with authority to interpret God’s salvific purpose. Directly or indirectly, both synagogue ruler and Jesus appeal to the Scriptures, but Jesus is represented as the divinely sanctioned hermeneut.”

[20] Green, Luke, 524. Setting up a series of parallels with ref. to Deut 5:14, “From this exegesis of the Deuteronomic law and contemporary practices based on it, Jesus is able to expose the ruler of the synagogue and those who think as he does as ‘hypocrites’—that is, as persons who do not understand God’s purpose, who therefore are unable to discern accurately the meaning of the scriptures, and therefore, whose piety is a sham.”

[21] Green, Luke, 524. “On a deeper sense, though, Jesus seems content to engage the argument just as the synagogue ruler had left it, with reference to the devein will. What ‘ought’ to take place, he insists, is this: This woman out to be set free from satanic bondage on the Sabbath.”

[22] Green, Luke, 525. “…Jesus’ God’s covenantal promise and the extension of God’s covenantal mercy to Abraham….She is ‘a daughter of Abraham,’ and appellation that might signal heroic faithfulness in some other literature, but with a profoundly different significance in the Lukan narrative. She is thus presented as one of those persons denoted by others has having no place among the people of God, normally excluded from social intercourse and certainly not highly regarded for their fidelity, and yet raised up by God as children of Abraham in the sene of becoming the recipients of the mercy reserved for Abraham by God.”

[23] Green, Luke, 525-526. “She and other children of Abraham in the Lukan narrative evidence how God’s promise to Abraham is fulfilled through the activity of Jesus and how the recipients of liberation through Jesus’ ministry are thus confirmed as Abrahm’s children.”

[24] Green, Luke, 526. “He had attempted to shame Jesus but, in the end, he and those with him who oppose Jesus are shamed as the crowd sides with Jesus This also means that they side with the narrator, attributing to Jesus the status of authoritative teacher and recognizing in the ‘wonderful things he was doing’ the gracious hand of God…”

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The Unity of Blood and Water

Psalm 97:11-12 Light has sprung up for the righteous, and joyful gladness for those who are truehearted. Rejoice in Abba God, you righteous, and give thanks to Abba God’s holy Name.

Introduction

Unity. This is a word that’s thrown around a lot, but we never quite grasp it. We’re definitionally caught between polarized ideas like total and complete acceptance and the bare minimum of tolerance, caught in a torturous, cosmic game of monkey in the middle. The issues here are two-fold, respectively: 1. if unity is about total and complete agreement in all things, then when there is disagreement or friction of some sort, the other person/place/entity becomes “toxic”, and 2. If it’s about the bare minimum of putting up with someone, then this will breed animosity rather than unity because tolerance never demands tangible understanding or the need to change oneself (not to mention that the demand for tolerance often creates a situation by which the victim is yoked to her victimizer, the hated with their enemy). If this is all we have to define unity… well, aren’t we up a creek without a paddle.

Yet, Jesus expects the community of believers, his disciples, to live in unity not only with God and Jesus (by the power of the coming Spirit) but also with each other (here and also by the power of the coming Spirit). And the goal of this unity (real, tangible, material unity) will be the means by which the world (out there) will not only know the disciples are followers of Christ by their love, but that Christ is God’s child, sent into the world to love the world and make it thoroughly human.[1] This level of unity is oneness and is more than niceness and politeness and tolerating or agreeing all the time on all things. It’s something otherworldly; it’s the very heart of our triune God.

John 17:20-26

John writes, Now, not on behalf of these only [here with me right now] I pray, but also on behalf of the ones who believe in me through their word, (v. 20). The subject of this prayer by Jesus is “the unity of the community.”[2] The community is both the community of believers existing immediately in that history and all the ones to come who believe through the proclamation of the gospel from these disciples into the world.[3] We—you and me—are addressed in Jesus’s prayer because it extends through time.[4] What’s really fascinating to me is that we are being directly addressed and are now the ones being immediately prayed for so that future people may hear the word of God in the proclamation of Christ and believe. In other words, we are—right now—the gathered community to whom Jesus is currently speaking and is yoking to an unknown group of Christians who will believe because of our witness (in word and deed and by our unity).[5]

Knowing about whom Jesus is praying, we come to the content of the prayer: the “essential unity” of the community, their “oneness.”[6] John’s Jesus says, … so that all [who believe from here on out] may be one just as you, Abba, are in me and I in you (v.21a). According to John, the oneness Jesus is expecting among the community of believers is of the same essence that is the oneness between God the Creator and God the Reconciler (between Abba God and Jesus the child). By doing theological math, if the Creator and the reconciler are one through the mutuality of Love, then the community, too, will be one through love (ἀγάπη). Concurrently, this love between Jesus and Abba God didn’t remain between Jesus and God but contained in it and extended from it the love of the cosmos, according to John (3:16). Thus, the community—formed and informed by the love of God made known in Christ—will be about and participate in this containing and extending the love of God for the cosmos because Jesus’s love of Abba God was also his love for those whom God loves.[7] This love and mutuality is the foundation of the community’s oneness and unity.

Here we get to the essence of the unity: the mutuality of responsibility and dependence. The community’s mutual responsibility and dependence reflects the mutual responsibility and dependence existing between Jesus and God. Jesus does not do Jesus’s own will but what Jesus sees Abba God do, thus to encounter to Jesus is to encounter God which then verifies that God sent Jesus (Jesus is dependent on God and is responsible for representing God to humanity through his words and deeds). This type of mutuality of dependence and responsibility is to be reflected in the community’s representative role in the world so that their unity—which is of the same essence of God and Jesus’s unity[8]—is manifested in such a way that others are brought into an encounter with God through their witness, which witnesses to Christ in their unity, as John writes, so that also they may be in us so that the cosmos may believe that you, you sent me (v.21b). It is through the community’s mutual dependence on and responsibility for the other (in the community and, we could argue, those outside of the community) that will be the thing that emphasizes the divine origin of Jesus.[9]

In other words, the unity of the community will be based on faith, love, and solidarity and not on things like doctrine, dogma, ritual, and traditionalism. The unity of the community is built on and from the unity of God and Jesus and thus is not something that is built with wood and stone, but through blood and water[10]. The community’s unity is a reality of the reign of God[11] and supersedes, transcends, and challenges the unity that is of the kingdom of humanity built on principals reflecting adherence to a specific ideology and a status quo. The unity of the community that is of the reign of God always and forever moves forward and defies and denies the ability to solidify it in a code or a static algorithm. It can happen again and again and again[12] and in new and different ways that always keeps God and God’s beloved in view. This is why the unity of the community becomes the task of the community, so that it can remain participant in the way Christ is proclaimed into the world[13] and brings others into an encounter with God by the event of faith.[14] As John writes, And the glory which you have given me I, I have given to them, so that they may be one just as we [are] one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to an end as one, so that the cosmos may know that you, you sent me and loved them just as you loved me (vv. 22-23).

Thus, the goal and completion of the community is its unity which is its representation of Christ in the world. The glory that is communicated from Abba God to Jesus (and vice-versa) is the same glory communicated from Jesus to the community (and vice-versa) that finds it’s unity in its Christocentric mutual dependence on and responsibility for the other. Glory is brought to God when the community –united by faith in and founded on the love of Christ—gives the world reasons to glorify God through their word (Christ) and their deeds (unity and love).[15] The unity of the community is a result of Christ’s presence with the community; as Christ is present with the community—united by faith and works and speaks in love and deeds—those outside the community not only see but experience the love of God in Christ via the community.[16] This isn’t a social club or a lunch bunch; these are things of the kingdom of humanity mimicking what the disciples of Christ should be. Rather, this community is built on deep identification with each other, an acknowledgement and celebration of difference, and a solidarity that unites stronger than genetic material; this is an “otherworldly” level of community, a divine yoke transcending all human made lines that divide.[17]

Conclusion

Unity isn’t something we manufacture; it’s something that happens through us when we take another person seriously. Our unity as this church isn’t because we all think the same, act the same, or speak the same. Our unity as this community is built on the invisibility of the unconditional, never stopping, always and forever love of God made known to us in the proclamation of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our unity as this community is built on our faith in Christ and our mutual assertion that because of Christ, God is truthful and trustworthy. And it doesn’t stop there. Because of our faith in Christ and our union with God through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are caused to see our neighbor as ourselves and to build deep and mutual dependence on and responsibility for our neighbor, especially those sitting here in the pews alongside us. But this faith and love that is the foundation and essence of this community is not to be contained only within the walls of this community because Jesus’s mission—which is now ours by the power of the Spirit in and among us—was to go into the world bringing God’s mission of the divine revolution of love life and liberation to the beloved. Our love for each other, our union and solidarity together, is the foundation of our task in the world; from this unity and oneness, God’s name will be hallowed and God’s will done on earth as in heaven.

[1] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context, “keeping human life human”

[2] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) 512. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966).

[3] Bultmann, John, 512. “And at this point (v. 20) we are told explicitly that Jesus’ intercession does not just relate to the historical situation, in which the Evangelist makes him speak it, but is made for all believers, now and in the future.”

[4] Bultmann, John, 512. “…the prayer for the community’s unity consciously embraces its extension through time.”

[5] Bultmann, John, 512.

[6] Bultmann, John, 512.

[7] Bultmann, John, 513. “The unity of his own is to be of the same kind as that between the Father and Son; i.e., therefore, just as the Son’s being is a being of the Father, and vice-versa, so the being of the individual believers must be a being for each other—in the bond of ἀγάπη…”

[8] Bultmann, John, 513. “Such unity has the Father and Son as its basis. Jesus is the Revealer by reason of this unity of Father and Son; and the oneness of the community is to be based on this fact. That means it is not founded on natural or purely historical data, nor can it be manufactured by organization, institutions or dogma; these can at best only bear witness to eh real unity, as on the other they can also give a false impression of unity.”

[9] Bultmann, John, 513. “And just as the Father is encountered in the Son, because the Son is nothing by himself individually, so within the community no one ought to see, or cherish, or criticize the individual character of his fellow believer, but ought to look on him only as a member of the community. It is not personal sympathies, or common aims that constitute the unity, but the word that is alive in them all and that gives the community its foundation; and each member represents the demand and gift of the word over against his fellow believer, in that he is for him.”

[10] Bultmann, John, 514. “…the community is united, in that it no longer belongs to the world but is totally orientated on the revelation event that takes place in Jesus and is an eschatological phenomenon.”

[11] Bultmann, John, 513-514. “Because the authenticity of the proclamation cannot be controlled by institutions or dogmas, and because the faith that answers the word is invisible, it is also true that the authentic unity of the community is invisible—even if it should testify to itself …in the ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν. It is invisible because it is not a worldly phenomenon at all; this the meaning of the second ἵνα-clause, which picks up the first…”

[12] Bultmann, John, 514. “Christendom is not a dimension withing world-history…Rather, this unity takes place again and again in the proclamation of faith.”

[13] Bultmann, John, 514-515. “Vv.22f provide fresh motivation for the prayer for the unity of the community; once again on the part of the world is stated to be its ultimate goal (v.23b), but in addition to that the unity is described as the purpose and fulfilment of Jesus’ work of revelation.”

[14] Bultmann, John, 514. “If there is such an eschatological community in the cosmos, in history, then there is always the possibility of faith for the world. The community is of course always a cause of irritations for the world, and can inflame its anger…But this means that the possibility of deciding for the Revealer is also always given to it, and this was and always will be the means of overcoming the offence….and that is why the prayer for the community is at the same time an intercession for the world, in which…the community has been set its task.”

[15] Bultmann, John, 516. “In fact one can say: that he has given them his δόξα means that after his departure they are to represent him in the world. It means that the ‘history of Jesus will not become an episode in the past, but will remain continually present in the world as the eschatological event in the eschatological community.”

[16] Bultmann, John, 516. “…that he is present in the community as the Revealer, is to find its crowning glory in the oneness of the community…”

[17] Bultmann, John, 517. “Without doubt…the community’s oneness expresses the fact that it is the eschatological community, in which the world is annulled, and in which the differences of human individuality, that are typical of any human association and in fact help to make it up, are simply excluded. This unity stands for the radical other0worldly orientation of the community, that binds all individual believers and every empirical association of faith into a supra-worldly unity, across and beyond all differences of a natural, human kind.”

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“Rescued from Danger…Sealed for Thy Courts”: The Path of Easter!

Psalm 118: 14-16a Abba God is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of Abba God has triumphed!

Introduction

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!!

This morning, our calcified hearts prone to wander from God find rest in divine sealing made known in the unsealed, empty tomb. We who are enticed and attracted to the shiny bobbles and fluffy lures of the kingdom of humanity are now ushered into something truly new, truly beaming, truly spectacular, truly built of the divine, eternal, never tarnishing substance that is the love of God for you, the Beloved. This morning, despite our wandering, we come face to face with God in Christ, the one who lives and doesn’t die.

Even when we decided to wander from God, to turn our backs, to forget the ancient and good story, to tread and tromp on everyone and everything, to estrange ourselves, to misjudge and prejudge others unto their condemnation, and even when we preferred acts of violence and death, God sought us and found us as we were wandering “from the fold of God”[1] and set us right. This morning, the exposure we felt on Friday becomes the warm light of the risen Son, bringing us into himself, into the lap of Abba God, and wrapping us up like newborn babes in the warm blanket of the Holy Spirit. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING stands between God and God’s beloved, not even death.

Today we’re a people set back on course, eyes lifted, faces turned, fleshy hearts thumping with divine love, hands and feet eager to spread the liberation we have received, and voices ready to call forth life even when all that surrounds us in the world is death. Today we become a people who dares to believe this crazy, far-out story because today become a people brought to life by this good and ancient word of God.

Luke 24:1-12

Now after the women were made full of fear they bowed their faces to the earth; [the two men in clothing shining like lightening] said to the women, “Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)

At the end of chapter 23, Luke mentions that the women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James, and some other women (24:10a)—saw, from a distance, where Joseph of Arimathea placed Jesus’s body (v.55).[2] It’s these women who now take center stage in the reception of the good news that Jesus is raised. As the men fled, the women held their ground initially in the distance and now the first ones on the scene in Luke’s resurrection story.[3]

Having seen where Joseph placed Jesus’s body (23:55), and it being the first day of the week and still in the depths of early morning, these women went to the tomb bearing the spices they prepared on Friday night (v.1 and 23:56). Keeping in mind that they prepared spices on Friday night, these women are not examples of blind faith despite the facts; for them, as well as for the men, Jesus was dead—very dead. They planned to anoint his body,[4] which wasn’t done in the rush getting his body down from the cross and into a tomb before the sunset and curses arrived (cf. Dt 21:23).

Now, when they arrived at the tomb, they found the stone having been [mysteriously[5]] rolled away from the tomb (v.2). Curious to see what happened, the women entered the tomb. And after entering the tomb they did not find the body of Jesus (v. 3). Luke then writes, while the women were perplexed/in doubt about what had happened, behold! two men approached the women [dressed] in clothing shining like lightening (v.4). The women were confused, and now they became full of fear; upon being approached by two men in dazzling clothing, Luke tells us, they bowed their faces to the earth (5a). In other words, they suddenly dropped to the ground because they were full of terror. While this is a natural and biblical response to angelic visitors, it’s also a human reaction. These women came to anoint Jesus’s body, and not only is it missing (stolen, maybe?) but now two men show up and approach them (Are we in trouble? Are they going to harm us?). Luke does a marvelous job wedding together the spiritual and temporal realities of this story growing in dramatic tension.

Luke then writes that the two gleaming men said to the women, “why are you seeking the one who lives with the dead? He is not here but was raised” (v.5b-6a).For one moment, suspend your judgment and how well you know this story. Stay here with the women hearing, for the first time, that Jesus—whom they saw crucified on Friday and sealed up in a tomb—is not dead but alive because he is risen! Instantaneously, your world is turned upside down…again! As they looked at each other (now more in astonishment and less in fear) they begin the journey of faith as it dawns on them (in their hearts and minds) that death itself has a mortal weakness: God…Is it possible? Is  Jesus alive? Imagine the grief they carried giving birth to hope…hope daring to rise to life in the depths of a tomb meant for the hopelessness of death…

Then Luke tells us that the two men exhort them, remember what he spoke to you while he was still in galilee, saying it is necessary that the son of humanity be betrayed into the hands of sinful humanity and to be crucified and on the third day to be raised up.” And as the men remind them, these women remembered [Jesus’s] words and after returning from the tomb they announced[6] all these things to the twelve and to the all the remaining people (vv. 8-9). That which they hadn’t fully grasped they did as the celestial men spoke to them;[7] they heard,[8] they believed, and they went.[9] If there were ever three phrases that sum up good discipleship, these are they.[10] The women didn’t linger, tarry, hesitate, debate, and didn’t dismiss because this message didn’t align with their social, political, or religious status-quo. They ran home and immediately told the disciples what they heard. Good news arrives!

And then it’s dismissed. Luke informs us, [the women and their words] appeared before [the men] as if silly, idle nonsense; they were disbelieving the women (v.11). The good news the women brought falls flat at the feet of the men they told; [11] save one. Peter is the only who listened and is intrigued enough to run to the tomb, and after stooping to look he saw only the piece of fine linen and then he departed toward home marveling at what had happened (v.12). According to Luke, Peter not only denied Jesus but then didn’t tell the others that the women were correct; he just remained silent and amazed. [12]  Here, Luke draws purposeful attention to the faithfulness of the women who proclaimed the good news even when it sounded ludicrous.[13] They didn’t linger among the dead; inspired by faith,[14] they ran straight into (new) life, spreading the good news of the one who is living, the risen Jesus the Christ. In this moment filled with swelling divine life, the women were resistant to wandering. They ran toward the risen Christ boldly entering a new reality and order where death succumbs to life.[15]

Conclusion

For us who are prone to wander because we forsake and forget the way of the reign of God, this morning we are given Christ himself—all of him—so that we never forget or forsake the way. For us who are addicted to treading on and tromping about the land and on others, we have received a new way to walk in the world demonstrated by the running feet of the women: swift and sensitive, eager to bring good news rather than pain! For us who find ourselves estranged by our own doing and having become strangers to God, to our neighbor, to creation, and to ourselves we are beckoned out of the oppressive col of self-imposed tombs of isolation and are given a community with God, with others, with creation, and with ourselves built on and by the love of Christ. For us who know the pain of being caught in the captivity of misjudging and prejudging others according to our own human standards, we are refused that plumbline and, instead, we are given divine love, life, and liberation as our new metrics of good and right. For us who are drunk with violence and death, we receive what we do not deserve this morning: peace and life eternal.

This morning we’re given something completely new, completely different, completely strange to the kingdom of humanity. We are given life, love, and liberation. And while we benefit from this, we are given these things specifically so we can participate in God’s divine mission of the revolution of love, life and liberation in the world for the God’s beloved. We are refused the option of living as if we’ve not heard, seen, felt, tasted, smelled the good news. We are charged to take up the way of Christ and live as if the Cross isn’t the end of the story but the beginning. The women who were encountered in the empty tomb were charged to stop looking for the living among the dead; their lives were never ever the same.[16] So it is with us: our call to be disciples taking up their cross and follow Jesus isn’t gone, it’s the only way we have because the path we learned from the kingdom of humanity is forever blocked off.[17] This morning, we’re not the same as we were yesterday morning; this morning, we’ve encountered an empty tomb and heard the announcement from the celestial realm: he is not here he is risen! How could we ever live in the old way? Everything is now new.

Today, our willful and chaotic wandering collides with the steady path of Christ that is dangerous and not careful, that is risky and not safe, that is radical and not status quo, that will afflict and not always comfort.[18] Today we live under the weight of the question, Why are you seeking the one who lives among the dead? (v. 5). Go, Beloved, and live radically and wildly in the name of God and for the well-being of your neighbor and do so in a way that brings God glory and might get you in a little bit of good trouble. You’ve been summoned into life not death, into love and not indifference, into liberation and not captivity.

[1] Fom the hymn “Come Thou Fount”

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 272. “In 23:55 Luke directed our attention to the women who were present at the burial, and now he continues telling us about the activities of these women once the Sabbath rest had passed.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 272. “It is interesting to note that here again Luke will tell parallel but different stories about the women disciples and the men…These women have been present, but have remained mostly in the background of the story, even since Luke introduced them in 8:2-3. In the narrative of the passion and burial, even while others deny Jesus or flee, these women stand firm, although at a distance. Now they come to the foreground as the first witnesses to the resurrection.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 272-273. “They, no less than the rest, believe that in the cross all has come to an end. It is time to return home to their more traditional lives. But before they do that, they must perform one least act of love for their dead Master: they must anoint his body.”

[5] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 837. “How was the stone removed? Luke’s account neglects such detail, for he wants to move quickly to the pivotal discovery of an empty tomb.”

[6] Gren, Luke, 838-839. “‘Luke underscores the faithfulness of their testimony by noting that they announced ‘all these things’—that is, what they had observed, what they had been told, and the new significance they attributed to Jesus’ passion and the absence of his corpse.”

[7] Green, Luke, 837-838. “These women come looking for Jesus, but they want to minister to him, and as they quickly discover, because they lack understanding, they are looking in the wrong place. The angels first admonish them, employing language that is reminiscent of Jesus’ rejoinder to the Sadducees in 20:38: God is not the God of the dead but of the living! That is, in spite of their devout intentions in coming to anoint Jesus’ body, these women have failed to grasp Jesus’ message about the resurrection and, thus, have not taken with appropriate gravity the power of God.”

[8] Gren, Luke, 838. “The antidote for this miscalculation is remembrance. The women are addressed as person who had themselves received Jesus’ teaching in Galilee, and the angel’s message fuses Jesus’ predictions during the Galilean phase of his ministry…Thus they are reminded that the career of the Son of Man blends the two motifs of suffering and vindication, and that in doing so he fulfills the divine will.”

[9] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The women do not see the resurrected Jesus. The two figures at the tomb (presumably angels) simply tell them that he has risen just as he had foretold, and they believe. Luke does not even say, as do Matthew and Mark (Matt. 28:7; Mrk 16:7), that they are instructed to tell the rest of the disciples (an injunction they follow in Matthew, but not in Mark). They simply hear the witness of the two men at the tomb, and apparently on their own initiative go and tell the others.”

[10] Gren, Luke, 838. Seim qtd in. “Their reception of the resurrection message ‘confirms their discipleship and the instruction they have received as disciples.’”

[11] Green, Luke, 839-840. “The gap between male and female disciples widens, as the faithful account of the women falls on the cynical and unbelieving ears of the men. Nothing more than useless chatter—this is how their announcement is evaluated and discarded. This can be explained in at least to aways. First, the earlier situation of the women disciples is being repeated int eh case of their male counterpart; failing to grasp Jesus’ teaching regarding his suffering and resurrection, they cannot make sense of the news share d with them. At the same time, however, Luke’s ‘all this’ (v 8) cannot but include the message they had received form the angels, so that the men were given access to the significance of recent events. The dismissive response of the men is therefore better explained with reference to the fact that those doing the reporting are women in a world biased against the admissibility of women as witnesses.” Peter’s response is all the more positive.

[12] Green, Luke, 840. Amazement is not faith nor does it hint at the eventual genuine faith. “Unlike the women, [Peter] returns home with no new message to share.”

[13] Gonzalez, Luke, 273. “The contrast is such that one cannot avoid the conclusion that it is purposeful, and that Luke is stressing the faith of these women who have traveled with Jesus from Galilee, and who were the only ones who remained true throughout the entire story of the betrayal. Even though the later course of church history, with its expectation of entirely male leadership, would lead us to think otherwise, it is they who bring the message of the resurrection to the eleven, and not vice versa.”

[14] Green, Luke, 836. “The Evangelist has repeatedly noted the incapacity of the disciples to grasp this truth…but now he signals a breakthrough on the part of the women. If the male disciples continue in their obtuseness, and thus lack of faith, at least Peter response to the witness of the women by going to the tomb. His behavior portends at last the possibility of a more full understanding of Jesus’ message on their part.”

[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 274. “The resurrection is not the continuation of the story. Nor is it just its happy ending. It is the beginning of a new story, of a new age in history.”

[16] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “But the truth is that the resurrection of Jesus, and the dawning of the new with him, poses a threat to any who would rather continue living as if the cross were the end of the story. The women on their way to the tomb were planning to perform one last act of love for Jesus, and then would probably just return home to their former lives. Peter and the rest would eventually return to their boats, their nets, and the various occupations. But now the empty tomb opens new possibilities. Now there is no way back to the former life in Galilee. Even though Luke tells us that Peter simply went home after seeing the empty tomb, we will soon learn that this was not the end of it: Peter himself would eventually die on his own cross.”

[17] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The resurrection is a joyous event; but it also means that Jesus’ call for his disciples to take up their cross and follow him is still valid. The road to the old ways in Galilee is now barred. The resurrection of Jesus impels them forward to their own crosses, and indeed, we know that several of the disciples suffered violent death as the result of their following and proclaiming the Risen One.”

[18] Gonzalez, Luke, 276. “The full message of Easter is both of joy and of challenge. It is. The announcement of unequaled and final victory, and the call to radical, dangerous, and even painful discipleship.”

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“Prone to Wander”: Into the Tomb

Psalm 114:7-8 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of Abba God, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.

Introduction

A day of silence. A day of eyes dampened with doubt, confusion, fear, anger, and even despair. It’s not just the women who cry; the men cry, too; no one is exempt from the overwhelming barrage of emotions that comes when hopes are dashed, expectations go up in flames, and faith feels shattered. The one whom they loved, the one whom they followed, the one whom they would die for—so they claimed—had been killed, and his body lay in a sealed tomb, guards flanking the massive stone. They didn’t even have time to prepare his body properly before the Sabbath moon rose gently in the sky reminding them that what was was no longer …

In the silence of that Sabbath, thoughts of what happened, how could this be, what was it all for, is this really it paraded about the minds of the disciples as they forced themselves to rest, no recourse to business of banal tasks to keep their minds occupied. They were stuck in this moment of death, like Jesus in that tomb. The extra layer for some (all?) is that they didn’t stick around, defend, follow Jesus all the way… They ran, denied, hid, betrayed. Their consciences were plagued with loss and confusion and burdened with the uncomforting, weighted-blanket of failure and guilt—heavier for some, lighter for others. These precious souls (no matter their guilt and failure, their denial and betrayal) had to endure the sun-down to sun-down plus a few more hours to receive the actual ending of the story. On this night, all those years ago, the disciples of Christ sighed, wiped away tears, and wondered what it was all about… Death, and all its children, held them hostage like Christ sealed in the tomb.

On this night, all those years ago, the disciples died with Christ. What they didn’t know was that the story wasn’t as over …

Romans 6:3-11[1]

In Romans 6, Paul anchors the silence of Saturday into the death of Good Friday and the life of Easter Sunday. For Paul, those who follow Christ follow him in the ways they speak and act and through deep identification with Christ even if it means going into the tomb with Christ on Good Friday. For Paul, this identification with Christ in Christ’s death is the key to the identification with Christ in his resurrected life. For Paul, this is how believers participate in the entirety of the Easter event, from beginning to end, from death into new life. In other words, our Romans passage is a clear distillation of what is happening as we transition from death to life through the silence of Saturday.

Paul begins with a question (v. 1) that he then (passionately) answers in v. 2: What therefore will we say? Should we persist in sin so that grace might superabound? Hell no! How can we who died to sin still live in it? In this portion, Paul addresses the new life believers have in Christ: this is absolutely not a continuation of what has gone before and is something completely new! There is a clean break between what was sealed up in the tomb with Christ on Good Friday, and the new life the believers step into on Easter Sunday Morning.

Because there is no continuation between what was by deeds of the flesh and what is now by faith in Christ, Paul feels compelled to ask the Romans, Or, do you not know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (v.3)Meaning, there’s a lie floating about that those who believe in Christ don’t suffer Christ’s fate, that we are exempted from that death. For Paul, while we weren’t nailed to the cross in literal terms, we do suffer a death like Christ’s, and this is actualized in our participation in the waters of baptism. (Being submerged under the water is to buried with Christ, to come up out of the water is to be raised with Christ.) For Paul, it is imperative that we take seriously the reality that we die like Christ; for Paul (and thus for us), THIS IS GOOD NEWS! Paul writes, Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of Abba God, in this way we, we might also walk in the newness of life (v.4). Through what God did in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, death that leads to life is the only path for believers. What is ruled out? Death that leads to death. Why? Because those who journey through a death like Christ’s receive resurrection into new life that cannot die like Christ cannot die (and this new life is both internal and external, spiritual and temporal!).[2] Thus why Paul can then write, For if we have become united together with him in a death like his death, we will also [be united with him in his] resurrection (v. 5). We live unafraid of another death because we live eternally in and with Christ.

Paul continues to elaborate about this identification between the believer and Christ, Knowing that our old person was crucified together [with Christ] with the result that the body of sin is abolished, so that we are no longer a slave to sin, for the one who has died [with Christ] has been declared righteous from sin (vv. 6-7). Paul anchors the believer in the death of Christ so that their body of sin—not their existence as fleshy creatures, but their defective orientation resulting in sin thus death[3]—is put to death and this is liberation because it cannot weigh the believer down anymore. Another way to say this is that by virtue of identification with Christ in Christ’s death, sin and its consequence, death, are put to death.[4] What was ushered in by Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, has been put asunder by the death of death that is brought in and through Christ’s death and resurrection. And if this is the case, then with Paul we can say, And if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live together with him (v.8). Captivity itself is now held captive and the captives—the ones formerly held in captivity to sin and death—are liberated.[5]

Paul then writes, Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead no longer dies, death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God [always]. Thus you, you also consider yourselves to be dead to sin and only living to God in Christ Jesus. For those who follow Christ, to live is to live unbound by death, released from captivity, no longer controlled and threatened by sin. According to Paul, it’s not that believers now no longer sin; they do. Believers will miss the mark, they will shoot and not score, they will mean one thing and do another, they will harm, they will mar, they will wound. What Paul is getting at is that the believer—while still a sinner—is liberated from the effects of sin which is death. The believer—now declared righteous although a sinner still (simul iustus et peccator)—has died once and for all (like Christ) and never needs to die again to sin (though sin is going to happen).[6] In other words, the believer does not need to intentionally sin so that they can die again to sin and again be declared righteous. Doing so is unnecessary and declares the grace of God unnecessary (Hell no!), as if being made righteous can come by any other means apart from grace and faith in Christ.

Because Jesus died once for all, believers in union with Christ by faith will never really die (they will “fall asleep in Christ”) because death has met its own death, captivity its own captivity. [7],[8] Rather, like Christ, they will live by the grace of God and for the grace of God.[9] This is an eternal living because the believer—by faith and God’s grace—lives in Christ and Christ who is now the Lord of life is no longer subject to death and its lordship—thus, those who live in Christ have life eternal because Christ is now eternal even in his raised and ascended body.[10] Even when sin shows up in the believer’s life—and it will—this eternal living is not hindered or hampered. Rather—through easy access to forgiveness and absolution—the believer can get up, wipe the dust off, and try again to live the life that reflects their eternal life in Christ.[11] Here the spiritual can manifest in the temporal, the outer aligns with the inner, God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Conclusion

For the disciples, the deathly silence of Saturday was palpable. For (about) 36 hours, waiting for the Sabbath to pass, waiting for the dawn of second full day after Christ’s death, they died, each one of them died with Christ—in grief, loss, shock, doubt, hopelessness, helplessness. They despaired of themselves, they released all that they thought was, and they came to the absolute ends of themselves. And here, in their ignorance to the divine movements, amid their darkest doubt, their deepest despair, surrounded by a void of sound or word, God was about to usher them into a brand-new conception of what it means to live in Christ, to live in love, to live liberated from all that was. As the host of heaven held its breath and as the disciples cried, God was on the move raising the greatest gift for the cosmos: the fulfilment of God’s glorious promise, Jesus the Christ raised holding death itself captive to death.

Tonight, we move from death to life. This service dives in deep to the silence of Saturday, the despair of a missing messiah, the stripping away of hope. At the beginning, we are all stuck in our sin, set on a path toward death eternal, forever held captive by its threat and presence, stealing from us any sense of peace—for how can anyone really have peace if they are always scrambling away from and fighting against death and its fruits? But in the blink of an eye, God moved, the heavenly host exhaled, and we find ourselves shrouded in the mystery of Christ being raised from the dead to be for us the source, sustenance, and sustainment of divine life, love, and liberation for all people, the entire cosmos, forever and always. As those who are prone to wander, God has come in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to be our new life marked by remembering and not forgetting, walking and not tromping, gathered and not estranged, accepting and not judging, peaceful and lifegiving and not violent and death-dealing. Today we are new creatures with a new life and a new way to walk in the world for the wellbeing of our neighbors and to the glory of God.

Hallelujah! Christ is Risen!

[1] All translations from Romans are mine unless otherwise noted

[2] LW 25:309. “For having put on our mortal flesh and dying only in it and rising only in it, now only in it He joins these things together for us, for in this flesh He became a sacrament for the inner man and an example for the outward man.”

[3] LW 25:313. “The term ‘old man’ describes what kind of person is born of Adam, not according to his nature but according to the defect of his nature. For his nature is good, but the defect is evil.”

[4] LW 25:310. “Eternal death is also twofold. The one kind is good, very good. It is the death of sin and the death of death, by which the soul is released and separated form sin and the body is separated rom corruption and through grace and glory is joined to the living God. This is death in the most proper sense of the word, for in all other forms of death something remains that is mixed with life but not in this kind of death, where there is the purest life alone, because it is eternal life. For to this kind of death alone belong in an absolute and perfect way the conditions of death, and in this death alone whatever dies perishes totally and into eternal nothingness, and nothing will ever return from this death because it truly dies an eternal death. This is the way sin dies; and likewise the sinner, when he is justified, because sin will not return again for all eternity…”

[5] LW 25:310. “This is the principle theme in scripture. For God has arranged to remove through Christ whatever the devil brought in through Adam. And it as the devil who brought in sin and death. Therefore God brought about the death of death and the sin of sin, the poison of poison, the captivity of captivity.”

[6] LW 25:314. “The meaning is that we must undergo this spiritual death only once. For whoever dies thus lives for all eternity. Therefore we must not return to our sin in order to die to sin again.”

[7] LW 25:311. “Because for death to be killed means that death will not return, and ‘to take captivity captive’ means that captivity will never return, a concept which cannot be expressed through an affirmative assertion.”

[8] LW 25:311. “For the entering into life can, and necessarily must, become a departure from life, but the ‘escape form death’ means to enter into a life which is without death.”

[9] LW 25:313. “Nor can he be freed of his perversity except by the grace of God…This is said not only because of the stubbornness of perverse people but particularly because of the extremely deep infection of this inherited weakness and original poison, by which a man seeks his own advantage even in God himself because of his love of concupiscence.”

[10] LW 25:315. “For just as the ray of the sun is eternal because the sun is eternal, so the spiritual life is eternal because Christ is eternal; for He is our life, and through faith He flows into us and remains in us by the rays of His grace. Therefore, just as Christ is eternal, so also the grace which flows out of Him is from His eternal nature. Furthermore, just because a man sins again his spiritual life does not die, but he turns his back on this life and dies, while this life remains eternal in Christ.”

[11] LW 25:315. “He has Christ, who dies no more; therefore he himself dies no more, but rather he lives with Christ forever. Hence also we are baptized only once, by which we gain the life of Christ, even though we often fall and rise again. For the life of Christ can be recovered again and again, but a person can enter upon it only once, just as a man who has never been rich can begin to get rich only once, although he can again and again lose and regain his wealth.”

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