Tag: Jesus the Christ

Pull Together not Apart

Psalm 26:3, 11-12 For your love, Abba God, is before my eyes; I have walked faithfully with you. As for me, I will live with integrity; redeem me, Abba God, and have pity on me. My foot stands on level ground; in the full assembly I will bless the Lord.

Introduction

As of last week, we have identified clearly what the overarching question is for Mark and Mark’s audience: what does it mean to be a disciple of this man who is God, Jesus the Christ? What does it mean to be a believer who participates in the mission of the reign of God, bringing love, life, and liberation to the neighbor to the glory of God in the name of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit?

We’ve seen Jesus redefine clean and unclean, who is in and who is out, who is elevated and who is not, and who is to be hindered and who is not. Over the past four weeks, we’ve watched Jesus systematically pull down barriers and divisions, walls and fences geared toward dividing and isolating God’s beloved into factions pitted one against the other. Here we see the fractures mentioned way back in Genesis 3 rearing their violent and deadly heads. In that passage, the story goes, God cursed Adam, Eve, and the serpent and their relationships went wonky, turning upside down; where there was once equity and unity, there would be inequity and disunity; where there was once justice and peace, there would be injustice and hostility. The original bondedness articulated in Genesis 1 and 2—God and Humanity, Humanity and Humanity, Humanity and Creation—falls fractured on its way out of the Garden of Eden. Considering the poor judgment demonstrated by everyone in the Genesis 3 narrative, the three relationships are pulled apart. Now it is no longer Humanity and God, but Humanity verse God; no longer Humanity and Humanity, but Humanity against Humanity; no longer Humanity and Creation, but Humanity in opposition to Creation.

So, what we see thus far in the gospel of Mark is Jesus rectifying this separation and division, this enmity and animosity that festered long enough within these three relationships. Instead of pulling apart, Jesus is pulling together. Rather than dividing, Jesus is creating unity. Rather than pitting against each other, Jesus is reconciling and causing equity and justice thus peace. In other words, Jesus is reinforcing the grand idea that …

Mark 10:2-12

“…what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mark10:9)[1]

The main thrust of Mark’s gospel is, as was mentioned last week, discipleship. The disciples are in process of learning (again and again) that their thinking is stuck in the kingdom of humanity rather than being of the reign of God. The thinking of the reign of God is cosmically and inclusively bigger than they can imagine on their own. So, Jesus teaches them. And, in our gospel passage addressing divorce there’s still an emphasis on discipleship. Opposed to the Mosaic permissiveness of divorce, Jesus speaks against it because it is “nothing more than a devious form of adultery.”[2] At this time, for Jesus and his disciples, a Jewish man took divorce for granted while Jewish women could not divorce.[3] A husband could divorce his wife for any reason, from sexual misconduct to a poorly cooked meal.[4] Jesus will expect the disciples to take a different path concerning their own marriages; just because the world may say it’s okay to ditch your wife for one reason or another, but I say…do not divorce. Discipleship, for Mark’s Jesus, is a full life affair; every relationship matters. For Jesus, the issue is not divorce (full stop) but the force at play behind it: hardness of heart; the disciples are expected to reevaluate their relationship with what they consider to be right and good—what the kingdom of humanity judges as good and right.[5]

Interestingly, in the passage, there is a difference between the verb used by Jesus (eveteilato, “command”, v.3) and the one used by the Pharisees (epayroton, “allowed”, v.4);[6] this indicates two things: 1) The ability to divorce is not upheld by Law but rather is a “concession” because of their hardness of heart (v.5; divorce is “allowed” and not “commanded”);[7] and, 2) There is something more important than the Mosaic permission: Genesis 2:24 (vv.7-8). One important aspect of Jesus exegeting Genesis 2:24 is his emphasis on (reestablishing of) the one-flesh aspect of the marital union.[8] But there’s more to that because Genesis 2 isn’t strictly about marriage; it’s about the union of humanity with humanity. To toss another human being away because of some form of persnickety displeasure participates in the perpetuation of the fracturedness of human relationships; human beings cannot be tossed away like refuse. Rather they are to be loved as one would even love themselves. And more than that, dismissing one’s wife “just cuz” exposes one’s fractured relationship with God that is characteristic of the judgments and pleasures of the kingdom of humanity. Again, hardness of heart is the issue; the disciples are to live vulnerably with the other, fleshy hearted and all. Jesus concludes with a pronouncement, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (v.9). The concluding pronouncement suggests that those who enter the reign of God will live in light of another vision, a vision that sees relationships (with all people, but most especially with those of lower status) in light of God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, liberation.[9]

Privately to the disciples Jesus forbids remarriage for both the husband and the wife. “And he said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’” According to one scholar, “Jewish divorce was specifically with a view to remarriage: the certificate given to the divorced wife read, ‘You are free to marry any man’ (m. Git. 9:3).”[10] Jesus holds a rather uncompromising view; but it doesn’t mean one can’t divorce but that one can’t remarry. And if one can’t remarry—if she can’t remarry for her own livelihood—then it is better not to divorce and stick it out because it is for the wellbeing of another.[11] Again, the light is focused on the main point: hardness of heart.

Conclusion

If we look to Mark 10:2-12 trying to find loopholes in what Jesus says to allow for remarriage or to make the claim that divorce is never allowed in any circumstance, it misses the reality that Jesus is taking a moment to teach his disciples what it means to be human in the world where they are the epicenter of the kingdom of humanity and the reign of God. Hurting human beings in a hurting world hurt each other in grievous ways. In our passage, Jesus forbids divorce and remarriage. And this must be reconciled with the fact that Jesus’s death was for our transgressions and his resurrection was for our justification (Rom. 4:25). While we don’t use the forgiveness of sin to justify things like divorce thus make them common lacking gravity, the reality is that at times there are irreconcilable differences between people, even those who are bonded by the vows of marriage.

But to focus strictly on the “marriage” and “divorce” aspect of this teaching is to miss the point: human beings do not dismiss human beings. Rather, according to Mark’s Jesus, human beings—with a desire to be human—will identify with those with whom they have relationships and be eager to do the best by them that they can. Being a disciple doesn’t mean we don’t, can’t, or won’t call a relationship what it is especially when it’s run its course or has become harmful to everyone involved. To be a disciple is to make sure that we take all our actions seriously and see how they impact others. Disciples, according to Jesus, live a deeply transfigured, vulnerable, connected life with each other… The thing that is forbidden here in this passage is a disciple of Christ dismissing someone as if they weren’t part of the reign of God or as if they didn’t count because of their status. The other thing that is forbidden is pulling apart, dividing, and sundering what God has put together: human beings with other human beings because human beings need each other and the intimacy of that relationship of mutual need. In other words, people aren’t to be tossed away like discarded things tossed into the refuse. Rather, the disciples are to pull together when everyone else is pulling apart, no matter who they are. Everyone the disciple is in a relationship with is to be esteemed in the reign of God, treated with equity, given justice, and have access to real and everlasting peace of Christ.

[1] Because of some of my own chaos and subsequent gaffs, this week’s gospel passage and all subsequent quotations from the assigned gospel text (Mark 10:2-12) are not translated by me but, rather, taken from the NRSVUE version from www.biblegateway.com  *sheepish grin #lyfåehappens

[2] Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics, (New York: Harper, 2013), 350.

[3] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 140.

[4] Placher, Mark, 141.

[5] Hays, Moral Vision, 350. “Divorce is a sign of hardness of heart; those who follow Jesus are called to a higher standard of permanent faithfulness in marriage…”

[6] Mark 10:2-4, “And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.’”

[7] Hays, Moral Vision, 350. “Those who trust in God as revealed through Jesus will not seek such an escape clause from their marriages.…and for those who believe, hardness of heart [a lack of faith in Christ] can be overcome.”

[8] Hays, Moral Vision, 350-1. “…Jesus’ exegetical comment on Genesis 2:24…reiterates the ‘one flesh’ affirmation. Sexual intercourse in marriage is not merely the satisfaction of individual appetites…but links two persons together—literally and spiritually. It effects what it symbolizes and symbolizes what it effects.”

[9] Hays, Moral Vision, 351.

[10] RT France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 393.

[11] France, Mark, 394.

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Totally and Utterly Human

Psalm 124:6-7 Blessed be Abba God! … We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the Name of Abba God…

Introduction

Over the course of the past few weeks, we’ve seen Jesus defend his disciples from the offense of unclean hands; it’s not what goes into a person that makes them clean or unclean, but what comes out (it’s a heart issue). We’ve seen Jesus break socio-religio-political boundaries by including an unclean, gentile woman in God’s mission and reign in the world. And last week, we saw Jesus reorient the disciples toward the mission of God and away from the ideologies and dogmas of humanity thriving off notions of human power and might: to be great in the reign of God is to identify with those who have no status or power in your society; in other words it means: to be human. Throughout all these stories, there’s a common thread: discipleship.

According to Mark, to follow Jesus out of the Jordan and to the cross demands a rather radical overhaul of both the believer’s inner and outer life. It’s not about obeying traditionalisms and arcane laws long expired only rendering the outside “clean”; it’s not about boundaries and political lines keeping some in and some out; and it’s not about greatness defined by humanity’s preferential option for status. (These things perpetuate the mythologies of the kingdom of humanity serving only those who are powerful while enslaving those who are not.) Discipleship is about having/receiving a new heart, new mind, new eyes, new ears, new language, and new actions. The disciple of Christ, like Christ, must endure being the epicenter of the conflict of the reign of God being born into the world fracturing the kingdom of humanity and putting things that are upside down, right-side up.

Mark’s Jesus hammers home that discipleship is not/never about dividing lines, in-group and out-group, us v. them; none of that divisionary thinking can exist among the disciples or within each disciple. The mission and reign of God is much bigger (and better) than anyone—yesterday, today, and tomorrow—can or will imagine. The thinking that belongs to the kingdom of humanity is small and divisive; for the disciples, they must think in line with the reign of God: big…cosmically and inclusively big.

Mark 9:38-50

And then John said to [Jesus], “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and were [unsuccessfully[1]] preventing him because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not prevent him, for no one—who will do a powerful work in my name—is also able to revile me quickly. For whoever is not against us, [is] for us. For whoever might give you a winecup of water because the name that you are of Christ, truly I say to you, by no means will they lose their reward.” (Mk 9:38-41)

Structurally, there’s no indication in the text that this moment is separated from where we left off last week. Thus, we can assume the same posture: Jesus is down low, the disciples are gathered around him, and a little child is in their midst. And then John speaks, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we were preventing him because he was not following us.” With this statement, it’s clear that the disciples still[2] don’t understand what it means to be disciples in the reign of God and of Christ.[3] The in-group/out-group way of thinking runs deep in the inner (and outer) lives of the disciples. When it comes to Christ, all traditional conceptions of human groupings are called into question.[4] So, the way Jesus replies to the group continues his teaching the disciples what the reign and mission of God (really) is about: It is completely inclusive and it promotes equity. The disciples need a more “welcoming [and open]” mindset[5] toward people who were not following them—which is the real offense for John;[6] anyone who is participating in the reign and mission of God in Christ’s name should not be hindered.[7] In other words, the ability to cast out demons in Jesus’s name[8] (which the Twelve failed at recently[9]) isn’t restricted to some special authority and status[10] the Twelve think they have because of their proximity to Jesus.[11]

Interestingly, when Jesus says, “Do not prevent him, for no one—who will do a powerful work in my name—is also able to revile me quickly. For whoever is not against us, [is] for us. For whoever might give you a winecup of water because the name that you are of Christ, truly I say to you, that by no means they might lose their reward.”, he’s not only broadening the mindset of the disciples, he’s (also) giving three reasons[12] why the disciples need not to be exclusive.

  1. The man is not an enemy; he’s performing exorcism in Jesus’s name thus associating himself with Jesus. Because of this association he will not be able to speak ill quickly of Jesus (et al);[13]
  2. Because of the in-group/out-group mentality expressed in John’s comments to Jesus, Jesus immediately stops cliquishness; it doesn’t belong to the reign of God;[14] and,
  3. The disciples should be kind; simple, kind acts done for those who bear Jesus’sname(i.e. giving a winecup of water) are significant and will be noticed[15] because it is service to Jesus, thus to God. Thus, they are actually with us (ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν) (pace John).[16]

In this way, anything done in the name of Christ and for those who bear Christ’s name is enough;[17] no further demonstration of belonging is needed.[18] In light of this deduction, Jesus exhorts the disciples not to be so prideful[19] that they quickly draw lines in the sand organizing who’s in and who’s out, “They are to be a church, not a sect.”[20]

Jesus then discusses causing one of these little ones (potentially drawing upon the image of the child in their midst and broadening it to those who believe in [Jesus] and can be taken advantage of[21]) to stumble; Jesus emphasizes, from a different angle, the dangers of the aforementioned “cliquishness” and elitism.[22] Each of the four sayings does not really offering anything more novel than the one before it except that the focus moves from causing someone else to stumble to causing one’s own self to stumble. All four sayings work together emphasizing how bad it is to get in the way of God’s Spirit at work in the world to bolster one’s human ideas of exclusion and inequality. Unlike the person who gives a cup of water to the followers, the person who causes someone to stumble deserves the opposite of reward. According to Mark’s Jesus, the one who causes another to stumble will be thrown into Gehenna known for “punishment of the ungodly,”[23] into the flames of the unquenchable fires (in Gehenna the fires burned continually because it was Jerusalem’s garbage dump[24],[25]) and where their worm does not die (ref. to Isaiah[26]). Through these intense images, Jesus exhorts his disciples to be alert and awake because threats lurk outside and within themselves.[27] Therefore, the disciples are exhorted to deal shrewdly with themselves rather than others because—most likely—the problem isn’t the hand, eye, foot, or someone else; it’s the heart[28] and its ability to be held captive to the kingdom of humanity because of pride, a desire for greatness, and status. Rather, the disciples are to be utterly committed to God[29] and God’s reign and mission in the world; this, so they can participate in God’s mission of justice and equity (which is peace[30]) as the beautiful, fragrant, salted sacrifices they are for the well-being of the neighbor and to the glory of God.[31]

Conclusion

Jesus is going to great lengths to make sure his disciples understand that the reign of God is nothing like the kingdom of humanity. God isn’t against humanity, in fact, according to Jesus and Paul Lehmann (quoted last week), God is about humanity, so much so that God transcended God’s self and became human. This was done to elevate humanity above what humanity was/is willing to settle for. And, frankly, that’s the problem with the kingdom of humanity: it regularly settles for less than. Jesus doesn’t want his disciples consumed with notions of greatness, privilege, power, and authority; these things make human beings less human. Jesus wants his disciples to see that their humanity is anchored to their dependence on God by faith in Jesus. The world, for Jesus, needs more simple, vulnerable human beings, not more dictators and despots.

The disciples are to always choose humanity over inhumanity; this is what it means to be dedicated to and participate in God’s mission and revolution of love, life, and liberation. Thus, what keeps the disciples human is taking seriously their role as representatives of God in the world and among their neighbors. Here, our faith in Christ and our dependence on God works itself out in Spirit-filled, loving action toward the neighbor to the glory of God. Remembering whom we follow and whose we are, keeps us dependent and responsible on and to God as well as on and to our neighbor. In this divine economy, there is no elitism and division, but only equity and unity, thus peace and justice. Dorothee Sölle writes,

“The love of which the Gospel speaks is simply the radical intervention of one irreplaceable being for another; an identification which is provisional and which makes its agent dependent. Christ identified himself with God and thereby made himself dependent on God’s attaining identity himself. Anyone who identifies himself with Christ likewise represents God in the world, in suffering and in transitoriness.”[32]

The disciples mistakenly divided by who has authority and who doesn’t, who was following the right dogma and who wasn’t; Jesus set them straight: whoever is representing me in the world through deeds of love, life, and liberation, is representing God and is participating in God’s mission. They who have ears to hear, let them hear.

[1] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 376. “if the imperfect tense of ἐκωλύομεν is correct …it probably indicates an unsuccessful attempt rather than the repeated prohibition of a persistent ‘offender’.”

[2] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 135. “The Twelve make one mistake after another.”

[3] France, Mark, 375. “This little didactic story follows very appropriately form the lesson of vv. 33-37, the call to disciples to be ready to receive those whom they might naturally reject, and the connections is reinforced by the repetition three times in these verse of the phrase ἐπὶ/ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου/σου … which was the reason given for receiving the child in v. 37.”

[4] France, Mark, 375. “Where the name of Jesus (i.e., a relationship with him) is concerned, natural human considerations of who is in and who is out will be subverted.”

[5] France, Mark, 376. “The effect of the pericope is to encourage a welcoming openness on the part of Jesus’ disciples which is in stark contrast to the protective exclusiveness more often associated with religious groups, not least within the Christian tradition.”

[6] France, Mark, 377. “The ground of John’s objection was not lack of success, but the use of Jesus’ name outside the group of disciples. The man’s offence is that οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ ἡμῖν.”

[7] France, Mark, 376. “The man concerned is not a recognized member of the group of disciples, but he does profess to operate in the name of Jesus, and the results of his activity are beneficent. It is this criterion rather than a narrower group identity which the pericope accepts.”

[8] France, Mark, 376-377. “There is some other evidence in the gospels for exorcists outside the immediate circle of Jesus and his disciples…and there are a number of mentioned of exorcism, Jewish and pagan, in roughly contemporary sources…Some of them invoked the name of Jesus (after his death and resurrection), and not always with satisfactory results …This is the only mention of a similar practice during Jesus’ lifetime.”

[9] France, Mark, 376. “To make matters worse, this pericope follows hard on the story of the disciples’ failure in exorcism in 9:14-29. To see an outsider apparently succeeding where they, the chosen agents of Jesus, have failed is doubly distressing.”

[10] France, Mark, 377. What John is looking for is not so much personal allegiance and obedience to Jesus, but membership in the ‘authorised’ circle of his followers. We should perhaps understand ἡμεῖς here as specifically the Twelve, regarded as having an exclusive link with and commission from Jesus, so that other people’s association with him must be through their mediations. Even if such a possessive doctrine is not explicit, it fits John’s restrictive action and explains the terms of Jesus’ response.”

[11] France, Mark, 376. Exorcism as special feature of disciple/the twelve’s calling/authority (given by Jesus), “To find the practice carried out in the name of Jesus by someone unknown to them is therefore a severe blow to the disciples’ sense of identity, and undermines their special status. This issue of status, which underlay the teaching of vv. 33-37, is therefore still in focus.”

[12] France, Mark, 377.

[13] France, Mark, 377. “has associated himself with [Jesus] by using his name, and his choice of that authority, together with the fact of his success, marks him as being on the right side. Such a person cannot in consistency go on to speak as his enemy, and so there is no justification of Jesus’ disciples to oppose him.”

[14] France, Mark, 378. , “The Cliquishness which too easily affects a defined group of people with a sense of mission is among the ‘worldly’ values which must be challenged in the name of the kingdom of God.”

[15] France, Mark, 378. In re “reward” for giving water, “But even so small an act betokens a person’s response to Jesus in the person of his disciples…, and as such will not be unnoticed.”

[16] France, Mark, 378.

[17] Placher, Mark, 135. “The basic direction of Jesus’ response is clear enough—if people are doing good in Jesus’ name, leave them alone.”

[18] France, Mark, 378. “For Mark’s readers it is the title Χριστός which is the touchstone of a persons’ allegiance.”

[19] Placher, Mark, 135. “They are, it turns out, not making a new mistake but the same prideful, competitive ones. If someone is not part of their group, their gang, their tribe, then how dare he claim to do anything in the name of Jesus.”

[20] France, Mark, 378-379. “The three sayings collected in vv. 39-41 thus illustrate in different ways the open boundaries of the kingdom of God, where both committed disciple and sympathetic fellow traveler find their place. The unknown exorcist represents this outer circle, and is to be welcomed as such. There are indeed opponents and ‘outsiders’, as we see repeatedly in the rest of the gospel, but disciples are called on to be cautious in drawing lines of demarcation.

[21] France, Mark, 381. “As Mark’s text stands the question cannot be answered with confidence, but the context as a whole makes it unlikely that the μικροί should be understood only, or even mainly, of children. Disciples of any age are potentially vulnerable to such ‘tripping’.”

[22] France, Mark, 380. “The [following] whole little complex of sayings, like the preceding pericopes, focuses on the demands of discipleship both negatively and positively. The saying thus fit into the overall thrust of this part of the gospel, however artificially they may be linked with one another.”

[23] France, Mark, 381-382. ἡ γέεννα “…a term used in apocalyptic literature for the ultimate place of punishment of the ungodly…it had a clear and well known meaning (because of Matthew’s use}, so that its use alone would communicate adequately.”

[24] France, Mark, 382. Fire “as the agent of judgment and destruction, perhaps exploiting the origin of the word γέεννα in the valley of Hinnom…where the fires of Jerusalem’s refuse dumps burned continuously.”

[25] Placher, Mark, 137. “Gehenna was a valley south of Jerusalem where in ancient times babies were sacrificed to the Canaanite god Moloch. In the reforms under King Josiah (7th century BCE) such practices were brought to an end, and the area became a garbage dump, where refuse was continually smoldering. Gehenna was a horrible place, full of fire, smells, maggots, rats, and things in decay. Its history as a locus of child sacrifice further evokes the context here, where Jesus is singling out for condemnation hose who ‘put a stumbling block before’ or ‘trip up’ any of the ;’little ones who believe in me.’”

[26] France, Mark, 382. Worm statement, “In Isaiah the clause describes the state in which the dead bodies of God’s enemies will be seen, presumably envisaged as decomposing and burning on the battlefield.”

[27] France, Mark, 382-383. “Danger comes to the disciple not only from outside but from within…it is for the reader individually…to determine what aspect of one’s own behavior, tastes, or interests is a potential cause of spiritual downfall, and to take action accordingly.”

[28] Placher, Mark, 138. “But the hypotheticals, while true in themselves, rest on faulty premises. Our hands and feet and eyes do not cause us to sin. We ourselves, our minds, our souls, our wills—whatever language one wants to use, the source of our sin is not a part of us that can be removed with a sharp enough knife. The point of the passage, then, is to say, ‘this is how serous sin is: it would be worth cutting off part of your body to cure it. If only it were that easy. So we have to think even more deeply about sin.”

[29] France, Mark, 384. v. 49 and salt “In this context it speaks of one who follows Jesus as totally dedicated to god’s service, and warns that such dedication will inevitably be costly in terms of personal suffering.”

[30] France, Mark, 385. “The good salt which should characterize disciples consists in …or results in ….peaceful relationships. While salt as a metaphor for peacefulness is in itself an unusual use, in the OT salt symbolises a covenant…”

[31] France, Mark, 384. v. 50 symbolism of “salt” “…in symbolises the beneficial (καλόν) influence of the disciple on society…”

[32] Dorothee Sölle, Christ the Representative: An Essay in Theology after the ‘Death of God,’ translated by David Lewis (London: SCM, 1967), 142. Originally published as, Stellvertretung—Ein Kapitel Theologie nach dem ‘Tode Gottes,’ Kreuz Verlag, 1965. Emphasis, mine.

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Beloved Little Children of God

Psalm 146: 1-2, 4 Hallelujah! Praise Abba God, O my soul! I will praise Abba God as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them. Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help, whose hope is in their God…

Introduction

Last week we were reminded that there are no external boundaries that create a Christian group; in fact, we could say that based on what we learned in Ephesians and what we learned last week boundaries—dividing walls, traditions forcing some to withdraw from and exclude others—are anathema to reign of God. If so, then why do we—Christians—seem deadest on creating barriers to inclusion with the ecclesia and God?

I ponder this question a lot because of where I find myself caught in this particular socio-political timeline. I may be too sensitive here, but the lines between who is “right” and who is “wrong” are appearing to be deeper and thicker than ever before. It feels easy to pull apart right now, to cut ties, to wipe the dust from your sandals and move on. It feels safe to fall deep into your own party of ideas and ideologies, to surround yourself with those just like you, to shrug and sidestep those “others” who don’t think like you. It even feels good to be really frustrated and angry, to give into fear, to have anxiety and worry about the global dumpster-fire we seem trapped in. Even if easy, safe, and good feels really good (and it can feel really darn good), for Christians that path is contrary to the path articulated to us by Christ, the one we are supposed to travel, to walk in, and to grow through.

In short, part of Christian praxis and identity in the world is our burden to pull together and not pull apart, to dare to step into the void of the unknown and risk our comfort and safety, and to relinquish our addiction to anger and fear so to disrupt hostility and enmity with equity and justice. We are exhorted to see that even those whom we might call “dogs” are none other than our dear siblings, beloved little children of God.

Mark 7:24-37

And then he was saying to her, ‘You permit the children to be filled first, for it is not honorable to take the bread of the children and drop it to the little house dogs.’ And she answered and says to him, ‘[Yes] Lord, even the little house dogs under the dining table eat from the crumbs of the little children.’ And he said to her, ‘On account of this word, go; the evil spirit has gone out of your daughter.’ (Mk 7:27-29)

Mark continues the story from where we left off last week. After addressing the crowd about what actually makes a person clean or unclean (hint: it’s not what goes in but what comes out), Jesus sets out: Now, from there, writes Mark, he rose and departed toward the territory of Tyre. Tyre was a region that was connected to Palestine and exerted financial dominance over Galilee; in some historical documents, the Tyrians are considered Israel’s “‘notoriously… bitterest enemies.’”[1] Within this relatively small detail, Mark demonstrates that Jesus is continuing to push boundaries—even if reluctantly,[2] And then he entered a house desiring no one to recognize him and he was not able to escape notice. Mark highlights that the message about the dissolution of boundaries, of the destruction of traditions and dividing walls of the kingdom of humanity, is not only for the house of Israel but also for the neighboring territories (and the world).[3] Jesus’s traveling participate in God’s will: Gentiles are not excluded from the mission of the reign of God and the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation.[4] God is for them, too; God is for the entire world and all humankind no matter the race, the color of the skin, the orientation and identity of the person.[5] If Jesus is the way to this God, then this way, this door, is wide open; [6] no one will be excluded because of random lines drawn in the sand willy-nilly separating this or that people.[7]

The story continues. Mark tells us that Jesus’s desire to go unnoticed by entering a house fails,[8] But at once, after hearing about [Jesus], a woman—whose daughter had an unclean spirit—came and fell before his feet. Now, the woman[was] Greek—Syrophoenician by race—and she was asking him to cast out the evil spirit from her little daughter. This isn’t just any person, and this isn’t just any woman. This is a desperate woman before God. This woman was willing to transcend religious tradition, social expectation, and political boundaries to heal her daughter (either her daughter or one related to her).[9] She is a thoroughly Gentile woman (the double identification emphasizes this point), and she carries the threat of ritual impurity because her daughter is possessed by an “unclean” spirit. There were many strikes against her: woman, Gentile, and unclean (ritually).[10] This woman is in great need and hears about Jesus being in Tyre and is willing to risk her wellbeing to seek healing for one whom she loves. Love does this; faith in Christ also does this.[11],[12]

But Jesus doesn’t reply to her in a way the reader would expect, considering what’s occurred thus far in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus says to her, ‘You permit the children to be filled first, for it is not honorable to take the bread of the children and drop it to the little house dogs.’ As one commentator said, Jesus’s response “is certainly not diplomatic,”[13] it is downright offensive (not only today but especially then[14]); he comes across as one who won’t help.[15] No matter how you parse it, the intentional term Jesus calls her, κυνάρια (translated as “little house dogs”), is flat-out insulting and dehumanizing (she’s a dog not a child—and this goes for her entire race).[16] At that moment, she had every reason to be discouraged.[17]

But rather than be discouraged, she seizes on a moment, or an image: Yes, Lord, even the little house dogs under the table eat from the crumbs of the young children. The “yes” is lost to our translation, but it’s there in spirit. She doesn’t disagree with the insult and then twists the image to emphasize that the little house dogs are happy to eat—even if second—the crumbs that fall to the floor and under the table; [18] in other words, it is right to let the crumbs fall into the possession of the dogs and let the dogs have their moment.[19] Theologically, what she sees here is the bold articulation of the power of the reign of God transcending not just local religious tradition but also socio-political division and boundaries; crumbs fall from the table for the children on to the floor where the dogs are.[20] Why shouldn’t they eat, too?

What happens next? Her daughter is delivered of the evil, unclean spirit. Jesus replied, this time full of grace, like one happy to be wrong,[21] and walks back his initial (human[22]) comment and heals her daughter with one (divine) word,[23],[24] On account of this word, go!; the evil spirit has gone out of your daughter. Just as he did before over dirty hands and she did just then about dogs, Jesus demonstrates that the tradition and boundaries of the kingdom of humanity are no match for the transcending power of the reign of God and the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation.[25] The divine equity of God’s mission in the world is pronounced here: it is not about being exclusive but inclusive; the bread of life will be shared with all no matter who they are or from where they hail.[26] She, too, is a child of God, worthy of living bread.[27]

Conclusion

According to Mark’s Jesus, no one—absolutely no one—is to be excluded from the presence of God made known in Christ and revealed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore here, in this passage from Mark, we are given every reason and motivation to pull together, to step outside of our comfort and safety, and relinquish our anger and fear. According to Mark’s Jesus, no one is so far gone to be outside of God’s great reach.

What is most paramount in this passage for us today—the thing that really jumps out at me, the thing that Mark wants his audience to understand—is that we are to be a healthy amount skeptical of the traditions and dogmas of the kingdom of humanity and how these very things have infiltrated our theology and worship, causing us to gate-keep, calling it God’s will. In this passage, Mark wants us to see that Jesus turns his back on the conception of God’s will that leads to exclusivist thinking, ranking some humans as more important to God than others. Nothing is further from the truth. No one has a unique claim to God or those who belong to God. And we do not work from the idea that we are “right” as if everyone else is wrong; it’s not about right and wrong, which is the worst language to speak in; rather it’s about working from hope, hope and our being fully dependent on God and God’s word.*

Beloved, remember that you are the beloved little child of God, adopted into the family of God through faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit; remember, too, there are more people out there who think they are dogs and beyond God’s concern because that’s what our society has told them. To them we are sent; to them we go bringing God’s love, life, and liberation. To them and for them we bring divine equity and justice to the glory of God.

*This is inspired from Philip G. Ziegler’s AAR Paper (2023) “The Revolutionary Philanthropy of God–The Dogmatic Engine of Paul L. Lehmann’s Theological Ethics,” San Antonio, TX, p. 6. “…those who subsequently are impelled to ‘move against the focus of power’ in the existing social and political situation do not do so from a position of self–possession and strength–a position of right–but as those undone by judgment and grace and so in repentance, humility, and hope for others. Lehmann emphasizes that Christians and revolutionaries–Christians as revolutionaries–always ‘bear a righteousness not their own’ (Phil 3:9). They cannot and do not pursue their own righteousness; rather, their ethical and political adventure seeks only the righteousness of their neighbor.”

[1] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 297. “Tyre, whose territory adjoined northern Galilee, had long been an important trading city. It had close links with Palestine, particularly under Herod the Great, and its coinage was widely circulated there; indeed, it exercised considerable economic dominance over the neighbouring area of Galilee. But it was clearly foreign territory, and Josephus…describes the Tyrians as ‘notoriously our bitterest enemies.’”

[2] France, Mark, 294. “[Jesus’s] initial intention is apparently not to engage in a ‘Gentile mission’ as such but simply to remain incognito (7:24), but events soon dictate otherwise and he responds, even if at first reluctantly, to Gentile needs.”

[3] France, Mark, 294. “The debate about purity has raised the question of how far, if at all, the mission of Jesus has a relevance beyond the community of Israel, whose observance of the Mosaic food laws was an effective practical barrier to social contact with those who did not observe them.”

[4] France, Mark, 294. “Mark’s specific deduction that Jesus’ teaching has ‘made all food clean’ signals a radically new approach which will in due time make possible the integration of Jews and Gentiles into a single community of discipleship.”

[5] France, Mark, 294. “The first pericope…highlights the racial issue, as Jesus. ‘debates’ with the Syrophoenician woman the basis on which the ‘children’s bread’ can properly be enjoyed also by the ‘dogs’…”

[6] France, Mark, 296. “Within that sequence this pericope marks the further opening of the door rather than an attempt to sing it shut again.”

[7] France, Mark, 296. “The whole encounter builds up to the totally positive conclusions of vv. 29-30, while the preceding dialogue serves to underlines the radical nature of this new stage in Jesus’ ministry into which he has allowed himself to be ‘persuaded’ by the woman’s realism and wit.”

[8] France, Mark, 297. “…Jesus wishes to get away from public attention…uses a ‘house’ for the purpose…but is unable to escape those in need.”

[9] France, Mark, 297. “…there is no doubt that here [Ἑλλην]carries its normal biblical connotation of Gentile (as opposed to Jewish), and the term Συροφοινίκισσα (the prefix Συρο- distinguished the Phoenicians of the Levant form those of North Africa around Carthage) reinforces the point. That such a woman chose to approach a Jewish healer, and even fell at his feet, indicates either desperation or a remarkable insight into the wider significance of Jesus’ ministry…”

[10] France, Mark, 297. “Few of those who approached Jesus had so much against, them, from an orthodox Jewish point of view. She was….a woman, and therefore one with whom a respectable Jewish teacher should not associate. She was a Gentile, as the double designation Ἑλληνίς Συροφοινίκισσα emphasizes. And her daughter’s condition might be expected to inspire fear and/or disgust, while the ‘uncleanness’ of the demon suggests ritual impurity.”

[11] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 104. “Unlike Jairus, she seems to take for granted that Jesus can work cures at a distance. Before a word is exchanged, she is already presented as a woman of deep faith.”

[12] Placher, Mark, 106. “It is her faith, though, that lies at the center of the story.”

[13] France, Mark, 298. “Jesus’ response, though nowhere near as brutal as in Matthew, is certainly not diplomatic.”

[14] Placher, Mark, 104. “What he says is harsh enough in our culture, but even harsher then, in a culture where dogs were not beloved house pets but disgusting scavengers who skulked about living on garbage. Calling someone a dog was a real insult…”

[15] France, Mark, 298. “The whole tone of the sentence is negative to the point of offensiveness, and suggests that Jesus has no intention of helping the woman.”

[16] France, Mark, 298. “The use of κυνάρια seems to add gratuitously to the Semitic neighbours as unclean animals. Biblical references to dogs…are always hostile. To refer to a human being as a ‘dog’ is a deliberately offensive or dismissive….Jews typically referred to Gentiles as dogs. The diminutive form (used in biblical literature only in this pericope), perhaps indicates the status of the dogs in Jesus’ image as dogs of the house rather than of the yard, but it does not remove the harshness of picturing Gentiles en masse as ‘dogs’ as opposed to ‘children’. It is the sort of language a Gentile might expect from a Jews, but to find it in a saying of Jesus is shocking.”

[17] France, Mark, 298. “…as a response to the Gentile woman’s request it is very harsh, and does not encourage her to expect help at the present time.”

[18] France, Mark, 298-299. “Jesus’ image (and his inclusion of πρῶτον) have given the woman the cue she needs, and enable her, on the basis of his own saying, to refute his οὐκ ἔστιν καλόν and replace it with a defiant Ναί, κύριε – ‘Yes, it is right’. By using the vocative κύριε (it’s only appearance in Mark…) the woman recognizes Jesus’ authority and her dependence on his help, but need not convey any more specific theological insight; it is an appropriate address to a distinguished stranger.”

[19] France, Mark, 299. “Jesus’ own image is thus pressed to its full extent, and provides the basis for her request to be granted, not refused. It is a remarkable twist to the argument, and one which displays as much humility on the woman’s part as it does shrewdness. She does not dispute the lower place which Jesus’ saying assumes for the Gentiles, and even accepts without protest the offensive epithet ‘dog’, but insists that the dogs, too, just have their day.”

[20] France, Mark, 299. “Putting it more theologically, the mission of the Messiah of Israel, while it must of course begin with Israel, cannot be confined there. The Gentiles may have to wait, but they are not excluded from the benefits which the Messiah brings. On this basis, she is bold enough to pursue her request; even the crumbs will be enough.”

[21] France, Mark, 296. “He appears like the wise teacher who allows, and indeed incites, his pupil to mount a victorious argument against the foil of his own reluctance. He functions as what in a different context might be called ‘devil’s advocate’, and is not disappointed to be defeated’ in argument.”

[22] Placher, Mark, 106. “Here yet again humanity and divinity come together in a single narrative of a single agent—the same Jesus who loses the argument can cure her daughter.”

[23] France, Mark, 299. “Διὰ τοῦτον τὸν λόγον makes it clear that the woman’s response, and the attitude which it reveals, has changed Jesus’s apparent intention. It is of course impossible now to be sure on the basis of the printed text alone whether his words were designed to provoke such a response, or whether he genuinely did intend to refuse her request and was persuaded by her argument. Much may have been conveyed by tone of voice and gesture. But Mark, by placing the incident in the setting of the opening up of Jesus’ ministry to the Gentiles…suggests that his initial reluctance should be taken with a pinch of salt.”

[24] Placher, Mark, 106. “If Mark did not show us Jesus’ initial harsh remark, we could not see the grace with which Jesus concedes defeat in an argument. That the woman does win the argument is a point any valid interpretation needs to acknowledge. To say that that could not happen is to deny Jesus’ full humanity.”

[25] France, Mark, 297. “That Jesus ultimately responded to a request from such a suppliant, and even that he was prepared to engage her in a serious dialogue, is typical of his unconcern for convention when it stood in the way of his mission.”

[26] France, Mark, 296. “As a result the reader is left more vividly aware of the reality of the problem of Jew-Gentile relations, and of the importance of the step Jesus here takes to overcome it. The woman’s ‘victory’ in the debate is a decisive watershed as a result of which the whole future course of the Christians movement is set not on the basis of Jewish exclusivism but of sharing the ‘children’s bread’.”

[27] Martin Luther, “Second Sunday in Lent,” Sermons Volume Two, trans. John Nicholas Lenker, et al, ed. John Nicholas Lenker. 2:126. “He compares her to a dog, she concedes it, and asks nothing more than that he let her be a dog, as he himself judged her to be. Where will Christ now take refuge? He is caught. Truly, people let the dog have the crumbs under the table; it is entitled to that. Therefore Christ now completely opens his heart to her and yields to her will, so that she is now no dog, but even a child of Israel.”

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The [extra] Ordinary Time of Pentecost

Psalm 139:16-17 How deep I find your thoughts, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

Introduction

The beauty of “ordinary time” is that, quite frankly, it is anything but ordinary. If we are following the story line and taking seriously the extensive breadth of the reach of the Triune God extending through space and time, then we are left—after Pentecost/Trinity Sunday—in the exact same spot the disciples were left when Jesus ascended to God and the Paraclete descended to be with, in, and among the disciples, bringing God intimately close. Being left behind by Christ and yet indwelled by the Spirit, the disciples had to figure out how to move forward, one step at a time. Be not mistaken, even if this (visible) church has been around for decades and the larger (invisible) church for millennia, we are, as of this Sunday, (re)located—through story and narrative—back at the beginning, with the recently left and spiritually emboldened disciples.

While it may seem odd that this is the case, it’s only odd because the story seems chopped off at Pentecost/Trinity Sunday, truncated to the time between Advent 1 and Pentecost/Trinity Sunday as if the church is only about the feasts of Christ and not of the continual feast of the Spirit. We dismiss this liturgical season as a non-event. It’s banal, nothing really changes, we have nothing to celebrate or events to plan; no one makes a point to come to church because it’s Pentecost 16. It’s a “down-time” for the church. Vacations happen now. It’s time that isn’t time, it seems to exist at the end of and before time as if the story stops with Pentecost and picks up again with Advent. But it’s the start and end of time; it is during the long season of Pentecost, of ordinary time, where we see time begin for the church—begin and end in God.

So, if we are taking the story—the entire story—very seriously then we can see (and hear!) that during every season of Pentecost we are re-called, re-substantiated, re-created, re-minded that our story, our being, our presence in the world, is dependent and nurtured and sustained by God in God for God’s glory. And every year we must figure out, once again, what it means to be such as us in this world, at this time, in this shape and form. And in this way, the church’s liturgical “ordinary time” becomes the most EXTRAordinary because here it becomes personal and public, here we wrestle with God, here we watch as God continues unfolding the stories—from Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost—in our living (together as this church here in this building and together as the church outside of this building). Here we are called to find ways to participate in God’s mission and proclamation in the world, and here we are forced to ask the same question the disciples asked when they found themselves needing to become a new community in the world of God for God’s glory: what now?

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

For we do not preach ourselves but Lord Christ Jesus, and ourselves as your slaves through Jesus. Because God—the one who says “Let light be radiant out of darkness”—radiated [and continues to radiate] in our hearts toward the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:5-6)

So, as we dive into [extra]Ordinary Time, we are presented with Paul, in a letter to the Corinthians, reminding them that this isn’t about them but about God. It was started by God, it is being sustained by God, and it will continue to go forward by God’s power. This isn’t about us in the sense that we are to proclaim our ideas of what the church is or should be or our own authority. Rather, we proclaim what God has done (from Christmas to Pentecost) for the beloved which includes us,[1] thus continuing the story forward through our proclamation, making Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost real for others.

What does Paul say we proclaim? Jesus Christ is Lord. This, for Paul, is the foundation of our confession—then and now.[2] It is the public and private confession—inspired by the Holy Spirit—that Jesus of Nazareth is also Jesus the Christ, that Jesus is God’s child, the author of the cosmos and the church, that death and evil don’t have the final word but hope and life do, that Jesus is the righteous judge of all, and that all of this demands a rejection of former allegiances in the kingdom of humanity.[3] Thus, for this reason, Paul says that he does not proclaim himself but Christ Jesus, Lord; and, for this reason, Paul insists on the importance of the neighbor (the beloved of God) and the demand that insistence makes on the believer to forsake “personal rights,” because that is exactly what Christ did while he was here.[4]

Behind all of this is Paul’s personal confession that everything that he is doing and saying, and the basic establishment of the church is all God’s doing. There’s no way that Paul would see himself as a slave to his neighbor apart from the illumination of God’s word in his heart; everything Paul does and says is informed by God who beckons cosmic light to be born in cosmic darkness and who is the same one who beckons the light of the Gospel to be born in darkened hearts by the power of the divine Spirit.[5],[6],[7]

And how does God make God’s illumination known? Through fragile and expendable vessels, cheap and unattractive. It is human beings, in frail bodies, who are charged with the “privileged guardianship” of the message of God’s word.[8] (Priceless contents enveloped by meager, breakable material.[9]) And by virtue of everything being dependent on God, these fragile, breakable, relatively worthless vessels become the most powerful of God[10] through their call to take up and participate in the mission and proclamation of God’s divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world, on behalf of God’s beloved.[11] Thus, Paul lists the ways human weakness is made strong through God’s divine power.[12] The disciples of God by God’s power and word sustaining them are distressed but not restricted, perplexed but not thwarted, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed (vv. 8-9). Paul, as a meager, breakable vessel, is utterly dependent on God’s power.[13] And it is through this human weakness and fragility that God’s strength and durability are made known through Paul; it is in the daily dying of the disciples as they move forward step by step as this new community called into God’s mission and proclamation in the world where God’s life is made manifest; in the disciples’ suffering, Jesus’s risen life is articulated and made real.[14]

Conclusion

So this simple season of Pentecost is [extra]Ordinary Time because we are reminded that everything about our entire enterprise as the church (both as church visible and participant in the church invisible) is totally and completely dependent on God: Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer. Everything we are, have been, and will be is defined and dependent on the work of the triune God in three persons: We are each called together corporately and individually to God by God through the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ proclaimed and made known to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. God calls us, God determines us, God sustains us. We are each here together as this body of Christ called by name, determined as this church in this time at this moment in history, and sustained to participate in God’s mission and proclamation in the world. It’s this utter and total dependence—this being called, determined, and sustained—that makes every day in this “Ordinary” season positively extraordinary.

And by saying this it means that we have a vital role to play in this mission of God in the world, the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation aimed toward upending broken human systems and ideologies determined to bring indifference, death, and captivity. Sometimes, when stressing utter dependence it’s tempting to “let go and let God” as if you are nothing more than a puppet on divine hand in God’s drama. But this would be the opposite of being in the world but not of the world, the opposite of being filled with the presence of the divine spirit (the Paraclete) who comes to expose and judge the world in the way it has failed to support and defend all of God’s beloved. So, going into this season of Pentecost, our longest liturgical season, we are to press into the Spirit to find our strength and resolve and be guided by that same Spirit to actively participate in the mission of God in the world made known to us in Christ. We are to face the question, what now?, head on and dare to answer it for us and for the world, today and then again next week. We are to be in the world as breakable and fragile vessels, members of God’s royal army, not wielding weapons esteemed and sanctioned by the military. Rather, we wield the divine instruments of God: the declaration of love, the bringing of liberation, and the affirmation of life.

[1] Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I Howard Marshall and Donald A Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 331. “…[Paul] may be observing that though he sought to commend himself to everyone person’s conscience….he never advertised or heralded himself, never pressed personal claims.”

[2] Harris, Corinthians, 332. “…κύριον is predicative, ‘Jesus Christ as Lord.’ The two earliest Christological confessions were ὀ Χριστὸς, ‘Jesus is the Messiah’… and κύριος Ἰησοῦς ‘Jesus is Lord’…”

[3] Harris, Corinthians, 332.

[4] Harris, Corinthians, 333. “[Paul] envisaged his relationship to Christ and his relationship to fellow Christians as one of slavery, that is, as unquestioning service for the benefit of the other, as the result of the unconditional but voluntary surrender of all personal rights. In this lowly service to others, Paul was following in the footsteps of his Lord, who himself had adopted the status and role of a δοῦλος…”

[5] Harris, Corinthians, 333-334. “It was because God had dispelled his darkness by illuminating his heart and had given him a knowledge of Christ he wished to share. The spiritual principle is this; the person who has light (v. 5) is responsible to share that light (v. 4).

[6] Harris, Corinthians, 335. “Paul is not only depicting the heart as by nature dark through sin but also implying that conversion is the replacement of that darkness by light, a theme frequently expressed in the NT.”

[7] Harris, Corinthians, 335. “…the knowledge that produces illumination is nothing other than knowledge of the gospel.”

[8] Harris, Corinthians, 339.

[9] Harris, Corinthians, 340. “Such vessels were regarded as fragile and as expendable because the were cheap and often unattractive. So the paradox Paul is expressing is that although the container is relatively worthless…the content are priceless. Although the gospel treasure is indescribably valuable, the gospel’s ministers are of little value in comparison.”

[10] Harris, Corinthians, 340. “σκεύη refers to whole persons, who, although insignificant and weak in themselves, become God’s powerful instruments in communicating the treasure of the gospel.”

[11] Harris, Corinthians, 341. “Because the gospel treasure has been entrusted to fail mortals who lack inherent power, the δύναμις displayed through preaching and in suffering is demonstrably divine and not human.”

[12] Harris, Corinthians, 342. “…the first element in each antithesis illustrates human weakness, the second illustrates divine power.”

[13] Harris, Corinthians, 345. “…it is clear that in Paul’s estimation this ‘hardship catalogue’ demonstrates, not his virtuous character or his buoyant self-sufficiency or his steadfast courage amid adversity…but his utter dependence as a frail human being on the superlative excellent…of God’s power.”

[14] Harris, Corinthians, 347. “First, the resurrection life of Jesus is evident at precisely the same time as there is a ‘carrying around’ of his dying. Indeed, the very purpose of the believer’s identification with Jesus in his sufferings is to provide an opportunity of the display of Jesus’ risen life. Second, one and the same physical body is the place where the sufferings of Jesus are repeated and where his risen power if manifested.”

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The Paraclete Cometh

Psalm 104:34-37a 34 I will sing to Abba God as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being. May these words of mine please God; I will rejoice in Abba God. Bless God, O my soul!

Introduction

Last week, Jesus prayed for his disciples to have the fortitude to remain in the Word of God. Being not of the world but remaining in the world means that this fledgling community belonging to Christ needed to remember that their creation as this fledgling community was solely based and sustained on God’s Word proclaimed in and through Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, this one who is God. As Jesus prepares to leave his disciples, he knew that the hatred of the world toward this new community of God would try to eclipse the joy and confidence of these faithful. So, he prayed. He prayed that they would remain one as Jesus and God are one, because they are stronger together as a group, and the world loves to divide and conquer. He prayed for the sustaining of their identity, that they remember whose they are, because the world will do whatever it can to make the forget. He prayed for them to be protected in their new creation (new eyes, new ears, new words), because the world will try to steal from their new creation, forcing them to relinquish new eyes and ears, holding their proclamation hostage, demanding they forsake their divinely gifted life, love, and liberation.

Jesus knew they needed help. This little community—barely a smoldering wick—was about to be launched into the world to fend for themselves. They would be assaulted on every side because of who they were and what they said: they, like their Christ, were to become the locus of God’s revolutionary activity in the world; their message would echo Jesus’s, calling into question the kingdom of humanity, exposing the upside-down world, and proclaiming the words of the divine revolution in the world for the oppressed. Jesus knew they were sitting ducks and without God, they would not make it far because this community was not a community created by human strength so it could not be sustained by human strength. So, this community needed something bigger and stronger, something that is of the same substance as the word that not only called this community into being but also the entire cosmos.

Jesus prayed on behalf of the community, asking for God to show up. And God did.

Enter the Paraclete!

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

“But I, I say to you the truth, it is profitable to you that I, I go away. For if I do not go away, the paraclete cannot come to you. But, if I go, I will send them to you. And coming, that one will convict the cosmos concerning sin and concerning justice and concerning judgment…I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them just now. But, whenever this one comes, the Spirit of Truth, they will guide you in every kind of truth, for they will not speak from themself, but as much as you listen they will bring back word to you. (Jn 16:7-8, 12-13)

The lectionary loops us back into John 15 after bringing us to John 17 last week. Thus, according to the logic of the lectionary, Jesus’s promise of the Spirit is the fulfillment of the prayer to God to protect, guide, and strengthen the disciples who will be left in the world. But the advent of the Spirit, the Paraclete, is more than just a helper for those who will be left by Jesus; they are the very foundation of the church, as we say in our creed every Sunday: the Spirit is the “life-giving breath of the church.” For it is through, with, and by the Spirit that the work and word of Christ started in the body of Jesus will transition to the work and word of the fledgling community, who is now transfigured into the body of Christ in the world in Christ’s absence.[1] It is by the Spirit of God, the Paraclete, that God’s will and mission in the world will continue to be made known to the beloved in and through the new community of God.

Jesus—the Reconciler—must leave the disciples and return to God the Creator so that the Spirit of God—the Redeemer—can be sent into the world, specifically into the hearts of the disciples, to continue the work of God in the world. The work of the Spirit is to continue to reveal God in the world by means of the light of truth that is the Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ.[2] In this way, God’s self-revelation and mission in the world is not cut short by Jesus’s bodily absence; through the Spirit rather than the incarnate Word, Jesus the Christ, does the Word and mission of God begin to transcend not only geographical boundaries (Acts 10 fulfilling Acts 1:8) but will also transcend chronological boundaries. By the sending of the Spirit, the Word of God will continue in the world, the light of truth will continue to illuminate hearts and minds from one era to another, in one context to a completely different one, through decades, centuries, and millennia.[3] It is through the witness of the Spirit in the lives of the disciples that witnesses back to Christ and thus forward to God[4] that is the continual fuel for the fire of divine revolution setting human hearts ablaze like match sticks—one by one.[5]

It is for this reason that Jesus both addresses the disciples’ impending grief (being left alone in the world in distress)[6] and exhorts them toward joy: even though they will grieve Jesus’s absence, feel fear and anxiety, they will be comforted by God’s Spirit, the Paraclete, who will usher them further into God’s truth and into God’s reality thus farther and deeper into God.[7] This is why Jesus turns the conversation toward what the Paraclete will do when they show up, because it is through the disciples (and through the church that will be born through their bodies and the Word of God) that the Paraclete will expose the world’s misconceptions of sin, justice, and judgment.[8] In this way and to quote Rudolf Bultmann, “The world is accused, and the Paraclete is the prosecutor.”[9] With the Paraclete set loose in the world through the disciples, human sin is exposed by divine righteousness,[10] human justice is brought to trial by divine justice, [11] and human judgment is found guilty by divine judgment.[12] Thus, God’s truth continues to be the light of the world from one era to another, within one context and then in another, living in one heart and at the same time in a completely different heart. The one word of God is always new in every moment as a word of revelation; it is not static doctrine, archaic dogma, suffocating fundamentalism, and deadly legalism. Rather, it is always a new living-word summoning the dead in their tombs into life in the world.[13]

Thus, Jesus can assure the disciples that even though he has much more to teach them, he will leave that to the Paraclete who will guide them (teach/lead) into every kind of truth further revealing Christ into the world, further instigating God’s divine revolution of life, love, and liberation in the world in pursuit of the God’s beloved. The Paraclete will not lead the disciples (those then and those now) to a static conception of God or into a conception of God so different there must be a break with this history set out through Christ, but into God’s self-disclosure made known in the revelation of God incarnate, Jesus.[14] In other words, divine truth will be revealed in every moment as the present moment—whatever/wherever—is revealed by the divine word and ushered into divine comfort by the Paraclete, who is the Spirit of Truth.[15] Starting first with the community—whatever/wherever—and billowing outward into the world.

Conclusion

Those first disciples lost their main, they lost Jesus whom they loved dearly—they staked their lives on this love of Christ, and then he left them. The distress they felt was real; it’s a distress that we feel today, feeling left/abandoned by God without Jesus to be here with us bodily. But the Paraclete remains in the world and always with the disciples of Christ, those who are thrust by faith into God and are dependent on God’s word. Our God is Triune, three persons one God; personal and close, at all times, in all eras. God is not dead, dear ones; God is alive, God is here, God is with us, and God is within us. Martin Luther writes about this portion of the Gospel of John, “Therefore God has been gracious to us and has given us a Comforter to counteract this spirit of terror—a Comforter, who, as God Himself, is much stronger with His comfort than the devil is with his terror.”[16] The one who lives in us and through us is the one who can bend space and time to become one spot and moment so that all time and all space is in this God of presence, revelation, and comfort.

Yet comfort only comes when God’s truth exposes and reveals us, the way we miss the mark, our decrepit ideas, broken systems, and violent ideologies. By the presence of the spirit—it’s conviction—we cannot pretend not to see what we see, hear what we hear, feel what we feel. We do not have the luxury of undoing God’s summoning of us out from our tombs back at Easter. By the Spirit, the Paraclete, this humble community, bends its knees, confesses, and finds absolution by faith in Christ and union with God. Through the conviction and exposure of the Paraclete, divine comfort becomes true comfort—not the comfort of the world that is fleeting, comfort that lasts through thick and thin because it’s built out of the stuff of the infinite and not finite, of the eternal and not terminal, out of the substance of God and not the substance of humanity.

God’s Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete, the Prosecutor comes to bring God close to us through the light of truth to live with us and among us and in us, to work in and through us the divine revolution of God’s love, life, and liberation in the world. Today we rejoice because Christ’s joy is made complete in us through the sending of the Paraclete who binds us to God through Christ. We can let go of the rope and fall into God because God will show up because God never left us.

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 552. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). “After Jesus’ departure, the situation on earth will remain unchanged in as much as the offence which Jesus’ work offered the world will not disappear. The witness, which till now he had borne to himself, will be taken over by the Paraclete, the Helper, whom he will send from the Father.”

[2] Bultmann, John, 553. “The ἀλθείας is for him the self-revelatory divine reality, and the function of the Spirit consists in bestowing revelation by continuing Jesus’ revelatory work, as is stated by the words μαρτυρήσει περὶ ἐμοῦ…”

[3] Bultmann, John, 553. “Jesus will send this Spirit from the Father, and from the Father he will come forth. This two-fold designation makes the reference to the idea of revelation certain’ even after Jesus’ departure, God’s revelation will be mediated through him: he it is, who sends the Spirit…who bears witness to him; but he does so in his unity with the Gather, who has made him Revealer; he sends the Spirit from the Father; the Spirit proceeds from the Father, just as it is said in 14.16 that the Father sends the Spirit at the son’s request, or in 14.26 that he sends him ‘in the name’ of the Son. All these expressions say the same thing.”

[4] Bultmann, John, 554. “Thus their being with him ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς has not come to an end with his farewell, but continues further; and this is the only basis on which their witness is possible. Their witness is not , therefore, a historical account of that which was, but—however much it is based on that which was—it is ‘repetition,’ ‘a calling to mind,’ in the light of their present relationship with. Him. In that case it is perfectly clear that their witness and that of the Spirit are identical.”

[5] Bultmann, John, 553-554. “The word μαρτυρήσει indicates that the Spirit is the power of the proclamation in the community, and this is made fully clear by the juxtaposition of the disciples’ witness and that of the Spirit: καὶ ὑμεῖς δὲ μαρτυρεῖτε (v. 27). For the witness borne by the disciples is not something secondary, running alongside the witness of the spirit.” And “Their preaching is to be a ‘repetition’ of his preaching, or a ‘calling to mind,’…” (554)

[6] Bultmann, John, 558. “They are not asking where he is going to—the answer would be: to the father, and that would solve their difficulty—but they are in λύπη because they are about to be left in their distress.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 558.

[8] Bultmann, John, 560-561. “Only in the word was Jesus the Revealer, and only in the word will he continue to be it; for the Paraclete, who is take his place, is the word. The word is very far from being a closed doctrine, or complex of statements, not on the other hand is it the historical account of Jesus’s life. It is the living word; that is, paradoxically, the word which is spoken by the community itself, for the Paraclete is the Spirt that is at work in the community.”

[9] Bultmann, John, 562.

[10] Bultmann, John, 563. “The world understands sin as revolt against its own standards an ideals, the things which give it security. But to shut oneself off from the revelation that calls all worldly security in question and opens up another security—that is real sin, in contrast to which all that used to be sinful was only temporary and passing.”

[11] Bultmann, John, 565. ‘For the world , this victory is just as much a κρυπτόν (7.4) as is the real nature of ἁμαρτία; as the world sees things, to suffer the wreckage of death means condemnation by God; the world can only see victory in what is visible. But the significance of the victory lies precisely in the overcoming of the visible by the invisible; this is why the world does not know that it is condemned, or that it is conquered. But this is what the Paraclete will show.”

[12] Bultmann, John, 565. “In each case the world thinks it possesses the criteria for this judgment in its concepts of ἁμαρτία and δικαιοσύνη. But as it deceived itself over the meaning of A and D, so too it fails to see that the χρίσις is already ensuing, that the prince of this world is already judged; i.e. it fails to see that it is itself already judged—condemned for holding on to itself, to it s own standards and ideals, to what can be seen.”

[13] Bultmann, John, 561. “For the word is at the same time spoken into a situation; i.e. it is spoken as the word of revelation against it. If therefore the community has any understanding of the word of revelation that brings it into being, it can and must know that it has always to interpret the word afresh and to speak it into its own present as the word that is always the same—that word that is the same because it is always new.”

[14] Bultmann, John, 575. “This means that the Spirits’ word is not something new, to be contrasted with what Jesus said, but that the Spirit only states the latter afresh. The Spirit will not bring new illumination, or disclose new mysteries; on the contrary, in the proclamation effected by him, the word that Jesus spoke continues to be efficacious.”

[15] Bultmann, John, 574. “If the Spirit is at work in the word that is proclaimed in the community, then this word gives faith the power to step out into the darkness of the future, because the future is always illumined afresh by the word. Faith will see the ‘truth’ in each case, i.e., it will always be certain of the God who is manifest in the word, precisely because it understands the present in the light of this word.”

[16] Martin Luther, “Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 14-16,” Luther’s Works, vol. 24, ed., Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1961), 291.

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Joining Our Voices to the Divine Symphony

Psalm 1:1a, 2-3 Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked…Their delight is in the law of Abba God, and they meditate on that law day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper.

Introduction

The church visible is a specific community of human beings with a specific summons in the world; and as the church invisible it is called to be in the world but not of the world because its fabric and substance is cultivated from and of divine spiritual essence. People both make and do not make the church. There is no church without the people (visible), but the church is not restricted to a certain group of people (invisible). Every church is called to participate as a locus of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world and in this way the church visible partakes of the long surging presence of the church invisible. We as a visible church are yoked to the larger invisible church extending through time, and we find our place in this history as we are, where we are holding space for God to show up and work through us as a site of divine revolution of love, life, and liberation.

In this way, the church cannot find its comfort in the material realm, but rather it must find it in God through dependence on Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s from this posture that the church can bring comfort into the world. Thus, the metrics of success offered by the world fall flat when judging the church; it is not always the largest, the wealthiest, and the building with the most things that is the one most closely aligned to the reign of God. To be in the world and of the world is to relinquish the message of Christ for the message of the world and therein stifle the life-giving proclamation of Christ crucified and raised; a message that breaks in and interrupts the messages of the world. To sacrifice the message of Christ for an acceptable message according to the world is to sacrifice a true message of a substantial and enduring comfort for the saccharine and temporary comfort of the world.

But the church, which is built from the dust of the ground, is animated by and dependent on the breath of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God found in the encounter with God in the event of faith in Christ. The church is to be in the world and not of the world because the world and its inhabitants need a good word, a new word, a word of love, life, and liberation, one they didn’t come up with themselves.

John 17:6-19

Jesus prayed…“I am no longer in the cosmos and they, they are in the cosmos, and I, I come to you. Holy Elder, take care of them in your name which you have given to me, so that they are one just as we [, we are one]. When I was with them I, I was taking care of them in your name which you have given to me, and I guarded [them] and not one of them was lost if not the son of destruction…I, I have given to them your word, and the cosmos detested them, because they are not of the cosmos just as I, I am not of the cosmos.” (Jn 17:11-12b, 14)

This is the “Farewell Prayer.” Here, Jesus prays for his disciples, the ones he called to himself and thus to God and the same ones he is leaving. Jesus called each one by name and ushered them into the reality of God; they have been given new eyes to see, new ears to hear and thus they are now no longer of the world even though they are in it. The goal of the prayer is to make sure that the disciples whom Jesus is leaving behind in the world will remain in the truth that is God’s self-disclosure revealed by Christ (vv. 17, 19), and not fall prey to the oppression and hatred of the world thus cease remaining in Christ to seek comfort in the world.[1]

A thread that runs through the prayer is “oneness.” This oneness is part of the truth of God revealed in Christ: Jesus and God are one thus those who encounter Jesus encounter God; where Jesus goes, God goes, too.[2] When Jesus called the disciples, God called them. When they followed Jesus, they followed God. In being so summoned and in following, they become the community whose beginning is not of the world but of God even if they are in it.[3] Through Christ they have come to know God and are thus taken out of the world because they are substantiated by the word of God incarnated in Christ whom they follow and from whom they received the word of God.[4] The disciples—the ones called to form this community—make up the community that is of Jesus thus of God and this belonging to Jesus is the unique source of the community and the unique essence of its presence in the cosmos. Thus, the community cannot be of the world because its source and foundation is not temporal but spiritual; it is literally born of the spiritual substance of the word of God that is Jesus Christ and is made to be God’s incarnate presence in the world but not of the world.[5] Therefore, to try to exist outside of this divine source and be in the world and of the world will render the fledgling community nothing but a social club.

Now, as the prayer goes on, the community so prayed for by Christ is to take up the mission of God in the world that was revealed in and through Jesus’s self-witness in the world; the community is, like it’s source and forebear, to call into question the things of the world, to challenge the domination of the kingdom of humanity.[6] This is the hardship for the disciples left behind by Jesus; they will be homeless in the world but by being thusly homeless they will find their home (their being and substance, their source) in God. Here, nothing of the world can comfort them or justify their existence; they are solely and completely dependent on the Word of God in Christ.[7] And in this way they are perpetually at risk for falling into the lure of the world, thus why Jesus prays for them. They must resist the urge, and they must abide in the vine.[8]

It is through remaining and abiding in and with the vine (ch. 15), clinging to the Word of God, and being recipients of the divine, life-giving sap that is the fulfillment of the joy of Christ that is made complete in the community left behind.[9] The holiness (the consecration, the sanctifying) of the community is found in ὁ λόγος ὁ σὸς ἀλήθείᾳ έστιν (v. 17b). The identity of the community in the world is formed by the word of God that is truth; thus, it is not defined by the word of the world that is not truth. Anything apart from this word, for this community, disempowers its presence and leads it astray from the source of its life and identity and renders it merely pruned kindling; the holy community cannot depend on anything but the word of God for its love, life, and liberation in the world for the world.[10] From here and only from here anchored in the Word of God, like Jesus, can the community of Christ take up God’s divine proclamation of life, mission of love, and revolution of liberation in the world.[11]

Conclusion

Our hope as the church visible today is not to forget the source of the life of the invisible church. Now is the time to push more into the Word of God, to recall and retell the stories of Christ and the radical divine action made known through him. It is in pressing into this identity as the holy community formed and founded on the radical proclamation of God’s Word incarnate that is how we find ourselves further in the world though never of it. To press into God and God’s word is not to go backwards to some archaic time or to cling to legalism or fundamentalism; this is death because God’s word is living and breathing, not something of a year now long gone (this is to live under the kingdom of humanity). To press into God’s word and God is to press into life and movement forward into something new, different, and something that can summon the world to look up and forward (this is to live under the reign of God).

As tempting as it may seem at times to jettison this ancient and rather whacky proclamation for one a bit more tolerable to the world, I assure you that is the surest way to forfeit our identity as the Christian church in the world and give up our seat in this history. Without the foundation of the Word of God in Christ, we no longer have a unique message to bring into the world and will just blend into the background of the world’s cacophony. We cannot depend on our doctrines and institutions, some claim to God’s law, or some static conception of God of another era; recourse to this language is just the same as the world’s language…it’s recourse to temporal things that have no part in establishing spiritual realities. It is to try to grasp at dust returned to dust.

Rather as part of this long-ago prayed for community, we must hear the divine summons, dare to let go of the rope, and fall deeper into God. We must let ourselves become consumed with God’s passion for the world, for the beloved. It’s in this full dependence on God and God’s word that brings us in line with God and begins to spark the flames of divine revolution in our midst; reformation (revolution) always starts in God’s church with God’s word. In this we can join our voices to the celestial symphony and demand life where there is death, love where there is indifference, and liberation where there is captivity in the name of Christ to the glory of God.

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 498. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). “For the evangelist—and for the source too—the imparting of the name of God is not the transmitting of a secret, power-laden word, such as in the mysteries, or in the soul’s heavenward journey, or in magic, take effect by being spoken; rather it is the disclosure of God himself, the disclosure of the ἀλήθεια.”

[2] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 498. “In the work that Jesus does, God himself is at work, in him God himself is encountered.”

[3] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 498. “…by [the disciples’] faith they testify that their origin does not lie in the world, but that from the very beginning they were God’s possessions. As those who preserver God’s word, mediated through the Revealer, they form the community for which he prays.”

[4] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 499. “From this kind of faith grew the true knowledge, και ἔγνωσαν ἀληθῶς…, which in turn is the means whereby faith comes to itself, καὶ ἐπίστευσαν. For what is known and what is believed are in fact the same; ὅτι παρὰ σοῦ ἐξῆλθον and ὅτι σύ με ἀπέστειλας mean the same thing. And the meaning is this: to understand Jesus as the revealer and so to come to know God (v. 3). This therefore is the Christian community: a fellowship, which does not belong to the world, but is taken out of the world; one that owes its origin to God, and is established by the Revealer’s word, recognised as such in the light of the Passion. i.e.. in the light of rejection by the world; a fellowship, that is to say, which is established only by t the faith that recognises God in Jesus.”

[5] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 500. “The community belongs to God only in so far as it belongs to Jesus; i.e. it has its origin in eternity only in so far as it holds fast to its origin in the eschatological event that is accomplished in Jesus. To say that it belongs to Jesus is significant only in that it thereby belongs to God (τὰ ἐμὰ πάντα σά έστιν) that it belongs to God becomes a fact only in in that it belongs to Jesus (τὰ σὰ ἐμά).”

[6] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 501. “But what is he?  As the revealer of God he is the Judge of the world, through whom the world is called in question; and he has his δόξα in the community inasmuch as it too means judgement for the world, and that through it the world is called in question.”

[7] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 501. “His δόξα cannot be seen at the present time like the glory of a Messiah. There is no way of point to it in the world, except paradoxically, in that the community which is a stranger to the world is also an offence to it. Thus the community cannot prove itself to the world. Nor can its members comfort themselves in the things they possess…”

[8] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 502. “From what has gone before it is at once clear that the prayer for their protection is the prayer that the community which stands in the world be protected from falling back into the world’s hands, that it be kept pure in its unworldly existence.”

[9] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 506. “To say that this joy is to be shared by the disciples πεπληρωμένη, is to say, as in 15:11, that the joy they have already received through him will be brought to its culmination; the significance of turning to him in faith is found in the believer’s life becoming complete as eschatological existence.”

[10] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 509. “Marked off from the world, the community is to live in the world as holy community. But it can only enjoy this state of separation from the world in virtue of the revelation on which it is founded, which is nothing other than the word of God transmitted to it through Jesus. Hus its holiness is not due to its own quality, nor can it manufacture its differentiation from the world by itself, by its rite, its institution, or its particular way of lie; all this can only be a sign of its difference from the world, not a means of attaining it. [The community’s] holiness it therefore nothing permanent, like an inherited possession: holiness is only possible for the community by the continual realisation of tis world-annulling way of life, i.e.. by continual reference to the word that calls it out of the world, and to the truth that sets it free form the world.”

[11] Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 510. “The community has a task analogous to his, and rooted in it…But it does not take over this assault or the duty to win the world solely by embarking on missionary enterprises; it does so simply by its existence.”

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The Good Fruit

Psalm 22:28-29 28 To Abba God alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; all who go down to the dust fall before Abba God. My soul shall live for God; my descendants shall serve God; they shall be known as Abba God’s for ever.

Introduction

Last week, I ended the sermon with this:

The Christian walk is hard not because we have to be pious and self-righteous or force ourselves to be perfect and better than everyone else; it’s hard because to love your neighbor in the name of God is hard. In her most systematic text, Thinking About God, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love has its price. The cross expresses love to the endangered, threatened life of God in our world. It is no longer a question of a biophilic embracing of life which spares itself the cross. The more we love God, the threatened, endangered, crucified God, the nearer we are to [God], the more endangered we are ourselves. The message of Jesus is that the more you grow in love, the more vulnerable you make yourself.”[1]

Beloved to love is hard because it’s risky; God knows because God loves and risked everything for you, the beloved.

I didn’t know that this week’s gospel message would take that message and go deeper into the depths of Christian existence that is radically shaped by God’s love, faith in Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Following Christ out of the Jordan is risky business; following Christ out of the tomb is even more risky. Because love—the love of God and the love for the neighbor—makes us vulnerable, as vulnerable as God made God’s self in Christ for the Beloved.

John 15:1-8

I, I am the true vine and my Elder is the vinedresser. All vine-branches in me not bearing fruit [God, God] removes, and all [vine-branches] bearing fruit [God, God] prunes so that they may bear more excellent fruit…Remain in me, and I [remain] in you. Just as the vine-branch is not able to bear fruit from itself if it does not remain in the vine, in this way neither can you, you if you do not remain in me. (John 15:1-2, 4)

Our gospel brings us to Jesus’s announcement that he is the true vine, God (his parent) is the vine-dresser, and those who follow Christ are the vine-branches. This passage falls within the “farewell discourses.” Through these chapters (13-17), Jesus leaves his disciples with exhortation and guidance, warning and prayer, all things necessary for them to persist when he leaves (in chapter 18 he is arrested and is resurrected in chapter 20). So, seen through the larger discourse of the “farewell discourses” a discussion about Jesus being the true vine, God being the vine-dresser, and the disciples being vine-branches makes more sense. Thus, in being the true vine there is no other vine for the disciples to find true life apart from Jesus.[2] This is why the disciples are exhorted by Christ to remain in Christ as they go about the activity of the Spirit in the world through proclamation and prayer.[3] In other words, to isolate this passage may render it more traumatizing and scarier than it ought to be—though, that doesn’t make its message easier to digest.

Christ knows that his disciples, those near and far, will come up against turmoil and tumult in the world either indirectly (because the world is chaotic and a bit happenstance) or directly (because the message of God’s revolutionary love causes things to be right-side-up that have been up-side down for too long). Christ is eager to give his disciples something to cling to while they wander this earth without him, so that when they encounter indirect or direct suffering they know they are not alone but that God, Christ, and the Spirit are with them, walking them through this trial and tribulation.[4] And while the thrust of the passage is on the vine and the vine-branches (and which ones are or are not bearing fruit), God is pictured here in a tender and loving way who faithfully forms and shapes the lives of those who follow the vine, those who follow after Jesus.[5] In this passage we see God use the (indirect and direct) ills of this world for the well-being and benefit of those who follow after God by faith and love.[6] It is this God who is for the disciples whom the disciples have direct access to through Christ.[7]

I need to tread lightly here because I do not want to communicate that either we should be seeking out turmoil and tumult or that God in God’s self is intentionally bringing us pain. Rather, it is in turmoil and tumult where we cling tighter to the word and grip that divine hand of our beloved elder/parent with more fervor as we go through these challenges.[8] And in this we are formed (more and more) to the likeness of Christ, fashioned after God’s own heart, made one with the divine Spirit in us rendering us softer rather than harder.[9]

It is this process of moving from hard to soft, from invulnerable to vulnerable that makes Christian existence in the world painful. The world would deal us strife and encourage us to become hard and closed off; but with Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit and God walking with us, we are exhorted and encouraged to get up when we fall and not put on the world’s emotional armor so we can feel again, identify with the suffering of others again, to be as Christ again to our neighbor and in the world. We have no “human security”; rather we are to trust that even in this God is with us and God will bring comfort to these who are afflicted through our love which is informed/formed by our faith.[10] To be grafted onto the vine that is Christ and pruned as a result is to be grown into Christ and to be Christ’s body in the world searching and seeking the beloved of God, bringing liberation, loving even though its risky, and daring to live and fight for life even when death is all around.[11],[12] This is the good fruit that we bear into the world. [13]

Conclusion

As those daring enough to follow Christ out of the Jordan and then again follow him out of the tomb on Easter Morning, we are called to remain in Christ. We never move on from Christ as the source of our life and love in the world, and the reality of our liberation to participate in divine liberation of the whole world. To remain in Christ is to persist in faith even when things seem to be falling apart, are all on fire, and when everything actual is poised to dismantle anything possible. We are called to be those who represent Christ in the world, those who are from Christ, those who bring Christ close to God’s beloved who are in pain, who suffer, who lack, and to remind them and the world that Christ is not truly gone, but very present in our actions of love informed by faith.[14]

It is this from-ness, this remaining in that informs our prayer life and in this way as we are aligned with the life giving sap of the vine, and we are pruned, and become fruit-bearing vine-branches. In this way, our prayers align informed by our faith in Christ manifesting in loving deeds bringing God glory in the world. [15] Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven… To pray in this way, to remain in Christ, to bear divine fruit in the world aligned with the will of God, to be Christ’s body and to represent God in a world that is convinced God is dead is what it means to be Christ’s disciples. [16]

To quote her text, Suffering, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love does not cause suffering or produce it, though it must necessarily seek confrontation, since its most important concern is not the avoidance of suffering but the liberation of people. Jesus’ suffering was avoidable. He endured it voluntarily. There were other ways out, as is stressed again and again in mythical language: it would have been possible for him to come down from the cross and allow himself to be helped. To put it in political terms, he didn’t need to go to Jerusalem and could have avoided the confrontation. … To reconcile God with misery means precisely avoiding confrontation and, in fear of being formed in the image of Christ, which includes pain, putting off liberating love.”[17]

“The meaning of the cross is not to reconcile God with misery and finish us off in the paradox. The unity of cross and resurrection, failure and victory, weeping and laughing, makes the utopia of a better life possible for the first time. He who does not weep needs no utopia; to him who only weeps God remains mute.”[18]

[1] Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1990), 134.

[2] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, gen. ed., RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 529-530. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966. “With the words ἐγώ εἰμι the Revealer presents himself again as the object of the world’s desire and longing; if one asks about the ‘true vine’, then the answer is given: ‘The true vine am I’. There is no comparison here, or allegory. Rather, Jesus as the true, authentic ‘vine’ is contrasted with whatever also claims to be the ‘vine’.”

[3] Bultmann, John, 529. “Thus the first part of the discourse, vv. 1-8, is an exhortation to constancy of faith in the language of μείvατε ἐν ἐμοί, …”

[4] Martin Luther, “Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 14-16,” Luther’s Works, vol. 24, ed., Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1961), 194. Here after LW 24. “That is how Christ interprets the suffering which He and His Christians are to endure on earth. This is to be a benefaction and a help rather than affliction and harm. Its purpose is to enable them to bear all the better fruit and all the more, in order that we may learn to impress this on ourselves as He impresses it on Himself.”

[5] LW 24, 199. “This is an especially charming picture. God portrays Himself, not as a tyrant or a jailer but as a pious Vinedresser who tends and works His vineyard with all faithfulness and diligence, and surely does not intend to ruin it by fertilizing, hoeing, pruning, and removing superfluous leaves.”

[6] LW 24, 210. “Thus, as has been stated before, God uses all trials and suffering, not for Christendom’s harm, as the devil and the world intend, but for its welfare, so that it may thereby be purified and improved, and bear much fruit for the Vinedresser. This is what he here calls pruning, so that those who are in Christ may continue to grow and increase in strength.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 531-532. “Before the exhortation is given, the phrase καὶ ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν declares that Jesus’ existence for his own is ground in his existence from God, which is an indirect way of saying that as the revealer he makes it possible for his own to approach the Father.”

[8] LW 24, 211. “Therefore your suffering is not the cleanness itself, and you are not declared clean in the sight of God because of it. But it does serve to drive man to grasp and hold the Word with a better and firmer grip, in order that in this way faith may become active. The word is itself the purification of the heart if the heart adheres to it and remains faithful to it.”

[9] LW 24, 212. “Behold, thus Christ shows clearly that the cleanness of Christians does not come from the fruit they bear but that, conversely, their fruit and works spring from the cleanness which they already have from the Word, by which the heart is cleansed.”

[10] Bultmann, John, 532-533. “The relationship with God means the destruction of human security—for the believer as well. It does not provide enjoyment of peace of mind, or a state of contemplation, but demands movement, growth; its law is καρπὸν φέρειν. The nature of the fruit-bearing is not expressly stated; it is every demonstration of vitality of faith, to which, according to bb. 9-17, reciprocal love above all belongs.”

[11] LW 24, 226. “And it is done in this manner: When I am baptized or converted by the Gospel, the Holy Spirit is present. He takes me as clay and makes of me a new creature, which is endowed with a different mind, heart, and thoughts, that is, with a true knowledge of God and sincere trust in His grace. To summarize, the very essence of my heart is rendered and changed. This makes me a new plant, one that is grafted on Christ the vine and grows from Him. My holiness, righteousness, and purity do not stem from me, nor to they depend on me. They come solely from Christ and are based only in Him, in whom I am rooted by faith, just a s the sap flows from the stalk into the branches. Now I am like Him and of His kind. Both He and I are of one nature and essence, and I bear fruit in him and through Him. This fruit is not mine; it is the Vine’s.”

[12] Bultmann, John, 536. “For the Revealer is not the mediator of a doctrine that can be received once for all; his word is not a dogma, nor a view of the world, but the free word of revelation that makes alive and that establishes anew one’s whole existence.”

[13] LW 24, 226. “Thus Christ and the Christians become one loaf and one body, so that the Christian can bear good fruit—not Adam’s or his own, but Christ’s For when a Christian baptizes, preaches, consoles, exhorts, works, and suffers, he does not do this as a man descended from Adam; it is Christ who does this in Him. The lips and tongue with which the proclaims and confesses God’s Word are not his; they are Christ’s lips and tongue. The hands with which heh toils and serves his neighbor are the hands and member of Christ, who, as he says here, is in him; and he is in Christ.”

[14] Bultmann, John, 535-536. “Μέωειν is persistence in the life of faith; it is loyal steadfastness to the cause only in the sense of always allowing oneself to be encompassed, of allowing oneself to receive. The loyalty that is demanded is not primarily a continued being for, but a being from; it is not the holding of a position, but an allowing oneself to be held, corresponding to the relationship of the κλῆμα to the ἄμπελος.”

[15] Bultmann, John, 538-539. “In prayer the believer, so to speak, steps out of the movement of his life, inasmuch as the prayer is not an action that satisfies the claim of the moment—which for the believer is the demand of love. But as he prays the believer also steps out of the context of his life, in that he is certain of the prayer’s being granted, and he no longer has need to fear the future about which he prays, as of something that threatens to destroy him he can be certain that the prayer will be heard, whatever he prays for; for what else could be the content of his petition, whatever form it may take, than the Revealer’s μένειν in him, and his μένειν in the Revealer? The granting of such a prayer, which arises him out of the context of his human life in the world, is itself the documentation of his eschatological existence.”

[16] Bultmann, John, 539. “…the disciples’ union with the separated Revealer is achieved in their discipleship; and after vv. 4-6, the radical meaning of μαθητὴς εἶναι has become clear as a reciprocal μένειν ἐν.”

[17] Dorothee Sölle, Suffering, trans. Everett R. Kalin (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1975), 164-165. Originally published as: Leiden “Themen der Theologie” ed. Hans Jürgen Schultz, Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag.

[18] Sölle, Suffering, 166.

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Love is Risky

Psalm 23:1-2, 6: Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of Abba God for ever.

Introduction

When I was first Christian, I was given the clear idea that being a Christian meant that I would be nice and that people would like me because I was so nice, kind, patient, and happy. I would be compliant and non-obtrusive. I would be meek and mild. I would be all things to all people in a very non-offensive and non-confrontational way. In fact, being offensive and confrontational—being the opposite of any adjective listed above—was synonymous with being “not a Christian.” So, following the logic: happy person = Christian person; grumpy person = Non-Christian person (etc.).

To be honest, I don’t know where this idea comes from. It’s not in the bible really. Yes, Paul says to rejoice and rejoice again, Jesus says not to worry, and there are many exhortations to love our neighbor and offer up service to them in the name and to the glory of God. There are even a couple (some Pauline and some pseudo-Pauline) references to being good, complaint, and prayerful citizens. But, in general, the Christian life is not particularly described as nice, happy, kind, compliant, etc. To be even more honest, I’m not sold on the idea that those we are exhorted to imitate were all that nice or happy. For instance, while Paul brought the gospel proclamation—God’s word of comfort and love—to many, he was a force to reckon with and very open about his suffering while bringing glory to God and the God’s beloved. Jesus—the incarnate Word of God who identified with the oppressed and marginalized—was quite the offensive and confrontational force toward many…how else do you think he ended up on the cross, a state instrument of death?

The reality is that the Christian life will bring us into direct conflict with both religious and civil authorities. Following in the steps of Christ as Christ’s disciples means that, like Christ, we will find ourselves confronting the false idols of our age, exposing decrepit and toxic systems, and coming face to face with structural violence meant to do harm to God’s beloved. In other words, no not everyone will like us and think we are so peachy keen and nice. If that is hard to believe, let’s turn to Luke’s story in Acts about Peter in full on confrontation with the authorities…

Acts 4:5-12

Now it happened that the rulers and the elders and the scribes of Israel were convened in Jerusalem—both Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many who were of the kin of the high priest—and after standing [the prisoners] in the middle, they were learning by inquiry, “By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing?” Then Peter—by means of being filled by the Holy Spirit—said to them…” (Acts 4:5-8a)

Our lectionary drops us off with Peter and John as prisoners before the elders and rulers of the people of Israel in Jerusalem. But, how did they get there? Let’s look.

Last week, we saw Peter and John heal a man who needed healing his whole life. In response to this healing, the people of Israel are amazed and in awe of what Peter and John have done for this man. As these people gather around John and Peter, Peter begins to address the crowd with words of exposure and comfort in the proclamation of Christ raised from the dead. As a result, some Sadducees and the captain of the temple approach Peter and John and arrest them for proclaiming Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to the people.

Now, in our passage, it is the day after the arrest. As Luke tells us, Peter and John are dragged out into the middle of all the leaders (rulers, elders, scribes and the kin of the high priest) of Israel so that they, the rulers and elders, can interrogate John and Peter and find out, By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing? Peter has a choice here…he could just say something ambiguous about God, but he doesn’t. Instead, Luke tells us, Peter being filled by the Holy Spirit said to them… The Spirit of God inspires and emboldens Peter[1] to speak light to darkness, to expose the errors of judgment and the missed mark. It’s the following speech about divine, liberating action of the oppressed that gets Peter and John in trouble with those who are in power.[2] Regular words about God do not raise eyebrows or provoke to anger; rather, it is the words demonstrating God as against those in power that will. Peter and John knew this would be the case; they’d seen it before with Jesus and it led to his death and this death would come for them, too.[3]

So, Peter, filled with the Spirit, boldly declares to the leaders of Israel and not just to a crowd of bystanders, ‘If we, we are being interrogated about the well-doing of a weak person, by what this man has been saved, let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—whom you, you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—this man has stood in your presence healthy.’ Peters words shatter the glass walls separating the religious and the political, what they proclaimed to the people they now proclaim to the leaders; liberation from oppression comes to liberate the oppressed and also the oppressor.[4] As a result, Peter and John are treated as criminals who thwart the law and break the social arrangement; as Willie James Jennings says in his commentary on Acts 4, “Real preaching and authentic teaching is inextricably bound to real criminality.”[5]

But something else is going on here. This scene is meant to demonstrate the power of the judges over the judged. But a reversal is happening. Rather than the judges asking the questions of the judged, Peter, the judged, turns the table and now the rulers and elders of the people of Israel are the ones being questioned. In one swift and divinely inspired word, Peter puts these judges on trial; they are now the guilty ones,[6] they are now exposed, they are now the ones who must justify their power.[7] The rulers must declare in whose name they act. And things become a bit trickier when Peter makes it clear that he and his friend are the representatives of God therefore implying the rulers and the elders are not. In and through Peter’s speech, the world is exposed as upside-down; Peter and John are caught up in the divine activity as they participate in turning it right-side up according to divine love, life, and liberation in the name of God for God’s beloved.[8]

Conclusion

Acts reminds us, from beginning to end, that the life of a Christian and the life of the Christian church is one that is hard and not easy. To follow Christ demands that we, like all his other disciples (i.e. Peter and John) will become caught up in the waterfall of divine justice for the beloved that is life, love, and liberation. And this necessarily means that we will not be nice, we will be confrontational, we may even be offensives especially to those who are benefiting being nestled comfortably in the power of an upside-down world. Willie James Jennings writes,

“The great illusion of followers of Jesus, especially those who imagine themselves leaders, is that they could live a path different from Jesus and his disciples. They believe somehow that they can be loved or at least liked or at least tolerated or even ignored by those with real power in the world.”[9]

Easter tells us that not only is our past tied up with Christ’s death and resurrection but so is our future. And if both our past and our future is so tied up with Christ, it means that our present is as well. To live into the gift of resurrected life means being lead, by the Spirit, to participate in the divine revolution of love in the world on behalf of God’s beloved. Many will be grateful; many more will not. The Christian walk is hard not because we have to be pious and self-righteous or force ourselves to be perfect and better than everyone else; it’s hard because to love your neighbor in the name of God is hard. In her most systematic text, Thinking About God, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love has its price. The cross expresses love to the endangered, threatened life of God in our world. It is no longer a question of a biophilic embracing of life which spares itself the cross. The more we love God, the threatened, endangered, crucified God, the nearer we are to [God], the more endangered we are ourselves. The message of Jesus is that the more you grow in love, the more vulnerable you make yourself.”[10]

Beloved to love is hard because it’s risky; God knows because God loves and risked everything for you, the beloved.

[1] Brittany E. Wilson, “Contextualizing. Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases,” in Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics, eds., Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner, and Steve Walton (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 34. “…Luke indicates that Peter’s rhetorical savvy is not of his own doing, but of divine origin.”

[2] Willie James Jennings, “Acts”, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 45. “Speaking holy words has serious consequences. These are not words that simply speak of God. There is nothing inherently serious, holy, or dangerous in God-talk. The holy words that bring consequences are words tied to the concrete liberating actions of God for broken people. Such holy words bring the speakers into direct confrontation with those in power. Jesus not only spoke such words but he was such a word.”

[3] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples know this confrontation was coming. The struggle against those in power that marked the life and death of Jesus was coming for them as well.”

[4] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples are among common people proclaiming liberation and that violence and death are no longer the ultimate power. Jesus is risen! Therefrom the site of the common, holy words touch two intersecting nerves, the religious and the political.”

[5] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Only criminals touch nerves at this level and receive the consequences [arrest, trial, custody]…”

[6] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47-48. “The judges are in fact builders. This is the great dilemma of the advantaged in this world. They institutionalize life. They are socially ordered and they enact social order. They are inside what they create and they create what they are inside of and from within this circle they often cannot see a divine judgment being brought on them, brought against them. God judges them from the position of the judged.”

[7] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47. “The judged are questioned (the judges are not). The judged must give account of their power and authority to speak, to believe, to suggest a different world order. The judged must show connection to the powerful, to names that are recognized by those in power. Power only sees power. The judged are evaluated (the judges are not). A scale is unleashed against the judged. Their education, social pedigrees, elocution, and baring are all measured against the judges. Now the dividing line is exposed. Now the moment of judgment will begin, but not as the ruling religious and social elite imagine. They misunderstand this moment just like Herod and Pontus Pilate misunderstood it with Jesus.”

[8] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47.

[9] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Peter spoke again…The table is being turned over, an upside down world is being turned right side up in these words of Peter. Peter stands next to the man God has healed not by the power claimed by the elites, by the judges of this world, but only through the Holy Spirit.”

[10] Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1990), 134.

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It’s STILL Easter!

Psalm 4:7-8 You have put gladness in my heart, more than when grain and wine and oil increase. I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, Abba God, make me dwell in safety.

Introduction

Good news! It is STILL Easter! (And will be for another four weeks!). On Easter morning we proclaimed the good news of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead and, at the same time, experienced the good news of our own resurrection into new life out of the old life that was buried in the past and captive to what was. Easter season is a continued celebration of the miracle of resurrection that is not merely a historical story but also has present tense impact. This is more than a story of something that happened long ago; it is more than a myth that has ceased to have any relevance. It is our story TODAY. It is relevant for us TODAY. It is the very foundation and source not only of the Christian Church (visible and invisible), but of our life corporate and individual.

Easter reminds us that life is unlimited and death is limited. Death is thrust up against the walls of its tomb and forced to reckon with its demise. Jesus’s resurrection is the divine yawp summoning all of us out of our tombs into new and active life in God and with God and by God. We are neither the sum of our past deeds, nor are we forced to always define ourselves by them; Easter is our summons into new and recreated life. Real life! Life to live in vibrant and authentic ways; life lived with faces turned forward, feet planted firmly on solid ground, and our ears turned and tuned to the voice of our shepherd calling us into unending life, love, and liberation in God through faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All of this is ours by faith and by God’s love; even though, as Peter says below, we are part of the problem, the ones who opted to kill Jesus, the ones who confused good and evil.

Acts 3:12-19

The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our forebears glorified God’s servant, Jesus, whom you, you handed over and whom you, you denied in the presence of Pilate, after judging [Jesus] to be released. But you, you denied the holy and righteous One and you, you demanded a murderer to be freely given to you, but the author of life you killed, whom God raised from the dead…And now, siblings, I have perceived that you acted according to ignorance just as also your leaders [did] (Acts 3:13-15, 17).

Luke puts us at the feet of Peter and John after a healing. Our ears and eyes are turned to Peter who is talking with the people of Israel who were amazed by the healing. But the point of the story isn’t the healing as much as it is an opportunity for proclamation of God’s great activity made known in the resurrection of Christ. In this way, the healing isn’t the miracle, per se; rather, the miracle is Peter and John truly witnessing to Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ.[1] In a way the “man lame from birth” now healed (v.2) isn’t very different from the two men who were blind to who Jesus was and now believe him to be the Christ, the long awaited Messiah of God’s beloved. All three were healed through Jesus, alone.[2]

Without missing a beat, Peter launches into exposing and “dangerous” language as he accuses the Israelites of their guilt against Jesus and God.[3] The temptation here is for us to remain as simple observers in the far distant audience, looking in at a “family argument” that has nothing to do with us; but that isn’t the case, not according to Good Friday.[4] For we ourselves are guilty of transposing good and evil, falling victim to comfort and familiar, and being held captive by our own security and letting innocent people suffer for our ease; thus, Peter’s keen insight (painful insight based on memory[5]) is not only for the children of Israel but for us; we are called and summoned here.[6] Like Israel, we are ignorant and guilty; or, in the language of 2024, we are captive and complicit.

But Peter’s accusation doesn’t end with accusation and condemnation; there’s hope. Repentance and absolution. You repent, therefore, and turn towards [God] so that your sins are blotted out (v. 19). In this way and in spite of the action of the crowd (the children of Israel and us), the action of the One Messiah, Jesus the Christ, is emphasized; Jesus, the one so raised by God from the dead, is the one who bestows life not to those who have earned it but to those who are dead in their trespasses![7] Here, in this moment between Peter and the crowd (between Peter and us), the tendencies of the crowd come into a full on collision with the action of Jesus.[8] The good news is that our tendencies don’t survive and God’s love does.

Conclusion

To close I want to quote Dorothee Sölle from her book, Choosing Life,

“To participate in the resurrection means that our lives don’t lead towards what is dead, are not exposed to death’s magnetic attractions. To be a Christian means that death is behind us. it no longer lies in wait for us. What awaits us is the love of which we are a part.”[9]

By being grafted into this story, we get the same confrontation with Jesus that the Israelites had as they stood before Peter and John and heard their guilt. And yet, they also heard their acceptance; thus, so do we hear our acceptance. Today, we are reminded that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is the undoing of our poor (down right bad) judgment and that divine Love triumphs even when all seems lost. We live today. We are recreated today. We rejoice today. Today, by faith in Christ, the incarnation of God’s word of love, life, and liberation, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we celebrate our new life that is abounding with God’s love, teeming with mercy and forgiveness, spilling over with joy, infused by God’s grace, swelling with divine pleasure. Beloved, continue in your Easter, resurrected life with Christ!

[1] Willie James Jennings, “Acts”, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 42.   “The miraculous is not only the one healed but Peter and John, who now live on the other side of the journey of Jesus as his true witnesses.”

[2] Jennings, “Acts,” 42. “No one is healed by the power or holiness of witnesses, but only through Jesus of Nazareth.”

[3] Jennings, “Acts,” 42-43. “Peter’s words then move into the profoundly dangerous arena of accusation and guilt. Peter speaks to a specific crowd, the children of Israel, and invokes the same behavior seen in Jesus.”

[4] Jennings, “Acts,” 43. “But Peter speaks to his people. This is an in-house conversation. We have lost the sense and struggle of this family argument, this cultic contention. But what he speaks captures a reality for all peoples and their leaders. Peoples often do act in ignorance or malice, killing the innocent and allowing murderers to go free.”

[5] Jennings, “Acts,” 43. “Peter and John carry the memory of a crowd that called for Jesus’ death; But now Peter’s speech marks the path through such agonizing knowledge with its temptation toward self-indulging intellectual narcissism.”

[6] Jennings, “Acts,” 43. “Told from this angle the story of servant Jesus highlights the weakness of the many, the ease with which the crowd could be deceived to choose against their won well-being. If the many can be deceived, then what must it be like to see their deception? Luke positions Peter in that painful position of seeing and knowing what others don’t fully see.”

[7] Jennings, “Acts,” 43. “The point here is not the actions of the many but the actions of the One. The man healed is now a sign of the man resurrected from the dead, the author of life itself.”

[8] Jennings, “Acts,” 43. “Now the actions of the one confront the wayward propensities of the many.”

[9] Dorothee Sölle, Choosing Life, (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1981), 91.

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Resurrected from the Past; Liberated from What Was: Easter Life!

Psalm 118:22-24 22 The same stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is God’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. On this day Abba God has acted; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Introduction

The psalmist declares: “There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of the righteous: ‘The right hand of Abba God has triumphed!’” (118:15).

Let’s add our triumphant proclamation: Happy Easter! Christ is risen!

Today is a glorious and beautiful day! It is the day where we get to experience the proclamation that Christ is Risen, that death couldn’t hold him, and that life wins! It’s this day, this very morning where we hear the great echoes of God’s maternal roar, sending death backward, reeling, stumbling, and coming to rest in its own tomb, thus, giving love, life, and liberation free reign in the world.

This means, for us, our individual agony and communal limitation, our local turmoil, national chaos, and global tumult find restriction. These can only go so far considering God’s revolution of divine love, life, and liberation in the world on behalf of God’s beloved. No matter how much tumult, chaos, turmoil, limitation, and agony tantrum, rage and stomp about, they find their end in the light of God shining forth from the once sealed tomb daring to contain God’s very Son, the divine child of humanity, our brother! Good news starts today because God sounded God’s divine yawp and sent everything threatening human flourishing and thriving running for the hills, desperate to find protection from that piercing, exposing, and redeeming light of lights!

But there’s a problem I foresee coming: we will leave here today euphoric with warm and celebratory feelings only to arise on Monday as if nothing even happened. Our alarms will summon us from sleep, and we will lumber through the day as if nothing transpired between Friday 5 pm and Monday 8 am. Those who have been summoned to life this morning with Christ by faith will, in 24 hours, be those who roll over and continue to sleep as if enclosed in a tomb.

But what if … What if this ancient, whacky story of divine activity in the world, the overruling of death, the radical reordering of actuality and possibility has meaning for us today? What if it can release us from being buried in the past and captive to what was?

John 20:1-18

Now Mary had remained at the tomb weeping outside. Then, as she was weeping, she stooped low to look inside the tomb, and she beholds two angels in brightness sitting, one toward the head and one toward the feet where Jesus’s body was laid. And they say to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She says, “They took my Lord, and I do not know where they placed him.” After saying these things, she turns around and looks at Jesus standing there, and had not perceived that it is Jesus. Jesus says to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Appearing to her that it is the gardener, she says to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, answer me where you placed him, and I will remove him.” (John 20:11-15)

In John’s gospel, we meet Mary at the tomb. John brings us straight there. There is no lead up as there is in other gospels. At the end of the Gospel of Mark, the two Marys and Salome, as they go to the tomb, are worried they will not access Jesus’s body (preparing it for burial) because the stone will be too heavy for them to move. In Mark’s gospel, there is anxiety and concern. But with John, we are immediately at the tomb in the early, dark hours of the morning (v.1). Thus, John brings us straight into the crisis of Easter morning.[1] We are with Mary, we are in the dark, and we are just as startled by the things we see…The stone is rolled away, and the tomb is open.

Mary sees the tomb is opened, and instead of going further to investigate, she runs back to Peter and John (the beloved disciple). Her message—They removed the Lord from the tomb, and I have not seen where they laid him” (v. 2b)—provokes John and Peter to run to the tomb. John arrives first and stoops low to look (without entering) and sees Jesus’s death linens laid on the ground (v. 5). Then Peter follows John’s lead but enters the tomb, and he gazes at the pieces of fine linen lying there, and he sees the head cloth for the dead which was upon Jesus’s head and is now not lying with the other linens but is separate, having been rolled around into one place (vv. 6-7). Then John enters. Here it is declared, he saw and he believed; his faith in the risen Christ is kindled.[2] For never before had they remembered the writing that it is necessary that he was raised from the dead (v. 9). For John (and Peter) faith in Jesus blossomed that morning into the full faith in Jesus the Christ, the resurrected son of God.[3] They saw, they remembered, and they believed.

Then they leave the tomb and ran back (v.10). But Mary stays at the tomb, weeping outside; then, she stooped low to look inside the tomb. As she does, she is greeted not by death linens and shrouds, but by two dazzling, brightly illuminated angels, sitting where Jesus’s body was initially laid to rest (vv. 11-12). The angels ask her, Woman, why are you weeping? And she explains, they took the body of my Lord, and I do not know where they placed him (v. 13). The text does not tell us anything else about the angels; we are only told that Mary turns away from the tomb and then she sees someone whom she thinks is the gardener, but it’s Jesus (v. 14). Jesus speaks to her and asks, Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking? Still, she does not recognize who he is. [4] She is stuck. Jesus is dead, for Mary. She cannot hear his voice because her focus is on Jesus’s being dead—answer me where you placed him and I will remove him (v. 15). For Mary, Jesus should still be in the tomb. Though she is facing Jesus, she cannot see him[5] because she is captive to what was, she’s buried in Good Friday. She needs to be called out of the tomb of yesterday into the resurrection of today.

And that’s what Jesus does. He calls her, Mary. Her response is one of elation and joy, Rabboni! No one can say your name like the one who loved you to the end. [6] And then Jesus adds this paradoxically cryptic yet perfect statement, “Do not fasten to me, for I have not yet ascended to my parent and your parent, my God and your God.” In other words, this is not a resuscitation of the old idea, of yesterday, of the ordinary and expected, thus the status-quo; it is something completely new, different, unexpected, unknown! [7] To be encountered by God in the event of faith is to be ushered into a new life with the Risen Christ not shuttled back into what was.[8] Mary was not called back into the tomb, but further out and away from it; she was called to lift her eyes and follow the voice of the Risen Christ unto God’s new work in the world where death no longer has the final say, yesterday is no longer a tyrant, and the past can no longer hold captive.

Conclusion

Beloveds, today begins a new era of looking forward into the light of life of the living and not into the darkness of the tomb of the dead. Why are you weeping? The Angels ask Mary. Whom do you seek?” Jesus asks Mary. Today, these questions are for us: why are weeping for what is of yesterday? What and Whom are we seeking? These two questions are one in the same question. In seeking we realize we’ve lost something; in realizing we’ve lost something we weep. In weeping we search for that which we lost. But we tend to go backward, we tend to reach behind us, to stoop low and focus on the death linens and shrouds of the things of yesterday. We are so consumed by our grief of what was and is now no longer that we cannot perceive that the loving voice asking us these questions is the divine, loving, voice of God summoning us out of and away from the tomb holding the dead. For God is not there; Jesus Christ is risen; life is not in the tomb but out in the world. Divine life, light, and love released into the world to bring God’s great revolution of love and liberation to all those who are trapped in captivity to what was and buried in the past.

  • Rather than feel helpless in the face of global tumult, we can speak a new word: a word of peace that is prayerful action. We can dare to feel helpful.
  • Rather than feel hopeless in the face of national chaos, we can speak a new word: a word of mercy that is taking a stand to protect those lives being ignored in derisive debate. We can dare to feel hopeful.
  • Rather than feel pointless in the face of local turmoil, we can speak a new word: a word of solidarity that is active presence with our neighbors. We can dare to believe that there is meaning.
  • Rather than live succumbed to the mythology of our Christian limitation, we can speak a good word of God’s love for the cosmos that is a word of Gospel proclamation in word and deed. We can dare to reclaim God’s story and believe it abounds with great possibility.
  • Rather than becoming numb to our personal agony, we can speak a new word of life that is a word of resurrection (now!). We can dare to live as if death cannot eclipse life.

So, today we stand up and take hold of the love, life, and liberation gifted to us by God through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Here we raise our Ebenezer because, Here by God’s great help we’ve come![9] And we go forward and seek God among the living not among the dead. Dorothee Sölle writes, “He who seeks [Jesus] among the dead, accepts as true something that happened to him or seeks him among those who are not yet dead, ourselves. He who seeks [Jesus] among the living, seeks him with God and therefore on this our earth.”[10] Therefore, today I pray we hear our names and the name of our community called and we leave behind the linens of yesterday and the shroud of what was and step toward the one calling, beckoning, and summoning us forward into divine life! Today we celebrate because we have been loosed from the captivity of what was and resurrected from burial in the past. Today we dare to stand in the love of the present and step boldly into the life of the future. Because today God lives!

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed, RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 683-684. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). “But unlike Mark’s narrative no mention is made of the purpose of Mary’s coming, and therefore there is no reflection on who could roll the stone away from the door of the grave (Mk. 16.3); it is merely reported that she sees that the stone is removed. From that she draws the conclusion (v. 2) that the body has been carried away, and—without looking into the grave?—she hastens, shocked and perplexed, to Peter and the beloved disciple in order to bring this news to them.”

[2] Bultmann, John, 684. The beloved disciple does not step into the grave; Peter does; the beloved disciple then follows and their faith is kindled.

[3] Bultmann, John, 684. What faith? “In this context the faith that is meant can only be faith in the resurrection of Jesus; it can be signified by the abs. πιστεὐειν, because this means faith in Jesus in the full sense, and so includes the resurrection faith. As to the two disciples, it is then simply reported that they return home (v. 10).”

[4] Bultmann, John, 686. She doesn’t recognize the Risen Jesus. Even when he asks her a question.

[5] Bultmann, John, 685-686. The Risen Jesus is standing behind Mary and she only sees him when she turns away from the tomb.

[6] Bultmann, John, 686. “It is possible for Jesus to be present, and yet for a man not to recognize him until his word goes home to him.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 687. “Of a surety, Jesus’ άναβαἰνειν is something definitive, and his promised (πἀλιν) ἔρχεσθαι…is not a return into an ordinary mode of life in this work, such as would permit familiar contact. The fellowship between the risen Jesus and his followers in the future will be experienced only as fellowship with the Lord who has gone to the Father, and therefore it will not be in the forms of earthly associations.”

[8] Bultmann, John, 688. “The real Easter faith therefore is that which believes this [v. 17]; it consists in understanding he offence of the cross; it is not faith in a palpable demonstration of the Risen Lord with the mundane sphere.”

[9] Come Thou Fount, v. 2.

[10] Dorothee Soelle, The Truth is Concrete, trans. Dinah Livingstone (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 60. Originally published as, Die Wahrheit ist konkret, Olten: Walter-Verlag, 1967.

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