Tag: Peter

Like Paul and Peter

Psalm 23:3-4 Abba God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for their Name’s sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Introduction

My favorite thing about the book of Acts, is the way the narrative camera focuses on the human beings left behind to participate in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation without Jesus by their side. As human as the Gospels can be, they still feel—to me—just outside of my experience in the world. As far as I know, I’ve not been—literally—summoned by Jesus to come follow him and leave my—literal—net behind. I’ve not witnessed with my own eyes the healing miracles and the awesome casting out of demons. I did not run and hide with fear on Good Friday, nor feel the warmth burn in my heart as Jesus taught me on the way in his resurrected state. I didn’t witness the ascension or suddenly speak in a foreign language (no matter how much my charismatic evangelical background wants to think I have). I am just an audience member from 2025, listening to these ancient stories mixed up with a healthy amount of faith and doubt, skeptical and hungry.

So, this is why I love acts. Watching Paul get knocked off his donkey and onto his donkey through the proclamation of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit—having his misdirection redirected—brings the story home. I too have needed to be knocked down a peg or two, put in my place, reminded of my creaturely status before the Creator. I have thought myself to be so right and on point that I was completely misdirected toward what God was doing and celebrated the tendency of the kingdom of humanity to perform acts of violence and needed to be redirected. Witnessing Peter’s rapid exposure to the new movements and actions of God made known first in Christ and made real in Peter’s heart through the power of the Holy Spirit, is something I can confess to, too. I, too, have been graciously, generously, and patiently reinstructed that all are in and none are out, relearned God’s merciful divine activity that extends beyond skin, sex, and superficial boundaries, (re)experienced (manifold times) the pathos of God for the Beloved, and have stumbled about while desperately trying to walk in this new way, talk with new words, love with a new heart, think with a new mind, and see through new lenses all crafted and created by a God who so loves the cosmos that God won’t spare Gods self to save it.

I read something somewhere that said the best way to explain the book of acts is to see it as the movement and activity of the Holy Spirit rather than of the disciples. Are they central to this story building in the book of Acts? Yes, they are. But they are not the only performers on the stage. The Holy Spirit takes up their role and whisks and moves these human forms, destroying notions of autonomy and free-will, taking them hither and tither, bringing them into contact with those whom they would never ever be in contact with, reducing them through exposure, and building them up through love and liberation into new life defined by the reign of God. Last week we received the story of Saul and his “conversion”; this week, we are exposed to Peter walking in the way of Jesus, doing the initial things that will become some of the hallmarks of what it means not only to be Christian, but also Church.

Acts 9:36-43

We jump quite a bit forward in Acts 9. We move from Paul’s conversion to the beginning of Peter’s radical exposure to the law of God which is the law of love for all God’s beloved, transcending national and religious boundaries rather than creating them. Starting a bit earlier in the chapter than our lectionary suggests, we find Peter in Lydda, having been brought there by the Holy Spirit to the those who are called “living saints”.[1] By using the word “Saints” Luke highlights that the divide between the secular and the sacred is diminishing; every day regular people are indwelled with divine holiness, a holiness that will not fade away and creates a new way of being in the world as God’s vessels bringing divine life, love and liberation to others like themselves.[2] (This is very good news for regular people like you and me!) So, Peter is with these everyday saints, and he is there to heal a man who was paralyzed for 8 years. Through Peter, the Holy Spirit heals this man, and the story of his healing becomes a source for those in Lydda and the surrounding area (Sharon) to praise God and turn to Christ in faith (vv. 32-35).[3] In Lydda, Peter is doing as Jesus did: healing and liberating the oppressed and bringing glory to God.[4]

While Peter is in Lydda, over in Joppa there was a certain disciple by [the] name Tabitha, which [in Greek] is translated as Dorcas, she was full of good works, and she was doing acts of mercy. But it happened in those days she [became] sick and died; when she died, they washed her body, writes Luke, and they placed her body in an upper room (vv. 36-37). The saints of Joppa are grieved over this loss. Rightly so. Tabitha was a woman and a representative of Christ[5] in spaces too often neglected by both human and divine presence (read the prophets!). Not only is Luke elevating the role of women in the work of the gospel and in his narrative about the movement of the Holy Spirit (which should expose us in our own context),[6] he is also highlighting that losing this one who brings well-being to her neighbors and glory to God, leaves a massive gap in bringing God’s presence to those who need God’s presence the most: the widows…whom God cares about very much! So, the disciples having heard that Peter was in Lydda, and Lydda being close to Joppa, they sent two men [to Joppa] beseeching Peter, “Do not hesitate and pass through [and] come to us immediately!” (v. 38).

Peter’s response? Now, after rising Peter went to them (v.39a). Peter doesn’t waste a moment to help these saints over in Joppa who lost a beloved representative of Christ. Luke tells us more, After he arrived, they brought him up into the upper-room, and the widows stood by him weeping and showing [him] tunics and many cloaks Dorcas was making being with them (v.39b-c). These poor and too often neglected widows lose the one who cares for them, the one who made them feel seen and heard and loved; this is what Peter enters when he arrives.[7] But it’s more than comfort Peter is bringing. For Luke (and Peter) in this moment a massive (divinely inspired) statement is occuring: women matter, their works matter, their bodies matter.[8] Luke tells us, Now, after Peter cast everyone out [of the room], he also placed [his] knees [on the ground] and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, rise!” And she does. Now her eyes opened, and after seeing Peter she sat up. Peter acts like Christ and commands the dead woman to rise. Those held captive to death (both Tabitha and the widows) are not held captive anymore; they’re liberated, by this regular person through the power of the Holy Spirit who works in them and through them to overturne the kingdom of humanity and establish the reign of God.[9] Just as the women were the first to hear of the resurrection of Christ from death, so too did a woman first experience the life out of death that is characteristic of the reign of God wrought by the Holy Spirit moving through regions bringing God glory![10] Luke tells us, Now, after giving her his hand he raised her, and after calling out [to] the saints and the widows, he presented her [to them] living. Now it became known throughout all of Joppa, and the many believed in the Lord. And the Holy Spirit is not only moving through acceptable regions but is breaking down false boundaries[11] originally demarcating clean and unclean: the glory of God and God’s divine mission to liberate the captives know no walls and barriers. Luke concludes, Now it happened [Peter] stayed a sufficient number of days in Joppa with a certain Simon the Tanner. Just like Paul, Peter is in the clutches of a God on the move, caught up in the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation.[12]

Conclusion

Peter and Paul present to us the two best examples of regular, human beings—like you and me—who are caught up in the transcending and unyielding resurrection life that starts with Christ and continues with his disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit. I think Peter and Paul are intimidating to us. I think it’s easier to ask WWJD rather than WWPD because their recorded actions bring the divine pathos down to our level. It’s safe when Jesus does something because we can kind of dismiss it: well…he’s like the Son of God…so… But when it’s the former know-it-all and the former fisherman, the flames of those actions burn close to our skin. Because, as it turns out, like Paul and Peter, we have skin in this game and this game participates in the divine passion for the cosmos. Peter, a regular guy, calls Tabitha into (new) life from death and liberates Aeneas from the captivity of being paralyzed; this puts us on the hook as we begin (again) to walk in the way of the ascended Jesus and the Spirit that is to come. Both Peter and Paul ask us to think about what it means to be Christian and to do Church. Beloved, like Peter and Paul, we, too, by and in Christ, get to bring love where there is indifference, liberation where there is captivity, and life where there is death.

[1] Willie James Jennings, Acts, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 99. “He is on the road and comes to Lydda to be among the living saints.”

[2] Jennings, Acts, 99. “Jesus is God drawing the everyday into holiness, into God’s own life. Everyday people are made holy in Christ. Everyday people are made holy by Christ, and this is a holiness that will last, not be episodic, and constitute a new space for living life and knowing ourselves.”

[3] Jennings, Acts, 99-100. “Once again a marvelous act, a touchable miracle, will turn people to the Lord (v. 35). This is repetition that illumines the inexhaustible riches of Gods love for the fragile creature and Gods desire to constantly touch us, hold us, and announce the victory over death. There is yet more for Peter in this journey as he is approached by two disciples form another city (Joppa) for the sake of one disciple who has died.”

[4] Jennings, Acts,99. “Peter returns to center stage and engages in a bit of wayfaring life, echoing again his history of following Jesus and doing as his savior had done.”

[5] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Tabitha’s life even in the fragments we gain in this story, hangs together beautifully as someone devoted to helping people, especially widows.”

[6] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Tabitha, the disciples of Jesus—Luke opens her story inside of Peter’s journey and in so doing makes a point more powerful for us in our time than probably for him in his time. Tabitha, a woman, is a disciple of Jesus. Whether this vignette is evidence of Luke’s positive view of women or not he has certainly gives us a plateau from which to view a new future in which men and women in Christ have a different way of seeing themselves—as disciples.”

[7] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Widows, that group of people vulnerable in ancient and current time, made vulnerable by death’s sting, have always been a special concern for God and here for Tabitha as well. …So the widows weep. They weep for her and maybe for themselves. We do not know if Tabitha was in fact one of them, but we do know that they claimed her as one of whare for them. Here glory joins strong grief because to lose someone who cares for the weak and vulnerable, whose life is turned toward making a difference in the world and who is making a difference, is a bitter loss. The widows have lost Tabitha and a disciple is gone. This is what Peter steps into in Joppa.”

[8] Jennings, Acts, 100. “Peter’s presence declares an unmistakable truth: women matter. This woman matters, and the works she does for widows matters to God. It matters so much that God will not allow death the last word. Others had been raised form the dead in the Gospels and in Luke’s Gospel…but this is different. This not a little girl or the brother of a friend of Jesus; this is a disciple raised from the dead. Tabitha is not finished in life or service.”

[9] Jennings, Acts, 100-101. “‘Tabitha, get up.’ Peter repeats Jesus. Tabitha is an activist who lives again in resurrection power. Her body has been quickened by the Spirit, and her eyes are opened again to see a new day. She has work to do and joy to give to the widows: you have not been abandoned, dear widows, God has heard your weeping and returned her to you.”

[10] Jennings, Acts, 101. “It is not accident that the first disciple to have this little tase of the resurrection isa woman, because it was a woman who gave birth to the resurrection. And Peter is there once again to see a miraculous sign point to faith’s direction—many who found out about this believe in the Lord (v. 42).”

[11] Jennings, Acts, 101. “The story, however, does not end there with Tabitha, because Peter stays in Joppa, and who he stays with points to an earth-shattering future.”

[12] Jennings, Acts, 101. “He stays with Simon, a tanner. Tanners worked with death flesh—the skin of animals and tanners were, theologically speaking, unclean. Few if any pious Jews would normally or easily stay with a tanner, but here was Peter with Somin the tanner. Peter is indeed moving from saints to saints, and soon he will find out just how far the generosity and mercy of a holy God reaches. Soon he will see just how far God will extend holy place and holy people. Peter is with a man who touches the unclean, and soon he will see God do the same.”

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“Prone to Wander”: Human Judgment, Judged

Psalm 116: 1,10 I love Abba God, because Abba God has heard the voice of my supplication, because Abba God has inclined Abba God’s ear to me whenever I called upon Abba God. How shall I repay Abba God for all the good things Abba God has done for me?

Introduction

Our journey through Lent to Holy Week has brought us to the reality of our situation. We have seen that we’re prone to forsake and give up following the way of the reign of God; we have seen that we’re prone to tromp and tread on the land, on our neighbor, on God, and on ourselves; we have seen that we’re eager to estrange ourselves and become strangers to God, thus to our neighbor, thus to ourselves. While we would love for the exposure of Lent to be over, our exposure is, only now, getting personal.

Maundy Thursday isn’t really about “foot washing” or about finding ways to make yourselves smaller and more servant-like to your neighbor—even though such acts are exposing and can bring a certain (healthy) amount of humility. Rather, Maundy Thursday is about Peter being exposed for what he doesn’t understand about who Jesus is and what his mission on earth is all about. And, thus—if it’s about Peter being exposed—it’s about us being exposed for not really getting what Jesus is truly up to. While we claim all year to know what God’s mission is in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we don’t really know and we often forget what it is once we’re told, and we conflate it and force it to conform with our own desires, and (then) walk away from it completely. Maundy Thursday is designed to drive some of those final and big nails into our coffin of exposure. As we gaze upon Christ in the gospel story, watch him remove his clothes and don only a wrap around his waist and begin to wash the feet of his disciples, we should feel the urge building up to blurt out, with Peter, “‘You will never wash my feet!’” A simple statement meant for respect yet exposing how much we really don’t understand what is happening or why Christ is here. On Maundy Thursday, our judgment is called to account for itself, and it will be found lacking.

We are prone to bad judgment because we are prone to wander from our God of love.

Exodus 12:1-14

Here in our First Testament passage from the book of Exodus, Moses and Aaron receive the instructions for the Passover event. The Passover marks the beginning of a new era for Israel. While the exodus event through the Sea of Reeds is the tangible component of Israel’s promised liberation, it is the meal that marks the beginning of the new era defined by redemption. [1] It is this Passover event that is, for Israel, the break in time and space between what was and what will be. Their liberation begins in believing God, trusting God’s word—faith manifesting in action; this is why the Passover event of liberation becomes the mark of a new year for Israel and will always be a mark of a new year: each new year will solicit a new faith to enter the dusk setting on yesterday and dawn rising on tomorrow.[2]

The response of Israel built on faith in God’s trustworthiness and truthfulness is to prepare, eat, and perform a meal in a specific way. God informs Moses and Aaron that on the tenth day of the month all of Israel is to take an unblemished, one year-old, male lamb (one per household or one per a couple of small households), and on the fourteenth day they must slaughter their lambs at twilight. The blood from this sacrifice is to be painted onto the doorposts and lintels of the households where the Passover lamb must be eaten. God then gives very specific instructions regarding the eating of the lamb and the Passover meal:

“They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly.” (Ex. 12:8-11)

This isn’t any other meal; it’s a meal that’s refusing enjoyment, merriment, and lingering. Every part of this meal must take place with intention and presence; it’s to be done in haste as if the threat of death looms on the boundary of the meal—because it does loom.[3] “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt,” (v.13). They will eat this meal, putting all their faith in God and that God is faithful to God’s promises that those who follow what has been told to Aaron and Moses will be exempted from this final curse of the passing over of God and the execution of divine judgment on all the firstborns of the land.[4]

The Israelites must suspend their own judgment. They must step into the void from where God beckons them and faith lures them. They must not pause and consider what is common sense or what aligns with what they know to be good and right. In this moment, human judgment comes under attack by the unstated, whom do you love? The Israelites, individually and as a community had to give their answer. That night, as the angel of death swept over Egypt striking down all the firstborn of the land, divine judgment was executed; that night as families woke up human judgment received its verdict.

Conclusion

Would you? Put yourselves in Israel’s shoes. Would you kill the lamb, paint its blood on your door frames, and eat that meal in haste? Would you risk the life of your child, the life of your sibling, the your own life to appease what made the most sense to you? While we read this as a myth, it’s still a myth with a purpose to expose us. The question comes to us through these Ancient Israelites stuck in captivity and oppression. Would each of us, would we as a community, be able to see the depth at which God is doing a new thing in our lives to liberate us from captivity? Would we be able to trust that God is doing this thing and that God is truthful and trustworthy and will make good on God’s promises? Would we be able to suspend our judgment long enough to let God be God?

I’m neither advocating for “blind” and “uninformed” faith no affirming that voice in your head you think may God’s Spirit telling you to do something a bit uncharacteristic (always have those ideas checked by scripture and teaching!). What I am advocating for is this: are we able to suspend our human informed judgment long enough to see when God is doing something new in the world even when it contradicts our conception of what should be done in the world? Are we able to suspend what we think is right and good long enough to see when God is working a new thing for the wellbeing of our neighbor, which ends up being (ultimately) for our own wellbeing? Are we able to unplug our eyes and ears from what we have grown accustomed to seeing and hearing long enough to see and hear when God is calling us into liberation, into love, and into life and away from captivity, away from indifference, and away from death? Would we be able to learn something new about God’s divine mission in the world so to echo Peter’s eager and desperate response to Jesus, Wash not only my feet but my whole body, inside and out!? Would you be able to suspend your judgment long enough to let God be God?

The bad news is that we, as fleshy meat creatures prone to wander, will deliver our answer; the good news is that God knows this and comes to do something about it.

[1] Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Exodus,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 125. “Preparations for the exodus” “Israel is to prepare for the coming redemption with a sacrificial banquet while the final plague is occurring and is to commemorate the event in the future on its anniversary by eating unleavened bread for a week and reenacting the banquet. This banquet became the prototype of the postbiblical Seder, the festive meal at which the exodus story is retold and expounded each year to this day on the holiday of Pesah (Passover), as explained below.”

[2] Tigay, “Exodus,” 125. “Since the exodus will be commemorated on its anniversary every year…the preparatory instructions begin with the calendar. Henceforth the year will commence with the month of the exodus, and months will be referred to by ordinal numbers rather than names….Since the number will mean essentially ‘in the Xth month since we gained freedom,’ every reference to a month will commemorate the redemption.”

[3] Tigay, “Exodus,” 126. “The Israelites are to eat while prepared to leave on a moment’s notice.”

[4] Tigay, “Exodus,” 126. “In most European languages, it is also the name of Easter (as in French ‘Paques’). The translation ‘passover’ (and hence the English name of the holiday) is probably incorrect. The alternativity translation ‘protective offering’ is more likely…”

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Look and Listen; See and Hear

Psalm 99:4-5 “O mighty God, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” Proclaim the greatness of our God … Abba God is the Holy One.

Introduction

We lose our way. Sometimes we roam from one room of the house to another forgetting why we entered the room we just entered, wondering where our phone is while using its flashlight to look for it, unable to find the glasses that are on our face. To lose our way is human; our memories (even at their best) aren’t that good. Have you ever had that experience where you are certain you remember exactly how a story goes or what a person looks like, only to find out that you don’t remember that story/that person as well as you thought?

Sometimes we lose our focus thus our way concerning what’s important in the world. We become caught in and trapped by (enslaved to?) our ideologies, worshipping them while forsaking God and other human beings. We get lost in trying to carve out our space in the kingdom of humanity, adhering to the lies of “The life-hack life,” “the grind-mindset life,” “the girl-boss life,” “the dog-eat-dog life,” “the last-one-standing-gets-everything” life, the “austerity” life….all of these not only take from us—slowly diminishing the allure of our God-given human glory and dignity—but lead us down paths and to locations that are down-right opposed toward keeping human life human.[1]

We lose our ways even spiritually. We can deconstruct and demythologize ourselves and the world to the point where there’s nothing of substance under our feet, just a voracious and insatiable void sucking everything—and everyone—into it offering no solutions or answers just more and more questions. We lose our ways, wandering from creativity and dreams of “better than this” and “possibly”. We become trapped in the material reality of the world, forgetting the spiritual still exists whether you believe it or not. We wander from God, lured by our hubris, cash, diplomas, and power convinced we are the masters of our own destinies.

Sometimes we lose our way because the way, our way, the path we were on is taken from us, stripped out from under our feet; what was known and steady is now unfamiliar and irregular. Everything feels confusing, comfort is lost, trust and safety are challenged, vulnerability skyrockets and defenses go up. This was a violent disruption, a chaos eruption. What’s to come? *shrug*

So, humans lose their ways—in one form or another, from one degree to another. And sometimes we need to be lovingly interrupted and become reoriented to the present, to feel the coolness and comfort of the cloud descending upon us, and become still long enough to hear the divine voice call to us to listen, to look, and to touch the one who is with us even in the midst of this…

Luke 9:28-36

But while [Peter] was saying these things a cloud occurred and was enveloping them. And they were afraid while they entered into the cloud. And a voice sounded from the cloud saying, “This one is my son, the one who has been picked out [for/by me]; listen to him.” (Luke 9:34-35)[2]

In our gospel passage we come face to face with a story telling us who Jesus is (again). This story exists outside of our intellectual and rational grasp; we may feel the trap of trying to trivialize the story, to make it about us, drawing too tight of a correlation between Peter’s (appropriate) verbal bumbling and our understanding of good discipleship (i.e. disciples can’t stay on the mountain top, they must come back down the mountain and travel along the valleys). We should resist this temptation. [3] It may seem counterintuitive to resist this temptation, for what negative could come from seeing ourselves in this story and subsequently applying it to our lives? Well, while I love you tons and God loves all of us even more, not every story is about us. In other words, if we make it about us and our discipleship, we will miss what God is telling us through Luke about Jesus.

According to the details of this story and who shows up to stand with and speaks about Jesus, Luke really wants his reader to think about the great event of the Exodus (back in the book of Exodus with Moses, Israel, Pharoah, and an Angel of Death) and keep in mind the very recent event of Jesus’s baptism back in chapter 3 (where the divine voice declared Jesus to be God’s son and, also, exhorted the audience to listen to him).[4] So, for Luke, Jesus is beginning another journey; whereas Jesus’s baptism signified the beginning of his public ministry, this event signifies the beginning of the work to be done in and thru Jerusalem to his death[5] on the cross.[6]

Now, I know I said that this isn’t really about us, but we are impacted by this knowledge. Luke’s point to his audience (thus to us) is that the one walking with them—through all that lies ahead—is none other than the one who is equivalent to Moses and Elijah, [7],[8] the one who is the son of the God of liberation, of love, or life, the son of God who defends the oppressed. [9] By focusing on Jesus, Luke turns the head of his audience to look [10] and see[11], to remember that no matter what is coming, Jesus, the son of God, the incarnate Word of God, goes with them no matter if it’s into the darkness of the tomb and death of Good Friday or into the unfamiliar and irregular of the new creation of Easter’s Resurrected life.[12]

But it’s not only important for Luke that his audience see who Christ is, but that they hear, too, who this Jesus is they’ve been following thus far.[13] This isn’t an event being orchestrated by human ingenuity or reason, it’s a divine event and God, Abba God, is the one whose loving, life-giving, liberative hand is behind it. Thus, Jesus is not just any person or some good teacher and sage; Jesus is this God’s son,[14] Jesus of Nazareth is the son of their God, the one who liberated their fore parents from Egypt, the one who sides with the oppressed. So, for Luke, this Jesus is to be listened to because he is reliable[15] and because an exodus is coming again.[16] Jesus, like Moses and God through Moses before him, will be liberating the captives from all forms of captivity; [17] yet this time the scale of liberation is bigger and includes liberation from death.[18] Luke provides for his audience a crystal clear picture in the midst of the cloud on the mountain top: what’s to come is going to feel more like losing one’s way than knowing where one is going, but don’t lose heart, the one who goes ahead and among you is God of very God. They will need this picture, experience, seeing and hearing so that they can walk through the chaos, tumult, and darkness to come.

Conclusion

I’ll take back what I said at the beginning about this story not being about us. It is. We should identify—very much—with the disciples, with Luke’s audience. We should see ourselves being addressed by the divine voice speaking from the cloud, addressed by the showing up of Moses and Elijah, and addressed by who Jesus is. We are to look and see, to listen and hear who this one is. We should feel the cool mist as we are enveloped in the cloud that is descending upon the mountain, taking into it all who stand there: Jesus, Moses and Elijah (even as they are leaving), the disciples, and us, Luke’s very distant audience. Why should we see ourselves incorporated in and addressed here in an ancient text and far-out story?

Because we lose our ways. Either because we’ve lost focus or because our way has been yanked out from under us and everything is now very upside down, we need to see and hear again who this Jesus is we claim to follow, the one who is the fullness of our justification and righteousness by faith alone, the one who is the physical manifestation of God who is, according to the bible, the God of liberation and freedom, the God of the divine revolution of love and life.[19] And in accepting that we are being addressed we begin to find our way again, we can begin to focus again, we can be reoriented toward God because of our orientation toward Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit and, thusly, toward each other in love.[20]

[1] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[3] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 126. BAD POINT “…the point being that just as peter was inclined to build booths and to remain on the mountaintop but had to return to the valley, true disciples have to be willing to descend from the mountaintop to the valley, there to communicate their mountaintop experience to others.” Trivialization of an awesome gospel event and pedestrianizes it into an “example” and ignores that Luke says the disciples didn’t say anything.

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 126. “There is little doubt that in the Gospel write’s mind this story is closely connected with Exodus 24:12-18 (Moses on Mount Sinai) and Luke 3:21-22 (the baptism of Jesus).”

[5] Gonzalez, Luke, 127. “In the transfiguration, while the emphasis lies on the power and glory of Jesus, there is also a reminder of his death, as we are told that Moses and Elijah were discussing his ‘departure’ (again, his ‘exodus’). Coming immediately after Jesus’s announcement of his sufferings and death, the transfiguration is thus a reminder that in spite of all outward signs of defeat and powerlessness, Jesus is ultimately more powerful than death and than the political and religious authorities in Jerusalem.”

[6] Gonzalez, Luke, 126. “On the latter, just as the baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of his public ministry, now the transfiguration marks the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem. In both cases, a voice from heaven (or from a cloud) affirms the unique relationship of Jesus with God, and thus endorses his ministry, actions, and teachings.”

[7] Gonzalez, Luke, 126-127. “On the former, there is a clear attempt in the choice of words of the passage to show that at Jesus is no less a figure than Moses (and Elijah), and that his experience at the mountaintop is parallel to Moses’ experience on Mount Sinai.”

[8] Gonzalez, Luke, 127. “The two figures of Moses and Elijah clearly represent the Law and the Prophets, a common way of referring to the totality of Scripture….Thus the text shows Jesus to be at least the equal of Moses and Elijah, and certainly invested with the authority of God so that his teachings are inspired: ‘This is my Son, my Chosen’ listen to him.’”

[9] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 282-283. “they asked me why Moses and Elijah appeared, and I said that Moses was a the great liberator of the people, that he brought them out of Egyptian slavery, and Elijah was a great prophet, a defender of the poor and the oppressed, when Israel again fell into slavery, with social classes. Both of them were closely identified with the Messiah, for it had been said that the Messiah would be a second Moses and that Elijah would come back to earth to denounce injustices as a precursor of the Messiah…”

[10] Joel B. Green The Gospel of Luke The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 377. “Luke’s transfiguration scene places a premium on the motif of sight.”

[11] Green, Luke, 381. “This emphasis on seeing illuminates the transfiguration scene from the vantage point of the apostles, with Luke’s focus set on the significance of this event for them. At the same time, Luke invites his audience to share their viewpoint through the use of ‘Look!’”

[12] Gonzalez, Luke, 128. “The roller-coaster experience of the disciples is also ours. Are we the Easter people, or are we the people of the cross? Both! And neither is of any significance without the other. At the same time that we celebrate the victory of Jesus—and our own—we must never forget his cross—nor eschew our own. There are ‘transfiguration moments’ in Christian experience and in the life of the church; but they neither abolish nor diminish the need for the cross.”

[13] Green, Luke, 377. “From ‘seeing,’ then, the narrative turns to ‘hearing’ (vv 35-36a), after which, we are informed, the apostles told no one what they had ‘seen.’ Luke thus works in this scene with an understanding that is common in biblical narration—namely, ‘unaided human intellect cannot grasp history’s significance. One who reckons to understand the past implies a claim to God-given insight into the matter.’ The divine word illuminates; hence we may follow the narrative from the ‘seeing but not perceiving’ of vv. 28-34 to the ‘seeing and (beginning the process of) perceiving’ in v. 36. The whole scene is thus cast as a moment of revelation.”

[14] Green, Luke, 382. “…the encasement of Jesus’ mission in the language of exodus reminds us that, whatever shape it takes, that mission is grounded in the purpose of God to bring liberation from bondage. Through the journey Jesus is undertaking, release from the constraints of demonization, from the darkness of satanic intent, and from the diverse expressions of diabolic power, whether in disease or in social marginalization or in the patronal ethics of the Roman world, will be effected.”

[15] Green, Luke, 384. “…god speaks not to Jesus but to these representative followers, underscoring for them Jesus’ status. Form an unimpeachable source, Jesus has been identified for them; as a consequence of this divine confirmation, they should regard his words, including his teaching on his destiny and the concomitant nature of discipleship…as reliable.”

[16] Green, Luke, 378. “For Luke, if not for historiographers in general, this was due to his notion that historical events are divinely guided. This means that the Evangelist will have seen in the mission of Jesus a virtual, divinely oradin3d, reenactment of the exodus from bondage.”

[17] Green, Luke, 379. “…the transfiguration scene calls upon this choir of voices especially to stress the image of Jesus as liberator from bondage, his ministry as one of release from captivity in all its guises.”

[18] Green, Luke, 379. “These internal reverberations are important for what they emphasize about this scene—namely, the way it (a) summarizes critical issues related to Jesus’ status in relation of to God, (b) proleptically alerts representative apostles to the full significance of his heavenly status, and (c) supplies the apostles (and Luke’s audience) with an interpretive framework for making sense of the ensuing narrative, including the fulfillment of Jesus’ predicted suffering and death.”

[19] Cardenal, Solentiname, 284. “I: ‘In the Bible, God appears fundamentally like the God of Exodus, which is like saying the God of freedom. The prophet Amos says that the Exodus of Israel was not the only one and that Yahweh had brought other peoples out of other slaveries. Which is like saying that Yahweh is the God of every revolution.”

[20] Cardenal, Solentiname, 285. “I: ‘Christ is the Word of God made flesh on earth, the message of God that we should love one another. That’s the word that the cloud says we must hear.’”

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Borders and Boundaries, Dismantled and Destroyed

Psalm 98:1-2 1 Sing to Abba God a new song, for God has done marvelous things. With God’s right hand and God’s holy arm has Abba God won for the victory.

Introduction

God’s boundaries are not our boundaries. This is something that’s hard for us to grasp. Historically, religious institutions formed and cultivated boundaries around who can and cannot access God. Creating in-groups and out-groups; allowing domination to sow discord and compliance through threats of shame and isolation for disobedience or different. While these impulses are often initiated with a desire to be true to God and God’s will materialized in time and space, they often—over the course of time—become archaic dogmas long grown rancid thus detrimental to human thriving. The clerics within these institutions find themselves upholding the institutional ideologies and becoming the guard-dogs of traditionalism, becoming the means through which malevolent power wields its sword against the people in the name of God. Both the official leaders and the people so led are caught up in these human-made boundaries and before any of them realize it, the whole kit and kaboodle has moved far off the mark, relinquishing the divine Spirit to maintain human control.[1]

But God’s boundaries are not our boundaries. God’s boundaries are fluid and move and flex. The movement of God through history demonstrates that divine space and time defies orderly categories soothing to nervous human consciences. What was is never all there will be. While we like to create systems and ideologies giving us assurance and allowing us to sleep in comfortability, the reality is that God’s way is not our way and because of this we are (regularly) summoned out of a life suspended in stasis into a life grounded in evolution. We are (regularly) invited to participate in the flux of the divine revolution of life, love, and liberation in the world: we are called to go along with God’s radical movement in the world on behalf of the beloved.

If this sounds weird, let me tell you the story of Peter and the celestial sheet of animals…

Acts 10:44-48

…for they were hearing them speaking languages and magnifying God. At that time Peter answered, “Hence, no one is able to (has the power to) to hinder the water from these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we [have received]?” (Acts 10:46-47)

Our lectionary drops us off at the tail end of chapter 10 of Acts. This is unfortunate. Chapter 10 is a hinge chapter in this book, setting up the fulfillment of the thesis of the book of Acts articulated back in chapter 1 (vv. 7-8): “Now [Jesus] said to them: ᾽It is not for you to know the times or seasons [God] has set by [God’s] own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.᾽”

So, let’s back track a bit. At the beginning of chapter 10, Peter is found in Joppa in the tent of a tanner (an unclean person). Joppa is well outside of Jerusalem but still within Judea. Thus, Peter has moved with Gospel proclamation from Jerusalem into the outer regions of Judea. Also, in chapter 10, we are introduced to Cornelius: a gentile centurion of Caesarea; Caesarea is within Samaria. Samaria was a region of Jewish faith that was not Israel and was outside of Judea and considered unclean; Samaritans and Jews proper did not get along (hence, the offense of the “Good Samaritan”). This same Cornelius receives a heavenly vision and is told to fetch Peter from Joppa and bring him to Caesarea. Thus the inaugural clear and present movement of God’s feet breaking through human-made boundaries. Every border and boundary is about to collapse.

Meanwhile, back in Joppa and before he is fetched by Cornelius’s men, Peter has a vision. A large sheet descends from heaven and on it is every kind of animal—impure and unclean. A voice from heaven tells Peter, “Get up, Peter. Kill and Eat.” Peter declines. The summons goes out again. Peter declines again. Then one more time, the divine voice commands Peter to “Get up; kill and eat.” After this the sheet returns the way it came and is gone. For Peter the command to eat one of these animals was to participate in defiling himself, making himself unclean and impure. But for God, “‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean,’” (10:15b). Dietary restrictions, marking a group clean or unclean, are eliminated. Not only does God defy human-made geographical boundaries oriented toward keeping some externally in and some out, but now there is no distinction internally, too. Boundaries and borders are dismantled and destroyed.

So, in our passage we find Peter already at Cornelius’s home. He’s spoken with Cornelius who shares with him his story. Then Peter gives a speech about the radical movement of God moving from Jerusalem unto the ends of the earth, a fulfillment of Acts 1:8. As he finishes his speech, the Spirit falls upon everyone within Cornelius’s home who listened to Peter’s words. Those who are clean (Peter) are now joined to the (formerly declared) unclean (Cornelius and his family), the Children of Israel are yoked to the Gentile converts by Spirit baptism; [2] this then moves Peter to declare who can withhold the waters of baptism from those who believe and who have received the Holy Spirit as we have? The answer to this question? “No one.” (Because the way the structure of the sentence occurs in Greek it demands a negative response.) God moves and then we follow; God touches and we respond; God comes low to be with us…we do not go high to find God.[3]

Conclusion

In this passage we see God transcending boundaries and borders, ones made by human beings. In other words, and to refer to Willie James Jennings on this passage, “We are the boundary and border God has transgressed, and that transgression is real. Here at the site of miracle, space and time are being given for Jew and Gentile together to press in deeply to the caressing of God through the flows of water on the body and the joining of our bodies together and to the body of Jesus.”[4] In other words, God has bent the rod of time and space in such a way as to make our bodies the locus of God’s movement in bringing the ends of the earth together. In this moment, no one is clean or unclean; they are just the beloved of God whether circumcised or not, whether Jewish or not, whether clean or not because all these identities and markers are false binaries holding no water because God’s water, the water of baptism, knows no male and female, child of Israel or gentile, slave or free (Gal. 3:28);[5] nothing—not time, space, geographical region, time in chronology—can prevent transcendence and transfiguration.

Baptism—of both water and Spirit—renders our preconceived notions of in and out, us and them obsolete and pointless.[6] In and through Baptism, we are brought through death into new life that is of a new (timeless) time and of a new (spaceless) space where human-made boundaries and rival groupings are history, byproducts of an old and dead life lived apart from God and faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.[7] Here, in and through the Baptism of water and divine Spirit, the followers of Christ are called to participate in and with God deconstructing boundaries and borders prohibiting God from being with the beloved.

[1] Jennings, “Acts,” 114. “This is the border not of God’s desire but of our need. Our senses are dull and our attention weak. We are easily distracted by other things, drawn so deeply into obsession with these things that we will worship them and make them our gods. We must have the space and time in which to have our senses trained to understand authentic divine touch. We must have the time and space to learn the way of Spirit caressing flesh, holding it, moving it, directing it toward life and light.”

[2] Willie James Jennings, “Acts”, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 114. “The waters of baptism signify the joining of Jew and Gentile, not simply the acceptance of the gospel message.”

[3] Jennings, “Acts,” 114. “The Spirit confronts the disciples of Jesus with an irrepressible truth: God overcomes boundary and border. God touches first. God does not wait to be touched by us. This is the boundary not of our failure but of our truth. We cannot reach up to God and bring God down to our embrace. We are creatures. Yet God takes touch seriously and initiates the embrace.”

[4] Jennings, “Acts,” 114-115.

[5] Jennings, “Acts,” 115. “This is what God wants, Jews with Gentiles, Gentiles wanting to be with Jews, and together they eat and live in peace. This is surely not the eschaton, not heaven on earth. It is simply a brief time before the chaos and questioning descend on Peter and the other disciples who will following the Spirit, before the returning to the old regime, and before the lust for the normal returns.”

[6] Jennings, “Acts,” 115. “Both these questions will haunt the apostles and the church built on their witness. Yet the greatest event of this story comes after the miracle of baptism. It is the beginning of life together, ‘Then they invited him to stay on for several days’ (v 49).”

[7] Jennings, “Acts,” 115. “…in a quiet corner of the Roman Empire, in the home of a centurion, a rip in the fabric of space and time has occurred. All those who would worship Jesus may enter a new vision of intimate space and a new time that will open up endless new possibilities of life with others.”

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Hear (again) and Follow

Psalm 99:5, 9 Proclaim the greatness of our God and fall down before God’s footstool; God is the Holy One. […] Proclaim the greatness of our God and worship God upon God’s holy hill; for our God is the Holy One.

Introduction

When someone must repeat themselves, you know it’s serious. I know that in my lifetime, when I’ve had to repeat something or have something repeated to me, it’s important. The repetition beckons, “Come and listen … like, really, really listen!” It’s a moment of realization: Oh! This person isn’t joking! There’s no lol, jk, or w/e in the atmosphere. Just pure unadulterated please, for the love of God listen and see, hear and perceive!

The bad news about repetition? It’s humbling. It’s humbling to go from thinking you did perceive and comprehend what was articulated to you, and then realizing you don’t/didn’t. Truly, if the person on the other side of the dialogue and conversation is saying it again, you clearly didn’t get it—whether it’s immediately after the first time or days or weeks later. Repetition means the speaker doesn’t trust you picked up the core of the communique or that you have demonstrated that you did not hear well enough. So, sometimes saying something once isn’t enough and whatever it is must be repeated because whoever is listening isn’t really getting it (“it” being the important thing trying to be communicated). 

The good news? It’s encouraging because it means the one who is talking hasn’t given up on the listener just yet. The listener is still important to the speaker; so important that the speaker will condescend to remind—in clearer terms and with a more serious tone—hey, this is quite serious, and I love you enough to repeat it so you really, really hear me. Love is willing to beckon the beloved even if it means having to repeat oneself. 

So, this morning I have some good and bad news for you: our Gospel passage telling of Jesus’s transfiguration on the heights of some unknown mountain is divine-self repetition: God is repeating God’s self. This means, those who are following Christ haven’t quite gotten the “it” yet about who this Christ is and what he’s here to do. But it also means that God loves those hard-of-hearing-hoomans enough to repeat God’s self. 

Luke 9:28-36

Now, while [Peter] was saying these things a cloud happened and enveloped them. Now, they were afraid while entering into the cloud. And a voice sounded out of the cloud saying: “This one is my son, the one who has been chosen; listen to him!” And when the voice had sounded, Jesus was found alone. And [Peter, John and James] kept silent and reported to no one in those days nothing of these things they had perceived. [1]

(Luke 9:34-36)

Have you ever noticed that the divine declaration here is very similar to the divine declaration at Jesus’s Baptism? The scene might be different, and the number of people present fewer, but the message is the same. Thus, God is repeating God’s self.

So, Luke tells us that Jesus takes Peter, John and James up a mountain to pray. While they are there, Jesus’s appearance—amid praying[2]—transfigures: his face changes and his clothing “was gleaming bright”. Then, as if Jesus’s transfiguring wasn’t enough, two men appear and begin talking to Jesus about his “departure” from Jerusalem “which was about to be completed”. Who are these two men? Well, two beloved prophets of old: Moses and Elijah. Just like John the Baptist who carried the promise of God’s love, life, and liberation into the depths of the waters to baptize those willing to enter in, so Moses and Elijah also carried this same promise to the heights of the mountain to baptize God’s beloved in glory.

Then, consumed with baffled humanity, Peter—who was burdened for sleep along with John and James and after perceiving the glory of the other three—interrupts the glorified men and suggests the building of three tents for Jesus and the celestial visitors. There is nothing else in the second testament that makes me love Peter more than this moment. He does nothing wrong; he’s just too tired to get it, to comprehend and perceive what he sees and hears. He can see what is happening and he can hear the men talking, but the depth of the reality before him is still just right out of reach.

Then, just as he is suggesting a very human and practical thing—the building of three tents to contain the glory before him—God comes close contained in a cloud[3] and proceeds to interrupt Peter[4] (who interrupted Jesus, Moses, and Elijah) with the second iteration of a very important message: “This one is my son, the chosen one! Listen to him!” In other words, for the love of Me, love him and listen and see! Listen to me and then hear him and perceive! This is divine self-disclosure, another moment of divine self-revelation.[5] Here, as in the river Jordan before (and below), God is urging all those who have ears to hear to trust,[6] listen, and perceive:[7] another exodus from bondage is coming. If they didn’t catch it the first time it happened during Jesus’s baptism by cousin John in the Jordan, then catch it now: Moses (the liberator) has shown up accompanied by the prophet of prophets, Elijah, to discuss departure…those who are being held captive will be released, set free, loosed from captivity into the promised land,[8] into God.[9] Thus, listen to Jesus, the chosen divine son, for he is the interpreter of the law and the prophets, he is the door to life, love, and liberation, he is the truth and the way.[10] And what must Peter and others really, really listen to? Ernesto Cardenal tells us, “‘Christ is the word of God made flesh on earth, the message of God that we should love one another. That’s the word that the cloud says we must hear.’”[11]

Conclusion

While it feels like we may be bystanders here, or just some far future audience looking back in on a story about an event that happened ages ago, we are not such bystanders. We do not have the space to be an audience casually looking backward, being entertained by a story about ancient peoples just not getting it…as if we do. Because we don’t; and we must be asked to look and listen again. The key to understanding why I’m saying this is embedded in one simply Greek word Luke uses in this pericope: ἰδοὺ![12] Translated as “Behold!” or “Look!”, this is the word dismantling historical boundaries between us and Peter, John and James. We are ushered into the narrative, and we are asked (commanded!) to look and behold the events happening as if we are present! We are there, on the mountain, consumed by prayer and by a cloud, allowing our eyes to fall upon on Moses and Elijah, taking in all of Jesus’ transfigured glory; this all becomes important for us, too.[13]

We like to think that because we walk about with access to text that has been written down and translated into our language(s) we know it. But do you? Do I? Or do I need to hear it again? Maybe I need a divine repeated message that God loves me because I am too thick-skulled and too hard of hearing to hear and listen to this one whom God chose and in and through whom I am chosen by faith? Maybe in a time where chaos and tumult, fear and anger are the rule of the day, the law of the streets, the honor among the afraid and angry, maybe, just maybe I need to be reminded that God is bigger than I am, bigger than my ideas about the world and about God, bigger than whatever my most creative conceptions about life are, bigger than the deepest and widest void I can scream into, and even bigger than death.[14] Maybe, just maybe, I need this reminder so that my exhausted mind and body can be resurrected with God’s spirit, God’s breath, God’s life, love, and liberation so I can lay my hands on hope, remember mercy, recall grace, and dare to love God and my neighbor like my savior, Jesus Christ.

Beloved, take comfort: you are so loved that God is not above God’s self to repeat God’s words to you…In fact, God established this very place for you to hear again and again, to remind you, to recall to your heart the very concrete truth that you are loved so that you can go love your neighbor as you’ve been first loved by God, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Green, Luke, 380. “Not only is prayer mentioned twice, but this reference follows hard on the heels of the parallel reference in v18, where prayer is represented as the setting for divine disclosure. In fact, through the use of the participial form, Luke has it that while Jesus was praying he was transfigured (ct. 3:21-22).”

[3] Cardenal, Solentiname, 285. “‘…enveloped by the mystery of God.’”

[4] Green, Luke, 383.

[5] Joel B. Green The Gospel of Luke The New International Commentary on the New Testament Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. 377. “Luke’s transfiguration scene places a premium on the motif of sight. The ‘appearance’ of Jesus face changed, Luke’s audience is invited (along with the apostles) ‘to behold’ Moses and Elijah on the mountain with Jesus, these two OT figures appeared in glory, and the apostles ‘saw’ Jesus’ glory. Clearly, however, this ‘seeing’ is not enough, for Peter and those with him are able to witness all of this yet still seriously distort the meaning of these phenomena. From ‘seeing,’ then, the narrative turns to ‘hearing’ (vv. 35-36), after which, we are informed, the apostles told no one what they had ‘seen.’ Luke thus works in this scene with an understanding that is common in biblical narration—namely, ‘unaided human intellect cannot grasp history’s significance. One who reckons to understand the past implies a claim to God-given insight into the matter.’ The divine word illuminates; hence we may follow the narrative from the ‘seeing but not perceiving’ of vv. 28-34 to the ‘seeing and (beginning the process of) perceiving’ in v. 36. The whole scene is thus cast as a moment of revelation.”

[6] Justo L. Gonzalez Luke Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2010. 127. “Thus the text shows Jesus to be at least the equal of Moses and Elijah, and certainly invested with the authority of God so that his teachings are inspired: ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’”

[7] Green, Luke, 384. “From an unimpeachable source, Jesus has been identified for them; as a consequence of this divine confirmation, they should regard his words, including his teaching on his destiny and the concomitant nature of discipleship (vv. 21-27), as reliable.”

[8] Green, Luke, 378. “What is the significance of these echoes? Is worth noting at the outset that, like other Hellenistic historiographers, Luke has reflected in his writing a general perception of history as the arena in which certain types of situations and characters appear. For Luke, if not for historiographers in general, this was due to his notion that historical events are divinely guided. This means that the Evangelist will have seen in the mission of Jesus a virtual, divinely ordained, reenactment of the exodus form bondage.”

[9] Cardenal, Solentiname, 284. “I: ‘In the Bible, God appears fundamentally like the God of Exodus, which is like saying the God of freedom. In the prophet Amos says that the Exodus of Israel was not the only one and that Yahweh had brought other peoples out of other slaveries. Which is like saying that Yahweh is the God of every revolution.’”

[10] Green, Luke, 384. “Indeed, as Luke will make clear, even these OT figures are now to be interpreted by Jesus, for his role as divine spokesperson has been endorsed by God himself. That is, it is not so much that the time of the law and prophets has passed as it is that Jesus has been designated as their authorized interpreter.”

[11] Cardenal, Solentiname, 285.

[12] Green, Luke, 381. “At the same time, Luke invites his audience to share their viewpoint through the use of ‘Look!’”

[13] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 282. “MARIA: ‘This happened when he was praying. And I think that for us too it’s important to pray. He was praying to prepare himself for what he was going to suffer.’”

[14] Gonzalez, Luke, 127. “Coming immediately after Jesus’ announcement of his sufferings and death, the transfiguration is thus a reminder that in spite of all outward signs of defeat and powerlessness, Jesus is ultimately more powerful than death and then the political and religious authorities in Jerusalem.”

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“What Might We Do?”

Psalm 116:2-3, 10: 2 The cords of death entangled me; the grip of the grave took hold of me; I came to grief and sorrow. Then I called upon the Name of God: “God, I pray you, save my life.” How shall I repay God for all the good things God has done for me?

Introduction

There’s something about love that’s overwhelming. I think it’s overwhelming because love just loves without why or wherefor (sunder warumbe[1])—like being in the midst of spring springing and the flowers bursting forth, they give no reason for their showy, brilliant colors, they just bloom, they just are, they just exist. Love is similar: it just loves.

The inability of locating a why or wherefore to anchor another’s love for us makes love that other-worldly substance. We are rational, sense-making, riddle-solving, concrete, fleshy, material creatures. And, to be honest, we’re quite basic. To be told, “I love you” and for no other reason than “just because” solicits furrowed brows of “why…”, skeptical vocal lilts of “…me? …Really?”, even down right toddler-like resistance, “No!” Love that loves just because is not for us; we need the whys and the wherefores, the reasons and the data.

Somewhere along the way we’ve been taught love must be verified by a reason: you love me because I’m…. We all have the thing that fills in that blank, answering the “because.” I’m:  funny, smart, pretty, rich, capable, athletic, a good provider; you have to, you’re my____ (another fill in the blank)….etc. Whatever it is, it sits there like a beacon of existential validity answering the “why” we’re worthy of love, while ignoring the reality love just loves.

Sunder warumbe.

The worst of this is we’re all quite able to imagine why we shouldn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t be loved. We know ourselves better than the one who gave us life, right? We know how “bad” we are, how ill-tempered, frustrating, irritating, debased, faulty, and failing… We don’t need another person to give us reasons why we’re unlovable. Sadly, our world amplifies this being unlovable unless… Our beloved status hangs in a dastardly imbalance, and we’re losing.

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Now after hearing [Peter] they were pierced in the heart, and they said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, “What might we do, Brothers?” And Peter [said] to them, “You repent[2] (!) and be baptized each on the basis of the name of Jesus Christ for the complete forgiveness of your sins,[3] and you will lay hold of the gift of the Holy Spirit: for it is the promise to you and to your children and to all who are distant, as many as God our Lord called to God’s self.[4]

Acts 2:37-39

Luke, the author of one of the gospels and Acts, tells us that Peter raised his voice and declared to his fellow Israelites (v.14) that God made Jesus—whom you [and others[5]] crucified[6]—lord and Christ (v.36). I will never stop loving Peter. As much as I love Paul I also love Peter. These two represent to us the totality of what it means to be creatures in relation with the Creator, humans before and with God among other human beings. Peter raised his voice and declared to his religious siblings that Jesus is the Christ, God is (still) for them; they are (still) God’s beloved.[7] Peter who used his voice to deny Christ, now uses it to proclaim Christ crucified and raised as a measure of divine love for all[8]of God’s people, even those, like the disciples, who were far off or hid for shame, those who carried no pedigree or status, those who had no power and found themselves immersed in the shadow of isolation and alienation.[9]

Peter’s message emphasizes that this Jesus who was crucified and died and raised is now the divinely appointed Christ (Greek for “Messiah”) of God’s people. This man whom the house of Israel knew and crucified (they did not intervene), according to Peter, is now the Christ, the one who bears both the divine and human image (he carries Mary’s face in the world) and ushers in God’s reality.[10] And God’s reality comes into conflict and confrontation with the reality of the kingdom of humanity. What used to be right-side up to us, after our encounter with God in the raised Jesus is now upside down; Jesus once flipped tables, now he’s flipping worlds, and the disciples—even those 2023 years later—are invited to see the upside-down world made right-side up.[11]

Thus, when the hearts of those who heard were pierced, they asked, What might we do? (v. 37). This is the question of change; this is the question of divine encounter.[12] It is not that God poses to us a question in this moment, but we pose a question to God: if this is the right way to see the world, from the perspective of the one whom we crucified, what do we do now? because everything else seems wrong…[13]Not knowing what to do now because of one’s encounter with God is not a lack of faith, but evidence of it; it is also prayer, in humility there’s both a confession and a prayer for help in What might we do?

The best part of Luke’s story is Peter’s response: by means of changing their minds (repenting) and being baptized, the gifts of forgiveness of sins (missing the mark) and the receipt of the Holy Spirit are for them. And not only for them—as if it was a one-time event relegated to one generation—but also for their children and all those who are far off; for whomever God calls to God’s self. Thus anyone can be baptized, summoned unto God by God’s love made known in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.[14] Peter presents what it looks like to follow Christ out of the tomb, to be ushered through death into new life; this is not a formula it is formation.[15] There are no prerequisites here, there is no demand to look this way or that, no need to be clean or made right prior to the encounter with God in the event of faith; God loves the beloved (full stop) and this love changes the beloved, sanctifies her, causes her to live and thrive, calling the beloved over and over again unto God’s self—unto life, love, and liberation.[16] In being summoned unto God, in following Christ, it makes sense to live and live fully.[17] Sunder warumbe.

Conclusion

With the resurrection of Christ, the world is turned upside down. Death is not the final word; life is. Captivity is not the final word; liberation is. Unlovable is not the final word; beloved is. Whether you know it or not, YOU ARE LOVED. Whether you want to hear it or not, YOU ARE LOVED. And the greatest part? It has nothing to do with what you do or look like or have done or will do, you are just fully loved by God right now, as is inside and out. God is love and love just loves, no ands, ifs, or buts about.

Luke exhorts us through the words of Peter to harken to this story of God’s radical and revolutionary love in the world for the benefit and wellbeing of the beloved (not only us but especially our neighbors). We need to see ourselves grafted into this story and not mere spectators watching on from a seat in the balcony. We are the object of God’s desire and yearning, we are the goal of the divine mission of love in the world, we are needed by God because God is love and love needs the beloved. You are cherished. You are prized. You are the apple of God’s eye. You are irreplaceable.[18]

So, too, those who exist beyond the four walls of this church. The resurrection story is not a story just for us who get our ducks in a row, it’s not just for us who believe x, y, and z in just the right way and right fashion, and it’s not just for those who produce in this or that way in the world. The story of the resurrection of Christ—life out of death—is for all, for our children and those who are far off (this is what the text tells us). We are confronted today with the story of divine love and life in the world, turning the world right-side-up, liberating the captives … all the captives in the spiritual and temporal world, liberating not only souls (the inner nature) but bodies (the outer nature), too. God’s love sets us free to do something new, to live new, to love new, to be in the world as new creations, participating in God’s turning the world right-side-up for God’s beloved. Sunder warumbe.

[1] From Dorothee Soelle The Silent Cry a reference to Meister Eckhart.

[2] “Repent” can also be “change the mind” and “change the inner nature”

[3] “Missing the mark”

[4] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[5] Steve Walton, “The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire” Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics. Eds. Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner, and Steve Walton. Library of New Testament Studies. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017. 92. “A key passage for understanding Luke’s view is Acts 4:27-30, which asserts that opposition to Jesus is the factor which unites Pilate, Herod, the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. To assert, as some do, that the Jewish people alone are held responsible for the death of Jesus is to overstate the case. Luke’s presentation is more nuanced, for he locates responsibility on the Jewish side with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. This is clear, not least, since it is only in Jerusalem itself that the apostles speak of ‘you’ as responsible for killing Jesus (Acts 2.36; 3.13, 14, 17; 4.10; 5.30; 7.52; cf. 5.28).”

[6] Richard J. Cassidy Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles Eugen, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1987. 33. “Nevertheless, the speech clearly does indict his audience and Luke subsequently reports that, when those assemble asked Peter and the apostles what they should do, Peter replied that every one of them should repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins (2:38).”

[7] Willie James Jennings Acts Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2017. 33. “This is Israel speaking to Israel, calling to their own with the good news of the intensification of their election and of the personification of the free grace that shaped their existence from its beginning.”

[8] Jennings, Acts, 33. “This is precisely where the scandal that was Jesus of Nazareth, Mary’s baby with all the tensions he created and all the theological, social, and political contradictions that religious and civic leaders associated with his ministry, began to spread over many bodies.”

[9] Jennings, Acts, 33-34. “This is a strange image, an unappealing icon-twelve men, none with exceptional credentials, no fabulous educational pedigrees, none with reservoirs of immense cultural capital to draw from, all standing in front of Israelites with nothing more than a message. We live in times when images create and carry so much power. For us, image and word, body and text, are inseparable, merging together, mutually constituting. Yet in this primordial moment the image standing before these gathered does not carry gravitas. It can never match its message. Nor will it ever. This is the eternal imbalance that that will mark preaching, a message far more powerful than its messengers. Indeed, image emerges here fully encased in witness.”

[10] Jennings, Acts, 35. “The Jesus you knew—crucified, dead and buried, and now alive—is both Lord and Messiah, the bearer of the divine image and reality. This is the great contradiction.”

[11] Jennings, Acts, 35. “It is the contradiction inside of which all the disciples of Jesus will live forever. Life inside this contradiction means, as Samuel Proctor said, that we may now see the world for what it is: upside down. The world, seen from the site of the crucified One, moving quickly from life toward death, is the real contradiction. Only from within the declaration of a God who was crucified will any words about God in this world, the real world, make sense.”

[12] Jennings, Acts, 36. “A change is taking place among the people of God. Faith in Israel is taking a new direction. And it all begins with a simple but terrifying question: ‘What should we do?’”

[13] Jennings, Acts, 36. “The question itself is at the door of offense. Although the irenic is concealed within the question, nonetheless, it suggests a necessary change for those already of committed faith. We must hear in this question the astounding work of the living God who will not be relegated to Israel’s past but will reveal divine faithfulness to ancient promise in the present moment. And in so doing, we see the precise way Israel’s Lord alters theological frames of reference by demanding more of those who believe.”

[14] Jennings, Acts, 37. “His response reveals language internal to the culture and theology of Israel. Repentance, forgiveness, and gift are all themes that flow through the streams of Israel’s historical consciousness. Yet now a new point of entry and departure has emerged through a new stream that flows in a new direction. All must be baptized in the new stream, baptized into Jesus.”

[15] Jennings, Acts, 37. “The trajectory of the text is not toward formula but formation. From this moment forward, life with God will be through Jesus, and this moment of baptism will yield life in a body turned toward the renewal of creation. The story of Israel has opened up, and Gods body has been joined to Israel’s body and will be joined to all who will come to the water, Luke signifies a redeemer who would bring all of Israel from death to life through these them more deeply into divine desire.”

[16] Jennings, Acts, 37-38. “Now divine hunger will be revealed. God is calling to Israel and its children and other children and their children. This calling will be contra mundi, against the world’s calling, the world’s desire for the children. It will be against this corrupt generation (v. 40). This will be the difference bound to a decision, God’s calling or the world’s calling, and at this moment the new word reveals the old tension for God’s people between listening and thus obeying the voice of the world or hearing the dabarim of Adonai, the word of the Lord.”

[17] From Dorothee Sölle’s Thinking about God.

[18] Ref. Dorothee Sölle Christ the Representative.

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Up the Mountain and Down Again

Psalm 99:2-4 God is great in Zion; God is high above all peoples. Let them confess God’s Name, which is great and awesome; God is the Holy One. “O mighty [and royal], lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.”

Introduction

Sometimes I wonder how often we include ourselves in the proclamation from the gospel of John: God so loved the world in this way, God sent God’s only son. We completely ignore that we are, have been, and will be invited in to the divine party we eagerly watch from outside, faces pressed against window panes, unable to hear the summons and invitation to the party because of the loud ruckus in our own heads. We can’t imagine hearing the summons and invitation. God loves the world, sure; but, does God love me?

I think we get trapped in our curiosity, wondering why God would love me? I mean, it makes sense that God would love you, you are just loveable. But me? Nah. I’m a huge bag of mess and not quite good enough to be truly and really loved by God. Even if I try to comprehend the idea that maybe God loves me, I will probably justify that potential love with some my productivity: maybe God loves me because I’m special in this way? maybe God loves me because of my talent? because I’m quite good at _______? Or, maybe God loves me because God has to…

Would I ever dare to think that God loves me just cuz? That God desires and wants me… just cuz? Love and desire untethered to a reason, a why, or wherefore. What the mystic Meister Eckhart (the mid 13th/early 14th century catholic theologian) calls the sunder warumbe: without a why or wherefore (as translated by Dorothee Sölle). We are hard wired to put justifications and reasons on why we do x and why we do z, because the world demands we justify our actions, our bodies, our being, our existence, and whom we love. But when it comes to love, to desire, to the lover being with the beloved these reasons and justifications fall flat. Love just loves. Love just is. Love loves the beloved (full stop).

Love wants to be with the beloved, close to the beloved, in all the profoundness and banality of the beloved, even when the beloved says silly things out of fear and reverence surrounded by bright light and dense cloud, accompanied by Moses and Elijah and two other disciples. Love goes with us, up the mountain and back down.

Matthew 17:1-9

And behold! Moses appeared to them and Elijah was talking with him. And Peter took up the conversation and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make here three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah…” Yet, while he was speaking, behold! a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold! a voice out from the cloud saying “This one is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well-pleased. You listen to him!”[1]

The story of Jesus’s transfiguration is well known. It’s a powerful story, and Matthew does an excellent job demonstrating the intersection of divine glory and human frailty. The story of Jesus’s transfiguration as told by Matthew might be my favorite example of Peter being wonderfully Peter: totally human. In fact, the flow from chapter 16 to chapter 17 works well. These two chapters demonstrate the variability of Peter’s humanity, from profound insight that is a near mountain-top experience, to being chastised for rebuking Jesus’s prophetic utterances about the trajectory of his ministry that is like an experience of being dropped down the backside of the mountain. So it goes for the one on whom Jesus will build his church: full of both great and not so great moments. Not everything Peter does is infallible—at least not at this point in church history!

In Chapter 17, Peter is one of the three who go with Jesus up the high-mountain, to the heights of the intersection of heaven and earth; maybe Peter wondered if something divine would happen, wasn’t his religious history replete with stories of divine encounter on such mountaintops?[2] The reader probably has more information than Peter does considering that Matthew makes frequent overlapping references between Moses and Jesus,[3] leading the reader to draw the connection between Moses and Jesus’s authority to interpret the law.[4]And even hints that Jesus might even be better than Moses.[5]

But for Peter and his two friends, this is all unfolding before them. As they ascend the mountain, they witness Jesus transfigured by bright light and his clothes radiated the same bright light (Jesus doesn’t change forms, he remains the same Jesus).[6] And as they are taking in Jesus’s divine glowing transfiguration, Moses and Elijah show up! And Elijah is talking with Moses and then… Peter. Peter literally inserts himself, he “took up the conversation” and asks Jesus if he should build some tents. Far from being ridiculous request, it made sense; the glory of God shines about him and two of God’s divine prophets show up and why not make tents? Isn’t that where the glory of God dwells?[7] In tents and tabernacles? And then, just as he took hold of the conversation, God takes it back and declares that this one, Jesus, is God’s son and all should listen to him. Immediately, the event is over. God does not dwell high up on the mountain, but among God’s people; the disciples and Jesus will go back down to proceed with God’s mission of divine love for the beloved; Jesus and the disciples will minister in the valleys and not be secluded up high on the mountain tops.[8]

Peter follows Jesus when he is called; Peter follows Jesus up the mountain; Peter will also follow Jesus down the mountain. [9] But this relationship is not one-sided. Jesus called Peter because Jesus loved Peter; Jesus lifted up Peter when he fell on his face in fear on the mountain top because he loved him; and, Jesus will accompany him down into the valley because he loved him. Be raised up, says Jesus, and be not afraid…because I am with you, now and always, up on the mountain and down low in the valley, and where you go I will go too, now and always.

This event that merely altered Jesus’s appearance ultimately changed Peter inside and out;[10] Peter (and the other disciples with him) come to know that Love goes with them, up the mountain and back down.

Conclusion

Beloved, make note that Jesus did not stay up on the mountain, kicking it with Elijah and Moses. Peter was not able to build those tents, let alone finish his thought before God sent everyone back down. God is known among God’s people, not up high and separated from them. Jesus shows us the love of God by descending the mountain to be with us even if it means he goes to his demise. Yes, there is great glory and affirmation at the top of the mountain, but what would any of it mean if it stayed there? God comes low: in spirit hovering over the darkness, in creative words bursting forth in life and light, in fire and clouds, in the law, through the prophets, and in the love of Christ.

So, beloved, God so loved the world and you! that God came back down the mountain. God so loves you that you are beckoned to ascend the mountain so that you can come back down with Christ and share in the divine summons and mission of spreading love and life in the world to those who are deprived of such love and life. You are so called to be changed by this encounter with God in Christ that you can do nothing else but follow Jesus up the mountain and back down.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2015. 212. “The vision (v. 9) we call the transfiguration takes place on the ‘high mountain’ which has traditionally been associated with revelation and profound religions experience. Symbolically, it is a place where heaven touches earth.”

[3] Case-Winters, Matthew, 212. Tons of overlap with Moses and Jesus in Matthew, “This association is made more prominent in chapter 17 where there are at least seven points of parallel between Jesus in the transfiguration and Moses at Sinai.”

[4] Case-Winters, Matthew, 213. “These multiple associations reinforce identity of Jesus with Moses and affirm Jesus’ role as the authoritative interpreter of the law.”

[5] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007. 645. “But this pericope reinforces the perception of the careful reader of ch. 2 that Jesus comes, as Moses did long ago, to fulfill God’s purpose of deliverance for his people. At the same time, he is also clearly marked out as a greater than Moses, both by the heavenly voice which speaks of him alone in terms never used of Moses, and by the fact that Moses and Elijah soon disappear, leaving Jesus alone to carry Out the final act of deliverance.”

[6] France, Matthew, 647. “The visual ‘transformation’ is not so much a physical alteration an added dimension of glory; it is the same Jesus, but now with an awesome brightness ‘like the sun’ and ‘like light.’ Or, one might better say, with the of earthly conditions temporarily stripped away, so that the true nature of God’s ‘beloved Son’ (v. 5) can for once be seen.”

[7] Case-Winters, Matthew, 213. “’There is an association with the tents or tabernacles that housed the ark of the covenant in the wilderness wanderings. God’s presence in the Holy of Holies in the Temple was also identified is the shekinah.”

[8] Case-Winters, Matthew, 214. “Peters proposal, however, is wrong-footed on several counts, as what follows his offer will make clear. There will be no dwelling upon the mountain top in ‘spiritual retreat’ from the world. Jesus and the disciples are very soon thereafter called to come down from the high places and minister in the valley where great need awaits them.”

[9] Case-Winters, Matthew, 215. “In this story the ascent to the heights of the mountain and “peak” experiences of encounter with God is followed by descent into suffering and service in the valley of need where God’s calling beckons. Ascent and descent are inextricably bound for the followers of Jesus. Just as they were for him.”

[10] France, Matthew, 643. “If what happened there provided Jesus himself with reassurance for his coming mission, we are told nothing of this; it is the disciples’ Christological understanding which is being enhanced, and the discussion as they return down the mountain (vv. 10-13) similarly focuses entirely on their grasp of the eschatological timetable.”

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“Tabitha, rise!”

Sermon on Acts 9:36-43

Psalm 23:1-3 God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.

Introduction

In my last call I had the privilege of being a high school teacher at a private Episcopal high school in deep south Louisiana. I taught theology and religion, and I also participated in some of the pastoral care of the students. I had many conversations with students, but some of my favorite ones were with seniors fretting over what college to go to. Them, frantic: Rev. Larkin…Rev. Larkin I don’t know what to do! They had sweet and endearing intentions but they were stuck. They weren’t merely stuck because they were waiting for that frontal lobe to fully kick in, but because they worried about doing God’s will for fear that anything else would cause God to become displeased in them. What college should I go to, Rev. Larkin, what’s God’s will for me?

If there’s any question in the world that I both value and understand and disvalue and dismiss it’s that question. If you ever want to see this enneagram 5 go full tilt wut. just ask: What’s God’s will for me right now? Me:

Robot Monkey GIF by Giphy QA - Find & Share on GIPHY

Now, while my internal monologue looked something like that, my external pastoral side always kicked in. I loved these kids and hated how tied up they were in fear of not knowing God’s will. In these moments, I loved leaning back on Luther. His conception of seeking God’s will as a form of magic and divination (he’s no fan of either, by the way) and the freedom we have in Christ, gave me the power and authority to declare to my fretting and worried beloveds: my dear one, God loves you through and through and through; a college choice isn’t going to ever ever ever take that from you no matter how bad it all turns out. You can just transfer. Also, and this is going to sound a bit blunt and maybe even mean and I intend this with the biggest amount of love for you: God isn’t worried about where you go to college. Literally. God’s will for all of us is written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. Pick a school and live in God’s already existent good pleasure and love for you…and care for the poor and vulnerable.

When it comes to our own questions about what does God want for us, what does God want us to do, it’s clearly laid out for us in scripture through the examples of many of the main characters. Even if we rationalize away the example of Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, leaning heavy on Christological formulas: Well, Jesus is the Son of God, fully human and fully God thing…there are still many more examples. In the book of Acts of the Holy Spirit, we’re given plenty examples of people who are both fully human and called by God and live out the will of God in the material world by the power of the Holy Spirit. Saul-Paul is one. I know he’s a bit intense, and he seems to have a penchant for getting into heaps of trouble with the religious and state authorities, but he’s fully human and a converted follower of the way (like many of us).

But maybe Saul-Paul isn’t your cup of tea, too much drama that he clearly could’ve avoided if he was just a bit more reserved and taken with common sense…There’s always another contender: Peter. He seems a bit more practical.

Acts 9:36-43

Now, it happened in that day [Tabitha] became weak and died. And having bathed [her], they laid her in an upper room. Now, Lydda being near Joppa the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda and they sent two men to summon him, “Do not hesitate to pass through us.” And Peter rose and went with them. After arriving, they lead him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and displaying the tunics and many cloaks [Tabitha] was making being with them. Now, Peter sent them all out and [getting on his] knees, he prayed and turned toward the body he said, “Tabitha, rise.” And she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up.[1]

Acts 9:37-40

Last week, looking at chapter 9 of the book of Acts we encountered Saul who was encountered by God in the midst of his self-determined obstinance to reclaim Israelites for the glory of God. Saul was disrupted, and his life changed in a short moment. This week we are being asked to consider Peter who returns to the story as the one who has followed Jesus and continues to do so. Where Saul represents being suddenly disrupted; Peter represents continual and persistent disruption. Peter knew Jesus and continues to get to know him in deeper and more profound ways.[2] Specifically, the blessed mingling of human and divine of the incarnate Christ raised and now ascended beckons to Peter by the power of the Holy Spirit asking him to see how much more that divine and human mingling goes beyond Jesus the Christ. Peter is caught up in the divine pursuit of disruption and disturbing the status quo by shaking up the divine and human distinction through drawing the regular time and regular people into the holiness of God.[3] And he’s about to be thrusted into the middle of such a moment of disruption and disturbance.

In our story here in Acts, Peter dares to do what Jesus did. In other words, to quote Willie James Jennings, “Peter repeats Jesus.”[4] Like his friend, sibling, and savior did, so, too, will Peter do: bring light where there is darkness, liberty where there is captivity, life where there is death. In other words, Peter, like Jesus continues to spread God’s never-stopping, never-giving up material and tangible love for the entire cosmos (from the biggest to the least).[5] Most notably Peter steps into and brings[6] this proclamation to weeping widows in the presence of the death of Tabitha—one who lived well and loved these widows deeply.[7] Here we see how willingly divine power and love will sink and seep into the most narrow crevices of society: the grief of the widows and the death of Tabitha matters to God—these women matter to God, so much so that death is refused the final word.[8]

The final word is God’s power through Peter, “Tabitha, rise.” The echo of Jesus’s “Lazarus, come here! outside!” “Peter repeats Jesus.” Resurrection happens, life triumphs over death. The widows’ grief and sorrow (also fear and anxiety) is heard, and their Tabitha is brought back to life.[9] Our scriptures record this incredible and astounding story: the first disciple to experience resurrection after Jesus’s is a woman. God gives a big heck about bodies, all bodies.[10] And this message doesn’t cease with Tabitha; soon Peter will find himself with a body considered unclean, Simon the Tanner. Peter’s on a divine journey, discovering the depth of God’s love for all people, diving deeper into being disrupted and disturbed by the heart, love, grace, and will of God. [11]

Conclusion

This story from the book of Acts about Peter and the widows and Tabitha reminds us that all bodies matter to God, and not merely the bodies of the wealthy, the powerful, the capable, but, the bodies of least of these, the bodies of the oppressed and poor. Women’s bodies matter. Black bodies matter. Trans bodies matter. Differently abled bodies matter. Imprisoned bodies matter. Your body matters.

So, back to the beginning: What’s God’s will for us? What does God want us to do? I guess God wants us to raise the dead. Or, rather, bring life where there is death. The ultimate interpretation of what it means to liberate the captives is: resurrection. “Tabitha, rise.” And we, like Peter and Saul get to be encountered by this radical and profound divine pathos, divine love for the world and then we get to spread it where ever we go. We, like Saul and Peter, get to say: “Tabitha, rise.” Yes, you! You, too! You, too, rise! Death has no claim here anymore only life, no longer darkness, only light. You are the beloved of God, dearly loved and deeply cherished. From head to toe, without shame, without hiddenness, without secrecy, with all boldness and bigness. “Tabitha, rise.”

You, the Beloved, rise!

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Willie James Jennings Acts Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2017. 99. “Peter returns to center stage and engages in a bit of wayfaring life, echoing again his history of following Jesus and doing as his savior had done. He is on the road and comes to Lydda to be among the living saints.”

[3] Jennings Acts 99. “Jesus is God drawing the everyday into holiness, into God’s own life. Everyday people are made holy in Christ. Everyday people are made holy by Christ, and this is a holiness that will last, not be episodic, and constitute a new space for living life and knowing ourselves. ‘Saints’ are those marked by the new gestures of belief in Jesus. They worship a crucified Lord in the Spirit, and in the Spirit they live the everyday, knowing that each moment has been made sacred by God’s faithful presence.”

[4] Jennings Acts 99.

[5] Jennings Acts 99-100. “He is with Jesus, following where his savior wants to go. Once again a marvelous act, a touchable miracle, will turn people to the Lord (v. 35). This is repetition that illumines the inexhaustible riches of God’s love for the fragile creature and God’s desire to constantly touch us, hold us, and announce the victory over death.”

[6] Jennings Acts 100. See also Cassidy p.30. “Here glory joins strong grief because to lose someone who cares for the weak and vulnerable, whose life is turned toward making a difference in the world and who is making a difference, is a bitter loss. The widows have lost Tabitha and a disciple is gone. This is what Peter steps into in Joppa.”

[7][7] Jennings Acts 100. “We come to the story of Tabitha with Peter at the very end. There is glory and grief at the end. The glory is a life lived well, lived in service to others. Tabitha’s life, even in the fragments we gain in this story, hangs together beautifully as someone devoted to helping people, especially widows.”

[8] Jennings Acts 100. “Peter’s presence declares an unmistakable truth: women matter. This woman matters, and the work she does for widow’s matters to God. It matters so much that God will not allow death the last word.”

[9] Jennings Acts 100-101. “’Tabitha, get up.’ Peter repeats Jesus. Tabitha is an activist who lives again in resurrection power. Her body has been quickened by the Spirit, and her eyes are opened again to see a new day. She has work to do and joy to give to the widows: you have not been abandoned, dear widows, God has heard your weeping and returned her to you.”

[10] Jennings Acts 101. “We know that death imagines a special claim to the bodies of women. Their deaths are normalized and naturalized in social orders that value men’s body far above all others. It will not be so among the disciples. They will find Peter standing next to Tabitha, a gift of God who has been given again the gift of life. It is no accident that the first disciple to have this little taste of the resurrection is a woman…”

[11] Jennings Acts 101. “Tanners worked with death flesh—the skin of animals and tanners were, theologically speaking, unclean Few if any pious Jews would normally or easily stay with a tanner, but here was Peter with Simon the tanner. Peter is indeed moving from saints to saints, and soon he will find out just how far the generosity and mercy of a holy God reaches. Soon he will see just how far God will extend holy place and holy people. Peter is with a man who touches the unclean, and soon he will see God do the same.”

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Waters of Thursday

Maundy Thursday Meditation: John 13:6

(video at the end of the post)

 

“He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’” (John 13:6)

 

Peter does not know what Jesus is doing.

Wanting to know and seeking to understand is part of our natural inclination and orientation. Being without sight, having words held by silence, being trapped in isolation, these restrictions cause chaos, and this chaos drives us crazy. In an effort to make sense of our surroundings, our environment, our predicament we concoct schemes and stories, dogmas and doctrines, rituals and routines. Some of these things seem to rise to celestial heights others shatter on the ground as the human made earthen vessels they are.

We do not know what God is doing.

Peter feels the tension as Jesus–the Christ!–stoops low and washes his feet. This is a boggling gesture on Jesus’s part, and Peter cannot make sense of it. Roles should be reversed, seats swapped; what is He doing? The only consolation that Jesus offers to Peter’s shock filled question, is an understanding that will come at a later date. Yet that does not ease the oddness of this particular moment in the present. We know this feeling intimately. Blindness now, silence now, isolation now leaves us feeling unsteady and uncertain even if we know that one day everything we’ve endured (now) will make sense as we watch all the parts of our story fall into place.  But at the onset of every night, in our solemn prayer as we drift off to sleep is the confession: Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

We do not know what God is doing.

Resisting the urge to flash forward to Easter Sunday and the glory of the resurrection, stay here in this chaos with Peter. Marvel, with Peter, at Jesus kneeling before you, laying hold of your foot, and washing it. Feel his hands grip and the water pour over. Listen as Jesus promises that even in this present chaos, you will understand. Gaze upon the Christ and his posture before you, because it’s in that divine posture of humility where our comfort will be found. It is this posture that will not only mark the night before his crucifixion, but also the cross itself. Christ the meek will humble himself even unto death on the cross for the beloved (Phil 2:8)–to restore us to God and cleanse us completely by his once-and-for-all sacrifice.

We do not know what God is doing.

However, that’s quite okay. Because in this not knowing we are made aware we’ve become the humble and meek, wholly dependent on this wholly other God, the one who calls us by name and washes us. The water of Thursday and the silence of Saturday are, to be sure, the marks of our Christian life now as we wait and walk humbly with our God, acting justly and loving mercy (Micah 6:8).

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