Readings

“Like living stones,” writes Peter, “let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” “Spiritual sacrifices:” what is Peter going to talk about? Not, as we might expect, the Holy Eucharist as celebrated every Sunday, but “For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution” (2:13). So Peter goes on to talk about the empire, slavery, and marriage. Most of that is omitted by our lectionary, maybe because Peter’s words have been too often abused. But if Peter wants to talk about “spiritual sacrifices,” let’s let him talk, and we might be surprised at what he has to say. But for that we’ll need a running start, which we’ll get through the other readings.

In our Gospel we hear these well-known words: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, except through me.” These words continue to play a role in our conversations about what Christian mission is about. After we’ve said all that we need to say about God’s Spirit creatively reaching out to all peoples in all times and places—and sometimes we need to say a great deal more than we have said—if anyone is to come to the Father, it is through Jesus.

But in our text Jesus says “no one comes to the Father, except through me” not to start talking about evangelism, but to emphasize how closely the Father, Son, and Spirit intertwine, and that the disciples’ life depends on staying intertwined in this divine life. “The way, and the truth, and the life:” this isn’t about life in the world to come, but about this life, how one might live humanly now. And the claim is that Jesus is central to this human life now. Let’s see how that plays out in the other readings.

Our psalm is a cry for deliverance, assuming a world that we know too well. We may lack many things, but we don’t lack enemies, folk whose pursuit of their goals doesn’t translate into good news for us. As the wag rewrote the beginning of Kipling’s “If”: “‘If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs…’ you obviously don’t understand the situation.” Yep, our world.

Now, if we start with that psalm, how is Stephen’s trial going to turn out? Stephen had been giving powerful testimony to Jesus, he’d been hauled before the high priest’s council, he’d delivered a powerful but not very conciliatory defense, and now our text. If anyone needed deliverance, it was Stephen. But, the text tells us, he was stoned to death.

Now, our psalm reading ended with “Make your face to shine upon your servant, / and in your loving-kindness save me” and Acts reports Stephen saying “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” So it sounds like Stephen was not feeling short-changed.

We may be. Some days I’d prefer an ending in which Stephen is whisked away by a squad of heavily-armed angels, and if they leave the temple leadership with a bad case of hemorrhoids, so much the better.

But here’s the thing. God’s not about just delivering Stephen. God’s about delivering the high priest, the folk who dragged Stephen before the council, and even that young man Saul who took charge of the executioners’ outer garments so they could carry out the stoning…vigorously. God’s going for all the marbles, and that, as Peter’s letter makes clear, even includes our institutions, like, say, the empire, slavery, marriage.

After what Jesus and followers like Stephen experienced, it would be very easy to write off the world’s institutions—like the Essenes who withdrew to the edge of the Dead Sea. If we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,” why should we bother with all these worldly institutions?

Nevertheless, here’s Peter saying “For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution.” Is Peter selling out? No. Peter understands Jesus being the Way, the Truth, and the Life to mean that Jesus is about transforming human institutions from the inside out. Peter could have talked about any number of institutions; he focuses on three: the empire, slavery, and marriage. Here’s an institution: what is Jesus going to do with it?

Empire. The core of what Peter wants to say about the Empire is contained in the following lines with their careful choice of verbs. “Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” “Honor the emperor.” Honor: give him neither less nor more than his due. Not “love the emperor”—the object of love is the brotherhood, that is, other Christians. Not “fear the emperor”—fear is reserved for God. So worship of the emperor is out, and Christians would pay for that exclusion with their lives until Constantine’s conversion some 300 years later. No, “honor the emperor”—the honor we owe any other human being.

Slavery. “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh.” Peter is breaking new ground. In first Century moral discourse there was plenty of advice and instruction to owners regarding how to handle their slaves. But one didn’t speak to the slaves themselves, for they were not considered moral agents (and the same logic applied to women). So, simply to address the slaves and address them as moral agents, as full members of this chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, is already to begin shaking the foundations.

And it is for the slaves that Christ’s conduct serves as an example: “because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” The owner may think that the slave obeys out of fear; the Christian slave obeys as a way of imitating Jesus.

Do you see how Peter is rearranging our mental worlds? Where do we encounter the following of the resurrected Christ, so glorious, so splendid? Not in the glory and splendor of the owners, but in the obedience of the slaves. It is not that God is any friend of slavery—the exodus from Egypt should put that fear to rest—but, says Peter, if we want to watch the followers of the glorified Christ—watch the slaves.

Over time Peter’s rearranging of our mental worlds combined with Genesis’ affirmation of all bearing God’s image helped us realize that the transformation Jesus wished to make to the institution of slavery was its abolition.

There’s much more we could say, but let’s at least remember this: these words to the slaves speak to all persons in a subordinate position in any social or economic arrangement. Are you suffering unjustly in your work? You have Jesus Christ as your companion.

Marriage. Here Peter addresses both wives and husbands, recognizing both as moral agents. The wives are called to submission, the husbands to considerate living and to bestowing honor on their wives.

Christians at the “conservative” end of the spectrum take Peter’s words as expressing God’s will for marriages today. They’re probably making the same mistake the folk who thought God liked slavery made. Given what Peter’s already done with empire and slavery, I think it’s much more likely that Peter is simply starting with the institution as it then existed and pushing it in the direction of God’s will.

In a discussion of the same institution in Ephesians, Paul speaks of being subject to each other. Peter does not use that language, but his call on the husbands to considerate living and to bestowing honor on their wives comes to pretty much the same thing. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

From our cultural context we hear Peter’s words as hopelessly hierarchical. What we forget is that in most times and places Peter’s words (and similar words elsewhere in the New Testament) are plenty revolutionary. What calls to “considerate living” and “bestowing honor on their wives” can do is begin to conform male desires to female priorities. Less money on the mistress; more money for school clothes.

My favorite story about this comes from a town Elizabeth Brusco encountered during her doctoral field work in Colombia. Like many towns one of its major festivals was that of its patron saint, and at that festival the town insured that no one went thirsty (free beer). Plenty of scores would be settled, and typically the birth rate would spike about nine months later, the father of most of the newborn designated as St. So-and-So. One year they had elected an evangelical mayor, whose church devoted considerable attention to texts like 1 Peter. So at the festival he announces: this year in honor of our patron saint the children will have all the milk they want. The milk will flow like rivers. Of course the wives are submitting—but to priorities that have more to do with their interests.

I do not imagine for a minute that I’ve addressed all the issues that come up with regard to Christian participation in these institutions. I haven’t tried; nor did Peter, and I think he’d be horrified at the suggestion that his words were the only words that would ever need to be spoken regarding these institutions. Rather, what Peter has done is give us an overall strategy: rather than withdraw from these institutions, or check our Christian identities at the door when we participate in them, participate in them as Christians and let that yeast ferment the whole loaf. This is a strategy for the long haul in which whether we are “successful” individually is less important than whether we are faithful. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life also with regard to our life in these very imperfect but transformable institutions.

“The kingdom of heaven—Jesus said—is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

Readings

Today’s readings: such a tapestry! Let’s look at three of the threads.

First thread: “The LORD is my shepherd” sings David; in the verse just after today’s Gospel reading we hear Jesus: “I am the good shepherd.” “Shepherd” in David’s time was a potent political metaphor. The LORD is shepherd of Israel; the king is shepherd of the people.

The kings liked to portray themselves as good shepherds. Israel’s prophets, particularly Jeremiah and Ezekiel, heard a different divine verdict. Here’s Ezekiel: “Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel…  Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?  You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.” This goes on for a good bit. Then, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD.” (Ezek. 34:2-15) When we hear Jesus’ “I am the good shepherd” we know that Ezekiel’s words were not empty.

Peter, later in the letter our lectionary has us reading, will say “Honor the emperor,” not because the emperor’s doing such a fine job shepherding, but because Peter has just said “Honor everyone,” and the emperor is included in “everyone.” When the emperor and his lackeys overreach, Jesus’ “I am the good shepherd” translates into Peter’s “We must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29). We may have the political leaders we deserve; the good news of the Gospel is that the Good Shepherd has arrived, and Jesus bats last.

Second thread: what do we expect of this Good Shepherd? Two weeks ago I talked about how the petition psalms struggle to hold God, the enemies, and the psalmist in the same frame, appealing to God to do something. Sometimes the psalmist’s confidence that God is doing something takes over the psalm, as in today’s psalm. It wouldn’t take much adjustment for it to sound like a generic petition psalm: “Lord, I’m in the middle of the valley of the shadow of death.” “Lord, I can’t even take a bite without those who trouble me crowding around.” But the psalmist understands—in the gut, not simply in the head—that “you are with me,” and that’s bedrock.

By the way, it isn’t better to pray Psalm 23 than one of the “Get me out of here now!” psalms. The Psalter is such a large collection because we can be in so many places, and wherever we are, we’ll need some words. As the saying goes, “pray as you can; don’t pray as you can’t.”

Nevertheless, the psalmist’s “[nevertheless] you are with me” sets us on a trajectory towards Jesus’ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (v.11, just past today’s reading). The LORD is Jesus’ Good Shepherd, and “with me” turns out to include, not exclude, the cross. Peter in our second reading applies this pastorally: following this Shepherd can mean suffering.

If we wonder what, if anything, our suffering accomplishes, Peter is silent, but we have his colleague Paul. In his letter to the Colossians we hear “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (1:24). There’s no description of the “how,” but it’s clear that the LORD can employ also our suffering for the healing of the world. This in turn shapes what we expect of Jesus, our Good Shepherd.

Third thread. Up to this point we’ve been assuming that we’re the known factor as we attempt to understand God’s conduct. But then there’s that verse in the Gospel: “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” The rabbis have a story we might want to think about.[1]

Rabbi Yehuda of Prague dreamt that he had died and was outside the gates of heaven. An angel read the names of those invited to enter, but he did not hear his name. He begged the angel for an explanation. The angel replied: “But many come here who have never heard their true names on the lips of man or angel. They have lived believing that they know who they really are, but they don’t know. And so when they’re called to heaven by their names as who they really are, they don’t recognize themselves. They don’t realize that it’s for them that the gates of heaven are opened. So they must wait until they know their true selves and so recognize their true names.” At this Rabbi Yehuda woke and, rising from his bed with tears, he lay prostrate on the ground and prayed, “Master of the Universe! Grant me once before I die to hear my own true name as who I really am.”

When Jesus calls me by name will I recognize that name? Holy Scripture thinks that’s a serious question, and so invites us to follow, also so that in the following we make some progress in knowing our own names.

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[1] Adapted from a story attributed to Rowan Williams on a now inaccessible website.

Readings

When I was attending elementary school in California in the 50’s we had air raid drills. The siren would sound, we’d huddle under our desks, the teacher would draw the blinds, and we’d crack jokes. Great fun, unless we connected these exercises with the pictures of ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The seasons would change, spring to summer, fall to winter, but the Soviet Union was, we assumed, eternal.

Then along came Pope John Paul II, someone whose encounter with the holy God saved him from that assumption. Like Isaiah, when you feel the foundations shaking and hear powers beyond your imagination calling out “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts” you never quite see nations and states the same way. He returned to Poland, preached—like Peter—Jesus as “Lord and Messiah,” and Poland and the Soviet Union never quite recovered.

The section from which today’s epistle is taken, in fact, zeros in on holiness: “as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

‘Holy’: our culture tends to have an allergic reaction to the word, which in common usage shows up primarily in expletives or phrases like “holier than thou.” Now, although we’ve all eaten really bad food and had bad music inflicted upon us, we still seek out good food and good music. So this sermon is an exercise in recovery: what’s holiness about, and what might it mean?

The holy is, first, the completely other. It’s someone from a two-dimensional world encountering somehow a three-dimensional world. It’s Hamlet encountering not some ghost, but Shakespeare himself, Captain Kirk encountering not the Klingons but the accountants at Paramount. Very unsettling, but good for us. We fall into the habit of thinking that our world’s the given, and may wonder if God is a figment of our imagination. We forget that our world depends on God remembering us, that our world has in itself all the permanence of a soap bubble. To encounter the holy is to encounter a bit of that reality.

Holiness, second, what is set aside from common use, and drawn into the service of this completely other. It’s like what happens in most homes: some things are for when company comes. And some things, some people, are set apart for God. If we’ve been baptized, we’re in that category. And we set ourselves apart again at every Eucharist. As Prayer B puts it “Unite us to your Son in his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” We place ourselves at the service of this Holy God. Which brings us to the third of four dimensions of holiness.

Holiness, third, the character of God we are called to imitate. And what this means is laid out in considerable detail in the Law of Moses. It’s easy to forget how much of this is simply good news. The Sabbath. Historically, the alternative to the Sabbath was pretty much working every day —unless you’re among the ruling elites. An eye for an eye is harsh, but a real improvement on both eyes for one eye, or multiple teeth for one tooth. Now, from the start we Christians have had trouble reaching agreement on the application of some parts of the Law, but all have agreed that the call to holiness is central.

“You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Like the audience for this epistle, many in our congregations are written off by society. Recall Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth” (1Co 1:26 RSV). But Peter here wants us to remember that we have received an invitation whose honor puts any other honor in the shadows: God Almighty addressing each one of us: “Be holy—like me.” What does it matter what’s in my wallet if that invitation’s in my wallet?

This call to holiness is at the center of the questions put to the candidates in baptism: putting off the old nature & putting on the new. It keeps us occupied all our lives, individually and corporately. Individually, battling our cherished addictions. Corporately… when in the 19^th Century Anglicans in the UK fought against slavery and child labor and in the 20^th Century Episcopalians here fought against segregation that was about holiness.

Which bring us to the fourth dimension: holiness as dynamic, the core of mission. When Moses encountered the burning bush —“Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground”— the result was not a new retreat center. (Pharaoh might have put up the money for that!) It was a return to Egypt and to struggle: “Let my people go!” Peter gets a glimpse of the holy and says to Jesus “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The result, not a retreat center, but “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” It’s an outrageously mixed metaphor: “I will build” —something stationary; “not prevail” —the church as battering ram for God’s Kingdom. (Recall John Paul II in Poland.)

Holiness, then: the completely other, what is set apart, how we imitate God, mission.

Lest all of this sound a bit abstract, there’s a lovely illustration of how it plays out in today’s Gospel. Jesus encounters two disciples heading for Emmaus in mourning. They think they have all the information they need. One says: “some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.” But they know not to trust the testimony of slaves, children, and women. How do they know? The chief priests and other leaders have been telling them so, the same chief priests and leaders who’ve just engineered Jesus’ crucifixion. Holiness—the completely other, the imitation of God—means taking a second look at what our culture tells us. Holiness means listening to the voices we too easily discount.

In our first reading Peter is faced with an audience who 52 days ago had made it quite clear that they preferred Barabbas to Jesus, and whose working theory about the apostles’ behavior is that they’re quite drunk. That’d be enough to encourage any of us to keep very quiet. But Peter has responded to God’s call to holiness, and so Peter tells the story, and many that day pass from death to life.

For John Paul II, holiness meant inviting the peoples of Eastern Europe to personal and corporate holiness—including the labor union Solidarity in Poland. And one day, the Soviet Union I had grown up learning to fear simply disappeared.

“You shall be holy, for I am holy,” this wouldn’t be a bad time to hear and respond.

Readings

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

The dominant—maybe the overwhelming—emotion in today’s readings is that of joy. It’s the base melody for Peter’s sermon. We hear it again in Peter’s letter

 Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, (1:8)

It’s a dominant part of the disciples’ reaction to Jesus’ appearances in the Gospel. But perhaps it finds fullest expression in David’s psalm:

9 My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; *
my body also shall rest in hope.
10 For you will not abandon me to the grave, *
nor let your holy one see the Pit.

Joy on David’s lips is all the more remarkable when we notice the implied setting: David very near the Pit, with plenty of enemies pressuring him toward it, the Pit his probable destination unless the Lord responds to the cry with which the psalm begins (“Protect me, O God”). So what might we learn from this psalm and the Gospel about how to experience this joy? In our collect, after all, we prayed “Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.” If the lessons are any indication, what we’re praying that we “show forth” has something to do with an authentic joy. How do we get there?

The psalm, as we’ve noticed, starts very far from joy:

Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you;
I have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord,
my good above all other.”

The psalmist is facing some sort of lethal threat; here, as in many of the psalms the language is kept general so that the psalm can be used in a variety of situations, whether grave illness or enemies’ plots or an oppressive social order. And in that first verse two decisions have already been made. The first is to seek the Lord’s aid—that’s the proper name lying behind the first ‘Lord’ in the verse: “I have said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord.’” The psalmist is in a religious environment even more pluralistic than ours, some of which is reflected in the following verses.

The second decision: to not try to put the problem out of mind. Then, as now, many ways to dull awareness. Precisely in praying the psalm the psalmist is discarding that option.

This psalm, you see, like many of the psalms, works with three foci: the Lord, the psalmist’s enemies, and the psalmist’s situation. And the whole work of the psalm is to hold those three together until The Lord does something. The psalmist has no idea what that’s going to look like. That takes effort; that’s why some of these psalms are rather long. The options of seeking another patron or seeking oblivion continue to present themselves, and each time have to be set aside. Sometimes “The Lord does something” happens quickly, sometimes not. If you want an image for this, think of the patriarch Jacob wrestling all night with the angel: “I will not let you go, unless you bless me” (Gen 32:26).

And sometimes, as in this psalm, “The Lord does something” also means The Lord giving the gift of confidence and joy before anything else happens, before there’s any obvious reason for confidence or joy:

I have set the Lord always before me; *
because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.

What I’m describing here is a spiritual discipline, or practice, which in most times and places involves swimming upstream. Much of what we encounter on the internet or other media assumes our God’s absence. So it takes regular discipline to reorient ourselves, which is why the Daily Office is at the beginning of our prayer book. And the testimony of generations of prayer book users is that a predictable outcome of this discipline is joy.

So that’s one answer to “How do we get there?”

The other answer is in our Gospel reading.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” (20:19)

As John tells the story, the appearance is completely unexpected. And of the many things we might notice in this account, one is certainly Jesus’ strong desire to be with his friends.

(Returning to Matthew for a moment, recall that the night of his arrest Jesus told his disciples he would meet them in Galilee [26:32]. But, as in John, he meets Mary Magdalene at the tomb that Easter morning. He can’t wait for Galilee.)

And so in the different accounts of the post-resurrection appearances in the Gospels, it’s rarely about teaching; it’s primarily about being with, about friendship, about love.

So that’s the Gospel reading’s answer to “How do we get there:” pure gift, Jesus’ presence. And what we learn from this and the other stories is that this presence is something Jesus wants at least as much as we do.

Joy. On the one hand, a product of the discipline of, with David, holding The Lord, our enemies, and our situation in the same frame. The joy’s not automatic; it’s not something that can be forced. It’s us the lovers seeking the Beloved. On the other hand, it’s the product of Jesus’ unexpected gifts of presence, quite outside our control. And there it’s Jesus as lover, seeking us. So one of the Bible’s recurrent images for the culmination of this long history of The Lord and humankind is the wedding. That’s the human future. Whether with David on the run or Peter in Jerusalem, that’s the future we have the privilege of announcing to our neighbors.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Readings (Jeremiah; Psalm; Acts; Matthew)

Alleluia. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

One of the things I love about our liturgical tradition is that at the major feasts our  liturgies say pretty much everything that needs to be said. So the sermon: it’s quite enough to add a few program notes. Notice what the woodwinds are doing here. Notice how the composer circles back to the opening theme there. So here are a couple program notes.

From the material unique to Matthew’s account, it’s clear that in his context he feels the need to respond to the the-disciples-stole-the-body story. We heard that in the verses preceding and following those assigned by the lectionary. No: the disciples didn’t steal the body—and the guards, priests, and elders know it. What actually happened matters, both then and now. I normally don’t devote much sermon time to “what actually happened.” Holy Scripture uses pretty much all the available genres (myth, legend, fable, satire, history, apocalyptic, etc.) to give us a true account of our reality. But here what actually happened matters. If some version of his disciples stole the body is true, will the last one out please turn off the lights.

But Jesus has been raised. God bats last.

Then there’s the end of our assigned reading. The angel’s instructions were clear: the next scene is in Galilee, that’s where Jesus will appear.

But then Jesus goes off script: “Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’” No need for it; Matthew’s already told us that the women are running to tell the disciples. It’s not clear that it accomplishes anything. But it briefly lifts the veil on something that’s been implicit throughout Matthew’s Gospel. At the beginning: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, ‘God is with us.’” At the ending “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Why? Because God has to (being omnipresent and all)? Hardly. Because that’s God’s job? But surely being God means writing your own job description. Because that’s what God desires. I wonder if we’ve really let that sink in.

Alleluia. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Readings

“The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.” How do you follow that? But there it is in the Book of Common Prayer (p.277): “The Sermon follows.”

This year we’re hearing the passion narrative three days out from a bitterly contested election. The last few elections have been bitterly contested; there’s no reason to think the next ones will be different. And I’d guess that most of us feel like we have a real stake in the outcomes. And here in the middle of that narrative we hear Pilate interrogating Jesus about, well, politics. Let’s hear it again:

³³ Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴ Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” ³⁵ Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶ Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” ³⁷ Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” ³⁸ Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”  (Jn. 18:33-38a)

To risk a summary, Jesus’ kingdom is not “from this world,” and to be king in this kingdom is about testifying to the truth. And we have a real stake in this too. This is the kingdom in the prayer Jesus taught us: “Your kingdom come.” This is the kingdom to which Jesus pointed us: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33)—“all these things” presumably including what we perceive to be at stake when we go in the voting booth.

Jesus’ kingdom: not “from this world.” You may recall the KJV translation: “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world… my kingdom [is] not from hence.” Paying attention just to the first part, we could hear Jesus saying “My kingdom is otherworldly.” But even in the KJV he ends with “my kingdom is not from hence” (from here), so the NRSV gets it right: “My kingdom is not from this world.” Jesus’ kingdom doesn’t depend on the fighting, the violence, that underwrite the current membership of the United Nations. Jesus’ kingdom does belong in this world: “Your kingdom come.”

And Jesus, the king, here to testify to the truth—whether or not it promises to be of any use tactically.

There is, by the way, a strong echo of Deuteronomy in Jesus’ responses. Deuteronomy is the only chunk of Moses that legislates regarding the king. While kings in that time and place usually lead their armies, Deuteronomy is loudly silent about that role. What does the king do? Hear the text:

¹⁸ When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests. ¹⁹ It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, ²⁰ neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment, either to the right or to the left… (Deut. 17:18-20)

The king studies Torah, and in Deuteronomy’s description, testifies to the truth by his actions, e.g., not “exalting himself above other members of the community.” (We might recall the text we heard yesterday, Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.)

“Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Jesus’ witness in today’s text in unison with the rest of Holy Scripture makes it clear that however we’re striving for that kingdom, we don’t do it with violence and we don’t do it by spinning the truth.

Oh that that were a no-brainer. But throughout the church’s history it’s been tempting to follow the apostolic example (Peter—who else?) and pull out the sword, tempting to spout Scripture when it supports us and plead laryngitis when it doesn’t.

OK, but we Christians are also citizens of this or that country, charged with bearing witness to the righteousness of God’s kingdom within the limitations of our particular context. What happens to Jesus’ example of non-violence and not spinning the truth in these contexts? Here we’re back to Paul’s “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10). Here we’re really grateful for the witness of the saints who enrich our calendar: Oscar Romero (3/24), Martin Luther King Jr. (4/4), Frances Perkins (Secretary of Labor in FDR’s administration; 5/13), Joan of Arc (5/30), Jonathan Myrick Daniels (8/14), Thomas Becket (12/29).

On Sunday morning we’ll be renewing our baptismal vows, including “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” Today’s text is worth reflection. Jesus’ commitment to non-violence and not spinning the truth seriously limit his options, with Pilate—at least for the moment—getting the last word: “What is truth?” That’s a situation none of us want to be in. The baptismal vows can nudge us in that direction, in which case the saints—and Jesus—don’t make for bad company.

Readings

Maundy Thursday in Holy Week, these dense readings: so many things that might capture our attention. Tonight, let’s look at two choices: Jesus’ choice to bring matters to a head at Passover, John the Evangelist’s choice of foot washing as that evening’s focal act.

In the second half of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) the central tension is between Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and Jesus’ teaching that he must go to Jerusalem—to die. There were lots of ideas about (scripts for) what the Messiah would do; dying wasn’t in any of them. The disciples don’t understand. We don’t understand. Jesus’ death: what was that about? Scripture gives us a wealth of images, metaphors—but translating these into simple prose?

So Jesus’ choice of Passover as the moment to force a choice on Jerusalem (recall the Triumphal Entry) is an important clue. Passover: the annual feast of the Lord’s delivering Israel from Egyptian slavery. Our first reading is the institution of the feast. By Jesus’ time the feast followed a liturgy involving various dishes, various cups. As Paul recounts in our second reading, Jesus takes that liturgy and reinterprets it: it’s about what Jesus is about to do. Jesus’ death at Passover: about freeing slaves. Unpacking that is an important part of the New Testament’s agenda: Jesus freeing all peoples, our recognizing the different sorts of slavery we suffer, our imagining freedom. What’s Jesus’ death about? Our freedom.

What if Jesus had chosen, say, the Day of Atonement? Jesus’ death: about achieving atonement between the holy God and a sinful/unholy people. We hear those notes in the New Testament (John the Baptist’s “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” [Jn. 1:29]), but—by Jesus’ choice—these notes are not the center.

Jesus’ choice of Passover shapes, I think, how we approach any celebration of the Holy Eucharist. There’s a place—a necessary place—for contrition, sorrow over our sin. We’re not a cheap date. But if that becomes the dominant note, perhaps we’re missing the point. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire our freedom, and this is what they do to win it.

Deep breath—and over to John’s Gospel. John has no account of the Eucharist’s institution during Holy Week. (He said everything he wanted to say about the Eucharist in the conversation between Jesus and the crowd after the feeding of the five thousand!) Rather, the action he narrates is Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. That’s a choice. What does he want us to see?

Well, with John, probably more than one thing.

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God” (Jn. 13:3): with that prelude John invites us to see the footwashing as an image of Jesus’ entire trajectory: he leaves the table (the Father’s side), does for the disciples what needs to be done, returns to the table. Footwashing: that’s what folk at the bottom of the totem pole do, a gentle preview of Jesus’ very ungentle descent to the bottom of the totem pole.

Then there’s the conversation with Peter, our Peter. Think how much we would have lost had Peter been better at keeping his mouth shut! Jesus, his Teacher and Lord, washing his feet, and he could see where that was headed. Jesus confirms it: “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” I wonder if this is why John swapped the institution story and this story. The danger with Passover is that we’re beneficiaries, passive. Eucharistic Prayer C tries to counter this: “Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal.” So John tells the footwashing story: So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” In this Passover we’re active participants.

(By the way, in the paragraph from which our second reading is taken, Paul is addressing precisely this problem. The Corinthians are using the Lord’s Supper as another opportunity to flaunt status and privilege, the polar opposite of washing one another’s feet.)

Finally, it looks like the foot washing circles back to Passover also in another way. Pharaoh wouldn’t have been caught dead washing anyone’s feet: that’s the whole point of hierarchies, pecking orders: everyone has their place, knows their place, stays in their place. Jesus’ foot washing (like his teachings elsewhere in the Gospels) eliminates all that. If Jesus is washing my feet… When we learn to live like that, no need for an Exodus; the Exodus has already happened.

We’re not doing foot washing this year. Holy Week in Wisconsin rarely encourages sandals, there’s some cultural difference: it’s inconvenient, uncomfortable, off-putting. But when we take seriously what John is doing with the story, that’s small potatoes compared to the ongoing discomfort to which the ceremony invites us. Who knows what we might do in 2024.

Readings

Before beginning, a word about this week’s readings. Between the tragic history of Christian antisemitism—which often peaked during Holy Week—and its appearance today in various forms of white Christian nationalism, there’s legitimate concern that the Holy Week readings fuel that. I tend to think that the problem lies not in the readings, but in us as readers, as we forget or suppress our identity. And what is that identity?

Recall Paul’s take on Jewish-Gentile relations in Romans: “But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you” (Rom. 11:17-18). God’s grafted us gentiles into the Jewish project. To tweak the metaphor, Christian antisemitism is at best an exercise in sawing off the branch on which we’re sitting.

We call ourselves—rightly—the people of God. That means that we’re vulnerable to all the temptations that identity entails, the temptations chronicled at some length in Scripture. Again, Paul writing to the Corinthians: don’t make the same mistakes Israel made in the wilderness. Antisemitism blinds us to the danger we’re inescapably in. It’s we—the people of God—who cry “Crucify him.” Nuff said.

From our Gospel reading: “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” God invites us, particularly during Holy Week to enter into unspeakable sorrow and joy

The sorrow: this —what we’ve just heard— is who we are. It’s not all that we are, but it’s an inescapable part. It’s not so much a matter of the particulars, Judas’ treachery, the disciples’ cowardice, the cynicism of the religious leaders, Pilate’s leadership, the soldiers’ brutality. Combine the 1^st Century Roman system of justice—one of the better systems on offer in any century—with the 1^st Century Jewish religion—one of the better religions on offer in any century—and you get what we just heard. All this is what it costs God to deal with our sin.

Our sin. Our gluttony, lust, greed, envy, anger, sloth & pride. We are all victims of the sins of others, but there are few things more dangerous than so focusing on our victimhood that we lose touch with the ways in which we fail to love God and our neighbor.

For the forgiveness of our sins. Precisely in the midst of unspeakable sorrow, unspeakable joy. Most of us don’t dare enter into the sorrow without having encountered the joy, that it’s already all right. “…my Blood of the new Covenant, …shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” The New Testament never tires of exploring this mystery.

• Jesus, the human who offers the pure obedience to God—as we heard in the first two readings—that none of us are capable of offering, and so opens the door to reconciliation between God and humanity…

• Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…

• Jesus, God Incarnate, who by his death destroys the works of the devil…

We could go on and on. For the moment, Charles Wesley’s lines sum it up: “I felt my Lord’s atoning blood / Close to my soul applied; / Me, me He loved—the Son of God / For me, for me he died!”

Who are we as human beings? Folk who kill God when God shows up. Who are we as human beings? Folk for whom God does show up because God loves us.

So enter into the unity of unspeakable sorrow and joy of Holy Week. We’ll gather Thursday for the Last Supper, Friday to stand around the cross, and Sunday to be bewildered by the women’s announcement of an empty tomb, and enter into their joy.

And what God has joined, let’s not pull asunder. For some that means: show up on Good Friday. We can celebration life at Easter (Easter bunnies and all) only because of what Jesus accomplished on Good Friday. For some that means: show up at Easter. Without the resurrection the suffering Christ—much as we may appreciate the company—is incapable of transforming our reality.

Unspeakable sorrow; unspeakable joy. May we accept God’s invitation and drink deeply.

Readings

“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Paul’s words from our second lesson give us a way of focusing what’s at stake in the other readings. The other readings, in turn, remind us that Paul isn’t spouting theory, but capturing Israel’s experience with God, before & after Jesus’ resurrection.

Our first reading comes from Israel’s exile in the bowels of the Babylonian Empire. To get into the spirit of the text, had our 2003 invasion of Iraq gone very badly, we could have spent the last twenty years with a large portrait of Saddam Hussein displayed at every major intersection, on every dashboard, and —if we were prudent— in our living rooms. What hymnody the Israelites are producing is coming out like this: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” This is not a faith you either can or want to pass on to the next generation. The portrait of the exiles in this text is a vivid picture of “flesh,” flesh as human possibilities. “Flesh” is not evil, but it is limited, vulnerable, and tends to leave God out of the equation.

And this is precisely where Ezekiel’s vision picks up, taking the people’s self-description with utter seriousness. Precisely there, where hope has flat-lined, the Spirit begins to work. And before long there is a very large army. To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

John gives us a story within a story. The inner story: Jesus, Martha, Mary & Lazarus. To set the mind on the flesh is death; in situations like this one, flesh can see no other option than death. What Jesus comes up against, particularly with Martha, is the natural assumption that we all know how the real world works, so that when Jesus shows up in the real world the most he can do is participate in the grieving process.

It’s the most natural thing in the world. We assume we know how the world works, and then sort out whether we think there’s a god, who Jesus was, etc., all within the constraints of how we know the world works.

Mercifully, Jesus doesn’t let himself be trapped, even by Martha’s theology, at once pristine and dismissive: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world” —not that it’s going to do our brother any good right now. He goes to the tomb: “Lazarus, come out!”

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa in the 4^th Century, used to say that any god we could understand was not worth worshipping. Well, we certainly don’t understand Jesus. Why the delay in coming to Bethany? It’s there in the barely veiled complaint/greeting the sisters give Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Between this and last week’s text (“Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”), some fear a darker possibility: we’re just props for an egotistical god. No. “Jesus began to weep.” Whatever is going on, the motor is God’s love.

Any god we could understand is not worth worshipping. And the God worth worshipping —my corollary— is going to turn our notions of the world upside down. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”(Hamlet 1.5.168-169) The C of E clergyman J. B. Phillip’s Your God is too small is as relevant to us now as when it was published in the mid twentieth century.

That, too briefly, is the inner story. The outer story is Jesus vs. the religious leaders. Setting the mind on the flesh is death —not only ours, but the death of others. In this case, Jesus. Recall Caiaphas’ brutal logic:“it is better…to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”

That brutal logic still reigns. Affordable drugs? At the cost of the pharmaceuticals’ profits? Curb global warming? At the cost of the energy companies’ profits? So it’s just about evil CEOs and Boards? No: how long would the shareholders tolerate loss? It is better that one man/the vulnerable die than that we try getting off the tiger’s back.

“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Ezekiel and John have let us watch how that plays out. Flesh qua human possibilities: death & despair, both for ourselves and for others. Spirit. Not any spirit, but the Spirit who enfleshed Ezekiel’s bones to create a formidable army, the Spirit poured out by the risen Christ.

Ezekiel’s bones, Lazarus’ bones, and too many situations today where fear, anger, and the brutal logic of every-man-for-himself have the upper hand. As the psalmist put it “Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord!” Too many situations in which our immediate response is some version of Martha’s “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”

Last Sunday we heard Paul’s “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” Whether at the family, local, or national level, what might the Spirit want to do with our bones? As in Ezekiel’s experience, the Spirit isn’t bound by our menus (“It’s either X, Y, or Z.” “It’s either what this or that caucus in Congress wants.”) As in the Exodus, the Spirit is good at making a way where there is no way.

Readings

Today’s readings test our ability not to use the A word [Alleluia] during Lent. Our first reading: the Lord can deal even with Samuel’s limitations so that he anoints the right son and the story of David can begin. The reading’s from the 16^th chapter. Samuel’s been onstage since chapter 1, has built an impressive CV, yet here he is about to anoint Eliab. The Lord intervenes—thank God Samuel doesn’t blow that off—and David is finally located, brought onstage, an anointed.

In our Gospel we hear Jesus’ “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” And that turns out to be wonderful news for the man born blind, who not only gains his sight, but is empowered to give the authorities some serious lip: “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. … If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

As John put it in his prologue: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” This is what we celebrated through the twelve days of Christmas and throughout Epiphany: the light has come. We do not have to keep wondering what a truly human life looks like, whether there is a Creator, what that Creator is like. The light has come.

The Lenten dimension to these readings: even a top-notch prophet like Samuel is going to choose Eliab as often as not. The Pharisees, who had far more in common with Jesus than did the Sadducees or the Herodians or the Zealots, even they as a group stumbled badly.

At the end of the reading: “Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see,” your sin remains.’”

Jesus’ response is a challenge for the Pharisees—and for us. In his letters, Paul repeatedly claims knowledge of many things. But he also writes: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12; italics mine).

We know. We know only in part. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard to hold these two together, but twenty centuries of church history tell us otherwise. Between our egos and our fears it can be hard to acknowledge that there are important things we don’t know. Thomas Merton spoke to this: “We do not want to be beginners. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!”

Hard, for that matter, to hear Paul in our second reading: “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” Paul, with the whole Bible (our “Old Testament”) available, apostolic letters in circulation, Jesus’ words and deeds on their way to being compiled by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you’re writing “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord”? Yes. That’s what living in that space between “We know” and “We know only in part” means.

But having brought in Paul’s “Now I know only in part,” I’d better let him finish his thought, for the next verse reads (concludes): “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). In other words, it’s not just about knowledge. As he says elsewhere in that letter “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1).

“Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” That’s a call to a lifetime of learning. How do I play my various family roles, my roles in the other circles in which I move? What do I do with my resources, gifts, passions? Since there’s always change, there’s always need for adjustments—without going into the opportunity to learn from, rather than simply repeat, my mistakes.

“Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” Organizations have the opportunity to learn—or not—over multiple lifetimes. World Vision, the Christian NGO I worked with for 18 years, was on this pilgrimage. To sum up about 50 years of one part of that pilgrimage: they got into community development when their founder, Bob Pierce, was handed a child in South Korea, and asked to respond. The first response was orphanages, but it quickly became clear that it would be better to focus on the children in their communities before they were handed off to orphanages. That led to multiple rounds of learning: what are the dimensions in rural life that make it more or less likely that families will be able to stay together? Agriculture, potable water, healthy practices: just the start of a substantial list. And Jesus: what role did his invitation to discipleship play? Over time, issues of power became increasingly central. At the core, community development is about who decides, how decisions are made, whose voices are heard or silenced. And that in turn helped us understand how to bring Jesus into the conversation, not as a rival to the Buddha, Mohammad, etc., but as One who had plenty to say about how power, about greatness, about servanthood. We were trying to learn from him (“We know in part”) and encouraged the communities with which we worked to weigh his words and example. Later, advocacy emerged as a major focus. Often this was on the national level. In one country, the government ran primary schools throughout the country. But the further from the capital, the more likely that the teachers (who often lived in the capital) would show up later than Monday morning and depart earlier than Friday afternoon. So advocacy was about encouraging the government to do what it said it was doing. Sometimes this was on the international level: what policies in Washington, London, Paris, etc. made development in Cambodia, Cameroon, Columbia, etc. more or less sustainable? There’s always more to learn. And in every national or local office there are the recurrent choices: are we trying to learn (which is often disruptive) or simply content to run the programs?

“Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” It’s an invitation for our parishes, for St Peter’s. Where do our gifts align with opportunities? What do we do when our notions of what the Lord might find pleasing differ? Here we really need to remember Paul’s “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Whatever the context, I like that story about Thomas Edison. The hard part about inventing the light bulb was apparently finding the right filament (material, thickness, etc.). A reporter asked how it felt to fail 1,000 times; Edison replied that he hadn’t failed; he’d succeeded in eliminating 1,000 dead ends.

At the end of our second reading Paul quotes a current hymn: “Sleeper, awake! / Rise from the dead, / and Christ will shine on you.” In the context (“Live as children of light… Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord”) he’s not pointing to a once-off event, but to an ongoing process. We’re not orphaned. Christ is shining. The Spirit that moved over the waters at creation, that inspired young David, that rested on Jesus: this Spirit is even yet at play in that space between “We know” and “We know in part.”

Post script: if we wonder how all this might translate into prayer, there’s substantial overlap between the themes I’ve explored in today’s texts and Living Well Through Lent 2023, the study guide we’ve been using on Wednesday nights (see Living Compass). So, to close, Thomas Merton’s prayer as found in that guide:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.