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.

Readings

John, author of today’s lesson, seems to have been incapable of telling a single story. Here he’s telling at least three.

First, Jesus’ proclaiming the good news across ethnic and religious boundaries. A quick bit of geography: from north to south: Galilee, Samaria, Judea. Galilee and Judea: Jewish; Samaria: Samaritan. No love lost between the two groups; “Eat your vegetables or a Samaritan will snatch you.” When Jews traveled between Judea and Galilee, they’d cross the Jordan River to avoid Samaria. So Jesus’ going through Samaria is an unusual choice.

Second, Jesus the Bridegroom encountering a bride. John the Baptist has just described Jesus as the bridegroom. A metaphor, clearly, but the classic place to find a bride is the village well. And here we find Jesus sitting at the edge of the well. Although Jesus is not looking for a bride in the literal sense, the setting shapes our expectations, and perhaps the woman’s expectations.

Third, how the Samaritan woman becomes a witness. One of the more carefully drawn characters in John’s Gospel; but I’d never play poker with her.

It starts slowly. Jesus is resting at the well “tired out by his journey.” The woman comes up; he asks for a drink, too tired, perhaps, to soften the breaches of custom: a man addressing a woman, a Jew asking to share a cup with a Samaritan.

The woman points all this out: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Like her subsequent responses, in this response she shows herself a master at keeping all her options open, at committing herself to nothing while obtaining commitments from Jesus. It’s a talent one has to have when one’s in a dangerous world without much power.

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” This could easily have ended the conversation. At any point she could have filled her jar and returned to the village. Maybe Jesus, “tired out by his journey,” was not inclined even to start a conversation. Maybe he knows that this conversation needs to develop indirectly.

The woman chooses not to let the conversation die: “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” She is still keeping Jesus at arm’s length, still, perhaps, playing. But it’s serious play, as it always is when dealing with the unknown.

The conversation continues until Jesus’ “Go, call your husband, and come back.” This elicits the first self-revelation on the woman’s part: “I have no husband.” And Jesus: “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’…” Rubbing salt in the wound? Hardly. Revealing more of himself, yes.

As much as we fear it, there’s a part of us that does want to hear the truth about ourselves. And here he’s given it to this woman —and not used it against her. Maybe to buy time to chew on this, she poses another question:Nevertheless, with a different woman Jesus’ response could have ended the conversation. The woman chooses to keep it going: if Jesus has this knowledge, what other knowledge does he have? “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” (Nothing like theology for keeping important questions at arm’s length!)

Jesus responds: the Jews have had it right, but the hour is coming—and is now here—when the Jewish-Samaritan conflict is beside the point.

 “I know that Messiah is coming… When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Another parry. Nevertheless, she’s picking up clues on which to make a decision: this Jesus, who hasn’t used her past against her, for whom her future is more important than her past, who’s giving her respect…

Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” And before the woman can or needs to respond, the disciples arrive. The narrator tells us not only about their reaction, but —between the lines— how they must have looked at her. (Meteorologists would have reported that the temperature suddenly dropped about 20°.)

And the woman has still not shown her cards. But it’s now clear that —and neither for the first nor the last time— if she’s going to have a relationship with Jesus it will be despite and not because of the disciples.

She announces her decision. By leaving her water jar there (not an insignificant household asset) she announces that she’ll be back. In the city: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” The question is phrased cautiously; she knows better than to put the men in the position of having to agree with a woman. “Come and see” — the same invitation extended by Philip to Nathanael, and by Jesus to John’s disciples. She started the story going out for water; she ended a witness.

And because of her witness the village responds and Jesus stays over two days.

As John tells of the village’s response we meet the woman again. The villagers say to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” John records their words because of the confession, one of the strongest that’s appeared in the Gospel to this point, doubly strong coming from Samaritan lips, and in marked contrast to Nicodemus’ response. But John also records their words, I suspect, because John knows that being a witness is costly. You have to put up with a lot, including, in this case, self-defensive male egos. Precisely in receiving their “thanks” the woman’s credentials as witness are again confirmed. Jesus’ statement two verses later, “a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country” applies as much to the woman as it does to Jesus.

Why has John told us this story?

In terms of the story of the Gospel as a whole, this chapter as “first fruits” of the mission beyond the Jewish world. There’s a contrast here with the reception among Jewish leaders (Nicodemus again).

How one person becomes a witness. One of most interesting people in John’s Gospel, a survivor who’s concluded that cards must be played very close to the chest. At the same time, she’s someone who intuits that there’s something to this Jesus, so she keeps probing… even as she recognizes that she’s also being probed. She makes her decision and lays it all out there: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

Perhaps Jesus learns something too. While the woman is off gathering the village there’s this strange interchange between Jesus and the disciples: “Rabbi, eat something.” “I have food to eat that you do not know about.… My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” The way John’s told the story it’s possible that Jesus had the whole conversation planned out. It’s equally possible that “tired out by his journey” it fell into his lap, and only gradually did he recognize the banquet his heavenly Father had set before him.

Jesus, someone who can speak truth about us without using it against us. Jesus, someone for whom our future is more important than our past. With as much  or more distrust than this woman, we too have the opportunity this Lent to enter into dialogue with this Stranger.

Readings

There’s a Pfeiffer cartoon of a couple sitting in front of a TV set. The woman: “Do you believe in life after death?” Her husband: “What do you call this?”

When we talk about eternal life or the kingdom of God, we’re not talking primarily about what happens after physical death, but about the possibility of life before death.

Speaking of television, we’ve all seen those “John 3:16” signs people hold up during sporting events. Well, here it is in the assigned readings: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

So let’s wonder about that. How does one have eternal life, this life with God that begins now?

The simplest and safest answer is Jesus. Safest, because if we focus on Jesus, Jesus is quite capable of dealing with our misunderstandings. Providing—a proviso that applies in any relationship—that we remember that Jesus and our understanding of Jesus are not the same thing. Nevertheless, the text has a bit more to say to us, so let’s keep listening.

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” There’s a Greek word here that can be translated “from above” or “again,” so the KJV translated “born again,” the RSV “born anew” and the NRSV “born from above.” Jesus’ sense seems to have been “from above,” that is, from God. Nicodemus understood it as “again” and so asked about the possibility of entering one’s mother’s womb a second time. The logic is simple: to participate in this world one needs an earthly father; to participate in the reign of God, a heavenly father, God Himself.

Jesus develops this affirmation in these terms: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” In Jesus’ time this pointed to John (who baptized with water) and Jesus (who baptized —according to John’s testimony— with the Holy Spirit). It’s not a generic affirmation (any water, any spirit), but a specific one: the road to the kingdom passes through John & Jesus: don’t bother investing time in other teachers, other traditions.

After Jesus’ time —in the time when the Gospel of John was written— “of water and Spirit” points to Christian baptism, where those baptized are born from above by water and the Holy Spirit. The New Testament assumes that being baptized and believing go together.

“…so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Let’s think about that “believe in him” part.

Believe in Christ. This is not simply believing things about Christ, as, for instance, in the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.…
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

All this is true, but believing these things are true doesn’t make one a Christian. The devil, for example, knows all this is true…

Believing in Christ means trusting Him, learning from Him, obeying Him. The actions associated with baptism by immersion express it clearly: dying with Christ to be able to live with Christ. In every baptism there’s the opportunity to remember the core of our faith.

To see what this looks like we’ve got Abraham in the first lesson. Contrary to many pious legends, there’s no reason to think that Abraham wanted anything more than the good life as defined by his culture: a large family, wealth, stability, proximity to one’s people. But God sent him out to an unknown land to become father of nations.

Abraham and Sarah arrive in what will be Israel, but remain childless—for decades. And Genesis has a story about that: Abraham confronts God with their childlessness. God responds by taking Abraham outside: “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them…. So shall your descendants be.”

Abraham’s identified the problem, and God responds with…more words. Implicit in Abraham’s complaint there was another question: how come this is taking so long?—and as far as we know Abraham never got an answer to that one. So Abraham has a choice: he can keep hanging around with this God in the middle of nowhere—or go back to Haran, where the rest of his family is…not to mention Starbucks, reliable internet, etc. What does the text say? “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Despite the fact that he’s only received more words, and still has lots of pretty important questions unanswered, he stays—and that’s what believing looks like. It’s not just about Abraham and his dreams, but about God and God’s dreams, and Abraham’s choosing to stay means that his life will play out on that larger canvas.

Recall the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary to announce the divine plan. Mary responds: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Again, that’s what believing looks like.

Who knows what Mary dreamed of growing up! Jewish girls of her time and place typically dreamed of being married, being a mother. Mary’s “let it be with me according to your word,” her belief, means that her life is going to play out in quite unexpected ways, off-the-chart joy and off-the-chart grief. Because now it’s not just about her and her dreams, but about God and God’s dreams, and she has said “yes” to her life playing out on that larger canvas.

John 3:16’s not perishing but having eternal life turns out to be double-edged: a life with God now that is stronger than death, certainly. But it’s a life that plays out on a larger canvas than my personal dreams and preferences, a life which this side of death often generates as many questions as it answers.

St Paul rightly talks of Abraham as the father of all who believe. And Mary, the Church has often said, is the mother of all who believe. Her “let it be with me according to your word” is the paradigm of Christian discipleship, for as Jesus was born of Mary, God desires that Jesus’ life be born in every believer in ways that are unexpected, creative, and beautiful. Sin makes life monotonous; faith opens room for unlimited discovery.

Faith is, obviously, something involving all of one’s life. “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). We struggle with the temptations to act against our faith, and so confession is a regular part of the Mass. More importantly, in the Mass we receive “the Gifts of God for the People of God” through which God nurtures Jesus’ life in us in our daily life.

Can I know that I will be saved in the end? We Anglicans are all over the map on this one. What I can know, on the one hand, is the tenacious mercy of God that seeks to bring me to salvation, and, on the other hand, my virtually unlimited capacity to try to make of God a means for my own ends. As the Anglican C.S. Lewis observes, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”[1]

How do I attain eternal life, see God’s reign? Believing in Jesus. In the beginning this is expressed in baptism. Afterwards, I attempt to allow God to nurture Jesus’ life in all the spheres of my life. I constantly must depend on God’s grace, for my commitment to this project is too often ambiguous. Sometimes I have the joy of seeing the effects of this grace in my life and in the lives of people around me. I hope that in the end God will find me still seeking to follow.

[1] The Great Divorce (Macmillan 1963), 73.

Readings

You all know Murphy’s Law. What I didn’t know, until I googled it, is that there’s a cottage industry developing corollaries to Murphy’s Law. For instance:

• If something can’t go wrong, it will.

• If a series of events can go wrong, they’ll go wrong in the worst possible order.

• After things have gone from bad to worse the cycle will repeat.

• Nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.

• Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

Some of you may have seen The Fly, either the original with David Hedison (1958) or the remake ofwith Jeff Goldblum (1986). A scientist develops a means of electronic transport. Two pods are linked by wires and a powerful computer. You go into one pod and come out the other. The scientist tests it successfully. He decides to try it himself, but a fly happens to have entered the pod. The computer does its work and out comes the scientist with his own and the fly’s DNA, and by the end of the movie the scientist is pretty much, well, fly.

OK, here’s the question. With Murphy’s Law and The Fly in mind, what’s going to happen if God decides to assume human nature in order to save the human race? Is that not the script for a disaster of cinematic proportions?

And from that perspective we can recognize what’s at stake in today’s Gospel. Jesus, declared Son of God at his baptism: what choices will this human being make?

Today’s readings tell two stories of temptation, and by attending to the first we can better understand the second.

In the Genesis story the first pair faces the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God has forbidden eating its fruit; do they eat it? But it’s not just or even primarily about the fruit—it’s about God’s character. Is God to be trusted? Notice what the serpent says: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” God’s selfishly keeping something good from you! And if the serpent was right about that, most of us would think that Eve had a good case for eating the fruit. Is God good? Is God watching out for Eve?

(By the way, there’s a long tradition of putting the blame primarily on Eve, which works only if we ignore the text. The text doesn’t say “and she found her husband, and gave him some” but “and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.” Adam’s been standing there the whole time and has contributed squat to the conversation.)

In Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, behind the specific temptations is the issue of God’s character. Is not Jesus something of a fool to be obeying this God? At the simplest level that question is present from the beginning. The Spirit, the text tells us, led Jesus into the wilderness. So up comes the devil reciting Ps 23, and wonders aloud where the green pastures went. “Jesus, you can do so much better than this! Start by getting yourself some bread…”

Unlimited bread, spectacular miracles, a discreet acknowledgement of the gatekeeper: getting all the kingdoms of the world does not need to be difficult. Challenge the gatekeeper and you’re liable to end up on some cross. Is the God that asks this of Jesus trustworthy? Is God good? Is God watching out for Jesus?

Ethics, what we do, are grounded in what is. If God isn’t good, isn’t watching out for us, it’s every man or woman for themselves! If God is good, if God is watching out for us, then obeying God is, in principle, a no-brainer.

Here’s where we get really good at mental games. Here’s one of my favorites: yes, God is good—to most folk. But God tends to forget me at critical moments. Rational? No. But it opens the door to very familiar emotional scripts: impatience, anger, etc.—precisely when I need the energy to stay faithful to what I profess.

The link between what is and what we should do is present also in the Ten Commandments. Because the Ten Commandments start not with “You shall have no other gods before me,” but with “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have…” God has already shown Himself to be good, merciful, our liberator. That’s who the commandments are coming from. “I am the Lord”—and therefore we don’t need to kill, to steal, etc.

But back to the Gospel, what does Jesus do? Between Murphy’s Law, The Fly, and the first temptation story we’ve got plenty of reason to hold our breath.

To each of the devil’s suggestions Jesus responds with Scripture: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God… You shall not tempt the Lord your God… You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” The point is not that Jesus is quoting Scripture, as though that’s how you’re supposed to argue. The point is that Jesus’ familiarity with Scripture empowers him to recognize that the devil isn’t offering anything new, isn’t offering anything that hasn’t already been tried and found wanting.

Is God good? Is God watching out for Jesus? Jesus, son of Mary, knows not only the Scripture of his people, but also the family stories, how an angel kept them safe from Herod, how an angel kept them safe from Herod’s son Archelaus. And so Jesus makes Moses’ words his own: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve”—and we can stop holding our breaths.

The core of the account of the temptation isn’t so much a theology of temptation or a psychology of temptation—though we can usefully explore these—but an event: a new possibility in human history. When Jesus and Murphy’s Law step into the ring, it’s Jesus who emerges. Something new is in play in our history.

Our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, has given his testimony. If we permit it, his testimony can aid our hearts in encountering a God who merits our confidence, our obedience. May we open our hearts to receive this aid! Amen.

Readings

Today’s psalm begins:

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, *
and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, *
and forget not all his benefits.
3 He forgives all your sins *
and heals all your infirmities;
4 He redeems your life from the grave *
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
5 He satisfies you with good things, *
and your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.

As I enter Lent this time around I’m drawn to these verses, one of the Psalter’s more important portrait of God’s character and action. Had someone piped up in the middle of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, wondering where Jesus was getting “for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” or “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” or “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him,” Jesus could have easily pointed to these verses.

Recall the story of how we first went off the rails:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:1-5)

The fruit is a secondary issue. The primary issue is the portrait the serpent paints of God: selfish, deceitful, stingy, in a word, untrustworthy. If that’s what God is like, go for the fruit!

So, card-carrying descendant of that those parents, I need those verses from the psalm.

So, entering Lent this time around those verses give me plenty to work on. What in my daily or weekly routine makes it easier or harder to trust this portrait of God, to trust this God? That’s a question I want to regularly ask. And then there’s v.2.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, *
and forget not all his benefits.

The psalmist lists some of those benefits—in, necessarily, general terms. But what would my personal list look like? So, today I’ve started a list of what I’m thankful for. Day one, so there’s just one item. Each day I’ll add an item. Many, like the first, will be people. Some will be moments or situations in my life when things didn’t go off the rails. Some of them may generate phone calls (“I was thinking about you today…”). I wonder what the list will look like when I hit Holy Saturday.

If you don’t already have other plans, would you like to discover what your list would look like?

20 Bless the Lord, you angels of his,
you mighty ones who do his bidding, *
and hearken to the voice of his word.
21 Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, *
you ministers of his who do his will.
22 Bless the Lord, all you works of his,
in all places of his dominion; *
bless the Lord, O my soul.

Readings

In today’s Gospel we encounter a “no” and a “yes.”

The “no” is to Peter’s apparently quite reasonable proposal: “if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Jesus’ glory revealed, Jesus with Moses and Elijah, the “dream team” of Jewish piety: who could ask for more? Why not stay here…permanently? Down below so many needs…and the Pharisees…and the Roman occupation. Here, peace and glory.

Why the divine “no”? What’s at stake here? Perhaps the issue is the temptation to reduce discipleship or faith to the search for religious experiences. It doesn’t get more sublime or spectacular than what Peter, James, and John were witnessing. “This is my Son…listen to him!” Listening to and following Jesus means descending from the mountain, not hanging on to even the best of spiritual experiences, because Jesus is already down below; ahead of us.

Having said that, among us Episcopalians the more common temptation is to write off these moments on the mountain. Jesus knew that Peter, James, and John needed to be there. Jesus knows that perhaps most of us need some moments on the mountain.

But perhaps the “no” is about something else, the temptation to idolize a particular moment in the church’s history or in a parish’s history. “If only we were back in the 1^st Century!” “If only it could be like it was under Father X.” And the text encourages us not to get stuck: we may even get the three dwellings built, but by then Jesus will be a considerable way down the mountain.

The glory of God on the mountain and the descent. That’s one of the rhythms of life, a rhythm this text encourages us to appreciate and fall in with. The “no” may help us appreciate that.

The “yes.” To focus the “yes” we need to wonder about what happened on the mountain. Why Moses and Elijah? That was important information for the disciples, for as good Jews they knew who Moses and Elijah were, but were still trying to figure out who Jesus was. Moses: giver of the Law; Elijah: representative of the entire prophetic tradition; Jesus? How does Jesus fit with Moses and Elijah? The Voice: “Listen to Jesus!” That is, when push comes to shove, don’t interpret Jesus in terms of Moses and Elijah; interpret Moses and Elijah, that is, the institutions of law and prophecy, in terms of Jesus.

Now, once we recognize that the text is also about how Jesus relates to institutions, Jesus’ primacy over institutions, the text can really open up. That issue is our issue. How does Jesus relate to our institutions? The human being, Aristotle observed, is a political animal: we’re born into them, live, move, and have our being in them. Nations, the economy, custom: in their own way they’re as real as anything. Many cultures treat them as gods. Our culture says it doesn’t, but I wonder. We say, “The economy’s healthy.” “The economy’s sick.” More ominously: “The economy demands sacrifices.” TV and the internet give us instant access to competing priesthoods of the economy, a.k.a., the economists, with their competing prescriptions for what will make the economy happy.

As gentiles, our issue isn’t how Jesus relates to Moses and Elijah. Heirs of the Graeco-Roman world, it usually is how Jesus relates to Venus, goddess of love; Mars, god of war; Pluto, god of wealth, Athena, goddess of wisdom, etc.

So…picture Jesus together with whichever of these gods or goddesses are relevant to you. They’re talking. Imagine what they might be saying. Now comes the cloud and the Voice from the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

All of these authorities, institutions, etc. depend on and will be transformed by Jesus. This is one of the points of the Transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah as representative authorities. It is Paul’s point as he speaks of Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers [here we might say “systems, institutions, customs”]– all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17)

It doesn’t matter much which gods seem to be most important to us. Without Jesus they’d blink out of existence; in the end they’ll be visibly in submission to Jesus. In the light of this future, a future prefigured in the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah as stand-ins for the many possible authorities, our challenge is our ongoing relationship with them today.

This is some of the hardest work we do as Christians. When we get it right, it’s wonderful (the abolition of slavery in the British Empire comes to mind, the non-violent end to apartheid in South Africa). When we don’t… Today we’re badly divided on any number of issues. What today’s Gospel tells us is that Jesus needs to be in our conversations about these issues from the start. Jesus—not my picture of Jesus. That’s an important distinction. If my engagement with these issues isn’t pushing me to encounter Jesus afresh through Word and Sacrament and through my sisters and brothers, then there’s a problem.

My sisters and brothers. The issues the Transfiguration raises for us are not the sort that lend themselves to individual resolution. They, like so many challenges in the Christian life, demand a corporate response. They demand that we get better at listening to each other, talking with each other. I’m probably not better at hearing Jesus than I am at hearing the brother or sister with whom I disagree.

Deep breath. The Transfiguration: also an invitation to us to use our imaginations. Pluto, Venus, Mars, etc: what are the gods that claim turf in our lives? What will their visible submission to Jesus look like? How do we live that future now?