Hebrews 10:19–25
Lauren J. McFeaters
November 15, 2015

As news this week of the slaughter in Baghdad, Beirut, and Paris reaches our ears we are once again dazed and shaken by the violence of the world and our own country. We experience once again the unfolding violence north, south, east, and west. And in the midst of an ordinary day, while at work, or at play, more have been violently assaulted, their lives cut off without mercy.[1]

Some of us rage, and that’s fine. Some fall down weeping, and that’s good. Some are numb and can’t take anymore and that’s OK. Another day goes by and we begin to believe we have no more emotional resources to follow the news, no more spiritual resources to pray.

And just when we hover on the edge of wanting to turn away, God leads us to a small band of believers in the first centuries who are shaken as we are about the world around them. We meet the Church of the Hebrews and hear words reaching out through the centuries: “Since we have confidence and since we have a great priest over the House of God, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope and consider how to provoke one another to love all the more.”

The Letter to the Hebrews is a really baffling and mysterious text. It’s complex, lyrical, multifaceted, and unlike any other writing in the Bible. We don’t know who wrote it, where it was written, when it was written, for whom it was written.

And as we study it we begin to notice it’s not really a letter at all. It’s called a letter; it looks and smells like a letter, but it’s a sermon in disguise, a pastoral sermon directed to a beloved church in need of courage. Many linger on the outskirts of belonging, and float around the fringes of fellowship. They are weary, tired, and fatigued. How can they possibly work for justice when they can hardly take care of themselves? They are drained, sapped, bored. How can they possibly provoke and encourage one another?

One preacher puts it this way. The threat to the Hebrews church is not that they are charging off and away from faith, but that they don’t have the energy to charge off anywhere. The threat here is that, worn out and worn down, they are dropping off and drifting away.[2]

The problem is familiar. We too feel exhausted, drained, overworked, and overstretched. How do we work up empathy for others when Sunday mornings become some of the only unstructured time in our entire week? Why show up at church? Why not stay in bed or drop the kids off at church school and catch a quiet cup of coffee:

• Hold on. There’s the distinct aroma from Small World. Grumpy Monkey is summoning us.
• Whoa there! Could it be a western wind bringing in the fragrance of Peet’s Coffee? Yes, all the way from Berkeley, it’s Major Dickason’s Blend.
• And wait a minute! I’m getting a whiff of Starbuck’s Pike Place, and yes it’s being poured into those evil red cups.[3]

However, our Hebrews pastor refuses to get caught up in a social media frenzy. When faced with a world of brutality, uncertainty, and cruelty this Pastor of the Hebrews is bold, brave, and brash enough to believe it is only by the power of Jesus that we can be converted. It doesn’t matter how tired or bored or numb we are. The One who has scrubbed clean our hearts is the only One who can grab us by the scruff of the neck, pick us up, dust us off, and open our ears. Because…here it is – because:

He who has promised, is faithful.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,
For he who has promised is faithful.
All the more.
For he who has promised is faithful.

Some years ago, B.J. Katen-Narvell invited me to attend a conference led by Wayne Muller, a Christian writer who focuses his work on God’s promises and what holds us back from the Christian life, especially when we’re hanging on by a thread. He is a wise and articulate, and, much like the Preacher of Hebrews, he is concerned with people of faith who are discouraged.

Muller says our discouragement finds its roots in the relentless busyness of the lives we choose to live. We’ve lost the rhythms between work and worship and rest. Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than resting in God, that doing something — anything — is better than doing nothing.

And because of our desire to succeed, to meet these ever-growing expectations, we are gutted by discouragement. Discouragement. If you take apart the word you get Dis- Couragement; Anti-Courage; Detach-From-Your-Courage. We turn from the One who gifts us with courage. We forget to rest in the Living Word of God. We lose our way, become easily overwhelmed, and we miss the quiet that helps us listen for God’s direction. We miss life’s joy born out of sweet simple things. We say to one another, with no small degree of pride, how busy we are, as if our exhaustion were a trophy, our ability to withstand stress a mark of real character.

But then, there comes a Word.
And it’s the very Word of God.
The Word that is faithful and true.
And that Word wakes us up;
Sweeps away the sleep from our hearts.[4]

The Word binds us in love and pierces us, not as violent assault,

• but as a skillful surgeon mending of the ties that bind,
• stitching up our emotional lacerations,
• resetting our dislocated souls,
• standing us upright and helping us to begin again.

All because the essential, indispensable thing that keeps us alive is the Word of God. It gets us to the core of what matters: loving one another in the face of terror.[5] Loving one another: north, south, east, west. And we are not afraid. Not afraid. Not afraid.

And that’s a foretaste of heaven.

Thanks be to God.

[1] Thanks to Laurie Ann Kraus, Coordinator, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, for these images from, “A Prayer for Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad.” Presbyterian News Service, pres-outlook.org/2015/11/a-prayer-for-paris-beirut-and-baghdad, November 13, 2015.
[2] Thomas G. Long. Hebrews. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997, 3.
[3] Reference to the anti-Starbucks social media frenzy over their plain red 2015 seasonal coffee cups with no Christmas symbols.
[4] Wayne Muller. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. New York: Bantam Books, 1999, 1-3.
[5] Thomas G. Long. Beyond the Worship Wars: Building Vital and Faithful Worship. The Alban Institute Inc., 2001, 17.

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John 11:28-44
Lauren J. McFeaters
November 1, 2015
All Saints’ Day

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ ministry begins at a wedding and ends at a funeral. This is the funeral. And it’s Jesus’ last sign. There have been seven signs and miracles. We know them:

• turning the water into wine
• healing the Galilean official’s son
• healing the invalid at Bethzatha
• feeding the 5,000
• walking on water
• healing the blind beggar…
• and now the raising of Lazarus. Lazarus.

But it ends up to be so much more than a sign. It’s really the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The other signs, while threatening to the religious powers of the day, were not like this threat. Raising someone from the dead was the act to end all acts. Flesh and bone completely dead for four days, beyond resuscitation, becomes flesh and bone completely alive. Jesus who could bring Lazarus to life from the dead is a dead man walking.[1]

And Jesus walks right into a perfect storm: his dearest friends in a panic, a gathering of folks disappointed and cantankerous, his own heart breaking, and a small community torn at the seams.

Ted Wardlaw says, you understand Mary’s and Martha’s dismay, don’t you? When it’s your brother gasping for breath on the deathbed — your sister, your husband, your wife, your child, your parent. You’re not looking for some timeless truth about death. You don’t want a text message offering a casserole. You may not be looking for someone who can soothe you or change things or who has something authoritative to say. What you are looking for is someone who, instinctively and with intuition, is willing to drop everything for you, to make the coffee and field the phone calls, and, in a host of other ways, to stand right there beside you and shoulder the pain – to stand and suffer with you.[2]

A week ago I had a chance to be with four of my closest friends in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. We were way above State College: off the grid; no cell phones; no Wi-Fi. Just dear friends, all pastors, who love to talk theology, read poetry, listen to music, share ideas, take the longest of walks, and have hours of conversation around the table.

Each of us is of an age that our parents have either died or are quickly aging, and someone brought up an article by Alyce McKenzie, who was sharing about her elderly father-in-law’s experience in a rehab center after surgery. One in our group said she could have written the story herself. Her 89-year-old mother has been living at a rehab center after a bad fall and subsequent hip replacement. My friend’s mom, Harriet, is working with a physical therapist who’s helping her take her first steps again, making it down the hallway, lifting her hand to mouth at meal times. It’s slow work. It’s flesh and bone work. It’s not-going-well work. The physical therapist finally had to say, “Harriet, I cannot make you do this therapy. I want this to go better, but you have to want to get well and it’s your negative attitude that’s standing in your way.”

Harriet was seriously displeased. What did this 25-year-old, completely healthy, strong, vigorous, vital therapist know about an 89-year-old body? What did this 25-year-old therapist know about endless aches and fatigue and discomfort? But in the end, day after day, Harriet knew she needed to get over the anger and get out of the chair and onto her feet, to get out of her cave and into the hall.

As much as we want to participate in our own healing, Jesus offers resurrection. His relationship with Lazarus is not as physical therapist, nor coach and client, counselor and counselee, or doctor and patient. As one preacher puts it: It’s too late for Lazarus to contribute to his recovery by having a positive attitude. The recovery of lost muscle tone or balance or steady steps is not at issue. There is nothing more Lazarus can do for himself. The most important factor in bringing someone back from the dead is the power of God.[3]

And aren’t there really two deaths here? We may not see the tipping point in these few verses but move along in the text and you realize the act of bringing Lazarus to life costs Jesus his own life. From this point on there is no turning back. Religious leaders are breathing down Jesus’ neck. He leaves Lazarus and friends in Bethany and heads to Jerusalem, where he will be executed. Perhaps it should be our turn to weep. The truth is, on some level, we are all Lazarus, dead, lifeless, and stinking. The King James Version says we “stinketh.” And we do. We’re all bound by things in this world that literally suck the life out, rot us, deteriorate us, and we stinketh.

But if there is more than one death, there is also more than one raising. Lazarus comes out of the cave, but so do Martha and Mary. They’re raised out of a raging grief to an astounding life. They’re raised from abject misery to joy.

The story of this raising is more than a miracle; it is the stuff that we are made of.

• Jesus weeps for us, too—weeps that we hurt,
• Weeps that we get so wrapped up in the minutia of life that makes us forget who we are,
• Weeps that we are not who we are called to be,
• Weeps that we waste our precious time,
• Weeps that we ignore the dying faith of others,
• Weeps that we allow our faith to languish, stay dormant, and die.

John Wesley said that it is as much a miracle that Jesus can raise dead faith to life as that Jesus raised Lazarus from the cave, that God raised Jesus from the tomb. When faith is dead and hope is lost, there is only one power, and it’s the presence of God. And it’s ours to claim, to wrestle with, to enjoy, to be baffled by, to count on, to get angry with. It’s the very way we witness the glory of God.[4] And it’s waiting for us here at the table. It’s heard in the choir of saints who have gone before us.

When you are dead and have begun to smell, when you’re entombed by fear and grief, when everything binds you and suffocates you and needs to be stripped off and tossed aside — that’s when the promise of the Lazarus Gospel comes and digs you up and dusts you off and stands you before your Lord.

And do you know why? Because he loves you. He weeps and sobs for you. He is deeply moved by you. He brings life to your death, freedom to your bondage, and a shining light to your every darkness.[5]

Thanks be to God.

[1] Alyce M. McKenzie. “Death Threat: Reflections on John 11.” www.patheos.com, March 30, 2014.
[2] Theodore J. Wardlaw. Sermon: “When Jesus Wept.” Journal for Preachers, Lent 2000, 37.
[3] Alyce M. McKenzie. “Death Threat: Reflections on John 11.” www.patheos.com, March 30, 2014.
[4] Shelli Williams. “All Saints B: A Vision of Home John 11: 32-44.” Oct 25, 2015, journeytopenuel.com.
[5] Rick Morley. “Who Stinketh: John 11:32-44. A Garden Path. www.rickmorley.com/archives/2025.

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Mark 10:46-52
David A. Davis
October 25, 2015

They came to Jericho. The city of Jericho sits in the Jordan Valley to the east of Jerusalem. Today it is in the West Bank under the control of the Palestinian Authority. On the other side of the Jordan River is the country of Jordan. Biblically speaking, Jericho is mostly an Old Testament town. Joshua. Jericho. Walls tumbling down. In the New Testament, other than the healing of blind man by the side of the road, there is the story of Zacchaeus in Luke. Zacchaeus climbed that tree in Jericho. Also, when Jesus tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan, he begins with “a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” The man fell among thieves on the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Down to Jericho. That’s because Jericho sits at about 850 feet above sea level. Jerusalem is just below 2,600 feet above sea level. The distance is about 17 miles. So the road from Jericho to Jerusalem is up, as in “going up to Jerusalem.” Jericho was the last stop in the Jordan Valley before going up.

As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar was sitting by the roadside. Jesus, his disciples, and large crowd were setting out to go up. You will remember the importance of “going up to Jerusalem.” Last week I put it this way, “When it comes to the stories of Jesus and the descriptions of his travels and the way the four Gospels point to his whereabouts, there may be no more loaded of a phrase, no more symbolic of an expression, no directional cue more crucial, no passing comment less to miss than this one: “going up to Jerusalem.” Up to Jerusalem. When Luke describes Jesus heading to Jerusalem, he puts it this way, “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Here in Mark, just outside of Jericho, with his disciples and a large crowd, Jesus was set to go up.

A blind beggar was by the side of that Jericho-up-to-Jerusalem road. Not just any beggar according to Mark. Mark gives the beggar’s name. Bartimaeus. Mark doesn’t just write Bartimaeus, he writes “Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus,” which is sort of redundant since Bartimaeus means “son of Timaeus.” As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus-Bartimaeus, a blind beggar was sitting by the side of the road. The reader is not to miss the naming of the blind man. He is the only person healed by Jesus in a gospel miracle story to be named. Mark makes it very clear. The blind beggar has a name and he has father. A name and face. There along the road; the disciples, a large crowd, Jesus and Bartimaeus.

“When Bartimaeus heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, Bartimaeus began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered Bartimaeus to be quiet, but Bartimaeus cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’” They sternly ordered him. They didn’t ask him to quiet down, They didn’t just “shush” him. I take it to mean they told him to shut up! Sternly. Interestingly, in Mark, Jesus is usually the one speaking sternly. That’s a counter-intuitive pairing, Jesus and stern. In Mark’s language, Jesus was stern when he sent the healed leper away at once and told him not to say anything. And when he cured and healed many in Galilee, he sternly ordered all of them to not make him known. And when Peter proclaimed to Jesus, “You are the Messiah,” Jesus sternly ordered the disciples to not say a word. But here the stern silencing comes from the crowd and it was directed not just at any blind beggar, but at Bartimaeus-Bartimaeus. The one who just wouldn’t shut up.

“Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man saying to Bartimaeus, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” Jesus stood still. He held his ground. He stood firm. He didn’t just stop. He stood still. Early here in the tenth chapter when people were bringing little children to Jesus so he could bless them, the disciples spoke sternly then, too, trying to get them all to stop. Jesus was indignant with the disciples and their behavior and he rebuked them. But here, along the Jericho-Jerusalem road, Jesus offered no rebuke in response to how they tried to squelch Bartimaeus. Nor did he ignore the shouts from Bartimaeus and move on. No, Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” He stood still on the road up to Jerusalem. You are catching on, right? On the way up to Jerusalem, and to the cross, and to his suffering, and to his self-emptying sacrifice, and to his betrayal and his suffering and his torture, and to his death, and to his resurrection, and to the epicenter of God’s salvation history, on the way up, he stood still for Bartimaeus. He stood still because of Bartimaeus.

“So throwing off his cloak, Bartimaeus sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to Bartimaeus, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man Bartimaeus said to Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to Bartimaeus, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately, Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed him on the way.” Bartimaeus-Bartimaeus. The crowds told him to keep quiet but Jesus never does. The healed leper; Jesus told him to keep it a secret. The healed paralytic; Jesus told him to go home. The Gerasene demonic, after he was healed, begged Jesus to let him come along. Jesus told him to go home and tell his friends what God has done. When he healed the daughter of Jairus, he told everyone to not say anything but to give her something to eat. The blind man at Bethsaida; Jesus told him to go home and not even go into the village. Here by side of the road up, the one who was blind but now sees, Bartimaeus, followed Jesus on the way.

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, was the last man healed. We have just spent three weeks here in this tenth chapter. The tenth chapter, where Jesus told the rich young man to go, and to sell, and to give, and to follow, here where the disciples who were with Jesus on the road going up to Jerusalem were scared to death, here Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed. Bartimaeus and his fourth quarter, last act, end of the line, last stop following, What comes next is “Hosanna in the highest” and “Take eat, this is my body” and “See my betrayer is at hand” and “Crucify him” and “I do not know this man” and “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Hardly a bandwagon to jump on. Bartimaeus. He followed Jesus on the way.

Bartimeaus-Bartimeaus. Mark wants to give him a name and a face. Mark wants you to remember his name. Bartimeaus was a blind beggar along the side of the road. Not just any road. The road. The road up to Jerusalem. And Bartimeaus just kept shouting and shouting and shouting. “Have mercy on me!” Mark wants you to remember him. The crowds wanted to ignore him. Jesus came to a full stop along the way. Jesus stood still for Bartimeaus. Bartimeaus, the one who could have given blind beggars a bad name. But instead he gets a name, face. Jesus, Mark, and the gospel, they gave him a name, a face, and a healing right there on the road… up.

From the perspective of literary criticism and the analysis of the plot, scholars point out how the healing of the blind beggar Bartimaeus serves as a transition. If you just look on the page of your Bible, the spaces before and after, editors seem to set the story apart. A transitional paragraph right before the Triumphal Entry. Bartimaeus’ reference to Jesus as the Son of David foreshadows what the crowds shout as the parade passes by. The miracle of sight restored provides the threshold for the reader to step through into the chapters of the Lord’s passion and death now three times predicted by Mark’s Jesus. Mark 10:46-52… the Gospel writer’s way of helping to move the narrative along.

But remember, Jesus stood still. He held his ground. He stood firm. It’s more than a transition; it’s a full blown interruption. Once Jesus set his face to Jerusalem there was nothing that was going to stop him. When Jesus was walking ahead of the disciples along the road going up to Jerusalem, nothing was going to stop him. No ruler. No power. No principality. No soldier. No amount of wealth. No political maneuvering. No last minute negotiation. No parade. No prize. No battle. Jesus was heading to the cross. Nothing was going to stop him. Then came that shout, “Lord, have mercy on me.” It was the shout of human suffering and Jesus stood still. The Son of God heads to Jerusalem with the weight of the world on his shoulders and the Savior’s salvation-making march is interrupted, stopped, stood still by human need. His name was Bartimeaus.

Thus says the Lord, the Lord who created you, O Jacob, the Lord who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine (Isaiah 43). His name was Bartimeaus. 46.7 million people in the United States live below the poverty line. His name was Bartimeaus. 21% of the children in our nation live in poverty. His name was Bartimeaus. 420 kids in Princeton Public Schools qualify for reduced or free lunch. That’s two in every classroom. His name was Bartimeaus. Autism now affects 1 in 68 children, 1 in 42 boys. His name was Bartimeaus. Some describe immigrants as criminals and infants as “anchor babies” and every Syrian refugee as a risk. His name was Bartimeaus. On average 55 people a day commit suicide with a firearm. His name was Bartimeaus. Guns are the second leading cause of death in the United States for kids ages 1-19. His name was Bartimeaus. Every 67 seconds someone in the United States develops Alzheimers’ Disease. His name was Bartimeaus. One in three deaths of senior citizens is dementia related. His name was Bartimeaus.

Stand still, Jesus! Jesus, stand still. Lord, have mercy. Human need, human suffering, isn’t a statistic or a stereotype. It has a name. Every bit of it comes with a name. His name was Bartimeaus. And Jesus stood still.

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Exodus 3:1-6
Joyce MacKichan Walker
August 9, 2015

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ²There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. ³Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ ⁴When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ⁵Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ ⁶He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The Word of the Lord.

In July, I spent a week in Malawi. I went on behalf of the Mission and Outreach Committee of this church – an adventure sparked by their consideration of a possible mission partnership in the region. I’m guessing that many of you just did inside your head what I did when we talked about it – “Remind me – where exactly is Malawi?” Malawi is a small land-locked country, tall and skinny – looks a little like a wrinkled kidney bean, about the size of Pennsylvania. If a map of Africa was projected on the wall behind me, Malawi is above and slightly east of South Africa. More familiar and much larger countries surround it – Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique surrounding the entire southern half of the country. Despite having an abundance of wildlife and tourist parks, and the third largest lake in the continent of Africa, around 2010 Malawi was reported to be the 10^th poorest country in the world.[1] On one 2015 chart[2] – it always depends on what criteria they use to define these things – Malawi was number one. Number one. The poorest country in the world.

The mission partnership we are considering is with an organization that already has a five year partnership with the Presbyterian Synod of Blantyre (the largest city in Malawi)[3] and with Malawian villages. Villages on the edge of survival. Villages that need support in order to have the very basic needs – food, water and shelter – to say nothing of the things they will require, by any measure, to improve their circumstances – health care, education, and a means to make a living.

Our small group of pastors, ruling elders, and members from Presbyterian Churches in our denomination, all happened to be from Texas and New Jersey. We spent our days visiting villages already in this partnership. We joined them in work they were already doing on projects; projects that would empower the village to own and take responsibility for improving their chances of survival, and of creating more healthy, less perilous/on-the-edge living. Irrigating a huge field. Planting and fertilizing corn and squash in recessed beds that retain water. Carrying huge rocks across a precarious foot-bridged ravine in order to build a stone and cement structure which vehicles can use. We cooked a village meal with the women. We sat on the ground and talked with the villagers about their lives – their struggles, their hopes and dreams for their children, their daily challenges and heartbreaks.

On Sunday afternoon, we split into three groups – visitors and interpreters in each group – and headed out on three home visits. The leaders in each of six villages had chosen the most vulnerable families, and we had packed boxes of gifts for our encounters, after thinking about the things we would most like to know about these families and their lives. We were encouraged to ask them to tell us their stories, and we had been assured the families would be interested in responding, and in asking about our lives as well.

Our second visit was to a gentleman who was about 60 years old. As we walked toward his home, his oldest daughter hastily spread a large straw mat in front of the door, and brought out stools and low chairs. The former was for the women. We sat respectfully on the mat. The stools were for the men, who, in Malawi, should be seated higher up. They were lined up in front of the house, facing the women and beside our host.

The conversation began somewhat awkwardly, with brief introductions by each of us, including our guides and the Synod leader who were all Malawians. After a respectful invitation, “Would you be willing to tell us about your life here in this village?” his story emerged. He told us of his wife’s death, and the fact that no women, even older ones, wanted to take responsibility for his 10 children. As we listened, we located them sitting in a line behind us on the ground. The oldest, the daughter, was sitting with two very young children. I guessed they were the gentleman’s youngest children, but learned – No, they were hers. His oldest daughter had married and moved to another village with her husband, but her husband died, and she had no way to support herself. So she did what young women do in Malawi – she returned to her father’s house, to the only family she had.

The house was in front of us – a roof of straw, one room, maybe two? There was clearly no room for the returning threesome so they slept in the detached cooking hut. As he told us this, he pointed to it to the left of his house – a building possibly 4 feet deep and 6 feet long, with the remains of a fire in the center. “She sweeps out the ashes and uses this building at night,” he said. Pointing to the mat on which we sat, he continued, “We place that mat against the wall at night, over the large opening, since there can be no door on a cooking hut.”

The daughter was watching us intently and listening carefully. “Do you feel safe?” “And are you warm enough?” we asked. “Not in the winter,” she said. “I have no blanket, only a piece of fabric to put over me and the two children.”

“Where do you find work?” we asked our host, knowing that women did most of the farming. “I help out with little jobs when I can, but work is very hard to find. I have three bags of maize from the growing season, but the floods ruined most of the crops. I need nine bags to feed my family for the year. I think we will eat the three. And then I will die.” It was matter-of-fact. No drama. No attempt to gain sympathy for his plight. A statement of the reality he knew, and anticipated, and accepted.

No one spoke a word. We were sitting amidst an extended family of thirteen, surrounded by another 2 dozen young children and women, on a mat in front of a house in Malawi – on holy ground. We knew it instinctively. We were experiencing holy moments, and we were being called by a holy God.

I don’t know if that’s how Moses feels when he takes off his shoes. Moses is simply going about his business – taking care of his father-in-law’s sheep. Moses is looking for good pasture, not a God sighting. But he sees a bush. A bush in which God’s messenger hides, as a flame of fire. That isn’t enough by itself to catch his attention, though. A bush that catches fire? In the desert? Big deal. But this one doesn’t burn up. And that Moses notices! Catching fire? Ordinary. Continuing to burn after the fire should have used up all its dry fuel? Now that’s strange! The Common English Bible captures his real, even intense, curiosity, “Let me check out this amazing sight!” And God’s got him. I imagine I’m watching God watching Moses to see if today is the day Moses is ready to see something extraordinary in the ordinary. Will Moses stop long enough, listen to his sixth sense, react to his feeling that the ground is shifting slightly – just enough that it deserves his attention?

There’s always the possibility we won’t notice. Won’t stop. Won’t catch the slight variation in our environment that says, “Something’s up! Get ready. God is in this.” What God sees is Moses paying attention, catching the messenger in the act.

That’s when God shows up. That’s when God calls. That’s when the messenger’s voice becomes God’s voice. That when God uses Moses’s name, makes it personal, sees the guarded curiosity and goes for it. “Moses! Moses! It’s me, God!”

And God ushers Moses into God’s presence with all the rest of the clues Moses needs: “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals. You are standing on holy ground.” You are standing on holy ground. Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses gets it.

We might think he’ll be excited. Wow – a personal encounter with God – how awesome! And it is awesome. But for Moses, it’s fearful awesome. Eye closing, holy moly, scary awesome. Moses understands alright. He knows what comes next. And he does what you do when you don’t want to know, you don’t want to hear, you can’t stand to think of what’s coming. He shuts his eyes tight, and he covers his face and he turns away. Away from God’s call. Because he’s afraid. He’s afraid to look at God. He’s afraid because he knows – this is just the beginning.

To acknowledge you see God or hear God or sense God or think maybe this thing that is niggling at you might be God – to acknowledge is somehow to allow what might be coming next to get to you. To acknowledge God is to let God in, to have to listen, to have to respond, to have to choose. Because God wants something. God wants something from you.

In a magazine article entitled, “Evangelism and Discipleship: The God Who Calls, the God Who Sends,”[4] Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman says,

“The mission is a human mission, with [God] cast in a crucial but supporting role.”

Moses knows the characters. He knows the stories. God calls Abraham. Then God gives Abraham a mission” – “By you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Then Isaac. Then Jacob. Moses knows the characters, and Moses knows what is coming next is his task, his role, his part to play in God’s plan for the world God loves. And he’s afraid. He knows God will cast Godself in the supporting role. And expect Moses to take the lead.

Brueggeman continues,

“The mission is a human mission, with [God] cast in a crucial but supporting role. God offers [to Moses] to transform the slave economy, but only in and through direct, risky human engagement. … [God’s] role is to legitimate, authorize, and support the human mission by shows of presence and power that are only available in the midst of alternative human action.” “[God’s] role is to legitimate, authorize, and support the human mission by shows of presence and power that are only available in the midst of alternative human action.”

Moses is right to be afraid. As he stands there, eyes averted, face hidden, The Lord says,

“‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, ⁸and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…. ¹⁰So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt… I will be with you…’” (Exodus 3:7-8, 10, 12a).

As Moses fears, God intends to play the supporting role. He, Moses, will be expected to play the lead. He is standing on holy ground. He knows it. His life will never be the same again. Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land. Your supporter, God, says, “I will be with you.”

When you think about it, that’s what we get too. Holy ground opportunities. A job. The support of a loving God in the form of a promise – “I will be with you.” Oh, and one other thing. Good company. Not just Moses. Jesus. That’s exactly what Jesus got! Go down Jesus. Way down to live with my people. Tell them I put all of this in your hands. I will be with you.

“And Jesus came, and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:18-20).

Holy ground opportunities come. Notice. Go. Do. “I will be with you.” Love, Jesus.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/poorest-countries-in-the-world-2010-8?op=1

[2] http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/10-of-the-richest-and-poorest-countries-in-the-world.html/?a=viewall

[3] http://www.citypopulation.de/Malawi.html

[4] Word & World, Volume 24, Number 2, Spring 2004, page 126.

 

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Ephesians 6:10-18
Rev. David A. Davis
August 23, 2015

Finally. As when you are sitting in a lecture hall, one of those college amphitheater rooms, listening to the driest of lectures and trying your best to stay awake. The speaker organized the presentation by numbering the main points and you started to lose focus somewhere after you heard, “Fifthly”. But your ears perk up and you take a few deep breathes and you find yourself able to type some notes again after you hear the person with the lapel microphone at the podium say “and….finally”.

Finally. Like when you find yourself on a jam-packed plane sitting on the tarmac at Newark Airport after a 3 hour flight waiting for a gate to open up. It was only 15 minutes but it seemed like forever, and then there is the deplaning ritual yet to come. As you step off the plane and hit the jet way, you don’t have to say anything. It’s your body that speaks as the blood makes it way back down your legs. Finally.

During one of those long hugs, at the airport, at the train station, in the driveway, when the loved one comes home after a semester abroad, a stint overseas with the military, just a long business trip. That embrace as tight as the one from the “Prodigal’s Father” and someone whispers “Finally”! Or the kind of shout that comes as the fireworks on July 4^th reach their bombastic, colorful conclusions, “Finale, finally”, it’s all the same. Or when the use of the term and the tone with which it is spoken connotes attitude elevated to an art from. People use a few different words like “Finally” but the message is the same: “I’m just about done with you”. When heard this way the words sound the same: “Seriously….Whatev…..Finally”!

The Apostle Paul, Ephesians the 6^th chapter, v.10. “Finally…Finally….Finally….be strong in the Lord” Perhaps better, “be made strong or keep being made strong… Finally, keep being made strong in the Lord. Paul and his finally. We’re here almost to the end of the epistle. So one could rightly conclude Paul’s use of the term is not unlike a professor’s organizational cue for a lecture; “we’re coming to the end now”. Though in Paul’s letter-form, the ending is most signified by his parting words of love and grace. Here in Ephesians, “Peace be to the whole community.” Maybe its better understood as the conclusion to just these last few chapters. After Paul addresses wives, husbands, children, fathers, mothers, masters, slaves, what the scholarly tradition labels and contextualizes as “Paul’s household codes”. Here in Ephesians as Paul signals the end of his domestic instruction, he writes, “finally”.

But it would not be far off base to interpret Paul’s “finally” as the tag for his finale, his rousing finish. After such memorable sections; God has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (1:22)…..For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God….So, then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God….For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and hear takes its name….There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, on faith, one baptism, on God and Father of all” And of course Paul on the gifts of the Spirit; all of them equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. After all that, all those highlights, all those crescendo’s, finally, one last great big splash, the Apostle Paul and the whole armor of God!! Belt, breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet, sword. The whole armor of God. Finale!!

Many New Testament commentators, weekly preachers, and devotional writers, they spend quite a bit of time with the armor metaphor. One suggests providing a labeled sketch in the worship bulletin of a roman soldier all decked out in battle attire. Another catalogues the armor to such degree that it seemed important to note which part of the armor Paul left out (something to do with shins). Many point out that all of the armor pieces are defensive except for the sword and the sword is the Word of God. There seems to be more than a bit of fascination with Paul’s extended metaphor of the whole armor of God.

Early this summer when the Nassau Church group was in the Holy Land, we learned the archeological term “tel”. As we visited some tells, you could see how they were strikingly visible mounds, hills, that rise from the earth over centuries. Tels are formed as one civilization is established over the remains of another. One place we visited archeologists have been able to identify 26 layers going back thousands of years. To say it is one civilization established over another is a bit of historically cleansed understatement. More accurately put, it is one civilization wiping out another with a violence, a destruction, a complete leveling, that over time reduces an entire people and decades of their existence to an inch or two in the earth. A tel is an archeologist’s dream perhaps, but also a lasting witness to humanity’s unquenchable thirst for violence, victory, and vengeance.

As we would be driving all around the region of Israel and the West Bank in our tour bus, Shane Berg would sometimes take the microphone and read to us from the ancient historian Josephus. Josephus offers vivid descriptions of the land and the geography from a resource of antiquity other than the bible. But to listen to Josephus read is to hear graphic accounts of violence that would rank up there with the latest post-apocalyptic movie out there today: blood, death, war. And any study of the city of Jerusalem itself is a chilling reminder that the potential for military conflict in that region now is a never ending lesson in history repeating itself, pretty much forever.

Interestingly then, even a rather obsessive treatment of Paul’s description of the whole armor of God does not begin to give Paul enough credit for his literary, poetic, metaphoric, creative use of the whole armor of God. It really doesn’t do justice to the contrast Paul makes between “the cosmic powers of this present darkness” and the ways of God. To make a drawing of a Roman soldier and label it like a kind of GI Joe spiritual action figure does little to draw out the Apostle’s Paul’s indictment of humankind’s lust for earthly power, and the idolatry of military might, and the penchant for evil. Belt, breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet, sword. Paul’s not offering an inventory. For with every phrase, every piece, he offers the coupling of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, prayer. He piles one twist, one paradox, one oxymoron upon another in way that just takes his point to the nth degree, hammers it home. Which is to say, in every conceivable way, the strength and power of God is in contrast to, works differently than, cannot even be compared to the forces at work in the world that gnaw away at and over time come to define the human condition. It is Paul’s ultimate description of how life in the kingdom of God ought to stand part from and forever contrast the world’s way. Finally.

The Apostle Paul’s “finally”. It’s where he points to the compelling, overarching existential, divine difference. In the Hebrew prophet Isaiah it is the peaceable kingdom. In Paul it is the whole armor of God. And the divine/human distinction, the path of the Spirit vs the path of the flesh, the way of God over and against the way of the world, for Paul it could not be more striking, more lasting, more clear. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, prayer. Which is why those blasted household codes ought to be so frustrating to us as a people of the Word. There is nothing about slavery that fits in Paul’s “finally”, that fits in God’s kingdom of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and prayer. And no amount of historical contextualizing ought to make the church somehow feel better about it; especially when pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist preachers and churches and politicians used those verses all the time to justify their arguments and themselves in our nation’s history. Given the current conversation on race and the tensions that are again on the rise, the church, a prophetic church, a church that seeks a voice in the public square, a church committed to racial justice ought to take the risk and be willing to say that Paul just got it wrong. Paul on slavery, it was inconsistent with his own sense of God’s way. Every time the church gives Paul a pass that is labeled “historic context”, it invites someone inspired by literalism or far-right Christianity or hateful teaching that abuses the gospel, it invites someone to try to turn back the clock….or worse.

The belt of truth. The breastplate of righteousness. Shoes that proclaim the gospel of peace. The shield of faith. The helmet of salvation. The words of the Spirit which is the word of God. Prayer at all times. Notice too, how standing firm is the theme. Stand against. Stand firm. Stand therefore. Putting on the armor of God is a call to perseverance. Words like victory and conquering don’t appear. Victory for Paul? That’s resurrection; God’s victory in Jesus Christ over death ( I Cor). Conquering? We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8). To immerse oneself in this promise, to put on the whole armor of God, to keep being strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power, it is for the purpose of standing firm in and for God’s kingdom, it is in order to persevere amid all that the world’s present darkness has to offer and to witness to, to work toward the world that God intends. The whole armor of God. Standing firm. It’s more than waiting for God’s promise of eternal life yet to come, it is a craving for an abundant life not just for you but for all.

One scholar translates the word “finally” in v. 10 as “for the rest”. Rather than “finally, be strong in the Lord”, he suggests, “For the rest, be made strong in the Lord. For the remainder, for everything else, keep being made strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power. It makes the whole armor of God sound a lot less like a command and a whole lot more of a promise. For all the rest, for everything else, for all that is in your life out there, for everything you face in the world, for the rest, allow the strength of God’s power to go with you, to be with you, to help you to stand. To stand. To persevere. To get to tomorrow and the next day and day after still standing for the way of God.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.