Romans 8:1, 26-35
Mark Edwards
May 23, 2021
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Today is Confirmation Sunday, and we gather in-person with their families to welcome Tessa, Madelyn, Olivia, Philip, and Isabel, to hear their public confirmations of faith, and to unite them to our church congregation.

I’m especially grateful to these five ninth graders. They decided back in September that because of the difficult year we were in, they wanted to go ahead and do Confirmation. They did not want to wait until life got easier. They wanted to use this time to think, pray, and learn about their Christian faith. Thank you too, Lilly, Kelsey, and Tyler, for serving as mentors and leaders during a tough year at the Seminary.

We do this on Pentecost Sunday, a day in which we read about and remember the coming of the Holy Spirit, with tongues of fire, to unite a desperate and divergent group of people into the body of believers who would give witness to the love of Jesus Christ.

This has been a year of hard of questions. This is after all, much of the point of how we do Confirmation here at Nassau Presbyterian.  And this past year we have gathered on Zoom, together and in smaller groups, to read, ask, think, and pray together. We even got the chance to come together in-person in our parking lot for our last retreat when we gathered around a campfire and had a peaceful time of pizza and discussion. After a year laden with technologically augmented social distance, it felt wonderful to gather around the tongues of fire, on the ground, for basic questions of life, faith, and the meaning of the universe.  It was somewhat like that scene in the Lion King, where Pumbaa, Timon, and Simba lay underneath the stars and contemplate whether the stars are fireflies that “got stuck up in that great bluish-black thing,” whether they are great balls of gas billions of miles away (“Pumbaa, with you, everything is gas”), or whether they are evidence that our lives are being guided by a good and great king of old.

We have asked lots of questions. But I think we have also found some answers and, like Simba, some hopeful routes forward. Still, it seems necessary to ask just two more.

We are here because you are joining the church. What is the church again?

We are here, at least according to Paul’s 8th chapter of Romans, because God has called, foreknown, and predestined you to come together because of your salvation? But who else has God predestined? Who else is saved?

One view, which was fairly dominant in the middle ages, is that people get saved when they go to church.  The church, on this view, is the ship which teaches people to believe, gives them bread and wine, accepts their statements of faith, baptizes them and so on.  As the ship, the church holds a congregation in the nave, the part of the building you are sitting in, to ferry them to heaven. In all of these things, on this view, the church, disperses salvation to those within its walls.  So the Church is the gathering of those who think the right things, do the right things, and, as a light shining on a hill, is proof that God is saving people through a correct faith in Jesus Christ.

But this view, even as it has some strong elements, also has some problems.

• What happens when Christians can’t agree? Which churches are the saving ones?
• What happens when Christians flounder, flail, and fail? Which hypocrites does God really love?
• What happens to those who don’t have churches? To those who live in other lands or other times? Are their cultures and beliefs really that bad?
• Can our good works and earned righteousness, really be good enough to merit our ticket into, you know, the good place? And if God is loving, why would so many go down there to, you know, the bad place?
• These are real questions. They are hard questions. They are good questions.

A second view is that salvation cannot be earned, whether by doing or even believing the right things. On this view, faith is a gift from God, a gracious act that is freely given so that they might believe, and be saved. On this view, Christ’s death on the cross is strong enough to wash away our doing bad, as well as our doing good, because we are saved by faith alone, not by works, so that none can boast.  The great protestant Reformer John Calvin, called this visible church, “our Mother” (Institutes: IV.1.4, 1016) in which is deposited the treasure to help our faith  along in our feeble journey:

For seeing we are shut up in the prison of the body, and have not yet attained to the rank of angels, God, in accommodation to our capacity, has in his admirable providence provided a method by which, though widely separated, we might still draw near to him. […] at the same time guarding pious readers against the corruptions of the Papacy, by which Satan has adulterated all that God had appointed for our salvation. (Institutes: IV.1.1, p.1012)

While Calvin has inspiring aspirations (God’s admirable providence) and provocative imagery (the prison of the body), he also has cantankerous and downright ugly rhetoric about those with whom he disagrees. This is not so helpful and certainly fails to “love thy neighbor.”  More tragically, in my view, Calvin thought the church was the collection of a select “elect” that is a small group of those chosen- those elected- by God for salvation. These elect it must also be added are a secret- we do not know who they are:

But as they are a small and despised number, concealed in an immense crowd, like a few grains of wheat buried among a heap of chaff, to God alone must be left the knowledge of his Church, of which his secret election forms the foundation. (p.1013).

Our church, this church, stands in this Protestant and Reformed tradition. And certainly this view also has strong theological support and a deep biblical defense.  Even in Paul’s letter to the Romans, we see that there is no condemnation for “those in Christ Jesus” (8:1), for “all who are led by the Spirit” (8:14), for “those who love God” (8:28), or “for those whom he predestined.”  It is the belief, often held by righteous Presbyterians, that they were the chosen, predestined, children of God that earned them the nickname “the frozen chosen.”  Perhaps you’ve heard that before. But here we must ask.

Is that what the church is? Is this what you all are joining?

Olivia, in your Statement of Faith, you wrote:

I would like to join the church because it is such a welcoming community and I would like to be part of such a great environment. I also was to be able to talk openly to people and not be judged. I know I won’t be judged because this church is so open- minded. But not only do I want to be able to talk to people, but I also was to listen and help others in the community.

Olivia, this is a beautiful vision of the church. Far too many churches have succumbed to judgmental isolation that keeps them from loving our neighbors, let alone our enemies. It also keeps them from helping others in the community. Yes, Olivia, the church welcomes all. Because God invites all.

Madelyn, You like pastor Dave’s jokes, Sunday school, Club 3-4-5, Fellowship, the Christmas pageant, and catching ice cream off the roof.  You seem to pretty much love everything in the church. That is awesome. But you have also been to Africa and you say:

Malawi made an impact on my life not only in a religious way but who I am as a person. It helped me to see that people who have little to nothing almost always have a smile on their faces [while] we are living with more than we could ever ask for and struggle to be happy with what we have.

Does not it seem worth hoping for, that the joys of the Spirit are alive and well far beyond us and all the things we have?  Do not we, in fact, need them and their smiles more than they need us and our stuff?  The church is in fact, called to set aside its stuff and to simply live in harmony with those around the world.

Isabel, you wrote:

I believe that God provides for us;
Giving us supportive and welcoming communities both within the church and outside,
Guiding us through every day, And listening to our prayers.
God created our inmost being,
Perceives our thoughts from afar,
Searches and knows us,
And makes us fearfully and wonderfully,
I believe the Lord is our shepherd,
And watches over us, ushering us through our troubles.

Isabel: “supportive and welcoming communities, both within the church and outside”  Would not it be wonderful if the Holy Spirit was moving beyond the walls of our church, searching, comforting, and guiding people, like a good Shepard, even when they might not recognize it? I mean, do we always recognize it in our lives, even when we do believe?  Even when we are inside the church?

Speaking of “beyond the walls of our church,” Philip, you write in your history with the church:

The church came to my family’s home state Kerala, India very early in church history actually. Saint Thomas himself came from Israel and sailed across the sea in search of people to tell about Jesus. Eventually he landed in India where he spread the gospel of Jesus to many people in India before becoming a martyr in the name of Jesus.

Now for those who don’t know, Kerala is the long coastal state on the SW tip of India, a likely landing spot for someone sailing the Arabian Sea, especially if they were hopping along the southern coast of modern day Iran or Pakistan.  It is also about the same distance from Jerusalem as is Spain, a destination St. Paul wanted to reach, and using the operative silk road trade routes would have been entirely feasible. More interestingly, in 1945 when a jar of ancient writings was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, writings we had never seen before, they contained the Gospel of Thomas a non-biblical gnostic text mentioned by early orthodox theologians as heretical, but nevertheless likely to be dated from the 100’s. So yes, the Gospel of Thomas, and its corresponding Acts of the Saint Thomas, written apparently before 250AD, includes accounts of Thomas’s, (Didymus the Twin- we know him as Doubting Thomas) travels and ministry to King Gundaphorus in India.  So yes, Philip, you sent me scouring my library for the historicity of the “Thomas Christians” of India and modern day Syria. While many in this congregation generally trace the lineage of our faith, through two thousand years, back through Europe to Paul and Peter, Philip yours is traced over a the same period, and perhaps a few more miles as well, back to India and possibly the apostle Thomas himself. And since Thomas’s confession of the Lordship of Christ comes before Paul’s, Philip, I think this means you’ve been a Christian longer than the rest of us!   Together we represent an encompassing swath of what John Calvin called, the church universal- the whole gathering of believers through time and space.  Now we are getting somewhere.

But what if the church is more? What if the church, as the group called and cleansed to be the bride of Christ, is more than just believers? What if God loves all? And what if God has called, foreknown, predestined, and justified all to also be glorified with Christ, in a good place.

 Tessa. Inspired by the PC(USA)’s Brief Statement of Faith, you say,

We trust in God.
God created the world
and makes everyone equally in God’s image male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community.

Imagine that.
Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one.^[1]

And neither is John Lennon. Clearly Tessa likes that vision, as does our broader denomination, the PC(USA) which, a dozen years after John Lennon’s release of the song put a similar vision into our Book of Confessions.  It is a Biblical vision of all the peoples, all the nations, all the ethnos and genos, indeed all the world- all the asps and adders, all the lions and bears, all the creation, all the cicadas, all things being drawn into the love and unity of God’s holy mountain, a mountain crowned with a cross.

Paul says in the first verse of Chapter 8, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  What we are asking when we ask “What is the church?” and “Who is predestined for a good place?”  is fundamentally “who is in Christ?” And Paul’s answer is that all are the children of God, all are being drawn into the life of the spirit, all of creation is being redeemed, and that nothing—no not any thing, and not even nothingness itself- “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:38-39).

Who will separate us from the love of God in Christ? Who alone can condemn us? Christ. Christ alone. And Christ is the judge who gives himself to be judged in our place. So therefore there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. And guess what? “All things” are in Jesus the anointed one of God: the Christ.

Perhaps this has been the most important year to confirm one’s belief in a good and gracious God, a God who hears our groaning, sees our pain, and remembers a promise to save. This promise is being worked out in grace. All things, are born from this grace and are being drawn into its light.  And someday, we hope and trust, everything will be illuminated.

So thank you to Tessa, Isabel, Olivia, Madelyn, and Philip. May your faith be stronger because of this difficult year. May you have the opportunity to share the hope of Christ with others throughout your lives, both in times of burden and times of blossom. We welcome you to Nassau Presbyterian Church and we give thanks to God for your hopeful faith.  But even more, we love your vision of a cosmically welcoming church and we invite you to use all things in order to show how all things have been reconciled through the cross of Christ. Because this is not just about you and this not just about us. This is not just about this church. This is about all things. For Christ is foreknowing, calling, creating, predestining, and justifying all things to be glorified as the church. AMEN.

^[1] Songwriters: John Winston Lennon, Imagine lyrics © Downtown Music Publishing

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Acts 16:1-15[i]
Lauren J. McFeaters
May 16, 2021
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Not too many women have ever prevailed upon Paul.

Not too many women carried the day when Paul was on the loose for the Lord.

Not too many women have ever faced Paul and upped the ante.

But somewhere between a riverside prayer meeting, a conversion, and a baptism, came the establishment of the first church in Europe.

Lydia prevailed. She prevailed upon Paul and the traveling Apostles to be her guest; to agree that her home would be the best place to set up a new missionary center; a refuge for traveling evangelists; a harbor for worship, a port in the storm.

Before there was Iona or Rajpur; before there was Taizé or San Juan Capistrano; before there was Santiago or Changhua Ching Shan, followers of Christ found their way to Lydia’s home. [ii]

And it’s not just any home. It’s a home located in Philippi – an epicenter of trade and prosperity. Lydia has a hefty share of the city’s affluence. She’s a professional; a commercial success; a business woman; an importer of costly fabrics, a producer of rare textiles.

Eric Barreto describes Lydia as an entrepreneur with vision and initiative. She’s strikingly self-sufficient: bright, creative, industrious. And apparently, even though she depends on its adherents to be her customers, she doesn’t bow to the established religion of the Roman Empire.

Because in Philippi it is Caesar who is “lord and god.” We can’t be sure there was a synagogue in the area or an organized place for Jews to worship. Jewish communities might be tolerated elsewhere in the empire, but not here. Any Jew had to go outside the city gates, and down by the river to pray. Lydia and friends gather there. Paul and his companions in Christ do too. [iii]

It’s a treacherous walk to the river’s edge when you want to worship God. There’s been talk in Philippi. The streets are full of murmurs about Jerusalem, gossip about a Messiah who came alive after death; whispered rumors about a prayer meeting outside the gates, evidence that something’s afoot; danger’s ahead.

Beverly Gaventa says, “The Acts of the Apostles is a dangerous document. It appears to be a harmless account of people, times, and locations. Yet its twists and turns prove …ensnaring. Opening the Acts of the Apostles, she says,  takes travelers beyond domestic borders into unfamiliar territory where passports are invalid, and embassies afford little protection…

Travelers who desire the predictability and organization of an interstate highway system…will find this journey more closely resembles A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” [iv] And nowhere more so than in Philippi.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy have hitchhiked from another galaxy across the sea and landed on the shores of Macedonia. It’s the Sabbath and they’ve heard the same rumors in the streets about the goings-on in Jerusalem, and a secret prayer meeting down by the river.

It’s the very thing God’s Chief Apostle wants to hear. Paul is on the loose; on the move, and ready to preach.

And when he does, he preaches through lips that only a short time ago had ordered the stoning of Stephen; the annihilation of any Christian; the eradication of any hint of a resurrected Messiah.

But now as Paul speaks words flow. He speaks as one Rehabilitated, Altered, Persuaded, Re-Formed. He comes down by the river and speaks as one Converted by Christ Jesus.

We don’t seem to talk about Conversion very often. We don’t easily share about the experiences of God’s unwrapping our hearts and renovating our spirits.

• For many it’s a private and intimate experience;
• For some it happens over the long haul, so that one day you wake up and realize that your very being has altered and you belong, heart and soul to God.
• For some it happens in the blink of an eye; a dramatic and fully realized moment when life will never be the same.
• For two of my sisters-in-law, neither one raised in a family of faith, it came because someone invited them church.

Conversion can seem like a long-gone ritual; something that happens while you’re traveling the Holy Lands, or at the Lake Side after a week of church camp. For a chosen few, maybe conversion is a reward; an act reserved for those in the early church like Paul on the Damascus Road.

When Maya Angelou speaks of her conversion to Christ, she proclaims:

• Gratitude became the pillow upon which I kneel in nightly prayer. And faith (in Christ) the bridge built to overcome evil and welcome good.
• She says, I (have been converted) through the rhythms and imagery of the best good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals, and the directness of gospel songs, and the mystery of blues, are in my music, are in my poetry, and prose. [v]
• Maya Angelou comes down by the river to pray.

When Makoto Fujimura, the contemporary Japanese-American artist, speaks of his conversion experience, it is in the context of being a student, while completing a Master of Fine Arts at Tokyo National University.

• As he was moved to paint a project called, the “Four Holy Gospels,” he says, it was life-transformative. I was working on this for a year and a half and each day I would read a segment of the Gospels, meditate on it, and paint. The creative process was aligned (a conversion) with the Word of God.
• It was like I had a map given to me, but I couldn’t read it. It was as if I was walking into a foreign country with a foreign language.
• So I had to take baby steps, and trust my training, and in all my work, so it would capture and give honor to the biblical text.[vi]
• Makoto Fujimura comes down by the river to pray.

Anne Lamott says her conversion to Christ, did not start with a leap, but rather a series of staggers

• “Everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to open the door and let it in.
• But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever.
• So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming the doors of my life.”
• “When I went back to church,” she says, “I was so hung over that I couldn’t stand up for the songs.
• But this one time I stayed for the sermon, which I thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of extra-terrestrials.
• But the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape.
• It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices were rocking me and holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling – and it washed over me.”
• Anne Lamott comes down by the river to pray.

And she adds this:

• “I began to cry… I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said . . . ‘I quit.’
• This was my beautiful moment of conversion. I took a long deep breath and said out loud,

‘All right. You can come in.’” [vii]

“All right. You can come in.”

That’s what Lydia says too.

That’s her beautiful moment of conversion.

Can you say those words? “All right. You can come in.”

Can we?

The Lord opened Lydia’s heart to listen eagerly, intensely. And the Lord gave her a new heart, a trusting heart—and she believed in Christ the Lord.[viii] And along with her family, her entire household – everyone is baptized. They are received into Christ’s church: Sealed by the Holy Spirit;

and belong to Christ Jesus forever.

Come down by the river to pray.

Our Lord says, “Come on now.” “Come on.”

• Because loving us so deeply
• Reaching so far inside
• Re-ordering what’s broken and lost
• Taking us home
• Forgiving out transgressions
• Annihilating our shame
• Releasing our fears
• Conquering our pride
• God prevails.

Such freedom. Such beauty.

Such tenderness.

Such upheaval. Such a gift.

Thanks be to God.

 

ENDNOTES

[i] The Acts of the Apostles 16:11-15 (NRSV) We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And Lydia prevailed upon us.

 

[ii] Christian communities around the world: Iona, Scotland; Rajpur, India; Taize, France; San Juan Capistrano, California; Santiago, Spain; Changhua Ching Shan, Taiwan.

 

[iii] Eric Barreto. “Acts 16:9-15 Commentary.” www.workingpreacher.org, May 9, 2010.

 

[iv] Beverly Roberts Gaventa. The Acts of the Apostles. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003, 17, 25.

 

[v] Yolanda Pierce. “Maya Angelou and the art of the outcast.” The Christian Century, June 4, 2014, christiancentury.org.

 

[vi]  Makoto Fujimura. “Interview on Why We Need Art in Church: The Function of Art.” Faith and Leadership, May 9, 2011, faithandleadership.com.

 

[vii] Anne Lamott. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. New York: Random House Inc., 1999.

 

[viii] Eugene Petersen. The Message. Colorado Springs, CO:  NavPress, 1993, 274.

 

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Acts 10:44-48
David A. Davis
May 9, 2021
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To Lily (and all the baptized),

I baptized you today Lily and it is, it is astounding in every way. You’re not the first baby I have held this week. That would be our granddaughter Franny. But you are the first baby I have held and baptized in a really long time. So, thank you, Lily. Your baptism has brought your family together again after a really long time. And as I baptized you, there were family members participating from Germany. And there were members of our church family participating from all around, here in the sanctuary, in their homes all through our community, miles and miles away in other cities and states, and others just like your aunt and uncle from other countries. And they were asked “Will you, the people of the church, promise to tell Sicily Cora the good news of the gospel, to help her know all that Christ commands, and by your fellowship, to strengthen her family ties with the household of God?” And the answer “we will” echoed around the world. That’s astounding.

But to be honest, Lily, every baptism is astounding whether it’s the first one in far too long or one that brings people together in a virtual way from all over. Whether we’re baptizing an infant, or an older child, or a member of the Confirmation Class, or a college student, or an adult as old as your parents, it’s a remarkable experience. Whether the baptism is an infant in arms, or a child who is tall enough to just about rest her head on the fount like when I baptized Libby months ago, or someone older kneeling at the fount, it leaves the rest of us just about speechless. Gathered at this fount where so many before you have been, knowing that Jesus promises to meet us when we gather here, splashing again in the life-giving water of God’s grace, and remembering, signifying, proclaiming our life forever in the arms of God. Yes, speechless.

I know you won’t remember today. Baptized infants aren’t going to remember. You aren’t going to remember that it was only your family here in the sanctuary or that we were wearing masks, or the look of joy and unconditional love in the eyes of your parents. You won’t remember but I wonder in all the mystery of God whether you have some awareness. I watched my own children when they were your age and every parent learns that even the youngest know how to get their own way, get what they need from their parents. I know there is something going on inside tiny, little you. So, I wonder. I also know about God’s love, and God’s grace, and God’s presence here at the fount. I don’t understand it. I can’t explain it. I believe it.  I have felt it. I have seen it. So, no I wouldn’t be surprised. I really wouldn’t. If somehow you could look up and tell me something of what is going on. Tell me that there in your little heart you are comfortably resting and abiding in the love of God. The one who created you. Abiding in the love of God. It’s such a gift. It’s…astounding.

Part of what we are all told, Lily, is to remember our own baptism as be baptize you. Like you, many of us cannot remember our actual baptism. Whether we can remember the experience or not, what we all remember is that God’s grace is new for us every day. Sort of like we get baptized by God’s love, grace, and spirit every day! God welcomes each one of us. Some of the stories of the bible tell about people being surprised, astonished, astounded that God’s touch, God’s reach, God’s spirit fell on others who might be different. It happens over and over, pretty much since the bible days, that people worry about God including people, inviting people, sprinkling people with grace that some think don’t deserve it or should be kept out of the “in crowd”. But what we celebrate when we remember baptism is that just as astounding as God’s love and grace falling upon others in unexpected ways, falling upon even them, is that God’s love and grace falls even on us. Even on you, little child. Right now as you can do nothing to ask or earn or deserve or reach for God’s love. And here you are, a child of God, bathing afresh in the promise that Jesus pours out for you. God’s unconditional love for even us, even you. “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing” some one the name of the Holy One whose first touch of grace is unstoppable and boundary shattering and reaches as far as the east is from the west.

Yes, we welcome you, precious one, to this rather mundane, scraggly looking, motley collection of people who have splashed and tasted and lived into God’s promises. We’re not perfect and it’s actually true, the church is full of hypocrites like so many say. We’re no better, no holier, no closer to God than the folks who closed the local pub last night. In fact, a few of us might have been there. It’s just that we gather here, we come together here, we are called here because we have experienced the goodness of the Lord and we want to tell it. We’ve been grabbed by God’s grace and we want to lean into it. We’ve caught a glimpse of the kingdom God intends and we want to work toward it. We’ve tasted our salvation. God has called each of us by name. It’s that gift again. Astounding.

Before you were born, your parents expressed gratitude for this broken vessel that we know to be the congregation of Nassau Church. They recorded a video that was part of worship. You heard it because your mom was carrying you inside. They told us how much they were looking forward to raising you among us and having us help you to learn about Jesus. You were only days old in our zoom fellowship when members of the congregation sang “Jesus Loves You” as your parents held you up to our screens. Your parents and those who were on that call that morning, we will never let you forget that moment. We were answering the baptismal question before you were baptized. So yes, we will teach you some more songs. And we will tell you about Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael and Isaac and Rebekah  and Esau and Jacob and Leah and Rachel and Moses and Deborah and Ruth and David and Elijah, and Amos, and Micah. We will tell you about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and Mary and Joseph, and the disciples and the Samaritan woman, and the women at the empty tomb and the Apostle Paul and Stephen and the eunuch and Cornelius and Lydia. And we are going to tell you about Jesus. Oh my, are we going to tell you about Jesus!

Jesus and his teaching. Jesus and his example. Jesus and his promise. Jesus and his love. Jesus and forgiveness. Sorry about the water on your head today. What I mean to say is sorry if I startled you. I can’t really say sorry for the water. I tried to keep it warm and keep it out of your eyes. But the water is the sign. It is the sign of being washed in the love and forgiveness of Christ. Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, we call it. No, you haven’t done anything wrong. Yes, you’re only a baby. This forgiveness, this grace, it is for all of your life to come. You are baptized once, but it is not all at once. God’s forgiveness will go with you all the days of your life. It’s the once and future and forever promise of Jesus that we celebrate in baptism

The very promise of God is front and center today. Between you and me, Lily, that’s not a great sermon to preach. That you are not actually the center of attention this morning. That God is, God and our life in Christ. Many ministers like me walk around with a newly baptized baby to introduce the child to the congregation. Sometimes we get a bit carried away with the “cute and cuddliness of it all”. No offense, you are very cute and cuddly! But God’s love is even greater. And God knows not all babies are wanted, not all children are loved, not all kids are healthy, and not every couple can have children. And God’s love and grace and spirit pours out on all of them too! God’s love is even greater. God’s love is always greater. It is God’s love that is astounding.

Something happened today among us, Lily. Not just you and me but among each of us, all of us present in person and online. Something happened. We call it the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit happened. As we gathered, as we prayed, as your folks affirmed, as the congregation promised, as we blessed and poured and sprinkled. The Holy Spirit is present. Not just the water. Not just because I’m a minister. But in all of it. Something happened. Again, it’s mostly a mystery to me but I believe we all experienced the Holy Spirit this morning. And you experienced and received the Holy Spirit by the grace of God. It is magic? No. Is it a guarantee of your health and safety? I wish is was. Is it something we can touch and see and define and examine and prove? No, the life of faith is never like that. It’s never that easy.

The Holy Spirit has marked you for lie. No, the Holy Spirit has marked you forever, Lily. With a stronger bond than the love that will tie you to your best friend. With a deeper knot that the first love that will steal your heart. With a more constant presence than the no questions ask devotion of your grandparents. And dare I say it, and as hard as it is to believe, with a mark more indelible than the indescribable love your parents have for you. The Holy Spirt has marked you forever.

And the mark? The mark says “I belong to Jesus and Jesus will love me forever no mater what.” And that mark shall never be erased. Never. That’s the gift. That’s the center of attention. That’s the celebration. That’s the party.

I wish I had kept track of how many baptisms I have celebrated all these years Lily, but I didn’t. So, I don’t know what number to give you. Sicily Cora Flood, # 415. It doesn’t matter. I can remember the first baby I baptized. He is now long a grown man. And I can tell you how I felt that Sunday morning 35 years ago. I was astounded. So the truth is, Lily, this morning baptizing you? It is like baptizing someone for the very first time. Because the love of God, the grace of God, the Holy Spirit of God falling a fresh on you and on us and even on me, it is always astounding.

May God bless you and keep you, forever Lily. You and all the baptized and every single child of God.

 

Faithfully yours,

Your astounded Pastor

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Acts 8:26-40
David A. Davis
May 2, 2021
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Can there be a better way to hold afresh the notion of the wonderful, merciful and mysterious act of God than to hold a newborn baby? To hold a child just days old is to cradle all the mighty things that God has done wrapped into the creation of one new life. To stare into the face of a sleeping newborn child is to find yourself staring as if for the first time into the very grace of God. In this life there are those moments, kairos moments, when God draws so near. In this life, there are those thin places where God’s presence gives the body a shutter. In this life, there are those unforgettable experiences of the blessings of God so far beyond what you ever would have expected. Moments, thin places, and experiences that, in this life, give shape to the otherwise unfathomable love of God.

When you stop and think about it, many of those places, those times, those experiences, many of them could be described as expected. Not expected in a routine kind of way. Certainly not. Not expected as in one should have anticipated being completely brought to the knees here or there or then. A God moment on demand, as it were. But expected in the sense that an artist, or a composer, or an author, or a poet, they all have been inspired by places, times, and experiences like that. On Friday morning way before sunrise as the early birds began to sing in the darkness, I sat and held Frances Aubrey for what seemed like forever. Just the two of us in a darkened room while the rest of the house slept. The glow from the streetlight let me see her face. The only sound was our breathing. In terms of a holy place, a holy time, a holy moment. It was all of the above. And I would not, I am not, and I will not be the only grandparent, the only preacher, the only theologian, the only child of God, to describe a morning like that to you and name it “holy.” The truth is you would sort of expect that from me.

When we come to the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in the 8^th chapter of the Book of Acts, there is absolutely nothing about Luke’s account that can be “expected.” There is nothing about the place, the time, the experience, the characters that could be expected when it comes to the mighty acts and the wondrous love of God. One could easily argue that because the bible story has sat on the shelf of the canon for so long that the reader brings a sort of weary, bible pages now dog-eared and yellowish with age, ho-hum expectation to the whole chariot, wilderness road, baptism thing. Ho-hum!! But ho-hum lazy readings of scripture lead to lazy swings and misses when it comes to the unexpected, bold, audaciousness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the unfathomable love of God.

“Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road). A wilderness road. The NRSV puts that sentence in parentheses for some reason; like it’s passing comment or an afterthought. Of course, there are no parentheses in Greek, and it seems unlikely to me that there would have been another option on GPS to take the more populated highway with tolls from Jerusalem south to Gaza. It was a desolate, isolated, desert road in the middle of nowhere. This isn’t a time and place like Pentecost when the disciples were all together and the city was full of devout Jews from every nation. This is not Peter and John healing the lame man and being surrounded by an astonished crowd at a notable place in Jerusalem called “Solomon’s portico.” This is not Stephen speaking to packed gathering of the council in Jerusalem as numbers of disciples increased greatly. Stephen and that enraged crowd that ground their teach against him and murdered him with stones. No, this is, according to Luke, a wilderness road. This is nowhere, no one, nothing. As far away from the city of Jerusalem and these first 7 chapters of Acts as one could imagine. Don’t let the parentheses full you. It is not a casual reference. And “wilderness road” probably doesn’t begin to describe it.

Stephen and Philip, you remember, were appointed as the first of seven deacons among the growing number of disciples. They were, according to chapter 6, selected to take care of day-to-day practicalities so the rest would not have to “neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables.” (6:2) Ironically when it comes to the newly minted domestic servers, Luke goes on to tell of their evangelistic efforts. Stephen is martyred for preaching the word of God. And as Saul continues his murderous persecution of the church, Philip and the others head to Samaria. An unexpected plot turn comes when an angel of the Lord appears not to the notable duo from Jesus’ inner circle, Peter and John, but rather to the second of seven daily errand runners, Philip. And unlike the lengthy encounter Moses had with God at the burning bush and in contrast to the rich imagery often surrounding the Lord’s call to the prophets, Philip’s angelic instruction comes unadorned: “Go out to the middle of nowhere and go over to this chariot and join it.”. Unexpected place. Unexpected instruction. Unexpected evangelist. And yes, the Ethiopian eunuch. Unexpected.

Dr. Barreto reports that scholars of the bible and of ancient history are of many minds and opinions when it comes to understanding the identity, the personhood, the role, and the portrayal of eunuchs. They were understood to be in the margins and yet often served in positions appointed by kings and queens. They were not considered a threat to royalty’s lineage when it came to the children of the monarch and yet they were often educated and wealthy by standards of the day. In scripture, Isaiah, for example, names eunuchs in lists intended to stretch to the lowest rungs of human need like orphans, widows, and strangers. Yet Isaiah also clearly includes them in the promise of God. Ambiguity seems an apt summary of scholarship when it comes to an understanding of eunuchs in the first century of the Christian church. Ambiguity in a variety of ways including gender and sexual identity.

So here along the wilderness road, the eunuch is from Ethiopia. That means they are a foreigner there in Samaria and they are black. While they were in Jerusalem it is unclear whether they were Jewish or Gentile or a new believer. It’s ambiguous. The eunuch is a court official and in a high position in charge of the entire treasury. They are likely educated, wealthy, and clearly travel as a person not only of means but of status. When it comes to cultural and ritual norms, when it comes to the economic and political factors of the region, when it comes to this encounter between the eunuch and Philip, could the angel of the Lord have ever sent Philip to go over to a chariot of anyone more defined by pretty much everyone and everything as “other.” Go to the wilderness road and find the one who defines life in the margin.

What happens in the encounter between the eunuch and Philip is…well…unexpected. Philip runs alongside the chariot and sees and likely hears the eunuch reading. “Do you understand what you are reading?”, Philip asks. The educated one of the royal court humbly admits that he can’t unless someone helps him. Then comes a bold, even courageous act of hospitality. Not from the one whose life has been touched by Jesus, but from the one that labeled as different, as other. From the one Luke seeks to portray here in chapter 8 so distant from the disciples. They Philip in and sit beside. And with a clear allusion to the Risen Christ on the Emmaus Road, Philip “began to speak and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to the eunuch the good news about Jesus.”

Yes, of course, along the wilderness, desert, desolate, nowhere road, those in the chariot come upon water. The marginalized yet elite, elusive yet rich, confusing yet educated, gender fluid, person of color, never quite understood treasurer for the queen asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” No answer is spoken. The answer comes in his baptism. Luke likely thought no spoken answer was needed because actions speak louder than words. No answer was spoken but the church has tried ever since to find ways to say no to so very many in so very many hurtful, ways. No answer was spoken because the grace of Jesus Christ is so very clear. What is to prevent me from being baptize. NOTHING!

One last bit of unexpectedness? Philip is whisked away by the Spirit, pretty much whisked off the page. Philip pretty much never returns to the sacred page. He is dropped into some town probably right into a crowd of people. Saying to himself “yeah, so that happened.” Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch on the wilderness road and no one, no one, absolutely no one noticed. Philip himself hardly noticed. Seems like pretty much no one has noticed ever since either. A cautionary text, so to speak, that affirms that the reach of the gospel, the grace of Christ, and the act of God is always beyond what you notice, what you can imagine, what you can expect and what so many in the church try to define.

Theologian Mary Catherine Hilkert taught preaching at the University of Notre Dame. She is the sister of Bob Hilkert here in our congregation. At the end of her book entitled “Naming Grace”, she succinctly explains the title. “Naming grace means ‘naming the present’—trying to identify where the Spirit of God is active in contemporary human life and in communities of believers who make the gospel a concrete reality in limited and fragmentary, but still tangible ways.” The church of Jesus Christ is called to be grace-namer not a grace-denier. And when you about the work of naming grace, you can never forget the wilderness roads that so few notices. Where those unexpected moments, those unexpected thin places, those unexpected experiences, those unexpected people, give shape to the otherwise unfathomable love of God.

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Philippians 4:4-9
Nassau Youth
April 25, 2021
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John 21:1-19
Andrew Scales
April 18, 2021
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This weekend, Len and I, like so many members of the University and the wider Princeton community, have been grieving the death of our friend and colleague Imam Sohaib Sultan. Imam Sohaib was the Office of Religious Life’s Chaplain with the Muslim Life Program, and he passed away from cancer on Friday evening at sundown, the first Friday of the holy season Ramadan.

Sohaib and his wife Arshe blessed so many people through their wise and compassionate conversations. When Len and I were first starting out with Princeton Presbyterians, they invited us to their home for breakfast. They listened to us share about our hopes and fears about this new role as Presbyterian chaplains at the University. They shared what they had learned from almost a decade in campus ministry: the value of patience, trusting the students we serve, faith that the community can grow over time into what it is supposed to be.

If you ever asked Sohaib about the student leaders in the Muslim Life Program, he beamed with pride. He always shared about what his students are up to, how creative they could be, their sincerity, their devotion, their joy. Sohaib always had a way of framing the flourishing of his community as the work of others, even as everyone knew how tirelessly he worked to care for them and lead them. I will miss hearing him preach during Friday Jummah prayer services as a warmly welcomed guest, and welcoming him and his students in turn to Breaking Bread Worship just down the hall in Niles Chapel. I find myself, like many others, celebrating his life and wishing for more conversations with such a loving friend.

We are all carrying so much grief inside our hearts, our bodies. Maybe you, too, have been grieving the loss of a friend or a loved one during this terrible pandemic. We have been apart from one another as an act of love, because social distancing protocols have helped save the lives of vulnerable neighbors. Many of us know someone who has died from Covid-19. Many of us were unable to be with someone we cared about as they died.

We are not able to turn to familiar rituals around death and dying that help us grieve. The grief remains unfinished, suspended; it rests heavy on our shoulders.

As a nation, we are grieving more mass shootings and deaths by police violence: Atlanta, Knoxville, Indianapolis, Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo. We are trying as a congregation to get involved in anti-racism work; not to turn away, not to cover our ears and pretend as though these things are not happening. There is so much loss all around that we find ourselves overwhelmed, disoriented, unable to grapple with so many tragedies of illness and violence that are happening all at once. The burden rests heavy on our shoulders.

As we began our series in the Gospel of John during Lent, we started with Jesus at the Last Supper, giving his disciples what he called the new commandment: “love one another.” Now, more than ever, it is time to remember with our words and actions that we belong to one another as a Beloved Community. We cannot, we must not hide from the grief and pain, and we cannot bear it alone. Jesus tells us that we face it together, we hold one another and support each other.

“Love one another”: that’s what Jesus calls his followers to do. “Love one another” is a lifeline when our sadness is as deep as an ocean. “Love one another” is a promise from God that the care that we give and receive will be more than the sum of its parts. God is able, through the love we share with each other, to bring healing in places we did not expect, to rekindle hope when we can only imagine despair, to carry us all through seasons of death into the promises of life.

During this season of Easter, a time when we focus on joy, it is easy for me to forget that these stories from John’s Gospel are situated, grounded, anchored in grief. We cannot understand the stories of Jesus’ resurrection without remembering that they are God’s response to the violence and horror of the cross on Good Friday. Amid our own season of devastating loss, we find ourselves drawn to these stories in John that are about God getting involved amid our pain. The healing God promises, the joy that comes in the morning, it is only drawn out by God after God has sounded out the depths of human suffering in Jesus’ suffering with us, as one of us.

In this morning’s reading, we turn to Jesus’ encounter with his disciple Simon Peter. We remember from the stories of Holy Week that Peter was the disciple who said that he would stand by Jesus’ side no matter what. Peter promised that he would even die alongside Jesus, if it came to that. The Gospels tell us that Peter did not do these things. Peter ran away at the first sign of trouble.

When a crowd recognized him as a disciple of Jesus, he swore that he never knew the man. When Jesus was dying on a cross at Golgotha, Peter deserted his friend.

After Easter morning, Jesus appeared to his disciples, and yet again when they were with Thomas, but Peter has nothing to say. He is silent. Imagine the dreadful anxiety Peter must have felt when he saw the risen Jesus. He couldn’t have known where he stood with Jesus anymore. He was caught between two emotions: overwhelmingly glad that Jesus was alive, saddened and ashamed by the way he treated Jesus at the hour of his death.

There were so many questions that Peter was too afraid to ask. Was he still Jesus’ disciple? Should he just go back to his former life? Could Jesus trust him anymore? The pain was too great to talk about it with Jesus face to face. Peter would rather return to his old life of fishing in Galilee and remain miserable apart from Christ.

But that’s not how the Gospel of John ends. Jesus finds Peter; he stands and waits through the night for his boat to come in at dawn. Over a small fire and a breakfast of fish and bread, Jesus forgives Simon Peter. He asks three times, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” and Peter responds each time, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” And each time Jesus responds, “Feed my sheep.” “Feed my lambs.” “Feed my sheep.” Jesus acknowledges each denial and forgives Peter.

The role that Jesus has taken up as the Good Shepherd has been entrusted to Peter, the disciple who, in Jesus’ hour of need, was not strong enough and deserted him. As Jesus calls Peter back to servant-leadership, the image of shepherd has deep roots in Jewish Scripture, calling to mind deep care for each member of the flock, as well as faithfulness in walking with the flock, not running away when things become difficult.

In his small classic book on pastoral care, In the Name of Jesus, Catholic theologian Henri Nouwen focuses on this story between Jesus and Peter as a restoration to a community grounded in love and vulnerability. Nouwen writes, “Ministry is not only a communal experience, it is also a mutual experience. Jesus, speaking about his own shepherding ministry, says, ‘I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep’ (John 10:14-15). As Jesus ministers, so he wants us to minister. He wants Peter to feed his sheep and care for them, not as ‘professionals’ who know their clients’ problems and take care of them, but as vulnerable brothers and sisters, [siblings] who know and are known, who care and are cared for, who forgive and are being forgiven, who love and are being loved.”[1]

There is a freedom in knowing that we cannot have all the answers and expertise about the struggles people face, and, nevertheless, we are called to foster a community where people mutually love and care for one another as Jesus did. The love that restores Peter into relationship with Jesus and the Beloved Community is also the restoration to the call to discipleship. Once again, after all they’ve been through, Jesus looks across that campfire on the beach at his friend and says, “Follow me.”

We, too, are called by Jesus to care for one another, to offer each other a love that restores the Beloved Community. The people whom Jesus calls to be servant leaders in the church are not those who are strong, or successful, or even especially faithful; but rather human beings who understand the depth of love by which they have been forgiven. When we take up Jesus’ commandment “love one another” as the root of our life together, we become a part of the healing work that Jesus entrusts to his friends in their ordinary lives.

“Love one another” looks like gathering in Hinds Plaza to listen to our Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander neighbors and say that we must work to stop acts of hate against AAPI communities. “Love one another” happens when students support each other through health and family crises, even though so many of their courses have barely made room to acknowledge the extraordinary duress young people bear in their lives outside of the virtual classroom. “Love one another” says that we can confront the ways we participate in racism and white supremacy and have honest, often uncomfortable conversations that move toward real change, because we trust that Jesus will have the last word over and against the death-dealing ways of this world. “Love one another” says that we once thought we knew where we were going and what we were doing with our lives, but that following Jesus will bring us to new adventures, to forge new friendships, to discover new depths of love and empathy.

“Love one another” is an invitation to discover with Peter that after all the grief and pain of this season, all the fears we’ve shouldered alone or hoped to avoid, we will find ourselves face to face with the risen Jesus. He entrusts his Beloved Community to each one of us with one simple commandment: “Love one another.”

 

 

[1] Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002) 59-61.

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John 20:19-31
Len Scales
April 11, 2021
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We’ve spent the last seven weeks in dialogue with Jesus during his farewell discourse in the second half of John, and as we live into the post-resurrection Easter season, we are sticking with the disciples a little longer.

In today’s Gospel reading, we find the disciples locked behind closed doors. Mary Magdalene has seen the risen Jesus and heard him speak her name, she’s told the rest of the disciples, and still they are hidden away. Their fear and grief remain. I imagine the disciples are bewildered and exhausted. It is there in the rawest memories of trauma that Jesus shows up and says “Peace be with you.”

Jesus offers peace to them, shows them his wounds, and sends them out as the Father has sent him.

Grief, trauma, exhaustion—these are experiences that may hit a little too close right now, more than a year into the pandemic and a fresh national reckoning with the sins of white supremacy and greed. Jesus shows up to us here, in our own homes, with masks in hand, and says, “Peace be with you.” He invites us to look at the wounds of the Body of Christ, the Church, and to then be sent out.

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

How has the Father sent Jesus?

Throughout John, Jesus does many signs. The first half of the gospel, the section before the passages in Nassau’s Lenten series, focuses on these signs.

• Jesus turns water into wine at the wedding in Cana.
• Jesus heals those on the margins.
• Jesus feeds the 5,000 with the help of a young child.
• Jesus raises his friend Lazarus back to life.

These signs are miracles that disrupt illness and death, they upend the expectations of the crowd, and they care for and celebrate the community.

Even if miracles don’t follow in the wake of our sending, we do have the opportunity to point to signs of Jesus in our own time. Witnessing to the Lord of Life and caring for the world God created leaves marks of love.

In 2018, when Andrew and I led a group of students to the Taizé Community in France, their theme for the year was “Inexhaustible Joy.” I was re-reading the pamphlet the other day searching for some joy. This following piece of wisdom stood out with our series in John and our Scripture passage from today in mind. Taizé shares, “Remaining alongside those who suffer, and weeping with them, can give us the courage, in an attitude of healthy revolt, to denounce injustice, to reject what threatens or destroys life, or to transform an impasse.”

As Jesus comes alongside those who suffer, he not only walked in solidarity with them to the point of death, he changed lives and conquered sin. Jesus’ transformative love is disruptive to all that threatens to pollute creation and hold people captive.

In Dave’s Palm Sunday sermon, he preached about Jesus the Disrupter. This week, we hear Jesus send his disciples, and, in turn, send us who follow him today. I imagine if Jesus and his works are disruptive, so those who follow him are called to be disruptive too—disrupters of systems that fail to care for our neighbors. disrupters of situations infused with hate and ignorance, disrupters of life not marked by the fruit of the Spirit.

Perhaps like the disciples, the disruption Jesus exhibits and sends us forth to continue feels bewildering, scary, or uncomfortable. All those emotions are reasonable in the face of turning the world upside down, and that is why it is such a comfort and encouragement to hear Jesus say three times over, “Peace be with you.”

With the peace of Christ and the Advocate, the Spirit, that continues on with us, we have the courage to look at the scars that disrupt an easy narrative. We can go out together with love into a world in need of empathy. We can be sent to listen to the people of God that show up in the most unexpected places testifying that they have seen the Lord.

When we follow Jesus to the waters of baptism, it is a disruption. We mark the turning from sin to new life. We hear God call together a family in the Church that goes beyond biological genealogy. We are called to care, nurture, and learn from each other as we experience and remember our baptism.

For us today, baptism is usually a welcome disruption, a beautiful one.

There are harder disruptions needed in life too. It is now common on college campuses for students to have active bystander training—it’s a way to plan to disrupt a situation where a friend or peer or stranger might be in harms way. There are several “D’s” to help remember options as an active bystander, the three I want us to think about this morning or direct, distract, and document:

• Direct—be direct in asking someone to stop
• Distract—focus on the person targeted and help remove them from the situation
• Document—record video or write an account of the situation

All of these active bystander disruptions were used last memorial day when George Floyd was killed. The Daily podcast on Thursday, lifted up several of the testimonies this week from the case determining the consequences to Derek Chauvin, the officer who had his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for what we now know was over 9 minutes. The collective trauma of those who testified was palpable, even as they had documented, worked to distract, and directly intervene on the scene that day. I pray that Jesus’ words of peace eventually surround and hold these active bystanders as they process their own traumatic wounds.

Are we willing to look at the wounds and hear the witness of:^[1]

• Darnella Frazier, who at 17 recorded the video that has been seen around the world. Her documentation catapulted tens of millions of people to protest and call for changes in society for the wellbeing of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.^[2]
• Donald Williams, 33, a mixed martial artist who directly called out the police in the moment for the life threatening hold Officer Chauvin was using.
• Charles McMillan, 61, who tried to deescalate the situation by speaking directly to George Floyd attempting to help him calm down while being choked.

I want to make clear that I do not think you have to watch the extrajudicial killing of anyone. I haven’t seen the video and I choose not to voluntarily watch beatings or killings. I am grateful I have that privilege. AND I think it is important to not bypass the real trauma in our world, to listen deeply to the testimonies of those who are witnessing to the wounds in our society.

Are we willing to stand with Jesus and look at the wounds? Are we listening to the unexpected witness like Mary Magdalene? Will we be obedient to Jesus sending us into the world with disruptive signs of love?

In Amy Plantinga Pauw’s commentary on our Scripture reading today, she writes “John 20:19-31 is a guide for being an Easter community where the wounds of crucifixion are not denied, where the continuing reality of death and failure and drama is not covered up, where our laments find a communal home alongside the joy. Resurrection faith means having the courage to look at our wounds” (p.215).

It is disruptive to acknowledge wounds and it is another step to be an active bystander after initial recognition.

Our small, independent acts of disruption are, of course important, but so are our collective acts. Jesus sends us, all those who follow him, to heal and feed and celebrate—these signs are disruptive in the best way for our communities and, eventually, for all of creation.

And as we are sent, we hear, “Peace be with you.”

Peace be with us.

Peace. Peace. Peace.

^[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/podcasts/the-daily/derek-chauvin-trial-george-floyd.html?

^[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html

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John 20:1-18
David A. Davis
April 4, 2021
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Mary, you, and I, we all have something in common, now. There is part of this resurrection scene in the Gospel of John that we now relate to more than ever. Mary didn’t expect to see a Risen Jesus that morning. She didn’t even think about seeing him in the flesh, seeing him from head to toe. When the one she thought to be the gardener called her by name and she recognized Jesus, Mary must have started to reach out. Maybe with just a hand. Maybe she was going in for an embrace. She certainly wasn’t just going for an elbow bump. The gospel doesn’t describe the attempted touch only the Lord’s response. But clearly Mary was so surprised to see him, so grateful to see him right there before her, so pleased to be in his physical presence that her first move was to touch. How many times has that happened to you the last year?  You and I can certainly understand and relate to someone weeping next to grave. We will never know why Mary couldn’t recognize Jesus until he said her name. We will never really be able to imagine what it must have felt like for her that resurrection morning. But we certainly do know, we really do understand now, her desire to touch, to embrace, to hold.

But Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me”.  In several translations Jesus said, “Do not cling to me.” One translation is just insulting to Mary. It has Jesus saying “Stop clinging to me.” The King James is simply “Touch me not”.  “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’. She turned and said to him in Hebrew ‘Rabbouni!’…Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me because I have not yet ascended to the Father.’”  What on earth or what in heaven does that mean? “Because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”

I had to get a new study bible this week because my NRSV annotated pretty much fell apart. It is a revised edition with a new set of footnotes by a new set of editors. Probably long overdue for me. So, of course, I checked to see if there was an explanatory note about the reason Jesus gave to Mary for not holding on. Here’s what it said, “lit, ‘do not touch me’ perhaps because Jesus is in a liminal state before returning to the Father.” Well, that’s not very helpful. A note requiring another note is not very helpful.  Jesus in a liminal state. As we say in my business, that’s not going to preach very well.

In Matthew, when the women who went to the tomb see the Risen Jesus, Matthew tells that “they came to him and took hold of his feet and worshiped him”. Jesus tells them to not be afraid and to go tell the disciples to go to Galilee and they will see him there. Don’t hold on here but go and tell the others. That seems straightforward. But here in John, it’s don’t hold on because I have not yet ascended. “Go to my brothers and say to them “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Not go and tell them I will see them in Galilee. Not go and tell them what you have seen and heard; that you have seen the Lord. But go and tell them I am ascending.

The Gospel of John and Jesus’ suffering, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension. All through this season of Lent as we have studied the Last Supper Discourse, the sequence of suffering, death, resurrection…and ascension has come up again and again. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”, Jesus says to Andrew and Philip on the Palm Sunday stage. To be glorified. His glorification. His hour. The reference is to his suffering, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. They all go together in John. John doesn’t privilege the resurrection. The sequence is the total package. Which means when Mary reaches for the Risen Jesus, when Mary goes in for the embrace, Jesus is not done yet.  His salvific work is not complete.

Mary is reaching for the familiar Jesus she knows and loves and Jesus tells her “no, not yet”. Because in John’s Gospel, the victory over death and the world’s darkness comes when this Jesus is seated at the right hand of God in all power, honor, and glory. When the heavenly chorus gathered around the throne starts to thing “Hallelujah…For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”

Mary wants to hold on to the way things were. She wants to touch the Teacher who healed the sick and sat with the outcasts and welcomed sinners and both taught and modeled what a faith-filled life should be.  But Jesus says no, it won’t be the same. Mary wants to cling to the Jesus of her world, that world of an Easter morning when it was still dark. But the Risen Jesus wants to usher in a new world. As one preacher put it, “Jesus was on his way to God and he was taking the world with him.”

Before Jesus tells Mary to go, he tells her he is the one who has to go. And with his departure comes the presence of Christ redefined. A presence in the gift of the Advocate, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth. His ascension brings his presence. The presence of Christ in and through the lives of those who follow him. The presence of Christ unleashed in the world as the poor are cared for, the grieving are comforted, the powerful are brought low, truth is proclaimed, and love carries the day. The presence of Christ alive in the world as life conquers death, light shines where there once was darkness, generosity squelches greed, swords are smashed into plowshare, forgiveness stomps out hatred, and the hungry push away from the table now full.  The presence of Christ made known to the world in and through the Body of Christ; Christ’s resurrection people.

I walked through the cemetery this morning toward the location of the sunrise service at a pretty slow pace. It was still dark but I was going slow because I was really not in a rush to get there. I was not in a rush because of time. I was not in a rush because I didn’t really want to do it again. Livestream an Easter sunrise service with no one there for a second year. Then I thought about Easter two years ago as I watched people gathering for the service, walking in the darkness from pretty much every direction to that space near the tree facing the rising sun. Right about then, it felt like God sort of kicked me in the pants, or shook a finger at me, or maybe it was all because it was getting a bit brighter. I realized Easter morning is never about looking back. It is about looking ahead. Because Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! I knew what I was preaching at 11:00 and here I was just hanging on to the past and clinging to the world as it is rather than pondering the breathtaking promise of resurrection hope and the new world Jesus brings.

You and I are called to stand in the present darkness of Easter morning and lean into the light that the Risen Christ forever shines. You and I, while we may be yearning deep down to cling to that which we know and wished had never changed, we are called to point to that which God knows is yet to come. Because God’s resurrection people, even when standing next to the tomb, we stand there on the threshold of death and boldly announce, “I have seen the Lord” in the face of those I see, in the work of those Christ has called. Indeed the presence of Christ in his absence. God’s resurrection people, surrounded, indeed overwhelmed, by the grief and suffering and strife and heartbreak that so mercilessly defines what it means to be human, yet again and again we find the strength to proclaim, “thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  God’s resurrection people, we stand in a Good Friday world and dare to live into Easter, begging, pleading, even demanding for “the more excellent way” of love. God’s resurrection people, yes we are. And together we rise on Easter morning to shout with a finger in the world’s chest  and say, no, no, no. There is a better way. Because Christ has Risen! He is Risen indeed!

Don’t cling to the world as you want it to be; work to make it the world God promised it would be. Don’t cling to the world defined by wealth and achievement and power; work to make it a world where kindness, humility, and gentleness count for more. Don’t cling to a world where hatred resides so deep within; work for a world where is neither Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female. Don’t cling to world where winners take all and charity begins at home. Work for a work where your rejoice with those who rejoice and you weep with those who weep, and if one member of the body suffers, we all suffer, and where injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Don’t cling to a world that assumes the necessity of violence or the inevitability of war or the idolatrous lust for guns. Work for a world where strength comes to those who are week, and security, power, and trust comes from God alone. Because Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed.

Easter Day. It’s never a day for looking back. It’s a not a day for hangers on. It a day for pondering the breathtaking promise of resurrection hope and the new world Jesus brings.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

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John 12:9-26
David A. Davis
March 28, 2021
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To say that Palm Sunday in John is an understatement is, well, an understatement. In our collective study of the Gospel of John these last weeks of Lent, it has been noted more than once that unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John tends to linger in scenes and long conversations: the Wedding at Cana, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the Last Table Discourse, and Jesus’ High Priestly prayer that itself spans an entire chapter. The traditional Triumphal scene comes in John in four verses. And that might be generous. The brevity must explain why in twenty years of preaching on Palm Sunday from this pulpit I have tackled John exactly once.

Here in John, it is not really a Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem at all. It’s not a grand entrance when Jesus has been back and forth to the city all through this gospel. When you keep reading in John, the procession doesn’t end up in the temple with Jesu turning over tables and kicking out the moneychangers. John took care of that way back in chapter two. In John the crowds aren’t going ahead of him and following him. Not much movement here. It is not just the disciples gathering around. In fact, it is not all that clear that the disciples are doing any of the shouting. It seems like the crowd is shouting “hosanna” and the disciples, according to John, were wondering what on earth was going on. “They didn’t understand at first”.  There is also no spreading of  cloaks along the ground. On the other hand, John is the only gospel that labels the leafy branches as palms. So, John does get a PALM Sunday shout it.

Notice where the reading started this morning. John’s crowd didn’t come out just to see Jesus. They wanted to see Lazarus too; the one Jesus raised from the dead. The crowds went out to meet Jesus and Lazarus because they had been there when Jesus called out Lazarus from the tomb. The other gospels describe the whole city of Jerusalem being all stirred up or in turmoil. Not so here in John. A great crowd was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival. The Passover crowd combined with the crowd that came to see Jesus and Lazarus. That’s what made the Pharisees nervous. “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!”

Those crowds “took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!” The King of Israel. The crowds don’t shout “the King of Israel” in the other gospels.  Here in John, the crowd moves toward Jesus, they go out to meet him before he moves at all. They come with shouts to the King of Israel. The crowds, the world going after him, it’s a movement of a different kind in John. It has less of a parade feel and more of a political rally feel. The crowds, wanting to see Lazarus, counting up all the signs in John (water into wine, healing the official’s son, a paralytic rises to walk, loaves and fishes, walking on water, a blind man sees, Lazarus raised from the dead). He must be the king. He’s the king of the world!!!

Think of the hundreds of collective Palm Sunday experiences you and I bring with us this morning. It is a veritable Palm Sunday buffet of memories that mix together. For some, Palm Sunday memories take them way back. For others, maybe more Nassau Church memories in this room; like those years when the parade just got stuck because of the crowds! Expectation, anticipation, and assumptions all tossed into our sacred imaginations about the Palm Sunday  narrative: the Triumphal Entry, Jesus riding along with his jaw set, his sight determined, his suffering in view, his death imminent. Hosanna in the Highest. All Glory, Laud and Honor. The crowds can’t be silenced. The rocks themselves are set to sin. And Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. His own death march. A slow, but steady inevitable climb toward the hill of Golgotha just beyond the city walls. Yes, the narrative is set and it is set deep within everyone of us.

It is set, that is, until Jesus in John throws it all out of whack. Until Jesus clogs up the works. Until Jesus messes up the show. Until Jesus disrupts the parade. Jesus didn’t start the parade in John. Jesus never sends his disciples ahead to find a colt or a donkey. There is no fetching of the animal and telling the owner “the Lord has need of it.” Jesus found a donkey and sat on it. Jesus is not the event planner here. He is the event disrupter. No, Jesus doesn’t start the procession. He stops it before it gets going. The crowds came out to meet him, to wave royal palms, to shout “hosanna”, to anoint him King of Israel and Jesus went to look for a young donkey and sat on it. One New Testament scholar translates John’s Triumphal Entry couplet like this: “So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!’…BUT…Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it.”

When Jesus found that young colt and sat on it, it was as if Jesus was being as stubborn as a young donkey could be. If the disciples didn’t understand, think about what the crowd was thinking. They came out ready for a coronation. With shouts of “hosanna” and branches waving, the crowd was ready, not just for a parade, they were ready for a movement. “He’s the king of the world!” But Jesus stopped, went and found a donkey and sat on it. Actually, with a close reading of John, one might conclude that Jesus and the donkey never went anywhere. Jesus didn’t start the parade. He stopped it before it got going. And he did very little to move it along after that. Jesus sat on that donkey refusing to go any further and pointed to the cross. The whole parade stops in John and the gospel turns toward Jesus glorification, his hour that has come, his suffering, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. Or as Jesus says to Andrew and Philip, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

The parade stops but the chapter continues in John. Jesus tells the crowd of his pending departure. “The light is with you for a little while longer…while you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” And then, according to John, in what seems like a way to put an exclamation point on stopping the parade, Jesus “departed and hid from them”. He went and hid! He hid from the crowd that wanted to make him king. Jesus was just fouling up the parade, he was fouling up the whole movement to anoint him king, King of Israel, king of the world.

The crowd was looking for a king, the disruptor Jesus went and sat on a donkey. The crowd sang praise to the victor, the disruptor Jesus taught again about his death. The crowd was looking for another sign, another miracle (just one more! just one more!). the disruptor Jesus told them the sign to come was the cross. The crowd craved a theology of glory, the disruptor Jesus gave them a theology of the cross. The crowd yearned for a narrative of victory and power. Jesus, ever the disruptor, gave them a narrative of suffering and servanthood.

For those of us who think we have Jesus all figured out, for those of us who know the Lord we want, the Lord we are looking for, the Lord we expect, come Palm Sunday and Good Friday and Easter, those of us who know this part, thank you very much…John’s Jesus, well, he disrupts. He disrupts not just this biblical narrative chiseled so deep but the dominant narrative that shape how we see the world, how we view ourselves, and we see or don’t see others. Jesus ought to be a disruption. Jesus ought to throw of the equilibrium of all your understanding that goes way back. Jesus ought to shake up your theological imagination and your perception of the Lord of Life, your whole sense of what is right and expected when it comes to the things of God. Jesus has it all twisting and turning inside until you find yourself once again facing the cross this week. Jesus’ cross, his self-emptying love, his redefinition of victory, and his transformational display of weakness rather than power. Come to the cross of Christ again this week and allow the Spirit of truth to anoint, question, challenge even the most deeply embedded theological narrative and convictions. Jesus may not be present in the flesh sitting on that young donkey, but in his physical absence all his disruption continues. Or at least it ought to in your life and mine. Consider it a Palm Sunday disruption.

When the perception of Jesus has been built on the power of positive thinking and success and counting every blessing, a Jesus as a life coach kind of approach that may work for years until a diagnosis, or a job loss, or a crushed relationship, or the death of the love of your life…Jesus stops and offers to walk a different way of strength in weakness and comfort in suffering, a different way toward the cross.

When the perception of Jesus shapes a Lord of power and strength and heavy-handed assurance of victory in the world and political movements that ravage the poor, demonize the other, lift up some and push down many, and sow discord rather than peace, falsehood rather than truth,…Jesus stops, turns another way, and yet again heads toward the crows where power comes in weakness and love is lifted up and the wisdom of God seems as folly to you and to me.

When the perception of Jesus so miraculously forms that Jesus agrees with every held opinion one can have: politics, policy, current events, when the Savior of the world has become op-ed writer extraordinaire leaving one always nodding yes…Jesus has already stopped to find a donkey and he moves toward the cross inviting humility, openness, and a little less self-assuredness among those who would follow along the way.

When the perception of Jesus calcifies or misconstrues the gospel in a way that elevates self over others, deadens the ears to the cry of the oppressed, blinds the eye to see the suffering of others not born with privilege or power and shapes some misguided concept of a divine right of being because of nationality, or skin color, or gender, or orientation, or generational wealth or even the practice of faith…Jesus stays there on that donkey, refusing to participate in a movement that distorts his gospel and denies the image of God in all people. And he points to the cross again and again and again. Jesus didn’t start the parade in John. He disrupted it and headed to the cross.

Turn toward the cross with Christ the Lord this week.

When is the last time Jesus disrupted the expectations, the anticipation, and the assumptions that you bring, that inform you, that shape you and your life in him?

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