Luke 24:13-35
David A. Davis
April 21, 2019
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“Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have taken place there in these days?” One more question for Jesus. “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s happened there the last few days? That’s what the two asked Jesus. They didn’t know it was Jesus. They couldn’t see that that it was Jesus. They were walking and talking, talking and walking. Talking about what had happened; how Jesus had been handed over, mocked, insulted, spat upon, flogged and killed. A man they didn’t, they couldn’t recognize, what to know what they were talking about. “They stood still, looking sad” They had a gloomy look on their face. They had a stunned, gloomy, downcast, sad look on their face. And they said to the man, “Seriously?” They said to Jesus, “Really?” They said to the Risen Jesus, “You have no idea?” “How can you not know what they did to him?” How could this stranger not know anything about what Luke names in the 23rd chapter as “this spectacle”? Yes, they were looking sad.

And it is still Easter Day! It’s the Day of Resurrection! This walk, talk, be sad moment. It’s still the first Easter Day. That day, the first day of the week, when the women came to the tomb with the spices. When they found the stone rolled away from the tomb and no body inside. Two men in dazzling clothes scare the bejeebers out of them and ask the women why they were looking for the living among the dead. “He is not here but has risen”. It was still that day. Mary Magdalen, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women went to tell all the rest. But the rest didn’t believe the women. They thought it was an idle tale. They thought they were making it up. Men immediately assuming women were making it up. Hmm. Wow. That happened on Easter too. It was still that day when the two men stood still, stunned, gloomy, and sad. Easter Day and they hadn’t heard.

Seven or eight years ago, after the last service that Easter Day, Noel found, up there in the loft, a trumpet. One of our guest trumpet players left the building to go about his day and left one of the trumpets sitting up there. Noel told me that he actually played a few different horns, like 23 different horns during the service. So the hands were full as he hit the road. There just happened to be one trumpet left behind. That year not only was the echo of the trumpet still in the room the rest of the day, the trumpet was still in the room. The trumpet blast and the trumpet were here, all here, still here when all of us went about the rest of Easter Day. The rest of Easter Day comes long after the trumpet blast. Those two followers of Jesus must have missed the trumpet blast that day. They hadn’t heard.

In Luke’s account of the first Easter day, not just the morning but the whole day, joy doesn’t come until the end of the day. Literally, the word “joy” doesn’t show up until Jesus himself stood among them. Luke writes, “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering”, and the now Risen Jesus says to them, “Hey, do you have anything to eat around here?”. It is Matthew that describes the women leaving the empty tomb quickly “with fear and great joy.” There’s a whole lot of descriptors in Luke: the women were terrified they remembered, the men did not believe, Peter was amazed, the two on the road were sad, their eyes were opened, their hearts burned within. A lot going on. But joy, joy is a bit delayed in Luke. A lot going on in the hearts of the followers of Jesus; all day long. A lot going on after the trumpet blast.

During our worship service on Good Friday, the anthems, the solos, the cello, the trumpet, were all provided by our youth in high school and middle school. I found it all quite stunning, the anthem selections, the solo voices, the instruments. I was sitting in the front pew as we choose not to sit up here for Good Friday worship. What moved me most was the congregational singing of “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”. Not surprisingly, on Good Friday the congregation is smaller. The choirs were singing from the loft. So the strongest voices, the strongest sound, what was carrying the congregation along in song was this powerful, beautiful, strong youthful tone and quality. From where I sat, those voices from the loft came as one and carried over the congregation as all of us were singing. It was like our Good Friday faith had a future!

What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
O make me thine forever; and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never out live my love to thee.

Lord, let me never, never out live my love to thee; even when the joy of Easter is hard to find. Lord, let our Good Friday faith, our Easter morning faith, our Resurrection faith always have a future. Lord, let that Easter morning faith last all day. All day long, Lord. All day long.

When the Cathedral of Notre Dame burned on Monday so many tried to make it all the more upsetting, all the more moving because it was the Monday of Holy Week. I’m not sure the world we live in pays much attention to Holy Week. I’m pretty sure there is fire and destruction and devastation somewhere, someplace every Monday of Holy Week. Every Monday for that matter. And certainly every Easter Monday. Somewhere, someplace, someone whose life is turned upside down, whose world is rocked, whose knee deep in ashes and there is no trumpet blast to be heard. Someone whose resurrection faith is crying out for a future. Monday of Holy Week, Monday of Easter. Everyday for goodness sake; when the joy of Easter for the followers of Jesus, is hard to find.
It would have been hard to miss all the pictures of a church in ashes this week. One of them I saw was hands down, more compelling, more meaningful to me, more lasting than all the rest: all the ashes, the charred timbers, the remains of a house of worship. It was picture of what was the sanctuary of the Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas, Louisiana. It was one of three historic African American churches in Louisiana’s St. Landry’s parish that were burned to the ground this month. Each congregation more than 100 years old. Burned not by an electrical problem but by an evil act of hatred, bigotry, racism, white supremacy, and terror. An act that is unfortunately an all too familiar refrain in our nation’s grievous history on race. After all the attention on a church fire this week, the congregation of Greater Baptist Church gathered for a picture in front of the charred remains. A picture the photo journalist titled “We’re Still Here.”

The thirty members of the congregation are standing shoulder to shoulder. People of all ages. Looking straight into the camera. In the middle, right in front, there are two young children. One them, a young girl, is holding a white bouquet of flowers. The writer who includes the photo in her article describes the congregation standing together as a body, unbroken, undamaged, revealing a force of love in a time marred by hate. She points to the children and blooming flowers in the photo as symbol of growth and the promise of tomorrow. “In spite of [all the] inattention” she writes, “the thirty parishioners of Greater Union Baptist Church are living out a story we can easily recognize in [the] photo. They are here, and–resolute and unbroken as a church family–they will remain here.” In other words, theirs is a resurrection faith with a future.

I don’t know about you, but as a follower of Jesus, I crave an Easter joy that lasts all day. An Easter acclamation that comes long after the trumpet blasts. A resurrection affirmation that still happens way down the road. Like those 30 members of Greater Union Baptist church, I know I can’t, we can’t live into, we can’t experience, we can’t proclaim that kind of Easter joy all alone. You can’t do that by yourself. That when the Easter brass have gone home, and the flowers are all whisked away, and there’s nothing left to do here but the sweeping, that sometime later today, sometime down the road, even on one of those Mondays from hell, there’s someone near you whose going to say, whose going to shout, whose going to whisper, “Christ is Risen!”

It can’t always come with a trumpet blast. It shouldn’t always come as an all dressed up, victorious, triumphant, fanfare. The resurrection promise of God is so much more than a shout. Sometimes it’s the wordless vigil of companionship with a friend, now widow, you’ve known for 45 years. The dinner every couple of weeks you squeeze into your hectic life to make sure you spend with your college roommate whose marriage crumbled away. The startling words of faith and comfort that come to your ears from the one who is so sick there in the hospital when you visit. Living the resurrection promise without words. Christ is Risen. Sometimes the joy comes later in the day. That kind of forgiveness that always surprise the human condition and defies human understanding. The sort of unearthly peace that just sort of oozes out of the pores of one who has every reason to be anxious. The expression of hopefulness voiced when most others thing that all the hope is gone. Proclaiming Easter in just a whisper. Christ is Risen.

Sometimes the joy has to come further on down the road. Visiting the sick. Comforting the brokenhearted. Serving the poor. Feeding the hungry. Teaching the children. Visiting the prisoner. Embracing the stranger. Giving a party for the lost who have been found. Caring for the one standing still and looking sad. Carrying the Easter word to an oblivious world with persistence Christ is Risen.

When our kids were just babes in arms, a long, long time ago, someone gave our family the gift of a blown kiss “saved for later”. I don’t remember if it came from my wife Cathy’s family or mine. Whether it was from a grandparent or an aunt or a saint of the church. I just can’t remember and I’m pretty sure we didn’t just make it up ourselves. But you can picture it, imagine it. A child in arms, a toddler, just learning to wave and high five and blow kisses and catch blown kisses. This is how it goes, [blow the kiss- catch the kiss], “save it for later”.

That’s how I feel about all this Easter morning joy. You have to save some for later. For later in the day, for further down the road. Easter joy. God’s life-saving, death stomping, salvation bringing promise. Save it for later. A resurrection faith that has a future. So that on the roughest of days, the longest of nights, the loneliest of roads, the farthest of countries, the deepest of valleys, you will then, right then and always know the kiss of Christ’s love for you. For Christ is Risen.

It is my Easter prayer for each of you.

That the Lord will let you never, never out live your love for God.

That the Lord will let you never, never forget God’s love for you.

And when you go to bed tonight, it will still be Easter. So with your head on the pillow, when there is no one else to talk to but God, just say it in the tiniest of whispers, “Christ is Risen”.
Save it for later.

John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Jesse Barkalow
April 18, 2019

Lord Jesus, you are the one who has been from the beginning, who is with God, who is God, through you we are. Without you we are not. You are the life of our bodies, the light of our intellects, and the breath of our spirits. Though we did not know you, you became flesh and dwelt among us, though we did not receive you, you became light to our dark world, grace and truth, the glory of the Father. Lord Jesus you have made known to us the unseen God. We praise you for giving us the right to become the children of God.
Amen.

In this prayer I borrow from the prologue of John’s gospel because it so beautifully captures the gospel as a whole. The gospel has been described by some as a swinging pendulum. starting in heaven: ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.’ Then the Word comes down into the world, true light coming down into darkness. ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ And finally back up, as Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father, having made known to us the unseen God. As Christians we always keep the end of this story in our hearts, in every moment we strive to keep the promise of Easter Sunday and the hope of the resurrection in our minds. We always pray to a living Jesus, seated at the right hand of God the Father, the one who has overcome the world. But today, on Maundy Thursday, we are following our Lord down to the very bottom of the pendulum, down into the depths of the lonely, naked, speechless humiliations of life.

According to the Gospel of John chapter 1, the public ministry of Jesus begins at a wedding, one of those high points of celebration in life. At the behest of his mother Jesus reveals his power, his generosity, his good plans, plans to prosper us and not to harm us. A loving son and a generous Creator, He gives abundantly, almost inordinately the gift of wine, his first miracle. And through this gift he affirms the goodness of human flourishing, of celebration, even the goodness of winemaking.

The ministry of Jesus starts with celebration, and with miracles. And by John chapter 2, ‘many believed in his name.’ ‘[B]ut Jesus did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and knew what was in them.’

As he continued in his ministry he constantly provoked a crisis of faith in those who encounter him. Some believed and some were offended but no one understood him. Already, by chapter 6, many of his disciples say, ‘This is a difficult way, who can follow it?’ and they turn away from him.

By the end of chapter 12 we are told that those who are with him still do not believe.

We all feel this pull of the downward swing. The strength of our elders and our traditions fade with time. The brightest memories of our childhood are darkened by the experience of life.
Maybe our parents and our pastors once seemed infallible, maybe the church was once a beacon of light in our eyes, maybe our brothers, sisters, and friends used to be constant and true. Maybe our wedding was full of celebration and promise. Maybe we used to be honest and hard-working, sure of ourselves in our success and our humility. Maybe we were in that crowd on Palm Sunday, shouting ‘Hosanna! Long live the King!’

We too anticipated the inauguration of justice, and the overthrow of violence and hatred. We were looking forward to dressing in our best Sunday clothes, walking out into a bright Spring morning to usher in the age of righteousness. We were looking forward to being lifted up with Jesus into the new day of peace. ‘Hosanna in the highest!’ we said with the crowd, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’

We had seen the light of heaven, we were ready for the upswing. The hour had come for the name of God be glorified, for the Son be lifted up. But we didn’t understand where we were in the story.
This is Maundy Thursday, and we are now reaching the bottom. ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. Whoever loves his life loses it.’

The hour of glory does not begin in chapter 12 at the Triumphal Entry, it begins in Chapter 13 at the last supper. John 13:1 ‘Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.’

We are approaching the very bottom of history, where The Way is abandoned, The Truth is denied, and The Life is betrayed.

And what is it Jesus does in this moment? He washes the feet of his followers.

The one dressed in eternal light strips his clothes and wraps himself in the towel of a servant.

The one who formed the earth pours the water with his own hands. The one to whom every knee will bend gets down on his knees and washes the feet of his followers. It’s no wonder that Peter is offended, saying ‘Lord you will never wash my feet.’ This is not what any of us want to see at the turning point of our history: dirty feet and a humiliated God.

Julius Caesar, about to cross the Rubicon and change the shape of the world for ever, said alea iacta est (the die is cast). That is a phrase worthy of history books. That is the confidence we look for in world changing figures, an undaunted pride and self-assurance we can follow.

Jesus, when he washes the feet of his followers, forgoes even the dignity of speech. In humility he takes up the feet of Judas, knowing that Judas has already decided to betrayed him. In humility he takes up the feet of Peter, knowing that Peter will soon deny him three times. ‘Surely not me Lord! You will never wash my feet.’

Surely the way back up, the way of life, is not a man down on his knees, naked, washing the dirty feet of traitors and unbelievers.

And Jesus answered Peter, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’

The upswing in sacred history begins with foot washing.

Tomorrow, Good Friday, we remember the trial of Jesus and the lifting up of Jesus on the cross, his humiliation and death which are the inauguration of God’s kingdom. Tomorrow we follow Jesus on the upward swing of the pendulum, the way of the cross.

But today, we remember that the hour of glory begins with Jesus taking off his garments, getting down on his knees, and washing the feet of his followers.

In his humility he washes our feet, and in his authority he gives us a new commandment: ‘love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’

With Peter, we want to say, ‘surely not us Lord.’ ‘There is no need to wash our feet. We keep them covered with shoes and socks. We paved our roads to keep off the dirt. We invented indoor plumbing so we can wash our feet in private.’ ‘We found an easier way. We automated foot washing, we no longer need this humiliating job.’

But of course, this is not really true. We have only exported our foot washing to people we never see, people hidden away in shoe factories. We have only renamed foot washing with more palatable names like ‘service industry.’ And as Jesus said to Peter, so he says to us, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’

We gather on this Maundy Thursday, not because we have managed to kept our feet clean, but because The Source of life came down, was made flesh, and washed us. Jesus did not invent the close toed-shoe, he did not bring indoor plumbing to the world, he did not pave our roads. He washed our dirty feet, on his knees, with his own hands.

And then he said ‘you also, ought to wash one another’s feet. For just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

Today, we hear the Word together, we prepare our hearts to come together at the table to take the bread and wine, to remember that at the very crux of history, our feet were washed by the Lord. And we also remember that He has given us a new commandment, to follow him down. Down into the humble job of washing one another’s feet, even the feet of those who do not understand us, who abandon us, betray us, and deny us.

‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’ Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me he must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.’
Amen.

Luke 18:18-30
David A. Davis
April 14, 2019
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Jesus tried to tell them. He tried to explain it just to them, just for them. He pulled them aside and tried to help them understand, tried to get them to see. He wanted them to “get it.” But they didn’t. They couldn’t. They didn’t get it. That conversation. That encounter. His response to yet another question along the way. His answer to the certain ruler about inheriting eternal life. The one thing lacking. The sell what you have and give to the poor part. The comment about how hard it is for those who have wealth, those who have means, those who have property, those who have….to enter the kingdom of God. The camel and the eye of the needle thing.

Those who heard all of that ask another question of Jesus, “Then who can be saved?” How can anybody be saved? How can we be saved? “Jesus replies, ‘What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.” Peter, Peter, Peter. Peter is more to the point. Peter gets more personal. Peter names it. Peter puts it out there. Peter doesn’t hold back. “Wo, wo, wo,wo….Look, we left our homes and followed you.” He is right, of course. According to Luke, Jesus first met the fisherman when he asked to use their boats for something of a pulpit, teaching the crowds pressing in around him right at the shore. When he finished he told them to go out to deeper water and put in their nets. They hesitated because they had been out all night long and caught nothing. But they did as Jesus suggested and brought in such a haul that both boats started to sink and the fisherman were amazed and fell at Jesus’ feet. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said, “from now on you will be catching people.” They came to shore, brought in their boats and probably the best catch of fish the fishermen ever had, and as Luke puts it, “They left everything, and followed him.”

So yes, Peter is correct in what he says to Jesus. “We have left our homes and followed you.” So, seriously, if that ruler cannot be saved, how can anyone, how can any of us, be saved? What about us, Jesus?” “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come, eternal life.”  It sounds almost like Jesus is saying “no, no, no, Peter, it’s all good. I got this.”

He doesn’t stop there, either. Jesus takes the twelve aside, and he says to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.” And the twelve understand nothing of it. Jesus tries to get to them to see that hard conversation with the rich ruler in light of where they are going, in light of where he is going. It’s not the first time in Luke he has told them about his suffering and death. It’s the fourth time. It can’t be a coincidence that Luke pairs this now repeated and fraught reference to going up to Jerusalem with the certain ruler who was very sad when Jesus told him to sell all that he had and distribute the money to the poor. Yes, Jesus is trying to get the twelve to finally understand what is really going to happen when they get up there.  But he is also trying to help them understand that conversation about inheriting eternal life and being saved. And it is as impossible for them to grasp it as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

We should have cancelled the palms this year. A palm-less Palm Sunday. That would have gone over well. But we’ve been traveling all this way from Galilee to Jerusalem with Jesus in Luke. We read the Triumphal Entry earlier from Luke. In Luke, there are no palms. It’s easy to miss because the reader assumes the palms; fills in the palms, There is a procession. Jesus is riding on a colt. But there is no waving of palm branches. There is no lining the pathway with palm branches. The disciples, the followers of Jesus, those with him still along the Way, they toss some of their cloaks on the colt for him to sit. They keep spreading their cloaks on the path. No palm branches in Luke. No “hosanna” either in Luke. The multitude of the disciples praise God joyfully with loud voices. Loud enough that the Pharisees tell Jesus to tell them to stop. “If these were silent, the stones would shout out,” Jesus said. The stones would shout. But no “hosanna”. No shout of “Lord save” which is what “Hosanna” means. No, in Luke “save us” comes not as a shout. It comes as a question. “Lord, then who can be saved?”

When that faithful, devout, commandment keeping man heard Jesus tell him to sell everything and give it to the poor so that he could have treasure in heaven, the man “became sad…. for he was very rich.”  Sad. He was sad. It sounds almost strange. Sad. Sad sounds more like a reaction to a play date being canceled. Sad. Sad sounds more like the last day of a great vacation. Sad. Sad. The word doesn’t come up all that often in the New Testament. Sad. When Luke tells of the Risen Jesus approaching the two men along the Emmaus Road, when Jesus asked them what they had been talking about along the way, Luke writes that that “they stood still, looking sad.”  But that’s a different word in Greek. They had a gloomy look on their face. The word here for the rich ruler indicates he was deeply grieved, stricken with grief, he was overcome with grief. Sad doesn’t really begin to describe it. Both Matthew and Mark use the word to describe how Jesus was feeling in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was deeply grieved. Jesus told the man to get rid of all his riches and even at the thought of it, he was as distraught as if a loved one had died. He wasn’t just sad. He was overwhelmed with sorrow. He was heart-broken. The man felt like his best friend just died.

Jesus takes the twelve aside to juxtapose the rich ruler’s grief with Jesus’ own being handed over, mocked, insulted, spat upon, flogged and killed. The rich ruler’s broken heart at even the thought of losing anything and the imminent reality of Jesus giving absolutely everything. Everyone’s fear that the things of this world would be taken way and the horrible truth that this is the world that would take Jesus away. Humanity’s constant need to go down the road of concern only for self and what’s in it for me and Jesus’ stunning willingness to go up the hill to the cross. Humankind’s deep sorrow when it comes to all our stuff and Jesus’ deep sorrow for his own suffering and death. Maybe for Luke, the lack of “hosannas”, the dropping of the shout, the striking of the “save us” was because that procession was never about us. It was all about him. And there is nothing royal or regal about it. It’s just tragic. Jesus comes to love and transform the world, to usher in and anoint God’s kingdom, to seek and save the lost, and the broken, blasted, messed up world killed him for it. The answer to the question about eternal life and being saved, is never about us. It is about him.  And it is do difficult for the disciples, for the followers of Jesus, for you, and for me, to grasp any of that.

Several weeks ago there was an article in the New York Times about one of those doomsday preachers, self-anointed prophets, who dwells in, creates, and markets and sells an apocalyptic worldview of predictions, disasters, judgement; along with explanations and justifications for current events all foretold in the pages of the bible thousands of years ago. This preacher who calls himself a rabbi is not way down in the deep south in an arena. He is up in a box store in Wayne, New Jersey just an hour or so from New York City. According to the article, a thousand people flock to hear him on Friday evenings and Sunday mornings. His books are best sellers. The disturbing parts of what I read are too numerous to mention. But two things struck me most. The first was that in this article about a Christian, Pentecostal, charismatic, evangelical pastor/author who is a rising star in that world of evangelical Christian media personalities, Jesus was never mentioned in the article. Jesus never came up in the interview with the pastor or in the quotes from his preaching or in his invitation for people to be born again. Nothing about Jesus. It was all about him. Then, right at the end of the long article, there was just a passing comment by a woman in the congregation. At the end of this long article about prophecy, and destruction, and judgment, and the world pretty much coming to the end, she mentioned to the writer, that after she joined the congregation, her income tripled and then quadrupled and that God did that.

And somewhere, somewhere in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus took the twelve aside and he tried to tell them. He tried to help them understand. He pointed yet again, for the umpteenth time, he pointed up the road to Jerusalem. He told them yet again about his being mocked, insulted, spat upon, and killed. Humanity’s never-ending love for the things of this world and Jesus’ dying love for the world that knows him not. His love for a world whose utter brokenness broke him until there was no life in him. Before it is ever about us, before it was ever about us, it was, it is, about him.

As for being saved? As for salvation? He’s got that. And he is calling you and me to a life the world will never understand. A life of servant-hood, loving thy neighbor, going and doing likewise, embracing the lost, caring for the poor, welcoming the children.

You, me, us together, living for him. A life of love in him. For him. Through him. With him.

Luke 17:20-37
David A. Davis
April 7, 2019
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My extended family has a group text thread. My wife Cathy and our kids, my brother, my sister-in-law, my sister, nephews and their spouses. Even our future son-in-law, Henry, is subjected to this Davis family thread. If each of us were to be honest with you, there are times when it can be annoying. Those moments when you say out loud but never in a text to your whole family, “Just stop, please!” But the benefits of the family thread far outweigh the phone constantly buzzing on my desk when I’m trying to write a sermon. Thursday a family member texted this: “10 days to GOT. We’ve re-watched all the seasons with eight episodes to go.” Someone replied “ I’ve got 15 or so left. Started re-watching about two weeks ago so it’s been a valiant effort.” I texted “GOT?” My children were mortified but I always enjoy mortifying my children.

After someone typed “Game of Thrones” with all the disdain they could muster, I was reminded of a family vacation a few summers ago when we were all together. It included a “Game of Thrones” watch party. The dinner time prior was, of course, a table conversation all about “Game of Thrones”. Strange character names, battle scenes, who died, who hasn’t, plot lines, descriptions of violence. It was a dinner occupied by another world and I’m pretty sure Cathy and I, the two one-year-olds, and the four-year-old were the only ones who had no idea what on earth anyone was talking about. They might has well have been speaking a different language.

When you are reading the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, verses 20-37, when you come upon Jesus and his answer to the inquiry about when the kingdom of was coming, when you listen to Jesus refer to days of the Son of Man and suffering, and floods, and fire, one left and the other taken, when the phrase “where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” is left hanging in your ear with no where to go, it’s important to remember that the absolute “other worldliness” of all that judgment day stuff was familiar to everyone within ear shot of Jesus that day. It’s important to know that nothing Jesus said about the divine, cosmic, fireworks show would have surprised, upset, turned off, or probably even scared those folks gathered around Jesus. It is as if the 21^st century reader is invited to dinner table conversation where everyone else knows the language, the imagery, the symbols, the plot, the purpose and we’re the only ones who have no idea what on earth he is saying: lightning flashes and lights up the sky, the days of Noah, the days of Lot, people taken from housetops and fields.

Everybody talked about the Great Day of Judgement and they had been talking and thinking and writing and hearing about it for a long time. Think of all the Hebrew prophets, the Book of Daniel, and all the teachers, rabbis, preachers who didn’t make it into the canon. People were immersed in it. Today, it is a theology, a vocabulary, a fascination left for the doomsday preachers and booksellers. A world view commandeered by the extremes. A belief system that makes for strange alliances as some of the strongest political support for Israel comes from those who naively don’t realize  that so called modern day prophets want to preserve and protect Israel only until that rapturous day of judgment when the Second Coming happens over there and God destroys everything and everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus.

In Jesus’ day all this stuff that upsets you and I, the stuff that isn’t even part of what you believe or so far removed from your own faith, it was part of the vernacular back in the day. Any teacher would have been asked about it just like Jesus was. Any rabbi would have talked about it, just like Jesus did. In the world view of a first century Jew, there was nothing shocking in Jesus teaching about the Day of Judgement. It was part of life and faith, just like the expectation that a messiah would come and usher in a victorious reign of power and might and abundance, a thriving kingdom that is surely coming. A day of judgement and coming kingdom.

Here’s what would have shocked the folks along the way, surprised the Pharisees and everyone else, unsettled, upset those gathered around Jesus. The shock is this: “The kingdom of God is among you!… In fact, the kingdom of God is among you!… The kingdom is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you!… The kingdom of God is among you.” Teacher, when is the kingdom of God coming. “The kingdom of God is among you.”

            Some would suggest that Jesus’ reference here is to himself. “I am standing here among you. I am with you. The kingdom is among you.” But that is never enough in Luke. The gospel of Luke and the kingdom of God. “Jesus said to [the crowds] ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose’ (4:43)… Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God (8:1)…Jesus sent the [twelve] out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal (9:2)…[the crowds] followed him, and Jesus welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God (9:11)…You know this, Jesus said, the kingdom of God has come near (10:11)… Strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given you as well (12:31)…. , in fact, Jesus said, the kingdom of God is among you!.”

The gospel of Luke and the kingdom of God. The little children, to such belongs the kingdom of God. Receive the kingdom of God like a little child. Rejoicing when the lost sheep is found, when the lost coin is found, when the lost son is found. The kingdom of God. When one leper comes back to say thank you. When the crippled woman is healed. When the daughter of Jairus is restored to life. When the woman anointed Jesus and bathed his feet with her tears. The kingdom of God. Good news brought to the poor. The captives let go. The sight of the blind restored. The oppressed set free. The kingdom of God. The blind man heard. The lawyer told to go and show mercy. To do likewise. Martha encouraged not to be distracted by so many things. The one who prays constantly so as not to lose heart. The tax collector who cries out to God: Lord, be merciful to be for I am a sinner. The kingdom of God. It’s not like “whomp there it is” and “whomp there it is”, Jesus says. No, the kingdom is among you. Receive the kingdom. Live the kingdom. Serve the kingdom.  Be…..be the kingdom of God. “For in fact, the kingdom of God is among you!”

            A woman dropped in to the church office a few weeks ago and asked to see the priest. That’s usually not a good sign in a Presbyterian church. She wanted me to sign a petition. She was convinced that the world was going to end in a world war III unless all the people returned to God. And the way to do that was to dig up the Ark of the Covenant which, she said was buried in Ireland on grounds now owned by a particular Roman Catholic order. The petition was asking the order to allow the group to which the woman belonged to dig for the Ark of the Covenant. In the brief conversation, she also expressed a whole lot of hatred and judgement on all the sinners, unbelievers, heretics which, she was quickly realizing, included me. She left abruptly but politely when I told her I did not agree that the King James bible was the only true anointed and inspirited bible. A church member quicker than me pointed out that I should have told her that the Ark of the Covenant was somewhere in a warehouse owned by the US government like Indiana Jones told all of us.

In our generation, maybe in every generation since Jesus walked that way from Galilee to Jerusalem, and maybe in every generation before, for that matter,  but in our generation the people most fascinated with the great cosmic day of judgement are driven by their own judgment and bitterness and distaste for sinners, unbelievers and heretics. Or perhaps better said, people who don’t belief like them, look like them, agree with them. Because when you are so obsessed and fueled by judgement, whether it is yours or you think it is God’s, you have completely forgotten what Jesus said about the kingdom.

Here’s how Luke 17 ought to be read. Here’s how not to forget what Jesus taught about the kingdom of God.  The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. But, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you. They will say to you, “look there or look here.” Do not set off in pursuit. For the kingdom of God is among you. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.  But in fact, the kingdom of God is among you. It will all be just like the days of Noah, and the days of Lot, and one will taken and one will be left and they will all ask “Where Lord” When, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you. Where the corpse is, there the vultures always will gather. But you, as for you, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.

So stop worrying about judgement, live the kingdom of God. There’s nothing you can do about it. You won’t know when. You won’t know where when it comes to judgement. Serve the kingdom. The Great Day of Judgement. Jesus can talk that talk. Jesus can join in that theological language game of signs and symbols. But the call of Jesus Christ on our lives is not be a judgement people full of fear. It is to be a kingdom people full of joy and love.

Instead of looking for it here, looking for it there, why not just live for it now. Living the kingdom of God. So that when someone else is looking here and there and everywhere, when someone else is waiting, they might just see a glimpse of it, a bit of it, a small piece of it, in you. The kingdom of God is among you. Receive, live, serve, be…..be the kingdom of God.

Luke 13:22-30
David A. Davis
March 31, 2019
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A few weeks ago I sat in Miller Chapel over at Princeton Seminary and listened to James Forbes give a lecture. James Forbes was the pastor at the Riverside Church in New York City. He taught preaching at Union Seminary, New York. He has written several books, including a few on preaching. He has been an important preacher, speaker, leader for a generation both in the church and the academy. During that time he has been one of the most revered and respected and listened to African American preachers. The other day he was giving a lecture but he was preaching it. He was bringing it. He is in his mid 80’s and he can still bring it. I could listen to Jim Forbes preach for hours. His content that afternoon was quite autobiographical. He told of two specific occasions in his life, two times of discernment when he heard God speaking to him, with clarity, specificity, and certainty. One was in hotel room somewhere in the Midwest when he was there for a preaching gig. The other was on Delta airlines flight to Atlanta. He acknowledged to us he had some Pentecostal roots though he is ordained a Baptist and in the United Church of Christ and has a very progressive theological perspective. But he made no apologies for his spirituality and his experience and his sure confidence that God spoke so clearly to him. Nor should he, of course.
God’s voice waking him from a nap on a plane. God speaking to him on his knees by his bedside in a hotel room, first with the cadence of clap and then telling him the words that went with that clap. Now, I don’t know what to do with that. I can’t wrap my head around that. His experience of God doesn’t really compute in my brain, in my spirituality, in my theological world view, in my relationship with God. Oh, I believe God has led me, moved me, walked with me, comforted me, guided me, but never like that. I don’t know what to do with that. But can I tell you, I could listen to and learn from and be fed by James Forbes preaching….for hours. The best preaching is more than just something to wrap your head around.

This sermon from Jesus in the 13th chapter of Luke? This teaching of Jesus as he went from one town and village after another on his way from Galilee to Jerusalem? This answer to the question, “Lord, will only a few be saved?”, yet another question asked of Jesus as he set his face to go to Jerusalem, to go to Golgotha, to go to the cross? This preaching of Jesus I just read to you, I can’t wrap my head around it. I can’t just figure it out. All these snippets he drops there in a village along the way, these bits and pieces of hyperbolic, apocalyptic phrases that he quotes and utters in other places all through the gospels, here in this town Luke records that Jesus mashes more than few all together. Jesus and his apocalyptic mash up.

The narrow door. “For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.” What? The door of the house is shut. The owner of the house responds to the knock, “I do not know where you come from.” Jesus? Weeping and gnashing of teeth “when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out.” Wait! Stop! “Then, people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God!” Well, I didn’t expect that communion table promise to be tucked in here! “Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

And my head explodes, and Jesus drops the mic and walks away with a smile either on his face or in his soul. Because you and I don’t know what to do with all that, can’t figure it out, can’t wrap our heads around it. For sure the crowds in the village town along the way, the crowds, and the Pharisees and certainly the disciples, they didn’t know what to do with it either. And spoiler alert? The takeaway from this sermon, my sermon, the point of the sermon when it comes to this question in Luke? Nobody can wrap their head around this teaching from Jesus, and that’s the whole point!

This isn’t the only time Jesus the preacher goes off, walks up to the line and steps over, brings the heat. Its not the only time and its not the first time. Think “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if you eye cause you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown in hell, where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.” Jesus offers that riff several times in Mark and Matthew. In fact, it’s in the Sermon on the Mount!

The question “will only a few be saved” should be heard in the context of constant, unchanging anthropological craving to be right. Within the Jewish communities of the first century, the banter, the disagreement, the insistence on this way or that, the rabbinical arguments about ritual practice, the certainty of some and the anxiety of others….all of it about being right, and being in, and being saved, it would all sound very familiar to us 21st century Christians trying to live a life of discipleship. It would have all had the same feel as the nastiest of intramural, Christian theological debate, and accusation, and yes, hate. Way before one gets to the question of other faith groups, know that this question is much closer, way closer, to home. “Lord, will only a few be saved?” Perhaps more accurately, existentially, “Jesus, what about me?

And Jesus goes off on the narrow door. The shut door. The ‘I don’t know you’ door. The glass door where others are getting in and you are not. And then the open door/table: “People will come from east and west, from north and south…”. That poor questioner of Jesus. The questioner must have pushed a button or something. The same button the disciples couldn’t stop themselves from pushing, especially when Jesus would talk about his betrayal, his suffering, his death: arguing about which one them was the greatest (Luke 9), disputing right up until the end about which one was the greatest (Luke 22), James and John asking for the favor of having the best seats of honor in glory (Mark), and even worse, their mother asking for James and John to have the best seats of honor in the kingdom (Matthew). “Jesus, what about me?”

The best preaching is more than just something to wrap your head around. Sometimes it unsettles the heart, and disturbs the soul, and shakes up your life. Communicating the challenge of the gospel of Jesus Christ: it can be, it ought to be unsettling, disturbing, and life-shaking. Nobody can wrap their head around what Jesus is saying because he isn’t just giving them something to think about. He is calling them to a life of servant-hood. He is calling them to a life of discipleship where “Jesus, what about me?” isn’t even in the vocabulary. He is calling them to a life inspired by the sense that their salvation is more than just something to wait for. He is calling them join in God’s effort to change the world now; to live like the kingdom of God is at hand now. He is confronting them with the notion that God is up to something that is so much bigger than them, so beyond them, so in spite of them, so because of them, that they will never be able to simply wrap their head around it. God help us all, if the teaching and preaching of Jesus is just something to think about, just something we think about. The gospel of Jesus Christ ought to be unsettling, disturbing, and life-shaking enough that you start to live like it.

Unsettled, disturbed, and a bit shaken is how to feel when you read almost every one of Flannery O’Conner’s short stories. The other day in staff devotions, our staff small group, when we were talking about Luke 13, O’Conner’s short stories came up. We were talking about a few them including an unsettling and disturbing one called “Revelation”. “Revelation” is the story of of Ruby Turpin and a visit along with husband to a doctor’s waiting room. Mrs. Turpin is a self-described devout church going woman married to a farmer. She is a woman so full of hatred, disrespect, and mean thoughts that she almost can’t help herself in despising just about everyone for the sake of feeling better about herself. Her descriptions of the other individuals and families in the waiting room are hard to read and what is said and thought about African Americans, let us say it is very real and yes, harder to read.

She becomes obsessed with a young woman reading a book sitting with her mother. She describes her as “the ugly girl” and assumes all sorts of hideous things about her. Turns out the young woman is a student from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She likes to read and gives her mother quite the attitude with a little bit of back talk. Mrs. Turpin and the college student’s mother start talking about her in the third person like she isn’t even in the room- the attitude, the lack of discipline, the sense of entitlement. Mrs. Turpin kept going about how it’s not too much to expect someone to smile once in a while and be grateful. “If it’s one thing I am,” Mrs. Turpin said…. “It’s grateful. When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, a little of everything, and a good disposition besides, I just feel like shouting, ‘Thank you, Jesus, for making everything the way it is!’ It could have been different!” Flannery O’Conner writes.

At which point the Wellesley student throws her book and hits Mrs. Turpin smack in the head and lunges for her with her hands around her neck. After she is restrained and then sedated, the young woman looks Mrs. Turpin right in the face and says “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.” As the short story ends, Mrs. Turpin is haunted and taunted by the insult or maybe truth telling of “the ugly girl”. She begins to think it was a message from God directed straight at her; and maybe it was? As she is watering her own hogs back at the farm, telling herself and telling God over and over that she is not an old wart hog, she has a vision of heaven.

Flannery O’Conner describes it like this, “At last [Ruby] lifted her head. There was only a purple streak in the sky, cutting through a field of crimson and leading, like an extension of the highway, into the descending dusk. She raised her hands from the side of the pen in a gesture hieratic and profound. A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were tumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black [people] in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They, alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces even their virtues were being burned away. She lowered hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed unblinkingly on what lay ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained where she was. At length she got down and turned off the faucet and in her slow way on the darkening path to the house. In woods around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah.”

You and I are called to a life in Christ where the question is not “Jesus, what about me?”. The question is “how can I love my neighbor?” A life in Christ that worries less about wrapping the mind around texts and teaching and concepts and worries more about how to do better at putting others first. A life in Christ where the arms are not so cramped from patting oneself on the back that embracing the stranger, and taking up a child, and welcoming a prodigal home just can’t happen. A life in Christ that doesn’t make an idol out of being right while forgetting about being kind. A life in Christ that is so confident of a seat in the kingdom while never giving up a seat on the bus. A life in Christ with more care for eternity than any concern for the poor. A life in Christ that doesn’t perfect thinking about Jesus and neglect living for Jesus.

Sometimes this all, all of it, it ought to be unsettling, disturbing, and life-shaking enough that you start to live your life like the gospel of Jesus Christ depends on it.

Luke 10:38-42
David A. Davis
March 24, 2019
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Jesus does not often call people by name. When you stop and think about, it is actually very rare in the four gospels, a rare occasion Jesus calls someone by name. You will remember that when Andrew brought Simon Peter to Jesus, Jesus said “You are Simon, son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). That is in John’s Gospel. It’s also in John’s gospel when Jesus calls the dead man out of the tomb. “Lazarus, come out!” And then there is that unforgettable resurrection morning scene inside the tomb when the Risen Jesus calls her by name. “Mary”. That’s also in John.

Here in Luke, it happens even less. Jesus calling someone by name. Yes, many of the people who encounter Jesus along the way, the ones Jesus heals, those he teaches, the folks who call out it or talk to him, they are most often nameless. And maybe the oral traditions of antiquity and those first scribes, maybe the use of a name was just not all that conventional in reporting dialogue. I don’t know. But I do know that it just doesn’t happen very often. Jesus calling someone by name. Jesus using someone’s name. There was the short guy up in the tree. “Zacchaeus, hurry up and come down”, Jesus said as he invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house. That’s in Luke. One time in Luke when Jesus was in a Pharisee’s house, a woman labeled in the gospel as a sinner bathed Jesus feet with ointment and her tears. The Pharisee, the owner of the house, was not pleased and said out loud that Jesus should have known better, known better than to have a woman “like her” touch him. Jesus said “Simon, I have something to say to you.” The Pharisee’s name was Simon and Jesus went on to tell Simon that she, as opposed to Simon, had shown great love and that any sins of hers were forgiven.

That last night, the last night Jesus was with his disciples, not surprisingly, a few more names come from the lips of Jesus. “Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?” And the exchange with Peter about his upcoming, three-peat denial, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day until you have denied three times that you know me”, that exchange begins with what is a strong and often forgotten word of encouragement from Jesus to Peter: “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when you have turned back, you strengthen your brothers.” Simon, Simon. Jesus doesn’t use names all that often and here, only in Luke, Jesus repeats Simon Peter’s name twice. That’s not a rebuke, it’s a word of encouragement. It’s a promise. It’s a plea. Simon, Simon.

“Martha, Martha”, Jesus said. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Martha, Martha. It’s a word of encouragement. It’s a promise. It’s a plea. Martha, Martha.

I have told the congregation before and it has been shared a few times in the children’s time that I have used the same study bible for my preaching life my entire ministry. I’ve had to get a new one a few times, for wear and tear and when the New Revised Version came out. But these three, exact same bibles have been it. Of course I use all kinds of resources, read other versions, and email bible scholar Nassau members on a regular basis. My own living breathing library as it were. But I am here to tell you that it may be time for this creature of habit to make a change. This one footnote that I am about to read to you from my study bible might just drive this preacher to make a change after more than 30 years.

Footnote, verse 42; the verse that begins “Martha, Martha”. “With delegate ambiguity Jesus rebuked Martha’s choice of values; a simple meal (one dish) is sufficient for hospitality. Jesus approved Mary’s preference for listening to his teaching contrasted with Martha’s unneeded acts of hospitality (the more usual woman’s role).” Let me be more precise regarding Jesus’ response earlier in Luke to Simon the Pharisee concerning the woman who anointed his feet. “Turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with anointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.”  Jesus had to have known that Martha, with her hospitality, was showing him just as much love as Mary. It’s not a rebuke. It’s a word of encouragement. It’s a promise. It’s a plea. Martha, Martha.

My current study published in 1991 lists more than 30 current contributors, including those who contributed to prior edition. In that list of more than 30 biblical scholars there are two women (and I checked on Leslie, Carey, Pheme and Burke). 2 out of 30. 1991. And if there was someone of color, I would be surprised. So yes, that footnote was written by a man. That footnote that illustrates the lasting domination on biblical scholarship of people who look and identify like me. People who from their perspective and innate bias decided and pretty much convinced readers of the New Testament ever since that Jesus rebuked Martha and her “choice of values”.  It’s not a rebuke. It’s a word of encouragement. It’s a promise. It’s a plea. Martha, Martha.

In her 2002 book on prayer, Anne Lamott writes this: “…the breath, the glory, the goodness of God- [are] given. Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds….Sometimes- oh, just once in a blue moon—I resist being receptive to God’s generosity, because I’m busy with a project and trying to manipulate Him or Her into helping me with it, or with getting my toys fixed or any major discomfort to pass. But God is not a banker or a bean counter. God gives us even more, which is so subversive. God gives, to us, to you and me, I mean, look at us! Yikes. God keeps giving, forgiving, and inviting us back. My friend Tom says this is a scandal and that God has no common sense.”

There in the book Anne Lamott shares one of her own prayers. “Hi God, I am just a mess. It is all hopeless. What else is new? I would be sick of me, if I were you, but miraculously You are not. I know I have no control over other people’s lives, and I hate this. Yet, I believe that if I accept this and surrender, You will meet me wherever I am. Wow. Can this be true? If so, how is this afternoon, say two-ish? Thank You in advance for Your company and your blessings. You have never let me down. Amen.”

Martha, Martha.

On Thursday, the second week of Lent, our Nassau Lenten devotional was written by a church member who is now many weeks into his inpatient treatment for leukemia at the Cancer Institute at Robert Wood Johnson. The devotionals were written and turned in a long time ago. In this case, before his diagnosis. His devotional was on Psalm 27:13, “I believe I shall see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living.” “This verse strike s me as entirely appropriate for the world in which we live”, he writes. “As we move through our days that are filled with conflict and vitriol on so many levels, it can be easy to lose sight of our continual need to seek, find, and enjoy the goodness of the Lord….Sometimes, we need to be reminded to slow down and be patient as we “wait for the Lord”. If we do, wonderful things are possible and our faith will be rewarded….Help us, Lord, as we seek the peace only you can provide. Help us to be patient an to see your goodness in the land of the living. Amen.”

Martha, Martha.

In her short novel “Gilead”, Marilynne Robinson writes of a Presbyterian minister, John Ames and a letter he wrote to his son as he knew his own life was coming to end. “Today was the Lord’s Supper, and I preached on Mark 14:22….Normally I would not preach on the Words of Institution themselves when the sacrament is the most beautiful illumination of them there could be. But I have been thinking a great deal about the body these last weeks. Blessed and broken…I wanted to talk about the gift of physical particularity and how blessing and sacraments are mediated through it. I have been thinking lately how I have loved my physical life. In any case, and you may remember this, when almost everyone had left and the elements were still on the table and the candles were still burning, your mother brought you up the aisle and said, ‘you ought to give him some of that.’ You’re too young [right now] but she was completely right. Body of Christ, broken for you. Blood of Christ, shed for you. Your solemn and beautiful child face lifted up to receive these mysteries at my hands. They are the most wonderful mystery, body and blood.”

Martha, Martha.

Just Monday of this week I attended a funeral at the Jewish Center of Princeton officiated by my friend Rabbi Feldman. The funeral was for the father of a very close friend of our 25 year old son, Ben. Mike was my age and died very suddenly in Florida. He was a father of four, really loved, and well known in town. He had run half marathon not long ago. There were so many people at the service. Tons of young adults. Friends of the four kids. Friends from growing up, friends from college, friends from work. And lots of parents of those friends too. As I sat and listened to each of the four kids speak through their grief and tell everyone how much they loved their dad and how certain they were of their father’s love for them, I thought to myself: every father around my age in this room is thinking just like me. We were all thinking of our own mortality and what our children would say about us.

Martha. Martha.

Thursday I had a particularly long day. I had a bit of time before the Session meeting so I went from my office down to Niles Chapel determined to remember a song I learned to play and sing when I was in high school. It is the song I played and sang at my wife Cathy’s ordination to Word and Sacrament. I’ve long since lost the music and I mostly play by ear anyway. But for several years I would sit down at the piano and only get part way through. It took me a few tries, more than a few tries, but I finally got it. I finally remembered it; both the piano part and the words. If you’ve never had the chance to sit in Niles Chapel all by yourself, you ought to try it one day. The song goes like this, “Slow down, slow down, be still, Be still and hear God’s voice. Be still and know that God is God.”

Martha, Martha.

The rock, blues singer Van Morrison has a song called “When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God.”

You brought it to my attention
That everything that was made in God
Down through centuries of great writings and paintings
Everything was in God
Seen through architecture of great cathedrals
Down through the history of time
Is and was in the beginning and evermore
Shall ever be

When will I ever learn to live in God?
When will I ever learn?
He gives me everything I need and more
When will I ever learn?

And up on the hillside it’s quiet
Where the shepherd is tending his sheep
And over the mountains and the valleys
And the countryside is so green
Standing on the highest hill with a sense of wonder
You can see everything is made in God
Head back down the roadside
And give thanks for it all

When will I ever learn to live in God?
When will I ever learn?
He gives me everything I need and more
When will I ever learn?

Martha, Martha. It’s not a rebuke. It never was. In Luke, Jesus only rebukes demons and evil spirits. Demons, evil spirits, and James and John when they wanted to rain fire down on the Samaritans. Demons, evil spirits, James and John. Not Martha.

Martha, Martha.  It’s a word of encouragement. It’s a promise. It’s a plea. For Martha and for you and for me.

Luke 10: 25-37
Youth
March 17, 2019
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Luke 9: 51-56
David A. Davis
March 10, 2019
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“He set his face to go to Jerusalem”. Jesus set his face. Set his face. Like the look of a four year old child who sets her face on not eating her peas? Maybe. Like a lover of art who stands before a painting centuries old mesmerized for what seems like hours in the museum? Maybe. Like a grandmother and a grandchild sitting at the card table pouring over piece after piece because the visit ends tomorrow and the puzzle has to be finished? Like the icy stare across the table as one member of the couple listens to the feeble list of excuses from the other who was late yet again to the dinner out. Maybe.

“He set his face to go to Jerusalem”.  In the family drama of the Book of Genesis, at one point Jacob and Rachel steal from her father Laban and sneak away in what seems like the middle of the night. The narrator reports that Jacob took all that he had, crossed the Euphrates and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead. He was running away. Set his face. Isaiah, the prophet, in seeking to express his confidence in God’s help and strength and protection, the prophet says, “The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint and I know that shall not be put to shame.” Set his face. Ezekiel, telling of how the Word of the Lord spoke to him and sent him with a message of God’s judgement on the people of Israel: “The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, set your face toward Jerusalem and preach against the sanctuaries; prophecy against the land of Israel.”  Set your face.

            A bunch of the English translations say that Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”  Resolutely. Like my father who would announce in the first few minutes of a car trek across the PA Turnpike from Pittsburgh to the shore: “Don’t drink too much because we’re only stopping at Breezewood!” Or the well-worn business traveler who steels herself time after time with the same routine, same headphones, same face way before even getting to the TSA line. Resolutely. For Jesus, it had to be more than “resolutely.” He wasn’t even going to the easiest, quickest, most common way down from Galilee to Jerusalem. If he just wanted to get there, resolutely, he would have gone along the Jordan River like everyone else.

But he took them down through Samaria. Luke tells that “they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” They knew his face was set. Maybe those messengers who went ahead just came in shouting: “Jesus is coming and his face is set for Jerusalem!” Or maybe there were signs, “Jerusalem or bust!” It’s not like they would been wearing special clothes for the festival once they got to Jerusalem, if there were such a thing. They still had a long way to go! Maybe it is that simple, they just told everybody where they were going. Or maybe… it’s a whole lot more insidious than that, this Jews and Samaritan thing.

The animosity, the mistrust, the arguments, the disagreements, how many generations now? The northern-southern distaste for one another. The Samaritans believed the holiest of temples was there in the north, at Mt. Gerizim. Think Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” For the Jews, it was all about Jerusalem. This rivalry, this feud, this hatred and bitterness, it’s more like an intramural, almost in-house drama, a theological-geographical disagreement that’s deep in the blood. Not between one faith and another. Not like early Christians and the pagans, or believers and atheists. Jews and Samaritans; it was all a lot closer than that, a family feud. And you know, sometimes, that can be a whole lot worse. The Samaritans just knew the people in the traveling party were Jewish, and they knew where they were headed, and they didn’t like it one bit.

It’s like an old New Yorker, a Met and Jet fan, running into a long-lost, much younger, second or third cousin twice removed somewhere in one of the boroughs on the morning of baseball’s Opening Day. That distant relative sees the old family member he hasn’t seen in years, and he makes the mistake of unzipping his jacket, showing the jersey, and telling the old man he was going to Yankee Stadium for the game. The young guy, whatever generation he was, was a Yankee fan. He converted. He strayed.  It’s not going to be pretty.

No, the Samaritans were not going to receive Jesus ‘because his face was set to go to Jerusalem.” Of course, Jesus knew that. That wasn’t messianic-like knowledge, everybody would have known it. And he still went that more difficult way toward Jerusalem. They still went on to another nearby village. They still stopped in other places along the way. In what comes next in Luke, right in the beginning of chapter 10, Jesus sends seventy followers out in pairs to every town and place where he was going to go along the way. He told them to offer a word of peace on every house and eat what is set before you and heal the sick and announce the kingdom of God is near. If they don’t welcome you, shake off the dust, wipe of the dust that clings to your feet and tell them again that the kingdom of God is near. Then Jesus says to the 70, ‘I tell you, on that day, it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.”

            Now Jesus, that sort of sounds like commanding fire to come down from heaven and consume them, right? Which is just what James and John said there at the first stop. Right out of the shoot, when the Samaritans would not receive Jesus and the traveling party to Jerusalem, James and John invoked the memory of the prophet Elijah who more than once commanded fire to come down from heaven. No breathing peace on this house. No going high when they go low. No announcing the kingdom is near and moving on. They went all in for the bitter, bloodthirsty, judgmental, generations old, stereotyped, dividing lines drawn deep within, historic Protestant-Catholic like hate-filled, always trying to demonize what and who is other, family feud.

And Jesus rebuked them. In Luke, a rebuke from Jesus is usually reserved for the demons and the unclean spirits. Just back in chapter 8, when Jesus and disciples were in the boat and the storm blew in, and the disciples got so scared, Luke tells that Jesus “woke up and rebuked the wind the raging waves.” Demons, unclean spirits, and the storm. This is the only time in Luke when Jesus rebukes any of the disciples. In fact, the only other rebuke from Jesus in any of the four gospels directed at the disciples is in Mark when Jesus rebuked Peter who had rebuked Jesus when Jesus was talking about this way to the cross, his suffering and his death.

James and John want revenge on the Samaritans. Jesus rebukes them. James and John want a win, a victory over the Samaritans. Jesus rebukes them. James and John opt for self-righteous judgment and want to decide who is in and who is out, and who is worthy and who is not, their way or the highway. Jesus rebukes them. Because of course, judgement belongs to God alone. It was Jesus who refers to Sodom in his instructions to the 70, not James or John or Peter or the disciples or the 70, or the church fathers, or the Reformers, or the tradition, or this preacher or that.  It was Jesus. It was the Apostle Paul who wrote, “Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right of God, who intercedes for us.” (Rom 8).

James and John take one huge step in the direction of their own judgement and Jesus offers a stark, quick, sharp, unique and pretty much solitary rebuke that should have echoed with a piercing clarity forever and ever down the halls of history in the Christian Church. James and John and their first step into the ever-present, unrelenting, downright sinful judgementalism of Christianity that has haunted the followers of Jesus ever since. The self-absorbed self-righteousness arrogance of James and John and the apparently forgotten there after rebuke of Jesus.

“He set his face to go to Jerusalem”. He is certainly not running away as the days of his suffering and death drew near, the days for him to be taken up. Though he must have thought about it that night in the Garden. And he was more, a lot more then resolute. Yes, his face set with confidence in God’s strength. Yes, his face set with his own selfless determination along the way of the cross, this Lukan beginning to the extended via dolorosa. Yes, his face set with the knowledge like that of an only son, God’s only Son, knowledge of God’s judgment on the broken sinfulness of humankind, a judgment and brokenness that breaks his own heart. His face was set for Jerusalem. ‘This is my body broken my you. This is blood shed for you… for the forgiveness of sins.”

            I was sitting in the noon service on Ash Wednesday here in Niles Chapel. I was sitting next to a church member and her young son. Charlie told me after the service he was this old (3 or 4). At one point in worship, Andrew Scales led us in prayer from the communion table. As I started to lean forward, lower my head, and close my eyes, my seat neighbor, she opened her hands in her lap in a posture of prayer. It’s not an uncommon posture for prayer but it struck me because that’s how my wife Cathy holds her hands in prayer. Then I thought about how infrequent Cathy and get to worship together next to each other. Before I could nudge myself back to Andrew’s offering of that prayer before the Lord’s Supper, little Charlie leaned over and buried his head in his mother’s hands open for prayer. He set his face right in her hands. He set his face right in her prayer.  A child’s face buried in the prayer and unconditional love of his mother as all three of us were about to taste and see the unconditional love and grace of God in Christ Jesus. It was beautiful.

There must have been some of that in Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem; Confident in God’s strength. Selfless determination. An awareness of  humanity’s plight and the healing salve of his dying love. All of that, along with burying himself in the hands of God, the unconditional love and grace of God. He set his face. And here at this Table, Christ himself offers you this beautiful invitation, to just bury your face, your whole self in his unconditional love and grace.

I don’t know about you, but some days, maybe most days, I’m right there with James and John on that first step of the ever-present, unrelenting, downright sinful judgementalism of my Christian faith and the only thing I know to do, maybe the only thing we can do, the most healing, repentant, transforming thing we can do, is to throw ourselves in the open hands of our Savior.

My body broken for you.

My blood shed for you.

For the forgiveness of sins.