Acts 11:1-18
David A. Davis
May 15, 2022
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It couldn’t have been the last time Peter told that story. The story of the vision: a large sheet coming down from heaven full of four-footed animals, the voice tell Peter to get up, and kill and eat, another denial from Peter, “by no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth”, the voice repeating three times “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  But its not just a story about the vision. Peter goes on to tell the circumcised believers in Jerusalem about the Spirit telling him to go with the men from Caesarea and to “not make a distinction between them and us” and the visit to a man’s house and the Holy Spirit falling upon the Gentiles in  the house, Peter concludes the story of what happened to him by saying “If then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God.”

“Who was I that could hinder God”. It couldn’t have been the last time Peter used that sermon illustration. In fact, it’s not the first time the reader of the Acts of the Apostles has encountered the illustration of the sheet, the animals, the voice, and the boundary shatter trip to Caesarea. Just before Peter goes up to Jerusalem here in chapter 11, Luke records what happened to Peter in pretty fine detail. It takes up the entire 10^th chapter, all 48 verses. The Gentile who summoned for Peter is identified as Cornelius. In a vision, an angel of God tells Cornelius to send for Peter in Joppa. Chapter 10 then tells of Peter’s vision pretty much in the exact words that Peter uses when he tells it in chapter 11. The chapter concludes with Peter preaching. “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” Proclaiming Christ crucified and Christ risen. The Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. Peter had the whole household baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And they invited him to stay for several stays.

The story of Peter and Cornelius takes up a lot of New Testament space. I mean that both literally here on the page and more importantly, theologically, The witness of the gospel and the boundless reach of God’s grace. The exhortation that what God has made clean, you must not call profane. That conversation with God, according to Peter, happened three times. Here in Act, Luke tells the reader about it twice. A six-fold affirmation that God has shown that no one is excluded from God’s love. Acts 10 and 11; it is an example of the old preacher’s adage. Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you just told them. There is no distinction between them and us and who are me to hinder God.

No, it could not have been the last time Peter used that sermon illustration. Because it never gets old. A story that embodies the promising stretch of the gospel never gets old. A first hand account of the always challenging, often annoyingly persistent push of God’s grace never gets old. A lived word proclamation of the unsettling impartiality of God never gets old. A memorable step by step witness that exhorts the followers of Jesus to stop hindering God when it comes to the idolatry of “us and them” never gets old. It never gets old, not because Peter’s vision and his telling of it is so captivating, certainly not because it has a compelling literary efficiency like some of the parables of Jesus, and not because it has the heart-warming comfort of a timeless bedtime story.

No, the story of Peter and Cornelius never gets old because the people of God, then, now, and pretty much always, never seem to get it. The visions told may sound like the strange old world of the bible. Talk of the Holy Spirit falling upon all who heard, and the Spirit telling someone to do something and to think something, that might all seem strange to our post-modern ears. But what is timeless and hits oh so close to home, is the reason Peter dropped in the sermon illustration at all. Luke’s first telling of the story in chapter 10 concludes with the newly baptized Gentiles inviting Peter to stay for several days. Chapter 11 begins like this: “Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with THEM?”

What seems to upset the Jewish believers in Jerusalem the most is not that the Gentiles accepted the word of God, or even that Peter had baptized them. It was that he went and ate with them. You can almost hear their disgust. You imagine their look. “Why did you go and eat with them?’ Of course, it wasn’t “them. It was Cornelius and his household. So, Peter began to explain it them, step by step. He told them his own experience of the boundless, ceaseless, tireless, matchless grace of God. What makes the whole story from Acts all the more universally understandable is that reaction to sharing meal. What really repulsed the believers in Jerusalem was the Peter ate with Cornelius. What aggravated them most was that Peter made no distinction between “them and us”. They were more upset with Peter than they were with God. Because Peter saw no distinction between Cornelius and himself.

And there is nothing about that is just the strange old world of the bible. Us and them. It is such an insidious quality of humankind that is pretty much on display everywhere and all the time. Relating to visions and hearing the voice of God may be a stretch for you and me. But everyone of us understands the tyranny of “us and them” in the world, in the nation, in our communities, and in our lives. Everyone one of us can relate to “Why did you go and eat with them?” In contrast to the unilateral, unrequested, non-mandated, unmerited, boundary shattering act of God, humanity’s sinful portrayal of anyone defined as other is relentless.

Our granddaughter Franny just turned one a few weeks ago. She attends a very small daycare that is close enough for her parents to walk to in their neighborhood. Almost every day our daughter Hannah will send us a picture or two that has been shared with her by the staff at the daycare. Of course, the texts immediately become the highlight of the day no matter we look at them or how many times we look at them. Any picture with Franny in it is priceless, but the pictures of the whole group of children are my favorite. After I stare at Franny in the picture for a long while, I take a look again at the other children. There are around ten of them, all very young. There are kids of all colors. Some of the staff only speak Spanish so I am guessing while bi-lingual even before she learns to talk. They call Franny “roja.” She doesn’t have much hair but they are convinced it will be red. The first arts and crafts project Franny brought home which has now been gift to us is the popsicle stick Star of David she painted. I am guessing there are multiple faiths and traditions represented among the children.

When you look at a picture like that of a diverse group of children, you have to heave a sigh and say to yourself, “that’s the way it should be; that’s what God intends”. Not just the diversity but the innocence of friendship and acceptance before all everyone else and everything else in the world creeps in. God knows you want them all to grow up and be healthy and thrive but if you could just preserve, save, multiply just a little of that. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

The people of God don’t have the luxury of allowing “them” to become a four-letter word. As if life in the community of faith were a cable news show where a liberal leaning host invites a gun advocate on just to excoriate him and make fun of him. Or as if being a faith leader today grants you the authority to pronounce that all who disagree with you on important matters are going to hell; a sort of church sanctioned demonization of “them.” As if we Presbyterians, steeped in the tradition where people of good conscience can disagree about important things, as if we could ever settle for the rhetoric of our life together being shaped by two people on television trying to talk over one another, or radio talk shows intended only for like-minded listeners, or a two party political system that has elevated “us and them” to an apocalyptic, scorched earth way of life. I’m not sure there is any room for “them” (the term “them” with all the scandalous and disgusted tone I can muster intentionally left dripping from the word), I’m not sure there is any room for “them” in the Body of Christ. The sermon illustration will never, ever get old.  The sermon illustration about “them” in scripture, in the New Testament Church, Because it wasn’t about “them”, it was no longer “them”, it was Cornelius.

We remain committed to it and stand for it and live into it because of God; the grace of God, the unpredictable grace of God, the wondrous grace of God. The prevenient grace of God. The unearned grace of God. The undeserved grace of God. The grace of God that is new every morning, new every morning. The grace we celebrate every with each and every baptism.

There is no room for “them” in the Body of Christ. I mean that word that comes with all the intended sinful disdain of humanity’s collective use of the term. God is so much greater than our hearts (I John). “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians). “The gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on them” (Acts). The unilateral, unrequested, non-mandated, unmerited, boundary shattering act of God.

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John 20:19-31 [i]
Lauren J. McFeaters
April 24, 2022
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Let’s start with the grief.

We meet the disciples. It is Easter night, but for them it’s still Good Friday. They know Jesus’ body is no longer in the tomb; there’s  murmurings that Jesus has been seen; and rumors the Romans are coming for them. They huddle in a secret room traumatized and shattered.

We might expect the disciples would be celebrating. Instead, we find them huddled behind locked doors. They are afraid for their own lives, fearful of uncertain futures. I think in their heartache, the disciples are also fearful of Jesus.

They’ve failed him so miserably. Peter has denied him, they’ve all deserted him; abandoned him. Perhaps the last person they want to meet is Jesus, risen from the dead to confront them with their failures.

So they’ve locked themselves in and him out.

But here he comes to stand among his friends. A tomb can’t keep him in. A bolted door can’t keep him out. He undresses. He reveals his damaged body: his injuries, his lacerations, where he was impaled, torn hands, shredded feet.

Have you ever met anyone who is locked in?

You don’t have to knock very hard, on any door, of any heart, to find someone who won’t let themselves out.

Have you ever been locked in? Locked in or locked out? Apparently, Jesus hasn’t.

There are no walls thick enough to block the entry of the Risen Christ. Joining the disciples in the safe house, he comes to them as no apparition, no ghost, no vision who pops in for a visit to say all is well.

He comes to his grieving and panicked friends with a simple: “Peace be with you.”

It’s also translated as “Shalom.”

Shalom is a multidimensional word. Rabbi Adam Feldman[ii] taught me about Shalom. He said Shalom means completeness, tranquility, wholeness, health. Shalom is a spirit is of wellbeing, safety, soundness. Its heart is fullness, rest, and harmony. Its root is to be perfect and full.

“Shalom be with you,” says Jesus.

• The Peace that passes all understanding, be with you.
• Shalom will keep your hearts and your minds in me.
• Peace and I give you rest.
• Shalom and you will find stillness for your souls.
• My Peace I leave with you. My shalom I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you…”

And Thomas misses the whole darn thing.

“We have seen the Lord,” they bellow. But Thomas is not persuaded. Thomas is not convinced. “Unless.” “Unless, I see the mark of the nails in his hands and his side, I won’t believe, cannot believe, refuse to believe. Unless I see. Unless I witness. Unless.”

And of course that one statement has landed him the perpetual title of Doubting Thomas.
Mr. Cynic.
Prince of Suspicion.
Sir Thomas the Skeptic.

But that’s a misnomer. He gets a bad rap, our Thomas. We all need time to recognize the Lord. The disciples themselves didn’t recognize him until he showed them his body.

One preacher puts it like this: Thomas is first and foremost a pragmatist. We forget that when Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you and you know the way to the place where I am going,” it is Thomas the pragmatist, who replies truthfully, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know then the way?”

We forget, when Jesus speaks of going back to Jerusalem, it is Thomas who knows Jesus’ is going to his death. Thomas is no fool. He counts the cost before opening his mouth. He counts the cost before deciding. He boldly urges the others: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  Does that sound like a doubter?

These first words of shalom are no:

• band aid for grief;
• no remedy for fright;
• no medicine for terror.

Jesus’ words of peace are a balm for sorrow, but more than that, they are a promise of strength. You see the disciples locked themselves  together in fear; but they will go out together in faith.

And that kind of Shalom, the kind that Jesus breathes on us, brings a respite from our grief, a fortifying from our fear; an establishment of power in our helplessness.

It’s just like Jesus to bless us with an Upside-Down-Kingdom where his vulnerability surpasses any lingering rage we might have for a bunch of disciples who have been acting like cowards, and hide-out in a locked room. I mean get it together you bunch of wimps.

But here he comes, the exposed Jesus, who walks right in, disrobes, and in his nakedness reveals a broken body – for them: lacerations, torn skin, ripped hands, sliced feet. “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

• My shroud is gone, now take off yours.
• My tomb is behind me, now come out of yours.
• No more hiding, no more burial, no more shame, no more guilt, no more regrets.

At the center of the Easter Gospel, is a great truth that Jesus Christ comes looking for us.

• And when we allow ourselves to be found;
• When we take off our shrouds and come out of our graves;
• When we let go of the embarrassment and remorse;
• When there’s no more hiding nor resistance,
• Then the walls come crumbling down;
• and the key falls out of the lock;
• The Good Shepherd comes us, his friends, his sheep, his flock:

“… so that we may come to believe …”

 

 

ENDNOTES

[i] John 20:19-31, NRSV: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After Jesus said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas who was called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

[ii] Before his death in December1999, Adam S. Feldman was the Senior Rabbi at The Jewish Center of Princeton, Princeton, New Jersey.

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Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, ©1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Luke 24:1-12
David A. Davis
April 17, 2022
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A long time ago I was sitting in a coffee shop in Princeton talking to a visiting scholar who was in town for the year on sabbatical. The professor was joining our congregation for worship each Sunday so I was looking to offer a pastoral welcome of sorts. What I didn’t expect was a conversation that changed how I thought about preaching resurrection hope. Our casual get-acquainted conversation turned challenging and intriguing for me as I listened to the scholar’s stinging critique of the church’s proclamation on Easter and at most funerals. The gist of the argument was that preaching resurrection should not sound like the content of a greeting card. Examples given ranged from preaching that denies the reality of death to sermons full of kitschy illustrations that promote the concept of immortality of the soul. Something along the lines of “he is not dead, he’s just gone to the other side of the lake to fish” is what comes to mind. I think about that conversation while writing most funeral homilies and every time Easter rolls around. Every time that scene in the coffee shop comes back to me in my study, the professor’s concluding remark both inspires and haunts me a bit in my sermon writing: “resurrection hope has to be more than whether you and I get to heaven!”

I know I am not the only pastor preaching an Easter Sunday sermon with a congregation in the room after last Easter preaching to an empty room and the year before that preaching Easter from my living room.  Resurrection proclamation via livestream with no worship participants in the sanctuary was certainly not unplugged but it was unadorned. No standing room only. No brass quartets. No choir. There were flowers that only worship leaders could smell but there was no array of Easter hats and children in bright colored new clothes. As difficult as it was for preachers (yes, it was very difficult), the opportunity to preach Easter unadorned resulted in the unexpected opportunity to ponder the promise of resurrection hope and power liberated from the church’s piety. Yes, the conviction that the promise of the resurrection of Christ is far beyond our Easter morning finery is not new. It’s just that the last few years, preachers like me have had the chance to live into it; to lean into it.

The empires of this world must thrive on Easter preaching in the church that serves up greeting card poetry and relies less on content and more on the festival worship of the morning. It is not because the powers and principalities pay much attention to the church at all. Rather, such tepid resurrection proclamation by definition nurtures the unfaithful view that separates the church from the world, faith from politics, and the life of discipleship from daily life at work, in school, at home. When Russia continues to wage war on Ukraine, someone opens fire in a crowded rush hour subway, and an unarmed black man is shot in the head by a police officer in Grand Rapids, MI, and conflict, tension, and violence is again on the rise in Israel and Palestine,  when our world, our nation, our communities have been redefined by the magnitude of suffering and death amid the pandemic, when the vitriol, hatred, and bitter division has left a stain from school board meetings to the rhetoric of the public square, when the rise of Christian nationalism wedded to white supremacy in the land  has elevated the term “culture war” to a frightening level, when families have been divided and congregations have been torn apart,,,, yes, resurrection preaching in the world, the nation, and the church these days has to be about more than whether we will all get to heaven. It has to be about living resurrection hope now!

It should never be lost on the church, on the followers of Christ, that the first ones to proclaim the resurrection were women. The women who came to the tomb early. Real early. In Luke, when Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them went to tell the others, the apostles didn’t believe them. “It seemed to them an idle tale.”  Some translations say that “they thought it was nonsense.” One paraphrase reads “they thought they were making it up”.  I bet they did some mansplaining that morning too. The women came to tell them about the resurrection and the apostles treated it like something even less than a greeting card, or a tepid nod to Jesus teaching’ that on the third day he would rise again. They thought any mention of resurrection hope, resurrection hope now, was nonsense.

Marvin McMickle is one of the best preachers, maybe the best I have ever listened to on a regular basis in my life. When I was doing my seminary internship at Central Presbyterian Church up in Montclair, he was the pastor of St. Paul Baptist church in Montclair. Many Sundays after the hour-long worship in the presbyterian church, I would go down to St Paul’s Baptist church. Worship began at the same time in both church’s but in the African American tradition of St. Paul’s, the service wasn’t even half over when I arrived.  I would slip in just as the sermon was starting and listen to Dr. McMickle preach for an hour. He just wrote an article this spring on preaching resurrection hope. He begins by telling of the two words spoken by “almost every African American preacher inside almost any African American church”: but early. He describes it as the beginning of a call and response between preacher and congregation that builds in volume and passion concluding with: but early Sunday morning He got up with all power in His hands. I googled the phrase and my computer lit up. Knowing the gospel resurrection accounts all begin “early in the morning”, it wasn’t that I didn’t believe Marvin McMickle. It was that I wanted to see if it was a line from a spiritual or something.  If it was from a spiritual I couldn’t find it. And I know it is not a quote from the gospels. But I sat in front of my computer for the next hour listening to preacher after preacher young and old, weeks ago, years ago, proclaiming to the people of God: but early…Sunday morning, He got up with all power in His hands. It was Easter morning right there in my office a few days ago!

The article is profound testimony to the importance and the vitality of resurrection hope in the African American church, African American preaching, African America spirituals, and African American life in every century in this land, including this one. When the preacher shouts “Somebody say early”, McMickle writes, what is coming next is a witness to the promise, power and presence of God that has sustained African Americans through 246 years of the hell and horror of slavery and the subsequent 156 years of segregation, Jim Crow, second class citizenship, and the sin of racism and hatred that never goes away. The preacher is writing about living resurrection now. The writer is preaching about a resurrection hope now that is about so much more than claiming your bus ticket to eternity.  To quote Dr. McMickle: “You need to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the God who had the power to raise Jesus from the dead also has the power not to let death have the last word in your life. That is why for most African Americans, the resurrection of Jesus is not something to be analyzed, debated, and disputed. It is the promise, the power, and the presence of God on full display.”

“When the women remembered Jesus words, and returning from the tomb, they told all of this to the eleven and to all the rest.” What they told them, what the apostles thought was an idle tale, just plain nonsense? They told them what the two men said while they were terrified and buried their faces in fear. “He is not here, but has risen.” The two men told them, and the women told the apostles and rest. Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! It might be the greatest preaching accomplishment of my ministry. I have been able to get Nassau Presbyterian Church to do “call and response” in a sermon. Not just on Easter, but any ordinary Sunday, whenever the preacher says Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! It may not be “But Early” but it is Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! I told you before about how years ago Noel Werner and Sue Ellen Page and I attended a worship and music conference for pastors and church musicians from all over on the campus of Calvin College. There must have been three or four hundred people in an auditorium for worship one weekday evening in January. The preacher for night said, “Christ is Risen”. Sue Ellen, Noel, and I blurted out “He is Risen Indeed!” And three or four hundred people turned to look right at us rabble-rousers! It is no small thing, seriously! No small thing that generations of worshippers in this space, all generations, from kids to seniors know by heart, know in their bones, know in their lives that you don’t have to wait for Easter morning to proclaim resurrection hope, to live resurrection hope. Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! And to know that it is more than waiting for the roll to be called up yonder one day any one of us.

Yes, Easter morning preaching in the world, the nation, and the church today, and tomorrow, and Tuesday, and every day and next year, and every year has to be about more than whether we will all get to heaven. Dr Brian Blount once said it this way in a sermon: “Live resurrection in the present like you are certain resurrection is coming in the future.” To live resurrection now is to work to make the world a better place for all people now, to sow seeds of righteousness now, and to work for justice now. For Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! To live resurrection now is to refuse to cede the promise, power and presence of God’s resurrection hope to those who use the name of Jesus to divide rather than unify, to tear down rather then build up, to condemn rather than forgive, to hate rather love. For Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! To live resurrection now is to never give up on the world you know that God intends for all God’s creation. Indeed, this old worn-out world may be really broken… but early…Sunday morning, He got up with all power in His hands.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

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Luke 1:39-56
David A. Davis
April 10, 2022
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Mary, the mother of Jesus, she had to have been there too. Mary must have been there along the winding, jagged pathway that went from the Mt of Olives, through the Garden of Gethsemane, down into the Kidron Valley, and then up the road paved with stones that went up toward one of the massive gates into the city of Jerusalem. She would have been in that crowd. The crowd Luke describes as “the whole multitude of disciples.” Mary would been there somewhere among the people, some of whom threw “their cloaks on the colt” Jesus was about to sit on. Others “kept spreading their cloaks on the road.” Mary, the mother of Jesus had to have been nearby walking with the crowd.

Luke doesn’t name Mary as being in that procession so ladened with meaning. But Mary is far from a minor character in the Gospel of Luke. To describe Mary as “not a minor character” in Luke actually just sounds silly. The young woman who was greeted by the Angel Gabriel sent by God. The one engaged to Joseph. Luke never describes Mary as being afraid in the presence of the angel. No, just perplexed, pondering, questioning, listening and answering. Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.” In the first two chapters in Luke, Mary the mother of Jesus isn’t a minor character. She pretty much is the character.

Mary is hailed by Elizabeth: “Blessed are you among women…blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”  Mary, here in Luke, is the first to give voice to the profound theologically shaped understanding of the Messiah, of messianic hope, or the very promise that is the coming realm of God. The Song of Mary. The Canticle of Mary. The Magnificat. After Jesus birth, the shepherds offer a bold witness to “the good news of great joy for all the people…born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke writes that “all were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”  But you remember Mary’s response. Not unlike her response to the Angel Gabriel, Mary’s response to the shepherd’s was one of pondering and treasuring. Luke portrays Mary at a whole other level when it comes to pondering, to understanding, to knowing what all this means.

All of it. When Mary and Joseph brought the child Jesus to the temple to fulfill the law of Moses, Simeon was guided to the Temple by the Spirit. Luke describes Simeon as “righteous and devout”. Luke tells that it was revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit “that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.” Simeon took the child Jesus into arms and praised God. “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” But he didn’t stop there as Mary and Joseph stood there amazed by what he said. Simeon blessed the family and said to Jesus’ mother Mary, “this child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

The careful reader of Luke has to know that Mary wasn’t just amazed by what Simeon said. She would have been pondering, treasuring, listening, understanding, knowing and probably, probably singing that song, her song, in her head right then and there. Simeon wasn’t the only one Mary listened in the temple that day. The prophet Anna, God bless her, she was 84 and never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer day and night. When she saw the child Jesus, she “began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Anna spoke to al, including Mary, who was on a whole other level when it came to knowing what it all meant.

Luke doesn’t tell the reader how many years later it was when Mary and Joseph lost Jesus. When they left him in the temple. When they found him in the temple. When they found Jesus “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” Everyone, including his parents were amazed and astonished. Mary, who yes, was the boy’s mother reprimanded him for wondering away and scaring them to death. The gospel reports that he was gone three days, just like Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday and the third day he rose again. “You did not know I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus, being a bit of a lippy child asked his mother. According to Luke, his parents “did not understand what he said to them.” But at this point, I am convinced Luke included Mary here to polite to Joseph and likely every oblivious father since. Because Mary knew. Mary understood. Luke can’t deny it. The last word Luke offers on Mary for the rest of the gospel comes right then after Jesus references his Father’s house. Luke writes “His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” Yes, Mary knew.

In the literary form and device of Luke’s gospel, by the end of chapter two, Mary exits stage left. It is the tradition that includes Mary among the group of women who follow Jesus along the way of the cross as the soldiers force Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross. It is the tradition that includes Mary in the group of women who had followed Jesus from Galilee who stood off at a distance watching him die in that spectacle of murder and death before a crowd that couldn’t turn away. But Mary is never named. Mary IS named in Acts, chapter 1. The Acts of the Apostles, perhaps better referred to as Luke-Acts since a consensus among scholars is that Luke wrote Acts. There in Acts 1 as the disciples gather again after the crucifixion and the resurrection Luke reports that “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”

Mary might have left the gospel stage rather early but when it comes to the life, the teaching, the ministry, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus the Son of God, our Savior, Mary’s son,  Mary never left. So yes, Mary was somewhere along that path from the Mt of Olives to Jerusalem as the crowds shouted “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Standing somewhere in that procession of paradox as shouts to a king fill the air and the Messiah on the colt is riding to his death. Mary was somewhere not far from her son, not offering shouts but more likely, shedding tears. Still singing her song through a mother’s tears. When you read Luke backwards in Lent, when you start at the crucifixion every day for forty days in Lent, you come to realize Mary’s Song is so much more than a Christmas Carol. The Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, it plays all through Luke. It is the soundtrack of Luke. It defines Luke. It is the gospel according to Luke. When you read Luke backwards, and when you detach Mary’s song just a tad from the angel Gabriel and the annunciation and all the trappings of Christmas, when you play the Magnificat on Palm Sunday, you have to share Mary’s tears. Because she knew.  Yes, Mary, “the Mighty One has done great things” for you. But you, Mary, the one who gets all this more than anyone else, you get this maybe in a way only a mother can.

Mary and her song> Her song about the Savior’s radical mercy from generation to generation. Her song about the Messiah’s strength that will scatter and mess with the hearts and minds of the oh so proud. Her song about the Son of God turning over thrones and exalting those who are the lowest on the food chain, the healthcare chain, the wealth distribution train, the generation success chain. Her song about the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God, filling the hungry, the hurting, the neediest, the most vulnerable with all good things promised in abundant life while sending the rich and powerful and the selfish and the loveless and the heartless away with empty hands left only to scratch their heads rather pat themselves on the back yet again.

Mary somewhere in that “whole multitude of disciples” weeping, still singing, knowing full well that everything in that song about her son, God’s Son, our Savior, the Messiah, was going to get him killed by the powers and forces of evil forever threatened by the last shall be first vision, and the exhortation to be a selfless servant of all, and the love your neighbor as yourself non negotiable of the very way of God revealed to us in the Gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit in and through Jesus Christ.

I was having lunch this week with Professor Eric Barreto and I asked him if he thought the content of Mary’s Song came by divine, angel imparted inspiration or as a result of her being a young woman of faith raised in the traditions and teaching of the law of Moses. That Mary would have known how in the Hebrew bible Hannah sings pretty much the same song in the Book of I Samuel as she dedicates her first son Samuel to the Lord. Divine inspiration or knowledge of the faith?  Dr. Barreto, without hesitation, pretty much said “yes”. And like Hannah, Mary was dedicating and giving her son forever to the Lord her God. Eric imagines Mary singing her song as a lullaby to the child Jesus. Her own act of faith, love, and sacrifice. What I imagine is when Jesus tells some of the Pharisees who wanted his disciples that day to stop shouting words of praise and adoration to the king, when Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out,” I imagine those stones shouting out not with Hosanna’s but with the shout of Mary’s Song.

When you read Luke backwards in Lent, you have to come to the conclusion that the Triumphal Entry was about a whole lot more than palm branches and shouts of Hosanna. When you stand with Mary and your know where this “Triumphal Entry” is headed, how this is going to end, when you come to praise and worship Jesus this side of Easter Sunday, you can’t yet look past the cross or even really see the joy that surely comes on that first Easter Day. Because his death at the hands of the world’s powers, principalities, and empires of darkness and evil is a brutal tragedy. Not unlike the bombing and killing of innocent people in a train station, really.

I don’t think Mary was the only one weeping that day as the procession headed up to Jerusalem. God was weeping as well. And maybe you and I should too.

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Luke 4:1-13
David A. Davis
April 3, 2022
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I think I have been reading it wrong all these years. This story of Jesus in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by the devil. In my own biblical imagination, I have always assumed that the devil and these gospel-identified temptations came on the last day. The fortieth day. The three temptations and the dialogue between the devil and Jesus represent the devil’s last gasp of an effort.  Luke writes, “he ate nothing at all during those forty days, and when they were over, he was famished.”  “When they were over, he was famished” and the devil waited until then to tempt him to turn a stone into a loaf of bread. But one doesn’t necessarily have to read with such linear assumptions. How about, “when they were over, he was famished.” Hard stop. When the forty days were over, yes, he was famished. Jesus was likely famished at day ten and day twenty and day thirty as well, yes, Luke reports that when the forty days were over Jesus was famished. But Luke sets the scene with “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”

Full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Spirit for forty days. Tempted by the devil for forty days. Not just the last day. The three temptations weren’t just saved for the last day. It was every day. Every night. Forty days. That oh so biblical number. Forty years in the wilderness. Forty days in the wilderness. Forty is a number of biblical proportions. Forty days. Every day. Every night. The devil bombarded Jesus to the nth degree with everything the powers and principalities of darkness and evil had to offer. Until, according to Luke, “the devil had departed from him.” “The devil had departed from him until the opportune time.”

The opportune time. It is a puzzling expression; the devil left Jesus until “the opportune time”. In the gospel of Matthew, the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness ends with the devil leaving Jesus and the angels coming to take care of him. Here in Luke the devil takes a break until “the opportune time.”  The opportune time? Perhaps, the opportune time was at the cross and his death at the hands of the imperial powers who mocked him with sour wine to drink. They derided him for claiming to be king telling him he ought to be able save himself. They tempted him, the Messiah of God, “He saved others; let him save himself.”  The spectacle of the crucifixion and evil’s opportune time.

The opportune time: maybe it was that night of betrayal. Betrayed with a kiss. Deserted by those he chose as disciples. Denied by the one who declared him the Messiah. Tempted with use of violence by those he taught to turn the other check. The Garden of Gethsemane; the opportune time for the world’s forces, the world’s movements, the influence of all the kingdoms of this world.

The opportune time. The devil really didn’t wait that long. In this same 4^th chapter of Luke, after Jesus returns from the wilderness, and after they try to throw him off a cliff in Nazareth, he goes to Capernaum where he heals “a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon who had cried out to him…” I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” Jesus first healing act in Luke is to rebuke the unclean spirit. Dr. Barreto argues that in Luke, the demons and the unclean spirits are the embodiment of evil’s power and the world’s dark forces that always confront and work to deconstruct God’s intent for humanity and creation; working against the peaceable kingdom God intends. The devil’s opportune time. It’s just not that long of a wait in Luke.

In the Greek text the word for time here at the end of the story of Jesus and the devil in the wilderness of forty days, it really isn’t qualified in any way. It is just the word chronos. Most English translations go with some version of opportune time. But it just time. The devil departed him for a time. A very brief time. Because the gospel account of the life and teaching of Jesus, the Son of God, tells of his lifelong confrontation with the temptations, the powers, the evils, the imperial forces, the principalities, the ever-present darkness of this world. The devil’s opportune time was the fullness of Jesus’ life and death. From the moment Mary sang of the Savior scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts and the powerful being brought down from their thrones, all while Jesus listened from her womb to the moment when all the crowds who had gathered for that spectacle and saw what had taken place, evil’s power and the world’s dark forces were at work to deconstruct God’s intent for humanity and creation. They were at work to tempt the Savior his whole life long.

It was as if at every moment, in the gospel’s every chapter, the devil was leading Jesus up to show him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. “to you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it was been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.” And at every moment, in the gospel’s every chapter, the Son of God, our Savior, his response is the same. “No, all this, all this. It’s not yours to give. It never was yours to give. It will never be yours to give.”” I lift mine eyes to the hills” proclaims the psalmist. “From when does my help come. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

The forty days was every moment of Jesus life. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Spirit, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the resurrection power of God prevailed. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”, Jesus proclaimed with a finger in the devil’s chest. Do not put the Lord your God to the test as Jesus rebukes the evil spirit. Do not put the Lord your God to the test as Jesus sits that night in the Garden with the darkness crashing all around him. Do not put the Lord your God to the test as even the world’s spectacle of death is conquered by resurrection life. Talk about a finger poking evil in the chest? Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

One of the takeaways from the account of Jesus, the devil and the forty days in the wilderness, one the preacher’s takeaways, or maybe it is more like a church camp takeaway, one of the takes on this message we have all heard and probably used ourselves more than a few times is “even the devil can quote scripture.” But when you read Luke backwards in Lent, when you stand at the cross and look back at this temptation narrative, it is so much more than a bit of an object lesson about proof texting scripture. It becomes the lens by which to understand the entire Jesus project. Jesus, the devil, and the wilderness temptations. It is like an abstract to an academic paper. The overture to a Broadway musical. A microcosm of the whole gospel story. Because the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is all about God taking on the kingdoms of this world.  The once and for all, the once and future, the everlasting victory of God; life overcoming death, good conquering evil, love rising above hate.

As the Apostle Paul wrote in describing what I just called the Jesus project: “when the time had fully come, God sent for God’s Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4). When the time had fully come. The opportune time. It never was the devil’s opportune time. It always was, always is, always will be, God’s time.

On my very first day of ministry, my first day on the job, I walked the fifty steps of so from the manse to the church, entered my first office, sat down at my desk wondering what on earth and in God’s name am I doing here. The office was empty except for a box on the shelf I later learned was an urn full of ashes, of cremains, that a family never came to pick up. That box was there 14 years later when I left that office. The only other thing of note in the office was a little sticker kind of thing that was tucked under the glass top on the desk. I don’t know how long it was there or which pastor left it. It was just a little card with a quote from II Chronicles, chapter 20, verse 15. Actually, half a verse, probably not even that much.  The devil might able to quote scripture but not many people quote II Chronicles. The context of the snippet of a verse is Jahaziel standing before all of Judah as they stood before the Lord with all their families the night before the confrontation with the Ammonites. Jahaziel says to all the people of Judah, “Thus says the Lord to you, ‘do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.”  The card on the desk simple read “the battle is not yours but God’s”.

Like Jesus, every day you and I live in a world where there are powers and forces at work to deconstruct God’s intent for humanity and creation. The battle is not yours but God’s. To put your head on the pillow at night knowing there is war raging somewhere in the world, and that not far from you someone is hungry or has no place to stay, and that hatred and bigotry always is on the loose. The battle is not yours but God’s. To rise to face another day struggling for your own health, or caring for a loved one who struggles to know you, or to live one more day sober. The battle is not yours but Gods. To sit through the day unhappy at work, or lonely with family too far away or worried sick for your unhappy child off at school. The battle is not yours but God’s. To reach the end of the day knowing there are those in the world who want to limit your choice about your body, or who you can marry, or who you believe God created you to be. The battle is not yours but God’s. To sit down in the evening trying to do homework while you worry about if any school will accept you, or whether that call for a job interview will come, or just plain worry about the whole mess that is the kingdoms of this world. The battle is not yours but God’s.

For the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is all about God taking on the kingdoms of this world.  The once and for all, the once and future, the everlasting victory of God; life overcoming death, good conquering evil, love rising above hate. It always was, always is, always will be, God’s time.

You, me, resurrection power, and God’s opportune time.

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Luke 6:20-26
Youth
March 27, 2022
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Luke 14:15-24
David A. Davis
March 27, 2022
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Hasn’t everyone been to an awkward dinner party? In the early years of ministry, I did a lot of weddings and funeral for people who were not members of the church. Frankly, in those days the honoraria helped put groceries on the table. As I was having pre-marital conversations with one couple, I made a rookie mistake. As we were scheduling the last of the four meetings prior to the wedding day, the bride to be said with some enthusiasm, “Instead of meeting here in your office, why don’t you and your wife come to our house for dinner?” Cathy still hasn’t forgiven me for my answer. Awkward may not be a strong enough description. Of the many things I could tell you that I distinctly remember from more the 30 years ago, one rises to the top. The entire evening our hosts called me “Bob”.  Not Rev. Davis. Not Pastor Dave. Not Dave. But Bob. Cathy kept finding ways to mention my name; like “when DAVE and I were married”, “I’m from North Jersey, DAVE is from Pittsburgh.” It never worked. They called me Bob the entire evening. With all due respect to Thornton Wilder and his play “The Long Christmas Dinner”, it wasn’t any time around Christmas but it might have been the longest dinner.

Here in the 14^th chapter of Luke, the setting of the parable that Dr Barreto names “The (Not So) Great Dinner” is actually a dinner party itself. Jesus tells the parable pretty much at the dinner table. The dinner party is in the house of a leader of the Pharisees. The dinner party isn’t awkward, it is tense; really tense. A first-time reader of any of the gospels would be able to identify an evolving tension between Jesus and the religious leaders. But if one is reading Luke backwards, if one starts with the spectacle of the crucifixion, well, to say there was “tension at the part” doesn’t begin to describe it. This parable Jesus tells of “the great dinner” and this party hosted by the leader of the pharisees, it all contributes in no small way to Jesus getting killed. It was just a dinner party! It was just a story about a dinner party! No, it was one more step, one more factor, one more straw that led to the religious establishment and the empire conspiring to murder the One the angels in the gospel of Luke name “A Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord”!

Luke sets the dinner scene right at the beginning of the chapter. Jesus was going to the leader’s house to “eat a meal on the sabbath”. They, the host and all the other religious leaders, were, according to Luke, “watching him closely.” Right away Jesus heats things up a bit when he sees a man who ha dropsy. “Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath or not?” Jesus asks the lawyers and the Pharisees. “But they were silent”. One has to assume these folks were not silent, were not at a loss for words all that often. Last week, in the gospel lesson after Jesus said “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”, the response of the spies and the leaders and the crowds was to be amazed and to become silent. Here, Jesus asks about healing on the sabbath and they are silent. Jesus takes the man away, heals him, and sends him away. Then Jesus says, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull them out on the sabbath day?” Luke reports “they could not respond to this.” Yes, they were not just silent. They were steamed. They were absolutely furious at Jesus.

What they didn’t know was as they were watching Jesus; Jesus was watching them. As they all move to take their seats at table, apparently in silence, Jesus notices how the guests were choosing the places of honor. How they were vying for the good seats. Jesus told them they should always go for the less important seats. Who wants to be told to move when someone more distinguished arrives and the hosts has to ask you switch seats. That would be embarrassing. Always better to be invited later to a place of honor. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Jesus then turns to the one who invited him and said it’s lot easier to have a lunch or dinner and invite friends or family or the people down the street who are rich because all those folks will be expected to return the favor and invite you to a meal. “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteousness.” What do you think ticked off the holy powers more? Jesus healing on the sabbath. Jesus telling them to be humble. Or Jesus, yet again in Luke, pointing to the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Jesus again in Luke telling anyone who would listen that you should out to the lanes and the streets, find the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and say “Won’t you be my neighbor?” Of those three (sabbath, humility, caring for the most vulnerable), I vote for number 3. Because they know, the religious leaders know,  and Jesus knows, that the law of God instructs them, requires them,  to care for the poor, and the crippled, and the lame, and the blind. Jesus poking the bear? Oh yeah. Jesus touching a nerve? You bet. Jesus hitting too close to home? Yep. Jesus is unrelenting when it comes to hitting too close to home Then. Now. Forever. As the preacher in the Book of Hebrews proclaims, “Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

It is only now, in the unfolding drama of Luke chapter 14, when you can cut the tension with a knife, that some poor dinner guests says, “Well, okay then, let’s just have some soup, shall we?” Actually, the dinner guest says, “Blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” One commentator suggests that the guest was enjoying the banquet and was expressing his confidence at having a reserved seat at the messianic banquet. I can’t imagine anyone was enjoying the great dinner at that point. I think he was just trying to break the tension. “Yeah, so um, here’s the bread, here’s the meat. Thank you God! Now let’s eat”. But relentless Jesus; Jesus keeps going and tells the parable I read for your hearing.

“Someone gave a great dinner and invited many.” Excuses abound, likely they were legion. Only three are mentioned. When the great dinner party hosts receives the report on the RSVP’s, he becomes angry and sends the servant out to the streets and lanes of the town. “Bring in the poor…. the crippled…. the blind…. and the lame.”  There they are again on the lips of Jesus. The “silence” at the table at this point, had to have been deafening. “Sir, there is still room.” And the host responds, “Go out into the roads and lanes and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.”  The dinner host longed for the house to be full, that the people of God: the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame, that all God’s people might be filled.

It’s the parable of the great dinner and this is Luke’s gospel. Where Mary, the mother of Jesus sings about the Mighty One who has done great things. “He had filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” Luke’s gospel, where Jesus stood in the synagogue and read from Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Spirit has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” This is Luke’s gospel: the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. And you know that’s not a complete list!

I imagine Jesus pausing before the last word from the host in the parable. Jesus pausing and looking straight into the eyes of every guest who is now seething and even now trying to figure what to do with him, how to get rid of him, how to kill him. The parable of the great dinner ends with “For I tell, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.” Ouch. The lawyers, the scribes, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees all wallowing in their anger at Jesus. And what if the host of the great dinner in Luke was concerned most with just getting people fed: the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame. Being filled. It would be easier if one could conclude that the parable of the Great Dinner was about filling pews, or growing the church, or converting souls. But in the gospel of Luke, “filling the house” may have little to do with seating capacity. It could also be about filling….the house. Filling up those who are of the household of God who are hungry. The religious leaders all hear, all focus, all obsess on judgment, condemnation, personal afront. So maybe they miss here in the parable, the exhortation, the sending,  the call to action, and the promise of a vision of the household of God being full.

The news, the pictures and the footage still coming from Ukraine continue to be heartbreaking. People being killed while standing in a breadline! Children dying while trying to stay safe in a shelter. As long as war and violence and terror eat away at the world’s fabric and the children of God are dying of hunger in a world with such wealth and resources, there is always going to be tension when Jesus is at the table. And, yes, there is judgment and condemnation. But from the lips of Jesus, from the teaching of Jesus, from the grace of Jesus, there will always be exhortation, sending, call to action, and a plea to work and serve until the whole household of God is full. Because the spectacle of the cross always points to a death defying, evil stomping, empire conquering resurrection hope. Not just for you and me, but for the world.

The young, African American poet Amanda Gorman recently published a collection entitled Call Us What We Carry. It is volume filled with poetry that speaks to the last two years of challenge, suffering, and bitter division that we all know so well. But it is also a book of poetry about hope, endurance, and the future. The signature poem “What We Carry”, it speaks  of a hopefulness and perseverance in the world we live in. To me, it sort of drips with the imagery and themes of faith and life and future. Our future in God; with Christ Jesus forever exhorting, sending, calling. Hear this last part of the poem “What We Carry” by Amanda Gorman.

Jesus, the One crucified, the One Risen, calls you and calls me to walk into tomorrow…that one day, one day, his house, the very household of God,  may be filled.

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Luke 20:19-26
David A. Davis
March 13, 2022
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“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, and to God the things that are God’s.” Who hasn’t heard that before? Who hasn’t found themselves repeating that once or twice? Just last Ash Wednesday as I ushered for the noon service and stayed in the narthex, someone left out the front door and came back a few minutes later. “Had to render to Caesar”, he said, referencing the parking meter. We’ve all heard it. We all know Jesus said it. “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” It’s a memory verse of sorts. Maybe without the Luke 20:25 citation; or Mark 12:17. Maybe we can’t quote with chapter and verse, at least the Presbyterians probably can’t. But you know Jesus said it. You remember Jesus said it.

But do you remember this part? “They wanted to lay hands on him at that very hour, but they feared the people.” They, being the scribes and the chief priests. The religious leaders want to “lay hands on him at that very hour.” Or who remembers this part? “They [the religious leaders] watched Jesus and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said. so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor.” They sent spies to trick Jesus, to trap Jesus so that they could “hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor.” “Hand him over” which, of course, means hand him over to be killed. Does anybody who can quote “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, and to God the things that are God’s,” remember that the words of Jesus come in response to the religious leaders who wanted to lay hands on him, sending spies who intentionally lied, then tried to trap him so that they could hand him over to the power of the Roman Empire to be killed?

Yes, there is way more going on here than some sort of Ben Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanac pithy kind of phrase that you drop about having to pay the IRS. There is way more going on here in Luke than providing a snappy quote from Jesus often cut and pasted into a conversation about how faith and politics don’t mix. On the face of it, Luke writes that the whole “set a trap to hand him” over scenario came in response to Jesus telling the parable about the owner of a vineyard who sent his own son to collect the owners share of the produce from the tenants. The tenants, who had rebuffed two prior attempts by the owner of the vineyard threw the son out and killed him. Luke says that the religious leaders wanted to lay hands-on Jesus because of that parable. But when you begin Lent at the cross, you know that the response of the religious leaders and the leaders representing the empire, their response to Jesus is a lot more insidious, pervasive, and complicated than a reaction to one parable. What were they so afraid of? Why were so threatened by Jesus? What he said, what he did.

The ending of this particular encounter between Jesus and the spies with everyone else listening brings some cognitive dissonance, at least for Luke’s casual reader. “Being amazed by his answer, they became silent.” Amazed. Mark’s version ends with “they were utterly amazed.” The King James in both gospels says, “they marveled.” It is almost like the spies, the religious leaders, and all who were listening to Jesus were saying to themselves, “wow, he’s really good.” Or like someone in the back is so impressed with Jesus’ answer, how he “perceived their craftiness”, how he rhetorically avoided the trap, that someone in the back starts one of those slow claps. Amazed. Marveled. But a close read, a backwards read, points to a reaction to Jesus that has absolutely no positive connotation. Why were they so threatened by Jesus and what he said, what he did, who he was?

Yes, Jesus was a threat to their religious authority. Yes, Jesus was a threat to their power, privilege, and esteem within the community. Jesus was a threat to how they understood the Law, how they interrupted the Law, how they lived the Law. But Jesus was also a threat to how they understood God, their life before God, their worship of God. Jesus was also threat to how they viewed and treated others. Jesus was threat to their very way of life; to all they understood and assumed a faithful life to be. Jesus was a threat to even all the best intentions of the scribes, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees. But to be fair, to be honest, the religious leaders were far from the only ones who found themselves threatened in some way by the life and teaching of Jesus. When the gospels describe other reactions to Jesus with words like “amazed, astonished, marveled”, maybe like the spies, it doesn’t always come with only positive connotations. There were others astonished and amazed by Jesus. And it couldn’t have all been positive.

Some will remember last week I cited the words of the old man Simeon quoted in Luke who took the child Jesus in his arms. “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” When Mary and Joseph found their young son sitting among the teachers in the synagogue in Jerusalem listening and asking question, they, like everyone else, were amazed and astonished. But with the astonishment had to come anxiety and fear. In Luke when Jesus goes to Nazareth, after he stood and read from the scroll of Isaiah, all were “amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But in a but a breath, in Luke, when the teaching became difficult, when Jesus began with “the truth is”, the reaction changed on a dime, and all were “filled with rage” and took him to the edge of town to throw him off a cliff.”

Then in Luke when Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue in Capernum on the sabbath, it says “they were all amazed.” They kept asking one another “What kind of authority is this?” It wasn’t just “positive amazement”. You will remember that when that storm blew in as Jesus and the disciples where in the boat, Luke doesn’t use the word “fear” until after Jesus calmed the storm. When the wind stopped and the waters settled, then the disciples were “afraid and amazed”. The disciples in fear at what Jesus did. Right afterward in Luke, when they all arrived at the other side of the Sea of Galilee and healed the one labeled as “the Gerasene demonic”, the rest of the people in Gerasene “asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear.”

No, the religious leaders were not the only ones threatened by the life and teaching of Jesus. The religious leaders were not, are not, the only ones who find the gospel of Jesus Christ to be threatening. What Jesus said. What Jesus did. A threat to authority, power, privilege, and esteem. A threat to understandings of God and life in relationship and worship, and how others are viewed and treated, and understandings and assumptions about a faithful life. And yes, the gospel of Jesus Christ can be a threat to even the best intentions of humankind. When is the last time you found yourself amazed, astonished, and marveling about something Jesus said or did? Amazed, astonished, and marveling at something in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And like Luke, I don’t mean that all in a positive, warm, and good way. Because if we are being honest and fair, the threatening gospel hits awfully close to home sometimes. And if it doesn’t, it should.

Some will come away from Jesus and “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, and to God the things that are God’s”, with the affirmation that all things, including creation, you, and me, belong to God and that the emperor, at the end of the day, is left with relatively little, very little. Another’s take away could be that in every generation and in every different context in time and place and for every single follower of Jesus, the matter of one’s relationship to Jesus and to human authority is cause for careful, prayerful, spirit-filled discernment. And yes, some may be struck by the divine wisdom of Christ who refuses the trap of blasphemy on the one hand and disobedience to the empire on the other. But you and I know how the story ends. They did hand him over to be killed by the empire in that spectacle of the cross. They handed because he was threat. The gospel was a threat. Maybe Christ is calling you and me to turn from the sacred page this morning and ponder how and where the threatening gospel of Jesus Christ causes a bit of discomfort, a bit of a stir, a bit of a squirm. What Jesus said, what Jesus did hitting just a bit too close to home, too close to the heart, too close to our way of life. Part of the discipline of Lent perhaps. Your life, my life, confronted by all that Jesus said. All that Jesus did.

Because when you read Luke backwards, the gospel of Jesus Christ, you have to be amazed.

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