Luke 22:1-23
April 13
David A. Davis
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You. “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” You. “Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” You. “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” You. “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But see, the one who betrays me is with me…” You.

The “you” at that Passover table that night included the Betrayer. The one who went away and “conferred with the chief priests and officers” to make a plan. To make a plan with the chief priests who were looking to kill Jesus. “You” that night included Judas. The “you” at this first supper of bread and wine included Peter. Not long after the bread and cup, while still at the table, Jesus said to Peter, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day until you have denied three times that you know me.” “You” that night included Peter. But it was not just the Betrayer and the Denier in the ‘You”. As Mark tells of this night, Mark concludes “They all forsook him and fled.” A night of betraying, denying, deserting, and forsaking by those he called, taught, and loved. Immediately after the bread and cup, the disciples who are the “you” get into an argument about which one of them was the greatest for goodness sake! And still, “You”. “This is my body, which is given for you.” “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” You.

In the liturgy of the sacrament of communion, his body broken and his blood shed are labeled “the Words of Institution.” The liturgy quotes the Apostle Paul from I Corinthians. “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread.” I am not sure I have thought about it much before, but “the night when he was betrayed” seems like a massive understatement. Betrayed. Denied. Deserted. Forsaken. Slept on. Kissed. Seized. Arrested. Mocked. Beaten. Blindfolded. Insulted. That’s all just here in the rest of Luke 22. Yes, “the night when he was betrayed” doesn’t begin to describe it. The night when he was betrayed and the night before he was tried, tortured, and murdered by the ruthless, evil, dark powers of Herod’s empire. The night when Jesus looked into the bottomless, timeless pit of human sin, disobedience, lust for power, arrogance, and obsession with self. And still….you. “This is my body, which is given for you.” “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” You. A great big, universal you for every time and every place. You as in all. Humankind. Creation. ALL. “God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” Given for You. Poured out for you.

This Palm Sunday our service began with the Triumphal Entry here in Luke. As Luke puts it, “Jesus went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”  Matthew’s Palm Sunday is more triumphal than Luke’s. Matthew tells of a very large crowd, and people running ahead and coming up behind shouting. Matthew writes of the whole city of Jerusalem in turmoil. Matthew’s Palm Sunday seems more stirred up, a sort of flash mob, a bit more “oomph” when compared to Luke. In Luke, people kept tossing their garments on the road, maybe even the same people. No branches, no hosannas. The “whole multitude of disciples”? That could have been just twelve. Maybe the irony of shouts to a king and folks trying to make a bit of pomp while the king rides on a colt was pretty evident.  The royal treatment of a meandering, winding procession from one hill to another with no army, no galloping horses, no chariots, just one innocent animal to ride, maybe the absurdity of it all was just as plain as day. At the very least for Luke, the whole thing seems more intimate. Jesus going up to Jerusalem.

Jesus tells the Pharisees that the stones would shout if the disciples were silent. Creation’s shout coming from those stones. Echoing creation’s praise described by the prophet Isaiah, “For you shall go out in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before shall burst into song, and the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (Is 55:12) After Jesus’ nod to creation’s praise, the procession continues. Luke tells of one more stop before Jesus enters the city gates. “As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace.” You, even you. There’s that “you” again. Luke is the only gospel that tells of Jesus weeping over the city. There is lament elsewhere but only in Luke does Jesus weep while looking up at the city ahead of him. If you, even you. You.

Luke goes on to describe the destruction of Jerusalem; enemies, ramparts, crushed to the ground, not one stone left upon another. Gospel scholarship informs the reader of the unique sense of timing here. Jesus predicted what was to come. Luke writing about what has already happened; the fall of the city in the year 70. Chronology and timeline take the back seat to the symbolism of the city, of this city, being ravaged by war and the Savior’s tears. Tears that are not about the march of time. The tears are more about HIS march. THEE march to Jerusalem. This last stop along the way, it’s only in Luke.  Here between the Mt. of Olives and the city that looms just up there. Jesus, his last stop on the way to the cross, and he looks and sees the holy city once and forever devastated by violence, humanity’s violence. If you, only you. And still….he goes up.

When we draw near to Jesus and his last stop along the way, usually what strikes, what lingers, what moves the heart is his tears. But this morning, paired with his words at the Table, his words at the bread and cup, it’s the imagined tone in the voice of Jesus that hangs in the heart as he refers to the city and to humanity all at once. If you, even you, you, and you, and even you. If you only knew. A timelessness to both his tears and his exasperation in the face of humanity’s inability to grasp peace. A great big, universal you for every time and every place. You as in all. Humankind. Creation. ALL! “God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” If you, even you.

In our Lenten small group on Thursday we were sharing our earliest experiences of communion and whether or not our experience of the Lord’s Supper has changed over the years. Whether the more meaningful, moving parts of communion that nurture our faith might have shifted over the years? Interestingly, there was a bit of consensus in our group. Several people talked about how over the years communion became more of an experience of the faith community together. Less about an individual’s relationship with God and more about something we do together. Less a prayer between God and more a prayer about God and us. A sacrament that nourishes our life as the Body of Christ. A turn away from the self and God and a turn toward community and God. Our relationships in the community and the community of God as in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And every time we gather at the table: “You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.” You as in us. You as in all. A great big, universal you for every time and every place. You as in all. Humankind. Creation. ALL. “God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.

 

The Last Supper. Palm Sunday and Jesus’ last stop on the way to Jerusalem. When you remember his body given for you and his blood shed for you on that night when Jesus looked into the bottomless, timeless pit of human sin, disobedience, lust for power, arrogance, and obsession with self. And still….you. When you, even you, stop with Jesus for that tear-filled view of Jerusalem, when humanity’s inability to grasp the things that make for peace never, ever seems to get any better, when you stop to ponder how he still goes up, somewhere deep down the magnitude of God’s plan of salvation kind takes the breath away. I claim, lean on, bathe, and bask, tell myself again and again of God’s love for me, a love that will not let me go. But then there are those days, those seasons, when I find myself claiming, leaning on, bathing, and basking, telling myself again and again that God’s love is so much greater than just for me.

Because when Jesus kept going, when he went up, he took all of us, all of this, he took ALL of it to the cross with him.

“God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

Luke 9:1-9
April 6
David A. Davis
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“Now Herod the ruler, the tetrarch, heard all that had taken place, and he was perplexed.” Herod was perplexed. Herod was confused. A possible translation of the Greek is that Herod “was at a loss.” These few verses go on to explain that he was perplexed because some were saying John the Baptist had been raised from the dead or Elijah or some other ancient prophet had appeared. “Now Herod the tetrarch heard all that had taken place.” Herod the most powerful man in the land heard all that had taken place. One should assume that hearing it all means hearing it all. Indeed, back to John the Baptist. Luke chapter 3: “So with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by John because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.” Oh, yes! Herod heard it all.

He heard about a man named Jesus standing up in a synagogue in Nazareth and reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Herod heard about Jesus sitting down and saying “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” and how they tossed him out of his hometown trying to hurl him off a cliff. He heard about Jesus teaching on the sabbath, healing people tormented by demons, and his followers catching great hauls of fish. Herod heard about people healed of their diseases, lame folks walking, a tax collector leaving his job to go with Jesus, and Jesus plucking grain on the Sabbath. Herod heard it all.

That sermon from Jesus was full of blessings and woes favoring the poor and the hungry and the weeping. Threatening the rich and all who had so much. He heard about that too.  “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…Give to anyone who begs…do to others as you would have them do to you…Be merciful just as your Father is merciful…The good person out of good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evo;; for it is out of abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” Herod heard about the healing of the centurion’s servant and the widow of Nain. The scandal of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet in the Pharisee’s house. The parable of the sower. The stir Jesus caused in the country of the Gerasenes by healing a tormented man and sending all the pigs to their death in the sea. Jesus stopping to heal the woman who touched his outer garment. They raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. And yes, Jesus sent the disciples to the villages “curing diseases everywhere.” The most powerful and feared man in the land had the sources, the resources, and the connections to have heard it ALL. And he was perplexed. He was confused. Herod was at a loss not just because of the rumors surrounding John the Baptist, Elijah, or a prophet. Herod was perplexed by it all.

Jesus gathered the twelve and bestowed on them the power and authority to do what he had been doing. To do what Herod heard Jesus was doing. Send out demons. Cure diseases. Proclaim the kingdom of God and heal people. Jesus sent them out on the journey to the villages with nothing: no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no change of clothes. Find a house where folks will take you in and stay there. Stay in their home until you leave the village. If no one welcomes you, move on. Shake the dust. It’s their loss. The gospel is not something to be imposed, mandated, forced, legislated, ordered, or nationalized.

Take nothing. The evangelism, the mission, and the ministry of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in God and God alone. The ministry of those who follow Jesus also begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in the hospitality of others. The only way this was going to work was if others offered the disciples a place to stay in their homes. If others gave the disciples something to eat and drink. If others offered to share some extra clothing with the disciples. The disciples could not have done anything with their Jesus-gifted power and authority without the help of others. According to Luke the twelve were “bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.” It never would have happened without the others. A divine miracle story all its’ own that begins with bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing acts of hospitality and kindness. The ministry of those who follow Jesus is defined by, dependent on, not possible without a reliance on and a relationship with others.

A few days ago, I went over to the Seminary Chapel to hear our resident guest preacher Jess Winderweedle preach at daily morning worship on campus. As you would expect, Jess preached a powerful and memorable sermon. After chapel, I told Jess she is the most subtly subversive preacher I have listen to. There was one riff I kept coming back to in preparation for this morning. As I pondered Jesus telling the disciples to take nothing.  Jess was preaching about Paul ending up in prison after sending a spirit of divination out of a slave girl who was likely then in great danger since her owners made lots of money off her and that spirit. “Here in this chance encounter” Jess proclaimed, “their precarities- his perhaps unexpected and hers a tale as old as time—their precarities were revealed to be inextricable from one another….I want to imagine” Jess went on, “that Paul, there in prison couldn’t stop thinking about liberation, and about how getting free isn’t always as simple as we want it to be, nor is it ever an individual endeavor…There is no way of salvation that any one of us can walk alone, and no real liberation in which we can be preciously selective about who will walk with us.”

Our life in Jesus and our way of salvation and the first disciples’ journey, it doesn’t happen alone. As Carol Wehrheim notes in our Lenten study guide “Recognizing and accepting our interdependence might not be so easy for a nation that claims to be built on rugged individualism”.  As Nate Stucky has been teaching all these Sundays in Lent, the idolatry of autonomy is struck down again and again in scripture. The beginning of ministry in Jesus’ name here in Luke strikes a blow to the myth of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It forever slays the go-it-alone, self-made human success narratives. Serving in Jesus’ name can’t be any more different than all the rich and powerful with such influence in the world who start on third base and think they have hit a triple. The gospel we learn from the lips of Jesus and the testimony of his life is so perplexing to the world and its powers and principalities. The world and its tetrarchs and tyrants.

Which brings us back to Herod. Herod was perplexed about the one whom he was hearing about. He had beheaded John. The conjecture among the crowds about whether it was John, Elijah, or another one of the ancient prophets. That conjecture is messianic conjecture. That’s wondering about whether this person saying and doing all that Herod heard was indeed the Messiah. What Herod is hearing is messiah talk. And as Luke writes “he tried to see him.” Herod tried to see Jesus.

It might be a no-brainer but it seems to me that if Herod, the most powerful man in the land with all the sources, resources, and connections wanted to see Jesus, it would not have been all that difficult to arrange. Have your people contact his people. Send some armed guards with face coverings to go round him up off the street. Tell your staff to go hang out the next time there is a crowd gathered and bring the one doing all the talking and healing back to your fortress. Before the disciples hid in the Upper Room after Herod’s empire tortured and murdered Jesus, Jesus, and his disciples were hardly staying under the radar. Send a Zoom invitation for goodness sake. If Herod wanted to physically see Jesus, there is little doubt he could work something out to see Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son, Mary’s child.

“He tried to see him” It has to be more than getting a meeting. Herod was perplexed, confused, and lost. He couldn’t wrap his head or his heart around ALL that Jesus was teaching and ALL that Jesus was doing. Herod couldn’t see the Messiah and the messianic world he was painting.  Like Pharoah before him, his heart was hardened. Herod was never going to see a messiah who was a servant. A messiah who claimed the great must become the least to follow him. Herod would always be perplexed, confused, and lost when it came to the gospel teaching about caring for the poor, the orphans, and the widows.  Herod was always going to be perplexed, confused, and lost when it came to a journey of proclaiming and healing that depended on acts of love and kindness. Herod was always going to be perplexed, confused, and lost when there was “no way of salvation that any one of us can walk alone and no real liberation in which we can be preciously selective about who will walk with us.”  Herod tried to see Jesus but he was incapable of seeing Jesus and the way of the gospel.

The tetrarchs and tyrants, the forces of empires, the powers and principalities of the world’s darkness are incapable of seeing Jesus and the kingdom he brings. They have no vision for a world where the last will be first, the poor will have favored status, and the common good that builds community will be prioritized. They can’t look at the most vulnerable in the world and see the face of Jesus. They can’t see a world where love is stronger than hate, where welcoming the stranger is an act of faith and gives glory to God. Where doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God is an aspirational way of life. Where justice can roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

It is still true. The witness of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in God and God alone. The witness of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in the hospitality of others. The only way the powers and principalities of this world are going to see Jesus and the kingdom he brings, the beloved community he intends, is when disciples, when followers, when simple folk like you and me, find a way to show them. I’m in. You?

Exodus 16:1-21
March 30
David A. Davis
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This is my first memory of listening to a sermon. I was sitting in the sanctuary of the church I grew up in during worship with my parents. Sermons were at the very end of the service just before the final hymn. When it came time for the sermon, the sanctuary lights would dim and the spotlights would go up on elevated pulpit at the front left side of the chancel. I don’t know how old I was when I heard this in a sermon but I know that pastor left to serve a congregation in Michigan when I was in elementary school. His name was Kirk Hudson. In Pittsburgh at the time there was a fast-food burger chain called “Winky’s”. Winky’s slogan in signage and advertising was “Winky’s makes you happy to be hungry.” I don’t remember anything else about that sermon except this. At some point, this distinguished formal pulpiteer wearing a Geneva gown with a clergy collar and tabs absolutely shouted with what I remember must have been the very top of his lungs. “Nobody is EVER happy to be hungry.”

Bernie Flynn, the CEO of Mercer Street Friends, shared sobering news this week with various non-profit partners throughout Mercer County who operate hunger, housing, and anti-poverty programs. The federal government has cut $26 million from the grants and funding that come to the state of New Jersey, much of which is intended for social services. There have been significant cuts to Feeding America which supplies the bulk of food distributed from food banks. There is a continuing resolution before Congress to cut SNAP benefits significantly. For every 10 charitable meals provided in this country, 9 of them come through SNAP.  You may have read that there is also a proposal to raise the qualifying threshold for publicly funded breakfasts and lunches at public schools drastically reducing the number of eligible students. “Nobody is EVER happy to be hungry.”

One of the tasks of a preacher week in and week out is to bring the world to bear on unsuspecting biblical texts. Rather than attempt to translate the strange old world of the bible for the contemporary listener, a preacher who brings the world to bear on the text is seeking that living word for both the preacher and the hearers of the word. With that in mind, and mindful of all going on in the country and in the world, I don’t see how we can read Exodus 16 as the same old, same old.  In my past reading of the story of manna from heaven, my eye has typically been drawn to the complaint. “On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron.” The word in Hebrew is more like “murmured”. Some scholars write about “the murmuring motif” or the “murmuring tradition.” But then “Nobody is EVER happy to be hungry.”

The Lord hears the people murmuring. When they are thirsty in the next chapter, Moses goes to the Lord on behalf of the murmuring people. Here in chapter 16, the Lord makes the first move in response to the people’s hunger. God tells Moses that bread will rain from heaven and the people will gather enough for the day. Twice as much on the sixth day. Moses and Aaron then gather all the people. “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord…” As Aaron spoke the people look toward the wilderness and see the glory of the Lord appear in the cloud. The Lord tells Moses, “At twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”

That evening the quail came in abundance. The next morning the people awoke to “A fine flaky substance as fine as frost on the ground.” At the dawn of the day, no one knew what it was. Moses told the people of Israel, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.”  Or as Moses and Aaron told them the day before, “in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because the Lord has heard your murmuring.” What is described next by the narrator is so easy to miss when your eye is on the complaining. “Gather as much of it as each of you needs….some gathering more, some gathering less…those who gathered much had nothing left over and those who gathered little had no shortage.” Here in Exodus 16 there is a “loaves and fishes” kind of moment going on. Not the twelve baskets full left over but the “All ate and were filled” Part.  Here in Exodus 16, there is an Acts chapter 2, post-Pentecost kind of moment going on. A community taking care of one another. All have enough. The evening quail. The morning glory bread. Just enough for all. Gathering as much as each one needed. Twice as much on the sixth day. The people resting on the seventh day. Forty years of meat and bread in the wilderness. Forty years of God hearing. Forty years of God providing. Right here at the beginning just a glimpse of life together for the people of God. The life together for the people of God that God intends. God and God’s beloved on the way to the promised land.

There at that first manna breakfast, Moses gave some further instruction. It doesn’t say whether Moses spoke before, during, or after breakfast. I imagine that Moses spoke again before everyone began to eat. “Moses said to them, ‘Let no one leave any of it over until morning.’” You get the gist, right? Give us today our daily bread. Don’t worry about tomorrow, let’s today’s worry be enough for today. No squirreling away. No hoarding. No storing up treasure. No pulling down barns just to build larger ones. No sneaking more so others have less. No messing with the loaves and fishes balance. No putting self above the community. No forgetting of the most vulnerable. No serving God and mammon because you will be devoted to one and despise the other. No turning from the face of Jesus in the face of the least of these. “Let no one leave any of it until morning.”

“But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning.” They did not listen and some left part of it until morning. Strange way to say it there in the text. They and some. They did not listen makes it sound like “all” did not listen. But only “some” tried to save some for later.  But the manna didn’t keep. “It bred worms and became foul. And Moses was angry with them.”  When it came to gathering twice as much on the sixth day so you can rest on the sabbath, later in the chapter again it is “some.”  “Some of the people went to gather and found none. The Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions?!” I don’t know, Lord. It was only some, not all the people. Maybe some were still so hungry they had trouble listening. Here in Exodus 16, not only a glimpse of the community of faith God intends for God’s people but also a lasting image of what it means to be human and how hard it is fully trust in God. How easy it is to for the old sinful self to run over the new self God desires. The manna bred worms and became foul. That’s just nasty.

The takeaway this week is not the murmuring. God hears the people and responds with a promise. “At twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”  The takeaway is more about the old self. Humanity’s ever-present sinfulness. Some but not all turn from God’s commands and threaten the community of kindness and concern that God intends. Threatening the community God calls us to be. God invites us to be. Seeing visions of God’s justice, yet some but not all repeatedly return to a care only for self.  Hearing of God’s expectation of care for all while some but not all work to cause division and spark mistrust; watching as kingdom life turns afoul. Receiving the gospel promise of life eternal and life abundant and then some but not all wrongly concluding that salvation is just about their seat at the banquet table. Hearing about the parable of the Good Samaritan and Jesus call to go and do likewise and then some but not all demonizing nameless immigrant workers, faceless federal employees, and lab-coated researchers.

Maybe the takeaway is how quickly visions of the kingdom life God intends can be torn apart by the some but not all who want to save more for themselves rather than making sure everyone had their fill. Feasting on the words of the Apostle Paul, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, and then some but not all drawing boundary lines that perpetuate stereotypes and prolong bigotry and pass hate to yet another generation. Saying “Amen” when the words of the prophet Amos are read on Sunday, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”, and then some but not all on Monday doing absolutely everything to preserve their own power and privilege. Setting aside manna for themselves, a lot more manna than just for the next day.

It’s not about the complaint. You and I, we rise each day feasting afresh on God’s glory, knowing that the Lord requires us to do justice and to love kindness, and walk humbly with our God, only to realize sometime after breakfast how easy it is to melt into a world where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, a world full of empires and voices that try to convince us that we had better grab all the stuff that we can so we can save it for the morning.

Manna from heaven. It’s a glimpse of the community God intends. A testimony to how God hears and God provides. It’s not about the complaint. It’s about how easy it is to breed worms.

Genesis 3:17-19
March 23
David A. Davis
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Adam, Eve, the apple, the snake. Genesis 3. The Hebrew bible’s account of the fall. A .story most of us have been told, heard, and read as long as we can remember. One cannot approach Genesis 3 apart from all the chaff that comes with it. The swirling history of use, misuse, and abuse that comes with Genesis 3. It’s not like we just come to a whiteboard this morning with a dry eraser and start over. Rather, we bring it all with us, and by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit we humbly seek a word, a living Word. We dare to yearn for what God might have to say to us through this first and oldest story of faith, boundaries, rules, and our relationship with the Creator God.

After the serpent successfully tempts Adam and Eve to eat the apple and they cobble some fig leaves together to cover their nakedness, God is taking a stroll through the garden as evening falls. God sees the two of them and their silly outfits. An awkward conversation ensues. Adam throws Eve under the bus. Eve throws the snake under the bus. God then responds that the tradition tends to label “the curse”. Unlike the last few Sundays when we read the entire portion of both creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, I will read only a small snippet of Genesis 3. It’s God’s response to Adam.

Genesis 3:17-19

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The last few words of God’s response to the serpent, to Eve, and to Adam. The last words of God’s curse after the fall. Curse. It is important to note that the word “cursed” comes only in God’s response to the snake and then again as God speaks to Adam. “Cursed” is not directed at Adam but at the ground. “Cursed is the ground because of you.” “Cursed” is never used directly in reference to Eve or to Adam. Yes, their garden days are over but in Genesis 2, God told Adam if he ate of that tree of good and Evil, “you shall die.” Here in the Genesis account of the fall, they don’t die. Yes, of course, Adam and Eve eventually die. But here in the story of the first and oldest lesson about boundaries, rules, and a life in relationship to God, amid language of temptation, fall, death, and expulsion, God’s grace and love abound.

Last weekend I had a conversation with our soon to be four year old granddaughter Franny. For a few precious moments, we were the only ones in the room sitting on the couch. I asked her about her school. She named some of her friends. She told me how they share chores. Each day, each student has a responsibility. Franny’s favorites are collecting the trash and giving the weather report. I asked about her teachers and Franny told me all of four of their names. No Miss or Mr, just names. I asked if she had a favorite.

“I like Anna. She is our art teacher.” “Is art your favorite part?” “Yes, Pop. And I am good at following Anna’s rules. Well, pretty good”. “Well, that’s good. I bet Anna likes it when you follow her rules.” Franny nodded her head. Then there was a pause. Not a long pause but you could see Franny was thinking about something. “Pop, I am gooder at following Anna’s rules than I am Mommy and Daddy’s rules.”  “Following rules can be hard, Franny, don’t you think?” Franny nodded yes again. “And Mommy and Daddy love you even when it’s hard to follow the rules!” I thought about telling Franny that her Mommy and Daddy love her even more when she doesn’t follow the rules. But I thought that might be risky.

It doesn’t take long, does it? For a child of God to learn perhaps the first and oldest lesson of life about boundaries and rules. It is part of growing up. The metaphor of “growing up” is how one scholar of the Hebrew Bible ends his commentary chapter on Genesis 3. Professor Sib Towner taught the Old Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA for a generation. “What Genesis 3 gives us is a paradigm,” Dr. Towner writes. “ A story about every human being rebelling against the commandments of God…It is a powerful, primitive rendition of a reality all of us know full well—the truth that life is a pilgrimage from innocence to maturity, through a land fraught with the dangers of loving and hating, growing powerful and cowering in humiliation, living and finally dying. It is a story about God too, whose name is not only Yahweh, but also Emmanuel, and who will not leave God’s own beloved creatures to their fates even when they defy him to his face or thrust a spear in his side. Genesis 3”, the professor  concludes, “is a story of growing up.”

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

“Almighty God, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, we comment this your beloved child to you. These remains we commit to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. They will rest from their labors for their works shall follow them.”  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I scoured the bible this week trying to find the phrase I have read out loud in a cemetery way too many times in the last 40 years. Well, the phrase in that form isn’t in the bible. The phrase is from the earliest versions of the liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer from the Church of England. “For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear departed, we, therefore, commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.” That’s the closest the bible comes to “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. When it comes to the New Testament, well the New Testament isn’t very dusty. The only dust that shows up in the New Testament is when Jesus tells the disciples to shake the dust of their sandals and move on when folks reject them and the gospel. The liturgy at the grave that affirms our resurrection hope has to be rooted here in Genesis 3. “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” But when you are getting dirt and mud on your shoes around an open grave and you say ashes to ashes, dust to dust while loved ones are trying not to look at you, I am just not sure it sounds all that much like a promise. If I am honest, in that context, it sounds more like a stark reminder. Less of a trumpet blast of resurrection hope and more of a cymbal crash reminder of human mortality. Yes, that committal service liturgy quickly arrives at the Apostle Paul’s riff on resurrection hope. “Behold, we will not all die but we will be changed.” But “dust to dust” doesn’t sound like much of a promise.

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.” With his leadership at adult education and our series entitled “Called to the Impossible; Life through Death,” Dr. Nate Stucky is inviting us to reclaim the invitation and promise of dust. (If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the audio recordings of Nate’s weekly conversation with us, I invite you to do so on the adult education tab on our website). In Genesis 2, God creates Adam from the dust of the fertile soul. “The Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Rather than bind dust to dust to that singular, once, and for all experience of life and of death, Nate Stucky the farmer theologian suggests linking it first to the promise, gift, and rhythms of the creation stories. In sending Adam out from the garden to the very world we know as real, God reminds Adam that he came from the dust of the fertile soil. An invitation to return to the dust perhaps can be understood as an invitation to repentance and a renewed experience of the life God creates. A life defined by death and resurrection over and over and over again. Yes, this side of heaven too.

That historic liturgy that ends with “dust to dust” begins with these words, “In the midst of life, we are in death. From whence does our help come? Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” In the midst of our everyday lives, we are surrounded by the promise, the gift, and the rhythm of God’s creation. God’s gift of grace comes as we experience life and death, death and resurrection. And also as we experience sin, repentance, forgiveness, new life, God’s “no” and God’s “yes” in the day-to-day. “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” Everyday. From dust to dust as God continues to breathe God’s spirit of life into our nostrils. Maybe, just maybe, with the gift of breath, of Spirit, in Hebrew, ruah, God also gives us eyes to see and lips to bear witness to all our creating God has done.  Death and resurrection not just with a capital D and capital R. But God’s love, grace, and rhythm of creating. Creating all that is very good. And continuing to create each one of us as one of God’s own beloved.

When in the midst of this life we are in death and chaos and kindness and compassion seem too hard to find. When war and rumors of war abound, when leaders rage, when government shakes and institutions teeter and markets tremble, when the most vulnerable among us and around the world are threatened by the decisions of the most powerful, I wonder if we are being called to pay attention to our experience of the extraordinary presence of God in the most ordinary places of our lives. In Luke, in what scholars describe as “the little apocalypse”, Jesus says “This will be a time for you to bear testimony”. Maybe, just maybe paying attention, bearing witness, and sharing our testimony to our experience of the Holy Dust moments of our lives past and present is at least one way to strive to be faithful these days.

Perhaps an example of what I am trying to describe would be helpful. In the fall of 1999, I was in the third year of the PhD program in homiletics in the seminary. I discovered that one of the aspects of teaching I enjoyed most was listening to a student preach and then gathering the class together and leading the discussion about the strengths of the sermon and how that sermon might be improved. I fully expected back then that I would become a teacher of preaching. Some of my classmates were getting jobs prior to finishing their dissertations at various Presbyterian seminaries. A position was posted at Pittsburgh Seminary. I applied. I networked. I scored a breakfast at the Academy of Homiletics with the Dean of the Faculty at Pittsburgh Seminary. I was born and raised there. My parents were still alive and living there. Okay, this it God! I didn’t even get an interview.

Disappointment wasn’t a strong enough word. A few months later over on the seminary campus, I heard how the search committee at Nassau Presbyterian Church down on Palmer Square had been left at the altar by a candidate who said no after saying yes. The candidate was a professor of preaching who had no congregational experience. I said to a friend who had some connections at the church that if Nassau Church was willing to call a pastor with a PhD in preaching who had never moderated a Session meeting, maybe they would be willing to talk to a pastor who had been serving for 12 years at that point and would eventually have a PhD in preaching.

In April and May of 2000, members of the search committee from Nassau Church came in small groups for six Sundays in a row to hear me preach and lead worship in the 250-member congregation I served. And in May, the congregation called my 38-year-old self to the ministry God had in store. Something beyond what I would have thought impossible. Serving as a pastor and preacher in a university town and routinely teaching as a visiting lecturer. 24 years later, through that experience of life out of death, in that holy dust experience, God taught me what God already knew. I am not a frustrated scholar who couldn’t get a job and so went to serve a congregation. I am a pastor who enjoys sharing my love of preaching with others.

How about you and I, how about we pay attention, bear witness, and share our testimony with one another to the holy dust moments of our lives? I think we could use some of it these days. And remember what Jesus said, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 

 

Genesis 2:4-25
March 16
Youth Sunday
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