Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Picnic and a Boat Ride," John 6:1-21 (Proper 12B, Ordinary 17B)

Sermon 7/28/24

John 6:1-21

Picnic and a Boat Ride

Our gospel lesson today is a text that’s probably familiar to most of you, at least somewhat. And it is one of the rare events that appear in all four gospels outside of Jesus’s death and resurrection. So we get the sense that this story is important. Of course, each gospel writer gives it their own spin, and John, whose gospel is the most different from the other three, also has the most variations in his account of this event. So let’s make sure we read carefully. 

Jesus has been teaching and healing. He crosses the Sea of Galilee with his disciples, and the crowds follow him, because of the healing work he’s been doing - they see it as a sign from God, and also, of course - they want to be healed! When Jesus sees the crowds coming, he turns to Philip, one of the Twelve, and asks, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” In other gospels, it is the disciples who raise this question. But John says that Jesus poses this question in order to test Philip, because Jesus already has a plan of action. 

Philip and the other disciples seem a bit overwhelmed by Jesus’ question. Philip notes that even a large sum of money wouldn’t feed such a huge crowd - and Jesus and the disciples evidently don’t have a large sum of money. Andrew has noticed a boy with five loaves of bread and two fish, but what could that amount of food - plenty for a few - do for a crowd of 5000 people? But Jesus simply has them all sit down, and then he gives thanks over the food, and starts passing it out. Everyone somehow eats all that they want, and now there is even food left over. The leftovers gathered, and there are now 12 baskets of leftover food where there was once only 5 loaves and 2 fish. A miracle. 

When the people see the miracle, they call Jesus a prophet, and they want to force Jesus to be their king. They want him to be their leader, their ruler. This isn’t what Jesus is about, though, not in the way they want. And so he withdraws from the crowds on his own. The next verse I’ve never really noticed before, but it caught my eye this time thanks to a commentary by Alicia D. Meyers that I was reading. We read, ‘When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.” The disciples just…leave. I’m not sure where they were going. Maybe they had plans already, and knew Jesus would meet up with them. But they don’t go looking for Jesus, as far as we’re told, anyway. They don’t ask him what they should do next. They don’t check in. They just get back on the boat and leave town. 

And then the sea becomes rough and a strong wind is blowing over the water. It’s a dark and stormy night - but suddenly they see Jesus, walking along on the water, coming to them in the boat. They’re terrified. We’re not sure why; they’ve seen Jesus do miracles, after all. But maybe walking on water was just a next-level kind of thing. But Jesus says to them something he says many times, particularly in John’s gospel: “Do not be afraid.” And then suddenly, they’ve reached their destination safely. 

It can be interesting to use this text to consider what we think about miracles, particularly the supernatural kind, the bend-the-laws-of-the-universe kind. Did Jesus miraculously make the food multiply? Or did something else happen? Did Jesus really walk on water? How? Why don’t we see miracles like that today? Or were they reserved for Jesus, never to be repeated? But although these questions can make for an interesting conversation (or sermon), I want to push us in a somewhat different direction today. I think we learn in this passage both something about what we might expect (or not expect) from Jesus, and what Jesus expects from us. 

That’s right: Jesus has some expectations for us, his disciples. In our text, John tells us that Jesus wanted to test the disciples, and see what solutions they would come up with to address the hungry crowds, even though he already knew what he planned to do. How do we feel about that - the idea of Jesus testing us? The other gospel authors don’t mention anything like this, and this idea of the disciples being tested is more consistent with John’s style of writing and his understanding of how Jesus was at work in the world. But still, it’s here for us to wrestle with. I will admit that the idea of God testing us doesn’t really jive with my theology most of the time. It makes God seem too manipulative to me, like we’re being set up, guinea pigs in some divine experiment. I don’t think God is like that. 

But I have to remind myself, and maybe you do too, not to conflate “test” with “trick” or “trap.” Sometimes tests can be designed to be tricks or traps, but they aren’t necessarily the same. Sometimes being tested is a good thing, a necessary thing. We use tests all the time, so that we can assess what people know and what they don’t and whether they’re ready for the next thing. Right now, believe it or not, my nephew Sam is 17 years old, and he’s just about ready to take his road test for his driver’s license. We have to test young drivers to see if they’re ready to be on the road by themselves, for their safety and the safety of other drivers. A road test isn’t a trap or a trick. It’s an assessment. Sometimes a test reveals areas where we’re not prepared. Even failing a test isn’t always the worst thing that can happen. I think of my best friend in high school - it took her three failed road tests before she finally got her license. Now she’s an adult and a mother and a nurse and a more grounded and careful person than she was at 16. She failed a test - and it helped her mature as a driver and a person, and now I feel very safe being her passenger! We might know some things very well, but a test might reveal that we’ve overlooked a particular topic or have an area of misunderstanding. It might reveal that we’ve made progress, but we’re not ready yet to move on to the next thing. Tests can be hard. They can give us some anxiety. But they don’t have to be tricks or traps. 

So when I read here that Jesus is testing the disciples, I ask myself what he was looking for in his disciples. I think he wondered what they had learned so far in their time with him, as they’d accompanied him in his teaching and preaching and healing. And I think he wondered what they were ready for. How far would they follow him? How would they be as leaders themselves? Well: neither the crowds nor the disciples make a good showing, I’m afraid. Because the crowds are too focused on what they want from Jesus: signs and magic and a king. And the disciples are busy fleeing to the other side of the sea without Jesus. A consistent theme in John, and in John 6 in particular, is that the crowds want to know what Jesus can do for them tangibly: they want food, they want physical healing, and they want him to be a king, maybe one who can overthrow the oppressive Roman government. I sympathize with their longings - who wouldn’t want someone to lead who could do those things? Why wouldn’t we want to follow someone who can keep us fed and keep us healthy? But it seems like that’s all they want from Jesus. The crowds seem far less engaged in what Jesus is teaching, less interested in letting their lives be transformed by God. 

And then there’s the disciples, those closest to Jesus. First, even those they’ve already seen Jesus do amazing, unexplainable things, they can’t imagine a solution to his question: “How will we get these people something to eat?” Maybe they’re content to let Jesus figure out the answers. How could they be expected to come up with a solution - they’re not Jesus, after all. Maybe they’re not sure they can trust him yet. Is it all too good to be true? And then, again, when Jesus has withdrawn from the crowds anxious to make him a king, we hear nothing of the disciples. What are they doing? Are they, too, trying to force Jesus into a role? Are they helping manage the crowds? Or standing off to the side, waiting for Jesus to tell them what’s next? I wonder what they’re thinking when they decide, in fact, to leave, to go back across the water to where they came from. Are they ready to ditch Jesus altogether? Are they anxious to be away from the unexplainable events of the day? Just go back to their normal routines? We just know that when Jesus shows up, walking on the water, they’re afraid. Maybe afraid of what this means for them. How can they be good enough to follow Jesus? Yet, how can they do anything but try to keep following? No wonder they’re afraid: awed and dazzled by Jesus, feeling confused, unworthy, incompetent, and yet feeling like what choice do they have but to keep trying to follow him anyway. 

 It’s easy to look at the disciples in the gospels and see all the mistakes they make, and convince ourselves we’d do better. But I think they’re portrayed as they are so that we can take comfort, actually, in knowing that we’re not the first to struggle with fears and doubts in our discipleship. We’re not the first to wonder if we can trust Jesus, and yet also want Jesus to fix all of our problems. We’re not the first to feel incompetent at discipleship, and yet keep coming back to try again. The disciples get it wrong, a lot, and even worse than this. But they keep going. Jesus keeps teaching them. I don’t think they ever feel quite ready. But somehow, they’ve changed our lives, changed the world, millennia later. 

Jesus does test us, I think: checking in on where we are in our discipleship. But I’m reminded of the grades I used to get in elementary school. Not the grades for how well I was performing academically. Instead, there was a whole section on how we were performing socially. Were we learning to be thoughtful, well-adjusted classroom citizens? You couldn’t fail in that section. You could get an “unsatisfactory.” But teachers tended to opt for the more hopeful “needs improving.” Or the encouraging “improving” that might come on the way to “satisfactory” or “excellent.” I think when Jesus tests us, the scale is a little bit more like that. Ready to challenge us where we need improving. But always ready to affirm us, build us up, teach us some more, lead the way, and tell us: Do not be afraid. So, take heart, friends. Jesus wants to know what we’re going to do about the broken-hearted world around us. Probably, we’re going to mess it up. But instead of demanding that Jesus fix it for us, or running away altogether, let’s stay and learn from the teacher, and then practice, practice, until we’re improving, until we’re thriving, until we’re ready for whatever Jesus calls us to next. Amen. 

1. Thanks to Alicia D. Meyers, at The Working Preacher for sparking this line of thought. “Commentary on John 6:1-21.” 

https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-17-2/commentary-on-john-61-21-6

Image: JESUS MAFA. Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48287 [retrieved July 29, 2024]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

Sermon for Easter Sunday, Year A, "Dos and Don'ts," John 20:1-18, Matthew 28:1-10

 Sermon 4/9/23

John 20:1-18, Matthew 28:1-10

Dos and Don’ts

I’ve been telling you, on Palm Sunday, and again on Maundy Thursday, that our best strategy for being disciples is to stay close to Jesus. “Stay with me,” Jesus was asking us. But today, this Easter morning, Jesus’s message is strikingly different: “Don’t hold on to me.” - “Go!” How do we get from one to the other? Why does Jesus tell Mary not to hold on to him, to stay with him? And what do his words mean for our discipleship? 

Today we’ve heard the Easter stories from two gospels - John’s gospel - the most well known version - and Matthew’s account. This phrase - “don’t hold on to me” - occurs only in John’s version, although I think the meaning of the phrase is in Matthew’s account too. At first brush, Jesus’s words sound kind of dismissive to me, as if Mary is somehow being too clingy. And I don’t know about you, but if I thought that my dearest loved one, my teacher, who I’d devoted my life to, had died, been put to death, and then suddenly they seemed to somehow be alive after all, resurrected: well, I’d be clingy. I wouldn’t want to let them out of my sight for a second. Instead, the first thing, nearly the only thing Jesus really says to Mary, aside from getting her to recognize who he is, is this “Do not hold on to me.” Jesus says that he is “ascending to God,” as if that explains everything, and while he tells Mary what not to do, he does also tell her what she should do: “Go and tell.” Go and tell the disciples what she’s seen. She does. “I have seen the Lord.” Mary is the first preacher of the resurrection news. 

Still, why the “don’t hold on to me?” I’ve been trying to think about where I’ve heard this phrase in my life - it was sort of striking at my memories. “Don’t hold on to me.” When do we say that? And it struck me: My 8 year old niece Siggy says this to me all the time, whenever she is trying to do something daring, some trick she’s working out, some gymnastic maneuver, some tumbling feat, some wild antic she has a vision of in her head, and I, Aunt Beth, have visions of broken bones and the potential for head injuries, and I just want her to be safe, and so I want to hold on to her - steady her, make her more secure, make her take a bit less of risk. “Aunt Beth, don’t hold on to me,” said with a little exasperation, and a little thrill at whatever feat of daring she’s about to try. And so I try - I try to let go enough for her to be the brave and bold person she wants to be. 

I can only imagine that Mary, that others, seeing Jesus, who they thought they had lost, would want to “keep” him. They failed to protect him before - but now that they have a second chance, they will protect him from harm. They won’t let him out of their sight. This time, they will stand up to his enemies, they won’t fall away, they will get it right, and they will stick to Jesus like glue. But things have changed. Now, if they want to stay with Jesus, they have to let go, because Jesus is on the move. Jesus has things to do. Jesus is going to God, and the best way to be with Jesus now will be to let him go, so that they can get to work sharing the good news of resurrection and life. It’s a big shift to make. I can only imagine how Mary must have felt, leaving Jesus at the tomb. But whatever hesitation she might have been feeling, and however much she worried, however much her impulse was to resist the “don’t hold on to me,” she does just what Jesus asks. 

Matthew’s Easter story is a bit different, but I think it actually mirrors John’s gospel well. In Matthew, Mary Magdalene is accompanied by another Mary - Jesus’s mother perhaps, or one of the other women with this common name. They first find an angel, a messenger of God at the empty tomb. Matthew also starts with a “don’t” - don’t be afraid. “Don’t be afraid,” the messenger says. “You’re looking for Jesus, but he has been raised.” And, as in Matthew, the messenger doesn’t want the women to linger. They get to “come and see,” but then they have a task: “Go - quickly - and tell.” The women obey, both full of joy, but still full of fear, despite instructions. But before they can get to the disciples, they see Jesus himself. Perhaps sensing that they haven’t yet listened fully to the messenger’s “don’t,” Jesus repeats it and their task. “Don’t be afraid. Go and tell.” We don’t know if the women remained afraid or not, but we don’t hear about it again. So perhaps, from Jesus’s own mouth, they could let those words sink in. “Don’t be afraid.”

It isn’t that Jesus doesn’t want us to stay close to him once Easter hits, once the resurrection happens. It’s that we have to make sure we’re staying close to Jesus for the best reasons. Are we holding on to Jesus because of his risk-taking that makes us uncomfortable? Is it that we want Jesus to be safe - so we can be safe? Does Jesus and his way of confronting, and breaking boundaries, and making a stir scare us? Do we want to hold on, to stay close, to keep an eye on Jesus? There’s a deep connection between “Don’t hold on to me” and “don’t be afraid.” Jesus knows our default mode is to be afraid. As much as we long for new life, new life is actually pretty scary too. It is so unknown. New life changes everything. And as much as we might be ready for change, the lives we know are comfortable. Safe. “Don’t be afraid.” Again and again in the scriptures, and again right here - “don’t be afraid.” 

One of my favorite theologians, Walter Brueggemann, writes: “Being unafraid is an odd vocation; but it is the vocation of all those who have been baptized. We are different when baptized. The Acts account of the early church says that the Spirit of God came upon Jesus in baptism …. What the Spirit does is visit our lives … with the freedom of God, so that we are unafraid in the world, able to live differently, not needing to control, not needing to dominate, not needing to accumulate, not driven by anxiety.” The disciples, he says, were “known, named, and unafraid people,” who “turned the world upside down.” “Or better to say, they turned the world right side up.” He continues: “The truth is that frightened people will never turn the world, because they use too much energy on protection of self. It is the vocation of the baptized, the known and named and unafraid, to make the world whole.” (1) 

“Don’t hold on to me, Aunt Beth.” Maybe I’ll never read John’s Easter account again without Siggy’s voice ringing in my ear. And oh, I want to hold on! I want my girl to be safe, and sometimes, her antics leave me full of fear! But more than I want to hold on, I want her to experience life to the full. I want her to be brave, to take big risks so that she finds great joy. 

And that’s what God wants for us, too. “Don’t hold on to me,” says Jesus. Resurrection is risky stuff. And it’s active. New life means being on the move. Jesus has things to do. And as resurrection people, staying with Jesus means letting him go, so he can go ahead of us into the world, and we can follow. Don’t hold on, but don’t be afraid. Instead, come and see, and then go and tell, and go and tell, and go and tell. 

Amen. 

 

1. A Way Other than Our Own, 60-61. 

Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas, Year C, "Beautiful Feet," Isaiah 52:7-10

Sermon 12/26/21

Isaiah 52:7-10

Beautiful Feet

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” I love these words, this imagery, from the prophet Isaiah. Although Isaiah had his own context and other situations and visions in mind, we in the church have not been able to help hearing his words as a Christmas text. Messengers who announce good news, peace, salvation? Visions of the heavenly host of angels singing to shepherds in a field fill our minds. 

But for me, the first response I have to this text is to think of my week at Creative Arts Camp at Aldersgate, one of our conference’s church camps, the summer between elementary school and junior high. At Creative Arts Camp, we put on a musical, and our musical that year was The Friendship Company, based on Christian singer Sandi Patty’s album for children. One of the songs on that album? “Beautiful Feet.” Here are some of the lyrics: 

There are feet that skip and play

There are feet that run away

There are feet that love a race and win or lose

There are chubby feet and small

And strong feet to kick a ball

But beautiful are the feet that bring good news.

There are feet that sleekly swim

Through the water wearing fins

There are feet that shimmy up the tallest trees

There are happy feet and sad

There are aching feet and mad

But beautiful are the feet that publish peace.

Those are beautiful feet

Beee-uuu-ti-ful feet!

Dutiful, cute-i-ful lett!

Tried and true-ti-ful feet

Me-ti-ful

You-ti-ful

Do you have beautiful feet!

I was old enough to outwardly find this song kind of cheesy, and young enough to enjoy singing such a goofy piece, and all these decades later, “But beautiful are the feet that bring good news” still rings in my head - this song won’t let go. 

What does it mean to have beautiful feet? Do you have beautiful feet? I’m sure some of us don’t like the way our feet look, and some people don’t like feet altogether. Some people have feet that don’t cooperate with what they want them to do. Some people have injured feet, or don’t have feet at all. But I don’t think this verse is trying to focus on beautiful feet by any typical measures. This verse isn’t about pedicured, polished feet. This passage is praising whatever it is that gets you where you are going to accomplish a most important task: carrying peace, bringing good news, and announcing salvation. This passage is praising the messengers who carry God’s news to people who so need to hear it. 

In the Bible, we have a word for people who carry messages for God: angels. When we see the word “angel” in the Bible, it literally means messenger of God. What usually pops into our minds when we think of angels are the haloed figures that we see in Christmas pageants. And indeed, angels, God’s messengers, are key figures in the Christmas story. An angel tells Mary that she will give birth to Jesus. An angel tells Joseph not to divorce Mary and dissolve their relationship. Angels tell the shepherds where to find Jesus, and what Jesus’s birth means. Angels protect Jesus after his birth from Herod’s deadly maneuvers by again speaking to Joseph. They’re pretty central to the story. 

But, God’s messengers aren’t just these divine, ethereal beings. The word for regular old human messenger is the same word we use for angels - and that’s because the task is the same. Messengers carry news. And God wants us to be messengers of God’s good news, God’s Christmas message, God’s peace and salvation and joy and justice too. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation.” No halo required. 

Who has been a Christmas messenger for you? Who has delivered the Christmas message to you? I’m not just asking about who has told you the nativity story of Luke 2. I’m wondering who has told you the message of the heart of Christmas - that God is with us, the God has been made flesh in Jesus, like we read about in our text from John 1? Who has brought you a message of peace - not just the abstract, fluffy message of peace, but who has shared a message with you that has helped you experience the peace of Christ deep in your heart? Who has helped you receive a message of salvation - a message that God seeks wholeness for your life, and your right relationship with God and neighbor? Who has helped you hear and receive and trust God’s good news of unconditional, unrelenting, unshakable love? How beautiful are those who have brought you these life-changing messages! And how beautiful are you - down to your core - when you are messengers of Christmas, angels in your own right, sharing peace, joy, and salvation! 

Aside from the “Beautiful Feet” song that has stuck forever in my mind, there’s another song that our Isaiah text calls to mind - a Christmas carol - and one we’ll sing to close our worship today. “Go, Tell It on the Mountain” also draws on themes from this Isaiah text. It was never a favorite carol of mine growing up, but once I learned more about its history, I started appreciating it more deeply, and it has certainly been on my mind this week. 

A few decades after the end of the Civil War, an African American choir director in Tennessee named John Wesley Work, Jr. set out with a goal of  preserving the spirituals of black Americans from the years of slavery which had mostly been passed on by oral tradition. Work's project influenced nearby Fisk College, a historically black college, and their choir - the Fisk Jubilee Singers - took the spirituals Work collected on tour with them around the country, and even to England to perform for Queen Victoria. The Fisk Jubilee Singers  saved the debt-ridden College from closure with their touring, and they have been credited with keeping the Negro spiritual alive. “[Jubilee] singer Ella Sheppard recalled, ‘The slave songs were never used by us then in public. They were associated with slavery and the dark past and represented the things to be forgotten. Then, too, they were sacred to our parents, who used them in their religious worship.”” (1) 

“Go, Tell It on the Mountain” was one of these songs. Theologian James Cone says that the hymn conveys the message: “the conquering King, and the crucified Lord . . . has come to bring peace and justice to the dispossessed of the land.  That is why the slave wanted to ‘go tell it on de mountain.” With its peace and justice themed Christmas message, “Go, Tell It” has been adapted many times. It was used as a freedom song during the Civil Rights movement. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded a version. And one version included a verse about segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace. “I wouldn’t be Governor Wallace, I’ll tell you the reason why, I’d be afraid He might call me And I wouldn’t be ready to die.” 

The original author of the spiritual is unknown, but thankfully Work included it in his project, and his brother Frederick helps draw attention to it. They paired the text of the spiritual with a joyful tune that seemed to express the hope and liberation of Christmas message. The earliest published version of the hymn included the refrain that’s familiar to us, with some different verses, like “When I was a seeker I sought both night and day. I ask de Lord to help me, An’ He show me de way.” Eventually, John Work Jr.’s son, John Work III, decided to expand on the song - it is unclear if he uncovered existing additional verses that had been lost, or if he wrote his own new verses to the hymn, but in 1940 his version was published, the version we know today. By the mid 1950s, the hymn was being included in some mainline Protestant hymnals. Go, tell it on the mountain! Jesus is born! Let peace and justice be proclaimed. 

That’s our task friends. Christmas Day was yesterday. But now in the season of Christmas and beyond, our task is to be messengers of all that we’ve heard and seen at Christmas, all that we’ve experienced of God and God’s peace and justice, all that we’ve known of God’s love. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who announce peace, good news, and salvation! So let’s go and tell it - Jesus is born, God become flesh, God with us, always. Amen. 

1. This section of the sermon uses this resource (St. Peter’s) and the one Hawn resource listed below. All quotations come from the Hawn resource. “Advent Devotional Day 7,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, https://www.stpeterslutheranyork.com/blog/advent-devotional-day-7

2. C. Michael Hawn, “History of Hymns: “Go, Tell it On the Mountain,”” Discipleship Ministries. https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-go-tell-it-on-the-mountain-1

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, "Come and See," John 1:43-51

 Sermon 1/17/21

John 1:43-51

Anything Good? Come and See

As I’ve been home on break this winter, my Mom and I have been watching the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. We’ve seen it before, but it is just something light and relaxing and kind of mindless we can watch together. There’s an episode where one of the characters, Marshall, is worried that his job as a lawyer for a large bank is at risk. His friend and co-worker Barney tells him that he has to find something that no one else does that he can offer that will make him indispensable at work. It doesn’t seem like bad advice, does it? Make yourself necessary, irreplaceable. Have a skill no one else has. Of course, since it is a sitcom, Barney means that Marshall should come up with some “extra” talent like being the guy at the office who runs the fantasy football league. But the gist of the advice is: make sure there’s something that you can do that no one else can do, and then you have security in your position. Have you heard advice similar to that before? I have. I’ve even given advice like that. One of my brothers works at a bank, and he consistently gets ranked highest in production - he’s accomplishing more everyday than the others on his team. And I’ve told him how good that is, because whenever he takes a vacation day, they really miss him and can’t wait for him to get back. It’s good for them to know how much they need my brother, what a valuable employee he is, I think.  

On the other hand, I’ve been thinking about my path to ordained ministry, and how my childhood congregation and pastor nurtured me as I was exploring my sense that God was calling me to become a pastor. I think some of you have met my childhood pastor, Bruce Webster. Bruce was the pastor of my childhood church, Rome First United Methodist, but he retired last year from Kirkville UMC not too far from here. Bruce was my pastor when I was in the process of discerning my own call to pastoral ministry. I had a lot of ideas, and not a lot of experience. When I look back at that season in my life, when I was exploring and figuring out what God was calling me to do, I’m struck by how willing Bruce was to share with me. He shared his wisdom and knowledge with me, but he also shared his authority and his status. He shared the pulpit, letting me preach often. He took me on visits with him. He let me design and lead the youth group retreat. He invited me to meetings and introduced me to the other clergy in the community. And he always encouraged me, affirmed me, and built me up. He never once made me feel like what he was doing as a pastor was something I wouldn’t be able to do too. He never tried to project part of his work as off limit or beyond my understanding. Instead, however he could, he invited me into the work that he did, and shared what he knew so that I could learn and grow. That’s a different kind of model than the advice in How I Met Your Mother, or advice we might hear in some other settings, the advice that says it is best to make sure everyone knows that you can do something no one else can do, isn’t it? I realize the contexts of say, my brother’s bank and my childhood church are a bit different. But I’m struck by the different ethos that favors sharing wisdom and power with others over getting ahead and securing one’s own position first. 

I was thinking about these things - how we do or don’t share our wisdom and knowledge, our power and authority, as I turned to our scripture text for today. Our passage today is a scene from the Gospel of John. We’re in chapter 1, and we pick up as Jesus is calling some his first followers. In our scene for today, he first calls Philip with a simple “Follow me.” And then Philip in turn finds his friend Nathanael and says, “We’ve found him! We’ve found they were writing about in the law and the prophets: It’s Jesus of Nazareth!” But Nathanael is skeptical: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” I’m not sure what our modern day equivalent is - what neighborhood exactly comes to your mind, but it’s like Nathanael says, “Can anything good come out of the wrong side of the tracks?” Philip just answers, “Come and see.” If we’d read a bit earlier in this chapter, we see that Philip is just modeling the example of Jesus. When Jesus called his very first disciples, and they asked him a question, he responded in the exact same way: “Come and see.” Nathanael does indeed “Come and See,” and Philip takes him to meet Jesus. Jesus seems to know Nathanael already - to know Nathanael’s heart, and in response, Nathaniel also realizes who Jesus really is. “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” he proclaims. “You are the King of Israel.” In response, Jesus promises that as a disciple of Jesus, Nathanael will witness even “greater things” than Jesus being able to look into his heart. He’ll see heaven opened - the boundary between earth and heaven traversed. 

“Come and see.” These words that Philip shares with Nathanael, words that are an echo of the way that Jesus called his friend disciples, are words that reflect the ethos of Jesus’ ministry. We worship Jesus as God’s own child, God in the flesh, fully human but fully divine. And yet, over and over again in the gospels, Jesus is invitational, ready to share his power and authority, his wisdom and knowledge. Even though Nathanael is skeptical and dismissive of him at first, Jesus already wants to show Nathanael what the power of God can do - not something he holds over Nathanael, but something he intends to share with Nathanael. And that doesn’t just happen in this scene. Over and over, Jesus tells his disciples and other followers, and even those who are just in the crowds listening to what he has to say that they can do just what he does and more. If you want to dig a bit deeper this week, I encourage you to flip through the gospels and make a list of times when Jesus tells his listeners that he’s inviting them to receive and use God’s wisdom and power in some way. On the other hand, we see the other religious leaders - the priests and scribes and Pharisees with whom Jesus interacts - always appearing anxious that somehow their power is slipping away. They’re more like the example from How I Met Your Mother. They can only feel safe and secure if no one else can do what they do. That’s not the way of Jesus though. “Come and see.” Jesus invites us to be part of his mission and ministry - not just as someone that he’ll direct and order around. His way is to make us co-laborers in the reign of God, sharing wisdom and power so that we too can share the good news of God’s grace that transforms the world. How about us? Are we willing to share what we know of God, what we’ve learned from following Jesus? Are we inviting others in - to our lives, to our worship services - virtual or otherwise - to our ministries, to our communities? Or are we holding on tightly to our power and authority, afraid that sharing will mean that our position isn’t safe and secure? 

Our gospel text brings up another question for me too. Sometimes we’re holding on too tightly to our power and status and knowledge. And other times, we’re convinced that others don’t have anything valuable to teach us, no wisdom that is important to us. Who do we assume has nothing to teach us? At first, Nathanael is tempted to believe that someone like Jesus - someone from Nazareth, something that for Nathaniel clearly means some “low class, ignorant, unqualified person” couldn’t possibly know anything. His first response suggests that he believes that there is nothing he could have to learn from a person from Nazareth. He discounts Jesus because of where he’s from, assuming that Jesus doesn’t have anything worth sharing. When do we act like Nathanael, and about whom? 

This coming semester, I’m going to be a teaching assistant for a class that uses some tools offered by Wikipedia - students will learn how to edit and contribute to articles on the online encyclopedia. I’ve been pretty impressed so far with the training modules I’ve completed. You can’t just add any topic on Wikipedia. A topic has to be notable - and to be notable, a topic has to be documented by several independent, reliable sources, like books or academic journals. But Wikipedia is also aware that these requirements, meant to increase the accuracy and usefulness of articles, also results in what they call “content gaps.” Content gaps are important topics that end up not getting covered, or not covered as thoroughly on Wikipedia as they should be. And Wikipedia realizes that there are more content gaps when it comes to topics related to women, or topics related to people of color, or other minority and marginalized groups than when it comes to topics about men, or white people, or people in power, because the minority groups have had less access over time to traditional publishing, or traditional academic positions, than others. So, are marginalized populations and their individual and collective wisdom truly less “notable”? Wikipedia knows the answer is “no,” and is working to address the problem, though imperfectly. How about us? Who have we written off as not “notable” enough to learn from? What individuals or groups are we overlooking, sure that “nothing good” can come from them? 

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I’ve been thinking about his concept of the Beloved Community, adapted from Josiah Royce, which King spoke about and wrote about often. His vision resonates with me as a vision of the Kingdom of God, or the kin-dom of God. Sometimes when we say “Kingdom of God,” we think of God as King who is all powerful and rules over everything. There are ways in which that is true, of course. But Jesus tries to show us that the way God reigns and rules is a bit different than we’d expect. God reigns through sharing everything - knowledge, wisdom, power, and authority, in really radical ways. In fact, God even share’s God’s self with us in the person of Jesus. So many folks have used the term kin-dom to help us think about the way God draws us in - “Come and see.” That’s what I hear - the kindom of God on earth - when I read about King’s Beloved Community. He wrote, “The way of acquiescence [to evil] leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of non-violence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.” “I do not think of political power as an end. Neither do I think of economic power as an end. They are ingredients in the objective that we seek in life. And I think the end of that objective is a truly brotherly society, the creation of the beloved community” And “the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.” (1) Dr. King, whom many have dismissed and do dismiss as having nothing valuable to teach because of the color of his skin, gives us a model for the kindom of God, the Beloved Community, that is shaped by a God, by a Savior who shares in everything with us, wisdom and knowledge, power and authority, compassion and grace. In turn, we don’t need to cling so tightly to our status and power either. God’s reign grows not when we store up for ourselves, but when we build each other up in love. Can anything good come from such a strange kindom that turns things so upside down and inside out? Jesus says to us: “Come and see.” Amen.  

1. Quotes from https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/. 

Sermon for Easter Sunday, "I Have Seen the Lord," John 20:1-29

Sermon 4/12/20

John 20:1-29

I Have Seen the Lord

This year we’re reading the resurrection story from the gospel of John. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all write about the resurrection in their own ways, but John’s gospel might be the one with which you’re most familiar. John’s gospel zooms in on Mary Magdalene. Although much has been written about Mary Magdalene, we really know very little about her, other than that Jesus healed her from what the Bible describes as possession by demons, and that Mary has been a follower of Jesus since then, providing, along with some other women, material support for Jesus and the other disciples. While other gospels have Mary as one of many women visiting the tomb of Jesus early on the first day of the week, the others aren’t mentioned by John. And although Peter and the beloved disciple make an appearance at the empty tomb after being summoned by Mary, who is distressed and confused when she first sees the stone rolled away from Jesus’ grave, the two men don’t stick around for long before returning to the locked up house where the disciples have been hiding out in fear after Jesus’ crucifixion. So by the time we encounter the risen Christ in John’s account, even the angels Mary sees inside the tomb seem to fade away once she sees Jesus. After a brief exchange with the angels, who Mary doesn’t seem to identify in her grief, she turns away from the empty tomb and comes face to face with Jesus. Her grief is such that she doesn’t even recognize him. How could she, since he was supposed to be dead? Jesus asks her the same questions the angels asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” Mary thinks Jesus is the gardener, something I imagine she laughed about later. But now, she’s utterly devastated, pleading: “Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me, and I will go get him and care for his body.” And then Jesus simply says to her, “Mary.” He calls her by name, as God promises to do with us. And as soon as she is called by name by Jesus, someone who has always seen her, she recognizes him. “Rabbouni!” she exclaims. “Teacher!” Her exchange with Jesus is brief but powerful. He tells her “Don’t hold on to me. But go, and tell the others.” And Mary does just that: She announces the good news. She’s the first messenger of the resurrection. She says, “I have seen the Lord.” 

Normally, that’s where we’d end our story on Easter Sunday, and we’d read the second part of our text next week. But it’s still Easter day as we continue on in John, and I think we might relate to what we find. On that same day, in the evening, all the disciples are together, in a house locked up tight because they’re afraid of the religious leaders who had just succeeded in putting Jesus to death. By now, they’ve heard Mary’s announcement: “I have seen the Lord!” But of course Peter and the other disciple were at the grave and they didn’t see anything. Can they believe Mary? Even if they believe her, it hasn’t yet made them unafraid. But Jesus is suddenly among them. No locked doors can keep him out. And he’s speaking words of peace to them, and breathing on them, and telling them that God will send them out just as God sent him out, and giving them the Holy Spirit, and giving them authority. Thomas, for some reason, isn’t with them, and so eventually Jesus appears to them again when Thomas is present too, even letting a skeptical Thomas confirm that it is really Jesus by touching the wounds Jesus has in his hands and side from the crucifixion. Finally, Thomas believes too. Jesus doesn’t chide, but simply says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 

I know for many of us, when we first realized we wouldn’t be able to gather together physically for worship this year for Holy Week, for Palm Sunday, for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and especially, especially for Easter morning, it was disappointing to say the least. Heartbreaking. I so love our Easter practices that embody the joy of the resurrection of Jesus. When you find out that death has no power over life, when you find out that Jesus is alive always, when you find out that new life is possible, when you find out that God makes you new, resurrects your life too, you want to celebrate! I love gathering on the hill at Wally Hurlbut’s for our sunrise service, around the fire, sharing communion. I love the huge breakfast we share in in the basement at North Gouverneur, with more food than we could possibly eat. I love the bright colors of children dressed up for worship in the sanctuary here, and the beautiful Easter flowers given by the congregation for loved ones - the smell of Easter. I love the full sanctuary, the power of our voices joined together in “Christ the Lord has risen today!” I love unburying the Allleluias, and singing them with gusto. All of those traditions - they embody the joy we feel at hearing, remembering the good news: “I have seen the Lord!” The grave is empty. Death can’t hold back the work of God. Christ is risen, and we rise with him - Alleluia!  

I’m missing those traditions this morning. But John’s gospel reminds me that what we’re not missing is Easter. Easter isn’t canceled. Instead, perhaps, we’re channeling that first Easter more than ever. Our hearts are broken. Our world is full of fear and anxiety right now. We’re wrestling with isolation, locked behind doors, wondering what comes next. And friends, Easter comes for us today just as surely as it did for Mary and the disciples on that first Easter morning. Trusting that death can’t stop the power of life, of love, of hope, of joy - it’s hard to believe sometimes in dark days. Sometimes we’re like Peter and the other disciple, seeing and trying to believe but not quite understanding. We’re like Thomas, needing extra doses of confirmation before we can rejoice in the truth. We’re like Mary, so mired in grief we don’t see what’s right before us. But Jesus seeks out all of these followers, and gives them what they need to experience the truth of resurrection and life. And Jesus seeks out us too, and gives us what we need.  

Like for many of you, I have all sorts of rhythms and routines that have been shaken up in these days of pandemic, and none more so than my typical Sunday morning. Normally, I lead worship at North Gouverneur at 9:30, and then hustle over to First UMC to practice with the choir briefly before worship starts here at 11am. But since we’re doing just one livestream, of course, suddenly, I have a whole morning before worship begins. Even the preparation I do for worship has shortened, because without powerpoints for liturgy and announcements to prepare, I have even fewer tasks to complete before worship. And so I’ve found myself, the last few weeks, listening to worship at my Uncle Bill’s Church in Baldwinsville, NY. It’s a blessing I cherish, even as a long for the return of my Sunday routine. A couple weeks ago, Uncle Bill was preaching on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. And he shared a quote from a Christian writer and speaker Ravi Zacharias: “Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people alive.” Those words really caught my attention. “Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people alive.” Sometimes we water down what Jesus was about until we picture him as just a disciplinarian, here to make sure we follow all the commandments, that we’re nice and well-behaved, and that we’re good enough to be worthy of God’s love. But Jesus wouldn’t even let people call him good when they tried. What Jesus does say is that he came to bring us life, abundant life in fact. Mary Magdalene and Peter and the beloved disciple and Thomas and all the others who experienced the resurrected Christ on that first Easter - Jesus gave them new life. Oh, they still suffered pain and hardship. And they certainly weren’t perfect, always choosing what was right. But they were those who had been made alive in Christ - truly living in this life, and truly living in life eternal. And that’s what Jesus wants for us, offers to us, even when it seems like death and sorrow is all around. Jesus is alive, and wants us to truly live too. 

If you’re a regular at church here or in North Gouverneur, you might recognize the name Rev. Thom Shuman. He writes beautiful liturgies for worship, and I often use his calls to worship and prayers in our bulletins. He wrote a beautiful reflection for Easter that I want to share with you. He says, “I imagine a lot of clergy, isolating at home, pacing back and forth ... wondering how in the world they might come up with the most important Easter sermon they have ever given in their lives, especially since it will all be online, no one with them, no one in front of them, no one to look at to see how they are doing. The pressure is on!! It will continue to mount . . . what shall we do? How about this? The camera opens on the pastor, simply sitting in a chair, in a pew, on the steps, on the floor. Nearby, is a pile of folded clothes. As the camera pans in, the pastor looks up from the book they are reading, stares directly into the camera, and he says, "oh, it's you." Then, pointing to the clothes, she says, "sorry, Jesus is not here; just like he told you." Then looking directly into the camera, they say, “He's out there: with you, your family, your neighbors; he's out there: in the midst of this pandemic, in the middle of all the fears; he's out there: home-schooling kids, caring for folks in retirement communities and the vulnerable in residential settings; he's out there: making masks and ventilators, building field hospitals, working on a vaccine; he's out there: stocking the grocery stores, delivering packages, listening to folks on the hotlines; he is not here. he's out there, just like he told you; why are you looking for him here, and not out there with him?" And then they turn back to their books as the camera pulls back from them, and pans to a shot of the doors leading into the world.” (1) Friends, Christ is alive, and thankfully, he’s not contained in this or any building. He’s in the world, beckoning us to join him, asking us to tell what we’ve seen, what we’ve experienced, and how Jesus has brought us to life too. Have you seen the Lord? Tell it! Share it! Live it! 

As I was thinking about Easter in the midst of pandemic, I couldn’t help but think about the story from Dr. Suess, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and about how Christmas came, to the surprise of the Grinch, even without decoration and presents under the tree. He couldn’t stop it. And sure enough, a few days later, I saw that someone had reworked Suess’s words for these days. Here’s just a part of “How the Virus Stole Easter,” by Kristi Bothur, about Easter morning when the world suspected Easter couldn’t come at all. 

“... And [the world] did hear a sound coming through all the skies.

It started down low, then it started to rise...

Every saint in every nation, the tall and the small,

Was celebrating Jesus in spite of it all! ...

“It came without bonnets, it came without bunnies,

It came without egg hunts, cantatas, or money.”

Then the world thought of something it hadn’t before.

“Maybe Easter,” it thought, “doesn’t come from a store.

Maybe Easter, perhaps, means a little bit more.” ...

The churches are empty - but so is the tomb,

And Jesus is victor over death, doom, and gloom.

So this year at Easter, let this be our prayer,

As the virus still rages all around, everywhere.

May the world see hope when it looks at God’s people.

May the world see the church is not a building or steeple.

[May the world find Joy in a time of dejection.

May the world find Faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection.]” (2) 

Christ is alive. He lives to make us alive too. I think we’ve seen him, seen God at work in countless ways. Let’s tell what we’ve seen. Let’s share the good news. Let’s remember that Jesus doesn’t live in this building, as much as he is treasured and celebrated and worshiped here. Easter has come, and will come, day after day. Have you seen the Lord? Tell it! Share it! Live it! Amen. 

 

1. Shuman, Thom M., https://www.facebook.com/thom.shuman/posts/10163173267100262. 

2. Bothur, Kristi, “How the Virus Stole Easter,” This Side of Heaven, https://www.thissideofheavenblog.com/blog/how-the-virus-stole-easter.