Month: April 2011

Good Friday, Year A, 2011

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Beware of crowds.

Crowds are dangerous and fickle.  Crowds don’t use logic and reasoned explanations.  Crowds are easily manipulated.

Even crowds with virtuous intent can suddenly turn, the collective energy turning to violence.  We saw that in Egypt, where parts of the crowd of peaceful protesters turned into a group that attacked Lara Logan, a western journalist.

We’ve seen how easily crowds can be manipulated.  Three years ago our national crowds were yelling for the heads of bankers.  Suddenly this year, with a few nudges here and there, the same crowds were yelling for the heads of teachers and public employees.  All we need is someone to point to an enemy and our collective imagination will paint the rest of the picture.  We love a scape goat.

There is a reason police are called out any time a large crowd gathers—something about being in a crowd makes us anonymous, makes us feel like we lose our identity, that we have become a part of something larger.  That something larger can be a thing of beauty—as we all gather to hear a piece of music together or witness a new beginning like an inauguration.  But that something larger can also be our collective discontent, which can fester and overflow leading us to say and do things we would never do on our own.  Suddenly we’re helping the Nazis round up Jews or murdering thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda or Muslims in Bosnia.  Suddenly, we have become a vehicle for death.

In the end, Jesus’ death can be attributed to a fickle crowd.  The crowd greets him at the entry to Jerusalem, cheering their hosannas, but by the time Jesus is in Pilate’s grasp, the cheers have turned to muttering.  In the Gospel of Matthew’s version of the passion, which we heard last Sunday, the chief priests and elders start whispering into the collective ear of the crowd, encouraging it to free Barabbas.  The crowd has stopped thinking independently.  The crowd asks Pilate no questions.  The crowd just simmers and churns and shouts “Barabbas!” not thinking through the consequences of its action.

Tragically, even Jesus’ disciples are not immune.  One by one eleven of the Apostles slink away.  Peter outright denies Jesus, terrified of being outed.  Terrified of someone identifying him as other, as separate from the crowd.

Not everyone slinks away, though.  A few of Jesus followers somehow manage to stick by Jesus, despite the fear, despite the enormous cultural and political pressure to betray him.  Conveniently, in the Gospel of John’s version of events, John appears to stick around, as well as Jesus’ mother, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdelene.  For these women, their love for Jesus overrides all things.  They do not fear the authorites, they do not fear the crowd, they are able to remember love in the midst of all the fear.

Strangely, the other two figures who are able to distinguish themselves from the crowd are actually part of the establishment.  Neither Joseph of Arimathea nor Nicodemus were public followers of Jesus.  Joseph, a wealthy man, considered himself a disciple, but was a secret one because he was afraid of the authorities, afraid of the crowd.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee who was intrigued by Jesus, but only would visit Jesus under the cover of night.

For these two figures, the death of Jesus becomes a crystallizing moment.  Suddenly they are able to distinguish themselves from the crowd.  Somehow Jesus’ death helps them to put everything in perspective.  Whether they act out of guilt, out of a newfound faith, out of a sense of responsibility, they step forward and claim Jesus’ body.  They were not able to publically claim Jesus’ teaching or believe in his divinity during Jesus’ lifetime, but now they are ready.  Now they are able to take a stand.  Now, when the violence has been done, when the threat to them is still very real, they are able to faithfully care for Jesus.

Joseph claims Jesus’ body.  Nicodemus brings myrrh and aloe and together they anoint Christ’s body and prepare him for burial.

These men who would not be publically associated with Jesus, now care for his body in the most physical, personal and tender way.  They have gone from being part of the larger crowd to identifying specifically as followers of Jesus.  They are differentiating themselves.  Aligning themselves with Jesus.  Pouring thousands of their own dollars worth of myrrh and aloe over his body.  Giving him the burial Jesus’ own apostles could not.

They are claiming this crucified Christ as their own.  The apostles all come back, of course, but not until the resurrection.  For them, this crucified Christ was too much to bear.

Where do we stand?  Do we stand with the Pharisees, who cannot tolerate Jesus as he claims his own divinity?  Do we stand with the crowd who mocks and betrays Jesus?  Do we stand with the disciples, who run from Jesus’ death, living into fear instead of into faith?

Or do we stand with the Marys, with Joseph and Nicodemus who are willing to stay with Christ, even through his humiliating death.   Who are willing to stand up after the madness of the crowd and quietly align themselves with this broken Jesus.  Who are willing to be publicly known as followers of this mortal God.

Standing with the resurrected Jesus is easy.  Standing amidst hope and joy and a promise of a new life does not challenge us.  But that resurrection comes at a cost.  The resurrection could not have happened without the senseless, brutal death of Jesus at the hands of a fickle, unruly crowd.  Good Friday invites us to remember.  Good Friday invites us to stand with Joseph and Nicodemus as they reject the crowd and choose Jesus.

Good Friday calls us to account for our choices, whether they are made deliberately and privately or in the heat of a moment as a crowd carries us away. Will be stand up for what is right and true?  Will we stand up for love when everyone around us is calling for death and destruction?  Grace will come, but not yet.  Today we are left with just ourselves.  What do we see within?

Palm Sunday, Year A, 2011

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Listen to the sermon here.

Palm Sunday is a day packed with words and imagery, so instead of a traditional sermon, I’ll be leading you all through a guided meditation.  Do not panic, no one will be asked to access their inner child or spirit guide.

What I would like you to do is to relax as best you can in your pew.  Uncross your legs, put both your feet on the floor, put your hands in your lap and take a few deep breaths, slowly breathing in and out.

You can keep your eyes open or close them.  Whatever is the most comfortable for you.

Let us begin.

You are part of the crowd who has been following Jesus.  What was your profession?  How long have you been following Jesus?  What have you seen along your journey?

You see Jesus heal two blind men.  How do they react? What it is it like when you make eye contact with them?  In what way are you hoping Jesus will heal you?

As you get closer to Jerusalem, you notice Jesus send his disciples out to get a donkey and a colt.  They come back and Jesus sits on one of the animals.  Suddenly the crowd is overcome. Images of past kings riding into victory into Jerusalem begin to overwhelm you.  You start to catch the excitement of the people around you. What do you hope Jesus will do in Jerusalem? Look around at the crowd.  What are some of the different reasons members of the crowd have followed Jesus?

You keep following Jesus into Jerusalem.  Jesus storms into the temple and starts throwing over tables and whipping people!  How does this make you feel?  How do you respond?

Suddenly, the authorities are all over Jesus.  The Scribes and Pharisees storm into the temple and look around trying to see if they recognize anyone in the crowd.  A few of them look right at you.  What happens to your body?  Does your heart start to race? What are the risks to you and your family to be associated with Jesus? Do you stick with Jesus or try to slip away?

The rest of the week, Jesus and the Pharisees seem locked in one long battle.  Jesus says parables and the Pharisees try to catch him breaking the rules.  On the days when the Pharisees aren’t coming to challenge Jesus, the Sadducees are.   Everyone around you is becoming more and more tense.  Finally, one day, Jesus just lets completely loose and starts insulting the Pharisees and Sadducees.  He insults them like you’ve never heard before and at least four distinct times says “Woe to you, Pharisees and scribes, hypocrites!”  How does this direct confrontation make you feel?

After that event, Jesus turns to you, the crowd, and starts telling you these horror stories of suffering that are going to happen to you.  He says,

Immediately after the suffering of those days
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of heaven will be shaken.

Are you terrified?  Where is the healing Jesus you had so come to admire?  Who is this angry man in front of you?

You are relieved when Jesus and his disciples disappear for awhile.  You need some time to breathe, to think about what is happening.  You need to think about where your loyalties lie.

One night you see some commotion in the street.  You follow the crowd and suddenly you’re in a garden and there Jesus is again.  But this time, Jesus is being arrested.  There is shouting and the clanging of swords, but Jesus seems strangely calm in the midst of the chaos.  Jesus’ arrest makes you sad, but also relieved in a way.  There is something about it that seems inevitable.  What feelings flood you as you see him taken away?

The next time you see Jesus, you are at the Passover festival.  The mood is not as festive as years past.  The word of Jesus arrest has spread throughout Jerusalem.  You see so many different reactions around you.  Some people are clearly devastated.  Some seem triumphant.  Others seem anxious and on edge.  How are you feeling?

You hear that the governor is going to make an announcement, so you shove your way forward to get a better look.

You hear Pilate’s voice yell out:  “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

What do you yell?

Most of the people in the crowd around you, are yelling Barabbas.

The governor now asks, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

You think back, to the Jesus you saw healing and teaching in the countryside.  And you think about the Jesus who stormed through the temple, argued with the Pharisees and Sadducees, who got himself arrested.  You think about the Jesus who spoke words about a terrifying apocalypse.  You look deep inside yourself and make your decision.

What do you yell?

Lent 4, Year A, 2011

/ Sarah / 1 Comment

The blind man did not ask for any of this.  If you’ll recall, he was quietly sitting by the side of the road, minding his own business, when suddenly the disciples notice him.  The disciples, who clearly have still not fully understood Jesus, ask Jesus whether the blind man or his parents sinned to make him blind.  I’m sure the blind man was used to this kind of conversation.  People probably felt free to talk about him as if he wasn’t there all the time.  Maybe the blind man was insulted.  Maybe the blind man wondered about the cause of his blindness himself. In any case, you can almost hear Jesus’ irritation as he tries to explain that the blindness was not caused by sin.  Without the blind man’s request or permission Jesus spits in dirt, rubs it in the man’s eyes and then tells him to go and take a bath.

Can you imagine?  The poor blind man just wants to be left alone, or maybe get a little change from a sympathetic passerby, and instead some stranger rubs mud into his eyes!  And not only mud, but mud that has been moistened with human spit. What a disgusting thing to do to another person!  The blind man gets out of there, goes to the pool that Jesus suggested, washes the mud from his eyes and sure enough, suddenly his sight is restored.  He can see!  Suddenly Jesus’ interruption into his life is not an annoyance, but a huge blessing.

The man returns to his neighborhood and once again the neighbors start talking about him as if he’s not there.  “Isn’t that the guy who used to beg?”  He can hear them gossiping.  Finally they ask him directly and he tells them exactly what happened.  A man named Jesus.  The mud.  The pool.  The sight.  No, he doesn’t know where Jesus is now.

This starts to happen over and over to the man.  The Pharisees drag him in for questioning.  He gives the same answers.  Jesus.  Mud.  Now he can see.  The man can see things around him for the first time, and he can also see what the Pharisees are up to.  The Pharisees start to whisper gleefully—“Oh, Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  He can’t be from God.  We’ve got him now! “ But the formerly blind man knows their logic is as short sighted as the logic about how sins cause medical conditions.  He is brave enough to tell the Pharisees that he thinks Jesus is a prophet.

Then the authorities haul his parents in for questioning.  Now, his parents’ sin might not have caused his blindness, but they don’t win parent of the year awards here, either.  Instead of rising to the blind man’s defense they say, “Yes, he’s our son, but that’s all we know.  We swear!  Ask him!  He’s old enough!”

Once again, the man is hauled before the Pharisees.  They tell him to “give glory to God” by admitting Jesus is a sinner.  The irony here is delicious.  Once again, the man sticks to his story.  All he knows is that he was blind and now he sees.  When they ask him the same questions over and over again he finally snaps back and asks them, “Why are you so interested?  Do you want to become his disciples?”  Our man has some spine!  The Pharisees are horrified, of course.   They tell the man that they don’t even know where Jesus is from.  They are starting to sound like old Southern biddies.  “We don’t know who his people are.”

What’s interesting here is that the more the Pharisees push, the more the man sees, and the more the man believes.  With every encounter, his boldness at describing Jesus deepens. He might have started out as a man on the sidelines, but the Pharisees are pulling faith out of him thread by thread, even though they intend the opposite.  After the Pharisees curl their noses at Jesus’ lineage, the formerly blind man uses their own logic against them.

“Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”  The Pharisees are infuriated and drive the blind man out of town.

The man has nowhere near the education the Pharisees have.  As a blind person, he could not have studied the Torah.  In their world view the Pharisees have all the knowledge about God and the formerly blind man has none.

We know the opposite is true.  After the man is cast out of town, Jesus searches him out and reveals his identity to him.  Jesus is not just a man.  Jesus is not just a prophet.  Jesus is not just a Godly person.  Jesus is the Son of God.  While the Pharisees are debating about the fine points of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, the man Jesus healed is having an encounter with the living God.  His lack of education, his lack of resources, his former disability—none of that stands in the way of the encounter.  His faith helps him see God in a way that the Pharisees are unable to see.  We learn that they are actually the blind people in this story.  They have every opportunity to see the work of God, but they are too caught up in their own rules and power to see it.

Jesus may no longer be walking around on earth occasionally muddying someone’s eyes, but Jesus still shows up in our lives whether we ask for him or not. Experiences with God are not limited to those brilliant professors at Princeton Seminary or the clergy in this town.  In fact, sometimes the “experts” get so caught up in the details, like the Pharisees we can miss encounters with God right before our noses!

The Holy Spirit can break in to anyone’s life at any time and give a person an encounter with the risen Christ.  History is filled with these moments.  St. Augustine, who had a notoriously naughty youth, was visited by a man named Potitian, who told him about the conversion of some other men.  St. Augustine was so moved by the stories, he ran into a garden, crying out to God and suddenly he heard the voice of children singing, “Take up and read.  Take up and read.”  He picked up his bible and opened it to Romans 13:13-14, “let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.  Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”  In that moment, Augustine felt as if he had encountered the risen Christ, who was speaking directly to him.

My favorite modern story of this kind of encounter, is the story Anne Lamott records of her own encounter with Jesus in her book Traveling Mercies.

After awhile, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone.  The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there-of course, there wasn’t.  But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus.  I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled.  I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen.  I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”

I just felt him sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn’t help because that ‘s not what I was seeing him with.  Finally, I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.”

Now, if Augustine or Anne Lamott tried to tell their experiences to the Pharisees, they would be stuck in the same position as the blind man.  They would sound ridiculous!  Their experiences are not logical.  Their experiences don’t fit into our understanding of how the world works.  But like the blind man, all they can do is tell what happened to them.  Augustine lived a selfish life, had his encounter with Christ, and became one of the great Saints of the Church.  Lamott was a woman with a serious addiction, had her experience with Christ, and went on to give up drugs and alcohol and became famous writing about faith.  They were blind and then they saw.  And when the saw the truth, they communicated that truth to those around them.

So, be on watch this Lent.  You never know when Christ will sneak up in your life and radically transform it.  Whether you are new to faith or have been worshiping for sixty years, Jesus may not ask first.  He may just come up to you and heal you in ways you never expected or knew you needed.  And if people don’t believe it happened to you all you have to say is “All I know is, I was blind and now I see.”

Amen.