Resurrection Vision

Mark 16: 1-8

The dawn revealed ever so slightly a ribboned sky of deep blues and indigo, some magenta with varying hues of orange.   As the sun began to rise over the mountains of Moab, over the Jordan River, and finally over the Mount of Olives Mary Magdalene, Mary, James mother, and Salome got the packages of spices they had purchased at the market and walked to Jesus’ tomb.  The chill of the early morning made them wrap their scarves more tightly around their shoulders.  There was no time when Jesus was crucified to properly prepare his body for burial since it was the Sabbath.  So they went now, in the early morning of the first day of the week to anoint him.

They knew, more than likely, that Joseph of Arimethia had a very large stone placed in front of the tomb, so robbers wouldn’t break in and take Jesus’ body.  But the problem for the women was that it was big and very heavy.  All they wanted to do was see him, to touch his broken body for one last time and to slather on him the spices for burial and this boulder would make it extremely difficult for them to do so. 

By the time they came down the hill towards the tomb the sun was beginning to shine and they saw an unbelievable and incredible sight.  The stone had been rolled away from the cave tomb; their anxieties turned to fear, not surprising.

They went in panicked, their faces probably registered trepidation and fear.  They didn’t see Jesus’ body but they did see someone dressed in white.  He reassured them, “Do not be afraid. You’re looking for Jesus, but you see he’s not here, he has been raised.”  The women stepped back with their jaws dropped open in disbelief.  Then the man spoke, “Go tell the disciples and especially Peter the one who denied him; tell them that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee where they are to meet him.”  Certainly this must have appeared to be some sort of cryptic message to the women.

They dropped their spice boxes, turned around and fled from the tomb.  They hiked up their robes and began to run back on the same path that they had just traversed.  Terror struck. Amazed.  Quite afraid. They were seized with dread and told no one as they ran.

This is not quite the same feeling that we register today.  The resurrection story that we celebrate today is joyful.  Today we have come knowing that the tomb is already empty, that Jesus has accomplished everything that he was sent to do.  He conquered death and sin and he soon will ascend to heaven to prepare a place for us.  We come knowing this story in its entirety, and it’s a good one.

Christ is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!  It is our Easter mantra.  It is a prophetic statement that we claim over and over again.  And unlike those women who first encountered an empty grave, an empty grave does not scare us, we are NOT afraid.  I don’t see any hair raised or terror struck faces here today.  None of you were out of breath from running here today.

‘Christ is Risen’ was not a glorious resurrection phrase for them as it is for us; it would have been ambiguous and filled with more questions than answers.  It wouldn’t be Christ is Risen! for the women but rather, Christ….is Risen? What do you mean he is rise?  Their lives were changed no doubt to a new reality where they had to recast their vision, reassess their lives and build new ones with Jesus now dead but also gone.

We’ve come a long way from that first hour and those first few days.  ‘We love to tell the story’ as Kate Hankey wrote in her hymn of so long ago, ‘we love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love’.  It is the story of redemption and hope and of God’s love for us.  It is the story of life not death.  It is a narrative that unfolded long ago in a distant land but continues to give us a lens through which we can see our lives.

We have all experienced resurrection at some point in time, probably often if we stop to think about it.  Resurrection is a pivotal moment when you suddenly see dawn emerging out of the darkness of the night, when your torrential tears begin to subside, when your broken heart begins to mend, when just the mere sound of children’s voices or the springtime warble of a red bird once again brings you immeasurable joy after winter’s dark and short days.  As Barbara Brown Taylor notes, “Resurrection begins in the dark” and I k now that we have all been in the dark, we are human.

Years ago a man named Bill dropped by my office one day and asked if he could just sit and talk.  “Sure” I said, even though I was in the middle of writing a sermon and really didn’t want to be disturbed.  Bill was a pipefitter and a crusty old man.  He would sit and ‘witness’ to me like evangelicals do and I’d think to myself, come on Bill, I know all this stuff already, I know Jesus saves, I know about the ‘Footsteps in the Sand’ poem.  He would always start off with something about ‘Footsteps in the Sand’.  But God saved me and put me on mute so that I could listen and hear Bill’s story. 

I finally realized that Bill came to tell me his story of redemption.  He came to share with me, to witness and to tell me the same thing over and over again about his former addiction, his adult dysfunctional children who moved back home, and about his beloved wife who had passed on.  He told me about how God picked him up every step of the way and carried him to a place where he could begin again with resurrection vision. For Bill out of the darkness had come light.

Often Bill came for a visit.  And it’s almost as if the minute he sat down he pushed ‘play’ on his life’s tape recorder  and when he left my office he would push ‘rewind’ to get ready for his next visit. Our talks were always the same. Through his visits I learned patience, and beyond that, that once someone has been redeemed and resurrected to a new vision of their life they cannot help but tell other people as often as they can.  His message to me was I have been saved through Christ and an empty tomb is grace, unconditionally. 

Christ’s resurrection does not leave us in the same place.  It simply cannot.  It does not leave us standing at an empty tomb wringing our hands, studded with fear.  What’s the point of that?  His resurrection asks us, ‘What is life?’ “What is my life, what is your life?” ‘How will you choose to live the life that you are given no matter what has happened to you?’  ‘Since you are a witness to the resurrection today what meaning will you make of your life that will embody a resurrection vision?’  A lot of people live lives of missed opportunities and broken dreams without ever coming out of the dark and accepting the gift of resurrection so they can see anew. Bill lived the vision for his life that freed him from his troubles and to see beyond his suffering, will you do so for yours as well? Will you live that vision so that Christ’s accomplished work here on earth was not in vain?

Christ is Risen!  It’s the boldest statement that we will ever be asked to make in our lifetime because it says, I see anew.  I can hope where the is none. 

The Mary’s and Salome did eventually tell someone because, today, thousands of years later we say with conviction….Christ is Risen!  We speak today for those women who were gripped with fear.  We know there is nothing to fear, only the future.  We may not knock on someone’s door just to chat and tell them the poem of Footsteps in the Sand but we can tell our own story.  Each of us has one, you can’t fool me.

This is the Easter message.  Christ’s story, our story, elaborately knit by incredible redeeming love.  We must witness.  If you don’t believe me this year, come back next year and check in, the doors are always open.  By then I will have had a chance to rewind the tape to that old, old story of love…Christ is Risen – He is Risen Indeed!  

So Be It!

Amen.

Untie THAT Donkey

Mark 11: 1-11

It was Passover and Jerusalem was the place to be at Passover.  Jews from all over first century Palestine would make pilgrimage and gather to remember how God had ‘passed over’ their homes in Egypt during the slaughter of the innocents.  They remember how God had protected them from the plagues and how God had brought them out of slavery.

Jerusalem was also the seat of the Roman government in the Mediterranean world in the Roman Empire.  The people were burdened with taxes, economic issues, systems of land debt to the Romans, and Herod, a puppet ruler of Rome was not a happy, or skilled ruler for “all” the people. The people resented him.  They wanted badly to prevent the transformation of Jerusalem into a Greco-Roman city.  This was the situation that year and the people shouted, “Hosanna” which means in Hebrew, save us!  Not hooray, or yippee, not even praise him, hosanna means save us.  Their hope and expectation was for a king who would be able to save them from the Roman authorities and the Greco-Roman influence that threatened their religious identity.  Many believed Jesus was their man. They sang out “Hosanna in the name of the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” 

The ‘Palm Sunday’ narrative is recorded in all four of the Gospels each supplying its own unique details of that day.  Mark’s account is the shortest of the four gospels and it is the focus of today’s reflection.  Hear now the Gospel of Mark, the 11^th chapter:

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’

 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

‘Hosanna!
   Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
   Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Just east of Jerusalem on the other side of the Mount of Olives lies sleepy Bethany.  Jesus went there often for respite; it was his little ‘get away’ retreat spot.  As he and his disciples were getting close to Bethany, Jesus says to two of them, “Go, run ahead, will you?  Go to the village and when you see a donkey, a colt, untie him, then bring him to me.”  “Oh,” Jesus says, “and if anybody says anything to you, just tell them that I sent you.”  Seems as if Jesus already had thought this donkey fetching through.  In fact, out of the 11 verses that comprise this story, 6 are focused on donkey detail.  It’s a big deal.

I can just hear the two disciples now as they run ahead.  “What the heck?  Why do we have be the ones to get the donkey?  Why didn’t he choose those other two, you know the ones who never do anything?  For this we left our fishing boats and our beautiful Galilee?” 

Beyond their kevetching their mission was successful; and they lead this colt back to Jesus.  Certainly this animal was not fit for a ‘king’ so they put their cloaks on the donkey; at least it would protect Jesus from the dirt and dander of the animal.

Jesus began his journey out of dusty Bethany, over the steep incline of the back side of the Mount of Olives, down into the Kidron Valley and into bustling and contentious, Jerusalem.  The disciples followed, the people followed.  People threw their garments on the ground and they ripped down branches from palm trees, maybe even branches from some of the prolific olive trees that dot the side of the Mount of Olives. 

But what about the donkey and those two disciples who were dispatched to bring back such a lowly creature? I bet that they never, in their wildest imaginations thought that they would be untying a donkey that didn’t even belong to them, and then have to bring it to Jesus.  They probably never envisioned that this was ministry, that this mundane detail would become such a large part of the events of the day. 

When Jesus said, follow me, he meant, really people….follow me.  Believe me.  Trust me.  Do what you can.  But come on, untie a donkey?  That probably means cleaning up after the donkey too.  It’s hard to grasp the larger picture when grunt work is all that you are doing in the name of the Lord.

Yet, to follow Jesus is just as much hands on as it is an intellectual and spiritual exercise. 

When I entered the ministry a former colleague of mine asked me if I had my Swiss Army knife on me.  Being a quarter Swiss I had to stop and think for a minute, was he making a joke at my cultural heritage expense? He was a joker!  No, he really did want to know if I had a knife with me, he needed the screwdriver because we were erecting the stage together for the upcoming Christmas pageant. 

They don’t tell you in seminary that sometimes you’ll have to fix a leaky faucet, pick up cigarette butts, reset large and old furnaces, wash the floors, screw stages together and fix paper jams.  They don’t tell you to keep a Swiss Army knife on you.  And they forget to tell you about all the committees and paperwork that needs tending to.  This is donkey detail!

To be relevant Karl Barth once said, “One should read with the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other”.  I say, “One should read with the Bible in one hand, the newspaper in the other, and have a Swiss Army knife hanging from your belt.”  Then, and only then are you prepared to follow Jesus, to bolster the church and to deal with the grunt work of ministry.

Ministry of the Church takes many hands and hearts.  Hands and hearts that are willing to perform the unglamorous because most of life is, well, unglamorous.

This is the ministry of donkey duty, grunt work where we will have to metaphorically, go and untie that donkey.  It behooves us to do it ourselves for in that humble moment you know you are serving not yourself but God.  You have humbly given of yourself and your pride over to the greater need.  We will have to serve in unglamorous ways that equally and ultimately, too, lift up the body of Christ.  Our time and our efforts do NOT go unnoticed; it is all for a purpose which happens to be God’s purpose and not ours.  That’s why we are here, that’s the outer grunt work of being a Christian.

But that’s only part of it.  Between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday there is a whole lot of inner grunt work to be done.  The inner work is between you and God where forgiveness and grace meet.  It is where you humble your heart and have a ‘come to Jesus’ real life moment.  Are you willing to untie THAT donkey even when you don’t want to?  Are you willing to follow Jesus to the end, through the betrayal, the arrest, the interrogation, the denial, the whippings and crucifixion?  Are the sounds of THAT beast of burden within earshot?  I hope that it is.

The expectation of Holy Week is that we will be with Jesus every step of the way until he hangs upon the old wooden cross.

The expectation is that you will examine your relationship with God honestly to ready yourself for resurrection.

Are you willing and daring enough to cry out from the depth of your being, hosanna, save us, so that your Alleluias on Easter morning will be your authentic voice? 

When Jesus says, follow me he doesn’t specify where and for what reason or what kind of work he wants us to do.  One day you will be a visionary and prophetic leader championing justice and visiting the sick and the next day you will be called to change light bulbs.  He simply says, follow, trust me, and believe in me, I will lead you to a better place. 

And Jesus, well, he follows through, he does not disappoint us.  He leads us to hope not despair, joy not sorrow, self-sufficiency not helplessness; he leads us to God’s immeasurable grace.  Untie that donkey my friends and ride into Holy Week over the dusty and rough terrain we call life.  It may not be glamorous but it will be the best thing you will ever do.

Amen.

Unbound and Free

John 11:1-45

On the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, not the western slope where Jesus goes to pray sits the town of El-Azariyeh which is named after Lazarus.  It is this place, where it is believed, that Jesus raised him from the dead.  In the Bible it’s called Bethany.  El-Azariyeh is about two miles outside of the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem separated by the very steep and rocky Kidron Valley and the beloved Mount of Olives.  It is from here that on Palm Sunday every year pilgrim’s reenact the parade of palms into the Old City. 

By foot, it’s quite a walk and it’s one that Jesus will make on a donkey in just a few short days.  A walk in which there will be palms waving against the cerulean blue sky and children laying their cloaks on the dusty road.  But we are not there yet.  Certainly none of the people knew what the future was going to hold for them, or for Jesus.  All they knew was that their dear friend and brother, Lazarus was dead and buried.  And their hearts were heavy with grief as they are when a beloved friend dies, and Jesus shuddered with sadness. 

The raising of Lazarus is a long and large story like the other readings this Lent.  It is a very complicated story of faith amid the vicissitudes and obstacles of life, and it put us face to face with our own human mortality.  There are so many portals of entry in this passage in which we could reflect but today we will concentrate on Lazarus.  First now, hear this story in its entirety from the Gospel of John the eleventh chapter.

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

 Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the [people] were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’

After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the [people] had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The [people], who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the [people] who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the [people] said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

 Many of the [people] therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him…………Here ends our scripture.

Already Jesus is foretelling his disciples of what the future holds, but the disciples are slow to understand, this is no surprise, is it?  It’s hard to believe that Jesus would dilly-dally just so he could demonstrate the miracle of resurrection as foreshadowed by Lazarus’ resurrection, but he knows them all too well and wants to prepare them.  Once again compassion is at the core of what he does. 

“Lazarus, come out!”  Unbind him and let him go.”  And the first face that he saw after being dead was the face of Jesus, the face of love.  Not the face of the ever popular Hallmark card kind of romantic love but love’s other faces of compassion, of justice, of strength, of healing. Lazarus, after being bound with strips of linen and laid to rest in a cold and dark stone tomb was given life once again.  And many people saw this great miracle of Jesus that day and believed.  For life had come to the dead.  And the bound were unbound.  Surely if Jesus could do that for Lazarus he could do that for them too.  Surely, if Jesus could do that for Lazarus he can do that for us too. 

For all of us, if we are truthful, have been bound tightly with strips of linen or a shroud one way or another. Strips that threaten to deny us breath.  Strips that hinder our vision.  Strips that ensnare us in addiction, depression or old habits, or the past.  Strips of linen that like to near kill us.  None of us are exempt because life is indeed difficult at times and everyone has suffered. And yet we are constantly called out of our tombs because God so dearly loves us.   

It takes great faith to believe that once unbound you can come back to life; to strip off grave’s apparel and begin to live again.  It takes faith to believe when you are shivering in the darkness of a metaphorical death that you will ever breathe again.  And a thimble full of faith will do when you can’t conjure up the faith that you think you ‘should’ have.  And if you have no faith left, I’m here to say that you will live a vital life again.   Because the voice calls, “Arise!”  “Come out!”  Come out wherever you are, in whatever condition you may be in. And that voice is Jesus.  And that is love.

We are called out of our tomb because we are loved.  We are unbound by that love so that we can be in the presence of Christ because in his presence we find forgiveness, mercy, grace and peace.  

But it can’t stop with just ourselves, because we are unbound so too we can help loose others.  Jesus brought Lazarus back to life but it was Mary and Martha who unbind him.  We know all too well that there are people who live bound up with constraining strips of linen that society has placed around them.  People who are victims of prejudice, hatred, poverty, and discrimination.  They need our help in so many ways.

Columbus House had their volunteer luncheon yesterday and we were given a tour of the facility.  It’s one thing to talk about homelessness but it’s another to see it face to face. Surely, the strips of linen are tightly wrapped around those who use their services.  People become homeless for many reasons, mental illness, addiction, unassimilated veteran’s living with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), loss of job, chronic systemic issues that force a person into helplessness rather than self-sustaining living.  The people who work at Columbus House are the Mary’s and Martha’s who help to unbind the constrictive strips for these men and women.  What more can we do as a caring, faith community that upholds the work of Christ?  How might we enlarge our ministry here to help unbind and make free others, like Lazarus who was unbound and made free to live once again?

Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and life, those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” 

Amen and may it be so!

Then and Now

John 9:1-41

I don’t know why I think it is ironic that the Sunday when scripture is about Jesus spitting in the dirt, making mud and slathering it on a blind man’s eyes that that very same week in Oso, Washington 26 people are dead and 90 unaccounted for due to a massive mudslide.  I suppose I was thinking mostly about the curative effects of mud but now it doesn’t seem so relevant with this latest news in Washington State.  Mud doesn’t seem so curative now, in fact it’s shown it’s deadly face.  What once was homes and lives are no more.

I am not one to believe that things happen for a reason because things, particularly acts of nature like earthquakes, tsunami’s, hurricanes, tornados, mudslides, just happen due to very unfavorable weather conditions.  And while we might receive some insight in time from these horrific events, God didn’t make these things happen to teach us a lesson.  What kind of God would that be?  It just seems that this mudslide will be a defining moment certainly with the people’s whose life was lost and unaccounted for and those who will need to live into a new reality.  Once there were homes but now there are not, once there were lives but now there are not.

Living into a new reality is sometimes a good thing and sometimes an unpleasant and sad thing.  Sometimes we ask for it and often times we don’t.  But the fact is our realities can and sometimes change on a dime, which is what happens in today’s lectionary reading.     

Barbara Brown Taylor refers to this scripture from John about the man born blind as “a one act play in six scenes with a large cast of characters.”[i]  Indeed it is another lengthy piece of scripture with many twists and turns and people to keep track of.  The miracle of Jesus giving sight to a blind man with mud is told four times throughout this passage so I’m not going to read the entire passage today as you have printed in your bulletin but selected passages.     

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

Let’s break here for a minute or two to digest what has happened.  By now Jesus is in Jerusalem and has just come from the temple and he’s walking along with his disciples who happen to see a blind beggar.  They’re curious, they want to know who sinned, the man who was born blind or his parents.  Back then sin was equated  with suffering, that if suffering happens it must be on account of some sort of sin or wrongdoing or wrong living that has occurred with the sufferer. 

But that’s old theology and we should be uncomfortable with it because we know we can produce a very accurate physiological explanation for this man’s blindness.  And blindness doesn’t necessarily produce suffering. However we do, I think, want to explain away suffering and give blame to some thing or some one, it relieves the bigger questions of why, why me? So sin cannot be the scapegoat for suffering. This is not the case here either.  Jesus says straight away that it wasn’t sin that caused his blindness but that he was born blind so that God’s works could be revealed in him.  

This, of course, is also a curious and dangerous statement for us to ponder.  What kind of God would promulgate natural disaster or blindness in order to reveal glory?  The Washington mudslide didn’t happen because they needed to have God’s glory revealed to them.  And blindness or any other sort of otherness is not an ethical deficit in one’s being, which needs God’s glory revealed to make it right or acceptable. God doesn’t need these things to disclose glory.  A simply sunset, a warm bowl of soup from a friend, a spring flower after a snowy winter shows us that God’s magnificent grace is with us.

Let’s move on picking up with verse 8….

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

Enter inquisitive neighbors, I’m sure you’ve known a few. They new him only as that blind man who used to sit and beg from them.  At least some of them did because they dispute between themselves as to whether it was really him, others didn’t think it was him but an imposter.  But he reassures them, “I’m your man!”  And again, a retelling of the miracle.  Mud was spread, he washed at Siloam and then received his sight.  His witness does not waver.  But somewhere between the first miracle and the retelling of it Jesus vanishes.  He’s gone for a while.  It’s been said that this is the longest passage or disappearance of Jesus in the Gospel of John.  So it gives the man time to tell his story yet another time.

Continuing in verse 13……

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

So the tides change in this part of the passage.  The sighted man was brought before the “Grand Jury” of Pharisees and he is assaulted with questions.[ii]  The who, what, where and why sorts of questions and the man sticks to his story, it never wavers.  Unfortunately the Pharisees could care less about this man seeing for the very first time in his life. Perhaps that sweltering middle eastern sun was harsh on these newly sighted eyes.  But they didn’t care how it felt or what he saw.  

The Pharisees go after Jesus.  He is the ‘greater’ sinner, public enemy numero uno.  His crime?…not keeping the Sabbath holy.  He couldn’t possibly be God’s representative because he healed on the Sabbath which was a BIG no-no.  They are out to get him.  But they still were hesitant in believing the man’s testimony even when he tells them that Jesus was a prophet so they call in the man’s parents.

And finally at verse 18

The people did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

And so the parents won’t answer for their son, he’s old enough to answer for himself.  He can’t answer their question of whether Jesus is a sinner, good for him, he’s not going down that slippery path.  All he does say is that he can testify to the best of his knowledge that though he was blind, now he sees.  They taunt this man’s knowledge and testimony and determine him to still be a sinner.  Eventally they drove him out. 

Then and now, though I was blind, now I see.  This is a defining moment in this man’s life; his former life ends and he had to embrace a new life that had been given him.  A life of sight, of vision, of beautiful landscapes, of color, of belief, of faith because he had been transformed through the grace of God manifest in the miracle of Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ identity reveled that day.

This is quite a story.  The moment and act of conversion, or going from blind to sighted is not as important as the difference it made in this man’s life.  It wasn’t the miracle itself but the aftermath of the miracle.  He can’t explain this miracle to the Pharisees but he can tell the difference it makes in his life, all he knows is that he could see.  This man has the courage to tell his story four times, to say what he knows, to speak truth to the power of God’s healing grace in his life when, on a dime, his life changed.  The difference in his life was vision and a profound vision and hope for life itself and it’s infinite possibilities.

Have you ever had a crucial moment or a critical juncture in your life when you were lost, when you were metaphorically blind, when you no longer could see the light of day or feel the warmth of the sun and then all of a sudden something changed and you could see?  You could see a new reality; a wrong that is in need of righting, a hurt that is in need of reconciling, a way of life that is in dire need of correction?  That’s God’s miracle of grace working in you.  That’s what this text is all about.  Realizing that a life in Christ can give you vision, and hope to go on even when you, yourself cannot.  Blind to sighted.  Depressed to encouraged.  Mud-soaked to verdant. 

If you are in need of hope and vision, and you aren’t quite there yet, this story of grace and love is for you.  It is the story of our faith revealed to us as many times as it needs to take place, until it finds a place in your heart.

I once was blind, but now I see.

Amen.

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[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, “A Tale of Two Heretics”, Home By Another Way, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1999.

[ii] IBID. p. 741 Kindle edition.

 Pastoral Prayer

O holy one, full of grace and mercy, are days are filled with unmet expectations, hurt too deep for words, and sometimes darkness that defies light.   So we come to you with open hearts begging for your reassurance and love.   We sing out praises to you and seek your divine care and guidance for our lives.  Hear us, we pray, for our intentions are earnest and we place our trust and faith in your hands.  Send your holy spirit to be upon us now as we bring before you the joys and concerns or this, your gathered congregation.

Water When You Need It

John 4: 1-42

Pastor Fred Phelps, founding pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas died this week.  If you don’t know who he is, Pastor Phelps and his flock, mostly family members are known for virulent anti-gay protests at events, funerals, and military funerals.  He preached hatred unbridled under the guise of Gospel, in my opinion.

He once told the Wichita Eagle in 2006, “If I had nobody mad at me what right would I have to claim that I was preaching the Gospel?" Under Phelps' leadership, Westboro members have preached that every calamity, from natural disasters to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, is God's punishment for the country's acceptance of homosexuality.[i]  That hits close to home. Really Pastor Phelps?  That is just not how I understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Your ministry did not reflect, in my opinion, the inclusive invitation of Jesus.

You don’t hear many prophetic, pushing the envelope sermons from me, I’m usually a bit more pastoral in my approach but today you will because it is what is on my mind and heart and it intersects with today’s proscribed text from the lectionary.  So here we go.

He Qi

We have for our consideration today a very long text.  I probably could have spent all of Lent on this beautiful text of restoration, witness and hope. Referred to often just as ‘The Samaritan Women at the Well’, it pours out redemption and love for us to consider.   I’m going to start at verse 1 because it really sets up why Jesus happened to wonder off the path and wind up in foreign territory and why this story is so important to the witness of Jesus Christ.  I’ll also be stopping with some explanation along the way to break up the reading.

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

It’s notable that he stopped in Sychar because Sychar (today Hebron) was a Samaritan city and a Jew wouldn’t have been caught dead in Samaritan territory and especially in the middle of a hot day making a stop.  There was a long-standing hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans because of their differences in cultic and religious understanding and practice.  It would have been dangerous for Jesus to expose himself like that.  But he does and in doing so he cultivates a new witness that we will see.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Unlike Nicodemus from last week’s scripture who comes at midnight, this woman comes to Jesus in broad daylight which also could have gotten her in trouble.  Unlike Nicodemus who was religiously well bred, an insider and a male with a name, this woman was an outsider on several levels, a female without a name that has been recorded.  But this woman has chutzpah!  She challenges Jesus to a theological debate and ultimately his authority, she is not passive by any means yet she recognizes her limitations.  And yet Jesus, God bless him, he lets go of created social barriers that enforced human division in his day.

Unlike Nicodemus this woman recognizes what Jesus can provide her with, she see’s his identity.  What’s interesting is that Jesus comes to the well unprepared, he has no bucket, no visual aid to help us understand the difference between the water in the well and living water.  And yet she gets it, and hopefully we do too. The woman doesn’t need a bucket to fill with the living water that Jesus offers, she needs an open heart and a willingness to accept that which Jesus offers.  They both were thirsty that day and I believe both were quenched from their encounter.

This is one of the longest conversations that Jesus has that is recorded. And we see that the story hasn’t ended yet.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

It is here that his divine nature is really revealed, she knows he is a prophet with the things he has told her about herself, her former marriages, her current situation.  And we also see their differences- that her ancestors worshipped on Mt Gerizim in Samaria and Jesus ancestor’s worshipped on the mount in Jerusalem but those Jesus says, who worship the true God will neither worship on Mt. Gerizim or Jerusalem but in true spirit and energy because God is spirit, and God is love.  She becomes a believer that blistering midday at the well.  Living water and spirit.  This divine aha moment however is interrupted…. 

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him….

…Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

This woman, of insignificant beginnings, becomes a witness for Jesus’ miraculous mercy and healing.  She has been given a drink from the well of living water, Jesus Christ. What was her unquenchable thirst and her questionable status came to an end. Jesus met her in her most vulnerable state and took what she was offering which was an open heart and she in turn received acceptance, forgiveness and clean, refreshing, rehydrating, life giving and life informing water to drink.

This is a good text if you’ve ever doubted your identity, if you’ve ever doubted that you are worthy of God’s love because what this text shows is that everyone, EVERYONE, is worthy of that incredible love.  It shows us that we are acceptable in God’s sight just the way we are, warts and foibles invited!  We don’t have to be the best or the greatest or the smartest to earn God’s love.  We don’t have to be a certain color or a certain gender or sexual orientation to receive grace.  We just have to be who we are and, like Jesus meeting the woman at the well, we will be met with wide open acceptance.  All we have to do is show up and we too will be met at the metaphorical well and be filled with the living water of Christ.

But the woman takes it one step further and we need to as well.  She goes out and tells other people of this transformation of her life.  That she is no longer a nobody tossed of and swept away by society.  She is a somebody, included into the fabric of life rather than excluded. As theologian Brian Blount says, “This thirsty man (Jesus) who was the source of living water provided the model and the modus operandi for letting go of division”.[ii] Through his acceptance of this woman he shows us the way to inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness.  Isn’t that the God we all want and desire?  Don’t we all want to be included in God’s merciful love?  And doesn’t God want union rather than separation?

Can’t we share this really great news with others, can’t we let others know that they too can come and be accepted and cared for just the way they are?  The church has that potential.  We have that potential as a community who loves one another.  There is no room for prejudice in the church.  The church can be that well, offering living water, offering hope and a place of acceptance to all people from whatever path they have taken to get here.  Let us not be even one iota like Pastor Phelps congregation spewing hatred.  The Samaritan woman was not turned away from the well and no one should be turned away and feel as if they can’t come to church because of who they are by nature and grace.  And no ones funeral, the final most sacred act in life that we can give to another should be tainted with hate.  

The well of God’s love is deep and you will be able to get water when you need it.  There is plenty for all.  The well never runs dry there is enough sustenance for everyone.  Black and white, rich and poor, young and old, gay and straight. God’s love is unbelievably wide, non judgmental, sacred, and all encompassing.  May we emulate God’s love today so that all may drink from the well of salvation, and affirm each person’s living as a beloved child of God.

For God so loved this world.

Amen!

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[i] CNN.com, Daniel Burke.

[ii] Brian K. Blount, Living the Word in Christian Century Magazine, March 19, 2014 edition.