Fiery Ordeals

Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year A
Text: Acts 1.6-14; 1 Pet 4.12-14, 5.6-11; Jn 17.1-11

I want to share a story with you. This story is told by Jack Hitt, a contributor to an old episode of the NPR radio show “This American Life.” Hitt writes:

Well, it all began at Christmas two years ago when my daughter was four years old. And it was the first time that she had ever asked about what did this holiday mean. And so, I explained to her that this was celebrating the birth of Jesus. And she wanted to know more about that, and we went out and bought a kid’s Bible and had these readings at night. She loved them, wanted to know everything about Jesus.
So, we read a lot about his birth and about his teaching. And she would ask constantly what that phrase was, and I would explain to her that it was “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And we would talk about those old words and what that all meant.
And then one day we were driving past a big church, and out front was an enormous crucifix. She said, “Who is that?” And I guess I’d never really told that part of the story. So, I had to sort of say, “Yeah, well, that’s Jesus, and I forgot to tell you the ending. Yeah, well, he ran afoul of the Roman government. This message that he had was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorities at the time that they had to kill him. They came to the conclusion that he would have to die. That message was too troublesome.”
It was about a month later after that Christmas, we had gone through the whole story of what Christmas meant. And it was mid-January, and her preschool celebrates the same holidays as the local schools, so Martin Luther King Day was off. So I knocked off work that day, and I decided we’d play and I’d take her out to lunch.
And we were sitting in there, and right on the table where we happened to plop down was the art section of the local newspaper, and there, big-as-life, was a huge drawing by a 10-year-old kid in the local schools of Martin Luther King. And she said, “Who’s that?” And I said, “Well, as it happens, that’s Martin Luther King, and he’s why you’re not in school today. So, we’re celebrating his birthday. This is the day we celebrate his life.”
And she said, “So, who is he?” I said, “Well, he was a preacher.” And she looks up at me and goes, “for Jesus?” And I said, “Yeah, actually he was. But there was another thing that he was really famous for, which is that he had a message.”
And you’re trying to say this to a four-year-old. This is the first time they ever hear anything, so you’re just very careful about how you phrase everything. So, I said, well, yeah, he was a preacher and he had a message. And she said, “what was his message?” I said, “well, he said that you should treat everybody the same, no matter what they look like.”
She thought about that for a minute, and she said, “Well, that’s what Jesus said.” I said, “Yeah, I guess it is. I never thought of it that way, but yeah, that is sort of like ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’” And she thought for a minute and looked up at me and said, “did they kill him, too?”[i]

The episode of “This American Life” in which this story was featured is entitled “Kid Logic: Stories of kids using perfectly logical arguments and arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions.” But this little girl didn’t come to the wrong conclusion, did she? She nailed it. People who really get the message that God has for us—the message of love and equality—and who share that message are killed for it.

St. John says that Jesus came for one reason and one reason only: to give the world eternal life by revealing God to it. He says it over and over and over again. Jesus came to be the Way, the Truth and the Life for the world, but the world didn’t want him.

It’s important here to point out what St. John means when he says “the world.” He isn’t talking about the planet, or everything that exists, or all people. He’s talking specifically about the world in the sense that we use when we say things like, “the world is going to hell” or “the way of the world works.” Because the English word “world” has so many different meanings, I find it easier to use the Greek word, kosmos. The kosmos is the power structure that humans create and inhabit within our world. It’s the overarching reality created by the interaction of governments, corporations, institutions, and systems that we have created to protect, sustain and advance human existence.

It is important to note that the kosmos is not evil. It is created for good reason, with good intent, but it is fallen. Any human system, no matter how good, seeks first to sustain and preserve itself. That is what institutions do. However, these systems end up seeking to do this even to the point sacrificing even their own stated ethics and morality. That means that every human system in the kosmos ends up disappointing us, sooner or later.

The reason Jesus—and King, and St. Stephen—died is because they threatened the stasis of one of the world’s systems—religion, government, social class, race, or what have you. That’s what Hitt had to try to explain to a 4-year-old: that the message of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is so radical and dangerous that, when you take it to its logical conclusion, it threatens and provokes a reaction from the kosmos. And that reaction, as the little girl understood, is violence.

This is at the heart of what the 1^st Letter of Peter has been talking about all throughout Easter. The author is writing to a group of Christians who are suffering hardship because they have believed the message of Jesus and have left behind the path of least resistance through the kosmos to try to life lives faithful to that message—to live according to the Way. They are experiencing persecution, perhaps, or maybe just isolation or discrimination from their families, their social circles, and their communities. Today, the author says, in essence: “Why are you surprised that life is hard for followers of the Way? That’s the way the world—the kosmos—works. Jesus suffered, and so shall you if you are faithful to him.” But he then goes on to say that, just as real as their suffering now is the “glory” to come when God Themself “will restore, support, strengthen and establish” them. For this reason, he urges, keep following the Way, no matter how hard the kosmos pushes back against you.

The reason for this persistence is not just for some personal reward, some “sordid gain,” as the letter-writer says elsewhere. The promised result of our faithfulness is not the reward of being scooped up to heaven while others burn in hell. It is that, like Christ, our faithfulness—even in the midst of suffering—is helping enact nothing less than the redemption of the kosmos.

As proof of this, we look to Jesus himself. His faithfulness did not fix the problems of the world. His life did not interrupt the Roman Empire or the Jewish temple economy one bit, beyond some minor hiccups. Most ancient historians have nothing to say about Jesus until his followers start grabbing their attention. It was his faithfulness to the Way that changed the world, even though the kosmos successfully killed him. Instead of being silenced, his message was amplified.

Even non-believers can appreciate Jesus and his story on some level because something about it rings true and right, like the way the world—the kosmos—ought to be. I wonder if that’s what St. John means when he writes, “the sheep follow [the shepherd] because they know his voice.” (Jn 10.4) That kind of power is dangerous, it threatens to destabilize our structures and reform or replace them, which is perhaps why the kosmos must react the way it did—in order to protect and maintain itself.

Just as Jesus’ faithfulness to the Way began changing the world for the better, so does our faithfulness. We may be too small, too insignificant, too weak to affect the change we would like to see by ourselves—or sometimes, even together—but by living faithfully, we are changing how the kosmos works, because we, too, are a part of the kosmos.

I find this to be tremendously good news, because it means that, even if we should fail, we can still be saved. Jesus failed—he died; and yet, the good news of Easter is that death is not the end. Likewise, even if we should fail and the world as we know it should end, the story is not over. God is still doing something, and we trust that that something can redeem whatever evil may occur, just as Jesus’ resurrection redeems his death. We don’t need to save the kosmos, because God is doing that—but God is doing that in and through us. We get to be a part of that, not by being superheroes, but by being exactly who we were created to be: human beings living according to the Way; living eternal life.

I notice that in Jesus’ prayer, when he prays for protection for his disciples, he isn’t referring to preventing harm or death, but to oneness: “that they may be one, as we are one.” I wonder if living in the awareness of the unity we have with all people and all creation might have the power to allay some of our fears. I wonder if recognizing our oneness with even our enemies might change our hearts and how we work for justice in the world. Even if they keep treating us as enemies, what might happen if we treated them like siblings? What might happen to us? What could happen to the world?

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[i] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/188/kid-logic-2001

The End

25th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 33), Year B
Text: Jer 20.7-13; Rom 6.1b-11; Matt 10.24-39

This story begins the section in the synoptic gospels that is known as the “Little Apocalypse.” Maybe you can see why. Jesus starts talking about wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation, the temple itself being thrown down. In the verses to follow, he’ll foretell persecution of his disciples, the arrival of false messiahs, and the signs and portents that will accompany his own return, omens such as the sun being darkened and the falling of the stars from the sky. Seems pretty apocalyptic, doesn’t it?

Who is Worthy to Receive the Sacraments?

Sermon Series on the Sacraments #4
Texts: 1 Cor 11.17-34; Rom 5.7-11; Mk 9.33-37

 

Bill Schuettler was a member of my internship congregation. He was in his 80s when I knew him, a short, stocky man with two hearing aids, he wore thick glasses and could fill just about any room with his voice and his presence. Bill and his wife Grace were two of the people I knew the best in Pottsville, often taking me out to lunch or inviting me to play parcheesi at their house. Bill also like to tell stories. Being in his 80s, he occasionally told the same story more than once. One story in particular that he told me often was about the time he was denied communion.

Bill and Grace had gone to visit their son in New Jersey. He had married a Catholic woman, and they and their children attended a Catholic congregation. Bill and Grace were in town for the grandchildren’s Christmas pageant at church. When it came time for communion, Bill and Grace, who rarely if ever missed church, went up to receive the sacrament, even though they knew that, as visiting Protestants, they weren’t supposed to. When they got to the priest, he refused to give them the body and blood of Christ.

Now, Bill was not an emotional man. He had the demeanor almost of a car salesman—very outgoing, very affable, and always energetic. But would tell this story, you could hear the anger and humiliation in his voice. “That priest wouldn’t give us communion, can you believe that? I was so mad, I almost had to leave the building. I will never go back to that church again!”

I know that some of you have had similar experiences. I don’t tell this story to criticize our Catholic brothers and sisters, but to help you imagine or remember that feeling of anger, of unfairness, of rejection that comes from being denied one of the sacraments that binds us together as God’s church. I want you to think about that feeling as we talk about the sacraments today, and about who is and is not worthy to receive those signs of God’s grace.

Paul wrote in his letter to the church at Corinth about how the Lord’s Supper should be eaten. In the early Church, Holy Communion was not just a bite of bread and a sip of wine; often it was an entire meal, shared by the community, with the bread and wine at the center of the meal, commemorating Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. Corinth was a metropolitan town, a busy port city and center of trade. Members of the church ran the gamut from wealthy merchants and landowners to poor day laborers and tradespeople and even slaves.

The congregation would gather in the evening to share the Lord’s supper and worship. However, the rich people who had more flexibility in their schedules would often show up first and begin eating before the working class members got off of their shifts, and the slaves would come even later when they had been excused by their masters for the evening. By the time the last showed up, sometimes there was no food left.

When Paul heard of this, he was livid, and scolded the congregation in the section of his letter we just read. He warned them that eating the meal ‘unworthily’ brought God’s judgment, rather than God’s grace. So he counseled those who partook of the meal to examine themselves and make sure they had the right motives at heart before they shared the meal.

I think that this passage may be part of what prevents our Catholic sisters and brothers from sharing the Eucharist with us. I think they see themselves as protecting us from eating and drinking judgment against ourselves. It is the same reason we set an age for first communion. We are worried that if people take communion wrongly God will judge them, so we have elected to set up limits to prevent that from happening by keeping the people who are too young or simple to understand, or who are too different from us, or who are not baptized from sharing the meal with us.

God, on the other hand, refuses to set limits on grace. In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes how Jesus shows God’s love for us in that while we were  still sinners—enemies of God—Jesus gave his life in exchange for ours. Although turning away from sin is an important part of our relationship with God, repentance is not a precondition for God’s love; Jesus made this ultimate act of love for us while we still hated God.

When the disciples argued among one another about who was greatest, Jesus set before them the example of a little child. A child is completely dependent on her parents for everything—food, shelter, clothing, affection. We love our children not because of what they do or don’t do; we do not feed or clothe them because of how deserving they are to receive such things, but because they are ours, and we care for them because if we don’t, nobody else will. Jesus is making the point that greatness or piety or any other measure of worth that we might use is meaningless in God’s eyes: we are given love and grace because we belong to God; and God’s love and grace is shown to us in the sacraments.

Although the Corinthians didn’t take the meal seriously, this was not their mistake; their mistake was that, by their actions, they excluded people. That is why Paul chastised them: not for being too careless with the meal, but for being too careless with their fellow Christians. God would rather waste the grace of baptism or communion on hardened sinners who don’t understand the significance of the gift they are receiving than ever turn anyone away and make them feel like Bill Schuettler did at that church in New Jersey.

Personally, I am convinced that the worst sin we can commit in our stewardship of God’s sacraments is to be too patronizing and inflexible to offer them to those who need them most. Whether it is a couple coming bringing their child for a baptism when you know they have no intention of keeping the promises they make, or the confirmand who has never attended a day of confirmation class, or the atheist son or daughter of the congregation coming forward to receive communion at Easter because everybody else is doing it, God’s love and God’s grace are for them. God’s love is not based on our greatness or our worthiness; it is given to us freely as a gift which we cannot earn.

It’s hard for us to see people approach these sacraments of baptism and communion without the repentance, without the solemnity with which we have been taught to approach them. It can feel like we are belittling God’s gifts. Indeed, if we didn’t take these sacraments seriously, if we did not respect and appreciate them as the holy gifts of God, then the sacraments would lose their meaning and become empty. But in the end, we are reminded that these sacraments do not belong to us; they belong to God, and to God’s Church.

As important as Holy Communion and Holy Baptism are to us, they are even more important to God, because these are the ways through which God as chosen to give us the gift of grace. If we are ever to impress upon others (and ourselves) the true meaning and importance of these sacraments, it can only be done in community—that is, in communion—with one another through these sacraments. In other words, the only way we can teach one another who to respect and appreciate these gifts by practicing them together, rather than by cutting one another out.

One of those lessons it is good for us to remember again and again is that we are all children before God. None of us fully understands God’s grace; like little children, we are all and utterly dependent on God for everything we have. In the end, there is no “us” and “them”—we are all beggars in God’s house, all washed in the same font and fed at the same table.

As we examine ourselves as Paul instructed, one question we should ask ourselves is, “how does God want us to use these gifts?” Are we really being good stewards of God’s sacraments in the way we administer them? In scripture, God’s love is abundant; even when it is wasted on people who are broken and unfaithful, God continues to give it as freely as Jesus gave his life. If this is our model for offering the sacraments, then we should know that the font and the table are open to all who seek them, regardless of their age, their motives, or their affiliations; because the true miracle is that whether we deserve them or not, whether we appreciate them or not, the sacraments, always accomplish what God designed them to do.

We know this because God’s love is present to us in these sacraments, and where God’s love is, God’s will is done, regardless of our motives. God’s love was present on Calvary, where an innocent man was hanged on a cross; and through the power of God’s love, Jesus’ death became the source of our forgiveness rather than our condemnation. Like Jesus himself, the sacraments of baptism and communion deserve our utmost respect and appreciation; but like Jesus himself, they are given freely for all, whether or not we understand or appreciate the gift that has been set before us.

When the Cock Crows

Delivered at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church. Lent 3, NL Year 4.
Text: Jn 18.12-27

This week as I sat down to study this story with several of my colleagues, one of the other pastors shared this story from his childhood in Japan where his father was a Lutheran missionary. Dan was in high school at the time, and he was riding the bus to school with a friend of his. On this particular day, Dan’s friend introduced him to another girl she knew. They both knew that Dan was the son of a missionary, and so this new girl, curious to know more about his faith, asked Dan, “Can you tell me about Jesus?”

How would you react in that situation? Would you be confident? Uncomfortable? Excited? Scared? Dan recalled that he became extremely uncomfortable. He had a strong faith, a deep relationship with God, but he told us how he became embarrassed and tense; he began to blush, and finally mumbled that he was not a good person to ask, that perhaps she should talk to his father.

Now, Dan knew as much as anybody about Jesus and the Christian faith. He had been raised in a religious household, and brought up in an environment that was intentionally centered around the idea of telling people who knew nothing of Jesus or the Christian Church about God’s saving grace; and yet he had no response when somebody asked him about this very thing. Would you have reacted differently in his shoes? Have you ever been asked by someone about your faith, why it is important to you, why you believe what you believe?

Peter was the disciple’s disciple. In all the gospels, he is the example of faithfulness. It was he who first confessed Jesus as the Messiah and God’s son. It was Peter who, as some would say, was chosen by Jesus to be the first Pope. If Peter had a fault, it was that he was a little too zealous for Jesus. He is the one who, at the transfiguration, suggests that they should build a three houses for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the mountaintop so they can stay there and he can bask in the glory of their presence. In the garden, John tells us, it is Peter who takes the sword and attacks the slave of the high priest in Jesus’ defense, cutting off his ear.

The story we read today is told in all four gospels, one of the few events all the gospel writers record. It is the story of how this same Peter—arrogant, self-confident, zealous Peter—denies his relationship with Jesus.

I began with Dan’s story today because when we consider Peter and his denials of Jesus, we often imagine what we would do in his place. Specifically, I think we often imagine what we would do if we were being threatened for our lives. There is a story that has become a kind of myth or legend in our society about a student at Columbine High School in Colorado. When the infamous massacre happened there in the late ‘90s, she was held at gunpoint by one of the shooters and asked if she was a Christian; and when she replied in the affirmative, the young man took her life. This is the sort of scenario we consider: if our lives were at stake, would we have the confidence to confess our faith?

In reality, Peter was probably not in any danger. John tells us that he was there with another disciple, a man known to the high priest. This other disciple got Peter into the courtyard. He was not arrested or interrogated, even though he was known to be a disciple of the man who was then being questioned by the authorities. Peter was not being interrogated by soldiers or priests, simply asked by some slaves, “Hey you’re not one of that guys disciples, too, are you?”

Earlier this week, I was with a group of people and we were using the FaithTalk cards from Vibrant Faith Ministries. These cards have questions on them to spur conversation. One of the group drew this question: “With whom do you have the most difficulty talking about your faith? Why?” He replied that it was most difficult for him to talk about his faith with a pastor, because he was afraid of sounding stupid and unsophisticated. Many of us, with a gun to our heads, might be able to confidently proclaim, “Yes, I am a disciple of Christ,” but what about when we are asked by a schoolgirl, “Can you tell me about Jesus?”

One thing that’s different between John’s account of this event and Matthew’s, Mark’s and Luke’s is that in the other gospels, Peter is asked if he is “with” Jesus, if he is a Galilean like him. In other words, he is asked if he associates with Jesus, if he hangs out with him. But in John, Peter is asked if he is Jesus’ disciple, if his identity is defined by his relationship to Jesus.

Remember that this is the same Peter who confessed Jesus as the Messiah, who mustered the courage to speak on the mountaintop of the transfiguration, who refused to let Jesus humiliate himself by washing his feet, who pulled out his sword in the garden, ready to defend Jesus or die trying. Yet, when he was asked, “Are you this man’s disciple,” he responded, “I am not.”

I don’t necessarily think Peter was lying to save his skin. I don’t think he was trying hide who he was. I think that even though he followed Jesus all over Galilee and Judea, all the way from the garden to the courtyard, when he was faced with the question of who he truly was, maybe he had to finally admit that he was not person he thought he was. He realized he was not the kind of disciple that Jesus deserved.

It’s good for us to read this story during Lent for two reasons. The first is that Lent is a time for us to examine ourselves, to recognize that we are not as faithful, not as devoted, not as bright, not as committed as we would like to be—we are not the kind of disciples that Jesus deserves. Lent is a time for us to understand this about ourselves and admit it to God and to one another. Even though we remain faithful while the Church around us shrinks, even though we take pride in our church membership and attendance, we are sometimes ashamed to share our faith because we don’t believe we have enough of it.

And if even if we are not ashamed, even if we are comfortable sharing our faith and talking to others about what God has done in our lives, we are painfully aware that we do not always practice what we preach. We are just as likely to be selfish, short-sighted, mean and hypocritical as anybody else out there. Being Jesus’ disciple does not always mean that we have become better people through him, and so we still fall short of deserving the love that Jesus gives us.

The second reason it is good for us to read this story during Lent is that Lent is a time for us to remember and reflect upon our limits. A few weeks ago, we put ashes on our foreheads and remembered that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. We will someday be gone; this congregation may someday be gone. We will do things that may hasten or slow those events, but in the end, we all pass away. God, on the other hand, does not.

Remember last week when we read John’s introduction to Jesus’ act of love? John writes, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” I hinted last week at the double-meaning of that word “end;” it could mean to the end of Jesus’ life or the end of his time with them, but it could also be understood as the “utmost,” as in he loved them to the end of his ability, to the utmost of his strength and power—“he loved them for all he was worth.”

As is the case with all of John’s gospel, this story of Peter’s denials is not about Peter; it is about Jesus. While Peter is in the courtyard denying Jesus, Jesus is in the house denying nothing. While Peter is responding in pain and fear, Jesus responds with boldness and love. In the courtyard, Peter responds, “I am not,” but in the garden, Jesus responds with “I AM.”

This story reminds us that for all of our faithlessness, for all of our shame and fear and doubt and pettiness, Jesus loves us “to the end,” for all he’s worth. What’s important is not our faithlessness, but Jesus’ faithfulness. It is his love, his devotion, his steadfastness—not ours—that accomplish God’s will. Peter fails, but that’s unimportant because Jesus does not.

There is one more word of hope. After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus tells them what is about to happen: that he will be betrayed and must go where they cannot. Peter will have none of this and boldly states that he will follow Jesus wherever he goes, and even lay down his life. You may remember that at this point, Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him; today we learn that everything came about just as he said. However, Jesus also told Peter, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.”

Jesus saw Peter’s denial coming and called it. If he got that right, we trust that he is also right that Peter will follow later. It’s Jesus’ reliability—his faithfulness—that is the good news here. Though he may not be able to count on Peter (or us), we can always count on him. Peter fails, and we fail, but that’s unimportant, because Jesus does not. Even if we can’t muster the courage to tell about his faithfulness to us, that faithfulness will remain.

What’s in a Name?

Delivered at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Swift Falls, MN. NL Proper 4, Year 4.
Texts: Ex 2.23-3.15; 4.10-17; Jn 8.58

Preaching is a spoken art form: click here to listen!

Here’s a bit of trivia for you: have you ever heard God called “Jehovah” and wondered where it came from? Some people say it is the name of God. In reality, it’s a made-up word.

If you look in the bible, in many places you’ll see the word “lord” in small caps. Those are places where the name of God is used, the name we learn today, the name that gets translated, “I AM.” In Hebrew writing, there are no vowels, only consonants. God’s name is written YHVH. However, observant Jews do not say God’s name; instead, they say “the Lord,” which in Hebrew is adonay. In the 11th century, a group of scholars went through the Hebrew bible and devised as system of dots and dashes to stand for vowels. Wherever YHVH was written, they put in the vowels for adonay, because that’s what was said there.

Long after that, only a few centuries ago, people went back and looked at those Hebrew scriptures with points and found YHVH with the vowels A-O-A, and not knowing any of this history, they read it “Yahovah,” which was rendered in English as Jehovah. They thought they had found the secret name of God, but instead they had invented a jibberish word.

Why all the interest in God’s name? Because, in the bible, names are important. They say something about a person, something about their character and their authority. Moses’ name means “to draw out” because he was drawn out of the water and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter; he is also the one sent to ‘draw’ God’s people out of slavery. “Abraham” means “father of nations,” because God promised to give him innumerable descendants. “Isaac” means “laugher,” because the promise that God made to Abraham and Sarah was so impossible at their age that Sarah laughed at it; and yet, Isaac was born.

“Jacob” means “heel,” because he grabbed his brother Esau’s heel in the womb, and then stole his blessing as a young man. Yet, in spite of (or because of) this, Jacob is who God uses to keep the promise to Abraham and Isaac. Many of you may have some special meaning behind your own names; perhaps you were named after a friend or family member, or your name may have some significance in history.

When Moses asks what God’s name is, he is asking for authority. He wants to be able to tell the Israelites something about the one who is sending him. God’s answer is twofold: the first answer is “I AM who I AM,” and the second is that this is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By recalling these three ancestors of the Israelites, God is recalling the promises that God has made to them and reminding the people that the promise still holds.

God’s own name is both a reassurance and a mystery. It may mean “I AM who I AM” or “I AM who I SHALL BE” or “I AM the ONE WHO IS” or several other things; it’s impossible to translate exactly. It is a name that at once both promises God’s presence and constancy, and yet also acknowledges God’s vast power, power so great that we can never comprehend it or even come up with adequate words to describe it.

God’s name is a promise to a people in slavery that God has not forgotten them, and that they are not alone. They have cried out, and God has heard them. “Are you there, God? Are you paying attention?” I AM. “Will you help us?” I AM. God’s name is also a promise to Moses, who is setting out to do the impossible. “Are you sure you want me, God?” I AM “Will you be with me? Will you make this work” I AM.

Yet for all the questions it answers, God’s name raises even more. God’s true nature remains a mystery; a mystery like a bush that burns and yet is not consumed. It says nothing about where God has come from, why God cares for us, or how God is able to do these things; but in some way it also tells us all we need to know. God simply IS; any more than that, we’ll never be able to understand.

This power and promise and mystery of God is what Jesus is drawing on in John’s gospel when he says, “I AM the bread of life,” “I AM the good shepherd,” “I AM the resurrection and the life,” “I AM the true vine.” In chapter 8, he makes the connection explicit: as his adversaries press him with questions about his authority, he answers them, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” He is making the point that he is God; and that is why in the next verse, they pick up rocks to stone him to death for blasphemy.

Like the name I AM, God is a mystery too big for us to understand, to vast to wrap our minds around. Throughout history, God has chosen to reveal Godself to us in different ways: in Noah’s rainbow, in the words of the prophets, in the bible and through through the liturgy among many others. But the most complete revelation we have of God is in Jesus Christ. He says to Philip, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (Jn 14.9) Jesus shows us God, not just in his death and resurrection, but in his birth, his life, his teaching. We learn from Jesus that as great and mighty as God is, God chose to be born to an inconspicuous and unmarried peasant girl. God chose not to rule people with an iron rod, but to teach us, to love us, to show us the way of love and compassion and community. He didn’t eat with Pharisees and lawyers as much as he ate with hookers and tax collectors and other “undesirables.” Instead of I RULE, Jesus shows us I AM: I AM with you, I AM loving you, I AM calling you.

Jesus shows us the extent of God’s love for us, to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom in spite of the danger in which he placed his own life; and Jesus shows us that God’s power and God’s love are stronger even than death itself.

In moments when we feel separated from God, lost in a sea of doubt or pain, we look to Jesus on the cross and see that God suffers with us. In moments when we feel inadequate, uncertain and ill-equipped to proclaim the good news to the world around us, we stand on the lakeshore and hear Jesus calling us to drop our nets and follow. When we feel as though we have let him down and failed at the task given us like Simon Peter, we hear Jesus’ words, “Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” (Jn 21.15-17)

I AM is both a mystery and a promise. It reminds us that we will never be able to understand or know God fully, but that in the sense that God can be known, we look to Jesus. It reminds us that Moses did not free the Israelites on his own; God was with him. It reminds us that the disciples did not go out and preach on their own, Christ was with them. God’s name is a promise to us as well: when we wonder if God is with us, if God is helping us, if God is able to accomplish God’s work through us, we hear God’s name: I AM, and we recall how God was with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. With God’s help, that’s enough to keep us carrying on.

 

The Vigil of Easter

Delivered at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Swift Falls, MN. Easter Vigil
Texts: Genesis 1.1—2.4a; Genesis 7.1–5, 11–18, 8.6–18, 9.8–13; Isaiah 55.1–11; Ezekiel 37.1–14; Daniel 3.1–29
Additional Texts: Genesis 22.1–18; Exodus 14.10–31, 15.20–21; Proverbs 8.1–8, 19–21, 9.4b–6; Ezekiel 36.24–28; Zephaniah 3.14–20, Jonah 1.1—2.1; Isaiah 61.1–4, 9–11

Notes on the service: Easter vigil is a service of readings intended to remind us of God’s faithfulness. Originally, this service would last all night as people read stories, sang songs, and chatted around a fire, not unlike a wake before a funeral. We read 5 stories, but up to 12 can be told. The stories more or less speak for themselves, so the homily I gave was much shorter.

In the ancient Christian tradition, this vigil we observe tonight would have lasted all night. We would have gathered shortly after sunset around our fire outside and would have waited, as though at a wake for the dead. We would have read from scripture and sang hymns to one another through the night, waiting, preparing, hoping for the joy of the resurrection celebrated at sunrise.

This tradition has largely fallen away. Some congregations and traditions still practice the Easter Vigil in a way, like we are doing tonight. The Vigil for us is another observance, another ritual, another tradition. But for those first disciples and friends of Jesus, this Saturday night was something far different.

Jesus is dead. His body is rotting in a tomb. Somewhere ringing in the back of their minds are his words about rising on the third day, but it seems like utter nonsense. Nobody has ever come back from the dead. Yet, there it is, tickling.

Their hope is dead, their joy is gone. Without their teacher, they are frightened and alone, surrounded by people who would like to arrest them, run them out of town, or perhaps even kill them. All hope of deliverance seems far away now, and so they live behind locked doors.

It is for these disciples, these first folk who stayed awake on that Saturday night after the crucifixion, that we wait up tonight. With them, we feel the fear and the abandonment of Jesus’ death. For them, as much as for ourselves, we share these old familiar tales of God’s faithfulness, of God fulfilling the promises God has made.

But for us, that small tickle of hope is more than just a glimmer, more than a flight of fantasy. For us that hope is real, because unlike them, we know the rest of the story. Unlike those poor, derelict disciples, we have seen the glory of Christ’s resurrection, felt his living presence, eaten and drunk with him.

Tonight, if only for an hour, we wait up with those disciples of so long ago. Tonight, disciples of every time and place band together to give one another hope and good cheer in an hour of loneliness as the darkness closes in and fears seem to take on physical form. We gather tonight, we reassure ourselves and one another that, yes, God is faithful. Yes, God is alive. Yes, Jesus is God’s son.

Against all hope, against all better judgement, we come together and expect the impossible. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Tonight, all our hopes and fears are met together. Tonight is the night of our redemption. Tonight is the night our joy is realized. Tonight is the night God makes good on the promise of our baptism. Tonight is the night we pass through death into life. Tonight. Is. The. Night.