Strength Through Weakness (Reflections on Pentecost 7, Year B 2024)

“…for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10b)

Happy Independence Day weekend to all my readers here in the good ‘ol USA! I hope you enjoyed your July 4^th and celebrated this great nation of ours. Yes, things are a bit unsteady just at present with a presidential election ramping up. We have one candidate who says he’ll make America great again. The other guy says we never stopped being great and are, in fact, the greatest nation in all of history. It’s pretty appropriate, I think, that the lessons assigned for Pentecost 7 in the Revised Common Lectionary touch a bit on the themes of greatness, strength, mission, and service. I think we’d do well as a people to reflect a little on what the Bible has to say about these things.

I don’t often focus too much on the continuous readings the RCL gives us from the New Testament epistles because, unless we have a festival service, the epistles are there for our edification but don’t often fit in directly with the Gospel reading or the liturgical theme of the day. On Pentecost 7, Year B, however, I might be able to make a connection. In this reading (2 Corinthians 12:2-10) Saint Paul is writing to a polarized community where everyone is running about trying to out-Christian everyone else. Paul tries to teach this gang of braggarts God has no use for their arrogance or their boasting. Paul knows he’s actually closer to God when he can admit his weakness. Paul doesn’t have to show off how great he is or brag about what he’s done. He knows it’s Jesus who has done everything for him. He can admit to being sinful, troubled, and in pain because he doesn’t value the adulation of the world. He’s okay with leaning on Jesus and finding his strength there.

In the accompanying Gospel lesson (Mark 6:1-13) Jesus instructs his disciples to go into the world in weakness. He sends the twelve out to do some old-fashioned missionary work—preach repentance, do a few exorcisms, heal the sick, your basic stuff—but do it as beggars. They’re not supposed to take anything with them for the journey. This might make Jesus a lousy Boy Scout, but it will have a spiritual effect on both the disciples and the ones they run into on the way. People will encounter the missionaries as poor migrants. They will have to decide if they wish to shelter or feed them. If they do, they’ll get nothing in return because these guys aren’t carrying any cash. For the disciples it will be a lesson in trust and faith. For those they meet, it will be an opportunity to show compassion and mercy. If they’re willing to reach out in kindness, they just may get a blessing from God. If they’re not, well, tough for them. The twelve will shake off the dust and move on.

Verse 13 tells us that this plan worked pretty well. That’s quite a contrast from what happened earlier back in Nazareth. It looks like that crowd was a little too close to Jesus to appreciate who he was and what he was preaching. Familiarity breeds contempt, we’re told, and it looks like the Nazarenes just couldn’t separate themselves from the hometown boy who made good. Their egos had to keep inserting themselves into the story. When a local gets famous, people either want to find a way to share in that person’s greatness (“Yes, I knew Jesus when he was just a little tyke. In fact, I’m the one who taught him how to read Hebrew. He wouldn’t be where he is today if not for me!”), or they find a way to diminish it so they won’t feel so ordinary themselves (“I’ve known Jesus all his life, and my Moshe got better grades in Hebrew school than he did. I don’t want to gossip, but you know Joseph and Mary weren’t even married when he was born. I’m just saying!”). In the face of these egos, even Jesus becomes powerless. He can’t do any deeds of power with these self-important folks. When we get hung up on ourselves, there’s no room for God to act.

Let’s face it: nobody wants to see themselves as unimportant, average, feeble, or weak. Nobody wants to face the world as a beggar or as one dependent. Dad doesn’t want to admit he can’t see well enough to drive anymore and has to surrender the car keys. Mom doesn’t want to have to use her walker even if she risks breaking a hip. But sometimes in admitting our weakness we find our true peace. That’s when God can work through us and work for us through others.

So, again, I hope you’ve enjoyed the long Independence Day weekend celebrating our great nation—a nation which I dearly hope will see her greatness not in her ability to conquer or control other nations, but in her ability to serve them. A nation which finds her strength in her ability to admit her faults and failings. A nation which is strongest when it cares for the weakest.

Happy 4^th, my friend. Come and see me again.

 

No Power Outage Here (Reflections on Pentecost 6, Year B 2024)

 

Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” (Mark 5:30)

Sometimes you just have to make time for things. In the Gospel lesson appointed in the RCL for Pentecost 6, Year B (Mark 5:21-43), Jesus is on his way to do an act of mercy for a pretty important guy when he gets detoured by a very timid lady. She needs a healing but she’s too afraid to ask for one. Mark tells us that this poor gal had suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years, had bankrupted herself on doctors’ bills, and was only getting worse. There wasn’t any such thing as Medicare in the ancient Near East, so this lady was not only sick but impoverished.

The unnamed woman has a couple of societal strikes against her. She’s a woman, which makes her a second-class citizen. She’s sick, which would, in the world of this text, mark her as somebody cursed by God. She’s bleeding, which makes her ritually impure. Finally, she’s broke. Our evangelist doesn’t tell us where she’s bleeding from, but it might be safe to assume that this is—if I may put it delicately—a woman’s thing. According to New Testament scholar Matt Skinner[i], our mysterious heroine might also have lost her ability to bear children, and such a loss would brand her as even more cursed by God and even less valuable in the society. It’s no mystery that she’s embarrassed to ask Jesus for help face-to-face as Jairus, the important guy whose daughter was sick and who Jesus was on his way to help, had done.

This unfortunate albeit faith-filled lady puts me in mind of a cause which deeply touches me—women’s reproductive health. If you’ve followed my blog for a long time, you may know that my sister Maryanne died of cervical cancer in 2014. Although this type of cancer is now highly treatable, Maryanne’s diagnosis came too late in the progress of her disease. At the time she presented she had no healthcare because she was gig worker, her husband was on disability, and the Affordable Care Act had not yet gone into effect. She was able to get a pap smear courtesy of her local women’s health clinic, but no disease was definitively detected. She was advised by the clinic to seek a CT scan at her local hospital, but fearing the expense, she put this off until it was too late.

I have no time or patience for the narrow-minded, reactionary, arrogant dimwits of evangelical fundamentalism (nor with the Great Orange Cro Magnon Man who represents them politically) who advocate slashing the budget for women’s health clinics because such clinics might perform abortions. These clinics provide needed preventative services for millions of low-income American women. If we are to call ourselves Christians, we should remember that Jesus healed without asking to see a Green Card or a credit statement. Universal healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. To quote the great Welsh statesman Aneurin Bevan, “No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.” Fear of the cost kept my sister from seeking the help which could’ve kept her alive.

I find it significant in Mark’s telling of this tale that he alone of the three synoptic evangelists mentions the woman’s financial destitution. I wonder how many people in the United States face bankruptcy or severe financial hardship because of medical debt?

Both Mark and Luke note that Jesus became aware of the woman because he felt “power had gone forth from him.” The old King James Bible translated the Greek word dunamin as “virtue,” but it literally means “power” in the sense of strength, capability, capacity, and means[ii]. I guess Jesus didn’t worry about losing a little power to make a poor person healthy. He knows that he can give and give and give because his Heavenly Dad has so much more to give back. God’s supply of goodness is endless. We’d do well to remember that we lose nothing when others have their needs met.

Professor Skinner makes another cool observation about this story. Not only does the woman receive a physical healing, but this healing and encounter with Jesus restores her to wholeness in the society. She was afraid to approach Jesus, sneaking up on him like a pickpocket or like someone who wasn’t sure she deserved to approach him face-to-face. She was afraid and trembling to confess she’d touched him, and even threw herself on the ground in shame. Nevertheless, Jesus calls her “daughter.” She came as a nobody but left as a member of the family.

There are three take-aways I get from this passage. First, fear and despair can keep us from receiving the healing we need. My sis was afraid of the cost. The woman in the story was afraid of being shunned and rejected. Jairus was told his daughter was beyond hope and he shouldn’t bother Jesus. Fear can lead to hopelessness, and hopelessness keeps us from faith.

Secondly, Jesus places no limits on compassion. We shouldn’t either. The ruler of the synagogue and the destitute woman are all the same to him. As a church and as individuals we should continue to advocate for universal healthcare.

Finally, no one is invisible to Jesus. It doesn’t matter if you’re stone broke, elderly, sick, unemployed, homebound—or whatever. Jesus has time for us all.

Thank you for taking time with me this week. It always makes me smile to know you’ve been

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[i] Matt Skinner is the professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. He wrote the commentary on this Gospel lesson for this week’s Working Preacher website, the well from which I draw gallons of information for these posts and my Sunday sermons. I mention this in case you thought I was smart enough to know all this stuff on my own.

[ii] I actually looked this up in the Greek Bible myself.

Calm Amidst the Storm (Reflections on Pentecost 5, Year B 2024)

 

"Storm on the Sea of Galilee" Delacroix, Fr. 19th Cent.

Captain Jimmy was looking over the bow of our little thirty-foot sailboat at the choppy waves on the windward side of Anacapa Island. The sky, which had been sunny and cheerfully blue all morning, had suddenly turned a dismal grey and the wind was picking up. As an inexperienced sailor, I wasn’t at all comfortable with the looks of the wind and water, and I couldn’t help but think of the situation Jesus and his disciples were in that’s described in the Gospel Lesson for Pentecost 5, (Mark 4: 35-41).

Our mainsail was still full, but the swells were making our boat buck like a rodeo bull, Fortunately, Jimmy hadn’t lost any of his usual serene composure. With a thoughtful expression on his face, typical of one who made his living as an attorney and was not given to rash pronouncements, the skipper calmly opined, “I think we should put on our lifejackets.” This being said, it was agreed by the three of us that our intention to sail all the way around the Channel Islands off the southern California coast had been thwarted by the rough sea, and we were wise to come about and seek a safe anchorage for the night.

I must confess to having been more than a tiny bit timid at the thought of facing the angry Pacific (which, truth be told, wasn’t even that angry, but looked pretty annoyed to me!) in a small craft, so I was glad Jimmy decided against it. I was even more glad that my friend was an experienced and cautious mariner who knew what to do when the waters got rough. He had plenty of respect for the danger, but he also understood that being the man in charge, it was his job to stay calm so the rest of us wouldn’t lose our stuff in the face of some possibly treacherous circumstances.

The story of Jesus calming the storm at sea appears in all three of the Synoptic Gospels and each evangelist tells it pretty much the same way: Jesus and the disciples head out on the Sea of Galilee in the early evening. Jesus falls asleep in the boat. The sea gets rough, and the boat starts to sink. The disciples, in a panic (which I think is rather unseemly for professional fishermen), wake Jesus and apprise him of the situation. Jesus then commands the storm to cease and rags on the twelve for their lack of faith.

I’m amused by the way Mark tells this tale. He has the disciples waking Jesus by asking, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”[i] That’s pretty human, don’t you think? Whenever we’re upset, we get annoyed with others for not being upset. In our arrogance we like to share our insecurities. We forget that, just because someone has chosen to be the adult in the room, doesn’t mean they don’t care about us or feel for our situation. No. When faced with fear or chaos or uncertainty it’s very easy for us to lose our perspective. Even the potential for danger can bring out the less attractive parts of our personalities. When our sky seems to be falling, we just can’t understand why others don’t act like they see it—even if they really do.

In the world of our Gospel text water and storms are symbols of chaos. For folks influenced by Hellenistic thought (which the Gospel writers certainly were—they wrote the Gospels in Greek, after all) there was either order or chaos with not a lot in between. Order was good, chaos was bad. But, if the boat trip across the Sea of Galilee didn’t involve a storm, there wouldn’t be a story to tell, would there? It’s in the moments of chaos that we turn to faith. That’s when we learn that legitimate fear of the unknown and the calm presence of Jesus in our lives can exist at the same time.

I wouldn’t want to scold the disciples for being afraid of the storm. I’m sure it was pretty scary, and I’d certainly be terrified of it myself. The challenge, I think, is to find the faith which says, “God’s got this. God is with us. This storm is temporary. If we're open to listening to Jesus, we will survive this.”

There are certainly a lot of frightening things on our horizon. There’s the threat of climate change which brings with it real storms—hurricanes, tornados, and floods while our FEMA resources are dwindling. But love of God’s creation and compassion for those most effected can lead us all to better stewardship of our planet and a place of safety. There’s a very unstable and angry political divide in the US right now, but Christ’s command to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God is a way forward. Christianity seems to be on the decline in the US as almost 29% of Americans say they have no religious affiliation at all[ii]. But there were other boats in the water when Jesus and his friends set out (v. 36). Perhaps those other vessels were more seaworthy. I keep musing to myself that somewhere we never think about there is a nascent Christian movement which is welcoming strangers, teaching compassion, charity, and inclusivity, and doing all the things which attracted our early Christian ancestors to the faith in the days of the Roman Empire. Maybe such a community exists without the cultural baggage which is weighing down our vessel. Perhaps in God’s time another empire (maybe Communist China?) may be toppled, not by violent revolution but by acts of love, compassion, and selflessness. You think?

And so we sail on, my friends, with both a prudent respect for the dangers we face and a trust in the wisdom and love of our Captain who keeps us calm in

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[i] The other gospel writers soften this a bit. In Matthew 8:25 the lads say, “Save us, Lord. We are perishing.” Luke 8:24 simply says, “Master, Master, we are perishing.” Either these later writers didn’t want the disciples to sound so snarky or they never wanted to suggest that Jesus might be indifferent to the troubles of others.

[ii] You can look this up on the Pew Research Center webpage: www.pewresearch.org. 

Tree Poets (Reflections on Pentecost 4,Year B 2024)

 

“All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.” (Ezekiel 17:24)

Our God is kind of mysterious, don’t you think?. I guess that’s why God’s spokespeople use such poetic language to describe the way the Almighty gets stuff done. Sometimes we just can’t get our heads around God, so Jesus and prophets like Ezekiel like to give us these evocative and melodious analogies for things we wouldn’t think of ourselves. There’s an agrarian motif in both the First Lesson and Gospel Lessons in the Revised Common Lectionary for Pentecost 4, Year B (Ezekeil 17:22-24 and Mark 4: 26-34 respectively). Both the ancient prophet and Our Lord seem to be talking about planting trees and shrubs and what-not, but they’re really talking about the way God works.

A little refresher about the Ezekiel text: Ezekiel is a pretty funky guy. He gets all kinds of weird visions like seeing dead bones rising to form a zombie army and chariot wheels spinning in the air like flying saucers. He’s sort of the Dylan Thomas of prophets. He’s got a real way with words. He’s also the prophet to the Judean people in exile. If you go back to the top of Ezekiel chapter 17, the poet/prophet is using a tree image to express the total screw-up and epic fail that has been Judah’s relationship with Babylon. Granted, the Babylonians aren’t exactly the good guys in this story. They’ve invaded Judah, as savage, barbarian monarchies were wont to do in the ancient world, taken a boatload of important folks (including the king, Jehoiachin) hostage, and set up a puppet king named Zedekiah with whom they’ve made a really lopsided deal. It went something like this: Recognize that we’re in charge now, do whatever we tell you, and pay us an extravagant ton of protection money. In exchange, we won’t march back in and slaughter you guys and reduce your country to a pile of rocks. This was not a particularly good deal for Judah, but, under the circumstances—and given Babylon was an infinitely stronger military force—it was the only deal on the table.

Unfortunately, Zedekiah got some bonehead idea he could get Babylon’s knee off his neck if he broke the treaty and made a military deal with Egypt. Ezekeil, using a poetic tree analogy in verses 17:1-10, expresses why this was stupid. Just in case his tree thing was too erudite, he explains the whole business in prose in verses 11-21. Zedekiah and Judah were in a lousy position, getting bullied by Babylon, but at least they had peace. A deal was a deal. When Zedekiah broke the agreement, he violated the most sacred obligation any king has, which is to keep his people safe. Zedekiah’s defiance brought about catastrophic military retribution from the Babylonians, and Ezekiel isn’t afraid to say so. Zedekiah and his yes men brought this tragedy upon the people, and they have only themselves to blame.

(At this point your Old Religious Guy is tempted to make a comparison with events in the modern Middle East, but you probably don’t want to read a polemic about Israel and Gaza. You can draw your own conclusions.)

But Ezekiel isn’t done. He writes another tree poem in verses 22-24. This one is more hopeful. In spite of all the devastation, pain, regret, and sorrow the Judeans face in their defeat and exile, the prophet reminds them that God can still snap off some new growth from a tree and transplant it back home where it will take root and produce a new tree that will welcome all the birds of the air. It might take some time for this to happen, but God is willing to overlook the mistakes of the past, grant forgiveness, and bring healing. In our darkest moments, this truth about God’s love and desire for us is what the prophet asks us to remember.

In the Gospel Lesson, Jesus tweaks the tree-growing metaphor by reminding us that it’s God who gives the growth. Our contributions to God’s kingdom are as insignificant as the sower scattering the seed and giving it some water. The real miracle happens without our effort. God’s will is done through us or in spite of us, and we are encouraged to look past our puny selves to believe in the goodness of God.

Ezekiel envisioned God’s kingdom as a giant cedar. Jesus describes it as a relatively unimpressive mustard shrub. To Jesus, size doesn’t matter. Both plants can provide nourishment and shade and shelter. Both are God’s creatures. Both grew by God’s command. So what’s the take-away? God is active under the surface of our understanding or insight. God does not stop being good because we, in our preoccupied circumstances, fail to recognize God’s goodness. God is active in God’s time, not in ours. In our “Babylonian Exile” moments, when we feel ashamed or defeated or abandoned, God is still able to do something new for us. And God does not judge by our human standards of importance. Each of us bears our own kind of fruit, and sometimes the smallest acts can have the most lasting consequences.

How can I sum this up? Just keep the faith, and let God’s peace—which surpasses our ability to understand it in either poetry or prose—keep your hearts and your minds on the goodness and promise of God.

And thanks for stopping by!

 

 

I Guess We're Related (Reflections on Pentecost 3,Year B 2024)

 

"Rebuke of Adam & Eve" Netoir, 18th cent.

“Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and mother.” (Mark 3:35)

When George’s wife passed away, he figured he didn’t need to live in his big house anymore. Being a generous sort, George gave the home free of charge to his son and determined to move into a small apartment. He approached his good friends John and Maddie[i] and asked if he could stay with them until he found a suitable new place. “No problem, George, “they told him. “Stay as long as you like.”

He did. In fact, he stayed for years.

When I met George, he was planted like an India rubber plant in an overstuffed brown La-Z-Boy recliner in John and Maddie’s living room—a spot from which he seldom moved and from which he could enjoy endless reruns of “Bonanza” and “Gunsmoke” on a western movie cable channel until the inevitable day when the EMTs came to carry him out. We buried his ashes in the same grave where his beloved wife reposed in a tiny Methodist churchyard. I gave a brief graveside homily and read the committal rites as John and Maddie and a few other old friends gathered to say their farewells to good ol’ George.

When I’d concluded the prayers, the small, quirky female funeral director addressed the bereaved as funeral directors always do at graveside. Their little speeches are usually the same. They thank the pastor and pallbearers and invite the assembly to attend a luncheon at a local eatery. This director, however, began her remarks with a phrase which sticks in my memory. She said, “There are a lot of different ways to be a family.”

That’s kind of Jesus’ point in the Gospel lesson from the RCL for Pentecost 3, Year B (Mark 3:20-35). Jesus has just come back from a little mountaintop retreat where he’s chosen twelve guys out of his myriad followers to be his disciples—sort of a little fraternity. Most of us have also created mini families outside of the folks who swim in our gene pools. Some of us have had stepchildren or stepparents. There are army buddies, college roommates, co-workers, band mates, close neighbors, fraternity brothers, sorority sisters—you get the idea. Sometimes these “families” can be closer to us than our biological or nuclear families. Sometimes the ones who should be the closest to us—as with Jesus’ family in this story—understand us the least. Why? Maybe because we’re so close that all we see in our nuclear family members is a reflection of ourselves.

I had a great drama teacher in high school who used to tell us we’d know we were really growing up when we started seeing our parents and siblings as individuals and not as extensions of ourselves. As kids we’re certain our parents are out of touch. As parents, we wish our kids could be more like us. As children we make constant comparisons with our brothers and sisters. It’s often a pretty rough job to think of people we think we know so well as individuals with their own personalities, needs, histories, and gifts. It’s not surprising that not even Jesus’ family could quite get their brains wrapped around what he was about. They just thought he’d gone coo-coo for Coco Puffs.

Have you ever lived in a house divided? I’m happy to say I never have, but I’ve heard tell of plenty of families that just can’t seem to get it together and love one another the way God intended us to love. The First Lesson for Pentecost 3 (Genasis 3:8-15) tells the great mythical tale of our divided human family. Adam gets caught with his fig leaves down breaking the rules. So what does he do? He blames his wife. What does she do? She blames the snake. How different this story might be if Adam had just said, “You know, Lord, I openly defied your command. I take responsibility for my actions. I’m truly sorry. Please don’t punish my wife. She didn’t know what she was doing, and I couldn’t stand it if you made her suffer.” Wouldn’t that be some stuff?

But no. We like to ignore our own weaknesses and blame others. We don’t want to see their reasoning or their pain or forgive them for being human or simply decide we’re family and we have to care for each other whether we understand each other or not. And so houses get divided. So do societies. And nations.

When my parents died, I realized I had so many questions I would’ve liked to ask them. Still, I recognized it wasn’t necessary to understand someone in order to love them. Love can be our choice. So can forgiveness. But if we don’t believe in forgiveness or reconciliation or empathy, we go on being unforgiven, unreconciled, and estranged. It’s the same as when the Jerusalem scribes in the Gospel story claimed Jesus was possessed by Beelzebul (v.22)[ii]. They could never accept the goodness of his message because they refused to believe there was any goodness.

I’m having a really, really hard time understanding some of our American family right now in this time of a house divided. Nevertheless, I have to try and remind myself at the end of the day we are all still citizens of the same land, still entitled to the same freedoms, still—I dearly hope—trying to do what we think is best. Fortunately, I still have the family of the Christian faith, where I am reminded whenever I take communion—when I come to our family dinner table—that we’re all in this together, and our primary command is to love one another as Christ loved us.

Nadia Bolz-Weber often repeats a story about the time, following some unexpected publicity, her little church family—which she had imagined was for the LGBTQ+ community, recovering addicts, and other assorted outcasts and weirdos—was suddenly inundated with well-meaning “normal” people. A transgender teenager in the congregation remarked, “I’m glad we have people in our church who look like my parents, because they love me in a way my own parents can’t.[iii]”

We’re a family, dear people of God. Maybe not a perfect family, but then what family is? We don’t always understand each other, but God has enough understanding for all of us.

I’m so pleased you chose to look in on me this week. I’m glad we’re related.

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[i] John and Maddie were friends of my wife. John was a Vietnam vet, and my Bride came to know him through her advocacy work with the Vietnam Veterans of America.

[ii] Beelzebul is a Hebrew corruption of the name of a Philistine god which might have originally meant “Lord of the Lofty Abode.” It was mocked on to mean “Lord of the Flies,” a reference to death and decay. As it appears in Mark’s gospel it literally translates as “Lord of Dung.”

[iii] Nadia Bolz-Weber: Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint (Jericho Books: 2013).

It's a Day for Us (Reflections on Pentecost 2, Year B 2024)

 

Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the sabbath…” (Mark 2:27a)

The late restauranteur Truett Cathy wanted to honor the Lord. That’s why you can’t go to Chick-fil-A on a Sunday. Mr. Cathy was a pretty devout old dude. He believed Sunday was the Lord’s Day, and good folks should see it as a day to rest, go to church, and hang out with family. He maintained closing his fast-food restaurants on Sunday would honor God and the Third Commandment[i] and would bring blessings to his fried chicken sandwich enterprise. Personally, I think we’re drifting a bit into the choppy waters of superstition whenever we think something we do will influence God, but Mr. Cathy just might’ve been on to something. Even though the great gurus of finance have guesstimated Chick-fil-A loses about 1.2 billion dollars every year by the Sunday closures, the chain still looks remarkably profitable. What’s more, Chick-fil-A employees always know they’ll get Sunday off, and this turns out to be good for morale[ii].

Resting from our labor is really what the sabbath should be about, don’t you think? Our First Lesson for Pentecost 2, Year B in the RCL (Deuteronomy 5:12-15) spells this out pretty clearly. In the Exodus version of the 10 Commandments, the rationale is if God rested on the seventh day of creation, we should take a break too. The Deuteronomy version is a little more socially aware. This author invokes the cultural consciousness of the Jewish people. It says, in effect, “Hey, you guys! When you were slaves in Egypt you didn’t get a day off. It sucked, didn’t it? Therefore, you shouldn’t make anybody work on the sabbath. Give your workers and your critters and yourselves time to rest, renew, hear God’s word and think about it, and maybe share a meal. It’ll be good for you.”

Jesus, in our Gospel text (Mark 2:23-3:6) is right when he tells the Pharisees the sabbath is for our benefit, not God’s. We don’t do God any favors when we stop our work, fellowship with our community, and get renewed by the Good News of God’s love. All of that is to benefit us.

The Pharisees, of course, shouldn’t always be labeled as the bad guys. After all, they were just trying to be righteous. Unfortunately, they often tried so hard to be right they ended up being wrong. You can’t hold anything against a really righteous person unless he spends his time saying he’s more righteous than you are. The Pharisees’ sin wasn’t their defense of the sabbath laws and customs. It was the way they used those laws and customs to aggrandize themselves and bludgeon those who disagreed with them. They kept to the letter of the law but violated its intent.

The day set aside for religious observance should be a day of gladness, not one of oppression. I can’t help but think of those old Puritans in colonial New England who forbade anything but worship on a Sunday. In 1671 the Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter included this delightful little statute:

“That whosoever shall profane the Lords-day, by doing unnecessary servile work, by unnecessary travailing, or by sports and recreations, he or they that so transgress, shall forfeit for every such default forty shillings, or be publickly whipt: But if it clearly appear that the sin was profoundly, Presumptuously and with a high hand committed, against the known Command and Authority of the blessed God, such a person therein despising and reproaching the Lord, shall be put to death or grievously punished at the Judgement of the Court.”[iii]

(When I was a vicar up in New York I couldn’t buy a six-pack of non-alcoholic beer until after 1pm on a Sunday—and I thought that was severe!)

Jesus teaches us that there are really only two laws: love God and love everyone else[iv]. Compassion, forgiveness, and mercy are what God is about. If the law gets in the way of those things, exceptions have to be made. He even notes how the Jews’ great hero David violated temple law so he could feed his hungry men (v.25-26). In that case physical need outweighed religious ritual.[v]

Martin Luther wasn’t all that strict in his interpretation of the sabbath law in the Small Catechism:

“We are to fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching or God’s word, but instead keep that word holy and gladly hear it and learn it.”

You’ll notice Luther says nothing about specific sabbath practice. For him, keeping the sabbath is just about being refreshed in the word of God. It’s kind of like refilling our spiritual gas tank with scripture. I think that’s best done in the fellowship of a Christian community, but if your boss makes you work on Sunday or you’re an elderly shut-in or you’re sick or something, there are other ways you can satisfy this.

Righteousness shouldn’t be easy. The Pharisees of this world would love it if everything were just black or white. Unfortunately, our faith forces us to dance around with all the different shades of grey, always asking if the letter of the law is upholding or violating its spirit. We know, for example, that it’s wrong to kill another, and abortion is, technically speaking, ending a life. It’s always a bad choice. But is it always the worst choice? We know immigration laws exist to prevent crime and chaos. Does this mean, however, that we are free to ignore the thousands of our fellow human beings who are fleeing crime, oppression, and hunger? We know it’s only right to pay the debts we owe. Yet is it wrong to forgive certain types of indebtedness so the debtor can live a life free from the rapacious jaws of poverty?

To be a Christian is always to be engaged with the law and the mercy of Jesus. Fortunately for us, that same law blesses us with a day of rest in which we can ponder all these issues—even if it means we can’t get a good chicken sandwich.

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[i] “Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11). I’m using the numbering system used by Martin Luther in his Catechism. Hey! I’m a Lutheran, okay?

[ii] Yes. I know. Cathy’s son Dan, who is now head of the chain, has been criticized by LGBTQ+ supporters for his anti-same-gender marriage statements made in 2012. He also was a heavy donor to anti-LGBTQ organizations. Since 2012 Chick-fil-A as a corporate entity has begun divesting donations to such organizations and specifically states its hiring policy does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. I’m not trying to hold the Cathy family up as paragons of Christian virtue as I vehemently disagree with their stance on LGBTQ rights. I’m only using Chick-fil-A as an example of sabbath observance.

[iii] You can look this up on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan_Sabbatarianism. Pretty wild, huh?

[iv] See Mark 12:28-31)

[v] See 1 Samuel 21:1-6. Fun fact: Either Jesus or Mark is mistaken when he refers to Abiathar as the High Priest. The High Priest was actually Abiathar’s dad, Ahimelech, King Saul got bent out of shape because Ahimelech aided David, so he had him and the other priests slaughtered. Abiathar escaped and became David’s army chaplain.

Politely Embracing Befuddlement (Reflections on Holy Trinity Sunday, 2024)

 

"Christ and Nicodemus" Fritz von Uhde (Ger. 19th cent.)

You’ve got to love Nicodemus. Personally, I think he was a pretty good guy. For a Pharisee, he seems to be displaying a refreshing amount of open-mindedness. John the evangelist tells us in the Gospel appointed for Holy Trinity in Year B of the RCL cycle (John 3:1-17) that Nick was a “leader of the Jews” (v.1) and a “teacher of Israel” (v.10). I’d say this makes him a fairly important dude; nevertheless, he doesn’t act like he’s all that hung up on his own importance. He’s willing to visit with Jesus on his off hours and show this controversial new rabbi some respect. He doesn’t just bust in and start flashing his own credentials or challenging Jesus. No. He’s cool. He recognizes Jesus must be a teacher divinely inspired because—obviously—Jesus does good works in God’s name. Nick likes this, and it looks as if he’d like to learn a little more about what this weird, peasant prophet is all about.

You’ll remember Pharisees were not exactly famous for being tolerant. These guys liked to parse every syllable of the Torah and make hard and fast rules. These were strict no-dancing-no-card-playing-no-rock-n-roll kind of guys who believed there were two ways of seeing every situation: their way and the wrong way. In contrast, Nicodemus is willing to give the new guy the benefit of the doubt. I like to think the questions he puts to Jesus when Jesus tells him all this funky stuff about being born from above[i] and being born of the spirit are asked with a genuine desire for knowledge. Maybe Nicodemus will find what Jesus says enlightening, maybe he’ll be confused by it, or maybe he’ll just flat-out disagree. Whatever his response, at least he’s open to another point of view.

There’s a ton of stuff to unpack in the third chapter of John’s Gospel, but I think it’s refreshing to point out in this age of polarization, Fox News, and MSNBC that it is possible to have a reasonable discussion with someone with whom you might disagree or whose world view might challenge your own. You don’t have to enter the discussion with your six-shooters blazing. You can be like Nicodemus and start out by acknowledging something positive about the other person. You can also take a page out of Jesus’ playbook and start the discussion with stuff you both agree about. Jesus references a story about Moses[ii] (v.14-15) which Nick would surely have known and could relate to. Even though the Pharisee seems to be leaving this encounter in awkward befuddlement about the things Jesus was saying, our evangelist lets us know that something about the nature of this little chat had a positive effect on the old guy. Why else would Nicodemus spring for a hundred pounds of burial ointment for Jesus’ body after the crucifixion?[iii]

But now you might be asking, “So what’s all of this got to do with the Holy Trinity?” Good question. I think the lads who cooked up the Revised Common Lectionary liked this passage because it references all three persons of the Trinity, but I like it because it puts us in Nicodemus’ place—scratching our heads and wondering about the nature of God. The cool thing about this story is we’re left feeling it’s okay to wonder or be confused. Jesus even acknowledges Nick’s confusion (v.12). Earthly things are confusing enough—don’t even get started on heavenly stuff. Nobody but the Son of Man has been up in heaven, so don’t sweat it if you don’t get it.

My take on John’s Gospel has evolved to be that John was pretty cool with not being able to fully grasp the nature of God. For him, the only insight into the divine was through the humanity of Jesus. It used to bug me that John’s Gospel, unlike the three synoptic Gospels, made Jesus so God-like. You know: all of those “I AM” statements. But, as I read the Fourth Gospel over the years, I see how John also highlights Jesus’ very humanity. It is in this Gospel that Jesus weeps, that he makes arrangements for his mother, that he confesses to being troubled in spirit, and that he plainly tells his followers that he loves them. This same author, we believe,[iv] taught his own followers,

“…those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1John 4:20b)

I try to put this all together and conclude John is teaching us that if we are to look for God, we must first look to the person of Jesus and to each other. We are to see Christ in one another. We can look for his love and sacrifice and humility and, maybe, even his suffering. If we’re open to seeing that, we can learn to be Christ for one another. There’s a really nice unity here. God living in Jesus, Jesus living in us, and we living in God. I think it all hangs together. Each person of the Trinity leads us to contemplate the other two. The Father creates us, the Son gives us understanding, and the Spirit connects and unifies us.

I like to think those bishops of Nicaea back in the fourth century—the guys who gave us our orthodox creed—had some wisdom about God. The doctrine they cooked up and passed down to us may be perplexing, but I hope we’d approach it the same way Nicodemus approached Jesus. That is, we don’t settle for pure dogma. We’re willing to wonder, question, and maybe accept a little befuddlement.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

A Happy Holy Trinity to you, my friend. Let me know what you think.

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[i] Or “born again” if you prefer. The Greek word anothen can mean “again,” “from the beginning,” “from the very first,” or “for a long time.”

[ii] See Numbers 21:4-9. It’s a short but meaningful tale.

[iii] John 19:38

[iv] We believe. We’re not really sure that the author of the Fourth Gospel and the epistle of First John were one and the same dude, but there’s a similarity in the diction of both writings and Church tradition has always held they were one and the same. We can’t prove it, but that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.