Dining with St. Paul - A lovely salad plate to go with your Spode.

I have mentioned before, three years ago, in fact, that I am working on a devotional book called “Characters of God.” This Lent I led our Adult Forum class (sounds vaguely naughty when I write that out) at our church through several of these chapters. This past Sunday was Paul and I don’t believe that I have ever shared it on this site. Keep in mind this was originally written to be read aloud at a silent retreat (oxymoronic, I know, but if you have ever been on one you know the drill, leader reads a meditation, you go off and meditate). There is much that I would rewrite today, but I thought I would simply post it as is. I hope it is useful during the Lenten season.

Acts 7.54 When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.  55 But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  56 “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”  57 But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him.  58 Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.  59 While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  60 Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.  1 And Saul approved of their killing him.

That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.  2 Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.  3 But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.

Acts 22.3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.  4 I persecuted this Way up to the point of death by binding both men and women and putting them in prison,  5 as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me.”

Gal. 1.13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.  14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.  15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles….

Rom. 10.1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.  2 I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened.

 

We do not know very much about Paul before he was confronted by Christ on the road to Damascus. What we do know is contained in these few passages.[1] As “Saul” he was a man devoted to “the traditions of my ancestors” and he used all his power in order to stamp out heresy and to keep heterodox views of Judaism from spreading. This included jailing people and perhaps even having them put to death. (Note the phrase “I persecuted this Way up to the point of death” [Acts 22.4], which might suggest that he did not actually seek their execution, but that may simply be a reflection of the fact that the Jews did not have the authority to execute anyone during Roman times.)

Saul’s zeal took him to great extremes and the consequences were dire for those whom he opposed. We can all think of various moments in history, sadly including present day situations, where an individual’s or group’s commitment to their ideology and theology led them to commit atrocities. And it is easy for us to condemn such actions. We hear frequently within our own church about those who are encouraging hatred of others under the guise of defending orthodoxy and our minds swirl with images of Galileo and Cranmer. But is zeal always bad? That is a much harder question to ask.

Within the Bible we find that the term “zeal” is used primarily in a positive manner, even if the Hebrew and Greek terms have at the root the meaning of “jealousy.”[2] The priest Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson, saves all of Israel from God’s wrath by killing a man and the Moabite woman whom he had taken as a concubine and who were together worshipping Baal. The Psalmist tells us that he has been persecuted by others because of his zealous commitment to the Lord and his Temple.

Psa. 69.9 It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;

the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

10         When I humbled my soul with fasting,

they insulted me for doing so.

11         When I made sackcloth my clothing,

I became a byword to them.

12         I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate,

and the drunkards make songs about me.

And Paul encourages the church in Rome, calling upon them to be strong in their stand for Christ. Rom. 12.11 “Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.” To be zealous, or jealous, for God is not a bad thing. In fact, in issuing the Ten Commandments God declares himself a “jealous” God, meaning that he has laid claim to us as his people and he does not want us to share our love and commitment with any other. Ex. 20.5 “You shall not bow down to [other gods] or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.”

Today when we speak of jealousy in a relationship we see it as an unhealthy attitude, as it is, but that is not how the term is used in the Bible. Consider a marriage, which is one of the primary analogies for God’s relationship to his people. It is appropriate and expected that a husband or wife should be upset and challenge their spouse if the other is spending undo time and inappropriate attention to a person of the opposite sex. I am in a spiritual contract with my wife in which I promised her that I would be faithful and would not have sexual relations with another woman. It is right and good that we are “jealous” of our wives, as women ought to be of their husbands, in that we do not want them to be in the same sort of intimate relationship with someone else that we have with them. It becomes unhealthy when we do not trust our wives or our husbands. That is what is so marvelous about God’s jealousy towards us. He trusts us to make the mistakes ourselves, but he continues to love us and yes, he does punish when we break that trust, that covenant that we have. His punishment, however, is primarily intended to bring us back in repentance to him.

So there is zeal that is healthy and good, but there is also the unhealthy zeal that Paul describes in his own life prior to meeting Christ. The question then becomes what was unhealthy about the zeal of Saul? One obvious answer is the results. We would think that imprisoning people is not a nice thing to do, but within the context of the Torah the penalties for apostasy were severe. Jesus did proclaim a new way of loving our enemies, yet Saul was not yet “Paul” who knew and obeyed Jesus. The crime of Saul’s zeal was what he was jealous for. Saul was defending the “traditions of the elders” and not Torah and the revealed prophesies of God. Saul’s allegiance was misplaced in the traditions that surrounded the Torah rather than in the actual revelation of God. This is a tradition that is all too common in our own lives and churches.

We are a church that places a large emphasis upon tradition and that is not a bad thing. Far from it! Much of what we believe and hold true comes through the inspired medium of tradition (that is one definition of prophecy, after all), but we must be cautious that when we “defend the faith” we are doing just that, defending the Gospel of Christ and not some additional tradition that is, on the whole, peripheral to the message of salvation. This is often a difficult balance to achieve and you may find that while you think you are defending an “essential” element of faith, someone else will say that you are merely being a “Pharisee.” Paul, in fact, was a Pharisee and it was their particular traditions that he clung to.

The Pharisees where essentially lawyers. Their name is derived either from paroshim, “those who distinguish precisely [between laws]”; or perushim, “those who have split” or “separated.” [from other Jews]. The Pharisees believed that God and humans worked together to determine destiny, much as orthodox Christianity does, and they believed in the resurrection of the righteous and judgment of the wicked, which Christianity also maintains. But the primary belief that distinguished the Pharisees from other Jewish groups of the day was their concern with halekhot, the “ways” or precise rules for everyday religious practices. It is these practices that Paul refers to when he says that he was zealous for “the traditions of the fathers.” The laws were in addition to the laws given by God on Mt. Sinai and were very specific in detail. We find reference to them throughout the Gospels as Jesus and his disciples, for example, are chastised for not cleansing themselves properly before meals and not fasting on certain days. The Pharisees were, in all likelihood, the spiritual predecessors of the rabbis who codified the Mishnah, the collection of these oral traditions and laws, in c. 200 CE.

Saul’s zeal was not for the Law and the prophets of the Bible, but for the traditions, the rules and regulations, that had accreted over the years. He was so focused upon “right practice” that he neglected “right belief” and could not hear God calling to his people saying, in the words of Jeremiah:

Jer. 31.31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.  33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

We too must be cautious that we are not neglecting the heart-driven message of God for the details of our peculiar practice. Is it appropriate that we should celebrate the Eucharist using wine and genuflecting before the altar? Absolutely. Is it vital to one’s salvation that they should celebrate the Eucharist in this way? No. Does it matter whether we use the Revised Standard Version of the Bible or the New Revised Standard Version? No. Just so long as we are studying the living Word of God and seeking his will and purpose in it and through it. We must always seek unity in the Church and there are certain fundamental beliefs that we must cling to, primarily those contained within the Creeds, but there will be differences and we deal with those in charity rather than with an oe’er weening zeal.

We must also recognize that we can be inappropriately zealous for things besides the Church. Those of you who know me even slightly are aware of my passion for computers and gadgets. My brother has often accused me of being an “Apple zealot” since I am so fond of their particular products and I confess that when I first gave this talk at a retreat I thought about the fact that I while on the retreat I was missing Apple’s release of their new operating system, OS X. Can you tell that this is a “preoccupation” that I need to work on? We each have them. For some it may be work, money, cars, computers, or perhaps sex. The list is endless. In all of these things there is an appropriate amount of attention that we ought to dedicate to, for example, our families and our jobs. But if that jealousy moves into lack of trust and overwhelming mental and spiritual commitment then we must reevaluate. When “Saul” became “Paul” he did not become any less zealous. Instead his zealousness was redirected into the service of Christ.

Acts 9.3 Now as [Saul] was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” … 17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”  18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized,  19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus,  20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”  21 All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?”  22 Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.

I think most of us are probably familiar with Saul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, but most of us (but not all) probably find it a little difficult to relate to such a miraculous encounter with God. How are we to find guidance and example in Paul’s transformation for our lives? What is important in this testimony is not the manner of Jesus’ confronting Saul. It is simply the fact that Saul was confronted by Jesus. How, when, where…none of that matters. What matters is that Saul encountered Jesus through the realization (revelation!) that he was, in fact, the Son of God and the Messiah. Paul then began to realize that the Cross was not the curse that he had believed, it was not the mark of a failed human messiah, but the sign of salvation for all who believe. This fact transformed Paul’s life and the zeal with which he had persecuted the Church he now used to grow, to strengthen, and to encourage the Church.

This is the fact that we too must confront. Is Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah, and Lord of my life? If that is what we believe then the “zeal” in our lives must be directed towards God and the things of God. Where do we spend our energy? Is the time we spend at work appropriate or ought we to put some of that time back into our family? Or are we spending our time and energy running away from our obligations with God, family, and work? Essentially we need an audit of our lives. Where are we spending our energy, not just time, but our thoughts, our prayers, ourselves. Is it on those things which are of God or of This World?

Holy Spirit, be with us in these coming hours as we examine our lives so that we might be guided to see clearly the “budget” of our lives. Convict us when we need to spend less on those things that are of this world. Motivate us to be concerned for those people and needs of this world that are on your heart. Enable us to see when we are being devoted to the Institution of the Church rather than the Founder of our Faith.

Allow us to follow Paul’s exhortation:

Rom. 12.9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;  10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.  11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Amen.

 

While very true and it is also true that we, like Martha, are often far too focused upon the busy, ordinary things of life and forget that we are to be about God’s work, but his statement made me wonder what Mary did once Jesus left. Presumably at some point we really ought to get the washing done and prepare proper meals. I am not stating anything new, this is a challenge we find in Paul’s letters and throughout the church history. It is still a real challenge. It is easy to say, “When Jesus is with us we should drop everything else and focus on him.” And…what about when Jesus isn’t sitting down for tea in our house?

I believe that is one of the biggest challenges that any Christian faces. What to do in the ordinary day-to-day, recognizing God is with us and yet still having to write that paper, grade those exams, and get the kids off to school? How do we consecrate the common?

 

1. I can’t resist pointing out that he is British. Perhaps that explains English cooking, they are recognizing that Christ is always with them!

Easter Sunday, Year B

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Mark 16:1-8

We shall fear no longer sin, death, or the stock market.

Alleluia Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
This morning is a time to rejoice, a time of relief and joy. It feels as if even the weather has cooperated. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday were gray and cold, a pall upon the land befitting a time of mourning. And yet this morning the sun breaks through bright and clear. All creation seems to break forth in Hosannas!

And so this morning we rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and we, like Mary and Mary, now should go forth and declare that Christ is risen! Isn’t that just what they did, go and tell the others that Jesus had been raised from the dead? No, not exactly.

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. – Mark 16:8

Not really the ending you probably expected from this morning’s Gospel reading. They did not rejoice or thank the Lord, they didn’t even follow the directions of the angel but instead were scared out of their wits.

But who can really blame them? It is all too easy for us to imagine the grief and the anguish they had gone through. They had seen their friend and teacher brutally beaten and killed. Such a taking of life is always a tragedy, but they had hoped and expected so much from Jesus and it was all destroyed in a matter of hours, his life and their hopes and dreams. So when they arrive at the tomb they find it impossible to believe that Jesus has risen. How could it possibly be true? They want to believe and yet…they cannot. So they flee the tomb in terror, afraid to tell anyone of Jesus’ resurrection.

This year has been a time of great mourning and suffering for all of us. We have lost those we love dearly, have seen friends and family become seriously ill, and all of us have been effected by the economic crisis. Some of our hardships we brought upon ourselves, some are the result of the greed of others, all of it is because we live in a sinful and broken world. Like Mary and Mary we mourn those who are no longer with us and we fear our own future. This grief and fear can keep us from living, it can keep us from accepting and recognizing that the resurrection of Jesus changes everything, it changes sin, death… and even how the stock market should affect us.

The resurrection of Jesus changes everything because it affirms that he is the Christ, the Messiah sent from God to bring forgiveness of our sins and to heal this broken world. His resurrection is the triumph of life over death. Later in the same chapter of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that was read this morning he declares

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 15.54-56)

The resurrection is our victory over death. Oh yes, someday these perishable bodies will crumble and fall. All too often we see the frailty of these bodies and weep, as people die far too young, as they suffer with disease, hunger, and war. And if this world is all that we have, then we would, we should despair. But this world is not the end and this body shall someday be replaced, “for this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15.53). The resurrection of Jesus is but the first, just as he has overcome death so shall we for we have died with Christ and so shall we live in Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus is our resurrection and that means that everything has changed for us as well. We mark that transformation in each of our lives through baptism, the symbol given by God of our own death and rebirth in Christ. This morning we will welcome a new child into the household of faith and renew our own baptismal vows. Notice how the imagery and our liturgy speak of our rebirth in Christ. This is the power of the resurrection in our own lives. Because Christ lived as an example for us and died to take away our sins now we are able to live a new, transformed life in him through his resurrection.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans he writes

Rom. 6:3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

This morning we celebrate not only the resurrection of Jesus but our own resurrection as well. If this new year is like all that have passed there will still be wars and poverty, disease and death, suffering and sorrow. But because of the resurrection of Jesus we know that none of this is the end, while these perishable bodies will pass away we will ultimately be raised eternal life with Christ. And we know that there is new life for us in Christ yet while we continue to live in this world for through baptism we have been born again and we are already being transformed by the Holy Spirit. Death has no sting, the stock market cannot rule our lives, illness may hinder us and death separate us from loved ones, but only for a time. In the words of the apostle Paul,

8 If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.  11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

 

As the church’s doctrines have become more elastic, the church has contracted. It celebrates an “inclusiveness” that includes fewer and fewer members.

He is, of course, not saying anything new or that we have not observed before. I have often marveled at how the so-called “progressives” in our church (I say “so-called” because such a term, like so many in politics, is used not to define oneself, but the other; the opposite of “progressive” is, of course, “regressive”) are so confounded as to why evangelical churches with a fairly straightforward message of repentance, acceptance of forgiveness, and Bible study have been growing so rapidly while our numbers dwindle. The answer is simple. Very few people want a religious community where “anything goes.”

People fundamentally understand that not everything can be equally right. We go to churches, synagogues, and mosques to hear guidance and direction. We know we aren’t perfect and recognize there must be a better way. The last thing we want to hear is “your OK just the way you are, don’t change a thing” because we know that we are not OK. A newer generation won’t get the reference, but we might say “I’m not OK and you’re not OK and that’s OK.” At the core of all the Bible and the Gospel particularly is the assertion that we and this creation were made for something much, much better than what we are now. We need clarity of message so that we can decide whether or not we agree with it. Say what you will about Willow Creek Bible Church, you know what they believe. You may not agree with them, which is fine, but you know what they believe. What does the Episcopal Church believe? Hmm. That’s a tough one….

In many ways I think that the Episcopal Church would be far, far better off if it simply decided to draw a clear line in the sand regarding the role and authority of Scripture. The church would probably lose members and it might gain them, but at least being decisive would allow those seeking a community of faith to know upon what (or whom) the Episcopal Church based their faith.  Be hot or be cold, but no one finds luke wark palatable.

 

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God,[1] and to enjoy him forever.[2]

I am sure that you all are aware of Charles Schultz’s (1922-2000) personal Christian convictions and that it seeped into his Peanuts strip from time to time. This week’s reruns have CB addressing just this question, but his answer is hardly catechetical.

It seems to me that Lucy and Linus’ responses are rather profound, given CB’s view that our purpose is “to make others happy.” If that is our sole or primary purpose then indeed somebody (everyone) isn’t doing their job. Now on the other hand, I suppose we could say that this is just “the second great command” put in new terms and I would accept that, but it is given primacy in this account. I think the order (love God first then we are able to love our neighbors, and even ourselves, properly) is rather important.

 

Our parish is going through a transition, the rector of 14 years has retired and while I am not on any of the transitional committees I am a “resident member of the clergy” so I get to meet with our candidates for interim priest. My wife is on the vestry and so she met with the candidate last night. Last night she and I discussed not so much the candidate but where our church and the ECUSA in general is headed. We have a fairly mixed parish, more on the moderate side than radical activist end of the spectrum (either end of the radicalness, I should add). There are many times when I wonder just why we should stay engaged with the national church.

So, today I read Num. 11. It is the passage where the Israelites in the wilderness are grumbling again, this time because they want meat. Real meat, not this carroway-like wafer stuff. This time not only is God upset, but Moses is pissed and complains to God, saying that it is not like he gave birth to them. Why should he have to deal with them and their whining? Not to put too fine a point on it, Moses asks God

Num. 11:15 “If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once-if I have found favor in your sight-and do not let me see my misery.”

I laughed out loud when I read that. “Kill me now, Lord, kill me now.” Well, I am no Moses, nor is my wife. I won’t pretend to draw any direct line of meaning, but I think a general premise that God will work with and through his people (and its leaders) in spite of their thick heart and headedness is clear.

I certainly believe that one clear lesson from Moses (and Abraham and the psalms and the prophets) is that we are allowed to be honest with God. If you think about it, they all showed incredible chutzpah in talking back to God, challenging why he was asking so much of them or not dealing with an injustice that was so obviously in need of smiting. We should not let our humility before God keep us from being honest with him and therefore ourselves about our frustrations and anger.

So I don’t know what the future holds for our parish or the ECUSA and I don’t even know what is my future in these institutions. For the shortterm much will depend upon who we end up calling. “All politics are local” is a truism in the church as much as in the state. In the meantime, keep us in your prayers.

 

Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor. 5:7-8)

- Amen.

Last Sunday I spoke of our expectations and the expectations of those who witnessed Jesus in the flesh. Most Jews of Jesus’ time were eagerly awaiting for a messiah, for the one anointed by God, to come and drive out the Romans, to remove the wicked leaders and establish God’s kingdom with a son of David upon the throne. We know that several men claimed to the messiah and attempted to do just that only to be destroyed and killed by the Romans. Clearly they were not the messiah. Jesus too was killed, executed by the Romans. Yet…yet he rose from the dead and he lives!

All expectations were shattered. The son of David and God was not a mighty warrior, but a sacrifice for all humanity. As we entered into Lent I preached about Jesus’ death as sacrifice and commented on how difficult this concept is for so many, both then and now. Yet there is no doubting that this is exactly how the church has understood Good Friday since its inception. Described by the author of Hebrews and in John’s letters as our atoning sacrifice.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:2

Jesus’ death is the final ransom for our sins, making us again “at one” with God. The Day of Atonement was and is the most solemn and important festival in Israelite worship. It was the only day of the year when the High Priest would enter the most holy place in the Temple, the inner most sanctuary, and there he would offer the sacrifices for the sins of the entire nation.

In the Holy of Holies the High Priest would sprinkle the cover of the Ark of the Covenant with the blood of the sacrifices for the priests and the people. Thus it is called in Hebrew Yom Kippur or the “Day of Covering.” The term we know, “atonement,” was coined by William Tyndale to express the function rather than the mere action. In this ritual the High Priest was making the nation again “at one” with God.

So too Jesus’ death is an atoning sacrifice that reunites us with God. His death was for the sins of the world, not just Israel. And whereas the High Priest had to enter the Temple every year to offer the sacrifice of animals for Israel’s sins, Jesus as our Great High Priest and sacrifice made one offering for all, for all time. As the author of Hebrews has said,

Heb. 9:11 But when Christ came as a high priest … 12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

And yet although Jesus’ death was an atoning sacrifice, we also find that there is another sacrificial image associated with Good Friday. It was, of course, for the festival of Passover that Jesus went up to Jerusalem and I have often wondered, since Jesus clearly chose when he would give himself over into the hands of those who would kill him, we he did not choose Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, as the festival at which to ascend Zion’s hill. Why not simply go into Jerusalem at that holy day? The city would have been just as crowded and the Romans just as nervous about a revolt. Why not make this connection with the sacrifice of atonement explicit in day and time?

Instead Jesus chooses Passover and so it is that Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, says that he is our “Passover sacrifice” and this too makes sense. The image of Christ as the Pashcal Lamb fills our liturgy. If you were at last night’s Easter Vigil you would have noticed that the entire first portion of that beautiful service was centered upon the notion that Christ is our Passover and the readings focused upon the Exodus of Israel from Egypt.

The first Passover was the final plague that God visited upon Pharaoh and Egypt. You will recall that God sent nine plagues upon Egypt, each effecting only the Egyptians and yet cutting them to the core. Key symbols and elements of their lives were effected; the Nile River, their life blood, was turned to blood; their crops destroyed by Locusts, and their cattle struck down. But the Israelites and their animals were unaffected. The final plague, however, was that the first born of all those in Egypt would be killed by the Angel of Death.

God ordered Israel to kill a lamb and take its blood and spread it upon the doorposts of their homes.

13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

This is where our term “Passover” comes from because the Angel of Death passed over those homes, sparing their first born and, in turn, bringing about their freedom from Egypt. Pharaoh finally let Israel go, indeed he drove them out! And this is what Jesus and his disciples where in Israel to remember and commemorate. The story of the Exodus and God’s deliverance of his people would have been read and discussed in the days leading up to the day we now know as Good Friday.

I believe there are four unique characteristics about Passover, over and against Yom Kippur and all other fasts and feasts in the Bible, that led Jesus to choose this time and festival as the one whereat he would offer himself up as our atoning and Paschal lamb.

First, Passover is unlike any other fast, feast, and festival given in the Law in that it commemorates an annual, historic event. Yom Kippur happened annually and the sin offerings occurred daily. The Passover sacrifice happened once, in a particular time and place, and when Israelites gathered together at Passover it was not to offer the sacrifice, but to remember the sacrifice that had been made. So to was Jesus’ sacrifice an unique offering given at a specific time and place. When we gather at the table we remember and celebrate in memorial of what he has done for us, but we do not offer his sacrifice anew. Christ died once for all and for all eternity. “He has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).

Second, Passover is celebrated within the home, in the community, rather than through the priests in the Temple. All other sacrifices required the priests to accept the animals and the grain and oil offerings from the people and then present them to God in the Temple. At Passover the family or group of friends gather together, with or without a priest, and give thanks to God for having delivered them from Egypt and death. Jesus sat at the table with his disciples and gave them bread and said, “take, eat, this is my body.” And when he gave up his body as our High Priest he became our sole intermediary with God.

Third, the event of Passover required act of faith. They had to sacrifice the animals and then make a sign that they were members of the nation of Israel, marking their doorposts with the blood of the lamb so that the Angel of Death would pass by their household. Jesus called on all who would believe in him to confess him as their lord and to be baptized. These are the outward and visible signs of the new covenant and so death no longer can lay claim to us, not just for a single night, but for eternity, we are freed from death.

Finally, the Passover and subsequent Exodus from Egypt foreshadow and represent our own passage from sinfulness to forgiveness, from death to life. In that one unique moment in history they declared their commitment to God, were spared death, and led by God through the waters of the sea to the dry land of Canaan, the Promised Land.

In Jesus’ death we are delivered from death. We cross through the waters of baptism and we are raised with him to new life.

But we must also remember on this Easter morning, as we stand on the far side of the Sea, with Egypt on the other shore, that decisions lie before us in the wilderness of this life. The Israelites, you will recall, began to grumble and doubt and so their entry into the Promised Land was delayed. We know that the Promised Land of our eternity with him is assured, but how will we now spend the time that we have here, now, in between, having been delivered from sin and death? Will we spend it griping and complaining, insisting that we should have the road map and could do a better job of guiding ourselves through this wilderness? Or will we lay claim to the new life and freedom, the deliverance from the slavery and bondage of sin that Jesus has won for us that we can enjoy both now and in the world to come?

Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

Amen.

 

Matt. 27:45 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 46 And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus’ cry, quoting the first words of Psalm 22, is perhaps one of the most challenging passages in the Bible. Not only is the entire scene gut-wrenching, Jesus, beaten, stripped, hanging from the cross with his mother and friends standing beneath him watching his anguish in anguish of their own, but this great cry of despair should penetrate our very souls. We see and cannot comprehend the physical suffering and then we question even the theology of it.

How is it that God could have forsaken himself? How could he forsake his Son? The short answer is that God did not and would not. Just as we are human, Jesus was fully human and in his humanity experienced both the physical and spiritual horrors of this moment. And in that moment he he did not utter a simple cry of doubt, as it may seem, asking if God could have forgotten him. Rather Jesus was invoking the entirety of that psalm.

Psalm 22 begins

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

But it continues

Psa. 22.3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried, and were saved;
in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

It is, in fact, a rather long psalm and is a psalm of complaint or lament where David calls upon God to hear his cries of suffering and to see the pain and hardship he is enduring for the sake of his faithfulness to God. Such psalms often begin with a “calling out” of God, a demand that God listen or a statement that God has rejected his people. It is jarring and often causes Christian readers to feel that the psalmist is impertinent if not heretical. Who are we to challenge God? And yet far from being blasphemous or the sign of faithlessness, it shows the depth of confidence that the psalmist has in God that they can call to him and he will respond.

What such psalms teach us, that I think we have often forgotten, is that we can and indeed must be honest with God. Our prayers should not be filled with platitudes and flowery language, but rather we our deepest needs and concerns, even our complaints against God. Consider Jesus’ own example when he went to the Mount of Olives, shortly before he was betrayed.

Luke 22.39 He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. 40 When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” 41 Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”

In his prayer Jesus gives us permission to be honest with God, to ask God to spare us the difficult times. “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Jesus utters this imperative to his disciples twice in this one passage and it is, of course, the same prayer that we utter in the Lord’s prayer. “Lead us not into temptation/trial, but deliver us from the Evil one.” We are allowed to ask God to spare us trials, tests, and difficult times.

We are not being “spiritual wimps” when we pray for his grace to ease our lives since not only does Jesus command the disciples to pray for this deliverance, he himself prays for God to spare him the trials that he knew were to come. The vital element of such prayer is our willingness to accept such trials if God so desires. We must be honest with God even, and especially, in our darkest and deepest moments of fear and doubt and we must subordinate our own wills to God’s, just as Jesus did.

And in these final moments of his earthly life, when Jesus invokes this powerful psalm, he continues to show his faithfulness to God and his confidence in God’s faithfulness to him. Within the heart of this psalm is the assertion

Psa. 22.9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
11 Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

He declares and knows that it is God who will deliver him, the very God who has cared for him since birth, and has guided his life. And the psalm concludes with the confident assertion that God is ruler of all and will deliver him and his people.

Psa. 22.27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD;
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him.
28 For dominion belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.

29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.
30 Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord,
31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.

This is the what Jesus is declaring, not a doubt as to whether God is still with him, but the honest declaration that he suffers and that only God can bring his deliverance. And with the psalmist he declares that at the last he will raise up his son and all those who call upon his name.

future generations will be told about the Lord…

saying that he has done it.

Amen.

 

The Liturgy of the Palms
Matthew 21:1-11
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
The Liturgy of the Word
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14- 27:66 or Matthew 27-11-54
Psalm 31:9-16

In the unlikely event that you have just returned from a two-year expedition into the canyons of Mars, this is a presidential election year. (Although it feels more like a decade of campaigning.) We are down to essentially three main candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket and John McCain on the Republican side. Others remain on the ballot, but these are the three main players now. We have had months and months of pundits and pollsters telling us who might vote which way and why this group will influence the election but that other group is waning in strength. The candidates have been on the trail stumping with all the gusto of…well, a politician.

In spite of most of our expectations Pennsylvania’s primary is very relevant, even this late in the process, at least for the Democratic side of the ballot. If we have not been aware of the campaign before, we are now. The calls have begun and we the PA voters are being wooed. Modern US politics is, we often hear quipped, a popularity contest. It is less about substance than about appearance and the ability to give rousing speeches. Now that the field has narrowed and the trail is coming to an end people are beginning to ask what it is that each candidate believes and what policies and positions they hold or will seek to enact. The question that guides me is what kind of president do we need. What sort of leader does the United States need at this moment and, more difficult to define, for the next four years?

We will each have our own answer to these questions. We might agree on a candidate but we will likely have very different reasons for believing why he or she is the right person for this time. What are our expectations of a president today anyway? What does it mean to be the President of the United States in this moment and time? (In spite of appearances, this is not a political sermon, so Father Larry need not be concerned that St. Andrew’s will lose its tax exempt status.) I mention all of this to try and bring us into the mind and context of those first century Jews who lined the streets to see Jesus enter Jerusalem, praising God and hailing him as “the Son of David.” Who did they believe they were seeing? What were they expecting of him? And what do we expect of Jesus now?

9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Jesus, the crowd declares, was the Son of David and he arrived riding on a donkey, not, as some have commented, as sign of lowly stature, but rather that he is the true king of Israel. The allusion is to Zechariah 9:9.

Zech. 9.9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

David was, of course, was the great King of Israel who finally unified the kingdom and secured her borders. When he wanted to build a temple to the Lord, God declared to him that rather than David building a house (temple) to the Lord, he would build a house (dynasty) for David. “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:16). Forever is, as we know, a very long time, but God’s promises endure. The king, a son of David, the anointed by God, would come again. God would raise him up at a time when Israel needed him the most.
The prophet Zechariah, cited a moment ago, was preaching during the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile (c. 520-18 bce). The Persian king Cyrus had allowed the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple, but it was difficult going. Local politics and enemies threatened to keep the renewal from taking root and Zechariah preached hope and a solid future for Jerusalem and her people. Moreover, Zechariah tells that them God himself will enter the battle and “his arrow [shall] go forth like lightning; the Lord God will sound the trumpet and march forth in the whirlwinds of the south.” The people of Judah need not worry in their time of fear because God is with them, their enemies will be destroyed, God’s order will be established, and Jerusalem’s king, the son of David, will return to her humble, yet victorious, riding on a donkey.

The time of Zechariah passed without the need of such dramatic and messianic engagement, but now Jerusalem is again occupied by foreign rulers and many are oppressed and the return to Scripture, they remember the prophets and hear Zechariah anew. Now, perhaps now is the time! And indeed it was, it was the time of the arrival of the Messiah, the son of David, and he entered on a donkey (and a foal, just for good measure). They declared “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They saw him as the Messiah and others declared that he was a prophet. And they were right, but their image and understanding of the Messiah and Jesus was incomplete.¹

In the days that pass between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the crucifixion he becomes violent, driving out the moneychangers in the Temple courtyard. He was gentle and healed those who were blind and lame. He grew weary and tired, afraid and despondent. This did not fit the image of a triumphant king! The Romans had not been run out of the city and now the Jewish leaders worried, not without good reason, that all Jesus’ presence would do is stir up passions and lead to the Romans violently putting down a fomenting rebellion.

The truth is not even the disciples knew what to expect from Jesus. Those who had been most intimate with him did not understand Jesus’ own words when he told them that
“The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” (Matt. 17:22-23)

Their only response? Matthew tells us that “they were greatly distressed.” And why not? This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be! The Messiah-King was to ride in victorious, overthrowing empires and self-righteous religious leaders alike. The revolution had begun! The poor were finally being given their due and the rejected were being healed and accepted at the table. Why all this talk of betrayal? Perhaps on this day that we now called Palm Sunday they might have thought that this talk was behind them, that now it was really going to happen! Jesus was living out the prophecy of Zechariah and the people understood!

But they only understood a portion of who Jesus was and what it was that the Messiah had to do. The rest of the passage in Zechariah could have given them a hint,

Zech. 9:11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

The blood of God’s covenant would no longer be that of the animal sacrifices, but rather it would be his own. God had become flesh in order to offer up himself as a sacrifice to set us free from the prison of sin. The true enemy of Israel and all humanity was and is never the nations and the powers that surrounded and conquered us. Our true enemy is the sin, the impulse within us to push God away and to go our own way. The Great Tragedy did not begin with a battle, but with a simple act of disobedience and arrogance in the eating of the fruit. Cain’s sin came first as he gave in to jealousy. We are trapped within our own desires and from these all other hardships descend and from this the Son of David came to deliver us.

We enter into Jerusalem with Jesus and into the beginning of Holy Week. Unlike the disciples, we know what will come on Good Friday and Easter Morning. But are we in any better position than his disciples were on that first Palm Sunday? This week, let us reflect, pray and ask what are our expectations of the Messiah. Do we expect him to win elections and wars for us and then become dejected and reject him when it doesn’t work out in the way we thought it should? Or are we accepting of his sacrifice for us, his offer to deliver us from that waterless pit of our own sin and self-centeredness? Jesus did not fight against the external powers and authorities. He transformed hearts and souls. It begins within and then moves without.

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” — Amen.

 

1. Craig S. Keener Matthew, Volume 1, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, via http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/index.php?action=getCommentaryText&cid=1&source=1&seq=i.47.21.1

The Targum of Ruth, from the rabbinic period¹, has no doubt and directs the reader to understand this passage as nothing less then a clear, firm conversion and acceptance of the Torah.

16- But Ruth said: “Do not coax me to leave you, to turn from following you, for I desire to become a proselyte.” (‏ארום תאיבנא אנא לאיתגיירא)

Said Naomi: “We are commanded to keep the Sabbaths and holidays, not to walk more than two thousand cubits.” Said Ruth: “Wheresoever you go I shall go.” Said Naomi: “We are commanded not to spend the night together with non-Jews.” Said Ruth: “Wherever you lodge I shall lodge.” Said Naomi: “We are commanded to keep six hundred thirteen commandments.” Said Ruth: “That which your people keep, that I shall keep, as though they had been my people before this.” Said Naomi: “We are commanded not to worship idolatry.” Said Ruth: “Your God is my God.”

17- Said Naomi: “We have four methods of capital punishment for the guilty — stoning, burning with fire, death by the sword, and hanging upon the gallows.” Said Ruth: “To whatever death you are subject I shall be subject.” Said Naomi: “We have two cemeteries.” Said Ruth: “There shall I be buried. And do not continue to speak any further. May the Lord do thus unto me and more if [even] death will separate me from you.”

18- When she saw that she insisted upon going with her, she ceased to dissuade her.

The key to this passage is not so much the details of what it means to become a Jew (and I say “Jew” since the targum is not describing ancient Israelite practices but those of the rabbinic period), but the final phrase of Ruth’s opening statement. ‏ארום תאיבנא אנא לאיתגיירא, “for I desire to become a proselyte.” This sets the stage for everything that follows and controls our reading of the text. Naomi’s enumeration of the requirements to be kept, clearly places this text within the rabbinic milieu.

Such a reading of the Hebrew text and the subsequent synagogal reading of the targum thus encourages the audience, that is, the synagogal community of late rabbinic period, to adhere to rabbinic understandings of being Jewish. This, in turn, serves as a reminder that so much of rabbinic literature is prescriptive rather than descriptive. There is a need to exhort the audience to follow “their” (the author’s/targumist’s) understanding of how one is to be Jewish. We can liken this to the Dura Europas synagogue, a far more dramatic example that even when ostensibly Rabbinic authority is being consolidated in the mid-third century observance of practices that are later considered or directed to be the norm were not adhered to universally. And how much they ever were adhered to in antiquity is still an open debate.

It is time to run for the moment, but I will return to this in the future, bringing (I hope) more of my research directly to the blog. Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

 

1. I will post comments on dating TgRuth another time