Sunday, March 24, 2024

God's Will, Not Ours (Sermon)

 “God’s Will, Not Ours”

Matthew 26:36-43

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

Palm Sunday

3/24/24

         

36Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”

37He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and agitated. 38Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.”

39And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”

40Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? 41Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

42Again he went away for the second time and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

43Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. (NRSV)

 

It’s the night of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest. Judas knows that.

It’s the night before Jesus’ trial, and after doing business with Judas, the religious leaders know that.

It’s also the night before Jesus’ crucifixion and death, and while Jesus seems aware of that, he also feels like it’s worth asking for a stay of execution.

Maybe there’s another way for humankind to recognize that their bloodlust—be it for power, land, or revenge—is not only antithetical to God’s will and Jesus’ teaching, it’s also, ultimately, futile. Violence breeds more violence, and more violence breeds more and more violence. And on and on it goes.

That cycle has always been in play in human history. And if there is, in fact, any hope of breaking the us-against-them cycle, that hope lies in practicing, even against all odds, the kind of love Jesus has embodied—a love in which the ego, who does so love to be right and dominant, is named, and tamed, and its energy channeled toward healing and community-building action. For relatively recent examples of that kind of disarming love, think Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu.

         Fully convinced that such love is the way forward, and fully committed to it, Jesus enters the quiet and deserted Garden of Gethsemane. Leaving his most trusted disciples to keep watch, he slips off to pray.

God, he says, if there’s another way to reveal the impotence of the people’s violence, can we please try it? That’s what I want, of course, but I’ll do whatever you ask.

         When Jesus breaks from his grief-wrought prayers, he finds Peter, James, and John sleeping as soundly as the Roman guards who will crumble into unconsciousness at the sight of the angel who will, soon enough, roll away the stone from Jesus’ tomb.

Scolding his disciples into wakefulness, Jesus charges them, again, to keep watch while he prays. And yet, once again, Jesus finds that his hand-picked followers have fallen asleep.

         Back in Matthew 8, it’s Jesus who falls asleep in the midst of a high-stakes moment. He and the disciples are in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee when a storm threatens the boat and everyone in it. And Jesus lies asleep in the back. Terrified and angry, the disciples provoke Jesus from his sleep, screaming, Don’t you care that we’re dying!

You hear the irony here, don’t you?

In both cases, Jesus sees into and beyond the things that apparently are to things that can be, things the disciples do not and, at the moment, cannot see. On the lake, Jesus sees through the storm to a breaking horizon, one of calm and well-being. In the garden, he sees through the apparent stillness of night to a storm gathering on the horizon, a storm that will make the next day unimaginable and unforgettable, a day that will begin to make sense only in light of Sunday.

Whatever lies immediately before him, Jesus, seeing through the eyes of redeeming love and transforming grace, perceives hope and new beginnings. He sees God transforming even annihilating violence into revelations of grace.

To be sure, individuals, groups, nations, animals, and ecosystems often experience annihilation. And those painful losses are hard to endure and even harder to explain. The Creation God loves does suffer. Nonetheless, says God,suffering will not have the last word.

While trying to impose its own will, humankind deliberately unleashes the demons of violence and destruction. And yet, to those with eyes to see and ears to hear, God is always revealing brutality as the fruit of a will consumed by ego. When confusing that will with God’s will, we always end up giving up on faith, hope, and love. 

The transformation God has put into play for the Creation is not sustained by violence. No battlefield victory, no humiliation of political or religious rivals, no accumulation of power or wealth has even a chance of revealing the depth and breadth of the realm of God. That revelation always happens through things like poverty of spirit, hunger and thirst for righteousness, meekness, mercy, and peacemaking grace. And those are fruits of Resurrection.

The Hosannas of Palm Sunday mean Save us now. And as a prayer of willful dependence on the swords, spears, and nails of Friday, it stands in stark contrast to Jesus’ Gethsemane prayer of thy will be done. Jesus says it over and over, but we keep choosing to learn it the hard way:

God does not save through weapons and domination.

God saves by calling and empowering us to participate in God’s love for all things.

God saves and redeems by willing us to live in this world, today, as signs of God’s realm of welcome, service, care, and reconciliation.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

An Encounter at the Temple (Story Sermon)

 “An Encounter at the Temple”

Psalm 69:9-13 John 2:13-22

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

3/17/24

 

9It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;
    the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.
10When I humbled my soul with fasting,[
a]
    they insulted me for doing so.
11When I made sackcloth my clothing,
    I became a byword to them.
12I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate,
    and the drunkards make songs about me.

13But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
    At an acceptable time, O God,
    in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer

    me.  (NRSV)

 

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”

19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?”

21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (NRSV)

 

         My father and I approached Jerusalem late in the afternoon four days before Passover. Because I had just turned thirteen, it was the first time my father had taken me to the temple for the great feast, and I was terribly excited. We were about to enter Jerusalem—the City of David. For generations, psalmists had sung of her. Prophets had visited her and spoken to her.

         Before we made the descent into the Hinnom Valley and climbed the steep embankment to the gate nearest Herod’s palace, we stopped for a while on the crest of the hill, and just looked at Jerusalem.

         From our vantage point, the light of the setting sun, made the dusty haze hovering over the city glisten like gold—like a halo, or a crown. As the haze began to settle, it reminded me of a veil covering the face of a bride. The veils I had seen never covered a girl’s eyes. So, they concealed neither excitement nor fear. But what could Jerusalem have to fear? Even if the Romans were in control, hadn’t God promised a deliverer? Hadn’t God assured David that, even if his descendants suffered, a redeemer would arise to free Jerusalem and Israel once and for all?

Occasionally, I asked when this Messiah would come, and my father’s answer was always the same: “In God’s time.”

         “Yeah,” I wondered. “But when?”

         From our hilltop perch, we also heard the ceaseless drone of evening activity rising over the walls. With ten times more people in that one place than I had seen altogether in thirteen years, Jerusalem seemed bigger than life, and I wanted to get there quickly and stay forever.

         My father seemed to sense my eagerness, and while I think it made him proud, he also seemed wary of my naïveté.

         “Gypsies,” he said in a low voice, and pointed down toward the valley.

         I looked and saw no less than twenty groups of people camped out by the stream. Itinerant merchants, the gypsies were surrounded by skinny cattle, spotted sheep, and hundreds of crates of doves and pigeons.

         “They come every year to sell their pitiful animals for sacrifice,” my father said. “Don’t be distracted by them. We’ll buy ours at the temple. They’ll cost more, but they’ll please God more than anything we could buy down there.”

         I nodded in what I hoped would be seen as troubled understanding.

         Having traveled for almost three full days from our home in Hebron, we were tired. So, my father began to lead us the final steps into Jerusalem where we would stay with an old family friend.

Along the road from Hebron, we had met many other pilgrims coming from other towns and villages south of Jerusalem. The closer our expanding traveling party got to the city, the closer we all became. I began to understand that the journey itself was holy. It was a time of joyous remembering, anticipation, and community. For many, the journey was almost as important as Passover itself. In fact, my father refused even to live near Jerusalem because of the importance of the pilgrimage itself.

         In Jerusalem, my father’s friend welcomed us warmly. The next day we did nothing but rest and visit. Then, early the second morning, my father woke me and said that we had to go the temple to buy our animals for the sacrifice. We also had to exchange our Roman denarii into Tyrian drachmas in order to pay the temple tax because the authorities did not accept currency engraved with Caesar’s image.

         As we walked the dusty, canyon-like streets of Jerusalem, a sense of belonging washed over me. I thought of my many ancestors who had lived and worshiped in, or just passed through this place. I remembered stories of faithfulness and treachery, of joys and hardships. I felt that at any moment I might and catch a glimpse of Moses finally resting here, or Jeremiah speaking some painful truth to a lost and disoriented people. Or maybe even of Adonai, disappearing around a corner somewhere. Only the presence of so many Roman soldiers kept my imagination in check.

         As we approached the temple, my steps slowed and shortened involuntarily. I had imagined this moment for the last couple of years, but as I stood there, next to the temple, gazing up and down its long, high walls, I struggled to breathe. God lived here. From deep inside, in the Holy of Holies, God spoke to the priests. Awe-struck as I was, I still wondered—to myself—if even such a magnificent building as this could really hold the One who had created the heavens and the earth.

         Just outside the temple gate, a large crowd of people had gathered. Drawn by their animated conversations, we walked toward them. At the center of the crowd stood a man who appeared to be a little younger than my father. We couldn’t hear him well, but he was clearly upset. The crowd was agitated, as well. Some were angry, some perplexed. I craned my neck trying to get a better look over the hedge of men surrounding the man. His hair was short and wiry, his beard thick and stringy. And between the two, his eyes flashed with astonishing intensity, a passion like I’d never seen. As if he knew I were looking at him, he glanced my way, and, for a moment, his eyes caught mine. I seized in my tracks, as if immersed in a cold river. It scared me, but when that man’s eyes met mine, I felt very much as I had felt just a few minutes before when I approached the temple for the first time.

         We asked someone what was going on. He said that he wasn’t sure, but an odd rumor had been circulating about the man. The story was that he and his friends had just been to a wedding up in Cana. The host had run out of wine in the middle of the celebration. He was about to suffer serious embarrassment when this man bailed him out. At his word, six jugs of water had become wine. 

My father’s eyes turned dark and lifeless, and he gave a snort of both disgust and laughter.

         We learned that the man at the center of attention was a Galilean rabbi named Jesus. No one told quite the same story, but there was talk of people calling him things like “Son of Man,” and “Lamb of God.” The only thing we heard for sure was someone saying to Jesus, “Please. Just don’t cause a scene.”

After a while of standing there with all the other spectators, my father turned us back toward the temple. Passover was coming, and we had a lot to do.

         We entered through the main gate, and inside the walls, the temple felt like another world. People milled about in a single mass like a flock inside a holding pen. Jewish leaders wearing splendid robes sat beneath colorful awnings. Other men who looked more like my father and me shopped for sacrificial animals, bargaining for fair prices.

Inside the temple, I began to feel more harried and anxious than excited because I saw more in the way of commerce than holiness. It helped to see that my father had been right about one thing. The animals on sale in the temple were beautiful. Surely, they were more worthy sacrifices than anything the gypsies had to sell. We bought a pair of solid white doves in a small crate, then walked across the courtyard to exchange our currency.  

         At one of the money changers’ tables, my father counted out his drachma carefully to be sure that the bankers didn’t cheat him. They had tried once before. And right then, as my father was counting his money, that’s when it happened.

         A sandaled foot flashed in between my father and the tables. As one table slammed into another, both of them fell, and a shrill chorus rang out when hundreds of coins bounced and rolled across the stone floor and through the legs of dumbfounded onlookers and oblivious beasts. Completely surprised, the money changers stared in disbelief at the one who had interrupted their business with such sudden fury.

It was Jesus.

With those same piercing eyes and that same extravagant passion, Jesus stared at the money changers. And while his gaze did seem to paralyze them for a moment, he didn’t threaten anyone. So, I couldn’t tell whether his was a passion of anger, or love, or both. He was certainly not caught up in some indifferent middle ground. So, I couldn’t tell whether it was his composure or his heart that was breaking.

         This was not how I imagined my first Passover experience would go. Then Jesus turned and looked at me again, and while I wanted to run, I froze, again. When Jesus looked at the crate of doves in my hands, I felt my grip loosen and the box begin to slip.

         In his right hand, Jesus gripped five or six leather cords, tied together at one end into a kind of flaccid whip. He raised his arm high into the air and hit the stone floor with the leather cords, but it was his words that cracked like a whip. It was his passion that demanded attention.

         “Take this stuff away!” he shouted. “And stop making my father’s house a flea market!” And with that, he began to herd the cattle and sheep out of the temple.

         A group of temple authorities stood their ground and challenged Jesus saying, “What gives you the right to do this?”

         Dragging the leather cords behind him, Jesus walked up to them, looked them, one by one, in the eye, and said, “Tear this place down, and in three days I’ll have it standing again.” After being momentarily stunned, the men then began to look at one another and to laugh nervously.

         “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,” one of them said. “Longer than you’ve been alive! And you’re going to build it from scratch in three days?”

         A snicker began to make its way through the crowd, but Jesus didn’t so much as blink.

         Everything having been thrown into question and chaos, my father grabbed the doves from my hands and hurried us out of the temple. 

         It would be a long time before I would begin making sense of what I’d seen and heard; but even that day, I knew that Jesus’ heart was breaking. And when it was finally and fully broken, something would happen.

Something extraordinary.

Something that would take a lifetime to believe. And even longer to understand.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

God's Beckoning Grace (Sermon)

“God’s Beckoning Grace”

Ezekiel 34:11-17 and Acts 2:42-47

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

3/10/24

 

11For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep and will sort them out. 12As shepherds sort out their flocks when they are among scattered sheep, so I will sort out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them into their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strays, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice. (NRSV)

 

42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

43Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (NRSV)

 

 

         Ezekiel, prophet to the exiles several generations after Isaiah, speaks of God as a shepherd gathering a scattered flock and returning them home.

The image of God as shepherd is hardly new for Israel. Since the days of David, the people had been singing a psalm that began, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Both Psalm 23 and Ezekiel’s prophecy rely on concrete and earthy images. Ezekiel adds emphasis by moving from the nebulous language of “clouds and thick darkness” to describe exile, to the language of “fertile highlands…riverbeds…[and] green pastures” to describe home.

A couple of things stand out. First, Ezekiel makes an intentional connection between the One who delivers and the land to which the people will return. Ezekiel ties intimately to the earth the people’s restoration, their ongoing well-being, and their fundamental identity. So, how the people relate to and care for the earth mirrors the way they imagine, understand, relate to, and love God and one another.

Second, when the prophet refers to God leading the people to fertile highlands, riverbeds, and pastures, he’s saying that God will act directly on them as a shepherd acts on a flock. And once Israel remembers that she is a sheep gone astray, they can begin to understand that God, like a shepherd, is acting on their behalf.

This remembrance—synonymous with repentance—kindles a transformative theological evolution. The people re-imagine the physical Creation as a part of the revelatory Incarnation of God. As their faith matures, they begin to see all things as truly holy—including the experience of exile! And the more they deepen in their relationship with God, the less God has to act on them—the less God has to herdthem. Within their renewed relationship, they experience God inviting them to a lifelong journey of mutuality.

Defined by grace, God doesn’t force us in a given direction; God beckons us. The language of beckoning implies an awakening within those being beckoned. We awaken to what is good, holy, and true within ourselves and others. We find ourselves noticing and even seeking places of abundance, places where cooperation between humankind and the earth yield not only ample food, clothing, and shelter, but God’s presence and wisdom as well.

The spiritual traditions of many indigenous North Americans speak of “thin places.” Places where distinctions between the physical and the spiritual realms are as sheer as a bridal veil. In these thin places, one can experience holiness as a shimmering, immediate presence. And isn’t that the message of Resurrection? Easter is God’s decisive action on Jesus so that through Jesus the Creation may become a continuously thin place. A place through which God works and in whichGod may be experienced.

In today’s reading from Acts, Luke says, “God performed “many wonders and signs…through the apostles.” Through Resurrection, God is deepening God’s presence in the world by acting on and through the beloved community, just as God acts on and through Jesus.

The apostles in Jerusalem live in a posture of radical openness to God. And they do that by living in community—that is to say, communally. They share meals, pray together, pool their resources, and even sell personal property for the benefit of others. Being so lovingly held, they hold nothing back. And in giving all, they only deepen their trust in and love for God. Through the apostles’ faithfulness, God transforms the community itself into a thin place in which people recognize that they’re not only ones on whom God acts. They also become ones who, through their own faith, hope, and love, help to share and reveal God.

In setting a high bar for discipleship, the apostles demonstrate precisely how we embody the unity that Jesus speaks of when he says, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…completely one.” (John 17:21 and 23a)

In my opinion, in our culture, the term evangelical has lost its connection with the gospel of Jesus. But the very point of evangelical faith is to live in such a way that disciples demonstrate the love with which we are loved. Unable to create that love, we simply open ourselves to God’s compassionate justice, that is, to God’s sanctifying grief over all that is displaced, discarded, and distraught. And we make room for God to act through us. In this way, disciples discover their authority and strength in acts of humble service rather than through the means of violence and domination.

Remember your life. Recall times when you have been loved without judgment or expectation. Those are examples of thin moments when you can say, I was in the presence of God. Recall, too, those equally thin moments when you loved without judgment or expectation, and you can say, God was present through me.

It’s usually in the simplest acts that God loves us and loves others through us. To share food, work, and prayer is to live in Christ-centered community. It is to know and to love Jesus. And through such things, the Spirit transforms the inevitable difficulties and failures we face into experiences of God’s veil-thinning power of Resurrection.

Last Tuesday afternoon, I visited with a church member who had returned home after major surgery. We sat in his sun room with its tall windows looking out at his garden where daffodils and crocuses were already blooming and where so much else was just waiting its turn to break through warming soil and greening limbs. As we talked, the man reflected on our congregation and how you have been there for him and his wife, and for their whole family over the years. You could feel the air thinning as he said, “It chokes me up a little. Thinking about the church. The people. God. Always there. It helps me know that, no matter what, everything will be okay.”

I think the goal for every congregation is to continue becoming a thin place, a place where God’s real presence opens us to the holiness and beauty inherent in all that God creates and loves. That’s how we embrace our blessing and become blessings to others—whoever they are. Members of the church. Neighbors in the community. Recipients of ministries we support. People we disagree with and don’t understand. Even the earth itself.

I trust that God is beckoning us to be that kind of community in a culture growing increasingly bitter, divided, and not only tolerant of but worshipful toward violence and its agitators.

Now, a congregation that humbly opens itself and joyfully commits itself to God’s welcoming and inclusive grace will never be the biggest or wealthiest church around. Communities of grace live according to very different definitions of abundance than prosperity gospel churches. Nonetheless, such communities become irreplaceable and irrepressible reminders that God is present and beckoning all of us into God’s realm of expansive grace.

That realm is a place of “fertile land [and] green pastures.”

A place of “gladness and generous hearts.”

A place of “praise” and “goodwill.”

A place where exile has ended and Resurrection is still just beginning. 

Sunday, March 3, 2024

The New-Sightedness of Grace (Sermon)

"The New Sightedness of Grace"

John 9:1-41

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

3/3/24

 

       John tells three chapter-long stories—each a defining moment in his account of Jesus’ ministry. In chapter 4, Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman. In chapter 9, he heals a man born blind. And in chapter 11, he resuscitates Lazarus.

With each remarkable act, the religious leaders dig out more of the grave in which they will bury Jesus. And while he seems aware of the implications of his actions, Jesus cannot not continue his prophetic work. With each sign, he exposes more of the futility of self-serving religion and its suicidal inclination to try to save itself by affiliating with violent political power. Jesus does reveal salvation, but only through the most unexpected and paradoxical turnabout.

More about that on Easter. For now, let’s recall this revealing moment of grace.

 

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”

Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” 10 But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”

11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”

12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight.

He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”

16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”

He said, “He is a prophet.”

18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”

20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, 21 but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”

22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”

 25 He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

28 Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”

37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.”

40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”

41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” (NRSV)

 

Born blind, the man has felt the warmth of the sun on his skin, but he’s never seen by its light. He’s tasted the earthy goodness of bread, but he’s never watched a field of grain dancing in the wind. He has smelled the flowers of spring, but he’s never even imagined the variety of color.

In Jerusalem, Jesus’ followers see this man and ask a question they consider both rational and justified: Whose sin caused this man’s blindness?

That’s not how God works, says Jesus. Then he says something that I find just as troubling as the idea of a retributive disability. Jesus suggests that the man’s blindness occurred “so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him.” It’s the kind of answer that invites the fatalistic declaration that “everything happens for a reason.” Now, take this with as big a grain of salt as you like, but personally, I consider that a heresy. The “everything happens for a reason” mentality allows one to claim not only excess and ease but domination over others and over the earth as rewards from God. It permits us to create communities of exclusion and to distance ourselves from suffering. I’m sorry, we can say, since everything happens for a reason, you obviously deserve your blindness, illness, poverty, grief, oppression…or whatever else. And while some who practice such callous indifference can label themselves Christian, it’s much harder to be a disciple of Jesus and dismiss the suffering of people, animals, land, air, and water. The various aspects of God’s self-revealing Creation are too intimately connected for dismissal of suffering to be an option for people of faith.

Physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering are real and constant burdens for all Creation. And since suffering seems inconsistent with the presence of a loving God, human beings often look backward, trying to connect suffering to past sins.

The Message version of this story becomes helpful. In that paraphrase, Jesus answers his disciples-in-training saying: “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines.”

I hear Jesus saying, No one purposed this man’s blindness. God is the ultimate opportunist who enters our emptiness and anguish to demonstrate grace and to create new life.

Let’s look backward in a different way. In Genesis 1 we read, “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep…” (Genesis 1:1-3) And in Genesis 2, after organizing the chaos, God uses soil and God’s own breath to form a living, human being. And when the Creator creates life, all the elements—light, water, earth, and air—share a purpose. They proclaim God’s loving providence and sustain what God has created in love and called “good.”

Love is one of our faith tradition’s metaphors for God and for what we trust is the Creator’s essence—namely, an eternal yearning and pursuit at the heart of the universe. A yearning for union with the Creation, and the pursuit of wholeness for all things.

So, when faced with the chaos of the blind man’s anguish, and the cold curiosity of those who would to cast blame for the man’s suffering, Jesus follows the Creator’s creative lead. He reaches down and gathers some earth. He adds his own spittle and breath to make a paste with it. And after smearing the paste on the deep sea of the man’s blindness, he tells him to go wash it off. These details recall the darkness covering the deep in the creation story, the mixing of mud to make bricks for Pharaoh, the passing through the waters of the Red Sea, the blind wandering of exile, and then deliverance into the light of the Promised Land.

Jesus opens eyes born blind, and law-bound religion sees only that Jesus healed on the sabbath. In the darkly comical banter that follows, we’re reminded of Nicodemus asking Jesus, “How are these things possible?”

You can’t see what’s going on, says Jesus, because your legalism has rendered you blind to God’s grace.

Now, miracle stories are always about more than the miracles themselves. So, what else is there for us to see in this story?

In John 9, we meet a man who, from birth, was burdened with a blindness that excluded him from wholeness, that is to say, from relationship and community. Neither he nor his parents did anything “wrong.” He was not being punished for anything. He was, by grace, simply being restored to community. And when even one person experiences restoration, the whole community is invited into the healing. And isn’t that a kind of microcosm of Jesus’ own story?

From birth, Jesus is burdened with unassailable grace, with Creation-embracing compassion, and an unquenchable thirst for justice. And yet, as Love Incarnate, he faces, through no fault of his own, relentless opposition and antagonism.

While there’s no satisfactory answer to the question of why “good” people suffer, much suffering is, in fact, connected to selfishness and bad decisions. And out of the dark chaos we create, God is, nonetheless, creating something as new to the world as life was to the formless void itself.

God continues to create, and God’s new thing is always unfolding. As with sight to the man born blind, it’s often something that just happens to us. It comes as a gift. It also comes to us when we, like Jesus, embody compassion, justice, and joy, especially when and where it doesn’t seem to be deserved. And that’s what makes it grace. That’s what makes it gospel.

We cannot forge salvation through fearful and violent “everything-happens-for-a-reason” manipulation. Nor do we need to wait until death to experience God’s eternal realm. Lent invites us to confess our blindnesses, to surrender them to God, and to welcome the new-sightedness of grace—today.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

The Scandalous Cross (Newsletter)

Dear Friends,

       On the last Sunday of February—in the 24th year of the 21st century—the sermon had to do with the symbolism of the cross. For 1st-century Jews in Jerusalem, the cross represented everything evil and authoritarian in the world. And for good reason. Rome used the cross as an instrument of public torture and execution. The cross was Power’s exceptionally ruthless means of shocking and even panicking subjects into compliance with both laws and Power’s status quo. And it had its effect—but as with all violence, only in the short run. When Jesus showed up, and was accused of claiming to be the king of the Jews, few Romans would have thought twice about crucifying him.

       You know the story—most of it, anyway. Since Power continues to use brutality and bullying to achieve political and economic ends, the story is far from over.

If you are reading this congregational newsletter, you probably trust that the mystery of the resurrection is as real as the fact of crucifixion. No doubt you also are familiar with the cross as an unmistakable symbol of our faith tradition. Is the cross still, as the apostle Paul wrote, a “scandal” to us, though? In that February sermon, we acknowledged that the cross has been, for many, sanitized into little more than a popular piece of jewelry. And in January of 2021, during a violent attack on our own nation, a tall, white cross was militarized by being paraded around the US capitol as if to say that Jesus blessed the idolatrous violence.

       In February 2001, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt died when his car hit the wall on the last lap of the Daytona 500. I was living in Mebane, NC at that time, and a day or two after Earnhardt’s death, a local newspaper published a front-page, close-up photograph of items left outside the Richard Childress Racing headquarters. Nestled in among all the flowers, letters, NASCAR hats, mirrored sunglasses, and photographs of “The Intimidator’s” familiar, black #3 Chevrolet lay a white, wooden cross. Painted on the cross, in large, black letters were the words, “IN DALE WE TRUST.”

       Like the use of crucifixion as a means of crowd control, those words on that cross were an obscenity.

Now, of course, Dale Earnhardt’s death was horrific tragedy for him, his family, and for racing itself, but neither his life nor his death has divine redemptive power. He will not and cannot be trusted to restore broken relationships with God and one another. NASCAR fans may find this reflection a bit dramatic, but I think that that de-scandalized cross represents a deep and destructive offense in the suggestion that the unfortunate and untimely death of a sporting icon compares in any way to that of Jesus, the Christ.

       As Lent continues and Easter approaches, I encourage us all to look deeply at ourselves. How and where might we forsake Jesus for more immediate, gratifying, and less scandalous lords? Then, through humility and repentance, let’s prepare ourselves to celebrate and receive God’s trustworthy salvation as it comes to us in the gracious life, the scandalous death, and the death-defeating power of resurrection.

 

Peace,

       Pastor Allen

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Only One Cross (Sermon)

“Only One Cross”

Psalm 22:23-31 and Mark 8:31-38

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/25/24

 

23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
    All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
    stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he did not despise or abhor
    the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me
    but heard when I cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
    my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
    those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
    May your hearts live forever!

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.
 (NRSV)

 

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

34 He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (NRSV)

 

         The well-known and beloved preacher and teacher Fred Craddock once quoted another popular preacher who had said that preachers can’t “be successful preaching the cross of Jesus. It is not a message people want to hear,” the man said. “They already have too many problems of their own.”

         With tongue in cheek, Craddock said, “It’s no wonder [that guy] is popular.”

         Paul would agree. In fact, Craddock’s jab comes as a fruit of his own reading of Paul who calls the cross “foolishness,” and “a stumbling block.” (1Corinthians 1:18, 23)

         Is that still true for us? Let’s be honest; our culture has, for the most part, domesticated the cross. For many, it’s just a fashionable trinket to be worn on a necklace. But the cross of Jesus is not jewelry. Like Paul says, it’s a scandal. It’s something to be borne, not worn. For people in the sphere of first century Rome, wearing a cross around one’s neck would be like someone today wearing an electric chair pendant.

The cross calls all Christian believers to remember who they are and what it costs to follow one particular convict who died on one of countless thousands of Roman crosses.  

         In today’s reading, Jesus warns his disciples that he will soon die, because a life of faithfulness to God has profound consequences. Peter will hear none of this. He still believes that Jesus will lead Israel in the apocalyptic battle in which they will defeat Rome, once and for all. Imagine his dismay when he declares his faith and his loyalty only to hear Jesus turn on him saying, “Get behind me, Satan! [Y]ou are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

         Then, an impassioned Jesus gathers the crowd and says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

         This unnerving challenge does far more than rebuke and remediate Peter with a dose tough love. Peter’s challenge returns Jesus to the wilderness. In Peter’s defiance, Jesus faces anew the temptation to dominate—to achieve victory through bloodshed. While the nations might love leaders who incite violence and preach nationalistic fanaticism, such means are simply not alternatives for the Christ and his followers.

         I think Mark wants us to read Jesus’ unsettling words as his own steadfast refusal to give in to worldly fears and means. Jesus declares his unwavering commitment to the path of holiness, compassion, and peace.

         When we’re tempted to trust human ways and means, Jesus calls us to take up our own crosses and follow him. He invites us to join him in beating the sword of the cross into the plowshare of resurrection grace.

         Our crosses may be revealed in many ways, but there are not many different little crosses for us to bear. When all is said and done, there’s only one cross, because we have moved into the realm of metaphor. Our cross is itself the life of faithfulness to the counter-cultural Christ. Our cross is the path of discipleship. 

         So, our cross calls us to the JAMA food pantry, to Family Promise, into the lives of offenders at the Day Reporting Center. It sends us to advocate for people who are ignored and oppressed. It takes us into the lives of neighbors who grieve, who are sick and lonely. It leads us into prayer and study where, through honest reflection, we become vulnerable so that we might be strengthened. Because the cross also calls us to cease our striving for a day, it has brought us into this sanctuary.

         In Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, there’s a powerful little scene in which Sophia says to Celie: “Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for God to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.”

         When we come to worship as willing to share God with others as to seek God for ourselves, God shows up. And in that gathering, where we share stories and support, we begin to understand what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

         Jesus took up his cross long before the chief priests and the scribes coerced Pilate to execute him on a pair of rough, wooden beams. Jesus’ own cross was and continues to be our need borne of our brokenness. And because Jesus comes not to condemn…but to redeem, he never abandons us to our self-inflicted sufferings. Indeed, his prayer from his cross is for us: Father, forgive them!

         Years ago, I read an article about a then-young, African-American attorney in Alabama named Bryan Stevenson. The first sentence of the article was a set up. “For nearly fifteen years,” it said, “his conviction has kept him on death row.”

         Mr. Stevenson’s conviction was not for some violent, capitol offense. His conviction was that “no one is beyond hope…[or] redemption.” He believes that God called him “to be a witness for hope, [and] for justice” by working with death row inmates to overturn execution verdicts in a state in which, at that time, the average capitol case lasted about three days.

         Bryan Stevenson founded and is still active in the Equal Justice Initiative. And he knows that most of the men with whom he works are guilty. He also knows that just because the state gives up on them doesn’t mean that God does. Stevenson discovered that for almost every man on Alabama’s death row, their crimes mark the brutal culmination of their own experiences of relentless abuse and suffering. He doesn’t try to excuse their actions or to put dangerously damaged people back on the streets. Nonetheless, following Jesus, he says, “[We] we are all more than our worst act.”

         Stevenson goes where the cross has been left lying on the ground. Taking up that cross, he follows Jesus into what has become the chaotic and destructively violent pain of others.

         “There are times when we get overwhelmed and discouraged…,” he says, “but I have learned that God’s grace is sufficient…[And] I feel really privileged to see…extraordinary…acts of grace, acts of love, acts of redemption, that I wish the whole world could see.”

         The Lenten journey of shouldering Jesus’ cross guides us to our own death row. It sends us to Friday where we take up our cross and die with Christ. On that journey, we do experience discouragement and pain, because it is, so often, into the discouragement and pain of the world that God leads us. And all along the way, we will be privileged to witness “extraordinary…acts of grace…love…[and] redemption.”

         As disciples, we follow and share Christ. We involve ourselves in the blessed things that God is doing in our midst. And through our faithfulness to the journey of Jesus’ cross, there will be many people, ourselves included, who will catch a glimpse of the ever-unfolding miracle of Resurrection.