Who Are You? (Sermon)

“Who Are You?”

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

8/29/21

 

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ² they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³ (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; ⁴ and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)

⁵ So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

⁶ He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me;
⁷ in vain do they worship me,
    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

⁸ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” (NRSV)

 

 

         Jesus has crossed the sea and gone to Gennesaret—again. To hang out with Gentiles—again. Some Pharisees and scribes show up to try to catch Jesus failing to live as a good Jew—again.

         This time the Jewish leaders take offense at Jesus’ disciples eating with “defiled hands.” Now understand, they’re not worried about those hands being “dirty” in any literal sense. The Pharisees and scribes watch as self-affirming, practicing Jews press the flesh with Gentiles, and then sit down to eat with them. This offends the purists.

Eating is more than a mere necessity. As a revelatory, community event, table fellowship is deep-fried in the oil of holiness because in it, human beings profess their grateful and absolute dependence on God’s gracious provision. Remember, we don’t control the mystery that makes the earth grow the beans. All we do is plant the seeds and bake the casserole. In ways more obvious than circumcision, kosher food laws distinguish God’s people and remind them that they are a unique reminder of God in and for the world.

         When we hear the Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus why his disciples so blatantly flout Jewish custom, we can rephrase their question in three words: Who are you?

It’s a matter of identity.

         Did you ever have a parent or grandparent tell you, as you left the house, “Remember who you are!”? Now, that admonition often gets salted with guilt, especially when the one offering it fears embarrassment. When fearfully spoken, it tends to do more harm than good. Indeed, it becomes a kind of defilement. However, when it flows from a place of love and belonging, it reminds us that who we are is not a matter of laws and guilt, but of community, gratitude, and grace.

         In one respect, our state of being at any given time, with all our flaws and foibles, is “who we are.” But the Gospel declares this to be an incomplete truth. It’s incomplete because who we are cannot be separated from who we are becoming. So Paul writes to the church at Corinth: “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17)

That new creation is always in process. Who we truly are is who we arebecoming in Christ.

         Now, the Pharisees deserve some credit. They serve as recipients and stewards of a tradition that aims to help God’s people maintain a distinctive identity in worldly cultures that can be both terribly threatening and wildly seductive. If that identity fades, Israel cannot fulfill her God-given purpose of serving as a reminder of holiness and a source of blessing.

         The Pharisees’ question comes from a place of deep commitment. Who they are as Jews is tied closely to what they do. Jesus understands this, a he doesn’t disagree. And trying to love them from stuck to unstuck, he turns the question back at them. He seeks to deepen and broaden their already significant commitment.

Well, just who are you? he says. You’re like a bunch of actors who are stuck in a script of your own creation. And your script has lost its story line.

         This is God’s script! And God’s script is a story, an ongoing journey. And neither God’s story nor our participation in it can be bound by any static tradition.

         Jesus challenges the Pharisees to face the ways in which they’ve become hemmed in by Law—hemmed in so tight, in fact, that who they are is little more than the fear they feel at any given moment.

You've given up on Exodus, says Jesus. You're mired at Sinai. You've stopped becoming the dynamic people and storied community that God calls and empowers you to become.

         Then, cutting to the chase, Jesus says, It's not what you fence out that makes you who you are. It's the outpouring of faithfulness or foulness from within that makes the difference.

Jesus is saying that we reveal who we are and who we are becoming through the love we express for family, neighbor, enemy, and earth. What matters, what counts is how we celebrate their joys and weep at their pain.

         As followers of Jesus, you and I are not the rules we keep or the dogma we proclaim. We are the organic faith, hope, and love we enjoy and share.

         “The world” doesn’t care for real Jesus-followers. They’re dangerous, subversive. They don’t just pray; they embody prayer. They don’t just sing songs; they inspire them. They don’t just talk about justice; they do justice.

“The world” seems to be okay with church folk, though. It’s okay with folks who abide by rules and protect hierarchies and impose such things by force of fear. “The world” is okay with folks who give to charity without asking why the inequities and poverty even exist. And “the world” seems to love it when church folk make religion and nationalism synonymous.

         It is to the church folk in each of us that Jesus refers when he quotes Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

         When we open to the Christ within and among us, we set out on a path of becoming rather than remaining in the stagnant is-ness of who we think we are. And “the world” may try to discredit or even silence us, because Jesus threatens its comfortable status quo.

         When we open to the Christ within and among us, there arises, from our becoming hearts, the identity-declaring, kingdom-revealing grace of God. And out of that heart there arises courage to live and speak God’s eternal and transforming truth in a world in which truth is mangled into whatever idea supports one’s own prejudices and soothes one’s own fears.

         We know some of the names of people who looked the beast in the eye and spoke enduring truth: St. Francis of Assisi, Frederick Douglass, Elie Wiesel, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai.

Rather than recounting one of these familiar stories, this morning I share with you a prayer by Ted Loder, a United Methodist pastor and preacher. As you hear this prayer, examine your own life, and imagine the ways that God is calling you to become more fully who you are as a human being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.

And remember, God is not through with you.

You are still becoming.

 

“Go with Me in a New Exodus”

O God of fire and freedom,
deliver me from my bondage

to what can be counted
and go with me in a new exodus

toward what counts,

but can only be measured

in bread shared

and swords become plowshares;

in bodies healed

and minds liberated;

in songs sung

and justice done;

in laughter in the night

         and joy in the morning;

in love through all seasons

and great gladness of heart;
in all people coming together

and a kingdom coming in glory;

in your name being praised

and my becoming an alleluia,
through Jesus the Christ.¹

 

¹Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle, Augsburg Books, Minneapolis, 1981. p. 117.

Realigning Love (Sermon)

 “Realigning Love”

Ephesians 4:1-16

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

8/8/21

 

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

⁷ But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸ Therefore it is said,

“When he ascended on high

he made captivity itself a captive;

he gave gifts to his people.”

⁹ (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.)

¹¹ The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. ¹⁴ We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (NRSV)

 

         Paul seems to have accepted a prison cell as his primary office and prayer closet. He does much of his best work while incarcerated for having affirmed the lordship of Christ in a culture ruled by Caesars who declare themselves—quite literally—divine, and who expect their subjects to treat them accordingly. A god-complex seems to be characteristic of despots and tyrants who demand absolute loyalty and uniformity.

So, Paul’s preaching naturally creates social and political backlash, because, in proclaiming Resurrection, he acknowledges God as the ultimate authority in Creation, and he affirms the holy beauty of God’s diverse humanity—female and male, Gentile and Jew, poor and rich, immigrant and resident. Paul knows that speaking this truth will cause many to charge him with getting political because the grace of God always defies the ideals and arrangements that allow Caesars and Pharaohs to try to bend the world to their desires.

Undeterred, Paul speaks God’s truth in love and urges all followers of Jesus to do the same. In his letter to the Ephesians, he “begs” the congregation not only to speak the truth in love, but to demonstrate God’s truth in their living. “Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” he says, and “with all humility…gentleness…patience…[and] love…maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Paul is calling his readers to far more than being nice. He’s calling them to let go of prejudices, fears, and misplaced allegiances, and to receive each other in the name of God’s Incarnate Love. He’s calling them to open themselves to each other the way God opens to us in Christ. And he’s calling the church to grow in witness through a radical transformation that endangers the community even as it grows.

          Paul reminds the Ephesians that even Jesus experienced this endangering grace. “When it says, ‘He ascended,’” writes Paul, “what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?” In the Apostles’ Creed, when we say, “he descended into hell,” we acknowledge that Jesus bore, in his own body, the full weight of humankind’s brokenness. He bore our selfishness, our meanness, our love of violence. And I do not believe that his death had to happen to appease a god who is just as selfish, mean, and violent as we are. Any god who can become so powerlessly offended as to need to watch a beloved son experience betrayal and crucifixion just to be able to love again, well, such a god is just that, a god, a small-g god—a projection of our own self-serving fears. All such idols, just like all the world’s Caesars and Pharaohs, dismiss as weakness the humility, gentleness, patience, love, and unity that Paul implores the Ephesians to demonstrate as they struggle with disunity.

I hear Paul calling us to trust that through Christ we can overcome the things that divide us by seeing each other as bearers of God’s holy image rather than bearers of issues. We begin by seeking the Christ in each other, and only then can divisive arguments become healing conversation.

Such unity, however, is something for which we must work. Hard. Intentionally. Every day. And we have to learn to fail with grace because, from time to time, we will, inevitably, succumb to all the things that run counter to Paul’s teaching. We’ll succumb to pride, violence, greed, fear, and tribalism.

The paradox of our unity in Christ is that it’s both eternal and tenuous. As permanent as God’s love is for us, and as sure as God’s love will, finally, prevail, humankind just can’t keep from competing with each other, making and destroying enemies, and generally finding more reasons to fear rather than to love each other. And Paul calls such behavior childishness.

While there is great virtue in child-like-ness, that is in living in wonder, trust, and hope, there’s no virtue whatsoever in selfish grasping. That’s why, when Jesus’ disciples argue with each other about who is the greatest, he says that to follow him they must become as children, and welcome each other as they welcome children. (Matthew 18:1-5)

At the core of Paul’s teaching is his own commitment to follow the welcoming ways of Jesus in a world that condemns those ways as naïve and foolish. And in Ephesians, he says unequivocally, “We must no longer be [childish], tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s…deceitful scheming.” 

         Don’t listen to those who sow seeds of hate, cries Paul. Our loyalty is to Jesus alone! And that means acknowledging God in every human being and in all of Creation. (Romans 1:20-21)

         Again, I’m under no illusions about how difficult, or even how dangerous it can be to profess faith in and loyalty to Christ above all else. All around us and among us there rages an escalating contest for control. And it seems that as the Church gets caught up in the deceitful scheming, in this devastating sibling rivalry, Jesus is being kidnapped and co-opted by competing sides. Even followers of Jesus have accepted the assumption that there must be winners and losers. In our public discourse right now, that assumption is making us treat each other like adversaries whom we must conquer rather than brothers and sisters with whom we must live, on whom we must depend, and in whom we are called to see the image of God. And as different as we may be, even more so are we gifted, called, and equipped by God. And only as we develop and share those gifts do we, as Paul says, “come to the unity of the faith…to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”

         Porter Taylor, a former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western NC, wrote that when Paul speaks of God’s gifts equipping the saints, he’s not talking about people “accumulating skills or knowledge.” Taylor points out that the Greek word translated “equip” derives from a word which means things like to set a bone and to reconcile.¹

“To grow in one’s ministry,” says Taylor, “is to align oneself with God’s intentions, both individually and corporately.” That means that the standard against which we measure ourselves is Jesus’ standard of love.

So. Maybe. If we can see ourselves more like broken bones in the same body than distinct bodies in competition with each other, then there is hope for us. We become our truest selves only in loving relationship to each other.² We become the unified body of Christ only when we align our broken selves in mature, compassionate, justice-seeking, Christ-like love for each other, for the earth, and for those who are, as Jesus says, hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, andimprisoned. (Matthew 25:31-46)

Brothers and sisters, we may argue about exactly how to demonstrate the re-aligning love of God in Christ. But we don’t have time to argue about whether or not to do so.

May we go into the rest of this day, and into all the coming days with fresh commitment to claim our gifts, to celebrate those of others, and to discover the unity, the peace, and the hope that God is offering to us in Christ.

 

¹G. Porter Taylor, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. p. 304.

²Ibid.

The Bread of Life (Sermon)

“The Bread of Life”

John 6:24-35

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

8/1/21

 

²⁴ So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

²⁶ Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. ²⁷ Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

²⁸ Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?”

²⁹ Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

³⁰ So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

³² Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is that which^[a] comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

³⁴ They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

³⁵ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (NRSV)

 

         John’s gospel begins with its unforgettable prologue: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things came into being through him…What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

         From the outset, John invites his readers to engage their poetic sensibilities, because he will present Jesus far more as the resurrected Christ than some peasant rabbi from Nazareth.

         While this holds true to some extent for all four gospels, it’s particularly true for John who layers everything in his story with multiple meanings. For instance, when the crowd, whom Jesus had recently fed on a grassy hillside says, “Rabbi, when did you come here,” we can almost feel John begging us to ask, What does “here” mean? Does it mean here on this side of the lake? Here in Galilee? Here in the height of Rome’s power? Here on earth? And it’s intentional when John’s Jesus doesn’t really answer any of those questions.

         You’re not looking for me, says Jesus. You just want more bread. Quit wasting your time! If you’re going to run all over the place looking for bread, be sure it’s bread that lasts.

         When the crowd continues to push Jesus for oven-baked bread, he says, I am the bread! The Bread of Life! Follow me. Trust me. And you’ll never be hungry or thirsty again.

         Never hungry or thirsty? What would that feel like? When people lose the urgency of hunger and thirst, they’re either freshly in love, clinically depressed, or actively dying. Hunger is one of those physiological realities that makes us human. We must eat. Eating reminds us of our mortality. Indeed, one reason we pray before eating is to acknowledge that our lives are dependent upon not just the food we eat, but the deaths we eat. Whether it’s a cow, a fish, a tomato, or tofu, every time we sit down to eat, something has died so that we might continue living.

         Again, though, that’s not the kind of hunger Jesus wants the people to feel. He’s talking about a deeper hunger. I am the bread of life, he says. I am the loaf that has been mixed, kneaded, and risen.

         The crowd seems unable to digest all these metaphors. And here John frustrates me a little. He treats the people of Jesus’ day like metaphorically-challenged oafs. But let’s remember that the community to whom John writes lives a century out from the experience of Jesus. So, the people about whom John writes haven’t heard, much less made sense of the whole “In the beginning was the Word” theology. They don’t get it—not yet. And that’s okay.

         In a few moments, we will celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We’ll give thanks for the life, death, and new life that gives new life to our own lives and deaths. We’ll talk about Jesus being our host. We’ll use flesh and blood language. If not all of this makes sense, if we don’t get it, that’s okay. In the Church, we try to talk about holy and eternal things by using something as limited and limiting as human language and physical symbols, and our language and symbols point beyond themselves to deeper layers of meaning.

         Years ago, on one of my mission trips to Malawi, I noticed an elderly, Malawian woman sitting on the ground, alone, in the sun, just outside the hospital where we were working. The woman was clothed entirely in black. The skin of her face and hands was a dark, leathery maze of deep lines and creases. She gazed into the distance with a vacant stare that could have been deep sadness or deep prayer–or both.

         She held a single piece of bread that had obviously been part of a larger loaf. It wasn’t even a handful, but she held the little chunk of bread in one hand and pulled pieces off of it with the other. She raised each bite slowly to her mouth and chewed just as slowly. The aching humility of the sight caught my attention and my imagination.

         Now, I may have burdened that memory with a weight that the moment did not have; but, for me, it was like a rose petal, one thin layer of something that was more than it seemed because it was part of a larger and more beautiful whole. On the one hand, that moment reminded me that we’re all more deeply connected than we might seem on the surface. So, in the real-time, concrete details of that moment, I sensed something holy, something sacramental, at work.

         On the other hand, that one small piece of bread may well have represented the woman’s rations for the day. It may have stood between her and a hunger from which she might not recover. And because Malawians are generous, community-oriented people, she may have had such a small piece because she had shared the rest of the loaf with others. You and I often live to eat, so, we can’t really imagine what a small piece of bread represents to people who are so hungry that Jesus calls them “blessed.” (Luke 6:21)

         When we take communion, we’ll eat a wafer so thin we may barely feel it in our mouths; but it is the Bread of Life for us. As the body of Christ, it stands between us and a hunger that no other bread can satisfy. We’ll also take a sip of grape juice from a cup no larger than a thimble; but it is the life-blood of God’s covenant of grace.

         As we saw a few Sundays back, the bread Jesus offers is given not just to satisfy, but also to make us hungry.¹ And when we feel that satisfying, spiritual hunger, a new world opens up—the world of God’s Household. And God’s realm is often a wafer-thin place, but transformation happens there. Even the simplest, most ordinary moments become moments of extraordinary holiness and possibility. And the simplest and most ordinary human life—our lives—can become revelations of the love and grace of God.

         I can’t make you believe or understand any of that. I can’t make you experience the grace of this table. I can only invite you to come to a simple meal where Christians have—at least at times—experienced a taste of God’s holy realm.

         So come. And even if you don’t feel that you had some new experience of grace, keep coming. And I pray that as you continue to visit this table, bringing with you the joys and sorrows of your day-to-day lives, you will taste something more filling than a crumb of bread, something more satisfying than a thimbleful of grape juice, something that calls you to trust and empowers you to follow God’s Christ in his gracious ways of forgiveness, justice, and peace.

 

¹https://jabbokinthefoothills.blog/2021/07/11/the-hungering-of-the-5000-sermon/