Endings and Beginnings (Sermon)

 “Endings and Beginnings”

Mark 13:1-8

Alen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/14/21

 

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” ² Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

³ When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴ “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?”

⁵ Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶ Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷ When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. ⁸ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” (NRSV)

 

 

         Mark and Luke both preface Jesus’ teaching about the destruction of the temple with the story of the widow’s two-cent offering to the temple. That juxtaposition creates a disconnect. In one breath Jesus commends a widow for her financial sacrifice, and in the next he says that the temple’s days are numbered. So, wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for Jesus to have told the woman, Ma’am, keep your money; you need it more than the temple does?

         Shortly after Jesus reveals the news about the fall of the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew come to Jesus in private and ask when all of this will happen. And Jesus opens up about would-be messiahs, about wars, about tensions and military posturing between nations, and about earthquakes and famines.

         Such predictions don’t seem all that insightful, do they? When has the world ever been turmoil-free? And doomsayers thrive on predictions of utter and final destruction. This seems especially true for Christian doomsayers—and shouldn’t Christian doomsayer be an oxymoron for Resurrection people? If I were to preach doomsday theology, I would be projecting onto God my own faithless fears and judgments. For some twisted reason, though, doomsday preaching is extremely profitable.

         But I digress; besides Jesus has a surprise in store. After all of his dire warnings, he turns to his disciples and says, “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

         While that phrase sits in a grim shadow, it sits there as a kind of glowing coal, and Jesus represents the ruach, the pneuma. His words and actions become the very Breath of God on that smoldering, two-cent ember of hope.

         What gives a poor widow and God’s despised Messiah the faith to give their all to an institution and a Creation that appear on the verge of collapse? To embrace and embody the trust that God can craft beginnings out of endings takes a fresh awakening to God’s redeeming presence which is already at work in the world. Through its own fear, greed, and love of violence, humankind brings countless endings on itself, and it takes a Resurrection mindset to grasp that the God of nevertheless-grace can transform those endings into raw materials for new hope and unimagined peace.

         It can be a fearsome task to face these endings. And while fear usually feels like a sure thing, it’s only the sterile delivery room of religious certainty, of “reasonable” despair, and of every self-serving idolatry. As the opposite of fear, faith is the stable of trust, that compost-rich barn in which God is birthing the New Creation.

         Jesus demonstrates unyielding trust in God. And it seems to me that he trusts God to be a verb, not some static, bearded, white-robed noun. I think we get the truest sense of God when we behold God as the very energy behind, before, and within all things. I get that from First John who writes, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1John 4:16) God is the very activity of abiding love, the activity of creation and re-creation at work in the universe. God is the flow of the river, the rush of the wind, the hot gurgling of the volcano, the heave of the laugh, the fall of the tear, and the joyous interplay and fertile cooperation among religions.

         In his essay, “Another Turn of the Crank,” Wendell Berry writes, “I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe,” says Berry, “that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation…with God.”

         As Love, God allows even the most revered institutions to crumble like sand castles at high tide. And they fall because their familiar and comfortable ways, as constructive as they may have been, now do more to conceal than to reveal God’s new and emerging work.

         And there’s the rub: Revelation. Bringing to light. The story of Jesus’ foretelling the destruction of the temple appears in a section of Mark which scholars call The Little Apocalypse. And while apocalyptic literature may have been hijacked by doomsayers and other fear-mongers, it was never intended to announce God’s retribution or some furious Armageddon. Apocalyptic literature is all about revealing the wholeness of God which comes, necessarily and usually primarily, through justice. Mishpat, the principle Hebrew word for justice, refers to bringing fairness, equity, and wholeness to those who have been ignored and exploited by those who hold privilege and power. Because every human being bears the image of God, mishpat means recognizing the full humanity of those who have been marginalized and abused. It also means caring for the entire Creation the way we care for our church buildings because the earth itself is the first incarnation of the Creator and the original holy text. (Romans 1:20)

         Recently, I watched some old interviews with (the now former) Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Along with Nelson Mandela and others, Tutu helped to bring mishpat to South Africa. And the first step of bringing God’s holy justice was bringing an end to the openly and violently racist system of Apartheid. The process of ending something as horrific as institutional racism requires apocalyptic speech and action, speech and action that reveals prejudice, resentment, and hate as destructive because it is antithetical to God—who is love. And when the Apartheid stones had fallen, things got even more deeply apocalyptic for both black and white South Africans.

         Instead of taking advantage of the situation, Tutu led all of South Africa in a process of restoration. Through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, black victims and white perpetrators of Apartheid injustice were given the chance to tell their stories—to reveal the afflictions suffered and the suffering inflicted. While the process was painful, and, perhaps, not altogether perfect, it gave that nation its best chance to discover new beginnings after old arrangements had come to an end.

         One of the most remarkable things Tutu said to black South Africans, especially to those who craved vengeance, was that when people dehumanize others, they inevitably, and perhaps just as thoroughly, dehumanize themselves. Be kind to the whites, said Tutu. They need you to rediscover their humanity.¹

         Showing compassion to those who so recently had showed none would be a hard pill to swallow, yet such is the justice of God’s eternal Christ, the justice that seeks restoration not revenge, the justice that announces the birth pangs of something new even amid the lamentations of loss. Through such stubborn mishpat Resurrection happens, and fresh revelations of God’s holy realm begin to appear.

         May we have the gracious vision and wisdom to discern in all that seems to be ending, signs of God’s ongoing re-creation.

And may we have the faith, hope, and love to participate in that re-creation by committing ourselves, as Christ’s body, to working for the kind of apocalyptic justice Jesus makes possible through his life, death, resurrection, and ongoing return in and for the world that God so loves.

 

¹A quick search on YouTube will connect you to many wonderful interviews with and speeches by Desmond Tutu. The particular quotation footnoted here can be heard in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2LURTu3eQ

Prophetic Stewardship (Sermon)

“Prophetic Stewardship”

Luke 21:1-4

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/7/21

 

He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; ² he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. ³ He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; ⁴ for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.” (NRSV)

 

         I don’t relish preaching stewardship sermons. Like most pastors, I know that not everyone makes a formal pledge, and those who do usually prefer to pledge the same way that Jesus urges us to pray: In private. That’s not the way of Christian stewardship, though. What we do today is a defining, and sometimes a defiant act of communal and sacramental faith.

One significant role model for us is a nameless widow who makes a four-verse appearance in Luke, and the same in Mark. As a widow in first century Jerusalem, this woman’s presence in the temple stirs the air about as much as a falling leaf. But she floats into the clutter and ruckus of Passover, and whispers her two-cent blessing­—barely a trifle against the temple’s budget.

Giving out of abundance is one thing, but giving out of poverty can be a prophetic act. I say “can be” because of how often wealthy televangelists take money from lonely people who can’t afford to give it, and then use that money to fund lavish lifestyles. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about giving that expresses a purer sense of gratitude, and a humbler trust in God who says, “my word…shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” (Isaiah 55:11)

         Faithful temple leaders would commit significant resources to caring for people just like that widow. Over time, though, the religious community had developed a predatory appetite for wealth. Its leaders colluded with violent power to protect their hold on material privilege. So instead of caring for those who were at risk, they used their considerable influence to make people feel both vulnerable and beholden. Like many Christian leaders today, they wielded an angry and vengeful god in order to protect a status quo rather than truly proclaiming and demonstrating God’s love and justice.

         Another unmistakably Lukan attribute in this story is that the one whom the community is supposed to shelter and care for becomes the one who teaches the teachers about true gratitude and generosity. Jesus makes an enduring example of a woman who gives all she has to a broken institution.

         Look at this widow, says Jesus. She gives all she has to the temple in spite of its failures. She offers all she has not because of the community’s faithfulness to God, but because of God’s faithfulness to humankind.

         I hear Jesus saying that while the widow may give out of the scarcity of her pocketbook, even more does she give out of the abundance of her faith, hope, and love. Through some uncommon grace, she sees the presence of holiness in the Creation, and in spite of human failures, she can give to the temple because she has not given up on God.

         Another compelling thing about this story is that Jesus sees his own life reflected in the widow’s actions. Her gift to the temple anticipates Jesus’ gift to the creation.¹ You, and I, and the Church can all be as selfish, power-hungry, and hurtful to one another as the temple leadership was to first century Jews. Nevertheless, for them and for us—a broken and beloved humanity—Jesus drops the two cents of his life into the offering plate of time. For his gracious efforts, his people arrest and execute him. They—We—abandon him. Nevertheless, Jesus empties himself in love for us and in praise of God. His one human life, among countless billions in human history, is a two-cent act of prophetic stewardship.

         Jesus and the widow invite us to pledge our own lives to that same prophetic adventure. To follow them is to live a nevertheless faith because yes, there’s much about us and our church that’s broken; nevertheless, we live and give in such a way as to declare our trust that God is present and at work even now redeeming and renewing the Creation. And isn’t that what Jesus refers to when he says, “Blessed are the poor”?

         For years, Jonesborough Presbyterian has supported Sunset Gap through our alternative gift fair, and since that ministry is not local, it’s probably the one with which we’re least familiar. So, last Wednesday, six members of our missions team traveled to Cosby, TN to visit Sunset Gap.

         Built in 1924 as a school and community center, Sunset Gap now focuses its efforts on serving the people of Cocke County, a county in the grip of widespread and persistent poverty.

Sunset Gap’s property straddles the Cocke and Sevier County lines, and when you stand on the high front porch of the main building, and look straight ahead, you look into Sevier County, where the road climbs up from a wooded hollow and curves to the right at the Sunset Gap’s front door. From that same porch, when you look left, you look into Cocke County. And right there, at Sunset Gap, the well-maintained Sevier County road gives way to Cocke County’s unmarked, pot-holed asphalt that rumbles and crunches through a landscape that looks like it should be many miles and border-crossings away from the consumeristic carnivals of Dollywood and Gatlinburg—which are only 15 minutes away.

         Sunset Gap is no longer a school, but it remains a PC(USA)-affiliated community center where—two cents at a time—food, clothes, school supplies, diapers, showers, laughter, and tears are shared with people living on the cusp of destitution.

         The people helped by the other ministries we support through the gift fair face similar challenges. And through September and October, you all gave nearly $6000 to help these neighbors. That’s fantastic! Thank you!

Against the unyielding need of the world, or even our region, $6000 may seem like two cents, but when we give, we give to God, who blesses, stretches, and adds other two-cent offerings from other givers. And God continues to ask us to remember and help those who cannot help themselves. And because they matter, every two cents matters.

         It reminds me of what Bob Hall from Family Promise said of your ongoing support: “It’s no small thing.” He said it twice. “Really. It’s no small thing.” Whether large or small, gifts given according to one’s ability to give, gifts given in faith, hope, and love, are no small thing. They make a difference far beyond the imagining of the giver.

         During stewardship season, the Session is not asking anyone to respond to all that’s right with Jonesborough Presbyterian Church, or to react against all that’s not so right about it. We’re trying to encourage all of us to live prophetic lives, lives that proclaim and demonstrate the holy nevertheless of faith.

         Whatever you pledge for the coming year, may you pledge in bold faith, prophetic hope, and generous love, to the broken people next to you, to the broken church around you, and to the faithful God within us all.

 

¹Pete Peery, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 4, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. “Homiletical Perspective,” pp.  285-289.

A Bitter Intimacy (Sermon)

“A Bitter Intimacy”

Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

10/17/21

 

         Last week we began looking at Job. And because much happens between the first and the twenty-third chapters, let’s review a little. 

         Job is a man of wealth and renown. He’s also hospitable and generous. His ten children seem a little spoiled by privilege, but all in all, life is exceptionally good for Job.

         Then God brags on Job to Satan—twice. And twice, Satan challenges God to make things difficult on Job so God can see what happens when humans face suffering.

         You do it, says God. Just don’t kill him.

         In less than two chapters, Job has lost everything except one irate wife. “Curse God, and die!” she says. But Job, while wishing himself dead, curses only the night of his conception and the day of his birth.

Then we meet Job’s three “friends,” Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, all of whom say basically the same thing: Job, you have to be guilty of something. Confess it, and move on.

Throughout these conversations, Job maintains his innocence. And in chapter 19, he explodes in defiance saying, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”

Handel uses those words in the Easter portion of The Messiah, but while he uses them to proclaim the risen Christ, Job is declaring that he has a vindicator, someone who will help him get justice against God who has so uselessly and unjustly abused him. “[My Redeemer] will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been…destroyed,” says Job, “then in my flesh I shall see God.”

Hearing that, Eliphaz scolds Job saying, “Is not your wickedness great? There is no end to your iniquities.”

In today’s text, an indignant Job says:

²“Today also my complaint is bitter;

[God’s] hand is heavy despite my groaning.

³Oh, that I knew where I might find [God],

that I might come even to his dwelling!

⁴I would lay my case before him,

and fill my mouth with arguments.

⁵I would learn what [God] would answer me,

and understand what he would say to me.

⁶Would [God] contend with me in the greatness of his power?

No; but he would give heed to me.

⁷There an upright person could reason with him,

and I should be acquitted forever by my judge. 

⁸“If I go forward, [God] is not there;

or backward, I cannot perceive him;

⁹on the left he hides,

and I cannot behold him;

I turn to the right,

but I cannot see him. 

¹⁶God has made my heart faint;

the Almighty has terrified me;

¹⁷If only I could vanish in darkness,

and thick darkness would cover my face!”

(Job 23:1-9, 16-17  NRSV)

 

Job wishes he could “vanish in darkness.” He also knows that he can’t. One thing that Job is acknowledging is that human suffering happens within the context of intimacy with God. Sometimes it’s a rather bitter intimacy, but intimacy, nonetheless. And if we can’t share our deepest anger, fear, and hurt with those with whom we are most intimate, do we really love them? Do we really trust them? What or whom are we trying to protect if we offer to God nothing but laundered and starched formality?

When people seem to be angry with God, and uncomfortable with feeling that way, I always refer them to three particular psalms of lament. In these psalms, the poets do more than give voice to their pain or their community’s pain. They call God out and demand action. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” cries Psalm 22. In Psalm 44, the psalmist accuses God of abandonment saying, “You have rejected us and abased us…You have sold your people for a trifle…[and] made us…a laughingstock…” Psalm 88 ends in utter despair: “You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in complete darkness.”

         I think we need to feel free to express to God our hearts’ rawest and most bitter intimacies. Sometimes lament is the most honest prayer we can pray and our most sincere affirmation of faith. Lament takes seriously our faith that God creates the world and declares it good, even when good is not what we’re experiencing. The bitter intimacy of lament calls on God to show up and to redeem our suffering.

         Job’s tortured laments do all of these things. They also declare his innocence. Elie Wiesel says that Job’s “innocence troubled him, left him in the dark.” Had Job felt guilty, “his guilt might [have given] the experience…meaning. [Job] demanded…an answer that would show him unequivocally that [humankind] is not a toy…Job turned against God to find and confront [God]. He defied [God] to come closer to Him.”¹

         “Moreover,” says Wiesel, “Job needed God because he felt abandoned by…his wife [and] his friends,” all of whom projected their own resentment toward and fear of God onto Job, even as he suffered.­²

         Wiesel is saying that Job’s angry laments declare his faith that his suffering, and that human suffering in general, is not God’s will. And it’s very often through our most passionate, unfiltered protests that we draw closest to God who, as James Finley says, “protects us from nothing [and] sustains us in all things.”³

         One challenge for us is that we tend to recognize God’s sustaining faithfulness most fully in retrospect. The writer of Psalm 23, for example, would have nothing hopeful to say without having already traversed the “valley of the shadow of death.” He can “fear no evil” only by having already faced some kind of fearsome malice. And perhaps only someone who survived something like the Nazi Holocaust—someone like Elie Weisel—can write an honest commentary on the Book of Job.

         We live in our own worrisome times. And it’s often easier to act like Job’s wife or one of his “friends” and lash out in judgment at each other. As followers of Jesus, though, our calling is to claim the gifts of our suffering and to enter the bitter intimacy of the world’s lament. When we lend our voices, hands, and feet to the Creation’s suffering, we help reveal the reconciling and resurrecting love of God.

         And remember: Healthy lament always begins with our own intimate struggles with God. When people of faith do not feel free to be bitterly honest with God, we will almost certainly, like Job’s wife and friends, project onto others our bitterness toward God. And misdirected bitterness can cause any of us to judge and even condemn people who need and deserve compassion.

If the story of Job does nothing else, it invites us into the deepest, darkest, most faith-threatening pain in our lives and in the world. And it dares us, in the midst of that pain, to draw near to God—who, quite frankly, has nothing in common with that irresponsible, anthropomorphic deity who turns Job over to Satan.

          It’s interesting. Job wishes he could “vanish in darkness.” His lament has a counterpoint in the poet’s grateful affirmation when he says, in Psalm 139, “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you.”

I think Job’s story helps to create space for us to prepare for and to meet the God being revealed in Jesus—the Christ.

The One who comes to us as one of us.

The One who suffers with us.

The God who, ultimately, transforms all suffering, all “darkness,” into redeeming and life-sustaining light.

 

¹Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends, Random House, NY, 1976, p. 198.

²Ibid., p. 199.

³https://cac.org/suffering-week-2-summary-2018-10-27/

 

It's Five O"Clock Somewhere (Sermon)

 “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”
Matthew 20:1-16 

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

10/3/21

 

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.

³ When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; ⁴ and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

⁵ When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same.

⁶ And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’

⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’

He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

⁸ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’

⁹ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰ Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹ And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹² saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’

¹³ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (NRSV)

 

         The longer I sloshed around in this story, the more it became a kind of chattering brook. Then the brook became a river, and the deeper I waded into the river, the more urgently the flow tugged at my whole being. Then it became almost a flood, a force pulling me deeper and pushing me further. Anything I might have expected, anything I might have fished for in that river began to rise and converge into an insistent cataract of holy purpose. And at least for me, it became a call to ever-deepening transformation—personally, spiritually, vocationally.

         As a Christian, I’m committed to the intentional community called the church. And as a pastor, I have a very personal stake in the well-being of the organization. It’s in my own best interests to maintain the integrity of the institution as well as its message.

Problems arise, though, when church leaders, both professionals and lay people, allow that personal stake to become the guiding influence. It leads us to work to maintain the church rather than to serve God. Now, pastors know that if the church falls apart, so do our careers. No more salary, or benefits, or self-actualization. Pastors and lay leaders alike also know that if the church falls apart, certain very comfortable arrangements of authority could disintegrate and leave us feeling powerless.

         At some point, almost all institutions—governments, corporations, universities, congregations, denominations, and religions in general—face the temptation to exist simply to survive. When infected by selfishness, institutions focus on maintaining the arrangements that benefit those who hold authority. And when that happens, the institution exits for its own sake. As such, it becomes little more than a ravenous beast who aligns itself with worldly power and consumes far more in resources than it produces in benefit for others.

Think of the tobacco and the fossil fuel industries that knowingly market products which, in the big picture, diminish the lives of its customers and which, in the process, stress local communities and the global environment. Such institutions make healthcare much more expensive, but since it’s all about money, and since money is all about power, the status quo continues unhindered.

And since I’ve never asked if my investments or the investments of any church I’ve ever served are benefitting financially from such institutions, I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth here. That makes me part of the problem. 

         Pharaoh, Jezebel, Caesar, the Pharisees—all of these are biblical metaphors for political, economic, and religious institutions infected with individualistic greed, fear, and denial.

Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus—all of these reformers and transformers are, in some way, products of their institutions, yet as enlightened, inside agitators, they become gifts of God for the people of God, whether God’s people understand and welcome them or not.

Through the prophetic words and actions of these human gifts, God reveals God’s presence in, with, and for the creation. The trouble with the most faithful prophets is that they seem, at first, to represent far more in the way of threat than hope. They call institutions into question and call people to live lives transformed by new depths of perception of and trust in things like loving and being loved, offering and receiving compassion, and sharing—for the well-being of all—the God-given, material and spiritual abundance of the Creation.

As prophet and agitator, Jesus tells the parable of the laborers in the vineyard to challenge the greed and individualism of his own day and to reveal the deeply communal nature of the realm of God

         The kingdom of heaven, he says, is like a landowner who chooses to give as generously to workers who labor for one hour as he does to those who labor all day.

         This scandalizing parable challenges everything that we’ve been taught lies at the foundation of our institutions. It dares to reveal that God’s true prophets are known by their connection to an autonomous and gratuitous Generosity that gauges individual worth on the basis that every person is a God-imaged human being, and not on his or her relative productivity.

‘That’s irresponsible!’ we say. ‘If such reckless open-handedness were to become standard, it would ruin everything. Everyone would show up at 5:00pm expecting a day’s wage for an hour’s work!’

         There may be truth in that. So, how else might institutions adopt more gratuitously generous practices? Offer a minimum wage that is at least a living wage? Offer longer maternity leave? Offer paternity leave? Offer more vacation time? While some economic arguments against these kinds of measures may have institution-maintaining merit, Jesus’ parable clearly lays the foundation for biblical advocacy of such generosity.

I can’t impact many decisions in institutions beyond the small community of this congregation; but, as the saying goes, “It’s always five o’clock somewhere.” It’s always time for you, for me, for us to express our faith in God by living more generously than we might think is warranted or healthy.

Five o’clock urgency has been on us for the last two years of pandemic. In my opinion, wearing the mask when you’re inside and around others, getting the vaccine, continuing to be careful about physical distancing are not threats to “individual liberty.” They’re simple acts of generosity.

Five o’clock urgency cries out in the form of Afghan refugees seeking safety and new beginnings.

Five o’clock urgency is, every day, sending people in search of help at food pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters throughout the world.

It’s five o’clock all over God’s creation. And institutions that exist for their own sake will simply dismiss each critical moment with anemic “thoughts and prayers.” Unless they discern some clear financial reward or political advantage for taking positive action, institutions that exist for their own sake will do nothing.

We are all of us, in some way, part of those institutions. As followers of Jesus in a season of five o’clock struggle, it’s always time to act as enlightened prophets, as inside agitators. It’s always time for us to enter the rising river and to offer gratuitous generosity on behalf of a suffering Creation. As the physical violence and the violent rhetoric continually remind us, participating God’s realm of undeserved kindness can be perceived as weakness. Then again, it can also be the difference between life and death for many people. And I firmly believe that, in the long run, no weapon will ever make any person or community safer than gratuitously generous practices of faith, hope, love.

Jesus’ parable says that the kingdom of heaven is not manifest in some new world order imposed by some powerful institution. His followers manifest the kingdom of heaven in their daily willingness to actively engage and witness to Jesus’ alternative way of life—a life marked by a generosity so profound that few institutions (including, sadly enough, the church) dare to participate in it.

As we come to this table on World Communion Sunday, we proclaim yet again (Even if we don’t know how to enjoy it fully!) the boundless, and the perfect and perfecting love of God.

So, all of you, come to the table. Enter the rising river, and embrace the overwhelming generosity of God’s Christ.

Defying the Lines (Sermon)

 

“Defying the Lines”

Mark 9:38-50

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/26/21

 

³⁸ John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” ³⁹ But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. ⁴⁰ Whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹ For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

⁴² “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. ⁴⁵ And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. ⁴⁷ And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

⁴⁹ “For everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰ Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” (NRSV)

 

 

         One of the painful realities about living in human community is that at some point, each of us is going to feel left out. Some feel it first at home—thus terms like “black sheep” and “red-headed stepchild.” Virtually everyone feels it during school—especially middle or high school. Some never suffer that loneliness as acutely as others, but feeling pushed to the edge is a universal experience. And no matter where one feels it, the message is pretty much the same: “Go away. You’re not one of us.” And oh, how that hurts! 

         Among the sins of the church, and perhaps chief among them, is its blatant, and often willful, marginalizing of certain human beings. There’s no use denying it, especially in a culture still suffering the effects of human slavery. We say that all are welcome. And perhaps all are welcome—to visit. But are all people truly welcome in the church? In this church?

         Even Jesus’ own disciples draw lines. They boast to Jesus that they muzzled someone who had been casting out demons in Jesus’ name because, they said, He wasn’t one of us.

         Jesus is not impressed. What? You stopped someone from healing people in my name—because he wasn’t one of you?

         Don’t do that again, says Jesus. If folks are helping others in my name, even if they don’t really know me or care much about me, leave them be. There’s no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Anyone who truly cares for others is one of us.

         The presence of God and of God’s eternal Christ is not limited to professing Christians. If we think we can lay that kind of claim to God, then we’re declaring that God is small enough to fit into our minds, our doctrines, our imaginations. In John, when Nicodemus struggles with the same need for control, Jesus tells him, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (John 3:8) God is Creative Love and Redemptive Justice on the deepest, broadest, and most incomprehensibly gracious scale. And it’s a sad irony that Jesus’ disciples—ancient and modern—often have the most trouble understanding and accepting that. 

         Apparently feeling the need to get his disciples’ attention, Jesus launches into a stomach-turning tirade. If you become a stumbling block to others, he says, tie that block around your neck and throw yourself into the sea. If your hand or foot causes you to sin, rip it off. If your eye causes you to sin, yank it out.

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God?

         In three months, we’re going to get all sentimental and glassy-eyed about the birth of gentle Jesus meek and mild. And here he’s telling us to mutilate ourselves when we’re unfaithful!

         A group of us are reading Richard Rohr’s book, The Universal Christ. And last Monday night we discussed the chapter on the Lord’s Supper. In that chapter Rohr makes a distinction between ceremonies and rituals. “Ceremonies,” says Rohr, “normally confirm and celebrate the status quo and deny the shadow side of things.”¹ That is to say, they artificially comfort and validate us. They make us feel right enough in and of ourselves to draw lines that define who’s in and who’s out. In contrast, says Rohr, a “true ritual offers an alternative universe.”² And that is to say, it transforms us. It gives us new hands, feet, and eyes with which to experience and engage the world.

Rituals have to jolt us, though. They have to shake us up so that we canimagine God differently, and so that we can understand that the possibilities for us far exceed our comfortable but rather inert symbols. Think about it: We’ve not only ceremonialized the images of cross, body, and blood, we have domesticated them into jewelry and tableware engraved with the names of donors. But those same images shocked and offended first-century Jews. Implying uncleanness, they defied the well-defined lines of the Law.

The sacramental images of eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ should unsettle us and make us think. And we tame them when we think only about Jesus “dying for my sins.” When we lift that cup to our lips, though, we are defying lines. We are, says Rohr, acknowledging that all blood that is spilled unjustly is Jesus’ blood.³ The disrupting image of the Eucharist calls us to see Christ’s body and blood in all suffering. We, then, commit to the cause of Creative Love and Redemptive Justice, those gracious new hands, feet, and eyes that have replaced the selfish ones Jesus dares us to get rid of.

         Maybe it helps to read Mark 9 in light of Jesus saying things like let whoever is without sin throw the first stone, and take the log out of your own eye so you can see the speck in your neighbor’s eye. (John 8:7 and Mt. 7:8) In that context, we hear Jesus challenging our rampant theological, social, and political polarization. And honestly, when I’m talking with someone, especially these days, I often catch myself trying to sniff out the things that not only distinguish me from them, but the things which I think grant me a right to judge. If I were to take Jesus’ teaching literally, I should be nothing but a torso tied to a millstone lying at the bottom of the sea.

Following Jesus gives no one authority to judge. Indeed, it calls us to demonstrate the grace and forgiveness that we can access only by the grace and forgiveness of God.

That grace, that forgiveness is the salt of which Jesus speaks. What is saltyabout true disciples is their willingness to live as signs of God’s kingdom on earth. And Christ-like saltiness is costly seasoning. Discipleship is not about engaging the world as ones who enjoy heroic certainty and authority. It’s about loving freely and serving vulnerably as Christ loves and serves.

         This week I came across a quotation by tennis great Arthur Ashe, who was known for his bold advocacy on behalf of those in need. “True heroism,” said Ashe, “is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but to serve others at whatever cost.”⁴

         The heroism of discipleship doesn’t conquer the world. It transforms the world. It heals the world. It salts the world with grace. Autocrats and despots will always wage their wars. They will always draw lines and divide people with fear and hate. Nonetheless, God’s eternal and universal Christ is always padding around the edges, sowing seeds in good soil, kneading in yeast, sprinkling salt, and evoking acts of radical hospitality and non-violent justice by true disciples—whoever they may be.

The job description of the Christ includes defying the lines established by kings, nations, and even religions. And inasmuch as we follow Jesus in defying those lines—in doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God—we will experience “peace with one another.” For we discover the peace of which Jesus speaks when we recognize the deep interdependence within the Creation, and when we embrace one another as fellow laborers in the fields of God’s kingdom.

Indeed, how can we labor effectively (much less enjoyably!) without the peace created by welcoming ALL people—family, friend, enemy, and stranger?

 

¹Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe. Convergent Books, NY, 2019. p. 133.

²Ibid.

³Ibid. p. 134

⁴https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/arthur_ashe_124531

Humility – A Holy Undoing (Sermon)

“Humility – A Holy Undoing”

Mark 9:30-37

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/19/21

 

³⁰ They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; ³¹ for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” ³² But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

³³ Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” ³⁴ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. ³⁵ He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” ³⁶ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷ “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (NRSV)

 

Jesus is leading his disciples on a kind of lonely journey through Galilee. He knows that in lonely places, people can either come to fresh new understandings and energies, or they can come undone. The irony is that those fresh, understandings and energies usually require a certain degree of undoing. Tribal elders, therapists, the Holy Spirit, and other teachers often guide individuals or groups into lonely places for coming-undone experiences that lead to transformation or healing.

Jesus seems to know that when his disciples face their rabbi’s death, they will, in some way, come undone. So, as the embodiment of Wisdom, Jesus keeps their lonely-place journey through Galilee a secret. He knows that coming-undone experiences are more effectively and healthfully accomplished beside still waters, and when attended by a patient, compassionate shepherd.

Jesus learns this for himself at his temptation. He enters the wilderness alone and faces all the selfish possibilities lying right at his fingertips. With the Spirit’s help, he pushes through the allure of greed and pride, and his experience becomes a gracious undoing that benefits all of us. And it benefits us because the totality of Jesus’ human experience belongs to more than himself. Jesus is God’s Son because his life represents the archetype of all human experience. So, when the disciples begin to imagine that Jesus may actually die, and when they try to imagine their life after his death, they face temptations similar to those that Jesus overcomes.

“What were you arguing about on the way,” Jesus asks. Their embarrassed silence says it all. Out in that lonely place, confronting the reality of life without Jesus and his shepherding grace, the disciples fall into temptation. They try to intimidate their way into dominance over each other. As Jesus leads his followers through the shadows of a lonely, death-ridden valley, they turn their terrifyingly gracious experience into a childish political primary.

One can almost see Jesus shaking his head as he says, Listen. True greatness requires a willingness to come undone. It’s called humility. And if you really want to lead well, learn to serve well.

Then Jesus, shrewd teacher that he is, picks up a child and says, in effect, Here I am. How you welcome a child reflects how you welcome me—and, thus, how you welcome God.

Because children represent women’s work, this is a scandal. No self-respecting, first-century male gets significantly involved in the lives of children. Jesus is leading his followers into yet another lonely place where accepted arrangements begin to break down. He gives them the chance to realize that the difference between being humiliated and being humbled is the difference between living as hostile competitors who seek power over others and living intentionally and gratefully as cooperating equals—with all people.

“For by the grace given to me,” Paul says to the Romans, “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think…” (Romans 12:3) Paul goes on to say that we are all members of one body. Only in humility can we truly appreciate and love one another as necessary members of the same body. To live humbly requires an often-painful transformation. Biblical literature uses the stark metaphor of death to describe that transformation. And spiritual deaths always involve some kind of lonely-place experience. Primitive cultures often created that experience.

One day, during my grandfather’s struggle with cancer, he told his daughter, my mother, “Now I understand why the Indians used to take their old people out into the wilderness and leave them.”

Those heart-wrenching words reveal the weight of one man’s physical suffering. They also reveal how burdensome good intentions can be on the one who suffers.

When someone we care about is suffering, it’s who we are not only to bring food, small talk, flowers, and Hallmark cards, but also expectations of a valiant fight against disease or despair. And while we intend such things as expressions of love and offerings of grace, just as often they become attempts to control a situation. They become ways to argue with mortality about who is the greatest. Sometimes the most comforting presence in the face of suffering is that friend who sits silently and patiently with us, that friend who resists the temptation to cloak suffering with platitudes and trinkets, that gifted friend who, like the angels and wild beasts of Jesus’ temptation, simply sits with us while we, as the old spiritual declares, walk that lonesome valley.

Any argument with mortality, like any argument about relative greatness, is the stomachache that follows a feast on the poisonous fruit of pride. Pride may well be the seminal offense from which all other sins arise. Think about it: Is there anytransgression that doesn’t germinate in one person’s assumption of superiority over other human beings, over the earth, and thus over God? The opposing virtue to pride is humility. So, doesn’t it make sense for Jesus to take a child and tell a bunch of prideful men that to be truly great, one must learn true humility first?

In ravenously competitive cultures like ours, humility is often considered a weakness. So, it requires a spiritual death, and nothing can make pride come undone like loneliness—like the experience of desperate need for others. This is exactly what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

In foretelling his death, Jesus prepares his disciples for experiences of acute spiritual poverty. They will need each other. And they will not be able to carry on Jesus’ work without humbly depending on fellow servants.

It comes as no surprise, then, that in the very next story in Mark’s gospel, we hear the disciples boast to Jesus that they saw a stranger casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and they silenced him.

He wasn’t one of us, they say.

And Jesus stuns them with a rebuke: Why in God’s name did you do that? Why are you still trying to argue about greatness? Whoever is not against us is for us! Welcome their help!

When confronting our limits as human beings, when realizing that we’re not so great as we’d like to think, the Spirit leads us into a lonely place—into spiritual poverty. And there we die one healing death after another. For as often as we find ourselves striving for superiority and victorious “rightness” over one another, we need to die those deaths.

Our lonely journeys through these transforming spiritual deaths and into humility lead us ever-deeper into experiences of Resurrection. And Resurrection empowers us for living lives of self-emptying service, lives in which we participate in God’s here-and-now kingdom of grace, justice, and peace.

And isn’t that the deeply undoing yet liberating truth of what it means to be saved?