Go (Easter Sunrise Sermon)

 “Go”

Matthew 28:1-20

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

3/31/24

Easter Sunrise 2024

 

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ²And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. ⁴For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.

⁵But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’

“This is my message for you.”

⁸So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

⁹Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.

¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

¹¹While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. ¹²After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, ¹³telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”

¹⁵So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Judeans to this day.

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NRSV)

 

         If Mark’s gospel ends more abruptly than the other canonical gospels, Matthew’s gospel comes in a close second.

Matthew follows his resurrection account with two vignettes. In the first, the guards report what they saw to the chief priests. In the second, Jesus makes his lone resurrection appearance to the eleven remaining disciples, during which he gives the Great Commission. Turn the page, and you’re in Mark’s gospel.

         In Matthew, as in Mark, there’s no reflection on the resurrection. Jesus doesn’t eat fish as he does in Luke, nor does he give Peter, the three-time denier, a chance to reaffirm his love and commitment, as he does in John.

In Matthew, the angel says to the women, Go to Galilee. Jesus will meet you and the others there. The angel’s command to Go sends the women and the disciples to Jesus who, himself says, Go. Go into all the world and make disciples.

         The Go spoken by the angel and the Go spoken by the resurrected Christ echo the Go that God says to Abram in Genesis 12. And Go means to pick up wherever some apparently-dead-end story has left off and keep following wherever the path of grace may lead. Go, because God calls you to go. Go, because God can be trusted. Go, because God is leading us deeper into relationship with God, with each other, and with the Creation.

         Make disciples, says Jesus. And there’s really only one way to do that faithfully. To make disciples, one must learn to live as a disciple because discipleship is less the words we say than the lives we live. So, disciples are made not by reciting catechisms but by emulating actions of the heart. Disciples are made not by imposing doctrine but by inviting participation in lives of trust, compassion, justice, and peacemaking.

         The two stories that follow Matthew’s resurrection account also set up an instructive contrast. In the first, the guards are justifiably afraid for their lives. All they could say, that their commanding officers would believe, was that the earth shook, a ghost appeared, and they fell asleep on duty. So, they sneak over to the chief priests and tell them the story first.

We got you, say the priests. Tell your superior officers that you fell asleep, and Jesus’ disciples stole the body. Here, if you take this money and promise to tell this story, we will make sure you don’t get crucified yourselves.

And that’s where that version of the story stops—with a logical, plausible, and comfortable dead end. Just sweep it under the rug and go back to the way things were.

In the second account, Jesus appears briefly to the disciples to say, in effect, The story is not over. In fact, it’s just beginning. And now, you are my hands and feet, so keep going. Keep doing what I’ve modeled for you. Keep living through love. Keep welcoming people into community—especially those whom no one else welcomes. Keep helping those who cannot help themselves. And wherever the work of discipleship takes you, just go.

Discipleship has brought us out here this morning where the sky is brightening, the birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the pollen is driving many of us crazy, and life in all its overwhelming beauty and tragedy is happening around us as we speak.

This moment, though, is but a respite on a journey. We’re here not to end, and certainly not to complete anything. We’re here to be reminded that none of us have the final word on anything. “All authority in heaven and on earth” belong to the risen Christ. As his disciples, our purpose is always bigger than our own communities, always beyond the walls of any building, because, as Jesus says in Matthew 25, true discipleship happens out here, among “the least of these my brothers and sisters.”

Maybe the operative word for Easter isn’t He is risen! so much as it is, Go!

Think about it:

It was resurrection faith that sent Abram and Sarai on their way when God said Go.

It was resurrection faith that gave Joseph strength to overcome his brothers’ betrayal, then to forgive them and welcome them into Egypt.

It was resurrection faith that sent Moses back to Egypt for his Hebrew family, and resurrection faith that helped him to guide them through the wilderness.

It was resurrection faith that turned David from an adulterer and a murderer into a poet and a leader.

It was resurrection faith that gave Mary and Joseph the courage to parent their remarkable child.

It was resurrection faith that made Peter, James, and John bold enough to drop their nets and follow Jesus.

It was resurrection faith that gave Jesus of Nazareth the will to reject selfishness and fear during his temptation and, then, to Go and live a life that was truly divine.

And the resurrection on Easter actually follows all of those witnessing events and reveals itself as the authority behind all that is faithful, forgiving, loving, and real in this world. Resurrection is the cycle of beginnings, endings, and new beginnings. Resurrection is everything in every given moment that gives us courage and hope to keep Going.

At Easter, Jesus meets us, again—wherever our Galilee may be—and reminds us that there is no end that is not also, in some way, a revitalizing new beginning. And he sends us out, as disciples to make disciples, as ones who are being redeemed to live as signs God’s redeeming grace in the world.

And it is through our new and renewing resurrection faith that, on the authority of the risen Christ, we embrace his call to Go, to be disciples and to make disciples, in this world, right now, and to do that with his humility, gratitude, generosity, joy, and love.

A New Passover (Maundy Thursday Sermon)

 “A New Passover”

John 13:1-17, 31-35

Allen Huff

Maundy Thursday

3/28/24

         

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ² The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴ got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

⁷ Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

⁸ Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”

⁹ Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹² After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.¹⁶ Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷ If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

³¹ When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³² If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³ Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (NRSV)

 

After leading the escape from Egypt, Moses reflected on the harrowing but transforming experience he and the Hebrews had just survived. And in Exodus 15, Moses sings his proud jubilation: “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea…³The Lord is a warrior…” (Exodus 15:1, 3)

         The implausible defeat of Pharaoh, followed by the people’s 40-year wilderness sojourn create Israel’s defining narrative. The experience formed the people’s foundational image of God and shaped their expectations of how God’s steadfast love and faithfulness work.

         Since then, for some 3,500 years or so, observant Jews have celebrated Passover, the ritual remembrance and reenactment of God freeing the Hebrews by forcing Pharaoh’s hand. When first-century Jews prepared for Passover, they had a new Pharaoh to deal with. His name was Caesar. And regardless of the specific title—Pharaoh, King, Caesar, or anything else—autocratic leaders always fail to learn what God’s prophets have to teach.

         Absolute leaders—whether of nations or religions—almost always turn deaf ears and cold hearts to God’s prophets, because God’s language is one of humility and self-emptying love. And God’s ethic is one of peacemaking, justice, and compassionate service. As Paul says, the Christian faith itself is foolishness to the wise and weakness to the strong. It’s little wonder, then, that Jesus’ ministry meets an end that Caesar, Herod, and Caiaphas consider the epitome of humiliation.

Leaders aren’t the only ones who struggle with the ways of God. Even those seeking to be faithful followers can struggle. When Jesus’ disciples decide that he is indeed the Messiah, they still, in spite of Jesus’ teaching and example, expect him to mirror the warrior God described by Moses. From Peter to Judas, all the disciples anticipate Jesus delivering something he not only doesn’t deliver, he does the opposite. As Messiah, he stoops down and washes the disciples’ feet.

Into his followers’ bewilderment, Jesus says, You don’t understand what’s going on right now, and that’s okay. Just receive this blessing, and know that one day it will all make sense.

Because only the lowest of slaves wash feet, Peter is more angry than bewildered. So, in protest he says, “You will never wash my feet.”

Jesus’ act of humility shatters all the norms and shifts every paradigm. And to make this point, Jesus responds to Peter saying, If you refuse, you are choosing to have no part in me.

Do you see what kind of moment Jesus creates for Peter? Instead of the blood of sacrificed lambs smeared above doorways, the mark of inclusion in the community of Jesus is water, applied humbly and lovingly to his followers’ feet by the Lamb of God himself.

When we put ourselves in the room with the disciples, we can feel Jesus’ challenging us to live differently, even differently than the Church often teaches, because, on the whole, the Church still prefers a warrior god. More than a mere saintly image, Jesus’ example of self-effacing service is the Church’s urgent calling: Love and serve the world as Jesus loves and serves it.

One crucial and revealing detail in this story can get overlooked: Jesus washes even the feet of Judas, the one who betrays him. This act of unmitigated grace reveals the very heart of God, the essence of God’s forgiveness. And it bears witness to the eternal unity between Jesus of Nazareth and God.

Long before this pivotal moment, the psalmist sang of the grace that reflects God’s all-too-wonderful and loving knowledge:

 

⁴Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, you know it completely.

⁵You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

⁸If I ascend to heaven,

you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol,

you are there.

¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness

shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,”

¹²even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you. (From Psalm 139)

 

         The juxtaposition of darkness and light is a central theme in John’s gospel, and when laying the ancient psalm against John’s witness to Jesus, we encounter the almost unnerving depth of God’s forgiving love. This irrevocable, irresistible love accompanies us wherever we go. Even in our faithlessness and treachery, God’s Christ washes our feet, claiming us as beloved children of a new Passover of grace, and bestowing on us a message of unity with God to share with all Creation.

Come what may, then, be it faithfulness, denial, or outright betrayal, God is already sharing in our glad celebrations and our grief-stricken regrets, because, as the psalmist says, “even the darkness is not dark to [God].” And as John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness [does] not overcome it.” (John 1:5)

         Jesus leaves his disciples with a new commandment: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” For John, this mutual love is not only the light; it is the very source and substance of the belief about which John’s Jesus speaks. To love as we are loved, to feed as we are fed, to house and clothe others as we are housed and clothed, to speak for those who have no voice—all of this isto believe. It would be so much easier if belief were simply our mouths saying Yes to precepts and doctrines. For Jesus, though, belief is discipleship, and discipleship is love—

expectation-shattering,

neighbor-welcoming,

earth-treasuring,

mystery-embracing,

rule-bending,

death-defying,

preemptively-forgiving love.

         May you experience God’s New Passover in Christ. And may you accept how deeply and perfectly you are loved, so that you may go forth and, to the very best of your ability, on any given day, love with the love of Jesus—God’s eternal Word Made Flesh.

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.

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.

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. 

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. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³ Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶ 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, ⁷ saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

⁸ 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?”

⁹ 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.