Psalm 23 and Eternal LIfe

Test: Psalm 23

Note: This sermon preached by Vicar Craig Simenson

Psalm 23 is a favorite psalm. It is a familiar psalm. So familiar and etched into our memories through its frequent repetition—(didn’t we just hear this a few months ago?)—that we may have stopped paying much attention to its nuances. When we do stop to take notice, the different translations that we might (or might not) be familiar with pose interesting interpretative questions for us to make meaning of.

For example, in the end, is that I am to dwell in the house of the LORD forever (as the King James and this morning’s version goes)?

or is it only my whole life long (as the New Revised Standard Version, the Bibles that are in our pews) renders it?

As Pastor Stein highlighted for us in his sermon on the psalm this past summer, attention to the actual Hebrew used suggests that the psalm does not here refer to any notion of an eternal life. Rather, more literally, the psalm here speaks to the length of these days, on this green earth, beside the still waters of this time and place. Psalm 23 speaks to the comfort that is available to us even now in the darkest valleys of this life.

Interestingly, attention to the actual Greek used in John’s gospel this morning poses similar interpretative complexities.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.

Yet, what is translated here as eternal life, while denoting life that is ever-lasting or eternal (in other words, infinite) can also mean life lasting for a definite period of time: an age, a generation or a lifetime.

Similarly, when John tells us that Jesus says that his sheep will never perish, the Greek literally (and perplexingly) tells us that they will never perish into the age.

With this in mind, we come to an important interpretative question:

What age exactly does John refer to here?

My own guess (for what it’s worth) is that behind John’s words is belief in an age that is to come. An age, a world, a new way of life that Christians continue to speak about, when in the words of the Nicene Creed, we say that we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Importantly, this notion of ever-lasting life that we find both in John’s gospel and in the Creed does not seem to be a life that we can necessarily wholly abstract from our experiences of this life: a life lived within and bound to a particular world and a definite period of time. There is the life in this world, and there is the life in the world to come—each life bound to a particular, though apparently different, kind of world.

Yet, picking up the puzzling language used in John’s gospel would also seem to hold open the possibility this morning that we each re-examine and reflect on the ways in which we, as Christians, might often—and mistakenly—go too far in distinguishing our lives in this time and place from the ever-lasting life that is to come.

When John tells us that Jesus’ sheep will never perish into the age, the use of the preposition here suggests not a disconnection between this world and the next, but a certain continuity. Rather than abstraction, John’s language here would seem to suggest that those who follow Jesus now already live into the age that is to come.

This morning, Jesus speaks to us of an ever-lasting life that does not exist wholly beyond the length of these days, on this green earth, beyond this time and this place:

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

Importantly, Christian faith cannot be limited only to the life that awaits us. For Christians, ever-lasting life is not apart from, but inclusive of the lives that we live into now. Inclusive of who we choose to listen for and follow now.

Importantly, for Christians, the life in this world and the life in the world to come are bound together.

Importantly, for Christians, the resurrected Christ who appears to us this Easter season is the Christ whose resurrected body still bears the marks of his former death. This life and the life of the resurrected world to come are bound together.

In our readings from the Acts of the Apostles, even the Christ already gone away into the clouds in chapter 1, already seemingly passed into the world to come, is the Christ who is still present among us—the Christ who is still healing the sick and bringing the dead to life.

Importantly, the Easter storyline is not one in which ever-lasting life stands wholly removed from this life. Rather, Easter is the story of resurrected life breaking into this one.

Even Revelation, a book often characterized in over-simplified terms of future happenings, arguably offers Christians not a picture of the life that is only to come, but also a vision of who we are already becoming. A vision of how God is already shaping us.

From every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, crying out in worship, singing to our God, Revelation reveals to us who we are when we gather together every week. Revelation’s words are our words.

Blessing, honor, glory to the Lamb. Holy, righteous, worthy is the Lamb.

Revelation’s words are our words.

And the Easter storyline is our story. The story of the slain Lamb who has already overcome death, who—by his resurrection—shows us just how expansive life is. The God who is and who was and who is to come. Who reveals to us ever-lasting life stretching out in every direction, in every time and place, in every life and lifetime.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

Christ, speaking to us still, speaking to us always. Who leads us in right paths, but not necessarily always easy ones.

The Christ who, instead of eternal safety and security, promises ongoing relationship. I know them, and they follow me.

The resurrected Christ who leads us beside still waters, where God wipes away every tear from our eyes that they might become the water of life. Where even betrayal, violence, and criminal execution are turned into empty tombs, resurrected lives, healing, and hope for this world and the world to come.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life—life that does not end, life in these days and in the days to come—and they will never perish.

May we keep on listening for that shepherd’s voice.

May we keep on following this resurrected one in our midst calling us to love one another.

To give our lives to one another without fear.

To live abundantly into the ever-lasting life already here.

Acting Praisy

Text: Psalm 150 and John 20:24-29

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God all creatures here below. These words are no doubt familiar to you. We’ll sing them in a few minutes as we collect offerings. You may know this song as being called The Doxology. It is really just a doxology, a word that means “words of glory.” Doxologies praise God.

Hallelujah! we sing around this Easter time. It seems like it should be translated “hooray!” Jesus Christ is risen today, hooray! But the word Hallelujah means “praise God.” Praise our God, the one we know by name. Hallelujah is a word of glory.

Hallelujah! Praise God in God’s holy temple. So begins Psalm 150. Praise God for God’s mighty acts. From whom God’s blessing flows. Praise God, all things that have breath. Praise God all creatures here below. Praise God with music and dancing and loud clanging cymbals. Hooray!

This is the last psalm. The final psalm in the book of psalms. After all the laments and songs of the earlier psalms, what does it come down to? When things are good, praise God. And when things are bad, praise God. Praise God, all the time.

Praise and sacrament are the backbone of our worship. We come here to praise God and to be fed. Lutherans have a pretty good understanding of the feeding part. But are more suspicious of praise, thinking we might have to act “praisy.” You know, waving our arms around and, as the psalm says, dancing and otherwise carrying on. We should do a little more of that, I suspect. But even for Lutherans, praise is central to our relationship with God. In one sense, praise is pure prayer.

Praise is not necessarily a religious term. But when it is, it has five characteristics that I want to talk about today. A kind of top-five list of things about praise. So we’ll do a countdown, as people do, back to front.

Number five: praise is thanksgiving. It is appropriate that we connect it with our offerings, which are, as we say, signs of God’s gracious love. Praising God is an expression of gratitude. For God’s mighty acts, as the psalm says. Hallelujah, thank you, God, for all you have done.

But praise is not transactional. We don’t praise God in exchange for the goodies God has given us. Praise is not payment: You be nice to me, I praise you. So, the fourth characteristic of praise is that it is not useful. That is, its utility is not germane. As one writer said, this psalm with all its praises is “an extreme case of inutility.” It asks for nothing, it makes no claims. It is not churchy or religious: it does not speak about judgment, covenant, or promise. It is just praise. God, you are great.

Number three: praise is naive. We praise God without knowing all that much about God. Just as you can praise, say, a hero for her bravery or a saint for his compassion, without knowing that person very well, so we can praise God for what we see, whether or not we understand it or can make sense of it. God has, as the psalm says, excellent greatness. That’s sufficient.

Number two: praise is not about us. Whether we are in fact thankful or bitter or whether our tears are from laughter or despair, it does not matter. We do not have to prepare ourselves. We do not have to be especially good or contrite or anything. We praise God in exactly the same way as we step up to the altar rail for Holy Communion: without qualification. We praise God without apology.

Praise is a way of seeing things. So, the number one characteristic of praise is recognition. Not recognition in the sense of reward. “I give you this certificate in recognition of your outstanding service blah blah blah,” kind of thing. Not that. But recognizing God as you would recognize a lover or a friend. Seeing them as they are (or as you know them to be). Embracing them. Admiring them for no good reason. Just because you love them. (As the father of the prodigal son does, who spies his wayward son on the road home and rushes to greet him.) Excusing them, even. Because they are your friend. This is the kind of recognition that reminds us, when we are in the middle of fight with our partner—that reminds us who he or she is, and interrupts our angry blindness. The person is not just anybody, but a particular somebody we love. Praising God is recognizing God in that way. God, our lover.

Now, what does this all have to do with Thomas? Thomas calls out to Jesus. “My Lord and my God.” These are words of praise, not of belief. Thomas recognizes Jesus, a friend Thomas had thought to be dead. We cannot call Thomas “Doubting Thomas,” for doubt and belief were never the issue. It is not that Thomas does not believe the other disciples. He comes back to the room—in which the disciples are strangely still shut up one whole week after they have seen Jesus—he does not come back for more evidence.

He demands to see Jesus not because he is short of faith. He has to see Jesus because he needs to recognize him. The disciples had seen Jesus. “We have seen the Lord,” they told him. But Thomas had not.

Luke writes that Jesus offers evidence. Touch me, Thomas, says Jesus. But Thomas never does touch him. He does not need any evidence of that sort. Thomas sees Jesus. The heart of Thomas recognizes him. Thomas praises Jesus: My Lord and My God! It has nothing to do with belief in some fact or doctrine or miracle, even. Thomas is in love with Jesus.

The language of worship is the language of love. We come to this place, this church, over and over, not because we need to learn something new, though maybe we do and maybe we will. We do not come, that is, for more evidence. We come to be fed, and we come to be with God. Sacrament and praise.

The words we use in worship, the songs we sing, the prayers we recite, are powerful because they remind us who God is, who we are, and who God and we are together. In one sense, they are boring. They are the same thing, more or less, each week. We do not need them in order to be healed; we believe that God heals us out of grace, not out of obligation. And I suppose that God does not need them either. They are boring in the way old stories are boring between friends, or little nothings are boring between lovers. Powerfully boring. They serve no purpose other than praise.

Not all praise is God-talk. You can praise all sorts of things and people. You can praise a soldier, or a nurse, or a president. But most God-talk is praise. That is because like most of the talk of friends and lovers, it all says the same thing.

You are my Lord and my God, says Thomas. When we talk to God, when we gather in worship, when we pray in our houses. And even when we complain to God and speak in anger and disappointment. We all say in other ways what Thomas said to Jesus. I praise you. God, you are mine. God, I am yours.

Praise the Lord.

The Resurrection of Jesus from the Dead

Text: Luke 21:1-12

Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.

Having heard the story told by Mary, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, Peter ran to the tomb to see for himself. (Typical Peter: rushing in where others would not.) And having seen nothing in the tomb but a pile of body-wrapping linens, he went home amazed.

If that were the end of the story, we would not be here today. If all the witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus had been as flummoxed as Peter was, there would be no Christian faith. If the story of the three women had continued to be treated as nonsense, there would be no Jesus movement, no Gospel stories, no church. There would have been resurrection, but no Easter.

But the event of the resurrection turned out to be powerful and compelling. People at the time experienced the resurrection of Jesus in a way that disrupted and transformed their lives. It drew them to one another to establish small communities of men and women who would re-tell the story to one another. And then to tell the story of the life of Jesus and to try to live by his teachings and example, to establish rituals that he implied or commanded. How else can we explain the rise of early Christianity? Prophets then were a dime a dozen. Something happened with Jesus and, powerfully, in the people who heard the story of Jesus, killed but confoundingly risen and for a while physically present. People were enthusiastic, in the sense of the word that means they were filled by spirit, or the wind of God. They were blown away.

Mary and Joanna and Mary the mother of James were not expecting what they saw. None of the followers of Jesus were. When the disciples heard the news, they pooh-poohed it. They called the three women delirious. Partly this was misogyny. Partly it was total incredulity. The women had expected to find the body of dead Jesus. They did not find the body. “Why are you looking among the dead for one who has risen?” a man in bright clothes asks them. But the man is being disingenuous. They are looking among the dead because they had seen Jesus die. Unlike the other, male, disciples, who had scattered, these women had been eye witnesses to his death. It is fitting that they be the first witnesses to his rising. They had come looking for Jesus among the dead because Jesus had been dead.

We who know the story sometimes imagine that Jesus was more like an astral traveler than he was dead. That he was a divine spirit creature who inhabited various realms like a tourist until he was discovered to be not dead. But Jesus was dead. That’s what our faith and church teach us. Not sort-of dead, or faking it. Jesus died and was buried, as we say in the creed. Jesus was as dead as any creature on this earth can be. Jesus was human. Humans die. Jesus rose from the dead. That tells us something about humans. From the dead, Jesus is risen.

We who live on this side of life know next to nothing of death. We have some hints. We have some hints in scripture and teachings. Ashes to ashes. That makes sense. We are creatures of dust: you are dust, we say on Ash Wednesday, to dust you shall return. That is our experience. But we also hear that in Jesus’ father’s house there are many rooms. And we have heard Jesus tell another man that “you will be with me in paradise.”

We have some hints in our feelings about death. The disciples know that Jesus died. They would, I’m sure, have felt what we all feel at times like this. Sorrow, of course. But also anger, not understanding: how could this be? Trying to figure things out: how could this be happening? They might have been angry at God. Angry, even, at Jesus for leaving them. Angry, maybe, at themselves for things they never did, or things never reconciled, or things they regretted. (Peter denied Jesus, we read. How did he feel?) This is how they came to the tomb on Sunday morning.

And we have a hint in our hope in things unknown. And things unknowable. We are not all that smart. That there are things beyond our knowing is an occasion for hope. The fact that we can be hopeful in the face of ignorance seems to me to be useful information: not that we are naive, though we certainly are, but that while we are simple and small, God is big and not simple.

The resurrection of Jesus teaches us something that we did not know. It teaches us how little we know. It teaches us about the power of life—the power of God—in the world. It teaches us that death is not quite so fearsome. Death, where is your sting? asks the apostle Paul, later. Death, though unwelcome, need not be feared.

The resurrection of Jesus is an event, not an idea. Each of the four Gospels tells about it in a slightly different way. There are multiple stories of the Passion, the Resurrection, and the days after. This is not a defect in scripture. It is that the resurrection was an event that was experienced. It requires interpretation. The Gospel writers tried to interpret it. The man in dazzling clothes at the tomb tried to interpret it to Mary and Joanna and Mary the mother of James by putting it in context. “Don’t you remember what Jesus said would happen?” Jesus himself interprets it, both beforehand and afterward, by quoting scripture: This is to fulfill what is written, he sometimes says. Scholars and theologians interpret the resurrection constantly. Is it fulfillment? Is it part of a scheme of atonement? Is it a promise? Is it a sign?

The resurrection of Jesus is an event. It still confuses people and makes them marvel, two thousand years later. Jesus Christ rises from death. People are adamant about the meaning of that. Only they do not all agree about what the meaning is. It does mean something important. Christians, at least, agree about that.

The resurrection of Jesus is an event, but it is not over by a long shot. As we celebrate the particular event, we also contemplate its effect on us and the world. We chew on it, like a hard notion that needs softening. The resurrection of Jesus is an ongoing transformation in us, as it was for the disciples and early followers of Jesus. Paul says that we are certainly united with Jesus in a resurrection like his.

The resurrection of Jesus is an event. It is not a metaphor. It exists as it is. It should not be softened. But is a wonderfully fertile soil for growing metaphors. It reminds us of the rebirth of the world at springtime. Look at the trees budding and the gardens suddenly awakened. It reminds us that things that are broken can be repaired. And also that God can repair them. It reminds us that the end of one thing is the beginning of another. It brings to our hearts the comfort of renewal and restoration.

We are celebrating—and it is a celebration—we are celebrating today something that is way too powerful to take lightly, no matter what we make of it. It is occasion to remind us that the value of faith is to resist, as one person said, to resist the attempt to make God as knowable and dependable as breakfast cereal.

Mary and Joanna and Mary the mother of James were right to be dumbfounded. Peter was right to be amazed.

And we are right to say [with the children at worship] Hooray! Jesus is risen.