But we had hoped

Text: Luke 24:13-35

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we had hoped. Four heart-rending words.

This is a sentence people speak to each other each in grief. In mutual consolation. Supporting one another. A resignation that things did not work out—not that we thought they necessarily would; probably they wouldn’t. But they might have. This one time they might have. There was a pretty good chance. It would have been so great, so much better, if things had worked out like we thought they might do.

On the road to Emmaus, two friends were talking to each other. We had high expectations, they might have said, we followers of Jesus. Jesus encouraged us. By his deeds, we could see he was a prophet, more than a prophet even. He healed people beyond healing. Made the blind see. Some say he raised people from the dead. By his words, we could see he was wise, brave, and intense. He claimed the authority of God. He condemned the hypocrites who ruled the church and the land. He shamed and embarrassed the rulers. By the promises that everyone read into his sermons—about being free, about evil being overturned, about the poor and the destitute receiving the blessings so far reserved for others—by those promises we could see a new kind of world. By the very fact that crowds came to be with him, to hear him, to be changed by him, and just recently to sing hosannas to him, we could see it was coming soon. And finally, by our own need for victory and freedom in a land of poor people oppressed by a foreign power, our hopes were fed.

We had high expectations. Foolish ones, though, as it turned out. But we had hoped.

But we had hoped. People cannot help hoping. It is in us. It is not the same as wishing. The kind of hope the two had on the road to Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem where Jesus had been killed, is a hope for a new way of the world to be. A new physics, a change in the laws of mind, spirit, and nature. It is hope for things to be very different than usual. It is the same hope we have that our mortal diseases will be cured, that our addictions will be lifted, that our broken hearts will be mended. It is the hope that time could reverse itself just a little to undo what was irrevocably done. It is the longing that nothing is irrevocable, nothing is impossible, nothing is final or fatal. It is a hope that leads us to have unreasonable expectations.

But we had hoped. The walkers on the road are trying to re-set. They are trying to talk themselves down. Talking to each other about all the things that had happened, it says. We had hoped, but we know now that was silly. We heard he was alive, but people have not seen him. You can hear the two friends trying to make things make sense again. They are trying to get back into the ordinary way of looking at things. They are trying, as poet T.S. Eliot wrote, to be cured of craving something they cannot find. They are trying to learn to avoid excessive expectations.

In that moment, Jesus appears. They are, he explains, seeing things in the old way. That way leads to the morass of self-recrimination and hopelessness in which they find themselves. There is a new way, just as they had once thought. It was declared by the prophets. They are foolish—how foolish you are, he says—but foolish on the flip side. Not fools to be hopeful, but fools to give up hope so easily. They have been quick to abandon what they knew. The evil does not erase the truth of the good. The crucifixion does not erase the ministry of Jesus. Just as disease does not erase good times past, and as addiction does not erase past steadfastness, and as heartbreak does not erase past love.

The travelers do not see him. Within the framework of the possible, Jesus is unrecognized. Jesus encourages them to try out a new strategy, a new frame of mind. Consider this: God is different than you think. The world is less limited than you think. God is more involved in your lives than you think. Our normal experiences are not necessarily good indicators of what is possible.

Yet all this almost-pedantic talk is not sufficient. Jesus can tell it is not working. Coyly he walks ahead, it says, as if he were going on. They invite him—as he figured they would—they invite this strange yet strangely familiar man, to their homes. There, he re-enacts what we readers recognize as the pattern of the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharistic pattern. He took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them. And then their eyes were opened. Jesus was made known to them, it says, in the breaking of the bread.

It is a turning point in their lives. They see Jesus and remember him. The walkers escape their disappointment, not through figuring out and talking about it, but through sharing a meal together in a special way, through a ritual that is full of meaning and memory, one that Jesus commanded them to do.

We celebrate The Lord’s Supper every week for many reasons. For example, Martin Luther said we should do so because we needed to eat to be strong to fight the devil. But another reason is that the Lord’s Supper is a way of thinking that is out of the ordinary. Sacraments, like other rituals, are a kind of new physics. They are messages spoken in another language. They are guided by tradition and scripture and the Spirit. And most of all they are something that we approach with humility and mystery. For a moment, we put aside the ordinary way of seeing things and adopt a new way. We come forward, and hear words that are both strange and comforting, we eat as we were instructed to by Jesus, and we leave transformed. We come back week after week, because we need reminding that there is a way to see things that we usually do not see.

The travelers on the road start out convinced that nothing has changed. That the world and their lives will be as they always have been. But Christians are right to have excessive expectations. It is what Jesus taught us. We are right to think that what is broken can be healed and what is stuck can be freed.

As the hymn from the Iona community says:

Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; Light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.

It is risky to hope so deeply. It makes us vulnerable to grief and disappointment. Yet not to hope deeply, starves us.

Leave this room

Text: John 20:19-31

It might seem like this passage in John’s Gospel is two stories, nearly identical versions, paternal twins. One without Thomas and one with Thomas. In each one, Jesus appears to the disciples who are locked in or shut in a room together. In each one, Jesus greets them saying “Peace be to you.” In each one, Jesus shows them his wounds to verify his identity. And in each one, some one or some many realize at that point that he is the same Jesus that they followed. The same Jesus who just a few day earlier was tried, convicted, and executed cruelly on the cross.

John’s Gospel was the last of the four to be written. Perhaps there were two stories circulating in the community when John wrote down his rendition of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Or perhaps he was including versions from two separate communities.

Either way, there is only one story now, made up of two similar parts. We assume that John has put the parts together for a reason. To indicate some important step in the development of the life of the church and the development of the relationship between God and people, God and us. There is a dramatic tension in the story as it stands. Between the first and the second parts, something happens, something changes, some new order is unfolding.

One thing that might be happening has to do with believing and seeing. Belief and seeing are important to John, so this interpretation makes sense. In that case, the most important line is “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

The emphasis here is on Thomas, usually and unfairly called Doubting Thomas. Unfairly, because he only wants what the other disciples already have: the chance to see Jesus with his own eyes. All the disciples in both stories are understandably non-plussed when Jesus appears. Can this be the real Jesus? Can this be the same one we knew? And all are convinced when they see his hands and side. There are two things different between the two stories, and in this view the important difference is that Thomas is missing from the first story but present in the second.

But the other thing that might be happening here has nothing to do with seeing or believing. Instead, it has to do with mission. The important difference between the two stories is not Thomas’s presence, but that in the first story the disciples are commissioned to continue the work of Jesus in the world, and in the second story they—through the words of Thomas—accept that commission. In this interpretation, the most important line is “Thomas answered him: my Lord and my God.” This is not so much about the identity of Jesus as about his continuing role as master, teacher, and guide for the disciples. From then up to now.

The story describes a contract, which is what a commission is. An offer, an acceptance, a consideration. Jesus makes the disciples an offer. It sounds like an order—commissions do sound like that—but it is an offer nonetheless, as commissions really are. As the Father sent me, so I send you. The disciples may allow themselves to be sent or they may refuse. You may wish to send me, but I may refuse to go. The offer may be denied.

But this offer by Jesus to the disciples is not denied. It is accepted. Though the disciples hesitate in the first story, and though we have to wait a week to learn their decision, when Thomas comes back he speaks for them all. You are my Lord, Thomas says. You are my Lord, I am your subject. The movement of the total story through the two different versions is the doing of the deal, the making of the agreement, and provisioning for its implementation.

Jesus does not leave the disciples without resources. He grants them three. First, he gives them peace. Peace be with you. A valuable gift considering their fear and wonder. Second, he gives them the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit. Receive the Holy Spirit, he says, and he breathes on them. And third, he gives them a power, or an authority. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. This is a huge power (and it even has a name: the power of the keys—and is one of the few given to clergy on their ordination), though the power as always rests with God. They also get a fourth gift, the foundation for the others: the evidence that Jesus lives and is here.

The story of God and humans in the whole Bible has a trajectory, a story arc, or a motive, or the thing that pulls it forward through all its books. That trajectory is toward peace and freedom. Against fear and bondage. Against anxiety and captivity. Against judgment and toward grace—which is another way to say it.

The resurrection stories are part of that arc. They coincide with that arc. The readings for today mention peace, but they are mostly about freedom. In the reading from Acts, we hear how Jesus is freed from the power of death. It is, it says, part of the plan. In the psalm, we hear how God frees us from the power of fear. In the Gospel reading, how God frees us from the power of unforgiven sins. Jesus himself is a statement by God: you are free from the power of evil.

The disciples are locked in or confined in a room of fear. The door is closed. But earlier in John (in a passage about the good shepherd) Jesus told them: I am the door. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. Jesus both is a door and opens the door.

For Thomas, and for John, belief is not an action, not something we have to strive for or work at or feel bad about not having enough of. Not about doubting and conviction. But instead, it is a consequence of action. Or as in this case, the consequence of accepting the commission Jesus offers. Being convinced, through whatever means and experiences, that Jesus has the authority to make the offer in the first place. As God has sent me so I send you, Jesus says. And then being willing, both because of and in spite of all we know about following Jesus—both the joys and the hardships—to accept the offer. To be freed. To be sent. To open the door and go out.

Here is what we do not know: almost everything

Text: Matthew 28:1-10

We are creatures of a moment. Our lives are small bits of encapsulated time. Seemingly bounded on both ends, mortals with beginnings and endings. Here is what we know for sure: we go from ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We say on Ash Wednesday: Remember that you are dust. And to dust you shall return. As if we needed reminding. We are assembled in the beginning from the ashes of long-dead stars. We are disassembled in the end to become the dusty raw ingredients of some other new life. Here is what we know for sure: birth, life, death. For all of us, it is the same. The same story.

Both ends oddly are times of both fear and joy. These two feelings filled the hearts of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Fear and great joy, it says in Matthew’s version of the Easter story. When a child is born, as when Mary the mother of Jesus looked on her son, as all parents look on their children, they wonder: will this child be all right? Will this child be happy? Be safe? Be loved and love in return? Will this child be fed in the spirit? What will this child’s life be? Parents filled with anticipation and apprehension in equal parts. With worrying-ahead and with great joy in equal parts.

And at the end of lives, though we who remain mourn our loss, those who go, go with fear and joy, though perhaps not in equal parts, some more one way than the other.

As parents and as mourners, here is what we do not know: what comes next? what will be?

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb where the body of Jesus had been placed on the day of the previous Sabbath. Where he had been placed, dead, his death having been clear to everyone and attested to by the soldiers who went out to make sure. The two women went to watch the tomb, in Matthew’s story, not to anoint the body—that is in another Gospel. But to keep a vigil, to keep watch. Here is what they knew: Jesus was dead. The story of Jesus was over, except in memory. The once-promising story was ended, the closing scene had closed, fade to black, the credits had rolled off the screen. Were the two women sad? Of course they were, though it does not say so. How could they not have been saddened by both losses: both the loss of this man they loved and also the loss of everything everyone thought he was to bring: victory for Israel, freedom for the captives, a new world order. Finally, so important to Matthew, a good king of the line of David.

It turns out that the foundation of what they knew was shaky. The earth shook as they were at the tomb. It was scary, as earthquakes are. And scarier still: an angel in a white outfit suddenly appeared. It was a messenger—that’s what the word “angel” means—with a message for the two of them. The angel saw they were frightened. Who would not be? Do not be afraid, was the first thing the messenger said. As if they could not be. As if that would comfort them. Or maybe the angel meant to say: there is no reason to be frightened of me. I am just a messenger. The angel knew that they were seeking Jesus. And the angel said that Jesus was not there. Three clearly apparent things—their fear, their mission, and the empty tomb—one of which was astonishing.

Where was Jesus? He is not here, the angel said. Why not? Perhaps there were possible, reasonable explanations: Perhaps someone spirited him away (as the guards later think in verses we did not read). Perhaps this was the wrong tomb (probably not). Perhaps Jesus had only appeared dead (though they knew otherwise).

None of those things is the reason, says the messenger. Here is the message: Jesus has been raised. That is the reason Jesus was not there. Here is the same message again: Jesus has been raised from the dead. Here is the same message in a different form: You will see him soon, here, on this earth. As they did.

If you have come to Matthew’s Gospel looking for an explanation of what happened on Easter morning, you have come to the wrong place. There is no explanation. Matthew is big on history and genealogy, but not big on theology. Matthew’s is not like the Gospel of John. There is no theology here.

You may find that this text implies all sorts of things—in fact, people have been finding those things since the first century—but in this Gospel itself there are no implications drawn. There are only statements of fact. From this Gospel passage, here is all we know: the tomb was empty, Jesus was raised from the dead, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary saw him, Jesus spoke to them; and right after that the other disciples saw him, too, and he spoke to them. Aside from this, there is no help in Matthew for understanding Easter.

What did Jesus say to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary? He said “Hey, great to see you.” That’s really what the text says in Greek, which is translated in our Bible as “Greetings!” And he told them not to be afraid. What did Jesus say to the other eleven disciples? He gave them a command: go and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Which we here, 2000 years later, are about to do. And he told them to teach others all that they had seen and heard.

Most of the Gospel of Matthew is full of prophecy and prediction and foreshadowing, as we have talked about these past Sundays. But in the end, at the end, the message is this: keep your eyes and ears open, let Jesus greet you, tell everyone about it. Without elaboration or explanation. And tell them to do the same.

We are creatures of a moment. Here is what we do not know: almost everything. The story rarely turns out the way we think it will. The story is rarely over when we think it is. The boundaries are rarely as established as we think they are.

The Gospel of Matthew ends as Jesus meets with the disciples. But their experience of Jesus did not end there. The discovery of the empty tomb, the risen Christ, the appearance of Jesus gave energy and courage to the followers of Jesus to do as he ordered, telling the story over and over again. As we still do. Something happened—and continues to happen—with Jesus to transform people and shape their lives.

If we—like Mary Magdalene and Mary and the other disciples—if we follow Jesus, here’s one thing we know for sure: we will be surprised.

Great Expectations

Text: Matthew 21:1-11

Other texts: Passion according to Matthew

The sermon traditionally follows a reading from one of the four Gospels. That is because the preacher is supposed to take that his or her starting place. Even when the sermon talks about another of the readings, it is supposed to be influenced by the themes of the Gospel reading. But what are we to make of a day, like today, when there are two Gospel readings?

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

Today is a strange day. It is like two Sundays folded into one. In fact, this Sunday has two names. One Sunday is Palm Sunday. We are in that Sunday now. In that Sunday, we re-enact a joyful march into Jerusalem. The people sing hosannas. They cry out that Jesus is a king and prophet and the fulfillment of prophecy and one who comes in God’s name. The disciples serve him.

The other Sunday is Passion Sunday. We will step into that Sunday in a moment. In fact, we are on the cusp between the two Sundays right this minute. In that Sunday, we hear the drama of the Passion of Christ. The people cry out for his execution by means of crucifixion and mock and torture him, and they call him a blasphemer. His disciples betray him and abandon him.

Why are these two Sundays mashed together like this? One reason is that the church at large decided a few decades ago that since people didn’t pay much attention to Holy Week anymore, they were missing the Passion story, which is what Holy Week is all about. They would hear about the triumph of the palm parade on Sunday. Then the next Sunday, being Easter, they would hear about the resurrection of Christ. But, they would miss everything in between, including the crucifixion, without which Easter does not make much sense. So the church affixed the crucifixion story to the palm story.

Another reason is that it seems like the two stories are actually related. The march into Jerusalem is, in Matthew’s Gospel, the beginning of the march of Jesus to his death. This, especially in Matthew but in all the Gospels, is Jesus’ destiny. By butting the two stories up against one another, we at least see that destiny unfold. What we don’t see is what goes on in the unfolding. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

But the reason I like best is that by placing the two stories side by side, we are forced to see how desperately people wanted to know, as the story we just heard asked: “Who is this?” Is this the king who will drive out the Romans from Israel? Or is this a criminal, seditious, blasphemous? Is this the world’s savior and liberator? Or is this a man who cannot save himself? Is this the man who speaks for God? Or is this a man who will not even speak for himself?

Matthew’s is a gospel of high expectations. Matthew’s agenda is not to prove Jesus was divine or a healer or a prophet to all peoples, some goals of the other Gospels. Matthew wants to show that Jesus has come to fulfill the promises God made to Israel in scripture. All the Gospels do the same, but Matthew does it more.

So today he quotes Isaiah, and the Psalms, and the prophets. When Jesus comes riding into the city, Matthew says he rides on both a donkey and a colt, which is a literal reading of Zechariah, who wrote: “See, your king comes to you, … gentle and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Yet the prophet was almost certainly writing Hebrew poetry, which uses repetition, not rhyme, for structure. Zechariah probably did not intend the king to straddle two animals at once. That is silly, something Luke and Mark seem to understand better than Matthew.

The people who line the road to Jerusalem expect that Jesus is the king who is to come to free Israel—that is, redeem it—from the occupying Romans and their toadies. The people sing that he is a descendant—son of—David, the greatest of Israel’s kings. He is the one who will restore peace, freedom, and justice—by restoring the nation to its rightful people and power. When we march down the aisles waving branches, we are acting as liberated rebels, welcoming our rebel leader. Singing hosanna! The word means literally “save, please.”

Yet, as we are soon to learn, it comes to nothing. Jesus is captured, tried, executed. The rebellion fizzles out. Jesus does not free Israel, and Rome remains powerful. With the same conviction as we re-enact the joy of Palm Sunday, we have to imagine the disappointment, the despair, of the people on Passion Sunday. This despair, though, does not have its roots in Jesus, but in us. Jesus did not promise to free Israel. We, standing by the roadside with our palms, just expected he would.

Expectation is cruel. It is bound to lead to disappointment. That is because expectations are fantasies of the future that are either met or they are not. If you expect the Red Sox to win the World Series—they either will or they won’t. You take no comfort in a near miss. If does no good to say “They didn’t win the World Series but they did well.” Not if you expected them to win. While I admit the Red Sox are important, if you find unmet expectation in, say, your job or in your relationship, it is much worse.

Since the first Palm Sunday, people have expected things of Jesus. For some, Jesus is not much more than a bundle of things expected. For many, Jesus bears all our longings: for comfort, or safety, or companionship, or liberation, or even victory in battle. For healing, and for justice. Since the time of the original Passion Sunday, people’s expectations have been unmet. I’m not saying that Jesus does not provide and effect much; I’m saying that our expectations of him often say more about us than about Jesus.

Apostle Paul writes that the death of Jesus on the cross was a scandal. Not only horrible, as it was for the many others of his time who were crucified, but inconceivable. Against all expectations and therefore a barrier—a stumbling block, he says—to those who might otherwise follow him. We put attributes and expectations on God, and then reject God when God does not conform to or meet them. Secularists sometimes do this when they argue against religion, but Christians do it too.

Holy Week is an intense time for Christians. A lot of story is crammed into a little space—like two Sundays into one. But it also can be a time to take a closer look at Jesus. Jesus did not go straight from Palm Sunday to Easter, but he did not go straight from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, either. While in Jerusalem, he said a lot of things and did a lot of things that made many people curious, apprehensive, or angry. The powers of the nation did not crucify Jesus because he was a nice guy. They feared and distrusted him and the transformation of the world that he preached about.

For this reason, I encourage you to read the parts of Matthew that we skip over today. That would be from chapter 21 verse 12 through chapter 26 verse 14. At the same time, I’ll be posting a short reflection about some of these stories each day this week, starting tomorrow, on Faith’s site. You can find out more in the bulletin.

The Palm and Passion stories together constitute a story of unmet expectation, but they say nothing about hope. Expectation and hope are two different things altogether. Expectations of others can mislead us, but our hopes are true because they are ours. We can hope for a World Series win in 2011 in spite of all the current evidence. Hope is not wishful thinking, it is deep longing. Expectations are tested, hopes are lived out.

The story of Jesus did not end with the Crucifixion. It did not end with the Resurrection. Or even with the Ascension a few weeks later. Whenever you expect the story of Jesus to be over, it turns out differently. It lived on in the apostles, in the early followers of Christ, and 2000 years later, lives in us. Sustained, as always, by hope for renewed life and a world transformed.

Is God With Us or Not?

Text: Exodus 17:1-7, John 4:5-42

Their fear obliterated their memory and it erased their gratitude. Without water in the desert, they forgot that God had freed them from slavery, had defeated their foes, and had fed them as they searched for the land to which God had sent them. Now, thirsty, impatient, and terrified, they complained to Moses: where is God? Is God among us—or not?

Fear drives out the memory of God’s good acts and intentions. But we cannot escape being afraid. We have had times in our own deserts, parched, exhausted, lost. We will have them again. That’s why we tell ourselves the story of God and us over and over again. That’s why the God of Israel is named “God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Why Jesus is named in the opening worship prayer as “Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

It is why we hear these stories Sunday after Sunday for our whole lives. It is why we read the Bible, the story not only of God or only of a people, but of God and us, God’s people, together. It is why the Baptism rite that we will soon celebrate starts by recounting God’s creation, God’s deeds, God’s redemption of Israel, and the baptism, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And it is why we relate the story before we share Holy Communion.

Wandering in the desert, the people demand water from Moses. It is not an unreasonable demand, for without water they will all die. And they complain about his leadership. Has he sold them a bill of goods? Has he brought them here only to kill them, and all they have, and even their children? Moses has promised them freedom and prosperity, but so far the freedom has been the freedom to suffer and the prosperity a mirage. Yet Moses speaks for God in this book, and Moses can see as well as we can that it is God’s promise that they now doubt. Where was God?

Is God among us—or not? It is the mark of the Israelites’ despair that they wondered not only whether God was no longer with them, but—with that last little addition: “or not”—whether God had ever been with them. Have they erred in interpreting all of history? Perhaps, after all, God is uninterested in humans. Perhaps, against all the teachings of their faith, God had turned away from them. And they were alone.

It is a tragic moment. And though quickly turned about when God through Moses brings water flowing from a rock and they all drink, the terror of the moment remains in the minds of the wanderers and the tellers of this story. For Israelites are God’s people and God is their God. There is no story of Israel that does not include God. And the deepest sadness of Israel has been—as it is in this story—to think that God—whose existence is never the question—that God has abandoned them.

Centuries later, Jesus walks to the well in Samaria. It is the heat of the day, and he too is thirsty. The fate of Israel is uncertain in these times, divided within itself and occupied by the Romans. It has been a long and at times a dreary story that has unfolded from the time Moses struck that rock in the desert. There have been ups and downs, and now is one of the downs. The years have not been good to Israel. Things have not worked out well, Israel has been torn apart, exiled, resettled, corrupted, and conquered. The Temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed once and, by the time John wrote this Gospel, destroyed again. Is God among us—or not?

This is John’s question in his Gospel, and the woman’s question, too. Once she decides Jesus is a prophet, and maybe more than a prophet, the first thing she asks is a question about God’s presence. I see you are a prophet, she says. So: where is God? Is God up on that mountain—where the Samaritans worship—or is God in that city of Jerusalem—where the Jews worship? None of the above, Jesus tells her. He tells her: God is here, right in front of you. We are longing for the messiah, she says. Jesus says to her: “It’s me!” The one standing here with you.

Jesus in John, more than in the other three Gospels, is God among us. Jesus is here, in this world, staying here. In John, Jesus resides, stays, remains—the same word used over and over. Where are you staying, the first disciples ask him. Come and see. Come and see, the Samaritan woman tells her friends. And Jesus stays with them awhile. And they come to believe him.

For all his divinity—emphasized in John—still, Jesus in this Gospel is committed to this world, and the salvation that Jesus brings is one that affects this world now, at the moment. In John, more so than in the other Gospels, Jesus has affection for the world. He makes wine from water. He cries for his friend Lazarus. He prays emphatically for the well-being of his friends, the disciples. After his death and resurrection, he hangs around with them, and in the end they all share breakfast.

For John, there is no faith if God is not among us. Our faith and trust in God develop over time in relationship, just as they do between people. How can we believe in and trust a being whom we do not know? And how can we know a being who is not here with us? The story of faith is first: presence; then second: experience; and at last, third: belief.

The church is a steward of God’s presence. That is, through common action, and through repetition and rite and testimony we remind each other that God is among us—yes. Even in the face of inevitable fear and doubt. So it is that in the ceremony we are all about to take part in, we promise to “join with others in worshipping God.” All together members of the body of Christ.

We cannot remain free of desert times, but our fear need not destroy our memory of God, who is here, in this body, among us.

Tempted to be Perfect

Text: Genesis 3:1-7

It is tempting to read this passage in Matthew as a call to us to be perfect.

We are all tempted by one thing or another, we think, and in this Gospel story Jesus is tempted by the same things. One view is that we all need food, we all need safety, and we all need to have some control over our lives. So those are the things with which the tempter tests Jesus. A darker view of the temptations is that represent our desire to magically force the world to our will, to be the center of something spectacular, and to have power over all who would thwart us.

Either way, in the story Jesus is tempted as we are, by the things we are. But the difference between us and Jesus is that we succumb to temptations and Jesus does not. We are human, after all, and sin. But Jesus, who is supposed to be a model for us, is perfect. We, if you buy this interpretation, are supposed to be perfect, too. But I don’t buy it, and I don’t think Jesus would, either.

Perfection is a tricky sort of thing.

When a couple gives birth to new baby, or adopts one, you hear the parents say, “He’s just perfect,” “she’s just perfect.” The couple’s friends see a wonderful child, but sometimes a little bald or a little flushed or whatever—signs of humanity—wonderful but not perhaps perfect. It may be that the eyes of the new parents are blinded. It may be that they see perfection where the rest of us see only really-good.

It may be that parents see more poorly than others. Or maybe instead they see better. And that perfection is what they see. Their child, though as flawed as humanity can be, is perfect.

When God created the heavens and the earth—in Genesis, before the Garden episode we just heard about—when God created each day, at the end of the day God pronounced it good. God said in Hebrew: It is Tov. Which means a little more than good. It means good like everything is working fine and all the parts seem to fit the way they are supposed to. It means perfect, like when you finish a project and you’re pretty happy about it and you say, “perfect.” God made the world, and God said, “perfect. It’s just perfect.” Perfect for what it is, like a perfect new child is perfect—just so, creation was perfect.

The actions of the man and the woman did not undo that. A child grows and the parents still look and see a perfect child. Even though as people grow up they do things that are messed up, they are no less children of their parents, who see them as at the same time both flawed and perfect. Does God see creation with eyes any less loving?

The story of the events in the garden is a story written from our point of view. The point of view of humanity now. How in the world did we get to this state of affairs? In a sense, the garden story is a story of growing up. And like all good growing up stories, the key moment is the discovery of evil. The story doesn’t so much explain things as name them. We humans feel the force of evil. Something that is greater than our own individual inclinations to be bad. Something more cosmic than that.

The story is a story of discovery. An unfortunate discovery, for sure. The man and woman eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Not just the tree of knowledge: this is not about wisdom. And not the tree of evil. The tree is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What the man and woman know now that they didn’t before is that evil exists, that is causes harm and hurt, and that it is different from good. And different from God. And they discover that humans are somehow caught in the interaction.

What changes is what they know, not what they are or who they are. Which is mortal children of God. This story is not the story of the beginning of sin. We do not learn from this story that sin is brought into the world by the actions of the woman and man, in spite of what the Apostle Paul argues. All we do know is that the are both tempted by a serpent, which most of us, correctly I think, make out to be the devil, the evil one. And that they succumb. They are changed. But they are no more changed in type or nature than we are as children or as our children are.

We often think of sin as some kind of unfortunate add-on. An ugly and burdensome accessory. Or like a few extra pounds that we carry. Something we can get rid of as easily as we can rid ourselves of extra weight by dieting: something difficult but possible. We sometimes look at the saints (or sainted people we know) as we look at the “after” models in diet ads. People who have amazingly prevailed.

But sin is not shed by spiritual diets. That’s what Luther found when he decided that all his good works (all his diet-like discipline) weren’t helping him. Sin is of us. That does not mean we are bad. Only that we are creatures. We sin.

God loves us for what we are. I’m sure you have heard that before. But this does not mean that God loves us in spite of our sins. Not that God loves our clean souls that happen to be covered in mud at the moment. God loves us in our sins, not in spite of them. God loves us because we are still perfect, each still God’s child.

We love one another for our vulnerabilities, not in spite of them. That’s why, I suspect, people love you. People love you for your vulnerabilities. Not because you are so great, but because you are great and also you are not always so great. God loves us because we are great and not so great.

The story in Matthew is not about us being perfect. It is not about us at all. It is about Jesus, who he is, his identity, and the life that he is about to enter. It is a temptation story, but the temptation that he faces in the desert and in his life is not the temptation to be perfect. Which is not a problem for Jesus. Jesus feels in the desert the strong urges that all people feel. Eating when hungry, worrying about being safe, trying to keep things under control. Jesus feels, in this beginning of his ministry, what it is to be human.

And the temptation of Jesus is to give in to his desire to be human. To be like an ordinary human. To be only so brave and not braver. To live a long and happy life in the company of his best friends. To avoid his mission and destiny. To avoid the inevitable suffering and the cross ahead.

When Jesus dismisses the tempter: Away with you, Satan!—he uses the same words he uses later to dismiss Peter. Get behind me, Satan! Peter offers what the tempter offers. Human living. Peter and the tempter hold out to Jesus what only he cannot have: a mortal and flawed life just like ours. Jesus, like earthly leaders, only more so, is alone.

The desire to be perfect is Satan’s call. He tempts Jesus and us with the prospect of ignoring, escaping, or dismissing the world. His call appears in many voices of the world suggesting that we can be perfect. They are, as we say in baptism, the devil’s empty promises. They call to us. But God’s voice is not one of them.

Ups and Downs

Text: Matthew 17:1-9 (Transfiguration)

Life has its ups and downs.

On the upside is upbeat. Things are looking up. It’s uplifting because we’re flying high. Up is where the penthouses are and the desks of the big-shots. Upgraded.

And up is where the heavens are. Up is where Jesus went when he ascended, and Elijah went up, too. Jesus rose from the dead and now Jesus is up there, sitting at the right hand of the father. Up on the mountain is where Moses went to get the law. And up on the mountain is where Jesus went with a couple of his disciples to meet with Moses and Elijah. Up is where the word of God came from: up is where God spoke from the cloud and up is where the Spirit came from like a dove. Up is the direction in which we lift our hearts in thanksgiving and hands and voices in praise. Up is where God lives.

On the downside is downtrodden. In the dumps. Where we hit bottom before we turn up again. Down is a downer. Down is where the mailroom is and the basement apartments. Down is the dark underground. Down is where we get down to work and down and dirty.

And down is the place of death. Down is where Jesus went after being crucified. It is where he went when, as we say in the creed, he descended into hell. Down is where the story goes after the mountaintop. Back down to the world of flesh and suffering and joyful desire. Down is where Moses came to find his people worshipping a golden calf idol. Down is where Jesus came to walk to his death. Down is where we live.

Matthew, the Gospel writer, is interested in high places and highfalutin ideas. In Matthew, Jesus’ great sermon is made from a mountain—known therefore as the sermon on the mount. In contrast, in Luke’s version, Jesus preaches down on the plain. In Luke, the ones who are blessed are poor and the hungry. In Matthew, they are poor in spirit and hunger for righteousness. In Luke and in Mark, the followers of Jesus call him master or rabbi, meaning teacher. In Matthew, they call Jesus Lord.

Is Jesus an up kind of person or a down kind of one? Is he mostly a divine creature who lives in the clouds, one who even in his lifetime hung around with the likes of a timeless Moses and Elijah? Or is he mostly immanuel, God with us, down here in an earthly and earthy way? Which is primary?

The dogmatic answer to this is that Jesus is 100% divine and 100% human; that is what we teach. But the dogma is a knife edge from which people—who are not easy with mysterious paradox—tend to fall to one side or the other. As even the early writings—the Gospels—demonstrate.

The centuries have not settled the issue. Five hundred years ago Martin Luther and his contemporaries were arguing about where Jesus was now that he had ascended to the right hand of God. The context was a debate about whether or not Jesus was in the bread that we eat in Holy Communion. There were those who said that if Jesus was sitting next to God, then he was up in heaven and could not be down here on earth, in the bread. But Luther said, first, that Jesus could be anywhere he felt like, as often as he felt like it, even if it meant two places at once. But more, Luther had a very down to earth view of Jesus. Jesus was a friend of the earth, of us, poor earthy creatures, and was glad to continue to be with us down here, in whatever form.

This up and down business about Jesus and God is not inevitable. That is, the position of God and us does not have to be along a vertical axis, God high and we low. This notion is not something that is in the nature of things human and divine. It is just the way our imaginations picture it. The home of God could just have easily been off to the unreachable left or right. At the end of the earth, for example, beyond the edge of the sea, as gods sit in some other faiths. Or in a secret cave. Or in the middle of the earth, or an emerald city, or in an alternate reality.

What we think about God is that God is hard to reach in normal life by normal methods of travel. God is separate. Up in the heavens is a good spot because we cannot travel up by our own means. We cannot fly. Gravity pulls us down again. When we try to fly, as Icarus did, we are destined to fail, as Icarus did, a sign of hubris, thinking himself to be above the life of mortals. We cannot fly to heaven on our own.

You may wonder why today’s Gospel story—called the Transfiguration—should merit a Sunday of its own. In the three-year cycle of readings, it appears every year, along with only a handful of other special days like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost. Every other story has to wait three years before it returns. The Transfiguration does appear in each of the three first Gospels, which means that in the earliest Christian tradition the story was considered important and widespread.

The story doesn’t really add much to our or the disciple’s knowledge of Jesus. They already have decided and declared that he is the Son of God. It does not provide decisive new evidence. It does not advance the plot. Jesus has already established that he comes from the spiritual line of the Moses (the law) and Elijah (the prophets). At best, it confirms Jesus’ provenance, his pedigree, his class of people. So maybe evidence is not the purpose or the point.

People find the transfiguration story to be disturbing and confusing. That is because it seems magical and mystical. It has ghosts in it, and clouds, and bright lights, and voices from God that speak directly to some humans. And Jesus seems comfortable with that. It’s the disciples who are freaked out.

It is not that Jesus does something extraordinary. In all the Gospels he has already presided over some major miracles, healing people, feeding multitudes, raising people from the dead. The transfiguration is not more miraculous.

But it is less earthy. This is not a man of the people doing things with divine assist. What happens is way beyond people-things. It makes Jesus, who seemed to be down here, up there. That’s one reason that Peter wants to build those booths: he wants this experience to be made more mundane, daily, attached. And in the end, Jesus does come back down here. Not only is it not his time to stay on the mountain, as some argue, it is not his job.

The story of the transfiguration says: there are parts of Jesus that are not human, in a major way. We cannot elide this or ignore it. The story of the transfiguration is put right smack in the middle of the Gospels, up on a mountain. It is in the way. We cannot get from the ministry of Jesus to his passion without going through the transfiguration.

There are many who see Jesus in daily things. Luther did, and likewise Lutherans do by tradition and teaching. Jesus is earthy, a person of the earth, as we are. People discover Jesus in events of their lives, in compassion, in stories, in teachings.

But many discover Jesus in a moment that cannot be explained easily, not connected to daily events. Mysterious moments. Those discoveries are powerful. They can support one’s faith life for a long time. Sometimes, when things get rough and dubious, the memory of that moment is all that keeps one faithful and true. It can be all that one has to keep one trying to know God and to praise and thank God. It can sustain us when the life of this earth is too hard, or vicious, or disappointing, or crazy.

We are creatures of the earth, down here. But we need the food of the heavens, up there. We made in God’s image are persons, as Jesus was, of divine and mortal ancestry. Mystery is as essential to us as pragmatism.

We, like the disciples, abide in two worlds. After hearing the voice in the cloud, the disciples fall down in fear. But Jesus touches them. Rise up, he says. And then he says, come back down with me.