Living Hope

April 16, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / 1 Comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Living Hope” 1 Peter 1:3-9

On Monday of this past week, President Biden signed a bill putting an end to our National State of Emergency in response to COVID-19. The US Department of Health and Human Services had already determined that their pandemic public health emergency would end in just a few weeks on May 11. Restrictions are easing. Perhaps you didn’t need your mask this week at the hospital. My doctor’s office sent me a letter stating that before I have a colonoscopy in August, I won’t need to take a COVID test. As we emerge from the shadow of the pandemic, we are learning that these past three years have not only been hard on our health, with more than 104 million reported cases of COVID-19, they have also been hard on our hope.

We all need hope. It’s the expectation that we’ll have positive experiences or the confidence that a threatening or negative situation won’t materialize, or if it does, it will ultimately resolve in a good way. When we are hopeful, we believe that our future is going to be better than our present. Hope is tied to optimism and a can-do attitude. It serves as a buffer against negative stressful experiences. Hope motivates us to get out of bed in the morning, feel good about what is next, and plan for the future. Christian hope trusts that we belong to God in life and in death.

Researchers have found that the COVID-19 pandemic put a dent in our American hope. It’s true for all ages. 37% of High School students experienced poor mental health during the pandemic. 44.2% say that they experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. A whopping 20% considered suicide. School closures, distanced learning, social isolation, family stress, and fear of illness for themselves or others were contributing factors to those scary numbers.

The pandemic rattled the hope of folks in the workforce, too, whether they were laid off, working from home, or standing on the frontlines of the epidemic. Nurses, for example, saw a 29% increase in feelings of hopelessness, thanks to those high-stress, long hours in crisis. Grocery store workers, first responders, and even clergy have all voiced feelings of hopelessness and despair. We may be emerging from the pandemic, but many are experiencing burn-out or have left their jobs.

Even retirees are feeling less hopeful these days. Research has determined that depression levels among older adults have worsened considerably. Fear of disease, uncertainty about the future, and social distancing are contributing factors. For most seniors, social contacts, like family and friends, community centers, churches, and part-time jobs, are away from home, and when those social lifelines got stretched or cut, their hope suffered. Just ask our friends at Will Rogers who have just experienced another wave of COVID and the consequent lockdown. How is your hope this morning?

Our reading from Peter’s first epistle suggests that those exiles in the Diaspora were short on hope. The Apostle was writing from Rome to Christians in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). These were former-Jews and Gentiles, who trusted in Jesus as their Messiah. Their belief had brought suffering. The synagogues had thrown them out with charges of blasphemy. They were alienated from family and friends who would not accept their faith. They were viewed with increasing suspicion by their neighbors, who spread rumors that they drank blood and ate flesh, like first-century vampires. As time passed, Christians attracted the scrutiny of the empire. Local officials were troubled by news of people who reverenced a man executed as an enemy of Rome, and they really didn’t like the Christian refusal to worship Caesar at the imperial shrine. That official scrutiny would eventually explode into persecution. It must have been hard to keep the faith in a world that wanted to change you back, shut you up, and strike you down.

The Apostle Peter had known feelings of hopelessness. He had been the first to see that Jesus was the Messiah, yet an unholy alliance of Temple and empire had dashed those dreams. On Good Friday, Jesus had been publicly, brutally executed. What may have felt just as bad for Peter were his personal failings. Peter had slept when Jesus asked him to wait and pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. When the soldiers came, Peter had taken up the sword, even though Jesus had called for peace. Then, before the cock had crowed twice, Peter had denied Jesus three times. On the first Easter morning, before the women returned from the tomb with their startling news, Peter had been about as hopeless as a man can get. All that changed on Easter evening. There in the Upper Room, behind their locked doors, Jesus had appeared—living, breathing, eating, reaching out. Jesus had given the disciples the gift of hope. Jesus breathed new life into friends who had felt as good as dead.

Today’s verses allow us to listen in as Peter wraps language around what he named “living hope.” He believed that the resurrection allowed Christians to hope, even in times of suffering. We could trust that God would have the last word. Jesus had risen. Christ had won the victory over sin and death! Because we have faith in Jesus, we can trust that God is at work for good in our world and that good will reign triumphant in the world that is to come. That’s right—we have a precious inheritance, imperishable, uncorrupted, unfading, kept in heaven for us. Peter believed that we are called to a living hope. The hope we find in Jesus has legs. Living hope shapes our lives and empowers us to support the lives of those around us. That living hope inspired Peter to preach powerfully, heal the sick, pray with strangers, plant churches, and pick up the pen to write to exiles in the Diaspora who were desperately in need of hope.

Peter knew the importance of hope, an importance that we are still learning to better understand today. Researchers at Harvard University have determined that we reap big benefits when we have high hope. We have more positive emotions. We have a stronger sense of purpose and meaning. We have lower levels of depression. We report less loneliness. We even have better physical health and reduced risk of mortality. That’s right: we have fewer chronic illnesses and lower risk of cancer. We also have fewer sleep problems and stronger relationships. I like to think that when those exiles read and re-read Peter’s words, their hope rose from the embers of isolation and fear. Their hope was fanned into flames that would bring strength and encouragement to face head-on the very real challenges they knew.

The COVID-19 state of emergency is coming to an end, my friends, but those widespread side-effects of loneliness, depression, and hopelessness may be with folks we know for the foreseeable future. We all know people who are suffering lasting effects of the pandemic. They are permanently fearful and unable to relaunch social contacts. They labor joylessly in jobs that no longer feel fulfilling. Their good grades have taken a tumble. They feel lonely or depressed. They are plagued by the fuzzy thinking, fatigue, pain, and shortness of breath of long-COVID. They are our family members, friends, and neighbors.

Peter reminds us this morning that we are called to be the living hope in this post-pandemic world. The hope that we have found in Jesus needs legs. The hope that comes with the resurrection must find expression. When we go forth in hope, we make a difference. Those same researchers who have documented the benefits of hope have also found that hope needs social support. Said simply, to be hopeful, we need hopeful people around us. We need people who show up, share their optimism, speak words of encouragement, and demonstrate their caring. This world needs people like us, who have a living hope.

Churches like this one—small, vital, active, engaged, loving—are hope factories. Indeed, if we are looking for hope, we have come to the right place. When we gather on Sunday mornings, we get inspired by the Word. We feast on the fellowship. We remember that God loves us enough to die for us. We know that we have a friend in Jesus. We feel connected and blessed in the shared prayers, the holy fist-bumps, and the swapping of news. We feel that we are welcomed and cared about. We find the courage and the fresh perspective to go out and face the week in a world that for three years felt long on the state of emergency and short on hope.

Perhaps, like Peter, we can resolve to make a difference this week. We could wear our hope on our sleeves. We can take up the pen or pick up the phone or simply reach out to those who need what we have to give in abundance. We could even invite them to church, welcoming them into this hopeful community that rests in the love of God, revealed to us long ago in Jesus Christ. This world may be plagued by those lasting effects of the pandemic, but we have the antidote. May we go forth to be the living hope.

Resources:

Richard Jensen. “Commentary on 1 Peter 1:3-9” in Preaching This Week, March 30, 2008. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Daniel Deffenbaugh. “Commentary on 1 Peter 1:3-9” in Preaching This Week, May 1, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Judith Jones. “Commentary on 1 Peter 1:3-9” in Preaching This Week, April 23, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Camille Preston. “The Psychology of Hope” in Psychology Today, October 24, 2021. Accessed online at psychologytoday.com.

Traci Pedersen. “Why Is Hope So Important?” in PsychCentral, September 26, 2022.

Sherry Everett Jones, et al. “Mental Health, Suicidality, and Connectedness Among HS Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic” US Dept. of Health and Human Services/CDC, April 1, 2022. MMWR, vo. 71, No. 3.

1 Peter 1:3-9

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, 7 so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Although you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

“Ahead of Us”

April 9, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbah Day Thoughts — Matthew 28:1-10 “Ahead of Us”

Lupe Gonzalo rises at four or five in the morning. She piles into the back of a truck with other farmworkers and is driven to Florida fields in need of harvest. There, she is given a bucket and told to fill it with tomatoes or strawberries or beans as many times as she can during the course of a long day of backbreaking labor. Some days, there are no bathroom breaks, no lunchbreaks, no water breaks. “That’s your job,” Lupe says, “That’s what you’re there to do.” For women, like Lupe, the work carries worse problems than hunger and thirst. Sexual harassment and sexual violence are common—and speaking out about your experience can cost you your job. It feels hopeless.

Manuel Nazario and his people the Weenhayek have fished for a living for longer than anyone can remember. They ply the banks of the Pilcomayo River that rises in the foothills of the Andes in rural Bolivia. They wade in the water and cast nets, just as their ancestors did before them. But these days when he casts his net, Manuel worries. Climate change, irregular rainfall, drought, and runoff from mining operations in the mountains have troubled the waters. His catch is far less plentiful than it once was, and it only seems to be getting worse. He wonders how he will feed the twenty-seven residents of his village, who depend on him for leadership. He feels powerless.

Smitha Krishnan a Dalit—an untouchable—woman, was accustomed to a life lived on the margins of Indian society. As part of the lowest social class, she was unable to draw water from the common well, prevented from attending school, and forbidden from entering temples. Then her husband died, just before the last tsunami. Then, when the storm came, her thatch and mud house, with everything in it, was swept away, including the sewing machine that she used to earn a living as a seamstress. Widowed and homeless with five children to care for, Smitha despairs.

As Mary Magdalene and the other Mary walked to the tomb in the darkness before dawn, they knew how it feels to be hopeless, powerless, and filled with despair. They had accompanied Jesus to Jerusalem for the Passover. Earlier that week, their beloved friend had been welcomed like a conquering hero, with the singing of psalms, waving of palms, and the spreading of cloaks along the way. But with each passing day, tension had mounted. Powerful enemies had emerged among the Pharisees, scribes, and priests. They challenged Jesus’ authority and feared his charismatic appeal to the people. Betrayal had come from within their ranks, as a trusted friend traded his loyalty for thirty pieces of silver. In a trial orchestrated under the cover of darkness, Jesus had been falsely accused, condemned, and turned over to the Romans for execution. At the judgment hall of Pilate, the same crowd that had welcomed Jesus rejected him, shouting for his blood.

On Friday, the Marys watched as the one they had hoped would redeem Israel was beaten, scourged, spat upon, mocked, and marched through the city streets to his brutal death, flanked by criminals. The women knew all about hopelessness, powerlessness, and despair. Even so, on Sunday morning, before the sun had risen in the east, they found the courage to offer a final kindness. In Matthew’s telling of this story, there are no anointing oils or burial spices. Just two women, vulnerable and alone, who came to the grave to hold vigil, to weep and lift their voices in the wailing cry of grief.

We know how it feels to be hopeless, powerless, and despairing. Those feelings find us when we stand at the grave of our beloved. They leave us weeping over unforgiving hearts and broken relationships. They find us as we contend with mental illness. They trouble us as inflation surges and we worry about money. They keep us up at night when we ponder the future of our warming planet, and they rob us of peace as we read of the seemingly unending cycle of gun violence. Some days, it feels like the pain and suffering, the cruelty and greed of our world are more than a match for us. Some days, we feel like the two Marys. Some days, we feel like Lupe Gonzalo, Manuel Nazario, and Smitha Krishnan.

At the tomb, the two Mary learned that hopelessness, powerlessness, and despair are no match for God. The earth shook, the stone rolled away, the guards fainted, and an angel, flashing like lightning in the half-light of dawn, told them a mystery. God’s love had won the victory over sin and death. Jesus lived, and even now he was going on ahead of them to Galilee. There was work to do—good news to share. Then, like a big exclamation point on the angel’s astounding words, there was Jesus! He filled them with joy, quelled their fear, and sent them forth as the first apostles with the assurance that he would be with them, just a step ahead, waiting for them in a world where death no longer had the last word.

Matthew likes to remind us that Jesus is with us. In Matthew’s gospel a holy messenger warms the cold feet of the reluctant Joseph by telling him that Mary’s baby will be Emmanuel, God with us. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus assured his friends that wherever even two of them gathered in his name, he would be there. In the last parable that Matthew recorded, the Lord told his friends that wherever they encountered people who were hungry or thirsty, sick or in need or imprisoned, he would be there, too. Jesus lives, at our side, in our midst, a step ahead.

As the women ran with fear and joy through the streets of the waking city with news that would forever change the world, they trusted that Jesus was with them. If they had any doubts, if their hopelessness or powerlessness or despair threatened their mission, those feelings were swept aside in the Galilee when Jesus met them and sent them forth to the ends of the earth with good news and great love. Jesus lives. He’s always a step ahead of us. It’s a message that we need now more than ever, as we weep at the grave of untimely death, and lament the brokenness of our relationships, and mourn the future lost to mental illness, and despair over a warming planet and the ubiquitous news of guns in our schools. Yes, there is hopelessness and powerlessness and despair in this world, but there is also Jesus. He walks with us still and calls us to be good news in a world bowed down by the powers of sin and death.

One of the enduring ways that this congregation has followed Jesus amid the world’s hurt and pain is through One Great Hour of Sharing. Whether you saved your change in a fish bank throughout Lent, or you chose to use those offering envelopes, your contributions have brought good news to neighbors in this country and around the world who struggle with those familiar feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, and despair.

Your offerings allowed Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to work with local partners on the ground in India to help Smitha Krishnan. With our help, Smitha found shelter, a sewing machine, and other essentials. She now lives with her children in a permanent, disaster-resistant home. Smitha says, “Because of gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing, I am able to feed and clothe [my children], and when they get sick, I am able to take care of their medication, too.”

One Great Hour of Sharing also helped Manuel Nazario, that indigenous fisherman in Bolivia. Through a generous grant from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Manuel’s people are learning new ways to thrive, despite climate change and environmental degradation. Working with local partners, the Weenhayek people are developing irrigation systems and collecting rainwater. They have seeds and gardening tools. They are learning to grow fruits and vegetables organically and sustainably. With a diversified diet and enough to eat, they no longer depend on the traditional practice of casting their nets to ensure their future.

One Great Hour of Sharing has helped Lupe Gonzalo, too. The Presbyterian Hunger Program partners with farmworkers to ensure that those who bring food to our tables do not go hungry or work in inhumane circumstances. We support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a human-rights organization that works to bring safety and justice to the fields where our food is grown. Lupe appreciates our generosity. She says, “For us farmworkers, the support from Presbyterians across the country has meant the world to us . . . we don’t feel like we’re alone . . . we’re walking together.”

On Easter morning, Jesus, continues to go on ahead of us, my friends, sending us forth to be bearers of good news. He’s out there still. And when we rise to respond to his calling, there is something Christ-like in us, something that no grave can ever contain. Jesus awaits. Let’s go forth to make this world a little less hopeless, powerless, and filled with despair.

Resources

Greg Carey. “Commentary on Matthew 28:1-10” in Preaching This Week, April 9, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Melinda Quivik. “Commentary on Matthew 28:1-10” in Preaching This Week, April 20, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Kathryn Schifferdecker. “The Foundation of Christian Hope” in Dear Working Preacher, April 2, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

David Lose. “Easter Courage” in Dear Working Preacher, April 16, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

–. “A New Day for Farm Workers” in Special Offerings: One Great Hour of Sharing. Accessed online at pcusa.org.

–. “Restoring Dignity to India’s Most Oppressed” in Special Offerings: One Great Hour of Sharing. Accessed online at pcusa.org.

Matthew 28:1-10

28 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, for 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 and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

The Cross or the Gun?

April 2, 2023April 2, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts “The Cross or the Gun?” Matthew 21:1-11

We heard news this week of yet another school shooting. On Monday, a former student shot out the glass doors of The Covenant School in Nashville. Armed with two assault rifles and a handgun, they began shooting indiscriminately. Police, tipped off about the attack, were on the scene in eleven minutes. The shooter was dead at fourteen minutes. In the aftermath, we learned that three nine-year-old students and three staff members had been killed.

It’s the latest incident in a long series of school shootings that have prompted our thoughts, prayers, and tears. There have been 456 shootings at schools since the attack on Columbine High School in 1999. It’s part of a larger epidemic of gun violence that has infected our nation. There have been 134 mass shootings in America so far this year, taking the lives of 196 people and wounding a further 470. The growing violence and mounting death toll are an intolerable fact of life in this country, a fact that we have grown hardened to. There seems to be a lack of political will to bring real change, perhaps most clearly demonstrated by Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles, who represents the district of The Covenant School. He offered his thoughts and prayers for the families of victims this week while defending his controversial Christmas card showing him and his family posing with assault rifles in front of their Christmas tree.

Today in Nashville, there is a small shrine that has taken shape outside The Covenant School with flowers, balloons, stuffed animals, and messages of remembrance and love. Flags are flying at half-staff as an expression of mourning. Families are grieving and planning funerals. Palm Sunday worship is underway. Worshippers wave palms and sing “Hosanna” in the Palm Sunday parade. Today in Nashville and all across our country gun violence is the leading cause of death for our children.

That first Palm Sunday parade was a peaceful protest against the violent occupation of Israel. New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan teaches that there were two parades that Passover week in Jerusalem. One parade approached the city from the east. There Pontius Pilate and the Roman Army rode into the Holy City from Caesarea Maritima. At Passover, when the Jewish people remembered the deliverance of their ancestors from slavery in Egypt, it was always prudent to beef up the security in the Holy City, just in case anyone had Messianic pretentions. Pilate’s parade waved the imperial standard of the Roman Empire. Pilate and his officers were mounted on splendid war horses. Foot soldiers marched in cadence, armed with swords and knives, spears and javelins. A twenty-first century version of Pilate’s parade would have those soldiers brandishing M4s and driving Bradley armored fighting vehicles with TOW missile launchers and twenty-five-mm chain guns that can fire 100 rounds per minute.

Jesus’s parade was carefully staged to be the antithesis of Pilate’s. Instead of riding a war horse, Jesus rode a donkey, just like the Prince of Peace that the Prophet Zechariah had promised would one day come to break the battle bow and put an end to war (Zech. 9). Jesus’s “soldiers” spread their cloaks on the ground, like the generals who once hailed Jehu their king. They brandished palms, like the jubilant crowds that welcomed Judas Maccabeus after he defeated the Greeks. Instead of marching songs, the pilgrims sang hosanna and blessing. This was no violent insurrection, it was a peaceful revolution that anticipated the Kingdom where love for God and neighbor would be the rule of the land, where God’s people would beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Anyone who has ever gone out early to claim your favorite sidewalk spot for the Winter Carnival Parade can testify that parades need people. We look on and clap, smile, sing, wave, and get swept up in the grand celebration. Jesus’s parade would have had enthusiastic onlookers and participants, those who knew him, had heard him teach, had experienced his miracles, and those who asked, “Who is this?” Pilate’s parade would have had its own audience, a crowd that turned out to watch the pomp and welcome the procurator. Some may have been collaborators. Some may have profited from the occupation. Most probably turned out because we all love parades, and we grow numb to everyday injustice. Some days, any excuse is a good one if it will appease the powerful and make the best of a bad situation.

A great irony of Holy Week is the great shifting of allegiance. Those who danced in Jesus’ parade would abandon the ranks. They traded their songs of hosanna for shouts of “Crucify him!” The Prince of Peace would meet a violent end—beaten, scourged, mocked, crucified. On Good Friday, as Jesus was marched to the cross, it would feel as if Pilate’s parade had prevailed.

On Palm Sunday, we are caught between the two parades. We know the Way of Jesus. We can quote, “Blessed are the peacemakers! Turn the other cheek! Love your neighbor!” There is no question about what Jesus expects of those who will march with him.

Yet we live in a culture that is addicted to violence. We see it in the cop shows that dominate prime time tv and the video games that preoccupy our kids. We see it in our national obsession with guns. The United States is the only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people. There are 120 guns in private ownership for every 100 Americans. The annual number of US deaths from gun violence is eighteen times the average rate in other developed countries. With numbers like that, it should be no surprise that no other developed nation has mass shootings at the same scale or frequency as we do.

On Palm Sunday in America, we are caught between parades: one leads to love and life and the other has been a source of immeasurable heartbreak and death.

Shane Claiborne is an author and founder of The Simple Way, a new monastic community in Philadelphia. He’s one of the best spokespeople I know in describing the tension between life as we know it and life as Jesus calls us to live. In his book Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence, Shane argues that we have a gun problem and a heart problem in this country. With artist and blacksmith Michael Moore, he dramatizes the biblical call to beat our swords into ploughshares by turning guns into garden implements. In gun-blighted communities, they invite mothers who have lost their children to guns to come and weep and beat AR-15’s into rakes and shovels. It’s a carefully staged antithesis to our national love affair with the gun. It’s a little like Jesus’s carefully staged peaceful ride into the Holy City, a ride that invited—and still invites—the world to turn from death to life.

In response to the shooting at The Covenant School this week, Shane wrote, “As a devoted Christian, I am convinced that the gun and the cross give us two very different versions of power. One is about being ready to die. The other is about being ready to kill. There comes a point where we cannot serve two masters. We cannot love our enemies as Christ commands, and simultaneously prepare to kill them.” I know that there are people who feel that they are devout Christians who will argue with Shane. They will say that guns are the best way to keep America safe. They will insist that we should arm teachers in classrooms—even though there were teachers who had guns at The Covenant School. They will feel great sorrow at mass shootings. They will think about it. They will pray. They will quote Jesus and send out Christmas cards with their nine-year-olds brandishing assault weapons. But when all is said and done, the choice is really quite simple. Will we choose the gun or will we choose the cross? Will we march with Pilate or will we follow Jesus?

There was a parade on Thursday in Nashville. More than 1,000 people—children, teens, parents—turned out. They entered the capitol building and lined the hallways. They chanted simple slogans like, “Save our children,” “Never again,” and “Not one more.” They filled the gallery of the legislative chamber, holding signs that said, “I’m nine years old” and “Gun Reform Now.” Some carried pictures of the victims of Monday’s shooting. There are more protests planned for the coming days in Tennessee, including a student-led march on the capitol scheduled for tomorrow. I’m sure it will be quite a parade. I’m sure Jesus will be there.

Resources

Adam Tambourin. “Large crowds gather in protest at the Capitol” in Axios, March 31, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.axios.com/local/nashville/2023/03/31/large-crowds-gather-in-protest-at-the-capitol

Jonathan Mattise, Travis Loller, and Holly Meyer. “Nashville shooter who killed 6 drew maps, surveilled school.” AP News, March 28, 2023. Accessed online at https://apnews.com/article/nashville-school-shooting-covenant-school-5da45b469ccb6c9533bbddf20c1bfe16

Ariana Baio. “Tennessee lawmaker defends 2021 Christmas card of children brandishing guns in wake of Nashville shooting.” The Independent, March 29, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/tennessee-lawmaker-defends-2021-christmas-card-of-children-brandishing-guns-in-wake-of-nashville-shooting/ar-AA19bISA

Kara Fox, Krystina Shveda, Natalie Croker, and Marco Chacon. “How US gun culture stacks up with the world,” CNN News, March 28, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/world/us-gun-culture-world-comparison-intl-cmd/index.html

Shane Claiborne. “Christ, Not Guns: A Reflection on the Nashville Shooting” in Red Letter Christians, March 31, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.redletterchristians.org/christ-not-guns-a-reflection-on-the-nashville-shooting/

Veronice Miles. “Pastoral Perspective on Matthew 21:1-11” in Feasting on the Word, Year A, vol. 2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.

Andrew Prior. “Tell the Story” in One Man’s Web: Becoming Human in Australia, April 13, 2014. Accessed online at https://onemansweb.org/tell-the-story-matthew-21-1-11.html

David Ewart. “Matthew 21:1-11” in Holy Textures Year A, 2011. Accessed online at https://www.holytextures.com/2011/03/matthew-21-1-11-year-a-lent-6-palms-palm-sunday-sermon.html

Matthew 21:1-11

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” ⁴This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, ⁵“Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” ⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; ⁷they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. ⁸A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” ¹⁰When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” ¹¹The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Image credit: Alexis Marshall WPLN News. Accessed online at https://wpln.org/post/episodes/community-responds-to-the-covenant-school-shooting/

Jesus Wept

March 26, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Jesus Wept” John 11:1-45

We all know grief. It finds us as children when our best friend forever moves far away, or when our first pet crosses the rainbow bridge, or when that grandparent who always made us feel so special dies. Grief also finds us in adulthood. We grieve the end of our college studies, the loss of a favorite job, or our move from a favorite home. We grieve the lost future that accompanies infertility or the end of a once-hopeful marriage. Nothing truly prepares us for the grief of losing a parent, even when we know the time has come. Grief accompanies us as we age. We mourn the loss of identity that comes as our years of professional work draw to a close. There is grief in our diminishing ability, when we can’t get around like we used to or we can’t seem to remember like we once did. There is the brokenhearted grief in losing our beloved to death.

Grief packs an emotional wallop. It may come upon us in intense waves of profound sadness, yearning, and tears. It can trouble us with feelings of panic and anxiety. We may find that the little things that once brought quiet joy or pleasure to our everyday living no longer move us. Food can lose its taste. Comedies no longer move us to laughter. We have no interest in playing music or going for a hike. Grief can mess with our minds, making it hard to concentrate and replacing certainty with confusion or forgetfulness. Grief sometimes looks like anger as we cast blame or lash out at those who just don’t get it.

Grief is often little understood, appreciated, or accommodated in our culture. The average length of bereavement leave from a workplace is one to three days. Just a quick break to get all that paperwork out of the way, host out of town guests, handle the phone calls, and respond to cards. Just a few days to figure out our finances and get the kids settled. Dr. Mary-Frances O’Conner, professor of psychology at the University of Arizona studies grief. O’Connor has found that grief is lingering and difficult because it calls for essential changes in our brains that can take a while to make. That old saying that when we lose a spouse or a beloved child, it is like losing a piece of ourselves is both emotionally and biologically true. Our brains struggle to evolve a new set of rules for operating in a world that is no longer complete.

Our reading from John’s gospel brings us a lengthy story of grief. As tensions had mounted in Judea, Jesus and his disciples had retreated to relative safety across the Jordan. But then a letter arrived from Mary and Martha with news that Jesus’ dear friend Lazarus was near death. Jesus needed to come immediately. If it seems that Jesus is callous in tarrying two days before heading to Bethany, it might help us to know that Lazarus was probably already dead – the euphemism that Jesus used, saying that Lazarus had fallen asleep is elsewhere used in scripture to speak of death. Indeed, when Jesus and his friends arrived in Bethany after two days delay and a long day of travel, they found that Lazarus was really dead, four days in the tomb.

The scene that John describes as Jesus arrives in Bethany is overwhelming. First, Jesus encountered Martha, sounding hurt, betrayed, and a little hopeful. Then, Jesus met Mary, who was filled with despair, tears, and “If only you had been here, Lord.” All that took place as grieving neighbors listened and professional mourners wailed. Before long, Jesus was at the tomb where the enormous capstone had sealed the beloved but decomposing Lazarus in darkness. Through all this, we witness the emotional turmoil going on within Jesus. We learn the extent of Jesus’ love for the dead man, who must have been like a brother from another mother. John says that Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. A closer translation of the original Greek words tells us that Jesus’ spirit groaned. He felt agitated, upset, troubled, even incensed. Jesus wept. He lamented. He grieved right along with Mary and Martha.

We affirm that Jesus is fully human and fully God, but it is perhaps only in the handful of scenes like this that we appreciate what it means for Jesus to share our humanity. Jesus knows what it is like to feel as we do, to suffer as we do. Jesus knows how it feels to be heartbroken and sad, troubled and shaken up, yearning, bereft and a little angry. Jesus’ tears and grief speak to us. Indeed, his choice to be with Mary and Martha, his deep feelings for Lazarus, his compassionate care for those who mourn, all these details are an assurance for those of us who call Jesus our friend. We recognize that Jesus is truly with us in our times of painful loss and all-encompassing grief.

When our BFF moves away and we are sure we will never ever find again a friend so dear, Jesus weeps with us.

When the love light dims, the spouse walks out, and our dreams die, Jesus weeps with us.

When we lose our job, we aren’t sure how to pay the bills, and we don’t know what to do next, Jesus weeps with us.

When we lose our ability, and we cannot do what was once so easy, and we aren’t sure who we are anymore, Jesus weeps with us.

When our beloved one dies and we feel like we have truly lost our other half, Jesus weeps with us.

In all our brokenhearted hurt and deepest grief, the Lord weeps with us.

Jesus accompanied Mary, Martha, and the mourners to the tomb. There, he commanded that the stone be removed. Then, he called Lazarus, four-days-dead, to rise and come out. We can only imagine the shock, yielding to joy, as the no-longer-dead man stood in the doorway of death and greeted the friends who unbound him. A few verses later as John 11 draws to a close, we learn the costliness of this miracle. When Jesus’ opponents heard the news, they resolved that he must be die. Lazarus rising is a miracle that anticipates and precipitates the crucifixion. It would not be long before Jesus’ friends would weep for him.

In our times of grief, we long for the sort of miracle that Jesus worked in Bethany—spectacular and immediate. Give us back our loved one, Jesus. Restore our diminishing abilities, Lord. Fix our irreparable marriages. Give us back our job with a pay raise to boot. Every once in a while, the extraordinary does happen. That new treatment works. The coach gives us a second chance. Our ex realizes they’ve made a huge mistake. We thank our lucky stars, and sometimes we may even thank God.

More often, our miracles slowly unfold. The Lord who weeps with us awakens us to hope and, bit by bit, we find renewed and abundant life, even in the presence of death. Our brains change. Those intense waves of grief come less frequently. We begin to sleep through the night. One day, we are surprised to hear the sound of our own laughter. There may still be a hole in our hearts, but we find that, with the Lord’s help, we can live around it. Just outside the edge of our awareness, we hear Jesus. He calls to us with great compassion and patience, saying, “Come out!” Somehow, we rise and begin again.

That scholar of grief, Mary-Frances O’Connor, says that the best way for us to be with people who grieve is a lot like what Jesus did for his friends Martha and Mary, the non-miraculous work, that is. We listen to them. We allow them to name their experience. We share our feelings. We weep with them. We show up and walk with them as it all sinks in, and the grief waves roll on, and their brains change. We hold onto hope when the future cannot be seen. We trust that at the right time, in the right way, they will come out. May it be so. Amen.

Resources

Berly McCoy. “How Your Brain Copes with Grief and Why It Takes Time to Heal,” NPR Science and Health, Dec. 20, 2021. Accessed online at npr.org

Adrian A. Fletcher. “Honoring Grief and Coping with Loss” in Psychology Today, August 9, 2022. Accessed online at psychologytoday.org.

Meda Stamper. “Commentary on John 11:1-45” in Preaching This Week, April 10, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Robert Hoch. “Commentary on John 11:1-45” in Preaching This Week, April 6, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Jennifer Garcia Bashaw. “Commentary on John 11:1-45” in Preaching This Week, March 26, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Luke 11:1-45

11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ²Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. ³So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” ⁴But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁵Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, ⁶after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

⁷Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” ⁸The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” ⁹Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world. ¹⁰But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them.” ¹¹After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” ¹²The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” ¹³Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. ¹⁴Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

¹⁷When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, ¹⁹and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. ²⁰When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. ²¹Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²²But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” ²³Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah,the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

²⁸When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” ²⁹And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³²When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵Jesus began to weep. ³⁶So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

³⁸Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

⁴⁵Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him.

Now I See!

March 19, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Now I See” John 9:1-38

It’s been twenty years since the death of Fred Rogers. Fred was a college student, home on break, when he saw his first television set and immediately recognized it as a powerful tool for communication and education. Fred later worked as a program manager for Pittsburgh’s first public television station, but he attended seminary classes on his lunch hour. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Pittsburgh in 1963 with the unusual charge to do ministry through mass media. In describing his sense of vocation, Fred felt he was called to use every talent that had ever been given to him—writing, music, puppetry, faith, kindness—in the service of children and their families.

From 1968 to 2001, Rogers ministered to pre-school children through 896 episodes of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Fred tapped into his past experience as a chubby, chronically sick, lonely kid to help children face their own childhood fears and insecurities. He tackled tough topics, like divorce and the assassination of Robert Kennedy. He explored how good people could sometimes do things that weren’t so good. Through his puppet Daniel Tiger, Rogers even voiced the grief and alienation that children feel when they sense they are unwanted or unloved. Those 896 visits to “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” were an extended tutorial in the core Christian values of caring, inclusion, and kindness.

In our reading from John’s gospel, we meet a visually-impaired man, who had known little of caring, inclusion, or kindness before he met Jesus. Born blind in a world where disability was attributed to sin, people took one look at this man and presumed that either he, as an unborn child, or his parents had violated the Torah and invited the wrath of God. His disability rendered him unclean, unable to enter the Temple to worship or to work and associate with his Torah-observant neighbors. He was forced to beg for a living from a mat stationed outside a gateway to the Temple. There, he hoped that some would do a good deed—a mitzvah— on their way to prayer by placing a coin in his bowl.

Then one day, Jesus and his friends were leaving the Temple. Spotting the disabled man, the disciples asked Jesus a rabbinic question, looking for Jesus to interpret the scriptures, “Who sinned, Rabbi, this man or his parents?” But Jesus refused to engage their assumption that disability was the result of sin. Instead, Jesus stopped, spit into his hand, added some dirt to make a muddy paste and applied it to the man’s sightless eyes. Next, he instructed the man to wash in the Pool of Siloam, more than half a mile away. Jesus didn’t even stick around to see the outcome of his kindness.

What happened next was an extended public debate involving the neighbors, the man’s parents, and some powerful religious leaders. Reading this story again this week through the lens of Mr. Rogers’ neighborliness and caring got me thinking about the visually-impaired man—and how the characters in this story are blind to who he really is. To the disciples, the man is an opportunity for a teaching moment. To the neighbors, unable to recognize him even though the man has been in their midst for years, the man is his disability. To the parents, who should be in the man’s corner, he is a source of shame and danger. To the Pharisees and Temple leaders, the man is a sinner, so they ban him from the Temple. A teaching moment, a disability, an embarrassment, a sinner? No one truly sees this man.

It’s tempting to judge the neighbors, the parents, the Pharisees, and Judeans, until we look in the mirror and see our own inability to see. We constantly make assessments and assumptions about one another. Even the best of us makes assumptions that spring from our understanding of gender, ability, race, age, and political convictions, beliefs that we often acquire very early—in our homes, our schools, our communities, and even our churches. We all carry pictures in our heads, whether we want to or not. The big rainbow flag that Duane and I have on our porch may lead you to make some judgments about us, just as the enormous Trump banner that our neighbor has been flying since 2015 may lead you to make some judgments about him.

In 1922, psychologist and researcher Walter Lippman coined the term “stereotype” to name our inherent bias and prejudice. We all have a cognitive framework that we fit people into. Indeed, it feels natural, normal, dependable, and comfortable to slip people into that cognitive framework. The trouble is that it isn’t true because we don’t take the time to really consider or understand who people truly are. Lippman rightly described our stereotypes and prejudice as a casual cruelty. We do not see people. We don’t take the time to go deeper, to understand, to know. We can be blind.

The only person in today’s story who truly sees the visually impaired man is Jesus. It’s right there in the first verse, “As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.” The Greek word here for “saw” is ʽorao, meaning to perceive, to know, to have spiritual perception or insight. Behold, Jesus saw the blind man and knew that this man was someone to hold onto, hold close, hold up. Jesus saw the blind man and knew his vulnerability and loneliness, his shame and grief, his isolation and hurt. Jesus saw the blind man and recognized not a disability, not a scandal, not a sinner, but instead someone intended to glorify God.

If Jesus and Fred Rogers were here with us this morning, they might invite us to wonder together. Can we imagine a world where we do not fit people into those convenient mental frameworks of gender, ability, age, race, or politics? It would be a world where we “see” that all people deserve our compassionate care and all have the inherent capacity to give God the glory. It is a world where, in our true and authentic interactions with others, we come to know one another better, and we learn to serve God more truly. That’s what they call the Kingdom.

I think that Fred Rogers did his best to give us a foretaste of that world. He did that by calling us his neighbors. Not his friends, not his little learners, not his flock. His neighbors. He wanted us to honor that great commandment to love God and neighbor. He, like Jesus, wanted us to see one another, in all our frailty and difference, and to know that we are loveable, that we owe one another the debt of noticing, caring, welcoming, and sharing kindness.

In subtly subversive ways, Fred showed us who our neighbors are. When pools were still segregated in some parts of our country, Mr. Rogers invited the Black policeman Officer Clemmons to dip his feet into a kiddie pool with him. The two even dried off using the same towel.

In Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Lady Elaine Fairchild taught us that girls could move past the gender limits placed upon them. They could become managers, doctors, mayors, or even astronauts.

In a time when families of children with disabilities were fighting for access to schools and facilities for their children, Mr. Rogers featured children with disabilities on his show. One was a seven-year-old quadriplegic boy, Jeff Erlanger. They had met two years earlier when young Jeff was scheduled to undergo major surgery and asked his parents if they could first arrange for him to meet Mr. Rogers. They wrote to Fred and he made time during a promotional visit to Milwaukee to meet with the family. Afterward, they continued to keep in touch. When Jeff made his appearance on Fred’s show, he explained how his electric wheelchair worked and why he needed it. Then Jeff and Fred sang a duet of that corny-but-deeply-true Mr. Rogers’ song, “It’s You I Like.”

When later asked by a reporter why their five-year-old child would want to meet Fred Rogers before undergoing major surgery, Howard and Pam Erlanger explained that Jeff “always said that Mister Rogers told him that he was special and that he was just fine the way he was, and it gave him confidence and it made him feel good, and Mister Rogers just seemed to love him.” It was as if Mr. Rogers could really “see” Jeff, kind of like the way that Jesus could “see” the blind man. Fred Rogers beheld Jeff, knew that this child was someone to hold onto, hold close, hold up.

Nearly twenty years later, when Fred was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, Jeff surprised him, rolling onto stage to present the award. In true Mr. Rogers’ form, Fred got so excited that he ran up onto the stage and hugged Jeff as if they were the only two people in the auditorium. “On behalf of millions of children and grown-ups,” Jeff said in presenting the award to Fred, “It’s You I like.”

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, my friends. It’s a day, like every day, made for us to notice and care, love and share. May we go forth to truly see and serve our neighbors.

Resources:

Jason Fraley. “Remembering Mr. Rogers Twenty Years after the Death of Our Favorite Neighbor” in WTOP News, Feb. 27, 2023. Accessed online at wtop.com.

Robert Hoch. “Commentary on John 9:1-41” in Preaching This Week, March 30, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Osvaldo Vena. “Commentary on John 9:1-41” in Preaching This Week, March 26, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Shea Tuttle. “Seven Lessons from Mr. Rogers that Can Help Americans Be Neighbors Again” in Greater Good Magazine, July 13, 2018. Accessed online at greatergood.berkeley.edu.

Maxwell King. “How ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ Championed Children with Disabilities” in Guideposts. Accessed online at http://www.guideposts.org

–. “About Fred Rogers” in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Accessed online at misterrogers.org.

John 9:1-38

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

8The 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?” 9Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11He 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.” 12They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then 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.” 16Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17So 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.” 18The 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 19and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21but 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.” 22His 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. 23Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24So 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.” 25He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27He 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?” 28Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

35Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” 37Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” 38He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

https://www.pbs.org/video/mister-rogers-neighborhood-its-you-i-like/

Click the link above to hear Jeff and Fred singing “It’s You I Like.”

Thirsty

March 12, 2023April 2, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Thirsty” Exodus 17:1-7

We all fall into catastrophic thinking from time to time. Something doesn’t seem right and worst-case scenarios play out in our minds, over and over again, provoking anxiety and sending us into a panic. When I lived in Washington, DC, snow in the forecast sent the entire metro area into a frenzy of catastrophic thought. Neighbors rushed out to the grocery stores to buy up every loaf of bread, every gallon of water, and every roll of toilet paper. Then, as snow began to fall and streets turned slick, drivers would give up and abandon their vehicles, leaving cars haphazardly parked along the shoulder while they hoofed it home.

Our catastrophic thinking may not be nearly so apocalyptic. When our teen is late in getting home from a date, we imagine them lying in a ditch or pulled over by the police. When the doctor’s office calls to schedule an appointment to follow up on our test results, we think the worst – we must have a serious illness or they want to put us on a diet. When our employer announces that it’s time to reorganize at work, we’re ready to head for the unemployment line.

Catastrophic thinking preoccupies us, saps our emotional and rational energy. It’s tough on our bodies, boosting our blood pressure and respiration, and flooding our system with stress hormones. Catastrophic thinking doesn’t feel good. Our tummies churn, our thoughts race, and we can’t sleep. Catastrophic thinking is especially hard on those we live with. We may take our anxiety out on our beloved ones with a short temper and sharp tongue. We may even infect them with our catastrophic thinking; soon they are imagining the worst, right along with us.

Our reading from the Book of Exodus tells us that the Israelites were doing some catastrophic thinking. In fairness to them, their circumstances were truly stress-inducing. They were in the Sinai Wilderness, a desert landscape where temperatures could soar over 100 degrees and rainfall was infrequent. For the month of December, the rainiest month of the year, the average rainfall in the Sinai is a whopping two-tenths of an inch. The Israelites in that desert were dependent upon springs and oases to sustain them and their livestock, but at the end of a long day of travel, they arrived at Rephidim, where they expected to find a spring and instead found no water. No water for drinking. No water for their flocks. No water for their children. No water for cooking. No water for bathing. No water at all.

The human body can last about 100 hours without water in normal circumstances, but in a hot and sunny spot like the Sinai, they might be fortunate to last about half that time. Their tongues felt swollen and dry, clinging to the roofs of their mouths. The children began to cry. The sheep began to bleat. Even the camels were looking ornery. The catastrophic thinking kicked in.

“Our water reserves won’t last the night. The sun is going to roast us. We’ll never find water in this wasteland. We’ll have to set the flocks free to fend for themselves. We’ll have to resort to drinking our urine. We’ll cradle our dying children. Someday they’ll find our bleached bones and tell the terrible tale of what happens to foolish people who turn their back on the Nile.”

They took all their angry anxiety, aggression, and stress to Moses, and soon he was doing some of his own catastrophic thinking. “How am I supposed to find water in the desert? I’ve got a mutiny on my hands. They’re sharpening their knives. They’re gathering stones. I won’t last the night. They’re coming for me.”

Our catastrophic thinking can be problematic. It can undermine our workplaces. One manager complained to the Harvard Business Review that every time she tried to delegate to her employees, things went sideways. She was sure they would fail to deliver, or they might miss deadlines, or they could do things the wrong way. Rather than mentoring her workers as they learned new skills and allowing them to make mistakes, her catastrophic thinking would kick in. Imagining the poor sales that would ensue and the criticism she would face from her boss and the possibility of taking a hit to her reputation, she would take back all the work she had shared in an endless cycle of overwork and anxiety.

Catastrophic thinking can impact our relationships. We put off returning the phone call to our friend who is always imagining the worst and foretelling gloom and doom. We start editing what we share with the parent who spirals into a frenzy of anxiety at the sort of everyday setback that happens to everyone. If a spouse goes catastrophic every time that we try to share our feelings, we learn to keep them to ourselves.

Catastrophic thinking can even affect churches. I’ve known churches that refuse to host healing groups like NA and AA because something at church might get dirty or broken or stolen. I’ve known churches that refuse to try new programs for fear that it could demand too much work, take too much time, or bring too much change. And then, there is the catastrophic thinking that surrounds the introduction of new music—often rejected with the insistence that it’s too hard to sing, makes us uncomfortable, and will surely cause a mass stampede for the exit with worshippers vowing never to return.

It probably shouldn’t surprise us that when the Israelites got so anxious about water, it wasn’t the first time they went catastrophic. When Pharaoh’s army had pursued them to the shores of the Reed Sea, they all thought they were goners. Then, when the water at Mara was bitter and undrinkable, they thought that was it. When provisions got scarce and their bellies growled, they were certain they would starve to death. But those things didn’t happen.

Instead, each of those scary and overwhelming circumstances had turned into an opportunity for them to know the presence and the goodness of God. On the shores of the Reed Sea, God had interceded, standing between Pharoah’s forces and the people while Moses raised his staff above the waters—which parted, allowing the Israelites to escape. Then, when the water was so bitter, God had told Moses how to make it sweet. And when the people were hungry, God had brought quails into the camp in the evening and rained down manna every morning. All that adversity wasn’t easy or fun or pleasant or wanted, but again and again, the people had learned that they were not alone in the wilderness. They had a holy traveling companion, who cared and provided and would not abandon them, even when catastrophe struck.

One of my favorite memes that I have posted more than once on my Facebook page goes like this: “On particularly rough days, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100%, and that’s pretty good.” I believe that, like the Israelites, we have a holy traveling companion, who is with us in the midst of those moments that make us want to call our friend and start complaining. We have a holy friend, who walks us through those experiences that make us infect our spouse with our anxiety. We are not alone on those days that make us want to stay in bed with the covers over our heads. Life does bring adversity, there’s no questioning that, but our track record for getting through it so far is pretty good, because we are not alone. We may not have manna showering us from the heavens, or water springing from a rock, or quails flying into the soup pot, but we can trust that God is with us because in Jesus, God chose to walk this lonesome valley and face head-on the catastrophe of the cross.

God’s goodness and grace find us in the middle of our catastrophic thinking. Sometimes it is a feeling of peace that surpasses all understanding. Sometimes it is in the comfort of scripture. Sometimes it is in the caring person who simply sits with us and holds our hand. Sometimes it is in the deacon who shows up with a hot dish. Sometimes it is in the people who pray for us, sending out a holy hotline to the Almighty. Sometimes it is in the leader who casts the hopeful vision for life on the far side of our woe. Sometimes it is in the family member who talks us off the ledge. We all get thirsty. We all go catastrophic from time to time, but God is with us and there is water.

When God sent Moses to Horeb to find water to ease the people’s thirst, God instructed him to take along some of the elders of Israel. On the mountain, in the presence of those witnesses, water gushed forth from the rock, and the crisis was averted. The people drank, the children drank, the flocks drank. There was water for cooking. There was water for bathing. There was water enough for all.

I like to think that those elders, who watched the water spring forth, never forgot that moment. When times were tough and disaster loomed, they took a deep breath and nipped their catastrophic thinking in the bud. They remembered the goodness of God. Then, they turned to their anxious people, and pointed to the presence of God, who brings water in the desert. May we, who have witnessed the goodness of God, do the same.

Resources:

Julianna Claasens. “Commentary on Exodus 17:1-7” in Preaching This Week, March 23, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Anathea Portier-Young. “Commentary on Exodus 17:1-7” in Preaching This Week, October 1, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Callie Plunkett-Brewton. “Commentary on Exodus 17:1-7” in Preaching This Week, September 28, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Ron Carucci. “Stress Leads to Bad Decisions” in The Harvard Business Review, August 29, 2017.

Ron Breazeale. “Catastrophic Thinking” in Psychology Today, March 25, 2011. Accessed online at http://www.psychologytoday.com.

Exodus 17:1-7

17 From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 The people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do for this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. 6 I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Late Night Questions

March 5, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Late Night Questions” John 3:1-17

We all have late-night questions. They keep us from falling asleep and leave us tossing and turning for hours. They wake us from a sound sleep, with hearts drumming and thoughts racing. Late-night questions lead to bleary-eyed mornings when we feel sleep-deprived and irritable.

Our late-night questions may be about work. How do we handle our boss? How do we manage our workers? Is what we are doing meaningful, worthwhile, the best use of our abilities?

Our late-night questions may be about our loved ones. How do we heal the breach with our spouse or sibling or child? What can we do about that diagnosis? How do we respond to a loved one’s crisis?

Our late-night questions may be about the world community. What about homelessness and hunger? Climate change? World peace? What happens if that Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or Progressive gets elected?

Our late-night questions can be existential. Does God love us? What happens when we die? How do we find forgiveness?

Does any of this sound familiar?

We aren’t the only ones with late-night questions. Our gospel reading relates the story of Nicodemus, who came to Jesus at night filled with big questions. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He practiced an ultra-observant form of Judaism, which demanded of him the same requirements for holiness that were applied to priests during their active service in the Temple. For a Pharisee like Nicodemus, careful observance of all 613 commandments of the Torah rendered him holy, as God is holy. In fact, Nicodemus was an expert in the Torah, both a rabbi and an active elder serving on the Sanhedrin, which was a lot like Israel’s supreme court. The seventy-one elders of the Sanhedrin came from families of priests, legal scholars, and the most politically powerful families in the land. They met every day, except on the sabbath and the holy days, gathering in the Hall of Hewn Stones, a courtroom built into the outer wall of the Temple. There they listened to cases referred to them from lower courts, determining righteous judgments based upon their understanding of the Torah. Nicodemus was respected, scholarly, influential, powerful, and wealthy.

But Nicodemus wasn’t feeling so comfortable in his role as elder, judge, and Torah-expert. He was troubled by Jesus. This Jesus was neither priest nor scribe nor member of an elite family, but Jesus had worked miracles and taught with an authority that could only come from God. Jesus had blessed a poor family and saved their wedding feast from shame by changing the water into the finest wine. Jesus had denounced the profiteering and exploitation of the poor that was going on in the Temple, turning over the tables of the money changers and driving out the animals and their vendors. Jesus had been teaching and healing in the Temple, bringing life-changing understanding and wholeness to people. Nicodemus was no fool. His gut told him that this Jesus was the real deal, sent by God to bless the people. But if Jesus had it right, then was it possible that he (Nicodemus) had it wrong? What if honoring God wasn’t about rote obedience to 613 commands? What if God wasn’t an angry judge waiting to condemn Israel for the slightest infraction? What if God wanted something different from Israel? Nicodemus needed answers.

John’s gospel allows us to listen in on a snippet of what must have been a free-wheeling, intense, late-night conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. Nicodemus had his rabbi’s hat on. He was parrying Jesus’s assertions with questions, in fine rabbinic form. “Can anyone truly be born anew, Jesus? Are we talking about the physical or the spiritual realm? Give me the details, Jesus, how can this be?” It was a late-night disputation that ended with the best-known of Jesus’s words, “For God loved the world in this way: God gave God’s One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (Holman translation).

Can you imagine it? Jesus and Nicodemus, sit with heads close in intense conversation in the warm glow of the oil lamp. The supreme court justice learns with a shock of deep knowing that God isn’t about judgment and condemnation. God is all about love, mercy, life. Jesus tells the Pharisee, “God wants to save you, not condemn you, Nicodemus. You are loved.”

As Jesus challenged Nicodemus to change, to be spiritually reborn into the Kingdom of God—the Kingdom of Love, Nicodemus struggled to imagine what that might mean. It would mean that God didn’t want his blind obedience; rather, God was looking for a relationship with him. It meant the Torah should be read through the lens of love—love for God and love for neighbor. It would require him to love the petitioners who came through his high court, both vulnerable plaintiffs and ruthless scoundrels. If Nicodemus started to preach and teach like that, it could make him seventy powerful enemies on the Sanhedrin. It could threaten his standing, compromise his power, and even have a negative impact on his bottom line—his pocketbook. We don’t get to hear Nicodemus’s response to Jesus. Nicodemus seems to slip back into the darkness, perhaps filled with more questions than when he knocked on Jesus’s door in search of easy answers.

We are a lot more like Nicodemus than we care to admit. We want easy answers to our late-night questions. We want answers that will not challenge our assumptions or demand a change in our thinking or conduct. We want answers that won’t cost us anything—not a big commitment of our time, not a dent in our bottom line, not a hit to our reputation, not a rethinking of our self-understanding, not a revision of our world view. We want Jesus to pitch us easy answers that make us feel good and assure us of a healthy seven to eight hours of sleep every night. But what if the answer isn’t easy? What if Jesus’s answer will change us in ways that feel scary, new, and a little out-of-control. What if what we are always and ultimately called to do is love more, to love like God does—like Jesus does—wholeheartedly, without strings attached, for the good of this flawed and fallen world?

If the answer to our late-night questions is a spiritual rebirth to the Way of Love, then we will be changed and so will the way that we relate to our families. We’ll mend the breach of our broken relationships with the resolve to love, a love that listens and stays in relationship even when we want to walk away, a love that forgives and seeks to be forgiven. We’ll choose to face those difficult diagnoses with love that supports, encourages, and accompanies others in times of fear and uncertainty. We’ll stop trying to fix other people’s crises and simply commit to loving them through the mess.

If the answer to our late-night questions is a spiritual rebirth to the Way of Love, then we will be changed, and so will the ways that we relate to our workplace. We could resolve to love our boss, our colleagues, our workers, not with the mushy, entangled love that we feel for our families, but the sort of love that calls forth the best in one another. It’s a love that trusts in the power of shared vision and teamwork, a love that believes that when we work well together, what we achieve is always better than what we do on our own. We could ask loving questions of our employers, like, “How can what we do better serve the common good?”

If the answer to our late-night questions is a spiritual rebirth to the Way of Love, then we will be changed, and so will the ways that we relate to the world around us. We’ll love our vulnerable neighbors with vital ministries like the Food Pantry, Samaritan House, and One Great Hour of Sharing. We’ll love God’s good creation in ways that leave no trace and protect precious resources and creatures. We’ll advocate for peace, everywhere. All that love might even send us to the ballot box, where we’ll cast our votes for those whom we perceive can best translate love into political action. Wouldn’t that shake things up?

In the end, because the answer to our late-night questions is a spiritual rebirth to the Way of Love, we will be changed, and so will the way that we relate to God. We will trust that God is love. We’ll build our relationship with God on that rock. We will know that we are loved in life and in death, even when we wrestle in the late, late hours with the big, big questions.

Our last glimpse of Nicodemus in John’s gospel is on Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion. There, Nicodemus with Joseph of Arimathea demanded the body of Jesus from his Roman executioners. Then, those powerful and influential elders of the Sanhedrin did women’s work. They anointed Jesus’s body with a king’s ransom in costly oils and aloes, wrapped him in linen, and laid him in the tomb. It was a bold and risky task. It was quiet and humble evidence of that spiritual rebirth to the Way of Love.

Resources:

Robert Hoch. “Commentary on John 3:1-17” in Preaching This Week, March 16, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Osvaldo Vena. “Commentary on John 3:1-17” in Preaching This Week, March 12, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Ronald J. Allen. “Commentary on John 3:1-17” in Preaching This Week, March 5, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Judith Jones. “Commentary on John 3:1-17” in Preaching This Week, May 27, 2018. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

John 3:1-17

1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Put to the Test

February 26, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Put to the Test” Matthew 4:1-11

It had seemed like the natural thing to do. After all, Moses had spent forty days and nights fasting on the mountain of God before he had returned with the stone tablets of the ten commandments. Elijah had humbled himself for forty days in the wilderness after battling the prophets of Baal. He had come away with a new vision for his prophetic work. If it had been right for Moses and Elijah, why not him? No sooner had God’s voice stopped ringing from the heavens above the waters of his baptism, than he felt it—the tug of the Spirit, leading him away from the Jordan’s banks and guiding him high into the hills of the Judean desert.

It hadn’t been easy. The sun was brutal, and even though the grotto was sheltered, the days were far hotter there than in the Galilee, and the nights were surprisingly cold. Some days, the wind blew in from the Transjordan with the harsh whirl of stinging sand. There were snakes and scorpions. One night, jackals howled nearby, dreaming of an easy meal. He saw a sand cat, warily trotting with belly low and enormous ears swiveling for sounds of threat. She paused and blinked at him with amber eyes, a dead lizard dangling from her mouth. “Have you brought me a gift?” he asked before she scuttled away to a hidden den.

He wasn’t sure when he first realized that he was not truly alone. The first temptation seemed so innocuous. “Jesus, I’m famished. When was the last time we ate, anyway? Don’t you need a little something to renew your strength and reinvigorate your prayers? Even the Israelites found a little manna in the desert. Why not turn this stone to bread and relieve our hunger?”

His stomach growled at the suggestion. It would be easy. Anyone who would one day turn five loaves and two fish into a feast for thousands could certainly whip up a tasty treat for two from a stone. Who would know anyway?

But then he thought about his ancestors: the Israelites in Sinai nourished with bread from heaven; Elijah under the broom tree, fed by an angel; Moses on the mountaintop, sustained by God only knows what. He sighed. If there were to be an end to his fast there in the wilderness, it would be up to God and not the rumbling of his belly or the wiles of the Adversary.

The answer to the question, when he found it, came from the Torah, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” He suspected that it would not be the last time that he would be hungry, but he trusted that God would provide. He returned to his prayers.

It didn’t stop. In a dizzy disorienting whirl of color and light, he found that, although he was still way up high, the wilderness was far behind. He looked out over a busy city. A crowded labyrinth of streets marched down a hill, crammed with shops and vendors and pedestrians. A haze of dust and the smoke of cooking fires hung upon the air. On one side, a steep valley fell away to a deep wadi, water-filled and gleaming. Below him were giant flagstones, marble columns, and people, many, many people: pilgrims in travel-worn cloaks, proud scribes in fine robes, threadbare beggars crying out for alms, lordly priests with bejeweled breastplates.

He sat down with a thump, his legs dangling over the edge of the parapet, knowing exactly where he was. He had been dedicated here at 8 days old, the priest wielding a small, sharp, curved knife to mark him as a child of Abraham. He had camped out here when he was only twelve, sitting among the teachers for days, filled with questions and an eagerness to learn and teach. Year after year, he had made pilgrimage here, to remember the Passover, to pay the tax, to offer an acceptable sacrifice. Jesus was in his Father’s House, the Temple in Jerusalem. He had just never seen it from this vantage before, from the very pinnacle.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” his companion asked with sincere admiration. “You are the Messiah, God’s beloved one. All this is yours by right. Let’s get the party started. Reveal yourself right now in power and glory. Let’s humble those scribes and priests. Let’s liberate those people. Let’s heal those beggars. Let’s clean house. Step out and claim your rightful place. You know what the Psalmist said, ‘God will lift you up.’”

Jesus thought. Below him in the court of the Gentiles, he heard the shouts of moneylenders and the cries of animals to be sacrificed. A display of holy power and protection here and now would do more to affirm his identity as the Messiah than years of preaching and teaching and healing in the hinterlands. Why not put these arrogant priests and self-centered scribes in their places? Why not claim what was rightfully his and restore righteousness to the Father’s House? He could see it.

But as Jesus looked out over Jerusalem’s narrow streets, he remembered the story of his forefather David. The King of Israel, sweat-soaked, half-naked, and exhausted, had sung and danced before the Lord with all his might, bringing the Ark of the Covenant up to the holy city, limping and leaping before God and all the people. Surely, the way of the Messiah was like that, one of complete devotion and absolute humility, not power and pride. The way of God’s Son would be to do God’s bidding and not the other way around. “No,” Jesus answered with a rueful shake of his head, “I’ll not put God to the test.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes.

It wasn’t over. “Come with me,” his Adversary invited. They were back in the wilderness where his companion was leaning in the shade at the mouth of the grotto. With a quick upward jerk of his chin, he pointed to the trail that threaded up the hillside to the very top of the mountain. Jesus rose on wobbly legs, stepped out, and stood blinking in the harsh sun. The air was clear and super-heated, rippling out at the brim of the world. The stones were hot beneath his sandals. ‘Let’s climb,” his friend smiled. Together they threaded their way to the summit, where a broad flat boulder waited like a throne. With a bow and a sweep of his arm, his companion invited him to climb on high. He did.

Jesus caught his breath and took in the world around him. In the distance, the Jordan was a muddy snake winding across the landscape, cutting a narrow green swath through the valley. Clouds on the far western horizon hinted at the presence of the great sea, where the merchants sailed and Leviathan swam. To the north, he caught sight of the silver-blue Sea of Galilee, harp-shaped, nestled beneath the Golan Heights. Far beyond that, the mountains of Lebanon rose with their snow-covered caps glinting in the midday sun. To the south, the salt wastes stepped down to the Dead Sea. Beyond that, yawned the Sinai desert, its saw-toothed peaks and barren sands stretching all the way to Africa. Jesus drank deep the desert air and looked with awe at his Father’s world.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” It was his companion, at his elbow now. “But there is so much grief and poverty, hunger and heartlessness out there. And the Romans, ugh. Why not make it yours? Why not change the way things are? Free the captives, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, heal the sick. It is all yours for the taking. All that is required is just one small thing: a little bending of the knees, the slightest bowing of the head, a few prayers, a little incense burned. Worship me. What are we waiting for?”

Jesus looked out over the beautiful broken world at his feet. He thought about the hurting people he had seen everywhere—hungry, fearful, dirt poor, ground down. What was he waiting for? Why not rise to his friend’s charge and set things straight? Couldn’t the end justify the means?

But as Jesus looked over the Promised Land, gleaming like a green and tan jewel, he remembered that God alone had the power to create this world. God alone had the authority to give this land as a blessing to the people. God alone would be the architect of its salvation, and God alone would determine that path. Whatever it might be.

Unbidden, the words of Moses were on his tongue, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” With an uneasy sense of hard things yet to come, Jesus waved off his tempter. “Enough. Away with you. Get behind me.”

Jesus stood strong in the noonday sun on the summit, his shadow so small that it flitted out only as the wind surged through his linen robe. The sand cat crouched in the shade of a boulder, dozing in the heat with whiskers twitching. Jesus felt clear as the five springs at Jericho, bubbling up from the depths below the sand. He felt empty and open as new amphorae, awaiting the first pressing of the finest grapes from the new harvest. He felt like Moses astride Sinai with two stone tablets. He felt like Elijah stalking off to trouble the Northern Kingdom. He felt ready for what would come.

Resources:

Audrey West. “Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 10, 2008. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

David Lose. “Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11” in Preaching This Week, March 13, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Judith James. “Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11” in Preaching This Week, March 9, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Photo Credit: Dennis Jarvis, accessed online at https://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/34955863901/

Be the Light

February 19, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Be the Light” Matthew 17:1-9

Followers of Jesus have been debating the meaning of his Transfiguration for almost 2,000 years.

Within our Protestant Reformed tradition, the Transfiguration is celebrated on this last Sunday before the season of Lent. Transfiguration closes out the season that begins with those post-Christmas Sundays: Epiphany and Baptism of the Lord. The Magi followed that brilliant star to find the newborn king. God proclaimed from the heavens at Jesus’s baptism that he is God’s beloved Son. It’s entirely fitting, as we enter the Lenten valley, that there should be a mountaintop moment, the Transfiguration, to remind us that the heavenly light shines in Jesus, the Beloved Son whom we should be listening to.

Our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions won’t be celebrating Christ’s Transfiguration until August sixth. That’s when they observe the feast day, deep in the heart of those long weeks of Ordinary Time that stretch from Pentecost to Christ the King Sunday. Once upon a time, no one agreed when the Transfiguration should be observed. In the tenth century, it was celebrated in France and England on July 27^th, in Saxony on March 17^th, and at Halberstadt on September 3^rd. Finally, in 1456 Pope Callixtus III established the date of the Transfiguration for the universal church on August 6^th, in memory of the victory won over the invading Turks at Belgrade.

Even modern-day Bible scholars disagree about the Transfiguration. An influential block of twentieth century experts, including Rudolf Bultmann, argued that when Matthew, Mark, and Luke were writing their gospels, they got the date wrong. These scholars say that the Transfiguration is actually a resurrection experience. It belongs at the end of the synoptic gospels when they imagined it more likely that the risen Lord would appear to his inner circle of disciples and grant them a vision of his glorified resurrection body that would soon be permanently communing with Moses and Elijah in that far brighter light on that far better shore.

Just reading the Transfiguration story confronts us with the fact that, at the time, even the disciples didn’t know what to make of their experience. That most trusted of disciples Peter was definitely clueless. Confounded by all that holiness, Peter wanted to pitch some tents. We’re still not sure whether the dwellings were meant to be an act of hospitality, a plan to preserve the moment, or just an uncomfortable effort to do and say something to relieve the mystery and stress of an experience that he really couldn’t wrap his head around.

If the disciples and the Bible scholars and the major branches of world Christianity can’t agree on the date, significance, and timing of the Transfiguration, then what hope is there for us? Help us, Jesus!

David Lose is a Lutheran pastor and former president of The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. When David teaches about the Transfiguration, he likes to call attention to what followed the dazzling, numinous, incomprehensible moment of enlightenment on the mountaintop when God spoke from the heavens, telling Peter to pipe down and listen up to the Beloved Son. Suddenly, the light was gone, the disciples had fallen on their faces in fear, and Jesus was still there, looking like he usually does. The Lord went to the disciples. He touched them. He comforted them. Then, he set their feet on the path that would take them back down the mountain and into the valley where the world waited, in desperate need of love and light.

In Jesus, God chose to enter the world with love and light. Instead of dwelling on the mountain in glorious mystery with holy conversation partners like Moses and Elijah, Jesus chose the disciples. Jesus chose to be in the midst of trouble with followers who often felt confused, who didn’t always know the right thing to say or do. Jesus would be with them to help and to heal, whether he looked glorified or not. The Transfiguration offers a promise of accompaniment and presence. That promise would later be confirmed at the close of Matthew’s gospel when the risen Lord stood with his disciples atop another Galilean mountain. As Jesus prepared to ascend to his Father—and his friends Moses and Elijah—Jesus again reminded his frightened followers that he would always be with them, even to the end of the age.

Years later, as Peter neared the end of his life, he wrote to the early church and described his memory of the Transfiguration as “a lamp shining in a dismal place.” Through years of witness and ministry that would take Peter from the Galilee to the heart of the empire in Rome, his experience of the Lord’s Transfiguration would stand as a holy reminder of the presence and power of Jesus. Peter would trust that amid the fear and darkness of his world, Jesus would always reach out to frightened disciples with light and life, sustaining the church until the Kingdom would come, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts (2 Peter 1:17).

John, too, when he wrote his gospel, would hold fast to that memory of light. In the glorious opening verses of his gospel, John would remember the Transfiguration, writing, “The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed his glory, the glory as of the ‘one and only Son’ of the Father.” John trusted in the promise of the Transfiguration: that the light continues to shine in the world’s darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it (John 1).

Perhaps the question that we should be asking on Transfiguration Sunday isn’t, “What does all that numinous holiness mean?” Perhaps the better question that we should be asking ourselves is, “How am I called to live in response to the transfigured Lord who has chosen to be with me in all my fear and limitation in the midst of this dark world?”

The late Archbishop Joseph Raya of the ancient Greek Melkite Church taught that the Transfiguration is a call for disciples to be the light amid the world’s darkness. Raya said, “Transfiguration is not simply an event out of the two-thousand-year-old past, or a future yet to come. It is rather a reality of the present, a way of life available to those who seek and accept Christ’s nearness. We can live lives transfigured by the nearness of Jesus, and we can go forth to transfigure our world.”

Joseph Raya would spend a lifetime being the light of Christ and getting into “good trouble.” Born to a Christian family in Lebanon in 1916, he was ordained in 1941 in the midst of the chaos of the second World War. He taught in Cairo until 1948 when he was expelled from Egypt for advocating for the rights of women. Raya believed women should have the right to receive an education and generally defended the dignity of women. Raya advised an Arab woman to slap the face of any man who made inappropriate sexual advances toward her, no matter the man’s rank. When the deserved slap was delivered to King Farouk, Father Raya was given twenty-four hours to leave the country.

The following year, Raya emigrated to the United States. In 1952, he was appointed pastor of the Melkite Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where he befriended Martin Luther King, Jr. The two marched together across Alabama, including the March on Selma. This made him a target for the KKK. On one occasion, Raya was dragged from his home in the church’s rectory and badly beaten by three clansmen, who taunted him with the name “Nigger Lover.” Raya responded, “Yes, I am, and I love you too.” His witness of love toward all people caused one of the men who beat him to call and beg his forgiveness 35 years later.

In 1968, Raya returned to the Middle East when he was appointed the Melkite Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth, and all Galilee. There he continued to be light, working for reconciliation between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Druze. He brought along his gifts for non-violent direct action, organizing marches and sit-ins, and engaging in a highly publicized hunger strike to advocate for the return of Palestinian refugees to their Galilee homes.

President Carter awarded Joseph Raya the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. Raya was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. When the Archbishop died in 2005 at the age of 89, Coretta Scott King wrote of him, “At a time when the nation’s most prominent clergy were silent, Archbishop [Raya] courageously supported our Freedom Movement and marched with my husband. Throughout his life, he continued to support the nonviolent movement against poverty, racism, and violence.”

On this Transfiguration Sunday, as we are again dazzled by that holy vision of the glorified Jesus on the mountaintop, may we remember that the Lord is with us still. He reaches out to us in our fear and confusion and reminds us that there is work to be done. May we go forth to be the light, transfiguring our world, one simple act of kindness and justice at a time.

Resources

Robert H. Stein. “Is the Transfiguration a Misplaced Resurrection-Account?” Journal of Biblical Literature, 1976, pp. 79-96. Accessed online at https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/jbl/1976_stein.pdf

Robert Klesko. “A Profile in True Social Justice — Birmingham’s Archbishop Joseph Raya,” National Catholic Register, Sept. 27, 2021. Accessed online at https://www.ncregister.com/blog/archbishop-raya-true-social-justice

Lesya Sabada. “Archbishop Joseph Raya – Apostle of Peace and Love” in Arab America, Nov. 13, 2014. Accessed online at https://www.arabamerica.com/archbishop-joseph-raya-apostle-of-peace-and-love/

–. “The Greek Archbishop That Marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.” in Greek Gateway, June 2, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.greekgateway.com/news/the-greek-archbishop-that-marched-with-martin-luther-king-jr/

David Lose. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching This Week, March 6, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Ronald J. Allen. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 19, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Eric Barreto. “Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 23, 2020. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Matthew 17:1-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. ²And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. ³Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. ⁴Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I^[a] will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved;^[b] with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” ⁶When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. ⁷But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” ⁸And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. ⁹As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

image: “Transfiguration” by Kelly Latimore (Vanderbilt Divinity Library- Shared through Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 License). Accessed online at https://www.pulpitfiction.com/narrative-notes/3-29.

Beyond the Letter of the Law

February 12, 2023February 14, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Beyond the Letter of the Law” Matt. 5:21-26

It can prompt the silent treatment or explode into domestic violence. It can extinguish passion, put an end to love, stifle dreams, break our hearts, and end a marriage.

It can divide our families, pit brother against brother, disconnect parent from child, unfold into long years of puzzling, hurtful, and bleak estrangement.

It can turn us against our neighbor, inspire us to trade insults and trash talk, ignite a feud, make us feel unsafe in our homes, and create animosity on the block.

It can make us hate our jobs, kindle disrespect for the boss or colleague, cause us to procrastinate or miss deadlines, lash out in water cooler gossip, and even get us fired.

It can divide our churches into factions, convince us that we are holier or more righteous than others. It can splinter us into schisms that vote with their feet and head for the door.

It can ruin your health, pump cortisol and adrenaline into your system, spike your blood pressure, flood your stomach with acid, attack your heart, consume your mind with obsessive thoughts, or turn inward to self-harm and abuse—cutting, disordered eating, even suicide.

I’m talking about anger.

In our reading from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount with a series of antitheses, teachings which radicalize the commandments of the Torah and reveal God’s intent for our lives in community. Jesus begins with anger. He takes the commandment, “You shall not kill,” which prohibits the taking of human life (Exodus 20:13; Deut. 5:17), and he goes deeper, exploring the power of our anger, not only to take life but to divide families, undermine relationships, and mar our communities. From everyday insults to slander to frivolous lawsuits that pursue a selfish agenda, Jesus saw anger at work in destructive ways that wounded spirits and brought death to relationships.

Jesus used the exaggerated rhetoric of hyperbole to impress upon his friends that they could not be in right relationship with God if they were not in right relationship with one another. Jesus described a worshiper bringing an offering to God. In the first century, offerings were presented in the Temple. The offering was the culmination of a multi-day pilgrimage from Galilee to Jerusalem. Then, a ritual of purification was undertaken, the Temple was entered, and a sacrifice was purchased from the vendors. But just as the priest prepared to kill the animal or burn the grain, Jesus’s worshipper remembered his angry estrangement from a brother or sister, jumped up, rushed out of the Temple, and made the three-day return trip to Galilee to make things right. Then, the worshiper returned to Jerusalem and dedicated his offering to God. It’s a powerful statement of the fact that we cannot love God without loving our neighbor.

To further emphasize his point, Jesus next described neighbors embroiled in a lawsuit. Their refusal to settle on the way to court and make things right, even when given ample opportunity, set them on a self-destructive path. Harbored anger and antipathy become a prison. Trapped within the walls of our rage, judgment, and alienation, we can idle away the years until we get over ourselves and make things right. Woe to us when we choose our wounded pride and angry outrage above reconciling with others—and reconciling with God.

Don’t get me—or Jesus—wrong. Anger is part of how God has made us. Anger has its time and place. Anger can motivate us to get out of a difficult or dangerous situation. Anger can inspire us to change and grow. Anger can prompt us to find a prophetic voice that speaks out against the sins of society, from gender oppression to racial hate to economic injustice. Jesus got plenty mad. He denounced religious leaders who prized holiness over love and mercy. He decried the corruption of the Temple by turning over the moneychangers’ tables. But we also must acknowledge that anger can be an unholy and destructive force. Indeed, the frightened and vengeful anger of powerful opponents sent Jesus to the cross.

We all struggle with anger. Some of us grew up in families where anger wasn’t expressed in healthy or constructive ways. Anger meant that someone got hit or verbally abused or humiliated. Anger meant the silent treatment and being made to feel like an outsider in our own home. For others among us, we weren’t allowed to express anger. It wasn’t ladylike or it might hurt someone’s feelings, or it wasn’t nice. We don’t know what to do with anger—so it explodes in hurtful ways or gets swallowed in fear and shame. Learning to manage our anger may put us face to face with old feelings of hurt, vulnerability, and powerlessness. We may find it easier to disconnect and walk away than to work things through. Unresolved anger can have painful consequences; our lives can be littered with broken relationships and hurting hearts.

But Jesus holds out hope that his disciples can do better. We can make different choices with our anger. We can find healing. We find the wherewithal to manage our anger when we consider the reconciling work of Jesus. If the cross teaches us anything, it is that God would sooner face death than be alienated and separated from us. The resurrection overcomes the world’s violence and anger. Think about it. On Easter evening, the risen Lord sought out the disciples who had betrayed, denied, and abandoned him. Jesus came to them not with anger or harsh recrimination, but with love. His first word to them was “Peace.” And he sent them forth not to punish or enact retributive violence on those who had condemned him to death and prosecuted his execution, but to forgive and to love. Our efforts to move past anger find inspiration and possibility when we remember the Lord’s example and we trust that he is with us, calling us always to the work of reconciliation.

We can begin to change our relationship with anger and heal the angry hurts that trouble us by simply paying attention. Sometimes we walk around with an angry chip on our shoulder, taking our feelings out on the world around us. Take time to notice what you are feeling and what has prompted those feelings to stir within you. Keeping a daily journal can help you grow in your ability to notice and reflect, and so can having a close conversation partner with whom you can share, whether it is a friend or a spouse. As we become more aware of what we are feeling and how it shapes our actions, we find the emotional space to make different choices instead of allowing our anger to drive the bus.

Despite our best intentions, there will be times when we find ourselves in the middle of an encounter that gets our blood boiling. Our spouse will forget our birthday. A teacher may hurt our child’s feelings. Our best effort in the workplace will get scrubbed by the boss. Take a deep breath and remember the simple wisdom of counting to ten. That moment of reflective awareness grants us control over our breath and our body— and can help to deescalate the tension. If we find we are still itching for a fight or inclined to say things we will surely regret, we can take a step back. It can be as simple as saying, “I’m really angry right now. Let’s take a beat and come back together when we can have a productive conversation.” Then, follow through on that—sooner rather than later. The Apostle Paul advised that we shouldn’t let the sun go down on our anger. Work it through and move on.

What about those old angers and hurts that we all harbor, the broken relationships, the estranged siblings, the lost friends? Is it too late to make a fresh start? Jesus was the master of second chances. He might remind us that we have nothing to lose, other than our anger, sadness, and grief. Pray about it and see how the Lord may be leading you to make amends or build a bridge. Pick up the phone and make contact. Have a heart to heart over a cup of coffee. Send an email or reach out through social media. It can be as simple as saying, “I miss you. I regret the hard words and the hurt feelings. Let’s try again.” If we feel truly trapped and overwhelmed by our anger, we may need the support of a trusted counselor or pastor. We don’t have to face it alone.

I suspect that as we learn to manage our anger, we’ll feel better. We’ll be a lot less likely to kill someone. Our relationships will be healthier and find a new sense of strength and intimacy that forges a lasting bond. We’ll be closer to others, even as we are closer to God. May it be so.

Resources

Amy Oden. “Commentary on Matthew 5:21-36” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 13, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Karoline Lewis. “Commentary on Matthew 5:21-36” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 12, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Carla Works. “Commentary on Matthew 5:21-36” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 16, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Eric Barreto. “Commentary on Matthew 5:21-36” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 16, 2020. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Melanie Howard. “Commentary on Matthew 5:21-36” in Preaching This Week, Feb. 12, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Matthew 5:21-26

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Joann White

writer, pastor, spiritual director, and enthusiast of wild places

Sabbath Day Thoughts

Living Hope

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Living Hope” 1 Peter 1:3-9

1 Peter 1:3-9

The Cross or the Gun?

Sabbath Day Thoughts “The Cross or the Gun?” Matthew 21:1-11

Matthew 21:1-11

Jesus Wept

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Jesus Wept” John 11:1-45

Luke 11:1-45

Now I See!

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Now I See” John 9:1-38

John 9:1-38

Thirsty

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Thirsty” Exodus 17:1-7

Exodus 17:1-7

Late Night Questions

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Late Night Questions” John 3:1-17

John 3:1-17

Put to the Test

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Put to the Test” Matthew 4:1-11

Matthew 4:1-11

Be the Light

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Be the Light” Matthew 17:1-9

Matthew 17:1-9

Beyond the Letter of the Law

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Beyond the Letter of the Law” Matt. 5:21-26

Matthew 5:21-26