Sabbath Day Thoughts

Lip Service

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Sabbath Day Thoughts – Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

The phone calls started at about 2PM. It had been Youth Sunday at the church.  As the Pastor for Youth and Children, I had worked with the kids for weeks to plan their special day.  They were liturgists.  They acted out the scripture reading with a skit.  In place of a traditional sermon, a few high school students had shared reflections about their latest mission trip.  Then, the crowning act of our worship had been communion.  In a departure from the norm, four youth had been servers, passing the bread and the grape juice along the pews for all the worshipers to partake.  It had been a lovely Sunday, so I wasn’t surprised that members might want to check in and celebrate.

My first caller, who I will name Fred, often stopped by the church.  He was a widowed WWII veteran, and I suspect that a church office visit was always on his weekly “to do” list.  On that Youth Sunday, our conversation started pleasantly enough, but it took a sharp turn when it came to the Lord’s Supper.  “Who was that tall girl you had passing the plate?” Fred wanted to know.  “You must mean Jenna (not her real name),” I answered.  Jenna was a striking teen with long, dark hair and big brown eyes.  I had been feeling particularly self-congratulatory about Jenna’s participation in the service.  Her parents were going through a rough patch and I’m sure that things weren’t easy for Jenna at home.

Fred didn’t congratulate me.  Instead, he wanted to know if I had noticed Jenna’s skirt.  I wracked my brain, trying to remember.  “Hmm,” I puzzled.  “I’m not really sure I noticed, but I think it was denim.  Wasn’t it?”  Next, I could hear impatience in the voice of the normally mild-mannered Fred, “I’m not talking about the fabric.  I’m talking about the length.  We could see her knees and you had her serving communion.”  I was floored.  I wish I could say that Fred’s was the only concern that I heard about my judgment, the youth, and our worship leadership.  If I hadn’t realized it before, I certainly learned in those first years of ministry that folks have particular notions about what pleases God.  Cross those lines, and you’ll find yourself fielding phone calls or receiving anonymous notes.

Our preoccupation with what pleases God is nothing new.  The Pharisees and some scribes took exception to Jesus’ disciples, who sat down to eat without first ritually washing their hands in a rite of purification.  In first-century Israel, there was diversity of practice when it came to table fellowship.  On one end of the spectrum were Jesus and the disciples.  They were known for breaking bread with sinners, tax collectors, and at least one leper—all people who might be deemed unclean.  When it came to ritual hand washing, Jesus seemed little concerned.  When the 5,000 were fed, Jesus did not send the disciples around with water and towels for a little purification before multiplying the loaves and fish.

At the other end of the spectrum were the Pharisees, a Jewish sect whose very name meant “set apart.”  The Pharisees followed the Mishnah, the long oral tradition of teachings about the Torah.  This tradition of the elders insisted that to be a holy people, pleasing to God, Jewish people needed to follow the same purity restrictions that the Torah mandated for priests while they were actively serving in the Temple.  The Torah required priests to ritually wash their hands and feet before presiding at a ceremonial meal, so the Mishnah taught that all Jews should do the same for every meal.  That’s a lot of washing.  When the Pharisees saw the disciples’ disregard for handwashing, they thought, “This Jesus isn’t a very good rabbi if he doesn’t share our concern for holiness.”

It all sounds like an obscure first century worship war.  It takes a lot of explaining just to have the whole reading make sense, just to understand why folks were so hot under the collar.  But if we take a moment to genuinely and honestly reflect, most of us will admit that we have had our moments when we have thought that what was going on at church wasn’t pleasing to us or to God. 

A local woman, who has never worshiped with our congregation, once told me that she “hates” the responsive liturgy, like the call to worship or the confession, that are part of Sunday mornings in mainline congregations.  She prefers the ecstatic praise and tongues of the apostolic and Pentecostal tradition. 

A seasoned and gifted female colleague shared with me that a young man told her she could never be a real pastor because she is a woman.

I served as a student pastor at a very large, high steeple church.  The senior pastor had a beautiful tenor voice.  One communion Sunday, he sang the words of institution: “On the night of his arrest, he took the cup.  After giving thanks, he lifted it up.  This is my blood, poured out for you . . .”  It was lovely and memorable.  But after the service, he was accosted by an angry woman, “This is a church, not a Broadway show.  Next, I expect you’ll be hoisting up your robe and dancing for us.”  In each of these instances, people felt personally offended, yet they also felt that what transpired was an offense to God.  They imagined that God was every bit as angry and indignant as they were.

Jesus’ response to his Pharisee critics is among the harshest of his teachings, “These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, taking their own words and attributing them to God.’  But you have abandoned the commandment of God to cling to your own human tradition.”  The fact that Jesus was quoting the Prophet Isaiah tells us that, even back then, this sort of squabble about what pleases God had been going on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. 

According to Jesus, if the Pharisees were really worried about being a holy people, set apart for God, then they would be better served by pondering their own hearts—attending to their inmost thoughts and their everyday actions.  I’m sure Jesus’ words, and his pointed mention of sins like fornication, murder, deceit, and pride, made his opponents see red.  I’m also sure that Jesus’ words eased the shame and embarrassment that his disciples had felt in response to the Pharisee’s public criticism.

When Fred called me on that Sunday afternoon to voice his opinion about youthful knees at the Lord’s Supper, I was still so wet behind the ears as a pastor that I didn’t really engage his concern.  I listened, and he eventually hung up.  It never occurred to me that some of his concern could have been what Jesus might call a “heart problem.”  That long-legged, doe-eyed Jenna was not unlike what Fred’s late wife must have looked like, back in the day when the boys were coming home from Europe, war weary after defeating Hitler and his Nazis.  Perhaps there was even an unspoken sexual spark that felt unbidden and unwanted as Fred pondered the body and blood of Christ for him.  If I had been a more experienced pastor, I might have invited Fred to go deeper, to understand his feelings better.  I might have asked him to speak just for himself and not for God.

I suspect that the stress and uncertainty of the pandemic has brought out the Pharisee in all of us.  After all, we are Presbyterians and we do like to have things done decently and in order.  There we were, liking our Sunday routine, but then COVID-19 swept across the nation in repeated waves that closed church doors and made us worship online.  Eighteen months into this, we are wearing masks yet again. We have traded our sanctuary for the Great Hall, singing for a soloist, the pipe organ for the piano, bulletins for a slideshow.  It doesn’t feel familiar.  It doesn’t feel holy.  We are not sure we like it—and we just might think we are speaking for God about that.

Jesus would tell us that it is the perfect time to ponder our hearts.  With humility and deep honesty, we might even see our critique and dissatisfaction as a natural consequence of this uncertain time when nothing feels safe or familiar—and we wonder if anything will ever feel safe and familiar again.  With faith and courage, we might even begin to speak for ourselves instead of God.  We might bring our hearts back home to the Lord, who welcomes sinners and Pharisees.  We might open our hearts to Jesus, who loves us, saves us, and dies for us, even though we have a penchant for breaking his heart.

Despite my leadership of Youth Sundays, Fred and I became friends.  He genuinely appreciated and generously supported the mission work that the Youth Group pursued in their summer trips to Appalachia, where they made homes warmer, safer, and drier for the rural poor.  Fred must have quelled his worship concerns because he never again raised the alarm, even though there were other short skirts and low-slung jeans with protruding boxer shorts and even some cleavage in the services that followed.  I hear that a number of years later when Fred died, he left a small legacy to the church, the thankful gift of a holy heart.  Amen.

Resources:

Hare, Douglas R.A. “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Wilhelm, Dawn Ottoni. “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Skinner, Matt. “Commentary on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 2, 2012.  Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22-2/commentary-on-mark-71-8-14-15-21-23-5

Johnson, Elizabeth. “Commentary on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 2, 2018.  Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

7:1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me;

7in vain do they worship me,

teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”  14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”  21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

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“You Gotta Serve Somebody”

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Sabbath Day Thoughts – Joshua 24:1-2a:14-18

“You may be an ambassador to England or France

You may like to gamble, you might like to dance

You may be the heavyweight champion of the world

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”

Those are the words of Nobel Poet Laureate Bob Dylan, written in 1979.  Just the year before, the thirty-eight-year-old Dylan had played 114 concerts on a ten-month world tour.  As the tour neared its end, Dylan was exhausted and struggling.  Remembering that time, Dylan says, “Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd… knew I wasn’t feeling too well.  I think they could see that.  And they threw a silver cross on the stage.  Now usually I don’t pick things up in front of the stage … But I looked down at that cross.  I said, ‘I gotta pick that up.’  So I picked up the cross and I put it in my pocket… And I brought it backstage and I brought it with me to the next town, which was out in Arizona… I was feeling even worse than I’d felt when I was in San Diego.  I said, ‘Well, I need something tonight. I didn’t know what it was.  I was used to all kinds of things.  I said, ‘I need something tonight that I didn’t have before.’  And I looked in my pocket and I had this cross.”

That silver cross would change Dylan’s life.  He began to study the Bible and have spiritual conversations with his bandmates.  Later that year, Dylan underwent what he saw as a turning point in his life.  His girlfriend at the time Mary Alice Artres, a born-again Christian, said Dylan experienced a “visit from Jesus himself.”  Dylan would admit, “Jesus put his hand on me. It was a physical thing. I felt it. I felt it all over me. I felt my whole body tremble. The glory of the Lord knocked me down and picked me up.”

That “physical thing” had a profound effect on Dylan’s poetry and songwriting.  The album he released the following year, “Slow Train Coming,” reflects themes of personal faith and Christian discipleship.  In fact, the seventy-nine-city tour to promote the album was called Dylan’s Gospel Tour.  Dylan’s single “You Gotta Serve Somebody,” the words of which are woven through this message, was his first hit record in years, earning him a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.

“You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk

You may be the head of some big TV network

You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame

You may be living in another country under another name

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”

Dylan sounds a lot like Joshua in today’s reading from the Hebrew Bible.  God had long ago claimed Joshua with the promise, “As I was with Moses, so shall I be with you.  I will not fail or forsake you.  Be strong and courageous.”  Joshua’s first task as Israel’s leader had been to shepherd the Israelites through the waters of the Jordan and into the Promised Land.  Once there, Joshua found that, although the land was flowing with milk and honey, it was also filled with people who were reluctant to surrender their bounty to Hebrew invaders.

Through long years of conflict, Joshua had led the Israelites against one enemy after another.  One by one the Canaanite cities had fallen, not because the Israelites were more powerful or because Joshua was a better military strategist.  Rather, victory had come because God had fought side-by-side with Israel.  At Jericho, in keeping with God’s instruction, the Israelites had circled the city for seven days, shouting and blowing their horns, and the walls had come tumbling down.  At Gibeon, Joshua had cried out and God had held the sun and moon still while the Israelites routed their foes.  At Azekah, God had rained huge hailstones from the heavens, killing the armies of their Canaanite enemies.  As Joshua neared the end of his long life of service, the Israelites were finally at peace.  Thirty-one Canaanite kings had been defeated.

With all that God had done for Israel, we might anticipate that they had a born-again faith in God, every bit as ardent as Bob Dylan’s love for Jesus.  But when we read between the lines of Joshua’s testimony, we hear that Israel was worshiping other gods.  Some bowed down to the gods that their ancestor had worshiped beyond the Euphrates.  Some worshiped the gods of Egypt, where the Israelites had been enslaved by Pharaoh.  Others were captivated by the Canaanite god Baal.  They had to serve somebody, but as Joshua pondered his people, he saw that they were making some bad choices.

“You may be a construction worker working on a home

You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome

You might own guns and you might even own tanks

You might be somebody’s landlord, you might even own banks

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”

With thousands of years of hindsight, it’s easy for us to recognize the Israelites lack of judgment.  Why turn your back on God Almighty when God had delivered thirty-one Canaanite kings and every fortified city in the land into your hands?  But if Joshua or Bob Dylan were here today, they might call us to consider the false gods that we worship.  Stephen Johnson, Professor of Preaching at Abilene Christian University, points out that the Israelites aren’t the only ones with competing allegiances.  We can place our ultimate allegiance in partisan politics, refusing to mask or maintain social distance or be vaccinated, refusing to protect vulnerable neighbors and spurring a lethal fourth wave of COVID-19.  We may serve only our personal interests, ignoring our neighbors in needs, disconnecting from relationships that feel like work, or consuming irreplaceable natural resources at a rate that destroys the planet.  We can even be enslaved by good things when we devote to them all our time, energy, and attention to the detriment of our physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being—or the well-being of others.  Work, family, or community can become idols.  When we fail to build our lives around the holy center of God Almighty, we worship false gods, just as surely as the Israelites did.

“You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride

You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side

You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair

You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”

In a last faithful act of leadership, Joshua gathered all twelve tribes of Israel to Shechem, to affirm the covenant that their ancestors Abraham and Sarah had made with God.  The people came, young and old, men and women, aging warriors and young farmers, mothers with children and babies.  They listened as Joshua reminded them of all that the Lord had done for them: delivery from slavery, bread from heaven, water from the rock, walls tumbling down, foes vanquished, and the blessing of that abundant land.  Then, Joshua asked the people, “Choose this day whom you will serve.”  Confronted by the simple truth of an old man’s eloquence, the people chose God, saying, “We will serve the Lord.”

After Bob Dylan made his choice for the Lord in 1979, he came to believe that God had given him a unique platform and voice.  He could use both to serve the Lord.  In a December 1979 interview with KMEX Tucson radio, Dylan said, “I follow God, so if my followers are following me, indirectly they’re gonna be following God, too, because I don’t sing any song which hasn’t been given to me by the Lord to sing.”  Dylan’s choice for Jesus alienated some of his traditional fans, but it earned him new fans and a different following.  “Slow Train Coming” is universally considered one of the greatest Christian records of all time.  The single “You Gotta Serve Somebody” has been recorded by Pop Staples, Etta James, Willie Nelson, Chris Stapleton, LeeAnne Womack, and more.  I’ve been quoting it for you as poetry this morning.

“Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk

Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk

You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread

You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”

If we are waffling on that choice of whom to serve, I could follow the example of Joshua and remind us of all the Lord has done for us.  God has freed us from the burden of sin and promised us the life eternal; blessed us with folks who love us; given us a church home; gathered us for camp outs and picnics and evening Vespers; surrounded us with the beauty of the Adirondacks; walked with us through every trouble.  I could go on.  We’re gonna have to serve somebody. 

Let us choose this day to serve the Lord.

Resources:

–. “Bob Dylan Gets Religion in the Gospel Years” in Goldmine: the music collector’s magazine. Feb. 23, 2009.  Accessed online at https://www.goldminemag.com/articles/bob-dylan-gets-religion-in-the-gospel-years-part-2

Dylan, Bob. “You’re Gonna Serve Somebody” in Slow Train Coming, Columbia Records, 1979.

Johnson, Stephen. “Homiletical Perspective on Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Koenig, Sarah. “Commentary on Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 23, 2009.  Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-21-2/commentary-on-joshua-241-2-14-18-2

O’Brien, Julia M. “Exegetical Perspective on Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Wenner, Jann S. “Slow Train Coming,” a record review in Rolling Stone Magazine, September 20, 1979. Accessed online at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/slow-train-coming-251127/

“Live Forever”

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Sabbath Day Thoughts – John 6:51-58

“So Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. Anyone who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. — John 6:53-54

We want to live forever.

Some turn to cryonics in pursuit of immortality.  At death, their bodies or heads are subjected to low-temperature freezing with liquid nitrogen.  Then, they are stored with the speculative hope that advances in science will one day allow them to be resurrected or digitally replicated.  That will cost you about $80,000.

Others, in their quest for prolonged life, resort to calorie restriction.  Citing the evidence of lab animals that live longer when their food intake is cut by half, calorie restrictors limit their daily diet to about 1,400 calories and maintain below-normal body weight.  For a six-foot-tall man, that’s about 144 pounds, for a five-foot six-inch woman, 108 pounds.  They say that their reduced body mass needs less energy to maintain and cuts their risk for age-related disease.

We may roll our eyes at the extreme practices of cryonics and calorie restricting, but we will gladly try whatever the doctor tells us will extend our lives.  We’ll get outside and exercise daily, year after year.  We’ll floss our teeth and eat our veggies. We may even quit smoking, give up red meat, and watch less television.  What have you been doing in pursuit of longevity and that fountain of youth?

In our reading from John’s gospel, Jesus told his listeners in the synagogue in Capernaum that anyone who eats his flesh and drinks his blood will live forever.  Jesus’ Jewish listeners found his words both puzzling and repulsive.  To begin with, it sounds like an invitation to cannibalism—Eeeewww!  On top of that, the most essential dietary restriction of the Torah was the prohibition on eating blood.  Blood, the life of an animal, belonged to God alone.  In the Temple, blood was poured out in sacrifice to atone for sins.  In the slaughter of farm animals, blood was covered with earth as a memorial to God.  According to Leviticus seventeen, the person who ate blood was cut off from God and the people.  It is little wonder that those folks in Capernaum were shocked and offended by Jesus’ sermon.

When we hear Jesus’ hard teaching, we need to remember the story of the Israelites, and their forty years of wilderness wandering.  Back then, the people were fed by God, who sent bread and meat from heaven—manna and quails—so that the people might live.  Given that context, we are able to imagine Jesus as bread or manna or flesh, the spiritual food sent from heaven so that we might live.  We also understand that Jesus spoke in metaphor.  When Jesus talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we hear in those cryptic words the institution of the Lord’s Supper.  Each month we break the bread and lift the cup—eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ—in remembrance of Jesus.  We further realize that Jesus’ saving death on the cross was like the ultimate outpouring of bloody sacrifice, an offering that atoned for the sins of the world.  When we put that all together, we “get” what Jesus is saying here.  But for “outsiders” like those in the Capernaum synagogue, for outsiders like our unchurched neighbors today, it all sounds like a gruesome and incomprehensible mystery.

Given the public fascination with cryonics, calorie restricting, and daily habits that may promote longevity, it seems that even those of us who get what Jesus is saying, find it hard to trust his promise that we will live forever.  We have had tough experiences of death: the slow and painful demise of parents or the shocking accidental or untimely death of those who are young and vibrant.  We have been traumatized by near-death experiences of our own.  We are skeptical about highly publicized and lucrative accounts of those who have returned from death—from Pastor Todd Burpo’s book Heaven Is for Real to neurosurgeon Eben Alexander’s autobiographical work Proof of Heaven.  When it comes to living forever, we wonder.  We peer through a glass dimly.  We won’t truly know until we are there, in the midst of the great what’s next.

Throughout history, the best Christian minds have sought to unravel for us the great mystery of the life eternal.  In the fourth century, John Chrysostum taught about today’s reading from John 6, saying that in Jesus, God became flesh, condescending to live among us.  When we partake in communion, eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ, we participate in God’s great, out-reaching love.  We are commingled with Christ—inseparably mixed and joined.  The “life, breath, and fire that terrify the devil” are imparted to us.  We become a part of the life of Christ—and that life is eternal, reaching beyond the grave.

John Calvin in unraveling the mystery of John six eloquently wrote that in “becoming the Son of Man for us, Jesus has made us sons [and daughters] of God with him; that by his descent to earth, Jesus has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that by taking on our mortality, Jesus has conferred his immortality upon us.”  We live forever because in Jesus of Nazareth, God has freely and graciously chosen to open for us the way to eternal life.  How good is that?

I wish that I could tell you exactly what to expect in the great what’s next—hand you a detailed map, or email you a link to click, or paint you a beautiful watercolor—but I haven’t been there.  Yet I find insight and anticipation when I ponder the metaphors that Jesus used to talk about it.  When the Lord warned his disciples of his coming death, he said that he was going to his Father’s House.  Jesus was drawing on the everyday reality of the Beth Ab, the home where many generations gathered under the extended roof of a patriarch and matriarch—elders, adults, children, and grandchildren, unwed aunts, disabled brothers, widows, orphans, slaves, and vulnerable neighbors, all living together with mutual regard and loving care.  Jesus also liked to use the metaphor of the Great Banquet—like the Lord’s Supper on steroids—where all will be gathered in the love and generous hospitality of God, a feast with the finest food, the best conversation, and the greatest of joy.

We know that with the Father’s House and the Great Banquet Jesus was using earthly metaphors to try to describe an incomprehensible, holy reality.  Yet Jesus’ words assure us that in that sweet bye and bye we will be perfectly loved, warmly welcomed, and completely accepted.  We will be totally at home—safe and sound, nurtured, fed, and filled with joy.  I like the sound of that.  If that is what living forever is all about, then I want in.  How about you?

Lord, give us this flesh to eat.  Lord, give us this blood to drink.  Lord, let us live forever.  When we read John’s gospel, we hear, again and again, the way to eternal life.  It’s pretty simple.  We don’t have to be sinless—and according to John Calvin, thanks to our total depravity, we couldn’t be sinless, even if we wanted to be.  We don’t have to undertake heroic works of mission, taking the gospel to drug-infested neighborhoods or to a remote village in the Amazon.  We don’t have to be more pious than anyone else, making the journey of a thousand miles on our knees.  We don’t have to pay $80,000 to be frozen in liquid nitrogen and warehoused until the time is right.  We don’t need to drastically reduce our calorie intake.  We don’t have to floss or give up red meat or shoot for 10,000 steps daily, even though those habits might be good for us.  None of that will make us live forever.

According to John’s gospel, according to Jesus, all that is needed to live forever is belief.  We simply need to trust that a God who loves us enough to become incarnate for us, to live with us, and to die for us, isn’t going to leave us hanging for an eternity.  For God so loved the world that he gave us Jesus, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (Jn. 3:16).  The “yes” that we speak to God’s immeasurable love for us opens the door to eternity.  It’s that simple.  Does anyone want to share a yes with me this morning?  Let’s hear it.  Yes!

Karoline Lewis, who teaches at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, reminds us that, for those of us who believe, our eternal life with God has already begun.  We, who wish to live forever, are already on our way.  In our lives as people of faith, as our relationship with Jesus is nurtured in the breaking the bread and lifting the cup, there is “an abiding, a unity, a reciprocity, and oneness.”  Forever is tasted, here and now, as we live with God in the moment.  That is a promise that we can trust for eternity. 

One day, we shall arise in that far brighter light on that far better shore.  The great mystery will come to an end and we will see clearly and know fully the immeasurable love that God has for us.  We’ll walk with the Lord.  We’ll take up residence in the Father’s House.  We’ll find our seat at the Great Banquet.  All will be perfectly and ultimately well.  I hope to see you there.  Amen.

Resources:

Calvin, John.  Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977. 4.xvii.2.

Lewis, Karoline.  “A Living Bread” in Dear Working Preacher, Aug. 9, 2015.  Accessed online at www.workingpreacher.org.

Hendricks, Michael. “The False Science of Cryonics” in MIT Technology Review, Sept. 15, 2015. Accessed online at www.technologyreview.com.

Grabski, Isabella. “Can Calorie Restriction Extend Your Lifespan?” in Science in the News: Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Aug. 2, 2020.  Accessed online at sitn.hms.harvard.edu

Meeks, Wayne. “Exegetical Perspective on John 6:51-58” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Morse, Christopher. “Theological Perspective on John 6:51-58” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

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“Soul Food”

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — John 6:24-35

We live in an increasingly unchurched world, filled with spiritually hungry people.  The Barna Group reports a rapid rise in churchlessness in America. In the 1990s, thirty percent of people indicated that they had no affiliation with a religious community.  A decade later, that number had edged upward to thirty-three percent.  Four years later, the number of churchless people had jumped alarmingly to forty-three percent of Americans.  This year, Gallup reported that, for the first time in eight decades of collecting data on churches, membership has dropped below fifty percent of the population to forty-seven percent.  In the northeast, including places like Saranac Lake, the percentage of people who do not connect with faith communities is likely even higher.  This leap in people who have no religious affiliation encompasses every demographic: men and women; adults, youth, and children; rich and poor; people of every race and ethnicity; those who identify as conservative, moderate, and progressive.

Despite their departure from church, people are spiritually hungry.  They long for a connection to the sacred.  They are eager for deeper meaning and holy purpose.  Two-thirds of the churchless identify as spiritual people.  They believe in God, have a sense that God is at work in the world, and long for an authentic relationship with the Holy.  Fifty-seven percent of those who are churchless insist that faith is “very important in their lives today.”  The connection they seek with God is right up there with family, vocation, and their social network as the most vital and formative aspect of their daily experience.

It’s a paradox.  Traditional religious structures are in decline, but the world is filled with spiritually hungry seekers.  We see them everywhere.  They dabble in the trappings of other faiths.  They hang Tibetan prayer flags.  They burn incense and learn yoga.  They seek the Creator in the creation.  They say they find God on the mountain top or commune with God in the garden.  They seek the fulfillment of their spiritual longing in a quest for personal excellence, hiring life coaches and making best-sellers of the latest New-Age, self-help guides.  If asked, they will say they are spiritual but not religious, as if religion is something distasteful, like lima beans or liver.  But if all the data gathered by the Barna Group and the Gallup poll is correct, those seekers aren’t finding what they need.  Instead, they feel an increasing existential longing.  All that spiritual seeking has failed to satisfy the deepest hunger of their soul.

Our reading from the sixth chapter of John’s gospel describes Jesus’ encounter with a crowd of spiritually hungry people. Just the day before, Jesus had satisfied the hunger of a great crowd of people, multiplying five loaves and two fish to feed 5,000—with twelve baskets of leftovers to spare.  As the spiritually hungry crowd approached Jesus, they were eager for yet another miracle. “What sign are you going to perform?” they asked.  They longed to know that God was still at work in the world.  They needed to believe that, just as God had once provided manna for their ancestors in the wilderness, God was active and engaged in their lives: loving, caring, and meeting their physical needs and deepest longings.

Jesus invited the crowd to go deeper, to look beyond the manna that was provided in the wilderness and the picnic they had enjoyed the day before.  They could eat all the manna, all the barley loaves, and all the dried fish in the world, yet they would still be hungry.  The bread they truly needed was the one whom God had sent into the world to satisfy their deepest hungers.  When the fourth century pastor and theologian John Chrysostum taught on this passage, he put these words in Jesus’ mouth, “It is not the miracle of the loaves that has struck you with wonder, but the being filled.”  In Jesus, God had become the bread of life, entering the world to satisfy their deepest spiritual hunger.  Instinctively, the people knew Jesus to be right, demanding “Give us this bread always!”

Two thousand years later, the faithful minority, whom George Barna would call the “churched,” we continue to feed upon Jesus, the bread of life.  We worship him with praise and thanksgiving.  We feast on him with Bible Study, book groups, and Sunday sermons.  We bring our hopes and dreams, our pain and woe, to him in prayer.  We seek him in community, whether gathering for a Zoom Coffee hour, walking together in a sermon on the trail, or serving him in the least of these who are our neighbors.  When we share in the Lord’s Supper, breaking the bread and lifting the cup, we remember Jesus, the bread of life.  We remember his saving death on the cross, and we remember that Jesus lives in those who go forth to be the Body of Christ, the bread of life for a spiritually hungry world.  17th century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal taught that, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator made known to us through Jesus.”  We who feast upon the bread of life can testify that God alone can satisfy the spiritual hunger of humanity.

It is likely that when the Barna Group and the Gallup Poll next take the spiritual temper of America, they will find us hungrier than ever.  The COVID-19 Crisis has taken a terrible spiritual toll on humanity.  Mental health professionals have described this past year and a half as a collective experience of trauma that will have long-lasting effects upon us all.  Beyond the deaths of more than 613,000 people, we are experiencing what can only be called a spiritual crisis.  41.5% of us are reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression.  We have sought to fill our deep needs with that which does not satisfy.  We have been drinking heavily and eating too much, with an average reported pandemic weight gain of more than thirty pounds.  We have seen the largest rise in drug overdoses in more than twenty years.  A study by Harvard University of children aged seven to fifteen found that, with the stress and social isolation of the pandemic, two-thirds of our kids had clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and depression.  Now, more than ever, folks of every demographic need the bread of life.  They need to know that God continues to provide manna in the wilderness and bread from heaven and soul food amid the pandemic.

Researchers say that some of the best resources in addressing the present crisis are to be found in places like this, in the churches which people have been leaving in record numbers for decades.  It begins with our connection to that Higher Power, who grants us meaning and purpose, but it is more.  A rich spiritual life, which features daily prayer and reflection, can actually change our brains.  The amygdala is that primal part of our brain that drives us to fight or flee and keeps us in a state of chronic stress.  Scientists say that the amygdala actually shrinks with the cultivation of a daily practice of prayerful spirituality; conversely, the pre-frontal cortex, that portion of our brain that drives higher reasoning and problem solving, gets healthier.  It thickens and grows.  Think about that: being a part of church can actually better equip our brains to respond to crises like COVID-19.

The social engagement of church, the coming together of the body of Christ, is likewise a powerful help in this time of crisis. The church is a network of caring individuals who will love and accept us in all our frailty.  Look around.  These are people who pray for us amid our troubles.  They show up with a casserole when we are too overwhelmed to cook.  They forgive us when we are crabby, critical, and hard-to-love.  They are in our corner, rooting for us, when we feel most at odds with the world.  Caring connections like these are a powerful antidote for our feelings of depression and anxiety.  It seems that church is a lot less like lima beans and liver than the churchless 53% of the population thinks.  Church, as the body of Christ, can be bread for a spiritually hungry world.

Perhaps today, we can hear in a new and breathtakingly relevant way Jesus’ words, “I am the bread of life.  No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.”  We may live in a spiritually hungry world, but we have Jesus.  We have what is needed to meet that deep need, to fill that “God-shaped vacuum in the heart.”  This week, we could do something real and tangible to address the deep longing that sends our neighbors out in pursuit of prayer flags and life coaches.  We could tell someone about our friend Jesus.  We could pray with a hurting family member.  We could come to church, bring a friend, and sit among those who love us like the Lord does.  We could tune in for Wednesday’s online communion service and feast, once again, upon the bread of life and resolve to go forth as bread for a hungry world.  May it be so.  Amen.

Resources:

George Barna and David Kinnaman, Churchless. Carol Stream: Tyndale, 2014.

Jeffrey M. Jones, “U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time,” Gallup News, March 29, 2021.  Accessed online at news.gallup.com/poll/3341963/

Sparks, O. Benjamin. “Pastoral Perspective on John 6:24-35” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Morse, Christopher. “Theological Perspective on John 6:24-35” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Guynup, Sharon. “Why ‘Getting Back to Normal’ May Actually Feel Terrifying” in National Geographic: Corona Virus Coverage May 20, 2021. Accessed online at national geographic.com.

Hylen, Susan. “Commentary on John 6:24-35” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 5, 2018.  Accessed online at http://www.workingpreacher.org.

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Crazy Math

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — John 6:1-14

We are well acquainted with miracle stories.

A thirty-five-year-old nun, serving as the principal of a girl’s school in Calcutta, heard Jesus’ “call within her calling:” to abandon her teaching and go forth into the city’s slums to tend the poorest and sickest of people. She completed a six-month course in basic medical care, traded her nun’s habit for a sari, and left her convent behind so that she could be the hands and feet of Jesus for those whom she saw were unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. She tended lepers dying in the street, fed maimed children who begged for a living, and cared for women forced into lives of prostitution. All that need of the streets of Calcutta plus one poorly trained nun should have been a formula for failure. Yet by some crazy cosmic math, two years later Sister Mary Teresa was joined by twelve like-minded nuns and together they launched the Missionaries of Charity. Today, there are 5, 167 sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, serving the poorest of the poor in 758 communities in 139 countries.

In 1990, Tom Logan was visiting Dr. John Knowle’s, a missionary doctor at the Ekwendeni Hospital in Malawi. The two men came across the pump and raw materials to build a shallow well, delivered by the Malawi government years before but never installed. Knowing that waterborne disease from foul, open, community water sources was the leading cause of death for Malawi’s young children, the two men were shocked and angered. “Why don’t you install it?” Logan wanted to know. Dr. Knowles responded, “Why don’t you install it, Tom?” And so was launched the shallow well program of the Marion Medical Mission. That first year, Logan installed thirteen wells. Marion Medical Mission now installs more than 3,000 wells each year in partnership with local villages and leaders. Thirty years after Tom’s bold question, “Why don’t you install it?”, four million people in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia now have safe, clean drinking water, thanks to the shallow well program.

Millard and Linda Fuller were self-made millionaires before they were thirty. Instead of retiring and living large, the Fullers sold most of their possessions and moved to Koinonia Farm, the Christian community founded by pastor and Bible scholar Clarence Jordan. Aware of the need for adequate housing for the poor of rural Georgia, the Fullers teamed with Jordan to develop the concept of “partnership housing.” Those in need would work side-by-side with volunteers to build decent, affordable homes. The first partnership home built was for Beau and Emma, who lived with their five children in an unpainted, uninsulated shack without any plumbing. Two years later in 1976, the Fullers founded Habitat for Humanity, International, which now works in all fifty states and more than seventy countries. Habitat has helped more than thirty-five million people achieve their dream of “safe, decent, and affordable shelter.”

We are well-acquainted with miracle stories. Today’s reading may be the best-known miracle story of all. The feeding of the 5,000 is told by all four gospel writers. Today we get to hear it from John’s perspective. Jesus had been teaching his disciples on the hillside above the Sea of Galilee when he looked up to see a huge crowd on the move. They were in need of his wise words and healing touch. It was also late in the day, and there were no resources at hand to meet their physical hunger.

To test his friends, Jesus asked how they could feed the multitude. Philip surveyed the throng and knew that their need for bread far exceeded the financial resources they had on hand. Andrew did some reconnaissance and came up with five small loaves of barley bread and two little dried fish—resources that weren’t even his to share. The other ten disciples were silent, clearly thinking that they were powerless in the face of such need—there was nothing that they could do about it. The twelve disciples likely expected that would be the end of the discussion.

Jesus confounded those expectations. He took their meager provisions, blessed them, and shared them as if it were Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s house with all the fixings. Then, by some crazy and holy math, five loaves plus two fish equaled enough to feed 5,000 men and their families, with leftovers to spare. That vast, hungry crowd was miraculously fed in body, mind, and spirit. Praise the Lord!

Well-acquainted as we are with miracle stories. We are also familiar with times when we have felt like we needed a personal miracle, like when we lost our job, like when our marriage was on the rocks, like when the doctor gave us that scary diagnosis, or like when we were lost in grief. Given the history and crazy math behind faithful people who accomplished extraordinary things with the Lord’s help, we might think that when life gets overwhelming, or crisis strikes, or the rug is pulled out from beneath our feet, we would have faith and trust that the Lord will make a way and see us through. But we can tend to be a little like the disciples. Like Philip, we can only see all the ways that we are woefully inadequate to meet the moment. Like Andrew, we hope someone else can provide what is needed to fix our problem. Like the other ten disciples, we shake our heads, we throw up our hands, and think it is hopeless. The need overwhelms us. We want to give up. We want to run away. We want to crawl into bed, pull up the covers, and retreat into denial. There may be miracles out there, but we cannot imagine that any amount of multiplication or distribution could meet our need. We say, “Jesus, where is my miracle? Jesus, where are my loaves and fish? Jesus, where are my leftovers to spare?”

Miracles often begin with the smallest of faithful acts. A thirty-five-year-old nun with inadequate training decides to go out and help just one leper, one child, one woman, one person at a time. Tom Logan and his friends install a long-forgotten shallow well. The Fullers help their impoverished neighbors build a concrete block house with indoor plumbing. Jesus says grace—he blesses five barley loaves—the bread of the poor. He prays over two salty, dried fish. It starts small. It starts with just one simple faithful act. We can do that. We can launch our hopeful intent into that impossible void. We can place our little bit into the hands of Jesus. We can trust that some crazy math can begin to unfold. Somehow, with the Lord’s help, we find that we have what is needed to face the impossible. Really and truly, it is a miracle.

We know that’s true because there are miracles who walk among us, people who have defied and confounded every expectation. The widow, who wakes each morning to an empty house and the pall of grief, yet finds the courage to set that aside, smile, care for her family, and help her neighbor, she is a miracle. She and Jesus are doing some crazy math. The youth who rises above the dysfunction and alcoholism of his parents to get an education and forge a professional identity, he is a miracle. He and Jesus are doing some crazy math. The impoverished neighbor who finds ways to share with others and be generous with family and still put a little something in the offering plate each Sunday, they are a miracle. They are doing some crazy math with Jesus. Thank God, everywhere we look, miracles of multiplication and blessing and abundance are unfolding if we will only have eyes to see.

So maybe this week, in that best-known of Jesus’ miracles, and in the stories of Teresa and Tom and Millard and Linda, and in those indomitable spirits who live next door or bump into us in Top’s or sit next to us in church, we can find a little hope. We really are well-acquainted with miracles. We can find the courage to stand on our ground. We can throw back the covers and get out of bed. We can take the first simple step. We can place our little bit in the hands of Jesus and trust in the crazy math to come.

Resources:
Bryant, Robert A. “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009.
Yust, Karen Marie. “Pastoral Perspective on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009.
Johns, Cheryl Bridges. “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009.
–. “Mother Teresa” in Biography, Feb. 24, 2020. Accessed online at biography.com.
–. “Habitat’s Story” in Habitat for Humanity, International. Accessed online at habitat.org.
–. “Who We Are: The Beginning” in Marion Medical Mission. Accessed online at mmmater.org.

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“Come Away”

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — Genesis 2:1-3 and Mark 6:30-34

This message was shared at the Island Chapel, an ecumenical summer church on an island in Upper Saranac Lake.

Is anyone here on vacation today?  Is anyone retired, in that delightful, ongoing state of quasi-vacation?  Does anyone wish they were on vacation this morning?  We can all affirm the goodness of coming away to a quiet place to rest and renew.

When it comes to vacation destinations, the Adirondacks are about as good as it gets.  We love the cool evenings when the magic carpet of the Milky Way stretches across the night sky and the sleeping is good.  We delight in the clear waters, whether we take a skinny-dip, test our favorite fishing hole, or explore the back country in the kayak.  We rejoice in the mountains: the thrill of downhill skiing, the accomplishment of climbing the 46, the alpenglow of summits set ablaze by the last rays of the setting sun.

I have read that the American use of the word “vacation” derives from the Adirondacks.  The English go “on holiday,” but here in the states we “take vacations.”  In the 19th century, residents of New York City and Boston vacated their hot, urban homes for the cool splendor of the Adirondacks.  All that vacating coined the term vacation.  Take a look out the window.  Apart from the rain, it doesn’t get much better than this.

In our reading from Mark’s gospel, the disciples could have used an Adirondack getaway.  Jesus had entrusted them with his power and authority.  Then, he had sent them out in pairs, with meager resources, to minister to the villages of the Galilean countryside.  Their mission had been even more successful than their best hopes.  As they returned to Jesus, they told stories of sermons preached and prayers shared.  They talked about miracles worked.  The lame had walked.  Blind eyes had found sight.  Those troubled by oppressive spirits had found peace.  There was great rejoicing.

Yet as Jesus listened to his friends, he saw the need for rest.  They had been going flat-out for weeks now.  Their voices were shot.  They were sleep deprived.  They were beginning to get on one another’s nerves.  They couldn’t concentrate, and they weren’t making good decisions.  The crowds pursued them.  Longing for wholeness and healing, everyone wanted time with Jesus and his friends.  It was so frantic that they couldn’t eat or attend to their bodies or hear themselves think.

Jesus knew exactly what was needed.  He stopped his friends mid-story and said, “Come away with me to a quiet place and rest awhile.”  Then, Jesus stood up and invited them to follow him.  They walked down to the breakwater, climbed into the boat, cast off, and hoisted the sail.

We are all familiar with the toll that overwork and chronic busyness can take.  Science tells us that it effects our bodies.  Our stress level rises, increasing our heartrate and blood pressure.  Our bodies are flooded with the stress hormone cortisol which makes us ready to fight or flee and piles on the belly flat.  We are at increased risk for heart attack, diabetes, and stroke.  Our brains don’t work as well when we are work-weary and stressed out.  It’s hard to focus.  Our creativity and resourcefulness plummet.  It becomes difficult to make wise choices.  Our feelings can be on edge.  We are more likely to suffer from anxiety or depression.  It’s easy to cry or lose our cool and blow up.  Does any of this sound familiar?

To be whole and healthy people, we need vacation; we need rest.  In fact, time set apart, free from work, is an essential part of God’s plan for creation.  It’s right there in Genesis, in the foundational story of Judaism and Christianity.  God spent six days creating everything.  God launched the Big Bang and coalesced the stars and planets, shaped the continents and gathered the seas.  God coaxed life out of the raw material of God’s very self, jellyfish and blackflies, elephants, octopi, and corgis.  God brought humankind into being with the awareness of God and the task of caring for creation.  Then, as the crowning achievement of creation, God chose to rest, not because God was weary—we are talking about God here—but because it was right and fitting to have a day set apart to savor and delight and be.

This keeping of sabbath is echoed in the fourth commandment, “Remember the sabbath day—to keep it holy.”  Our sabbath rest honors God’s work in creation.  It reorients us and reminds us who is really the boss.  For Christians, our sabbath days and sabbatical times remind us that God creates and re-creates us.  The sabbath is the day of resurrection, a celebration of the new life we find in Jesus, who called himself the Lord of the Sabbath.  Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann teaches that when we enter into this intentional practice of observing sabbath and taking rest, we choose to participate in the tranquility of God.  We return to the foundational rhythm that God ordained in the structure of creation.  We live into the image of God in which we were made.

The science supports the scripture.  Times of rest restore us and make us healthier people.  All those critical numbers that shoot up with work-stress fall with rest.  Blood pressure, heart rate, cortisone levels, all drop.  Our brains function better.  In fact, the spontaneous activity of a rested brain can suddenly solve problems that we thought were impossible.  Our ability to concentrate is renewed.  Even our emotional health finds healing and new possibility.  Dr. Sarah Mednick, in her TED Talk “Give it Up for the Down State” says that the GDP would grow, businesses would thrive, and workers would be happier, healthier, and more productive if we incorporated more sabbath rest into our lives.  An ideal work week would feature an intense Monday-Tuesday, a Wednesday half-day with an afternoon of rest, and a busy Thursday-Friday, followed by weekend downtime.  Sign me up!

Finding time for a weekly day of sabbath or an afternoon of rest or a weeklong vacation isn’t always easy.  We think we are indispensable.  If we don’t do the work, who will?  We aren’t crazy about giving up control.  We find it hard to walk away.  In fact, most Americans do not take the vacation time that they are allotted.  I suspect that when Jesus called the disciples to come away, there were some foot-draggers.  They looked back, wishing they could heal one more leper.  They were afraid they would lose the direction of that killer sermon they were planning to preach.  But when we refuse to rest, we deny the sovereignty of God, we reject the example set for us in creation, and we do our world a disservice as our gifts are dimmed and diminished by the fatigue and impairment that come with stress and overwork.

I hope I have made my case about the importance of rest.  I also hope that your sabbath time includes some intentional God-time.  Sing a song of rejoicing for the lotus that rises from the mucky lake bottom to bless your paddle.  Take Jesus along on your trail walk.  Tell him all your troubles and thank him for sabbath.  Commune with God on the mountaintop, savoring the mystery and magic of the world spread out at your feet.  Go to church.  Every vacation, every rest, every time apart is an opportunity to be re-created in the hands of the ultimate Creator.

As I close, I’d like to return to Mark’s gospel.  The way Mark tells it, it doesn’t sound like the disciples got much rest.  They got in the boat.  They crossed over.  They found crowds of hurting people waiting on the other side.  But I did a little research.  If you have a favorable wind, sailing from Capernaum to the Gentile coast of the Decapolis takes a good six hours, longer if the winds are variable, longer still if you have calm.  That means the disciples had a whole day of sailing with Jesus.  How good would that be?  They soaked in the quiet.  They allowed the horizon to delight their eyes.  Peter relaxed at the tiller and allowed his mind to roam.  James and John stopped bickering.  Andrew threw in a line and caught dinner for everyone.  They all began to breathe with the rhythm of the breeze and the waves.  At some point they realized that it wasn’t just Jesus in the boat with them.  At one point, they knew that they were somehow sailing on, with, and into God.  Someone sang a doxology of rejoicing, thankful for the wholeness that is found when we come away and rest awhile with the Lord.  Amen.

Resources:

Thompson, Marjorie.  Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.

Bryant, Robert A. “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009.

Hasel, Gerhard. “Sabbath” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Cherry, Heather. “The Benefits of Resting and How to Unplug in a Busy World” in Forbes Magazine, Jan. 15, 2021.  Accessed online at Forbes.com.

Mednick, Sara. “Give It Up for the Down State” in TEDx Talks, June 4, 2013.

Pyramid Lake Wilderness

The Message We Do Not Want to Hear

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Sabbath Day Thoughts–Mark 6:14-29

Our nation has a long tradition of people who have spoken hard truths to those in power. In 1777, Midshipman Samuel Shaw and Third Lieutenant Richard Marven blew the whistle on the torture of British prisoners of war by Commodore Esek Hopkins, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy. Commodore Hopkins was well-connected. His brother was the Governor of Rhode Island and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In response to their truth-telling, Shaw and Marven were dismissed from the Navy, jailed, and slapped with a criminal libel suit in the Rhode Island courts. When the Continental Congress learned of the injustice afoot in Rhode Island, they unanimously enacted America’s first whistleblower protection law on June 30, 1778. Shaw and Marven were exonerated and Commodore Hopkins was censured for misconduct.

Perhaps the most notorious whistleblower of the twentieth century was Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst with RAND Corporation. In 1971, Ellsberg and colleague Anthony Russo leaked a top-secret study—the Pentagon Papers. The study revealed a web of deception and misinformation about the war in Vietnam. The Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations had lied to Congress and the American people about the viability and success of the war effort. Ellsberg was charged with espionage. He would likely have been convicted if Nixon conspirators G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt—The Whitehouse Plumbers—hadn’t burgled Ellsberg’s workplace, illegally tapped his phones, and plotted to have him dosed with LSD. When their efforts to quash Ellsberg’s truth telling were uncovered, the case against Ellsberg was dismissed.

Employees who speak hard truths in the workplace also face harassment and persecution. In 2010, Everett Stern was working as an anti-money laundering compliance officer with HSBC when he blew the whistle. Stern uncovered a massive, multi-national, money-laundering network at HSBC tied to terrorist groups in the Middle East. Stern sent numerous alerts to his supervisor about the problem, but his boss quashed every effort to stop the illegal wire transfers. Out of options, Stern made contact with the FBI and CIA. As the government noose tightened, Stern lost his job in October 2011. Blacklisted by the financial industry, Stern couldn’t find work. He resorted to waiting tables at PF Chang’s before eventually launching his own business in fraud detection. HSBC paid the federal government $1.92 billion in fines but never faced criminal prosecution for their actions.

John the Baptist knew all about the danger of speaking truth to power. As our reading from Mark’s gospel began, John was imprisoned at Machaerus, Herod Antipas’s mountaintop fortress and retreat. John was the only man in Israel with the chutzpah to call out Herod on his illicit marriage to Herodias. Herodias was Herod’s niece, the daughter of his brother Aristobulous, who had been murdered by their father Herod the Great. Herodias was also already married to his brother, Herod Philip I, who was very much alive and living as an ex-patriate in Rome. The incestuous and illicit union of Herod and Herodias was proscribed by the Torah. Leviticus eighteen and twenty expressly condemned their marriage. But not one priest, not one scribe, not one rabbi in Israel would confront the king about his sin. Everyone at Herod’s Feast knew that the king’s conduct was scandalous, an affront to the Torah, a sin against God, and an embarrassment to the nation.

They left it to John the Baptist, who was known for his blunt and fiery speech, to deliver the message that neither Herod nor Herodias wanted to hear. The Baptizer blew the whistle. He exposed the whole sordid scandal. His condemnation set tongues a-wagging and invited questions and scrutiny. As a result, John found himself a permanent guest of the king, confined to the dungeon at Machaerus, where he continued to denounce Herod and call for the king’s repentance. The king listened to the Baptizer with mixed fascination and fear.

Every message John preached from his prison cell was an opportunity for change. Herod could return to righteousness. He could make the choice for a holier life. Herod knew his guilt, and so did Herodias. As a woman in a deeply patriarchal world, John’s truth telling could lead to her banishment or execution. Rather than renounce her illegal marriage and return to her rightful husband, Herodias waited for the opportune moment when the whistleblower could be silenced, once and for all.

Being a whistleblower is risky business. We may not ever expose military misconduct or the abuse of Presidential power or corporate fraud and profiteering, but we all face moments when our moral sensibility tells us that something doesn’t smell right. Something is wrong. We know that if we remain silent, we will be complicit. Refusing to speak up, to say, “Stop. No.” is really a “Yes” because we have allowed wrong to go unchallenged. We know that if we speak out, there will be painful consequences for our lives: job loss, broken relationships, angry arguments, malicious gossip, outright rejection. Speaking the truth can be the hardest thing we ever do.

Although we may know the ethical challenge of being the whistleblower, we also know the shock and shame of having the whistle blown on us. We have heard hard truths that have confronted us with our bad behavior and sin. Our John the Baptist may have been the father who told us to swallow our pride, straighten up, and go home to the wife and kids. Our John the Baptist may have been the friends who confronted us about our addiction and insisted that we seek professional help. Our John the Baptist may have been the boss who noticed that we were cutting ethical corners and gave us the “Come to Jesus” speech. Our John the Baptist may have been the professor who caught us plagiarizing a paper and made us face the academic consequences for stealing someone else’s work.

We all know John. We have all had people in our lives who have cared enough to invite us to change, to be our better selves, to repent and begin again. Sometimes, we use the power at our disposal to silence them. We disconnect from the relationship. We tell them they are crazy. We deny we have a problem. We resort to threats and insults. Occasionally, we listen to them. Our lives take a new trajectory that isn’t easy, but it is right.

Herodias’s opportune moment came as her husband hosted a banquet to curry favor with his nobles, military commanders, and leading men of Galilee. The table was decked with delicacies. The wine flowed in abundance. The disturbing passion of the evening reached its crescendo as the daughter danced for her father’s pleasure. As Herod promised half his kingdom in reward for his daughter’s performance, Herodias knew she would get exactly what she wanted: John the Baptist’s head on a platter. When the tragic request is made to kill John, there is a graced moment, the king could have challenged his wife and risen to his better nature. He could have acknowledged his wrong and saved John’s life. But the moment passed and John’s fate was sealed in gory fashion.

When the Flemish artist Peter Paul Reubens painted “Herod’s Feast” in the 1600s, he did so with bold color and sensuous detail. Reubens portrayed Herod’s daughter in a scarlet silken dress, bosom bulging, coquettishly lifting the cover on a silver platter bearing the bloodied head of John. A smirking Heodias, at the king’s side, plies a fork with her pinky finger lifted in elegant fashion, ready to poke John’s lifeless head or perhaps serve him up to her husband. Herod looks on, eyes bulging in horror, hands clenching the table cloth in guilt and remorse, barely holding it together. All around them, the party continues, guests feasting and drinking and gossiping, as if the death of the whistleblower were a foregone conclusion.

It’s a terrible story. It’s hard to hear that Herod would sooner take an innocent man’s life than admit his sin and make a change. We are appalled to think that a mother would manipulate her husband and her daughter to bring about a murder. John’s death anticipates the cross and the death of the innocent Jesus at the hands of a weak Pontius Pilate and an angry mob. When this passage pops up in the lectionary cycle, preachers are tempted to give it a pass. But it is a story worth attending to. John’s end questions our moral character. Will we stand up for truth, or will we fail to blow the whistle and live in guilty silence? John’s demise also ultimately confronts us with our own whistleblowers. We have all walked in Herod’s sandals. We have not always risen to our better natures when forced to listen to the message that we do not want to hear. We read of Herod’s Feast and John’s death, and we know our aversion to the hard truths and our reluctance to change, even when it is the right and holy thing to do.

Our John the Baptist blows the whistle. There is a graced moment – the potential for change and growth. Will we become our better selves, or will the prophet lose their head?

Questions to ponder (leave a comment) . . .

When have you been a whistleblower?

Who has been your personal John the Baptist?

How have hard truths prompted you to change?

Peter Paul Reubens, “The Feast of Herod,” accessed online at https://www.peterpaulrubens.net/the-feast-of-herod.jsp

Resources:
Black, Matthew. “The US passed the first whistleblower law in 1777” in History 101, Feb. 14, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.history101.com/the-us-passed-the-first-whistle-blower-law-in-history-in-1777/.
Mullins, Lisa. “50 Years Ago, Daniel Ellsberg — Who Leaked The Pentagon Papers — Surrendered At Boston Federal Court” in WBUR News, June 28, 2021. Accessed online at https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/06/28/on-this-day-daniel-ellsberg-pentagon-papers-surrender-boston-federal-court
Mollenkamp, Carrick and Brett Wolf. “Special Report: HSBC’s money-laundering crackdown riddled with lapses” in Reuters, July 30, 2012. Accessed online at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-compliance-delaware-idUSBRE86C18H20120714
Hall, Douglas John. “Theological Perspective on Mark 6:14-29” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Yust, Karen Marie. “Pastoral Perspective on Mark 6:14-29” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Bryant, Robert A. “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 6:14-29” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.