Preaching helps.

The Holy Trinity--Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Series B

Moving Right Along

Early in his book Why Religion Matters (HarperCollins 2001) Huston Smith cites with approval Rainer Maria Rilke's suggestion "that we think of God as a direction rather than an object." That's a new one on me, I thought. But then I began to recall various passages of the New Testament speaking of the Spirit of God. Maybe thinking of God as a direction is not so new after all. Maybe I have just not been paying attention.

To Nicodemus in their nighttime conversation Jesus said that the Spirit resembles the wind. "Spirit" and "wind" are both pneuma in Greek, so Jesus plays with the word. "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" (John 3:8). Today I suppose we could make the case that meteorologists have become extraordinarily clever in tracking and even predicting the course of the jet steam and of huge windy events like hurricanes and tornadoes. But it is still true today that the whence and whither of the wind remain outside of our control.

Again linking wind and Spirit, Luke opens his description of Pentecost in Acts 2 with the following words: "Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind" (Luke here uses the Greek word pnoe).

The wind of the Spirit blows from heaven, from above, from God. That's where it is coming from, but where is it going? In what direction is it traveling? Jesus in John 3 speaks of the goal as the surprise of rebirth, the astonishing breakthrough to new life. And as John's Gospel unfolds, we see that what is new about that "new" life is oneness with Christ in his self-giving love. It is new in seeing the glory of God in the agape of God and in the agape practiced in the community of believers.

Paul struggled in his congregations with believers who had strong convictions about the direction in which the Spirit of God was moving. For many at Corinth and other Pauline cities, being moved by the Spirit meant having the gift of tongues or miracles or healing or prophecy. And possession of those gifts became the basis for laying claim to a position of high leadership in the community. The spirit-filled boasted of their gifts and traded on them in a quest for status. Paul had no wish to quench the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19), but he wanted very much to reorganize the community's thinking about the Spirit, so he talked about the direction in which God is moving.

Paul's great "hymn to love" in 1 Corinthians exalts love (agape) as "a still more excellent way." Paul is not trying to eliminate the varied gifts present in the community. He will not throw cold water on them, but he is anxious that the use of all spiritual gifts be guided by the exercise of love. "Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts," Paul writes at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 14. I think he means that Christians should keep two things in view: (1) "pursue love (agape)" and (2) "strive for the spiritual gifts (pneumatika)." Too many craved spiritual gifts and wanted to use them without having agape as their end or aim.

In fact, "God is agape," as the Elder reminds us in 1 John 4:16. He makes that assertion in the context of a discussion about the "spirits," the spiritual winds blowing in his communities, the inspired ("windy"?) prophets on the move in his part of the world. "Test the spirits," he says, "to see whether they are from God" (1 John 4:1). Some are, and some are not. He recommends two tests: one is "christological" and the other is "ethical," we are told. Those are probably not the best words to describe what he suggests. What are the tests to be applied? (1) Does the inspired prophet teach and live in accord with what you know of God and God's direction when you remember the earthly life ("the flesh") of Jesus Christ? (2) Do the prophet's life and teaching accord with the fundamental conviction that "God is love"? The Elder says, "Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them" (1 John 4:16). Both of these tests (if indeed these are two and not one) are simultaneously christological and ethical.

So God's Spirit not only pushes and propels us in the direction of agape; God "is" agape. God is that movement, that wind, that trend, that subterranean river, that transcendent and restless energy always on the go, filling all things, sustaining all of us, forgiving and freeing us, coming down from above, welling up from below as the power of new life, the power of agape.

Elizabeth Johnson writes of the Spirit and love in She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1994). She says that "while love characterizes God as a whole, it is an especially apt term for that distinct manner of divine subsistence which is actually present and active in the world and which people call Spirit." Naming the Spirit as "love" and "gift" points to "both the inmost nature of divine mystery and the outermost reach of God's power freely streaming around creation to quicken and renew," empowering all creatures "to birth and rebirth in the midst of the antagonistic structures of reality" (142-43).

Love and God, love and the Spirit, are everywhere closely connected in the New Testament. Paul writes in Galatians that the "fruit," the natural growth and yield of the Spirit, is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal 5:22-23). We cannot see the wind, and its whence and whither are mysterious. But where this fruit is present, God's Spirit is active. These fruits are all "directions" (with a small d) as evidence of God as "Direction" (with a big D.) And "love" heads this list of spiritual fruit.

I heard of a congregation that asks its new members to compose a "spiritual plan." New members are not immediately told, "We have these twelve committees, and we think you might fit in nicely with this committee or that." Rather the pastor seeks to enter into conversation with new members about their spiritual goals. What are you seeking? What is the direction (!) in which you want your life and the life of your family to move? How can our congregation with its various resources assist you in moving in that direction?

Congregations do planning. Businesses write plans. Why shouldn't Christian folks write up a spiritual plan? Many individual members of congregations and many pastors have sought out "spiritual directors." Much ambiguity and diversity surrounds the concept, but the Pentecost season is surely an opportune time for reflecting on the Divine Wind and the direction in which it is blowing.

In a January 2003 broadcast, Garrison Keillor was talking with guest Jearlyn Steele, a singer with Pentecostal background. She grew up singing all kinds of warm and joyful songs and still enjoys them. Keillor said to her, "I bet the church services of your youth were long." She replied that they could go on for more than two hours. "But as a Pentecostal," he continued, "you probably did a lot of jumping around in those services." She laughed, and he went on, "We sat quietly through our services." "Was it uncomfortable?" she asked. He responded, "We were brought up to welcome discomfort; it was part of being saved. We Lutherans skip the second chapter of Acts; we focus instead on 'Be still and know that I am God."' She replied, "What about 'making a joyful noise'?" They laughed with one another and turned to song.

Their easy banter reminds us in good-humored fashion that people have often thought of the Spirit as having a peculiar connection to the emotions. And some of us are leery of speaking about "the Spirit" because we are suspicious of the emotions. But their exchange might also serve to loosen us up so that we might talk with one another about the Spirit and address the really urgent questions, What is the Spirit doing among us? What are the Spirit's alms? How do we know when we are in the grip of the Holy Spirit of God? What's the difference between the Spirit of God and the spirit of the times? And, what are my "spiritual plans"?

Helping all the rest of us to ponder these matters as we enter the Season of Pentecost with its astonishing biblical texts is James Bartos. He has been pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, since 1993. Jim previously served six years in campus ministry and in congregations of the upper Midwest. When he lived in Wisconsin, he learned Nordic skiing but says that he is not going back where the snow lies deep ever again. However, after he wrote that (because he wrote that?), didn't twelve inches of snow fall on North Carolina's Outer Banks? God is full of surprises. Anyway, when it is not snowing, he runs, rides his bike, and plays tennis as often as he can.

Jim tells me that his grandmother gave him a leather-bound King James Bible back in 1947. She inscribed these words in it, "May you always love this book and believe its teachings." He still has that Bible. And he writes, "I do love that book, and like Jacob at the Jabbock crossing, have wrestled all night with its teachings, teachings that have blessed and wounded me."

And Jim remembers his parents who were high school dropouts and perhaps for that reason placed high value on education and sacrificed to get him to college. In college he met Carol, to whom he is still married. They have three married children and three grandchildren. When he retires, he hopes to spend more time on tennis courts and make more trips to see those grandkids. I hope he gives or has given them a Bible and that he writes something in it that they will remember and cherish in the days ahead.

Jim writes in his contribution for Trinity Sunday that the three texts for that day articulate "the lofty, the intimate, the mysterious." When speaking of God and the Spirit, it is so easy to slide into the sentimental, but he avoids that peril. In all these reflections he maintains a focus on the strong images of the texts and makes effective use of contemporary images and sometimes earthy vernacular.

Thanks to Jim and to all preachers who stick their hands up into the winds and help us to see which are of the Spirit of God and which are not. The Good Word helps us to move right along and to move along right.

Yours,

Robert H. Smith, Editor of Preaching Helps

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary 

2770 Mann Avenue Berkeley CA 94708

[e-mail]

Holy Trinity First Sunday after Pentecost June 15, 2003

Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalm 29

Romans 7:12-17

John 3:1-17

First Reading

The prophet "saw God." He names the year that he "saw God." It was the "year king Uzziah died." Everybody remembered that year. We always remember the year the king dies: the year our nation's isolation died (1941), the year our Camelot died (1963), the year our innocence died (2001). You always remember the year the king dies.

Isaiah roots his personal vision in history. And he roots his vision in what is familiar. He "saw God" where God is supposed to be, enthroned in the temple. It is the customary place. You go to church, to the holy place, "high and lofty." But God is much too big for the holy place. The mere hem of his robe fills the holy place.

And attending God, "there be dragons." Seraphs, it says. Flying fiery snakes, with terrible voices that shake the foundations of the holy place. Modest dragons when they attend God, covering their faces as they attend God, and covering their private parts. Protecting the "family jewels," you might say in a more secular place. The prophet becomes as modest, covering his face too. "Oi vey!" he says. "I'm dead," he says. "Unclean lips," he says, "yet my eyes have seen the King." The king has just died, but this is the King, not Uzziah and not Ahab).

And a seraph, one of the fiery dragons with a foundation-shaking voice, must use tongs to carry the coal that will cleanse the prophet's lips. Even a dragon cannot touch what God cleanses a man's unclean lips with, a man from a people of unclean lips.

Isaiah's eyes, and then his lips, and now ears. "I heard the voice of the Lord." Ha kohl, the Voice--it is the Voice that moves the episode from autobiography to mission. From the dead king to the young king, from Uzziah to Ahab. What the prophet hears becomes most important. It is the Bible's principal witness: God speaks, someone hears, things change. "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"

The change for St. Paul is from fear to family, "a spirit of adoption," he says. We belong! "Papa," we can say. "Daddy." "Abba!" "Children of God" now we are, "led by the Spirit of God." "With Christ" in suffering and in glory.

Then there is Nicodemus in John 3 making his confession of faith: "You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus takes charge immediately. That's the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel. He will be in charge of his trial and execution, too. "Very truly," Jesus says--a formula announcing that a weighty teaching is coming. Nicodemus asks the silly question: Able to enter the mother's womb? Preposterous. "Able to enter the kingdom of God" is Jesus' point, and just as preposterous, except "by the Spirit," blowing with the freedom and unpredictability of the wind, because "God so loved the world."

Pastoral Reflections

Pick up the green book and turn to hymn 165. Be sure that your face and your feet are properly covered. When Lutherans sing "Holy, holy, holy," as most of us will on June 15, it will be as far removed from Isaiah's vision of the seraphs as my now dead mother's womb is from the kingdom of God. "You must be born again," some of our Christian brothers and Sisters insist, and they are right. Only I cannot make this birth happen any more than I made my birth happen the first time around.

In these three texts we would seem to have the lofty, the intimate, and the mysterious. Isaiah's frightening image is countered by Paul's picture of a daddy's lap, and St. John brings in mama: a birth, the labor of mother, but "by water and the Spirit" this time.

Both Isaiah and John move on to condemnations, but our texts stop here. For now that's fine. This is not necessarily the time to declare who is in trouble and left out of the kingdom. It is sufficient to know that God loves this world enough to use smoke, fire, earthquake, scary beasts, a gentle embrace, water, and wind, just to save us.

"How can these things be?" Nicodemus asked. "God so loved the world...." How can these things be? "...so that everyone who believes ... may have eternal life." How can these things be? "... that the world might be saved through him." How can these things be? "... we are children of God...." How can these things be? "... heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ...." How can these things be? "... suffer with him ... glorified with him." How can these things be? "Here am I; send me." How indeed can these things be?

Oi vey! And we are born again.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

June 22, 2003

Hosea 2:14-20

Psalm 103:1-13, 22

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Mark 2:13-22

First Reading

There seems to be a question about whether Hosea's experience with Gomer taught him about God and Israel or whether what Hosea experienced of God and Israel taught him about being husband to a difficult woman. Whatever. God is wedded to a philandering people.

There also seems to be broad opinion that chapters 4-14 are muddled, sometimes beyond intelligent interpretation. Our appointed passage seems clear enough. God is not about to let Israel go and is willing to be devious if necessary: "allure," the NRSV says. "Seduce" is another possible English rendering. It is what Jeremiah accuses YHWH of (look up 20:7). The polite NRSV chose "entice." "Deceive" would work too. Jeremiah even goes on to what appears close to an accusation of rape.

In Hosea, the sexual images are equally clear and far less strident. "Allure." "Speak tenderly." Hints of a Sinatra ballad. (Hey, I'm old; so pick your own love song.) YHWH's hope: "she will respond as in the days of her youth." Her "husband" woos the straying beloved. "My dear husband," she will say, not "My master." I hear echoes of Isaiah ("swords into plowshares") and even Psalm 23. "I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord." YHWH is monogamous.

"A new covenant," says Paul to that congregation in Corinth that gave him fits and gave us some powerful material. "... not of letter but of spirit," he says of this new covenant. "You are a letter of Christ," he tells the church, "prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." Writing with ink, the Apostle to the Gentiles dismisses ink as the arbiter of controversy (here, apparently controversy over Paul's authority to instruct and correct this congregation). "For the letter kills" (think Taliban and the historic pogroms in Christian Europe), "but the Spirit gives life" (think Peter's vision in Acts 10).

Mark could be called America's Gospel. "Immediately" is a favorite word. He wastes no time getting started. No birth narrative. No prologue. There is a nod to the prophets with a quick quote from Isaiah. There is a paragraph on the Baptizer and the voice from heaven. There is the wilderness test and John's arrest--all in the first 14 verses. By the time we get to our text for today, Jesus has called several disciples, healed a bunch of people, preached a little, and offended some folks. He offends a few more in this episode. His disciples are asked to explain Jesus' action (eating with sinners and tax collectors). Jesus will be asked in the next paragraph to explain the actions of his disciples (why they are not fasting like disciples of other significant religious teachers). The questions give Jesus the opportunity to teach regarding his purpose ("I have come to call ... sinners") and his identity ("the bridegroom"), coming very close to calling himself Messiah. Then come these mini-parables about new and o ld following the controversy over eating. Mark is definitely America's Gospel.

Pastoral Reflections

Jesus speaks of a wedding feast as a parabolic explanation of why his disciples are not fasting like everybody else, but Hosea does not describe a feast for his wedding. It was no party. Today there are prenuptials: "Get it in writing" is good legal advice. But there is far more in writing when you get a divorce than when you get married. Unless you go in for prenuptials, hardly anything is written in ink when you get married. Sign here. Press hard. And the minister (or a secretary) writes it in the book later. But go see a lawyer when you've decided that divorce is called for and see how much must be written. Not so with marriage. Much more spirit. Much less ink. God's relationship with the people is like that.

We call ourselves "the people of the book," and that is accurate. It is also dangerous. The book, the canon, our principal witness, can be used like a weapon (a cannon?) and has been. We could also call ourselves "the people of the heart" and be just as accurate and just as dangerous. The heart and the book need each other. Expose your heart to the book. Read the book with your heart. "You are a letter of Christ," Paul has said, which places a great strain on our trust in Christ, like new wine in an old wineskin. Interesting that Jesus is caught eating with "tax collectors and sinners." At least in this snippet Jesus does not tell them to stop being tax collectors or even sinners. At this point he just eats with them. We might even call it the Lord's "First Supper."

Third Sunday after Pentecost June 29, 2003

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Psalm 81:1-10

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Mark 2:23-3:6

First Reading

Slaves and aliens become equals with landlords and landlord children on the sabbath. Remember that you were a slave and alien once, God tells the landlords. Tells us. The Exodus version of the fourth commandment bases its claim on creation. Do what God did, it says. Work six. Rest one. God ceased from work, and this cessation made the day qadosh, "consecrated," holy. In Deuteronomy it is redemption, not creation, that is the basis for sabbath keeping. "Remember that you were a slave ... therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day."

Eight of the big ten are about things to avoid. Lo, they say. "Thou shalt not," they say. Four and five tell us to do things: "Remember." "Honor." Remembering who it is who redeemed you is the way to have "no other gods." Kill, lie, steal, break promises, and you dishonor father and mother. The length and elaboration of the fourth commandment speaks to its importance, as does the promise attached to the fifth. "Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy" is not something we can blow off, according to the Deuteronomist.

Paul piles on metaphors: slave and master, light and darkness, treasure and clay jars (Do you prefer plastic or paper?). Paul credits God for any success in his ministry, somewhat like a wide receiver pointing to the sky after catching a pass in the end zone. This apostle, whom we Lutherans have claimed as ours, seems to have a way of boasting while denying that he is boasting. He is, after all, a clay jar. And death really is at work in him.

The Son of Man has authority over sickness, demons, sin, and Torah. Mark is in a hurry. Even the cross makes an early appearance in this breathless Gospel.

There are continuing arguments about just what "Son of Man" means, but what seems clear is that Mark means Jesus, and Mark is in a hurry. "Lord of the sabbath" goes to the heart of the matter. Sabbath observance is not optional, and challenging it should never be taken lightly when we read this pericope or any like it. This is a grave matter. The decision that he must be "destroyed" begins here.

Everyone in this little episode would have agreed that the sabbath could and should be broken in an emergency. Feeding someone starving. Rescuing someone in danger. But Mark tells us that the disciples were breaking off the heads of grain, possibly doing nothing more than creating a path through the field. They were not eating it. Jesus' explanation seems a stretch (it was not even Abiathar who was the priest in the 1 Samuel story he makes reference to). And in the synagogue, a "withered hand" is not life-threatening. So why is Jesus, "lord of the sabbath," being deliberately provocative? Church and state--Pharisees and Herodians--enter into consultation, and we catch a glimpse of Golgotha.

Pastoral Reflections

"We do not proclaim ourselves," says the Apostle whose modesty is minimal. Bob Jones and Oral Roberts named universities after themselves. Billy Graham has his evangelism association. Pastors will speak of "my" people and "my" council. We could learn from Paul about more things than only justification by faith.

My observation (and my confession!) is that we break the sabbath more often to "proclaim ourselves" than either to provoke folks into decision and action as Jesus does in Mark or to address a genuine emergency. Most of us don't murder and steal. We covet some and say an occasional naughty word, perhaps even invoking the Lord our God in ways we might prefer "our" people and "our" council not hear. We will break sabbath and "our" people will praise us for it. We will not remember who created and who redeemed us. There is too much of the spirit of Bob Jones and Oral Roberts in us, and not nearly enough Paul.

Of course, we should do our work faithfully, even though there seems to be no direct command to work for six days in Deuteronomy. "Six days you shall labor" could be seen as imperative. It is a future construction and is more likely a simple observation for a subsistence society. Not working is no option. Not working for the resident alien and slave is never an option. Except here. Except when God commands it. All of the world becomes equal on the sabbath. All become free, rich, and twenty-one. This the Lord of the sabbath would give us and only the enemies of God would seek to destroy.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost July 6, 2003

Genesis 3:8-15

Psalm 130

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Mark 3:20-35

First Reading

The crafty serpent is clearly guilty. "Cursed are you," the Lord God declares, not bothering to ask the serpent where he is or what he's done. But the man, the human, whose name is Dusty or Muddy or Clay, whom we know as Adam, is afraid. He hides. He explains. He blames. The crafty serpent does none of that. Too crafty he must be to even try to hide. Cursed he is, and removed from the drama. The drama continues with the children of Eve.

Adam attempts craftiness and fails. This whole thing is complex, Adam explains to God. "There are subtleties here that you must understand, many sides to the issue," he points out. But for God, it is simple: "You ate."

This episode has the appearance of a legal procedure: there is the apprehension and interrogation of the perpetrators, the indictment, the defense, the judgment and sentence. Adam's defense is the making of excuses. Innocent by reason of nakedness. When that fails, blame the woman (notice that she's not Eve yet; Adam will give her that name later, much as he named the animals at God's instruction in happier days). Craftily, Adam never says "I didn't do it" but "This is why I did it and you will see that it is not really my fault." Like covering up his embarrassing nakedness, he tries to cover up his guilt.

The serpent turns out to be right: they do become like God. He is also right about God's motivation for not wanting them to eat from those two trees (look ahead to verse 22). Like God, they are on their own and are going to have to make their own way from now on. Except that God does not leave them on their own, beginning with providing a better way to cover up their embarrassing nakedness.

"So we do not lose heart," says the Apostle of grace. Genesis tells the story of the man's humiliation. Paul moves us to anticipate "the eternal weight of glory beyond all measure." The Corinthian Christians knew life outside of the garden, and it is a mess. But, says Paul, "we have a building from God...eternal in the heavens." All of this, the raising of Jesus from the dead and the raising of us from the dead, is "for your sake." "More and more people"..."increase thanksgiving," God is glorified. "So we do not lose heart," even though Paul's "earthly tent," his own ugly body, is soon on its way to Rome and execution.

Jesus is in the house. A house that is divided against itself, it would appear. His family "went out," Mark says, to try to get him under control. "He has gone out of his mind," people have said. The theologians are more focused: "He has Beelzebul." Jesus' defense against the theologians is to point out how stupid it would be of Beelzebul if their theory were correct. His response to his family is to redefine family. His mother and his siblings are "standing outside," and that house is not divided against itself. "Here are my mother and my brothers," he says looking around at those inside. "Whoever does the will of God."

Notice that no one questions Jesus' ability to heal and exorcise demons. The only question is how. The slander to the Holy Spirit (who drove Jesus into the wilderness for his test in chapter 1 and will be there speaking what needs to be said when the disciples are under persecution in 13) is the one obstacle to membership in this family of Jesus that cannot be removed. He's out of his mind, the people say. It's demonic, the theologians explain. This is serious, writes Mark. And the "they" in verse 30--is it only the scribes who are accused, or is it also "his family who went out to restrain him" because of what people were saying about him? Hmmm.

Pastoral Reflections

Sin is what people do in defiance of God. We may struggle with a precise definition of that "tree of knowledge," but we know defiance of God. We know shame. We know cover-up, denial, and blame. Christ's "house" in Corinth is divided against itself, and every preacher could name a few people who have worried about their guilt over some "unforgivable" sin.

The serpent is cursed, and God never takes that curse away. The humans are punished, and God spends the remainder of the story trying to keep the damage to a minimum.

Adam did not say "Yes" when God asked, "Did you?" And he never says "I'm sorry." Adam loses a lot by that failure, but what he does not lose is his freedom before God, to engage God and be engaged. Only the serpent, who is never addressed by God again, is so cursed, so unforgiven. Adam and Eve with their knowledge of good and evil do not lose their freedom to engage the Almighty, nor do their children--not Cain and Abel, not Abraham, not Job, not you and me. Cursed we are not. Nor are we beyond forgiveness, beyond the house where Jesus is central and his family gathers.

Paul quotes Psalm 116, "I believed and so I spoke." He makes a bold claim that he "has the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture." It is his credential as a preacher. What's yours?

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost July 13, 2003

Ezekiel 17:22-24

Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15

2 Corinthians 5:6-10 [11-13], 14-17

Mark 4:26-34

First Reading

Ezekiel is the allegorical prophet (vine, bride, birds, lion; "Take a brick," he is told in chap. 4; "take a sharp sword" in chap. 5; "set On the pot" in 24; he sees wheels in the sky and a valley of dry bones). He offers up a messianic allegory here: the messiah as branch of the cosmic tree. In chap. 17, it seems that empire and YHWH have similar agendas. It is an eagle who takes the "top of the cedar" in verse 3. In verse 22, "I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar ... a tender one" to be planted by the very hand of YHWH "on the mountain height of Israel." YHWH, the God of reversals, will bring the superpower down (here Babylon, but all empires should be afraid) and raise up the defeated and exiled. "The word of the Lord" comes to Ezekiel again and again and again. Ben Adam, God calls him. "Mortal," it is rendered in the NRSV. "Son of man" is literal. Empire's agenda is currently in place. YHWH's agenda is future, but because it is YHWH's, it will happen.

"...everything has become new!" says Paul. "All this is from God," he goes on to assert in the verse just beyond the assigned lection. Fully agreeing with Ezekiel, the Apostle to the gentiles speaks with confidence. "...there is a new creation," he flatly states even as the old creation (yet another empire) is carting him off soon to prison and death. "For if we are beside ourselves," he says in v. 13 as though this might have been a claim made against him by his detractors so that he must establish his authority (go back to v. 12, "We are not commending ourselves to you again," which is exactly what he is doing, commending himself, but for you, "giving you an opportunity to boast about us."). Yes, he seems to say, I am beside myself, appropriating the accusation: "it is for God." For you, however, "we are in our right mind." "Look!" (idou) he says. "See!" the NRSV says, rightly adding the exclamation point. If he'd had one, Paul would have used a pink highlighter.

Mark tells the purpose of parables in 4:10-12: the mysterion, the "secret of the kingdom of God" (NRSV) has been given "to you" (i.e., "those who were around him with the twelve"). "...but for those outside, everything comes in parables" so that though they "look," they will not "perceive." They "may indeed listen, but not understand." And the curious conclusion, "so that they may not turn again and be forgiven." Verse 34 completes this section of Mark, "he explained everything in private to his disciples." Which makes me wonder if Mark didn't write chapter 4 after someone from his church asked him, How come we get it and they don't? It's because Jesus wanted it that way, he seems to say here and leaves the mystery stand.

Our pericope uses some intriguing words. Verse 28 gives us automate, the earth producing on its own accord, "automatically." Verse 29 has one of Mark's repeated adverbs, euthus, "immediately," and apostellei, the farmer "sends out" his sickle for the harvest like an apostle "sent out." Maybe. Verse 32 would seem to echo our Ezekiel text and then the question in v. 40 (beyond our assigned reading), "Why are you afraid?" He's explained everything, and they wonder who this Teacher, who has been explaining everything, really is. "With what can we compare the kingdom of God?" Jesus asks in v. 30, and answers his own question: "a mustard seed," the "smallest of all seeds." (Not really the smallest, but for a parable it will do.) Anabaino is the word in 32, for "it grows up." The word is used elsewhere for resurrection. And then come Ezekiel's birds to make nests.

Pastoral Reflections

This is life lived in the promise of God. Do your work. "Sleep and rise." "There was evening and there was morning, the sixth day." Genesis 1, of course. Perhaps our horticultural sophistication, genetic manipulation, fertilizers, irrigation, herbicides, and insecticides have jaded us to the mystery of growth, what the earth does "automatically." If we were all raptured tonight, North America would be a glorious forest and lush prairie in a humiliatingly short amount of time. I can hear the spotted owl and American bison praying for the rapture to happen soon and to include all human beings, true believer or not.

It would seem that metaphor, allegory, and parable are the best vehicles for the word of the Lord. To understand these vehicles for their life-giving truth, one must be intimate with Jesus, at least according to year B's good news narrator. You need to be one of "those who [are] around him along with the twelve" (v.10), one of Jesus' idiois, his own of v. 34. "And he walks with me and he talks with me," in that hymn we Lutherans love to hate. Jesus does tell me things he does not tell anyone else, according to Mark, yet not to me alone but "those who were around him along with the twelve." Things he does not tell "the very large crowd" that began this chapter. To grasp the meaning of the miracle stories that follow chapter 4 and that puzzling concluding verse 8 of chapter 16, you need to be among those "around him along with the twelve." Paul is one of those "around him along with the twelve," but in an unexpected way, which may account for his irrational exuberance for Jesus, an exuberance that is misunderst ood ("For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God") and must be explained ("We are not commending ourselves to you again..."). I get the feeling that Paul is misunderstood (by me!) because he is so darned Greek and not Jewish enough. His Semitic storytelling gene seems to have become recessive, and that makes his elaborations tough going for weaker minds like mine.

Which is the very thing that makes Ezekiel my favorite prophet. He would be writing for Wonder Comics today. Paul goes into his treatise about the body and judgment, and I have to parse and struggle, yet his "See!" is clear. It is Ezekiel's message, too. We are already a new creation. Here is the future. Do not be afraid. Only empire needs to be afraid.

Anyone "around him along with the twelve" has had it explained.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost July 20, 2003

Job 38:1-11

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4:35-41

First Reading

The very first words from God's mouth in Job 1 are questions addressed not to Job but to Satan: "Where have you come from?" and "Have you considered my servant Job?" Except for repeating the questions in chapter 2 where the ante is raised, God is silent until now when God piles question upon question, chapter after chapter, up to 40:3. Job then manages to squeeze in a word for two verses, and then the Lord continues the questions for two more chapters. "Who is this?" roars the Almighty, knowing perfectly well who this is. It is "that man" introduced in the first verse of chapter 1, "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil."

There is no apparent "steadfast love enduring forever" from the Lord God in Job. The psalmist sings beautifully of what happens to those who are delivered from calamity by the Lord called "good." "Some wandered in desert wastes," "some sat in darkness and gloom," "some were sick through their sinful ways," "some went down to the sea in ships." The Lord "redeemed them from trouble," says the poet. "Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love." Job is not invited to say "thank you."

Now if only all of us preachers could say together with Paul, "We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry." I am not so sure that St. Paul actually pulled it off in every case himself. Then in verse 12 he does something your homiletics teacher would never let you get away with. It's not me, says the apostle to the Gentiles. It's you. Still, the urgency Paul expresses is one that remains: now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!" So does his understanding that grace can be accepted "in vain." Grace will change you. "Open wide your hearts" is the change, with "no restriction...in affection," like my heart, he says.

Reading 2 Corinthians is somewhat like listening to one end of a telephone conversation (annoyingly common in public places now) where you do not hear the other voice and you can't be entirely sure you are hearing all from this side, for that matter. But the reading is clear enough.

In the psalm, the sailors "were glad because they had quiet" from the storm. In Mark, the sailors (disciples this time) are frightened when "the wind ceased, and there was dead calm."

This episode moves from mega-squall to mega-calm to mega-fear, litanylike in the evangelist's Koine Greek. Jesus accuses them of being timid, perhaps cowardly, in v. 40. They are afraid, in 41. The disciples in the boat are not afraid of the wind or the waves or the swamping of the boat. They are angry with the sleeping Jesus: "do you not care?" they say, not even asking for help from him. I believe this is deliberate on the storyteller's part. Jesus rebukes the wind and the sea, and then rebukes the disciples. The wind and sea obey him. He has less success with his disciples. And what of those "other boats" in v. 36? How many? Who is in them? How did they handle the storm? The calm? My curiosity. If these things mattered, Mark would have told us. Or, is that us in those boats?

"Who then is this?" the disciples ask. They call him "Teacher." But who is this, "that even the wind and the sea obey him?" The wild man in the Gerasene cemetery (or is it Legion, the demons in him?) knows who this is: "Jesus, son of the most high God." That's the episode that happens after these boats get to "the other side." The author has already told us readers with the first stroke of his pen who this is: "Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Teaching is what Jesus has pretty much been doing since 1:21 when he astounded the folks in Capernaum with his teaching. Even the miracles become teaching moments more than once. At 1:38, Jesus identifies his mission as "proclaiming the message." But now, the Teacher whom they took into their boat "just as he was" (reflect on v. 36 for a while when you have a quiet moment or two) is more than they though the was. "Who then is this...?"

On "the other side" there will be healings and a resurrection. In chapter 6 Jesus will "astound" the people in his home town, and after another evening storm, there will be more terror and astonishment among the disciples (this at 6:47f.). Mark will explain, "their hearts were hardened." And they remain "utterly astounded."

Pastoral Reflections

Job and Mark end in questions. The word of the Lord today is a question that we can neither escape nor answer. The word of the Lord today is a question that silences complaints, demands, and facile explanations.

There are multiple voices in Scripture, and we need every one of them. Human experience is multidimensional. There are questions that reduce us to silence, calamities that drive us to sing loudly when we have survived them. No blaming. No fault finding. No hearings to determine guilt. No errors named that can be avoided next time. Only hymns of praise, like the psalm. Only prayers of intercession, like Job's at th every end of the book.

Job and Mark do not give us images of the Divine that we can cuddle up to, be chums with. And Paul always seems just a bit prickly with a few notable exceptions. There are other voices in the Bible in other places that lend themselves to the intimacy of a loving papa, a tender motherly presence of the Divine, even a suitor, a lover, as well as a reasonable, persuasive teacher. But not here. Not today. Today, "I will question you, and you shall declare to me," so "gird up your loins like a man."

The church is still afraid at Mark 16:8; timid, cowardly, as it is here in 4. Mark makes sense to me as a sixteen-chapter parable, drawing me into the story the way parables are supposed to, putting me in one of those "other boats," putting me in 16:9 perhaps, or, after these two millennia, chapter 36 somewhere. Jesus' question, "Have you still no faith?" is frighteningly modem. Gird up your loins, indeed.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost July 27, 2003

Lamentations 3:22-33

Psalm 30

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Mark 5:21-43

First Reading

Lamentations 3 is an acrostic on the Hebrew alphabet, each letter given three lines: three alephs, three beths, three gimmels, and so on. Our text is down to heth, teth, yod, and qaph. We are reading a skilled poet as well as a challenging theologian and sensitive social commentator, all the things a prophet needs to be.

The teth lines repeat the word God speaks at creation when the work of each day is pronounced "Good." Tab, the poet says. What is declared tab by the poet depends on God's maternal instinct. The word rendered "mercies" in verse 22 and compassion" in 32 is the verb that gives us the noun that would be rendered "womb" in English. "Steadfast love" in both places is the familiar chesed.

Note the quotation from Exodus 16 that Paul inserts encouraging the Corinthians to finish with fresh enthusiasm what they began. God provides enough for the day. Not commanding anything from these Christians, but only giving them his advice. "Your abundance," he says, is a fair balance to "their need." It is money he is referring to. Dangerous for preachers, he does it skillfully: "in order that there may be a fair balance."

And a double-barreled salvation story in Mark. Sozo is your Koine dictionary entry: heal, save, preserve, rescue, keep from harm. A rich word for Mark to employ in these skillfully told parallel episodes.

The man and the woman are both people of faith. The man, named and identified; the woman, anonymous. The man comes with confidence, shows proper deference, and announces what he believes. "Come... lay your hands ... made well... live." The woman secretly speaks her faith. "If I but touch his clothes ... made well." Jesus will tell Jairus not to be afraid, "only believe." The woman believes and then is afraid. Note too the twelve-year flow of blood and the twelve-year-old girl. Note that Jesus calls the anonymous woman "Daughter," and the unnamed "daughter" of the leader of the synagogue, although the words Mark uses for each are different.

Each of these stories could stand alone, and that is the way we used to read them in church. Now it seems patently clear that they belong together. If nothing else, Mark would seem to be telling us that there is no fixed pattern for healing/salvation. There is no standard behavior for belief. Jesus hears a variety of faith-driven prayers, even the ones tinged with what appears to be superstition. Nor is it a matter of enough faith. That is not at issue. There is amazement and fear around these stories, including the disciples' rather testy response: "You see the crowd!" They are evidently amazed that he would remark about being touched. We know, because the ubiquitous writer tells us that this was a faith touch and that "power had gone forth from him." The mere proximity of disciples and a "large crowd" did not take power from him. The response of his disciples is echoed in the derisive laughter from the weepers and wailers in Jairus' house. The story ends with overwhelming amazement and Jesus' command that the girl be given something to eat.

Amazement and fear are frequent in Mark's Gospel. This chapter begins with Jesus frightening the Gerasene swineherds and the amazement among those who heard the testimony of the man whose demons had been exorcised. There was amazement in Capernaum at the beginning of Jesus' public life and at pretty much every page after that. The amazement in the story-within-a-story here is that Jesus could perceive someone touching him and that somehow power had gone out from him to another and he did not know who, this simultaneous secret awareness of both Jesus and the woman. Mark does not tell us that anyone else was aware a healing had happened. She believed, and then she was afraid. In contrast Jesus must tell Jairus "Do not fear," and then, "only believe." And the leader of the synagogue disregards the advice from his own house that he need not "trouble the teacher any further."

Pastoral Reflections

"Do not fear. Only believe." A good message for preachers, 21st-century leaders of the synagogue, the gathering places of God's people. Do not fear the reports coming from the house. What you believed at the very start (see Mark 8:21) is still true. What you believed when you applied for seminary admission and accepted that first call and submitted to ordination is still true. Do not heed the bad news coming from the house. Pay no attention to the good advice that you "no longer need trouble the Teacher." Keep on troubling the Teacher. Your daughter (your preaching, your ministry, your effectiveness, your imagination and energy and skill) is not dead, but only sleeping.

The witnesses of the Transfiguration are here in the room, a transfiguration of Jesus from teacher like Elijah and Moses to the one with power over death itself, a power only God has. These same three will be with Jesus again in chapter 14, but in spite of the amazing things they have witnessed, they'll sleep through Gethsemane. That's when Jesus will be amazed at Peter, James, and John. "Are you still sleeping?" he will say. He will awaken them with the unpleasant news of the betrayer at hand in contrast to the gentle awakening here.

Jesus will be amazed in chapter 6 at the unbelief in his hometown. Unbelief does not amaze me. Belief that touching the hem of his garment as he passes by on his way somewhere else is amazing. Belief that the Teacher can raise someone from the dead is amazing. Not believing is what amazes Jesus. He is not amazed when someone is healed and lives. He is amazed when there is someone who refuses to believe, refusing to be healed.

Whatever made that bleeding woman conclude such a thing? Touch the hem of his cloak, indeed. "Why trouble the teacher any further?" Whatever made you conclude that you could preach the gospel and anybody would be touched, healed, saved? Where in the world did that come from?

"Do not fear, only believe."

Eighth Sunday after

Pentecost

August 3, 2003

Ezekiel 2:1-5

Psalm 123

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Mark 6:1-13

First Reading

"Stand on your feet," commands YHWH to this one the Lord insists upon calling ben adam. And a ruach sets Ezekiel on his feet and he hears. Ezekiel has been looking and looking and looking all through chapter 1. Now he listens. Image is stacked upon image, symbol layered over symbol in a confusing array. What is not confusing is "the Voice." What is perfectly clear is the speech of the indescribable Divinity. The command of God, "Do not be afraid of them," this "impudent and stubborn" people, is focused. Ezekiel will have some hard things to say to Israel. There will also be a time when the prophet must say soft things. The Voice will tell when, and the Spirit will give him breath. There will be judgments pronounced and laments sung. There will be promises and magnificent visions: dry bones coming together and rising to life, a mighty army; a perfect temple and the glory of God returning to dwell there. But now, the command is simple: Don't be afraid of them. Whether they hear or do not hear, don't be afraid o f them. "They shall know that there has been a prophet among them."

Like a slave looking to the master, "have mercy upon us," prays a people worn down by the scorn, the contempt of "those who are at ease," "the proud" they are called in this song of lament. This is not the God of the typical praise song. This is the remote and powerful God, with whom the singers cannot be chums. "Mercy" is all the poet can ask. A helpless, desperate people pray this way.

"My grace is sufficient for you," reports Paul, not boasting yet boasting of his secret revelations ("1 will not be a fool"). What can be spoken must be spoken, even in the boastings of this apostle-come-lately who must struggle to establish credibility, is "the power of Christ," the all-sufficient grace of God.

The twelve will gather around Jesus again in verse 30 of Mark 6, telling him "all that they had done and taught." Jesus had sent them and given them authority. He equipped them with authority over "the unclean spirits" but no "authority" (exousia) over their human audience. "If they refuse to hear you, leave!" is Jesus' directive. It is what Jesus did. He has modeled in the first five verses what he now sends the twelve out to do, going with only this "authority" and the things that enable them to travel: sandals and a walking stick. Anything else would impede their mobility and distract from their mission. Unlike Ezekiel, who is commissioned to keep on talking even if his audience is not listening, the twelve are told to move on.

Notice that Jesus gives authority (exousia) to his disciples even as his own ability (dunamis) is restricted by the unbelief that astonishes him. Jesus is discounted as a mere technician, a teknon. "Is not this the carpenter?" they say at the synagogue where they know his mother by name and even his sisters whom they do not bother to name. And the Son of God is able to do "no deed of power" (dunamis again), "except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them." Here is the answer to WWJD. Jesus cures those who are open to it, and then he goes on his way.

Mark does not name Jesus' home town (patrida is all he calls it) or the other villages he goes on to or the places where the twelve are sent. And he only "began to send them out two by two." It is not clear that they all went away at once, leaving Jesus by himself. Nor are we told who paired up with whom (who was Judas's partner?). They preach repentance (from what to what is left unsaid). They exercised their authority over the demons, casting out "many." They anointed and healed "many." The twelve were not given a goal--this many villages, this many exorcisms and healings--only the task and the authority and what to do when no one wants to listen.

Pastoral Reflections

Faces and hearts, the Lord tells his prophet in his commission. Obstinate, stubborn, impudent, hard. The seen and the unseen. Faces and hearts. The public and the private. God is more honest than any call committee in an initial interview. And can't you imagine your bishop's response when you include in your annual report, "I couldn't accomplish anything here, but they sure knew that a prophet was among them." Yet even God does not know if this is going to do any good. "Whether they hear or refuse to hear," says YHWH, your job is to speak what I tell you to speak and do not be afraid of them. If you and your bishop are both stood on your feet by the ruach of God, that's enough. Budget and organizational goals get no help from these texts. Lord have mercy, indeed.

The neighbors intend to insult Jesus, this momma's boy who is just a tech, for heaven's sake. And then Jesus sends out his inner circle like guerrilla infiltrators to spread a little propaganda in enemy territory two by two and maybe not even all at one time.

Jesus is always moving on. Sometimes Mark tells us where and sometimes he doesn't, as here. But Jesus never settles anywhere, "with his disciples." Even at the very end, when the women "went out in terror," the where they went is unsaid. Mark is an unsettling Gospel, so to speak, and I get the feeling that this is his genius. He will not settle things for you. You must fill in the blanks, like the question of what the disciples called their hearers to repent from and turn toward. Just what is it their audiences were to change their minds about? That's your job, preacher, with your audience, and your authorization to cast out unclean spirits (know any unclean spirits where you live?). Which villages? Well, name one. Somewhere in Oregon, perhaps, or South Dakota or North Carolina. Which disciples paired together? So who is your colleague who helps you decide if it is time to shake the dust from your only pair of sandals and pick up that walking stick again? You must give the pair a name. It is Mark's genius to make us do that. And your own ministry is not always effective, is it? How like Jesus you are. How like the twelve. How you need to look with the "eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress" when you sing the Kyrie each Sunday. The grace that was sufficient for St Paul, who had plenty to boast about, is also sufficient for you, who may have somewhat less. You will stand up when the Lord says, "Stand!" The Spirit will set you on your feet. You will hear and you will speak what the Lord tells you.

And do not be afraid of that parochial report.