John 4:1-30; 39-42
Third Sunday in Lent/24th February 2008
“He had to go to Samaria.” John tells us, “…he left Judea and started back to Galilee,” “But he had to go to Samaria.” What we need to know is that he didn’t have to go through Samaria, in fact his disciples probably wished he had not. A good Jew avoided Samaria and Samaritans – well, like the plague. A respectable, Law-abiding Jew wouldn’t be caught dead there – or alive. The whole place was disgusting, unclean for them. It all goes back to the time of the exile to Babylon. Israel, that is, the old northern tribes of Ephraim, called Samaritans, remained behind, they were not exiled. They stayed in the land, intermarried with their occupiers, and later allowed Alexander the Great (356-323) to build a temple on Mt. Gerizim. When Judah (the southern tribes) returned from Babylon, preserving Jewish identity was their first priority and would not accept any temple for the restored nation except the one built by Ezra in Jerusalem (in 450 BC). The Samaritans were followers of Yahweh (at least they thought they were). The center of their worship life was the ancient city of Shechem, not Jerusalem. Abraham built an altar for Yahweh in Shechem (Gen 12:6-8) on his way with Sarah into Canaan. Both Jacob and Joshua are associated with the place. The bones of Joseph were transported there from Egypt (Joshua 24:32). It’s a significant place – or was. In Jesus’ time a faithful Jew had nothing to do with a Samaritan. They avoided them. The most direct route from Judea to Galilee was through Samaria; however, in order to maintain ritual purity, people would rather take the long way around and avoid it altogether.
So when the text says Jesus had to go to Samaria, he really didn’t have to go – unless, of course, there was a reason. The main road forks at Shechem, also known, as in John’s Gospel, as Sychar, and in the middle of the road is Jacob’s Well where we find Jesus, sitting alone by the well, “tired out by his journey. It was about noon.” John’s attention to detail, such as the time of day, is remarkable and always serves a larger purpose. The hottest time of the day is not the time to get water from the well, particularly this well that was more than 100 feet deep, requiring considerable effort to access the water. You wouldn’t go to the well at this time, unless you couldn’t go when the rest of the women went to the well, which was in the cool of the evening. You wouldn’t go in the heat of the day unless you were ostracized or being excluded by your community. Yet, it’s precisely at this time that this Samaritan woman approaches the well to draw water and Jesus begins to speak to her.
There’s something else we need to know. Jesus wasn’t supposed to talk to this woman. Listen to the conventional ethical wisdom of his day: “A man shall not talk with a woman in the street, not even with his own wife, on account of what others may say. He that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself. If any man gives a woman a knowledge of God’s Law, it is as though he had taught her lechery.”[1] Jesus says, “Give me a drink.”
What we also need to know is that a Jew and Samaritan could not drink from a common cup or share utensils. A Jews’ cup had to pure, probably made of stone. Hence the startling response of the woman, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” And then Jesus began to share with her the word of God, a knowledge of God that will transform her life.
A well and the water it holds become metaphors for the life of Christ. The ordinary becomes the occasion of the extraordinary, an entrée into the new world that Christ offers to those who “drink” from him. If you knew who was asking you, “Give me a drink,” you would be wanting more than water, but living water. Of course she hasn’t a clue what Jesus is talking about. Why would she? It’s all rather mystical. It’s not unlike Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus, as we saw last week, when he says to have the life of God you must be born again, or born from above, and Nic gets all confused (John 3). Actually, there’s an intentional contrast here between the two stories: Nic comes at night; the woman comes in broad daylight; Nic is the insider, as Pharisee, who realizes he’s on the outside of Jesus’ message because he doesn’t understand it; the woman is an outside, both as a Samaritan and even in her own community, she’s an outsider – burned through five marriages and now has a live-in lover, who is not her husband, and yet by the end of the story she becomes an insider, a follower. She’s more open to Jesus’ message than Nicodemus was, probably because she realized just how much was empty and missing in her life.
“Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” How can you be greater than our ancestor Jacob who provided for us by giving this well? “Drink from this water,” and you’ll be thirsty again, drink “of the water that I give you” and you’ll never be thirsty.” “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman doesn’t understand. She’s being concrete, literal – one might say, practical. “Give me this water so that I may never be thirsty and/or have to keep coming here to draw water.” In other words, “Give me this water so that I might never thirst and never again have to come to this blasted well. Because, you see, Mister, it’s exhausting, tiring, trying to quench this thirst day after day, carrying the water in these jugs. Going to the well, alone. This well represents and reminds me of all that is wrong with my life – all the shame, the isolation, the exhaustion. Day after day I have to fill this empty jug to quench a thirst that allows me to keep on living, for without water I will die, but what kind of life do I really have? I keep going to this well, even though my life has run dry.”
When Jesus says the water he offers “gushes” up into eternal life, it literally means “leaping up,” “welling up.” It’s a vivid image. It’s the word used by Isaiah to describe the lame “leaping up” for joy in Yahweh, the Spirit of the Lord that causes life, real life, eternal life, the life of God. It’s how the psalmist spoke of God, “For with you is the fountain of life” (Psalm 36:9). Or it’s the kind of life Isaiah tells us God provides, “The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail” (Isaiah 58:11).
She probably realizes that Jesus is talking about more than water when he says, “Fetch your husband – so that he, too, (!) can share this living water.” She lies, probably from shame. She denies having a husband. Then she exposes her lies and pretensions and reveals the truth of her life – not to judge, but to reveal. There is considerable depth of divine concern for this one individual; you see, it’s why Jesus had to go to Samaria. “You’re right, you don’t have a husband.” You have to wonder just how loving the relationship could be. It couldn’t have been all that affirming because if it were she would have been married. After being married five times, she is also extremely poor.
Without mentioning this further, she shifts the conversation to talk theology; she wants to know why her people have been so unfairly mistreated, judged as unlovable. There will come a time, the time of the Messiah, when all these divisions will be removed, the excluded included, the worship of Yahweh not identified with a space or place, but a worship that reflects the nature of God, who is spirit, whose very spirit is present in the person of the man who sits and talks to a Samaritan woman and says, the one you’re really searching for, the one for whom you really thirst, the one you’re waiting for to fill your life to change everything is none other than the Messiah. And then she leaves the well and her empty jug behind and runs to tell the others. “Come and see.”
Did you notice that she left the jug behind? It’s the empty jar that’s perhaps most significant here because what she’s really thirsting for won’t be found in that well.[2]
Are you thirsty? I wish John told us her name; it’s known only to God. Maybe John wants us to put our own names in the narrative, if we could get beyond gender differences, of course. I think she stands for all of us who are thirsty for something more, but not really sure what it is. Or maybe, she represents people who think that their thirst can be satisfied one way, only to discover that they’re all the more empty inside, something is still missing.
Are you thirsty? It’s tough to know for us. We have such a odd association with water today. Sure we know it’s the foundation of human existence, but, until recently we just assumed it will always be here. We took it for granted. Just turn on the faucet. The water supply for Atlanta last fall was dangerously low. The earth is losing water, fast. The vice-president of the World Bank, Ismail Serageldin, warned that the next world war will be over water, not oil. Where it might seem we have enough, it can’t be used. In the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Coleridge (1772-1834) was perhaps prophetic when we wrote, “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water is readily accessible for direct human use. Every 15 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease. Unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene cause 88% of all diseases [3]
Have you ever really been thirsty? I haven’t. Do we even know what thirst feels like? We know we need our eight glasses of water per day. Some of us are obsessed with being hydrated. We walk around with our water bottles everywhere we go (like me, but at least I try to recycle all of my bottles). We don’t know what it’s like to be dependent upon water. For many, our living water might be a beer or cappuccino or our favorite carbonated beverage. Listen to the words of this ad: “Thirst is harder to satisfy – really satisfy – than most anything else in the world. You can slake it for the moment with most any wet thing, but just when you think it’s all right, it bobs up serenely again with a cry for more. Water, soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, sweet drinks, sour drinks – none of them quite does the work. There’s just one thing that we know of that actually will quench a tantalizing thirst and that is Coca-Cola: The Satisfactory Beverage.” This was a Coke ad in 1908.
What does it mean to really thirst? If we don’t understand thirst or being daily dependent upon water, I wonder if it’s really possible to enter fully into the world of this text. It seems to me that our inability to know what physical thirst feels like hinders us from recognizing the deeper soul-thirst we all have. That’s why mystics and monks often fast – intentionally give up food and drink for a period of time – in order for their bodies to reflect and connect with a deep, interior hunger that food will never provide and a thirst that all the water in the world will never slake. Sometimes our trips to the well are really only masking our real thirsts. In our society where we are cursed with so much and think we have everything we need, it’s difficult for us even to admit that we lack anything, that we need anything or need anyone, that we really need a community of faith – that we even need God.
Unless we come to terms with what we lack and acknowledge our need, unless we see just how parched we are, how can there really be any need for the “living water” Jesus offers? What more can he give us than we already have? Perhaps the critical question is this: what will it take to leave your jug at the well?
_____________________________
[1] Quoted in Calvin Theological Seminary’s Center for Excellence in Preaching: http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/viewContent.php?iID=135&sID=1
[2] Cf. the quotation from the worship bulletin: “If I had a water thirst,” replied Sancho, “there are wells on the road where I could have quenched it.” Miquel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), Don Quixote.
[3] Statistics found at: www.water.org.
24 February 2008
10 February 2008
Letting God be God
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-17 & Matthew 4:1-11
First Sunday in Lent/10th February 2008
Jesse realized he needed to go on a diet. It was going to be difficult. Just to make sure he would succeed, he announced his plan to all his friends and co-workers ahead of time. Jesse was a kindred spirit with Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) who once said, “I can resist anything – except temptation!” Jesse’s co-workers were pretty good about giving Jesse moral support, until the morning he walked into an office carrying a box of freshly-baked donuts. “What’s with the donuts, Jesse?” one of them asked. “I though you were on a diet.” “I am,” Jesse said. “But I want you to know I wouldn’t have gotten these donuts if it weren’t for God.” That remark demanded an explanation and it came quickly, “You see, I was driving into work, and I knew I’d have to go right past the bakery. I just couldn’t get those donuts out of my mind – so I decided to pray to God for help. I said, ‘God, if you want me to have a box of hot, delicious donuts, give me a parking place right in front of the bakery. Sure enough, I found one – on my eighth trip around the block!”
We can rationalize anything, including the strongest of temptations, and even call on God to help us in the process. It’s true, isn’t it? We can be as crafty as any serpent in justifying our actions. Oh we are smooth and slick as we slither our way around what we ought to do and ought not to do. “I’m not living a greedy lifestyle of over-consumption; I’m just pursuing the American dream” – even more so now knowing those rebate checks will soon be in the mail. “I’m not hurting anybody when I cheat my customers; I’m just following the laws of the marketplace.”
We know what tempts us. Most of the time it’s not so much the bad or even overtly evil things that really tempt us or lead us astray, as it is the good things, or at least the things that appear to be good. Something as good as a piece of fruit or a donut can lead us off course. Beauty’s enticement, “a delight to the eyes,” (Gen. 3:6) can cause us to fall. Even the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge can have disastrous results. A character in Charles Baudelaire’s (1821-1867) short story “The Generous Gambler” (1864), recounts the only time he was ever truly afraid. It was when he heard a preacher shout from the pulpit, “Dearly beloved, never forget, when you hear anyone vaunt the progress of enlightenment, that the Devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” The greatest evils, the most dangerous temptations are not the overt ones, but the covert ones, the hidden and seemingly simple, subtle, innocent acts that cause us to stumble. Comedian George Carlin once said, “I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a part of hell will break loose. It’ll be much harder to detect.”
But Genesis 3 is about more than the dangers of giving into temptation, of what happens when we submit to temptation, whether it’s fruit or a donut. Sure, we can plumb the depths of this Genesis text and discover all the ways we might resonate with Adam or Eve or maybe even the serpent, and then hold this story up in order that we, and especially our children, learn from them, primarily from their mistakes. Here is what we ought not to do. That’s one’s common way to look at this text. Indeed, these early chapters in Genesis slowly evolved into little more than a morality play, that is, a story showing us how God expects us to behave and if we don’t follow the rules we’ll be judged accordingly – indeed, have been judged, thrown out of the garden and forced to live forever east of Eden. In many ways, this is how the church has interpreted this story across the centuries: that there are consequences for our actions. Of course there are. But there’s more than ethics going on in this text.
Let’s get to the heart of the matter: Did God really consign the entire human race to a perpetual state of sin purely because some prehistoric ancestor swiped a piece of fruit?[1] Think about it. Is this what we’re saying actually caused the fall of humanity, this one act with eternal consequences? Why didn’t God just forgive them, for surely God foresaw what the future was going to be? Why did that one act lead God to curse them and cast them off from paradise? It all seems kind of petty and even small on God’s part. Did so much hang on that one act? One slip-up followed by a slippery-slope of sin winding its way down through the centuries? Centuries upon centuries of blame, of blaming the ones who have come before us, centuries of saying “It’s not my fault.” “The devil made me do it.” It’s Adam’s fault or Eve’s fault. Centuries upon centuries of blaming women for everything that is wrong in the world and all the evil in the human heart. Theologians actually used this text as proof that women are morally and intellectually inferior to men. Women are “the weaker sex,” because if a man had been there at the moment by the tree, strong-Adam would not have yielded to temptation – yeah, right.
Sin is in the world because Eve picked a piece of fruit? Is this what we really believed is the cause of all the sin and evil in the world? Don’t say, Yes, too quickly. Because if you believe this then think about what you’re saying about God. You turn God into a petty, vindictive ruler, with an almost masochistic sense of justice. It’s a cruel picture of God. And yet, to a considerable degree, this is the image that we’ve inherited misreading this text. Robert Burns (1759-1796) parodies this belief in “Holy Willie’s Prayer,” the prayer of a Presbyterian minister who declares all “deserve [such] just damnation/ For broken laws./ Five thousand years ‘fore [our] creation,/ Through Adam’s curse.”[2]
We’ve misread this portion of Genesis, along with the Creation accounts because we assume this is a story of origins: the origin of the universe, the origin of humanity, and the origin of sin and evil. We often turn to Genesis to explain how we got here and got ourselves into this mess. And it’s precisely this kind of reading that has messed us up even more. I think we should shift the emphasis. Genesis is not answering the question how, so much as it’s answering the question what; less a question of why, so much as an answer to the question what. It’s making a statement – about what the creation is, about what it means to be human, and human in relation to God, which allows us to see the “what” of sin and evil.
The key to the text is the prohibition against eating fruit from the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” But what’s wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil, you’re probably asking. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to know? Why would God get mad at swiping some fruit? The serpent knows the answer. The serpent doesn’t tell a lie. What he says isn’t false, it’s true. But the serpent fails to tell the whole truth. He withholds a portion of it. It’s like any article in The Presbyterian Layman, they never quite tell the whole truth; about 80% of it is correct, but it’s the missing 20% that makes all the difference, that’s so destructive in its consequences.
The Hebrew word for “knowledge,” yada, means more than cognitive knowledge. It also means an awareness of judgment, of justice. To eat from this tree means to know enough to judge and judgment belongs to God alone. To eat of this fruit one becomes like God and in reaching for the status and authority of God is to reach beyond what is allotted to us. The fruit is a symbol, a metaphor, a mythic way to get at the truth, to say something profound about the human condition. The point is this: we are fallen, flawed creatures, inflicting untold damage and destruction upon this world, ourselves, and others. Not because of one foolish act a long time ago that we’re paying the price for. But because this foolish act is repeated, as it were, almost daily. We could say Adam is Everyman (“adam” is actually plural, it’s not a proper name, and means “of the earth or dust”) and Eve (which means “life”) is Everywoman. We could also say that Adam and Eve are both in every man and woman, earth/dust/soil come alive by the ruach or spirit of God.
The Genesis story says something profound about what it means to be human in order to help us see the mess that we’re in. Their humanity is ours. Their DNA is our DNA. Their fatal flaw is our fatal flaw, and it’s this: it’s our unwillingness to be human, to be creature, to live with limits and our unwillingness to allow God to be God. It is the desire to become more than we are. That’s the source of sin.
The human condition is sinful. It doesn’t mean that we’re thoroughly bad, because we’re not; neither is this statement meant to make us depressed and full of guilt. This is a gracious text to help us acknowledge the source of our sorrow, then confess that there is something about being human that won’t remain satisfied with being human. Sin is a force within and without us that tempts us to overreach, and every time we overreach by trying to be little gods, we fall. We can even be tempted by the good – but aren’t we supposed to be good as God is good, be like God? we might ask – yet it’s that reach, seemingly so innocent, that can become so harmful. Terrible things happen when we try to play God or think we’re God.
We sin when we forget that our thoughts are not God’s thoughts and our ways are not God’s ways. When we try to act like God, we will fall every time. When we prefer to judge others instead of letting God judge, we fall. When we make decisions that adversely affect the lives of others, we make judgments about life and death, which we don’t have the authority to make, and so we fall. Sin is not letting God be God, refusing as creature to live within our limits, refusing to be dependent upon the Creator, assuming control over everything. Refusing to trust God, we take matters into our own hands with monstrous results. We’re not paying the price today because Adam and Eve “fell” a long time ago. Adam and Eve are in here, in our hearts, and when we act like them, humanity falls and falls and falls again.
How we view what took place in Eden inevitably shapes how we understand what Jesus experienced, for us, in Jerusalem, and affects the way we understand ourselves as we continue to live east of Eden. Lent is a good time to explore these questions – which we have only begun to explore this morning.
To receive ashes at the start of Lent is to acknowledge our mortality, which is another way of confessing our limits, which is another way of remembering what it means to be a creature, to be human, to live, even with our flaws, without trying to become like God.[3] So much pain and suffering and evil in the world are due precisely to this overreach.
Here we can learn from Jesus. On the cross, Jesus took on this destructive force within us in order to wrestle us free from it and to defeat its power. That struggle began in the wilderness. That’s what Satan was trying to do to Jesus in the wilderness. Satan was telling the truth to Jesus, but not the whole truth. To give into those temptations would have meant that Jesus reached beyond his own humanity. He, too, knew his limits. In this sense Jesus was without sin and in doing so, here and throughout his life, graciously demonstrated for us what authentic humanity looks like, which includes, among so many other wonderful things, letting God be God. His grace within us allows us to do the same.
[1] I am grateful to the Rev. Dr. Carlos Wilton, minister of the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Point Pleasant, NJ, for succinctly and beautifully capturing the critical question posed by this text and for sharing his exegesis of this lection at the Homiletical Feast lectionary study group in Bradenton, FL.
[2] Presbyterian theologian, B. A. Gerrish, makes the point that original sin “does not mean that we suffer for Adam’s sin, but that others must suffer for our sins.” From his sermon “Sin” in The Pilgrim Road: Sermons on the Christian Life, Mary T. Stimming, ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 89.
[3] Cf. the quotations from the worship bulletin: “This is the time of tension between dying and birth.” T. S. Eliot (1889-1965), “Ash Wednesday.” And, from the Heidelberg Catechism of 1562, the first question: “What is your only comfort, in life and in death? That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death – not to myself, but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ….” Book of Confessions, PCUSA.
First Sunday in Lent/10th February 2008
Jesse realized he needed to go on a diet. It was going to be difficult. Just to make sure he would succeed, he announced his plan to all his friends and co-workers ahead of time. Jesse was a kindred spirit with Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) who once said, “I can resist anything – except temptation!” Jesse’s co-workers were pretty good about giving Jesse moral support, until the morning he walked into an office carrying a box of freshly-baked donuts. “What’s with the donuts, Jesse?” one of them asked. “I though you were on a diet.” “I am,” Jesse said. “But I want you to know I wouldn’t have gotten these donuts if it weren’t for God.” That remark demanded an explanation and it came quickly, “You see, I was driving into work, and I knew I’d have to go right past the bakery. I just couldn’t get those donuts out of my mind – so I decided to pray to God for help. I said, ‘God, if you want me to have a box of hot, delicious donuts, give me a parking place right in front of the bakery. Sure enough, I found one – on my eighth trip around the block!”
We can rationalize anything, including the strongest of temptations, and even call on God to help us in the process. It’s true, isn’t it? We can be as crafty as any serpent in justifying our actions. Oh we are smooth and slick as we slither our way around what we ought to do and ought not to do. “I’m not living a greedy lifestyle of over-consumption; I’m just pursuing the American dream” – even more so now knowing those rebate checks will soon be in the mail. “I’m not hurting anybody when I cheat my customers; I’m just following the laws of the marketplace.”
We know what tempts us. Most of the time it’s not so much the bad or even overtly evil things that really tempt us or lead us astray, as it is the good things, or at least the things that appear to be good. Something as good as a piece of fruit or a donut can lead us off course. Beauty’s enticement, “a delight to the eyes,” (Gen. 3:6) can cause us to fall. Even the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge can have disastrous results. A character in Charles Baudelaire’s (1821-1867) short story “The Generous Gambler” (1864), recounts the only time he was ever truly afraid. It was when he heard a preacher shout from the pulpit, “Dearly beloved, never forget, when you hear anyone vaunt the progress of enlightenment, that the Devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” The greatest evils, the most dangerous temptations are not the overt ones, but the covert ones, the hidden and seemingly simple, subtle, innocent acts that cause us to stumble. Comedian George Carlin once said, “I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a part of hell will break loose. It’ll be much harder to detect.”
But Genesis 3 is about more than the dangers of giving into temptation, of what happens when we submit to temptation, whether it’s fruit or a donut. Sure, we can plumb the depths of this Genesis text and discover all the ways we might resonate with Adam or Eve or maybe even the serpent, and then hold this story up in order that we, and especially our children, learn from them, primarily from their mistakes. Here is what we ought not to do. That’s one’s common way to look at this text. Indeed, these early chapters in Genesis slowly evolved into little more than a morality play, that is, a story showing us how God expects us to behave and if we don’t follow the rules we’ll be judged accordingly – indeed, have been judged, thrown out of the garden and forced to live forever east of Eden. In many ways, this is how the church has interpreted this story across the centuries: that there are consequences for our actions. Of course there are. But there’s more than ethics going on in this text.
Let’s get to the heart of the matter: Did God really consign the entire human race to a perpetual state of sin purely because some prehistoric ancestor swiped a piece of fruit?[1] Think about it. Is this what we’re saying actually caused the fall of humanity, this one act with eternal consequences? Why didn’t God just forgive them, for surely God foresaw what the future was going to be? Why did that one act lead God to curse them and cast them off from paradise? It all seems kind of petty and even small on God’s part. Did so much hang on that one act? One slip-up followed by a slippery-slope of sin winding its way down through the centuries? Centuries upon centuries of blame, of blaming the ones who have come before us, centuries of saying “It’s not my fault.” “The devil made me do it.” It’s Adam’s fault or Eve’s fault. Centuries upon centuries of blaming women for everything that is wrong in the world and all the evil in the human heart. Theologians actually used this text as proof that women are morally and intellectually inferior to men. Women are “the weaker sex,” because if a man had been there at the moment by the tree, strong-Adam would not have yielded to temptation – yeah, right.
Sin is in the world because Eve picked a piece of fruit? Is this what we really believed is the cause of all the sin and evil in the world? Don’t say, Yes, too quickly. Because if you believe this then think about what you’re saying about God. You turn God into a petty, vindictive ruler, with an almost masochistic sense of justice. It’s a cruel picture of God. And yet, to a considerable degree, this is the image that we’ve inherited misreading this text. Robert Burns (1759-1796) parodies this belief in “Holy Willie’s Prayer,” the prayer of a Presbyterian minister who declares all “deserve [such] just damnation/ For broken laws./ Five thousand years ‘fore [our] creation,/ Through Adam’s curse.”[2]
We’ve misread this portion of Genesis, along with the Creation accounts because we assume this is a story of origins: the origin of the universe, the origin of humanity, and the origin of sin and evil. We often turn to Genesis to explain how we got here and got ourselves into this mess. And it’s precisely this kind of reading that has messed us up even more. I think we should shift the emphasis. Genesis is not answering the question how, so much as it’s answering the question what; less a question of why, so much as an answer to the question what. It’s making a statement – about what the creation is, about what it means to be human, and human in relation to God, which allows us to see the “what” of sin and evil.
The key to the text is the prohibition against eating fruit from the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” But what’s wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil, you’re probably asking. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to know? Why would God get mad at swiping some fruit? The serpent knows the answer. The serpent doesn’t tell a lie. What he says isn’t false, it’s true. But the serpent fails to tell the whole truth. He withholds a portion of it. It’s like any article in The Presbyterian Layman, they never quite tell the whole truth; about 80% of it is correct, but it’s the missing 20% that makes all the difference, that’s so destructive in its consequences.
The Hebrew word for “knowledge,” yada, means more than cognitive knowledge. It also means an awareness of judgment, of justice. To eat from this tree means to know enough to judge and judgment belongs to God alone. To eat of this fruit one becomes like God and in reaching for the status and authority of God is to reach beyond what is allotted to us. The fruit is a symbol, a metaphor, a mythic way to get at the truth, to say something profound about the human condition. The point is this: we are fallen, flawed creatures, inflicting untold damage and destruction upon this world, ourselves, and others. Not because of one foolish act a long time ago that we’re paying the price for. But because this foolish act is repeated, as it were, almost daily. We could say Adam is Everyman (“adam” is actually plural, it’s not a proper name, and means “of the earth or dust”) and Eve (which means “life”) is Everywoman. We could also say that Adam and Eve are both in every man and woman, earth/dust/soil come alive by the ruach or spirit of God.
The Genesis story says something profound about what it means to be human in order to help us see the mess that we’re in. Their humanity is ours. Their DNA is our DNA. Their fatal flaw is our fatal flaw, and it’s this: it’s our unwillingness to be human, to be creature, to live with limits and our unwillingness to allow God to be God. It is the desire to become more than we are. That’s the source of sin.
The human condition is sinful. It doesn’t mean that we’re thoroughly bad, because we’re not; neither is this statement meant to make us depressed and full of guilt. This is a gracious text to help us acknowledge the source of our sorrow, then confess that there is something about being human that won’t remain satisfied with being human. Sin is a force within and without us that tempts us to overreach, and every time we overreach by trying to be little gods, we fall. We can even be tempted by the good – but aren’t we supposed to be good as God is good, be like God? we might ask – yet it’s that reach, seemingly so innocent, that can become so harmful. Terrible things happen when we try to play God or think we’re God.
We sin when we forget that our thoughts are not God’s thoughts and our ways are not God’s ways. When we try to act like God, we will fall every time. When we prefer to judge others instead of letting God judge, we fall. When we make decisions that adversely affect the lives of others, we make judgments about life and death, which we don’t have the authority to make, and so we fall. Sin is not letting God be God, refusing as creature to live within our limits, refusing to be dependent upon the Creator, assuming control over everything. Refusing to trust God, we take matters into our own hands with monstrous results. We’re not paying the price today because Adam and Eve “fell” a long time ago. Adam and Eve are in here, in our hearts, and when we act like them, humanity falls and falls and falls again.
How we view what took place in Eden inevitably shapes how we understand what Jesus experienced, for us, in Jerusalem, and affects the way we understand ourselves as we continue to live east of Eden. Lent is a good time to explore these questions – which we have only begun to explore this morning.
To receive ashes at the start of Lent is to acknowledge our mortality, which is another way of confessing our limits, which is another way of remembering what it means to be a creature, to be human, to live, even with our flaws, without trying to become like God.[3] So much pain and suffering and evil in the world are due precisely to this overreach.
Here we can learn from Jesus. On the cross, Jesus took on this destructive force within us in order to wrestle us free from it and to defeat its power. That struggle began in the wilderness. That’s what Satan was trying to do to Jesus in the wilderness. Satan was telling the truth to Jesus, but not the whole truth. To give into those temptations would have meant that Jesus reached beyond his own humanity. He, too, knew his limits. In this sense Jesus was without sin and in doing so, here and throughout his life, graciously demonstrated for us what authentic humanity looks like, which includes, among so many other wonderful things, letting God be God. His grace within us allows us to do the same.
[1] I am grateful to the Rev. Dr. Carlos Wilton, minister of the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Point Pleasant, NJ, for succinctly and beautifully capturing the critical question posed by this text and for sharing his exegesis of this lection at the Homiletical Feast lectionary study group in Bradenton, FL.
[2] Presbyterian theologian, B. A. Gerrish, makes the point that original sin “does not mean that we suffer for Adam’s sin, but that others must suffer for our sins.” From his sermon “Sin” in The Pilgrim Road: Sermons on the Christian Life, Mary T. Stimming, ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 89.
[3] Cf. the quotations from the worship bulletin: “This is the time of tension between dying and birth.” T. S. Eliot (1889-1965), “Ash Wednesday.” And, from the Heidelberg Catechism of 1562, the first question: “What is your only comfort, in life and in death? That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death – not to myself, but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ….” Book of Confessions, PCUSA.
03 February 2008
When Everything Comes into Focus
Matthew 17:1-8
Transfiguration of the Lord/3rd February 2008
There are moments when everything comes into focus, when everything becomes perfectly clear, moments of searing insight and brilliance which change everything. I once was blind, but now I see, I see – and nothing, no one will ever look the same again. We thought we knew who Jesus was, we thought we had him figured out, but here on this holy mountain, we come to see who he really is. The sight of his transfiguration transfigures our eyes and thoughts, our ears and our hearts. For the core of his being shone through the radiance of his face and he became dazzling, like a flame, with the intensity of pure, white, blinding light. In the midst of the cloud overshadowing Jesus, we hear a voice, “This is my Son, my Beloved; with him I am well pleased: listen to him!” A voice that threw the disciples to the ground, overcome by fear. Then Jesus goes over and touches, touches them – in their fear – and said, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
Three imperatives. One from God – “Listen to him” meaning the Son. And from the Son, these two encouraging, compassionate commands, “Get up,” followed by “do not be afraid.” Of all the times I’ve read or preached on this text, I’ve always focused upon God’s command, “Listen to him.” But this week, something else hit me. After reading a particular text during Bible study, I tend to ask this question: “So, what struck you in this text?” How did the Word strike your heart, move your spirit, speak to you? It’s always fascinating to see how the Spirit moves through us through a text. This week, what struck me were these words: “Get up.” “Do not be afraid.”
But why were they afraid? Wouldn’t you be? I would. The natural response to the glory of God’s presence is fear. We can call it holy awe, if it makes us feel better, yet there is still a sense of fear – more like ego-shock, perhaps, an awareness of someone completely Other, an overwhelming Other before whose presence we know we have no right to stand on our own, and so we fall down on our knees and cover our faces before the Holy of Holies.
When God moves in our lives it can be a fearful thing (which is why we resist God, but not for long). It’s fearful because facing God inevitably costs us something, namely our control over reality and our lives. Get mixed up with this God and you discover there’s more going on in the world than what meets the eye (and why our sight always need transfiguring). It’s fearful because this God might actually ask me to do something that’s simply too big for me to do, to become someone I know I’m not on my own, to go somewhere I would rather not go, that doesn’t appear safe, to embark on a journey that I would probably prefer not to take. To encounter God means fundamentally that our lives will change, they will be different. They have to change. If they don’t then it’s probably safe to say we haven’t encountered God. Kierkegaard (1813-1855) said, “Once you wise up, you can’t dummy down.” For after encountering the presence of God in the face of Jesus Christ how can you go back to normalcy? What is normal after that?
Being normal (which Presbyterians like to do), safe, or secure have nothing to do with being a disciple – and this text on the Sunday before the beginning of Lent is all about what it means to be a disciple, a student in the school of Jesus, a follower of Jesus Christ. Fear is never the ultimate reality for the disciple; we are called to live beyond fear – and that’s tricky. Being a disciple isn’t easy, it’s very difficult. To follow inevitably involves a cost. Therefore, it requires courage – courage to see, to look at, to acknowledge the radiance of God in the face of Jesus Christ – and not deny it – and then live with all of its life-changing ramifications.[1]
How do we get the courage to step out and live as if God is really God, that Christ is Lord of our lives, and to listen to him, that this world and our lives within it belong not to ourselves, but to him – in order that our lives might be used by him for the glory of God, which is really what our souls long for more than anything else. Courage. In a speech given in 1922 at St. Andrews University, J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), of Peter Pan fame, said to a generation of youth disillusioned after the Great War, “Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.”[2] Do we have the courage to listen, to really be disciples, to go where he leads?
No. We don’t. Courage to be a disciple? No, we don’t. On our own, we don’t. If we have to trust our own inner resources to try to dredge up courage, then this is just a kind of works righteousness, trying to earn our salvation, acting as if God had nothing to do with it all, relying only on ourselves – that’s a horrifying way to live a life.
But Jesus went over to his disciples in their fear and trepidation and touched them and said, “Get up.” “Get up.” “Get up and do not be afraid.” Fear not.
Get up and follow, free from binding fear because the Lord of love has touched you and assures you that you can. Get up and follow, beyond the bounds of fear because his grace summons us to do so. And the one who commands also equips us with the courage to follow. Get up and do not be afraid because it’s the Lord who tells us so – and he can be trusted.
It’s the same Lord who invites us to come to his table. Set your fear aside. Share the bread of grace and drink the cup of courage, which allow us to listen to him and to follow wherever he leads.
[1] Cf. quotation from the worship bulletin: “…the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?” Reverend John Ames in Marilynne Robinson’s, Gilead: A Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2004), 245.
[2] J. M. Barrie, Courage. The Rectorial Address delivered at St. Andrew’s University, May 3, 1922. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922), 40.
Transfiguration of the Lord/3rd February 2008
There are moments when everything comes into focus, when everything becomes perfectly clear, moments of searing insight and brilliance which change everything. I once was blind, but now I see, I see – and nothing, no one will ever look the same again. We thought we knew who Jesus was, we thought we had him figured out, but here on this holy mountain, we come to see who he really is. The sight of his transfiguration transfigures our eyes and thoughts, our ears and our hearts. For the core of his being shone through the radiance of his face and he became dazzling, like a flame, with the intensity of pure, white, blinding light. In the midst of the cloud overshadowing Jesus, we hear a voice, “This is my Son, my Beloved; with him I am well pleased: listen to him!” A voice that threw the disciples to the ground, overcome by fear. Then Jesus goes over and touches, touches them – in their fear – and said, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
Three imperatives. One from God – “Listen to him” meaning the Son. And from the Son, these two encouraging, compassionate commands, “Get up,” followed by “do not be afraid.” Of all the times I’ve read or preached on this text, I’ve always focused upon God’s command, “Listen to him.” But this week, something else hit me. After reading a particular text during Bible study, I tend to ask this question: “So, what struck you in this text?” How did the Word strike your heart, move your spirit, speak to you? It’s always fascinating to see how the Spirit moves through us through a text. This week, what struck me were these words: “Get up.” “Do not be afraid.”
But why were they afraid? Wouldn’t you be? I would. The natural response to the glory of God’s presence is fear. We can call it holy awe, if it makes us feel better, yet there is still a sense of fear – more like ego-shock, perhaps, an awareness of someone completely Other, an overwhelming Other before whose presence we know we have no right to stand on our own, and so we fall down on our knees and cover our faces before the Holy of Holies.
When God moves in our lives it can be a fearful thing (which is why we resist God, but not for long). It’s fearful because facing God inevitably costs us something, namely our control over reality and our lives. Get mixed up with this God and you discover there’s more going on in the world than what meets the eye (and why our sight always need transfiguring). It’s fearful because this God might actually ask me to do something that’s simply too big for me to do, to become someone I know I’m not on my own, to go somewhere I would rather not go, that doesn’t appear safe, to embark on a journey that I would probably prefer not to take. To encounter God means fundamentally that our lives will change, they will be different. They have to change. If they don’t then it’s probably safe to say we haven’t encountered God. Kierkegaard (1813-1855) said, “Once you wise up, you can’t dummy down.” For after encountering the presence of God in the face of Jesus Christ how can you go back to normalcy? What is normal after that?
Being normal (which Presbyterians like to do), safe, or secure have nothing to do with being a disciple – and this text on the Sunday before the beginning of Lent is all about what it means to be a disciple, a student in the school of Jesus, a follower of Jesus Christ. Fear is never the ultimate reality for the disciple; we are called to live beyond fear – and that’s tricky. Being a disciple isn’t easy, it’s very difficult. To follow inevitably involves a cost. Therefore, it requires courage – courage to see, to look at, to acknowledge the radiance of God in the face of Jesus Christ – and not deny it – and then live with all of its life-changing ramifications.[1]
How do we get the courage to step out and live as if God is really God, that Christ is Lord of our lives, and to listen to him, that this world and our lives within it belong not to ourselves, but to him – in order that our lives might be used by him for the glory of God, which is really what our souls long for more than anything else. Courage. In a speech given in 1922 at St. Andrews University, J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), of Peter Pan fame, said to a generation of youth disillusioned after the Great War, “Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.”[2] Do we have the courage to listen, to really be disciples, to go where he leads?
No. We don’t. Courage to be a disciple? No, we don’t. On our own, we don’t. If we have to trust our own inner resources to try to dredge up courage, then this is just a kind of works righteousness, trying to earn our salvation, acting as if God had nothing to do with it all, relying only on ourselves – that’s a horrifying way to live a life.
But Jesus went over to his disciples in their fear and trepidation and touched them and said, “Get up.” “Get up.” “Get up and do not be afraid.” Fear not.
Get up and follow, free from binding fear because the Lord of love has touched you and assures you that you can. Get up and follow, beyond the bounds of fear because his grace summons us to do so. And the one who commands also equips us with the courage to follow. Get up and do not be afraid because it’s the Lord who tells us so – and he can be trusted.
It’s the same Lord who invites us to come to his table. Set your fear aside. Share the bread of grace and drink the cup of courage, which allow us to listen to him and to follow wherever he leads.
[1] Cf. quotation from the worship bulletin: “…the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?” Reverend John Ames in Marilynne Robinson’s, Gilead: A Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2004), 245.
[2] J. M. Barrie, Courage. The Rectorial Address delivered at St. Andrew’s University, May 3, 1922. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922), 40.
20 January 2008
On the State of the Church
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time/20th January 2008
In his book The Heart of Christianity (2003), Marcus Borg of Oregon State University describes how his university students have a uniformly negative image of Christianity. "When I ask them to write a short essay on their impression of Christianity," says Borg, "they consistently use five adjectives: Christians are literalistic, anti-intellectual, self-righteous, judgmental, and bigoted."
We might object by saying these are sweeping generalizations, but in a world where image and impressions mean more than the truth, we should be concerned. However, a new book called unChristian by David Kinnaman, of the highly-respected Barna Research Group, presents objective research that supports Borg's classroom experience. Kinnaman's three-year study documents how an overwhelming percentage of sixteen to twenty-nine year olds view Christians with hostility, resentment and disdain. He’s not working with stereotypes. Nor are these critics people who've had no contact with churches or Christians. These perceptions are based on real experiences with today's Christians. According to Kinnaman's Barna study, here are the percentages of people outside the church who think that the following words describe present-day Christianity: anti-gay 91%; judgmental 87%; hypocritical 85%; old-fashioned 78%; too political 75%; out of touch with reality 72%; insensitive to others 70%; and boring – 68%.[1]
Just think of standing up in Starbuck’s or Panera Bread, announcing you’re a Christian, knowing that a sizable number drinking their lattes probably think of you in one of these ways.
Soon President Bush will offer his On the State of the Union speech before Congress, his perspective on the state of the nation. I thought this morning that I would offer my perspective on the state of the church, both nationally and locally.
The church exists in a less-than-friendly environment these days. It’s not surprising that so many churches are in trouble and so many ministers burning-out or leaving ministry altogether. The church is in time of significant, cultural challenge. I don’t necessarily view the culture as hostile toward the church, it’s more an attitude of bland indifference. These are tough times for the church but also times of opportunity. The church thrives best when it is under persecution, when we face cultural dislocation and alienation. For most of its history, the church has existed in times of difficulty and challenge.
The church in Corinth was no Disneyland. Throughout Paul’s epistles to this major metropolis of the Roman Empire, he’s trying to deal with sectarian divisions, rampant immorality, lawsuits, pseudo-preachers preaching a false gospel – all of this was in the church (!), not the culture of Corinth. One of the greatest challenges for a Christian in the Roman world, where everyone was religious, worshipping all kind of deities, including Caesar, was that you couldn’t be Christian on the side.[2] You couldn’t worship both Jupiter and Jesus. You had to decide. Christian discipleship required commitment, devotion to one God and not an assortment of gods. This sounds very similar to what we face in our own age where people worship all kinds of gods, but are reluctant to make a commitment to the God of Jesus Christ.
And yet, despite their considerable dysfunction, Paul still thanks God for them, for the grace that is nevertheless at work in them! In every way they are being enriched for the work God called them to do. They’re really screwed up and haven’t a clue what it means to be and do church, and yet they’re not lacking any spiritual gift; they have the gifts of speech and knowledge, which allows them to give testimony to the good news of Jesus Christ.
All of this bodes well for the church today, despite its many challenges and problems. The Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to lose members and the cost of per capita continues to rise. There are more Muslims than Presbyterians in the United States. We have internal divisions and strive to remain together. And we are holding together post-PUP, that is in light of the Peace, Unity, and Purity Task Force Report that was approved by the last General Assembly. A few churches have left, but they were on their way out for a while. Most churches that threatened to leave are learning to living peaceably within the Presbyterian family and finding a way to find unity in diversity, instead of preferring uniformity – which is always exclusive and often very destructive for both the church and its people. After spending this past week in Bradenton Beach, Florida, with fourteen very gifted, committed, Presbyterian pastors, studying scripture together, talking about how we seek to be faithful in such a time as this, I’m optimistic about the future of the church. God is equipping the church with every gift necessary for its life – committed pastors and lay people who love the Lord and who not only want to see the church survive but, more importantly, thrive. We are not called to just survive, but to thrive.
I believe God has and is equipping this church with every gift necessary for our life together. We lack nothing. We have everything we need to be faithful to what God is calling us to be and to do; it’s all within us – we have the personal, spiritual, and financial resources to do amazing things. And the greatest resource of this church is YOU – the people, your faith, your commitment, your life-experience, your faith experience. I’m grateful that we don’t have the factions and the internal squabbling that goes on in so many congregations these days. We have a healthy sense of conflict, we don’t all agree on things – nor should we – but we listen to one another and make space for difference. We do more than just tolerate each another; we try to work together, to exercise what the Book of Order aptly calls “mutual forbearance.”[3]
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time/20th January 2008
In his book The Heart of Christianity (2003), Marcus Borg of Oregon State University describes how his university students have a uniformly negative image of Christianity. "When I ask them to write a short essay on their impression of Christianity," says Borg, "they consistently use five adjectives: Christians are literalistic, anti-intellectual, self-righteous, judgmental, and bigoted."
We might object by saying these are sweeping generalizations, but in a world where image and impressions mean more than the truth, we should be concerned. However, a new book called unChristian by David Kinnaman, of the highly-respected Barna Research Group, presents objective research that supports Borg's classroom experience. Kinnaman's three-year study documents how an overwhelming percentage of sixteen to twenty-nine year olds view Christians with hostility, resentment and disdain. He’s not working with stereotypes. Nor are these critics people who've had no contact with churches or Christians. These perceptions are based on real experiences with today's Christians. According to Kinnaman's Barna study, here are the percentages of people outside the church who think that the following words describe present-day Christianity: anti-gay 91%; judgmental 87%; hypocritical 85%; old-fashioned 78%; too political 75%; out of touch with reality 72%; insensitive to others 70%; and boring – 68%.[1]
Just think of standing up in Starbuck’s or Panera Bread, announcing you’re a Christian, knowing that a sizable number drinking their lattes probably think of you in one of these ways.
Soon President Bush will offer his On the State of the Union speech before Congress, his perspective on the state of the nation. I thought this morning that I would offer my perspective on the state of the church, both nationally and locally.
The church exists in a less-than-friendly environment these days. It’s not surprising that so many churches are in trouble and so many ministers burning-out or leaving ministry altogether. The church is in time of significant, cultural challenge. I don’t necessarily view the culture as hostile toward the church, it’s more an attitude of bland indifference. These are tough times for the church but also times of opportunity. The church thrives best when it is under persecution, when we face cultural dislocation and alienation. For most of its history, the church has existed in times of difficulty and challenge.
The church in Corinth was no Disneyland. Throughout Paul’s epistles to this major metropolis of the Roman Empire, he’s trying to deal with sectarian divisions, rampant immorality, lawsuits, pseudo-preachers preaching a false gospel – all of this was in the church (!), not the culture of Corinth. One of the greatest challenges for a Christian in the Roman world, where everyone was religious, worshipping all kind of deities, including Caesar, was that you couldn’t be Christian on the side.[2] You couldn’t worship both Jupiter and Jesus. You had to decide. Christian discipleship required commitment, devotion to one God and not an assortment of gods. This sounds very similar to what we face in our own age where people worship all kinds of gods, but are reluctant to make a commitment to the God of Jesus Christ.
And yet, despite their considerable dysfunction, Paul still thanks God for them, for the grace that is nevertheless at work in them! In every way they are being enriched for the work God called them to do. They’re really screwed up and haven’t a clue what it means to be and do church, and yet they’re not lacking any spiritual gift; they have the gifts of speech and knowledge, which allows them to give testimony to the good news of Jesus Christ.
All of this bodes well for the church today, despite its many challenges and problems. The Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to lose members and the cost of per capita continues to rise. There are more Muslims than Presbyterians in the United States. We have internal divisions and strive to remain together. And we are holding together post-PUP, that is in light of the Peace, Unity, and Purity Task Force Report that was approved by the last General Assembly. A few churches have left, but they were on their way out for a while. Most churches that threatened to leave are learning to living peaceably within the Presbyterian family and finding a way to find unity in diversity, instead of preferring uniformity – which is always exclusive and often very destructive for both the church and its people. After spending this past week in Bradenton Beach, Florida, with fourteen very gifted, committed, Presbyterian pastors, studying scripture together, talking about how we seek to be faithful in such a time as this, I’m optimistic about the future of the church. God is equipping the church with every gift necessary for its life – committed pastors and lay people who love the Lord and who not only want to see the church survive but, more importantly, thrive. We are not called to just survive, but to thrive.
I believe God has and is equipping this church with every gift necessary for our life together. We lack nothing. We have everything we need to be faithful to what God is calling us to be and to do; it’s all within us – we have the personal, spiritual, and financial resources to do amazing things. And the greatest resource of this church is YOU – the people, your faith, your commitment, your life-experience, your faith experience. I’m grateful that we don’t have the factions and the internal squabbling that goes on in so many congregations these days. We have a healthy sense of conflict, we don’t all agree on things – nor should we – but we listen to one another and make space for difference. We do more than just tolerate each another; we try to work together, to exercise what the Book of Order aptly calls “mutual forbearance.”[3]
A church exists to serve Christ. We don’t exist for ourselves. Christ calls his people to suffer with those who suffer (1 Corinthians 12:26), weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15). To share the burden and pain and joy of God’s people. This is the work of all God’s people, not just religious professionals. I’m grateful for the way this church does walk with those who are in pain and can celebrate with those who celebrate. I see it all the time, the way people reach out in a ministry of prayer and presence. Our deacons are amazing. Yet, inevitably, there are people who suffer silently, whose pain is too deep for words. There are people who fall through the cracks or just silently move out of the orbit of the church and then they feel hurt because they aren’t missed. This is always my fear. I’ve seen it happen here. This is everyone’s responsibility, not just your pastors or the elders or deacons. If you haven’t seen someone here for a while, pick up the phone and call them or drop them a note. I know that you pretty much sit in the same seat each week. If you haven’t seen your pew buddy in a couple of weeks, take responsibility for them. Seek them out. Do you know the names of the people who sit beside you, before and behind you? They’re your sisters; they’re your brothers. They’re part of the family. Care for them.
Reach out. Perhaps that’s one of the greatest challenges facing us: reaching out. How can we be better evangelists? It’s been said the church is always one generation away from extinction. We often think of individuals being evangelists – like pastors or Billy Graham-types. But it’s really the church as a whole that preaches and shares the good news.[4] Session is investing some dollars in outreach, trying to advertise more in different publications, such as The Urbanite. However the best advertisement for this church is you. Most people join a church not because of the pastor or the preaching or the music, worship style, education programs or mission programs, but because someone cared enough to invite them to attend worship or join an event. It’s through word of mouth that the church grows, through testimony, when we share what we see taking place here. Imagine if every person – or just one family working together – invited one person to join us, not once, but cultivated that relationship so that he/she became part of this family. Imagine the impact. I also think we should be praying that God send us people and that we be prepared to welcome them when they arrive.
Truth be told, most pastors become easily frustrated (including your own) when they see all the wonderful ministry going on in a church, but people don’t respond: growth is stagnant, commitment is low (even among members), that people just don’t seem to care. Truth is, there are so many other things, activities – other gods – competing for our time, attention, commitment, and money, which causes the church to suffer. I would love to see this church grow in numbers, for the pews to be filled every week. In addition to infant baptisms, I would love to see more adult baptisms – adults becoming Christian, seeking to be disciples, which is probably an even stronger sign of the future health of the church.
Yet, a long time ago I learned to check at the door of the sanctuary my American sensibility that numbers equals success, that a growth in numbers is a sign that either I’m doing something right or that we are doing something right. That’s a deadly formula for the church – it’s not biblical, it’s theologically abhorrent, and ultimately it’s unfaithful. We are not called to grow, but to be faithful. We are called to be a faithful church – which means Christ-centered. This church does not belong to me or to you its members (even if you pledge), it’s not ours, it doesn’t belong to anyone, except Christ. We have been invited in grace to be a part it. No one is part of this community because he or she deserves to be here or earned the right to be here. We are here by grace to be Christ’s disciples, to serve him with joy, to grow in our faith and commitment to him and to one another. We are here by grace because God wants to do something through us, together, that we couldn’t do on our own.
Growing in numbers is less important than growing in faith. What matters most is that ours is a faithful church; and a faithful fellowship implies being a healthy church. I would rather service a healthy church any day than a large, dysfunctional church.
What is a healthy church?
· A healthy church puts Christ first – which is another way of saying, puts love first.
· Trusts God to do the impossible through us.
· Looks to the future with confidence instead of pining for the past.
· Takes healthy risks.
· It’s a church that studies scripture in order to know God, with people who want to grow in their knowledge of scripture, grow in faith and commitment, people who engage their minds and their hearts as disciples of Christ; but also people who don’t have all the answers, that are still growing; a church where you don’t have to have all the answers first and your faith completely intact before joining.[5]
· It’s a church that worships together and prays together; where we rejoice with those who rejoice and suffer with those who suffer; a place where people can bring their pain.
· A place where we practice what we preach.
· A place that’s unreasonably generous, that welcomes the joy and the responsibility of faithful stewardship of God’s gifts.
· It’s a place where egos are set aside and we seek the welfare of the whole church, caring less for “my needs” or what “I want,” thinking more about what God wants, what Christ demands, what the Spirit desires.
· It’s a place that is known for its mercy and kindness, that makes a space for all people to be fellow-disciples.
· It’s a place that cares for its children even as it cares for its elderly, indeed, as it cares for anyone who is vulnerable or weak or fragile or alone.
· It’s a fellowship where the presence of Christ is known – when guests walk into this sanctuary, attend a concert or meeting, they know and feel that there’s something different about us, that in us they somehow see the face of God.
· It’s a church where everyone knows that he or she has a calling because of one’s baptism, thus called to do something unique and needed to give a blessing to the world.
· It’s a church that’s not bent on surviving (which is really more about ego than faith) but on thriving and reaching out to a community, a world in need.
It’s a church where we prove to be an exception to the statistics.
Wishful-thinking? Not if you believe that God’s Spirit is within us and among us, equipping us with every gift needed to be an effective, faithful, fellowship of Christ. The church in Corinth prospered despite its many limitations. It wasn’t about them, but what God was doing through them. It’s not about us, but about what God is doing through us. This isn’t wishful-thinking, but faithful-thinking. And when the church lives this way, it will get peoples’ attention, it will cause a stir, it will cause people to wake up and notice. They might even meet Christ – the true Christ, the loving Christ, the grace-filled, welcoming Christ – through you, through us. That’s my prayer.
[1] See Dan Clendenin’s lectionary blog site for 20th January 2008, “The Outrage of Outsiders: Why So Many People Dislike Christians:” http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20080114JJ.shtml
[2] A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998 [1933]).
[3] “…we …believe that there are truths and forms with respect to which men of good characters and principles may differ. And in all these we think it the duty both of private Christians and societies to exercise mutual forbearance toward each other.” (G-1.0305) Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part II.
[4] Anthony B. Robinson, Transforming Congregational Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 120.
[5] Cf. the quotation from the worship bulletin: “The church is not the fellowship of those who have been fully and completely changed or saved and who require nothing more. In other words, the church is not the saved who are then to save others. The church is a fellowship, a gathering of those who are in the process of being changed, of those who are being saved and made new, and who invite others to join them in this adventure and this life.” Robinson, 37.
13 January 2008
Called for Freedom
Isaiah 42:1-9 & Matthew 3:13-17
Baptism of the Lord/13th January 2008
Baptism of the Lord/13th January 2008
Richard Rodriquez went searching for the God of the desert. In a fascinating, recent article in Harper’s, Rodriquez wants to understand the connection between space and faith, the “ecology of monotheism,” as he calls it. Why is it that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have their roots in the desert, wilderness places of the Holy Land? Why is it that God revealed Himself in the desert? What is it about open spaces, wild, apparently empty spaces that speak to the presence of God or become the place where we hear God speak most clearly? Rodriquez went on a pilgrimage to the holy, empty spaces of all three faiths, primarily in Jerusalem – the churches, the shrines, the open space of the Temple Mount at the top of the city. He ventured out into the desert that sits right on the edge of Jerusalem, as if waiting to devour the city. He explored Qumran and the ancient ruins along the Dead Sea. A guide took him out into the wilderness, explained how to survive there.[1]
He found in the desert wilderness of Judea is what he calls “the concentration of God’s intention on this landscape.” Experiencing that landscape tells us something about who God is. That God chooses to reveal Himself in wild, open places tells us something about the God of Jesus Christ; Yahweh, the Wild-God Israel came to know intimately in the wilderness of the Negev, the God of Jesus Christ who was tested in the wilderness and baptized in the wilderness. The wilderness, the desert, wild, open spaces are the settings for birth, renewal, and freedom.
That’s why there’s something odd about the site where Christians remember Jesus’ baptism today. The traditionally venerated site is near Jericho. After the Six Day War in 1967 that location was declared off-limits to tourists. It’s still dangerous. Today pilgrims go to Yardenit, in Galilee, along the Jordan – a place with no historical or religious significance – where you can worship, have your baptism videotaped, and bottle murky Jordan River “holy” water (empty plastic bottles are available at $1 a piece for you to collect your own). There’s nothing wild about the place. The sandy wilderness was the place of baptism, the place of encounter, the place where the holy ruach or Spirit of God rested upon Jesus and he discovered the call and purpose of his life, where he discovered who he really was.
There’s something about vastness – think of any broad, space, the vastness of the universe, the plains of Kansas or Nebraska, the expanse of the Chesapeake from atop the Bay Bridge – that openness, expansiveness that tells us something about God or maybe it’s the openness that resonates something of what we know about God: that God makes space for us and in that space there is freedom, new life, and a future. I remember how I felt God’s presence looking upon the Sea of Galilee or the deserts along the Dead Sea, or in the wild, open spaces of Scotland, or standing on the Serengeti Plain in Kenya. Space gives birth to life.
The Hebrew word for spirit or breath – ruach – which moved over the primordial chaos before creation is an aspirant, a word filled with breath or air. The word is related to another Hebrew word, rewah, which means breadth, so that in the Hebrew experience breath and breadth are related. In the Hebrew experience ruach creates breadth or space. The ruach of God leads us out of narrow places into wide vistas, thus conferring life. Ruach can refer to a divine person and a force, but Jürgen Moltmann suggests that it is also a spatial quality, “the space of freedom in which the living being can unfold.” The vastness of open spaces reminds us that this is what God’s Spirit does. Psalm 31:8 affirms, “Thou has set my feet in a broad place.” And Job could say, “You also he allured out of distress into a broad place where there is no cramping” (Job 36:16). In the Kabbalistic Jewish tradition, a mystical form of Judaism, one of God’s secret names is MAKOM, which means the wide space. God is known as a broad, open space for living – and brings us to those vast, broad, open spaces.[2]
You can almost feel it in Isaiah’s vision of what Yahweh’s servant will do, which Christians have come to see as a foreshadowing of Christ. Empowered by the ruach of God, this servant will bring forth justice – justice is the Bible’s word for making all things right, the healing of relationships, releasing the captive, and the restoration of all things; it allows people to live and to thrive. This servant will not further break that which is already bruised by life. This servant will not quench the dim flicker of light left burning within us. This servant will care for the bruised and wounded; create a safe place for them. He will not allow the light to go out, will not allow darkness to win over us, but will gently, carefully provide for the wick to burn bright. God’s justice allows people to live.
And then God provides a space for these vulnerable people. “Thus says God, Yahweh, who created the heavens and stretched them out” – see the spatial dimension of God’s creative love? “Who spread out the earth and what comes from it” – see the earth as the space for God’s people to live in? “Who gives breath to the people upon [the earth] and spirit to those who walk in it. I am Yahweh, I have called you in righteousness” – that is because God desires to be in relationship with us – “I have taken you by the hand and kept you.” Noted Old Testament theologian, Walter Brueggemann, sees in this text some of the most mature testimony in the Old Testament, asserting that Yahweh creates in such a way that brings about new outcomes for God’s people, that provides hopes. “In this testimony, the world is characterized, according to Yahweh’s intention and action, as a hospitable, viable place for life, because of Yahweh’s will and capacity to evoke and sustain life.”[3]
And the expansiveness of God’s creative Spirit continues through the servant. This is what he will do, “Open the eyes that are blind, …bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD, that is my name… See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; …” What’s all the more remarkable about this vision is that Isaiah wrote this text to Israel during its exile and captivity in Babylon. But God will allow a space. The dungeon is neither definite nor defining. Something new will emerge.
Jean Vanier tells a prison story. Vanier is the founder of l’Arche, a network of communities that provide safe, comfortable places (like Noah’s Ark) for people who are severely disabled, abused, and abandoned by society. As a Christian, Vanier believes that to care for the least of these is to actually minister to Christ. He tells the story of preaching to prisoners in a high security prison in Kingston, Ontario. He told the prisoners about the type of people l’Arche welcomes, men and women who have witnessed so much pain, failure, dejection, so much suffering, of their broken childhoods. As he shared his story, he knew he was talking about their story. At the end of his talk, one of the inmates got up and screamed at him: “You, …you’ve had an easy life!” Then starting at age four he offered a long litany of the things he witnessed or were done to him – which I can’t recount in this context. Brutal. All leading to his first arrest at age thirteen. “If anyone else comes into this prison to talk about love I will kick his bloody head in.”
Vanier didn’t know what to say, so he prayed silently as this man verbally attacked him. And then he said, “It’s true what you say. I have had an easy life! It’s true, I do not know what you have lived. But what I do know is that everything you have just said is important. People outside this prison often judge you without knowing your pain, your story, your childhood experiences. Will you allow me to tell people outside what you have just told me today?” “Yes,” he replied. “You may have things to tell us, but one day you will be getting out of prison and perhaps you will need to know and hear things about life outside the prison.” When the question time was over, Vanier went up to this man and shook his hand. He asked for his name and where he was from. He was surprised to learn that the inmate was married. Vanier asked, “Tell me about your wife.” Then this man, who had been so violent, who had seemed to have such hatred in him, broke down in tears.” He has a wife in Montreal, in a wheelchair, whom he hadn’t seen in two years. Vanier says, “I was in front of a wounded, vulnerable little child, weeping, crying out for love and tenderness.”[4] “A bruised reed he will not break, a dimly burning wick he will not quench.” Such is the love of Christ at work in the world that continues to make space for people, even in the places of our confinement.
Where are your dungeons? What are your prisons?
God desires and ultimately sent his Servant in the form of a Son to release everyone from those tight,
confining places in our lives where we cannot see,
from all that constrains and constricts us,
from those places or circumstances
where we cannot breathe or that suck the life out of us,
in order to set us down in a vast, broad place where there is no cramping, places where we sense the expansiveness of God’s love for us,
places where we can breathe
and stretch our limbs
and feel our hearts expand,
places where we know the infinite freedom of God,
a God who seeks to plant us in places where we can be born
and born again
and again
and live
and be vital
and be a blessing to the world.[5]
Perhaps we can think of baptism in Christ as our entrée into the space of God’s liberation and release – God’s hospitality makes sacred space for us to live as one of His children, and in love we make space for others to live and thrive.
That’s what a church is – a sacred space of belonging,
a place for the bruised and wounded and vulnerable,
a safe place,
a place of peace and kindness,
where people can live and thrive,
which extends the freedom of God,
to all who wish to share in its life.
We become more and more the spacious church of God when we remember
the same ruach of God that rested on Jesus
is now,
because of our baptism,
resting upon us – upon us, in us.
Amazing.
Amazing.
[1] Richard Rodriquez, “The God of the Desert: Jerusalem and the Ecology of Monotheism,” Harper’s, January/2008: 35.
[2] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 43.
[3] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 145-146.
[4] Jean Vanier, Befriending the Stranger (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 10-11.
[5] Cf. the quotation from the worship bulletin: “When the heart expands and we can stretch our limbs, and feel the new vitality everywhere, then life unfolds in us. But it needs a living space in which it can develop. Life in the Spirit is life in the ‘broad place where there is no cramping’ (Job 36:16). So in the new life we experience the Spirit as a ‘broad place’ - as the free space for our freedom, as the living space for our lives, as the horizon inviting us to discover life.” Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 178-179.
06 January 2008
Characters at the Crèche: The Magi
Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany of the Lord/6th January 2008
In Dickens’ (1812-1870) A Christmas Carol (1843), old Jacob Marley says to Scrooge on the night of his visitation, “At this time of the rolling year, I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!” The sight of Jacob Marley is a fitting image when approaching this text, for it is burdened by a “ponderous chain” which we have forged “link by link, and yard by yard;”[1] it’s the ponderous chain of tradition linked to tradition that encumbers this text, making it almost impossible to bear. Buried somewhere at the bottom is the real story of the star and the identity of these foreigners with gifts and why Matthew includes it as integral to the good news of Jesus.
So let’s unlink the chain, perhaps releasing the story from the tradition. Who are these guys? Let’s just call them guests for the moment. As we know, the text doesn’t say there were three. Some Eastern traditions claim there were twelve or thirteen. By the fifth century the number is fixed at three and they’re given names – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. By the sixth century they took on symbolic meaning, representing three ages – youth, middle age, and old age. Around the same time, through a reading of Isaiah 60, “the wealth of the nations shall come to you,” (Is. 60:5), the three came to represent the races of the known world: Europe, Africa, and Asia.
In the 4th century, the Spanish poet Prudentius (348-405/413) identified the three as “kings,” although Matthew never gives them that title. His poem would evolve through the Middle Ages and eventually become our carol, “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” In a text from the twelfth century, the biography of the bishop of Milan, St. Eustorgius, who died in 350 AD, tells how Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helen (c.250 – c.330), discovered the tombs of the three guests in the East.[2] She had their bodies transferred to the Church of St. Sofia in Constantinople. When Eustorgius became bishop of Milan, the Emperor authorized the remains to be transferred there. And there they remained until their journey continued – these guys are always on the move, they can’t seem to rest anywhere (!) – when Frederick Barbarossa (1122-1190), the Holy Roman Emperor, moved them to Cologne, Germany, in 1164. Today their remains are in a golden shrine in the massive cathedral in Cologne. Well, at least someone’s remains have been moved all over the place for centuries.
I say “someone’s” because Marco Polo (1254-1324) tells us in his journey across modern-day Iran in 1270s, he was shown three tombs, one for each of the guests[3] – who were not kings, according to Matthew, and not really wise men either (as most Bibles tell us), but magoi, plural of magos, a Greek derivative of a very old Persian word Magupati, which refers to one thing: the priestly caste within Zoroastrianism – one of the oldest religions of the ancient world, influencing both Greek and Roman philosophy, bridging the religions of the East and West, and still practiced today in Iran and India.[4] They paid close attention to the stars; they were early astronomers. The Magi were the scientists of their day, even advancing the field of mathematics. They were also astrologers, which explains why the term magi has been applied to the occult in general and, in English, the root of our word magic. Think: Harry Potter. In order to avoid any reference to magic, the King James Version called them “wise men.”
And what about those gifts? So many different theories. Gold, frankincense, myrrh – gifts fit for a king, a prophet, and a priest? Were they tools of the Magoi trade that the Magi now give up because they have found the knowledge of the universe in the face of Jesus? But what would a poor craftsman family do with these exotic gifts any way? The English deist, Thomas Woolston (1668-1733) once quipped, “If they had brought sugar, soap, and candles they would have acted like wise men.” The gifts were probably pawned in order to afford the exorbitantly expensive trip to Egypt. There’s no mention of them anywhere else in scripture. Although, there are monks in the monastery of St. Paul on Mount Athos in Greece who have a gold case they claim contains all three of the gifts.
In Matthew’s version the Magi were not present on the night Jesus was born. They arrived at a house (not a manger), to see a child (not an infant). But when they do see him, Matthew tells us, “They knelt down and paid him homage.” It’s easy to overlook this description – of course that’s what they would do. The Greek here means to kneel, but also to fall prostrate, with your face to the ground in deference. In the Persian world, this was a gesture of utmost respect and honor. But in the Roman and Jewish world, kneeling and prostration were considered undignified. However, it was reserved in the Jewish tradition for only one thing, for epiphanies – for revelation, a manifestation of the Holy, for the appearance of God: an epiphany so incredible, so amazing that the wisest of the world, the scientists of his age, knelt before the knowledge of God revealed in his birth. Matthew tells us that this was an epiphany so astonishing, so astounding for Matthew that even Gentiles, foreigners, people unlike him, could recognize in Jesus’ birth the dawning of a new day for all the nations of the world. A new light breaks forth, not from a star, but from his luminous face – so that in his light we see light and in his truth find freedom. His light leads us through a threshold into a new day, a new way to live and to die, a new way to embrace God and be embraced by God, a new way that prevents us from going back to the old ways, a new way that never quite leaves us feeling, thinking, or believing the same way. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) once said, “Having come to know Jesus we are forbidden to return by the way we came.”
When the Magi knelt before Jesus one journey came to an end. But they didn’t stay there. When they got up on their feet a new journey began, going home by another road. Jesus’ birth attracts us, calls us to journey toward him; but there’s also a journey from him, that he sends us on, into new possibilities, new adventures, through new thresholds of faithful risk and service that we would probably never venture toward except for having encountered him. That’s what epiphanies do – they change everything and send us through new thresholds, down different roads.
There’s a custom in some European countries that on Epiphany people (sometimes children) go from door to door and write with chalk over the threshold of a house: C+M+B and then the year. They stand for: Christus mansionem benedicat. The letters are also the initials of the Magi – Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar. Christus mansionem benedicat – Christ bless this house.
As the light of Christ sends us through the threshold into a New Year – may our homes and this household of faith know in new ways the blessings of Christ in 2008. We will be embarking upon new adventures as a church this year where we will be asked to take faithful risks, go in new directions, down new roads, and asked to continue the journey of the Spirit who longs to take us where we need to go. That’s what epiphanies do.
[1] Charles Dickens, The Christmas Books: Volume I - A Christmas Carol/The Chimes (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 61.
[2] The twelfth century text is the Vita Eustorgii.
[3] Marco Polo, The Book of the Million, Book 1. “In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three Magi set out and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. Above them there is a square building, beautifully kept. The bodies are still entire, with hair and beard remaining.”
[4] The religion of Zoroaster emerges in the 9th/10th century BC. It enters recorded history in the mid-5th century BC, through the Greek historian Herodotus’ (c.484-c.425 BC) The Histories (completed c. 440 BC), known as “the Father of History.”
Epiphany of the Lord/6th January 2008
In Dickens’ (1812-1870) A Christmas Carol (1843), old Jacob Marley says to Scrooge on the night of his visitation, “At this time of the rolling year, I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!” The sight of Jacob Marley is a fitting image when approaching this text, for it is burdened by a “ponderous chain” which we have forged “link by link, and yard by yard;”[1] it’s the ponderous chain of tradition linked to tradition that encumbers this text, making it almost impossible to bear. Buried somewhere at the bottom is the real story of the star and the identity of these foreigners with gifts and why Matthew includes it as integral to the good news of Jesus.
So let’s unlink the chain, perhaps releasing the story from the tradition. Who are these guys? Let’s just call them guests for the moment. As we know, the text doesn’t say there were three. Some Eastern traditions claim there were twelve or thirteen. By the fifth century the number is fixed at three and they’re given names – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. By the sixth century they took on symbolic meaning, representing three ages – youth, middle age, and old age. Around the same time, through a reading of Isaiah 60, “the wealth of the nations shall come to you,” (Is. 60:5), the three came to represent the races of the known world: Europe, Africa, and Asia.
In the 4th century, the Spanish poet Prudentius (348-405/413) identified the three as “kings,” although Matthew never gives them that title. His poem would evolve through the Middle Ages and eventually become our carol, “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” In a text from the twelfth century, the biography of the bishop of Milan, St. Eustorgius, who died in 350 AD, tells how Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helen (c.250 – c.330), discovered the tombs of the three guests in the East.[2] She had their bodies transferred to the Church of St. Sofia in Constantinople. When Eustorgius became bishop of Milan, the Emperor authorized the remains to be transferred there. And there they remained until their journey continued – these guys are always on the move, they can’t seem to rest anywhere (!) – when Frederick Barbarossa (1122-1190), the Holy Roman Emperor, moved them to Cologne, Germany, in 1164. Today their remains are in a golden shrine in the massive cathedral in Cologne. Well, at least someone’s remains have been moved all over the place for centuries.
I say “someone’s” because Marco Polo (1254-1324) tells us in his journey across modern-day Iran in 1270s, he was shown three tombs, one for each of the guests[3] – who were not kings, according to Matthew, and not really wise men either (as most Bibles tell us), but magoi, plural of magos, a Greek derivative of a very old Persian word Magupati, which refers to one thing: the priestly caste within Zoroastrianism – one of the oldest religions of the ancient world, influencing both Greek and Roman philosophy, bridging the religions of the East and West, and still practiced today in Iran and India.[4] They paid close attention to the stars; they were early astronomers. The Magi were the scientists of their day, even advancing the field of mathematics. They were also astrologers, which explains why the term magi has been applied to the occult in general and, in English, the root of our word magic. Think: Harry Potter. In order to avoid any reference to magic, the King James Version called them “wise men.”
And what about those gifts? So many different theories. Gold, frankincense, myrrh – gifts fit for a king, a prophet, and a priest? Were they tools of the Magoi trade that the Magi now give up because they have found the knowledge of the universe in the face of Jesus? But what would a poor craftsman family do with these exotic gifts any way? The English deist, Thomas Woolston (1668-1733) once quipped, “If they had brought sugar, soap, and candles they would have acted like wise men.” The gifts were probably pawned in order to afford the exorbitantly expensive trip to Egypt. There’s no mention of them anywhere else in scripture. Although, there are monks in the monastery of St. Paul on Mount Athos in Greece who have a gold case they claim contains all three of the gifts.
In Matthew’s version the Magi were not present on the night Jesus was born. They arrived at a house (not a manger), to see a child (not an infant). But when they do see him, Matthew tells us, “They knelt down and paid him homage.” It’s easy to overlook this description – of course that’s what they would do. The Greek here means to kneel, but also to fall prostrate, with your face to the ground in deference. In the Persian world, this was a gesture of utmost respect and honor. But in the Roman and Jewish world, kneeling and prostration were considered undignified. However, it was reserved in the Jewish tradition for only one thing, for epiphanies – for revelation, a manifestation of the Holy, for the appearance of God: an epiphany so incredible, so amazing that the wisest of the world, the scientists of his age, knelt before the knowledge of God revealed in his birth. Matthew tells us that this was an epiphany so astonishing, so astounding for Matthew that even Gentiles, foreigners, people unlike him, could recognize in Jesus’ birth the dawning of a new day for all the nations of the world. A new light breaks forth, not from a star, but from his luminous face – so that in his light we see light and in his truth find freedom. His light leads us through a threshold into a new day, a new way to live and to die, a new way to embrace God and be embraced by God, a new way that prevents us from going back to the old ways, a new way that never quite leaves us feeling, thinking, or believing the same way. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) once said, “Having come to know Jesus we are forbidden to return by the way we came.”
When the Magi knelt before Jesus one journey came to an end. But they didn’t stay there. When they got up on their feet a new journey began, going home by another road. Jesus’ birth attracts us, calls us to journey toward him; but there’s also a journey from him, that he sends us on, into new possibilities, new adventures, through new thresholds of faithful risk and service that we would probably never venture toward except for having encountered him. That’s what epiphanies do – they change everything and send us through new thresholds, down different roads.
There’s a custom in some European countries that on Epiphany people (sometimes children) go from door to door and write with chalk over the threshold of a house: C+M+B and then the year. They stand for: Christus mansionem benedicat. The letters are also the initials of the Magi – Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar. Christus mansionem benedicat – Christ bless this house.
As the light of Christ sends us through the threshold into a New Year – may our homes and this household of faith know in new ways the blessings of Christ in 2008. We will be embarking upon new adventures as a church this year where we will be asked to take faithful risks, go in new directions, down new roads, and asked to continue the journey of the Spirit who longs to take us where we need to go. That’s what epiphanies do.
[1] Charles Dickens, The Christmas Books: Volume I - A Christmas Carol/The Chimes (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 61.
[2] The twelfth century text is the Vita Eustorgii.
[3] Marco Polo, The Book of the Million, Book 1. “In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three Magi set out and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. Above them there is a square building, beautifully kept. The bodies are still entire, with hair and beard remaining.”
[4] The religion of Zoroaster emerges in the 9th/10th century BC. It enters recorded history in the mid-5th century BC, through the Greek historian Herodotus’ (c.484-c.425 BC) The Histories (completed c. 440 BC), known as “the Father of History.”
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