Third Sunday in Lent, Year B, February 25, 2023

Jesus' cleansing of the Temple, Cathedrale d'Amiens. 

Prayer

O God, the living fountain of new life, to the human race, parched with thirst, you offer the living water of grace that springs up from the rock, our Savior Jesus Christ.  Grant your people the gift of the Spirit, that we may learn to profess our faith with courage and conviction and announce with joy the wonders of your saving love.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you int he unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 2:13-25

"I read the cleansing of the temple as a stark warning against any and every false sense of security. Misplaced allegiances, religious presumption, pathetic excuses, smug self-satisfaction, spiritual complacency, nationalist zeal, political idolatry, and economic greed in the name of God are only some of the tables that Jesus would overturn in his own day and in ours."

"Subtle as a Sledge Hammer: Jesus 'Cleanses' the Temple," The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, Daniel B. Clendenin, Journey with Jesus Foundation.

"Followers of Jesus confess that Jesus is King and the emperor is not. If the consequence of challenging the imperial powers is death, as it was for Jesus and many of his followers, so be it."

Commentary, John 2:13-22, Marilyn Salmon, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"Is the community good news for the poor or is it chaplain to the rich who oppress? Mark with telling irony contrasts the widow and her poverty with the oppression of the temple authorities who exploit widows (12:38-44). Lent is also a time for the church to take a good look at itself."

"First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Lent 3, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

I guess I want to begin my reflection with, "Wow."  This passage never seems to get easier to read. It also challenges my thinking about who Jesus is for me...most days.  So, I think it deserves some very important reflection.

First, the cleansing of the Temple is a sign. It is a sign that the messianic age is upon us, and a call for purification in the presence of the Messiah.

Second, in the face of the authority's desire for a sign, Jesus gives them one by cleansing the Temple.

There are many mixes of imagery and theology. We cannot ignore the imagery that comes to mind about our own faith and religious traditions. We can imagine the sacrifice of Christ's body in comparison to the prophecy regarding the destruction.

But as I sit here on this particular day, I ask myself what needs to be cleansed. It is Lent, and I am wondering, in a particularly reflective mood, what it is in me that I need to have cleansed by the Grace of Jesus, his mercy, and his forgiveness.

Not out of shame, believing that I will then be worthy...not out of a desire to be perfect...rather to ask myself the question, where do I do things, or not do things that need to be cleansed and transformed by God.

You see, more often than not (I think - only you preachers can tell me), we spend time talking about how everything else needs to be cleaned out...our culture, our church, our politics, our...whatever.  On this day, I am reminded of that habit I have of cleaning my desk before I do the work.  A necessary thing - sure - more often than not a diversionary tactic.

It is always easier to see the easy work of cleaning out someone else's temple than it is to clean out our own. Or to spend time shaking our fists at the organization, culture, or institution versus rolling up our sleeves, entering the arena and getting our hands, feet and faces dirty with the sweat and blood of ministry.

The tables that need turning over in my life are my belief that there is no power greater than myself; that I can control people's reactions; that other people are responsible for my happiness; that cynicism is an appropriate response to believing there is no good in the world; that if I am allied with the right people I will be safe; that faithfulness means attendance; that my excuses are really pretty good; that what I most often do is my "best;" that I am right; and that politics will save us.

I have to drop my shields and move out vulnerably.

I guess I want Jesus to turn my tables. I pray for grace and wisdom so that my need for self-esteem is replaced with God's forgiveness and love.  I hope the tables are turned so that my sarcasm will be transformed into spiritual joy.  I hope God will help me replace my selfishness with self-giving and my dishonesty with honesty.  May I seek others instead of myself; seeing them as God sees them.  That my fear may be overwhelmed by God-given courage.  That I won't blame but be accountable.  And that in all these things I will have a humble and contrite heart.

There is a danger in this lesson, though, and that is to let the church off the hook. We can talk about the tables being turned "out there" and the tables being turned "in my life", but does this have anything to say to the church.

Well, in fact, I think that is much the point. This is a favourite Gospel lesson to Heist. I mean that Jesus, as a prophetic voice in his time, is speaking clearly through word and action about the Temple itself. Centralized religion makes a commerce out of the gospel that is meant to heal people and the world. Centralized religion will require sacrifices to be made to uphold its system of power. It will require obedience to the priest, and in the case of this particular Temple, we must remember it requires obedience to the occupying power. Religion that supports a different kingdom than the Kingdom of God is not the faith of Jesus. So it is that we might well examine our own centralized structures of attractional church and governance-driven church structures.

The mission of God in Christ Jesus will always be limited by the time and energy spent on the structure. When the structures serve themselves more than the world in God's name, then the structure needs its tables turned.

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

"And how long was the whole great circus to last? Paul said, why, until we all become human beings at last, until we all 'come to maturity,' as he put it; and then, since there had been only one really human being since the world began, until we all make it to where we're like him, he said - 'to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Ephesians 4:13). Christs to each other, Christs to God. All of us. Finally. It was just as easy, and just as hard, as that."

"Paul," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

"What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born again even in us and our own snowbound, snowblind longing for him."

"Emmanuel," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

"In this week's passage, he shows how the particular divisions plaguing Corinth can be given the same diagnosis. And here is where things might start to get a little more personal."

Commentary, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (Epiphany 4A), J.R. Daniel Kirk, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Paul tells the truth - the non-commoditised Gospel of free love and grace does not make sense in our culture. A Gospel without shame and plenteous forgiveness is nonsense in a world of commerce where everything from feelings, narratives, personal journeys, and real products are traded based on a supply-and-demand basis. 

The reality is that no matter what divides the church at Corinth or divides our own church, there is a pretty simple understanding of conflict - people who are willing to argue their own perspective vs a humble perspective that begins at the foot of the cross, offers one's whole self to God and others in response to the grace of Jesus, and opens themselves up to the movement of the spirit. There have forever been and will forever be great debaters in the church - but debaters rarely get much accomplished.

We will never know the Gospel through wisdom or some philosophical or theological principle.  For all, faith and belief are rooted in the context of hands-on ministry. Knowing God is experiencing failure, guilt, brokenness, suffering, and rising in glory because of the hope that is in us and the grace given to us.

The very proof of this is God's saving work without the great debate! God acts. God depends not upon our theological wisdom. And, furthermore, God does not choose us because of what we know, understand, or are able to convey. God chooses us out of God's desire to have us as his very own. 

This is what we boast in our Gospel - God chooses us. God makes us, God chooses us, God dwells with us, God invites us to dwell in harmony with one another. That is a Gospel worth boasting.

Some Thoughts on Exodus  20:1-20

"The Decalogue, when viewed as a part of this series of tests that were to shape the people's identity, is thus not only a series of laws but a fertile ground from which blessings and health and prosperity can grow from God."

Commentary, Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20, Callie Plunket-Brewton, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"It has been said that we need a far more rich and comprehensive theology of marriage if we are ever to tackle effectively the epidemic of adultery. I agree, but is there still place for a sermon on adultery?"

"Let's Not Talk about That (Adultery!)" John C. Holbert, Patheos, 2015.


"The Decalogue was God's direct address to Israel: 'God spoke all these words' ('words,' not commandments)."

Commentary, Exodus 20:1-17, Terence E. Fretheim, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

Oremus Online NRSV Text 

Today’s Old Testament reading is the Ten Commandments. In fact this passage came up previously last summer during the season after Pentecost Proper 27A. So if you missed it, you can circle back around, or perhaps look at a different one of the commandments. I also know in the Episcopal Church there may be more liturgical use of the commandments during the season of Lent.

The work for the people of Israel (and for the people who claim to follow Jesus today) was to learn to “love as God loved and loves”, wrote Stanley Hauerwas in The Peaceable Kingdom (78).

What is interesting and somewhat important for us today is to, on the one hand, lean into this deep meaning offered by the passage and elucidated by Hauerwas and, at the same time, reject the Constantinian and Enlightenment/Reformed diversions from the story. Hauerwas defines these typical approaches to taking out the gospel in such passages in this way. The impact upon our reading, preaching, belief and practice is shaped by a “Constantinianism” that offers “the conviction that Christianity is about being religious in a general and diffuse sense.” Meanwhile, the Enlightenment/Reformation “makes Christians into apologists to and for the modern world. (See Hauerwas, Scripture and Ethics, 111). Moreover, he cautions us to not make this about “advice” or about how to live in particular “circumstances”. In other words, the Ten Commandments are not an ethical prescription to be filled by the loyal disciple, but instead, they are about a kind of community that is seeking to live into the blessings and grace of God.

For the Christian who lives between Constantine and the Reformation, we find it all too easy to embrace the scripture as a list of moral imperatives – a biblical ethic. Again, Hauerwas, “The problem of revelation aside, however, the view that the Bible contains a revealed morality that can be applied directly by the individual agent, perhaps with some help from the biblical critic, flounders when considering the status of individual commands.” (71) When we do this, it is all too easy to dismiss their meaning. What I am getting at is that the nature of the community seeking to respond to God’s freedom is essential, the tradition of handing along that response and then the response to Jesus’ ministry is essential. What this helps us to understand is that our own response is not one of a person alone. Christians inherit a tradition wherein the biblical story is part of a very real community that stretches over millennia and arcs towards the end of time. However, the ethic of such a community is one defined by holding community, tradition, and its scripture in hand. Scripture, in this way, becomes, as Hauerwas offers, “revealed reality” instead of “revealed morality”. (72) This then leads us to virtues – which is the Christian manner of approach.

So it is that when we return then to the Old Testament and read the commandments, we are able to hear them in a different manner. We may, instead of hearing a list, hear the virtues. The community today is invited to seek to learn to love as God loves. In this way then, we see a community attempting to live out that learning. We might do well to return to our own Book of Common Prayer to read our approach in just such a context.

Q. What do we learn from these commandments?
A. We learn two things: our duty to God, and our duty to our neighbors. 

Q. What is our duty to God?
A. Our duty is to believe and trust in God;

I. To love and obey God and to bring others to know him;
II. To put nothing in the place of God;
III. To show God respect in thought, word, and deed;
IV. And to set aside regular times for worship, prayer, and the study of God’s ways.

Q. What is our duty to our neighbors?
A. Our duty to our neighbors is to love them as ourselves, and to do to other people as we wish them to do to us;

V. To love, honor, and help our parents andfamily; to honor those in authority, and to meettheir just demands;
VI. To show respect for the life God has given us; to work and pray for peace; to bear no malice, prejudice, or hatred in our hearts; and to be kind to all the creatures of God;
VII. To use all our bodily desires as God intended;
VIII. To be honest and fair in our dealings; to seek justice, freedom, and the necessities of life for all people; and to use our talents and possessions as ones who must answer for them to God;
IX. To speak the truth, and not to mislead others by our silence;
X. To resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; to rejoice in other people’s gifts and graces; and to do our duty for the love of God, who has called us into fellowship with him.

Q. What is the purpose of the Ten Commandments?
A. The Ten Commandments were given to define our relationship with God and our neighbors. 

Q. Since we do not fully obey them, are they useful at all?
A. Since we do not fully obey them, we see more clearly our sin and our need for redemption.

Our New Testament refers back to the Ten Words in a very particular way. In Mark, it appears that God in Christ Jesus is the God of the first commandment. Jesus is the Kyrios and the Logos. He is living out of these commandments as God comes into contact with the people and powers of his time. (Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 62.)

Luke picks up the theme of this passage from Exodus more in line with the language of community. He understands that these are woven into discipleship life - as Hauerwas was reflecting. Specifically, in the Gospel of Luke chapter 18, Jesus not only encourages these as a way to follow but goes on to discuss five out of the ten. Jesus goes so far as to move beyond simple coveting to ownership and sharing what we have. (Ibid, 209) God is at work in the world, and so we are to be at work in the world. Luke makes it clear that the sabbath itself is a time when God is working, and we are to echo that work by joining Christ and the Creator by releasing those bound by the religious and the powerful. (Ibid, 269 and 282.)

Again, our work is not simply to live in isolation over and against the world but to live out these ways of being in the world and free others from the powers that bind them.

Let us turn to our Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. From his Ebor lectures delivered in 2011, we discover that for Rabbi Sacks, the "words" of God to God's people are a principled foundation for a healthy society. He writes that there is a difference between a social and political contract and a covenant. These are covenant words. He says:

"A contract is about advantage, a covenant is about loyalty. A contract is about interests, a covenant is about identity, about belonging to something bigger than me. From a contract, I gain, but from a covenant, I am transformed. I am no longer the person I once was, but am part of something larger than I once was. Thus, a social contract creates a State, but a covenant creates society."

And,

"If we take the Darwin-Tocqueville story and the biblical story together, what do we learn? From Darwin and Tocqueville, we learn that species survive, and humanity survives, only on the basis that there is not only competition but also cooperation. From the Bible, we learn there is such a thing as a State and a society, but they are different things. The State is created by a contract; the society is created by a covenant."

First, this really is a must-read! What Rabbi Sacks is revealing is that God's words are far from being the supporter of the nation - as many pretend. Instead, they are the rood of a good and healthy society.

He writes,

"...That we must remember what we seem to have forgotten, namely, the importance of families, communities, congregations, voluntary associations and charities. It is in these groups, these arenas of cooperation, that we rehearse our altruistic instincts, which are as fundamental to what makes us human as our instincts to competition. These instincts form the ecology of freedom because without them, we would have only the market and the State, and that is not enough for human beings to survive."

Society itself is judged by a people who choose to live differently within its midst. The people who live by the words/commandments live within a different kind of kingdom, and by doing so, they are a different kind of people.

All of this boils down to a very important concept within our tradition. God does not have a prophet, or a leader, or even a Christ. God has a people. We are God's people and we are to be a blessing of Shalom of peace to the world.

We are not simply people after peace and justice, but we are people who are deeply rooted in a tradition that seeks to tell our story through the virtuous action of being peaceful and just. We are a people of character, and a particular one at that.

We are to be virtuous citizens not only on Sundays, not only within the walls of our homes; we are to be virtuous citizens at work in the political and social environs of our community. Global and national society will only work if we are a people of character caring for one another through our very relationships across the boundary of a state or the "right" of the individual. In other words, I may have the right to leave you out in the cold, but as a person in a covenant with God, I have a different responsibility.

Second Sunday in Lent, Year B, February 18, 2023

A road leading to Ceasarea of Philippi

Prayer

God of all goodness, you did not spare your only-begotten son but gave him up for the sake of us sinners.  Strengthen within us the gift of obedient faith, that, in all things, we may follow faithfully in Christ's footsteps, and, with him, be transfigured in the light of your glory.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Mark 8:27-38

"For those, like Peter, who are hoping for a knight on a white horse to sweep in at the last moment and save the day, the messianic expectation is bound to end in disappointment."

"Not a Super Hero, but an Authentic Human," Caspar Green, Scarlet Letter Bible, 2012.

"These verses are crucial for understanding the Gospel according to Mark as a whole and for fathoming what it means to be Christian."

Commentary, Mark 8:27-38, Matt Skinner, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"All we have to do is trade what we've been led to believe is life for the real thing."

"Preaching the Anti-King," David Lose, Working Preacher, 2012.

"I’m curious as to what role the “having turned and having seen his disciples” plays in this conversation..."

"Jesus Rejects the Title, 'The Christ','" D Mark Davis, raw translation and exegesis/questions, Left Behind and Loving It, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

There are several things going on in this passage: Jesus is recognized as Messiah and then prophesies his death and resurrection; and his instructions to the disciples about what is gained and lost in their decision to follow him.

Here, on the road to Philippi, his followers take stabs at who he might be. These are certainly echoes of 6:14-15, a kind of popular notion of his ministry.  While they all contain within them some element of truth, they are not the Truth.  Even if we were not theologically following this discourse, we would see that a claim that they are lacking is evident in Jesus' follow-up question: But who do you say that I am?

Some exegetes, trying to make sense of this, have disputed Peter's confession. (Joel Marcus, Mark, vol 2, 612)  In fact, his statement could be a Markan insertion of an ancient baptismal formula.  And, certainly, the revelation of the exact nature of his messianic kingship is yet to be revealed. (Ibid, 613)  Nevertheless, what happens here is more than foreshadowing a future reality as you and I read the living word. It provides us insight into the nature of the God we believe in and the nature of the Son we seek to follow.

In these words of Jesus, we receive several revelations. The first is that while these events that are to unfold are unexpected (perhaps, in Paul's words, "foolish"), they are exactly God's will and desire.  God in Jesus has come to enfold humanity.  The cross, the great inevitability, will not stop either the proclamation of Good News nor will it keep salvation history from breaking into the cosmos.

The second revelation is that the scriptures of Israel, the Old Testament, reveal this march towards incarnation, crucifixion, and redemption.

Peter's reaction to this is normal and, in point of fact, echoes our modern response to this notion. It doesn't make sense.  Typically, in the face of criticism, the Christian either shuts down or retreats to a different understanding of God and Jesus.

Jesus then gathers the people towards him and tells them that there is a cost to following. The images here and the words used by our author are similar to a commander rallying his troops. They are summoned following the rebuke, gathered so they can be refocused on the work at hand.  The self-sacrifice, the work, and the difficult hardships to be endured as a follower of Jesus are manifest; some are as physical as martyrdom, some social, and still others will be psychological.  Jesus encourages them to have the will, fortitude, and endurance to run this race.

This Sunday is an opportunity to preach the uniqueness of God in Christ Jesus, the cross, and salvation.  While I think many will like the disciples offer some turned phrase that will lesson the meaning of who Jesus is to one of the disciple's responses.  We are encouraged to pick up our cross and be apologists for our theology.

I recently read an article that appeared in The Christian Century, April 19, 1995, pp. 423-428, Robert Bellah, (emeritus professor of sociology and comparative studies at the University of California, Berkeley) described the tension between Christianity and pluralism. He wrote these words regarding our current challenge of proclaiming a gospel in our Western culture:

…[W]e are getting our wires crossed if we think we can jettison defining beliefs, loyalties and commitments because they are problematic in another context. Reform and re-appropriation are always on the agenda, but to believe that there is some neutral ground from which we can rearrange the defining symbols and commitments of a living community is simply a mistake-a common mistake of modern liberalism. Thus I do not see how Christians can fail to confess, with all the qualifications I have stated, but sincerely and wholeheartedly, that there is salvation in no other name but Jesus.

Bella, then offers a challenge to those who would teach Christianity today.  It is a challenge well worth our effort!

…Thus it would seem that a nonsuperficial Christianity must be based on something more than an individual decision for Christ, must be based on induction into the Christian cultural-linguistic system. Without such induction the individual decision may be not for the biblical Christ but for a henotheistic guardian spirit. And that is true not only for so-called new Christians, but for many of us in our own allegedly Christian society who do not understand what Paul would have required us as Christians to understand.

Therefore it seems to me of the utmost importance on this Sunday, with the witness of Peter given to us as the gospel, to make our cultural-linguistic case for the Gospel we Episcopalians believe.

We believe in the Episcopal Church that Jesus is the only perfect image of the Father and that he reveals to us and illustrates for us the very true nature of God.

Jesus reveals to us what I have said, and moreover, that God is love and that God’s creation is meant to glorify God.

We believe Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that by God's own act, his divine Son received our human nature from the Virgin Mary, his mother.

We believe, what is foolish to man, that God became in Jesus human that we might be adopted as children of God, and be made heirs in the family of Abraham and inherit God's kingdom.

We believe we did what humans do to prophets, and we killed Jesus. God knew this and yet freely walked to the cross in the person of Jesus, that through his death, resurrection and ascension, we would be given freedom from the power of sin and be reconciled to God.

While the ability to glorify God and live in a covenant community with God was given to us so too was the gift of eternal life.

We believe God in the form of the Son descended among the dead and that they receive the benefit of the faithful, which is redemption and eternal life.

We say and claim that Jesus took our human nature into heaven, where he now reigns with the Father and intercedes for us, and that we share in this new relationship by means of baptism into this covenant community – wherein we become living members in Christ.

In our covenant community, we have a language of faith which directs our conversations and gives meaning to our words, through which we understand we are invited to believe, trust, and keep God’s desire to be in a relationship by keeping his commandments.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

We are to love one another as Christ loved us.

As preachers, I encourage you to preach the Gospel that is in us.  Teach your people what the Episcopal Church believes of this foolish messiah, claim the cross as the symbol of our faith and Jesus as Messiah.


This is the good news of salvation we know in Jesus' name.  So, take up your cross and preach.



Some Thoughts on Romans 4:13-25

"The law has always been a means of pointing the way toward God, an instrument that helps us to know and do the divine will. As such it is meant to liberate. But when the means is mistaken for an end in itself, the consequence can be a state of spiritual confusion in which all hope is obscured."
Commentary, Romans 4:13-25, Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"To this day, any time we are tempted to limit God to the size of our purposes or to doubt the breadth of God's generosity or the surprising power of God's activity, we can return to Romans 4 as an astonishing elaboration of the familiar but life-changing claim: God is great; God is good."

Commentary, Romans 4:13-25 (Pentecost 4), David Bartlett, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"Similar struggles emerge today when people ponder whether there can be such faith in God without the culturally specific reference to Christianity."

"First Thoughts on Passages on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary: Lent 2," William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Abraham is, for Paul, an archetype of faithfulness. However, Paul does not believe that Abraham was blessed because of what he did - kept the law (even though it had not been given to Moses yet), was the father of Israel, and did all that God asked (left home, was willing to sacrifice his son). At the time that Paul wrote this, Abraham was seen as an example of a person who kept all the laws. He was considered God's greatest lawkeeper. Paul is crafty in turning this argument.

Paul believes that faith is something larger than keeping the law. Faith is attached to God's gift, God's promise. 

Paul understands full well the human condition to be unable to achieve perfection. If faith and God's promise are dependent upon some kind of contract - covenant - then we are all in big trouble. God loves us because God has created us worthy of God's love. God gives us grace because we are made worthy of forgiveness through the work of Jesus Christ. Grace is given free to everyone everywhere, and it is not dependent upon keeping the Mosaic law. 

So, Abraham becomes the father of the Christian faith - not because he kept a law - but because he believed in God's promise, he hoped in God's promise. It is here that Paul reorients faith not in keeping the law or doing good and right things but in believing in God's promise. So it is with us. We will never be perfect. We will never keep the law. We may respond to God's love and grace by choosing how to live life differently - this is true. But we receive God's promise, God's love, and God's mercy freely. And, our faith is our response to that promise.

What a gift in Lent to hear and receive these words. We are working hard to keep the Lenten laws that we have set down for ourselves. It will be interesting to preach and help people come to understand that faith is about believing in the promise and not achieving some kind of unachievable standard of perfection.

Some Thoughts on Genesis 17:1-16

"Laughter may seem a little uncouth during Lent; after all, this is a season of spiritual practices, of discipline, forty somber days in which we pack up our Alleluias and put them in storage. Even so, we do well to remember every year that the promises of the Gospel are foolishness in the eyes of the world. "

Commentary, Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, Cameron B.R. Howard, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"In our own day, although marriage and family may never have been more vexed as political issues, there is a steady movement towards the privatization and deinstitutionalization of sexual relations and marriage. Marriage is being shorn of a telos that exceeds the private ends of the parties within it, increasingly rendering the actual form of the union as a bespoke one and the conformity of society's behaviour to its moral norms an entirely optional matter."

"The Politics of Abraham's Foreskin," Alastair Roberts, Political Theology Today, 2015.

"It is frankly inconceivable that anyone reading Genesis 17, a text right at the heart of the long struggle for Abram and Sarai to find fulfillment with the promise of YHWH for them to have a child, could possibly leave out the quite hilarious, and yet tragic, irony to be found between Genesis 17:3 and Genesis 17:17. These two verses are nothing less than the lynchpin of the entire chapter, and the lectionary collectors have apparently missed the crucial connection."

"YHWH the Amazing," John C. Holbert, Patheos, 2012.

"A longstanding Jewish tradition sees the career of Abraham as a sequence of trials, commencing with his call to leave his homeland for an unidentified destination, and culminating in the command to sacrifice his son. Perhaps we are justified in seeing the present episode as a trial of a different sort: Had Abraham and Sarah not reacted to God's promise with irrepressible laughter, then they would have failed the test! They would have been declared unworthy bearers of God's covenant."

"The Legacy of Sarah and Abraham," by Prof. Eliezer Segal, University of Calgary.

Oremus Online NRSV Text 

Scholars root Mary's song to her faith ancestors directly to this passage. Not only is all of the nations of Israel to come from the covenant with Abram and Sarai, but so too will the Messiah. That Jesus is part of this lineage is made clear as he is circumcised and presented in the Temple according to the instructions to Abram. John and Paul (Galatians) will both rest in the assurance that they are members of the Abrahamic tradition and that Jesus sees this as an aspect of the universal invitation of people to be part of God's tribe.

Without this story, we cannot help to understand what we are being invited into exactly. Christianity is, in fact, much more than a social movement against injustice. We are to be a very particular kind of people. We are, as we have said many times before, to be a people who are peaceful and a blessing to all. We are to be a people who go and a people who find God out in the world. We are a people who have a covenant with God and so see God's hand at work in the world and show it to others. We are discomforted to walk out into the world so that others might find comfort. This is the work and has been the work.

Truly, the journey of Abraham and Sarah is important in this story because of the legacy, the connection to the people of Jesus' own day, and Jesus' part in the arc of the story of salvation and blessing.

There is a part here, though, that in this particular passage hearkens back to Genesis. The first negative word spoken in the story of creation is that Adam is "lonely". This is often twisted to some idea that a woman is a mere companion - a kind of "behind every good man" theology. But that is not the way scripture speaks of it. Women and men together are the partners God creates. People need one another. There are no lone patriarchs in the kingdom of God. We are all people along the road together. This is a message Jesus repeatedly exemplifies in his calling of people and his sending out of people.

You see, the story of Joseph, Mary, Jesus and the disciples is deeply woven into the story of Abraham and Sarah.

There is some sense that perhaps Abraham thinks this is a solo act. Just as some over emphasize personal salvation...this story is not about a personal covenant with Abraham as it is with a whole family and a whole people. Abraham may think this covenant business is all about him. But it turns out it is truly about him and Sarah and a nation. For the Christian, it expands even further.

Rabbi Litman tells us that in a very old tradition of biblical study, Abraham has missed the point. She writes,

Abraham perceives these words as directed uniquely to him. He realizes that he must have an heir in order to become a covenantal nation, but he does not think that the identity of the mother is of consequence. Abarbanel, a medieval biblical exegete, explains that God responds to Abraham, "Abraham, you thought that all the good that I testified to do for you was for your sake [only], and therefore once you had your son Ishmael, you thought the birth of Isaac was unnecessary. Know that this is not so, but rather Sarah is deserving to bear you a [covenantal] son.and behold Ishmael is not her son, so from the perspective of Sarah, the birth of Isaac is absolutely necessary." (Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/2000/11/a-great-partner-for-a-great-endeavor.aspx#Skv2IHWl5x2AoiY8.99)

Rabbi Abarbanel is clear: we are to be partners just as Abraham and Sarah are partners. Joseph and Mary are to be partners, Jesus and humanity are to be partners, and humanity is to undertake its mission with partners.

Again, Rabbi Litman writes:

Abraham's journey in Genesis is a struggle to better understand God and to discern his place in God's plan. Along the way, Abraham learns that no one person has a monopoly on God's covenant, and that great endeavors require great partners. (Ibid.)

The truth is, we cannot be a blessing of peace, a community of Shalom, without other people. There are no Christians outside of the Christian community. There are truly no "Lone Ranger" Christians. We are always and everywhere at our best when we are communal in our work, bound with partners, modelling reconciliation, peace, and love.

An excerpt from my book entitled Vocātiō: Imaging A Visible Church:

Let’s begin with Abraham and Sarah, originally called Abram and Sarai, and renamed for their faithfulness. In many ways, this story of calling begins the narrative of God's people. Abraham and Sarah were frequently cited by the early Church as examples of God's expansive promise to all people.

God calls Abraham and says, "Go." Theologian Walter Brueggemann writes, "With this address, Abraham's life is radically displaced."[i] Sarah and Abraham's lives were disrupted by God's invitation and commitment to them. All of their worldly plans are set aside as they leave their homeland for God's wilderness. Brueggemann writes, "He is caught up in a world of discourse and possibility about which he knew nothing until addressed, a world of discourse and possibility totally saturated with God's good promises for him and for the world through him. (Genesis 12:1) God’s call propels Abraham into a reality that refigures his life and removes him from any purpose or agenda he may have entertained for himself before that moment."[ii] Abraham and Sarah offer themselves faithfully to this journey, and they will be a blessing to the world.

---

[i] I am following Brueggemann's outline of calling and sending from the essay, adding in my own reflections and understandings. Brueggemann, 122.

[ii] Brueggemann, 122.

First Sunday in Lent, Year B, February 18, 2024

Prayer

Gracious God, every true to your covenant, whose loving hand sheltered Noah and the chosen few while the waters of the great flood cleansed and renewed a fallen world, may we, sanctified through the saving waters of baptism and clothed in the shining garments of immortality be touched again by our call to conversion and give our lives anew to the challenge of your reign.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Mark 1:9-15

"Believe in the good news" is better translated as 'Trust into the good news,' since the whole point is not, 'Have an opinion about the good news.' Rather, Jesus is calling for a radical, total, unqualified basing of one's life on his good news."
Holy Textures, Understanding the Bible in its own time and in ours, Mark 1:9-15, David Ewart, 2012.

"To preach the temptation of Jesus in Mark is to call attention to our greatest temptation -- the temptation to think that God is not present."

"The Greatest Temptation," Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, 2015.

"The loneliness of God's servant, a theme that persists throughout the gospel, is already suggested in these verses. "

Commentary, Mark 1:9-15, Sarah Henrich, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

We move quickly from the image of Jesus resplendent in light at the moment of transfiguration in Mark's Gospel, Chapter 9, to his baptism and the immediate work of preaching the Gospel in Chapter 1.  This is the first Sunday in Lent and we are reminded as we make our way from Ash Wednesday that we are utterly dependent upon the grace of God - the Good News of God proclaimed by Jesus on the edge of his own wilderness journey of preaching and healing.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (vs 15)  Could our author have captured the words of Jesus and the words of an early baptismal formula? Perhaps both. What is very clear in the scholarship is that these words that Jesus offers in our passage today is key to the understanding of his message.  Joel Marcus (Mark, vol 1, 176) writes:

"Repent, and believe in the good news!" - at their baptism they would have heard this exhortation as a call to bury the moribund world in the water and to rise from it to view, through the eyes of faith, God's new creation.  They would in short, have been reminded by Mark 1:15 of the moment when they became disciples of Jesus."

Jesus' proclamation begins following the imprisonment of John the Baptist.  This is the first public ministry of Jesus recorded in Mark's Gospel.  We might remember from a previous Sunday that while Jesus has come to heal and to over power the evil of this world, ultimately he is here for this single purpose.  To bridge the divide between this world and the kingdom of God - the dominion of God.

Joel Marcus (Mark, vol 1, 175) gives us a very clear suggestion of what Jesus is saying:

time has been fulfilled  AND   dominion of God has come near
repent                            AND   believe in the good news

The time is now, the dominion of God is near.  Our response to that grace is repentance and to trust in the good news of God.

For those who now are making their way in Lent, and for those who are still seeking to be restored to the family of God,  the faith reality is one that challenges us to change. To be aware.  To take notice of our own selves and the way we do not live in the ways of God and to amend our lives.

I was interested recently in an interview that I did and the question that I was asked: Do you think that at times like this we especially need Ash Wednesday? Our culture is a mess the interview seemed to be saying perhaps we all needed this special day and season in order to make things right.

Human nature is the same. Ash Wednesday, as is Lent, a very personal discipline.  The confrontation of this ritual life of repentance we so carefully cling to during this season as Christians is one that is not just for today but true for us year round. It is not specifically more important today than it was when Jesus invited us to respond to the dominion of God and the good news.  It is only specifically so because you and I today choose to follow Jesus. Relevance to the culture and all of our want to be special is washed away somehow in this invitation of Jesus.  Our season is not a time when we are to critique others, a time when we are to find the splinter in another person's eye, or blame and castigate our culture, rather (and on the contrary) it is a time when we remind ourselves personally that we have not done what Jesus asked us to do.

I claim to follow Jesus but fail. I try to amend my life and fail. I make the kingdom of God my goal and do not reach it.  Yes the dominion of God is near and I rest fully upon his grace and mercy to discover it. I repent because of my continuing human frailty which is my nature. I take a moment on this Sunday to be reminded of Jesus' invitation to rise out of the depths of my failure and moribund world/life/relationships and to see before me grace, mercy, forgiveness and invitation.

Some Thoughts on 1 Peter 3:8-13

"In our text, Peter counsels a very different response to persecution. Rather than focusing on your persecutors and being overwhelmed by fear and hatred, keep your eyes on Christ."

Commentary, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Judith Jones, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"While talk of principalities and spirits bound in prison may strike us as a vestige of a bygone world, we should not be so quick to discount the contemporary relevance of this text, especially during this season of Lent. "

Commentary, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

The letter of 1 Peter is written in the midst of Christian persecution - many believe. So it is that the author concerns himself with the questions about how to be ready. Be ready to make your defense of your faith he offers. This is not to make some kind of argument though which wins the day. Instead we are to give, according to the author, our understanding of hope. We Christians have hope in our life when it is going well and we have hope in our life when we are suffering. We have hope because we know that we are not alone in this work of suffering - Christ too suffered and so God understands and knows what we go through on our behalf. But this is not where hope comes from. 

Partnership with God is not the locus of hope. Instead hope is in the certain faith that death has no victory. We share in Christ's death and in Christ's resurrection. So it is that we shall on the last day enter into our heavenly habitation. We will be forever united to God through the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.

Baptism is our earthly entrance into this new life believes the author. In our own baptismal words we hear the hope of people delivered out of slavery, people delivered into freedom and the promised land. We understand that for the Christian, the follower of Jesus, pain, suffering, and death do not have the last word. And, that when the end does come, in hope we make our song to the grave: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Some Thoughts on Genesis 9:8-17

"The Old Testament readings for the first three Sundays in Lent give us glimpses of three covenants: God's covenant with Noah, God's covenant with Abraham, and God's covenant with Israel at Sinai."

Commentary, Genesis 9:8-17, Cameron B.R. Howard, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"This is a salvation story, a tale of commitment to the opposite of genocide, commitment to preserving the diversity of life and all of life's messiness. And God is actively part of this commitment."

"Lent - The Season of Good News," Nancy Rockwell, The Bite in the Apple, 2015.

"Contemplating the destruction of an entire civilization is disturbing, and so it should be."

"When Bad Things Happen to Bad People," Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman. Torah Commentary at BeliefNet.

Oremus Online NRSV Text 

Let me be honest. As I have grown older, I have become more uncomfortable with the story of the flood waters. Rabbi Litman's words about it resonated with me:

I find that my discomfort with the flood story is not so much with the Torah's sacred narrative, but with our modern response to it. The Torah relates a fearful epic of evil, punishment, and salvation. By ignoring the most chilling part of the story, we have trivialized and discounted the Torah's moral message. This is a common American cultural process. One only has to look as far as this week's holiday of Halloween to see how we have to come to trivialize and discount even death. It's pretty difficult to feel much genuine awe around an 8-year-old Grim Reaper complaining that it's cold outside. 

The unjust suffering of the innocent still evokes moral outrage and pain in most of us. We wish and hope that the good are rewarded. But we have become uncomfortable with the reverse. We know that human evil is complex, sometimes as much a sickness as a sin. We are often unwilling to grapple with human cruelty and wrongdoing, to expect justice against those who harm others, because that justice is often very difficult to define. Even God's justice, as in the mighty flood, makes us nervous.
("When Bad Things Happen to Bad People," Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman. Torah Commentary at BeliefNet.)

When we Christians read this story we read it through the eyes of our childhood and a small version of our story of creation and redemption. With more than two thousand more years of reflection on this passage I find the Rabbi's words resonate in a deeply powerful way. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says:

The story of the first eight chapters of Bereishit is tragic but simple: creation, followed by de-creation, followed by re-creation. God creates order. Humans then destroy that order, to the point where “the world was filled with violence,” and “all flesh had corrupted its way on earth.” God brings a flood that wipes away all life, until – with the exception of Noach, his family and other animals – the earth has returned to the state it was in at the beginning of Torah, when “the earth was waste and void, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (http://rabbisacks.org/trace-god-noach-5778/)

Perhaps there is more here than another creation story - or recreation story. Perhaps there is more here than a story of an angry God at the unjust behavior of humanity.

As Sacks reads the texts compared to Genesis he notes that Genesis 1 tells us God makes humanity in God's image - he and she God created them. Genesis 9 tells us that other human beings are made in the image of God. As if bringing full circle the sin of man (murder which is created by humans - see Cain and Abel story) this story reminds us that not only am I created in Gods image but you are too.

Again Sacks writes,

Genesis 9 speaks about the sanctity of life and the prohibition of murder. The first chapter tells us about the potential power of human beings, while the ninth chapter tells us about the moral limits of that power. We may not use it to deprive another person of life. 

This also explains why the keyword, repeated seven times, changes from “good” to “covenant.” When we call something good, we are speaking about how it is in itself. But when we speak of covenant, we are talking about relationships. A covenant is a moral bond between persons. 

What differentiates the world after the Flood from the world before is that the terms of the human condition have changed. God no longer expects people to be good because it is in their nature to be so. To the contrary, God now knows that “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Gen. 8: 21) – and this despite the fact that we were created in God’s image. (Ibid)

It is not good for humans to be alone and the flood narrative tells us that we are to see each other, those of our tribe and those outside our tribe as created in the image of God.

This is a new idea and a constant theme for Christians. God is interested in a human community bound together for our common goodness, that in fact when we do this, we are reflecting a kind of fullness of God. Other religions teach fear of the other. Other religions teach sacrifice of the other. Christianity rooted deeply in its ancestral faith of Judaism is about being the beloved community - a blessing of peace, of shalom, to the world.

Interestingly, the New Testament does not play on this message from Genesis very much at all. There are not quotes, no parallel passages in the Gospels. Certainly there is mention of "Noah's Ark"in the letters - I Peter for this day's reading is an example. Only later would Roman Catholic Theologians compare Mary to the Ark. However, one might argue that as this passage is partnered with Mark there is something important here. That is: God in Christ Jesus continues his work of reconciliation and solidarity by breaking open the community of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit including all people. The mission to the other cannot be lost and is intimately tied to a heritage that did not begin with Jesus but is deeply rooted in the ancient texts of Israel that we find in our canon. In my sermon from 2018 I point out that a theological case (beyond typology) could be made that God's saving act from a sin sick world in the Ark is what Jesus does permanently. From the word "good" to the word "covenant" we see a story arc (pardon the pun) to Jesus and his cross which becomes a new ark and a permanent promise. Creation, de-creation by humanity's inhumanity to man, and recreation by God.

Previous Sermons For This Sunday

Moving into the Desert to Meet Jesus