Good Attitude

Philippians 2:5-11

by Daniel Harrell

This has been a bad week: from the winter that won’t quit to Senate gun debates and a shaky stock market, from the horrible fertilizer factory explosion in Texas to the horrific Boston Marathon mayhem that played out like something from a Scorsese movie. As one website put it, “Maybe next time we have a week, they can try not to pack it so completely to the freaking brim with explosions, mutilations, death, manhunts, lies, weeping, bloody gunfights and lockdowns. You know, maybe try to spread some of that total misery across the other 51 weeks in the year. Just a thought.” None of it ever makes any sense. Dawn and I knew people who knew each of three victims killed at the Marathon on Monday. For such a large city, Boston can be a pretty small town. We know people who knew Sean Collier, the MIT police officer. We have friends who were at the hospital when Richard Donahue, the wounded transit cop was brought in and the first bombing suspect too. We know folks who lived down the street from the house with the boat.

My former church in Boston held a prayer gathering downtown on Tuesday. It was a full house. Then President Obama spoke to a packed South End Cathedral on Thursday. I find it fascinating and strangely comforting that the initial impulse of so many people following tragedy—believers and nonbelievers—alike, is to pray. Rather than fretting over “where was God” or how he could allow bad things to happen, the initial impulse for many is to rush to where they believe God can be found. That we do so instinctively turn to God in our troubles, and for some only then, may suggest why Scripture has God allowing the troubles he allows. We realize afresh every Easter season how the spring bloom of resurrection and eternal life emerges solely from the fertile soil of suffering and death. Paul joyfully expressed this disturbing gospel truth to the Philippians as he sat chained in a Roman prison. Jesus himself, King of kings and Lord of lords, is crowned only once he submits to death on a cross. This is God’s glory, Paul writes, a strange and redemptive reality that shines at the center of the Christian faith.

This morning marks our third in a sermon series: “verses from Philippians most likely to be cross-stitched.” From his Roman imprisonment to what was likely the first church in Europe, Paul penned words that have become framed favorites among believers for centuries. We began with chapter 1 and verse 6: “the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” Last Sunday we looked at verse 21: “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” This morning brings us to chapter 2:5-11 and one of the grandest Christological expressions of all Scripture. These inspired and inspiring verses soar in their praise of Jesus Christ as the lowly turned lofty Son of God whose name, in fulfillment of all prophecy, spurs every knee to bow and every tongue to confess his Lordship.

While Paul hoped for release from prison and a return trip to Philippi, he knew chances were good he could end up executed for refusing to worship Caesar as Lord. Paul wasn’t worried about dying—to him that was gain—but he was worried for the Philippians. Like any church comprised of sinful people (which is every church), it risked division and rancor from within. Paul appealed to the unity that was already theirs in Christ, even if they had yet to fully experience it. He writes, “If there is any encouragement in Christ (which there is), any consolation from love (which there is), any sharing in the Spirit (which there is), any compassion and sympathy (which there is), then make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind—the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

By “one and the same mind” Paul meant that mindset of abject humility that drove Jesus to the cross. While admired, such humility is rarely sought and often begrudged as hazardous to your psychological health. In a culture where self-confidence and ambition are paramount, Paul’s admonition to “regard others as better than yourself” is just plain bad advice. Still, Paul lyrically points to Jesus’ humility as the hallmark of virtue, who despite being God in the flesh never considered equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself for our sake and became a slave, regarding us as better than himself, as impossible as that sounds. Maybe it came easy for Jesus. If you’re equal to God you can act as humbly as you choose and still be God.

Harder for us ordinary schmoes. For us to regard others as better than ourselves is a sure recipe for life in loser-land. Be a doormat and you’ll get treated like one. “Blessed are the meek,” Jesus said “only those who humble themselves will be exalted.” But this simply isn’t practical. Christian scholars have tried to lessen the impact by insisting that by “humble yourself” Jesus only meant that you acknowledge your intrinsic “creatureliness.” Since the English word humility is related to the word human, both deriving from the Latin word humus, meaning ground or earth, to be humble is to remember where you came from, that you are “dust and to dust you shall return,” that the meek shall inherit the dirt. On the one hand this punctures any inflated sense of self-worth or conceit, but on the other hand, it also can become a rationale for self-conceit or used as an excuse for self-centered behavior. When we choose badly we'll often plead, “I can’t help it, I’m only human.” And then of course, there’s the observation about how it really doesn’t do much good to exalt the humble anyway. People don't remain humble long once they’re exalted. The genuine article is hard to find.

Then again, we watched on Monday as scores of Bostonians, with little concern for themselves, ran toward the explosions, assisting the bloodied and injured in humble ways that were nothing short of heroic. The same with the way an entire whole city willingly abandoned the streets to make space for the bravery exhibited by scores of law enforcement personnel, police who then humbly discounted their bravery as just doing their job. It was another glimpse of the beauty that can emerge from intense sorrow and tragedy—a beauty which the Bible labels as the power of resurrection.

I talked to a number of Boston friends this week, and read the Tweets and Facebook posts of others. One of whom, named Steve, is a big Marathon fan, having run the race himself five years in a row. Steve is an assistant church facilities manager and a good athlete, but far from what you’d describe as an elite runner. The joy of competition or setting a good time was not what got him to run 26 miles. What got him running was the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a local hospital devoted to eradicating cancer in children. Thousands of weekend runners raise money running the Marathon every year. This is another reason the Boston Marathon is so sacred. The ones who run for charity are never the elite runners, they cross the finish line  a couple of hours after. It was mostly them and their supporters who were harmed by Monday’s bombing, and who remain fearlessly determined to run again next year.

For Steve, his passion for children’s cancer comes from the cancer his daughter Caitlynne contracted when she was seven. The good news was that her tumor was localized in her right leg. The bad news was that her leg had to be amputated. Steve and his wife Doreen were totally devastated, as were all of their friends. And yet we all rallied, including the Boston Red Sox and their Jimmy Fund, coming alongside their whole family with prayer and support, because that’s what people instinctively do when tragedy strikes, believers and nonbelievers alike. Steve and I were remembering this week the hours spent on the say of Caitlynne's surgery. She not only survived, but thrived, thanks to all this support and to a remarkable piece of surgery performed at Children’s Hospital.

Out of sheer gratitude for all of this, Steve started running the Marathon to raise money for other kids. And each year, during the last mile, Caitlynne ran with him. She’s 18 years old now and has received a full ride to Boston University. It is another glimpse of the beauty that can emerge from sorrow and tragedy—the power of resurrection.

The resurrection of Jesus turned tragedy on its head. Suddenly loss now meant gain, leastness meant greatness, being a loser meant being a winner, death meant life, ankles become knees, and humility became the epitome of strength. It sounds crazy, and by itself, humility is crazy. But humility is never meant for humility’s sake. Christian humility serves the cause of love. It was love for sinners that caused Jesus to humbly set aside his right to exalted grandeur, and it is this same love, this same mind, that spurs us to humbly regard others as better than ourselves. Humility orients you away from delusions of self-importance and frees you to love courageously as Jesus modeled. “We love,” the apostle John famously wrote, “because God first loved us.”

Despite all the horrors that engulf our world, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Love never fails. Jesus’ love even conquered death, so we cannot lose heart. God who began his good work among us will bring it to completion himself. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. Christian hope translates life’s tragedies into a beautiful tapestry of redemption, pointing toward that day, when by grace, all things will be made new and love remains. Confidence in that day gives us courage to live humbly in the present—as justice gets done against perpetrators of evil, as comfort is blanketed on those who mourn, as prayers are instinctively offered for peace, as doctors reconstruct bodies as previews of resurrection itself, as thousands run marathons to raise awareness and money for these causes, even as our own Innové project refashions profit-making business into the making of beauty and peace and justice and grace in the world—everything humbly done to serve the cause of love which is the cause of the name that is above every name and before which every knee and ankle that serves as a knee will bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Job Well Done

Philippians 1:3-11

by Daniel Harrell

Some things just take a long time to complete. Back in 1992 my wife Dawn decided she’d cross-stitch a Christmas present for her father who’s always loved gifts made by his daughters. For Dawn, the subject of the cross-stitch wasn’t so hard to decide: her dad served as a medical missionary in Angola and enjoyed CS Lewis. Put together Africa and Aslan and that meant cross-stitching a lion. Ten Christmases later, in 2002, Dawn was still working on that lion. Initially the problem was that the pattern was too tiny to read—so she enlarged it into eight pages taped together. It covered her bedroom floor. Not only was the pattern intricate, but it required some 200 different colors of brown thread—who knew brown came in so many shades? She’d gotten fairly deep into the project when she realized her count was off. So she ripped out the stitches and started over. The same thing happened a second time, causing no small amount of frustration.  Dawn began to resent her pet cat just for being a distant lion relative. 

Her sister intervened, and forbade that Dawn rip out the stitches out a third time. Her sister said that cross-stitching, like life itself, gets complicated and you inevitably lose count. The challenge is to deal with it and move on. Which is easier said than done. Daunted by both the enormity of the undertaking and the lack of headway despite her diligence, Dawn boxed and re-boxed the lion as she moved and married over another ten years. Some things just take a long time to complete.

This applies to people too. I received a framed, cross-stitched rendition of Philippians 1:6 many years ago: “The one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” It was crafted for me by an old girlfriend as her way (I think) of reminding me that I had plenty of room for improvement. You may remember my preaching this verse on New Year’s Day a couple of years back. New Year’s always brings with it resolutions for a better future--a calendar inspired chance to finish things this time that we’ve failed get done in the past. We resolve to be better people, to make those changes we need to make. And yet having tried and failed so many times before, most of us refrain from resolutions because we know we can’t keep them. Why compound the failure with only more frustration? Better to just box up the whole mess and avoid the disappointment. 

But this is what makes Philippians 1:6 such good news. You don’t have to try so hard anymore. You don’t have to avoid disappointment. “The one” who began a good work in you is no other than God himself. And He’s the one who promises to bring it all to completion.

Philippians is a favorite among the apostle Paul’s letters. Many of its verses are habitually committed to memory. They appear on greeting cards, t-shirts and websites, and they get cross-stitched for gifts. It is to these particular verses in Philippians, the ones most likely to be cross-stitched, that I’d like to devote my energies for this Eastertide and into Pentecost.

Paul embedded this verse within an extended salutation wherein he thanks the nascent Philippian church for their financial support. He describes their support as their sharing or “partnership” in the gospel—the gospel being the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Nevertheless, as I mentioned last Sunday, the resurrection can be very upsetting. For Jesus to rise from the dead means that everything said about him is true: He is the Son of the Living God, the King of kings, Truth and Life, Master and Lord. To believe in Jesus means you have to live your whole life differently--which Paul and the Philippians were only to eager to do. 

Their “sharing” in the gospel is a translation of the Greek word koinonia which we typically translate as fellowship. Koinonia means to have all things in common; it’s where we get words like community and communion. Koinonia was epitomized in these early churches where everybody gave up everything so that no one would need anything—these communities held all things in common. In this way fellowship is connected to stewardship, the economic concern Christians share for each other’s well-being, and a convenient way to remind you that our church fiscal year ends this month and yes we’re running behind again.

The koinonia of Philippians 1 is certainly economic. The life and mission of the church always requires financial support. And generous giving grows out of a generosity of spirit. “Your heart is where your treasure is,” Jesus taught, meaning that you can tell everything about a person by what they do with their money. Therefore Paul speaks to a koinonia of spirit--both with Jesus and with each other. It is love for God and neighbor that motivates us. Elsewhere Paul writes about the right hand of fellowship (koinonia), which we still extend to each other whenever we pass the peace. More than a handshake, the right hand of koinonia tangibly acknowledges our common bond to each other through Christ. In 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of communion as our koinonia in the body and blood of Jesus. More than partaking of bread and wine, communion is our partnership in the Jesus’ death and resurrection: His dying and rising will be our dying and rising too. No longer fearful of any condemnation due to our sin, the communion table looks to that day when we will rise to feast with Jesus at his table forever. God who began his good work in us will definitely get it done.

Specifically described as God’s good work yet to be completed, Paul’s emphasis in Philippians is plainly on the future. His gospel reference is to God’s saving work, which we all know can take a lifetime. Christians might customarily speak of somebody getting saved, but in reality we’re just as much people in the process of being saved. Like Peter who sank when he tried to walk to Jesus on the open sea, our troubles and doubts still overwhelm us and drag us down too even with Jesus right in front of us. Paul pens these words while chained in a Roman prison with no guarantee of earthly release. For Paul, the “day of Jesus Christ” might mean the day that he dies, and he’s fine with that. “To live is Christ and to die is gain” he will write. For Paul, death is no longer terminal. The resurrection has opened the way to new life. So certain is Paul of this new life that he can live in the present as if his future has already happened--because it has. God always finishes what he starts.

Theologians have long described Paul’s confidence in terms of “realized eschatology,” which is just an arcane way of saying that God's future can be experienced now. His good work is already a job well done. The substance of Christian hope is not on a future that might happen, but on God for whom the future has already happened. We neither worry nor fear despite the troubles we endure in the meantime; the certainty of our future enables us to endure our troubles. We hope in the God who always finishes what he starts.

This Christian hope for a certain future drastically differs from that hope we mean when we say, “I sure hope the Louisville Cardinals win the NCAA Basketball Title tomorrow night and save my March Madness Bracket.” That’s a future that may or may not happen--as Louisville came close to discovering last night against lowly Wichita State. Christian hope is not like my hoping that my University of North Carolina Tar Heels would have won the championship. That would have been delusional hope this season. The University of Michigan, however, has made it to the Championship for the first time in twenty years. 1993 was the year of their vaunted NBA-ready Fab Five team, which I mention since that was also the year they succumbed to my University of North Carolina in the championship game in a most memorable fashion. 

Given no hope to win, my Tar Heels took Michigan down to the wire, leading by two with eleven seconds to play. As basketball aficionados will recall, this was when Michigan’s Chris Webber, his team with the ball, called the time-out that the Wolverines did not possess. This resulted in a technical foul, two more points and the ball back to North Carolina. Game over. I couldn’t believe we’d won!

I recorded the game on a trusty videocassette, which for those under 50 is this rectangular box with black tape inside that people used before DVRs or YouTube. I watched the game again the next morning to be sure that I hadn’t been dreaming. I watched it any number of times after that, just for the happiness of it all, and each time I watched I would still feel anxiety and stress at the end of the game even though I knew the final outcome. The only difference was that now I neither worried nor feared no matter how anxious I felt when I watched because North Carolina won every time! That’s what Christian hope is like. In the end, no matter how troubled and anxious life gets, God always wins.

“This is my prayer,” Paul writes, “that your love may overflow more and more with sincerity and understanding to help you determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness—a righteous character that comes from Jesus—to the praise and glory of God.” How can Paul pray that the Philippians be pure and blameless and righteous? Nobody lives that kind of life no matter how hard they try. But this is the point: Paul’s prayer is already answered. In Christ we are pure and blameless and righteous already. It’s just that our experience has yet to catch up with reality. Thus we need not worry or fear in the meantime, God who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. Even when we fail, the cross of Jesus stitches us back together so we can get back up and show what resurrection looks like. To be blameless and righteous is not to be flawless, but rather honest and humble and full of grace.

God is the one who began a good work among us and it is God who will bring it to completion. Christian hope is based on his work in us, not on our own ability or accomplishments. Christian hope fosters no illusions of human self-improvement. As opposed to those who’d look on the bright side and deny the effects of evil and sin, Christian hope understands that any real hope cannot found itself upon personal potential or wishful thinking. Christian hope views the effects of evil and sin for the tragedies they are, but then translates them into what they really are by the power of the cross: Suffering, rather than meaningless pain or just desserts, translates into meaningful redemption and reinforced character. Death, rather than a terrifying end, becomes the gateway to new life. Christian hopes stitches life’s tragedies into a beautiful tapestry of resurrection, pointing toward that day, when by grace, all things will be made new. Our confidence is in the Lord who always completes what he starts.

When we Harrells relocated to Minnesota almost three years ago, Dawn unpacked a box and found that unfinished African cat staring her in the face. Had it really been twenty years she’d been working on this thing? She determined again to finish in time for Christmas. Like Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, that lion started following us everywhere: on our road trip to Yellowstone and back, whenever we got on a plane, on a cabin vacation where Dawn so wanted to read a book. But rather than getting frustrated by the project this time, she grew increasingly excited as the lion’s face took shape and she could anticipate its joyous completion. Finally, on the last night of sewing, as the clock approached midnight with only the whiskers remaining, she realized too late that she didn’t have the right whisker color. Obeying her sister’s voice, she dealt with it and made the best of it, just like the Lord does with us, making us into the absolute best because it is God who does it.

It was beautiful. Dawn took the finished lion to Needlework Unlimited. The ladies who blocked the stretched fabric on which it was stitched and straightened the edges oo-ed and ah-ed. The framers oo-ed and ah-ed. Dawn posted her finished work on Facebook and Facebook oo-ed and ah-ed too. She sent it home and her dad was delighted. He said it was worth the twenty year wait, and like Aslan himself, as CS Lewis writes, it was “so bright and real and strong that everything else began at once to look pale and shadowy compared with him.” God will finish what he has started in us, because in Christ, he is already done. In time our experience will catch up with reality. We neither worry nor fear despite the troubles we endure in the meantime.

“I am confident of this,” Paul insists. And we can be confident too.

To Believe is to See

Luke 24:1-35

 by Daniel Harrell

As most of you know I spent a good portion of this Lent with members of our congregation on a wonderful pilgrimage to Israel. I’ve been pulpit-bombing you with stories and pictures since, apropos to the Lenten season. So much of what we saw was where Lent and Easter happened. From the steep Palm Sunday road I showed you last week, and the ridge overlooking Jerusalem where Jesus wept, to the Temple Mount where Pontius Pilate sentenced Jesus to die. We trod the Via Dolorosa, on which Jesus carried his cross, which winds these days through an Old City shopping district. Each Station of the Cross offers a variety of Calvary-themed souvenirs, little crowns of thorns, rosaries and crucifixes, peddled mostly by Muslim vendors. The road ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which tradition marks as that place where Jesus was crucified, dead and buried. And from whence on this day he rose from the dead.

I’ve told you how competing branches of Christianity fight over who gets control of this premier religious site—sometimes with real punches. The Roman Catholic and Armenian Orthodox Churches each have their respective corners roped off, with the Ethiopian, Syriac and Coptic Orthodox Churches claiming various doorways and closets as their own territories. The literal infighting among Christian factions over the years in the church has led to a number of hospitalizations and incarcerations. So much for loving your neighbor. Thankfully a Muslim family owns the keys to the church’s main door or things might get really out of hand.

The Sepulcher proper, that is the empty tomb itself, is managed by the Greek Orthodox Church, which in turn has constructed an elaborate mausoleum out of what we presume would have been a humble hole. Hours long lines snake to the entrance, so we never got a chance to go inside. Just outside burns this single candle from which pilgrims from all the world come to light votive candles of their own. According to Greek Orthodoxy, this candlelight is Holy Fire that ignites in a most miraculous way. On the eve of every Orthodox Easter, this year on April 27, thousands of pilgrims will encircle the Sepulchre and sing hymns and beat drums in anticipation. A clean sweep will be made of the tomb to remove any trace of fire-making paraphernalia. When the hour of the miracle arrives, the masses will keep silence as an Orthodox high priest fearfully enters the tomb. He will kneel where Jesus’ head would have been and will intone a series of ancient prayers. At the amen, from within the core of the very stone on which Jesus lay, an indefinable and mysterious light rises up. 

According to a priest who witnessed it, the light “cannot be described in human terms. It rises out of the stone as mist may rise out of a lake. The light does not burn—I have never had my beard burnt in all the sixteen years I have received the Holy Fire. At a certain point the light rises and forms a column in which the fire is of a different nature, so that I am able to light my candles from it. When I thus have received the flame on my candles, I go out and give the fire to all people present in the Church.” 

I asked our secular Jewish guide what happens if one of the pilgrims trying to light their her candle accidentally snuffed out the holy fire. “It never happens!” our guide replied, a slight smirk betraying her own suspicions. “It is a miracle!” To which I say, hallelujah and praise the Lord! For anybody who died and rose from the dead, lighting and keeping lit a couple of candles a year is easy to do.

Protestants, being Protestant, have our own version of the empty tomb on the opposite side of the city. Located right beside an Arab bus station, our version dispenses with any iconography or liturgical folderol in favor of a simple and serene cemetery—with its own gift shop and souvenirs of course. At this empty tomb, there is no long line. You can step inside and lay where Jesus lay, and even take pictures like I did. As you can see Jesus is not here, which came as a huge relief. The gospels tell us how an immense stone covered the tomb that had to be rolled away. The gospels, however, don’t mention these iron bars guarding the grave—which must have made for an especially spectacular resurrection on Jesus’ part. 

A recent Rasmussen poll has 78% of Americans believing Jesus rose from the dead, which is an impressive statistic until you read that 73% of Americans also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Another poll, from Ohio University a few years back, seems a bit more probable. It reported that among professing Christians in America only 46% believe that Jesus really rose from the dead. In other words, most professing Christians do not believe the thing that makes Christianity, Christianity. And this would be surprising if not for the gospels themselves. As we’ve heard read this morning, the reaction from the first responders to the resurrection ranged from perplexed and terrified to skeptical and curious, the last emotion from the disciples themselves. There’s not a confident Hallelujah or Praise the Lord heard anywhere.

Later that first Easter day, two disciples of Jesus’ walked to Emmaus, a seven mile jaunt from Jerusalem. Artistic renditions of the scene notwithstanding, these disciples were not out for a Sunday stroll. They were heading home. They had likely never expected to see home or their families again; Jesus had been clear that following him meant giving all that up. But Jesus also said that back when he was alive. He was dead now. Executed in fact. And they were done. As far as we can tell—despite all that the Scriptures and Jesus himself taught—these disciples did not believe Jesus really rose from the dead either. 

Sure, they’d seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, albeit temporarily. They’d seen him feed 5000 people, heal the blind and cure disease. They probably saw him walk on water and calm that fierce storm on the sea of Galilee. They’d heard him say how he’d get killed and buried like the other prophets. And no doubt they’d heard him say how after three days he’d rise up again. But crazy talk about his own rising from the grave likely got filed alongside all his other strange sayings, like about eating his body and drinking his blood, or about hating your father and mother, or about the last being first, the lost being found, the poor being rich or the least being greatest. None of that made any sense either. 

Luke says these disciples were discussing all this as they walked; but the verb he uses is stronger than that. They actually were having more of an argument. Given the high hopes they’d had for Jesus—from the hope he’d eliminate Roman tyranny to the hope he’d eliminate world poverty—to have it all end so tragically had to have made them angry as well as sad. Deeply disappointed too. Seems they’d wasted some of the best years of their lives.

It was probably at this point that Jesus popped in. He’d been making the rounds that morning. These disciples didn’t recognize him, and I understand that. If it’s one thing you ought to be able to count on it’s the dead staying dead. For all of the hope that it offers, resurrection can be very upsetting. It can mess with your head. A few weeks ago we held a funeral for a faithful gentleman who was a longtime member of our church. Though he and I had not been closely acquainted, I vaguely had placed his name with his face. And I was sad to hear he’d died. Then last Sunday he walked up and said hello. I thought I had the right name and face, but now I’m a little scared to ask.

The disciples didn’t recognize Jesus, but if you read the fine print, Luke writes that they were kept from recognizing him. Luke uses a voice theologians label “the divine passive,” which means that they were kept from recognizing Jesus by God. God was messing with their heads. Jesus asked what they were arguing about. One of them, named Cleopas, wondered aloud: “Are you the only stranger in town who does not know the things that have taken place in these days?” Luke displays his cleverness as a storyteller here. Cleopas was shocked that Jesus didn’t know about Jesus, when the reality is that Cleopas didn’t know about Jesus, even as he stood looking at Jesus. This is ironic. 

Jesus played along as Cleopas went on, “Have you not heard about Jesus of Nazareth? Powerful prophet? Mighty miracle worker? Prospective Redeemer? Total Rock Star? Crazy Talker? Condemned by the religious authorities? Sentenced by Pontius Pilate? Executed as a criminal? Some women reported his body missing this morning. Said some angels told them Jesus was alive. We sent our guys over to check it out (you know how women exaggerate). They were right about the body being gone. But nobody saw Jesus.”

Cleopas said “nobody saw Jesus” while looking straight at Jesus. What a chowderhead. “How foolish you are,” Jesus said, “and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” And then beginning with Moses, Jesus interpreted to them the things the Scriptures predicted. About how Moses anticipated another prophet like himself who would emerge to save God’s people from slavery again—not from Egypt, but from slavery to sin and death. About how Isaiah foretold a suffering Savior, one to be “pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities,” and “by whose wounds we are healed.” And how King David sang in the Psalms of a Savior whom God would never abandon to the grave nor let rot in the ground. A coming King who would draw all nations into his glorious Kingdom. All that and more, it was all in the Bible. Why didn’t they believe it?

This is a good question. Especially if you’ve ever read a Bible. It’s pretty unbelievable. Even if you ignore the prophets and just read what Jesus said: Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor and have treasure in heaven? Consider the lilies and don’t worry about your life? Pray for whatever you want and it’s yours? Love your enemies and forgive your persecutors and you will be blessed? Kill me dead and three days later I’ll rise? I don’t know.

I once had a church visitor ask how she could know the Bible is true. I reeled off reasons such as the Bible being the most reliable document in antiquity, the reams of corroborating archeological and historical evidence, the countless billions of people who have been totally transformed by its words, the continued thriving existence of the church itself; but these reasons only take you so far without faith. 

I had another inquirer ask whether the Bible condoned free-market capitalism; said he couldn’t believe in a God who was a socialist. He could have said the same about a lot of other things, from same-sex marriage to evolution, from slavery and suffering to pets in heaven. I asked this inquirer whether he believed Jesus rose from the dead. “No, not exactly,” he replied. “Well then why in the world would you care what the Bible says?” I wondered. In the end, the Bible is only true if the resurrection is true. As the apostle Paul famously put it, “if Christ was not raised then our faith is futile and we’re the biggest losers on the planet.”

We sometimes think believing would be easier if we had visible proof. If only Jesus would show himself to me, and walk me down the road, explain the Bible to me. I’d believe if I could see. But then you have these two who did see Jesus risen and they didn’t believe it. So what chance do I have? I don’t even know what Jesus looks like.

As the disciples neared Emmaus, Luke writes that Jesus “walked ahead as if he were going on.” That’s right, he faked it. He was messing with their heads again. He wasn’t going to chase them this far for nothing. But he wasn’t going to force himself on them either. He wanted an invitation and knew that by acting as if he was leaving the disciples would invite him inside. How did he know? (Well, because he’s Jesus, duh!) But also because cultural obligations of hospitality required them to invite inside any stranger met on the street at nightfall. The bad news was that they still considered Jesus a stranger; but the good news was that they invited him to join them for supper. Good news usually happens in the gospels over supper. Luke reports that as they sat down to eat, Jesus, shifting from guest to host, took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them—just like he’d done in their sight when he fed the 5000. Just like he’d done in their sight the other night when he told them this bread was his body.

And suddenly, Luke writes, again using the divine passive voice, their eyes were opened, and then, just as suddenly, Jesus vanished from their sight. Once they no longer saw him, they were able to recognize him.“Were not our hearts burning within us?” To believe is to see. Now everything changed. 

Which is another reason that resurrection can be so upsetting. To believe Jesus rose from the dead saddles you with all that implies: namely, that Jesus is the Son of the Living God, that He is King of kings, that he is your Master and your Lord. Resurrection upsets everything and turns your world upside down. The last being first, the lost being found, the poor being rich and the least being greatest all now make total sense. And once you believe, everything changes and you have to live your life differently because if you don’t, then you don’t really believe.

Had these two disciples stayed put after recognizing Jesus, Luke would have left them out of his story. What kind of gospel just has people sitting around? But there’s no way these disciples could have stayed put. As soon as they believed, they were out the door. Even though it was late at night, they took off and ran the seven miles back to Jerusalem, where they found the rest of the disciples, and became part of a handful of changed people who ended up changing the whole world.

How do you believe in such a way that not only changes your life but also changes your world? There’s only one way. God has to open your eyes. To which I say, hallelujah and praise the Lord! For anybody who died and rose from the dead, opening your eyes is unbelievably easy to do.

The Tracks of God's Tears

Luke 19:28-44

by Daniel Harrell

The Palm Sunday outside Jerusalem is steeper than I thought it would be. Coming down off the Mount of Olives is a downhill run into the Holy City. And this being Holy Week, Jesus was definitely headed downhill. For the last leg of his journey into Jerusalem, he had two disciples round up a donkey colt. He did it like you’d expect a Son of God to do it, all wrapped in mystery and prophetic foresight: “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here.” The reason is found in Zechariah 9.  “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Jerusalem, for your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on the colt of a donkey.” Jesus staged his grand entry to make a Messiah statement.

Indeed there was great rejoicing when Jesus made his grand entrance here in Luke. And you’ll note that the people understood his statement. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord,” they sing. However you’ll also note that there wasn't a single palm. Instead, people took off their coats and laid them in Jesus path.  This was how people paid homage to kings back then, a gesture akin to taking off your hat for the national anthem. So technically, we should call today Coats Off Sunday. But since this is Minnesota in March, we’ll stick with the palms. They remind us of Florida.

Now I should say that, technically, we didn’t walk down the actual Palm Sunday road in Israel. We definitely didn’t stop by the village where Jesus got his donkey colt either. Nobody is sure of the location of Bethany or Bethpage. They’ve long since been covered by succeeding civilizations. One of the things about walking in the footsteps of Jesus in Jerusalem is that you have to dig down deep to do it. But as with the colt, Jesus predicted this would happen too. Of Jerusalem he says, “not one stone within you will be left upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” This prophesy was violently fulfilled by a savage Roman assault. Had Israel received Jesus as king, things might have been different. This is why Jesus weeps.

There’s a church for just about everything Jesus did in the Holy Land. As you walk down the Palm Sunday road, just off to your right, is Dominus Flevit,  The Church of Jesus Weeping. As you would expect, it dramatically overlooks Jerusalem. And as you might not expect, it’s shaped to resemble a teardrop (though it takes a little imagination to see it).

This is one of two times Jesus cries in the Bible, the other time over the death of his friend Lazarus. You might wonder why Jesus only cries twice, but then the Bible never has Jesus laughing even once. If it had I assure you there would have been a church built to commemorate it, probably shaped like a smile.

As for the tears Jesus shed over Lazarus, he wipes them away by raising Lazarus from the dead. But Jerusalem gets razed to the ground. Jesus’ lament echoes the one Danielle preached about a few chapters back. That lament had Jesus bemoaning Jerusalem’s history of killing its messengers, prophets sent to call God’s prodigal sons home. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,” Jesus said, a desire commemorated on the altar of the Teardrop Church. “But you were unwilling,” a rejected Jesus despairs, leaving Jerusalem to its own devices, and then sternly declaring “you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’” This line comes from Psalm 118, and is commonly sung to welcome pilgrims to Jerusalem.

But again, you note that Jesus’ welcome committee changes “blessed is he who comes” to “blessed is the king who comes,” which you’d think would count as Jerusalem recognizing “the time of your visitation from God.” Their mention of peace on heaven is weird, its almost as if they sense peace on earth is impossible. Luke is clear that it wasn’t any city delegation that welcomed Jesus, but instead “the whole multitude of disciples.” The official response, represented here by the Pharisees, is rebuke. Jesus is told to tell his disciples to knock off the messiah worship. Such praise is reserved for Israel’s legitimate king. Jesus replies that shutting them up won’t do any good for then the stones would take up their praise. Jesus wasn’t just King of the Jews. He was King of Creation.

Sadly, Jesus’ royal welcome rapidly deteriorated into a bloody coronation. His crown would be thorns and his throne a cross. It’s a tragedy we recount every Good Friday. If Jesus’ intent is to establish his kingdom and gather his people, why do it as a chicken? Why allow yourself to be plucked and slaughtered? Why not a stone-cold display of brute force? Bring down the armies of heaven! Zechariah foretold a king humbly riding on a donkey colt, but read the rest of that prophesy, and you’ll find a humble King of Creation convincingly triumphant by way of fire and hurricanes, thunder and lightening. It’s easy to be humble once you’ve pounded your enemies into the dirt. But here, Jesus’ enemies pound him onto a tree. That’s not humility. That’s humiliation and humiliation doesn’t gain you much. Loss is no pathway to victory. Weakness and failure only get you run over.

For modern Israelis, military might is vital to their security. A belligerent Lebanon and a violent Syria border their north. An increasingly Islamic Egypt churns to their South. A bellicose Iran threatens just over Jordan to the east, and resentful Palestinians smolder in both the West Bank and Gaza. What unites their enemies is the desire to wipe Israel off the map, a desire expressed by the fact Israel doesn’t even appear on Palestinian maps. Stoking Israel’s security concerns is the dark memories of Holocaust, a ghastly reminder of how the world hates Jews. Israeli law mandates that teenagers visit the Holocaust Museum three times so as to drive this reminder deep into their identities. The Museum somberly narrates the Nazi atrocity start to finish, from the vicious propaganda to the segregation and oppression, to the collectivizing and the ghettos, and ultimately to the extermination of six million people. Oddly, the Jewish teenagers there during our visit mostly seemed unaffected. They were too busy flirting and texting to worry about hatred.

Afterwards we made our way into Bethlehem, despite official US State Department warnings against traveling there that day. Bethlehem sits in the West Bank, where Palestinian protests flared. But as Christians wanting to see the manger, we ignored the warnings and went to Bethlehem anyway, which these days means crossing a heavily armed checkpoint into a city surrounded by a massive security wall, seen here from a distance. You must swap your Israeli guide for a Palestinian since each is not allowed in the others’ territory. Poverty and unemployment are rampant behind the walls, with strict limits on every movement blatant oppression, leading more than one of our traveling companions to take note of the irony: “Israel is doing to the Palestinians what Nazis did to the Jews.”

We visited a Palestinian Lutheran church whose pastor held out little hope for genuine peace. President Obama has come and gone, as have plenty of Presidents before him, and nothing really changes. The pastor was obliged to suggest everybody give Jesus a chance, but Christian quibbling over who runs the Church of the Nativity makes Jesus seem like a losing proposition too. And , it’s hard to see in Jesus anything but another losing proposition. And loss is no pathway to victory. Weakness and failure only get you crucified dead and buried.

I’m participating in a Bethel University theology and work initiative with a group of business and seminary professors. Given our own Innové project, I’m interested in the ways our faith as Christians can influence entrepreneurship and the marketplace proper. This is not as easy as it might sound. Too often influence runs the other way. So much of what matters to business runs contrary to the gospel, be it the primacy of shareholders over service, gluttonous profits, avaricious career ambition or the over-accumulation of capital. As I mentioned last Sunday with Jesus’ parable about an uncharitable rich man, to prosper financially is not a Biblical vice. But wealth does tempt us toward greed and injustice and extravagance, none of which bode well for our souls if the rich man’s eventual torment in hell is any indication.

Having just preached that parable as I sat in the theology and work conversation, I wondered out loud what Christian faith can noticeably contribute to the way we do business. The Bethel scholars offered up the Christian virtues of honesty and integrity and hard work, along with Christian concerns for service and fairness. And I agree. To believe in Jesus is to value all these things. But you can value these things without believing in Jesus. Is there anything else that is distinctive to Christianity? What about humiliation and loss? Although he was Almighty God, Jesus wore weakness as his human identity, riding in as king on a borrowed burro. Over and over again he stressed how the last shall be first and the humble exalted. He speaks of the importance of lost sheep and lost coins and lost sons and losing your possessions and even your life for the sake of the gospel. That is distinctive.

As far as I know there’s not a business plan on earth that puts loss in its mission statement. Loss is not a pathway to profit. Unless, of course, you buy the gospel. Our Innové judging commences this Saturday. What if we chose as our winners those social entrepreneurial projects deemed certain to lose? Granted, one of the mantras of the startup world is fail faster. Mistakes are an inevitable step on the path to true innovation—but you want to get through them quickly. Nobody makes mistakes their goal.  That would be ridiculous. As ridiculous as changing the world through death on a cross.

Jesus weeps for Jerusalem, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now it’s too late.” Too late and too bad. Embedded in Jerusalem’s name is the Hebrew shalom, a kind of peace that goes beyond the mere absence of enmity to include justice and righteousness and tranquility. This city was supposed to be heaven on earth. God’s own house was located there, the Temple where the Lord himself resided, making Jerusalem the nexus of holiness and humanity. But now the Temple would be ruined by the Romans, as the Babylonians had ruined it centuries before. The prophet Jeremiah cried over Jerusalem then, and Jesus wept now, the only difference being that unlike after Jeremiah, God’s house would not be rebuilt this time.

In Jerusalem we walked where the Temple once stood, on the stones Jesus actually walked on himself. There are some religious groups who believe that if the Temple gets rebuilt then the Messiah will come and walk there again. Their fervor has led them to remake the Temple’s furnishings according to Biblical specs in preparation for that day. Standing in they way, however, is the fact that the Temple mount is under Islamic ownership. To try and build a Jewish Temple there and you ignite World War III. Not even Israel will allow that. The Roman Emperor Julian tried to rebuild it in 363 AD, but an earthquake halted construction. Apparently God wouldn’t allow it either. That’s because in Christ, the stone house of God gave way to a human body, The Lord in the flesh, which is another reason Jesus wept. “You did not recognize the time of your visitation from God” meant Jerusalem did not recognize Jesus as God himself coming to visit in person.

But again, this is understandable. What kind of God comes to visit dressed like a vagrant and riding a donkey? Even his disciples dump him once they see how deadly serious Jesus was about humiliation and loss. Loss is no pathway to victory. Weakness and failure only get you crucified dead and buried.

If you’re going to win, brute force and muscle are the ways to do it. It's how the forceful Romans eventually burned Jerusalem to the ground. It's how the mighty Persians rolled in later and destroyed the Romans, followed by the stronger Byzantines who pounded the Persians. A few decades later Islam powerfully emerged and Arab armies took over the city, who in turn were beaten down by the more powerful Turks, who massacred all of Jerusalem’s inhabitants during their reign. Christians, under Pope Urban II, took offense and the Crusades commenced, leading to the slaughter of 30,000 Muslims and Jews in one battle. More Crusaders followed making Jerusalem a Roman Catholic stronghold until the tougher Ottoman Turks invaded and reduced the city to ruins once more. The Ottomans ruled for 400 years, and then the Egyptians moved in, and then the Russians and the French and finally the brutish British who made Jerusalem part of a colony called Palestine, named for the Philistines, Israel’s ancient enemy and a subtle reminder that Israel will always have its enemies. Jerusalem became the capital of a fortified Jewish state after World War II and the Holocaust, but there is no shalom.

Of course there's no Roman Empire anymore either, or Persian or Byzantine Empires for that matter. Muslims violently divide as Shiite and Sunni. The Crusades proved a colossal failure, and the Ottomans have been reduced to living room furniture. The British still have their Queen, but she’s only a force as far as the tabloids are concerned. And even Israel, while strong, won't last forever. No human civilization ever does. Someday Jerusalem will be reduced to ruin again and another civilization will be added to the pile. All earthly displays of power and might fade away, but 2000 years later, we still do Easter. Next Sunday we’ll  rejoice and shout and sing yet again about the victory of weakness and the power of  humiliation and acknowledge once again that loss truly is the way to new life, giving thanks that resurrection defeats death every time. It’s no coincidence that at the end of time, Scripture envisions heaven as a brand new Jerusalem, finally situated at the top of the pile. There’s no Temple there or any need for light, for the glory of God and the Lamb of God is all the light that you need. On that day every knee will bow and every coat will come off there will be no more crying. All will finally recognize that God didn't just come to visit. He came to stay.

How To Get It Through Your Head

Luke 16:19-31

by Daniel Harrell

Hearing this parable about a super rich man and a desperately poor man unavoidably prompts a correlation to America’s current wealth inequality. One recent video making the rounds from a Harvard economist gloomily intones how the richest 1% of American’s own 42% of the entire country’s wealth, more than the bottom 97% combined. Notably, there is general agreement among those surveyed as to what an equitable distribution curve would look like—even though with the system unfairly skewed. But the perceived gap between this equitable ideal and reality pales as pocket change wen compared with the true state of things—an ugly inequality curve in which the poorest and middle class are a barely-indistinguishable line while the top 1 percent is, quite literally, off the charts. I thought about showing the whole video this morning but it’s rather depressing. And frankly, this parable is depressing enough. Even for Lent. 

Stony Brook University economist Noah Smith counters that much of America’s wealth inequality has more to do with age than class. Young people, he says, tend to have a lot of debt and not much by way of savings, accounting for their negative wealth and the reason they move back in with their parents. Moreover, the video’s  statistics don't include things like entitlements, or the value of one’s skills or education. Americans aren't as staggeringly unequal as the video makes out. But they are still very, very unequal.

Not that this is a new development. As Jesus illustrates, wealth inequity has been around for a long time. In fact, his parable also shows up in other reversal of fortune folktales circulating during his day. Wealth inequality isn’t solely an American issue either, of course. While in Israel we encountered poverty among Bedouin shepherds who plaintively positioned themselves at tourist stops, peddling locally-crafted cashmerey scarves made in China. Their sad roadside shanties clashed harshly with the opulent accommodations we tourists enjoyed each night. The fine linens and sumptuous feasting Jesus described translated for us into thousand thread-count linens and lavish dinner buffets. 

Now I should say that you work up quite an appetite walking in the footsteps of Jesus, but I’m sure that not even Jesus ate like we did. Jesus chose to be poor for the sake of solidarity with the homeless and hungry, with the least and the last. The irony wasn’t lost on us and I felt bad about it after my second slice of cheesecake. But even in the Bible, blessings of abundance are not solely reserved for the heaven. Though Scripture sternly warns against the temptations and tyrannies of wealth, to prosper is not a Biblical vice. Christian virtuousness promotes diligence at work, good stewardship of resources, getting an education, commitment in marriage and caring communities, all of which can contribute to economic and social advancement. The issue in Scripture is never that God’s people prosper, but that in prospering they ignore the plight of the poor. Blessings start getting treated as earned privileges. Hoarding for financial security’s sake displaces generosity toward those in need. Jesus takes selfishness personally. “I tell you the truth,” he cautions, “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” 

As with last Sunday’s parable of the Envious Brother (otherwise known as the Prodigal Son), Jesus aims this Sunday’s parable at the Pharisees. Like the Prodigal Son, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus only shows up in Luke’s gospel. And among all Jesus’ parables, it’s the only one where the characters have names, Abraham being the patriarch of Judaism and Lazarus a fairly common name meaning “God has helped.” The Prodigal Son demonstrated obedience gone sour. Like the envious older brother, the obedient Pharisees couldn’t stand that Jesus hung out with sinners and got away with it. Here the comparably well-off Pharisees despised Jesus for giving preferential treatment to the poor. If prosperity is a blessing from God, what does that say about those who have nothing? Clearly they were sinners too.

Working all the years that I served at a downtown church, I got constantly barraged by requests for spare change from street people who had nothing. Wanting to be a good reverend, I started by putting money in everybody’s cup, but my generosity got jaded over time. Seeing the same people panhandling year after year, I began to ask myself whether dispensing change into a cup truly helped then get off the streets, or enabled them to remain there instead. Were they genuinely needy or just lazy and willing to lie? Then again, was I so righteous that I can even make such judgments? Shouldn’t my faith in God make my generosity tireless? How can I say I follow Jesus and then walk by unaffected? Yet if I give only in order to assuage my guilt, can it truly be called giving? And really, what good is a dollar? Shouldn’t I be willing to offer more given how much God has offered me? I did eventually spend four years hanging out with homeless guys on the streets. I got to know their names and hear their stories. But in many cases this only made matters worse. At least the sinners and tax-collectors Jesus hung out with always reformed their lives. The homeless guys I knew weren’t really that interested in that. Granted, I’m no Jesus, but still. As you can tell, this is why I moved to the Minneapolis suburbs.

It is possible that the Pharisees were hard-working clergy who got jaded by the demands of their work. Maybe they were underpaid and resented the fact that they’d sacrificed so much to serve the Lord. But I doubt it. Luke describes them as “lovers of money,” which was not meant as a compliment. That Jesus ties them to the rich man in the parable must have meant they were doing all right. Not that the rich man was a greedy materialist. He likely counted his riches as a blessing from God. Again, the issue was not his prosperity, but his cold and self-righteous heart. He probably had his reasons. Probably thought that Lazarus should go get a job. Probably figured there will always be poor people. What can you do? “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others;” Jesus told them, “but God knows your hearts.” The bottom line turns out to be the difference between being having money and loving it, which comes as a huge relief for most of us well-to-do Christians. Thankfully, none of us love money. 

Jesus says these things as religious and political opposition against him deepens. Telling parables like this didn’t help matters much. We’re all fans of fairness and poetic justice, but do we really need to be told how we get eternally recompensed for all the slights we commit on earth? And what’s with all the hellfire and torment? Turn or burn? Isn’t just feeling guilty bad enough? Jesus says that Lazarus would have been happy with a few crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. According to another statistic, we Americans throw away 40 percent of the food we produce—more than 20 pounds per person per month. That’s a lot of crumbs. 

In the end, Lazarus dies without so much as a proper burial, but that’s when things start looking up. He gets ushered up to Abraham’s heavenly dinner table while the dead rich man gets sent down to the furnace room. Turns out that is easier to thread a needle with a camel. Flames lick his body like the dogs licked Lazarus, and now he’d be as happy with a drop of water as Lazarus would have been with that crumb, anything to cool his blistering misery. Being a religious as well as rich, he appeals to Abraham for relief, but Abraham says sorry, you had your chance. Justice is justice. You reap what you sow. God knows your heart. What about grace? It’s too late for that. “Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed,” Abraham explains, “so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” We couldn’t help you even if we wanted to.

Why would Jesus ever tell such a horrible parable? It’s not like the rich guy was asking to get set free. He just wants a lousy drop of water. And what’s with the vast chasm? Who put that there? For a Savior who’s all about love, Jesus sure comes off sounding awfully judgmental. Then again, God doesn’t even show up in this parable. He’s not passing judgment. He doesn’t really need to. Because whenever we hear this parable we judge ourselves. Like when we hear about the envious older son who snubbed his found brother’s welcome home party happening just inside the house. Or when we hear about the religious Levite and priest in the who scurry past the wounded neighbor right there in the roadside ditch, only to have a despised no-good Samaritan pick up the slack and make us look bad. Or here with Lazarus being right outside the rich man’s gate. Chances are they saw each other every day. The religious rich, the righteous brother, the Levite and the priest, each came within inches of doing the right thing. But by failing to do it, each might just as well have been million miles away. This is the judgment: We all come within inches of loving and helping and even forgiving others every day, yet by refusing to close these little gaps, for whatever reason, we create for ourselves an infinity of separation amounting to the distance between heaven and hell.

 Perhaps you’re heard the one about the difference between heaven and hell as the difference between two kinds of people gathered around identical soup pots and all in possession of identical long wooden spoons. The difference is that those in hell starve because they cannot get the spoons to their own mouths while those in heaven feed each other and are full.

Up to this point, Jesus’ morality tale was like those his audience had heard before. To the formerly rich man’s credit, he suffers his horrible fate; a fate he now wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. Now Jesus adds his own twist. He has the formerly rich man begging. He pleads for Lazarus be sent to his father’s house, “for I have five brothers who need to be warned, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” Abraham says they should just read their Bibles. “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” According to yet another statistic, the average American owns four Bibles, and we keep buying more. The Bible still ranks as the country’s number one selling book, and we give it to children, probably because nobody reads it.

Why would we? Have you ever opened one? Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor and you’ll have all you need? Consider the birds and lilies and don’t worry about your life? The Lord knows what you need before you even ask? Simply seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness and everything will be yours? Trust in the Lord and he’ll give you the desires of your heart? It’s all very Biblical. It’s just not very realistic. Not even for people who don’t love money.

There’s a small group curriculum put out by World Vision and Sojourners entitled Lazarus at the Gate and is advertised as an “economic discipleship guide.” The curriculum invites participants into a community experience where the goal is for each participant to make four individual commitments:

• Spend joyfully: Regularly give thanks for the blessing of wealth.

• Spend justly: Make one lifestyle change to consume more responsibly.

• Spend less: Make one lifestyle change in order to reduce personal consumption.

• Give more: Make a substantial gift to fight global poverty

At the end of the time together participants pool their saved money and give collectively to the poor. In this they work like a giving circle. If you’ve yet to do anything for Lent, this can be a good plan on a lot of levels. I’ve known a lot of people who’ve done it. I once asked a participant whether being in her Lazarus group and supporting each other’s economic choices also meant sharing information like salaries or current spending habits or personal budgets. If economic discipleship brings you closer to God, it should also bring you closer to your fellow believers. “Heavens no,” she replied. “That’s way too personal. And we only know each other from church.” It reminded me of an old letter once written to the recently deceased Dear Abby: “Dear Abby. I am a twenty-three-old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It’s getting pretty expensive and I think my lover should share half the cost, but I don’t know him well enough to discuss money with him.”

It’s said that to know someone’s financial statement is to know their values. Actually Jesus said that. “Where your treasureis, there your heartwill be also.” This being the case, divulging our pay stubs and budgets with fellow Christians might not only foster deeper obedience, but genuine intimacy too. But then I try to imagine it actually happening. I try to imagine it happening at say, a pastors’ conference, you know, among people who “aren’t in it for the money” and who supposedly read our Bibles all the time. I doubt that comparing salaries and personal budgets would make us closer. Envious and resentful and condescending, perhaps, but probably not closer.

“Father Abraham,” the burning man pleads, “I don’t think that reading the Bible will do it. Send them somebody risen from the dead. If someone shows up from the dead, then they will repent.” But Abraham replies, “Meh. Why bother? If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” People ain’t gonna change.

Of course Jesus tells this parable on the last leg of his journey into Jerusalem as he approaches the last days of this earthly life. Palm Sunday. Good Friday. Denial. Betrayal. Execution. He knows what’s coming even as he speaks. And knowing what’s coming is what gives this parable its power. Why bother if nobody listens and nobody changes? Because it bothers God. Despite our stubborn resistance to Scripture and obedience and his word, God stubbornly loves us and remains willing to do whatever it takes to bring us around. He may not have created the chasm, but he's determined to bridge it even if it kills him to do it. It is while we are yet money-loving sinners that Christ dies for us. It is for our sake that he rises to redeem us. It may be easier to squeeze a camel through a needle than to squeeze a rich man into heaven. But as Jesus said and shows, with God, everything is possible.

The Prodigal

Luke 15:11-32

by Daniel Harrell

Most people recognize this parable of the Prodigal Son—prodigal from the Latin meaning irresponsibly extravagant. It is one of the most beloved stories in Scripture, if not in all of literature. Despite its familiarity, or more because of it, I’ve never preached a sermon about it. Its message of overwhelming, undeserved grace moves us to reconsider those moments when our own sin and shame would otherwise keep us from coming home, as well as those times when obsessive concerns for rightness and fairness threaten to overshadow the primacy of love. Seriously, what’s left to say? 

Well, I got a few things. The parable actually begins rather ominously enough. For any good Jew, to hear “A father had two sons” would have immediately churned up bad memories about Ishmael and Isaac. Esau and Jacob. Joseph and his colorful coat. David and his bag of rocks. All stories of conflict between older and younger siblings over preferential treatment which younger brothers in the Bible typically enjoyed. Here we go again.

An ungrateful jerk of a kid shockingly seeks his share of inheritance from his father—in effect wishing his daddy dead since inheritance only happens once pappy buys the farm. And this father consents to it? This would have meant him selling off assets, likely an actual farm with land and livestock, liquidating his investment portfolio, and then giving it all over to this scalawag of a son whom the father had to know was going to go off and blow it all on what Jesus calls “dissolute living”: drugs, booze, sex, the whole party manimal thing. And then after the money’s gone and the kid comes repentantly hang-doggin’ it back, the father welcomes him home no questions asked. He hardly even lets the kid apologize. So who’s the real prodigal here? Show me one parenting magazine that would ever commend such irresponsible child-rearing. Vanderbilt New Testament professor Amy Jill-Levine, a Jewish mother from Massachusetts, argues that the parable should be re-titled “The Absent Mother” because as any good Jew knows, none of this would have happened had the mother been present.

At the turning point in the parable, the good-for-nothing son—having deeply dishonored his father—ends up on his knees at a non-kosher pig trough where he comes to his senses: “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!” Is this remorse? Christians tend to interpret this coming-to-his-senses moment as the roots of repentance—which is why the parable gets assigned to Lent. And Jesus does tell it in the context of two other parables about a found sheep and a found coin, the punch line of both being the finders’ inexpressible joy. “I tell you,” Jesus says, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Joy is evident on the part of the father too. But repentance from the son? Not so evident. Of course lost sheep and lost coins can’t repent. But once we finally get to the story about a human being who can repent, it’s not obvious that the prodigal son does. 

Knowing daddy as he did, the son’s turnaround could be interpreted as just another dishonorable scheme. In this case: “run back to daddy and act religious.” He rehearses his lines: “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’ Yeah, that should do it.” Now maybe I’m stretching it here, but I wouldn’t be the first. For any good Jewish audience, familiar with Old Testament patterns and human hypocrisy, suspicions of motive are always in play.

And then there’s the older son, a sanctimonious goody-two-shoes who still has a valid gripe. His resentment isn’t as much against his brother’s inexcusable behavior as it is against his father’s indulgence—a father who had never cooked him so much as a goat-burger for being the good boy he was. The father tries to comfort his firstborn by reminding him how “all that is mine is yours.” Really?  What comfort is that? Of course all you own belongs to me because my share of the inheritance is all you have left. Little brother has already squandered his. And still he gets a whole cow? Why does the baby in the family always get off so easily?

Fine, so maybe this story cuts simply too close to home. As you know, I am the oldest son. I am the good boy. I am the pleaser. I made good grades, did what I was told. Played by the rules. Went to church. Went on and became a minister for Christ’s sake. My little brother? He was always getting into trouble growing up. Problems in school. Questionable relationships. Jail time. Skipped church. My dad felt bad for him. Helped him start his own construction business. Made him a millionaire. Not that I’m bitter.

C’mon, says the dad. “This little brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found. We have to rejoice!” The late Catholic mystic Henri Nouwen, contemplating this story through the aid of Rembrandt’s famous depiction, observed how “resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, because resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. My resentment tells me that I don't receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy.”

The table for such envy is plainly set in the first two verses of Luke 15: “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” There’s the resentment. Tax collectors were universally despised in Luke’s world for their dishonesty and exploitation. Sinners were all those whose behavior excluded them from the category of proper society—from the merely detestable to the outright criminal. These were prodigal people, not the kind you want sitting beside you in church. By contrast were the Pharisees. Good people. Well-mannered, devoted and righteous with strong reputations. They’re offended that Jesus so blatantly betrays social and religious protocol. He acts as if immorality has no consequences. Doesn’t he know that to coddle sinners only encourages them to sin more? How will they ever learn to do right?

 That Jesus flouts religious convention is irksome to be sure, but what really ticks off the Pharisees is how Jesus has become so popular for doing it. Here’s where the envy sets in. It’d have been one thing if Jesus had been a bad boy sinner himself, iniquity loves company. But instead he’s hailed as a wise rabbi and wonderworker, a paragon of virtue and a real peach of a guy, basically the sort the Pharisees had worked so hard to be like themselves. He’s stealing their lines and their thunder; hogging a righteous limelight they’d labored all their lives to secure, all by just dispensing love and hugs all around. No wonder they can’t stand this guy. Dang right they’re resentful and envious. They want him dead!

There’s another Jewish parable that never made it into the Bible that tells of a greedy man and an envious man who appeared before a king. The king said to the two men, “one of you may ask something of me and I will give it to him, provided I get to give twice as much of that same thing to the other.” Now, the envious man did not want to ask first, for he was envious of his companion who would receive twice as much. The greedy man did not want to ask first because he wanted everything that could be had for himself. The greedy man eventually prevailed upon the envious man to go first; but only because the envier had conjured up a malicious idea. He requested that the king pluck out one of his eyes—knowing that this meant his greedy companion would have both of his eyes plucked out.

Envy is as old as humanity itself. In the first utterance of the word sin in Scripture, a man had two sons; two brothers who come to grief over, of all things, an offering given to God. “Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground. Abel brought the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The LORD looked with favor on Abel, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry.” He killed his brother. Was Abel’s offering better or more generous? Or did the Lord just have a thing for shepherds? It’s hard not to suspect some favoritism at work here—the same kind of favoritism that unfairly parcels out beauty, intelligence, ability and opportunity to some but not all. Why doesn’t everybody receive the same? God’s response? “Thou shalt not covet.” Thanks a lot, Lord.

We all know what envy feels like. You look around this Meetinghouse and can’t bear to behold what you imagine to be the full lives other people enjoy. Just look at their happy marriages, their successful careers, perfect children, good looks. They make you sick—and these are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Frankly, if you have to hear one more word about how their great their life is you’ll scream. Oh sure, you could rejoice in their happiness; but why do that when you can begrudge their existence and fuel your own misery? If only they could taste just a bit of your bitterness. Not that you’d ever pray for that to happen. OK, you might. And then when their misfortune finally hits, ha-ha, you can mask your perverse delight behind a façade of fake compassion. Though you never had anything genuinely positive to say during their good times, now that they suffer you are so there for them; not because you care, but because witnessing their pain close up brings such satisfaction. Sure, I’ll give up an eye if it means you lose two.

So it’s possible I’m being a little melodramatic here. I like being melodramatic. You judge yourself. After all, Lent is the season for self-examination. In Luke’s gospel, the tax collectors and sinners respond to the gospel. In the story of the Prodigal Son, the sinful brother comes from far away back to his father, whatever his motives. But not the older brother just out in the back yard. He refuses to step one foot in the door. No way he’s participating in that happiness.

“For most of my life,” Henri Nouwen wrote, “I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair. Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. Maybe the question is not ‘How am I to find God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be found by God?’ The question is not ‘How am I to know God?’ but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.”

At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, one of at least two possible sites for Jesus’ empty tomb, competing branches of Christianity vie for control of a grave that is still empty. The Greek Orthodox control the empty tomb proper, filling it up with all manner of iconography and liturgical folderol, smells and bells. The Armenian Apostolic church has their ornate chapel off to one side, with the Roman Catholics off to another, candles and music and prayer chiming in each. The Ethiopian Orthodox have been relegated to one of the entry ways, with their own dimly lit protocols, and the Syriac Orthodox theirs. And then tacked on to the main shrine with a separate entrance, like some sort of add-on Ikea closet, sits this odd little Coptic Christian chapel staking out its territory. Inside when we walked by was a lone monk reading his newspaper by candlelight, his sole responsibility being to swat intrusive tourists trying to take pictures. 

On a hot summer day in 2002, a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into a cooler part of the church. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians, and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting brawl. In 2004, the Greek Orthodox monk left a Roman Catholic door open which was taken as a sign of disrespect leading to another melee. Then on Palm Sunday in 2008, a fight broke out over some other perceived liturgical slights requiring the Jewish police to come in and break it up. It’s been this way for centuries. Pious Christian brothers preaching the love of Jesus can’t stand each other. Their silliness is symbolized in an immovable ladder that leans against an upper window of the church for no reason. Somebody leaned it there a couple of hundred years ago, and there is remains since to move it would represent an infringement against one of the religious orders though nobody knows which one. Still, that ladder might be mine. When it rots every hundred years or so, the groups all chip in to replace it, just in case. Tension floats in the air like so much religious incense. Incensed being an appropriate word to describe the smoldering emotions. All I can say is that’s it’s a good thing the Protestants never became involved or things might really have got ugly. Ironically, or perhaps providentially, a Muslim family owns the keys to the church’s front door.

With the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus leaves a lot of tension in the air. This father’s love—God’s love—defies any anything commonly practiced by people. No father who truly loved his son would ever behave so foolishly, would he? And not just the father, but the shepherd who abandons a hundred good sheep to find a single stray? Isn’t losing a few just the cost of doing business? Or that crazy woman who upon finding her lost coin spent more money to celebrate finding the coin than the lost coin itself was worth. If this is love, it’s not a love that makes any sense. OK, so maybe if you’ve hit rock bottom and are forced to eat pig slop you can understand it, but that’s hardly the preferred strategy for getting people to Jesus. “Go screw up your life and then you’ll find out how much God loves you!” Seriously? Where’s the incentive to obey?

One New Testament professor I heard suggested how that fatted calf killed for party boy was probably one nurtured and raised by the obedient son. Can you imagine? The good boy carefully and diligently raises a calf as a 4-H project, tends to it and nurtures it as his own pride and joy. And then my dad takes it and gladly kills it to celebrate home that worthless, little no good piece of … 

How does God do that?