"What Should We Do?" A Sermon on Luke 3:7-18 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Advent.

John the Baptist (an icon from the Orthodox tradition)

"What Should We Do?"

Luke 3:7-18

The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as Joy Sunday.   That’s why we lit the rose candle today and heard the apostle Paul urging the church to “Rejoice always and in everything.”

            Yet, as I meditated on the scripture passages for this Sunday, I kept remembering how painful a season this can be for many people-- people who are lonely, people who are grieving the loss of a loved one, people who are struggling with illness and wondering where God is in the midst of it all…  people who are depressed, people who are trying to maintain their sobriety during a season of parties… people who are too poor to be a part of the festival of extravagance the merchants would have us believe is what Christmas is all about. 

            There are people who are hungry or food insecure...or who are worrying about how they’ll pay their bills.  Then there are terrible events that have filled the headlines in recent weeks. The list could go on and on. 

            We grieve that there’s so much wrong in the world.  We’re still waiting for the kingdom of God, and we yearn for it.  We wait and hope for what we can’t yet see.

            During the weeks of Advent, we’re in a conversation with the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptizer.  In the scriptures, we hear words of consolation and of challenge.   Today, we hear John the Baptist saying to the people who came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”               

            What do we make of this blunt talk?  Where’s the good news in it?     

            Apparently, a lot of the people who came out to hear John the Baptizer’s message did hear his message as good news.  Gospel from God.   Some of them even started to wonder whether John was the messiah they’d been waiting for. 

            Things were terribly wrong.  The people were living under the occupation of the Roman empire, and at the mercy of tyrants like Herod… or dishonest tax collectors.  Things were wrong, but they were hoping God was going to do something about it.  

            One of my colleagues suggests that when John compared people to a brood of vipers, he was saying they are like snakes curled up in hiding inside a pile of logs.  When the fire of God’s judgment comes near,  when the light of truth exposes us, we try to slink out from under God’s gaze.[1] 

            “Hey, don’t look at me!  I didn’t mess the world up!” we protest.  “I’m okay.  After all, I’m a child of Abraham.  It’s those tax collectors and Pilate and Herod that are to blame.  It’s those criminals and greedy corporate honchos and crooked politicians… or immigrants…  or [fill in the blank].  It’s those other people who are to blame for this mess-- not me!” 

            We make excuses and look for others to blame precisely because, in our heart of hearts, we know that we are not clean.  We, too, have contributed to the mess.

            I think John the Baptist is right.  “This means you,” he declares.  “Don’t even think about relying on the fact that you’re a child of Abraham…or a good Christian…or whatever, to exempt you.”

            So…how can a message like this be good news?

            I’m grateful to Richard Rohr for some new insights on John the Baptist I found in his book,  Jesus’ Plan for a New World.[2]   Father Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest, suggests that John the Baptist is probably far more important than we have realized.   The beginning of the gospels tells us that John appeared and preached in the wilderness, “proclaiming a gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” 

            John “cries out in the wilderness,” radically questioning the very legitimacy of the existing religious order, and showing how religion needs to constantly reform.  The keepers of the religious status quo kept sending people out to question John.  

            When John preached a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins, it was revolutionary.  Jews were supposed to follow the Law—the Holiness Codes of Torah. This upstart was making it too easy to get God to love you and forgive you. 

            The people were filled with expectation.  They were questioning in their hearts, whether John might be the Messiah they were looking for.  But John was pointing to the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire. 

            Luke's gospel tells us that, when Mary found out that she was pregnant with the Son of the Most High God, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth.  When Mary spoke, Elizabeth's child leaped for joy in her womb.

            That child grew up to be John the Baptizer.  God called him to be a witness to the light of God, revealed in Christ.  John knew that a lot of things get in the way of receiving God's love and joy.   That's why John was preaching about getting ready for the more powerful one who was coming.   Prepare the way!  Repent! 

           

            In Charles Dickens' play, "A Christmas Carol,"  Ebenezer Scrooge is London's most notorious miser.  He's a mere shadow of the joyful person he was created to be, hunched up against the world...  stingy and suspicious.  When the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge his own grave, the reminder that he will die breaks through all the defenses and helps to put things into perspective.  He's overwhelmed with a piercing sense of remorse for how he has been living.  He repents!

            Seeing the light of truth after living in the darkness for so long can be scary.   But what follows his rebirth into new life-- is joy!

           

            This Advent, John the Baptizer comes to us, telling us that we need to change our ways.

            The message of Advent is that God in Christ is coming into the world.  In Jesus, God's Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.   What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

            Edward Hicks was an American sign and stagecoach painter in the early nineteenth century.  He’s known almost exclusively for his many paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom. 

            One of these, entitled “The Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners,” was painted during a time when tension and separation had split American Quakers into two groups.  In the background is a cluster of very somber-looking people.  But in the foreground is a depiction of the peaceable kingdom:  a leopard is lying down with a lamb.  A little child is embracing a lion. 

            Those somber-looking people in the background are connected to the peaceable kingdom by a banner that declares, “Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”  The sinuous ribbon with its beginning in the mists of eternity weaves its way through and among them, braiding them together.

            Our Christian joy and faith aren’t based solely on the evidence we see in the present-- but on the hope of the future.  Our Christian joy comes to us in our experience of God’s presence.   So, how are we called to live?

            Three times in today’s gospel lesson…  “What should we do?”   That’s a question for us today.

            What should we do, as we yearn for God’s peaceable kingdom?  What should we do, to live more fully into the reign of God? 

            I don’t have any simple answers for you today.  But I think our faith is calling us to move beyond the simple answers on either side of important issues, to listen to one another’s perspectives, and to pray together and work together, and open ourselves to the Spirit’s leading.

            One of the challenges we face today is our desire to live in safety, while responding faithfully to the needs of our neighbors near and far.  It isn’t uncommon during an electiAon season for us to hear political rhetoric that plays on our fears.  But we need to learn from history... and be guided by our faith.

            During Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, too many religious leaders and others were silent.  When fear and xenophobia prevail, there can be terrible consequences.

            Over the past few years, some of us have been thinking about historical parallels between the current debate over refugees—from Syria and now from Central America—desperate people seeking safety and refuge in the United States   and the plight of European Jews fleeing German-occupied territories on the eve of World War II. 

            Among the many who tried-- and failed—to escape Nazi persecution were Otto Frank and his family, which included his wife, Edith, and his daughters, Margot and Anne.  The Frank family visa application documents were discovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 2007. 

            As historian Richard Brietman wrote, “Otto Frank’s efforts to get his family to the United States ran afoul of restrictive American immigration policies designed to protect national security   and guard against an influx of foreigners during time of war.”[3]  And so Anne Frank and her family perished in concentration camps. 

            In contrast to those who were silent and passive during the horrors of the Holocaust, an entire town in occupied France sheltered 5,000 Jews at great risk, in a “conspiracy of goodness.” 

             In occupied France, collaborators delivered 83,000 Jews, including 10,000 children, to the Nazi death camps, and only 3,000 returned.  But the residents of Le Chambon and the surrounding area quietly took in and saved as many Jews as their entire population, who came to them for shelter and refuge. 

            The people of Le Chambon were Reformed Christians, descendants of the French Huguenots.   Motivated by their faith and remembering their own history of persecution, they welcomed the refugees and housed them in private homes, on farms, as well as in local schools.   You can read about this in the book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.[4]

           

            What should we do?   What do the “fruits of repentance” look like?

            Our scriptures say in various ways that we are to orient our lives to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

            This Advent, God is ready to be born in the cradle of our hearts and lives, either for the first time or as a renewed birth, as God-with-us reaches new depths within our very souls.  And this, my friends, is reason for JOY! 

            Do you remember what Ebenezer Scrooge was like when he was re-born that Christmas?  He couldn't keep his joy to himself!  He was filled with the joy of new life...   and he just had to share his joy with others!

            When we receive the JOY of Jesus Christ, we're called to proclaim the light that outshines all darkness.  We're called to carry the light out into the world    and be witnesses of the light. 

            God calls us out of darkness-- into the Light that overcomes the darkness.  Our job as we wait for Christ to come again in power and glory is to proclaim the good news of Jesus, who is the light of the world… the Christ who calls us to live lives that reflect his light!  

How shall we live?  We are called to feed the hungry…and minister to the sick… to show God’s mercy and justice in our lives.   In Matthew 25, we hear Jesus saying we will be judged by how we feed those who are hungry, how we give those who are thirsty something to drink, how we visit those whose who are imprisoned, how we welcome the stranger.”[5]   

In the words of one of my favorite hymns, we are called to “live into hope-- of captives freed...  of sight regained...  the end of greed.”[6]  We are called to live as God’s blessed peacemakers.[7]

            On this Third Sunday of Advent, there is good news—joyful news.  No matter how dark things look, we know that darkness does not have the last word.  Jesus, the Light of the world, has come and shines in the darkness.  The darkness does not and will not overcome it.

            So--  let us rejoice always.[8]  Let us live prayerful lives-- lives that show gentleness to all we meet... and embody God’s love for those who are lonely and hurting.   Let us pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything…  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.

            The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

            Come, Lord Jesus!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 16, 2018

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[1] Mary Harris Todd, in a sermon at www.goodpreacher.com.

[2] Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount.  (Kindle Loc 1668)

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/24/anne-frank-and-her-family-were-also-denied-entry-as-refugees-to-the-u-s/ 

[4] Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed:  The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.  Harper, 1979. 

[5] Let it be noted:  there were responses to the “fill in the blanks.”  The people at Littlefield Presbyterian Church are well acquainted with Matthew 25.

[6] “Live into Hope.”  Lyrics by Jane Parker Huber.

[7] Matthew 5, in what we know as “The Beatitudes.”

[8] Philippians 4:4-7

"Courage for Troubling Times." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Candlelight vigil to mourn massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue.

"Courage for Troubling Times"

Mark 4:35-41

During the dark days of World War II, the World Council of Churches adopted a symbol which had been important to the early church during times of danger, hardship, and persecution:  the church is depicted as a storm-tossed boat, with a cross for a mast.

            Over the centuries, the ship has been a prominent symbol for the church in Christian art and architecture.  This part of the church building is called the “nave,” which is the Latin name for “ship.”  If you look up, you can see how the designers of this building evoked the symbolism.

            When the early Christians tried to describe what it was like to be a Christian and to be a member of the church, they said it was like being on a ship with Christ in a storm.     The story we just heard from Mark's gospel seemed descriptive of the early church’s experience.  

            In the Gospel lesson, we find the disciples on a journey.  The journey is not one of their own choosing, but one they've been commanded to take.  

            It must have been a long day.  Jesus had been teaching beside the sea.  There had been a huge crowd gathered on the shore, while he sat in the boat and spoke in parables about the Reign of God.

            When evening came, Jesus said to the disciples, "Let us go across to the other side of the sea."  So, leaving the crowd behind, they set off across the sea. 

            The time I sailed across the Sea of Galilee, it was on a beautiful, calm, sunny day.  It was smooth sailing.  But Peter and the other fishermen among Jesus' inner circle of disciples knew from experience the danger of sudden storms on the Sea of Galilee.  As the wind and the waves fill the boat with water, the disciples are filled with fear.  They're sinking, and they’re afraid they might drown! 

            In terror, they turn to Jesus, who is calmly asleep in the stern of the boat.  The disciples woke Jesus with words we may use to address God when things get scary:    "Don't you care?"

            Mark tells us that Jesus had been sleeping through the storm.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, the ability to sleep peacefully is a sign of perfect trust in God's providential care.  So, when Jesus was sleeping through the storm it didn't mean that he didn't care about his disciples.  It showed that he had perfect trust in God to keep them all safe.

            Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace!  Be still!"

            The words Jesus addressed to the wind and the waves are exactly the same words he used in the exorcism of the demon-possessed man in the first chapter of Mark.   It's a forceful rebuke, as he commands the forces of the storm, saying,  "Be still.  Be calm!"

            And the wind ceased--   just like that.  There was a dead calm.

            Then Jesus said to them, "Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?"

            When you read through a gospel from beginning to end, you get a much better feel for what the evangelist means when he uses particular words and symbols that you miss if you read little parts of the gospel in isolation.  For Mark, faith isn't about holding correct, orthodox beliefs or living an upstanding moral life.  Faith is trust.  Fearfulness is the lack of faith.

            Mark tells us that disciples are sometimes called to do things that are risky or scary to us--  things that require that we trust in the power of God to sustain us, in spite of our fears.

            Mark wrote his gospel in a time of great persecution, under the emperor Nero.  Peter and Paul had in all likelihood been put to death by that time.  The young church was in danger of being wiped out.  So, Mark included stories in his gospel that would encourage the people in the church.

            We might like to think that if we follow Jesus, he'll keep us out of the storm.   But, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we're not promised a safe, successful, long, or trouble-free life.  He never promised it would be easy.  

I'm convinced that the storms and the struggles of life--  both on a personal level and as a church-- are part of how Christ teaches us to trust in God's love and power to save us.     If we're going to travel with Jesus, we have to weather some storms. 

            The good news is that--  when we begin to trust in God's love and saving power, we can overcome some of our fears.  We can begin to have faith we can weather the storms of life--  because Christ is with us. 

            We live in a tumultuous time—a time of great change and polarization and anxiety— in the world and in the church. But it isn’t the first time. 

            Today is Reformation Sunday, which is a good time to celebrate our history and be inspired by our ancestors in the faith.

            The outspoken Scottish reformer John Knox felt compelled to leave the British Isles after the Roman Catholic Mary Tudor rose to the English throne in 1553.  Eventually he joined a fellowship of religious refugees from across Europe who had thronged to Geneva, Switzerland.

            Geneva’s most famous resident, the French lawyer and humanist John Calvin, was himself a Geneva immigrant.  Calvin helped create an atmosphere in Geneva that was welcoming to outsiders. They established a hospital for refugees, as well as an academy for their education. Knox ministered to a congregation of English-speaking refugees.

            John Knox marveled at his time in Geneva, calling it ‘the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the apostles.’”[1]

            Calvin’s emphasis on placing full trust in God, as opposed to any earthly ruler, aimed to infuse life in the city with gratitude and faith.  He hoped that the doctrine of salvation through election would ease the anxieties of a people living in an age of plague, war, and dislocation. For Calvin and for Knox, growing in trust of God and love for God enlarged a community’s ability to respond to God’s call to love and service--  no matter where its residents came from.[2]

            Writing in the Baptist News, Alan Bean tells about a time a woman in his congregation called him in tears, insisting that he visit her without delay. When he got there, she told him how, in the middle of the night, a repressed memory from her childhood had worked its way to the surface of consciousness. She had remembered the boxcars crammed with desperate people passing through her German community and the hollow-eyed horror etched onto the faces.

            “Maybe I was too young to understand,” she told him, “but my parents and grandparents had to have known. Those people were Jews headed for the camps, weren’t they? Who else could they have been? And we said nothing. We did nothing.”[3]

             Bean writes that the Holocaust, or Shoah, has always haunted him.  “If I thought Nazi-era Germany was an aberration, I could probably move on,”  he writes. But in view of what is happening in our nation and the world today, who can think that?  Bean declares that  “the Church of Jesus Christ is confronted by an anti-Gospel once again. And once again we either celebrate effusively or lapse into pitiful silence.”

            In 1933, on the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth, 20,000 German Christians flocked to a rally in which tenets of German Christianity were celebrated.  Many German Christians happily proclaimed their support for Hitler and what he stood for.

            Even some of those involved in the Confessing Church movement initially welcomed the rise of Hitler’s National Socialists. But they came to understand they were obligated to challenge state-sponsored evil, to minister to the oppressed (regardless of race or religion), and that they might even be required to sacrifice themselves.

            In 1934, the Theological Declaration of Barmen was adopted by Christians in Nazi Germany who opposed the heresies of the German Christian movement.

           

I believe God continues over time to work in people of faith, and is working to do a new thing in our time.  I believe that this is a time of new reformation--  re-formation,  and that God is working to create a new church,  in and through us.   I believe that God wants to use us as instruments of justice and reconciliation in the world. 

Luther’s reformation came out of a righteous anger against injustices and corruption. I think many of us are struggling with a kind of righteous anger about things we see happening in our world.

Yesterday, on the Jewish Sabbath, a shooter walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.  He killed eleven people and wounded others, including four police officers.  His social media accounts included repeated attacks on Jews, references to white supremacist and neo-Nazi symbols, and attacks on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, known as HIAS, which works with the federal government to resettle refugees in American communities.

The people at Tree of Life synagogue were carrying out the demands scripture placed on their consciences, scriptures that command Jews and Christians to care for the “stranger” or “alien,” and to love the stranger and remember that we were once strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19)   The killer who decided that they should die for their support for immigrants was carrying out a mission based on fear and hatred.

The synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh is yet another example of the fury and bigotry on the fringes of our society. It reminds us of other active shooter incidents--some of them in houses of worship--that have horrified many of us in recent years.  It challenges us to consider the troubling frequency of mass shooting events in our nation in comparison to almost every other nation in the world.

The Pittsburgh massacre came days after the arrest of a Florida man, who allegedly sent more than a dozen pipe bombs to two former presidents, a former Secretary of State, and prominent Democratic elected officials and leaders, as well as a wealthy Jewish philanthropist-- all of whom have been singled out and named as evil and enemies, as well as CNN.  These pipe bombs put at risk the intended recipients, postal employees, and everyone who came near the packages.

We’ve heard very little about an apparently racially motivated shooting near Louisville, Kentucky a few days ago. A white supremacist tried unsuccessfully to enter a predominantly African-American church before he entered a Kroger market nearby and killed Maurice Stallard, who was there buying poster board for his 12-year-old grandson’s school project-- shooting him in front of the grandson. Then he went out in the parking lot and shot Vickie Lee Jones.

Friends, our thoughts and prayers are not enough.

So, on this Reformation Sunday, what do we hear the Spirit saying to us?

            In a blog entry a few years ago, Diana Butler Bass wrote of the Protestant Reformation movement:  “It strikes me as interesting that those who followed the teaching of the new reform movement did not come to be known as “Reformists.”  Rather, the moniker that stuck was “Protestant.”  Luther and his associates were protesters rather than reformers—they stood up against the religious conventions of the day, arguing on behalf of those suffering under religious, social, and economic oppression.

            These religious protesters accused the church of their day of being too rich, too political, in thrall to kings and princes, having sold its soul to the powerful.   The original Protestants preached, taught, and argued for freedom—spiritual, economic, and political—and for God’s justice to be embodied in the church and the world.” 

The early Protestants believed that they were not only creating a new church--  but that they were creating a new world,  one that would resemble more fully God’s desire for humanity.  They weren’t content with the status quo.   They felt a deep discomfort within.  They knew things were not right.  And they set out to change the world.”[4]        

Long ago God spoke through the prophet Isaiah:  “I am about to do a new thing.   Now it springs forth.  Don’t you perceive it?”[5]

I believe God is working to do a new thing in our time.  I believe that this is a time of new reformation--  re-formation,  and that God is working to create a new church,  in and through us.   I believe that God wants to use us as instruments of justice and reconciliation in the world.

So—on this Reformation Sunday, as we look around at the world we live in and see things that are not right, we can be glad that we are freed for a great adventure of faith.”

            For some of us, this might mean writing letters to our elected officials, demanding they stop using divisive language, and work for civility and unity. For some of us it might mean contacting local synagogues to offer condolences and support. For some of us it might mean committing to work with a local interfaith or anti-violence or anti-racism group. For some of us it might mean organizing supper conversation groups that bring people with diverse views together to bridge differences and promote understanding.  Some of you may have other ideas.

            There are ways to disrupt and dismantle racism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, Islamaphobia, ableism-- all the systems that divide us and distort our life in community and as a society.

            In the words of our Presbyterian “Brief Statement of Faith:”   “In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.”[6]            

            In this ship we call the Christian life, we will go through some storms.  But we don't need to be afraid, because we know that Jesus is with us.  

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 28, 2018

        

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[1] https://www.history.pcusa.org/history-online/presbyterian-history/reformation-sunday/reformation-sunday-2018

[2] Ibid.

[3] Alan Bean, “Silence in the face of evil: learning from an obscure schoolteacher who urged Karl Barth and other theologians to stand in solidarity with the Jews in Nazi Germany.”  https://baptistnews.com/article/silence-in-the-face-of-evil-learning-from-an-obscure-schoolteacher-who-urged-karl-barth-and-other-theologians-to-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-jews-in-nazi-germany/#.W9SapidRf-Y

[4] Diana Butler Bass, “Putting the Protest Back in Protestant” (October 28, 2011). http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dianabutlerbass/2011/10/putting-the-protest-back-in-protestant/

[5] Isaiah 43:9

[6] “A Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), 1990.

"Hard to Imagine:" A Sermon on Matthew 16:21-28 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Crosses for pilgrims to carry as they walk the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem

"Hard to Imagine"

Matthew 16:21-28

One minute, Jesus is telling Peter “You’re the rock on which I will build my church” and the next minute he’s calling him “a stumbling block.”  Can you imagine? Maybe, as David Lose suggests, that’s the difficulty. Peter couldn’t imagine. 

            In last week’s gospel lesson, Jesus asked his disciples who the people were saying he was, and they repeated what they’d been hearing: that Jesus was one of the prophets. Then Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God!”  And Jesus sternly commanded the disciples not to tell anyone he was the Messiah.

            Many Biblical scholars believe that when Peter declared that Jesus was the Messiah, he was imagining a warrior-king, like David-- who would drive out the Roman occupiers and liberate the Israelites. When you think about it, that’s a reasonable hope. The Romans were foreign occupiers. They imposed Roman law, and they taxed the people to pay for the occupation.  They enforced the occupation and taxation by violence. So many people hoped that God’s Messiah--the “anointed” would set them free from the Roman Empire, transform the world and set things right.

            The problem with Peter’s expectation isn’t that it’s unreasonable--but that it doesn’t really change anything. Rome is holding Palestine by force and violence. If Jesus were a warrior-king, he would have to use greater force and violence to drive them out. Eventually, another empire with even more force or willing to do even greater violence could come along and take over. So, who’s in charge might change-- but the cycle of force and violence keeps going.

            Jesus knows this.  In his preaching and teaching about God’s kingdom of forgiveness, mercy, and love-- rather than retribution, violence, and hatred-- he’s challenging the powers that be.  And he’s challenging their understanding of how the world can be, if God’s will is done.

            Jesus tells his disciples that some of their religious leaders will inflict great violence upon him and kill him. When you step back and remember the gospel story, it isn’t surprising that Jesus was killed. From the time of his birth, Jesus was such a threat to the rule of force and violence that Herod was frightened “and all of Jerusalem with him.”[1]. Herod was willing to slaughter all male children under the age of two in and around Bethlehem, to try to destroy the one who might someday replace him as Rome’s puppet king. Herod counted on the chief priest and scribes to cooperate with his agenda and that of the Empire.

            Peter hears all this talk of suffering and death. Clearly, this isn’t what he’s imagined or hoped for. He’s sure this is no way to be the Messiah or to successfully build the kind of organization he had in mind, so he takes Jesus aside and rebukes him.   “Listen, Jesus, this can’t be what God intends for you. There must be a different way. Our deliverer is supposed to save us from our enemies and rule the nations with power and might.! That’s what we thought we were signing on for--not a cross!”

But Jesus turns and looks at his disciples, and he sternly rebukes Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then he says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” 

             

            Can we imagine what that means? What does that look like?  I think it looks different in different times and contexts.

            Many of the leaders of the movements to abolish the slave trade and the institution of slavery in Great Britain and the United States were Christians who felt called to speak truth to power, to work for the cause of God’s justice for all.  Those who were part of the Underground Railroad and helped fugitive slaves to escape to freedom faced personal danger and legal consequences.

            During the most terrible years of World War II, when inhumanity and political insanity held most of the world in their grip and the Nazi domination of Europe seemed irrevocable and unchallenged, a miraculous event took place in a small Protestant town in southern France called Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death.  The story of “how goodness happened” there is told in a beautiful book entitled Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.[2]

            Also during World War II, ordinary Danish Christians who saw their Jewish neighbors being rounded up by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps… and responded by ferrying many of them by night to safety in Sweden.

            These people knew that taking up the cross and following Jesus would be a way of sacrifice and risk.  And yet, in the book about what happened in Le Chambon, when villagers were asked about what they did, they were rather matter-of-fact about it. The people needed to find sanctuary and safety, they were able to work together and do it, and they seemed to do it with hope and confidence. Someone even shrugged their shoulders and said, “It was our hobby.”

            A few months ago, I re-watched the movie “Selma”, which shows how the march to Selma, along with the larger struggle for civil rights was filled with confrontation and suffering and sacrifice. And yet the theme song sings of “Glory.”

            Why?

            I agree with David Lose when he says, “Precisely because we find glory—and for that matter power and strength and security—only in those moments when we surrender our claims to power and strength and security in order to serve others.”[3]

            I think we know this--though sometimes we forget and need to be reminded.  Every time we let ourselves be vulnerable to the needs of those around us…every time we give ourselves in love to another…every time we get out of our own way and seek not what we want but what the world needs, we come alive, we are lifted up, we experience the glory of God made manifest.

            We do this most naturally as parents, sacrificing all kinds of things in the hope of caring for our children. But we also do it as friends and partners and neighbors. 

            But sometimes it’s hard for us to believe or to imagine.  It’s counter-cultural. So much in our culture wants to make us believe that we’ll be secure and happy if we have certain things. But none of the things on offer has the power to make us feel more complete or accepted or loved. The only thing that does is connection to others, in community, and a purpose beyond ourselves. And this requires sacrifice.

            The good news is that--when we move beyond being preoccupied with ourselves and look to the needs around us, and others begin to do the same, we discover more life and joy and acceptance and love than we could have imagined.

            And so, we work to feed the hungry at the school down the street and in our region and throughout the world.  We send help to those whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Harvey. We pack bags of school supplies for needy children. We work to dismantle racism and other injustices. We do these things because the needs are great. But we also do these things because we need to do them, as we follow Jesus on the way of the cross… as we set our minds, not on human things, but on divine things.         

             

            On both of my pilgrimages to the Holy Land, we walked the Via Dolorosa-- the way of the cross.  Near the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, I saw a group of crosses propped up against a wall, where pilgrims could take up a cross and carry it as they walked the Via Dolorosa.

            Paul Shupe suggests that perhaps what we need is a multitude of crosses, one for each of us, at the doors of our sanctuaries, to be taken up as we return to the world of home and family, work and commerce, service and play—symbols of the call to discipleship that we have heard-- for us to accept anew.[4]

            When we prepare to celebrate the Lord's Supper, we proclaim one of the great mysteries of our faith:  Christ has died.  Christ has risen.  Christ will come again."

            We believe in a God who is powerful to overcome sin and death in the resurrection.  We believe in a God who keeps promises.  We believe that, in the fullness of time, Christ will return.

            If we really believe in the resurrection, deep in our bones, it changes the way we see everything.   When we pick up the cross and follow Christ, there may be darkness and death on the road.  But we know that the darkness does not overcome the world, because we have God's promises.           

            The cost of discipleship seems high.  And it is. 

            But we have Jesus' promise:  Those who lose their lives for his sake-- will save their lives. 

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 3, 2017

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[1] Matthew 2:3-4.

[2] Philip Halle, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, 2008.

[3] David Lose, in “The Theory of Everything,” at http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/lent-2-b/

  

[4]  David L. Bartlett; Barbara Brown Taylor (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Kindle Locations 2623-2625). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.