Community, Not Commodity--May 1, 2025

Community, Not Commodity--May 1, 2025

"To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.  Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen." (Revelation 1:5b-7)

What we have from God through Jesus is not merely a product called "salvation" or a commodity called "eternal life." No, what we have is a new identity--a new kind of belonging in a new kind of community--that makes us stand out in the midst of the world's tired old rat race.  We are not just cogs in a machine or contributors to the Gross Domestic Product.  We are not perpetual competitors in a never-ending game of King of the Hill (or its modern-day streaming-service equivalents, the Hunger Games or Squid Game), doomed to fight and claw at each other forever.  We are a holy people. We are a kingdom of priests.

At least, that's the way the writer of Revelation describes us, the community of Jesus' disciples, in this passage that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship.  We are "a kingdom, priests serving God." And, of course, John of Patmos (the writer of Revelation) didn't invent that idea himself--he's just borrowing it from the Torah, when the nation of freed slaves had been brought through the Sea and God declared to them at the foot of Mount Sinai, "You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6).  The book of Revelation borrows that same way of thinking to talk about the community of Jesus' followers, too.  We are meant to stand out in the world--which is really what "holiness" is all about--and to present an alternative way of being in the world that runs counter to the dominant way (the rat race, the you-are-just-your-possessions mindset, the cog-in-the-machine way of living).  And even that holiness, that unique way that we stick out in the world, is a gift of God's creation in us.

That was true for the freed Israelites, too.  God called them "a holy nation," not because they already had a track record for moral purity or rigorous virtue, but simply as God's creative power can make us into something new, like speaking light out of darkness in the beginning.  God calls the Israelites to be a holy people, a "kingdom of priests," not in the sense of putting on airs of religiosity or acting "holier-than-thou," but in the sense that they were meant to embody God's own character of justice and mercy.  As a people, their practice of compassion for those who suffer, of provision for vulnerable people like "the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner," and of loving God over material wealth was supposed to set them apart.  The recurring theme of the Hebrew Scriptures is that the surrounding nations are supposed to see the unique ways that the Israelites live and to be compelled to want to be a part of it.  The surrounding nations will all stream to Jerusalem and want to learn the ways of God's people, and to share in their covenant of justice and mercy.  That's what it is supposed to mean to be a holy nation and a priestly kingdom--not just that perform a lot of religious rituals or put on shows of piety.  It's not about declaring a national religion--it's about living together, as a community of God's people, according to the peculiar character of that God.

And even though the ancient Israelites often did a pretty poor job of living up to that calling (like we still do), the vision is still compelling, and that vocation is still there for us as Jesus' followers.  We are called to stand out in the world, not by our faith-themed accessories or bumper stickers, but by leading lives that reflect the character of the God we know in Jesus.  We will stand out against the powers of our day like the first-century Christians were called to stand out in contrast to the crookedness and brutality of the Roman Empire.  We will be different because we won't just be interested in getting more money or more power, and we won't just be chasing after the newest, the latest, or the flashiest of the "next big thing."  We will be willing to love more than just our own little group--you know, to be unusual the way Jesus is unusual.  We will refuse to return evil for evil, the same way Jesus does not answer violence and hatred with more of the same.  And we will not dedicate our lives to the alluring idols of our day (whether the pull of more money, the lure of social media popularity, or the persuasion of demagogues), but rather to the way Jesus.  That's what it looks like for us to be a holy people. That's what it means to be a "kingdom of priests."

What are the ways you and I might be called to stand out from the crowd today?  What might we walk away from--and what might we run closer to?  What will make us seem unusual in the eyes of coworkers, neighbors, and strangers who take a look at our lives and wonder about us?

That's the question to ask ourselves.  How will other people see the difference it makes that God has called us and made us to be a countercultural community... a holy people... a kingdom that reflects God's character?

Lord Jesus, let us stand out as your people in the midst of a world tired of the same old games.

The Pledge--April 30, 2025

The Pledge--April 30, 2025

"John, to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before the throned, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth." (Revelation 1:3-5)

Over twenty centuries, church folk have come up with some great titles for Jesus, and boy, do we know how to sing 'em.  We call Jesus "King of Kings and Lord of Lords," or "Good Shepherd" or "Son of God," all of which we have just pulled right out of the Bible.  We get creative, too, and sometimes a little poetically alliterative, with titles like "Royal Redeemer" or "Suffering Servant," and again, they are all on solid biblical ground, too.  But among the lesser-known, less-frequently-used titles for Jesus are these two that come to us from the opening greeting of the book we call Revelation, in a passage that many of us heard in worship this past Sunday.  And I'll guess that because we aren't as used to hearing them, we may not quite know what to make of them or what they mean.  So let's take a closer look and a deeper dive, shall we?

As the writer John of Patmos (we don't know if he's the same or a different John from the original disciple of Jesus, since it's a common name) opens with a greeting in the name of God, he refers to Jesus as both "the faithful witness" and "the firstborn of the dead."  And it's those titles that might be unusual to us.  But both of them are important in the ways that they point us ahead to God's new creation and our wider hope for the restoration of all things. And maybe, if we can hear those titles for Jesus alongside the familiar ones we know from Handel's Messiah, we'll be reminded of just how wide and big a hope we have been given in Christ.  

When John calls Jesus "the faithful witness," he's echoing Jesus' own words to Pontius Pilate, "For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice" (John 18:37).  Jesus is a witness--and in the Greek of John's Gospel, it's clear that the word "witness" is related to the word "testify"--of how the universe really looks within the Reign of God.  He doesn't just talk about that reality, though; he enacts it, embodies it, and makes it real.  And Jesus is faithful in the sense that he lives out the Reign of God even when it is difficult, even when others bailed out on him, even when the crowds turn against him and the religious and political powers conspire to make him disappear.  Jesus remains faithful to the way set out in front of him--the way of God--even to the point of death.  And in a world where we are used to people letting us down, disappointing us, flaking out when things get difficult, or backtracking when it turns out that all their big talk was empty hot air, Jesus stands out as a faithful witness.  He doesn't give up on the vision of God's Reign when others turn against him, or even when we bail out on him.  His whole life is a promise--a pledge--that God's Reign will come in its fullness, even though it comes unexpectedly by way of a cross and a borrowed grave. That's at least part of what it means to call Jesus "the faithful witness."

The other title John of Patmos uses points even more clearly to new creation.  When he calls Jesus "the firstborn of the dead," it is again a reminder that Jesus' resurrection is not the end of something, but the beginning.  The resurrection of Jesus is a guarantee--again, a pledge, you might say--of more to come.  To call Jesus "firstborn of the dead" is not only a title of prominence and honor (like so many ancient cultures put on the firstborn child of a family), but to point to the "birth" of others.  And ultimately, that's the promise of the resurrection: because Jesus has risen, we shall rise.  Because he lives, we will live.  We are siblings--brothers and sisters of the new creation--and our place in that restored universe is assured because he is risen.  Like the ancient Israelite practice of offering up the first fruits of their harvest as a sign that there was more to come, Jesus is the "firstfruit" of the resurrection, embodying the promise of God that we, too, will be raised to new life.

All of this is to say, once again, that Jesus' resurrection has done something to change the universe.  God's new creation has begun through Jesus' resurrection from the dead, and it points ahead to the assurance that God's victory is accomplished, and that death does not get the last word.  The disciples in John of Patmos' day needed to hear that, because the headlines of the day certainly gave the impression that the rotten empire and the crooked authorities would rule forever (in fact, that was one more of their imperial slogans: "Eternal Rome," which announced an endless golden age run by Caesar).  And over against all the empire's propaganda, Jesus "the faithful witness" and "the firstborn of the dead" was a living promise that God's Reign would still outlast it all and make all things new.

I suspect we need the same assurance today, too.  So when you need it, hold onto these words from Revelation. The one we confess as Lord and Savior is also the faithful witness of God's in-breaking Reing and the firstborn of the resurrection promised to us all.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage and assurance that come from knowing you are risen and that you bring God's Reign among us.

An Act of Double Transformation--April 29, 2025

 An Act of Double Transformation--April 29, 2025   

[Peter and the apostles said to the authorities:] "The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him." (Acts 5:30-32)

There are two transformations revealed in this short little passage, and you don't want to miss either of them.  This scene, which concludes the reading from Acts that many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, is the end of Peter's response to the authorities who wanted to silence the apostles and keep them from talking about Jesus (or how the religious and political powers had conspired to get rid of Jesus without a fair trial or due process).  And of course, Peter uses this as a moment to do precisely that: this appearance before the authorities becomes another chance to defy their decree, and he reminds everybody about what had been done to Jesus, and what God had done through that grave injustice.

And in that moment, both of the amazing transformations occur.  But it can be easy to miss them, so let's back up.  The first is a rhetorical move: the cross has become a tree.  Okay, this might seem like a bit of inside baseball, but let me unpack it.  In the book of Acts, when followers of Jesus refer to the crucifixion or death of Jesus, they almost never use the word "cross" which did show up back in the Gospel of Luke (part one of the story), but instead use a word that means either "wood" or "tree."  Now, of course, both are fair words to use.  A cross is typically made of wood, or could even have been an actual tree that was used to string someone up (the Romans weren't picky about their brutality), but the connotations are profoundly different.  The word "cross" only suggests death, shame, cruelty, and capital punishment in the first century Roman Empire.  It conveys the horror, the travesty of injustice, and the imperial sentence of death.  But a word that can mean "tree"?  Well, that's different. A tree is alive.  A tree might become a shelter for other creatures in which to find safe refuge.  A tree calls to mind the Genesis story of the Tree of Life.  A tree, in other words, suggests that what the Empire wanted the death of Jesus to mean was not what God ultimately said about the death of Jesus.  What the religious and political powers of the day intended was for the crucifixion of Jesus to be the end of him--to silence him, to snuff out his message, and to make a public example of him, as if to say, "If you step out of line, we're coming for you, too, just like this."  But when Peter and the other early church leaders call the instrument of Jesus' death a "tree," it carries with it the sense of saying, "Look how God transformed an instrument of death into an element of life!"  The cross itself becomes the beginning of God's new creation, and in part it starts with this act of faithful imagination--to see the cross not as a sign of the empire's power or the grip of death, but as the sapling out of which new life arises.  That's the kind of transformation God is up to.

And that very same act--Peter's brave and bold response to the authorities who had tried to silence him--marks the second transformation in this scene.  Peter himself has been transformed in the wake of the cross and resurrection. This is the same Simon Peter who had denied even knowing Jesus back on the night of his arrest.  And this is the same Simon Peter who, along with the other disciples, were all holed up inside a locked room even on the evening of the first Easter Sunday, because they were captive to their fear of what would happen to them if they spoke up. Something has clearly happened to him.  Something has clearly changed these formerly fearful fishermen and made them into audacious apostles.  The resurrection happened.  

That's the thing that the book of Acts wants to show us: on this side of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit, we are transformed.  We, the followers of Jesus, are no longer bound to being chicken-hearts trapped inside our own fear.  We don't have to be silent when the authorities tell us to stop calling them out or when neighbors are being harmed.  We don't have to avoid talking about how Jesus has made the difference in our lives to reorient us away from self-interest and toward the good of all in the Reign of God.  We don't have to stay afraid, because the One who raised Jesus from the dead and turned a dead cross into a Life-giving Tree is the same One who turns fearful deniers of Jesus into fierce witnesses of Jesus.

Could we dare to imagine God doing that with us... today?

What might we gain the courage to do or say?  What might be transformed... in us?

Lord Jesus, transform us in light of your resurrection.

Faithfully Rebellious--April 28, 2025

Faithfully Rebellious--April 28, 2025

"When the temple police had brought the apostles, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, 'We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name [of Jesus], yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man's blood on us.' But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than any human authority'." (Acts 5:27-29)

Sometimes the best way to love God and to love my neighbor is to follow directions.  Things like stopping at a stop sign to make sure I don't hit any pedestrians, or paying my school taxes because I want kids in my community to have a good education, or not watering my lawn if the local government issues a drought warning.  I may or may not like doing any of those actions, but I can accept that they are ways of loving my neighbors, and thereby loving God who cares about the common good.

Sometimes, however, the best way to love God and to love my neighbor is to defy directions, refuse to comply with the authorities, and to resist unjust rules or laws, not for the sake of being stubborn jerks, but because the rules or the rule-makers themselves are in opposition to the way of God.  

Faithful disciples discern the difference between those two kinds of scenarios and are willing to respond either way, depending on the situation.  And, to be very honest, it is often hard to do that well--both to known whether you are in an "obey" or a "disobey" situation, and then if it is the latter, to be brave enough to say NO to human authorities and to be willing to bear the consequences those authorities may inflict on you for defying them.

To be clear, the Bible is actually full of examples of people who knew when to say NO to the powers of the day, even if we tend to assume that most of the time, good or neutral rules are to be followed.  It's not just this one scene from the book of Acts, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, although this is very much a story about knowing when obedience to God means disobedience to government officials.  But stretching back to early in the Biblical record, it's the Hebrew midwives defying Pharaoh when he instructed them to kill the baby boys born to the Hebrew mothers (because Pharaoh was afraid that "those foreigners" were getting too numerous and might overpower his regime).  It was prophets like Nathan standing up to King David and calling him out for his abuse of power and his abuse of Bathsheba, or like Amos standing up to the priests and King of Israel when they were more interested in glorifying the nation's prosperity than in doing God's will or practicing justice.  It was Elijah getting into trouble with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, even when it meant fleeing for his life and becoming Public Enemy Number One.  And it was Daniel being willing to defy a royal law from King Nebuchadnezzar, even at the cost of being thrown into the lions' den, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing to bow down to a golden statue of the king, even though the penalty for disobedience was to be thrown into the fiery furnace.  All of this is to say that Peter's declaration, "We must obey God rather than any human authority!" is not an isolated outlier in the biblical witness, but stands in a long line of faithfully rebellious practitioners of what the late John Lewis used to call "good trouble."

We might add, today, that in the past two thousand years, that tradition of holy troublemaking has continued when faithful disciples of Jesus have been brave enough to say "No" to the powers of the day in order to say "Yes" to loving God and neighbor.  From early Christian converts from the Roman army who would no longer conquer or kill for Caesar and refused to obey orders from their commanding officers, to agents of the Underground Railroad whose faith led them to help the formerly enslaved to escape to freedom, to families like that of Corrie ten Boom who helped hide Jewish families when the secret police tried to round them up, to the marchers at Selma or the boycotters of Montgomery, there is still a longstanding tradition of Christians prayerfully discerning that there are times they must refuse to comply.  

In this particular scene from the book of Acts, Peter and the apostles had been healing the sick and casting out evil spirits, and that got them arrested (the charges would have been something like "disorderly conduct" or "disturbing the peace").  The temple police ordered the apostles to be silent and not to mention Jesus anymore (or the fact that the Religious Leaders had been partially responsible for helping the Romans to get rid of Jesus), but instead, Peter says, "We must obey God rather than any human authority," because in fact (see Acts 5:19-20) God had sent an angel to tell Peter and the gang precisely to continue speaking about Jesus and healing in his name.  Peter knew that faithfulness to God meant defiance of the authorities--even these ones who claimed to be speaking for God themselves.  Peter knew not only that it was an act of loving his neighbors to heal them of their sicknesses in Jesus' name, but also that it was an act of love to tell everyone about Jesus, including to call out the authorities who had conspired to make Jesus disappear after sham court proceedings and no due process. 

Like I say, though, the real challenge in the life of faith is discerning when it's a time to follow directions (stop signs and speed limits), when it's time to resist and defy them (worshipping golden statues or when the secret police come to make your neighbors disappear), and what to do about the times and situations that fall somewhere in between.  Part of our hope is that we do that discerning together, and nobody has to do it alone. Part of our hope, too, is that we believe the Spirit is moving among us and will prompt, prod, and provoke us.  But we can never quite let ourselves off the hook not to ask those difficult questions.  Living with those challenges, and finding the courage when we believe the Spirit is leading us to defy the powers of the day, is indeed a part of the Christian life, going all the way back to the first generation of disciples like in this story.  So maybe today it's worth simply asking, in prayer and in conversation with others we trust, what are the kinds of situations we need to be ready to say "No" to the powers of the day, and what we might be called to do, to endure, or to say, when that happens.

There's a line I've seen floating around the internet over the past several years; maybe you've seen it, too. It's a quote of Stephen Mattson, who points out that "Sometimes being a good Christian meant being a bad Roman" and therefore it is worth asking whose reign someone is living into if they find themselves in opposition to the orders of the day.  If we find ourselves asking that question in our own lives, it means we are in the good and brave company of Peter and the rest of the apostles, even if it isn't always easy to be there.

Lord Jesus, let your Spirit give us both the wisdom to know how to respond to the situations and directives we are given on this day, and the courage to listen to your voice even when it means rejecting the voices of other loud voices around us.

The Re-Invention of Everything--April 25, 2025

The Re-Invention of Everything--April 25, 2025

"I am about to create new heavens
  and a new earth;
 the former things shall not be remembered
  or come to mind.
  But be glad and rejoice forever
  in what I am creating...
    Before they call I will answer,
  while they are yet speaking I will hear.
  The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
  the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
  but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
 They shall not hurt or destroy
  on all my holy mountain,"
 says the LORD. (Isaiah 65:17-18a, 24-25)

This is where the world is headed, if we dare to believe it: not the obliteration of everything in a fit of divine wrath, but the renewal and reclamation of all things in a stroke of divine creativity.  The resurrection of Jesus is a foretaste of that new heavens and new earth.

This passage is part of a larger reading from the end of the book of Isaiah and many would have heard it in worship this past Sunday (it is one of the alternate options in our Revised Common Lectionary used by many traditions), and I hope it's clear why this would be heard alongside the story of the empty tomb and Paul's insistence that "in Christ all will be made alive."  This is one more angle--a poetic one--on the same truth revealed in the Easter story and in Paul's theologizing; namely, that the resurrection of Jesus is not a one-off, but the beginning of God's long-promised "new thing." God has begun, through the resurrection of Jesus, to renew everything in the entire universe--every last quark and gluon, every slime mold and blade of grass, every colossal squid and blue whale, and the whole of humanity as well.  Anything smaller than that kind of scope is settling for too little.

And, what's more, to hear the poet of Isaiah 65 tell it, is that God is not merely interested in rebooting the same old destructive and death-dealing relationships and enmity we had been trapped in. God is in the process of rewiring reality in such a way that wolves and lambs will no longer be cast as predator and prey; oxen will no longer need to fear lions, and we will not need to live in hostility with one another anymore.  That will require a reinvention of everything, quite honestly, and yet somehow we will be ourselves--in truth, we will be even more fully ourselves than we ever have been in this world full of meanness and spite.

Now, in response to a vision like that, there are bound to be some reservations, or at least serious questions.  One goes like this: "All this business of wolves and sheep lying down together, or lions eating straw, it sounds downright unnatural! And if nature is good, then unnatural is wicked, evil, depraved... maybe even abominable!"  That's an important point to resolve.  While we Christians would affirm that God has indeed made the universe, and that all of creation is good--and maybe even further, that we cannot imagine what a world that did not depend on death (one being eating another being for survival) would look like.  Again, a fair point: I can't really imagine how the universe would work if it weren't kept running by the power of death and disintegration (the Second Law of Thermodynamics and all, right?).  But just because I cannot imagine something does not mean it is impossible--it may just mean that my imagination is shriveled and stunted, and the very thing I need in order to be able to envision God's future is to hear these daring words of the prophet.  Maybe exactly what we need is to listen to these words and to say, humbly, "I don't know how God is going to remake the world such that we don't kill, threaten, or eat each other, but then again, I don't know how God accomplishes a resurrection, and my hope is built on that impossibility, too." Maybe the poet in Isaiah 65 isn't here to draw us a diagram but to give us a dream. Maybe his job is to get us questioning every voice that says "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and that's just the natural order of things. No way to change it--you can only play the game."  Maybe the prophet is here to get us to realize the world doesn't have to be this way--that is, we do not have to continue to live by violence, war, and domination. We do not have to accept that "this is the way it is," and we do not have to give in to that way of ordering the world.  God certainly hasn't.  That's what the resurrection is all about.

Here's another response I often hear in reaction to Isaiah 65's bold vision of a new heaven and a new earth: "Well, if God is just going to make everything new all over again, why bother taking care of this planet right now?"  Again, I get where the question is coming from, but that seems a little like saying I'm going to wreck the Christmas present in front of me now because I can see that there is another present still waiting for me under the tree.  This world is a gift, entrusted for our care, stewardship, and yes, savoring.  And if our hope is grounded in resurrection and transformation, then it's not a matter of God switching out an old broken earth with a new and different shiny one--it is a matter of God renewing creation in its entirety.  After Jesus dies, God doesn't make his body evaporate and then present us with a replacement messiah, like some well-meaning parent getting a new identical goldfish for his kid to replace the one that went fins up in the fishbowl.  God resurrects the previously dead Jesus, wounds and all, and transforms him so that he is somehow the same Jesus and also now glorified.  If that's what renewal and resurrection look like for Jesus, that's our hope for all creation as well.  At no point should we look for God give us a thumbs up to trash the Earth because we can just fly to Mars instead--rather, we should listen to what God has already called us to do to take care of the world of which we are a part, while also hoping for God's renewal of all that we have done to harm the world.  Christian hope is never meant to be escapist; it is meant to be both a daring commitment to love the world as it is enough to repair and mend it as we are able, as well as a confidence in God's power to transform everything until, as the apostle says, "Christ will be all in all."

That's the hope.  Nothing less, for certain.

Where we have been settling for too small or too narrow a vision, let the prophet's words here drive a wedge into the closing door to widen our faithful imagination. Let us not settle for anything less than a world in which wolves and lambs are reconciled and no one is afraid anymore, in which bombs do not rain down from the sky on children, in which petty tyrants no longer try to conquer more land or annex more territories into their empires.  And then let us step today in action to anticipate that world ahead of time, like the resurrection of Jesus is a sign of where all the world is headed.

Lord Jesus, make all things new.  Begin with us.

A New Kind of Humanity--April 24, 2025

A New Kind of Humanity--April 24, 2025

Peter began to speak to [the people]: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:34-43)

Long story short, the resurrection means God is making a new kind of humanity, not defined by a common language, culture, skin color, geography, ethnicity, or nationality, but gathered in the risen Jesus.

Now, that might seem to be a pretty big leap.  How do we get from "The tomb of Jesus of Nazareth the Jewish rabbi was found empty three days after his death" to "All tribes, ethnic groups, and nations are being welcomed into the people of God now"?  Even if you remember hearing these words read this past Sunday in worship (as many of us did this past Easter), it might not seem obvious.  So let's follow Peter's train of thought and see what's going on, because it really is an astonishing claim.  To hear Peter (and honestly, the rest of the New Testament) tell it, the resurrection of Jesus is not just an amazing one-time miracle for Jesus, but in fact the beginning of a whole new creation... and a new kind of humanity.

This moment from the tenth chapter of Acts is one of those "Aha!" epiphanies for Peter--yes, the same Simon Peter who had been a fisherman before Jesus called him to be a disciple, the same one who had denied even knowing Jesus on the night of his arrest, and the same one who had been rehabilitated to become a leading voice after the resurrection and the Spirit's outpouring at Pentecost.  Peter had been led by the Holy Spirit to bring the news of Jesus to a Roman centurion named Cornelius, someone who would have been ethnically non-Jewish (he was from the "Italian Cohort" and was Gentile) and also an officer in the army of the enemy occupying empire.  Peter practically had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this arrangement, because he had been taught from his childhood on up that there were good and righteous people like him, and there were unclean and unrighteous people like THEM, just as there were clean and unclean foods. But when he finally gets to Cornelius' house and tells the whole household the story of Jesus' death and resurrection and the growing community of his disciples, the Holy Spirit descends on Cornelius and his whole family, and they all come to faith in Jesus and are baptized on the spot.  And in that whole scene, Peter realizes that God had been the One orchestrating the whole meeting, and that it had been the Holy Spirit provoking him to share the story of Jesus with this Gentile foreigner, even in spite of his resistance.

That leads to the literal exclamation on Peter's lips: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation everyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him!"  And then he proceeds to trace all the steps of that realization--how he had witnessed Jesus' ministry, healing, and preaching "peace," how Jesus had been put to death, how he rose from the tomb, and now how he had been sent by the Spirit to bring the invitation to everyone the Spirit sent across their path that they could be a part of the Jesus-community.  And that's when Peter gets it: the same Spirit who worked throughout Jesus' life and ministry was now the same One actively leading him to Cornelius, and surely the Holy Spirit knew full well that Cornelius was one of "those people"--those outsider Gentiles with the "wrong" background, language, culture, nationality, and heritage.  It was the Spirit of God who had empowered Jesus and then raised him from the dead who was now reaching out to include all kinds of people in the disciple-community, so who was Peter to argue with the Holy Spirit?

And that's really when it began to dawn on the whole early church that the resurrection of Jesus was actually the beginning of a new kind of human community.  Once it was clear that the God of resurrection was the same One gathering in outsiders along insiders to become followers of Jesus, they understood that the church was meant to be different: we were a community defined, not by the sameness of our DNA or a common set of geographic borders, but from all tribes, nations, cultures, places, and peoples.  Belonging did not require same-ness any longer, and there was no language requirement or color line for membership.  It was downright revolutionary, and it was happening, right before Peter and Cornelius' eyes.

This is the community we have been brought into: the church is a people that includes every culture, speaks every language, recognizes no national borders, and honors every ethnicity, race, skin color, and hair texture, because God has it in mind gather folks from everywhere.  Unlike the empire of which Cornelius was a part (and thus unlike every empire ever since), the community called church doesn't require one group to dominate everyone else or to put itself over all the rest. The church is designed by God to be genuinely diverse, inherently inclusive of people from every nation and language, and committed to the equity of welcome to all those whom the Spirit draws.  It is a foretaste of the new creation where every nation under heaven finds a place at God's table. It is meant to be the beginnings of a new way of being human--together.

Any time we reduce the Easter story to being just good news for Jesus, or tell ourselves that the promise of resurrection life is just for "me and my group," we sell the Gospel short and miss what Peter finally realized.  The good news of Easter doesn't end with a Sunday morning, but pushes forward into God's future, in which all peoples from all places will find that they belong.

Who might that lead us to welcome today?  Who might we need to make the effort to invite and include?

Lord Jesus, make of us your new humanity, as we are, while we trust we will become your new creation.

God's Protest Against Death--April 23, 2025

God's Protest Against Death--April 23, 2025

"Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death." [1 Corinthians 15:24-26]

You know, it's not really a surprise that the first Christians kept getting rounded up by the Empire and then thrown in jail or fed to lions. At least if any of the rest of them sounded like Paul here. Paul is downright subversive--the Romans were right to see his voice as a threat to their unquestioned rule... even if he was never looking to launch a violent coup or lead an army. We just don't often consider the real weight to the apostle's words here.

Paul clearly says that Jesus' victory is not riding the coattails of Rome, or through an endorsement of Caesar. In these words that many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, Paul says that at the last, every ruler, every supposed "authority," and everyone who wields "power" will finally give way to the Risen Jesus. And to first century ears, that was a direct assault on the claims of Rome, which insisted that it would last forever in an eternal dominion (personified for the Empire by its worship of the goddess "Roma Aeterna," who was a sort of embodiment of the supposed "greatness" of the nation-state of Rome).

Let me say that again so that we do not miss the point: in Paul's day, the official policy of the Empire was that the nation-state of Rome was to be worshipped as divine, and official messaging from the Empire was that Rome's rule would last forever. So when Paul comes along and says that Christ will ultimately be victorious over every ruler and authority and power, it cannot have been heard as anything less than a protest against the supremacy of the dominant nation-state of his day, and against the ruler at the top who boasted so much about its greatness.

This is a really decisive move for Paul, because he doesn't just say that God reigns "through" Rome, like a behind-the-scenes puppet-master pulling the strings. Paul doesn't say here that everything Rome does gets God's endorsement, nor does he say that criticism of Rome is criticism of God's appointed ruler. (We can spend time on another day with Paul's comments in Romans 13 about the governing authorities being used by God to restrain evil and limit the dangerous of chaos, but at least here in 1 Corinthians, Paul is not afraid to say clearly that no authority or ruler carries equal ultimacy with Christ.) Instead, Paul says that no matter how the letterhead changes from one empire to another, as the power of one nation-state after another goes into the dustbin of history, no matter who came on the scene yesterday or who comes on the scene tomorrow, none of these powers deserve our ultimate allegiance, and none of them will outlast the crucified-and-risen Christ.

And then, in what I am coming to see is Paul's greatest slap in the face to "Eternal Rome" and its Caesar, he undercuts all of Rome's propaganda by saying that the real kingpin to be dealt with at the last is death itself. Paul realizes that Jesus' victory is not simply to replace one empire (Rome) with another (even though Christians tried to do that with what they called "Christendom" or in things like "the Holy Roman Empire" or in the modern-day heresy of Christian nationalism). Jesus' victory goes deeper than just picking off Caesar. The empires of history, and the emperors who have ruled them, are really just the henchmen of the real heavy-hitting Power to be dealt with--death itself. Rome, Babylon, Assyria, Pharaoh's Egypt, and all the rest...they have just been the hired muscle that Death has used throughout history. But make no mistake about it--death has been the real Power underneath all of them. Death gave those empires--and every other empire since--their ability to threaten and coerce. After all, what Rome, Babylon, and the rest did was to intimidate their subjects into obedience on pain of death--do what the centurions say, or else they can string you up on a cross! And every empire and dominant system ever since has basically made the same threat. But death has been the real enemy all along. Without the underlying power of threatening death, no one would listen to Caesar or Pharaoh. But with that power, empires spread, and people get stepped on.

So Paul cuts through to the real contest--not between Christ and Caesar, but between Christ and Death Itself. That's got to be humbling if you are Caesar getting wind of this letter--it's almost like Paul is saying, "Christ isn't even going to waste his time taking out Caesar; he has bigger fish to fry, and Caesar is just too small a guppy to worry about." Paul knows that Caesar and his reign will come to an end, and that Rome and its boasts as a nation-state and empire will fade away in time, too. But the real power to be reckoned with is the power of death--and that, Paul says, is precisely what Jesus has come to deal with.

Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of the end of every other claim of ultimate power, because Jesus' resurrection shows that every empire and every emperor who makes the threat, "Do what I say, or else..." cannot stop or silence Jesus. The resurrection is a defiant "No!" to Rome's insistence that Jesus stay in the grave, and it is also a shot across the bow to death itself, warning that the power of death is coming unraveled, too. As Jurgen Moltmann wrote, "Christ's resurrection is the beginning of God's rebellion. That rebellion is still going on in the Spirit of hope, and will be complete when, together with death, 'every ruler and every authority and power' is at last abolished....Easter is at one and the same time God's protest against death, and the feast of freedom from death."

All these centuries later after Rome, it is tempting to think we are smarter, wiser, more pious, or otherwise different from the Empire of Paul's day. But the temptation to worship our own national power is just as real, just as alluring, and just as strong. The letterheads, change, but it is the same old impulse to bow down to "Roma Aeterna" in a different outfit and to worship the nation-state. Paul reminds us here that history's empires and nations come and go, and none of them is ever really as permanent as it imagines itself to be. But that is because death is a fickle and cruel mob boss who always turns on its henchmen. And then Paul tells us that the real power to be worried about--death itself--has its days numbered, too. And that the victory in which we hope is not merely Jesus over Rome, but rather Jesus over death itself.

That notion is potent stuff. If we took it seriously, we Christians might just become anew the world-changing, love-embodying, truth-telling movement that the Romans thought we were at the beginning. We are a part of God's rebellion against the tyranny of death and all of its minions. We are a part of God's protest against death.  We are the leading edge of God's new creation, where death is no more.

Go. Now. Tell the world that death does not get the final say.

Lord Jesus, let us take confidence and courage from your resurrection, and give us strength in our voices to remind the powers of death they do not get the last word... ever.

The Gospel According to Neil--April 22, 2025

The Gospel According to Neil--April 22, 2025

"If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ." [1 Corinthians 15:20-23]

It's like walking on the moon.

Or, more accurately, it's like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.  Because I didn't go to the moon--but Neil Armstrong did.

You recall, certainly, those famous and historic words of Armstrong's from July 20, 1969, as he and Buzz Aldrin put their feet on the dingy gray dust of Earth's natural satellite: this moment was both "one small step" for an individual climbing down a ladder, and yet this was also "one giant leap" for all of humanity. And of course, it was just that: this was the first time our species had touched down on another world with our own feet... and yet it happened through one person's actual, tangible, boot-covered feet. Simultaneously, Neil Armstrong's actions were his own... and in a very real sense, they were all of ours. They were the promise, you could say, that there would be more footsteps on the moon, more humans in space visiting more worlds, more missions going boldly where, as a certain TV show put it, "no one has gone before."  The Apollo astronauts even left a plaque on the moon saying explicitly "We came in peace for all mankind."  The language might be a little dated, but the sentiment holds up: the moon landing was meant to be a promise made for all of us--a first step that in some sense included all of our species.

And indeed, that is just what has begun to unfold, even if it has been a while since any of our kind have visited the moon in person, and even if it will be a good long while before any of us venture any further to Mars, or Europa, or beyond. There were, in fact, more boots on the moon, and more members of humankind who ventured out into its dusty craters. Armstrong had it exactly right.

At the time, of course, nobody for a second thought that Neil Armstrong's footprints on the Sea of Tranquility were "just" his, as if he were there simply as an individual tourist. Everybody knew as they watched that Armstrong was going there, in a sense, for all of us. Certainly Americans watched with pride as they saw one of their own nation stepping down from the ladder. And at the same time, people all over the globe saw Armstrong, not simply as an American astronaut, but as a human being--one of what we all are. In a very real sense, Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon transcended all the boundaries of nationality, language, culture, and politics (remembering that when he walked on the moon, there was still a Cold War of Western democratic capitalism versus Soviet-style authoritarian communism raging back on this planet). Armstrong himself described that step, not just as a step for "all Americans," but for, in his word, "mankind." By his own description, this was bigger than one country, one ideology, or one group. It was for all of us, even if some down on Earth watching the footage on their TV screens would have considered an American their enemy. Whether the Soviets, for example, liked it or not, Neil Armstrong's walking on the moon was for all of us, and it was a promise that more feet would follow his in this strange new country where you could see the Earth rising off the horizon in the distance. In a sense, to see the treads left by Neil Armstrong's boots there in the lunar dirt is to see our own footprints on the moon.

The resurrection of Jesus, according to the New Testament, is rather like that. Easter is never seen as simply "just" good news for Jesus. The resurrection of Christ means our resurrection as well. Jesus goes into the far country of death, into the void like an astronaut navigating the inky blackness of space, and Jesus reaches the solid ground of resurrection life, not just as an individual traveler on his own, but as the vanguard for all of humanity. He is, to borrow Paul's image (which is itself a riffing on the agricultural images of the Old Testament), a "firstfruits" of the dead--the one whose presence is a sign, a promise, a foretaste, assuring that there is more to come. Christ's resurrection is the pulling of a thread in the very fabric of death, and once it has been tugged on, the whole shroud will unravel. In a sense, you could say, in Christ's resurrection, all of our lives have been caught up as well. To see Jesus' nail-marked footprints walking out of the tomb is to see our own resurrected steps as well.

That is what Paul seems to be getting at when he insists that "as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ." God's intention in raising Jesus from the dead was never just to give Jesus a pat on the back and a fatherly "Attaboy, Son..." but to break death's power over all of us, so that even though Jesus was the first one raised to life from death, he would not be the only one resurrected. The point of the Apollo program wasn't just to get one astronaut to the Moon and then stop, but to open up the way for humanity to step out into the final frontier. And the resurrection of Christ is the same, according the New Testament: it was never just about getting one crucified rabbi out of his borrowed grave, but about opening up the way for all humanity to cross the darkness and step into resurrected life.

So what? Well, for starters, when I find myself worrying in the sleepless nights about what waits for me in death, I no longer have to look at myself for answers. I don't look to myself, to my accomplishments, to my list of "good" actions (or how it compares to my list of "bad" actions), to my church attendance, offering totals, or prayer life. I don't even have to look at how strong or deep my faith is--it's not about me, but it has always been about Jesus.

And second, all of this talk means that I never, ever, get to write anybody else off in this life. I never get to say (or even think) that So-and-so is too wicked or mean-spirited or different or sinful or anything else for me not to treat with grace and hope... because they, too, are caught up in Jesus' resurrection. He died... for them. He was raised... for them. As sure as I want to claim that Jesus died for me and rose again for me, I have to also grant, too, that Jesus did it for the people I least like, the people I least respect, the people I fear the most, and the people I scorn and detest and look down on, too. Neil Armstrong brought all of humanity to the moon with him, even the citizens of countries in competition with the United States--that's what made his steps "one giant leap for mankind," in his words. And Jesus gathers up all of humanity, whether I like it or not, in his death and resurrection.

And last, this means that I no longer get to see other people as the "real" enemy. The ultimate enemy, Paul says, is not "those people," but rather death itself. After all, while it may well have been the competition sparked by the "Space Race" and the Cold War that pushed the Apollo missions to put someone on the moon, the real challenge was the quest to cross the dark chasm of space itself. Jesus' resurrection was not intended to pit us against one another and declare a winner--it was the crossing of the dark chasm of death itself.

All of this places the resurrection of Jesus into a much bigger frame than we usually want to put it into. It's not just good news for Jesus, and it's not even just a ticket to the afterlife for me or my team. It is about the redemption of humanity, and the gathering up of all of us, across our many divides, our pet hatreds, and our deep-rooted fears, into one.

Those footprints on the moon--they are Neil's, and they are all of ours, because our common humanity has been brought across the eternal night of space there. And because there is no air or wind on the moon, there those bootprints will stay. And just the same, the footprints of Christ that lead out of the tomb carry all of our humanity with him into resurrection life, too.

Lord Jesus, grant us to see all that you have done, and all that you have gathered to yourself in your resurrection. Let us share in your risen life.

Death Is No Longer the Sheriff--April 21, 2025

Death Is No Longer the Sheriff--April 21, 2025

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." (Luke 24:1-5)

Okay, on the one hand, these angels come off as pretty tone deaf from the words they speak to the grieving women at the tomb of their rabbi.

On the other hand, maybe it's not that they are aloof or emotionally unaware at all--maybe they are just taking a new reality seriously, and it's taking these mourners a bit longer to catch up.

That is to say, the "two men in dazzling clothes" are clearly already in the loop about the resurrection of Jesus, so they know precisely why his body isn't laying in a grave.  Jesus is currently walking around in that body, alive, risen, and loose in the world!  These angelic messengers are already living in that awareness. It doesn't make sense to them that you would look for Jesus in a graveyard any more than you would look for a butterfly to be hanging out around the broken shell of its old chrysalis.  To be honest, that's the one place you wouldn't expect a butterfly to be any longer--it should have flown off to some new place, right?  These angels aren't trying to be callous or uncaring. Rather, they just know more facts (or are taking seriously the facts that Jesus had been trying to tell his followers before his death, but that surely they were not ready to understand at the time), and they are simply responding to the world in light of that new information: Jesus is risen from the dead. Death has been overruled.  It no longer gets to call the shots.  That changes everything.

Now, that's not at all to suggest that the women are somehow at fault or unbelieving as they come to the tomb on that first Easter morning.  They came expecting to find a dead body because that is what they have experienced every other time their lives have been touched by death before--it was final, unchangeable, and irreversible. (The two sure things in life, they say, are death and taxes, right?) They come to the tomb expecting a stone still in front of the opening and the deceased body of their Lord and friend to be inside, because the last information they had told them that his body was there, and they had no reason to believe that all of a sudden the rules of the universe had changed on them.  And to be sure, that is exactly what is at stake in this story: a change in the rules of the universe, as Jesus breaks the power of death itself!  That sounds as hard to believe as if I suggested to you that they were repealing the law of gravity tomorrow, or that beginning next month, hot will now be cold and left will now be right.  So to be fair to Mary and the other women at the tomb, they are simply responding to the world in light of the most current information they had at the time: Jesus had died, and dead people stayed dead, so they should expect to find his body behind the stone where they had left it.

It's amazing how a new piece of information can completely change the way you see the world or make sense of reality.  To the women, it made total and terrible sense to look for the body of their rabbi in the grave where they had seen it placed back on Friday night, because the best information they had at the time told them he couldn't possibly be anywhere else.  And to the angelic messengers, it made absolutely no sense to look for Jesus in a graveyard because they had the vital new information that he was alive and kicking.  Each was making sense of reality based on the information they had at the time.  It turns out that the angels just had a little bit more current news--and the very reason they are there in this scene is to pass it along to the women... so that they can pass it along to the rest of the disciples... so that eventually, someone can tell it to you and me.

I can remember, years ago as a young pastor still getting used to the rhythms of parish ministry, going to the hospital to see someone I had been visiting there.  And as I turned the corner to step into the room where I had seen them just the day before, I found the room empty, the linens stripped from the bed, and the cleaning staff wiping down the tray table and bagging up the trash.  When I asked about the patient I was there to visit, the staff person at first just said, "They're no longer here."  Well, of course, my first fear was that the patient had died and I didn't know it--I panicked that "no longer here" was a hospital euphemism for death.  But I thought I should double check, so I went to the nurses' station a bit down the hall, and they told me, accurately, the good news:  the patient had been discharged earlier that day and was going home--they were well enough to go home, after all!  For a brief moment, I felt like the women at the tomb of Jesus in this scene--feeling a sorrow in my gut because the information I had suggested death rather than life.  The nurse and the cleaning staff, of course, knew the truth the whole time--so they weren't sad or grieving when they said the patient was "no longer here." They were seeing the world in light of more information.  And in passing it along to me, I could then make sense of the world with the fuller picture and the better facts.

In a lot of ways, I think that's what it is to live in light of the Easter story: we are people who make sense of the world differently, because we have learned the truth that Jesus' grave is empty, that death does not get the last word, and that we no longer have to be ruled by fear by those who use the threat of death to intimidate.  We make sense of reality differently, because we have been told the news that the angels brought to the women, which the women bravely passed along, too.  And in light of the news of the empty tomb, everything is different.  It really is like gravity has been cancelled--or at least, like saying that the Powers of the Day who claim to control who lives and dies, who disappears behind a locked door or a sealed tomb and who gets to come back again, those Powers do not get the final word.  God reserves the right to veto the powers of death and the empires who wield it as a weapon and to bring back not only Jesus but all of death's prisoners.  God reserves the right to issue a ruling that overturns imperial overreach that tried to keep Jesus dead and tries to keep us despairing.  Christians are simply people learning how to make new sense of the world in light of that reality.

And so, for example, early Christians defied the Roman Empire when it threatened them with torture or death if they would not bow down to Caesar or do Caesar's bidding, because they knew that the worst the empire could do was to kill them, and the God of resurrection could overrule their death by raising them up to new life.  In other times and centuries, Christians formed communities to care for the sick, even at the risk of becoming sick themselves (we now call these places "hospitals," and yes, in a sense, Christians invented the notion of a public place for the care of the sick that was open to any and all), and they did this because they believed that even if they died caring for others, God was able to give us new life.  Flash forward to moments like the Civil Rights movement, and you see it again--protestors, marchers, and activists willing to have the dogs turned on them, or to be beaten by the authorities, or to be lynched, or even risk being bombed and killed, and for many of them, their hope was in a God who would not let such evil get the last word.  When you have the perspective of resurrection, you are no longer hamstrung by fear of death in the same way.  When you see the world in light of an empty tomb and a broken Roman seal on the stone, you realize that the bluster of empires ancient and modern is really just a lot of hot air.  When you take the word of the angels seriously, you discover a courage that leads you to tell the news, to defy death, and to be free to give yourself for the sake of others because death itself doesn't get the last word.

That's why the angels ask the women, like it is the most obvious thing in the world to them, "Why would you go looking for the living among the dead?" They are beginning to see the universe in light of the resurrection, and that's what they give to the women as well.  And now, you and I have it as well. There are things we do not need to be afraid of anymore.  There are things we can be free to dedicate our lives to now, without becoming consumed by anxiety that death is the end of the story.  And there are people around us aching to be set free from the grip of fear, waiting for a reason to see life with some hope in spite of all the terror and grief around the world.  Maybe we are sent today because the women all those centuries ago were brave enough to receive new information and then to pass it along--and maybe someone else is waiting for us to bring them the news: Jesus is risen from the dead, and death is no longer the sheriff in these parts.

Who might that be?  How might we be changed with that news ourselves?

Lord Jesus, change our vision in light of your resurrection.

For Good Friday--April 18, 2025

For Good Friday--April 18, 2025

"...he was numbered among the transgressors..." (Isaiah 53:12)

For whatever else it means, the cross of Christ signifies God’s choice to befriend all who are unjustly accused and wrongly detained, but also to be counted among all the guilty and even those rightly accused, which is to say, with all of us sinners.

At the cross, God takes on every power, from human empires and cowardly authorities to the pull of sin and the grip of death.

The Crucified God defies all of these, in order to say “Yes” to us all.

The Last Lesson--April 17, 2025

 

The Last Lesson--April 17, 2025

"After Jesus had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you." (John 13:12-15)

This is Jesus' final teaching, and he knows it.  Here, on this Holy Thursday, mere hours before the authorities arrest him and detain him unjustly on false charges, Jesus uses his last moments with his students to teach, by example, that leadership looks like serving, and that greatness requires humbling oneself.  It is worth noting that, of all the things he could have discussed but didn't, of all the questions he could have answered but left hanging, of all the topics he could have issued official decrees about but decided against, he centers his disciples' last classroom experience on a towel and basin to wash their feet.  In this act, Jesus crosses the boundary that would have separated Respectable and Refined Folks from the enslaved and most menial of laborers. Jesus chooses the most shameful, grubby, lowly chore of the household and imbues it with tenderness, love, and dignity as a final lesson to them.

You might already be familiar with the practice in many colleges, universities, and institutions of higher learning for a departing or retiring professor to give a "last lecture."  Maybe you remember, too, the popular book from a few years back by Randy Pausch, which went by the same title, and encapsulated his "last lecture" to students as he faced the late stages of a terminal diagnosis.  Whether because of sickness or retirement or whatever other circumstances, a "last lecture" is supposed to be a set of parting lessons to a student body--usually it's open to anyone at the institution, and it's usually meant to be a summary or capstone of whatever this professor wants to commend to young learning minds.  One would expect that the content of a "last lecture" is going to fit with the character they modeled in their career, as well as the important ideas they contributed to their discipline.  Teachers giving a last lecture also typically want to take one final opportunity to shape the way they will be remembered or to burnish their legacies.

So what does it mean that when Jesus knows he is in a "last lecture" sort of situation, he doesn't brag about his greatness, pontificate in lofty language, or succumb to mere sentimentality, but simply scrubs the calloused feet of the disciples who will do a heel turn on him before the night is out?  What does it mean that Jesus, who knows the secret police will take him away on trumped up charges without a fair trial, doesn't use these final minutes to run away or stir up his disciples to fight with weapons when the lynch-mob comes, but instead goes about his business pouring water on their muddy toes?  What does it mean that Jesus' ultimate lesson is an act of self-emptying service rather than ego-stroking braggadocio?

Well, honestly, it means that what Jesus has been saying and doing all along in his life, teaching, and actions is still all true.  That is to say, when Jesus washes his disciples' feet, it is completely in character for everything else Jesus has done and said all his life long.  He has been talking from his first public words about God's way of lifting up the lowly and how his mission is to serve rather than be served, and now in this last lecture, Jesus still embodies this same way of life, this same mission, and this same vision of the Reign of God.  It means that the act of washing feet is not an exception to the rule, or a one-off oddity in the way of Jesus, but the defining key signature of the whole song that is his ministry.  This was Jesus' chance to give any other final directions or course-corrections to his fledgling movement. This was Jesus' opportunity, if had needed or wanted one, to turn his movement into a militia, charge his disciples to "take back their country for God," or seize the throne and wield power over his enemies. He does none of those because he has exactly zero interest in any of those approaches. Instead, Jesus chose to pour water in a bowl and wash the feet of the same ones who would bail out on him--or betray him. This is Jesus' sort of revolution.

And here's the other thing we can't avoid from Jesus' last lesson: this kind of servant love--that even includes Judas the betrayer and Peter the denier--is meant to be our way of life as well.  We don't get to say, "How quaint that Jesus did this for his disciples, and for us. But that's because he's the Savior of the world. We don't have to do that weak-looking humble serving stuff, because that's just not how the real world works."  Jesus explicitly says that his act of washing feet is meant to be an example, a model, for us.  He blazes the trail and we walk the same path as Jesus--because there is no way to call on Jesus as "Lord" for us to worship without also understanding he is "Teacher" for us to follow.  So if we are going to be disciples of this particular Lord and Teacher, it should be clear what we will need in our hands: not larger piles of cash, not the levers of political power, and not the weapons of the empire, but the towel and basin of the footwashing messiah.  This is our way in the world... because it is Jesus' way in the world.

If you find yourself in worship this Maundy Thursday, and you hear the invitation to come forward to let your feet or hands be washed as an echo of this ancient story, I would invite you to take it.  Let someone serve you and wash your feet.  Let someone be vulnerable for your sake as you are vulnerable for theirs in allowing them to wash your feet.  But also see in that moment Jesus' complete rejection of the usual way the world does business: Jesus has no interest in conquering people, killing enemies, or insulating himself from suffering in a lavish palace or opulent country club. Jesus has no need to intimidate his opponents or to make those seen as "undesirables" disappear. Instead, he lights a fuse on an explosive new way of living in the world that will destabilize and defy all the powers and empires of history: he commissions us to serve rather than to subjugate.

Jesus has given us his last lesson.  What will we do with it?  What will we learn?

Lord Jesus, be our teacher as well.  Instruct us in your way of serving, and shape us in your love.

The Right Question--April 16, 2025

 The Right Question--April 16, 2025

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross." [Philippians 2:3-8]

The right question is not, "What gives ME an advantage?" It's not even, "What gives the advantage to MY group of like-minded individuals?" either.

For the followers of Jesus, the right question is, "What is for the good of others?" because that is Jesus' driving question first.  And if it is Jesus' core concern to seek the well-being of others (even before his own), then it is also God's deepest concern as well.

And to hear the apostle Paul tell it, using these words many of us heard back this past Sunday in worship, that question is the only way to understand the real meaning of the cross of Jesus, as well as our way of life following him.  Jesus goes to the cross as the ultimate expression of not seeking his own interests first, but rather seeking the interests of others--a whole world full of us, sinners that we are--before his own. Jesus didn't stay safe.  Jesus didn't keep himself comfortable.  Jesus didn't stop his mission at the point it became inconvenient, dangerous, or painful.  He continued to seek our well-being, even when it meant pouring himself out completely.

For Christians, then, this is our new way of seeing the world and acting within it.  This is what it means to "let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus," as Paul put it.  I think that needs to be made clear here, because sometimes churchy folks reduce the idea of having a "Christian mindset" to avoiding swear words or bawdy jokes, or memorizing Bible verses, or scowling and scolding everyone else for not being good enough, or contemplating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.  But Paul doesn't see this as a matter of abstract theologizing or dour moralizing, but of love as our guiding principle.  To "have the mind of Christ" is to love in such a way that we put others' interests before our own--and not merely a select group of others who are in MY group, or my family, or my town, or my country, or my ethnic group, or my political party.  It is to seek the good of all, even including strangers, neighbors you don't get along with, and enemies--because that is precisely how Christ has loved us, even at our worst.

It is worth noting that this is non-negotiable in Paul's view.  He doesn't envision some sort of two-tiered Christianity where the elite saints receive halos for special levels of Christ-likeness while the rest of us get to wallow in our same old selfishness.  Neither does Paul let us off the hook for this kind of other-centered love because Jesus has already done it for us first.  We should be honest about this, especially us Protestants.  Sometimes we talk about how Jesus "paid it all" and "took our place" in such a way that we sound like we're saying "I don't have to love others selflessly, because Jesus already did that perfectly. I just get to put my name on his paper and hand it in as my own."  But that is literally the opposite of what Paul says here.  He does affirm that Jesus has already loved us wholly and completely, to the point of laying down his life for us and putting the interests of the whole world before himself.  But Paul takes that as the starting point for us--that very same mindset becomes our own.  We are called to embody the same kind of love, not in order to earn love from Jesus, but precisely because we are already the recipients of such love.  But there is no version of Christianity where I get to say, "I get God's love, and therefore I don't have to care about THOSE PEOPLE." There is only the inverse: "Because we have been loved by God, we are learning to love all, which means putting the interests of others--including "THOSE PEOPLE"--even before our own."

All of this may seem obvious, at least to read from the actual words of the New Testament. But we need to be clear about this because I find very frequently Respectable Religious Folks balk at this "others first" thing the moment it becomes real and concrete in an actual situation of daily life. When it comes to our money, our time, our resources, or our comfort we start to get stingy and slide back into that same old "You've gotta look out for Number One!" mentality that the world still wrongly calls common sense. We start making excuses for why THEY don't deserve our help, or why THEIR concerns just aren't as important as our own. We start inventing reasons why others should be disqualified for care, help, or even just basic human decency.  And very frequently, we end up pitting the well-being of others against our own, as if it life is a zero-sum game, and then we tell ourselves that, "It's either us or them in this situation. What do you expect--that I lose my good position so that someone else can have it?"  And of course, yes, that is exactly what Paul has in mind--simply because he has been paying attention to Jesus.

Yes, in other words, we are called to put our lives on the line for the sake of helping others whose lives are at risk.  Yes, we are called to offer up our comfortable situations, our reputations, or our resources, for the sake of others who are in need.  Yes, we are called to choose the roles of servant-leadership and selfless love, rather than treating the world like one giant corporate ladder to be climbed toward success.  We do those things because we have been loved in that way already, and Jesus' love does something to us.  Jesus' love makes us into his likeness, even as it embraces us precisely as we are, and even when we are pretty much stinkers.  Later this week, many of us will sing that beloved old hymn, "My song is love unknown, my Savior's love to me--love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be."  That's just it: we have been met in all of our loveless self-centeredness, precisely as we are, but that love does something to us.  It turns us inside-out, or rather, it meets us when sin has bent us inward on our selves and pulls us right side out again, as we were meant to be all along.

The next time you and I catch ourselves thinking, "Why should I care about THAT person, when I don't even know them?" or "THEY don't deserve my help or concern, because they are not worthy of it" before we rattle off a list of excuses (especially ones spoon-fed to us by talking heads on TV), it is worth it to hear these words of Paul's from the letter to the Philippians.  Maybe we will discover we've been asking the wrong question for so long we forgot it was possible to ask a better one.  Maybe the cross of Jesus will re-shape our minds to find the right question and to answer it with our hands, feet, and hearts.

Lord Jesus, shape us by your cruciform love to think, speak, and act in ways that look like yours.