Mark 9:40-45

“Rabbi, it is good that we are here…” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Yes Peter said it, but the words defied reason! “Tis good, Lord, to be here.” But there was no evidence in his sight to suggest such a thought. Peter was terrified. The words just kind of fell out of his mouth.

The communion of saints had suddenly ceased to be a pious abstraction. It was right there on the mountain. And they could see it! Jesus. Moses. Elijah. Peter. James. John. The saints of heaven, the saints of earth, together around Jesus. And Peter was terrified. So terrified, he didn’t know what he was saying. “It’s good to be here!”

Ah, but faith knew! Faith knew and declared what Peter’s own senses denied. It was good, very good, to be there. But until the Son of Man was raised from the dead, Peter didn’t know how good it was! Until Easter, well…all of this was just too weird.

It would have been for us as well. Oh, we may accept that one day we will go to join the saints of heaven, but we too would get very uncomfortable with the saints of heaven coming to join us, especially if they joined us visibly! We’d be as terrified as Peter.

Tis good, Lord, to be here. That’s what Faith says this morning…even if our senses may say other things. It is precisely these other things of our senses that clearly remind us how the communion of saints on earth, how our life in this world, always remains simul iustus et peccator, simultaneously saint and sinner. That’s not just Martin Luther’s nice, pious phrase. We can see the reality of it.

The Church on earth makes the headlines because of its scandals. The next moment it’s in the news again, going nose to nose with the President. And maybe we’re afraid of where it will all lead. Maybe we don’t much care. Yet faith says, “Tis good, Lord, to be here.”

Today is another gathering of our congregation. Perhaps our own sinful nature has been tempted this morning to forego this weekly gathering in order to pursue our own little kingdoms. We’re ambivalent. We’re annoyed. Sometimes angered. Rarely frightened. Yet faith declares, “Tis good, Lord, to be here.”

Even in our state of Wisconsin…having endeavored for so long to be the progressive light of the world, we’re discovering that we have attracted a lot of bugs. Suddenly there’s so much opportunity, but so little consensus on what to do with it. And some are afraid. And some are angry. Some demonstrate noisily. Some maneuver surreptitiously. Yet in all of it, despite all of it, faith still declares, “Tis good, Lord, to be here.” Faith declares what is denied to sense.

Oh, it would be easy and understandable in the present hour for the American Church to retreat into what it does so well these days—entertain—while Rome burns. That would be understandable as life in this world seems to have entered a long, dark Lent of an unknown length of time…with many a fearful cross standing between us and the kind of Easter in which all the pieces fall into place, some future day when everything comes together with the clarity of hindsight. There is so much now to fill disciples with fear!

Our Transfiguration hymn which we sang before the sermon this morning, strikes me as a bit ironic. “O wondrous type, O vision fair.” It’s a gutsy hymn! But the words of this hymn are set to the tune of the Agincourt Carol that comes from the days of the 100 Years War, back in the late 14th and early 15th Centuries.

England’s Henry V successfully hacked and slashed his way to victory over the French. The original text of this tune sings, “Our King went forth to Normandy, / With grace and might of chivalry, / There God for him wrought marvelously, / Wherefore England may call and cry, / Deo gracias Anglia redde pro victoria! (Thanks be to God, England, for the victory!)” Jolly good, what!

But we sing that ancient battle hymn today, because a much greater than Henry goes before us. Yet our King goes forth from the mountain of Transfiguration with a grace and might of a very different, hidden sort of chivalry. But what Christ hath wrought by His dreadful fight upon that greater St. Crispin’s Day we call Good Friday, oh, it is marvelous indeed. Deo gratias! Thanks be to God!

And yet…it must be said, the day of victory is not yet. Yes, on the one hand, the victory is now, ours now, as Easter has taken place in history. But at the same time, not yet ours, in all of its fullness, not yet for us the new heavens and earth, not yet for us the resurrection of the dead, not yet for us we saints without our sin, not yet for us the final Easter.

So now…now we disciples fear. Now we scowl. Now we rage. Now we entertain. Now we don’t know what to say. But faith knows. Faith always knows, and faith declares what it knows. Despite our own senses, we find the words spilling from our mouths, “It is good, Lord, for us to be here.” Together in the congregation called St. Peter’s, together with so many, many more in the communion of saints through time and eternity. It is good to be here!

And particularly, though we say it with more difficulty, it is good to be here in this time, in this place in history, with all that is unfolding, fearfully, in this time and place. Because here and now, despite what our senses tell us, despite whatever makes us afraid, despite any number of other emotions…here and now is the Christ with whom the pieces fall in place, the Christ in whom everything always comes together. And that is so good. Deo gratias! Thanks be to God…Christ has won for us the victory!

 Amen

Mark 1:40-45

Our Reading today appears to be a short and simple episode about healing. It is short…but simple, it is not. In this short story Jesus is approached by a leper whom He heals. Jesus sends the leper back to receive the certification of the priests that he is indeed clean and able to re-enter uninhibited public contact. And this former leper now begins spreading the word about Jesus.
The problem with this is that Jesus had commanded him to remain silent about what had happened. And by his disobedience to Jesus’ command, whatever the man’s motive may have been, the man’s disobedience makes it impossible for Jesus to go openly into the towns of Galilee.

The scene opens with this leper who falls on his knees, asking Jesus to heal Him. “If You will, You can make me clean.” Then our translation notes that Jesus is moved with pity. Sounds simple enough. Sounds like Jesus. Except…that in some key manuscripts of St. Mark’s Gospel, the word here is not “pity” or “compassion.” Some manuscripts have the Greek word for “anger.” Jesus is moved to heal, not out of pity for the man, but out of anger. Now that’s a whole different kettle of fish!

This alternative reading is reinforced by the language of the story when, after Jesus has healed the man, “He sternly charged him, and sent him away at once.” St. Mark’s language is rather strong in that verse. Literally, the words mean that Jesus “snorted” at the recently healed leper. The Greek word expresses great distaste or anger. St. Mark uses that word only one other time when the Twelve disciples scold the woman who had “wasted” her money by anointing Jesus with her very expensive ointment.

But it’s easy to understand why the Twelve would be angry, and why they snort at that woman. They didn’t get it. They didn’t understand what she was doing in preparation for Jesus’ burial, as He said. But why would Jesus be so angry at the leper? What’s more, adding to the puzzlement of Jesus’ reaction, the verb used in that sentence says that Jesus “cast out” the healed leper. He threw him out!

It’s the same verb used earlier in this chapter, when the Holy Spirit drove out Jesus from His baptism, cast Him out into the wilderness to be tempted. It’s the same verb used to describe Jesus’ actions with demons. So Jesus shakes his head in anger, snorts out a reply, and throws the healed leper out, demanding that he tell no one how he came to be healed. It’s so un-Jesus like!

Now had Jesus been doing an exorcism, this kind of reaction might have been expected. We know that later in the Gospel, when Simon Peter rebukes Jesus for even thinking about going up to Jerusalem if it means suffering and death, Jesus’ reaction to Peter is also harsh…very harsh. Jesus links Peter’s misconception with Satan. And as He does with demons, Jesus “casts out” Peter’s suggestion for the demonic thing that it is. “Get behind Me, Satan!” Oh, St. Mark often surprises us with the intensity of Jesus’ emotions…His negative emotions.

Ah, but this anger on the part of Jesus is not so much directed at the leper personally, any more than Jesus was personally attacking Simon Peter. It’s not as if by the end of this first chapter, with its frenzy of activity, that Jesus needs a good vacation, that He has grown short-tempered because of all the stress. No! In St. Mark’s Gospel Jesus’ anger is always the palpable reality of His determination against the dark powers which oppress humanity.

Now of particular interest here, is the reversal that takes place in this story. It foreshadows the crucifixion in Mark’s Gospel. The realities of the leper and Jesus are switched within a few verses. The leper who, by Law, could not enter a community without being freed from his foul ailment, now returns to his village and to a fuller role in his life. While Jesus, becoming like a leper, is suddenly unable to enter a village and is kept from His calling in life. The very reason He has come into Galilee—to proclaim the kingdom in word and deed—has now closed Galilean cities to Him.

Already with this first chapter St. Mark is showing us something about Jesus. He shows us a Jesus who is able and willing to heal all sorts of human woes, from illnesses to demonic possession. And St. Mark makes very clear, that these healings are signs of God’s kingdom come in Jesus; that in Jesus, mankind is no longer captive to the powers of evil at work in this world.

We see it in Jesus’ intense confrontations with the demons who know who He is. We hear it in His frequent insistence that it is His calling to destroy the power of evil which is so hostile to God’s kingdom. And it peeks out from Jesus’ anger.

But…by the end of this little story, St. Mark has shown us what it costs Jesus to do all of this. Jesus begins as the one who is free to wander and proclaim His message, gathering the crowds to hear it, and giving them the signs of the kingdom come. But by the end of the story, it’s the former leper who is wandering freely. The healed leper is proclaiming what the Lord has done…while Jesus Himself has become isolated.

You say, “Well of course, then, He’d be angry!” But you see, Jesus’ anger in St. Mark’s Gospel, is never directed at the people. His anger is directed at those powers of evil which have distorted human life; those powers which again and again in Mark get in Jesus’ way! Thus to make room for more and more and more people in this kingdom come, Jesus Himself is crowded out more and more and more…until He ends up crowded out of Jerusalem to the cross, giving up the last of His freedom for the isolation of crucifixion. And there too, as St. Mark does in this healing miracle, on the night of Jesus’ arrest, Mark uses the language of willingness. Jesus’ is not captive to His own desire for “the hour to pass from Him.” His will is what His Father “wills,” His Abba, Daddy.

Well why, then, does Jesus command—so sternly, so angrily—why does He command the cleansed leper to silence, as though He’s dealing with one of the demons? In a sense He is, though not the man himself, but the evil which had imprisoned that man, socially and physically, in his leprosy. Until Jesus goes to His cross, until Jesus defeats the power of evil one final time, this particular healing, like all the others, will only be an isolated, miraculous event. None of Jesus’ healing miracles have any meaning apart from the great healing for all mankind on Good Friday and Easter.

You say, “but the healed leper wouldn’t have known that!” Of course, so it’s understandable that he tells everyone what happened, even though Jesus commanded Him not to do it. It’s understandable when we, like Simon Peter, think to do our Lord a favor and end up getting in His way, dreaming up all sorts of ideas and actions which sound so pious, but which can actually detract from the Jesus who heals, who sets captives free, who suffers Himself to be crowded out onto an isolating cross.

So in St. Mark’s Gospel Jesus’ anger (if the translators don’t dilute it and perpetuate that old stereotype of Jesus as a soft figure), Jesus’ anger comes burning through again and again in this Gospel against the misguided helpfulness of His followers, but only because of the evil which is at work in that misguided-ness.

Charles Dickens, this past week’s 200 year old birthday boy, wrote in his novel, Oliver Twist, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” Like Mr. Dickens, St. Mark shows us that Jesus’ anger is not directed at the people who have become that hungry. His anger is at the power of evil which has created the slavery of such desperate hunger. Jesus’ anger is against those powers which, in these days, so enslave humankind to our own desires, that we will not let God appear before us unless He is dressed in the buffoonery of our passing fads and fancies.

So like a first century Charles Dickens, St. Mark helps his reader see that out from some rather grotesque figures…like Jesus’ in His snorting anger, like the cross…so reminiscent of Mr. Dickens’ grotesque poverty in Oliver Twist…from such grotesqueries emerge the true freedom of life and its joy which comes by Jesus Christ.

St. Mark startles us with Jesus’ anger, here and in so many places throughout his Gospel, so that having startled us, he might then lead us to that greater joy, to that freedom of life which is ours, because this startling Jesus was willing to be crowded out onto a cross.

Amen

Mark 1:29-39

What is this frenzy of busyness in the first chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel? The opening verse is hardly written and “immediately” Jesus is there in the water being baptized by John. And “immediately” He is driven out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Then “immediately” He’s calling Peter and Andrew, James and John to follow Him. And “immediately” they’re all in Capernaum, where He casts out a demon. And “immediately” they all stumble into Peter’s home, only to find Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever.

What is all of this “immediately”? A case of “so much to do, so little time”? Perhaps. But it also smacks of…desperation!

The Welsh poet, R.S. Thomas, has written a little poem called “Word.” A pen appeared, and God said: / ‘Write what it is to be / man.’ And my hand hovered / long over the bare page, / until there, like footprints / of the lost traveller, letters / took shape on the page’s / blankness, and I spelled out / the word ‘lonely’. And my hand moved / to erase it; but the voices / of all those waiting at life’s / window cried out loud: ‘It is true.’ Like so much of Thomas’ poetry, this one too seems bleak in its outlook…and yet, sunlight bursts in around the edges of his words.

There is a kind of desperation, born of cosmic loneliness, in the opening verses of St. Mark’s Gospel. Like the desperation that is not difficult at all to sense in our own present, lonely time. And who is more desperate these days than the Church?

Over the last 50 years or so there’s been a steady stream of “new and improved” ways of being and doing Church! Announced with breathless anticipation, touted with spectacular initial statistics…and then after a few years…poof!…the “best thing ever to happen to the Church” just kind of fizzles and goes away…leaving no lasting, positive impact. Desperately we jump onto bandwagons that inevitably grind to a halt.

In recent years various parts of the Church have desperately fallen all over each other trying to define a new morality. Where once, for nearly all her centuries, the Church was devoted to repentance and forgiveness, now…well…in desperation we try to say that up is down and down is up, that yes is no and no is yes.

And if we can’t do it theologically, we’ll do it politically and socially, desperately trying to catch a train that has already left the station…where once upon a time the Church wouldn’t even have tried to catch such a train going nowhere! Pure desperation.

But it’s not just the Church. There’s a note of desperation in so many of the sound bytes among the political candidates. It was there permeating the rhetoric of the demonstrations in Madison. Why, you can even hear it in the traditionally bedrock institutions of education and science, this creeping tone of isolated desperation. But is there any sunlight to burst in around the edges?

Indeed, there is! The whole setting for this chapter of frenzied busyness in Mark’s Gospel was announced back at verse 14: “Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God.”

That’s what is going on here. Jesus is proclaiming the Gospel of God. But that’s not merely the verbal thing we take it to be. Jesus is not merely going around and talking. In fact, there is very, very little talking in Mark, chapter 1. There’s the simple “Follow Me” to Peter and Andrew. No sermon about creating a missional, emerging, authentic expression of faith, just the inviting command, “Follow Me.” There’s the little, “Be silent,” which He says to the demon at Capernaum. No sermon about loving and embracing your inner demon, just the command, “Get out.”

Yet while Jesus says so very little in this chapter, He does so very much. St. Mark writes, “He healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.” And how does Jesus describe this work? “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also.” He calls it “preaching.” Everything that Jesus does here in Mark 1, He calls “preaching.”

For Jesus, preaching is a sacramental act. It’s not just saying words. With Jesus His words are doing what He says. He says, “The kingdom is at hand.” And with those words it is. With those words disciples follow, demons take a hike, fevers get banished, and diseases and sicknesses get healed. With those words heaven is breaking in upon earth. He speaks and it happens. The happening is His preaching. Tangible. Physical. Sacramental.

So…what’s this got to do with our desperation…a desperation born out of our deep cosmic sense of loneliness?

In the beginning we read, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” But Adam was alone in anticipation of the creation of Eve. We are alone because we push people away from us. So Adam was alone in hope…but we are alone in hopelessness.

Our sicknesses and our demons isolate us and push others to arm’s length and further. And it is when we are sick, when our demons of ego and pride possess us, it is then that we desperately need the company of another. But so bleak is our lot, that when we are most desperate, we push away…more strongly still.

But you cannot command human fellowship from a pulpit. You cannot program a congregation for human empathy. Entertainment cannot banish cosmic loneliness. In the words of our Welsh poet, I am left alone on the surface / of a turning planet. What / to do but, like Michelangelo’s / Adam, put my hand / out into unknown space, / hoping for the reciprocating touch?And that reciprocating touch does indeed come…although not, like Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel mural, from a God who is beyond us! The reciprocating touch comes from another Adam, from Jesus. He who is alone in the fullness of deity wrapped up in human flesh. He who is alone at the cross, where as the embodiment of every human sickness, every human demon, every thing is pushed away from Him…everything…even God.

And yet…like the first Adam…the crucified Christ is alone in hope, in anticipation of the other who will be drawn to Him by His cross, “bone of My bones and flesh of My flesh.” We are that other. We lonely, we desperate…so very alone, so very desperate that we think this is all there is.

This Jesus, this second Adam, comes proclaiming the Gospel of God. Yes, that means He speaks…but more so, it means that when He speaks the thing happens. Jesus speaks through this preacher, and His gifts happen…they are yours, because He speaks them to you—gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation, as tangible as the sound of my voice in your ears. And with His Word-spoken gifts, He touches you, and you are no longer alone.

Jesus comes with healing, laying His medicine of immortality upon your tongue, pouring you a draught of life everlasting from His cup; immortal healing as tangible as the taste of bread and wine in your mouth. He touches you; you are no longer alone.

In R.S. Thomas’ poem, the poet wanted to erase the word “lonely,” because it was too hard to bear. But Jesus, The Poet, goes to the window of life, opens it and comes to touch lonely us.

And He does. And we, here, now, have heard His sacramental Word in our own ears. We, here, now, will taste His sacramental Word with our own tongues. Which means that we, here and now…if we dare believe it…are touched by Him, no longer alone.

But…not all have heard. Not all have tasted. And not all who hear and taste, have believed. So this remains, as it has for 2000 years—this remains the mission of the Church: the sacramental preaching of Christ, who takes on flesh in us, opening life’s window that He may come, and, through us, touch and heal this lonely, desperate world.

Amen

February 2012 Newsletter

Psalm 111:12    
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

It might seem strange to some of us this morning, that a deep expression of Biblical wisdom could be found in a Broadway musical. In the case of Fiddler on the Roof, we’d be wrong to think that! Fiddler is like the heart of the Old Testament set to music!

Wisdom, in the Biblical sense, is not a cushioned life indifferent to the reality that is in and around us. Wisdom is not the fine art of serene detachment. No! Wisdom is life peeled and cored, life sliced and diced.

With wisdom comes the obligation to deal with life head on and head up, with an open-eyed, honest-hearted, courageous conviction. As Wisdom says in the Good Book, “My mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips … I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice.”

So Wisdom is not so much a gift as it is a task. Wisdom calls us to know ourselves, to squeeze out of every moment in life whatever lessons life holds for us, calling forth whatever responses life demands of us in each moment. Wisdom summons each of us to be everything we have been created by God to be.

So, then, wisdom is life lived at its most demanding. Wisdom, “the fear of the Lord,” means astonishment, wonder, awe, and, sometimes…oftentimes?…not-quite-entirely-comfortable with what God does in my life and in the life of everyone around me. And there you have, in a nutshell, the picture of Tevye and his story in Fiddler on the Roof.

Tradition! That’s the form wisdom takes in this musical. Tradition! It’s the wisdom of the ages in Israel, handed on from generation to generation. And all the laughter and all the tears that come from the story of Fiddler, come as that tradition, that wisdom, succeeds and fails in shaping the lives of Tevye and the others. The laughter and the tears come as that tradition lifts up gently, amusingly, but also as that tradition smacks down heavily, inflexibly, upon the characters in this musical. Oh, it is a moving story!

And for those with the ears to hear…for not everyone can hear it; but for those with the ears to hear, for those who know how divine Wisdom took on human flesh in Jesus, for those who know how Israel gave birth to Messiah, who know how Tradition went to the cross and died, yet was reborn new and more glorious on the Third Day…well…for us, suddenly the story of Fiddler is not merely a Jewish story, but it is a story for God’s whole Israel, old and new, Jew and Gentile alike!

It is a story for us! Us, who walk in the path of wisdom, in the tradition, the way of Jesus Christ. It is a story for us in all the astonishment, wonder, awe, and…the being-not-quite-entirely-comfortable with God’s ways in our lives. We are like Tevye, wondering why God could not part with a small fortune to ease our poverty. Like Tevye’s daughters, who face the fear and wonder of marriage and family. Like Tevye’s wife, Golde, who figures that if you just do what you’re expected to do, life should sort itself out…but then chafes noisily because life doesn’t do that.

Life is never so tidy…not for Tevye and his family, not for the children of Israel, not for the followers of Messiah. Life has a way of confusing us, blessing and bruising us. Wisdom says, “Of course it does! L’chaim! To life!” And wise is the person who has learned to lift his or her own glass of schnapps, “L’chaim! To life!”

Because there, there in our blessing and bruising, there on the circuitous path of life down which God leads us, with all of its joys and demands, there we meet Wisdom made flesh, God with us…whether we are joyful, or whether our hearts lie panting on the floor! God with us…wisdom incarnate. Holding to the past and yet always stepping into His future. Leading, prodding, pursuing us…sinking His teeth, His nails, into each of us, and yet, all along the way, giving us a new life…His life.

Ah…without Him, our Tradition made flesh, our Wisdom incarnate…without Jesus the Messiah, God with us…well…without Him, our own lives would be as shaky…as a fiddler on the roof!

Amen

Mark 1:14-20

In C.S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity, made up of radio broadcasts he made during the years of World War II, Lewis discussed possible reasons why God appeared on earth in human flesh. “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed (you might say landed in disguise) and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage…[but] why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force?”

70, almost 80, years ago now, some Lutherans in Germany formed what was called the Confessing Church. They were opposed to the direction the Church in Germany was taking, enamored as it was by the seductive rhetoric of their Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. The Reich Kirche believed that the Holy Spirit was doing a new thing in Hitler. Herr Hitler was bringing new life to the nation, and he would lift the Church from her stodgy old ways and set her on a new path of influence and prosperity.

Not everyone agreed. 25 theology students and a headmaster gathered in the Pomeranian city of Finkenwald to form a seminary apart from the Nazified Reich Kirche. That headmaster was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He and his students recognized that their life together would be an act of resistance.

Bonhoeffer wrote a little book about their experience, called Life Together. It remains a book for our time, because we are plagued by a kind of laissez faire Christianity, like the German Reich Kirche, a Christianity which goes with whatever flow is flowing. Ours is a Christianity that lacks the camaraderie, the discipline which united Bonhoeffer’s Confessing Christians, a people who knew themselves to be living under a dark shadow.

We don’t have that mentality, so we Christians today do not gather late at night in basement rooms to study the Word of God. We don’t see ourselves as insurgents, planting the explosiveness of the Gospel at the weak points in the walls of materialism and secularism, to set free the captives within. Our eyes don’t meet on a public street like members of the resistance, who recognize the flame of eternal friendship, who speak without a word, “You and I will die for this cause and join hands in the resurrection.”

No, we don’t feel like a fifth column devoting our strength to the liberating cause of Christ, and therefore our life together is not so intense. In fact, too often, it’s kind of petty. The things that exercise us today, pro and con, are often incredibly petty! In fact, all of this WWII underground resistance language sounds over the top! Ah…but then the Confessing Christians in Germany had their heritage taken from them by the Nazis…we today are giving up our ancient Christian heritage by our own volition and neglect.

Still Bonhoeffer’s words about “life together” have the ring of authenticity for us when we read them. They were written at the brink of a great cataclysm, so his words have the sound of an otherworldly commitment that we may dream about, that we may even crave, but, sadly, only a very few actually pursue.

In 1939, before the world went crashing into war, Bonhoeffer wrote in that book, “Among earnest Christians in the Church today there is a growing desire to meet together with other Christians in the rest periods of their work for [a] common life under the Word. Congregational life is again being recognized by Christians today as the grace that it is…[for] the Christian life.”

Then Bonhoeffer comes to a very profound point, a point that lies buried under the overwhelming familiarity of this story in our Gospel Reading today. He writes, “If somebody asks a man, Where is your salvation, your righteousness? he can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Jesus Christ which assures him of salvation and righteousness. He is as alert as possible to this Word. Because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he daily desires the redeeming Word….

“But God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek Him and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of [another human being]. Therefore, a Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without [betraying] the truth. He needs his brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine Word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is [far] weaker than the Christ in the Word [spoken by] his brother….” This is what Jesus is getting at when He calls the disciples to be “fishers of men.”

Now, if you have read the Gospel of St. Mark, you know that the group Jesus gathers around Him never turns into a disciplined commando unit. St. Mark is rather unkind toward the disciples, and words like “stumble” and “bumble” seem tailor-made for them in his Gospel. Even at the end, on that Passover night when Jesus tries to explain to them what is coming, and everything suddenly seems to spin out of control, they remain what they are—fishermen, a tax collector and the like—and they run away rather than face the Gestapo that comes by night to arrest Jesus.

And here is why we too are always tempted to think that the “real action” happens in some other way than Christ and His Word. Like those German Christians of the Reich Kirche back in the 1930s, we believe that God’s glory and the ways of the Word in which Jesus operates cannot be all that there is. There’s got to be something…something more, something more eye-opening, more powerful, more passionate, more bold, more innovative, more entertaining, more anything than the Word of God…if only an entrepreneur, if only der Führer would show us!

But no…Jesus sets the Word of His kingdom in the ordinary things that make up daily life, like fishermen and their nets. He goes among the people as the Word made flesh in their everyday lives. He dines with high and low. He lives and works and travels and laughs and cries with them in the sheer ordinariness of their lives…and He dies among them.

In our lives, our ordinary lives—lives that ensure there’s food in the refrigerator, that we get to work on time, that our kids finish their homework, that we find fulfilling ways to pass our time, that we just plain make it through this life. The ordinary things. What Jesus’ call to follow means is that we are to explore where His kingdom Word is breaking through, like a saboteur, into our daily lives and to point it out…if only to ourselves, as also to others.

But…to answer that call, as Peter & Company did—walking through life really looking for the extraordinary Christ in every ordinary moment—ah, that takes a lot more guts than you think. Think of what it came to mean for those first disciples in all their fear and wonder. Imagine what it meant for Herr Pastor Bonhoeffer and his students under the cruel gaze of the Nazis.

And for Peter, James and John, things would get a whole lot worse before they would see Jesus’ Resurrection. There would be storms on the Sea and storms with the Pharisees and storms among the crowds of the here-today-gone-tomorrow followers…and there would be that crucifixion.

Through all of it they learned what Jesus meant by “Follow Me” …as did Herr Pastor Bonhoeffer and his Confessing Christians also learn by their woes with the Nazis. “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

And for us…well, between the Mayans and the politicians who knows how this year will come to an end…with a bang or with a whimper?! Yet to live an ordinary human life with God’s hope right in the midst of it. To find reasons to do what we can in Christ’s name, wherever we are, rather than pile up reasons for all that we cannot do because of the present circumstances…

Can we answer the courage, the faith of the disciples who have gone before us with faith and courage of our own? Can we speak and listen to the Word of Christ with one another, look into the face of each other and see the face of Jesus Christ? Can we be His Word made flesh among us? Can we be “fishers of men”?

Can we say in the midst of ordinary days, that if there has been a divine invasion, if there is indeed an insurgency at work by the presence of Christ and His Word, that it is also occurring here, now with us? Can we, at least, admit on the basis of this Gospel Reading that this is what God wants? “Come,” Jesus said, “follow Me!”

Amen

Sunday, February 19, 2:30 pm,

The organ was designed primarily to accompany the Lutheran liturgy, but it is a versatile instrument and well-suited to the full range of recital literature. Among the pipes that have been augmented with digital voices by the Walker Technical Company are most of the ranks of the late 19th century Wangerin tracker organ that was purchased from St. John’s Lutheran Church, Madison, in the early 1960s. The three-manual instrument now comprises the pipe-and-digital equivalent of 111 ranks.

Five 32’ stops anchor the expanded ensemble, with seven mixtures and 20 ranks of strings spread through the five divisions. “Fanfare” trumpets sound from both the main gallery organ and the “floating” antiphonal in the chancel. All divisions include softer, solo reeds in a broad spectrum of tonal “color.”

John 1:43-51

Chances are really good that someone you know is a skeptic when it comes to Jesus. Chances are really good that someone you know well is a cynic when it comes to Jesus’ Church. It’s even possible that that skeptic or that cynic is you.

So think about the skeptics and the cynics you know as we turn to today’s Gospel Reading. Nathanael’s name means “gift of God,” but St. John doesn’t portray Nathanael as a likely candidate for disciple-hood. Unlike Andrew or Peter or Philip, Nathanael does not seem like someone who was just been waiting around to get onboard the Jesus train. When Philip tells him that they have found the One for whom the Jews had been waiting for centuries, Nathanael’s response is: “Meh…He’s from Nazareth! Nothing worth anything ever comes from Nazareth!”

Philip’s response to Nathanael is the best answer a person can give to a skeptic or a cynic: “Come and see!” Philip doesn’t try to build a sophisticated intellectual argument. He doesn’t call Nathanael names, “you close-minded, anti-religious bigot.” He doesn’t even try to guilt him, “Oh you really ought to give Jesus a chance. We did.” No, having said ‘we found the One we’ve been waiting for,’ Philip responds to Nathanael’s cynical skepticism with a simple, “Come and see.” Meet Jesus; decide for yourself.

With St. John’s delight for drawing connections from the Old Testament, Jesus is comparing Nathanael, “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit,” to Jacob, whom God named Israel; the cheater, the swindler, the man in whom there was so very much deceit.

In Genesis, the sibling rivalry between Jacob and his brother Esau was not as bad as that of Cain and Abel, but only because, once Jacob had cheated his brother out of both his inheritance and his father’s blessing, Jacob ran away before Esau could kill him.

But as that narrative continues we discover that God, lo and behold, has a thing for scoundrels, and He’s decided that Jacob will be the next bearer of the Promise to Abraham. Through Jacob and his descendents, not Esau, God will bring the blessing, will bring Him by whom all the nations of earth will be blessed.

But before all of that, Jacob has to “come and see.” It begins in a hard place. Sleeping on a rock for a pillow, Jacob dreams of angels ascending and descending on a ladder to heaven. Waking up he declares, “This is Bethel, the house of God, the gate of heaven.”

Well, back to Nathanael. When this skeptic comes and sees Jesus for himself, all the Lord has to do is tell Nathanael that He saw him under a fig tree, and Nathanael blurts out, “Jesus, You are the Messiah! You are the Son of God, the King of Israel.”

Jesus replies, “Oh, Nathanael…it’s gonna get a lot better than that. You are going to see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Like Jacob’s Bethel, Jesus is the ladder between heaven and earth. And at His resurrection, the angels will ascend and descend at the rock of His tomb, announcing that Jesus is no longer there…because He is the Resurrection and the Life.

So Nathanael the skeptic becomes Nathanael the disciple. He came to Jesus and saw for himself that Jesus is the Son of God, the King of Israel.

So what should we expect and how should we act toward the skeptics and the cynics who inhabit our lives? They didn’t get that way overnight. Oh yes, God can do amazing things, but God will be God. And He has a lot more experience being God than we do. A skeptic will become a believer in God’s good time. Our job is one of hope. Our job is to pray for that skeptic, for that cynic, and to follow Philip’s lead, “Come and see!”

After all, a person’s family of origin has a huge impact on a person’s life. If people have come from a family where there was a lot of God talk but not much godly action with that talk, well, more God talk isn’t going to get much traction with them. It will sound more like some sort of Ole and Lena story.

Ya, dere vas dat time, ya know, vhen Ole vas really sick. He had been slipping in and out of a coma for several veeks. Yet Lena had stayed by his bedside every single day. One day, vhen Ole came to, he motioned for Lena to come near. As she sat down by him, he vhispered vith eyes full of tears, “You know vat, Lena? You have been vith me all tru da bad times. Ven I got fired from my yob, you vere dare to support me. Ven da business I started failed, you vere dare. Ven we lost da house, you stayed right vith me. Ven I got so sick, you vere still by my side. You know vhat, Lena?” Lena leaned in close. “Vhat is it, Ole?” she asked, as her heart began to fill vith dat varm feeling. Ole looked deep into her eyes and said, “Lena…I’m beginning to tink you’re bad luck!”

Ya, vhat Ole & Lena need, what Nathanael needed, what the skeptic and the cynic still need today is integrity—a clear, tangible connection between words of faith and the actions that spring from faith…which skeptics, cynics can come and see for themselves.

If a skeptic can come and see people who pray because they believe Someone is actually listening; if a cynic can come and see people who gather together in worship each week because it is the house of God, the gate of heaven, the place where Christ bestows His gifts; come and see people who generously serve at church and out in the communities because love compels them, come and see people who are as quick to forgive as they are to repent…well, among such people the skeptic and the cynic have a tangible sign that at least here Jesus is alive and real in the lives of some people. No, that doesn’t guarantee anyone’s conversion, but it does allow those skeptics, those cynics something to “come and see.”

I was in high school at the end of the 1960s, an era that exploded with skepticism about so many long-held certainties. I remember how some of my classmates just checked out of church and never came back. Yes, like many a college student, I too had my time of skepticism and indifference. But as I think about it now, some of my classmates who left the church never really saw a genuine faith at work, in their own home, in the lives of church members, or in anyone else…so it was easy for them to abandon what they had never really seen firsthand.

I remember some kids who had church shoved down their throat so hard that they’re still choking, locked into a kind of temper tantrum with God, as if…as if God were to blame for their parents’ or their pastors’ well-meaning but…not exactly helpful…strong-armed approach to instilling the faith.

But for all the Nathanaels of this world, then and now, regardless of the cause for their cynicism, regardless of how long they have lived with their skepticism, for all the Nathanaels the turning point comes when someone says to them, “Come and see.”

And if they do come and see, because they may not…but if they do come and see, is that church into which they walk a place where Jesus is so real to the people there that He would become real for the skeptic too? Would a cynic feel that way here at St. Peter’s? I like to think so. Because today the real Jesus is most certainly here, in the hearing of His Word and in the taking of His Supper.

When St. John writes that Jesus saw Nathanael “under the fig tree,” it’s John’s way of casting this whole scene into that Old Testament image of the messianic kingdom where each person will sit under his own fig tree and no one can make them afraid anymore. That’s how Jesus looks upon the Nathanaels, how He envisions the cynic and the skeptic, as though they are there in the prosperous ease of His kingdom, in the shade of God’s grace. Ultimately that fig tree is Jesus’ cross by which the kingdom comes; the tree with its fruit of forgiveness, life and salvation; fruit so very real that it does shape the lives of those who follow Jesus. Come and see.

Yes, Jesus does have a heart, as they say, a heart for skeptics and cynics, for those who have messed up, those who have run away, those who have been beaten over by religion, who are bleeding and distrustful and hardened. Come and see. He is neither dead nor turned to dust. He is very much alive, and He is here. And He calls, “Come and see!”

Amen

Matthew 2:1-12

So who invited them?! The Wisemen, the Three Kings, the Magi are such a permanent fixture in the Christmas scene that their presence doesn’t seem to trigger much thought. It should!

Who invited them? They’re foreigners…not Jews! And they’re bringing gifts. Beware Gentiles bearing gifts! The Magi are, unwittingly, Bethlehem’s Trojan Horse. Oh yeah, they’re exotic. And those gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But…once they’ve made their visit, in come Herod’s soldiers and Bethlehem’s baby boys, 3 years old and younger, are put to the sword. If the Magi had not come, neither would Herod’s soldiers have come.

So who invited them?! God did. He sent a star-studded invitation. Centuries before He had hauled His people out of the Promised Land into Babylonian captivity. Their scrolls went with them (if they weren’t burned in the destruction of Jerusalem). Now centuries later, Israel has been back home for a long time, but some of the ancient scrolls likely remained in Babylon where they were studied by scholars…the Magi.

So some Magi have heard God’s Word in the Law and the Prophets. They have seen the star in their study of the constellations. They come to Judea, to Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, looking for a King. Gentiles come to Israel’s Messiah. And because they come, death follows. Now that’s a strange assortment of gifts at Epiphany: Jews and Gentiles; gold, frankincense, and myrrh; a King…and death.

Yes, right from the beginning, we see the end. The cross is present from the beginning. The cross, which means on the one hand, the shedding of blood, the suffering, the death. The cross, which means on the other hand, the place from which Jesus promised, “I will draw all men to Myself.” All people—Jew and Gentile, shepherds and Magi, us and them. And this suffering-death-drawing-all-to-Himself cross is present from the beginning of Jesus’ earthly calling as Messiah, as King.

But…we’re not entirely comfortable with that. We prefer our Jesus holidays neat…nice and tidy. Christmas here. Easter there. But…as the Bible reminds us…God’s ways (to our way of thinking) are anything but neat and tidy. In fact, God’s ways seem to lead to a big mess before everything comes clean.

Take the ethnic issue at the heart of Epiphany. Epiphany is an intensely racial holiday because it marks the first of the Gentiles, non-Jews, to come to the side of this King of the Jews. And the presence of Gentiles with Jesus is going to be messy for some years to come! He will associate with Samaritans, even making a Samaritan the hero of one of His parables. “Them.” He talks with Greeks about His kingdom. “Them.” He praises a Roman centurion’s faith. “Them.” He heals a Canaanite woman’s daughter. “Them.” He exorcizes a legion of demons from a Syrian. “Them.” Not to mention the whole crowd of the outcasts, the sick, the lame, the criminal, the traitor. Jesus has all of them around Him. “Them!”

And the cross is there in each case. Today, it’s these foreigners who are drawn to Jesus, the King of the Jews, the soon to be crucified Messiah. It’s not for nothing that in St. Matthew’s Gospel, the title, “King of Jews”, here at Epiphany comes back big time at the crucifixion. It’s not for nothing, that in St. Matthew’s Gospel, the making of disciples is by baptizing all nations, burying them with Christ and raising them up again. Where Jesus is there is the cross. Jesus will be criticized, ostracized, deemed a fanatic, a madman, a threat to the peace of Jerusalem.

Now today, over two thousand years of “thems” have been drawn to Jesus in wide variety and number—Asians, Africans, Europeans, Americans, “thems” all. Drawn to Christ as He said, as the Magi were first drawn to Him. But…history is littered with the violence, the suffering, the death—the cross—that has accompanied “them” coming to Christ.

So the trendy develop racial quotas for the Church to erase the suffering, and to draw a balanced humanity to Christ. But this misses the point entirely, and only emphasizes the differences. The drawing to Christ is going to be painful…in a world such as ours. That’s the way it is. The cross will always be present wherever Christ is present. Only a fool would attempt to remove what God has woven into His plans.

It is foolish to try and remove Good Friday from Christmas…to do so destroys Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. It is foolish to separate the Magi visit from Herod’s slaughter. It destroys Epiphany. It is foolish to separate Jesus’ death on the cross from His drawing all people to Himself…it destroys Christianity!

But…but…this chafes with our sensibilities…especially when we have to deal with “them.” Oh indeed it does! Whether it’s Jews and Gentiles, Caucasians and people of color, men and women/women and men, Us folks of our own socio-economic status and them who are not, us on our side of the issues, the debates, the wars, and them on that other side. It is rarely comfortable dealing with “them.” That’s why we call ‘em “them.”

Yes, we create laws to establish order against violence, to protect rights regardless of race or creed…but the mere presence of these laws only underscores the tensions with “them.”

So across this tense landscape falls the shadow of the cross. Jesus did not grow up and go to that cross because it was trendy or convenient or to ease our own discomforts. He went to that cross to draw all people to Himself; to draw the “Us” of the Holy Trinity and all the created “thems” (we “thems”) together in Himself by His cross. And this has been accomplished, not despite the suffering of that cross but precisely because of the suffering associated with that cross.

This is the mystery of Epiphany…the strange yet wonderful mystery. Not by law, not by quota, not by trying harder to get along but by the cross are all people drawn together around Jesus.

So the Bethlehem King ascends His throne, the cross. He puts on His crown, those thorns. The royal proclamation is raised over His head: “The King of the Jews.” And as He said, from that cross He draws all people to Himself. To His crucified self, where all people, all us’s and all thems, likewise die to self and live to Him who died for all and was raised up again.

For in Him we are all crucified, confessing our isolating, separating ways, being raised up to wholeness in Christ’s absolution, from the water of Holy Baptism. For in Christ there is neither us nor them, but one Lord, one Faith, on Baptism, one God and Father of us all.

Now…that’s not entirely comfortable…but it is certainly comforting. It is not comfortable knowing that laws and trying harder will not unite the disparate human race. It is what we suffer together with Christ, what we endure together in Christ, makes us one…even to the dying together that is Jesus Christ. But though we die…though we suffer and endure…yet shall we live…now and forever. The end from the beginning. This too is Christ. This is His Epiphany Gift to us…this fearful, yet most wonderful Gift of the season.

Amen

Luke 2:40-52

Man! The years go by so fast! All I have to do is look at my two sons to realize how much time has passed. When we first got to Arlington, Matthew hadn’t started walking yet. Now he’s 21. Younger son, Michael, wasn’t even born. Now he’s graduating from high school. One minute you’re running alongside of your child encouraging him to go faster on his bicycle, to get up enough speed to stay balanced, and the next moment the same boy is at the wheel of a car, and you’re reminding him to slow down and be safe. Where did the years go…

Jesus seems to be growing up really fast. Our Biblical texts move at fast-forward in the days of this Christmas season and soon, Epiphany. Here we are, only a week from Christmas, a week from the Baby lying in a manger, and suddenly Jesus is an adolescent, wandering off on His own. Last week Jesus was “prophecy fulfilled.” Now in this week’s Gospel Reading here He is, questioning the teachers and theologians about that very tradition. We’re still in chapter 2, but things seem to be moving so very fast in St. Luke’s Gospel. Is he making a point?

In the Church we confess that Jesus is “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary.” And in today’s familiar story from St. Luke’s Gospel, we see both sides. Jesus, fully human, a real boy, who is growing up as mortals do. At this point in His young life, Jesus has scared His parents half to death, as teenagers are known to do. Jesus is asking questions, as we all tend to do. And He is listening to the responses of the learned, as we ought to learn to do.

But at the same time in this particular episode of His life, we see the real boy Jesus fully divine and fully amazing everyone with His understanding and with His answers. We hear Jesus, even at age 12, declaring His unique relationship with God the Father, as only the divine Son can do.

His parents, Mary and Joseph, however, are not so quickly impressed. They have not come all the way back to Jerusalem, a day’s journey, for a theological discussion. Yes, on that night 12 years earlier, over Bethlehem’s plain the angels sang and shepherds had come in from their flocks to marvel and celebrate Jesus’ birth.

Yes, that day long ago, at the temple, Simeon and Anna, prophet and prophetess, had proclaimed Jesus to be God’s answer to the yearning of Israel and all humankind. Yes, this was all so profoundly and complexly true! But now, on this day in Jerusalem, Jesus’ parents just want some simple answers. “Where have you been, young man? And what do you think you’re doing?”

As the father of two sons, I can easily identify with Mary and Joseph in this story. “Son, why have you treated your mom and dad this way?” But perhaps our question is better directed to St. Luke. “Just what, Dr. Luke, are you trying to tell us in this story about Jesus?” He’s the only one with this story!

To answer that question, first of all, St. Luke is reinforcing the point he’s been making from the beginning of his Gospel: “to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us.” The things that “have been accomplished” by God in and through His Son, Jesus. The angel Gabriel had told Mary, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” The angel over Bethlehem declared to the shepherds, “Unto you is born this day…a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”

The devout Simeon proclaimed that the Child is God’s gift of salvation for all people—“a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to [His] people Israel.” While Anna the prophetess spoke of Jesus “to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” “Son of the Most High,” “Savior,” “Christ,” “Lord,” “Light,” “Redemption.” The words tell us…what is being accomplished by God through Jesus, even in this episode of the 12 year-old Boy at the temple.

Secondly, St. Luke anchors Jesus’ coming into the world securely within the faith of ancient Israel from the days of Abraham. “The things that have been accomplished” are immersed in Israel’s history. From the opening scene of this Gospel with Zechariah fulfilling his service at the temple offering the sacrifice of incense, to Mary and Joseph having their Son circumcised on the eighth day, making Him a Son of the Covenant. Then after 40 days presenting Him at the temple in Jerusalem, offering the redemptive sacrifice according to the Law of Moses.

Then every year, as St. Luke writes, the Holy Family goes up to Jerusalem for the Passover. Passover! Israel’s redemption! Every year, traveling the 65 miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem, a multi-day journey, and then back home again!

St. Luke is carefully setting out the details which echo Israel’s history, which St. Paul put so succinctly to the Galatians: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” That we might be as Jesus is, God’s very own! So what, precisely, is being accomplished here?

Ah, perhaps this is the best Christmas present of all, saved until now, late in these 12 days of Christmas! Think about what St. Luke sets before us here. It is Passover time. The festival of redemption! It is, in fact, the 12th Passover since Jesus was born. 12…a significant number, an Israel number. They are in Jerusalem, and Jesus has been taken from them, so they think. After three days they find Him again…going about His Father’s business. After three days… Ring any bells?

Yes, even here, even now, in these festive days of Christmas come reminders of what God is accomplishing in and through His Son. As Martin Luther once wrote, “God does not let us remain at Bethlehem and the manger. He rushes in with large axes and hammers to demolish that manger and erect a cross.” “Nails, spear shall pierce Him through; The cross be borne for me for you; Hail, hail the Word made flesh, The Babe [the Boy], the Son of Mary.”

20 years following these events of our text, Mary, without Joseph, the disciples, and many others will be distraught once again thinking they have lost Jesus. And after three days they will find Him; rather, He will find them! And in words echoing the day of the 12 year old boy in the temple, Jesus will gently chide them, “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business…at work in My Father’s house?” The Lord God is accomplishing His work, and we here today rejoice that He has accomplished His work in and through His Son.

In these festive days we rejoice again in all the great gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation that are given to us in Christ Jesus! And…who, but God alone, knows if in the coming new year there may be times for us when we will grow anxious and desperate, thinking that we have lost our Christ because circumstances around us cry His absence! And we panic. And, like Mary & Joseph in our text today, we too forget what God has accomplished among us and for us in His Son!

But…though we forget, and though we grow anxious, still the Christ finds us, and He speaks to us by His Word, “Why are you troubled?” He reminds us by His Word of Promise that in all things, even when it is the cross for us, He is at work with us, undertaking His Father’s business, accomplishing His Father’s good in us and with us and for us!

Such a surprising gift coming late in these Christmas days. Such a sweet exchange, amid the rush of other exchanges following the holiday. “[Christ] undertakes a great exchange, Puts on our human frame, And in return gives us His realm, His glory, and His name.”

Soon we will see this so clearly at the cross and in the resurrection. But even here and now, as St. Luke shows us, it is coming to pass—a 12 year old Boy, a real boy, lost yet not lost…taking up His Father’s business in His Father’s house, that we too may have a place, a real place, within His house forever!

Amen