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The Marks of the Church: Blessing

5/24/2022

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Rev. Dr. John Judson
May 22, 2022

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Psalm 23; Acts 8:14-24
June 1938 was a year in which the world seemed to be coming apart. The Japanese war of conquest in China was in motion with battles across the mainland. The Nazi war machine was gearing up and the government issued a declaration that all able bodied men could be called up for service. Jews were being attacked with growing frequency. The civil war in Spain was raging and Franco’s forces were slowly defeating their enemies. Hitler was named Time’s Man of the Year. Italy was threatening other nations. The great depression, while abating somewhat, was still gripping most of the world. In other words, the world appeared to need a hero…and they got one. They got Superman. Yes, issue #1 of Superman appeared on the shelves of comic stores in June of 1938 and has been there ever since. The staying power of superheroes is amazing. Each of us probably has our favorite. But superheroes are nothing new. There was Hercules, Odysseus, and Gilgamesh among others. While all of these were fictional heroes like Superman, there were real life superheroes. These were the magicians. Magicians like Simon.

To be clear, magic in the First Century is not what we think of as magic. Magic today is David Copperfield with sleight of hand, smoke, mirrors, and illusions that can all be explained. Magic in the First Century was the act of manipulating the unseen forces in the universe to advantage one person over another. Think of it as casting spells, using magic potions that caused the unseen spiritual forces to bend to the will of the magician on behalf of his or her clients. This was the career to which Simon had been drawn, and as such he was probably constantly upgrading his skills. So when he saw Peter and John pray for the Samaritan believers and for the Spirit of God to inhabit them, he wanted in on the action. He wanted to buy the Spirit so that he could do the same “magic.” Let’s be clear, however, that we don’t know what the physical manifestations of the arrival of the Spirit were. Maybe a grouchy people turned into a people of love; maybe people started speaking in various languages as happened at Pentecost. We don’t know, but what we do know is that something dramatic occurred.

Simon’s request was met with Peter’s usual over-the-top kind of response, that the Spirit was not for sale, because the Spirit was a gift. And most importantly for our time this morning, that Peter and John were merely the conduit of God’s blessings that God desired to give to the Samaritans. I realize that this passage does not use the word blessing. But for me, that is what the gift of the Spirit is. It is the ultimate blessing of God. What is a blessing? To put it simply, blessing is the favor of God bestowed on individuals or communities to fill them with God’s love so that they are encouraged, sustained, and transformed. Let me say that again, blessing is the favor of God bestowed on individuals or communities to fill them with God’s love so that they are encouraged, sustained, and transformed. If you want to see blessing at work, we can look to David in Psalm 23. The context of the Psalm is that his life is on the line. He is in the shadow of death. But God blesses him with God’s own presence. The image that should strike us this morning is that of God anointing David’s head with oil. Anointing with oil was an act that essentially said to a stranger, you are welcome here and you are safe here. That the stranger has received the favor of the host, thus encouraging, sustaining, and transforming the stranger into a friend. Therefore, David can find the strength to go on.

I would argue that the same can be said of the believers in Samaria. Before the arrival of Peter and John, they were people who believed something about Jesus. When they were blessed by the Spirit, they became people who were something. They became people who were encouraged, sustained, and transformed, filled with the love of God. What I would also argue is that they too became conduits for the blessing of God; that they became those through whom the blessings of God flowed out into their community and into the world. What this means is that blessing, being a conduit for blessing, is one of the marks of the church. The church is to be the community that anoints others with oil. The church is to be the community that encourages, sustains, and helps to transform people through the work of the Spirit that we have been given. My friends, what this says is that the church is not simply another social service agency, or a gathering of like-minded people. We are instead a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, Spirit-guided community, called to be the conduit for God’s blessings to the world. And this is something that you all do well.

You, the members and friends of Everybody’s Church, understand how to be conduits of God’s blessing to the world. You bless people through what you do at Alcott Elementary when you teach children to read. You encourage, sustain, and transform them. You blessed people when you took food to hungry families throughout the pandemic. You encouraged, sustained, and transformed them. You blessed children in Ukraine with your gifts of money and goods. You encouraged, sustained, and transformed them. You blessed the clients at Baldwin Center through the overwhelming gifts of diapers. You encouraged, sustained, and transformed them. You bless foster families and children in the foster system by the work you do with Rev. Dr. Kate. You encouraged, sustained, and transformed them. You blessed people when you gave to our covid fund that helped more than a hundred families avoid eviction or utility shutoff. You encouraged, sustained, and transformed them. You bless people by your constant prayers for those you know and those on our prayer list whom you might not know. You encouraged, sustained, and transformed them. And there are so, so many other ways in which you have blessed and continue to bless the world around you. You are living out this mark of the church.

This morning however, I would like us to celebrate one who has been a blessing to so many of us, and I know she does not want me to do this but I will anyway, to speak of the blessing that Jan Peters has been over the past 38 years. Jan has been a blessing to those of us who have worked alongside her. She has always been present; ready to listen, lend a hand, offer us encouragement, and help to sustain us when things have not been easy. She has blessed so many families in this church when they have been grieving the loss of one that they loved. She was ready to listen, give a hug, show compassion, and do whatever needed to be done to ensure that the church was a place of encouragement. She has blessed strangers. Most of you are probably unaware that we regularly have people call us or drop by looking for assistance. Jan was always there for them, even when we had nothing to offer. Many of these people became her friends over the years and Jan not only offered them financial assistance, but words of love and encouragement. Jan was a conduit for God’s blessing.

This morning we celebrate Jan and the example that she has offered all of us. My challenge to all of us this morning is to simply ask ourselves, how am I being a conduit for God’s blessing so that people might be encouraged, sustained, and transformed?

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The Marks of the Church: Telling

5/15/2022

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Rev. Dr. John Judson
May 15, 2022

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Acts 6:8-15; Acts 7:1-8

“Who are you?” I suppose there were lots of ways I could have answered. I could have said I'm John, or I'm John Judson, or I'm the Reverend Doctor John Judson, or I'm Roger and Carolyn's son, or I'm David, Richard, and Paul’s brother. Or I am the great, great, great grandson of the man who broke the law in England and brought the plans for the first throstle to the new world. If you don't know what a throstle is, just Google it. There are many ways I could have answered him, but because the question is often contextual, my answer was I'm Principal Judson's husband. One of the things some of you may or may not know about Cindy, is that when she was a Principal on the south side of San Antonio, she was tasked with opening a brand-new school. Meaning she oversaw new construction, ordered supplies, and hired new teachers. The weekend prior to school opening and the students arriving, there were no cafeteria tables at all. They finally arrived on the Saturday before by truck. And so, Cindy and I and our kids and some of the faculty offloaded the cafeteria tables and put them together. So, when the guy asked me, “Who are you?” I knew the best answer was I'm Principal Judson's husband.

So, who are we? If we think about it, that question has far more answers than we might expect. Some of us are husbands; some of us are wives; some of us are daughters; some of us are sons; some of us are cousins; some of us are aunts and uncles; some of us are people who work in the auto industry; some of us are retired; some of us are from Germany. There are, in other words, an almost unlimited number of ways in which we might answer the question, “Who are you?” But the one thing about all these identities is that we are shaped by the relationships to which those identities are linked; and they are especially shaped by our families. I say this because our families teach us who we are supposed to be. They teach us how to interact with other people. They teach us what we're supposed to believe. They teach us how we understand and engage in relationships. Our families shape who we are and how we understand ourselves. And it is that idea of being shaped by family that is at the heart of Stephen's defense of Jesus. Let me explain.

If we return to our story, we see that there were some members of the Jewish community in Jerusalem who did not believe that Jesus or his followers were really part of God’s family; that somehow Jesus and his followers were outliers who had left Judaism behind. This was the accusation against Stephen which opened him to persecution. The question was then, how would Stephen defend himself? How could he convince people that Jesus was part of God’s family? The answer was to tell a story. Well, not just a story, but THE story. Stephen tells the story of Abraham and then of Moses. He begins by telling the story of how Abraham was living in Mesopotamia where God came to him and said, get up and go first to Harran and then to the promised land. This led to God’s declaration that through Abraham, God would bless all the nations of the world. Stephen continues with the story of Moses; how God came to Moses and told him to lead the people out of captivity, into the wilderness, receive the Law and prepare them for entry into the Land of Promise. The climax of this telling of the family story is, essentially, that Jesus is the next chapter of THE story. Jesus is the next chapter of THE story because what THE story is about is God's desire to recreate humanity, to create a humanity in which all human beings are seen as having worth and value; of creating the kind of world we would all love to be a part of; a world of love, peace, joy. Thus, Jesus and those who follow him are not outsiders, but family; shaped and formed by the same family story.

This understanding that the followers of Jesus are part of this ancient story is one of the reasons that we preach out of the entire Bible. Over the forty or so years of my ministry, people have come to me and asked, why do we bother with the Old Testament? My answer is that we bother with it because it is our story. It is part of our family story and we cannot understand who we are unless we know the whole story. And this is the reason that the confirmands, those who are coming in a few minutes to confirm their faith, to publicly affirm their faith, used a curriculum called God’s Story, Our Stories, which covers the entirety of the scriptures. And in exploring that story, the confirmands had the opportunity to reflect on their own stories. To reflect on where their stories intersect with God's story and are being shaped by God's story. Again, not just the stories in the New Testament, but the whole breadth of the scriptures. And I have to say, that in reading the statements of faith of the confirmands, you will see how these young adults are wrestling with and discovering what their faith looks likes as it is being shaped by our common family story. And I admire these statements of faith because I don't think at their age, I could have written anything as powerful as what they have done.

Before we finish, I want to say that there is one more story that has shaped these young adults, and that is the story of this congregation. I say this because many of our confirmands mentioned the importance of this church; its community, mission, preaching, and teaching as instrumental in shaping their faith. And so, I want to take a moment and reflect on why this church is the kind of church that it is; why our church family is the kind of family it is that is shaping these young adults. I will do so by telling the story of Elijah Fish and how he helped shape our family D.N.A. First Presbyterian church was founded in 1834. Their first meeting place was Elijah Fish's barn. That may not sound like a big deal, but it was. It was a big deal because Elijah Fish was an abolitionist; meaning he worked for the abolition of slavery long before it was a popular cause. He invited abolitionist speakers to come and address the people of Birmingham and the surrounding communities. But Fish did not stop there. He participated in the Underground Railroad helping escaped slaves find safety either in Canada or in the Birmingham area. His barn, our first meeting place, was probably where he hid many of these formerly enslaved people. At least two of those formerly enslaved people, the Taylors became members of our congregation. What this says is that our family is one that from the very beginning embraced the full humanity of all persons. What this means is that our confirmands have been shaped not just by their families, and by the Biblical story, but by the story of Everybody’s Church; a story of a community in which all persons are loved and accepted and embraced by God in Jesus Christ.

The challenge for this morning for our confirmands and for the rest of us, is to continue wrestling with the question of “Who am I?” To continue wrestling with our faith as it is shaped by our families, the scriptures, and this community. It is to refuse to allow our faith to become dormant and cease growing. It is to refuse to allow what we believe to become stagnant rather than vibrant. To put it succinctly, my challenge to all of us is to ask ourselves, how is my faith still growing and changing that I might be more faithful tomorrow than today to Jesus Christ and to the God who sent him into the world?

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The Marks of the Church: Serving

5/8/2022

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Rev. Dr. John Judson
May 8, 2022

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Psalm 22:25-31; Acts 6:1-7

It was a great first church for a seminary student. It was the summer after my first year in seminary and I was fortunate to be invited as the summer pastor for a small Presbyterian Church in western Virginia. The church had about 75 members and I could begin learning the ropes of weekly preaching, teaching, and visiting. After about a month, I noticed that people tended to sit in the same spots every week. There was a group of people who sat on the right side of the church and a group who sat on the left side of the church. Out of curiosity I asked one of the regular attenders if there was a reason they sat on the side they did. The response was interesting. He said that he sat on the newcomers’ side, while the long-term members sat on the other side. I then asked him how long he had been in the church. Only about 25 years, he replied. I didn’t ask how long the long-term members had been there. But that was one of those powerful lessons on the tribal nature of human beings…that we gravitate toward and gather with those with whom we have something in common.

This tribalism was also at the heart of the issue riling the church in Jerusalem. There were the long-term widows and the new widows, and they were being treated differently. One of the realities in the first century was that many women became widows, and if their children had died and there was no one to care for them. In some cities there was a regular collection taken to feed these women so that they did not starve. Somewhere along the way though, the widows who belonged to the church were left out of the general offering. The church then collected money from its members and distributed it to their widows. The issue however, was that only the long-term widows, meaning those who had grown up in Jerusalem and spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, were being fed. The newcomer widows who spoke only Greek were being left out because they had no real connection to the members of the church. When this issue was raised for the leaders of the church, they responded by turning the world upside down, by asking some men to become servants.

You may be surprised that I refer to this decision of asking the men listed in the passage to become servants as turning the world upside down. To understand we need to wrap our minds about how radical an action this was.

First, it was turning the world upside down because the early church was asking free men to become servants. Servants were usually not free. They were usually slaves and as such had no agency of their own. And even if they were free servants, they were looked down on by society in general. No one would grow up with the goal of being a servant. Yet here are the leaders of the church asking these men to take on a serving or subservient role in the life of the community.

Second, it was turning the world upside down because these men were being asked to serve women. This was not the way the world was supposed to work. Women were to serve men. Think of all the times Jesus was having meals and it was always the women who served. Even when Peter’s mother-in-law was ill and Jesus healed her, she got up and served Jesus and the disciples rather than Peter stepping in to help her out. For men to serve women, especially widows, was a radical departure from the societal norm.

Finally, it was turning the world upside down because not only were these men asked to be servants, and servants to women, they were asked to be servants to women who were outsiders. They were asked to be servants to widows who sat on the wrong side of the church. These women had come to Jerusalem to die in the holy city and knew no one. They had no family connection and so they were outsider newcomers. Why should someone be tasked with taking care of them? Yet this is what those men were asked to do, and they did it. They turned the world upside down with hesitation.

We are not privy to any of the discussions that took place or the mindset of the first deacons, which comes from the word diakanos, or servant. We are not sure why these men were chosen. Yet I would argue that they were honored to turn the world upside down because that was what Jesus had done in the upper room before his death. He too had turned the world upside down when he took off his robe, hiked up his shirt, got some water, and washed the feet of the disciples. Jesus, the Messiah, the rabbi, the chosen one, the Son of Man, the Son of God, chose to become a servant. The Apostle Paul would reflect on this in his letter to the church at Philippi when he speaks of Jesus humbling himself not only to become one of us, but to become a servant. In this way Jesus turned the world upside down, or should I say right side up. I say right side up because God’s plan was that all should serve and be served. That as the Psalm puts it, “…the poor shall eat and be satisfied and the rich of the earth will feast and worship.” There is no mention of the poor serving the rich, but instead it is an image of a world in which all persons share in the work and the riches of God’s creation. An outcome that can only happen when people serve one another.

I must admit the older I get the fewer memories of childhood I retain. Yet one of those that is burned into my memory is of one of my first pack meetings as a cub scout. I had on my blue uniform with the blue and gold scarf. I had my pack number on my shoulder where my mother had sewn it. And that night I received this pin, though you in the back probably can’t see it, my Bobcat pin. The Bobcat was the first step in becoming a full-fledged cub scout. When the cubmaster pinned on my and my friends, he pinned it upside down. Then he looked at all of us and said, this pin is upside down until you do a good deed as a reminder that scouts are to “do a good turn daily.” After that we all sat down with our proud parents and waited for the moment the meeting ended. Then we all ran for the back doors to open them for our parents, thus doing a good deed and getting our pins turned right side up.

As the church we are called to turn the world upside down and right side up by living into our roles as servants, servants of those we know and servants of those we don’t know. Of being servants to those who are on our side of the church and those who sit across the aisle. My challenge to you on this day is to ask yourselves this week, what I am doing or what can I do as a servant in order to get my pin, and the world, turned right side up?

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The Marks of the Church: Giving

5/1/2022

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Rev. Dr. John Judson
May 1, 2022

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Psalm 37:18-24; Acts 3:1-10

      The writer of the books of Luke and Acts is an amazing storyteller. I say this because he does not simply retell what happened, but he adds drama to the events. We can see this in our morning’s story. The story begins with Peter and John doing what good Jews living in Jerusalem did, they were going to the Temple for daily prayer. The scene is familiar. As the two disciples approach the gate into the Temple there are multiple beggars seeking alms. The beggars were gathered there because the entrance to the Temple was the perfect place to beg because Jews were called to share what they had with those in need, especially before they went to be in the presence of God. The lame man who, because of his disability, was unable to work and had to be carried to the gate was going through his daily ritual of asking for assistance. Luke, the storyteller, builds a sense of expectation when he describes Peter and John. turning to the man and saying, “Look at us!” Readers will anticipate that something is about to happen. Will Peter and John give the man more money than he expected? Will Peter and John tell the man about Jesus? What will happen? The response is startling. First, they tell the man that they have no money to give…and so the reader is deflated. But then Peter does the unexpected, in the name of Jesus he gives the man the gift of mobility. “In the name of Jesus, get up and walk.” And then the man not only gets up and walks, but he jumps, leaps and praises God. Everyone around them is filled with wonder and amazement. It’s a great story but what are we supposed to do with it?

      I ask this because chances are few of us have ever witnessed such a miracle. We may have heard of miracles, and we may have thought of the wonders of modern medicine as being miracles…which in my opinion they are. But we are people who live in an age of science, where miracles are no longer the norm. And chances are if we were to see someone in the same situation as the man at the Temple, we might give him some money, or see how we might give him some assistance, but we would probably not hold out our hands and tell him to walk in the name of Jesus. Which by the way, is part of our Reformed heritage. Calvin and other Reformers were clear that miracles were part of the early church, but that God no longer worked through them because there were other means of dealing with similar issues. So again, we would probably tell persons in need to seek a physician, or a social-safety net organization to assist them. Diseases are not miraculously cured, except…except…for one kind of illness, which 21st century Christians often believe can be instantaneously solved by prayer, determination, and will. And that is mental illness.

      I have been fascinated by the church and its response to mental illness. What I have witnessed is that mental illness is not really seen as an illness like heart disease or diabetes. Instead, mental illness, meaning everything from depression, to bi-polar disorder, and multiple other diagnoses have been treated like nothing more than a failure of the will of the individual. And that if the individual merely thinks more positively, prays to Jesus, or has people pray over them, then everything will be fine. And if it is not, then the fault lies with the individual. This can be seen in a couple of ways; first in the rise of what is called Biblical Counseling. Many of the degrees that are offered in this area are nothing more than teaching pastors which scripture verses to offer those in need, believing that by reading the Bible the person will be cured. The second way I have witnessed this is in the anti-psychiatric and anti-therapy movement in many churches, where psychiatrists and psychologists are seen as the enemies of faith because…and this critical…there is no such thing as mental illness. But the truth is that mental illness is a real illness. It is physiological. And those wrestling with mental illness need treatment, love, support, and acceptance. And so the question becomes, what can we give those suffering from mental illness? What can we offer them as Peter and John offered wellness to the man at the gate?

      Before I answer that question, I want to tell you why I am speaking about mental illness this morning. I am doing so for a variety of reasons. First, we call ourselves Everybody’s Church where all are welcome. Yet I know that for many people struggling with mental illness they are not comfortable sharing with others, even in this place, about their struggle. In other words, they are not able to be their true selves in our midst. And if we are to be Everybody’s Church then we need to be a place where all persons can freely be their true selves. Second, I am doing so because the Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice Committee of the Session has been learning about and wrestling with how we can be a place where people dealing with mental illness can find a home. Third, I am doing so because it is personal. It is personal because depression runs in my family. My grandmother suffered from it; my mother suffered from it; and one of my brothers and I suffer from it. And if there is one thing I learned from my mother’s experience with depression is that there is a stigma to mental illness and so rather than speak about it we are to hide our illness because of the fear of what others might say about us. So again, the question becomes, as Everybody’s Church, what can we offer to those wrestling with mental illness? The answer, I believe, is that we can offer a safe space in which they can be themselves and be open about their illness. There are many ways to do this, but I will offer three.

      First, we can create an assumption free space. What I mean by this is that we tend to assume that we know what other people are going through. We pretend that maybe because we have felt down or blue or had a bad day that we know what it is like to have deep and profound depression. We assume that we can have empathy and share others’ feelings, but we can’t. This reality was brought home to me by a speaker who has bipolar disorder. The speaker said that even he cannot understand what another person who has bipolar disorder is going through. So we are challenged to set aside our assumptions and simply listen, love, and learn.

      Second, we can create a paternalistic free space. What I mean by this is that many of us, both men and women, pretend that we know what someone else needs and how they ought to treat themselves. We know someone who has done well on one medication, so we tell others they ought to take it. We know someone who has been helped by a particular kind of therapy and so that is the cure for what ails everyone. When we do this, what we are actually doing is robbing those struggling with mental illness of their agency. We are treating people as if they are not capable of making informed decisions about their care and treatment. So, we are challenged to set aside our tendency to give advice and simply listen, love, and learn.

      Third, we can create a stigma free space. Again, we don’t want to believe that we bring a sense of stigma into our conversations about our relationships with those dealing with mental illness. But I want you to answer a couple of questions for me. First, would you feel more comfortable saying I have spinal stenosis, or I have bipolar disorder? Second, would you feel more comfortable saying I have a-fib or I have Schizophrenia. Can you feel the difference? See, many of us have internalized stigma against mental illness. So, our challenge is to set aside our tendency to stigmatize mental illness and simply listen, love, and learn.

      Like Peter and John, we are called to give what we can to those in need. In some cases, it is money. In others, it is our time. And in this case, I believe that we are called to create a safe space for all persons struggling with mental illness as well as all other issues that negatively impact lives. If you want to think more deeply about this issue, I recommend the book Hiding in the Pews by Steve Austin. We have some copies in the hallway. My challenge to all of us then is to consider how we can create a safe space for all people, and on this day, especially for those struggling with mental illness, so that we can truly be Everybody’s Church.

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The Marks of the Church: Waiting

4/24/2022

Rev. Dr. John Judson
April 24, 2022

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Psalm 130:1-8; Acts 1:1-14

I want to give you a word of warning this morning. If you are ever in a grocery store and you see me in a checkout line…do not get behind me. If you are ever traveling down Maple or Telegraph or any other road and see me driving. Get in another lane. If you ever see me at an ATM at the bank…go find another branch. I say this because I have been cursed with always being in the slow lane of everything. I say cursed because if anyone hates waiting it is me. I hate waiting for the microwave to finish. I hate waiting for water to boil. Now it may be that there are others here who dislike waiting as much as I do. So, let’s do a quick poll. How many of you here this morning enjoy waiting? Well, I see that I am not alone. I suppose there might have been a time when people didn’t mind waiting, but I am not sure when that was because both of our passages this morning show people’s impatience with waiting.

The Psalmist has been waiting for God to forgive and restore. Listen again to the words. “Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;   Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive   to my cry for mercy. If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,  Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness,  so that we can, with reverence, serve you. I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,  and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord  more than watchmen wait for the morning,  more than watchmen wait for the morning. Israel, put your hope in the Lord,  for with the Lord is unfailing love  and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel  from all their sins.” This is a person who desperately wants God to restore them but is forced to wait, and wait and wait. And the waiting is painful. The disciples are forced to wait as well. They want to know when Jesus is going to restore the kingdom…the answer is, wait. They want to know when Jesus is coming back…the answer is, wait. They want to know when the Spirit is to arrive…the answer is, wait. And I would guess that they are as happy with waiting as was the Psalmist and as are you and I.

      I think one of the reasons we hate to wait is that waiting seems like a waste of time. When we have things we want to accomplish, places we want to go, personal transformations in which we want to engage, people we need to see…waiting appears to be stealing time from us; stealing time that we cannot get back. And yet, from a Biblical perspective, waiting can be some of the most productive time there is. To gain some insight into this idea, let’s return to the wilderness…the wilderness in which the people of God were sent when they fled from Egypt. They spent forty years waiting to leave the wilderness and enter the Land of Promise. That seems like a lot of waiting. Yet that period of waiting was one of discovery and discernment. It was a time of discovery because in their waiting they could receive the Torah, the Law of God. Because they were not busy building new lives and conquering new territory, they had time to listen and receive. In the same way, that time of waiting allowed them to discern that in following Torah they would find life and hope.

       This is the same kind of moment in which I believe the disciples found themselves. They had followed Jesus for three years. He had been crucified and yet God raised him from the dead and he was with them for another forty days, appearing to them and to others. Now, however, Jesus was gone. His physical presence was no longer with them. The Spirit had not yet been fully manifested to instruct them. And so, the disciples…meaning not just the twelve, but many more, both men and women, were forced to confront a new reality. They were forced to confront the reality of a life of faith without Jesus. Did this mean returning to a whole hearted Judaism? Did this mean returning to their old jobs and businesses? Did this mean that they were to see themselves more as followers of Jesus, or Torah, or a combination of the two? Did this mean telling others about Jesus and if so, what ought they to tell them? What would they tell them about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection? If the Spirit had arrived instantaneously, I don’t believe the disciples would have been able to discover and discern who they were supposed to be, what they were supposed to proclaim, or what it was they believed about Jesus and what he accomplished. Waiting gave them that chance. I say this because when Pentecost arrives, the disciples have their messaging prepared and ready to be revealed.

       We are in a similar situation in that we at First Presbyterian Church are waiting. We are in that strange waiting time between the announcement of my retirement and the welcoming of a new senior pastor. For many this might seem like nothing more than a lame duck waiting period. Yet it is not. I say this because we have been about the business of discovery and discernment during these months. We invited everyone in the church to participate in the Holy Cow survey. This survey asked people’s attitudes about the church, its mission, its ministry, its direction, and its leadership. We then conducted listening sessions with a wide variety of individuals throughout the church. In those sessions we gained more insight into people’s views about the purpose and direction of the church…and tomorrow one of the members of the listening team is meeting with program staff to share some suggestions that came out of those meetings. And now we are engaging in a sermon series that will help us wrestle with not only the purpose of the church in general but of our church in particular. Thus, this time of waiting is an intentional time of discovery and discernment intended to help us continue to be the church that Jesus Christ has called us to be.

      Finally, waiting can be a time of discovery and discernment for individuals as well. What I mean by that is that I believe that each of us is called to periods of waiting so that we can discover more and more who God desires us to be. Let me ask, how many of you have spent any significant time asking questions such as: what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ? What does the resurrection and the possibility of new life mean for me? How does my life reflect the love and grace of God in Jesus? What does it mean for me to be a part of Everybody’s Church? How am I living out the commitments that I made to children and their parents who have been baptized in my presence? These questions are not about making any of us feel guilty or inadequate. They are instead questions that are intended to help us discover and discern who we are to be. What I am going to do then is challenge all of us to take one of these questions and wait on it. Spend time with it between now and Pentecost. Spend time reflecting on your chosen question; asking questions about it, reading about it, and seeing if this time of waiting that we share with the disciples can be a time of post-Easter growth.

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Witnesses

4/17/2022

Rev. Dr. John Judson
April 17, 2022

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1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 24:1-12

      They had traveled millions of miles through space looking for the kind of peace that could not be found on earth. They finally arrived at a planet that they thought might suit them, but when they landed, the people of the plant who had seen the rocket ship land made no effort to come and greet them. The Captain of the ship was flummoxed. Why would the people whose civilization obviously had no space travel not want to come and greet him? He thought that the people might be afraid, yet a quick scan of the nearby city proved that to be untrue. People were going about their everyday lives. Irritated with being ignored, the Captain sent his subordinate into the city to discover the reason the people had not come out. When the subordinate returned, he told the Captain that the people had not come out because the landing was inconsequential. It was inconsequential because the week before the landing a man had arrived on the planet; a man for whom the people had been waiting perhaps a million years. This man had healed people, comforted the poor, and confronted the powers. The result was a world of peace. When the captain of the ship heard this story, he was shocked, stunned. “Could it be ‘him’?” he wondered. But no, that could not be. The Captain would not believe that man was the man unless there was proof. In his quest for proof the Captain first questioned the mayor of the town who verified the story. Undaunted, the Captain wanted proof of the healings. The mayor pointed to his son and told the Captain that his son had had a withered arm that was healed. That was not proof said the Captain. The mayor then had a painting brought out that showed the son with the withered arm…again not proof. Eventually the Captain interviewed thousands of people who told the same stories of healings, comfort, and peace. Regardless of their stories the Captain refused to believe until he had proof; until he had seen the man for himself. And so, the Captain entered his rocket ship once again, and headed to other planets convinced that one day he would find the man and gain the proof he desired.

      This story is called “The Man” and it is a chapter in Ray Bradbury’s book “The Illustrated Man.” It was Bradbury’s way of wrestling with the struggle between proof and witness, between faith and proof. Bradbury understood that human beings are people who desire proof of things and yet often, must live by faith. Consider for a moment the COVID vaccines. How many of us, before there were vaccines, if met be a stranger on the corner saying, “Hey, listen, I have a cure for COVID in this bottle. Want some?” would have jumped at the chance to take it? Chances are not many of us would have done so because we wanted proof; the proof that comes from double blind studies and ongoing trials. We wanted proof that the vaccines were safe and effective. And desiring proof is not something new; something that only came about following the scientific revolution. Look at Peter in our morning’s story. He hears that the tomb is empty and yet he is not willing to believe the women and must go see for himself. He needs proof. And the other disciples are not even willing to go see because they very idea of an empty tomb is absurd. The question becomes then, if proof is so important, why doesn’t Luke give it to us? Why doesn’t he let us know that on that first Easter morning, someone saw the resurrected Jesus?

      Let me explain. Let’s go back to Luke’s telling of the Easter story. As he tells the story there is no proof. There are simply the women who see the empty tomb and two men in white who ask the women, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” and declare that Jesus is risen. That’s it. There is no encounter with a physical Jesus. Granted, in Luke, encounters with the resurrected Jesus eventually come but the Easter morning story has no such meeting. This runs counter to Matthew’s and John’s telling of the tale where people meet the resurrected Jesus. Matthew has the two Marys meet Jesus as they leave the empty tomb…proof. John has Mary Magdalene meet Jesus in the garden and take hold of him…proof. Yet, Luke gives us none of that. He has the two men tell the two women, who then tell the disciples. There is no proof. Why would Luke do this? My response is that Luke tells the tale this way because this is where we are, and it is who we can become. Let me say that again. I believe Luke shapes his story in this way because we are where the women are, and we can become what the women became. Let me explain.

      First, we are where the women are. We are those who have not seen, touched, or shared a meal with the physically risen Jesus. Like the women, we are dependent upon others who met the risen Christ and then told others, who told others, who told still others. We are those who are dependent on a chain of witnesses that has stretched across the last two thousand years. In that sense we are not alone. We are in the company of those for whom Luke wrote his Gospel. He wrote it for Gentiles, Greeks, who would not have seen the physically risen Jesus and were thus dependent upon other witnesses…just as the women were with the witness of the angels. We are also in the company of those Christians in Corinth to whom Paul wrote. None of them would have had any possible encounter with the resurrected Jesus and so, like us, are dependent upon the witness of those 500, and Peter, and Paul himself. And so, Luke’s telling to two witnesses, telling two more witnesses, who then tell others reminds those folks and us, that we are not alone in needing the witness of others to guide our faith. It allows us to be insiders to the story and not those thinking, “Boy if only I could have proof like Mary and the Marys.” At the same time this story is a reminder that we are not only where they are, but we can become who they are. We can become witnesses.

      When I say that we are witnesses I mean more than we are those who tell the story of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning. What I mean is that we are witnesses to more than a story. We are witnesses to the active presence and power of the risen Jesus. In other words, because Jesus is risen and reigning, we can and do encounter him in ways that we cannot encounter other great teachers, prophets, and philosophers. Though Buddha, Confucius, Aristotle, and even Moses the Law-giver gave us insightful teaching and the Torah, none of them personally encounter and transform us as does Jesus. We have encountered the living Jesus in ways that have shaped and transformed who we are. We have encountered in the living Jesus in moments when we needed forgiveness and reconciliation and he offered it. We have encountered the living Jesus in the moments when those whom we loved took their last breath, and we knew that in Christ their lives were not over and there was a new chapter being written. And so, we become witnesses such that without having seen the physically risen Jesus, our encounters with him, like Paul’s on the road to Damascus, are real, powerful, and life transforming. We then, are witnesses not to an empty tomb, but to a risen Jesus.

      At the end of the story “The Man” there is a short exchange between the mayor of the town and some of the starship crew members who stayed behind, rather than going with the captain in search of truth. This is how it goes. “Yes, poor man, he’s gone,” said the mayor. “And he’ll go on, planet after planet, seeking and seeking, and always he will be an hour late, or a half hour late, or ten minutes late, or a minute late. And finally he will miss out by only a few seconds. And when he has visited three hundred worlds and is seventy or eighty years old he will miss out by only a fraction of a second, and then a smaller fraction of a second. And he will go on and on, thinking to find that very thing which he left behind here, on this planet, in this city-” Martin looked steadily at the mayor. The mayor put out his hand. “Was there ever any doubt of it?” He beckoned to the others and turned. “Come along now. We mustn’t keep him waiting."
They walked into the city. This morning we are those who have walked into the city, who have experienced the man, the resurrected and risen one who loves, heals, forgives, and changes the world. The challenge for us then is to go and be witnesses to all we have heard and experienced of the risen Jesus.

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: The Disciples

4/10/2022

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Psalm 118:19-29; Luke 19:29-40

How many of you love Palm Sunday? I ask because it is one of my favorite Sundays of the year. I love it because the children get to fully participate, we get to sing some of my favorite hymns, there are palms being waved, and it reminds us that Spring is upon us and that Easter is only a week away. It is a wonderful Sunday. Yet, this love of Palm Sunday raises a question this morning, which is, what do we do with a palmless Palm Sunday? Meaning what do we do with a Palm Sunday story that has no palms? Or, no crowds chanting Jesus’ name? I ask because our story this morning has none of those elements. If we look at Luke’s retelling of Jesus’ entry into the city, we cannot find palms, or shouting crowds, though we do find a few people laying their cloaks on the road. The only people who are engaged in any sort of outcry are the disciples. Why no palms? Why no crowds? Why, in fact, if we are honest with the text is Jesus not the center of attention as he is in the other stories? The answer I would give you this morning is that what I believe Luke is doing is offering us a look at the disciples’ final exam before Jesus’ arrest and death. Let me explain.

Jesus has taken three years to train his followers. He has taught them. He has mentored them. He has sent them out to test their skills. He has quizzed them and challenged them. But now the hour has come and Jesus’ in-person ministry here on earth is coming to an end. And so, the question becomes, are the disciples ready? Can they do what Jesus desires them to do after he is gone? Thus, in Luke’s mind, Jesus sets the stage for a three-part exam…all of the parts of which are central not only to the coming ministry of the disciples and the church, but they have their roots in Jewish scriptures. In other words, the three parts of this exam have been given to God’s people from Genesis through Malachi; from creation to the coming of Christ. And here are the three parts: listening, acting, and professing. Jesus wants to know if the disciples are prepared to do these three things.

Jesus begins by testing the disciples on their listening skills. He offers them a series of commands which seem a bit complicated and convoluted. “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.” Even for Jesus who has said and done many strange things, this was a bit odd. Why did he need a donkey? Why one on which no one had ridden? How will we know which donkey is the right donkey? Will this all work or will we get arrested for stealing some guy’s donkey? The questions were endless. But the heart of this request was whether the disciples would listen with attentive ears making them capable of carrying out this series of requests; because if they could not remember this set of instructions, how could they remember all that Jesus had taught them? For you see, listening is key to the faith of God’s people. Throughout the Old Testament when God’s people listened; listened to the Torah, listened to the prophets, listened to God, things went well for them. They became capable of living lives filled with abundance and joy. When they failed to listen to Torah, the prophets, and God, they wandered away from life giving ways and towards death dealing ways. Jesus wanted to know if the disciples were listening.

Jesus continues the test by seeing if the disciples will act. Will they be faithful to the command that Jesus has given them? This was always the question because it is one thing to listen and take in information, but it is another to follow through on the information that is given. I’m not sure if any of you have noticed this about people who come to you for advice. They listen, but then they often simply go and do what they were always planning to do in the first place. We often see the same thing at school, or work, or in society, in that regardless of how much information is given and how much people listen to and take in this information, they never act on that information. This was the tendency of the people of God. In the book of Judges, the continuing line is that even though the people listened to God they would always then go and do what was “right in their own eyes.” So, would the disciples listen and act? The answer is yes. “So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Then they brought it to Jesus.” The disciples have now passed the first two parts of the exam: they listened, and they acted.

The third part of the exam will be the most difficult, at least in Luke’s telling of the tale, because to profess is a dangerous act. In the other stories there are crowds that celebrate Jesus’ coming into the city. It is as if there is this great groundswell of support for Jesus and his message of God’s love and Torah faithfulness. In a sense, in the other tellings the disciples sort of disappear into the crowds clamoring for a messiah. Yet here the disciples stand alone. If anyone is going to profess Jesus as king, it will be his followers and no one else. We know that this is dangerous because to pronounce anyone other than Caesar or Caesar’s appointed king as king, was to be in open rebellion against the powers of the moment. We know this is dangerous as well, because the Pharisees are worried and tell Jesus to still his followers. And by the way I think the Pharisees are worried about Jesus because they had earlier warned him not to go to Jerusalem because the Romans there were looking to do him in. Again, this has always been the struggle of the people of God. In the face of the principalities and powers of the world, would the people of God proclaim that YHWH was king? Would they be willing to publicly declare that that their first loyalty was to God and to God’s messiah, Jesus? How did the disciples do? “As Jesus was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” They professed. They passed.

So, what about us? How are we doing? Well, if this morning is any indication, I think we are passing as well. I say this because of Allison and her baptism. This morning we listened to Jesus call us to welcome children in his name and to the Apostle Peter who tells us that the promises of God’s love are for the children of those who believe. Then we acted. We came together as a community and baptized Allison. And as a reminder, baptism in the Presbyterian church is an act of the whole community which is why we don’t do private baptisms. But we acted on what we heard. Finally, we professed. We professed that this baptism was not simply an act of a secular community, or a rite of passage, but it was an act of a community that believes in the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ and that that love and grace has claimed Allison.

The challenge for us then as individuals is to put ourselves to the same three-part test as were the disciples, and as we are as a community. It is to ask ourselves, am I listening to God in Christ, am I acting on what I hear, and am I professing to others that my way of living and loving is because I am a follower of Jesus? That is my challenge for all of us this week and always.

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Sadducees

4/3/2022

Rev. Bethany Peerbolte
April 3, 2022

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Exodus 3:1-15; Luke 20:27-40

There are times in life we have an experience that completely shifts our perspective. You start off sure that you fully understand, but then it is presented in a new light and you have to rethink everything. For example, I grew up in Michigan on a small little inland lake. I took trips to the Great Lakes with my family every summer. I thought I understood bodies of water. Then I went to an ocean and witnessed tides for the first time. It was incredible to see the beach grow a couple hundred feet and then watch as that same area was transformed just hours later.

After a few trips to the ocean, and a couple science lessons, I thought I understood how tides work. But I had only ever experienced tides on American beaches. When I traveled to Kenya, my understanding was shaken again. The tide would go out just over a half mile. Whole boats would rest on the sand and camels would be used to bring in the catch. I had absolutely no concept of where all that water was going.

This week I again had my perspective challenged by my favorite astrophysicist, Neil Degrasse Tyson. I had the moon and the sun's gravitational impact figured out. That much made sense to me. Neil pointed out that the earth rotating inside the two water bulges the moon and sun creates is actually the tide. The water is always being pulled away from the earth’s surface, but the beach one is standing on is either rotating into or out of the bulge.

To hear this explained this way is mind boggling. I guess I understand what Neil is saying, but do I really? And does it change anything? I’m still going to say the tide is going out and coming in. From this perspective I will interact with tides in a way that makes sense to me. It would be cumbersome to say the section of the earth I am currently standing on is rotating into the bulge of water caused by the gravitational pull of the moon. And that wasn’t what Neil was suggesting we do, thank goodness. But knowing that my perspective is limited helps me stay open to new perspectives. And realizing I value concise language reminds me someone else might use different words to talk about the same thing.

Perspective is central to Jesus’ teaching in this week’s lesson. The religious elite who encounter Jesus think they are going to trap Jesus into answering an unanswerable question. From their perspective there is no way for Jesus to answer the riddle that doesn’t make him sound absurd or backtrack a previous teaching. They are confident that once the crowd hears Jesus’ response the people will see Jesus as a fraud.

Jesus is three steps ahead of them as always. Being asked impossible questions happens a lot to Jesus. Jesus’ answer can be boiled down to the things we do in this life are not comparable to what is in the next life. In this life, some marry and some are given in marriage, but just like the dead no longer worry about death, they also do not marry nor are they given in marriage.

There is a lot more in Jesus’ answer than just the answer to the Sadducees’ question. Jesus hears a secondary problem in the religious leaders’ question. There is the problem they say they want to know about, “What is marriage like in the next life?” but Jesus sees that there is a problem in the assumptions of their question too. Jesus wants them to consider this problem, “Why do they assume their perspective is absolute?”

Jesus tries to help them see a different perspective three different ways. He gives them an option they have not yet considered to solve their marriage and resurrection problem. He also matches their energy of an absurd question with an absurd answer. Then he meets them where they are and uses their own values to show they can faithfully choose to believe.

The first way Jesus tries to help stretch the listeners’ perspective is in the way he describes marriage. Jesus says there are those who “marry and those who are given in marriage” which sets us up to see marriage as a practice that has two different perspectives. We can talk about marriage from the perspective of those who marry or we can talk about marriage from the perspective of those who are given in marriage.

It is a subtle but deliberate choice to frame marriage this way. In the riddle the Sadducees show that they think the two experiences of marriage have to do with gender, also known as, every man who is married has the same experience. Jesus’ view of marriage is that the two experiences have nothing to do with gender but depends on if the person is marrying, or being given in marriage.

Not all men experience marriage from the perspective of “marrying.” Sometimes a family has to have a son be given in marriage and make a match that is not his own autonomous choice. Not all women experience marriage from the perspective of “being given in marriage,” even in Jesus’ day there were women who chose the matches they wanted. Taking gender out of the riddle, Jesus’ framing now asks who is being given and who is marrying. The listener can then ponder if the rule the Sadducees are talking about is fair to each person regardless of gender.

When this rule about marriage was made, it was meant to correct the injustice caused by human standards and constructs. Widows were outcast if their husbands died without an heir and no one felt responsible for the widow anymore. Allowing a brother to marry their brother’s widow took away the stigma of marrying a widow and was supposed to ensure all widows were protected.

Except in practice the rule didn’t actually fix anything. Even though marrying a brother’s widow was now allowed and even seen as honorable to do so, families were still casting out widows. The rules still said that a childless woman didn’t have any right to the family wealth. And siblings quickly worked out that if no one married the widow, everyone got a bonus in their inheritance.

The rule looked good on paper but in practice it did not correct the injustice against widows. The rule was supposed to correct a system that produced unjust results.

With their question freshly answered, Jesus calls them out for asking an absurd question. He knows the Sadducees do not believe in resurrection so they do not really need an answer. They hope he says something they can use against him and draw people to their side. So Jesus answers with an equally absurd answer, at least to their ears. Jesus says everyone will be like angels, another concept the Sadducees do not believe in. If they were hoping to use his words against him. Jesus gave them nothing to work with.

Then Jesus meets the Sadducees where they are. They value the Torah above all other scripture and so Moses is central to their worldview. They bring up Moses in their question so Jesus uses that same story to show resurrection could be an option even in their religious construct. Jesus points out that God remains tied to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. By all laws when someone is dead, all contracts are void. Yet God is still keeping the covenants with these fathers of faith, which could be seen as God confirming resurrection in the afterlife because God still treats these contracts as active, as if the men were still alive.

Three ways Jesus tries to shift the Sadducees to a new perspective so they can spend less time on questions of marriage and more energy on things that matter to God.

It is good to note that Jesus is careful not to condemn the practice of marriage completely. He knows in this life there is a lot of value in marrying so people shouldn’t stop marrying and being given in marriage. However, we shouldn't assume heaven will operate with the same standards we adhere to now. Largely because what we come up with often results in double standards and injustices. Jesus spends his whole ministry teaching how to notice injustice and empowering followers to correct it. To make life on earth closer to how it will work in heaven, to make heaven on earth.

This issue with marriage and resurrection may be too far removed from our experience for us to feel the shift in perspective the Sadducees would have felt. There is a similar question I hear asked today that I think is similar to the Sadducees’ question.

What gender will we be in heaven? We live in a world that has a very firm construct around gender. Just like the structure around marriage that the Sadducees were stuck in, it is hard for us to imagine an answer outside of our own perspectives.

As a cis-gender woman, assigned female at birth and identify as female currently, I don’t think I will be me if female is not a part of my existence. My perspective limits the way I can understand gender. I can listen to other perspectives…when Neil Degrasse Tyson explained the water-bulge-tide-thing I see what he is saying, but tides in and out are still the best way for me to experience tides. So I can listen to the perspective of someone who is transgender and kinda get what they are saying, but I will always experience gender as being in sync with my body because that’s how I experience it.

So when we hear the religious elite of our day claim that they have it all figured out, and they say they know what gender will be like in heaven because they know how it works here on earth, we want to remember Jesus’ response. The things that make sense to us here won’t necessarily transfer exactly the same way in the next life. And it might do us some good to examine the fruit our current standards and constructs produce. Because if we find that our rules aren’t protecting everyone in our community, it would serve us best to amend our understanding now, making this life as close to heaven as we can so our minds won't be boggled when we get to the real golden gates.

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Chief Priests

3/27/2022

Rev. Bethany Peerbolte
March 27, 2022

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1 Samuel 8:1-22; Luke 20:1-19

The sermon writing process always has its hurdles and walls that a preacher must get through to reach the final message. For me there is one particular wall that comes up every single time I preach. Spray painted in huge graffiti letters across the face of this wall are the words, “The Bible Says…”

I do not like this phrase. I have giant red flags that shoot up and alarms that go off when I hear “The Bible Says…” Here is the way. If you have spent any amount of time interacting with scripture that spans a significant time period of your life you know that “what the Bible says” changes. I don’t mean the words on the page, though scanning different translations you will find the words change from one to the other, I am talking about the meaning that fills us as we read.

You can read the same chapter as a child, a teen, a divorcee, a grandparent, and just before you die, and each reading of the chapter will say something different to you as you experience different corners of life.

This is why the wall of “The Bible Says…” causes me so much anxiety when I preach. I never want anyone to hear one of my sermons and think they KNOW what that scripture passage says and never again challenge their understanding. I don’t want someone to have a brilliant insight later on and feel like they are wrong because that isn’t how Pastor Bethany explained it.

But when I preach, I do want to offer you AN interpretation; something that could help your spiritual health and your relationship with God. To offer you that, I have to pick a direction to go and risk that someone might think what I say is the only thing the Bible is saying.

I bring this up this week because this parable is extremely debated among biblical scholars. It is still unclear to us what Jesus was trying to say. It is so frustrating and yet…one of the greatest gifts Jesus gave us. This parable shows the genius of Jesus’ teaching style, and I don’t want to ruin your interaction with this parable by telling you what it means. This week I decided not to decide. I’m going to make you do some of the work with the Spirit to get to a meaning that is valuable for your moment in this faith journey.

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants. First off, we are being primed to put the tenants into the villain category with the title of this section. Fun Bible fact: those titles were not in the original writings so we have to be careful not to let something a translator added relatively recently color the way we read these verses. They might be wicked, or there might be a plot twist we will miss if we start with that assumption.

First thing to do with any parable is identify what might be used in the metaphor. Characters can be stand-ins for other people, or groups of people, or God. Places can be significant and give hints to the meaning. Animals or inanimate objects that are key to the parable could represent something else like a coin or yeast. Parables are not metaphors, so not everything in the parable will be there to represent something else, but it is good to identify what could be used.

In this one we have a landowner, tenants, servants, and the landowner’s son as characters. The setting is a vineyard, but we also have a second implied setting of the landowner being “somewhere else” which could be significant. And that’s about it. There is the implied produce that has been harvested but we don’t know what it is and it never exchanges hands, so kind of a non-player in the action of the parable.

Since the people are central to the story, most likely they are where we need to focus our attention. Whom do these people represent?

Currently, in the last 1,000 years or so, the popular interpretation of this parable goes like this. God is the landowner who has entrusted the vineyard to Israel. God sent prophets to gather the fruits of the vineyard but the prophets were beaten up and insulted by Israel and God did not get the harvest God desired. So then God sent the son, Jesus, to meet with the tenants and get the fruit but they killed him. God’s response will then be to destroy Israel and give the vineyard to new tenants.

Did you catch the antisemitic undertones in that interpretation? Hitler did. That way of understanding this parable was very much a part of why Hitler thought it was right to kill every Jewish person in the world. They had their chance with the vineyard and Hitler was the arm of the landowner coming to reclaim the vineyard.

I know there are many more people who grew up with this interpretation of this parable who did not come to that particular conclusion but it is an extreme example of why we need to be skeptical of the phrase, “The Bible Says…” Trying to capture scriptural meaning into an airtight box will rot any interpretation in the wrong environment.

Scripture needs to breathe to remain valuable and fresh. God as the landowner could be what Jesus meant. This could be a parable of warning that those of us who are currently tenants need to produce the fruit our landowner requires or else we will be destroyed and the land will be given to someone else. But let me show you how one adjustment changes the parable completely.

Critics of that interpretation say it misses a crucial element of the act of interpretation: it ignores the context. It is not our worldview that this parable is being told from, it is Jesus’. Jesus’ life exists in the matrix of Roman occupation. Rome was the greatest economic and military superpower the world had known, and in the first century Judea/Palestine became part of the empire roughly sixty years before Jesus’s birth. All he had ever known was centurions in the streets, and hillsides riddled with crosses, as a public warning of what happens when you cross the empire.

The Romanization of Palestine introduced the practice of tenant farmers. It was commonplace to have a wealthy, absent landowner, and tenant farmers. Tenant, meaning that they owned no land of their own. Why? Because the process of Romanization, and the taxes that came with it, caused them to amass debt, and eventually lose their land.

It is just as plausible that Jesus meant the Roman empire to be in the role of the absent landowner. I am going to give you a second to sit with that change. God is not the landowner; Rome is the landowner. Israel is still in the role of tenant farmer. We have only changed who the landowner is.

So, in Jesus’s day, there was a lot of discussion about when and how God would act to liberate the people from their oppressive overlords. When will the land be ours again? There were multiple opinions about how this liberation would occur.

One approach, seen in the life of Jesus, was that of nonviolent resistance. This isn’t pacifism, but a form of resistance that asserts one’s dignity, while refusing to descend to the level of returning violence for violence.

Another option present in Jesus’ day was that of violent resistance. How will we rid ourselves of the oppressors? We’ll kill them. This is the option that won out in the Jewish Revolt of 66-73 CE. Rome responded to the uprising, retaliating by devastating the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. This would be recent history to the gospel writers and a motivating factor to why they want more people to know about the option Jesus taught.

An option that is nonviolent, that does not kill the tax collectors and soldiers, or anyone else Rome sends to keep them in line. That kind of violence will only lead to the landowner, Rome, showing up and killing Israel and giving the land to someone else.

Putting Rome as the landowner turns this parable into a warning that violence against oppressors will lead to more violence. They must choose a different way to resist.

I’ll give you one more quick interpretation option that turns this parable from a parable of warning to a parable of hope.

Some Biblical scholars put God in the role of the landowner and Rome in the role of the tenants. Then this becomes a story of leadership that was once ordained by God but who have turned away from their duties. The landowner, God, eventually will come to destroy the wicked tenants and give the land to other leaders. Hope for those oppressed that God will destroy Rome and give the land to them.

There are lots of other adjustments we can try and maybe the options I gave you have already made your head start to spin. This is why reading the Bible seriously can be such a challenge. How do we know which is true?

We read, we discuss, we question, we experience, we gather, we debate, we research, we wonder, we live, and with the power of the Holy Spirit in you, in me, in us collectively, we find truths.

It is true that if we do not produce the fruits God desires, that duty will be taken away from us and given to another. It is true that impulsive violence against oppressors will lead to our own ruin. It is true that God will have the final say in who tends to the land in the Kin-dom.

All of these are true and how incredible this book is that it grows with us AND is ready to meet us exactly as we are in every moment of life. If we do not bring our understanding to Jesus, he will not be able to guide us further. The religious leaders were not willing to claim an interpretation of John’s baptisms and they tell Jesus, “We do not know where it was from.” And so Jesus has nothing to work with and can only answer, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

We must be willing to do the work to seek difficult understandings and stay open to the guidance of the Spirit towards another interpretation. Together, in community, in all our different comprehensions, we hold THE truth, and yet none of us hold it absolutely.

So let us sit with the sermon the Spirit has preached to each of our own hearts.

Praise be to God.

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Tax Collector

3/20/2022

Rev. Bethany Peerbolte

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Genesis 24:10-28; Luke 19:1-10

There are some stories in the Bible we wisely save to teach our kids when they get older, but when we come across a kid-friendly story we tend to go overboard. Zacchaeus is one of those stories. There are cartoons about Zacchaeus, songs and coloring books. His story is in every children's bible I have ever seen, and I have even walked past a plush toy Zacchaeus at a baby store. One problem with that is we can start to think this IS a kid's story and there is nothing in the story for adults.

However, with the adult experience, we can see some underlying problems that escape us as children. For one, when was the last time you climbed a tree? Climbing trees for kids could happen on any random Tuesday. As adults, we realize how badly Zaccheaus must have wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus. Badly enough to stretch his tendons beyond any recent ability, endure the bone cracks and muscle aches to pull himself up onto a branch, and test his aging sense of balance to position himself just right to see the top of Jesus’ head as he walked by.

A glimpse of Jesus was all Zaccheaus expected when he chose to climb that tree. It was worth all that effort and risk to just see the top of Jesus’ head. Zaccheaus would have been thrilled with that outcome. He could have told that story for the rest of his life about the day he saw Jesus’ hair. Then comes the part that as an adult, I am even more stunned by Zaccheaus. Jesus stops at the foot of the tree, looks up at Zaccheus, and… invites himself over for dinner.

Now when I put myself into Zacchaeus’s place the first fear that flashes across my mind is, “I’m not ready.” I don’t know about your house, but mine needs at least 24 hours of notice before company comes. I need to clean, I need to make sure I have all fresh ingredients for my most impressive recipes. I make sure I have wine fit for the caliber of guests in attendance. There is a lot to be done to host someone for dinner. My second fear would be, HOW AM I GOING TO GET DOWN OUT OF THIS TREE?!

None of those fears seems to phase Zaccheaus. He doesn’t even flinch when the people around him start to mutter about how he is not worthy to welcome Jesus. Somehow Zaccheaus can listen to Jesus’ voice louder than the fears begging for attention. He ignores all the excuses to refuse Jesus and is ready to say “yes” despite the fear.

As an adult, the story of Zaccheaus shines a light on two things I think are key to learning from his encounter with Jesus. 1) Set achievable expectations, and 2) be ready to say yes when the big opportunity comes. Zaccheaus set an achievable goal when Jesus came into town. He wanted to get a glimpse of him. It wasn’t an easy goal. He had to fight the crowds of people who did not care for his presence and then climb a tree to even have a chance to see Jesus. There was a possibility Zaccheaus would fail to see Jesus and would have to go home a failure, but he went out ready to do what needed to be done to reach his goal.

That tenacity to try may also be the reason Zaccheaus was ready to say “yes” when Jesus invited himself over. Zaccheaus probably wasn’t ready in the ways I would like to be for company coming over. He wasn’t cleaning or stocking his pantry thinking he would have such a guest of honor visit. Zacchaeus’s “readiness” was that he wasn’t going to let fear steal this blessing away from him. He did not let fear convince him that he was not ready.

Expectations and ignoring fear come up a lot on one of my favorite TV shows. Do I have any fellow Shark Tank watchers out there? I love Shark Tank. If you don’t watch Shark Tank, the show has five billionaires who hear pitches from new businesses and products that they might want to invest in. The entrepreneurs do their best to win a Shark’s investment and mentorship.

If you watch Shark Tank you know that sitting in the center chair is always Mr. Wonderful. He invests in all kinds of products and companies and he is the shark among sharks. With all these different investments, he often researches why some of his companies are doing better than others. He analyzes their strategies and meets with the founders to see if he can learn something from the top performers and teach that to the underperforming businesses. In 2016, Mr. Wonderful noticed something as he was meeting his top-performing companies. When meeting with the founders and CEOs of those top companies there was at least one woman in the room. Mr. Wonderful then asked his researchers to do a specific analysis of female-led companies versus male-led companies.

They found that their investments in companies with at least one female founder performed 63% better than their investments in all-male teams. Well of course Mr. Wonderful wanted to know why. They dug deeper and found it all came down to how they set goals for their company. The companies that performed the best set achievable goals.

The underperforming companies were setting goals that shot for the farthest star hoping it would motivate their teams to hustle harder and win bigger. What they found was it was leading to low morale and high employee turnover. The companies that set sky-high goals would do great in the first quarter, but then they would coast in the second and third quarter thinking they were almost to the goal and could pull back. When the end of the year loomed, they burnt themselves out trying to get across the finish line in the last days, often failing to meet their goal.

The companies that set achievable goals weren’t just reaching their goals, they were setting higher ones, sometimes even in the first quarter. They were ending their year beyond the goals other companies set on day one because they had gotten there step by step. The employees celebrated multiple wins along the way. They were building morale, attracting better talent, retaining valuable leaders within the company, and feeling fulfilled by their work.

Now, Mr. Wonderful coaches all his businesses to set achievable goals. That doesn’t mean easy goals, you may have to climb a few trees to get there, but when you get there the “win” can power you through the next goal. Achievable goals are the first thing we can learn from Zaccheaus.

The next thing is to not let fear fool you into saying “no” to great opportunities. Last week on Shark Tank there was an entrepreneur who was pitching a new kind of deodorant. She talked about the harmful chemicals in most deodorants on the market and her journey to try natural options that didn’t deodorize anything. Then she talked about her formula and how well her company was doing. I thought for sure she would get an offer because she had all the numbers ready to go. But one by one the Sharks said they were out, they were not going to invest.

With one Shark still interested, she mentioned to them how an hour before this moment she was hiking around the Griffiths Observatory. While deep into her hike, she got a call from Shark Tank producers asking her if she could come to make a pitch RIGHT NOW. The athletic clothing she was wearing was not a choice to market her deodorant; it was what she put on when she left her house thinking she was going for a hike in the mountains.

This revelation changed how the other sharks saw her. Two sharks started talking in hushed tones on the side to each other and quickly came back in to make her an offer better than what was being offered to her. Their reason for suddenly deciding to invest after initially turning her down was her willingness to say “yes” to an opportunity despite it not coming at the perfect moment. She did not let her fear of being unprepared, not having the right clothes on, the right display boards, the right makeup, the right whatever scare her away from taking this chance. And the reality, in the end, was her recent hike convinced the sharks even more that the deodorant worked.

Fear is very good at pointing out all the ways we can fail. Fear will convince us that we are not ready or worthy of the blessings and opportunities God sends us. But Zacchaeus shows us that if we are willing to put the effort into achievable goals, God will meet us with amazing opportunities.

This is not to say burn your vision boards, but make them adaptable. Draw out the steps that will need to happen along the way to the grand vision. The wins along the way will catapult you on to the next win. And when something great comes along, don’t let any fear have a say about what you are ready for or what you deserve. With God, those who are willing to climb to the top of the tree for just a glimpse of God’s glory will find themselves being offered opportunities they could not even imagine when they were standing on the ground. God honors those who are content with a glimpse with even more.

Set achievable goals and say “yes” in the face of fear. May we all allow Zaccheaus to inspire us this week and in the weeks to come.

<<Previous

The Marks of the Church: Blessing

The Marks of the Church: Telling

The Marks of the Church: Serving

The Marks of the Church: Giving

The Marks of the Church: Waiting

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Witnesses

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: The Disciples

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Sadducees

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Chief Priests

Close Encounters of the Jesus Kind: Tax Collector

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