Jesus Wept

“Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” John 11:35-37

At a church-league softball game, (back when I was a wee lad), I heard the older, tobacco-spitting Sunday School teacher say,  “Jee-sus Wept!” under his breath in response to a bad call by the umpire. (Adding the word “wept” was a loophole so  he wouldn’t  be taking the Lord’s name  in vain. I don’t think he was quoting scripture for righteousness purposes). Later, John 11:35 would become a prayer for me, because sometimes I will say “Jee-sus Wept” and I am not cursing. Those two words make me feel better, every time, because they  remind me that Jesus responded and stuck with his grief. 

Jesus’ grief is a comfort and a challenge, because we live in a time of unprecedented distraction. Whenever we want, we can choose to check out of the present moment by looking down at small, rectangular, glass screens that can broadcast cat videos or pictures of our friends sticking food up their noses. I know that sometimes when I am sad or even just bored or stressed, I will fire up my phone and check out. Checking out is easy.

Escaping the present takes us away from the opportunity to live authentically in the way that Jesus does when he learns his friend has died. True, Jesus was human because he had a body and suffered the multitude of indignities and complications that come with them. Most importantly, he he laughed, got angry, frightened, and wept. He did not check out in the face of “normal” human life. 

Human pain like break-ups, academic disaster or social drama, often lead us to check out. Being fully human is about being present to one another and ourselves during all human experiences. Our hope in being present comes from one another- and from our connection to a God of the Universe who “lived and died (and cried) as one of us” 

Jesus didn’t just cry out to God, though, he cried out to Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha. He cried out to the other mourners who were present. We can be present when one of our friends is crying out, and we also can reach out for help when we are in the midst of pain. If you get overwhelmed, make sure someone who can take care of you knows about it and gives you what you need. Keep me at the top of your list of folks you call when you are in the midst of a hard time. 

Jesus is the human being. Stay with your discomfort sometimes. While the joy of being able to play Angry Birds can be a nice distraction, being present to what is in front of us – be it good or bad- is what makes us human.  God incarnate wept for one of us, weeps with us, and wants for us to be fully human, fully present, and fully alive.

Better Questions- Muddy Hands

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. “ John 9:1-2

People back then just assumed that when bad stuff happened, it was because God was getting back at them. We still will ask,  “What did we/he/I do to deserve this?” when bad things happen to us? Another way of asking it is, “Whose fault is this?” Which translates into, “Let’s find someone to blame so we can deal with our anger/frustration/anxiety/grief about what has happened.” Jesus shows his friends (and us) that there are better questions to ask and be answered in the face of suffering. 

Standard answers to the aforementioned questions are:  “Well….. it is God’s will” or “Well… so many people were led to Christ because of X” or “everything happens for a reason.” All of these answers are human, honest, and healthy. However, they come from assumptions that Jesus completely blows apart in John 9. When Jesus says, “This man was made blind so that God’s good works might be shown in him” it seems as if he is saying,  “God did this to him so I could heal him and show off for God" (which would contradict what I just wrote). I think he is getting at something entirely different, however. 

What he really means is made clear when the Gospel of John says:

“When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. “

"God's works being revealed in him" means that God is present in that man who is blind—even before Jesus heals him. God is also present in Jesus’ healing him. God has not blinded the man to show off, or punish, or make some kind of evangelistic statement. Jesus reacts to suffering in front of him by getting his hands dirty, and reminding the disciples that God is at work in all things. 

So, if Jesus came to show us, definitively, that God loves and heals, maybe we can, after our initial shock when bad things happen, know that we can someday ask better questions that can lead us to a better place. God is a God who “gets her hands muddy” for us and, even in the midst of our blindness, suffering, and pain, is always creating something new in us and the world.

Tim

Sitting at the Well

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)  John 4:5-7

When you read  “Samaritan”, just replace it with any modern stand in for “outsider”: illegal

immigrant, refugee, Muslim, atheist ,.... For Jews living in Jesus’ day no one had greater outsider status than the Samaritans. They had a pretty major quibble with Judean Jewish people about some things that might seem pretty minor to us today. They were even more “outsider” than Roman citizens, believe it or not. Pretty risky to talk with a Samaritan, much less make friends with her. 

Jesus drinking from one of their wells would have been pretty gross for most of his fellow Judeans. So, not only does he drink the water of “the other” he has a conversation with one of them (and a woman—yet another level of outsider back in that day—to boot). You get it.

Later on in the scene, Jesus says to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water (8).” He offers her his friendship, God’s friendship, and a new way to relate to God that includes not only her, but all people. Jesus winds up staying with the Samaritans for two days, and at the end of his time they say, “…we know that this is truly the savior of the world (42).” Jesus spends his “social capital” on this anonymous woman because she is a child of God.

As you find  yourself sitting across from someone who is “other” for you- be it a person who disagrees with you, or someone who looks or sounds different, or even someone you just find annoying, put yourself in the position of being curious about how you might be able to find out who they are and “sit at the well” with them. Not only that, but see if you might find a way to spend some of your “social capital” on them and make them a more welcome part of the world you live in.

JOHN 3:17 CHRISTIANS?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16-17

John 3:16 is probably the most famous line of Christian scripture there is. Dudes will sit in the end zone of football games and hold it up on posters for the millions to see. People who don’t even believe in God can quote that verse.  One of the notorious habits of people who like to make a show of their religiosity is a“proof texting.”

Proof-texting John 3:16 is often ammunition for proving that Christianity is a “turn or burn” proposition (meaning: agree with my particular way/ theology/ doctrine or enjoy eternal damnation). Many a time someone will say to me, ‘ We should all be ‘John 3:16 Christians!” 

I wish they would claim being “John 3:17 Christians” instead.  If Christians would focus harder on “saving the world through him” (i.e. promoting, living out, preaching, teaching and embodying lives that were very Jesus-like) rather than sorting out the whole “whosoever believes in him” part, our world would be a vastly better place. 

If the Son did not come to condemn the world, then it follows, too, that we ought not be about the business of condemning, either. Push back and resist injustice, call out the wrongs of the world, but it is not our job to condemn anyone.  Our vision, then, could be a world without condemnation, a world in which all people are seen through the lens of Christ- as children of God- even when we disagree with them. 

Luke 23:34 reads, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” 

Proof-text that. Jesus refused to condemn people who were killing him with horrific, slow torture. So, I think it follows that we get very little slack for condemning anyone. 

Condemn actions- condemn laws, condemn injustice- but not people,  and we are freed up to be a part of God’s real work in the world.

Quiet Faith

Jesus said, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-19

People in Jesus’ day were using their devotion and worship- fasting, alms giving and praying- to enhance their own status.  Their outward acts were turning into a competition. Jesus knew his followers could do better. We can do better. We Episcopalians  love our liturgy.  So much so that we can pick teams for fights over things incense or no incense-Rite I or Rite II?  An institutional or personal need for approval, Jesus reminds us, hinders us from an authentic faith.  Worship and devotion is about being in right relationship with one another and God,  not another reason to divide ourselves from one another. When we do, we become just like the rest of the world- craving the dollars and attention of consumers of religion.  

Our forebears heard the same voices that whisper to us that when we are seen doing all the right things and hope it makes people think we are good (or help us to think we are better than them. Jesus tells the religious folks of his day that it is a false Gospel of pride and competitiveness. People who practice this kind of loud religion get their reward-- but it is only the approval of other people.

We are offered during Lent a time to “slow down.” We can take a pause- practice our spiritual life quietly. Jesus tells us, quiet religion  is more likely to be something that is of ultimate reward- and ultimate worth. Quiet religion leads to the greatest reward-- authentic faith.   

Fasting quietly might even offer us a new perspective on our relationship to food and hospitality and help us to notice how we over-consume. When we give  with quiet  generosity, we raise the likelihood that we are making a true offering and sacrifice rather than our purchasing favor or social status.  When we pray privately then our prayers can be more open to God and to one another.  

Jesus, our great High Priest, invites us all to lives of quiet integrity and oneness with His purposes: oneness with God, healing for a broken world and deeper love for one another and for humanity. 

Tim

Barney Fife of the Bible

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up

a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Matthew 17:1-4

Back when there were just 4 channels of TV, re-runs of “The Andy Griffith Show” would come on during the afternoon on the “UHF” band. Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, NC, and his sidekick- a squirrelly, sad, comical, wiry Deputy Barney Fife (pictured above), kept the town safe.  Barney had a big heart and  the best of intentions. He was mostly harmless, and completely incompetent.  Andy didn’t carry a gun. Barney did, but Andy only let him have one bullet (and Barney had to carry it around in his pocket). Barney loves and worships Andy, loves being a deputy (and most importantly) loves the people of Mayberry. 

St. Peter, like St. Barney, means well, is zealous, loves Jesus, and is a big goof. He is impulsive, says what he thinks, and often is the object of thorough tongue-lashings from Jesus. 

Jesus, Peter, and  others go up to the top of a mountain, and there they meet up with the spirits of Moses and Elijah.  Peter  blurts out the idea that they build three “dwellings” for them. What exactly was he thinking? The plan was boneheaded, very Barney Fife-like, even.  I picture Jesus finishing his little celestial conference, looking at Peter, sighing deeply, maybe even shaking his head, and saying, “Peter, Peter, Peter… Let’s go.” 

Later, as they are walking down the mountain, Jesus quite wisely admonishes his friends “to tell no one.” Peter must have had the hardest time with that order. I can imagine that, for days, he nearly burst apart wanting to tell the story to others.  

Later, Jesus says that Peter is his dude here on Earth- the one who will start his church. Jesus, changed his name from Simon to “Petrus”, (meaning “rock”).One has to appreciate the pun, too. Rocks are solid yet dense- immovable and stubborn, always full of tiny flaws. Peter is, if you have not guessed, our surrogate in the Jesus story, an invitation to be fully human yet also fully invested in the Jesus movement (just like Peter). 

St Peter proves that God not only is empathetic about our humanity- she desires that we embrace it and pursue ministry and love on this earth (however clumsy it might be sometimes). We have wise ones- the Sheriff Taylors of the world- to help us sometimes sharpen our efforts. Peter reminds us that God can take our best intentions, combine them with celestial and divine guidance, and even turn them into her mission here on Earth. 

Hardest Work There Is

Hardest Work There Is  

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” MT 5:38-40        

"Who really does this? ," we have to ask, if we are honest.  The whole “turn the other cheek thing”, for example, resulted from real things that actually happened to Jesus People quite often, in fact. Jesus followers who heard this teaching had to shake their heads and think it was crazy talk. 

Back then,  a “cultural superior” would slap someone of a lower caste with the back of the hand. (A Roman Citizen would never hit a lower class person with the flat of their hand— too messy!) By “turning the other cheek”, victims of this kind of every day violence communicated to their perpetrators, “Hit me again if you will, but it will be as an equal, because I am a human being.” Turning the other cheek was and act defiance and assertion of  equality. By reminding the doer of violence that their victims were human beings  they could transform  violence and victimhood and perhaps even remind someone caught up in the intoxicating power of rage that they were hurting a fellow human being. 

Or how about this one-

A Roman citizen, by law,  could ask any subjected person to carry their stuff for one mile (and no more). Jesus says to his followers— “Don’t just carry their stuff a mile— carry it all the way home (the second mile).” I don’t want to carry my adversaries stuff a foot, much less a mile. Jesus is saying that we not only have to love our enemies in the abstract sense, but seek to do them good when offered the opportunity. 

When we put these teachings in perspective, we realize that they are still hard for people like us to do. 

Sometimes it seems as if the human story is just about one group of people gathering together in a tribe and working to suppress or destroy another group through violence. The end of these kinds of actions does bring about peace (for a while) but it never deals with the root causes of violence. So, Jesus is not just telling individuals how to act, but is laying  out none other than his vision for building peace in a violent world. He is also getting humanity to tell a new story. 

Loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors opens up our imaginations to the possibility of how we might serve them and love them. Seeking ways to insist upon our humanity to our victimizers is the most potent kind of resistance against evil.  Turning the other cheek ministers to our oppressors because they become more human when they see fellow children of God on the other side of whatever conflict that exists and not just people worthy of "the back of their hand."

As the walls between the haves and have nots and those who are in and out  are being made more pronounced in our national life, we might even find ourselves with new “enemies” - even as we feel even more victimized. So, living these teachings is hard work, takes the greatest kind of imagination and must be centered in our living lives of prayer in our beloved community called the Church. Let’s put our energies towards imagining how we will be called to turn the other cheek and what the second mile might look like. We can start with one another. 

This is the hardest kind of spiritual work, yet in it lies the keys to none other than God’s kingdom among us and with us.