Psalm 147:12-20 Second Sunday in Christmas
To begin, note two things: First, winter weather in western South Dakota is fickle, not to be regarded lightly. The air never stops moving, even on the most clement, merciful and kind days. Second, when driving the normal three hours on the two-lane black-top from Pierre to Sturgis there are zero stop signs and not many more outposts of civilization.
I had done a burial at Black Hills National Cemetery and caught a ride back to Pierre in the hearse with the funeral director’s wife. I volunteered to drive. As the sun slid behind the mountains at our back, an early November blizzard brought the curl of its system up from the south. The road turned from black top to white top. The edge of the road was more often than not imaginary. Beside me, Trudy prayed and sang spiritual songs. The coffin carrier began to feel like a coffin itself, shrouded in a pall. Burial cloths whipping around us.
The psalmist says, “He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down hail like crumbs — who can stand before his cold?” (Psalm 147:16-17) Standing I can do. Driving, not so much. Thanks to my winter excursion in the Feigum Funeral Home hearse, I have a winter driving phobia. I fear slick roads and whiteout conditions. Pulling out of the garage in the midst of flurries gets my pulse racing. Who will save me from this auto body of death?
My phobia, of course, is that I will lose control. And if I think I can manage the rest of my life a bit better than I can slick roads, it’s only an illusion. I am out of control, spinning, slipping, sliding through my days. The forecast is for more of the same. The slick lane leads to the ditch. Beware all you other drivers, I may take you out on the way in.
I have no ability to find my way to sunnier climes or drier paths. If I’m to make it home, it can only come at God’s behest. My help is in the name of the Lord. He alone “sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.” (Psalm 147 18)
At the font comes God’s promise of an eternal January thaw. He declares his word and provides more than safe haven from the storm. He is the divine Climate Changer. The weather system sent by his holy wind brings a life-giving Word that thaws the road and the icy, controlling heart, for Christ’s forgiveness and mercy are not fickle. They can be counted on to carry home a dead person like me more surely than any hearse.
So in our winters we pray and sing spiritual songs, even in the most limited visibility, for we are even now being carried home. We pray and sing, even when spinning in the face of on-coming traffic, for the one who is the Way promises to bring us with him to the end, safe and secure. We sing and pray, for our deliverance in Christ Jesus is dawning. The bright day of Epiphany is on its way.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Kicking and Saving
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Luke 1:39-42 (Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year C)
Apparently encountering Jesus is a real kick. Just ask Elizabeth. He was already at it in utero, John was. Kicking. Goading. Getting sinners' attention — even his mother, old cousin Elizabeth. Whoever knew a baby could prepare the way of the Lord?
But crazier yet, whoever knew a baby could be the Lord? Jesus: God contained, limited, enveloped within Mary's womb. Immortal, invisible, God only wise. In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes. He's limited himself to a warm, wet place. He's wrapped himself up within a package of skin cells. He's hidden himself within our human hide.
The coming of the Lord Emmanuel, God With Us, is to ransom captive Israel, and his first step is to cut us open. His simple coming lays claim to all of creation as his own. He takes what is his, no matter how hard we grasp and claw at it as ours.
Whether floating in amniotic fluid, wriggling in swaddling clothes, or wrapped in his final shroud, he says, "Mine. All mine. Every last bit of it!" And it's a blow to the sinner's solar plexus. All our striving for something beyond ourselves, our doing for God is for naught. Our little plans and projects are now eviscerated. They lie empty and exposed. Elizabeth got off easy with a little taekwondo kick to her insides.
And though you know your life is lost and your salvation project is null and void, there's something that's so much easier to see now. In claiming it all for himself, Christ our Lord turns you to the only one who has the power to give you life and who promises to do it.
If he claims it all as his, that means even a hollow-hearted sinner such as you belongs to him. Now it's you who is wrapped, contained and ensconced. And not just in your own flesh, but in the heart of God. The baby Jesus, the boy Jesus in the Temple, the Jesus tossing the moneychangers on their ear, the risen Jesus revealing himself in the bread at Emmaus -- he swathes you within the very will of God.
Christ is put on you. You are enveloped in his comforter, gathered up in the Holy Spirit.
That's quite a kick.
Apparently encountering Jesus is a real kick. Just ask Elizabeth. He was already at it in utero, John was. Kicking. Goading. Getting sinners' attention — even his mother, old cousin Elizabeth. Whoever knew a baby could prepare the way of the Lord?
But crazier yet, whoever knew a baby could be the Lord? Jesus: God contained, limited, enveloped within Mary's womb. Immortal, invisible, God only wise. In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes. He's limited himself to a warm, wet place. He's wrapped himself up within a package of skin cells. He's hidden himself within our human hide.
The coming of the Lord Emmanuel, God With Us, is to ransom captive Israel, and his first step is to cut us open. His simple coming lays claim to all of creation as his own. He takes what is his, no matter how hard we grasp and claw at it as ours.
Whether floating in amniotic fluid, wriggling in swaddling clothes, or wrapped in his final shroud, he says, "Mine. All mine. Every last bit of it!" And it's a blow to the sinner's solar plexus. All our striving for something beyond ourselves, our doing for God is for naught. Our little plans and projects are now eviscerated. They lie empty and exposed. Elizabeth got off easy with a little taekwondo kick to her insides.
And though you know your life is lost and your salvation project is null and void, there's something that's so much easier to see now. In claiming it all for himself, Christ our Lord turns you to the only one who has the power to give you life and who promises to do it.
If he claims it all as his, that means even a hollow-hearted sinner such as you belongs to him. Now it's you who is wrapped, contained and ensconced. And not just in your own flesh, but in the heart of God. The baby Jesus, the boy Jesus in the Temple, the Jesus tossing the moneychangers on their ear, the risen Jesus revealing himself in the bread at Emmaus -- he swathes you within the very will of God.
Christ is put on you. You are enveloped in his comforter, gathered up in the Holy Spirit.
That's quite a kick.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
On Being Lutheran but not "Lutheran"
A (belated) sermon for Reformation Sunday
Most semesters I get to teach a course called "Dynamics of Christian Faith and Life." Like most of my classes it's usually populated with a good mix of 19 and 20-year-olds, all of whom are at this incredibly important point in their development, exploring who they are, what they believe and what earthly good they might be in the world. About three times a semester in that class we play a fun game called "Stump the Professor." Students get to put me on the spot by writing down anonymous questions on slips of paper, and I get to try answering. It never fails that one of these fresh-faced young adults, looking for a place to be in the world asks the denomination question. "How do I know which church is the best when they all say they have the truth?" I know what's appropriate in a classroom, so I say, "Well, my family and I are members at Faith Lutheran Church, the Best Buy church on University. But you need to figure out what it is you're looking for and land where it's the right fit."Standing in front of you today, though, I can come clean. I'm Lutheran. I can't help being Lutheran. Being Lutheran is like breathing for me. It keeps me alive. And I'll tell you why.
I'm Lutheran because of what I believe. And boy do I ever believe a bunch of stuff. I can believe 30 things before I crawl out of bed in the morning. I believe that I can accomplish anything, if I just want it hard enough. I believe that I'll be able to stave off a miserable death from colon cancer if I eat a fiber-rich diet that gives me happy poop. I believe my future is in my own hands. I believe my wife has stuck with me for 19 years, because I'm lovable, likable and still have most of my hair. I believe that the little bit more in consumer goods that I accumulate every week, every month, every year, is a good thing – sure to make my life happy, because, as I also believe, more is better. I believe that we're in good enough shape financially to be able to have the church do an automatic withdrawal from our account each month. I believe my son is so talented, handsome and bright that there's nothing but glory ahead of him after high school, thanks to my genes. I believe in the aw-shucks cuteness of puppies, in the beauty of trees at the height of fall color and in a piping hot bowl of red beans and rice – all of it a sign of the existence of a glorious, marvelous, awesome God who accepts me just as I am. Oh, I believe. I really do. In all of it. And much, much more. I expect I'm not much different than you on that count. I believe that all of this is true.
And the reason I'm Lutheran is that what I believe, everything I believe, every last single thing I believe...is wrong. I'm Lutheran because not only is all that stuff wrong, it's dead wrong. None of it's true, and believing it has all kinds of possible consequences, but only one that is inevitable, certain and sure. What I believe will get me only one thing – a hole in the ground big enough to lower my body in when my power, glory and potential are over with. I'm Lutheran because day after day, when I look honestly at myself, what I believe in is me. And I want you to believe in me, too.
At first glance that's a pretty fine place to be. Look at me. I'm free to choose the life in front of me. Let's hook elbows and go forward into progress. It'll be sunshine, rainbows and lollipops. Well, there's that ache I get in my right knee when I walk too long. Yes, I know. There's also that time I took my son on a college visit to LA and stood at a car-rental counter at midnight with an expired driver's license. That wasn't my best moment of having my poop in a group. I know I'm not perfect. But the life I believe in will still be good, won't it? At least I've got my intentions rightly placed. I want to get better. I'm planning for my retirement. I got myself tenured at a good school, which means there's a tuition benefit for my kid. And I still have my potential. What's that you say? You want me to remember what the past month has been like? A wife and son sick in bed with colds. And then my son with a five-day fever and a another week of school missed. And my wife healthy one day and then in the hospital for a week with a staph infection. I can't wait to see that hospital bill. Even though I believe we'll be able to deal with it, thanks to our monthly insurance contributions, it's put some fear deep down inside me. I'm just a breath away from disaster. Maybe it'll be deeper cuts in state government that force a lay-off for my wife. Or an illness that hits my son that NyQuil, Tylenol and Mucinex can't handle. Blood coming from a place on my body that hasn't been cut. A lump that wasn't there before. A phone call from a family member that says, "I came home and she was dead." Or the doctor who says to me, "It's cancer and it's a fast one." Or how about the late-night drive home on the freeway and the lights that suddenly come across the median toward my lane. I believe. I believe. I believe. I really believe. I really do. But what will believing in my potential, my value, my promise, my good intentions or myself do for me then?
I'm Lutheran because of what I believe and because of what little good it does me. In our gospel reading today, Jesus says, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." I'm Lutheran, because the first part of knowing the truth is knowing what is not the truth. Ever since Luther's first hammer-fall on the nail holding up the 95 Theses in 16th Century Germany, we've been reminded of the world's most important distinction. To use Steve Paulson's words, God slices our reality in two, into what is Christ and what is not Christ. There's all kinds of stuff at work in the world, all kinds of intentions, all kinds of talents, gifts and powers, and, no matter how good or powerful any of them are, they are not Christ. They don't have the power to save me. I'm Lutheran because I'm so dang-blasted weary of what I believe, because I'm so tired of having to confect my days, invent my future and secure and protect what is rightfully mine. Once the truth gets told that what I have and hope to be is simply nothing, well, there's nothing to grab onto and keep safe anymore. Sure, my life, my family, my stuff -- it's all a good gift. But in the long run, it's nothing if it isn't Christ. If I keep grasping after my illusions of control and contentment, my actions begin to look like flailing at thin air.
I'm Lutheran because getting that truth out is crucial. It's the crux of everything. The literal cross road. I remember that I am dust and to dust I shall return. I confess that I can't believe enough. I confess that I don't believe. I confess that I won't believe in anything less than myself unless I'm forced to do it. And I finally let go when my powerlessness is clear. When exactly have I ever prayed to God, trusting in more than myself? When has it been that I've resorted to God's Word as the one place I could find hope? When have I ever been able to admit the truth of something like "Footprints in the Sand," which religious sophisticates love to mock? It's only when the bottom has dropped out – when I'm worn down to nothing and the only thing left to believe is that I'm being carried along by the one who carried his own cross. I'm Lutheran because I know the narrow nothingness where I, too, hang crucified with Jesus, with a voice too hoarse to speak my final plaintive cry, "My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me?"
I'm Lutheran because once there's nothing left I can grasp, work toward and assert, there is a Word that comes. One little Word that is not a what but a who. One little Word who has the power of eternity in his little finger and who subdues the devil, the world and my sinful self. This one remaining Word is the gospel that has been preached for nigh these 500 years since Luther, the 2000 years since Paul wrote Romans, and the timeless eons since God first looked at creation and said, "Tov me'od. Way good." Now that I know what is not Christ, what is Christ comes as glorious good news. Jesus is God for me. Jesus is my Lord – not a wimpy God who merely nods and accepts me but one who takes my disastrous attempts to conjure a life and makes the dead, old me new. My being Lutheran has so very little to do with a structure, institution and denomination that carries Luther's name and everything to do with Jesus' death and resurrection – and mine.
I'm Lutheran because Jesus is the one, the only to whom Luther, Paul, Peter, Mary Magdalene and the Ethiopian eunuch could point. I'm Lutheran because when I was a skinny little bed-wetter, my Sunday school teachers June Aldrin and Bob Lee gave Jesus to me, made sure I knew he was for me. I'm Lutheran because even when every attempt at being more religious and spiritual in college, from wanting to speak in tongues to reading my Bible every day, came to naught, I could go to worship and hear my campus pastor Mark Jerstad bring the truth back. I could confess my sin and hear an absolution that broke open a future with forgiveness as its linchpin. I'm Lutheran because if all I had to go on was the potential and power the world says I have inside me, then I would be lost, most to be pitied, and without a shred of hope. I'm Lutheran because the truth sets me free. I'm Lutheran because this is the proclamation given to me. Jesus Christ, true God from eternity and true human being, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord. I'm Lutheran because it's not something I have to believe. It's not something I can ponder and nod assent to. It's not something I'm called forward to choose and turn my life over to. I'm Lutheran because Christ has made himself my Lord, pulling me out of the drowning waters of baptism and the death that is my life, with no choice or surrender of my own. I'm Lutheran because Jesus wants to feed me the flesh and blood he's given up for my sake. I'm Lutheran because he's not a belief, but the one person, the only one I can fully trust. I'm Lutheran because my Lord promises that where there is trust, I have a future that is better than any I could create. It's eternal. It's rich. It's true. And it keep setting me free.
So that's why I'm here. I'm Lutheran, galdernit, because what I believe is wrong as wrong can be. I'm Lutheran because the only one who is right and just is giving me new life. And how about you? In the face of his truth, are you also done believing, crafting, grasping and creating yourself and your future? Are you also not now drawn into trust and faith? Are you not also his, forgiven and set free? That's not just true. It's life itself. Amen.
Friday, September 11, 2009
A Scepter for Natalie: Pastor Gessert's Ordination
[Note: This sermon was preached at Natalie Gessert's ordination at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fairfax, VA, tonight.]
Allow me to bring in a topic that is of a holiness suitable to this sacred event, that is, suitable to the setting apart of an actual sinner to word and sacrament ministry. The holy thing I want to tell you about is truly a sacred realm: World of Warcraft. In case you’re not one of the 11 and a half million subscribers worldwide, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG. You get to pretend you’re in an alternate world with giants, orcs, dwarves and the like. You maneuver through the world, gaining skills, encountering other players and, when necessary, going into battle.
In WoW it’s always helpful to gain an arsenal of weapons should you need to fight. Along with such things as the Arcanite Steam-Pistol and the Smashing Star of Arcane Wrath, one of the many weapons available to you is the Royal Diplomatic Scepter, which you can get from the Dark Iron Ambassador. You use it one-handed and it inflicts damage in the 37-69 range.
Of course, I really know nothing about World of Warcraft and the Royal Diplomatic Scepter. I’m more of a Candyland kind of guy and leave the online role playing games to my college students. But I do know about biblical scepters. A scepter is a crucial prop in the story of Queen Esther’s rescue of the Hebrew people from certain death. In our first reading tonight, Esther could not help her adopted father Mordecai, because she hadn’t been invited into the presence of the king. It would not do to enter the royal chambers uninvited, without being pointed at by the king’s golden scepter. To cross the threshold into King Ahasuerus’ inner court and go where you didn’t belong meant certain death. Esther told Mordecai that was the one law. It all depended on that single rule, on the royal and arbitrary whim of a king who may or may not look upon you with favor.
Scepters regularly appear in ancient stories as the symbol of royal power. They represent the king’s will. In The Iliad, the weak king Agamemnon sends Odysseus off to treat with the Achaeans. He lends his ambassador his royal scepter, so that Odysseus carries with him the authority of the throne. In Esther, to receive a point of the golden scepter is equal to the king speaking a word of welcome. It indicates the king’s will.
Natalie, I have brought you a glorious plastic royal scepter from our local party good store. Treasure it always, for it required an arduous quest through miles of Halloween paraphernalia-stocked aisles to find it. Come up here and get it, but be careful with it, because this is the equal to Ahasuerus’ golden scepter. It’s a scepter designed for wielding power. This is a scepter that makes demands on the one it points to. It’s a scepter of glory, of required and active righteousness.
Ah, yes – righteousness, it’s a fine, fine thing. As the Israelites in Deuteronomy say, “The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.” (Deut. 6:24-25) And as Micah asks, “What does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” (6:8). In order to get the nod, the flick of the divine scepter, you must, must fulfill all righteousness. All righteousness? All. You don’t just get to do a bit o’ honey-flavored justice, or kinda, sorta like kindness, or act humble. No. God requires it all. You want entry into God’s inner chambers? Then love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.
Go ahead. Choose to do that, okay? We’ve got some time here. I won’t make you come up for an altar call (it’s a Lutheran worship service, after all). Go ahead; say it with Joshua and his family in the Promised Land: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” That’s better, isn’t it? You’ll eat your Powdermilk Biscuits and do what the medieval Scholastic theologians said, “Facere quod in te est” (or, as Larry the Cable Guy translated it, “Git ‘er done”). Will you? Yes, I will.
And there’s the rub, right there in those four little letters, w-i-l-l. Will. Will you? Will you be righteous? Will you be the one your heavenly king requires you to be? In just a few moments, Natalie will be asked four times about her intentions, about what her will is in carrying out the ministry to which she’s called. My guess is that, when you say you’ll love God, do justice and git ‘er done for God, your intentions are not much better than Natalie’s. And I know her intentions are about as strong and durable as a square of Charmin hanging on the spindle in my bathroom at home.
If you are to gain the scepter’s nod, the good graces of your Lord and God, it will take something more than your flimsy assertions of a good will. When you and Natalie say, “I will,” sinners that you are, your will will last about as long as it takes to get that last lingual “L” to roll off your tongue. And then it’s back to the more pressing business of building of your own Disneyfied kingdom where you need not worry about other royal whims or the slings and arrows of outrageous divine fortune. When you’re the one with all the glory, you can be the flicker of scepters.
Natalie, the temptation to pick up that scepter is a strong one for pastors. As you know from putting countless second-year seminarians through their paces on the Lutheran Confessions mid-term, Philip Melanchthon devoted an entire long article in the Augsburg Confession to the temptation of this scepter. It’s titled, “On the Power of Bishops.” Lest anyone think, I’m going to go after present company here, please know Melanchthon was talking about the power God grants to all public proclaimers of his Word. The Confessions are clear. The power of bishops, pastors, preachers and popes lies not in wielding the rod of the Law, not in civil power, worldly might or organizational acumen, much less in winsome charm or psychotherapeutic chops. It lies solely in the one, little, devil-subduing thing that we Lutherans sing with such fervor whenever “A Mighty Fortress” is trotted out on Reformation Sunday.
The power that Natalie has in her hands, before, during and after the laying on of hands, with or without an historic episcopate, from the time that clear water flowed over her in baptism to the last shovel of dirt and “Ashes to Ashes” at her grave – this power is the Word of God and only the Word of God. So let’s get something straight. Your seminary’s mission statement notwithstanding, Natalie, you have not been called to be a leader in the church. You have been called instead to be a servant of the Word, this Word of whom John speaks in the glorious prelude to the Bach invention that is his gospel. It is the same Word who comes to do clean-up at the end of Revelation: the Word of God riding in on his white horse with a sword pointing at sinners from his mouth and his own name tattooed on his thigh (yes, Jesus has a tattoo – look it up in Revelation 19).
Unlike the scepter of Ahasuerus, the Word that God sends via Natalie’s (sometimes too active) mouth is a Word that brings life out of death. My dear and fellow sinner, you have been called out of the baptized to publicly bear this Word in a broken and fallen world. It is a Word who is the last thing we sinners would expect or want. The saving Word of God you will serve is no glorious Ahasuerus condemning the Jews in exile in Persia with little thought or care. This Word, Jesus Christ, present from the beginning, wasn’t even recognized by his own. The folks back home in Galilee wanted to toss him off a cliff. The fine upstanding righteous and religious ones in Jerusalem, who knew they were good enough to enter God’s inner chambers, took one look at him and said, “Crucify him. But take the cannoli.”
It’s an ignominious end. Hanging on a cross hardly makes Jesus look like he’s able to do anything for himself, much less for sinners. And yet… And yet, this cross is God’s very throne. As Hebrews (1:8) says, “Your throne…will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.” Everything changes in Jesus. No longer does the divine scepter demand your righteousness. Christ’s righteousness is the scepter that flings it your way. It’s the scepter of his righteousness that makes you worthy. No activity or deed or desire or intention of your own, but his work, his dirty, dying deed done dirt cheap, his cross. His crossbeam-bruised shoulders carry you into God’s holy of holies.
And Natalie tonight you are set apart to deliver those goods. I warn you, though; it’s not a shiny happy job for shiny happy people. It’s grunt work and often dispiriting to bring a Word that runs so counter to the world’s expectations of power. As we say on the prairies of South Dakota where I come from, a lot of times you’ll go home feeling like an excremental epithet. But it will happen way more often if you think you’ve been elevated to some vaunted position because you have a shiny scepter of glory.
So here’s the deal, and a heckuva a deal it is: Your real scepter is one no one would ever suspect. If you lined up all the scepters of the world’s kings and queens, monarchs and muckety-mucks, you’d never pick this one out as able to do the trick. It has neither gold nor silver, nor rubies and onyx. The scepter you are bestowed tonight is made of wood and rubber and little gold paint. As the psalmist says, this rod and staff brings sweet comfort. So come up here again and take this toilet plunger for your office to display alongside your framed copies of “Footprints in the Sand.” And let it be a reminder to you of where you will find ears ready to hear, who are hungering and horny for this living Word.
You’ll find those ears in the most fetid places, in the septic field of sin and brokenness. You will find these ears wherever the demands of life break your people down. You will find them scrambling to cobble together a life, managing calendars and shaky finances. You’ll see them popping zits and fretting about making the team, making the grade or making “it.” You will discover ears to hear when you enter into dark nights of the soul. The ends of the rope, the bottoms of glasses, the real-life versions of crash test dummies’ walls: These are all the places where we sinners come to know the truth: On my own I cannot attain the righteousness required. I believe I cannot by my own understanding or effort even do something as simple as believe.
So, Natalie, you are called to go where Ahasuerus’ legal scepter says, “Off with their heads!” You are called to point your new scepter, saying, “Sinner, the righteousness of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ is yours.” In fact, my young Padwan, at this very moment you are surrounded by these very sinners. Stand up and give that scepter a go. Point it at us, for we know our sin. And deliver the goods for we have ears to hear. We’re waiting for some absolution to come trippingly off your tongue. [Natalie speaks the absolution.]
And you my dear fellow forgiven sinners, do you believe this unlikely Word? The scepter of the Law says, “Do this, and it is never done.” But the scepter of the gospel says, “Believe this, and it is already done.” Your salvation is given you both this very night and whenever and wherever the Holy Spirit moves this newly minted pastor to point a plunger, open her sassy mouth and let fly with God’s promise in Christ Jesus. So get busy, Natalie. Fling. Flick. Point. Plunge. Forbear. Forgive. All in Christ’s name. You can count on our good Lord to help and guide you, for the King of Kings has opened his inner chambers just as the stone was rolled away from the tomb. Natalie, it’s time. The Word is given. Sinners await you. Bring us in. Please. Amen.
Allow me to bring in a topic that is of a holiness suitable to this sacred event, that is, suitable to the setting apart of an actual sinner to word and sacrament ministry. The holy thing I want to tell you about is truly a sacred realm: World of Warcraft. In case you’re not one of the 11 and a half million subscribers worldwide, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG. You get to pretend you’re in an alternate world with giants, orcs, dwarves and the like. You maneuver through the world, gaining skills, encountering other players and, when necessary, going into battle.
In WoW it’s always helpful to gain an arsenal of weapons should you need to fight. Along with such things as the Arcanite Steam-Pistol and the Smashing Star of Arcane Wrath, one of the many weapons available to you is the Royal Diplomatic Scepter, which you can get from the Dark Iron Ambassador. You use it one-handed and it inflicts damage in the 37-69 range.
Of course, I really know nothing about World of Warcraft and the Royal Diplomatic Scepter. I’m more of a Candyland kind of guy and leave the online role playing games to my college students. But I do know about biblical scepters. A scepter is a crucial prop in the story of Queen Esther’s rescue of the Hebrew people from certain death. In our first reading tonight, Esther could not help her adopted father Mordecai, because she hadn’t been invited into the presence of the king. It would not do to enter the royal chambers uninvited, without being pointed at by the king’s golden scepter. To cross the threshold into King Ahasuerus’ inner court and go where you didn’t belong meant certain death. Esther told Mordecai that was the one law. It all depended on that single rule, on the royal and arbitrary whim of a king who may or may not look upon you with favor.
Scepters regularly appear in ancient stories as the symbol of royal power. They represent the king’s will. In The Iliad, the weak king Agamemnon sends Odysseus off to treat with the Achaeans. He lends his ambassador his royal scepter, so that Odysseus carries with him the authority of the throne. In Esther, to receive a point of the golden scepter is equal to the king speaking a word of welcome. It indicates the king’s will.
Natalie, I have brought you a glorious plastic royal scepter from our local party good store. Treasure it always, for it required an arduous quest through miles of Halloween paraphernalia-stocked aisles to find it. Come up here and get it, but be careful with it, because this is the equal to Ahasuerus’ golden scepter. It’s a scepter designed for wielding power. This is a scepter that makes demands on the one it points to. It’s a scepter of glory, of required and active righteousness.
Ah, yes – righteousness, it’s a fine, fine thing. As the Israelites in Deuteronomy say, “The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.” (Deut. 6:24-25) And as Micah asks, “What does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” (6:8). In order to get the nod, the flick of the divine scepter, you must, must fulfill all righteousness. All righteousness? All. You don’t just get to do a bit o’ honey-flavored justice, or kinda, sorta like kindness, or act humble. No. God requires it all. You want entry into God’s inner chambers? Then love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.
Go ahead. Choose to do that, okay? We’ve got some time here. I won’t make you come up for an altar call (it’s a Lutheran worship service, after all). Go ahead; say it with Joshua and his family in the Promised Land: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” That’s better, isn’t it? You’ll eat your Powdermilk Biscuits and do what the medieval Scholastic theologians said, “Facere quod in te est” (or, as Larry the Cable Guy translated it, “Git ‘er done”). Will you? Yes, I will.
And there’s the rub, right there in those four little letters, w-i-l-l. Will. Will you? Will you be righteous? Will you be the one your heavenly king requires you to be? In just a few moments, Natalie will be asked four times about her intentions, about what her will is in carrying out the ministry to which she’s called. My guess is that, when you say you’ll love God, do justice and git ‘er done for God, your intentions are not much better than Natalie’s. And I know her intentions are about as strong and durable as a square of Charmin hanging on the spindle in my bathroom at home.
If you are to gain the scepter’s nod, the good graces of your Lord and God, it will take something more than your flimsy assertions of a good will. When you and Natalie say, “I will,” sinners that you are, your will will last about as long as it takes to get that last lingual “L” to roll off your tongue. And then it’s back to the more pressing business of building of your own Disneyfied kingdom where you need not worry about other royal whims or the slings and arrows of outrageous divine fortune. When you’re the one with all the glory, you can be the flicker of scepters.
Natalie, the temptation to pick up that scepter is a strong one for pastors. As you know from putting countless second-year seminarians through their paces on the Lutheran Confessions mid-term, Philip Melanchthon devoted an entire long article in the Augsburg Confession to the temptation of this scepter. It’s titled, “On the Power of Bishops.” Lest anyone think, I’m going to go after present company here, please know Melanchthon was talking about the power God grants to all public proclaimers of his Word. The Confessions are clear. The power of bishops, pastors, preachers and popes lies not in wielding the rod of the Law, not in civil power, worldly might or organizational acumen, much less in winsome charm or psychotherapeutic chops. It lies solely in the one, little, devil-subduing thing that we Lutherans sing with such fervor whenever “A Mighty Fortress” is trotted out on Reformation Sunday.
The power that Natalie has in her hands, before, during and after the laying on of hands, with or without an historic episcopate, from the time that clear water flowed over her in baptism to the last shovel of dirt and “Ashes to Ashes” at her grave – this power is the Word of God and only the Word of God. So let’s get something straight. Your seminary’s mission statement notwithstanding, Natalie, you have not been called to be a leader in the church. You have been called instead to be a servant of the Word, this Word of whom John speaks in the glorious prelude to the Bach invention that is his gospel. It is the same Word who comes to do clean-up at the end of Revelation: the Word of God riding in on his white horse with a sword pointing at sinners from his mouth and his own name tattooed on his thigh (yes, Jesus has a tattoo – look it up in Revelation 19).
Unlike the scepter of Ahasuerus, the Word that God sends via Natalie’s (sometimes too active) mouth is a Word that brings life out of death. My dear and fellow sinner, you have been called out of the baptized to publicly bear this Word in a broken and fallen world. It is a Word who is the last thing we sinners would expect or want. The saving Word of God you will serve is no glorious Ahasuerus condemning the Jews in exile in Persia with little thought or care. This Word, Jesus Christ, present from the beginning, wasn’t even recognized by his own. The folks back home in Galilee wanted to toss him off a cliff. The fine upstanding righteous and religious ones in Jerusalem, who knew they were good enough to enter God’s inner chambers, took one look at him and said, “Crucify him. But take the cannoli.”
It’s an ignominious end. Hanging on a cross hardly makes Jesus look like he’s able to do anything for himself, much less for sinners. And yet… And yet, this cross is God’s very throne. As Hebrews (1:8) says, “Your throne…will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.” Everything changes in Jesus. No longer does the divine scepter demand your righteousness. Christ’s righteousness is the scepter that flings it your way. It’s the scepter of his righteousness that makes you worthy. No activity or deed or desire or intention of your own, but his work, his dirty, dying deed done dirt cheap, his cross. His crossbeam-bruised shoulders carry you into God’s holy of holies.
And Natalie tonight you are set apart to deliver those goods. I warn you, though; it’s not a shiny happy job for shiny happy people. It’s grunt work and often dispiriting to bring a Word that runs so counter to the world’s expectations of power. As we say on the prairies of South Dakota where I come from, a lot of times you’ll go home feeling like an excremental epithet. But it will happen way more often if you think you’ve been elevated to some vaunted position because you have a shiny scepter of glory.
So here’s the deal, and a heckuva a deal it is: Your real scepter is one no one would ever suspect. If you lined up all the scepters of the world’s kings and queens, monarchs and muckety-mucks, you’d never pick this one out as able to do the trick. It has neither gold nor silver, nor rubies and onyx. The scepter you are bestowed tonight is made of wood and rubber and little gold paint. As the psalmist says, this rod and staff brings sweet comfort. So come up here again and take this toilet plunger for your office to display alongside your framed copies of “Footprints in the Sand.” And let it be a reminder to you of where you will find ears ready to hear, who are hungering and horny for this living Word.
You’ll find those ears in the most fetid places, in the septic field of sin and brokenness. You will find these ears wherever the demands of life break your people down. You will find them scrambling to cobble together a life, managing calendars and shaky finances. You’ll see them popping zits and fretting about making the team, making the grade or making “it.” You will discover ears to hear when you enter into dark nights of the soul. The ends of the rope, the bottoms of glasses, the real-life versions of crash test dummies’ walls: These are all the places where we sinners come to know the truth: On my own I cannot attain the righteousness required. I believe I cannot by my own understanding or effort even do something as simple as believe.
So, Natalie, you are called to go where Ahasuerus’ legal scepter says, “Off with their heads!” You are called to point your new scepter, saying, “Sinner, the righteousness of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ is yours.” In fact, my young Padwan, at this very moment you are surrounded by these very sinners. Stand up and give that scepter a go. Point it at us, for we know our sin. And deliver the goods for we have ears to hear. We’re waiting for some absolution to come trippingly off your tongue. [Natalie speaks the absolution.]
And you my dear fellow forgiven sinners, do you believe this unlikely Word? The scepter of the Law says, “Do this, and it is never done.” But the scepter of the gospel says, “Believe this, and it is already done.” Your salvation is given you both this very night and whenever and wherever the Holy Spirit moves this newly minted pastor to point a plunger, open her sassy mouth and let fly with God’s promise in Christ Jesus. So get busy, Natalie. Fling. Flick. Point. Plunge. Forbear. Forgive. All in Christ’s name. You can count on our good Lord to help and guide you, for the King of Kings has opened his inner chambers just as the stone was rolled away from the tomb. Natalie, it’s time. The Word is given. Sinners await you. Bring us in. Please. Amen.
Monday, March 30, 2009
God's work. Our brands.
The ELCA is rolling out a series of ads to be aired during television’s sweeps month in May. We don’t know how much developing the marketing campaign cost, but the church’s website does tell us about “our brand” and its tagline “God’s work. Our hands.” Apart from wondering why the verbs haven’t shown up for the tagline party, we should ask what exactly is being sold here. We ought to consider what the ads reveal about the church’s core outcomes.
I currently sit on a faculty committee established to design a revised core curriculum for my school. We have spent the better part of the school year sitting around a table discussing research, best practices, trends in hiring and the like. The committee defined and the faculty as a whole approved four core outcomes for all we do at the University: critical inquiry, communication, global awareness and vocation. Our next task is to design a course of study for all students in all majors that will produce competence in each of those outcomes.
When they walk across the stage at commencement, we should be able to say that we have used the tools of our curriculum to create graduates who are able to demonstrate the outcomes in their personal lives, in work, in community and in church. We ought to be able to show to any accreditation team how the curriculum advances students toward those goals. And the outcomes should be self-evident in the very structure of our primary tool, the curriculum. Surely the leaders of the ELCA and its marketing team must have similarly considered what the church’s outcomes are and the tools of the ad campaign must self-evidently reflect those outcomes.
In the March 16 New Yorker, movie director and screenwriter Tony Gilroy speaks of the reversal as a useful trope. A good script will lead the audience on and then flout expectations by reversing the plot. It’s a trope used in the ELCA’s ads. In the first ad on the church’s website, a nice clean table is set with sparkling dinnerware and white linens. A waiter beckons to the diners and we see a crowd of dingy, ragged people. We learn it’s not really a restaurant but Trinity Lutheran Church feeding the homeless and providing them with “dignity” as their first course. In the second ad, a West African woman walks to a school with a child. We imagine she is dropping the child off for a day of learning, but are surprised to discover that the woman is the student. She is learning to start her own business, and the first lesson is “hope.” It’s all beautifully shot and the reversals are clever. It’s all so very nice and self-congratulatory. Who wouldn’t want to connect with such a cool, caring organization?
One of my homiletics professors in seminary used to ask about our attempts at proclamation, “Did Jesus have to die for this sermon to be preached?” It’s a good question to ask about these ads. The crucified and risen Jesus has always been the center of our faith, from the women at the tomb to the boys walking home to Emmaus, from Paul heading to Rome to Luther standing there doing no other at Worms. Yet in these ads our Lord is given what could charitably be called only a cameo role, if that. A cross floating in a bowl of soup in the first spot and a couple crossed pencils on top of a book in the second are the only allusion to the crucified and risen one.
Jesus simply did not have to die for us to air these ads. The cross in each spot is no different from Josephus’ report in Antiquities of the Jews: The token crosses in the ads report tangentially that a crucifixion happened, but don’t proclaim what our Lord’s death does for either the fictional the sinners in the ad or the real ones watching it. Because the ad campaign the ELCA is flogging on its website and will air does not extend the proclamation of God’s mercy in Christ to the godless and sinful (to me), it is not evangelism. Instead it is marketing. In the web site’s own words, it is branding. It comes across as an effort whose goal is the salvation not of people, but of the denomination – a salvation from the ravages of ongoing membership losses and diminishing benevolence. Intentional or not, the ads seek to further the ELCA’s self-continuity by recruiting from the ranks of suburban do-gooders who want to feel good about being connected to important causes.
It’s not as if do-gooding is a bad thing. Melanchthon, after all, dedicated Article VI of the Augsburg Confession to the topic of the new obedience. But if the ELCA’s public witness sent through our digital television sets begins with good works, we’ve done the potential viewers of these ads a grave disservice – as in, we’ve left them in the grave of unfaith. Like any number of well-meaning preachers, the ads assume that we have all the faith we ever need. All that’s needed is a religious version of the US Army’s “Be all you can be,” or Nike’s “Just do it.” These spots are a glimpse into the job description of successful suburban living and meaningful, relevant engagement with the world that the church holds out for us as our telos.
What’s missed are the first five articles of the Augustana. We can’t begin our public proclamation with a pleasant charity’s proposal you can respond to by hitching up your free will and getting on board the justice train. Instead, gospel preaching begins with an understanding of sin and God’s work in Christ to remedy it. If Article IV on justification is truly the article by which the church falls or stands, you wouldn’t know it by these ads. It’s because they are not what Article V calls the office of preaching, the delivery of the law and gospel described in Articles II and III.
Thus, while our branding and tagline, “God’s work. Our hands,” may produce the outcome of more adherents to the work of the social service agency the ELCA seems to present itself as in its coming marketing efforts, they cannot bring a commensurate increase in the numbers of what Luther, in his sermon in Castle Pleissenburg (LW 51:311-312), called the Heufflein Christi, the little band of Christ. We’ve turned our backs on what Melanchthon declared the church to be: the place where the word and sacraments are present in such a way that sinners like me have come to believe.
I’ve begun to wonder whether my not taking a stand for the sake of the gospel in my church hasn't moved God in his great displeasure to withhold true preaching from this church, from this world and from this sinner.
I currently sit on a faculty committee established to design a revised core curriculum for my school. We have spent the better part of the school year sitting around a table discussing research, best practices, trends in hiring and the like. The committee defined and the faculty as a whole approved four core outcomes for all we do at the University: critical inquiry, communication, global awareness and vocation. Our next task is to design a course of study for all students in all majors that will produce competence in each of those outcomes.
When they walk across the stage at commencement, we should be able to say that we have used the tools of our curriculum to create graduates who are able to demonstrate the outcomes in their personal lives, in work, in community and in church. We ought to be able to show to any accreditation team how the curriculum advances students toward those goals. And the outcomes should be self-evident in the very structure of our primary tool, the curriculum. Surely the leaders of the ELCA and its marketing team must have similarly considered what the church’s outcomes are and the tools of the ad campaign must self-evidently reflect those outcomes.
In the March 16 New Yorker, movie director and screenwriter Tony Gilroy speaks of the reversal as a useful trope. A good script will lead the audience on and then flout expectations by reversing the plot. It’s a trope used in the ELCA’s ads. In the first ad on the church’s website, a nice clean table is set with sparkling dinnerware and white linens. A waiter beckons to the diners and we see a crowd of dingy, ragged people. We learn it’s not really a restaurant but Trinity Lutheran Church feeding the homeless and providing them with “dignity” as their first course. In the second ad, a West African woman walks to a school with a child. We imagine she is dropping the child off for a day of learning, but are surprised to discover that the woman is the student. She is learning to start her own business, and the first lesson is “hope.” It’s all beautifully shot and the reversals are clever. It’s all so very nice and self-congratulatory. Who wouldn’t want to connect with such a cool, caring organization?
One of my homiletics professors in seminary used to ask about our attempts at proclamation, “Did Jesus have to die for this sermon to be preached?” It’s a good question to ask about these ads. The crucified and risen Jesus has always been the center of our faith, from the women at the tomb to the boys walking home to Emmaus, from Paul heading to Rome to Luther standing there doing no other at Worms. Yet in these ads our Lord is given what could charitably be called only a cameo role, if that. A cross floating in a bowl of soup in the first spot and a couple crossed pencils on top of a book in the second are the only allusion to the crucified and risen one.
Jesus simply did not have to die for us to air these ads. The cross in each spot is no different from Josephus’ report in Antiquities of the Jews: The token crosses in the ads report tangentially that a crucifixion happened, but don’t proclaim what our Lord’s death does for either the fictional the sinners in the ad or the real ones watching it. Because the ad campaign the ELCA is flogging on its website and will air does not extend the proclamation of God’s mercy in Christ to the godless and sinful (to me), it is not evangelism. Instead it is marketing. In the web site’s own words, it is branding. It comes across as an effort whose goal is the salvation not of people, but of the denomination – a salvation from the ravages of ongoing membership losses and diminishing benevolence. Intentional or not, the ads seek to further the ELCA’s self-continuity by recruiting from the ranks of suburban do-gooders who want to feel good about being connected to important causes.
It’s not as if do-gooding is a bad thing. Melanchthon, after all, dedicated Article VI of the Augsburg Confession to the topic of the new obedience. But if the ELCA’s public witness sent through our digital television sets begins with good works, we’ve done the potential viewers of these ads a grave disservice – as in, we’ve left them in the grave of unfaith. Like any number of well-meaning preachers, the ads assume that we have all the faith we ever need. All that’s needed is a religious version of the US Army’s “Be all you can be,” or Nike’s “Just do it.” These spots are a glimpse into the job description of successful suburban living and meaningful, relevant engagement with the world that the church holds out for us as our telos.
What’s missed are the first five articles of the Augustana. We can’t begin our public proclamation with a pleasant charity’s proposal you can respond to by hitching up your free will and getting on board the justice train. Instead, gospel preaching begins with an understanding of sin and God’s work in Christ to remedy it. If Article IV on justification is truly the article by which the church falls or stands, you wouldn’t know it by these ads. It’s because they are not what Article V calls the office of preaching, the delivery of the law and gospel described in Articles II and III.
Thus, while our branding and tagline, “God’s work. Our hands,” may produce the outcome of more adherents to the work of the social service agency the ELCA seems to present itself as in its coming marketing efforts, they cannot bring a commensurate increase in the numbers of what Luther, in his sermon in Castle Pleissenburg (LW 51:311-312), called the Heufflein Christi, the little band of Christ. We’ve turned our backs on what Melanchthon declared the church to be: the place where the word and sacraments are present in such a way that sinners like me have come to believe.
I’ve begun to wonder whether my not taking a stand for the sake of the gospel in my church hasn't moved God in his great displeasure to withhold true preaching from this church, from this world and from this sinner.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Transfiguration Sunday
Today’s gospel reading recounts the Transfiguration of Jesus, and that’s what we celebrate in worship today. The Transfiguration is the epiphany, the revealing of the hidden glory of Jesus. It’s the point in each of the gospels where get a glimpse of the full magnificent power and influence that Jesus has. He simply exudes power, to the point that it looks like he’s wearing shiny happy clothes. And then there are his mountaintop associates, Moses and Elijah. You can’t hob-nob with hoitier or toitier folks in the halls of power or in Hollywood. It’s a media event! It deserves strobe lights, red carpets and actresses who wear body-controlling Spanx under their designer gowns. This is something that calls for hoopla. Keep your eyes on your set, friends, for Jesus is a man of wonders. Why he’s almost Barack Obama!
But be careful what you turn your eyes toward. Jesus in the fullness of his glory is a dangerous thing. You’re dealing with big voodoo here. He has the power to heal using a gob of his spit and a simple word. But he’s also been known to come down hard on people trying to make a buck by trading on God. And he has no problem instantly withering a fig tree because it doesn’t please him. He’s God in the flesh and to come into his full glory is something you want to be careful about. When Moses caught a peek of just a tiny bit of God’s bum up on Mt. Sinai, it changed him physically, to the point of having to walking around with a veil covering his face for the rest of his life. Sure Jesus is glorified in the Transfiguration, but don’t for a minute think it has anything to do with “nice” or “pretty.”
The Transfiguration is the Holy Spirit’s great bait-and-switch tactic. It’s like the store clerk who draws you in with pretty baubles and then sells you something different. Jesus the powerful healer-man, the glorious schmoozer of prophets, the holy herald of all things wise and wonderful? That guy is about to go away and toss his divine Oscar in the ditch. He’s about to give it all up of his own accord in order to give you something better.
Peter should have been ready for it. After Jesus had called him up out of his boat where he was mending his nets, Jesus did some pretty cool stuff, things that would make the most driven cynic say, “Sweet!” But there were inklings that Jesus was up to more than just wonders and miracles, power and glory. The guy kept hanging out with prostitutes and sinners, tax collectors and, I’m sorry to say, people like you, who don’t have their poop in a group. Of course that must have been an anomaly, an odd blip on the radar, especially in the face of Jesus’ pals Elijah and Moses on the mountain top. Peter should have known better, though.
A week before the Transfiguration, Peter had been hanging out with Jesus, who asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the messiah.” Then Jesus explained exactly what it meant for him to be the messiah. It doesn’t mean power, prestige, success or glory. Jesus gave it to Peter straight. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Here at the Transfiguration, Peter wanted to forget what Jesus had said about his coming suffering and death. Peter wanted Jesus’ glory, bright, undiluted and worthy of acclaim. He didn’t want glory to come in terms of Jesus’ ignominious end. Though Peter had gotten a glimpse of what should have been the frightening fullness of who Jesus really is, he didn’t have the whole picture. Both in his confession of Jesus’ identity and at the Transfiguration, Peter had his eyes opened a bit, but he still thought Jesus’ kingship looks like earthly glory rather than the cross. When Jesus chooses to let it all go and show his glory in weakness, in being whipped and scourged and in a last wheezing breath on the cross, it’ll hit Peter like a blow to the solar plexus and knock him out nearly for the count.
On the mountain, a voice comes from heaven: “This is my son, the Beloved. Listen to him!” God isn’t telling Peter to listen in on the conversation going on between Jesus and the prophets. God says to pay attention to what his Son has been saying about the business of dying, for it wasn’t just the cloud on the mountain that Peter would have to face. There was a bank of dark clouds heading straight toward Jerusalem with Jesus, covering up the glitter of religious revivalism and spiritual success with the reality of what’s to come. Listen to Jesus: following him will look nothing like the winning on Jeopardy or American Idol. Our Lord has offered Peter a glory that is wholly unexpected. It will come to this most spur-of-the-moment of disciples when Jesus is arrested and led away for trial. Peter will come face-to-face with his own darkness and sin as he stands in the courtyard of the high priest. A servant girl says to him, “Hey buddy, I know who you are. You’re one of Jesus right-hand guys.” Peter will deny his Lord three times before the cock crows. And hanging on to glory, Peter won’t know what to do with a Lord who dies.
Ah, glory. It’s such a fine thing, but what happens when you have a Lord who gives it all up? How can you hang your faith on glory, when Jesus wants nothing to do with it? If Peter, personally chosen by Jesus, can’t keep his own faith going – even having seen the Transfiguration – it leaves sinners like you and me with a pretty sorry future. Peter’s denial is something we re-enact every single day as we turn away from such an unlikely Lord’s demise, as we seek to protect our futures and save our suburban skins by managing all the details of our lives. Yet we stand with Peter in the dark and accusing courtyards of our lives and await the one thing that can truly bring such an undying faith, that call to dive into death and failure and find our Lord there.
It’s what’s to come in the Lenten weeks ahead of us, for your Lord, God’s only son himself, takes on an upside-down sort of glory as he suffers torment and is crucified for you. His great love is poured out for you that your attention may be turned from yourself, from glitter and glory, from shiny success, to look to him – the humble, drab, torn and wounded one. The depths of his love for a sinner like you are unfathomable and know no end. The disciple who turns away from Jesus will find himself drawn back with the cross. Where there once was a Jesus wearing glowing robes, there will be a naked man crucified as a sinner.
But on the other side of his death, and yours, Peter will see something better than the shining robes he saw on the mountaintop. He’ll see the grave clothes of the risen Jesus and know, truly know, that Jesus’ glory on the cross isn’t something to run away from in fear. He’ll be caught up in it in the midst of his own suffering, loss, guilt and all-too-apparent faithlessness– in the same way that you have been caught up and wrapped up in Jesus’ death and resurrection in your baptism. For it’s there that in those drowning waters that you have been linked to both your Lord’s death and resurrection. You don’t have to deal with mere foreshadowing like Peter did. He stood accused in that courtyard not knowing what was to come, but you have the end of the story in hand. The fullness of Christ’s love for you is poured out for you in the water and the word. And if you’re not yet baptized, let me tell you that same promise and fullness awaits you, along with a pastor champing at the bit to bestow it on you and a congregation waiting to sustain you in it.
Thus God’s word bids you to put away the worldly glory that moves you to seek after short cuts, pipe dreams and the winning number and pray that God would bring on the divine glory that interrupts your expectations, your management plans, your strategies for success. So pray to God to destroy your death with Jesus’ death on a daily basis, so that your baptism becomes a living, breathing thing. In the coming season of Lent, you can look for the divine upside-down glory of Jesus who meets you in your denial and in your tomb to drag you, kicking and screaming maybe, into heaven to spend an eternity with the one whose love for you finds its ultimate glory on the cross: Jesus your bridegroom, Jesus your Savior, Jesus your Lord, Jesus crucified and risen comes for you today, that, in your clouded darkness, you may believe.
But be careful what you turn your eyes toward. Jesus in the fullness of his glory is a dangerous thing. You’re dealing with big voodoo here. He has the power to heal using a gob of his spit and a simple word. But he’s also been known to come down hard on people trying to make a buck by trading on God. And he has no problem instantly withering a fig tree because it doesn’t please him. He’s God in the flesh and to come into his full glory is something you want to be careful about. When Moses caught a peek of just a tiny bit of God’s bum up on Mt. Sinai, it changed him physically, to the point of having to walking around with a veil covering his face for the rest of his life. Sure Jesus is glorified in the Transfiguration, but don’t for a minute think it has anything to do with “nice” or “pretty.”
The Transfiguration is the Holy Spirit’s great bait-and-switch tactic. It’s like the store clerk who draws you in with pretty baubles and then sells you something different. Jesus the powerful healer-man, the glorious schmoozer of prophets, the holy herald of all things wise and wonderful? That guy is about to go away and toss his divine Oscar in the ditch. He’s about to give it all up of his own accord in order to give you something better.
Peter should have been ready for it. After Jesus had called him up out of his boat where he was mending his nets, Jesus did some pretty cool stuff, things that would make the most driven cynic say, “Sweet!” But there were inklings that Jesus was up to more than just wonders and miracles, power and glory. The guy kept hanging out with prostitutes and sinners, tax collectors and, I’m sorry to say, people like you, who don’t have their poop in a group. Of course that must have been an anomaly, an odd blip on the radar, especially in the face of Jesus’ pals Elijah and Moses on the mountain top. Peter should have known better, though.
A week before the Transfiguration, Peter had been hanging out with Jesus, who asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the messiah.” Then Jesus explained exactly what it meant for him to be the messiah. It doesn’t mean power, prestige, success or glory. Jesus gave it to Peter straight. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Here at the Transfiguration, Peter wanted to forget what Jesus had said about his coming suffering and death. Peter wanted Jesus’ glory, bright, undiluted and worthy of acclaim. He didn’t want glory to come in terms of Jesus’ ignominious end. Though Peter had gotten a glimpse of what should have been the frightening fullness of who Jesus really is, he didn’t have the whole picture. Both in his confession of Jesus’ identity and at the Transfiguration, Peter had his eyes opened a bit, but he still thought Jesus’ kingship looks like earthly glory rather than the cross. When Jesus chooses to let it all go and show his glory in weakness, in being whipped and scourged and in a last wheezing breath on the cross, it’ll hit Peter like a blow to the solar plexus and knock him out nearly for the count.
On the mountain, a voice comes from heaven: “This is my son, the Beloved. Listen to him!” God isn’t telling Peter to listen in on the conversation going on between Jesus and the prophets. God says to pay attention to what his Son has been saying about the business of dying, for it wasn’t just the cloud on the mountain that Peter would have to face. There was a bank of dark clouds heading straight toward Jerusalem with Jesus, covering up the glitter of religious revivalism and spiritual success with the reality of what’s to come. Listen to Jesus: following him will look nothing like the winning on Jeopardy or American Idol. Our Lord has offered Peter a glory that is wholly unexpected. It will come to this most spur-of-the-moment of disciples when Jesus is arrested and led away for trial. Peter will come face-to-face with his own darkness and sin as he stands in the courtyard of the high priest. A servant girl says to him, “Hey buddy, I know who you are. You’re one of Jesus right-hand guys.” Peter will deny his Lord three times before the cock crows. And hanging on to glory, Peter won’t know what to do with a Lord who dies.
Ah, glory. It’s such a fine thing, but what happens when you have a Lord who gives it all up? How can you hang your faith on glory, when Jesus wants nothing to do with it? If Peter, personally chosen by Jesus, can’t keep his own faith going – even having seen the Transfiguration – it leaves sinners like you and me with a pretty sorry future. Peter’s denial is something we re-enact every single day as we turn away from such an unlikely Lord’s demise, as we seek to protect our futures and save our suburban skins by managing all the details of our lives. Yet we stand with Peter in the dark and accusing courtyards of our lives and await the one thing that can truly bring such an undying faith, that call to dive into death and failure and find our Lord there.
It’s what’s to come in the Lenten weeks ahead of us, for your Lord, God’s only son himself, takes on an upside-down sort of glory as he suffers torment and is crucified for you. His great love is poured out for you that your attention may be turned from yourself, from glitter and glory, from shiny success, to look to him – the humble, drab, torn and wounded one. The depths of his love for a sinner like you are unfathomable and know no end. The disciple who turns away from Jesus will find himself drawn back with the cross. Where there once was a Jesus wearing glowing robes, there will be a naked man crucified as a sinner.
But on the other side of his death, and yours, Peter will see something better than the shining robes he saw on the mountaintop. He’ll see the grave clothes of the risen Jesus and know, truly know, that Jesus’ glory on the cross isn’t something to run away from in fear. He’ll be caught up in it in the midst of his own suffering, loss, guilt and all-too-apparent faithlessness– in the same way that you have been caught up and wrapped up in Jesus’ death and resurrection in your baptism. For it’s there that in those drowning waters that you have been linked to both your Lord’s death and resurrection. You don’t have to deal with mere foreshadowing like Peter did. He stood accused in that courtyard not knowing what was to come, but you have the end of the story in hand. The fullness of Christ’s love for you is poured out for you in the water and the word. And if you’re not yet baptized, let me tell you that same promise and fullness awaits you, along with a pastor champing at the bit to bestow it on you and a congregation waiting to sustain you in it.
Thus God’s word bids you to put away the worldly glory that moves you to seek after short cuts, pipe dreams and the winning number and pray that God would bring on the divine glory that interrupts your expectations, your management plans, your strategies for success. So pray to God to destroy your death with Jesus’ death on a daily basis, so that your baptism becomes a living, breathing thing. In the coming season of Lent, you can look for the divine upside-down glory of Jesus who meets you in your denial and in your tomb to drag you, kicking and screaming maybe, into heaven to spend an eternity with the one whose love for you finds its ultimate glory on the cross: Jesus your bridegroom, Jesus your Savior, Jesus your Lord, Jesus crucified and risen comes for you today, that, in your clouded darkness, you may believe.
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