Acts 2: 1-4, 14-21, 43-47 NRSVUE

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

17 ‘In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

    and your old men shall dream dreams.

18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

    in those days I will pour out my Spirit,

        and they shall prophesy.

19 And I will show portents in the heaven above

    and signs on the earth below,

        blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

20 The sun shall be turned to darkness

    and the moon to blood,

        before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Happy Birthday, Church!  Today is Pentecost Sunday!

Pentecost is actually a Jewish holy day – a celebration of the 5 books of the Law – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – hence the Greek work for 5 – “Pente.”

Which is why Peter and the other disciples end up standing in the courtyard of the Temple and preaching to people in their own languages – they went to celebrate Pentecost and Spirit did a thing!

And it was a pretty spectacular thing!  Tongues of flame and a sound like a rushing wind and people speaking in languages that they didn’t know!

This is the event that Pentecostals – most of whom are descendants of the Methodist Movement through the holiness side of the Methodist family – take their name.  The foundational idea behind Pentecostalism being that Spirit is literally still speaking through people.

Pentecost has a very supernatural, spectacular feel to it, so in celebrating this holy day, we often pull out all the stops with bird, or fire, or wind, or butterfly themed decorations!  

Reading the scripture in multiple languages.

Children making flame hats out of construction paper and flame wands out of crepe paper streamers.

Turning on a BIG Fan to recreate a sound like a rushing wind.

I even did a balloon drop in one large church where I worked!

Red, orange and yellow balloons hoisted into the ceiling beams with ropes that when pulled, released the balloons onto people’s heads.

Because it’s fun.

Because we’re trying to teach the story.

But also because we seem to forget that the miraculous spectacle of the day is not the important part of the story.

I’m about to share with you an idea that totally changed how I read scripture.

Totally changed how I read scripture.

Are you ready?

In the pre-scientific era in which ALL of the Bible was written – miracles were used as proof that the teaching was legitimate.

For example in 1 Kings chapter 18, the Prophet Elijah wants King Ahab to listen to him talk about God instead of the prophets of Baal, talking about Baal, so he challenges the Priests of Baal to a miracle competition.  The challenge was:

Build an altar, 

put an animal sacrifice in it, and 

light the fire using only prayer!

It’s like a reality TV Survivor competition – make fire using no matches — using nothing but prayer!

Of course the priests of Baal fail to pray down fire, because science.

Then Elijah ups the game and has the whole thing drenched in water, says one little prayer and fire falls from heaven and burns the whole altar, even the stones, to ash.

Not science!

The Miracle proved that the message was worth listening to.

They accepted the message on faith because the miracle was convincing.

Then:  The Miracle validates the Message

Now:  The Message validates the Miracle

This is almost totally the opposite of how we think now.

We hear these stories of fire descending from heaven, or the Red Sea parting, or Jesus feeding the 5000, and we think —

The message is good, so I’m willing to listen to the miracle.

The Message proves that the miracle is worth considering.

Then, they accepted the message on faith because the miracle was convincing.

Now, we accept the miracle on faith because the message is convincing.

So if you’ve ever wondered why there are so many miracles in the Bible, which we find difficult to deal with today, this is why.

*Most* of humanity’s world view has done a complete 180 regarding miracles and messages.

But as Christians we are grounded in these stories that contain miracles, so we get caught up in trying to justify the miracles!

So we often spend Pentecost trying to re-enact miracles with crepe paper and balloons…which just makes the miracles seem even more ridiculous…

When what we should be doing is focusing on the message of Pentecost.

So we’re going to skip all the way down to verse 43!

43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 

Which says what I just explained in much fewer words!  People were impressed with the miracles so they were then willing to listen to the apostles.

And because the apostles taught the people what Jesus had taught them…

Look at verse 44

All these people who believed in what was being taught started sharing all things in common;  even selling their stuff and sharing the cash with everyone, so that everyone’s needs were met.

Woofff!  

Selling everything they had and giving it away to anyone who had needs!

Theologians have tried to explain this away 9 ways from Sunday.

Saying that was just a Pentecost thing.

Or that’s an exaggeration.

Or they only shared things with members.

Probably the most theologically legitimate explanation for the Radical Share Economy of the post- Pentecost Church is that they all thought that Jesus was coming right back, so they thought that nobody really needed to work or own anything – but pretty soon they realized that sharing everything with everyone wasn’t practical because some people’s needs were being over-met and others were still in need…. Which is kind of true… They did think Jesus would be right back, and they did appoint Deacons to manage meeting people’s needs in a more organized and responsible way.

But I think the most overlooked theological point is that the Church at Pentecost enacted the Year of the Lord’s Favor – the Year of Jubilee as a grass roots action of radical generosity.

Where those who had more than enough sold their possessions and redistributed their wealth to those who didn’t have enough – they were doing what the government of Israel should have been doing every 50 years according to Leviticus chapter 25.

And this is such a radical teaching – just as radical then, as it is now – that this story needed a really spectacular miracle to validate the sheer audacity of choosing generosity in a world that is centered on greed.

The real message of the story of Pentecost.

The real good news of this miraculous story is not wind, and languages and tongues of flame.

The real good news is that day by day – this is in verse 46 – day by day, they broke bread in their homes and shared food together with glad and generous hearts. 

And, BECAUSE day by day, they gathered in homes and at the Temple with glad and generous hearts…they earned the goodwill of all the people.

And day by day, God added to their numbers, those who were finding healing and wholeness.

I say, healing and wholeness, because sozoh – the Greek work that is translated as “saved”  means healing and holistic wellness – in body, mind and spirit.  Having enough to pay the bills and put food on the table goes a long way towards physical healing and wholeness.

And day by day, God added to their numbers, those who were finding healing and wholeness.

Not because of wind and fire, but because of glad and generous hearts.

Church, in our Board meeting last Sunday, we discussed an article with some pretty serious statistics from Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, our neighbors to the North in the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area

In the past 10 years, PNW Annual Conference – that’s Washington State and Northern Idaho – 

• has shrunk from 236 churches to 187 churches – that’s a loss of 49 churches.
• The One Corporate Sized Church – that’s 500+ shrunk down to a Program size church – that’s 150- 500
• 13 churches shrunk from Program sized to Pastoral sized- that’s 50- 150 members
• There are about half as many Pastoral sized churches – that’s 50-150 in members
• And there are more Family sized churches, but only because about half the previously Pastoral sized churches now have 50 or less members.  
• Of those 119 family-sized congregations, 98 average fewer than 35 in worship 

And I share this not to say, Oh No!  The sky is falling! The Church is dying!

I share this to say, we are not alone.

Montavilla is not the only church who used to be Program sized, moved to Pastoral sized, and now is Family sized, with an average of fewer than 35 in worship.

We’re not alone.

We’re not less good at doing church than other churches.

We’re not “doing it wrong.”

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the midst of what historians call an Epochal Change.

Like we’re standing at the edge of the end of one Epic and the beginning of another age in history.

And so were the Disciples on Pentecost.

The Disciples didn’t know what they were doing!

Until the day of Pentecost, they were HIDING IN THE UPPER ROOM!

They were so scared and bewildered after Jesus’ death and resurrection that they had no idea what to do.

They were standing at the edge of the end of what Historians now call the End of Antiquity and the Beginning of the Common Era!

They didn’t know what they were doing, they just did what they knew.

They went to the Temple to celebrate the Festival of the 5 books of the Torah and Spirit showed up.

They didn’t know what to do next, so they just did what Jesus did with them.

They hung out, they ate, they talked about what it means to really follow God – then they went out and did it – by practicing neighbor love with glad and generous hearts.

They practiced Radical Hospitality, without any intention of being radical.

They were just doing with others what Jesus had done with them.

Church, this Pentecost, I believe we are standing at the edge of the end of the Common Era and the Beginning of… I don’t know what the Historians will call this!

And I don’t know what to do to save the institutional church.

I’m not actually convinced that we’re even supposed to save the institutional church.

Temple Judaism was holy and God let it come to an end, but the Jewish faith went on.

The Holy Roman Empire was… a thing, and God let it come to an end, but our faith went on in new forms..

Mid-century-modern Institutional Church is coming to an end, but our faith – Christianity is moving on to new forms.

But at the center of all these movements are the teachings of God.

The practice of hospitality.

The practice of compassion and care.

The practice of neighbor-love.

The practice of day by day, gathering in homes and churches with glad and generous hearts, and day by day, God added to their numbers.

So that’s what we’re doing, and it’s working.

I know that it doesn’t look like it’s working on Sunday, but day by day, as we gather with Haven Dinner on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays, God is adding new people to Haven every single month!

Since last summer God has added 9 more people to Haven Dinner, and we’ve got our biggest group ever heading to Camp Magruder Adult Renewal Retreat the first weekend in June, and we’re picking up a completely random person who registered for camp and needs a ride!

Since last summer, God has added new people to the Sewists Collective every month — they now have 3 gatherings a month – a day time gathering, an evening gathering and a knitting circle.  There’s even a young man who’s a committed Sewist!

Day by day – I see you bringing donations to the Haven Dinner pantry, gathering household items for people who need something, and dropping stuff off for Rahab’s Sisters with glad and generous hearts.

And day by day, even in our old fashioned mid-century-modern Sunday worship, God is adding to our numbers.  Thanks be to God, we’ve got some new friends.

So happy birthday, Church!

I don’t know what we’re going to look like next year, much less 100 years from now, but I do know this.

The future begins with glad and generous hearts.

We know how to do that!

John 14:5-21 NRSVUE

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

 

18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

For the Past 3 weeks we’ve been working our way through readings from the gospel of John learning that:

• When the Gospel of John blames “the Jews” – this is not an endorsement of anti-semitism — it’s an argument between Jewish Christians and Jews – an argument between siblings
• Creator, Christ and Spirit all have the same personality – so there is no Angry Father God.

If you want to read those sermons they’re on the church website Montavillaumchurch.org 

Today we’re dealing with one more horrible interpretation of the gospel of John.  The idea that love equals obedience.

The idea that love equals obedience, has been used to justify the oppression of many people by the church.

It was used to justify the oppression of people who were enslaved.

It has been used to justify harsh parenting.

It is still used in certain sects of conservative Christianity to justify the oppression of women.

The idea being that if we are “good Christians” who love God, then we must be obedient to all the commandments of God.  Which is fine 

 But in fundamentalist branches of the faith, what those commandments are is interpreted by people who love power not God.

Those advocating for slavery said that if you love God you will obey your earthly masters.

Those advocating for child abuse say that if you love God you will obey your parents – and if you don’t then we’re required to discipline you harshly to save your soul.

Those advocating for the subjugation of women say that if you love God you will obey your husband, your Pastor and all other male authorities…

And when clergywomen and other Progressive clergy say, that’s not biblical they will say:

But It’s right there in verse 15:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Yes….but this passage is part of a whole conversation that starts in chapter 13 at the footwashing and last supper of Maundy Thursday and the only commandment that Jesus gave them was John 13:34-35:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. 

The Commandment is LOVE.

And you might, reasonably, ask – but it says commandments, plural, not commandment, singular.

Absolutely!  

And in Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says that all the Law and the Prophets come down to LOVE – Love God and love your neighbor.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Love is obedience to the commandments.

Oppression is not love.

Slavery is not loving our neighbors or loving God – whether we are talking about America’s original sin of the generational enslavement of African Americans, or the modern slavery that still happens today in the forms of the new Jim Crow, sexual trafficking and labor trafficking… ask any United Woman in Faith and she’ll explain modern slavery to you!

Child abuse is not loving our neighbors or loving God – whether we are talking about high control parenting that is advocated for by ultra-conservative Christian groups, or just plan assault pretending to be discipline- that’s not compatible with the Christian teaching of love.

Oppression of women is not love – trying to remove our voting rights, our reproductive rights, silencing the voices of victims of assault, unequal pay for equal work, and the idea so prevalent in some ultra-conservative Christian spaces that women are to be subservient to men – that’s not love.

Love looks like justice.

Love looks like fairness.

Love looks like compassion.

Love looks like safety.

Love looks like respect.

Love looks like being listened to.

Love looks like the free will that God created us to have.

What else does love look like to you?

As a part of the United Women in Faith Mother’s Day celebration, we’ve collected some thoughts on the women in our lives who showed us love.  

John 14:1-14 NRSVUE

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

You can follow along in your bulletin…

Verse 1 – “Do not let your hearts be troubled”

I’m already troubled, but I believe in God and Jesus and Spirit, so here I am… But I’m troubled about the Gospel of John.

As I mentioned last week – the Gospel of John is not my favorite Gospel because of the way it has been used to justify anti-semitism, and certain very narrow, exclusionary interpretations of Christianity.

But what Jesus was telling the Disciples to not be troubled about was his crucifixion.  

In John chapter 13, right before today’s passage in chapter 14, it’s Maundy Thursday.  We call it Maundy, in Christian tradition, because in John 13:24 Jesus says, “I give you a new mandatum – mandatum is Latin for Commandment… “I give you a new mandatum, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Maundy Thursday is a nick-name for Mandatum Thursday – Commandment Thursday.  And the commandment is LOVE.

So why are they disturbed?

Love is a good thing, right?

Well, Jesus is giving them last instructions after telling them that he’s about to be arrested and crucified, betrayed and denied.  So they’re a little shook.  Here’s what happened.

Jesus washed their feet and Peter got very dramatic about the whole thing.

Then, Jesus told them that one of them was going to betray him.

Which would get him killed.

So Jesus gave them a new mandatum – a new command to love one another.

After which Peter is like, wait, no, you’re going where?  I’m coming with you!

And Jesus is like – bruh – you’re not going to follow me, you’re going to deny me 3 times before the roosters wake up.

So, justifiably so, they were feeling more than a little troubled!

So Jesus tells them, in verse 1, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.  Just Believe in God and believe in me.

And since Jesus has just told everyone that they can’t go where Jesus is going, Jesus reassures them that there will be a place for them in the house of God.

By this time the disciples are sooo confused.

Like, where is Jesus going?

Why can’t we come?

What house?

What do you mean not even Peter can come? 

So Thomas, 

I like Thomas, he’s not afraid to ask the questions that everyone is thinking.

So Thomas, asks in verse 5, So… where are you going, so we can catch up to you?

And maybe because the authors of John are kinda extra, or maybe because Jesus is definitely extra, Jesus responds in verse 6 and 7:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

And Philip decides to be a good friend and back Thomas up, because this is making less and less sense to them because they’re just trying to figure out where Jesus is going, like *geographically,* so that they can meet up later, and now Jesus is talking about being one with the Father….

Soooo will we be meeting up with the Father too?

Really the Disciples are just so confused at this point because the idea that Jesus was going to be executed by Rome was just not comprehensible to them.

So that’s what’s going on in the story.

What troubles me about this passage in the gospel of John is the way some Pastors have interpreted verse 6 while ignoring verses 7- 11.

What troubles me is an understanding of how salvation works, called Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

This is a relatively new understanding of how salvation works – it only dates back to the 19th century.

The idea being that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus, which is what verse 6 says, in part….sort of.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement – or PSA goes like this:

Father God is angry because He (it’s always He in PSA!)

He is angry because He made a perfect creation and we screwed it up with all our sinning.

Then, they take Romans 6:23 completely out of context by reducing Paul’s, long explanation of why we should try not to sin anymore after we decide to follow Jesus, down to just, “the wages of sin is death.”

Then they take “the wages of sin is death,” and interpret that to mean that sin must be paid for with death.  Rather than the obvious meaning that is in alignment with the rest of Romans 6 that sin doesn’t end well.

Maybe you’ve seen the PSA diagram where:

God is here                                                            sinful humanity is here

                       And Jesus is a bridge between us 

The logic of PSA being that God *REQUIRES DEATH* to pay for sin, and since the plan of flooding the whole earth and Noah’s arc thing didn’t put a stop to sin,  The Father decided to have his son killed for our sin.  Jesus’ death becomes the substitute for our punishment.

Hence the term substitutionary.

The main problem with Penal Substitutionary Atonement is that PSA ignores one of the foundational ideas of Apostolic Christianity:  Trinitarianism.

Look at verses 9- 11, starting in the middle verse 9

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, 

Trinitarianism is only complicated if you’re trying to figure out how it mechanically works.  Do I know precisely how Jesus, God and Spirit are one and yet separate – no.  Nobody does – it’s what we call a mystery of the faith.  Don’t worry about it.  We’ll understand it better by and by!

However, Trinitarianism is very simple to understand in how God functions as Trinity.

Creator, Christ and Spirit are all the same personality.

If you’ve met Jesus, you’ve met the Father, and you’ve met the Spirit.

If you’ve met Spirit, which is more common these days, you’ve met Jesus and the Mothering God who gave us birth.

Jesus has the same personality as the Father and 

Creator has the same personality as Jesus.

If, as believers in Penal Substitutionary Atonement argue,  Father God cannot bear to be close to sin, then how could Jesus stand to be around all those sinners?  

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

It makes no sense for “Father God” to be an angry, abusive father who kills his son because He can’t stand His sinful creation and for Jesus to be a loving, forgiving savior who wants to be with us always if Father, Son and Spirit ALL HAVE THE SAME PERSONALITY!

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

Penal Substitutionary Atonement, and the way it misuses scripture, troubles me.

But I believe in God, and I believe that Jesus is God.

I believe that God decided to come down here Godself, not out of anger, but out of love.

To command us to love one another, just as God loves us.

I believe that it is not Jesus’ death that saves us from an angry Father.

I believe that Jesus rose from the dead to prove that it is love that saves us – and love cannot be killed.

There is no Angry Father God.

You know who was angry?

Zeus.

Zeus, the King of the Roman gods, was an angry old man sitting on a cloud ready to strike people down with a bolt of lightning for annoying him.

Zeus, made half-deity sons with unwilling human women, who sometimes intervened on behalf of their human mothers and siblings.

I think that the old religion of the Roman Empire bled into the new religion of the Holy Roman Empire, such that the personality of Zeus was substituted for the personality of Yahweh, which is the personality of Jesus.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

There is no Angry Father God and gentle Jesus – there is only One God.

Does God get mad?

Absolutely!

Jesus got mad at the money changers in the Temple and at the bad Pharisees, not all Pharisees, just the bad ones,  in the Pharisee movement who spread bad theology.

God got mad at the Kings of Israel for failing to care for widows and orphans, overtaxing the poor, treating Bathsheba the way David did,  and allowing the worship of other gods like Molach who demanded child sacrifice.  Ewww.

Scripture shows us that God is capable of anger… 

at injustice, mercilessness, and oppression.

Scripture does not show us a God who sits on a cloud with a bolt of lighting in his hand, waiting to smite you for walking into a church!

God loves you.  No ifs, ands or lighting bolts!

Let’s continue into verse 12.

12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, 

Not only does God love us  – Creator, Christ and Spirit loves us –

God empowers us.

God empowers us to do even more than Jesus did while on this earth.

That sounds a little crazy right?

Like, I can’t raise the dead, or feed 10,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish!

But hasn’t the church fed multitudes more since Jesus fed the 5,000+ people?

Jesus was able to heal people with a word or a touch, but haven’t the hospitals founded by the Church healed Billions more in the last 2000 years?

Jesus taught many people, but haven’t the schools, Universities, and Seminaries the Church has founded taught Billions more?

Because since Jesus went to the Father, followers of Jesus have asked God to help us love one another as God loves us.

God isn’t waiting for us to screw up so They can hit us with lightning.

God is waiting for us to ask Them for anything in the name of Jesus.

Well, not just anything, God isn’t a convenience store in the sky!

Anything that is in alignment with the teachings of Jesus.

So, I’m going to ask God to get our housing project moving again.

To get it built soon enough for us all to see it finished.

For us to be the church for the people who live there.

Because Jesus said, in verses 13 and 14:

13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

John 10:1-10 NRSVUE

10 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I confess that I used to not like this passage and others like it in the Gospel of John.

I don’t like the way it sounds like people are being excluded.

But I think it’s more true to say that I don’t like the way this passage was interpreted for me by other preachers.

They way this passage was taught to me had 2 main points.

1. Antisemitism.  I was taught that the thieves and bandits were supposedly the Pharisees and the Priests. The idea being that Christianity was replacing Judaism and anybody who was still Jewish and promoting Judaism were the bad guys.  

The idea that there is antisemitism in the Gospel of John does have exegetical validity, unfortunately.  Most scholars believe that the gospel of John was written in the 90’s of the Common Era – in what we today call Syria where a group of, mostly, Jewish Christians lived among other Jews.  But the non-Christian Jews had rejected these weird Jewish Christians  Rejection then looked kinda similar to being canceled today.  It meant people might boycott your business,  kick you out of the Synygoge, or end a friendship because of the difference in religion.   The Christ Community that the Apostle John founded in Syria felt rejected by their Jewish community and that rejection resulted in some pretty nasty insults.  But those insults were like a fight between siblings – I can call my brother names, but if someone outside the family comes for my brother – I’m going to show you that we are still family!

Unfortunately – generations of Christians, by which I mean approximately 1,500 years of European Christians, did not understand that this was a fight between Jewish siblings over who the Messiah is.

 So European Christians interpreted the gospel of John as a justification for laws within the Holy Roman Empire that prohibited Jews from owning real estate, to the point that Jewish people were forced to go into trade.  And because the Medieval Catholic church decided that charging interest to a fellow Christian was usury, the Holy Roman Empire created a loophole where only Jewish people could loan money for interest — then when Kings decided they didn’t want to pay back their loans, they would incite a violent riot against the Jews for “killing Jesus.”

Which is why the Nazi’s were so angry at the Jewish bankers during the Great Depression, which after centuries of money motivated anti-semitism, led to the Holocaust.

…and also where the “global Jewish cabal” language comes from that led to the ridiculousness of “Jewish Space Lasers.”

Therefore — when reading the gospel of John, we really, really, really, need to understand that when the authors of John use the term “the Jews,” what they really meant was the religious and political authorities who collaborated with Rome to crucify Jesus and those among their own Jewish community, in Syria, who were canceling them.   NOT all Jews in all times and places!

2. The second objectionable way that I was taught this passage was the idea that there was only one right way to be a Christian – which usually meant that My Church was the *Right Church* and all the other Churches were apostate.  And those people who claimed to believe in Jesus, but didn’t go to church…. Well!  They were just right out!

Like – unless you pray the sinners prayer and declare Jesus is your Lord and Savior you’re not really saved 

Which is often said with zero awareness that these were the titles of the Caesar – 

So unless you proclaimed God with the titles of Caesar you must be going to hell – because the gate is so narrowly defined that there is no room for questions, no room for doubts, no room for people of other faiths.

This second interpretation of a very narrow faith is a literalistic interpretation that ignores the largely poetic and metaphorical language of the gospel of John – and ignores the Jesus of the other 3 gospels who healed and spent time with non-Jewish people like the Centurion and the Syro-phonecian woman, whom Jesus said had more faith than anyone he’d ever met 

Honestly, I kind of tended to avoid exclusionary passages like this one until recently:

– as I have watched people who call themselves Christian call compassion “a woke mind virus”

– as our Vice President tried to school the Pope on Just War theory.

– as Hegseth quoted fake Bible verses from movie Pulp Fiction, without even realizing those verses are not in the Bible.

I used to dislike these verses, but now I get it.

The author of John was dealing with Leaders pretending to bring a message from God, who obviously knew nothing about who God is and what God stands for.

The kind of thieves and bandits that John was talking about are those whose version of the “Good News” – the word Gospel means good news – 

Thieves and bandits are the kind of people whose version of the gospel is not good news, for well, anybody but themselves.

Spiritual thieves and bandits are those who come to steal and kill and destroy.

Those who took up a collection from the poor refugee survivors of the destruction of the Temple in 69AD to try to rebuild the Temple in the year 90 were thieves taking advantage of the people.

And those who today are cutting Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid benefits – that we all paid into – so they can give more tax breaks to the rich and fund everlasting war, are thieves and bandits.

Now I think I understand. The authors of John were telling their community that we need to understand the difference between: 

• the Way of Jesus, who came that we might have abundant life 
• and the ways of those who like the Roman Caesars – claim to be our Lord and Savior – but are neither a good leader nor saving anybody but themselves.

I think the author of John, by having Jesus declare himself to be the gate and the shepherd whose voice is familiar to the sheep, is reminding us to compare the voices of others to what Jesus actually said and did.

Because the Jesus that I know gave us his mission statement in the gospel of Luke, chapter 4, verses 18 and 19

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me

        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

        to set free those who are oppressed,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The kind of Good News that Jesus proclaims 

is good news for the poor and the oppressed.  

It is good news for captives, and disabled people. 

It is good news for those in debt up to their ears – because “the year of the Lord’s favor”  is a direct reference to the Year of Jubilee when all monetary debts were to be forgiven!

I now  believe that what the author of the Gospel of John was saying is that:

We can recognize fake Christians by how well their talking points and actions line up 

– or don’t line up –

With the teachings and actions of Jesus.

People who are not filtering their choices and actions through the gateway of the authentic Jesus aren’t sheep of the shepherd.  They’re wolves pretending to be sheep.

Now does this mean that all the people, including myself, who have ever mis-interpreted scripture are bandits and thieves?

No… We’re human.  We are products of our cultures and our times.

And it’s not easy or without cost to reject a teaching that has been wrong for 1,500 years.

I think intent matters.  And when people of good intent know better, we usually try to do better.

But, friends,  in case you haven’t noticed there are people out there who do not have good intent.

There have always been people who have used religion and spirituality for selfish gain and if that means stealing, and killing and destroying, they’re OK with that.

In United Methodism we use 4 filters to help us discern between the teachings of the shepherd and the teachings of bandits.

• Scripture

• Wisdom Tradition

• Reason/Science

• Spiritual Experience

1. Scripture — If I want to know what God’s views are on a topic, the first place to look is in scripture.  Did you know that you can google a Bible story, by just putting a couple key words and “in the Bible” into the search bar and find the actual verse?  In this day and age, it’s super easy to look up various topics in the Bible or to… just for example… check if dialogue from Pulp Fiction is actually in the Bible or not.
2. Tradition – And by tradition, we don’t mean, “the way we’ve always done it around here,” we mean the collected theological and spiritual writings of Christianity.  The idea being that if I have a theological question, probably someone somewhere has also had a similar question and might have something useful to say about it. 

When Pope Leo was explaining Just War Theory and referencing Augustine of Hippo – this is what he was doing – he was referencing the wisdom tradition of the Church.  

Which, by the way, the Pope was being generous in referencing Just War Theory, because as someone who used to be an Evangelical Christian – who generally default to the earliest held positions of the first century church – Vance should have been taught total non-violence.  In the early church soldiers were expected to leave the military after they were baptized, because Jesus didn’t fight back, so neither should we.  Just War Theory was Augustine suggesting that perhaps it’s OK for Christian Political Leaders to defend their cities from attack, but not to make war on others. — Let me know if you would like to know more about Christian perspectives on war and peace…  There’s so  much more wisdom tradition on this subject!

3. Reason – is our next filter for discernment.  I often refer to this one as Science, because the origins of our Wesleyan filters are proto-scientific, Enlightenment era, so they kinda meant science when they said reason. The general idea being that much of the Bible was written in a pre-scientific era – so now that we have germ-theory, we understand why many Kosher laws, like washing your hands before you eat, make sense, and why some of them no longer make sense – like the Deuteronomy 23:12-14 rule that places for bathrooming must be outside the camp, far from the worship space.  Now that we have modern plumbing it’s reasonable to have bathrooms inside the church!  Using Reason as a filter for discernment also means looking at when scripture was written, where it was written, and recognizing the difference between poetry and a factual account.

4. Experience is our final filter for discernment.  What we mean by experience is: in my spiritual experience does this feel like something that Jesus would say or do?  Do I recognize the God who hears my prayers in the talking points and actions of this person claiming to represent God?

To put this all together let’s use these filters to test the idea that Compassion is a woke mind virus.

1.  Scripture –  There are so many passages in scripture that tell us to care for those in need and that God hears the cries of the suffering.  So I see in scripture that Compassion is something God wants for us and from us.
2. Christian Tradition – Within Christian Tradition there are theological arguments that justify a lack of compassion for certain people.  There are several Papal proclamations ranging from Pope Innocent III writing that those who rejected Christ’s message are less than human and therefore it’s OK to be violent towards them, to Popes Nicholas V and Alexander VI, who authorized the seizing of non-Christian lands and the subjugation of “enemies of the faith” which lead to colonization, slavery, and eventually racial superiority.   https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/blog/manifest-destiny/ 

Teachings which are now widely rejected by most Christians, including the current Pope.

And, within the Christian Tradition is the concept of sanctuary from harm,  the founding of free Hospital orders, Mother Teresa and other saints, and too many writings to count on the concepts of Grace, Mercy, and loving our neighbors.

1. Reason –  Science has refuted the idea that people of other races are a lesser kind of human.  Science has also confirmed the idea that being Gay and Trans has a genetic component.  So many of the reasons for justifying a lack of compassion towards people who are different are not supported by reason.  And there is no evidence that compassion is caused by a virus or any other micro-organism!
2. Experience – In my spiritual experience, the Jesus that I know looks at me with compassion and expects me to view others with compassion as well.  As a matter of fact – God rarely lets me get away with being judgemental towards others!  As the Lord’s prayer says,  God seems to expect me to forgive others as I have been forgiven.

So, no, given the filters of Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience – I do not think that compassion is a woke mind virus from a Christian perspective.

Nor do I think that Vance understands Christian theology better than the Pope.

And I pray that Hegseth actually reads the Bible someday.  

I would recommend the gospel of Luke as a great place to start for anyone.

Luke 24:13-35 NRSVUE

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.” 25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

 

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

It’s hard when things break, but God is revealed in the breaking.. of bread, of systems, of our certainties, of our expectations.

This story is often called “the walk to Emmaus,” because they met Jesus while walking to the town of Emmaus.  There were more disciples than just the 12 BIG NAME disciples, and some of these folks were not there when Jesus appeared in the upper room after the women saw him at the Tomb.

And then as now, people don’t always believe women.

Especially when what women have to say is… unexpected.

Cleopas and his buddy were pretty shaken up because none of what happened was what they expected.

Take a look at verse 19.

Cleopas and his buddy, like a lot of followers of Jesus, thought that Jesus was a mighty prophet who was going to redeem Israel.

Which meant many things to many people.

For some that meant that Jesus would replace the House of Herod as the vassal King of Judea, under Roman rule.

For others that meant that Jesus would make Israel Great Again – that is- restore Israel to the former glory of the kingdom of David and Solomon.  This idea ties into the title, Messiah – which means “anointed one” – because prophets, judges and kings were anointed with holy oil at the beginning of their service.

For yet others, they thought Jesus was Elijah returned, or the next Great Prophet – again an anointed position.  A Great Prophet who would lead the people back into God’s favor and as King Solomon proclaimed at the dedication of the Temple, in 2 Chronicles 7:14:

14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

So they expected Jesus, as prophet or king to lead them into a season of redemption for Israel.

They didn’t expect Jesus to change the system, to disrupt the system, to tear the old system apart!

…they expected Jesus to get on top of the old system and make it work for them.

So they were flummoxed!

How was Jesus going to be the Anointed One – the Messiah – if he was dead!  Like 3 days ago dead!

They wanted to believe the women, but people don’t just rise from the dead!  

And how does Jesus restart his political campaign after having been crucified???

They were wondering, how does any of this even work???!!!

We’re so used to the Easter story, that it’s easy for us to forget how ridiculous it really is.

I met a person at seminary who told me about his first Good Friday service.

He said, “Wait, what??!!  Jesus died?  Nobody told me that Jesus died!  How did he become the leader of Christianity if he died??!!!”

His reaction made me think about how wild our sacred story really is.

And how reasonable the Disciple’s expectations were.

They grew up their whole lives learning about Great Prophets and Great Kings and the Temple covenant, and how when the Kings of Israel and Judea sinned against the poor and the vulnerable, God sent prophets to get them back on the right track.  And when the Kings humbled themselves, and prayed and sought to follow God again, then God forgave them and healed the land of Israel.

That was the story they grew up with.

That’s what they expected.

That’s how the system worked.

They were expecting Jesus to rise to the top of that system and then Israel would be redeemed – “re” as in,  made as great as before.

They knew that their leaders had sinned by failing to give justice to the poor – the widows and orphans and strangers who suffered under the corrupt leadership of the Herodians and the Chief Priests.

They knew that Herod the Great had invited Roman governance against the advice of the prophets.

They knew that their system of governance and religion – because there was no such thing as separation of church and state in the first century –  They knew that their system was not working.

They just didn’t realize that all systems work perfectly to produce the results they produce.

Systems often contain policies and practices that allow for certain people – usually rich and powerful people – to get away with things that poor and powerless people get punished for.

And the unchecked power of the Judean theocracy and the money driven Roman Empire were both designed to benefit the powerful over the vulnerable. 

Yet the disciples still believed in a system that had allowed King after King and priest after priest to get away with injustice and oppression.

They still believed, because they thought if they just had the right guy at the top, then the system could work for them.

They still believed because they had no idea that another system was possible.

Israel’s and Rome’s systems were already broken…

And it’s hard when things break, and we often feel helpless and don’t know what to do…

…but sometimes God is revealed in the breaking… of bread, of systems, of our certainties, of our expectations of what is possible.

Back to the story….

I love that Jesus lets them talk.

Jesus knows better than they do what is happening, but Jesus lets them talk it out.

Jesus is so much better than I am.  

I know that I should let people just talk it through, but I always want to jump to the solution.

Anybody else have that impulse to jump to solutions, when we really should be listening?

Jesus lets them talk it through, because Jesus knows that they need to.

And they are so…up in their heads about what has happened – that they don’t even notice that Jesus is right next to them.

Even when Jesus is explaining everything to them as only Jesus could, in verses 25 – 27, they are still so up in their heads that they are not taking in anything around them.

Until Jesus blessed the bread, broke it and shared it with them.

Then they were able to see Jesus.

It’s hard when things break, but God is revealed in the breaking.. of bread, of systems, of our certainties, of our expectations.

All human systems are flawed and eventually break.

Because all humans are flawed and breakable.

Friends, this is a hard time to be alive.

Because it feels like all our systems are breaking.

Our system of doing church is broken – people don’t participate the way they used to.

Our system of government feels broken, but honestly it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do — it’s just that an increasing number of people are no longer willing to accept that liberty and justice has always been for some and not for all.

Our culture – our rules of social interaction – are shifting and we cannot agree on what our morals and values are, or even what politeness looks like these days.

Our social safety net is broken – COVID was an apocalypse for our social safety net and the number of people who are food insecure, who are housing insecure, who are health care insecure, and who are insecurely employed, has risen every dang month since 2020.

But the Greek work apocalypse that we use to mean disaster,

originally meant something else.

Apocalypse meant, “God sighting.”

Or the in-breaking of God into our ordinary lives.

God is revealed in the breaking.

Jesus told the people on Palm Sunday that not a stone would remain on another stone – that God was Breaking the Temple System.  In the year 69, the Romans leveled the Temple, ending the system of sacrificing and the priesthood.

Jesus broke their expectations of his role as the anointed one, by dying.

But Jesus had already begun to create a new system at the Last Supper that he reminded them of at Emmaus – a system not of putting “our guy” on top of the old system, but a system of gathering with whomever comes and breaking bread.

A system that is about beloved community who share power with every blessed and broken member, not a system ruled by special men who hold power over its members.  Although us church people do have a tendency to look for leaders to tell us what to do, which is part of why our church systems are breaking.

It’s hard when things break, but God is revealed in the breaking.. of bread, of systems, of our certainties, of our expectations.

Communion

…so let us come to the table where God is revealed in the breaking of bread.

When they came to Emmaus, it was evening and the day was almost over, so they asked the stranger to stay with them and share a meal, because Jesus had taught them to practice hospitality to strangers, in the tradition of Abraham.

When the supper was ended, because in that time, sometimes your bread was your plate, or your bread was your spoon, for wiping up the last remains of your meal – so when the supper was ended Jesus took the bread, he blessed it….

He broke it

And he gave it to them

And they finally saw past their expectations and their worries and their fears and they saw Jesus.

They saw Jesus, giving them the bread, just like he had at the Passover supper in the upper room.

And when they could finally see clearly.

Jesus disappeared.

Because now they were ready to follow Jesus into the new way that Jesus taught us.

The text doesn’t say so, 

But I bet when they got over their surprise at Jesus vanishing…

They took the cup and blessed it and they shared it in remembrance of Jesus.

And so we continue to do so today.

Let us pray…

This table is Jesus’ table.

A table that is open to all.

Open to doubters and dreamers, and people blinded by our own expectations.

Open to all the beloveds gay and straight and Christian and something else, and undecided.

This is Jesus’ table and Jesus said everyone is invited, so you are too.

But no one is required.  

You don’t have to take communion, you’re just welcome to.

We have gluten free and glutenous bread, and we use alcohol free grape juice.  Come forward, down the middle, take a piece of bread, and a little cup, then place your empty cup in the trays at the side on your way back down the sides to your seat.

You can kneel up front before you return to your seat if that is meaningful for you.

Or somebody can bring communion to you.

Come – the table is prepared.

Matthew 28:1-10 NRSVUE

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Please join me in the traditional Easter Greeting!

Christ is Risen!

Christ is Risen Indeed!

Christianity in its purest form proclaims, as Bishop Desmod Tutu of South Africa put it:

Goodness is stronger than evil!
Love is stronger than hate!
Light is stronger than darkness!
Life is stronger than Death!
(Desmond Tutu, An African Prayer Book)

I admit that even as  a Progressive Pastor who believes that science is a gift from God,  I do believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead.

I believe it because I believe women…

I believe it because Governments are still in the habit of murdering those who speak out for the oppressed.

I believe that Jesus rose from the dead because God had a point to prove and that point is that all manner of evil may happen for a while, but not even death can stop LOVE from loving.

And love is why God came Godself, down to earth.

I believe that Jesus came down here to tell us that we are loved.  

Yes, all of us.

Yes, even the annoying ones.

Yes, even when *I’m* the annoying one.

God came down here to love us and show us what love means.

I do not believe that God the Father is an angry God who demanded a blood sacrifice for our sins in some horrific action of divine child abuse.

I believe that God knew that PURE LOVE was going to be too much for some people and that those people would choose violence in the face of LOVE.

I mean, humanity is still choosing violence.  We’re not hard to predict.

But God loves the whole world so much that God was willing to come down here Godself and subject Godself to humanity’s violence.

God gave us the free will to choose between love and hate.

But God was not willing to let hate win.

Goodness is stronger than evil!
Love is stronger than hate!
Light is stronger than darkness!
Life is stronger than Death!
(Desmond Tutu, An African Prayer Book)

So, yeah.  

I believe that Jesus didn’t have to die. 

Humanity chose, and is still choosing violence.

And I believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead to show us that Love Wins.

That no matter how crazy-awful life gets –

And there’s been a whole lot of awful craziness lately!

-eventually-

Love Wins.

And in those crazy-awful times where life feels like a dead end, love meets us on our way.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.

I always wonder, which other Mary.

Was it Mary the sister of Martha?

Was it Jesus’ mom, Mary?

Some other Mary?

Mary was a super popular name at the time!

So anyway, Mary and Mary got up before dawn after *the worst weekend of their lives* and went to the tomb to wash and dress Jesus’ body.  Tradition says that they brought the frankincense and myrrh that the Wise Men gave Mary at Christmas…

But, on their way there the earth shook and a shiny messenger appeared (messenger is the translation of the word, Angel) and told them that Jesus was risen and showed them the empty tomb.

So Mary and Mary, of course, head right back to the upper room where they were all hiding after the execution of Jesus to share the good news!

But, on their way, they met Jesus himself, who turned their bad times into a good time…

… to borrow a phrase from Afroman.

Jesus turned their bad times into a good time.

This is how God operates.

When things are falling apart.

When times are bad.

When it looks like evil is winning.

Jesus meets us on the way.

Does Jesus literally meet us on the way… not in my experience!

But I feel like God meets us, on the way of just trying to live our lives. God meets us embodied in new friends we never expected.  Friends who show up with that something-something that we didn’t even know we needed… or never expected to find.

God meets us, on the way, of just trying to live our lives, in the form of new opportunities that we didn’t think were possible.  God has certainly met us on the way towards this affordable housing project!  I didn’t think we could build affordable housing on this small plot of land with an asbestos riddled building, and yet… God is making it possible.

And often,  just like Mary and Mary, when we meet the messenger on the way, we encounter both joy and fear.

Because turning our bad times into good times often takes some work and encounters some pushback..

And it takes intention and effort to fortify our hearts with the kind of love that is stronger hate.

The kind of love that turns the other cheek.

The kind of love that gets knocked down because love refuses to use violence against violence.

The kind of love that gets back up again and offers a hug and a blessing instead of insults. 

And friends, I’ll be honest with you.

I don’t like going through bad times. 

I don’t like getting knocked down.

I don’t like being called names.

And when I do, I really want to fight back.

I really want to give as good as I get.

But when we decide to play by their rules we have already lost.

When we decide to play by their rules we have already lost.

When we decide to play by their rules we have already lost.

God does not call us to give as good as we get… God calls us to give better than we get.

Jesus could have raised an army — Jesus had a lot of followers, some of them even had money.

Jesus could have called down fire, or flood, or plagues or whatever – like God had done before.  But God had already tried that and it didn’t work.

Being mean doesn’t change people’s hearts and minds.

It just doesn’t.

So Jesus let the Roman government, and the powerful religious leaders do what they were going to do and simply showed them that no amount of violence, not even death, can keep love down.

These are scary times.

But God keeps meeting us on our way.

Throwing joy into our fear, like dunking chocolate into peanut butter.

Meeting us with compassion, 

Meeting us with friendship, 

Meeting us with opportunities, 

Meeting our needs,

God keeps meeting us, on our way, with love.

Love is unkillable.

Love Rises.

Love wins in the end.

Matthew 21:1-11  NRSVUE

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:

 

5 “Tell the daughter of Zion,

Look, your king is coming to you,

    humble and mounted on a donkey,

        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

 

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

 

“Hosanna to the Son of David!

    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

 

10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Palm Sunday was a Protest march that mocked the Roman Empire and the Religious Leaders who were collaborators with their oppressors.

This is another one of those things that was super clear to the people at the time, but because we lack the local context, we don’t see it.  So here’s the context.

You might want to keep your bulletin handy to reference the reading as we go along.

Verse 1 holds the key. 

“When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives”

If you look at a map of First Century Jerusalem, Bethphage and the Mount of Olives are on the East side of the city.  Much like Portland, the East side and Southeast Jerusalem were the poor side of town.  Bethphage was a suburb of East Jerusalem – kind of like Gresham is to Portland.  It’s a great place, but the money is on the West Side.

In verses 2 – 5, Jesus sends the disciples into the village of Bethphage, into Greshem if you will to get Jesus a donkey.  Now, in the gospel of Matthew, this gets a little silly because the Matthew writers were taking scripture a little too literally.  In verse 5 the writers are quoting Zechariah 9:9, but not understanding Hebrew poetry.  

–  I mean, riding two donkeys, especially 2 donkeys of different sizes would be awkward.  So awkward that it would be a  miracle if he was able to stay on both of them!  But that’s not what happened!  

What happened was that Jesus rode one donkey and the writers were trying to prove that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah by citing Zechariah totally literally- which is not how poetry works. 

In Hebrew poetry, things are often repeated for emphasis – we call that parallelism.  It’s not that Jesus was riding on 2 donkeys, it’s that Zechariah was poetically mentioning the one donkey twice.

Here’s what Zechariah 9:9 actually says: 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

 

It doesn’t say, the king was riding on a donkey AND a colt.  It’s a double description of the donkey.  

We might say it this way today:

He was so humble that he rode a donkey,  not just any donkey, a baby donkey – like he couldn’t even afford an adult donkey!

It’s meant to be a poetic humble-brag, not a circus trick!

What all of this East Side imagery is meant to do, is show Jesus as being of the poor and for the poor.

He starts his march outside the poor side of town, out in the village of Bethphage, and he’s gathering a crowd of poor people who are marching into the city.

In today’s context it might have looked like this:

 Jesus, rode into Portland through Gresham, and he couldn’t even afford a car, so he rode in on a bike – and not like a motor bike – I mean he rode in on a bicycle!  And the poor people started cheering and filling the potholes in front of him with branches and sticks and even their clothes, so he wouldn’t fall off his bike, and this people’s march marched through Gresham and into Lents and kept going right down Foster street into downtown.  Gathering more and more people as they went.

Meanwhile, maybe on the same day… maybe a few days before or after,  Governor Pilate marched into the city from the West.  The West side of Jerusalem was where Herod’s Palace was, and the new Roman Theater, and the High Priest’s house.  The West Side was the rich side of town.

So Pilate would march into the city to be there for the high holy days of Passover, because Romans believed in worshiping all the gods so as not to make any of them angry.

Pilate would have marched into the city as the representative of the Emperor of Rome, with a full on military parade.  Chariots, Legionaries, calvary, an honor guard, and Pilate at the end of the parade mounted on a war horse with standard bearers carrying gold plated Roman Eagles mounted on poles.  His entourage would have shouted the titles of the Emperor:

“Our Lord and Savior”

“Son of God” – meaning the Emperor was the son of Apollo

And the heralds would have proclaimed, “Peace on Earth”  or Pax Romana – the Roman Peace.

Basically, in today’s context:

Pilate rode in from Hillsborough, through the West Portland Hills, then into downtown.  Pilate was preceded by tanks and soldiers, and he rode in a Humvee Limousine, with Big Flags on golden poles with eagles on top, surrounded by rich and important people.  

And I’m sure they made sure to clear all of the unhoused folks and trash off of the route and fill all the potholes before he got there!

This is why some Bibles add the title: “Jesus’ triumphal entry” to the beginning of the Palm Sunday reading.

Jesus was cosplaying a Roman Triumph.

This is also why early Christians called Jesus our “Lord and Savior” and the “Son of God.”  Early Christians were taking the titles of the Emperor and giving them to Jesus.

Early Christians were trolling Rome!

Early Christians and then later Christians were pointing out that Rome doesn’t save anybody.  Rome was violent and oppressive, and definitely not the bringer of peace on earth.

So while Pilate’s procession was shouting the titles of the Emperor.

The east side folks at Jesus’ march were shouting 

Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Part of this is that they were shouting the traditional Passover Procession Liturgy from the Psalms 113 – 118 which would be used as the King of Israel processed from the Palace to the Temple with the people to celebrate the Passover.

But Pilate had replaced the traditional liturgy with a recitation of the Titles of the Emperor.  Taking their religious tradition and replacing it with Roman Religious Nationalism.

The word Hosanna is the Greekized version of the Hebrew words “hoshia na”  means “save us,” from the Passover Liturgy from Psalm 118.

The larger context that would have been obvious to the second century writers and readers of the gospel of Matthew was that Palm Sunday was a protest march.

In a time where the rich religious leaders were toadying up to the Roman Governor and even blessing Pilate using the most sacred Holy Day in the Jewish Liturgical Calendar to spew Roman Nationalism – Proclaiming the Emperor to be their Lord and Savior and the Son of God.  

While the religious leaders were endorsing Pilate Hegseth, for “enforcing the law,” against “those people.”

Jesus was leading a march using the traditional Passover Liturgy of a Davidic King going up to the Temple to celebrate the Liberation of the Hebrew people from the tyrannical rule of Pharaoh, when they lived in poverty and wage-slavery in Egypt.

Yes.  Palm Sunday was political.

So the other day, I was scrolling on Facebook, as one does, when I saw an article on United Methodist News about the many United Methodist Churches here in the US, who are participating in Palm Sunday Protest marches.  Isaiah – the interfaith coalition in Minnesota has asked folks add their events to the list, so that they know who’s with them – so there’s a lot of Palm Sunday Protests happening today – and I’m participating in the one here in Portland starting at Terry Shrunk Plaza from 3-5pm.

Of course I made the mistake of looking at the comments.

The comment section on everything UMNews posts has been vile, ever since the Global Methodist Church was formed.  Here in the US they troll our social media.  In Africa GMC folks have violently attacked UMC folks.

But there was one comment that caught my attention.   A woman confidently stated that “Jesus would never participate in a protest.”

And I thought,  this is why I went to seminary.

This is why we need seminary educated clergy leading our churches.

This is why clergy need to have the education AND the courage to explain to people HOW the Gospel is Political.

Because if you don’t know that East Jerusalem was the poor side of town and West Jerusalem was the rich side of town…

If you don’t know that, “our Lord and Savior” and “Son of God” were Titles of the Roman Emperor.

If you don’t know that Pilate appropriated the Passover procession and the High Priests participated in that garbage misuse of religion to try to gain favor with Rome.

If you don’t know,  you might think that Jesus never participated in a protest march.

But now you do know.

So if you can, I’m asking you to do what Jesus did.

I’m asking you to join me this afternoon at Terry Schrunk Plaza at 3pm.

And maybe you need to bring a lawn chair.

And maybe we want to carpool and have a designated driver.

And maybe your body just can’t, or you’re already committed to being somewhere else, and that’s OK.  On Friday, May 1 you can participate in the General Strike by not buying anything and not working.  Portland Public schools will be on a furlough day on May 1.  

Why strike and not shop? Because we know that the God of this Empire is money.

Because from the Epstein files to, cutting medicaid, to the unconstitutional violence of ICE – this administration’s actions are incompatible with Christian Teachings.

And I am tired of Christianity being twisted to justify the unchristian actions of this administration. 

I know what Jesus did and did not do.

Jesus led a non-violent protest march to take back His Religion from Roman Nationalism.

John 11:1-16; 30-41  NRSVUE

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

I edited the reading again –  you may have noticed that it jumps from verse 16 to 32- it’s a really long one!

This is a story of premeditated resurrection.

Jesus knew that Lazarus was going to die

And Jesus was planning on resurrecting Lazarus.

This whole story functions in the gospel of John as a foreshadowing of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

So Mary, Martha and Lazarus were siblings who lived together – this is important because women couldn’t own property, and Mary and Martha had no husbands or children that we hear about in any bible story, so that makes Lazarus essential to their household.  No Lazarus – no house.

So Lazarus’ death wasn’t just the death of their beloved brother, his death meant the death of Mary and Martha’s economic, legal, and social existence.  Two women without male relatives were basically legal non-entities in the first century – no voting rights, no economic rights, no property rights, only the right to receive charity if they were old enough to not be forced to marry.  So their grief was compounded with panic 

-What were they going to do?  

-Where were they going to live?  

-How would they eat?  

-Would they be forced to marry?

-Would any man want to marry them?

-Would that man be kind?

In the portion of this reading that I cut out, the first thing Martha and Mary each say to Jesus is, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died,” (Jn 11:21) which we see Mary say in verse 32.  

“Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died,” 

It’s a question we all ask when things go sideways.

Jesus, we prayed and prayed, why didn’t you act sooner?

God, can’t you see what’s going on here?

How long, O Lord, must this suffering last until you step in?

(with vulnerability)…Jesus, do you even care?…

Meanwhile the disciples who are with Jesus don’t want him to enter the city.  We’re back in verse 7.  They don’t want him to go anywhere near Jerusalem because the last time they were there a bunch of people tried to stone Jesus.

The stoning is in chapter 10. Where folks are still mad at Jesus for healing the man born blind, so then they pressure Jesus to tell them if he is the messiah or not, which in the gospel of John, Jesus is totally willing to tell people for free… so Jesus said he is the son of God, and then the crowd gets mad and they are ready to throw rocks, but Jesus talks his way out of it and then they try to citizen’s arrest him and Jesus slips away.

The disciples did not love almost getting stoned to death – stoning being the practice of corporate execution by the whole group throwing rocks at you until you die.  So in verse 7 the disciples are like, “Hey Jesus, how about we go back to Judea where they aren’t trying to stone us?”

But Jesus…

But Jesus… is already on his way towards premeditated resurrection, not just for Lazarus, but for Jesus himself.  

In verses 9 and 10, Jesus speaks poetically about walking during the day and not stumbling at night to tell them that he can see where his path will lead him.  Jesus knows that he is moving towards his death and resurrection and Jesus knows he is moving towards Lazarus’s death and resurrection, and Jesus had told the disciples this, which is why Thomas, in verse 16 says, 

“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Thomas, at least, is willing to believe that Jesus is set on a path towards death, but he does not yet see the possibility of resurrection.

If you live long enough, everyone encounters these moments in life where we recognize that the path we are on is a dead end.

Sometimes we’re on that dead end path for all the right reasons.

And

Sometimes it’s just a stupid dead end – the result of circumstances beyond our control or a series of unfortunate choices.

And sometimes there is no getting over it, no getting around it, and no getting away from it.

Sometimes “through it” is the only way.

I mean, sometimes we can and should walk away.

We as individuals don’t have to have every argument.

We as a country don’t have to fight every war.

But sometimes, sometimes we are just too far down an increasingly narrowing path of options that is leading us inexorably towards a dead end.

Or at least it may look like a dead end to us.

When a relationship ends.

When a job or a career ends.

When things don’t work out as we planned.

When a church dwindles down to a handful of members.

When a nation divides, or forms of government change.

It can feel like the end of the world.

But God is always making things new.

God is a God of premeditated resurrection.

And sometimes one thing has to end in order for a new thing to come into being.

Jesus, by waiting a few days to let Lazarus die and Mary and Martha grieve – gave them time to imagine their lives differently, before Jesus resurrected a new life for Lazarus, Mary and Martha.  Nothing can be the same after you go through something like that.

And we need that time.

We need that time to accept and grieve what we have lost and to become ready for what is coming.

We can’t rush through the process.

Church,  I admit that I am impatient!

I want to leap straight from what’s no longer working to resurrection day!

I want to skip the work of grief and acceptance and just go from one good thing to the next good thing and the next good thing and the next good thing.

But that’s not how life works.

That’s not how *we* work.

We get attached to things while they’re good.

We think, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it and sometimes we willfully ignore that it’s been broke for a while.

Just like the church got attached to the mid-twentieth-century way of doing things because it worked really well for a long time.

So we pretended that it was still working well, long after that way of doing church had stopped working.  Long after it was no longer 1958 outside, we kept pretending that it was 1958 inside the church and wondered why people from 1990, and 2005, and 2016, weren’t coming in.

For many churches, COVID-19 was the dead end of the mid-century road.

And we prayed!  God, can’t you see that your church is dying?  Do something Jesus!  Save us from ourselves!

And Jesus did.  Jesus waited for Lazarus to die.

So that we would come to this point, where we have grieved and struggled and come to accept that what was, can no longer be.

So that we would be willing to accept our resurrection into affordable housing and ministry with people who never would have been welcome in this church in 1958.

It’s hard letting go of something that seemed so good at the time… at least for some of us.

And it’s still hard.

I still find myself saying to God, like Mary and Martha,  “Lord, if only you had shown up sooner!”

Lord, if only we could have done this 10 years ago, or 20 years ago we would have a lot more hands on deck!

Lord if only our friends could have lived to see this day…

Lord, if only we could skip the messy parts of life and move from strength to strength, instead of having to learn everything the hard way!

But life doesn’t seem to work that way.

*We* don’t seem to work that way.

So when it feels like the end of the world, remember that our God is a God of premeditated resurrection.

Our individual lives and our corporate life go through seasons of falling apart and coming back together.

But God has not yet let everything fall apart and stay fallen apart.

God will bring order to this chaos.

Peace to this conflict.

Life out of this season of death.

God is a God of premeditated resurrection.

John 9:1-13; 30-41  NRSVUE

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 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, 7 saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” 10 But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

 

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

 

30 The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

 

35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

You may have noticed that the reading jumps from verse 13 to verse 30 – you’re welcome!

This is a long story so I’m going to dig right in.

Starting in verse 1,  Jesus and a collection of disciples are somewhere near Jerusalem, maybe East of the city.  In chapter 8 Jesus was at the Mount of Olives, which is east of the city so they seem to be traveling towards Jerusalem.

As they’re walking, they see a blind man. 

And the disciples do something kinda rude.

Rather than talking *to* the man, like a normal person, the disciples start talking *about* the man who is blind – using him as a prop for a theological discussion about the cause of disability.

“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind.”

To us, with our access to medical science, this seems like a dumb question.  Blindness is not caused by sin, it’s caused by diseases and genetic disorders.

But science hadn’t been invented yet, and people like to know why.

When faced with a serious diagnosis, “why” is often the first question we ask.  

Why did this happen?

Why did this happen to me?

So the disciples, while definitely being rude, were asking the same question we all ask when facing a life-altering diagnosis.

“Why did this happen?

The unspoken question behind the way being,

“How do I prevent this bad thing from happening to me?”

In a prescientific world, the answer to most why questions was God.

If something bad happened – you must have made God mad.

If something good happened – you must have pleased God.

This world view was not unique to the Hebrew people – it was pretty much how everyone thought before science.

The Romans were mad at the Jews because they didn’t worship the Roman gods because the Romans were afraid that a lack of worship would make the gods angry.  If the gods became angry, then bad things would happen.

So the disciples are not being exceptionally stupid when they ask who sinned to make the man blind.  They’re actually asking a very reasonable theological question for the time period.

A question we still ask, even though we, more or less, have a scientific understanding of the world.

I mean,  when something bad happens we still ask:

Why did this happen?

Why did this happen to me?

And…

“How do I prevent this bad thing from happening to me?”

We just ask our doctor, or some other expert, instead of a priest.

But there’s still a whisper of the old question of whose sin caused this bad thing to happen within our modern why.

We’ve mostly gotten better about blaming people for getting sick, but our first impulse on hearing that someone is sick is still to give advice —  Have you tried this?  Have you done that?  Did you call your doctor?

But the less we understand the bad things that happen to people the more likely we are to go looking for some kind of sin.  Science has taught us that addiction is a disease, but because we don’t fully understand how to prevent addiction or fully understand how to successfully treat addiction, our why questions have a tendency to drift towards blame.  We ask the same question:

“Was it this person’s parents who sinned or was it this person who sinned that led to this addiction?”

But we ask it in the form of were this person’s parents bad and that led to addiction or did the person make bad choices.

And when people are deep within the disease of addiction and not really capable of utilizing help – we often blame them for the sin of “choosing” their addiction.

We seem to entirely forget that addiction is a disease and revert to the concept of moral failure aka sin.  Because if we can blame someone then we are in control.

The same can be said for many other social ills that we don’t fully understand.

People with mental health diagnosis do not choose to have a mental illness, and yet they are often shamed for not magically figuring out how to get better from illnesses that we don’t have good treatments for.

People who have experienced trauma are expected to just “get over it,” as if they are choosing to live with post traumatic stress!  Often because we would rather blame the victims than acknowledge the systemic sins of a culture that allows abusers to get away with it.

People who are poor are blamed for their own poverty – as if most poor people throughout this country and throughout the world don’t work 3 times as hard to get a fraction of what the billionaire class makes off of their labor and the price gouging of the basic necessities of life.

And still people ask,

Was it their parents who sinned against Mamon and made them poor?

Or is it their own fault that they are poor?  I mean, they could give up avocado toast and lattes.

We ask these questions, not because we are fundamentally bad people, but because we are afraid.

We are afraid of bad things happening to us.

And we think that If there is a reason why bad things happen…

Then maybe there is something we can do to prevent that bad thing from happening to us.

We have this backwards hope that if we can just do everything right nothing bad will happen.

If I eat healthy, exercise, avoid addictive substances, get an education, work hard, save money, invest smartly, go to therapy, take vitamins, limit screen time, micro-dose, focus on macros, meditate, be responsible, give up coffee and avocado toast, have the right friends, network….

…and the list goes on and on and on of things to do or not do.

Until we are back to the old superstition of who made the gods angry by failing to sacrifice…what?

Every last bit of joy and basic humanity?

In order to avoid sinning, so that we can avoid bad things happening to us?

Tell us who sinned, Jesus, so that we can protect ourselves by avoiding that sin.

Look at Jesus’ answer in verse 3.

Who sinned?

This is not a trick question.

I do want you to answer, out loud.

Yeah.  Nobody sinned.

Nobody sinned!

God had a bigger plan and this man’s healing is part of that plan.

Now I don’t think that is true of all bad things.

I don’t think that God is causing bad things to happen on a regular basis just to demonstrate God’s power.  

I’ve studied the theological question of, why do bad things happen, quite a lot, and honestly, there are a lot of reasons why bad things happen and sometimes there’s no reason at all.  

Stuff happens.

-Sometimes we do bad things.

-Sometimes somebody else does bad things and their sins cause other people suffering.

-Sometimes bad actions snowball into worse things.

-Sometimes things we don’t enjoy aren’t necessarily bad, just natural functions of life.

-Sometimes life and death and everything in between are a mystery.

God knows.

And I’m willing to trust that God is good.

Even when I don’t understand.

So Jesus healed the man and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is in SE Jerusalem – a busy place that put the man into the path of the Pharisees.

In verses 15 – 29, the Pharisees interrogate the formerly blind man, because they suspect that it’s Jesus and they don’t like Jesus – because Jesus is interrupting their whole protection racket of avoiding all sin in order to prevent bad things from happening.  

But when we pick up the story again in verse 30,  the formerly blind man isn’t having it – because he can see the evidence of God’s power and compassion with his own eyes!

So the Pharisees drive the healed man out of the city because he refuses to not believe his eyes.

In verse 35, Jesus introduces himself to the healed man and explains to him that some people can’t see the truth and some people don’t want to see the truth.

Bible editors often title this section, “Spiritual Blindness,” just in case we might be trying to take it too literally.

In verses 40-41 there are some Pharisees being snarky –  “surely we are not blind!”

But Jesus – Jesus spoke up when people who should know better were being mean.

Jesus called people out for their sins.

And in this story, it’s not the Blind man or his parents who sinned,

It’s the Pharisees who sinned. 

Their sin is still a popular sin today.

The sin of increasing the suffering of marginalized by blaming the marginalized for their own suffering.

The sin of twisting and weaponizing the good advice of scripture in order to shift the blame from the real causes of suffering to those who are hurting.

We all long to be safe.

We all want to have enough.

We all enjoy having a little more than enough, to make life more fun.

This is why we want to know who sinned – to try to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe.

But don’t be deceived.

Life isn’t safe.

There is no perfect combination of choices that will lead to an ideal life.

Suffering happens.

Whether we deserve it or not.

Good things happen too.

Whether we deserve it or not.

Jesus didn’t lead with blame, Jesus led with grace.

So let’s live with compassion.

Compassion for yourself and compassion for others.