The One of Peace -- Fourth Sunday of Advent

Micah 5:2-5a

December 22, 2024

 

            Bethlehem was the one place I could not wait to see. It wasn't that I didn't want to visit the other countries and sites we were touring, but Bethlehem? Bethlehem was it. It was the real deal. This was the town that I had been singing about, hearing about, and imagining my whole life. Finally, I was going to see and experience that little town of Bethlehem. I guess in my mind, I saw Bethlehem as a cozy, charming village. After all, the artistic depictions of Bethlehem I saw growing up made it seem like a quaint little town tucked neatly into the Swiss alps. Just substitute sand for snow and you've got it. Of course, these are the same pictures that portrayed Mary, a Middle eastern Jew, as blonde and blue-eyed, so I should have guessed that reality might differ from the pictures.

            But I never guessed or imagined just how different that reality would be. Bethlehem different from the pictures? That's an understatement. Bethlehem was nothing like I thought it would be. How shall I put this? It looked like a dive. A pit of despair. A ditch of despondency. You get the idea. The pictures and paintings I'd seen growing up were far cries from the reality of Bethlehem.

            When we first pulled into the town, I looked eagerly for those dark streets that were once illumined by an everlasting light. But they were just dark. And if they were wide and open enough to be filled with sunlight, then what really stood out was the dirt and the dust. There were people walking around, but they stared at our tour bus with suspicion and distrust. I can't say that I blamed them.

“Oh goody. Another group of westerners come to stare at us.”

            The Bethlehem I visited, and the Bethlehem of lore were two very different places. That really shouldn't have been a surprise, I know. But the disparity between the ideal and the reality was far wider than I would have ever thought possible. Bethlehem in 1993 was a sad, neglected town, ravaged by violence and hopelessness. Never was I so glad to leave a place as I was Bethlehem.

            My visit was in 1993. Things change. My dear friend, Ellen, took a tour of the Holy Land several years after I visited there, and the souvenir she brought back for me was a coffee mug from the Bethlehem Starbucks. If Starbucks has made it to Bethlehem, then you know changes have been made. I have no problem with coffee shops in Bethlehem or any other place. As many of you know, I believe strongly that coffee has the power to effect change and inspire hope. At least that's the promise coffee makes to me every morning. But Starbucks in lieu of a star? That gives me pause.

            But lattes aside, the Bethlehem I visited was a different place from the one which abides in the carols we sing. Yet the Bethlehem of my memory doesn't seem that different from the Bethlehem Micah spoke of and to in these verses.

            "But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days."

            As always, understanding of these particular verses comes from understanding the larger context. Israel and Judah were under siege by the Assyrians. Samaria, the stronghold of the northern kingdom had fallen. According to one Old Testament scholar, great walls and fortresses were built around city after city in attempt to thwart the invaders. But eventually invaders could not be thwarted. City after city had fallen. City after city lay in ruins. Bethlehem was no different. It was ravaged by war and conquest. All that was left of its mighty walls and ramparts were smoke and ash. But in the midst of this devastation, Micah spoke this miraculous word of hope. Out of this little clan, this little town, this seemingly unimportant and conquered place will come one who will rule. This one that Micah spoke of would be both rooted in the ancient days of Israel's beginnings and in the future that would be grounded in God's promise and faithfulness. Out of this little one, this little Bethlehem, would come one who would rule, shepherd, and bring peace.

            As I said, understanding this passage, this word of hope, means understanding the larger context. Unlike other prophets that may have survived assaults from foreign armies by holing up in heavily protected strongholds of kings and rulers, Micah and his people had witnessed the devastation wreaked across the land from the invading armies. They had seen the destruction and waste that resulted from the king’s response through force. Micah saw firsthand how violence only begets violence. Micah saw up close and personally how violence destroys the most vulnerable, how it destroys the land. And as one commentator wrote, Micah was furious. He was furious with the current kingship and the genealogical lines that put one weak king in power after another, and furious that all these kings seemed to understand was violence. According to the scholarship I read, Micah did not want the current line of kingship to continue. Micah, a prophet who had seen what happens to the least of these because of war and violence, wanted change – dramatic, life-altering change. And Micah knew that this was change that could only come from God. Micah understood that the ruler who would come from God would be the one of peace.

            So, it is into this maelstrom of history, violence, devastation, and destruction that Micah prophesied. It is into this chaos of violence that Micah prophesied of the one who would come, the one of God who would hearken back to the ancient beginning of Israel, indeed the beginning of creation, and who would be the change the future demanded. Micah prophesied of this one of God, this one who would bring peace. And this one who would bring peace would not come from the high echelons of Jerusalem, but from the most unexpected and lowly of places: Bethlehem.

It's easy to Christianize Micah's words. Certainly they tie in neatly with our story from Luke. Elizabeth, a woman well past childbearing age, is expecting a child! And her kinswoman, another unexpected, lowly one, a young woman named Mary, is also expecting an unexpected child. Both Elizabeth and the child within her recognize that Mary is carrying the one that Micah spoke of, the ruler, the shepherd of the people, the one who would bring peace. This one of peace is the one we know as Jesus the Christ.

However, I’m not sure if Micah would have understood this one of peace as the Jesus that we know and honor. Micah and the people to whom he prophesied, were probably hoping for a new kind of ruler, one who would bring peace, true, but one who also would restore the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. This new ruler would bring peace but would also lead the people with might and power. Their enemies would be defeated. Their homes would be rebuilt. Their lands would be restored by this new and powerful one of peace. Wasn’t this the hope of the people who followed Jesus? Didn’t they understood the Christ, the Messiah, as one who would be the mightiest warrior of all? Wasn’t this part of the problem? Jesus did not fulfill this idea of Messiah, and never pretended to. He was the most unlikely of people to be the chosen one of God. But maybe Micah had a glimpse. As one scholar wrote, Micah’s prophesy of hope is far more radical than we realize. Micah knew that God was doing something new. The one to come from God, the one would bring peace, was radically different than all the ones who had gone before. Maybe Micah had a glimpse of just how unlikely and unexpected the one who would bring peace would be.

            When it comes to God, the unexpected and unlikely should not surprise us, should it? The unexpected and unlikely are at the heart of the gospel. That’s what makes the good news of the gospel so radical and indeed it is radical! The unexpected and surprising nature of God's incarnation is what makes the story of our faith such good news. From the unexpected and the unlikely, from little ones, little towns, and the lowliest of people comes great hope, peace, joy, and love. Our good news, our salvific news, our amazing news is found in God’s divine surprise. God is where we least expect and in the unlikeliest of people.  

            It seems to me, though, that while we know this about God we don't really know this about God. We either take this good news for granted, or we forget it in the midst of the darkness that surrounds us. The pain of the world is so great that the idea of light overcoming darkness sounds like just a nice thing to say. This world we live in is so filled with enmity, violence, greed and fear that it is surely beyond redemption. And that’s just out there. What about in here? What about in us? What brokenness lies within each of us? What pain and sorrow do we bear? Will this bringer of peace bring peace to our lives, bind up our broken hearts, and soothe our weary spirits? Of course God will. Of course. That is the good news of the gospel! We say it, but do we always believe it? When the darkness of the world fills me with despair, I find it hard to believe that a light will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

            But God never fails to surprise me. God surprises me, and I am shaken from my complacency and knocked out of my selfish ease. God surprises me, God surprises us, through the little ones, the unexpected ones – unexpected people and unexpected places.

            The gospel is a gospel of surprise, and the call of Advent is to be surprised again by God. After all, how can we not be surprised that our God was born into this broken body in a broken world, not to overwhelm us or destroy us but to bring light into the darkness. God was born into this world to lead us with peace. So, let us be joyful. Let our hearts and minds be filled with hope. Let us shout the good news of peace to a world in desperate need. Let us give thanks and praise because God surprises us still, because God loves us. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God's children say, "Alleluia!"

Amen.

I Will Bring You Home -- Third Sunday of Advent

Zephaniah 3:14-20

December 15, 2024

 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your hearts be light

From now on, our troubles will be out of sight

 Here we are as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us once more

 

If there is a secular Christmas song that brings tears to my eyes, it’s this one. When I started celebrating Christmas apart from my parents and my family of origin, the song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas took its place at the top of my list of holiday tearjerkers. If you are familiar with the musical, Meet Me In St. Louis, this is the song that Judy Garland’s character sings to her little sister as they deal with the prospect of leaving their beloved home in St. Louis and moving to New York for their father’s job. I’m sure it was written to evoke all the sentiment and longing that makes itself known at this time of year, and of course, Judy Garland sang it with such pathos that welling up seems like the most natural response to have. In the movie this family hasn’t even left their home in St. Louis yet, but just the thought of it, the overwhelming and inescapable reality of it has them homesick for what they will be leaving behind.

Homesickness is something that we tend to write off as an emotion a kid feels the first time they go away to camp or college. They miss their family and friends and pets and room, but after a few days they get used to the newness, make friends, and they’re fine. But I’m here to tell you that homesickness is real, and it is not limited to kids away at camp. Like I said, the first Christmas that I didn’t go “home” to my parent’s house, I was much older than a kid, and I was so homesick that I cried myself into a sinus infection. Homesickness is real, and it can strike at any age and for any reason.

So, if I could cry myself sick – literally – from homesickness because I missed spending Christmas with my parents and in my childhood home, how excruciating would the homesickness be if the home you knew and loved was destroyed? How terrible would the homesickness be if you were in exile from your homeland or a refugee, forced to flee your home, your land, your country because of war, violence, oppression? That kind of homesickness would be devastating and exhausting. It would leave you weary in body and spirit and overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.

            It was to this weariness and soul-tiredness that the prophets of the first testament spoke. Certainly, that is true for Zephaniah. Zephaniah is not a prophet we hear from very often. His book is a quick read, only three chapters. But those three chapters are intense. The first two are packed with prophesies of destruction.

Chapter 1, verses 2 and 3: “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord. I will sweep away humans and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble. I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth, says the Lord.”

            It is almost like the creation story in reverse. Instead of creating, God will destroy. Instead of building up, God will tear down. Instead of fashioning and forming, God will dismantle and demolish. Not exactly hopeful words to hear, are they? Zephaniah’s prophecies were aimed at the leadership of the day; both political and religious. The homes and the lives of the people lay in ruin, but those who had the power to effect change did nothing. More often than not, it was those in power who were indirectly and directly responsible for that ruin.

            Zephaniah called the leaders to accountability. God would rush in, he warned them, with judgment for their apostasy and their corruption. God would rush in with fierce retribution for the ways they led astray the people they were supposed to serve and unite. The great day of the Lord would descend upon Israel’s enemies – without and within.

But then, in what seems to be an abrupt about face, Zephaniah closes his message with the words of hope we read this morning. Zephaniah called the people to rejoice and to exult with all their hearts because the judgments against them would be taken away. God would rush into their midst, to judge but also to redeem. God would rush in, both calling the people to task and offering forgiveness for their sins. No more were the people to fear destruction and devastation. Instead the Lord who rushed in would rejoice over them with gladness and song. The God who rushed into their midst would “remove disaster from them, save the lame, gather the outcast, change their shame into praise, bring them home, and gather them in.” God would gather them in and bring them home.

            These are such beautiful and powerful words of hope. If only they would come to fruition, not only in the time of Zephaniah but in our time as well. Yet I wonder if we confuse what it means for God to rush in. At first reading of these verses in Zephaniah, it sounds as if the Lord will rush in like the cavalry does in old westerns. Just when all seems lost, God rushes into the midst of the battle, turns the tide and saves the day. We may not consciously wish for this, but perhaps we unconsciously or subconsciously hope for this to happen. Instead of longing for the triumph of the trinity, God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, we wait for the coming of the Lone Ranger, Tonto and the strains of the William Tell Overture. Yet I don’t think that is what it meant when we think of God rushing in – then or now.  

            In Hebrew and in the context of the Old Testament – and in the New Testament as well – righteousness and justice always walked hand-in-hand. If Zephaniah called the religious and political leadership to task because justice did not prevail, that also meant they were not living righteously. Paraphrasing the words of another scholar, there is a great difference between righteousness and self-righteousness. Living righteously means seeing the humanity in others. It means recognizing the humanity in both the victim and the criminal. It means acknowledging the humanity of the poor, and the humanity of the enemy, the different, the outcast, the refugee. On the other hand self-righteousness degrades humanity. It denies the humanity of those who are different and those who are suffering. It vilifies the least of these and demonizes the poor and the outcast. Justice is warped and twisted when we live self-righteously. But when we seek to live righteously, acknowledging the humanity in all, then we cannot help but seek to live justly as well. When we deny the humanity in others, denying them justice is easy. However the opposite is equally true. When we acknowledge the humanity in others, we cannot help but seek justice for them.

            It seems to me that when Zephaniah prophesied that God would rush into the midst of the people, it was not as the cavalry or the Lone Ranger. It was because God was calling on the people to once again live as God created them to live. It was because God was calling the people to be the people God created them to be. When the people returned to righteousness, it would not be a case of them saving themselves, instead they would no longer be living in a way that pushed God out. It might seem that God would rush into their midst after a long absence, a long time away from the people God professed to love, but in truth, God had always been there. God had never left them. It was they who had left God.
            Maybe this is what John the Baptizer wanted the people who came to him in the wilderness to understand as well. Stop thinking that you’re fine just because Abraham is your ancestor. That is not a free pass for living as God called you to live. And when the people asked John what they should do, he told them, as Debie Thomas put it, to go home.

            Go home and give a coat to someone who has none. Go home and make sure that someone who is hungry is fed. Go home and conduct your work honestly. Go home and take care of the other people around you. Go home and live justly and righteously. God has not left you; you have left God. So, go home and do what God calls you to do, live as God calls you to live, be who God calls you to be.

            Those crowds who stood before John probably didn’t consider themselves homesick. We can assume that at least some of them had homes and hearths of their own, families and work, and communities. But what drew them to John in the first place? Maybe they weren’t homesick in the traditional definition of the word, but perhaps they were heartsick which is another kind of homesickness. Perhaps they were longing for what they knew could be but was not yet. Maybe they were heartsick for something, for someone, for which they did not yet have words. And John’s words, harsh as they were, resonated with their heartsickness and their homesickness, their longing for light and love and joy, their longing for God.

            On dark days, when the brokenness of the world feels overwhelming and the news is too much to bear, I find myself praying for God to rush in. Please God, rush into this dark world. Rush into the hearts of those who believe that the way to follow you is by killing others. Please God, rush into the lives of those who ease their suffering by causing the suffering of others. Please God, rush into the hearts of those who are fearful and into those who use fear against others. And before I get caught up in my own perceived goodness and stumble into self-righteousness, do the same for me. Rush into those places where I have pushed you out. Rush into the needs I think I can satisfy on my own. Rush into my wrong belief that I can save myself. Rush in, God, and ease my heartsickness and my homesickness. Rush in and remind me that you never rushed out. Remind me that you have never left me or abandoned me. Rush into my life, God. Rush in, so that I can rush into the lives of others, to love and serve your people with righteousness, justice and joy. Rush in, O God, and gather me in. Rush in and bring me home. Rush in, O God, and bring us all home.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

Amen.

           

           

Refined and Repentant -- Second Sunday of Advent

Malachi 3:1-4

Luke 3:1-6

December 8, 2024

 

            When my kids were little, I did my best to keep the house as clean and as organized as possible, for my own sanity more than anything else. It didn’t always work. Not because I didn’t try, but because, you know, life. Life, with work and home and activities, was busy and full and often chaotic. So, I just did the best I could to stay one step ahead of the constant mess.

            But during the summer when the kids were in the elementary school years, they would go to camp. They went to a day camp for a few weeks at the college in the town where we lived, and as they got a little older, they would go to an away camp for a week. And that was my time to clean their rooms. Now, they were supposed to clean their rooms themselves – pick up their clothes and their toys, make their beds, and so on. But that was just tidying up. While they were out of the house, I would do a deep clean dive on their rooms. I would organize, sort, discard. I’d pull out clothes I knew they’d grown out of and donate them. I’d vacuum, dust, wipe down, pick up, if it needed to be cleaned, I cleaned it.

            And when I was done, I would just stand and admire their rooms. They were clean, organized, beds made, clothes hung neatly, toys and books off the floor and on shelves and in the storage bins. You could actually see the floor! It was fantastic! There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Their rooms would stay just like that – until they came home. The minute my kids walked in the door, I would plead with them to try harder to keep their room clean and organized. They would smile at me, nod their heads, agree how nice it was to have a clean room, and within ten minutes chaos reigned once more. But for those first ten minutes, it was great.

            For those first ten minutes, my inner neat freak was satisfied. With life as busy as it is, it can be hard to stay on top of the chaos. I know my office does not reflect the neat freak that lives inside of me, especially in really busy weeks or seasons. But my inner neat freak bides its time, and at some point the chaos becomes too much and I must clean. I must clean, my office, the house, my car, because I just can’t stand the mess anymore.  

            You can probably guess then why this passage from Malachi appeals to me. Any passage that has to do with soap sounds good to me. But this isn’t a passage that we read that often in worship, and the reference to fuller’s soap is unusual, so I wanted to familiarize myself with what it is. It took some research to understand what these verses are referring to.

            Fulling was the act of cleaning and preparing wool for use. It makes sense, then, that a fuller was the person who did the fulling. According to one source that I read, in the Old Testament there was a place outside of Jerusalem called Fuller’s field. It stands to reason, then, that this must have been the place where the wool went to be fulled or cleaned, and we can also assume that the fuller’s soap was the soap used by the fuller to do the cleaning.

I suspect that cleaning wool required some pretty powerful soap. The wool sheared from a sheep would have been greasy and dirty. Getting rid of the grease and grime that collected on the wool would demand a generous amount of elbow grease, hard scrubbing, and a strong soap. The fulling soap used would make the wool snow white.  The fulling soap softened and relaxed the wool, so that it would be ready for whatever purpose it was put to. Whether the wool was used to make clothing, rugs, or something else, fuller’s soap was necessary to prepare the wool. The fuller’s soap made the wool ready.

            This messenger that Malachi refers to is someone who will act on the people like a fuller’s soap acts on wool. The messenger will cleanse the people, soften them, soften their hearts, make them ready. Because of this messenger the people will be made ready.  They will be prepared. They will be washed clean. The people will be made ready.

            “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight – indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”

            Christian tradition ties this messenger that Malachi speaks of to John the Baptizer,  the subject of today’s gospel reading from Luke. It seems that the lectionary has us working backwards from the end to the beginning. Last week we read about the end times and the signs that accompany them, heeding Jeremiah’s words that surely the days are coming. This week the word of the Lord has come to John in the wilderness, and he’s preaching all around the river Jordan, proclaiming, as verse 3 tells us, “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

            John is the one who prepares the way for the One with a capital O. John is the one who gives the message that Jesus is on the way. John offers the people a water baptism, but he knows very well that the One to come will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. 

            Yet God has called John to be the voice of preparation. So that’s what he preaches. Prepare.

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.” 

            Prepare. Last week we were told to wait, to watch because surely the days are coming when the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Unless we’re awake and bright eyed and bushy tailed, we’ll miss it. We’ll be caught off guard. But this week we have other kinds of work to do. We must prepare, and we must be prepared. According to Malachi, we need to be washed with fuller’s soap. We need to be cleansed and polished. And the messenger of the Lord is the one to do this. John the Baptizer is like fuller’s soap to our heart, mind and soul. Prepare.

            But Malachi refers to more than just fuller’s soap. Even before he speaks of soap, he writes of refiner’s fire. The messenger that Malachi talks of will not only wash us, but he will also refine us with fire. He will refine us as a silversmith refines his chosen metal.  Our preparation is one of refining.

            The descendants of Levi will be purified like silver or gold. They will be made clean and pure. And as I said before, John the Baptizer understood that his water baptisms could not compare with the fire baptism of the Holy Spirit that would happen with the coming of the Messiah. 

            But what does it mean that we will be refined and purified with fire?  Does it mean that we must be burned before we can be pure?  Is this literal or figurative or a little of both? 

            I once read a story about a women’s Bible Study. The women were studying this passage and other passages like it that spoke of being refined and purified like silver.  None of the women could really visualize what it meant to be refined like silver, so one of the women decided to research the work of a silversmith.

            She found a silversmith and made an appointment to talk with him. After he had given her a tour of his workshop and shown her the tools of his trade, he demonstrated how he created his silver treasures. First he hammered the silver into the shape and style he wanted. Sometimes this included using a mold or a form to get the shape just right.  Then, to prevent cracks in the metal, he used heat to soften and refine the silver. In the old days, a silversmith, such as Paul Revere, would have used a fire and bellows. But contemporary silversmiths use blowtorches. 

            The silversmith heated an object to show the woman how it was refined. She was impressed with all of this and asked him one final question. 

“How do you know when the silver is refined to the exact point that you want?”

            He smiled at her and said, “That’s easy. I know it’s done when I can see my reflection in the metal.”

            The messenger that God is sending is coming to prepare us. That preparation is both cleaning and refining. We will be refined with fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit, until we are pure. We will be refined with fire until God’s reflection can be seen in us. I know that sounds daunting, maybe even a little frightening, but none of this is supposed to be easy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not necessary or worth it. To be refined, to be made pure and polished is to be made ready for the Lord’s coming in our hearts, minds, and soul. Prepare

            I do a lot of preparing in this season. I make a lot of lists. I scramble around trying to get ready. But how much time do I spend thinking about what I’m preparing for?  And do I give any time at all to the notion that I might be the one who needs preparation? Because it seems to me that I am the one who needs to be refined. Refined to the point that God can see God’s reflection in me. 

            I’m not there yet. There is still refining to be done. But I pray this Advent that I’m a little closer, I’m a little more prepared, I’m a little more refined and polished and made clean. I pray the same for all of us. I pray that soap and fire will cleanse and refine us to be more truly the people God created us to be, to be the people who follow Jesus first and foremost, to be the Church God called into being. I pray most of all that in this season of Advent soap and fire will prepare and refine us as followers of Jesus, as the Church who bears his name, to be messengers of the good news, and reflections of God’s image to a hurting world, a broken world, a world that desperately needs peace. May we be prepared.

Let all God’s children say “Alleluia.”

Amen.

The Days Are Surely Coming - First Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33:14-16

December 1, 2024

 

            When I was a kid, I looked for two signs, and to me they were sure signs, that announced Christmas was coming. These signs had nothing to do with the calendar, and in Tennessee they had nothing to do with the weather. We know that this time of year can be cold or balmy or somewhere in between. The first sign I looked for was a commercial for Norelco razors. An animated Santa Claus would come sledding down a snowy hill on a Norelco electric razor. I have no idea why I remember that so well, but I just remember seeing it on television and thinking, “Christmas is coming!”

            The second, and even more important sign that Christmas was on its way, was the Andy Williams Christmas Special. I know I’m dating myself, but I also know some of y’all remember this too. The Andy Williams Christmas Special every year was a staple of Christmas when I was a kid. Christmas had officially arrived when Andy Williams sang, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

            As a child I didn’t consider the meaning of the time before Christmas because I didn’t grow up in a tradition that celebrated Advent. The most wonderful time of the year started as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey was eaten, and the Macy’s Day Parade wrapped up. From there we went straight to Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. So, when I became Presbyterian, especially when I was called to be a Presbyterian minister, I found Advent to be a little bewildering and a lot jarring. Where were the happy Christmas carols? Where were the scripture passages about babies and heavenly hosts? Where were the words of joy and exultation? Instead we begin this season reading scripture about apocalyptic events, passages of scripture that I wish I could avoid – not only as a preacher but as a reader. They make me uncomfortable and anxious.

            But after a while, Advent took hold of me. It has become one of my favorite seasons in the church year. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. I love the music – sacred and secular. I love the festivities and the lights and the decorations. I love it all, but Christmas, like so much else in the world, gets noisy. The hustle and bustle feel chaotic at times, and there are moments when the cheeriness can feel forced. But then there is Advent. Advent is quiet. Advent gives us a moment to catch our breath and be still. Advent is waiting and preparing, true, but Advent is also naming. In this season of Advent we name the truth that the world is not what it should be, and certainly not what God created it to be. We name the truth that we are not who we should be, and not who God created us to be. And in Advent, we slow down, we become quiet, and we turn again to ancient voices that proclaim that even though nothing and no one is as it should be … yet, God is still with us, and even more, God is doing something new. God is still creating. God is.

            “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Isarel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Jeremiah was not a prophet known for his hopeful, comforting words. For most of the book, he laments. He will not let anyone think that everything’s just okay, fine and dandy. It is most decidedly not. So, these words before us today, words of hope, seem strange and out of character. These are words which are far from lament and doomsaying. Yet this passage from Jeremiah does not occur in a vacuum, it is part of a larger context. For our understanding today, we need to look back at two significant events that happen at the beginning of Chapter 32. The first is that Jeremiah had been preaching and prophesying gloom and doom to King Zedekiah – repeatedly. Finally, Zedekiah could stand it no longer. He placed Jeremiah under house arrest. Perhaps Zedekiah thought imprisonment would shut Jeremiah up once and for all.

            The second significant event was the Lord instructing Jeremiah to purchase a piece of land. That sounds relatively benign, but when the Babylonians are at the gate and your city and homeland are about to be overrun, buying property is generally low on your priority list. Yet despite the destruction that is about to descend, God told Jeremiah to buy land. What did buying land signify then and now? Hope! Why would you buy property if you don’t think there is a future? Why invest in anything if you have no hope for next week or next year?

            Zedekiah imprisoned Jeremiah because he was tired of the prophet’s doom and gloom. But confinement could not silence Jeremiah, nor could it squash the hope to be found in God. This is the context of the prophecy Jeremiah voiced in our passage today. He was speaking God’s promise from prison. He was proclaiming God’s hope in a situation that seemed utterly hopeless. This word of hope and promise seems to provide a divine dissonance with the reality of the world. But that’s what the hope of Advent really is, isn’t it? It is a proclamation of dissonance. This is the world around us, but we have hope that this is not the world as it will be. We have hope that God has a different reality in mind for us, an alternate reality. Hope is not merely positive thinking or a cheery, optimistic outlook on life. Hope speaks out of the worst circumstances, the most desolate of places, and the most despairing of times. Our hope comes not from our abilities or action but from God.

            The late theologian Jurgen Moltmann wrote a definitive book in the 1960’s called The Theology of Hope. In that text he distinguishes between two understandings of the future from the Latin words futurum and adventus. Futurum is the future that comes from the present and the past. It is the future that is created by what we do or don’t do. It is dependent on and created by the events happening now. But adventus is the future that happens outside of our reality. It is not dependent on what humans do or don’t do, past or present. It is outside of us, and it is beyond us. It is what God is doing and what God will do. If I understand Moltmann correctly, we are waiting for God’s adventus, the future that is God’s, and that is where our hope lies.

            On this first Sunday of Advent we proclaim hope, hope for God’s future, hope for God’s advent, hope for the coming of a baby, and hope for the coming of Christ. But that does not mean that there aren’t signs all around us that signal that God is already doing something new, that new life bursts out of the most barren places.

            I read a story in the Christian Century about the steel works that once made up the large part of the south side of Chicago. The steel plant, known as South Works, began in the late 1800’s. It was a large employer, and attracted Germans, Swedes, Poles, and other immigrant communities to come and settle, work at the plant, and build the steel that would eventually build Chicago’s massive skyscrapers. But with the slowdown of the steel industry, the plant fell on had times and eventually closed in 1992. The buildings that made up the plant were razed, except for two large ore walls that could not be taken down, even by dynamite.

            The land was toxic. It had been covered in molten slag for years and years. But in the early 2000’s the Chicago Park District saw a possibility in this deserted land that others did not. The land was covered in healthy topsoil, which allowed it to heal from the pollutants and toxic waste that had settled on it for so long. As the land healed, plants and trees and flowers were grown on it – native prairie flowers and grasses and trees. Paths were made for walking and biking. And all of this came with a stunning view of Lake Michigan. Now it is known as Steelworkers Park, and it is a place for families, for picnickers, for afternoon strolls, and for getting into nature in the heart of a huge city. And those two large ore walls that couldn’t be taken down? They were turned into rock climbing walls. All of this was fueled by imagination, by seeing what was there and what could be there. It was doing a new and wonderful thing in the midst of barren and hostile land, land that some may have believed to be dead forever.

            If this is what humans with hope and imagination can do, just try to wrap your head around what God can do. Just try and wrap your imagination around what God is doing. Surely the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Surely the days are coming when I will take what seems to be dead and bring life from it, when I will bring true justice and righteousness to people and land devoid of it. Surely the days are coming when I will make what is broken whole, what is lost found, what is dead alive. Surely the days are coming, when all people put their hope not in themselves or others but in God and God alone. Surely the days are coming when our hope will be fulfilled, and the world will be made new. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

The Beginning and the End -- Reign of Christ Sunday

John 18:33-37 (38)

November 24, 2024

 

            When the introduction to the Netflix series, The Crown begins, you see only darkness for just a second, and then a single thread of melody begins to play. And as you watch the screen, you see the shape of something, something that looks like iron or some other metal, being forged seemingly out of nothingness. And as you watch this creation, mesmerized, a steady low pulse of music weaves its way through the melody like a heartbeat. Then, as the music begins to swell and crescendo, with more and more instruments filling out the melody and speeding the heartbeat of sound, you see the creation taking its ultimate shape, twisting and curving and beginning to gleam gold. And it becomes clearer that what is being forged is not just some random metal piece, but a crown – the crown. It is the crown that will connect one generation of the monarchy to the next.

            I watched The Crown from beginning to end, eagerly awaiting each new season. But although Netflix gives you the option to skip the intro after a few seconds, I never did. One reason is because I think it is a brilliant opening, both creatively and musically. The music was scored by Hans Zimmer, who is also a brilliant composer.

But I also watched the opening with each episode, because the more I watched the series, the more I realized how symbolic and emblematic that opening scene is. Before you realize it’s a crown being formed and shaped, before it takes on its golden gleam, it looks almost as if iron bars are being cast from the deep darkness itself. As the show follows Elizabeth II’s reign from her first days as queen to her final years, you realize that to wear the crown was, in a way, submitting to a life behind bars of iron and gold. And for Elizabeth to reign as long as she did, she had to forge a steady thread of iron in her will and find the steel at the base of her own spine to survive it.

            The Crown offers a different perspective on what it means to be royalty. It’s easy from the outside to think that wearing the crown is easy, glamorous, and free of problems, but it most certainly is not. The passage before us from John’s gospel also gives us a very different perspective on kingship. A different perspective indeed.

            Over and over again in the whole of scripture, and most certainly in the gospels, we read about the kingdom of God, the kingdom that Jesus’ incarnation ushered into the world, and in theory it all sounds pretty wonderful. God’s kingdom is not like any other worldly kingdom, and that’s a good thing. God is not a tyrannical despot sitting on a throne that has been used to crush and enslave and subjugate others, like worldly kings and despots have. Our king, King Jesus, is a good and kind and loving king. Jesus as king is just and true, never using power to coerce or manipulate. Jesus as king is about a king leading with love and righteousness.

            While all of this is true, it would be easy to take our joy in Jesus as king to the point of smugness or maybe even arrogance. We have a king who is unlike any other king. We have Jesus as our king, so yay Jesus and yay us who worship him.

            But if self-satisfaction ever creeps in to our worshipping Jesus as king, then this passage from John’s gospel should knock that satisfaction on its head, and maybe us with it. On this last day of the church year, when we celebrate Christ as our King, we might expect to read a passage that is more about triumph and glory and celebration. We might expect to see Jesus surrounded by adoring crowds or hearing the voice of God from on high, telling all who will listen that this is God’s son, God’s beloved. This is our king on earth and in heaven.

            But nothing like this exists in the passage before us. This is Jesus who has been arrested and handed over to the ones who most want him dead. This is Jesus who is probably hungry and tired. This is Jesus who was bound and will soon be flogged after this interrogation is over. This is Jesus who has been abandoned by the crowds who loved and adored him only a few days before, and this is Jesus who has been betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter. This is Jesus who will wear a crown not of gold but of thorns.

            Our king Jesus is now before Pontius Pilate, charged with sedition, with treason, but who is only guilty of infuriating and frightening those in power. But it was the official charge of sedition that brought him before Pilate. So, when Pilate comes back into the headquarters and summons Jesus again, asking, “Are you the King of the Jews?” he wants to know if Jesus is trying to usurp the Jewish leadership. If this is true, than not only will this affect the power of the Jewish leadership, but it will also affect the power of the Roman government as well. 

            In Jesus’ typical fashion, he answers Pilate’s question with another question. 

“Are you asking this question on your own, or have other people told you about me?”

            Pilate was not a nice man. What we learn of him in these, and other verses is sort of a gentler, kinder version of Pilate. According to commentators, other historical documents paint a picture of Pilate as a bully at best. I doubt that he appreciated being questioned by this common prisoner. And I suspect that Jesus’ questions get under his skin. He, Pilate, is the one asking the questions, not this man whose own people care nothing about him. So, his disdainful retort to Jesus’ question is,

“I’m not a Jew, am I? Your own people have handed you over. What did you do?”

            Now Jesus begins to talk about his kingdom. 

“My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

            Okay, so now we’re getting somewhere. To be clear, Pilate does not understand what Jesus is telling him. Pilate doesn’t understand even a little, tiny bit the truth that Jesus is speaking, but he does pick up on one word – kingdom. Pilate is grasping at straws, trying to comprehend what Jesus has supposedly done and if he’s guilty of the charges against him. So, with the word “kingdom” clutched tightly in his fist, he asks again,

“So, you are a king?” 

            Again, Jesus frustrates him with his reply. 

“You say that I am a king. This is why I was born; this is why I came into the world, to testify to the truth. The ones who belong to the truth, listen to my voice.” 

            Then, although the lectionary leaves this verse out, we read on, and Pilate speaks the words he is most famous for:

            “What is truth?”

            What is truth? I suspect that Jesus and Pilate have a very different understanding of that word. I suspect that Pilate understood truth as something that can be manipulated and exploited. Truth can be shaped to suit the needs and desires of the one speaking it. Truth is just another ploy in the political maneuvering that happens in this dog-eat-dog world.

            But the truth that Jesus refers to is another creature altogether.  

            When Jesus speaks of truth he is speaking of divine truth. He is speaking of a truth that is not born of people, but truth that comes from God. And Jesus isn’t just speaking about some ideal or theory, some outside of reality kind of truth. Jesus is telling Pilate that he is the truth. He doesn’t just represent truth. He. Is. The. Truth. He embodies the truth. That’s why he was born, that’s why his life has led him to this critical point in front of Pilate, to witness to the truth of God which he personifies. 

            And this is the truth of being king as Jesus is King. This is the truth of God’s kingdom. This is the truth we need to remember when we speak of Jesus as King. Jesus as King did not seek power or fame or honor. Jesus as King did not view those who followed him as his subjects and demand their loyalty. Jesus as King did not lead through violence or force or even the threat of them. He led with love and healing and courage and respect. He. Is. The. Truth. But for many this truth was unwanted and unwelcome. It would have been easier for Jesus had he been more like an earthly king. It would have been easier if he had led a revolt of force instead of a revolution of love. He might not have ended up in front of Pilate had he been a worldly king. He might not have gone to the cross if his were kingdom were of this world and not from God.

            Yet this is the King that Jesus was and is. This is the King that Jesus was in the beginning and will be in the end. This is the kingdom of God that his life on earth brought forth, and it was and is more than just a nice idea. Jesus as our King and the kingdom of God is a wonderful, vivid, amazing reality but it does not foster complacency or self-satisfaction or self-righteousness. The kingdom of God does not come without a cost. That cost is writ large in our passage today.

            So, as we move from this day into Advent, as we move into the growing darkness and look heavenward for the coming of the light, may we remember that our call is more than just worshipping a king. Our call is to follow the One who served and suffered, who breathed peace, who healed, and taught, and loved even those who betrayed him. This is our king. This is our truth. This is our Alpha and Omega. Jesus is our beginning, and Jesus is our end. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

Enduring to the End

Mark 13:1-8

November 17, 2024

 

            In the movie When Harry Met Sally, which is one our favorite movies and one that we traditionally watch every New Year’s Eve, the character Harry, played by Billy Crystal tells the character Sally that whenever he begins a new novel, he turns to the last page and reads the ending before he gets into the rest of the novel. That way, if he should happen to die mid-read then he’ll know how it turns out. His point in telling this to Sally was that it proved he was dark and thought about death all the time.

            I laugh at this scene every time we watch it because it’s funny, but also because I resonate with it. I sometimes do the same thing as Harry did but for a different reason. I don’t read the ending before the rest of the book because I’m worried I might die while reading. I do it because if the book I’m reading is intense to the point that it makes me feel anxious, I want to know if the character or characters I’m most anxious about survive. Knowing that they’re alive or dead at the end, helps me get through the ups and downs, the suspense, and the heartbreak that the rest of the book may hold.

            I don’t do this all the time with books. Most of the time I want to follow the story as it unfolds and be surprised by the twists and turns, but every once in a while I need to take a peek at the ending so I can have the fortitude to get through the middle.

            Wouldn’t it be nice if real life worked like that? Wouldn’t it be great if we had a way to see the ending well before we’ve gotten there, so we can know how to endure the in-between? I think that desire to know the ending is what fuels end of the world stories and scenarios. I think it gave rise to the zombie apocalypse movies which were so popular a few years ago. And I think that our longing to know the end also finds voice in the doomsayers who proclaim that on such and such date the world will end. Every few years we hear that a person or a group of people, a religious sect or something like it, have predicted when the end of the world will happen. Since we are all gathered here today, I think we can safely say that so far the predictions have been wrong.

            But when we read scripture passages like the one before us from Mark’s gospel, we can understand the impetus of end-of-the-world, apocalypse proclaimers. Apocalyptic literature and language are part of our scripture – in the gospels, in Revelation, in prophets like Daniel. People read these passages and these books, and probably think, “Okay, well scripture says there’s going to be an end time, so when is it going to happen? Tell me what happens at the end, so I can be ready for the middle.”

            And if you read passages like this one from Mark through a literal lens, its easy to believe that the end times are happening right now. There are people out there leading believers astray in the name of Jesus. There are certainly wars and rumors of more wars to come. Natural disasters happen with more frequency. The world feels chaotic and scary, and it’s no wonder that a whole lot of people worldwide try to cope with anxiety and depression.

            But are we actually reading about the end in this passage from Mark? Is this a story about the end of the world or is it about something else? When we hear the word apocalypse many of us do tend to think more along the lines of zombies and smoke and fire and destruction and the whole world collapsing. But that is a more worldly understanding than scriptural. In scripture the meaning of apocalypse is not so much about ending so much as it is uncovering. Essayist and theologian, Debie Thomas, writes that an apocalyptic vision reveals a new way of seeing. Apocalyptic passages in the Bible are about what is being revealed, what is being uncovered, and what can be newly seen. So, what is it that’s being uncovered in this passage?

            I’m not sure that the disciples were thinking about the end times at the beginning of our passage, nor were they longing for something new to be revealed. Instead I suspect that they were looking for reassurance that some things will never end. And one disciple puts that longing into a question about the temple.

            “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”

            As if to say, look Rabbi, look at these enormous stones with which our temple was built. Nothing and no one could ever bring down these stones, these massive buildings. They will stand the test of time.

            But if they were looking to Jesus for reassurance on this point, he does not give it to them.

            “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down!”

            Wait? What?! What do you mean that these large buildings built with such enormous stones will be thrown down? How is that possible? How is it possible that the temple, the temple, will be destroyed? That’s not possible. It cannot be possible. As Debie Thomas put it, what the disciples saw was an architectural wonder. But what Jesus sees is something else altogether.

            Jesus and the disciples leave the temple, and they go to sit on the Mount of Olives which was opposite of that great house of worship. There, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, privately asked Jesus for more details. If the temple is going to be destroyed, Jesus, when exactly will this be? The disciples wanted a sign.

            But Jesus does not give them one. He does not give them a time or a date either. In other scripture passages, Jesus states he does not know himself, only God knows. But what he does offer is a warning, and another uncovering, another revealing.

            “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

            Who reads these verses now, today, and thinks, well this is it! We are clearly at the end times. Who read these verses a generation ago, two generations ago, three, four, five, ten, and thought, well this is it; we are at the end times! Every generation contends with this passage and others like it and speculates if today is the day. But I don’t think Jesus was trying to predict the ending of the world, as much as he was trying to help the disciples see what was being, what is being, uncovered and revealed.

            Again, to paraphrase Debie Thomas, Jesus tells them that they see the temple as not just a marvel of building and design but as the greatest symbol of God and God’s power. Yet what Jesus sees it that even this symbol will be brought to ruin, not because it’s the end of the world but because God will not be contained. God will not be smooshed down into a box of our own design. God will not be held captive by our own misunderstandings.

            There’s a wonderful scene in the Disney movie, Aladdin, where the genie is squeezed and smooshed back into his lamp. Outside of the lamp, the genie is huge and all-powerful, but he does not stay outside of it. He is captive to that lamp and his proportions must be narrowed and diminished to fit into it. That makes me wonder if that’s what we do to God. Maybe that’s what Jesus was warning the disciples against. Stop trying to contain, restrain, and limit God. God is not tied to these stones, no matter how large they are. God is not contained within these buildings, no matter how massive. God is doing a new thing. God is creating and recreating, so don’t let others lead you down the wrong path because they claim to know what’s coming next. What seems like the end is just the beginning. It is the birth pangs. It is the hard and difficult labor that brings about new life.

            If we had continued to read through verse 13, we would have heard Jesus preparing the disciples for what they will endure because of Jesus, because they follow Jesus. You will be handed over to councils. You will be beaten in synagogues because you follow me. You will be made to stand before governors and kings because of me. You will be made to stand trial, but don’t worry about what you will say. Don’t worry about what words you should speak. The Holy Spirit will speak through you. The Holy Spirit will give you the words that you need, and the strength that you need and the courage that you need to endure to the end.

            Jesus does not once promise them peace or security or a quiet life. He doesn’t offer them reassurance that the temple will stand. He doesn’t give them assurance that they will not die for his sake. He just reveals to them, uncovers for them, the truth that God is doing a new thing. God is creating still, and that whatever trials they face, they will have the power of the Holy Spirit. They will find their courage and their strength and their endurance through the Holy Spirit, no matter what comes. In other words Jesus does not tell them specifically about the end, but he promises them that they will have the strength to endure the middle because God is in the beginning, the middle, the end, and the new beginning after that.

            That is the good news. God is with us in this middle and God’s new thing is being uncovered and revealed bit by bit. That is where our hope lies, not in what we do but in what God is doing right now, right here in our midst and in our middle. May we find endurance in the power of the Holy Spirit to live into it all – middle, end, and new beginning. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.” Amen.       

Everything

Mark 12:38-44/Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17

November 10, 2024

 

            Widowhood did not suit my mother. When my father died, shortly after I began here, my sweet mom did not have the emotional, mental, or physical energy to just pick herself up and keep going. It didn’t help that Covid hit just a few short months after dad died, which severely limited mom’s social interactions – interactions that might have helped keep her going a little more. No, widowhood didn’t sit well with her. She missed my dad. They were sweethearts for over 70 years, so it’s no wonder that she did. But when she fell and subsequently died, I wasn’t surprised that there was no fight left in her. She was ready to go. She was ready to be with my dad once more. As the old hymn says, “the lures of this old world had ceased to make her want to stay.”

            But even though my mom grew tired of fighting, she was still pretty canny, especially when it came to money. She was the one who paid the bills and kept track of their finances all the years my parents were married. In the last few years of her life, she would give money away – to family and to close friends – because she would rather the people she loved have money than the state. And I also think she realized that when it comes to money, you really can’t take it with you.

            I can’t help but think of my mom in her widowhood when I read the two passages we have before us today. While scripture repeatedly lifts up widows and orphans as some of the most vulnerable in society – and they were – it is not often that we have two stories on the same Sunday about three widows.

            Last week I preached almost exclusively about Naomi and Ruth, the two widows at the heart of our Old Testament passage. But today they are joined by another widow from Mark’s gospel, the widow in the story most widely known as the widow’s mite.

            In the book of Ruth, it looks as though we’ve reached the happy ending. Naomi’s kinsman, Boaz, has proven himself to be generous and kind. He made sure that Ruth was able to glean from the fields in safety. He shared his own food with her so that she would be nourished for her work. He told the young men who worked for him to leave her alone. He was an honorable man. How wonderful it is that these two have a happy ending. They marry. Ruth bears a child, and Naomi is the little one’s nurse. The sorrows and grief of the past have fallen away, and now joy reigns in the present and there is renewed hope for the future. And if we had read beyond our passage to the last verses of the book, we would have also learned that this child, Obed, born to Ruth and Boaz, became the father of Jesse, who was the father of David, you know the David who became King David. A happy ending indeed!

            Yet, let’s look a little more carefully at how this happy ending is achieved. When Ruth comes home and tells Naomi about Boaz’ kindness to her, Naomi, a canny woman, realizes that despite all the closed doors she’d been experiencing, this was the open window she’d been waiting for. So, she advises Ruth to wash and dress herself in her best clothes, put on some perfume, and go and wait for Boaz to lie down on the threshing floor. What we read as “uncovering his feet,” is a euphemism. Our reading then skips the verses where Boaz awakens and finds Ruth and is shocked to find her. We also skip the verse where Ruth essentially proposes to Boaz, asking him to spread his cloak over her, another way of Ruth asking Boaz to protect her through marriage. We skip that and go right to the end. But think about these verses from chapter 3 that we do read. Do you have idea how radical and how dangerous Naomi’s plan was? Ruth, already vulnerable, was going to make herself even more so. She could have been assaulted. She could have been labeled a prostitute and stoned to death. This encounter with Boaz could have gone a very different way. And surely Naomi, and Ruth, both knew this. Naomi put a great deal of faith in the kindness of Boaz, and her faith in him was rewarded. But that does not change the radical and subversive nature of her instructions and Ruth’s actions because the culture was against them. The system and policies were against them. They had no social standing. They had no protection. Timidity and working within the rules of a system that was already against them would get them nowhere. Naomi knew this, and perhaps she also knew that she and Ruth had nothing left to lose.

            And now we turn to the widow we encounter in Mark’s gospel. This is perhaps a story we think we know quite well. It is one that is used intentionally at this time in the church year when stewardship campaigns are in full swing. It seems to emphasize the importance of giving our financial all to our church – no matter how large or small a sum that equates to.

            This widow who gives all she has to the temple treasury is lifted as a shining example of “the cheerful giver.” As Jesus said,

“Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

            It would be so easy, and make for a much shorter sermon, if I just said, “See, we all just need to be like this poor widow, cheerful givers. We need to give our all, we need to give everything, and all shall be well.” Alas, I cannot do that. What I can do is paraphrase theologian David Lose and say that there are least two ways we can hear Jesus’ words. We can hear them as commendation or lament. Is Jesus commending the widow? Or is he lamenting her great sacrifice? There are indications from the larger context of this passage that it is the latter. Looking at the timeline of Jesus’ life shows that if Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury of the temple, that means that he was in Jerusalem. He has made his triumphal entry into the city. Jesus is most definitely headed for the cross. In Mark’s telling, Jesus had barely crossed the city limits when he cleansed the temple of the merchants and money changers who made his Father’s house a marketplace. Immediately following this story is Jesus’ prophecy of the temple’s destruction, so it would seem odd that he would praise a poor widow giving her all to the temple as a model of stewardship.

            In the first verses we read today, Jesus condemned scribes who put greater emphasis on appearances and status then they did on faithfulness. These scribes may have been greeted with groveling respect and received the best seats at the table, but “they devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

             If Jesus warned against being like those scribes and denounced them for exploitation of the weak and the vulnerable, also known as widows, then why would he laud the widow’s great sacrifice in the very next breath? Cause and effect suggest that what she did was the result of that exploitation. She should not have had to put everything into the treasury; all that she had, her whole life. This is not to say that the wealthier people who put in greater amounts were stingy. But I suspect that they felt their giving less. The widow in giving everything, felt the consequences of her generosity a great deal more. To use yet another cliché, she gave until it hurt. And other commentators speculate that by giving everything, all that she had, she could have been setting herself up for death. No money, no food, no life. That really is giving up everything, isn’t it?

            But there’s one more interpretation about this widow that I want to examine for just a moment. This comes from Diana Butler Bass, another theologian and scholar. Bass recognizes that this woman, this widow, is more than just a two-dimensional character used only as an illustration to make a greater point. This woman was flesh and blood. If her house was devoured by the scribes, meaning that a scribe would have been the one to handle her husband’s estate, placing him in the prime position to exploit her, then her action may have been more than a sign of trust in God. According to Bass, archaeologists believe that the treasury was located in the Court of Women, which was the furthest place in the temple that women were allowed to enter. In the Court of Women, women were allowed to publicly pray, to plead their cause before God and before others.

            What if, Bass muses, the widow’s actions were a protest against what had happened to her? What if putting her last two coins in was not about stewardship but instead a demand for justice? Perhaps this widow cannily thought, well, everything else has been taken from me, but these last two coins will not be taken from me as well. The Court of Women was the one place where she would be seen, and she wanted to be seen. She demanded to be seen. Maybe this was not about stewardship at all. Maybe it was about justice.

            Widows and orphans were the most vulnerable of that culture and in that context. These three widows would not be consigned to the shadows. They could not change the systems they lived within, but they could find a way to be seen and heard. They could put their trust in the God of justice and righteousness, rather than in a system that failed them. Who in our society, who in our culture and context, is unseen, unheard? How are we called to see, to hear, and to act? How are we called to live out the justice and righteousness that Jesus, God incarnate, embodied? How are we called to serve? What is the everything we are called to give?

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.