Sermon: Proper 15 (20) Year C 2007
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
August 19, 2007

Readings

Burning Down the House

The peace of the Lord be always with you.
And also with you.
Greet one another with a sign of peace.

We love to speak about how Jesus brings peace. We have images of lilies in the fields. We are not to worry for our lives. Our lives are held in the loving embrace of God. In the nativity story, Matthew's telling of Jesus' birth, angels will appear and proclaim Christ to be the Prince of Peace. Our images of Christ's peacefulness and gentleness are well-founded. We aren't making them up. So what the heck is going on in our Gospel reading this morning from Luke? What is the prophet Jeremiah trying to tell us about the nature of God's judgment?

The Hebrews have always understood the deeply rooted existence of injustice and "wickedness." In our psalm this morning even the gods are held in contempt because they too have fallen prey to the temptation of oppression and subjugation. Through the psalmist's words the Most High God judges a holy court of other gods.

"How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.

Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

Jeremiah will say that God's word on such matters is like a fire. It will break open rock with its heat.

This morning we encounter Jesus upsetting the boat. His words are from an age old tradition in Judaism. His words are echoes of the psalmist. They are prophetic like those of Jeremiah. Jesus knows that when we are in the presence of God, the order of things, the world as we know gets turned around. The Prince of Peace is proclaiming something utterly removed from what we imagine as peacefulness. Instead of singing the Eagles' Peaceful Easy Feelin', we have a Jesus singing the Talking Heads' Burning Down the House!

Watch out
You might get what you're after
Cool babies
Strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house

Hold tight wait till the party's over
Hold tight were in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house

Here we are, encountering the disquieting Christ. Here we are encountering the Truth of the Gospel and how, if we are honest with ourselves, it really plays out. You see, the Good News is always good, but it will not necessarily be received peacefully. The world will push against it.

The world will deny it.
The heavens will deny it.
The world will attempt to stifle those who proclaim it.

The world will flee from it.
And when this does not work, the world will co-opt it and find a way to gain more power with the same message.

Telling the truth about God, that God loves the world, that God created it good, actually upsets the world in which we live. Sometimes telling this truth, like telling other truths, causes a lot of trouble. It will burn down the house!

Jesus knows this. Jesus knows that though his message is one of Love, that it will be felt as fire by all. You. Me. The apostles. The Pharisees. Pilate. All of us will encounter a flame. And our houses will fall.

"From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." (Luke 12:52-53)

Here Jesus seems to attack the most important social structure of the first century. Some say the family is still the most important structure, the lowest common social denominator, or the principal economic unit. And Jesus comes right at it and says that even this, even this will be found wanting in the light of the Love of God. Even this does not measure up. It is not prepared for the Love of Christ.

We cannot rest on our laurels and be satisfied with the status quo. The status quo will fly apart when we speak the truth.

The status quo is comfortable with oppression. It is comfortable with inequity. It is comfortable with violence. It has resigned itself to a world where unfairness is part of the game. It knows that power is real and that some people have none. The status quo revels in this. And we who live in the status quo know how to play the game. We know how to get ahead. We know how to get the leg up. We know how to take advantage of the systems whether they be the tax code, the legal system, or the remnants of our welfare state. We all learn, rich and poor, through cynicism and despair, how to live in the status quo.

Jesus wants to undo this. Jesus' entire ministry is about uncovering this truth about ourselves, about the world, and proclaiming an alternative.

Here's your ticket pack your bag: time for jumpin' overboard
The transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are
Fightin' fire with fire

All wet
Hey you might need a raincoat
Shakedown
Dreams walking in broad daylight
Three hun-dred six-ty five de-grees
Burning down the house

Jesus delivers this message of fire and justice on his way to Jerusalem. He knows what will befall him. He is on the way to the cross. He knows that he has to die. He knows that the powers and principalities (the church and the state) will try and put out the fire he started. He has called them out. He has shown his followers what they are really about. He is holding everyone – you, me, us, the apostles, the Pharisees, the government, the religious institutions – accountable for the world in which we find ourselves. And he knows that we cannot handle the critique.

He is a dream walking in broad daylight. We are asleep. And we do not want to awaken...even though our dreams are not sweet. So, Jesus burns down the house.

The powers think that they have put out the fire.
They crucify Jesus.

The followers of Christ will also think that the story is over. They will believe that the fire has been extinguished as well. But no. Two women will run to the tomb and there they will encounter the resurrection. The fire of the Gospel, the Love of God, cannot be extinguished, not even by death. The judgment has come to fruition and even death has no hold on the truth of God's love.

Women come, the downtrodden, the mistaken, the unloved, and they encounter the Risen Christ. And Jesus will appear to others. He will dine with them. He will ask them to continue his work. This fire will be passed on from generation to generation in the church.

Passing the peace of Christ is greeting one another in love. It is upholding one another in gentleness. But the peace of the Lord is a fire. When we pass the peace of Christ with one another, we pass a torch. We pass a flame.

God wants us to share this Love with the world. It is a love that will continue to challenge everything about our lives...the way we engage politics, the way we do business, and the way that we love our mothers, fathers, spouses, and children.

And though the world will push back...we know that there is a Resurrection. We know that though the world always seems to have a step on us, in the end is the Resurrection, God's love fulfilled, the world judged, and though it is found wanting, it is met with grace and forgiveness no less. And we will all be redeemed.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.
And also with you.
Greet one another with the sign of peace.

Amen.

Sermon: Feast of the Ascension
May 20, 2007
Community Church of Wilmette
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
(Luke 24:45-47)

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

I loved Jerry Falwell.

Yes, I admit it. I loved him. I imagine that may come as a surprise to many. He was a divisive, difficult, hyper-political, sometimes racist, vitriolic crazyman from Lynchburg, VA. And yet, I loved him.

For those of you who are unaware, Rev. Jerry Falwell died on May 15 at the age of 73. He has been a fixture on the national religious and political stages for as long as I can remember.

Now, I will also admit that my love of Jerry was not always gentle affection. No. Most of the time Falwell served that J.R. Ewing (Do you remember Dallas?) function in the Baptist peanut gallery that resides in my head. This is true. But he has been present no less, part of the "great cloud of witnesses" leading me toward salvation.

Growing up in Virginia, it was almost impossible to talk about or think about faith without Jerry's voice ringing in your head. And, eventually, it was almost impossible to talk about politic without the same thing happening. Jerry was simply present in the midst of all of it, haranguing us, his audience with word after word. It was almost impossible not to respond somehow.

So, I formed my faith life in the shadow of Jerry Falwell. I chose the reaction formation route. What Jerry did. I would do the opposite. At first it seemed like a really good idea.

But in the process there is this temptation, a strange temptation…

Maybe I am alone in this. Maybe I am the only one who does this when I encounter a personality as unwavering a Falwell's was. But just in case…

Do we accidentally undermine the church in the process of trying not to be like Jerry? Do we actually accomplish the opposite of our goal or presenting an alternative when we try to rescue our faith by succumbing to any one of the above temptations? Do we actually maroon our faith somewhere, or abandon it in some way?

I think so.

Instead of following this path, we need to speak out. As tiresome and implausible as it may seem to many of us, we have to speak out. I know that some of us might be tired of debating Jerry. I do. But it is essential that Christians of all stripes speak truth to the world, and not just the Jerry's. It has been so since the earliest days of the Church. It will continue to be so.

We cannot abandon the story. We cannot stop reading the scriptures and proclaiming our interpretations just because Jerry was never convinced that we were even remotely on to something.

We must seek alternative voices. We must go where people are speaking.

So, who are the alternative voices? Who else is speaking? Who can help us reclaim the church if, as I do, we believe we need to?

Was William Sloan Coffin, the esteemed preacher from Riverside in the 1960's and 1970's, your alternative voice?  Is Jim Wallis, from Sojourners and God's Politics fame? Perhaps that Emergent Church guru, Brian McLaren, has something to contribute in his "generous orthodoxy."

Perhaps I am that voice.
Perhaps you are that voice.

Perhaps it is you and I who are called to embrace the scriptures once again, to sit at the feet of Jesus and have our hearts and minds opened to the scriptures.

What would it sound like to embrace scripture? Is it something that people could listen to, something people could hear?

Have our minds been opened to hear the scriptures?

Are we willing to sit with Christ, and listen to what he says about the scriptures? Listen to the words again.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Now, remember, the scriptures here are the Hebrew Bible, the books of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Jesus was not reading from second Corinthians.

Our interpretive task today, however, is from Luke.

Do you see the parallel that Luke presents to us in this passage? Do you see how suffering goes with repentance? Do you see how resurrection is paralleled with forgiveness? Jesus' life is the ultimate model of compassion. This is what Luke wants us to know.

Repentance leads to forgiveness. Repentance teaches us compassion. Through repentance, we learn that all of us are struggling in this world. We all make mistakes, hurt people, hurt ourselves. And we must be prepared to name this kind of suffering. Then forgiveness is available to us…God's forgiveness and the forgiveness of those whom we have harmed. This is suffering and resurrection at the relational level.

The message that we are to proclaim to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem is this…Jesus is the model of all compassion. God is compassionate. Yes, there is suffering. No, faith is not easy. I do things wrong. I have to repent. But there is forgiveness. And that forgiveness is so great that it even overcomes death in the end.

We are to offer such compassion to all of the world. That is evangelism. That is mission.

In the process, we will encounter diversity. We will encounter hostility. We will encounter opposition. But there are ways to understand this as well.

Listen to these words from Becca Hartman, a senior at Northwestern University and an American Baptist. Her words are about interfaith dialogue, but they apply to our task today.

In interfaith dialogue, we do not suggest that all religions are the same; they are not. We do not ask individuals to give up or dilute their beliefs for the sake of peaceful conversation. In fact, it is in respectful listening and even vulnerable sharing with people of diverse religious traditions that we learn how to articulate and celebrate our own beautiful traditions and beliefs.

You see, what Becca says is true not just in interfaith dialogue, but in intra-faith dialogue as well. What I fear we often do as liberals or progressives, is give up the truth behind these words from Luke's Gospel. We dilute our faith hoping to not offend someone else. We dilute our faith hoping not to be mistaken for someone else.

We are to engage scripture. We are to deepen our roots in scripture and the tradition of the church, not abandon it because one individual voice seems to hold sway.

We are to proclaim and demonstrate the truth behind these words from Luke. Compassionate action and proclamation go hand in hand. We are to seek repentance and the forgiveness of those we harm. We are to interpret this passage on the public stage proclaiming it to all the nations, as well as in our personal lives. This passage is the seed of compassion. This interpretation of scripture is the seed of compassion. The story of the suffering and resurrection of the messiah is the story of compassion.

What is compassion without the self-knowledge that leads to repentance?

It is empty.

A dialogue like the one Becca describes is only possible when we have delved into our own traditions and learned to own them, warts and all, foibles, sins and their richness. We must become apologists for the faith. Jerry Falwell, in leading a conversation on the national stage compelled me to learn how to do this. Perhaps mine was to some degree a reaction formation, but he has shaped a debate for generations of Christians in America. The debate is not over. Jerry did not win it. It continues.

We are called to speak compassion. If people believe that our faith tradition is not about compassion and transformation of the individual and the community, most likely it is because no one is telling them. We are called to speak compassion.

Perhaps this is the interpretation that the world needs to hear…that we need to speak.

I share all this with you because of my own search for God and the incredible impact that Jerry Falwell had on that journey. I need a language. I need a community. And when I began my search, I was handed the rhetoric of the Moral Majority. I found its words and its actions confusing.

But, at the time at least, there were no other voices that I was aware of. No one else seemed to be speaking. So I chose to live without faith. It was much easier than any other course of action that I could devise. Perhaps I was lazy. This is certainly within the realm of possibility.

Eventually, intuitively, I turned to the church. I took classes in college. I lived with Christians. I sang hymns. I participated in the charitable life of the church. I marched on the state capital. I slowly found a voice. I learned compassion. I learned to love Jerry Falwell.

Jerry was right. Faith, though personal, is never private.

Jerry was right. Salvation can be found in the church…in the community of the faithful, the shared life of those who are the Body of Christ.

Jerry was right. We are to be passionate in the proclamation of the Gospel.

We dare not duplicate his mistakes in our attempts, however. We cannot marry the church to any one political party, to any one platform. And we must be constantly vigilant to follow the way of compassion, the way of repentance that leads to forgiveness. The more public our profession of faith becomes, the more difficult repentance becomes. Our egos get involved. We don't want the humiliation. And yet, if we are to speak and model such compassion as described by Luke's Gospel, then we have little choice.

This is our day to observe the Ascension of Christ, that strange moment in the history of the church where Jesus flies away in to the heavens. This is yet another moment in the story that shifts the definition of how God is present in the world.

At Christmas, God is born…a small child.

During Epiphany and Lent, we find God present in the life and work of Jesus.

Our understanding of incarnation is changed in the resurrection of Jesus proclaimed at Easter.

And again, our understanding is changed today. We are the Body of Christ. The Church is the incarnation of God. We are to go out into the world and be the incarnation of compassion.

It is an active faith.
It is a working faith.
It is a giving faith.
It is a speaking faith.

If we do not speak, proclaim what Jesus asked us to proclaim in Luke's Gospel, then the body is mute. Christ was a speaker. We remember his actions and his words. Many ask, "What would Jesus do?" I want to know, brothers and sisters, "What would Jesus say?"

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Announcements

Yom HaShoah

Authority or Authorship

(lectionary)

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia.

It may be hard to believe, but it is still Easter. This is the second Sunday of the Easter Season…so be ready, everyone, for who might walk through that door. You don't know when the risen Christ himself may come in.

What? Do you think that's foolish? Well, perhaps it is. But in reading today's gospel passage, it seems that one can never be too sure when Jesus is going to show up and show you his wounds and offer you peace.

Yes, peace.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." (John 20:19)

There they were, in fear, and a fair bit of doubt. Everything had come to a screeching halt. And there they were on the first day, a Sunday mind you, and Jesus walks in and says "Peace be with you."

Peace.

The disciples were in terror. The religious authorities hunted them. Their beloved teacher had been killed…and had somehow been taken away. Raised? Even after last week's Easter proclamation, the disciples still feared. Sure, maybe Jesus had been raised, but what of them? What of them? They still faced the Sanhedrin, the face of the religious powers. They still faced Pilate and the power of the Roman Empire. They were afraid. So they locked the doors and sat with one another.

Sometimes, in the presence of such authority as the disciples faced…be it a government, a religious body, or in our time, a corporation, it is difficult to imagine that someone or something can stand…

…stand in opposition

…or stand in truth.

It is difficult to imagine standing much anywhere with any kind of strength or hope. I imagine this is what was running through the minds of all the disciples on that morning.

What now?

Where do we stand?

How do we go on?

No wonder they doubted. No wonder they feared.

But then Jesus appears. And he offers peace. They all touch his wounds in his hands. They all touch his side…all but Thomas. I think Thomas gets a bum rap in some ways. It is not that he is an exceptional doubter. It is simply that he was not there on the first Sunday when Jesus came before the disciples.

But Jesus comes again.

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."

Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." (John 20:26-27)

"My Lord and my God."

There, Jesus stands. And Thomas recognizes him. Like the other disciples before him, he touches the wounds. Like the other disciples before him, his faith is restored. Ancient sources also suggest that it is safe to assume that Thomas, too, received the Holy Spirit as Christ breathed on him that day.

Thomas' faith proclamation of "My Lord and my God" was not only a response to the assurance of wounds, the proof that the disciples were telling the truth. Let's not make that mistake.

The response was also to the fact that the wounds were overcome.

Yes, overcome.

It is that Jesus, in spite of what the authorities did, stood before Thomas and offered peace. He was risen. The wounds that the world gave him did not end him.

The wounds that the empire offered, both Rome and the religious authorities, did not end him. God overcomes the empire. The marks of the cross, the marks of empire, of human authority, are overshadowed by God's mercy revealed in Christ's resurrection.

"My Lord and my God."

Christ's wounds do not end him. They do not even define him. They announce solidarity with us. Grace, love, and our very salvation, as someone once said, are authored by God. We are drawn into the story of resurrection, a story that trumps the powers of the world. It does so with shouts of mercy, and with the announcement of peace. It does so bearing the wounds of the world….your wounds…my wounds...the wounds of the oppressed and persecuted.

God's mercy endures forever, says the Psalmist.

Now, the disciples do not remain behind locked doors contemplating the story. They do not simply sit on this stuff. Nor do not stir up violent resistance. But they do stir up trouble. Peter and the apostles will stand before the religious empire of their day and say, "We must obey God rather than any human authority." (Acts 5:29) They will stand and proclaim the story, the story of a risen Lord and the peace that he offers. They will stand in the face of the empire and proclaim "mercy."

"Mercy!" is the church's response when the empire cries,

    "Fear!"

        "Scarcity! We need more!"

                                                        The church cries, "Mercy!"

The church stands as Christ in the world. The community of the faithful stands as Christ did before the disciples, before those living in fear and says, "Peace be with you." The wounds are never denied. The wounds are real. Trouble is real. Death and mayhem are real. There are horrible things in this world. Empires still exist. And they still live on fear. And the church must stand in opposition to such things.

In our day and age, we stumble across empires all the time, some are almost hidden from view…corporate empires, political empires, media empires, military empires, entertainment empires…and, yes, religious empires. In Acts, the disciples stand before the theocrats and cry "mercy" when they would rather cause people to fear.

Every institution is tempted to become an empire.

Empires want to stand in their authority. The spirit of empire wants you to believe that you need what it possesses.

But Christ, and those who profess Christ, stand in the story. We stand in the story where empires come to an end. Eventually Rome falls, brothers and sisters, but God's mercy endures forever.

We stand in the story. We stand not in authority, but in authorship, in the presence of the "author of our salvation." For the word of God, the word uttered at the beginning of creation is "Peace."

"Mercy."

We proclaim the forgiveness of sins.

We proclaim mercy and not fear.

We proclaim peace and not scarcity.

The failure to do so can be calamitous. For, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "The church is only the church when it serves the other."

Sometimes, brothers and sisters, an authority can rise up, an empire can rise up, and it can decimate what lies before it. Thus the church's message must be constant. The church must always proclaim the story; it's faith in a risen savior. It must proclaim that authorship belongs to God, that human authority is fleeting. It must proclaim mercy and peace to all the world.

And when the world wounds people, when powers rise up, the church must stand as Christ did, bearing the wounds…in solidarity with all who suffer.

Alleluia! The Lord I risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Thanks be to God.

Preached by Rev. Tripp Hudgins