Third Sunday in Lent Yr B March 7 2021

Remains of a building on the island of Iona, Scotland

Third Sunday in Lent Yr B March 7 2021

Exodus 20:1-17, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, John 2:13-22, Psalm 19

 

Today we move from Mark’s gospel to John’s, and one thing remains the same, location, location, location. But in a whole new way. Yes, where this story in John’s gospel is important, it’s very near the beginning, and where Jesus and the disciples are located, in the temple in Jerusalem, is also important. But location in this story not only is important, it becomes earth shattering. You see, Jesus is concerned about what is happening at the temple, money changing, desecration, and even idol worship. And, and this is the really important part, Jesus is saying something they have never heard before. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The temple priests could not figure him out. It had been hundreds of years since exile, when God assured the people that God was still with them. And then when they returned to their own lands they built the temple that is in our story today, and put God back inside. 

 

This temple tantrum of Jesus’ was quite unexpected, and Jesus’ words were unimaginable. The new, earth shattering, ground moving reality is that the location of God is no longer in the ark of the covenant, or in the holy of holies, God is now located in the person of Jesus. This is what Jesus is trying to tell them. The arc of John’s story begins in creation, moves through pain and suffering, death and resurrection, and ends in ascension. During the course of this story, God in Jesus is in our midst, and when the incarnation of God dies, rises from the dead, and ascends, humanity is not left alone. 

 

So this is the new reality Jesus is trying so hard to convey to them. But the words are so hard to put together and to understand. How do you describe the glorious impossible? How do you come close to the inconceivable incarnation? How do you begin to conceive of a reality that is unreasonable? This is what Jesus is asking of them, this is what Jesus is trying to tell them. Jesus is trying to show them that everything they thought they knew about a messiah is turned upside down and inside out. 

 

And Jesus tells them that the proper place of worship is no longer the temple. Oh my gosh! Can you hear the weight of that statement? 

 

The proper place to encounter God is in the relationship, it is with Jesus who is God in our midst. God’s heart’s desire is relationship with the beloveds, with you, and me, and those we love, those we can’t stand to be around, those whose presence is a threat to us, those whose gender is uncertain to us. God has left the building, and God is now in our midst. This is what is at the heart of Jesus’ I am statements. I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way the truth and the life, I am the vine. All metaphors to convey relationship, and the intimacy of this relationship. All ways Jesus tries to tell those who follow what this relationship really looks like and is about. God dwells in us; we dwell in God. This is what is eternal life, new life, abundant life. 

 

And what is even crazier than God incarnate, God in their midst, God who is put to death on a cross, is God in Spirit. God let loose into the wild. God who cannot be contained, controlled, confined. God in Spirit; Trinity, earth-maker, pain-bearer, life-giver. 

 

This is what Jesus means to be destroyed and to be raised up, and what John points us to. You see, once God is incarnate, once God is human flesh, God can die, and God does die. It looks like loss, it looks like foolishness, but this is the good news. This is the profound reality of Jesus. This is the profound love of the creator. This is the profound sadness of human life. This is the profound healing of love, God’s love for us, and our love for our neighbor. Jesus’s scars reach out to our scars, and we are healed. 

 

The zeal for God’s house is now in the flesh, and this wonderfully good news calls followers of Jesus to be the bearers of God’s love not just in our churches but in every part of our lives. We are to be in the world to do the work we have been given to do; to love and serve God as faithful witnesses of Christ our lord. 

 

And I believe that is what this covid-tide that we are in is all about. We are called out of our churches, out of our boxes, out of everything that has been normal for us, into this new and exciting and sometimes terrifying place. We are called to reorientation, we are called to see, and hear, and feel, all of the newness of this time. It is a time of revelation; God is pulling back the curtain and showing us the ugliness and festering of the ways humanity has not been lovely and kind to one another. But God is also pulling back the curtain and showing us how we can be together. How we can care for each other, how we can love and support one another. What our communities of love and faith can be. 

 

Our heart’s home is where God is, and we bear God with us to all the places. We smell God in the incense and in the oil when we are in our church, and also in the wind and the rain of the land that is home. We see God in the stained glass and the candles, and also in the eyes of the people we encounter. We hear God in the silence, and in the music, and the voices of those we gather to worship with, and also in the sound of the babies, and the cracking of the ice, and the voice of protest. 

 

God has left the building; God is on the loose. The earth trembles under our feet. Thanks be to God.

17 Pentecost Yr A Proper 22 Yr A Oct 5 2014

Audio 10.5.2014

Listen to another parable. The Kingdom of God is like a... actually, in this one it is easier to say what the kingdom of God is not like. The Kingdom of God is not like those who extract a profit at all costs...the Kingdom of God is not like the kinship of honor and privilege of possession. Jesus said to them, "What? Haven't you read the scriptures? Haven't you paid attention? The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom." 

Remember, in the gospel of Matthew we are reading this series of stories and parables, and at the beginning of the 21st chapter, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for the very last time, and goes to the temple, and Jesus drove out all who were selling and buying. Now, the reason they were selling and buying in the temple is that there was a temple tax. But Roman coins had the image of Caesar on them, and those could not be used at the temple because there was a Jewish law against images. So, people had to bring their coins, trade them for the currency that could be used, which was doves. So what Jesus was angry at was those taking advantage of the trade, extortion as it were. It seems to me, that in these days in which these stories are taking place, Jesus is trying desperately to impart to his followers everything he wanted them to learn. Jesus sounds tired and angry, and beyond patient with his followers. And he says to them, "Haven't you paid attention to anything I've said?" 

Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever want people, your children, your spouse, your government, just to listen to you? Jesus is in that place in this part of the gospel of Matthew. Just listen to me. The Kingdom of God is available to all, not just the chief priests, or the Pharisees, not just the landowners, not just those who follow the law even. The Kingdom of God is available to tax collectors and sinners, the Kingdom of God is available even to those nasty tenants, the Kingdom of God is available to you and to me. And this is so important, Jesus says in these parables, he's even willing to risk raising the ire of those in power to show and tell the people the truth of God's love for God's people.

We know this because in this story, everyone gets it wrong. The Landowner and the tenants operate as if everything belongs to them. And the tenants are willing to kill to keep their valuable crop for themselves. And the people listening to this story get it wrong. When asked what they think the landowner will do to the tenants, they think he will put those wretches to a miserable death. But instead we hear the Kingdom of God will be given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. We hear that the Kingdom of God cannot be owned or possessed, we hear that the Kingdom of God cannot be guaranteed by might or by right, we hear that the Kingdom of God cannot be defended by violence.

This is not the story of a vengeful God, this is the story of a God whose love is so deep and so broad and so wide, that all of God's creation is included in it. Just imagine the world in which Matthew was writing. It was a world in which your power and importance and your worth was based on the household and the householder you were attached to. There was nothing you could do to increase or decrease your position. If you were the householder, the one at the top, or if you were a Pharisee, an important person in the temple, you had everything you could ever want or desire, just because that was your position in life. If you had the misfortune to be born a servant, or and artisan, or a tradesperson, your life was beholden to the person whose household you belonged to. 

Jesus changed that. The last will be first, Jesus said. Tax collectors and prostitutes are welcome at the table, Jesus said. Jesus' life and death and resurrection shows us a different way. Jesus' life and death and resurrection shows us that the God who creates us and loves us, calls every one of us, no matter what we have or don't have, to be agents of this new creation. Every one of us has the capacity to love one another. Every one of us has the ability to create mercy and compassion in our wake. Every one of us has been given all that we need to be builders of this Kingdom of God and to produce the fruits of the Kingdom. 

God has already blessed us with all that we need, that is our inheritance. That is what the Kingdom of God is like. Our work is to get on board with God in that blessing. Our work is to use all that we have and all that we are to produce the fruits of the kingdom. Our work is to spread those fruits, those blessings, into all of the places we go, to share with the people in our lives the love, and mercy, and compassion, and healing, and forgiveness, that comes with being God's beloved. 

I think sometimes we think that this is hard, carrying this Good News of God's love out into the world, but you can do hard things. We are called to do hard things. Last Thursday, a group of us gathered in my office to watch a webcast from the National Cathedral in Washington DC, to include the whole Episcopal church in the conversation about making substantial change to our structure. That webcast is now online at reimaginetec.org, and I wanted to watch The Right Rev. Michael B. Curry, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, again, well, because he's great fun to watch and listen to. And what he said has everything to do with us, right here and right know. Michael Curry reminded us that Jesus came to start a movement, not a church, not a religion. And Jesus said to Matthew, and James, and John, and Andrew and Simon, and the tax collectors and the sinners, and us, come, follow me, and I will show you a life of mercy, compassion, justice, forgiveness, healing, and dignity. We are Jesus' followers, and it is up to us to show forth a world that is transformed by God's love in Jesus Christ, that, is what the Kingdom of God looks like. 

25 Pentecost Yr C

I think the message from Isaiah and from Luke that we hear today is so exciting. From Isaiah we hear for I am about to create new heavens and a new earth, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. And in Luke we hear the promise of new life, the promise that whatever happens, whatever has happened, God is creating something new.

We must always remember that these stories are written in hindsight, the writers are looking back at events that have already happened, as is the case with all stories, true or not true. Even science fiction and fantasy, the kind of stories that I like so much, at the very least comment on events that have already happened, for the purpose of proposing what may be, especially if we don’t change our ways.

The writer of Luke is looking back at the destruction of the temple that has already happened, and seeing it through the lens of the promise of fulfillment by God through Jesus in those days and to come. The event that is being described is the destruction of the temple, the temple was the center of the community’s life. Imagine the story you would tell if this church was destroyed. You would remember where you were when you heard the news, you may remember what you were thinking, what you were doing, who you were with. The destruction of anything, especially a building that is central to your faith and your family is a watershed event. It completely redefines all that came before and all that will come after. Nothing is the same, the people are changed, the landscape is changed. This is the report of destruction in the gospel of Luke that we read this morning. The destruction that is reported is an event that was shared by all Jews. It was an event that would have led them to think the world as they knew it was ending. That event happened about 70 years after Christ, and it is being interpreted in Luke in light of the promise of new life. We make a mistake when we think that these are events that are yet to happen.

The gospel writer Luke, writing after these significant events have happened, is telling a story in which Jesus is the main character. And I think what Luke is trying to do is to reassure people of the hope Jesus brings,
he tells people not to panic, not to be afraid. He writes, “you will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish.” He is saying, yes, it looks and feels like the end must be coming, but don’t panic. Don’t panic in the face of human destruction. Don’t panic about wars and rumors of wars. Don’t panic when the sky itself shows troublesome portents. Don’t panic when Jesus demands that God and our brothers and sisters in Christ take priority over our biological family.

It is tempting to panic. It is tempting to be ruled by our fears. Especially when we hear so much fear. But we are not to be ruled by fears. Jesus is still with us, giving us words to bear witness to his healing and reconciling of the world to himself. We believe that work will be consummated, and God’s will accomplished on earth as it is in heaven. Endure the troubles that will pass; hold on to Jesus’ vision for us and for the world, and we’ll hold on to our souls, our integrity and our destiny. The rulers of this world put on a convincing show of power, but we who know Jesus know what real power is and what it is doing and can accomplish among us.

It is Jesus’ power and Jesus’ power alone, in a world of darkness and violence, in a world of fear that brings light and hope. The world of injustice and hatred has ended, is ending, and will end. Jesus has seen, is seeing, and will see to that. Don’t panic, be not afraid, for the Light has come into the world, and will not be defeated by darkness.

The Light claims our heart and our soul and our mind. At our baptism, we were united with Christ and marked as Christ’s own forever. Every time we come to this table for nourishment we leave fortified, strengthened, we leave with renewed energy. You and I are bearers of the Light. You and I are co-conspirators in God’s plan of bringing Light into a dark world. The challenge of today’s gospel is about not giving into fear and panic, it is about being a Light bearer.

How are you a Light bearer in this world? How do you bring the good news of God in Jesus Christ into the world in which you live?

At work, and at school, in your neighborhood, and even here, your church home, are you a reconciler? Do you bring peace? Are you an advocate for those who are most vulnerable? Do you treat others with dignity and justice, and do you challenge your coworkers and your classmates to treat one another and others with dignity and justice? Are you a good steward of the abundance of God’s creation? Do you welcome the stranger? Do you by your actions point people to hope? Do you treat children as Jesus treats children?

Light bearing in a dark world is a big job, and we all share that responsibility. God’s plan of reconciliation is a big job, and we all have a part to play in it. Fear has no hold on us, for the Light has come into the world.

May we echo with the angels and archangels, Holy, holy, holy is the God who is Love, who is now, who is then, who is forever. Amen.