Bonus Good News: A Feast for the Heart

Today's Gospel lesson comes after the original ending of John, so what do we do with this bonus good news?

 

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)

Revelation 5:11-14

John 21:1-19

Psalm 30

 

©2025 The Rev. Seth Olson

 

This sermon was preached at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL on the Third Sunday of Easter. A video of the message may be found here. 

Holy God, may my words be your words and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

 

At the end of last week’s Gospel lesson — right before today’s story — we heard the following: “But these [things] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Boom! Resurrection, belief, and new life. End of story. Roll the credits.

 

Except… not quite. It’s like in an infomercial: But wait! There’s more!

 

Today we hear a bonus, post-Resurrection encounter — it almost feels like a surprise scene after the credits of a movie or a hidden track at the end of an album. In this Gospel lesson, John sneaks in one last story about the Risen Christ, it’s a secret epilogue of grace. As though, God is saying: You thought I was finished? I'm just getting started.

 

And what is in this bonus good news? What is it that God is just getting started?

 

It’s a beach breakfast, a miraculous catch of fish, a conversation about love and forgiveness, and—surprisingly—a challenge… to not just “believe,” but to live differently because you believe. 

 

Now y’all, I know that change is challenging. Even when that change comes from experiencing the Resurrection. For in the new light of Easter, we experience newfound freedom—knowing that death doesn’t have the last word—but, this new way of being is impossible. At least it is on our own. 

 

So, friends if you hold on to nothing more from these lessons, remember that if you are going to live “life in Christ,” you will need the risen Christ feeding you and transforming you. But, what does this sustaining presence look like? Well, let’s start by looking at a failed fishing expedition.

 

After everything—the empty tomb, the Easter appearances, and the imparting of the Holy Spirit (according to John)—what do the disciples do? Go on a mission to share the Good News? No! Serve the needy of Jerusalem? Nope! Pray unceasingly worshipping God? Nah! Instead, the disciples go fishing. 

 

It's an odd thing. After everything that happened, they just went back to what they were doing before. And, who could blame them? There is not empirical data measuring the stress levels of these 1^st Century disciples, but imagine the mental and emotional load that was upon them. The leader of their movement had been viciously killed and mysteriously raised. It would make sense to blow off some steam by doing something fulfilling and familiar. It’s what we do too, right? 

 

Perhaps we do this by going fishing, but it could also be when we’re golfing, hiking, running, cooking, traveling, or any other number of other productive ways to cope with stress. So, the disciples head to some well-known surroundings to recenter and recognize what had taken place, but…

 

They were terrible at it—at least the fishing. You would have thought none of them had fished before. How did they survive by doing this? Because they fished all night long and caught nothing. Not a single fish! 

 

Then, at dawn, just as the sun rose (or was it the S-o-n that rose?), a stranger on the shore shouted: “Children, you have no fish, have you?” (Ouch! Who is this mean heckler on the shore?)

“No,” they sighed in reply.

“Cast the net on the right side,” he offered. It is not in any translation, I’ve ever read, but I imagine the disciples rolling their lives and retorting: “Don’t you think we tried that!” But, eventually, they did cast their nets on the other side. And, bam! They hauled in 153 fish. More than they could haul into the boat.

 

It’s in this moment of abundance that the proverbial scales fell from their eyes. John recognized: “It is the Lord!” Simon Peter, never one for half-measures, went all-in, throwing on his clothes and diving into the sea. (Only Peter would get dressed before swimming… I mean, was he worried about Jesus seeing him shirt-less?)

 

When the disciples reached shore, what did they find? Jesus. Already there. Already preparing a meal for them. Already sustaining them! Before he sent them out to feed others, he fed them first. But, we do not live by bread (or fish) alone. For then, came the deeper work of spiritual sustenance.

 

After breakfast, Jesus turned to Peter—remember he was the one who had denied Jesus three times—and in a series of questions that were as tender as they were cutting, Jesus asked Peter three times: “Do you love me?”

Each time Peter said yes, and each time Jesus responded not with “That's nice” or “I love you, too,” but with a commission: “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” 

 

In this moment, we see more clearly that love to Jesus is not just a warm feeling. Instead, it is a choice, an action. And, in the three-fold affirmation of Peter’s love for Christ, we also discover that God’s love is about restoration. The denials of Good Friday morning are undone here at this brunch on the beach. And though we know that Peter still didn’t get it all right, his later mission and martyrdom exemplify a life turned toward the service of others. And here’s where this bonus scene of Good News challenges us. Jesus’ unbinding Peter and his denials is inextricably linked with a transformation—a difference in being and behavior.

 

The priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor once told a story about a seminary classmate from Lebanon who was curious why his classmates did not want this for themselves. He grew frustrated with the other students, saying: “All you Americans care about is justification! You love sinning and being forgiven, sinning and being forgiven. Has anyone ever heard of sanctification? Is anyone interested in learning to sin a little less?” These are hard questions, but appropriate ones. Don’t we want to be transformed? Don’t we want to live in integrity when it comes to the relationships of our lives?

 

The truth is the Risen Christ forgives us endlessly, like we saw in Christ Jesus’ repeated forgiveness of Peter. However, Christ also calls us beyond the hamster wheel of sinning and being forgiven. Christ calls us to be transformed. How do we know this? Well, look no further than our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles this morning. 

 

Saul, the bloodthirsty persecutor, became Paul the Apostle. The adamant victimizer who held the cloaks of those who martyred Saint Stephen, became the evangelist who helped spread the Christian message to the Gentiles. Or, look again at Peter, the denier, who became the rock on which Christ built the Church. 

 

Both were fed by the grace of God, but neither stayed the same. Their lives became acts of penance in the best sense — not as punishment, but as repair. They did not change because they feared God’s wrath (although I think Saul’s blindness certainly put the awe of God in him), instead they changed knowing the freedom of serving in Christ’s ministry. Their faith was not just a listless “I’m sorry.” It was a moving, new way of living: loving, feeding, tending, and serving.

 

This is what sanctification looks like. This is Life in Christ. This is Resurrection! So, what about us? Do we want this?

 

You may feel tired. Maybe your nets have been empty. Perhaps even returning to old sources of sustenance isn’t as fruitful. Maybe you’ve been stuck on that hamster wheel or out in lifeless waters. Perhaps you cannot break the old sinful ways. If any of this sounds like you, look to the shore. See the Risen Christ. He’s already readying a meal for you and for all. Let him feed you. Let him love you first. Yes, here at Christ’s Table, but also in prayer, in the study of scripture, in giving to others, in being loved on by this community, or countless other ways that God is yearning to meet you.

 

And then—because you are loved beyond measure, because no matter what you have done you have been forgiven—get up. Feed his lambs. Tend his sheep. And, love his flock (all his flock). Because the bonus good news isn’t just that Christ is risen. The bonus good news is that you are rising too. Amen.

God is There and God is Loving Us

 

This "Ditch the Label" video invites us to wonder are we living a lie on Social Media?
 

This sermon was preached on the 15^th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 17B) at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles. You may watch the video of this sermon by clicking here. The readings which inspired the sermon were the following: 

 

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10

James 1:17-27

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

 

Holy God, may my words be your words and when my words are not your words, may your people know the same. Amen.

There is an anti-bullying charity called Ditch the Label. A few years back this organization published a video about the lies that people tell on Social Media. These are not “fake news” lies, but rather lies that people—even friends—tell one another. 

In the video, one scene features a young woman jump out of bed in the morning to wash her face, fix her makeup, and return to bed where she takes a picture that she posts to show, “I woke up like this,” even though she did not. Another segment shows a series of people making great life decisions like going on a bike ride, getting organized at work, and drinking a healthy juice—except all of those pictures were staged; they did not tell the whole truth. Still another clip depicts a group of friends all on their smart phones at a restaurant, then after they ask the waitress to take a picture of them together smiling, one posts the photo with the caption “quality time with friends”—really? 

This video has been seen over 23 million times on YouTube, and it displays the all too popular trend of people double-dealing on social media about what they are doing, or feeling, or even who they are! We might recoil at the thought of doing this—lying about how we’re having the best time ever sipping our Triple, Venti, Half Sweet, Non-Fat, Caramel Macchiato, fibbing about how we killed our crossfit workout this morning or capping about how we are lit and have W rizz, or whatever Gens Z and Alpha are saying. Even if we shutter at the thought of being outright duplicitous, it is all too common for each of us to make small edits to how we portray ourselves in the world. When we do this we shield the darkness that is inside, so that no one else sees it—and I do not mean online, but in real life—IRL.

The hard truth is that you and I have dirt within us. No, I don’t mean because we have consumed soil, like how Les Miles used to chew grass on the sidelines at LSU—Happy Football Season, by the way! When I say we have dirt within us, I mean all have sin within them, and when I say sin, I mean distortion of relationship with God, self, neighbor, and Creation. 

Sinful is not how we were made, we were made in God’s image, but the hard truth of our brokenness is quite apparent in the reckoning that we collectively have endured in recent years. Even trusted news anchors, beloved actors, world-class athletes, and church leaders both within and beyond the Episcopal Church have wickedness within them. You have come to church today, and that is commendable, especially on Labor Day Weekend, but it doesn’t mean that you are exempt from what I am saying. Even though I am standing here in this pulpit, I’m not excused from it either. We are not a gathering of pious saints better than everyone else, no we are a group of recovering sinners just like everyone else. 

I would love to tell you that there is a silver bullet or a secret pill to stop you and me from causing others pain, making mistakes, or distorting relationships—all those things that Jesus listed in today’s Gospel lesson, but that’s just not true. As Elisabeth Johnson, a Lutheran professor and missionary wrote in a commentary on this Gospel lesson, “No law or tradition can protect us from the darkness that lurks within our own hearts. We can try to project a squeaky clean image, but one way or another, the evil within will find its way out. The highly edited version of ourselves, the façade that we present to the world, will crumble sooner or later.”[1] These words ring so clearly of truth, and they describe something that is not new. The Pharisees of long ago exemplified this very behavior too. 

Often Pharisees are trashed by preachers and good Christians alike. Horrifyingly though, we are more like them than we might know or admit. You and I are here because coming to Church brings us closer to God, it gives us a good foundation for building solid lives, and it provides us a way to say thank you to God. All of these things were true also of the Pharisees. When Jesus chastised the Pharisees in today’s Gospel lesson, he did so not because they were faithful, nor because they thanked God, nor because they guarded traditions, although often that’s what preachers talk about on days like today. No, Jesus was frustrated because even the most well-intended traditions, religious laws, and spiritual practices cannot cordon us off from the dangers that exist within our own souls. 

If you and I are honest and not just focused on how we present ourselves to the outside world. If you and I instead see who we are then, we will see the distorting behaviors from this Gospel, not in someone else, but in ourselves. That’s right I will see fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly in myself. And you will see it in yourself, too. No amount of editing on social media can take those things away. No law can protect us from them. No rules can shield us from those things. Nor can even the best spiritual practices keep us from experiencing that darkness within us. Although religious traditions and practices can be helpful in living our lives; they cannot do what God alone does—they cannot do what Jesus made clear in this passage.

The bits about the law and sin from today's Gospel lesson may cloud our understanding, but Good News shines through this passage. Namely, our Cosmic Christ, the Son of God clearly gleams a truthful light within each of us. Christ Jesus sees all those things that exist in the darkness in us. And yet, God Incarnate did not, does not turn away. Jesus could have run for the hills—or I guess to heaven—when he recognized that human beings were fallen, broken, and corrupted. But, that’s not what he did. Even when we edit ourselves online and in real life, Christ Jesus knows our truth—what resides within the hidden recesses of our hearts, what fibs we tell online, what sins we cannot help but endure. And even knowing all this, Jesus loves us still. He loves us always. Jesus most obviously showed this in his actions of including the outcasts, loving the unlovable, and reaching out to the unreachable. The most religious, the least religious, the unreligious—all are loved by this one who came to show us what true religion looks like—LOVE. 

The good news, the best news, is what we know to be the truth in Christ. Even in the shielded side of our souls that we want no one else to know about, God is there, and God is loving us. Even when we as human beings betray, torture, or kill the Christ in one another over and over again, God is there, and God is loving us. Even when we experience others transgressing against us, God is there, and God is loving us. God’s response now and always is to be with us and to love us. But, we cannot, we must not simply rest on this overwhelmingly Good News, this treasure that is God’s love. Instead, allow that love to take over your life, allow it to overcome you, allow it to transform you into a new creation, a new being, a new you. 

If God loves us even knowing our inner flaws, then let us follow in this love. Love yourself even knowing your filth and failings. Love others even when they throw dirt on you. Love Creation because our place on this earth, our island home, is fragile. Love God because God loved you first and loves you always. God graces us with love that we neither earn nor deserve. May we bravely endeavor into our own inner darkness, may we be made new in the love of Christ, then may we share this love with each other, with ourselves, with all Creation, and with the Creator of us all. Amen.

 

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[1] Elisabeth Johnson, “Commentary on Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23” from The Working Preacher Website. 

[https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22-2/commentary-on-mark-71-8-14-15-21-23-3, published September 2, 2018, accessed August 27, 2024].

Who’s Steering?

Some life lessons are more painful to learn, like not doing too many things at once on a bicycle.

© Seth Olson 2020

February 16, 2020—The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 119:1-8
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37

When I was a junior in college my dad offered to buy me a new car. It was generous of him, but I responded with a counter-proposal. Buy me a new bicycle instead. Sounds crazy, right? Who passes up a car for a bike? My reasoning was that my college’s campus was much easier to navigate on two wheels rather than on four. What I did not realize when getting this bicycle though was all the valuable life lessons I would soon learn riding it.

The first lesson? On a bicycle one can only do a certain amount of activities at one time. How did I learn this? One afternoon, as I was excitedly riding to track practice, I tried to take off my sweatshirt, take a sip from my water bottle, and hop a curb all at the same time. This proved to be a bit too much. When it came time to pop up on the curb instead I went flying over my handlebars. That moment is clearly etched in my memory—and the scars from that accident are clearly etched under my right eye. A friend was standing on the sidewalk nearby. I still recall his horrified face, snarling as I crashed onto the pavement face first. He ran inside to tell my track coach that I was probably unconscious or maybe dead. An Emergency Room visit and 25 stitches later I learned a valuable lesson: don’t do too much at one time, or as Jesus might say, “There is need of only one thing.”

Another piece of wisdom I learned on that bicycle happened just a few weeks later. I was hurrying to breakfast before class, when I tried to take a turn too aggressively. As usual it was foggy and misting in Sewanee where I went to school, and my tires slid sideways on some slick sandstone. Again, I found myself headed to the ER. This time it was my lower leg that required stitches with 4 deep incisions made from the teeth of the chainwheel cutting into me. By this point, my father began questioning whether he should have purchased this bicycle for me. 2 ER trips in one month, maybe a car would have been a cheaper gift? The second valuable lesson: One cannot steal time. Or as it says in Proverbs, “Ignorant zeal is worthless, haste makes waste.”

The third lesson I learned on that bicycle came years later. After graduating from Sewanee, I had the privilege of living and working there for three more years. During that time I rode my bike even more. My roommate worked in the local bike shop and some weeks we traveled more than 100 miles together. One day we were descending down Highway 41 from Sewanee towards a little town called Cowan. In the early morning we rode through a slight fog just as the sun was rising. There was just enough light to see a piece of debris in the road. As I zoomed closer and closer to the object I found that my path was completely locked onto the thing in the road. At the last second, I clumsily swerved out of the way, barely keeping my balance.

My friend noticed my awkward darting, dodging maneuver. When we finished the descent and were calmly pedaling down a valley road, he asked, “What happened?” I told him that I was so locked onto the object in the road that I barely missed it and almost crashed getting out of the way. He told me, “You can’t focus on where you don’t want to go. Your hands and your bike will follow your eyes. If you look at a pothole you will steer towards the pothole. If you steer towards the clear path, then that’s where you’ll go.” This was the third, and perhaps most enlightening lesson I learned on that bicycle. And, Jesus has a lot to say about this lesson too, especially in today’s Gospel text.

In this passage from the Gospel according to Matthew, we observe Jesus talking about several places where we are not to steer. What are the objects for us to dodge along the way? Not only murder, adultery, and swearing falsely, but also anger, name-calling, lusting, lying, and swearing by anything at all. Some of the language Jesus utilized makes it sound like he was trying to scare his audience into doing what is “right.” But, Jesus wasn’t saying we must miss all these obstacles or else we will be steering our lives into hell. Instead in this passage, Jesus revealed that our actions follow our intentions.

In other words, steer towards where you want to go—not where you don’t want to go. Jesus urged us to understand that our intentions inextricably link with our actions. Perhaps, in the bicycling analogy, it’s more apt to call murder, adultery, and lying the ravines off the side of the road rather than the tiny pebbles along the way, regardless our intentions are the eyes that direct us toward our destination—whether it be healthy, unhealthy, or somewhere in between.

This is why Christ Jesus said it’s not good enough not to murder, we are not to become angry with our neighbor. Because our anger towards another has the potential to dehumanize and destroy relationships. It’s not good enough not to commit adultery, we are not to lust after our neighbor. For our lust towards others objectifies them and distorts relationships. It’s not good enough to avoid swearing falsely, we are to let our yes be yes and our no be no. Because any exaggeration of the truth destroys trust and makes honest relationship impossible. And, I believe these intentions exist as the highest goals for us as individuals and as a community. We are to aim our lives toward them, as we follow Our Lord. But… 

What happens when we do become angry with our neighbor? Are we to ignore it bottling up the rage? What happens when we lust after someone, or someone’s car, house, job, or life? Are we to just ignore it hoping it magically goes away? What happens when we lie, swearing by something or someone? Is it good enough for us to just pretend like it never happened?

No! Of course not. But herein lies the challenge of this passage, Jesus provided for us targets impossibly difficult to hit—establishing that it is no longer good enough for us to keep ourselves from killing or committing adultery or swearing falsely by God’s name. Instead, the path has become much narrower. So what do we do?

I love the image of our aim affecting our steering. I love the comparison to the bicyclist’s hands guiding where she goes. I love the analogy of aiming toward the place where we want to go, not the place where we do not want to go. But, still there are moments when we will go the wrong way—intentionally or unintentionally, through thoughts, words, and deeds, things done and left undone. And, the question is what do we do then? It’s pretty easy actually. We turn around.

Jesus lets us know that we are called to immediately turn around to reconcile with our neighbors. To seek repentance even before bringing in someone else. We can wonder, what about when that doesn’t work? What if the crime is too grave? Or what if we are too scared?

Oftentimes we psych ourselves out. We start to believe sin is some particular action that is on a list somewhere that Jesus wrote down for us. “Don’t do these things” it says at the top of the page. However, sin is not a particular act, but whatever causes separation between God and ourselves, between our neighbors and us. We all sin. We all steer to the wrong spot. We all aim at the wrong thing. We all make mistakes. But more than some list of things that we aren’t to do, sins are the ways in which we distort our relationships with God, with Creation, and with one another. Whatever sins we commit cause separation. If that sin consumes us, it can distort who we are, and we can believe that we are separated from God. This sounds scary. It feels scary. Because it is scary. Yet, it is not the truth.

The truth is that even though our sins and wrong intentions create a sense of separation between us and God, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that can cause God not to love us. When we recognize this reality—that God loves us unconditionally, eternally, limitlessly—then we can see with new eyes who’s steering us on our lifelong journey.

When we invite God to guide our lives, then we can begin to see where the distortion and separation exist within us, which sounds like a good Lenten practice if you are looking for one. God will remove those parts from us, like Jesus invited his audience to proverbially cut those parts off in today’s Gospel. There is no way to completely avoid potholes, debris, and even the ditch on this side of the road. They all come with the journey. And, yes we probably crash or go the wrong way. But, as we bring our wills in line with Christ’s own, we realize the journey is not about keeping from crashing, going the “right” way, or even getting to the destination. No, our journeys are about inviting Christ to be with us every mile we travel. Keep pedaling and let Jesus steer. Amen.

The Quality of Mercy

This sermon was preached on the transferred feast of St. Matthew at St. John’s Church. The readings which inspired the sermon were the following:

Proverbs 3:1-6

2 Timothy 3:14-17

Matthew 9:9-13

Psalm 119:33-40

“Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)

Today we celebrate not a saint, but a sinner—a tax collector even. Nobody—then or now—likes a tax collector. We’ll bend over backwards to elect a politician who is utterly scum if their opponent has run on the platform of raising taxes. And, those who figuratively come to take our hard earned cash. Well, we do not like anybody coming in and taking something away from us. So it is surprising that today we remember a greedy good-for-nothing.

Today is the transferred feast day of Saint Matthew. And, somehow it feels fitting to be celebrating a despised tax collector just two days after quarterly taxes were due to the Alabama Department of Revenue and the IRS. In his day Matthew was near the top of Israel’s Most Hated list—if there were such a thing. Sure some of the hatred towards tax collectors gets passed down to us, but back then it was even more intense.

In Jesus’ day a tax collector did not have a starting salary or an hourly wage. Instead, they made their money by taking more than was allocated for the imperial tax. Devout Jewish folk did not like tax collectors because they were making their living dishonestly. Patriotic Jewish people living under the yoke of the Roman Empire hated Jewish tax collectors, like Matthew, even more because they were working for the enemy occupiers. No wonder throughout the Gospel accounts we find that tax collectors were the social outcasts of the day. They were lumped together with prostitutes, adulterers, and anyone who had done something to deserve getting leprosy (as though it were under their control). But, that was not how Jesus saw them.

The last words Jesus spoke in today’s Gospel lesson point us in a challenging direction. This path, which we are called to walk, leads us to responding to those sinful, wretched, and hated ones of our own day not with vengeance, but with mercy. Through Christ we hear God challenging us to have mercy on others instead of extracting sacrifice from those whom we loathe. Of course, this is not easy, but as the bard, William Shakespeare himself wrote:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd./

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:/

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes./

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest;/[1]

Mercy is a double gift that is most powerful in the most powerful. It is a quality that extends from God’s own Trinitarian nature. And yet, we live in a world that is obsessed with proving ourselves right and others wrong. We seek to extract justice in the form of vengeance instead of practicing forgiveness and reconciliation. We persecute the tax collectors of our own age, even if it is simply by avoiding them or speaking in hushed tones about them. In short, we have not gone and we have not learned that God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

During a midweek sermon a few years ago the Rev. Evan Garner spoke about the tax collectors and lepers of our own day. Who are the people we avoid as a result of what they do? In our society who is it that we ignore? What persons do we completely isolate simply because of who they are?

The answers in our culture within the Southeastern United States appear vast. Yes we still don’t like tax collectors, but more notably we want nothing to do with pedophiles, sexual offenders, and murders; some of us have trouble with Muslims, While Supremacists, the Alt-Right, the Alt-Left, Socialists, Feminists, and really anyone who has a different view from our own; we don’t want to socialize with adulterers, criminals, certain types of rednecks, most Yankees, and almost all foreigners; we do not know how to approach those with special needs, those going through divorce, those who have lost their job, those suffering from dementia, and often anyone who is not like “us.” We may not have problems with Jesus having dinner with a tax collector, but we sure will get squirmy if we have to sit down with our modern day version of “them” to break bread. But, that is precisely what we must do.

Not too long ago in this part of Matthew’s Gospel account, Jesus made a challenge. He told those who struggled with the sin they saw in someone else to get the plank out of their own eye first. Then, and only then, so maybe never, for none of us will ever be sinless, can we address the sawdust in the other’s eye. As we follow Jesus this is the only way. We must seek mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation for ourselves and with others. That is the true path of peace, the true course of Christ, the way of love.

On this day when we remember a Saint who was also a sinner (hint: that was true of all of them), let us hear again Jesus’ challenge. We are to seek mercy not retribution, for none of us is worthy to dine with our Savior. Still he invites all of us to the table. And all who turn around and come to meet him here, regardless of their sins, will not be turned away. Everyone is welcome here. For that, thanks be to God.

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[1] William Shakespeare, “The Quality of Mercy” www.PoemHunter.com accessed September 19, 2018 https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-quality-of-mercy/

Look and Live

When Nicodemus went to visit Jesus at night back in the third chapter of John, the teacher said some curious things. We might most quickly remember that he said that most famous verse John 3:16; however, that is not all he said. I’ve always been fascinated by Jesus comparing himself to a serpent lifted up in the wilderness, which comes just two sentences before the bold statement of God’s love of the world. Today we heard the precursor story from Numbers in which a bronze serpent made by Moses helped to heal those who were snake-bitten in the wilderness, as they complained about their current plight. What does this mean though? Why did Jesus compare the crucifixion with a somewhat obscure passage about the Israelites’ disobedience?

Pretty quickly we realize that the Son of Man being lifted up indicates the manner of death that Jesus would undertake upon the cross. And yet, if we expand the conversation that Jesus was having with Nicodemus in John’s Gospel even a little bit we hear that those who believe in the one lifted up have eternal life. Still to me this appears a little blurry. If we believe in Christ, then we gain life everlasting. Yes, we have heard this before many times, and I believe it, but this bit about the snakes in the wilderness still does not compute.

Looking more specifically at the story from Numbers may open up the wisdom of Jesus’ words for us. The snakes in the wilderness were not random. After being saved from a life of slavery in Egypt the people of Israel began to grumble to God. They took their complaints to Moses saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Earlier in the Book of Numbers God gave the people the “miserable food” of manna, right before this story Moses had led the people to waters flowing from a rock, but this sustenance appeared boring to the people. Thus, they complained. God’s response startles me. He sent snakes.

God responded to the people’s complaints not with an affirming pat on the back or a hopeful way forward, but instead with poisonous serpents. These snakes bit the Israelites and many even died. The result of these bites though was for the people to recognize that they had sinned. Oddly enough the serpents helped the Israelites to see that speaking against God and against God’s servant had been foolish. This tough love led them to believe once more. We can understand this in our own lives. If we see a negative consequence of something that we have done we may change what we are doing, still it is hard for me to believe in a God who would send snakes, or a flood in the story of Noah, or even a worm in the story of Jonah. To quote Indiana Jones, “Why does it have to be snakes?”

While this bit of the story seems odd and perhaps a little tough for me to comprehend, something more exists if we dig a little deeper. When the people asked Moses to pray for God to relent. God’s response was not to take away the serpents altogether. Instead, God told Moses to make a serpent and when the people looked at the serpent they would live. This is where it gets really interesting. When the people were bit, as a response to their sins of impatience and unbelief, they were to look at a serpent, which was in fact a sign pointing to their sinful state. The serpent that Moses created signified both the results of their sinful state and the salvation that God would offer to cure them of its repercussions. Jesus very easily could be seen in a similar manner.

When we look upon Jesus high on the cross we are forced to see both the consequences of the sin that poisons us and the salvation that heals us from it. The sins of the world literally put Jesus upon the cross. Were the people of Jesus’ day not sinful they would have been able to see his true nature; however, God’s will was ultimate love and sacrifice even in the face of individual and systematic evil. When Jesus told Nicodemus, who would have been familiar with the story we heard from Numbers, that the Son of Man must be lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness our Lord connected a very important set of dots for the religious leader and for us.

Until we confront our sinful nature and have the courage to look at the wrongs we commit, then we will continue to live in a toxic state continuously bitten by the offspring of our sins. And yet, when we boldly believe in God something changes. We must be willing to trust that God will guide us through even those times when we have to confront the darkest parts of our selves. When we look at the serpent, which is the result of our sin AND the sign that points to our salvation, then we finally receive the antidote that gives us life. To believe in God is to trust that even in our sinfulness God’s love will guide us into life. May we be bold enough to see our sinful nature and even bolder still to believe that Jesus is the cure for our poisoned, fallen state!

Signs and Sinning

On Sunday we will hear the lengthy story of Jesus controversially healing a man born blind… on the Sabbath duh duh DUHHHHH!!! After Jesus has given sight to the man via a kind of Siloam spa mud treatment, the Pharisees get their fringes in a wad. Perhaps their frustration stems from the fact that Jesus’ healing work happened on a Saturday—the day of rest in the Jewish culture. BUT, what if these religious leaders were not really concerned with the day of the week or the sign itself? What if something else got in the way of them seeing God’s presence in Jesus’ work?

If one searches throughout John’s telling of the Good News one will not find mention of miracles, instead the Fourth Gospel refers to these profound acts as signs. Signs point in a direction. Signs show where to go. Signs are not themselves the destination, rather they lead to the end. Most signs on roadways, in stores, or guarding property do not care whether it is Tuesday or Sunday. They keep on working no matter the day of the week. Still, the Pharisees made a legitimate argument, Jesus had showed God’s healing power in this world on a day of the week restricted to resting.

Resting is a funny word though. Rest means something more than just doing nothing. Rest points to another word... restoration. Restoration has to do with healing and making one whole. In the first creation story in Genesis, God participated in a time of restoration once God manifested the whole of Creation, which signifies to humans a deep truth about the need for a time set aside to be made whole, just like the Creator. However, if someone has spent every day of his life wanting to be able to see, but lacking sight could he ever feel like he was whole? When something nags at me that I want to change I know I can feel restless. Jesus giving sight to the man born blind made him whole in a new way and fit in with the goal of Sabbath. Jesus' sign pointed to the deeper end of restoration and making all things fully restored. The Pharisees could not see it though, they were indeed blind, though not all of them.

Not all the Pharisees thought what Jesus did was abhorrent. In fact, the text for Sunday expresses, “They were divided.” Some believed that he was not from God because he ignored the traditional Sabbath practice of doing no work. Others though, wondered, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” This theological argument of the Pharisees raises a tricky question: Can only holy people perform signs of God?

The newly sighted man put it another way later in the story, “We know that God does not listen to sinners.” So that seems to be it, then. God only listens to people who listen to God and who do His will. End of story...

And yet, is that true? Does your own experience of God point to that? Does the rest of Holy Scripture even hold this up? If we answer yes to these questions, God may feel truly lonely up in heaven. As I put it when we read this passage in our staff meeting yesterday, God may be upstairs vacuuming with headphones in if this is the case. (Ann Stewart, our communications director added: Is the vacuum a Dirt Devil?) I cannot imagine a God who does not hear the earnest cry of a downtrodden, penitent sinner!

Maybe your theology, your experience, and your reading of Scripture differ from my own, but even in this story Jesus seems to stamp out the concept that God only listens to the sinless among us (whoever those people may be). “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.” Some will avoid this loaded statement at all costs, but it helps me to see to what Christ Jesus came to point. Christ came to direct us towards and lead us into healing, restoration, and reconciliation. Those things we think of as problems in truth may very well be opportunities that exist, so that God may work in us. God provides us with signs that point us towards new ways of seeing, being healed, and living in Christ. Are we willing to look at them or will we be spiritually blind and miss them altogether?

IN and OUT

When doing some work to discover my typology in the Enneagram Personality Indicator I have found that I am an “achiever.” This means that I function out of a desire to feel valuable and I do this by accomplishing as much and as many achievements as possible. Put another way, I want to impress other people into loving me by all the things I have done, and how good I look in doing those things to boot! So, in reading this coming Sunday’s Gospel lesson I have a hard time not immediately thinking, “Oh no, I am the Pharisee!”

 

While I have not said it exactly this way, I can hear myself praying as that religious leader did in Jesus’ parable, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” Now my colleague Evan Garner has written a thought-provoking blog about how the Pharisee most assuredly went home justified alongside the tax collector from the story; however, I am still left confounded in my own (and the Pharisee’s own) trap falsely believing that God’s grace happens in a comparative way, instead of an overwhelmingly non-competitive, all-encompassing way!

If I am not careful my egoic-self pushes me into a place where I do not feel worthy on my own, and so I begin to compare myself with others. Thus, I say—not so much in prayers as much as when I am driving around in my car—“Thank you Lord, for making me who I am and not like those drivers who do not use their turn signals, yield at red lights, or wait their turns at stop signs.” The trouble here is that I am justified in being a good driver, but I am failing in being a free-flowing vessel of God's grace. In my fear I attempt to deceive myself and others into believing that I am better than them when the truth is that all of us are made worthy not in our accomplishments, but in the free gift that is the love of God! 

The Pharisee (from Jesus' parable) and I (when I am unhealthy) tend to want to make life about who is IN and who is OUT! And yet, in the life of God, which includes all of us and all of life itself, when we come together we are always made greater than the sum of our parts. Even though the passage hails from another Gospel account entirely, I believe that is why Jesus said, “When two or three are gathered together I will be in the midst of them.” When we come together we realize that Jesus is among us, and when we discover we are all IN-cluded in the Body of Christ powerful transformations occur, our work gets multiplied, and we discover that God leaves no one OUT!

My small self may want to continue to say, “At least I am not like him or her,” but Jesus in this parable confuses and expands the traditional understanding of who is IN and who is OUT. When we instead pray for the ability and understanding to come together the hope shifts from “I will make it, instead of you” to “I am not diminished but made greater being part of something larger than myself individually.” Lord, thank you for giving us the sinners and the saints, the thieves and the servants, the Republicans and the Democrats, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, all races, all genders, and all sexual orientations for we are much more when we realize that there is no OUT only IN, for we are all invited into the life and love of God. Now, if we can only allow this truth to sink into our being and our doing I wonder how this world might explode with new life and spirit!