Sermon Preached on the Fifth Sunday in Lent

I am the resurrection and the life ...

Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
(Book of Common Prayer, page 469)

These words of Jesus are a direct quotation from today’s Gospel (John 11:1-45) and open every Episcopal burial service – every burial service from the Book of Common Prayer. Every one I have officiated at over forty years:

When I was first ordained, a curate in suburban Boston. And then when I was rector of parish on the edge of urban Boston – the other night something brought back to me a tragic incident, when a parishioner was badly burned in a fire, and the long vigil over a week with her at Boston City Hospital, where they took wonderful care of her in the burn unit and then I read the words opening her funeral. As I would read them in the center of Manhattan, then on Cape Cod, and since 1993 here.

I am the resurrection and the life -- woven through those years of ministry are these words of Jesus – sometimes said with one or two people present in the church or at the graveside. Once in New York City with three people present, my wife and (then little) boy and the parish secretary who had been the three people present at the person’s baptism. Sometimes in a church filled with people, the church so full people standing in the doorways, as I read the words coming down the aisle before the casket.

The words are exactly the same, the words sung by the choir of Westminster Abbey as a princess was brought into the church, the whole world watching on TV -- I am the resurrection and the life -- the intent exactly the same, to speak the word of the resurrection.

And whatever we have or have not done, in St. Chrysostom’s Chicago, we have faithfully done just that: spoken the word of resurrection: the core belief of Christianity that on a day in our human history Jesus died and was buried and on the third day rose. Our hope is that when we die, when those we love die, we will be raised to the new life in him.

So on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, on the threshold of Holy Week which begins next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we find ourselves celebrating the great central message of Easter. What gives? What’s going on? Well, every Sunday is a feast of the resurrection of Jesus.

And we come to Holy Week remembering that the passion and death of our Lord is the self-giving in love of one who is risen from the dead and present with us -- I believe – present in word and sacrament. It is why I love having Holy Communion amid the deep solemnity of Good Friday – for it is the day we remember the self giving love of the one who lives at the heart of God and is present with us at God‘s heart. The one who is God with us, Emanu El, God here, with us, loving us. Whatever happens.

I mentioned that story when I was a rector, the first time, on the edge of urban Boston, and had a long vigil driving to Boston City Hospital to visit a very badly hurt parishioner. I do not remember the exact year, but I was around twenty seven. It was my first experience with a severely burned person. I have great admiration for doctors and nurses who care for them. What brought this to mind last week was the visit of an old friend who is just such a doctor.

All those years ago, I had been trained to visit in the hospital, the program for seminarians at Massachusetts General Hospital. I did go, faithfully. I remember the great kindness of the nurses to this young priest, explaining what was happening. It was deeply jarring. One learns how to deal with that, it is part of the spiritual life of a priest, well, part of the spiritual life of any disciple of Jesus.

A winter’s night in St. Stephen’s in the South End

One winter night, after visiting, I dropped into an Episcopal Church not far from Boston City Hospital – St. Stephen’s in the South End. It has had a long ministry in the city – at another location a hundred years ago Bishop Brent was rector when he became Missionary Bishop of the Philippines. The night in the mid 70s I dropped by, something was going on in the parish house, and the door was open and I slipped through and into the church, where it was completely dark, except for lights from outside coming through the high windows – street lights. And the flickering candle by the aumbry, where the bread and wine are kept . However broken life was, God is present, loving in Christ, even if only it seems a small flickering candle flame on a cold winter’s night.

The resurrection of Jesus speaks to our future, our hope we will be with him but also just as much to our here and now, and the promise God is with us. Loving us in him.

Today’s story took place before the first Good Friday and Easter and indeed the opening of the story is directly related to what lay ahead.

A hesitation and a temptation

Because Jesus hesitated. It was a human hesitation. It was not cowardice. I remember being told only a fool is never afraid. Courage is what you do with your fear or apprehension and when there are choices and hesitations. Am I up to it? Can I do it? Can I take it? Very human. Very human to run away. It takes courage not to run away. t to.

The story opens with Jesus getting word that his close friend Lazarus was very sick. Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha lived in Bethany a village, as the story tells us, about two miles from Jerusalem.

If you walked, if you walk today from Bethany to the city, you will soon (two miles) find yourself at the top of the Mount of Olives, looking down to a narrow valley, with the Temple Mount rising on the other side. It was the road Jesus would take on Palm Sunday – a very visible way of coming into Jerusalem.

For Jesus, going to his sick friend meant going to Jerusalem. When Jesus said he was going, his disciples tried to talk him out of it. The same thing is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke – that when Jesus said he was going to Jerusalem, the disciples were not happy. It comes up at a different point in the story in Matthew, Mark and Luke (the writer of John characteristically going their own way) but the basic reaction of the disciples was the same in all four. In Mark, it was when Simon Peter spoke up against it, Jesus snapped back, uncharacteristically stern, in the tension of the temptation not to go – “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:34)

The temptation was there (he was in every way tempted as we are, yet did not sin) – the great temptation was to run away. It still is one of the great temptations.

It was Thomas who spoke up and said, said, Let us also go that we may die with him. Courageous words, although Thomas and the others would run away except for John and the women.

The only one of the men standing beneath the cross was John. The others were gone.

Jesus went to Bethany, to find everyone in mourning. He spoke to Martha and then Mary. In the face of our human experience of loss and sorrow he said the great words, I am the resurrection and the life.

“I am” -- one of his I am statements, one of seven in John’s Gospel – four of the seven in last Sunday’s story and today’s and the Good Shepherd chapter in between – four of the seven – I am always doing percentages, 57%. In the face of our human experience of death he said, I am the resurrection and the life, and calls us, calls you and me, to believe -- which for me is primarily to trust in God’s love. Trust that when we die we will be held in the love and compassion and mercy and forgiveness we see in Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel stories. That is what heaven is like, it is like him, it is being with him. I am the resurrection and the life,

And then when he went to the tomb he wept. He loved and cared so much.

Then he had them open the tomb and called Lazarus out.

So may the risen Christ one day call each one of us, out of death into life.

(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, April 10, 2011, the Fifth Sunday in Lent.)

Looking ahead to the Fourth Sunday in Lent: John 9:1-41

THE FIRST READING: ANOINTING

The first reading for Sunday, April 3 (First Samuel 16:1-13) is the story of the choice of David to be King and his anointing by Samuel.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.

In the Old Testament, anointing was an important action. Kings, priests and prophets were anointed – holy oil was poured on their heads – as a sign that they were chosen by God for the task given to them.

Anointing with oil remained a sacred part of the coronation of French monarchs, and still is part of the coronation of British monarchs in Westminster Abbey.

In the Hebrew Bible all Israel looked for the coming of “the Anointed One” – in Greek the “Christ” and in Hebrew the “Messiah” – who would save the people.

It is interesting that the Lectionary gives this first reading along with today’s Gospel. Jesus makes mud, as you will see, to put on the eyes of the blind beggar – and then sends him to wash, where he is healed. So the Anointed One anoints someone and brings healing and sight and light.

TODAY’S GOSPEL STORY: THE ENCOUNTER OF JESUS AND THE BEGGAR BORN BLIND ( John 9:1-41)

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.

Jesus was walking along an ordinary road when he saw a beggar by the roadside, described as a man blind from birth.

Jesus saw a beggar. The story teller is setting the scene, but we should not pass by these words too quickly. It would be easy – it is easy -- not to see a blind beggar – pass by people in trouble without seeing them. Jesus saw people, noticed them, saw they were there as human beings, as people of infinite value. The story begins with Jesus noticing this man, seeing him. The disciples react and have a question – but the story begins, the action begins with Jesus noticing someone – someone on the outside, in need. .

The disciples see Jesus notice this beggar and ask a question. Always good to ask the questions we authentically have.

Although this question – oh yes, authentic for us humans, we humans ask this sort of question, very human indeed -- this question was (and is) a cruel one.

His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned;”

An interesting and important answer. The blindness was not a punishment.

“he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.”

Actually why we are all born. Every human being is created by God – every one has been created to be loved by God “so that God’s works might be revealed in him” or her.

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”

And then Jesus says one of the seven “I am” statements in John’s Gospel, a self-portrait in words.

Four of the seven “I am” statements are found in our Gospel stories for this Sunday and next Sunday plus chapter ten, which is found between the two in John’s Gospel. Four of the seven are within these three chapters: an important grouping.

“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes,

Why did Jesus do this? Jesus was the great master of the imaginative gesture to make a point, to be remembered. At the Last Supper he would take the bread and wine and give it to his friends in a gesture that still is repeated and at the heart of the worship of his church. So that if we talk about the basic, the Supper of bread and wine is on the list. Jesus and the person he encounters, and the Supper (the Eucharist) as the place of encounter.

My own personal thought is that Jesus did this action of making mud so that the blind man might feel even more clearly he was being touched. That is a Ray Webster theory, with my own shingle hung on it. Someone blind, whose sense of being touched would be heightened – someone who was a beggar who had I am sure been treated roughly – would be alert to being touched, and here was something to highlight that.

Putting the story of the anointing of David together with this, strikes me that here the Anointed One is, in a very earthy way, anointing someone, and sending them to wash, where healing will take place – as we are washed in baptism, and anointed ourselves with the Holy Spirit given to us: and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.

saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

In John Newton’s hymn:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see. (Hymn 671)

There follows a long account of the reaction of the neighbors:

The reaction of the neighbors

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, `Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

The poor guy. At the beginning of the story he was outcast – blind from birth and put out to beg. He meets Jesus and is healed and the neighbors do not say hurrah – quite the opposite. And by the end of his encounter with them, they have driven him out and he is an outcast again!

When Jesus found him

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him.

Jesus went looking for the man and found him. William Temple writes:

The man who is driven out by the Pharisaic Court is not left to wander as an outcast. Jesus found him. The man did not find Jesus; Jesus found him. That is the deepest truth of Christian faith; Jesus found me. Our fellowship with Him is rooted in His compassion.

For it is into His fellowship that He welcomes the blind beggar; and to do this, He offers Himself explicitly for the first time as an object of faith. Westcott …

(Note: Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), was Bishop of Durham, England, and great scholar of John’s Gospel.)

… sees here “the beginning of the new Society.” That presses the point too far. But it is true that here for the first time the Lord offers Himself as an object of faith, and does this as a way of receiving into His fellowship one who is alienated from another.

William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel, London: Macmillan, 1945, page 160

Jesus’ “new Society” breaks down human dividing lines – for anyone cut off as a woman, a Samaritan, a blind beggar. For anyone.

An Anglican story: Apartheid and the Archbishop

Geoffrey Hare Clayton (1884-1957) was Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Alan Paton wrote his biography Apartheid and the archbishop: the life and times of Geoffrey Clayton, Archbishop of Cape Town (New York: Scribner, 1974)

In 1957 the South African government passed a law requiring churches to segregate the races in public worship. Archbishop Clayton was a conservative Englishman – but he could not accept separating people by race at the altar rail. He wrote to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Anglican Bishops of the Province, saying:

“We should ourselves be unable to obey this Law or to counsel our clergy and people to do so. We therefore appeal to you, Sir, not to put us in a position in which we have to choose between obeying our conscience and obeying the law of the land."

He signed it and died the next day.

Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, `We see,' your sin remains."

What comes next

At the risk of adding something to a Gospel reading which is already unusually long, may I note that in John’s Gospel, the next words which follow immediately are chapter ten. Directly after this story, Jesus gives the next two “I am” statements: he says he is the gate of the sheep, the way in for the sheep – the way in for someone just like this healed beggar, someone just like you and me. And then he says: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

“I am the gate for the sheep – I am the good shepherd”

John 10:1-11 Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

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

(Raymond Webster)

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The Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

Sermon preached on the Third Sunday in Lent: John 5:19-24

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11;
John 4:5-42

There’s something suspicious about a person who’s too quick to sign on to things.  I’m not talking about people who are quick to volunteer, or try something different, or make new friends.  I’m talking about serial committers: people who seem to make big life decisions the way other people decide which socks to wear.  We’ve all had to deliberate about whether to get married, whether to join a new church, or whether to leave a job, and most of us, even if we know what we’ll ultimately do, take our time, consult with others, go through the motions, etc, etc.  So when somebody runs off to Vegas with a girl they met yesterday, or quits her job one morning and enrolls in beauty school the next, we’re shocked, we’re confused, and we’re put off by the unstudied immediacy of the whole thing. 

When a group of us got together to talk about the Samaritan woman during our first Wednesday night Lenten program at the church, her immediacy was one of the things that stood out to everybody.  It shows up in two places.  First, Jesus tells her that she should have asked him for water, because what he has to give can quench thirst forever.  Without missing a beat, she responds, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty ….”  Their conversation continues, and when Jesus tells her things about her life that he shouldn’t know, she realizes that he’s a prophet.  She starts to ask questions, thinking, “Maybe this is the prophet, the Messiah we’ve all been waiting for.”  After Jesus confirms that he’s the guy, she’s off, running to gather her village in a second bold show of immediacy. 

Now you could look at this woman’s relationship history and make some supporting conclusions about her being quick to commit to things.  Jesus reveals it all: she’s had five husbands and is living with a man to whom she’s not married.  But there are some pretty valid historical-cultural reasons why she might have found herself in this situation – and reasons that were largely out of her control, because as a woman she was not a powerful person.  She needed protection, and she needed support.  Her dependency was a given, nothing that she could hide.  And that’s why this woman and other people who are quick to sign up for things, who are quick to say, “Give me this water,” can be so disturbing to us.  They’re emblematic of a basic fact about the human condition: we need.  We are dependent.  We’re creatures who won’t survive unless we have real water, unless we have food and shelter; but more than this, we’re creatures who won’t survive unless we have love, unless we can make meaning of our lives, unless we have purpose and relationships.  The Samaritan woman isn’t particularly fickle or promiscuous; neither is she particularly spiritually open or adept … she’s just particularly transparent; she’s very obviously looking for something; she’s frank in this whole exchange: “Yes.  Please.  I need a Messiah.”   

Which is the opposite of Jesus’ most recent conversation.  You may remember from last week the story of Nicodemus, a powerful person – a judge – living in a powerful place – Jerusalem – who came to Jesus by night and exhibited a sort of caution and confusion in speaking with him that’s so endearing, because it’s how a lot of us feel a lot of the time when it comes to Jesus.  Nicodemus is a responsible person, a newspaper reader, a taxpayer, who isn’t going to join Jesus’ ragtag band of disciples without some serious probing into this whole Messiah thing.  He stands to lose a lot if his friends and neighbors see him with Jesus (which is why he comes at night) and he can’t seem to get his brain around the things that Jesus says anyway: “How can I be born again?” is his famous question.  Nicodemus jumps to the same conclusion as the Samaritan woman, taking Jesus’ words solely at face value.  But his response is totally different.  Nicodemus puts his hand to his chin and mulls over this idea of being born again, while the Samaritan woman holds out her hand, and demands, “Give me the water.”

Whether he should take it literally or not, being born again is exactly the thing that Nicodemus needs.  He needs to be raw again, to see the world with brand new eyes.  He needs to be viscerally aware of what being a creature requires, and how fundamentally dependent he really is.  Instead, Nicodemus is in the same situation most of us end up in:   he’s been able to cover up his dependency with a sense of self-sufficiency.  Because his basic needs have been met, he’s been able to cover up his basic human neediness with responsibility, with mature adulthood, with obligations and allegiances.  He’s built a respectable and comfortable life, he’s become a good person, and he’s scooted far, far back from “the edge,” that place of precariousness and marginality where people do make quick decisions about their lives, and do act with a sort of stunning immediacy and urgency, and are aware of needing help and needing comfort, and needing salvation.  It’s a place that’s really hard for us to get to when we’re safe and healthy, and when things are going well.  But it’s where we end up when things go wrong – it’s where some people spend their whole lives – and it’s this edge that is the place of prayer, where we cry out for Jesus because we sense, suddenly, that we need him.  Because we know, desperately, that we can’t make it on our own.  And because we remember, without a doubt, that we are dust. 

Jesus has been walking the edge this whole Lenten season.  When he’s alone in the desert facing temptation; when he goes, today, to the center of an unfamiliar village and shoots straight with a Samaritan woman; and in the center of power, Jerusalem, with a powerful man, Nicodemus, it’s this edge that Jesus is trying to draw out of him, to make Nicodemus feel the sharpness, the immediacy, the urgency of his human need so that he can receive the gift of grace for the real gift that it is.  So that he can find the meaning, purpose, love, and peace that we all long for in Jesus – in this water that Jesus offers, the water of rebirth, the water of new life, the wellspring that each one of us carries within him or her whose source is Christ, alive in you and in me. 

The Samaritan woman and Nicodemus reflect us back to ourselves, and Jesus has a stake in all of it: our unvarnished, creaturely selves and the polished, self-sufficient selves we sometimes become.  What he really wants, though, are our true selves - or, rather, he knows who we truly are and wants us to discover the truth about ourselves, too … for that is where he lives.  And that is where we will find him. 

Sermon preached by the Rev. Danielle Thompson at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL on Sunday, March 27 at 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM. 

Looking ahead to the Second Sunday in Lent: John 3:1-17

 Our Gospel this coming Sunday (John 3:1-17) is the first of three stories of encounters people had with Jesus. 

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 

Someone who was a leader of the Jewish people, a prominent citizen, a member of the Pharisees who were a source of much of the criticism of Jesus. Interestingly, this would be the description much later of Saul of Tarsus, who became known as St. Paul.

He came to Jesus by night 

Which has the distinct implication that he did not want to be seen coming to Jesus.  

and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." 

Nicodemus makes a nice compliment, leading us to think he had seen and heard Jesus before. Note the emphasis on the word “signs” – “these signs that you do” – which is the word the writer of John uses for the extraordinary actions or miracles Jesus did. Nicodemus compliments Jesus, I think quite sincerely. But Jesus turns the discussion back to Nicodemus, and what he has seen.   


Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." 

Jesus places a very great emphasis on the Spirit – the Spirit will also be a theme in his encounter with the woman of Samaria. “Spirit” – the Holy Spirit – is the name for God who is present with us and within us, unseen, like the air we breathe.

We need to be born of water (perhaps a reference to Baptism) and Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us see who Jesus is, what he has done, what his story means to us. The Holy Spirit gives us the love of Jesus to give – to God in prayer and worship, and to others in loving service. The Holy Spirit gives us the strength and wisdom and courage to love, to see how to love.


Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?


"Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” 

Now Jesus turns to the story of Moses in the Book of Exodus, to a scene where Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Just so Jesus must be lifted up – and here I think there is a play on the image, for Jesus will be lifted up on the cross, where we will see his love for everyone human being fully and completely given. He will be lifted up in the resurrection from the dead and exalted to glory at the Father’s right hand. There is the double meaning of “lifted up.”  


“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”


Then come the great words Martin Luther called “the gospel in miniature.” If you see someone holding up a sign at Wrigley Field saying “John 3:16” this is what they are referring to!!!

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

God so loved the world, the whole world, all the people in the world, everyone one – that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him – trusts in his love – may have life.

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

 A WORD ABOUT OUR FIRST READING

 

Our first and second readings are tied together in an important way, and I should offer some notes about them as well.

Our first reading is from Genesis 12:1-4a.

In the Book of Genesis, Abraham and his wife Sarah were the first people to believe in God. Abraham’s original name was Abram, and Sarah’s was Sarai. Their new names were a sign of their new faith in God.

God sent Abraham to live in the new land. God promises Abraham and Sarah that a great nation will descend from them. Both the Jewish people. And also everyone who believes in God.   

The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

A WORD ABOUT THE SECOND READING 

 

Our second reading is from the Letter of Paul to the Romans 4:1-5, 13-17.

In this passage from his Letter to the Romans, Paul takes a verse from the story of Abraham in the Book of Genesis, to be at the center of his theology in this letter.

“Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” As noted above, in the unfolding story of Genesis, Abraham and his wife Sarah are the first people to believe in God. Belief meant acceptance of faith that God truly existed, and it also meant trust in God – trust in God’s mercy and loving kindness. 

 

Paul takes this verse to mean, that Abraham was put right with God not by being perfect, but by his faith in God. Our righteousness is not based on our works, but on our faith – our own trust in God’s mercy and loving kindness. 

 

What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

This is a very great passage: that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, who Paul goes on to define as those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations").

Pope Pius XI, who died in 1939, is said to have told a group of Belgian pilgrims, We are all Semites – a courageous statement in the face of the anti-Semitism of the late 1930s. That statement is rooted in the words of Paul today. 

(Raymond Webster)

The Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

Sermon preached on the First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19;
Matthew 4:1-11

Weakness isn’t all bad.  Weakness can be perfectly innocent, like a newborn baby or ripe fruit.  It can mean delicate, or soft.  But something that is soft gives.  When you press it, it succumbs; it’s malleable and manageable.  It can be manipulated, literally handled.  When we’re talking about character, not babies and fruit, weakness isn’t so appealing, is it?  At its most basic, to be weak means to be affected, to be tossed around like a tennis ball.  Which isn’t a quality most of us wish to embody.  None of us want to be worked on.  None of us want our softness, the places where we give, to be exposed or exploited.  That’s why we can’t stand temptation.  Temptation is a loaded truck driving across a warped bridge.  It’s a china teacup in a sink full of pots and pans.  Temptation is a banana in the bottom of a backpack – an irresistible force honing in on just that part of you that is vulnerable and soft. 

And it’s everywhere.  Temptation is one of the great experiences all people have in common.  It depends on our weaknesses for its strength, it feeds on the places where we are vulnerable and soft.  But its ultimate objective is our commitments.  Temptation calls into question the good decisions we’ve made, the things we’ve committed ourselves to.  When your dog eats anything and everything you set before him, he’s not giving in to temptation, because he never decided to take heart health seriously.  But when you tell your neighbor that thing about the other neighbor that you promised you’d keep secret?  Temptation.  No doubt about it.  Because you committed to being trustworthy.  And as long as you do commit to things, and make promises, and decide for one thing over another, you will always be tempted.  It won’t go away.  You can be aware of yourself, resolve to be strong where you are weak, you can get really good at resisting temptation, but as long as we’re human, and we live here, we’re in it for the long haul. 

The same inevitability of temptation is there for Jesus, too.  Today Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil – the Gospel suggests that this was his whole reason for being there.  And there are a couple of important things to hear echoing around in there.  First, Matthew, who told this story, is always presenting Jesus like a new Moses.  So just as Moses and the Israelites struggled in the desert, and formed their identity in the desert, so will Jesus.  But there’s something more elemental here that we’re supposed to get, something that was an earth-shattering idea for early Christians.  Jesus is more than a new Moses – he’s a new Adam.  Think about it: Adam was with the devil, was tempted, and gave in.  And when he gave in, all of humanity gave in with him, forever and ever and ever.  If Jesus can go through the same thing – go into the wilderness, be tempted by the devil, and stay strong?  Well then maybe he can save us.  If we all attach to Adam and die, maybe we can attach to Jesus and live.  Because he has suffered – he passed through – the same things that we do.

Here’s the tricky part, though.  Does Jesus really have the same experience that we do here?  We pray all the time in Lent that he was tempted like us, but without sin.  When we hear this story, though, it doesn’t sound like normal human temptation.  I’ve never been tempted to perform a miracle, or summon angels, or take over the world.  Even if we could distill Jesus’ temptations down to more relatable things, food, favors, power … they’re still so remarkably cosmic, so out of our league.  In the end, it seems, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness isn’t really a story about us.  It’s a story about him, and who he was committed to being for us.

Remember, to have temptation, you’ve got to have a commitment, something that you’ve decided to do or be that you are tempted to turn from.  Jesus was committed to his mission, the work he came to do.  And the temptations themselves are his chance to prove that commitment, to present all of his soft places, all of his possibilities for giving in before he set out to do his work.  First, the bread.  Jesus is tempted to turn lots of rocks into lots of bread – not for himself, but for hungry people.    Jesus, who will end his life humiliated, is given the chance to be the people’s hero.  And he stays committed to his mission. What about power?  Plenty of people were expecting Jesus to stage a political revolution, to inaugurate a literal kingdom.  Jesus, who was put to death by an Empire, is given the chance to rule the world.  But he stays committed to his mission.  The worst one of all, to me, is the one about jumping off the temple, and being rescued by angels.  Because you can hear in it foreshadowing of the cross, and you can imagine how afraid he must have been, and how much he must have wanted that help, to escape the event that we’ve all got in the back of our minds as we begin Lent, knowing that Good Friday is coming.  Jesus, who will die a physical death, is given the chance to live.  He stays committed to his mission. 

The tempter, of course, is presenting him with supernatural options: miracles, angels, the kingdoms of the world.  But were Jesus to choose any of them, he wouldn’t end up being a supernatural Messiah – he would end up being a weak, soft human.  He would be a guy whose success depended on handouts and popularity; he’d be a dictator who would rely on force and violence to maintain the status quo; he’d be a refugee, free from death and danger, but running from the work he set out to do for all of us.  Instead, he refuses the supernatural options and chooses, in fact, the only option that’s open to us, too: he remains faithful.  He trusts in God.  Again, he chooses his mission because that’s what we are: we are his mission.  Being like us, being human, being our new Adam, is who Jesus is.  He is Jesus not for himself, but for us.  When he goes to be tempted, he takes us with him into the wilderness and he doesn’t give us up.  Because he is like us, because he’s human, he has places that give, but he doesn’t give in.  And when he makes it through, we all make it through.  When he emerges, strong, we all come out, strong. 

And we all come out with a mission.  Our soft places are still there, we’re still vulnerable, but we’ve been handed a commitment that is bigger than anything else.  We get to show the world what love looks like, we get to show the world what forgiveness means.  We can go through the rest of our lives never giving up hope that our weakness will be made strong, and that like those newborns, little by little we’ll be able to hold our necks straight, and stand up, and walk. Jesus didn’t give us up in the wilderness, and won’t be giving up on us anytime soon.   

Sermon preached  by the Rev. Danielle Thompson at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL on Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 8:00am and 11:00am. 

Looking ahead to the First Sunday in Lent: Matthew 4:1-11

There are plenty of hot-button issues to keep us busy in this upcoming week’s Gospel reading.  Matthew 4:1-11 is the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness.  When I think of all there is to deal with in this passage, I imagine one of those carnival games where another gopher’s head pops up just as you’ve punched one down with your mallet.  “The Devil!”  “Sin!” “Temptation!” 

In the version of Matthew that I read (NRSV), the devil is described alternately as “the tempter,” “the devil,” and “Satan.”  The Hebrew idea that lies at the heart of each of these titles is of a figure called ha-satan, which means “the accuser.”  The Accuser’s most famous appearance is in Job 1-2, where he (for lack of a better pronoun) is depicted as a member of the heavenly court who challenges human beings in order to test their faith.  Ha-satan is unlike our modern notion of the devil in that he is one of God’s councilors, and his duties are something we can’t imagine God condoning. 

We’re getting pretty close to opening up a can of worms here, which is a hard thing to undertake in a context like this one.  On a blog, we can’t share questions and reflections as we work our way through a theological problem - not ideal.  It might be helpful, then, to point to just two things about ha-satan to help spark some thoughts about the figure of devil in Matthew 4.   

First, even though it’s hard to understand why a member of the heavenly court would be allowed to run around making life difficult for human beings, notice that nobody imputed this sort of activity to God.  In the story of Job, God was ultimately responsible for human well-being, but was not by nature one to test or tempt.

Second, there is something really effective about evil being personified as it is in Satan.  “The Devil” shows us that sin is bigger than any one of our individual failings, yet we experience it as individuals (personally).  The figure of the devil shows us that sin has a power all its own that one person alone isn’t strong enough to tackle.  We may use the terms “structural evil” or “systemic evil” to describe this bigger idea of sin, but my own understanding of “original sin” falls pretty much in line with it.  Finally, the devil can influence a person, can engage a person intimately, and can be worshiped (as he suggests to Jesus in verse 9).  The figure of the devil is objectifiable and personal, but the devil is not a person.  Jesus is, however – and he reveals himself to be very human in this passage of Scripture.  

(Danielle Thompson)