Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

““Feasting and Bathing” in After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar)

Prayer of Thanksgiving (Nag Hammadi)

We give thanks to you, every life and heart stretches toward you,
O name untroubled, honored with the name of God, praised with the name of Father.
To everyone and everything, comes the kindness of the Father, and love and desire.
And if there is sweet and simple teaching, it gives us mind, word, and knowledge;
mind that we may understand you;
word that we may interpret you;
knowledge that we may know you.
We rejoice and are enlightened by your knowledge.
We rejoice that you have taught us about yourself.
We rejoice that in the body you have made us divine through your knowledge.
The thanksgiving of the human who reaches you is this alone: that we know you.
We have known you, O light of mind. O light of life, we have known you.
O womb of all that grows, we have known you.
O womb pregnant with the nature of the Father, we have known you.
O never-ending endurance of the Father who gives birth, so we worship your goodness.
One wish we ask: we wish to be protected in knowledge.
One protection we desire: that we not stumble in this life.

This week’s chapter from After Jesus: Before Christianity is entitled “Feasting and Bathing.”  It’s about banquets and public baths. It’s in our study of the first two centuries because Jesus followers did those two things (among others) – they enjoyed great meals and they bathed together.  In Christian tradition those two things became Holy Communion and Baptism, but they started out as two great ways to spend time together with people who cared about the same things you cared about.

Last week we talked some about the amazing meals Jesus followers and their neighbors in the first century enjoyed.  They took hours.  There was lots of food and wine.  They were relatively small groups because everyone reclined to eat and couches take up lots of space.  You don’t invite thirty friends to recline in your living room.  These small groups of friends talked about everything that was going on in their lives and in the world around them.  And if they were followers of Jesus, they talked about how his teachings made life better for everyone.

Our scripture lesson this week is a prayer found with other previously unknown Christian writings at Nag Hamadi in Egypt in the 1940’s.  Imagine it being read as a meal prayer – a custom many families and most church groups still practice.  It’s a prayer full of rich images and big ideas.  It sets the stage for great food and even greater conversation.  It invites God to be part of what’s going to happen next.  It invites God to expand the minds and hearts of those who are about to spend hours talking about what God is doing in the midst of their lives.  What a great beginning to an amazing time together!

One of the amazing architectural accomplishments of ancient Rome is the system of aqueducts that brought large quantities of water into their cities.  I always thought they had big cities so they needed lots of drinking water.  Actually, they needed lots of water so they could take baths at the hundreds of public bathhouses that were everywhere, even in the smaller towns.  People took baths because it was a way to connect with extended family and with neighbors.  Bathing provided the same kind of business connection that golf has played in our time.  It was like a big public party.  Bathing served multiple purposes.  It got people clean from their work or the heat of the day.  It provided time to unwind and process what was happening in life – like a long leisurely bath, only with friends.  And bathing provided a ritual for making new beginnings.  If you want to celebrate getting clean and sober, you invite your friends to bathe with you.  If you want to stop cheating your boss and become an honest worker, you invite your friends to bathe with you.  If you want to make a spiritual commitment to a new idea or philosophy, you invite your friends to bathe with you.  If you want to set aside the violence and self-aggrandizement of Rome, you invite your friends to bathe with you.

Consider bathing in the story of John, whom we call the Baptizer but Westar calls “the bather.”  John is challenging both the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman occupiers to live in a way more aligned with his understanding of Israel’s God.  He asks them to be honest, nonviolent, compassionate and more.  He’s preaching about turning life away from the prevailing understanding of Rome to what became Jesus’ vision of life – justice, merciful, lifting the burdens of those who are poor.  As people sign on to his alternative vision for life, he invites them to bathe as a sign of washing off the past and getting ready for something new.  And he does that, not in the beautiful new Roman bath built right along side the Temple in Jerusalem, but in the open air in the waters of the Jordan River.  Those who bathed with John were rejecting Roman values AND rejecting the normal Roman place of bathing.  They were claiming their lives in new ways in their own river.  It was a double act of defiance.

We know that the early Jesus people bathed together because everyone bathed together.  When they did so, they remembered that Jesus bathed with John and signed on to his movement to live differently than was the custom of their day.  When they gathered they washed away the day’s contact with Roman commerce, with Roman soldiers in the streets, with Roman violence and division.  They gathered as family, as rich and poor, slave and free, even men and women and adapted the custom of their time to a way to reinforce what they believed to be pure and holy – a new way of life.

So how did feasting and bathing become Holy Communion and Baptism?  Over several hundred years social customs change.  Reclining in small groups to eat becomes sitting at tables.  Large public baths become less popular.  The groups of Jesus followers in some places became larger.  It was hard to fit everyone into a home or bathing room.  So they adapted.  They gathered in a large group for singing and prayers and ate a little bit of food, remembering that they would feast in small groups later.  They stopped bathing together but continued to wash new members in water as a sign of a new beginning.  Over time the practice changes until we no longer remember its roots, but we remember its root meaning.  At the table in our sanctuary we still feast with Jesus.  At the font we still wash new members and claim a new way of living.

These two practices we call sacraments are still rich and powerful in their meaning for us.  We don’t need to replace them with banquets or group water aerobics.  But we can expand their meaning even more by learning their roots and adding our ancestors experience to our own.  And we can consider what we have lost over time that may still be important to recover.

One aspect of the earlier practices is the sense of community which came from spending long time together.  It’s not just that they ate lengthy meals, but that they talked about Jesus and his teachings; they discussed how to put his values into practice in daily life.  All that conversation must have been rich.  We know that sometimes they disagreed in their conclusions.  Disagreements can bring clarity and a better way forward.  We have those conversations with friends and family, but we don’t often have them as church.  We come together on Sunday morning and say what’s printed in the bulletin and listen to the pastor say what life is supposed to mean, rather than wrestling out meaning together.  I suspect that the most important parts of our service are light signs when you talk (not me) and prayer concerns, when we say what’s on our minds and hearts.  The best part of our gathering may be coffee hour, when we talk about what’s happening in our lives.

We’re reading this book together, partly because the information is interesting historically.  We’re also looking, I hope, for clues about how people followed Jesus in the beginning that might inform how we follow today.  Today’s chapter helps us ask, “Where do our lives intersect in significant ways?  When do we ask important questions, even questions without obvious answers?  How do we spend quality time together?”  Even more important, how does being part of this church help us follow the vision of Jesus in our world?

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

1 Corinthians 11:17-33

“Join the Club” After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar)

Last week we learned that some of the groups who followed Jesus in the first and second centuries thought of themselves as families.  They could be actual families – all the people associated with a household in the Empire, or they could be created families – groups of people who adopted each other.  Perhaps they had lost their natural families because of illness or enslavement.  Or they never had a family and found each other.  Or they left their original families and connected instead with a new family of Jesus people.  At any rate, these variations on family challenged the stability of the Empire and pushed the boundaries of what family could mean in ways that many Christians are unwilling to do today.  When we challenge traditional family to expand the possibilities of loving relationships and caring connection, we’re firmly in the earliest tradition of Jesus followers.

Today we’re going to learn about associations or clubs of Jesus followers.  Unlike last week when the groups of followers pushed boundaries of social norms, associations were well within the customs of the Empire.  Anybody and everybody could belong to an association.  There was nothing unusual about them.  So that means the earliest Jesus followers sometimes broke social norms and sometimes followed them to their own advantage.  Once again, diversity is the key.

Much of what we know about these common associations we know from their bylaws.  These have been preserved for us because they were literally “set in stone.”  They were inscribed on stone chunks or pillars and set up in the meeting places for everyone to see.  Not much written history exists about these groups because they were common, and those things which are every-day rarely get written into histories, which recount momentous or unusual events.  But because these inscriptions were on stone, archaeologists have uncovered some of them so they can be studied.

These groups went by a variety of names:  collegium, koinonia, synods, synergasia, synagogue.  We recognize those names in our words for groups or gatherings.  They commonly gathered for meals, sometimes for singing or dancing, or for discussion of ideas they valued.  There were dues for these groups and often the group would provide a funeral and burial for members who otherwise wouldn’t have those services.  Some groups were for only men or women and others were mixed.  Jesus followers who formed an association would hardly be noticed in their communities because they were doing what many people did.

The rules each association followed would have been drafted and voted on by the group and then enforced by leaders and by bouncers, which some called “horses.”  Many called for orderly conduct in gatherings.  The association which honored Bacchus by drinking wine had strict rules about not fighting when inebriated, and the horses could evict those who violated the rules.  They would have to pay a fine of good wine for the next meeting to be reinstated.

Our scripture lesson today is quite likely Paul’s rules for the association in Corinth concerning common meals.  Many associations which honored a particular god or leader would understand their gathered dinners as hosted by that god or leader.  So Jesus is the host of the meal when his association gathers.  Because of that, they should conduct this meal in a way that honors Jesus and builds up the community.  They should share the food equally and refrain from drunkenness or gluttony.  They should remember Jesus breaking bread during his lifetime and remember how his body was broken through crucifixion when bread is broken among them.  They should not abuse the wine but instead solemnly remember that Jesus bled for them whenever they share a cup.  In the custom of the time, these meals would have been lengthy affairs with participants reclining on couches around the room.  From time to time servants would have gathered the scraps people had dropped and let the dogs into the room to gobble them up and clean the floor.  There would have been plenty of time for conversation and for remembering the teachings of Jesus.  He would have been understood as present in their gatherings, and Paul wants folks to be respectful of that reality.

Another familiar passage that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth is 1 Corinthians 13, which we know as the “love chapter” and often read at weddings.  Originally it wasn’t about marital love (since marriages were arranged and not based on love), but was a set of guidelines for an association.  A group which is going to get along, build each other up, learn about Jesus and honor him, should have love and respect for one another.  They should be kind, gracious and forgiving.  They should set aside jealousy or boastfulness.  They should refrain from being rude.  All of these are good guidelines for a group which wants to be together over time and prosper.

Of all the many ways of being a Jesus-following group, the association may come closest to looking like what we know as church today – at least our small church which is a gathering of friends for our mutual benefit and to honor Jesus.  So it benefits us to think about what we would inscribe on our stone as guidelines for our association.

At our last council meeting we began again to think about how we could include more people in our church and grow.  How can we invite friends to come be a part of who we are and what we are doing?  We need to start by being clear about who we are and what we do.  What matters most to us?  What are the written and unwritten rules about how we do things?  How do those rules change when they need to?  (a good reason to write on paper and not actual stone)  What do we say “yes” to when opportunities come our way?  What do we say “no” about?  How do we decide?  What does it mean to be Family of God in this time and place?

Those are big, important questions. They deserve some time and solid reflection.  If we answer too quickly or too easily we may miss something important.  But in the life of this congregation, it’s time for us to have the conversations we need to find our answers.  The answers of these people in this time and place.  We’re reading this book this summer because it’s good to know how followers of Jesus started out.  It’s good to know where we are as followers of Jesus in this time.  Those are the foundation stones of our future, which we get to create together.  Which we align with our understanding of Jesus – who he is and who he is becoming – as we live him into our moment in time.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 12:46-50

“Experimental Families,” After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar)

When we think of family, we often picture two people who have chosen to connect because they love each other and their biological or adopted children.  In the nifty fifties when I was growing up, that was almost always a married man and woman (mom and dad) and their children (statistically 2 ½ of them).  Families don’t often look like that anymore.   Grandson Colin and I were having a conversation the other day in which I was trying to explain to him what it means to be “related” to him.  His parents and siblings are “related” to him because they are his family.  And so are his three grandmas and his grandpa.  Then he wanted to count his aunts and uncles – which is a more complicated enterprise given the marriages and divorces and the fact that when you get to the second generation he’s never met some of those people.    It gets even more complicated when we factor in the people he calls “uncle” or “auntie” who aren’t technically related but very important to him.  He explained that to me by saying they are like “Pat and Denny” who are his grandparents but not related to him.  And that was settled.

Given our mobile society, the way families spread across the county today, it makes perfect sense to us that children would have family members who aren’t related to them.  When our biological families aren’t near, we create family where we are and “adopt” people of all ages to connect with and celebrate good times with.  We hear today’s scripture through that lens and it makes perfect sense to us when Jesus says that his students have become his family because of the time they are spending together and the values they share.  In the first century his statement was shocking and impossible.

First century families were led by the paterfamilias, the head of household (father of the family).  This was always the oldest male.  And the family consisted of the people he owned:  his slaves or indentured servants, his wife (who had been purchased from her father) and his children.  All of these people lived and worked under the command of the household head, and because they all obeyed him, things ran smoothly.  He ran the family business, he sacrificed to the family gods (whom he inherited from his father), he made all the decisions about who lived and who died.  The empire ran smoothly because its households ran smoothly and above them all is the greatest householder – the Emperor, who owns the empire and all its peoples.

Because family IS the fabric of the Empire, it’s a reality that impacts everything about the first followers of Jesus.  It has a unifying effect – when the head of household becomes a follower of the Anointed, the household becomes followers of the Anointed.  The New Testament is filled with references of groups (we call them churches) who meet in households – Chloe’s, Lydia’s, Aquilla and Pisca’s, Philemon’s, and more.  The group is absorbed into the milieu of household.  

Sometimes, on the other hand, the Jesus followers have a disruptive effect.  Today’s scripture about Jesus choosing his own household fits that category.  The male followers who leave home to be with Jesus disrupt their families and the family businesses.  The female followers would have had an even more disruptive impact on their families.  Runaway slaves who joined Jesus groups and freed slaves who formed groups and became family were a disruption.  We’ve talked about Thecla, who was a woman who refused to marry so that she could work with the apostle Paul – very disruptive.

Even more  disruptive is the idea that God is the father of these groups which function like families.  Jesus – a human male – isn’t the father.  He defers to God as the lead.  But unlike human fathers who are loyal to the emperor, God is at least equal to the emperor.  To say that the family’s or the group’s allegiance is to God is treason.  In Empire, that’s the greatest disruption of all.

There’s another important way that Jesus’ story is disruptive of family and that’s found in the genealogy of his ancestors in Matthew’s gospel.  Matthew traces Jesus’ line from Abraham through David to Joseph, naming the male head of each generation.  But five times he also names the women involved:

Tamar – wife of Judah’s son Er and also mother of 2 of Judah’s sons
Rahab – prostitute in Jericho who was the great-great-grandmother of David
Ruth – David’s great-grandmother who became the wife of Boaz, her husband’s distant cousin
Bathsheba – whom David stole from Uriah who became Solomon’s mother
Mary – mother of Jesus

Each one of these women were in danger for their lives because they lived in a patriarchal society.  Each one found herself in a compromised position because of pregnancy (or lack of it) and used her ingenuity to survive.  In most cases she tricked the head of household into caring for her and her children.  The way Matthew puts it, not only is the Jesus movement subversive, his entire ancestry has been subversive of the householder’s power.

Some Christians today (like Focus on the Family for instance) insist that the Roman model is God’s ideal and the church should support patriarchal families alone.  Fathers should be in charge, mothers should be obedient and raise obedient children.  (Technically they say God is in charge of fathers, but it’s interesting that God always seems to be on the side of what the fathers want to do.)  The first century followers of Jesus were already shaking up this model.  They were treating all people as equals within their groups (at least sometimes).  They were affirming those who didn’t marry.  They were adopting folks who needed connection.  They were breaking all the rules. 

It seems to me that when God is the head and God is love, then people are always more important than rules.  That’s what we’re holding up as true here at Family of God.  Love is what creates family.  Because of our culture, we feel like we’re doing something new when we celebrate diversity in families – traditional models; single folks; same gender couples; biological, adopted and foster kids; non-related aunties and uncles and grandparents; sons that become daughters and daughters who become sons.  Some of it’s disruptive – which makes us much closer to the first century reality than anything that’s been connected to Christianity in our time.

In the first century family/household was about structure and control.  The people who followed Jesus were about his values.  In the twenty-first century we stand for families shaped by those values.  We’re willing to give up control to allow love and life to flourish.  So families are groups of people who love each other.  They focus on support and encouragement and joy.  They make sure everyone thrives and life is meaningful.  They can be folks who live together or folks who worship together or folks who just hang out together.  Family is a word that describes us as connected by God for the benefit of everyone.  Family of God.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Philippians 3:2-11

“Belonging to Israel” in After Jesus: Before Christianity  (Westar)

We think of the apostle Paul as one of the most influential early Christians.  Paul thought of himself as an Israelite, a Hebrew, or a Judean – all ways to describe people connected to southern Israel in the first century.  Interestingly, although he was also a Roman citizen, he doesn’t call himself Roman.  He was from Tarsus, a city now in Turkey.  But because of his Judean heritage, he identifies with what we call “the Jews.”

Paul also identifies as a follower of Jesus, “the anointed” or “the Christ.”  In fact, he writes in the passage we read today that his most important identification is as a follower of Jesus.  In Paul’s day it was absolutely possible to be both.  Jesus was also an Israelite who believed in Israel’s God.  His mission was about a better way to connect with that God.  He wasn’t interested in starting a new religion, “Christianity.”  He was trying to get people to understand Israel’s religion in a more profound, life-changing way.  Those who signed on to his mission and became his followers were attracted by his life-changing teachings.

We keep reminding ourselves that the first century was a time of Roman conquest and rule.  Rome was becoming a great Empire by wiping out neighboring nations, as far north as the British Isles, as far east as Syria and Iraq, as far south as Egypt and northern Africa, as far west as Spain and Portugal. When each of those people were defeated they didn’t become Romans, they became subhuman – with no identity.  So one of the most important questions of the century was “who am I? who are my people?”  

Jesus had been an Israelite.  So people who signed on to the Jesus people found it easy to identify as an Israelite.  We call them “Jews” and think of them as a religion.  They called themselves “Judeans” or “Israelites” and thought of themselves as a nation, a people.  Yes, there was the God of Israel whom some of them worshiped, but every nation had a God.  You worshiped the god of the place you identified with.  It wasn’t about belief.  It was about origin and ethnicity.  It was about place and belonging.

Paul invited all the various Jesus clubs he connected with in the Empire to not only accept the teachings of Jesus but also to become part of his nationality – Israel.  It was a welcoming place to belong.  It was also a natural step for Israel because for centuries it had a vision of drawing all nations to itself and its god.  For a country so often defeated and of relatively little significance (except for its geographical position on many trade routes), it had a grand vision of itself as the people and the God which would attract all others.  And there again Israel is at odds with Empire.  It’s Empire that’s uniting all people, not the conquered Israel.  There’s audacity in the invitation to all people to unite as Israelites and follow the crucified hero, Jesus.

This vision of Israel, embraced by Jesus groups, was also a natural because Israelites or Judeans were already spread across the Empire.  They had traveled because of commerce or previous wars to virtually every major city.  They were and Empire-wide presence, so being   connected to them carried some weight, if not official significance.  The fact that Paul encouraged those who became part of the Jesus movement to also worship Jesus’ God, Israel’s God, was also unifying.  You may be originally from some place far from Israel, but if you adopted the worship of Israel’s God, you could be “in” with the others who shared that God.

The Jesus followers weren’t the only clubs turning to religion for identity in an Empire trying to erase identity.  Some turned to Isis and Osiris, gods from Egypt, for signs of hope.  Stories told of Isis finding a dismembered Osiris and putting his body back together, bringing him new life.  Others reinvigorated the worship of Eleusis and Dionysos with similar stories.  Stories of Jesus, who died and rose to life again, were equally attractive.  When all you’ve ever known has died, the promise of new life gives you hope.

There are other reasons first century folks found Israel and her God attractive.  One is the claim that there is only one god – ours.  Before small nations each had their own small god taking care of local business.  But first century Rome is a global enterprise.  Rome is uniting all nations under its umbrella.  It begins to make sense that one god would unify the Empire.  It takes a bigger, mightier god to represent a bigger, mightier world.  In addition, Israel’s god required things like goodness, compassion, mercy and justice.  The Empire worshiped the Emperor who rarely had any of these qualities.  The idea of one God creating good for the benefit of all people had mass appeal.  And third, people were becoming familiar with some of the holy writings which eventually became the Hebrew Bible.  These said interesting things like “welcome the stranger”, “feed the hungry” and “God is good.”  People began to see Israel’s literature as holding wisdom for everyone and describing a better way of living.

These are the same themes that Jesus has lifted up in his teaching.  So the Jesus followers are emphasizing the same life-affirming teachings that are attracting people to Judaism in their day.  There’s a convergence that supports what’s happening in the small groups who are meeting to try to live a more kind and whole life in the midst of violence and chaos.  Far from differentiating themselves from Israel, Jesus followers embrace those things Jesus valued about Israel’s God.  Certainly there was tension with Jewish leaders who didn’t follow Jesus or see his critique of their religion as positive.  But perhaps longer than we’ve imagined the two strands of practice – Jesus followers or not – remained interwoven.  Following Jesus was a way of being Jewish and claiming the identity of the long history of Israel and the unique teachings of her God.

Here's one possible learning we can gather from this journey through the first century:  rather than focusing on how different we are from the Jews of our time, we might learn more about what we have in common.  What are the teachings of Judaism which Jesus most valued?  What are the ideals he dreamed of expanding?  How does his identity as a Jew enrich our heritage as followers of Jesus?  Welcoming all people, embracing the stranger, feeding the hungry, practicing kindness and mercy, standing for justice – these aren’t just Christian themes but resonate through the long development of Judaism.  It’s possible that they do more to hold us together than those things which pull us apart.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Gospel of Mary (selected passages)

Testing Gender, Testing Boundaries and Forming New Identities through Gender from After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar Institute)

This week we’re tackling two chapters in our reading of After Jesus: Before Christianity because they are closely related.  I must admit that I feel like I’m writing a book report about a book that’s over my head!  We’re going to look at the understanding of gender in the first century and the communities who followed Jesus and that means laying aside layers of assumptions that we have in the 21st century about gender – because they simply don’t apply to the first century.

Let’s start with the fact that gender, like race, is a social construct.  I’m learning that means that differences (or similarities) that we apply to one race or another aren’t inherent in skin color or facial features.  Physically, race doesn’t make one person different from another.  It has no influence on mental ability or physical strength.  It doesn’t impact how a person functions in life – until culture and society assign meaning to racial differences and tell us they matter.  All races have equal ability but not equal opportunity.  It’s the story we tell about racial differences that creates inequality, not inherent characteristics. 

In our lifetimes the stories we’ve told about gender have changed dramatically.  Many of us grew up in a time when particular careers weren’t open to women.  Thankfully, that is slowly changing.  Of course we understand male and female anatomy as different, but ability to accomplish important things in life isn’t primarily anatomical.  And so we are rethinking our understanding of gender roles and realizing they are mostly irrelevant.  We’re blurring boundaries and opening opportunities for people.  Interestingly, blurring boundaries is a recurring theme as we’re learning about the first century.

Oddly, in the first century the prevailing social assumption wasn’t that men and women were different genders, but that all gender was male.  There were those males correctly formed (whom we call men) and those males whose genitalia failed to properly fall outside their bodies but were instead internalized (whom we call women).  Women weren’t another gender from men, they were deformed men, and as such played a more private role than their more “perfect” counterparts.  The word for “man” specifically means “an adult male over twenty years old, married to a woman, free-born, not enslaved, a Roman citizen, engaged in military activity, and expressing virtues such as courage and honor.”  The culture didn’t separate physical characteristics from social roles.  In the same way the word “woman” doesn’t apply until someone has borne a child.  To be either man or woman requires participation in a traditional family, which is the framework of the Empire.  So long as they keep their proper “place” the Empire is stable.

However, within the Jesus communities people kept pushing boundaries and upsetting stability.  Last week we talked about those who died bravely within these communities – later called martyrs.  It’s a man’s role to die with courage as a soldier.  But those who were killed because of their faith included old feeble men, women and children.  Their courage made them equals with the Roman men, upsetting the way things were supposed to work. 

The apostle Paul is known for preferring that people in his communities remain unmarried, which also defied the stability of traditional families.  Women who refused to marry the men their fathers chose for them were especially upsetting of social norms.  The woman Thecla is honored as a student of Paul’s who refused marriage, was to be martyred in the arena but survived (when flesh-eating seals were struck by lightening and killed before they could eat her), and went on to be a teacher about Jesus for a long life-time.  

The role women played in first-century Jesus communities is uncertain.  Today’s scripture from the Gospel of Mary portrays Mary as a favorite of Jesus, receiving special teachings, and able to encourage the male disciples when their resolve fails and they want to give up.  Yet they also discount her teaching because she is a woman.  Paul’s letters are full of references to women who functioned as leaders in the church, yet letters under Paul’s name written in the second century tell women to be silent in the assembly and remain subservient to the men.  It seems that women were leaders in some communities and other groups refused a role to women.  As time passes, women’s roles became more restricted, mirroring society around them.  There’s more than one way for gender to function in early gatherings and it’s not possible for us to point to one right way.  It is clear that in some cases women pushed boundaries much farther than the contemporary church has been willing to acknowledge and were full participants in their communities of faith.

In the first century and the twenty-first century those who placed limitations on the role of those who weren’t men of traditional power have claimed that they were following God’s will.  The diversity of roles and ambiguity about practice from the first century make that impossible to support.  While we can’t say that women functioned from the beginning in the same way women do today, we can say that there’s no clear mandate that gives authority and leadership only to men.

So when the Southern Baptists prevent women as pastors in 2023 and expel churches with women leaders, they are responding out of their culture but not with a biblical mandate.  The Bible reports that some early folks would agree with them, but many would not.  The same is true for the Roman Catholic Church and others who exclude women.  

My grandson came home from church camp this week and told me that while God loves all people, the Bible tells us that it’s wrong to be gay.  After all, God made Adam and Eve male and female and that’s the way it is.  While I rarely interfere with my grandchildren’s education, this one earned him a “Well grandma knows more about the Bible that anyone at your church camp and they are wrong.”  This position takes isolated Bible passages out of context and uses them to reinforce a social position folks want to be right.  The Bible actually says even less about gender identity than about being female and what it says is far from this position.

While we’re learning much about the first century which makes it easier to understand what people were thinking and what their writings meant to them, most of that time remains a mystery to us.  We have to be careful not to read ancient texts with modern eyes.  They simply aren’t coming from the same place we are. The best we can do is acknowledge diversity in many different groups which followed Jesus.  We’re looking for clues from that diversity about how to follow Jesus.  But we’re not trying to replicate what they did.  Instead we understand the past so with God we can create our present and perhaps impact the future.  In the first century people made historically appropriate beginnings at expanding the boundaries of faith and reducing the limitations placed on people.  In the twenty-first century we hope to do more.  We can recognize that much of what people attribute to God’s will is really our social fears prompting us to hope that God will endorse what we are comfortable with.  Instead God keeps opening up new possibilities.  Some early followers of Jesus believed that God’s love broke down barriers and divisions, that in Jesus there is neither “male nor female, slave nor free.”  Those are the folks whose story encourages us today as we try to create a more just and loving world.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

4 Maccabees 16:16-25

“The Deaths of Heroes,” After Jesus: Before Christianity, (Westar)

Today we come to the end of the first part of our book After Jesus: Before Christianity, which we are “reading” this summer as a way of understanding how people who lived in Jesus’ time answered the question, “Who is this man and why does he matter?”  That’s a question we also ask and answer, so to hear from our ancient spiritual ancestors informs our journey.  The first part of the book has been putting Jesus into a historical context, teaching us what it was like to live when he lived.  More than anything we’ve learned that his world was violent – full of warfare and coercion to insure that Pax Romana made life easy for the elite few.  Today we look at a final thought about why this violence was so formative for those who followed Jesus, the tradition that heroes died a noble death.

We start with Socrates, who died 450 years earlier but was still revered as a hero of Greece.  Socrates taught the young men of Athens that democracy was a bad idea because the people as a whole couldn’t possibly make wise choices in the way that a few smart men could make them.  Since democracy was the new thing of his time, he was tried and convicted of “impiety against the gods of Athens and corrupting the youth of the city.”  Since he told his accusers that he wouldn’t stop until he died, they sentenced him to death.  He gathered his followers around him for a final meal, drank poison hemlock and died.

Socrates’ death was considered noble because he stood up to tyranny, to those who wanted to silence him, and he showed great self-control by facing his death without fear, a sign of his great character.  After Plato’s writings made Socrates’ death well-known, he was revered as a great role model by generations to follow.  His good name was preserved by his noble action.

The people of Israel, who were the core of Jesus’ followers, told other stories about faith heroes who died nobly.  Our scripture today tells a story from the time of the Maccabees, a family who led a revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes, who attacked Jerusalem in 168 BCE.  Everyone knew the story of the brave mother whose seven sons were captured in battle and one after the other were tortured to death while she watched.  Our scripture today records her words, encouraging each one in turn to die rather than to turn against their nation which God commanded.  Their resistance to a conqueror is loyalty to God and their history as a nation.  To die nobly is in itself an act of defiance and patriotism.

Finally in the first century people told stories of those who died nobly at the hand of the Empire to preserve the possibility of their nation rising again in the future.  So many nations were conquered and each one had many heroes from the battles they endured. They give their lives for the glory of their people and the hope of their rising again as a people.

When we look at the earliest reports of Jesus’ trial and death in the Gospels, we can see how those who heard the stories connected them to the tradition of noble death.  

First Jesus eats a last meal with his disciples.  He shares bread and wine and words of explanation and wisdom he wants them to remember.  He tells them that like the bread his body will be broken.  Crucifixion breaks a body in terrible ways.  He tells them that the wine poured out is a new covenant in his blood.  Every Roman meal ended with wine poured out as an offering to the Emperor.  To forget to pour the wine is like forgetting to sing the national anthem before a sporting event.  It’s scandalous.  But Jesus doesn’t pour the wine – a sign of defiance toward the one who will soon murder him.  And he tells people to remember and retell the story every time they eat.  For the next decades his followers end every meal remembering that Jesus spilled blood is their wine.  Every time they eat they multiply the defiance toward Roman control.  By remembering over and over how Jesus died they keep his heroic act alive.  He remains the hero.

Jesus’ death is like that of noble heroes because he is innocent.  His trial demonstrates his nobility, his fearlessness in the face of danger, and his thorough goodness.  He doesn’t deserve to die.  He is loyal to his truth, his teachings, his cause, and his God.  Rather than renounce what he has said in an attempt to save his life, he is silent before his accusers.  He’s steadfast and brave.  In some versions of the story the soldiers notice how bravely he dies and express their admiration.

Later explanations will amplify the meaning of Jesus’ death, but these early ones see him as the great hero, facing the power of Rome and standing up for both the people of Israel, his people, and for his teachings, which like Socrates he refuses to recant.  They remember his wise parting words.  They remember how strong he was at trial and in death.  They remember him at every meal, giving their offering of wine not to the Emperor but as a memorial to Jesus.  He gives them hope for a different kind of life than Rome imposes on them.  He is the one who died for their cause and for their new way of living into a better future.

As we try to understand how much this meant to them, we can think about who are the ones who die a hero’s death in our time.  Who would we name?

• The soldiers in Ukraine?

• Those who died protecting our own country? 

• Or in wars and prisons in other nations fighting for freedom?

• Emmet Till?  Martin Luther King Jr.?  

• George Floyd?  Trayvon Martin?  Breona Taylor? So many nameless others?

• Matthew Shepherd? 

• The victims of mass shootings? El Paso? Synagogues? Schools? Night clubs?

Before we finish this project, we’re going to see how Jesus started as a hero and came to represent much more.  But all that starts with seeing what he represented to oppressed peoples, living in constant danger, hoping for something more.  It helps us to consider who are the heroes who die for something bigger than themselves today.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:43-48

“Violence in Stone” from After Jesus: Before Christianity

Today’s chapter from After Jesus: Before Christianity focuses on the Arch of Titus, a tribute to the deceased emperor Titus, built by his brother, the new emperor Domitian in 81 CE.  It declares Titus to be a god, in the tradition of Roman deifying emperors, and it depicts the destruction of Israel/Judea and Jerusalem as one of Titus’ greatest works. 

Jerusalem and Judea were pawns in a struggle for power.  They had briefly freed themselves from Rome in 66 CE and spent four years while the general Vespasian played with re-conquering them, waiting for the time to be right to cement a victory and claim the right to be emperor.  Titus finished the job for his father.  Near the end it’s estimated that Romans crucified 500 people a day, trying to intimidate the holdouts in Jerusalem to surrender. Perhaps a million people died in the four-year war and 20,000 were enslaved. When the army finally broke through the walls, the Temple was set ablaze and utterly destroyed.  Historians debate whether that was intentional or accidental, but it was still devastating.  For the first time in Roman military history, the Temple of the conquered was left in ruins, rather than being rebuilt.  In fact Jerusalem was left uninhabited until Hadrian built a Roman city on the ruins fifty years later.  But the riches of the Temple and Jerusalem were carried to Rome (a scene depicted on the Arch) and financed the building of the coliseum.  Jewish slaves quarried the stone for that gift to the Roman people.  

In the thick of all this destruction the followers of Jesus were trying to figure out how to maintain their own identity as Judeans, followers of Israel’s God, when their mother nation and Temple were destroyed.  It’s fitting that we think about the meaning of identity as national PRIDE month comes to a close and we’re preparing for ND celebrations of PRIDE in August.  We are 54 years after the Stonewall uprising when folks who identify as LGBTQIA+ said enough was enough.  Fortunately, the movement has seen gains over time and not destruction.  Yet the struggle to claim dignity and value for everyone continues, and in this particular moment seems to be losing ground.  Reflecting on how we claim the goodness of all people in our time gives us insight into how our ancestors struggled to claim their own humanity under oppression.

It seems like the early chapters of our book this summer have repeated the themes of violence over and over.  In the face of pervasive violence and dehumanization, how do the followers of Jesus carve out an identity and a way of surviving that is life-giving?  Today’s scripture tells us in part:  they commit to love.  God is love and those who identify with God share that love with everyone.  With friends and family of course, but also with enemies, persecutors, the unrighteous.  Their lives were full of these difficult folks.  This teaching of Jesus wasn’t just theoretical – they really were persecuted, threatened, treated unjustly virtually every day.  In the face of that treatment, they chose to love.  They turned the other cheek, not in submission but in strength.  They shared meals, shelter, clothing, work, hopes and dreams with each other and those in need – of physical sustenance and emotional support. In the weeks that follow we are going to look more closely at some of the many practical ways that played out over a century of experimentation.

On the first anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center I was asked to give the sermon at a service honoring those who died on that day and those who helped then and in the months following.  It occurs to me that those who attacked on 9/11 were a bit like Rome – so certain that they were right that they were willing to kill in the name of their convictions.  They took power into their own hands and purposely created chaos and horror.  They wanted to be feared.  Those who were attacked, on the other hand, reached out in love.  They phoned family and friends and left last words of love.  They helped each other and some were able to reach safety.  First responders rushed toward death in hopes of saving even a few lives.  

Before we had launched the war on Iraq, on that first anniversary, we as a nation were facing a choice:  we could act in self-righteous violence (like the attackers in planes) or we could respond with the strength of love – not to condone violence but to refuse to be engulfed by it or to succumb to its temptation.  We could at the same time protect ourselves and forgive.  We could end the cycle of violence by refusing to participate in it.  We could be heroes like those who acted in love.  We all know which choice we eventually made.  I wonder what today’s world would be like if we had made another choice.

This weekend the United Church of Christ is meeting in General Synod and Rev. Dr. Cheryl Linday is preaching one of the central sermons.  Her sermon describes the way in which prophets (in ancient and modern times) invite us imagine a future defined by a loving God.  (We think of prophets as predicting the future, but she reminds us that prophets speak instead of consequences of present actions.  If you…, then…)  Rev. Linday also invites us as a church to imagine a different way of being.  What if we created a culture of love?  What if we created a culture of justice?  What if we created a culture where everyone thrived, without fear?

That enterprise is just what the first followers of Jesus were up to.  They lived in horrific times and at the same time they lived in communities of love and support.  They imagined a better way and they lived it into reality. 

What would we live into reality in our time if we could?

A world in which PRIDE was a given because we were genuinely proud of every person.  A world in which who we loved and how we identified was celebrated in the full richness of human variety.

A world in which our community fund was unnecessary because those who worked made a living wage and those unable to work were fully supported by our community.  Housing was affordable and available for everyone.  No one was hungry.  No one lacked health care.  No one was alone or afraid.

A world in which varieties of opinions were respected and debate was encouraged, but without rancor or name-calling.

A world in which the earth was treasured and cared for so she could care for us.  

A world in which those who grieve were held close until they found life again.

A world in which those who are ill found healing, and those who were dying were treasured and carried through into the next life with joy.

Our spiritual ancestors lived in a difficult world – as do we.  They ALSO lived in a world of their own making in which love and compassion overcame fear and community surrounded each person with support and care.  I wonder what we have the strength to imagine.  And if we dare.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:1-11

“Gospel of Empire, Gospel of Jesus” from After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar)

Today’s chapter from our book is about Good News – for the Empire and for those who followed Jesus.  “Good News” is a translation of a Greek word which meant that literally.  It’s also translated as “Gospel” from the old English word Godspel, which also meant “Good News.”  In the first century some “Good News” was official.  It was the announcement by the government of something official to celebrate – a new victory in war, the birthday of the Emperor, the building of a new temple in your town.  It bore the stamp of Empire approval.

If you were a Roman citizen in the first century, the Pax Romana was indeed good news.  Civil war had ended and the government was stable.  Roads were easy to travel and were relatively safe.  Wealth poured into your hands from across the known world.  You owned slaves taken in war to do your heavy work and care for all your needs.  The Empire built beautiful buildings for entertainment, for bathing, and for worship.  It was a very good time to be alive.  The Emperor had SAVED you from barbarians and given you a great life.

If you weren’t a Roman citizen, you paid the cost for all this luxury and leisure.  Last week we talked about how the “peace” was maintained by violence, which impacted everyone’s life directly or indirectly.  In contrast to the official “Good News” of the Empire, the people who followed Jesus (the Anointed) made their own good news in quiet ways, under the radar of those who ruled them.  They chose this same Greek word “good news” when near the end of the first century they wrote down stories about Jesus.  He became the instigator of good news by teaching people how to live in a new way.  He was not the violent winner of conflict but the crucified victim of Empire.  He was the Anointed leader of a nation which had been crushed by Rome.  Those who identified with him claimed that in spite of being utterly defeated, they found a good way to live.  They made a different kind of peace, turning the hardship of their everyday lives into moments of joy. Jesus SAVED them and gave them new life.

The tiny communities gathered for support and encouragement and to practice a way of life built on very different values than Rome.  They spoke of love, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and justice.  They treated each other with dignity and respect.  Every action they took according to these values was a repudiation of Rome.  

Some of these groups were dinner clubs.  They met in very small groups and talked over common meals about how they wanted to shape their lives by Jesus’ teaching.  Others were wisdom circles our groups of students who discussed and debated the teachings of Jesus and others.  They were similar to the students of philosophers, but their topics were more focused on daily life – how to build friendships and working relationships, how to relate to nature, how to be a good neighbor, how to deal with hardship and loss, how to think strategically and build community.  How to make meaning.  Some became groups that gave folks an identity.  Rome dehumanized those it called barbarians.  When you are officially not fully human, you need to find a way to reclaim dignity and purpose.  You could belong to the followers of the Anointed.  You were no longer “Judean or Greek, enslaved or free, woman or man but all one in Jesus, the Anointed King of Israel.”  Some women joined together and resisted marriage, which was essentially enslavement to a man.  Some men formed families to replace families they had lost.  There were so many ways of being a Jesus group that we haven’t discovered all of them, but we’ll be looking at some of them more clearly later this summer.

Most of these groups were places to build “confidence” or “trust.”  This is a word used 252 times in the New Testament.  Jesus encouraged people not to be afraid, but to be confident.  Often our translations read “Faith” rather than “confident.”  The meaning is significantly different.  

Hear today’s scripture again using the Westar translation:

Congratulations to those who grieve.  They will be consoled.

Congratulations to those who hunger and thirst for justice.  They will have a feast.

Don’t fret about your life, what you’re going to eat, or about your body, what you’re going to wear.  Remember there is more to living than food and clothing….Think about how the lilies grow; they don’t toil and they never spin.

Communities who trust become self sufficient, confident.  Rather than being afraid of the many dangers of their time, they are able to love and encourage one another.  They are empowered.  They become healthy.  They create their own safety and find their own joy, even though they still live in difficult circumstances.  They live differently.  They find new life.

We are a small community of Jesus’ people. We name values we believe Jesus taught and try to live by them:  justice, inclusion, equality, compassion.  We believe everyone should eat.  Everyone should have a home, an education, an opportunity for meaningful work, a community who cares about them.  And we are living by those values, influencing the larger community in which we live.  Instead of worrying about what we can’t do because we are few, we focus on doing everything we can.  That matters.

How much more is this Jesus lifestyle important to those in more desperate circumstances than we are.  Folks experiencing warfare.  Those whose people have known generations of racial injustice.  People in the cycle of extreme poverty.  When we build confident, supportive communities, everyone can benefit.  This is good news for everyone today.  We hold this in common with our first century ancestors.

At the same time there are key differences between the first and twenty-first centuries.  First century folks couldn’t challenge Rome.  There was no democracy, no dissent.  They were powerless to change the prevailing system.  We aren’t.  It’s important to build resilient communities, but telling folks to find their own good news in the face of oppression is insufficient.  We CAN challenge our system.  We can learn and respond to the challenges of our time – warfare, racism, discrimination based on economics or gender or sexual orientation. 

For example, we have been giving housing assistance to people a few times each year.  That’s good news.  We’ve also learned how dehumanizing it is for those folks to cold call churches and social agencies, tell their story and hope for a handout.  This week I’m going to call our partners in this work and ask them to help us think about how the process could be easier, less abusive of those who need help.  And to help us think about why people need emergency help with housing.  Maybe we’ll discover ways that we can advocate for change and be even more helpful.

Third Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 6:9-13

“Engine of Empire: Violence,” chapter After Jesus: Before Christianity, Westar Institute

Our scripture from Jeremiah today talks of violent times, seeing them as retribution for not following God’s law or caring for God’s people.  It reminds us that when we study history, often the outline of our text is a listing of various wars and the timeline connecting them.  The common thread of human history seems to be violence and warfare as one group struggled to gain and maintain power over another.

The first century is called the time of the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome.  In reality it was a particularly violent and dangerous time as Rome maintained “peace” by completely dominating all other nations.  They conquered the lands around the Mediterranean, most of what we know of as the Middle East, and central Europe as far as Britain.  The Empire was vast, and once the internal civil wars mostly ended in the generation before Jesus, Roman armies were deployed across the known world to dominate everyone else.  

Rome maintained its version of “peace” by torturing other people who came under their control.  This included both rape and crucifixion.  Historians estimate that hundreds of thousands of conquered people were crucified just to terrify others into submission.  Crucifixions were public, with crosses lined up along main roads so everyone could watch slow and painful death by suffocation.  It was meant to be intimidating and it succeeded.  We think of crucifixion as unique to Jesus, and often we’re told that it would have been off-putting to those who heard about it.  In later centuries Christians talked about Jesus crucified as the sacrifice both required by God and effective in connecting us to God – overcoming sin by pain.  That’s a key Christian understanding, but it’s not a first century understanding.  Scholars are beginning to speculate that early New Testament references to Jesus crucified aren’t about his sacrifice on our behalf but are about solidarity.  Just like everyone today knows someone who was seriously ill or died of COVID, everyone in the first century knew someone or many someones who had been crucified.  Saying Jesus was crucified said he was one of the thousands who understood the wrath of Rome.  He too was caught up in the horror of crucifixion, as were his disciples or students who loved him.  Then his life and influence continued – a resurrection – and crucifixion wasn’t the last word.

When Rome conquered a new city state or territory, it took many of the inhabitants as slaves.  Slave labor was the backbone of the economy.  When Jerusalem was conquered in 70 CE almost 100,000 people were taken to Rome, where many of them helped to build the Colosseum.  Almost every Roman citizen owned at least one or two slaves, and those of wealth owned many.  Slaves ran every household, did all the manual labor of the Empire and provided labor to most businesses.  The wealth of Rome depended on slavery, just as the wealth of pre-Civil War plantations depended on enslaved persons.  Even the government depended on the knowledge and work of enslaved people who had been scholars and government workers in conquered territories.  Paul speaks of being enslaved to Christ and people understood what that meant, because perhaps the majority of Jesus people were themselves enslaved.

In addition to taking the wealth of conquered lands as its own (silver from Spain, art from Greece, farms across the Empire), Rome supported its wealthy class with taxation.  Entire towns were built with tax money and populated with slaves and retired soldiers who were moved far from their homes to populate the Empire.  One such town was built only three miles from Nazareth during Jesus’ lifetime.  The great monuments and temples in Roman towns were paid for with taxes.  Herod the Great who Israel on behalf of Rome taxed the people to expand the Temple in Jerusalem.  The tax collectors appear often in stories about Jesus, and people hated that they became relatively rich by charging extra for their own pay.  There was no first century middle class.  There were a small number of wealthy businessmen and administrators and there were vast numbers of slaves and peasants who owned nothing and paid a high percentage of their own production to the upper class.

Across the Empire were visible monuments to the power and violence of Rome.  Each Emperor was thought to be a God and people were required to present sacrifices and offerings to their statues.  Carvings on arches and buildings reminded everyone that the Emperors as Rome were raping and murdering their way across the known world, and no one was safe from their reach.  Into this moment in time came the followers of Jesus the Anointed, a few thousand of them at most spread across the entire Empire, claiming that Jesus brought “good news” to the oppressed, the poor, the enslaved, the common people.  Westar describes this “good news” in this way:

This good news was not about winning a great battle or gaining a material foothold.  Nor was it about gaining of assurance of life in the hereafter.  What made a difference for these communities was caring for one another, bestowing forgiveness, being fed, finding a future, and being surrounded by companions.  No wonder student sages mused, “You are the salt of the earth…the light for the world…Don’t fret about your life – what you’re going to eat or drink – or your body – what you’re going to wear…Take a look at the birds of the sky: they don’t…gather into barns…You are to seek God’s domain and…justice first, and all these things will come to you as a bonus.” (Mat. 5:13, 14; 6:25, 26, 33).

Flying under the radar of Rome’s domination, small groups who styled themselves after Jesus’ way, lived in this repressive time with joy.  They kept their heads down, watched out for one another, made sure everyone had enough to eat and a place to sleep.  They became friends of one another and of Jesus and resisted Rome by living differently than their oppressors.  They were kind, honest and just.  They demonstrated compassion and mercy.  None of those qualities was built into the fabric of their daily lives, but they discovered that there was goodness in living by different standards than the rest of the world.  They found peace and joy in the teachings of Jesus and their connection to each other.

In our lives we assume that justice is a given.  That those who work hard can prosper.  That all people are equal, and opportunity is for everyone.  That is our experience, but it’s not the experience of most people of color in our nation.  It’s not the experience of the world’s people who live in extreme poverty, in developing nations and in our own town.  It’s not the experience today of the people of Ukraine who have been invaded to assuage the vanity of Putin and his cronies.  The first followers of Jesus have more in common with those folks than they do with us.  We believe we can have a positive impact on our nation and our community – they knew they could not. So they didn’t try to make the world a better place.  They simply lived in a better way.  They weren’t confronting power.  They were hearing good news about community and connection and support for one another and living that good news into their daily reality.  In the midst of extreme hardship, they were finding joy and telling others it was life-changing.  Just like folks in our time are living through danger, persecution and war and maintaining their humanity.  They are the ones who can teach us about what it means to follow Jesus in a first century way.  If we let them.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Acts 11:19-26

Chapter 2 (If Not Christian, What?) of After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar Institute, 2021)

Shakespeare has Romeo ask, ”What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!”  “Christian” is the name we know for the followers of Jesus.  But in the first century, the followers didn’t call themselves by that name.  Today we’re going to learn some things about the name and what significance it has for us.

When dictionaries were invented, Samuel Johnson (1755) defined Christian as “professor of the religion of Christ.”  Today’s Oxford English Dictionary give almost the same definition:  one who believes or professes the religion of Christ; an adherent of Christianity.  Not much has changed over the years.  It intrigues me that both definitions refer to the “religion of Christ” as Christianity.  In reality, Jesus lived and died as a Jew and his religion was first century Judaism – which he fervently wanted to reform.  It would be more accurate to say that Christianity is a religion based on the life and teachings of Christ.  

We assume based on today’s scripture reading that the earliest followers of Jesus identified themselves by the word “Christian.” That’s hardly the case.  Scholars tell us there are approximately 138,015 words in the New Testament.  The name Jesus is found 1,002 times.  The name Christian appears three times – twice in Acts and once in the First letter of Peter.  That’s certainly not enough appearances for us to understand this as a common word.

We’ve talked about what “Christian” means in our time, but what did it mean in the first century?  

The word in Greek, the language of the New Testament, is christianos.  It’s made of two parts:  christ and ianos.  Christ means “anointed.”  It’s a translation of the Hebrew word we know as “Messiah.”  It’s used for all those who are acknowledged in an important role by being anointed with oil – having oil poured over their heads in an official ceremony.  It refers to kings, prophets, and priests – all of whom are anointed for their roles in society.  Ianos is a suffix given to people who follow or belong to a party associated with the first word.  Christianos are people in the party of Christ.  In the first century “Herodians” were members of the party of Herod.  In our time “Republicans” are those who support the republic.  “Americans” are those who claim allegiance to America. 

“Christian” is used in the first century not by people who followed Jesus, but by those outside the group in reference to Jesus’ followers.  It has a dangerous and derogatory implication.  The followers of Christ are those who identify with a man executed as a revolutionary.  He’s not seen as the founder of the one true religion, but as a challenger to the authority of the empire.  These folks are potential revolutionaries.  They follow a man they call “anointed” even though he wasn’t officially an anointed person.  He wasn’t a king/ruler, a prophet, or a priest.  By calling him “anointed” his followers are claiming authority for him that he doesn’t have.  That’s a direct challenge to the authority of those who are anointed.  It’s a challenge to the empire.  

Consequently, we see the term used by governors when they ask their superiors how they should deal with the christianos in their towns.  The governor Pliny told his supervisor that he was interrogating Christians and insisting that they repeat a prayer to the Roman gods and make a sacrifice to the statue of the emperor.  We read that as a religious act when it was actually as political sign of allegiance to the emperor and the Empire.  It’s allegiance to the “real” anointed ones rather than the upstart “anointed.”  Pliny goes on to describe what he could learn about Christian practice in a tone of disbelief:

They declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this:  they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath…to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery, to commit no breach of trust and not to deny a deposit when called upon to restore it.  After this ceremony it had been their custom to disperse and reassemble later to take food of an ordinary, harmless kind… This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women…I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to an extravagant length.

Pliny was writing early in the second century, using the word Christian which didn’t become common until at least 100 years later.  It’s common usage was to refer to a group of Judaeans, followers of an executed radical whom they called “Christ” or “anointed one.”  They were seen as potential troublemakers from a political and social viewpoint  - one of many troublesome groups from Israel, all of whom objected to Roman rule.  You can see that this bears almost no resemblance to the way we understand the word “Christian” so as we study the first century, we won’t use our word with its overtones because we’re looking for what came before our understanding.

So what did Jesus earliest followers call themselves?  There were many groups by many different names.  Some of these names have been lost to us.  Others can be pried out of ancient writings with a little research.  Scholars have identified 24 used in documents we now have.  They include:

• Jesus peoples

• Followers of the Anointed

• Disciples – which is most accurately translated as Student or Jesus’ students

• Believers of the Anointed

• Confidants of the Anointed

• Friends of the Anointed

• Sisters and Brothers of the Anointed

• Chloe’s people (or the name of local leaders)

• The Way

• The Enslaved of God

• The Perfect Day

• The Migrants

• The Children

• Members

These names represent variations in how each local group thought of themselves and how they connected to other groups.  There’s a rich variety, and in the next weeks we’re going to spend time with several options.  It’s our mission to discover what it meant to be a student or follower of the one called “anointed.”  We’re looking for the themes that connected these folks to Jesus and we’re looking for ways to rediscover what connects us to him as well.

First Sunday after Pentecost

Revelation 21:1-5

Most of us are used to thinking about the church like a fully formed thing from the beginning.  First Jesus died.  Then he rose.  Then a few weeks later the disciples were inspired to create the church.  It emerged pretty much the way it is now:  its doctrines in place, its theology fully formed, its leadership training all figured out.  We know, of course, that the Protestants broke from the Catholics in the 16th century, but we’re not really sure what difference that made.  We pretty much assume that the givens about church in our lifetimes – committees, hymnals, Sunday school – were always there.  If we trace the way we do things back through time, we’d find out that it’s pretty much the way Jesus told us to do it.  This way of doing history has been called “assuming the finished product.”  If we know how things are today, we can find their roots in ancient times, or perhaps in key movements like the Reformation.  But what if we don’t take our assumptions from today with us when we go back in time?  What if we look at the past for its own sake without looking for the roots of what the church is now?  If we could take a time machine back to the first and second centuries, what would we find?

It’s a little like the difference between a finished building and a pile of lumber.  The lumber pile could become the house of our dreams, or it could become something quite different – an ice cream store or a motel.  

Since the early 1980’s, it’s been the work of the Westar Institute to try to find the ancient possibilities that came before the finished product of modern Christianity.  They began with the Jesus Seminar which asked what part of the Jesus story is probably history and what part is the interpretation of the people who followed after him?  They knew a couple of things to be true:

• The Gospels were written 50-80+ years after Jesus died, after all the eye witnesses to his life were also gone.

• The Gospels weren’t written as history – at least not by our standards which expect the author to be accurate about the facts.  They were written as commentary and persuasion – the authors were writing to convince people to believe in Jesus because they believed he was the most important, God-given light for the world.  There were two to three generations of interpreters between the man Jesus who lived a particular life and the telling of his story, which has a life of its own.

First the Jesus Seminar asked, “What did Jesus actually say and which of his words have been embellished over time?”  They developed detailed criteria for that scholarly work, debated for years, and finally produced a Bible which color-coded every saying of Jesus from Red to Black (of course he said that! to of course he didn’t!) with a lot of pink and gray in between.  It’s impossible to be precise because the record is ancient.

Next they tackled the stories about what Jesus did with the same kind of study and rankings.  Their purpose was to use the very best scholarship available to produce a picture of Jesus in his time and place that could be easily understood by ordinary Christians in ordinary churches.  Hundreds of Bible scholars volunteered their time to write about Jesus for us.

Why would they do that?  Because they believed Jesus was (and is) real and knowing as much as possible about him matters.

Why do it now?  Because, believe it or not, so much more information is available to us that even 100 years ago.  Of course people in the first century knew a lot about their own moment in history, but over centuries that first hand knowledge was obscured by layers of tradition – just like a family story is embellished over time, so that our great-grandparents would hardly recognize the story of their times.  Each generation put their own stamp on this thing called church and assumed that their way was the way it’s always been.  In our lifetime, many new manuscripts have been discovered which give us new information about very old things.  The Dead Sea Scrolls taught us about Hebrew scripture because of the variations they revealed in the manuscripts.  The Nag Hamadi Library, dug up in the Egyptian dessert by nomads looking for fertilizer, provided early Christian writings we had never seen before.  A search of ancient monasteries uncovered copies of books we thought had been lost forever.  So even though we are further from Jesus that say medieval scholars, we have more information than was available to them.  

After Westar finished their detailed analysis of what we know about Jesus, they turned to the people who followed Jesus in the first and second century – before they were called Christians and before they organized as a single church.  They finished that piece of their work and published it just two years ago, and the book containing their report gives us something to talk about in the weeks ahead.  They asked and answered questions like:

• Who followed Jesus?  Why did they think he mattered?

• What did they believe about him?

• How did they organize themselves?  

• How did they respond to the challenges of their day?

They discovered that far from being a single movement that became the church as we know it, the earliest believers were diverse.  They described their faith in a variety of ways.  They disagreed about what Jesus’ teachings meant.  They gathered in groups that looked very different from each other.  They chose their leaders in different ways, and preferred some of the early disciples more than others.  They were the building blocks of the early church.  Some of these groups flourished.  Some died out.  Others were eliminated as heresies in later centuries.  In the first two centuries they made a rich soup of possibility, some of which has been lost to us until now.

So why should we care?  Just like first century Jesus followers, we too live in transitional times.   Christianity has been a given in our lives, but it’s not a given for future generations.  We aren’t sure what the future will bring, if anything.  If we can discover more about our roots, if we can search wider and deeper for the meaning people found in Jesus, maybe we can find more options for those who care enough about Jesus to follow him.  If we go back, we may find new ways forward.  We can affirm the parts of our tradition which are truly treasures for us.  And we can try on new ways of relating to Jesus which echo ancient ways.  We are looking for possibilities.

Most of all, like people in every generation, we are looking for Jesus.  Who was he?  Who is he? Why does he matter?  We are looking because from the beginning, those who knew Jesus believed that he connected them to God.  And in our deepest heart of hearts, people are looking for God.

Pentecost

Acts 2

You surely know by now that Pentecost is my favorite Holy Day.  What’s not to love about the cheerful color red, about banners and balloons, about birthday treats afterwards?  But none of us grew up celebrating Pentecost with these things because even those of us who grew up in churches didn’t focus on this holiday.  I remember the story from my childhood, but I don’t remember a celebration.  (To be fair, over our lifetimes the church has gotten much better at celebrating many things.  I remember when most folks thought balloons didn’t belong in church.  To which I say, who wants a church where balloons aren’t welcome.  It might lead to excluding other things – like people who want to soar.)

It occurs to me that Pentecost is about much more than a fun celebration.  It’s a story about beginnings and hope.  So I thought we might spend some time today thinking about what Pentecost means at its heart and how that gives us hope.

More than anything, Pentecost is about overcoming fear.  The disciples were afraid.  Jesus had been executed and they didn’t want to be next.  Crucifixion is terrifying.  That’s why it works as a control method.  People are afraid of pain, even more than they are afraid of death.  If you can cause pain and death, you can make people do almost anything you want them to do.  So the disciples spent days, even weeks, hiding in fear from the authorities.  When they did that, Rome got what it hoped to accomplish by killing Jesus – they ended his movement.  That was until they didn’t.

The story goes that the disciples were hanging out together like usual, when suddenly there was rushing wind and noise and fire.  That sounds to me like a crowd waking up.  People coming alive.  Folks getting excited.  I wonder who first said to the gathering, “This is no way to live.  We can’t just keep hiding here wondering what to do next.  Jesus taught us what to do.  He told us what to say.  He showed us how to live.  Why aren’t we doing it?”  

I imagine it was like becoming woke in a good way.  Maybe like the underground resistance movements in WW II – people who decided they didn’t want to be conquered by invaders and they were going to do something about it.  People who hid Jewish neighbors or their children.  People who risked their lives rather than just giving up.

Or maybe it was a little like the American Civil Rights Movement.  People who were sick and tired of being sick and tired and decided to stand up for justice and sit down at lunch counters and ride busses – or not ride them – as the situation called for.

Jesus had set their hearts on fire with his vision of what life could be like.  They had given up everything to follow him and learn from him.  Why were they giving up everything again as though his vision wasn’t possible?  So once again their hearts caught fire and they came alive.  They decided that the vision was worth dying for and so it was worth living for.  And they set about to live it into action.

It’s the sensible thing to do to fear pain and to fear death – unless that fear keeps you from living.  The heroes of the world shake off that fear and defy its power.  They refuse to be controlled by what terrible things might happen and decide instead to live by the power and possibility of hope.  That’s what Jesus did.  That’s what his disciples decided they could do too, and that’s the story of Pentecost.

The disciples weren’t likely candidates for heroism.  They were peasants for the most part.  Probably uneducated.  Certainly rough.  And they were afraid.  But they chose to live past that fear and create the life Jesus told them was possible, so they became heroes in their time and in ours and they changed the world.  Or at least they changed the possibility of the world so that we can keep on moving the vision forward.

On Pentecost we ask ourselves, “What does it mean to live without fear?  And if we are fearless, what might the world become?”

Fear divides people.  When you are afraid, you’ll do almost anything to protect yourself, even at the expense of others.  The people who want us to be afraid today tell us that those “others” are a danger to us.  

People who come from south of our border are a danger.  Unless you get to know them and discover that they are friends.

People of various colors are a danger.  Unless you find out they aren’t.

People with other gender orientations are a danger.  Unless you realize that’s your children, your grandchildren, your aunties and uncles.  They seem pretty safe.

Fear causes anger.  The fear in our country wants us to be angry about those posed as threats to us.  

We should be angry at people wanting to take our jobs away.  I wonder which jobs those are.  Seems like everything is shortening hours and closing down because there aren’t enough workers.

We should be angry at people who want a hand out and are too lazy to work.  We feed a lot of people who are too ill mentally or physically to work.  Compassion pushes anger away.

We should be angry at people who disagree with us on political or social issues.  We should ban their books and silence them.  We should prevent them from voting or from being elected.  Sounds to me like throwing out the candy so we don’t have to share.  How will we ever get a bigger or better idea if we never talk to those who don’t start in the same place we do?

Fear shuts down and says no.

Fear says, “We shouldn’t.  We mustn’t.  We can’t.”

Jesus said, “Look what we can do together.”

We say, “Why not.  Let’s try.  We can do something, even if we can’t do it all.”

I’m in favor of Pentecost because the power of the Spirit, the power of God’s presence, changes our attitude.  It makes us into believers – in God, in ourselves, in each other.

Pentecost says to the world,

“Listen up!  God is doing a new thing!  It’s a good thing! 
And you can be part of it.”  Let’s go!

Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:15-21

In this scripture Jesus tells us that if we love him, we’ll keep his commandments.  Often when we read that we think of the 10 commandments.  Folks are often saying the world would be better if we just posted those in every school and courthouse.  It always feels to me when people say that, that they assume we aren’t keeping those commandments now and need visible reminders everywhere.  I’ve never thought that telling people everything they are doing is wrong brings about better behavior.  In Jesus day the law wasn’t just the 10 commandments, but the 613 laws of the Torah and all the sub-laws which explained how to keep those.  It was widely believed that if everyone followed those laws perfectly for just one day the reign of God would come on earth.  Clearly, that was harder than it sounds since it doesn’t appear to have happened.

On second thought, this says we must keep Jesus commandments.  When he was asked which were the most important, he said two things:  love God, love your neighbor as yourself.  That’s it.  If we love Jesus, we will love God, one another, and ourselves. 

Then Jesus tells us that in order to help us love, he’s going to give us the Holy Spirit.  Indeed, when we love the Spirit is already in us.  When Jesus is taken away by death, the holy spirit reminds us that he is still with us – and with God – and God is with us.  How does all of that happen?  Because God is love, when we love, we are in God and God is in us.  It all sounds rather circular, but that’s how John writes.  One thing leads to another and everything is all wrapped up together.  At the heart of all that matters is love.

This has been a crazy week for most of us and for our world.  In spite of all the things on our to-do list, or maybe because of them, it’s been a week filled with love.  I was trying to think of some of the many ways love has been infused into this week:

• This week all the generous gifts of furniture and household items went into an apartment to welcome a new refugee family.  More than a dozen folks rallied on Wednesday to put all those gifts into trucks and cars, carry them up to a third floor apartment and arrange them with care.  It was hot, hard work; there were lots of ideas about how best to do it; sometimes what was done was undone the next minute – and yet there weren’t any arguments.  We just worked it out with love.

• Wednesday afternoon Rosemary, who had researched fruits native to Colombia, bought every one of them and more and carried them up to the third floor.  It was an abundance of love.

• Thursday night Jane helped us meet the new family at the airport at midnight so someone would speak Spanish and they could understand what was happening.  She stayed up until almost 2:00 even though she had a contractor coming at 7 a.m.  That’s love.

• Thursday the same people heard about a family newly arrived from Afghanistan.  They had come seeking asylum because it wasn’t safe for them to stay in Afghanistan until they had refugee status.  That means they have no support from government programs.  A friend helped them by renting an apartment and a truck and we took what was left from the Wednesday work and furnished an apartment for them.  The family had two little girls and Kelly found beds for them on almost a moment’s notice.  She’s looking for toys.  That’s love.

• Aderissa heard about the family coming and that they might be hungry when they arrived.  She prepared a special meal from her native Philippines to welcome them.  That’s love.

• Friday Olivia came first thing in the morning and fixed the toilet that was broken.  She comes every time I call with a smile on her face.  She does her job well.  That’s love.

• All this week Kim’s family has been praying for their sister who was seriously ill.  They kept their phones busy with messages of support and encouragement.  Now she’s better.  That’s love.

• Yesterday was commencement at UND and Northlands.  Families came to celebrate with their students.  They were excited that some of their dreams were coming true and now a new future waits for each one.  All that pride is love.

• Today families got up early and made breakfast in bed for Moms, children made special cards, dads bought flowers, restaurants will be crowded with celebrants.  That’s love.

• This week the superintendent of the Fargo schools announced that no matter what laws state and federal governments made harming some students, his school district was going to support and encourage everyone.  Each student would be treated with respect and given the learning environment they needed.  That’s love.

• This weekend we took food left from Elaine Sundberg’s funeral and fed 30 people dinner at LaGrave on First.  The family was generous.  The residents were grateful.  That’s love.

Where have you seen love in this past week?  Where have you been love?

Jesus wants us to know that the way to have the very best life now and forever is to live full of love.  To go the extra mile, share your bread or your second outfit, listen when you’re tired, accept folks you don’t understand, welcome strangers, wish everyone well.  Love is the essence of God, the presence of Jesus, the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  Love isn’t a warm fuzzy feeling, it’s going out in the middle of the night to say “Welcome home.”  Wherever love is, God is.  Wherever God is, is holy.  Sometimes love is hard work, long hours, tired bones at the end of the day.  That too is holy.  

This has been a busy week.  A chaotic week. A long week.  A holy week.

Often these days the world seems broken.  When you are discouraged about all the things that need to be better, look around you for the places love is showing up.  Watch for the ways you are being invited to love.  Notice those who are loving you.  In those places, God is healing the world through you.  All those places are holy.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-14

Today's scripture is part of a beautiful passage that we often read at funerals. When we are grieving the death of a loved one and are facing death head on, we need the assurance of Jesus that there is something more. We want to believe that there is a place beyond this life where Jesus and God welcome us - that we have a place in eternity. From the beginning of time people have wondered about that place. Famous authors have written about it.  Artists have drawn pictures of it. Hymn writers have given us songs about it. Even though we have no direct experience of what it means to be in heaven, we each have a picture of what it will be like in our hearts and minds. I can't promise you that your picture is exactly right, but I can tell you I believe there is something more than this life and that it's good.

John records that Jesus tells the disciples that the way to this good place is through him. For Christians, this has come to mean that our faith is the only way to heaven. We must believe in Jesus in the way our religion describes as our admission ticket to the next life. Every religion wants to be correct in their belief, and we're no exception. Believing in Jesus is indeed a way to goodness in the next life.  Over the years that's been a comfort to many people.  It's also caused a lot of trouble. Years ago, when I was teaching world religions, I asked students why they took the class. I wanted to meet at least some of their expectations if I could. One was quite sure of his answer - he took it to find out about the beliefs of all the people who were wrong. Once I thought of Christianity as the only right answer, but since I've met wonderful people who hold a great variety of beliefs, I no longer think of our faith in that way. I prefer now to say that we have one right way. There seem to be many other ways that also work. It's a multiple-choice question and the answer is at least most of the above.

If the purpose of religion is to help us form strong communities, hold helpful values and find comfort when life is hard, then there are many right answers. Every major world religion holds some truth about how to live a good life and build a good society. Often, they are all saying the same or very similar things with slight differences in inflection. What they hold in common far outnumbers their distinctions. That doesn't mean we need to give up what we believe and adopt another. It does mean we can be informed by many. Right now, our Tuesday morning book group is reading a book by Buddhist author Thich Nhat Hanh. We've been surprised by how often he repeats stories from the Bible or quotes Jesus. He respects those stories and their teachings, and he interprets them in ways that can be helpful. We may not always agree with him, but we're given something important to think about.

In recent years I've come to think about Jesus words, "No one comes to the father but through me" in a new way. I believe that Jesus' life shows us what it means to know God as love. Jesus shows us the one he calls Father. In him we get a glimpse of what God is like. If our goal is to know God and become more and more connected with God - to become one - then Jesus shows us how to do that. If people accomplish the same goal through the teachings of another religion or another leader, aligning themselves with the same values and principles Jesus followed, then they are coming to God in a same way. I sometimes say, "All who come to the Father come through me." Whether they name Jesus as their pathway or name another, people who come to the same goal align with Jesus, just as the teachings of Jesus align with those of many other religions. We're all connecting with the same God, no matter what vocabulary we use. Jesus himself says if we want to see God, we look at the work Jesus did. We commit to his lifesty e and his values. We love as he loved. We serve as he served. We work for justice and mercy like he did.

First century people weren't talking about the Kingdom of God as the place we call heaven. It wasn't a different place or a different life. It was the life and the world they were a part of reformed according to God's vision of justice and love. Jesus talks often about the Kingdom or reign of God being among us and within us - not a new place in a distant time. The work he did to connect people to one another and to include them in community was creating the Kingdom of God. In that Kingdom everyone ate, everyone was respected, everyone could play a role in the community. In God's kingdom the rich don't take advantage of the poor, the powerful don't harm the weak, women and children are valued, rulers don't abuse the conquered. In God's kingdom the highest value is love and love shapes every action. Jesus didn't ask the disciples to follow him so that someday they could leave this life and go to heaven, he asked them to join him in creating the Kingdom of God in their time and place.

Eventually when the movement didn't bring about cosmic change in the world, the church began to talk about God's kingdom as a place in the next life. This life was hard, but the next life would be perfect. This life was painful but the next would be bliss. In this life people ignore God and live by many different priorities which aren't love but in the next life all that will be swept away.

All that may be true, but it didn't become the focus until the dream of living in God's way in the here and now was so slow in coming. The problem with focusing on the life to come is that we let ourselves give up on shaping this life by Jesus’ vision. We give up on the very thing that Jesus told us brought us to God - living by the rule of love.

One of the most important parts of this whole story comes a few verses farther along than what we read: My peace I give to you, I do not give as the world gives, do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. The assurance of eternal life can take away our fear of death. If what comes next is better, than we can face the end of this life with peace.  Jesus gives us peace as his promise to us. That promise isn't only for life after our physical death; it applies to this present life as well. Jesus faced opposition and danger because of his vision of a life built on love, but he faced it without fear. He believed so strongly in the possibilities of life as he envisioned it that he wasn't terrified of what might happen to him. His life demonstrated what it's like to believe that love is stronger than hatred, stronger than evil, stronger than death. You can hear him saying to the disciples, this movement is going to face some tough times but don't give up. Don't give in. Don't be afraid. What is possible is so much more than what is. Keep going. I'm with you. 

This passage gives us assurance for the next life AND it gives up hope and assurance in this life. We are doing our best to create the Kingdom of God as Jesus understood it by living it into existence. We are multiplying love on this earth by loving. We are multiplying justice by being just. We are multiplying acceptance by accepting. We are making the reign of God visible in the work and the words. Always Jesus is with us in that effort. We can hear him say, "Do not be afraid."

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Psalm 23; John 10:1-10

At least once a year our scripture guide (the lectionary) gives us scriptures about God and Jesus as the good shepherd.  The Psalmist tells us that God cares for us like a shepherd cares for the sheep – supplying water, food and protection.  Psalm 23 is a favorite of many people and is often read at funerals, a time when we all need good news and comfort.  The passage about the good shepherd in John reminds us that Jesus’ care for us is a reflection of God’s love.  It assures us that we can trust Jesus to care for us as much as God cares for us – again, that’s good news.  Especially when life is in the “down” part of “ups and downs” it’s good to remember that Jesus is on our side.  There’s care and support available there.

The last verse of the passage in John is my favorite part of this reading:  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  That’s an appropriate summary of a passage that talks about the shepherd making sure that the needs of the flock under their care were met:  food, water, safety. It leads me to wonder what we really mean when we talk about an abundant life.  The Justice Conversations group read an article in Sojourners magazine this month about this very verse.  The author suggested that developed nations misinterpret the phrase in our time.  It’s a temptation to think that abundance is about things, lots of things.  That abundance means extravagance.  Our life is abundant if we accumulate many of the things money can buy – big houses, fancy cars, full closets, expensive trips.  I’ve been watching a cooking show about a restaurant which makes amazing food – for $195 a plate.  Thousands of people apply to the lottery to win the privilege of paying a fortune for a single meal.  It’s a great show and also a great commentary on the current state of our world.  $195 would buy a lot of meals for hungry people.  Maybe there’s a place for both.  Or maybe extravagance for a few prevents sufficiency for everyone.  It’s a hard situation to consider.

I did a mini-survey about what an abundant life means when I was having dinner with my family – a dinner that cost more than we expected since inflation has hit restaurants, too.  My daughter suggested abundant life means family and experiences.  Those seemed like good candidates to me.  My grandson who is seven said it meant muffins, which is the love of his life.  If you are seven, having your favorite food to eat every day IS abundance.  I wonder how you would describe an abundant life?

Let’s think some more about the meaning of abundant life and what it looks like.  Have you been thinking about what abundance means to you and would you be willing to share your thoughts?

Here are some things I would include:

• Shelter – everyone having a safe place to live

• Food – everyone having enough food and healthy food.  No food deserts.  No complaining about food stamps.

• Medical care – everyone having access to the best care available when it’s needed. People getting to make their own decisions with their providers about what “needed” means.

• Education – everyone gets a good education appropriate to their interests and abilities.  Your education doesn’t depend on where you live or how much money your family makes.  Preparation for all careers is valued – college, trade school, professional and service jobs alike – people get to do what they love and are good at.

• Family and community – everyone is loved and cherished, no abuse, no bullying, everyone matters

• Experiences – Art, music, travel, gardening – people get to try things out and expand their horizons

• Leisure – Everybody gets time to rest as well as time to work.  Rest isn’t just for those who can afford it.  No one has to work three jobs to survive.

• Meaning – People have opportunities to make a difference in the world.

In contrast to our current world in which some folks have much more than needed for a good life and millions have much less than is needed, the followers of Jesus suggests that he advocates for everyone to have enough.  In his ministry he freely shared what he had, assuming there would be enough to go around – enough bread to feed 5000, enough healing to give it away to anyone who needed it, enough love for every person in the world.  There’s a place for the followers of Jesus to counter prevailing wisdom that we must grab all we can get and guard it from those who want to take it from us.  Jesus didn’t live that way and maybe we don’t need to live that way either.  Maybe there really is enough to go around if no one takes more than they need.  It’s a big push to change that way of thinking, but perhaps it’s our place to try.

The educator Parker Palmer suggests that the modern world is hindered by the “myth of scarcity” or the notion that if everyone gets what he/she/they need, someone will have to go without.  He applies that thinking to grades:  only a few can be “A” students so some must be marked down.  This presumes that it’s not possible for everyone in a class to do well.  It applies to popularity:  only a few can be well liked and some must be put down.  It applies to economics:  a few people deserve to be rich so the majority must be poor. Palmer tells us that this thinking is a lie.  There is enough for everyone to do well, everyone to be valued, and everyone to have the necessities of life.   It’s possible to have a school or an economic system in which everyone thrives.  The success of some doesn’t require the demise of others.

The concept of abundance is a big topic asking for big changes in how the world thinks.  It’s not something we can wrap our heads around quickly or impact over night.  It is something worth exploring.  It’s an important “what if” for us to ponder.  And perhaps the most appropriate people to ask these questions are those who follow the one who said,

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Third Sunday of Easter

Luke 24:13-35

Today we’re continuing to read stories about resurrection, this time from the Gospel of Luke.  Let’s think a minute about what these stories are and what they’re not.  They aren’t a well-researched catalog of all the times Jesus was seen after his death, proving that resurrection is a physical fact.  If such a catalog had been created, we’d expect it to be well circulated among Jesus’ followers so that the gospel writers could include it, since they were writing decades after the fact.  In reality, each gospel tells different stories – John talks about Thomas and about Jesus appearing to disciples at Lake Galilee, today’s story is from Luke, Matthew speaks of the disciples seeing Jesus on a mountain in Galilee.  Mark doesn’t tell any stories about resurrection appearances until some short ones are added later.  These stories aren’t a trial brief proving that resurrection happened.  They ARE testimony of many of Jesus’ followers affirming that they experienced his resurrection as a reality in their lives.

Today’s story tells us that Cleopas and other person (maybe his wife?) were followers of Jesus who gave up on being in Jerusalem after the crucifixion and walked home to Emmaus.  During the time they were on the road, a stranger walked with them.  Hearing how sad they were that Jesus was dead, this stranger explains how Hebrew scripture predicted what happened, helping to put crucifixion into perspective for them.  They don’t recognize this stranger, but since the conversation has been uplifting, when they get to their village, they invite him to stay for supper.  In an unusual move, the guest takes the supper bread from the table and breaks it – acting like the host.  In the movement of breaking, the two recognize Jesus and he disappears.  Leaving supper on the table, they rush back to Jerusalem to tell everyone they have seen Jesus.

When I read this story, I think about all the times in a Bible study or book discussion the group starts out confused about what a passage means.  One person will wonder aloud about a possible connection.  Another will add something else they’ve read that seems related.  A third has an “aha” moment a suggests an insight.  Over time things begin to make sense and the group comes to a greater understanding.  Surely this happened over and over as Jesus’ followers tried to think through what he had taught them and how they were to carry on without him as their physical leader.

I think of the many times someone has said to me that a child is just like an uncle or a grandma.  How they have the same speech pattern or similar gestures.  How a facial expression in a child can remind us of previous generations.  These followers recognized Jesus when he broke bread.  He had done that same thing every meal for several years.  They saw him in the way his hands moved and he held the bread out for them to take and eat.  Over the next decades as Jesus’ followers were creating communities that gathered in his name, they would eat together.  They shared food as a way of sharing their lives.  And they broke bread.

We continue to share bread in communion celebrations – and in potlucks and coffee hour.  On Monday we’re going to celebrate Elaine Sundberg’s life and then we’re going to feed her family and friends because that’s how we care for them.  Eating together connects people.  We share holiday meals and special occasions with dinner for our families.  Even when we don’t agree about much, there’s a deep connection found in sharing food – in breaking bread.

My Presbyterian tradition requires that when we have communion I break the bread and pour the grape juice so that you can see it happening.  Does watching it happen make it more real for you?  I often think of today’s story when I do those things.  It’s a way of affirming that Jesus is also breaking bread with us.  Some traditions believe that the bread and the juice turn into Jesus and are infused with his physical presence.  I have never thought that, but I’m convinced that whenever we celebrate communion, Jesus joins us.  Just as we often think of relatives who have died when we gather for family celebrations, Jesus is present in our hearts and minds and in the glue of community that connects us.

Bread was the staple food of first century Palestine.  If they had nothing else, they ate bread.  So connecting the presence of Jesus to the bread puts it at the very basic level of our existence.  Jesus also becomes a staple for our lives.

For a while this winter I baked bread for my son’s family.  They had a new baby and they needed homemade bread to continue their family tradition and to be made with less gluten than most purchased bread, so I made them loaves and buns every week.  It seemed like something helpful that I could do.  Bread isn’t like instant oatmeal – it doesn’t just happen in a minute.  Bread is a process; you have to live with it for a while.  As it mixes and rises and kneads and rises and shapes and rises you have to remember it and pay attention.  I always knead the bread by hand because it seems more personal.  When you’re kneading bread for ten minutes you have time to think about who will eat that bread – about who they are and how they are and how much you love them.  I suspect George thinks about us when he bakes our communion bread.  Bread comes with love mixed in.

I never want communion to be just a ritual we do without thinking about it. I want it to move us and change us.  I want it to connect us.  I always give you a big piece of bread so it takes you a while to eat it.  I want it to slow you down.  I want it to fill you up – physically and spiritually.  

Whenever I can, I break your bread off the loaf while you watch.  The piece you get is a part of the whole.  I want you to feel that deep within. 

I watch as you care for each other as you wait in line.  You make sure everyone who wants to participate gets to.  You connect with the people who choose to watch from the pews.  Communion is something we do because followers of Jesus have done it or centuries – it connects us to our heritage.  It’s also something we do because it connects us to each other and to the people who share our time, wherever they live.  In Russia visitors are welcomed with bread and salt.  Bread helps us reach out to include new folks and make them part of the family.  While I respect those who choose not to join in communion, I’m always glad when those folks change their minds.  We used to examine new members carefully to be sure that they fully understood communion before they participated.  We excluded children until they were confirmed members.  Then for a while we taught classes so they’d get communion right when they joined in.  That always confused me.  Communion means so much more than we can ever list or teach.  It changes over our lifetimes and each time we participate.  I feel like the most authentic participation is the young child who says, “I want some of that” or my granddaughter who doesn’t participate because she doesn’t like bread.  Communion is family dinner – it has layers of meaning.  Everyone is welcome at the table, however they wish to be.

Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

Today we continue our celebration of Easter, which began last week and runs until mid-May.  We celebrate all those Sundays because Easter is too important to last only one day, but is instead a season.  In reality, Easter also happens every Sunday morning we gather, although as the year moves along, we don’t always recognize that.

Throughout the Easter season we read the stories of people who had encounters with the risen Jesus, beginning today with Thomas.  We read about Thomas a few weeks ago when we read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  The disciples tried to dissuade Jesus from going to Jerusalem when Lazarus died because it was so dangerous.  When Jesus was determined to go, it’s Thomas who said, “We may as well go too so we can die with him.”  This always seemed to me like one of the braver things a disciple said or did.

In today’s appearance we read that Thomas doubted that Jesus had appeared to the disciples because he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.  This earned him the nickname “doubting Thomas,” which has become a negative way to talk about someone even to this day.  The author of the gospel has Jesus tell Thomas that those who believe without seeing are more blessed that he is.  That might have happened, but it also might be an editorial by the author.  By the time the gospel was written, virtually everyone in the Jesus movement believed without having seen Jesus, because those reported to have had a personal experience of his resurrection were long dead.  So the verse also serves as a compliment to those who would have been reading the story.  Whatever, the story has come to be about the negative aspects of doubt.  I’m going to suggest in a bit that doubt isn’t the point of the story, but first, let’s think about the role doubt plays in our lives.

Start with the simple stuff  - 

I doubt that my cousin in Atlanta who never corresponds with me is sending me photos by email three times a week, so when the blurb on the email says, “I should have sent these long ago” I don’t open it.  I bet doubt is saving me a computer virus.

On Wednesday  the Wednesday Kids had dirt cake with gummy worms for dessert.  My grandson Colin told me the worms were delicious, which I doubted.  So when I bit into one and it was beyond gross, I didn’t eat it.  No doubt he was right, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

Doubt also creeps into our lives in more significant ways – 

For a time in my family, the teenagers had to pick up their rooms before they could go someplace with their friends on weekends.  When they said, “If you just let me go this one time, I’ll clean all day tomorrow” I doubted that.  Sometimes I let them go anyway, but I wasn’t surprised when the cleaning didn’t happen.  

I also wrestled with deciding what teen activities were safe and what friends were a positive influence.  Probably every parent has doubted the wisdom of some decisions they made.  Parenting is made up of a million hard choices, some of which we second guess.  Some of which we get wrong, as well as those we get right.

Many of us have friends or family members we love who struggle with illness or addiction.  When they tell us this time they are going to get treatment right, change their bad habits, and be a new person we believe them.  And we doubt them.  All those changes are hard and almost no one gets them right the first time or the twenty-first time.

We doubt that the new car we’re buying is going to be as perfect as the salesperson tells us.  We doubt that the new diet plan is going to be as easy to follow as advertised.  We doubt that the new system at work is going to solve all the problems of the old one.  We doubt that all the grass seed we put in the bare spots in the lawn is going to sprout.  We doubt all these things because we’ve lived long enough to know from experience that things are rarely as easy as they are made out to be.  And often doubt serves us well.

But we are also people of hope who believe Jesus lived, died, and lived again in a way that gives hope to every generation and transforms the world.  And so in spite of doubt, we’re often ready to take another chance.  That’s what I think this story is about.

It’s not about doubting Thomas, it’s about cautious Thomas, careful Thomas, practical Thomas, who was steadfast in his commitment to Jesus.  Remember, he’s the one willing to go with Jesus to see Lazarus even if it killed him.  He’s the one running errands to keep the group supplied so he missed Jesus the first time he appeared.  He’s the one not ready to go off in a new direction with a resurrection story he hadn’t verified.  He’s going to remain faithful to Jesus’ mission and ministry, even though the leader was executed.

I’m thinking that the lesson in this story isn’t that doubt is bad.  This story is about what we do with our doubt and how we remain faithful and steadfast in spite of doubt.  This story encourages us when doubts creep into our relationships – with family, friends, neighbors, co-workers.  It encourages us when the groups we join and the projects we sign on to don’t go as smoothly as we anticipated.  It tells us that in spite of doubts, we don’t have to give up on the whole enterprise.  We can hang in there and keep on hoping.

So when friends fall off the wagon, we try not to enable them, but we also don’t give up on them.  When kids make bad decisions, we let them learn from the consequences and we surround them with enough love that they can try again and do better.  When we get a hard medical diagnosis, we acknowledge that the future is uncertain but we still trust the treatment plan and hope for the best.  When the world seems to have gone to hell in a hand basket, we keep on writing legislators and emailing the governor and voting.  We keep talking to our neighbors whose yard signs we don’t like.  We keep on cooking and planting and giving blood.

You’ll notice that in spite of resurrection, the church who claims Jesus as Lord didn’t come full blown into itself the next day and thousands of years later we’re stilling getting some things right and some not.  Along the way there may well have been as many doubts as there has been faith.  And we’re all still hanging in there, because it seems like the best thing to do.  And it seems like Jesus is still with us, encouraging us to keep going. 

Next time you doubt something is true, go right ahead.  Lots of things should be doubted.  But remember steadfast Thomas and in spite of your doubts, don’t give up on the people or the possibilities. 

Resurrection is always an option.

Easter Sunday

Matthew 21:1-11

We are used to thinking about Palm Sunday as Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, acclaimed by everyone as the Messiah come to save Israel from Rome.  We see it through our contemporary eyes as a victory parade, with Jesus as King as a done deal.  We’ve talked before about the fact that it’s not possible that it really happened that way.  It’s consensus that Jesus came to Jerusalem and that people were curious to see him, his reputation as a teacher and healer having spread throughout the area.  It’s quite possible that people greeted him with palm branches, that he went to the Temple and people gathered to hear what he would say and do.  But at the same time the Roman legions were marching into Jerusalem from the west, war horses leading the way and soldiers filling the streets, crowding out onlookers.  They were the power of the day.  Their military might was there to keep peace during the Passover festival and keep peace they did – partly by executing rabble rousers like Jesus, even if he didn’t really do anything to threaten them.

There’s no doubt that this story is meant to set up the  tension between Jesus and Rome – the rabbi vs. the Empire.  It isn’t a military confrontation.  It’s a clash between world views.  And remember that the gospels are telling the story two generations after it happened and after a Jewish revolt and the responding Roman destruction of Jerusalem and enslavement of many of the Jewish people.  After Rome crushes Judeah, the gospel writers tell the story that portrays Jesus as triumphing over Roman occupation.  Even if Jesus didn’t directly confront Roman power in his lifetime, his followers see his message and his ministry as confronting Rome in their lifetimes.  This story is meant to highlight the contrast between the two.  Jesus who comes in peace and Rome who comes in violence.  Jesus who healed beggars and Rome who executed thousands of innocent people.  Jesus who valued human life and Rome who slaughtered thousands and enslaved more.  Jesus who gave hope to people and Rome who destroyed whole nations. And in spite of the evidence, the Gospel writers portrayed Jesus as the winner of this contest.  Even though he was not the clear winner in their moment in history, they claimed that he had won and staked their hopes on that being the truth of their future.  This story is about people who hope for a better tomorrow with almost no evidence that it will be possible.

So if we read this story in the twenty-first century as being about Jesus triumphant and we his people who have won the victory with him, we read it wrong.  This isn’t a celebration story for winners.  It’s a story about people who hoped for change without any reason to hope and lived in that hope rather than succumbing to despair – for generations.  And one day those who followed Jesus became the dominant power of the world and could indeed claim victory.  We are the ancestors of both of those peoples – the ones who hoped for change and the ones who rule the world.  We can indeed celebrate changes the original authors only dreamed of.  We can be proud of the good that has been done in Jesus’ name over the centuries.  We should celebrate that good.

We should also acknowledge that all the dreams of the Jesus people haven’t come true.  The world is not yet living by Jesus’ teaching or following his way.  If Jesus was a first century challenge to the Roman world view, he is also in some ways a twenty-first century challenge to the predominate Christian world view.  Let’s think about some of the ways that’s true in our time.

Jesus was an advocate of peace and reconciliation in a violent time.  Love your enemy.  Turn the other cheek.  Do good to those who persecute you.  So today Jesus’ followers can be advocates of peace.  In my youth we supported those who didn’t want to fight in what they considered unjust wars.  The church stood with conscientious objectors and gave them legitimacy in other forms of nonviolent service.  Today the church is advocating for the people of Ukraine – this time supporting a war in order to put an end to violent aggression.  And at the same time advocating for peace – in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Syria, in Afghanistan and in all the places of the world people are traumatized by violent aggressors.  When we face this challenge, we are standing in the tradition of Jesus.

Jesus valued people who were treated without dignity by Empire.  He accepted those who were cast out and oppressed – slaves, women, peasants, the ill.  Today the church stands with people who are in danger of being left out and left behind.  Our denominations and our congregation spoke out on Friday for transgender rights in opposition to our own and other legislatures who are making laws denying the rights of transgender and many other people.  I would never have dreamed that to be Christian is a call to stand up for the right of drag shows, but that’s where we have come in our time.  We stand with those who are ill and need health care.  We advocate for those suffering from mental illness and addiction and unable to access treatment – often because treatment doesn’t exist.  We resolve to treat those without economic means with dignity and respect.  In a world of economic disparity, we share our wealth and make a small dent in the effort to level the playing field.  When we face this challenge, we are standing in the tradition of Jesus.

Jesus stood up not only to Empire but also to the authority of religious leaders who placed heavy burdens and rejection on common people.  We welcome people of all faiths.  The Buddhists have a place in our building.  We’re going to stand with the Somalis and learn to celebrate Eid.  We advocate for religious freedom which includes resistance to a narrow definition of what it means to be Christian or a preferential treatment for Christians in our government.  When we face the challenge of religious freedom, we are standing in the tradition of Jesus.

There are so many challenges we care about – and each of us has the ones who matter to us most.  Today is a day to hear again that Jesus stands with us when we confront injustice in our world.  Yes, we can celebrate that we have made progress over the centuries.  We don’t want to lose sight of how far we’ve come.  AND we can hear our spiritual ancestors encouraging us to hold on to hope.  In the face of great challenges we can believe that justice and mercy will prevail,  just as Jesus’ followers believed in their time.  And because they believed, we have inherited their hope, their faith, and their commitment to continue to follow Jesus and work to make his vision for the world a reality in our own time.

Palm Sunday

Matthew 21:1-11

We are used to thinking about Palm Sunday as Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, acclaimed by everyone as the Messiah come to save Israel from Rome.  We see it through our contemporary eyes as a victory parade, with Jesus as King as a done deal.  We’ve talked before about the fact that it’s not possible that it really happened that way.  It’s consensus that Jesus came to Jerusalem and that people were curious to see him, his reputation as a teacher and healer having spread throughout the area.  It’s quite possible that people greeted him with palm branches, that he went to the Temple and people gathered to hear what he would say and do.  But at the same time the Roman legions were marching into Jerusalem from the west, war horses leading the way and soldiers filling the streets, crowding out onlookers.  They were the power of the day.  Their military might was there to keep peace during the Passover festival and keep peace they did – partly by executing rabble rousers like Jesus, even if he didn’t really do anything to threaten them.

There’s no doubt that this story is meant to set up the  tension between Jesus and Rome – the rabbi vs. the Empire.  It isn’t a military confrontation.  It’s a clash between world views.  And remember that the gospels are telling the story two generations after it happened and after a Jewish revolt and the responding Roman destruction of Jerusalem and enslavement of many of the Jewish people.  After Rome crushes Judeah, the gospel writers tell the story that portrays Jesus as triumphing over Roman occupation.  Even if Jesus didn’t directly confront Roman power in his lifetime, his followers see his message and his ministry as confronting Rome in their lifetimes.  This story is meant to highlight the contrast between the two.  Jesus who comes in peace and Rome who comes in violence.  Jesus who healed beggars and Rome who executed thousands of innocent people.  Jesus who valued human life and Rome who slaughtered thousands and enslaved more.  Jesus who gave hope to people and Rome who destroyed whole nations. And in spite of the evidence, the Gospel writers portrayed Jesus as the winner of this contest.  Even though he was not the clear winner in their moment in history, they claimed that he had won and staked their hopes on that being the truth of their future.  This story is about people who hope for a better tomorrow with almost no evidence that it will be possible.

So if we read this story in the twenty-first century as being about Jesus triumphant and we his people who have won the victory with him, we read it wrong.  This isn’t a celebration story for winners.  It’s a story about people who hoped for change without any reason to hope and lived in that hope rather than succumbing to despair – for generations.  And one day those who followed Jesus became the dominant power of the world and could indeed claim victory.  We are the ancestors of both of those peoples – the ones who hoped for change and the ones who rule the world.  We can indeed celebrate changes the original authors only dreamed of.  We can be proud of the good that has been done in Jesus’ name over the centuries.  We should celebrate that good.

We should also acknowledge that all the dreams of the Jesus people haven’t come true.  The world is not yet living by Jesus’ teaching or following his way.  If Jesus was a first century challenge to the Roman world view, he is also in some ways a twenty-first century challenge to the predominate Christian world view.  Let’s think about some of the ways that’s true in our time.

Jesus was an advocate of peace and reconciliation in a violent time.  Love your enemy.  Turn the other cheek.  Do good to those who persecute you.  So today Jesus’ followers can be advocates of peace.  In my youth we supported those who didn’t want to fight in what they considered unjust wars.  The church stood with conscientious objectors and gave them legitimacy in other forms of nonviolent service.  Today the church is advocating for the people of Ukraine – this time supporting a war in order to put an end to violent aggression.  And at the same time advocating for peace – in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Syria, in Afghanistan and in all the places of the world people are traumatized by violent aggressors.  When we face this challenge, we are standing in the tradition of Jesus.

Jesus valued people who were treated without dignity by Empire.  He accepted those who were cast out and oppressed – slaves, women, peasants, the ill.  Today the church stands with people who are in danger of being left out and left behind.  Our denominations and our congregation spoke out on Friday for transgender rights in opposition to our own and other legislatures who are making laws denying the rights of transgender and many other people.  I would never have dreamed that to be Christian is a call to stand up for the right of drag shows, but that’s where we have come in our time.  We stand with those who are ill and need health care.  We advocate for those suffering from mental illness and addiction and unable to access treatment – often because treatment doesn’t exist.  We resolve to treat those without economic means with dignity and respect.  In a world of economic disparity, we share our wealth and make a small dent in the effort to level the playing field.  When we face this challenge, we are standing in the tradition of Jesus.

Jesus stood up not only to Empire but also to the authority of religious leaders who placed heavy burdens and rejection on common people.  We welcome people of all faiths.  The Buddhists have a place in our building.  We’re going to stand with the Somalis and learn to celebrate Eid.  We advocate for religious freedom which includes resistance to a narrow definition of what it means to be Christian or a preferential treatment for Christians in our government.  When we face the challenge of religious freedom, we are standing in the tradition of Jesus.

There are so many challenges we care about – and each of us has the ones who matter to us most.  Today is a day to hear again that Jesus stands with us when we confront injustice in our world.  Yes, we can celebrate that we have made progress over the centuries.  We don’t want to lose sight of how far we’ve come.  AND we can hear our spiritual ancestors encouraging us to hold on to hope.  In the face of great challenges we can believe that justice and mercy will prevail,  just as Jesus’ followers believed in their time.  And because they believed, we have inherited their hope, their faith, and their commitment to continue to follow Jesus and work to make his vision for the world a reality in our own time.

Fifth Sunday in Lent

John 11:1-45 

The Gospel of John is known for its long stories, so when the lectionary list of scriptures puts us  in John, our scripture lessons get longer on Sundays. John tells fewer stories than the other  Gospels and tells them in more detail. Each story is a “sign” that Jesus is the Messiah and has  changed the world. Those signs usually involve miracles - a sign that God’s power resides in  Jesus for our benefit. Some of these miracles are about doing supernatural things - like today’s  story of raising Lazarus after he dies. Others involve knowing things only God could know - like  the story of the woman at the well we read earlier this month. She tells folks Jesus “told me  everything I did.” John’s point is that Jesus has knowledge and power equal to God and will use  it to bring God’s reign into reality among us. 

Forty-five years ago when I was a new pastor, I would have explained to you how we can trust  these miracle stories because Jesus did them with God’s power. Today I want to say I have no  idea how Jesus did these things or if he literally accomplished them in the way they are  reported. I don’t understand miracles any more than you do. Sometimes amazing things  happen and sometimes they don’t.  

I do want to affirm that the people who followed Jesus in his lifetime and in the generations after  when the gospels were being written, believed that his life and his message were world changing. They told these stories to share with others how Jesus had impacted their lives for  the better. As we receive these stories from our tradition, we can reflect on what Jesus means  in our lives and how we may also be changed for the better by knowing him. 

In order to do that we can ask ourselves, “Why do I think Jesus matters? What is special about  him, his life, and his teaching that makes a difference to me?” 

There are many answers to that question. Let’s name a few possible ones this morning. 

1. Jesus speaks to us of unconditional love. He says to us, “God IS love.” In his actions and  words he treated all people with love. He didn’t agree with everyone, but he was respectful  and loving to everyone. Sometimes we think that God’s love is conditional: we will be loved  if we believe the right things about God and Jesus, if we behave in the right ways and follow  commandments, if we’re baptized. Jesus didn’t put conditions on God’s love. Because God  is God, we are loved. It’s in God’s very essence to be loving toward all people and all  creation. We tend to be hard on ourselves and others. We focus on faults and missteps.  God, on the other hand, loves us. The LaGrave apartments are on a housing first model:  give someone experiencing lack of shelter a home, and then deal with everything else  impacting their lives. God is LOVE FIRST. We are foremost and always loved. After that  we can talk about how we live in that love. 

2. Jesus gives us hope for life beyond life. I have no first-hand knowledge of what happens to  us after we die, but Jesus was convinced that there was something more and I trust him in  this. This matters to us especially when we lose people we love - we want to believe that  there is still a connection with those folks. We want to believe that their spirits continue in  some way. I think we have all experienced a sense that our loved ones are still there for us  beyond this life. We feel them close to us at times. We use their memory to continue our  connection to them. We hear their voice in our ear. Jesus promised that he “goes to  prepare a place for us.” We don’t have details about what that means, but I trust it to be  true. 

3. Jesus invited people to live in community in a new and intentional way. He said things like,  “Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. God the extra mile. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Jesus welcomed folks whose illness or disability set them outside  community and brought them back into the heart of their villages. The people of the first  century lived in violent, difficult conditions. It was a temptation to respond with violence and  anger. Jesus taught them instead to love each other, to respect each other. The Empire  could treat them badly, but it couldn’t make them treat each other badly. Surrounded by  hatred, they could live in love. They could bring the community of God’s reign into the heart  of their living by following the guidelines Jesus gave them. When they did that, their lives  improved, even if their circumstances didn’t change. This summer I’m going to share with  you in the sermons research about how people in the first and second centuries lived out  Jesus’ call to community. It will give us a chance to reflect on how we form community in our  church and in our towns. How we live impacts the kind of people we become, and Jesus  gives us a good model for living. 

4. Finally, Jesus challenged the abuses of the Roman Empire and the Jewish religious leaders  who served Empire. He called out those who used their power to enrich themselves at the  expense of the poor. He criticized leaders who made life harder for those under them.  Jesus lifted up the values God holds for society - justice, mercy, compassion, equity,  sharing. This list is always long and I hope you add your favorites to it. The first century  was based on violent power and control and people didn’t matter except as they enriched  the empire. That’s no way to live. In our congregation, we are inspired by Jesus’ vision as  we live in the twenty-first century. We aim to treat all people with the love and respect Jesus  showed for them, and to use the influence we have to create a just world. We have a long  way to go, but I’m inspired by the possibilities Jesus holds up for us. I think you are too, and  so we keep going. We keep reminding the system that it’s supposed to work for everyone.  We advocate for those who need allies so their voices can be heard. We work for justice.  And we work to make the world better in the small ways we have the capacity to make  change, as a sign of what could be. Jesus is the one who keeps me going on this justice  journey. 

5. These are just some of the ways we can understand who Jesus was and what he was up to.  I suspect that at some moment in your life, each of these has been important to you. There  may well be other ways Jesus is meaningful to your life journey and those are equally  important. We are not the same people at each stage of our lives, and our faith and our  connection to Jesus is meant to grow and change over time. Jesus and the God he  represents are bigger than our living and our understanding of God adapts as we need it to  adapt. It’s the way that God is always with us.  

Our understanding of Jesus can put emphasis on many different things, and all of them are right  at the right moment for us. We don’t have to all be in the same place at the same time. But we  agree that Jesus matters for us. That’s something we hold in common, despite our differences.  And something we celebrate.