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John likes to tell stories that are a little more involved. We’ve had two in a row now. Last week it was the Woman at the Well, and this week it’s the Man Born Blind. The central point in all of his stories is the affirmation of Jesus as the Word of God made flesh, the Light of the world, the bearer of Eternal Grace. But he always gives us lots to chew on as he fills out his stories with details.
This morning’s story focuses around a man who is blind –but we know John is setting the man’s blindness alongside the myopia of the temple Pharisees. They are the ones who can’t see the forest for the trees. They are the ones who are so focused on the minutia of the Law that they can’t leave room for grace. In fact, John’s distain for the Pharisees and Temple leaders is quite clear as we move closer to the crucifixion. We have to remember that John is written after the contentious separation of Christians from the synagogue was complete and Christianity was struggling with its relationship with Rome.
Today’s story begins with that age old question “Why.” -Why does tragedy seem to single out some people in such painful ways? Is this man’s blindness from birth some kind of punishment, the disciples ask, either of his parents or himself somehow? Jesus absolutely rejects the idea that it is anyone’s fault.
While the disciples seem like they are ready to debate this philosophical/ theological question, Jesus, simply dismisses the issue of blame and instead focuses on the opportunity to do something good. He is rather asking, “Where can God’s Love come into this situation?” Tragedy is always an opportunity to bring God’s grace into the world for Jesus.
Jesus simply approaches the man and heals him. And did you notice, he does so even without the man asking for healing, or the man expressing faith, or saying anything! Jesus simply responds to the need that is in front of him and turns tragedy, not into an issue of blame, but into an opportunity to highlight and demonstrate God’s grace.
It’s not hard to find a sermon there. We still live in a world that finds it easier to fix blame than trying to fix pain! –Perhaps we think that if we can find the reasons rationally enough we can keep such troubles at arm’s length from ourselves. –Even though we know it’s not quite that simple. If we were to see life’s sadness less as questions about God’s fairness and more as questions of us –and our ability to demonstrate God’s goodness wouldn’t the world be a better place?
But this is not just a story about healing, or even about seizing the opportunities for sharing God’s love. It is a story of spiritual blindness in all its ramifications. It is about the myopia of those who cannot see the bigger picture. It is about the proclivity of people, even good religious people, to fall victim to their own small mindedness, to become caught in ruts of their own making and to let lesser values trump greater ones. While John’s main focus is on Jesus as the Word of God Made Flesh, he also wants to make clear that the Pharisees have both misunderstood who Jesus is, and how God’s love is to be lived out in the world.
There is more than one story in the gospels where the Pharisees are opposed to Jesus because he is not following the rules, either about the Sabbath, or hand washing, or eating, or those with whom he shares meals. — Respect for tradition, and convention was important to Pharisees. They were not bad people; they were simply too caught up in the minutia of religion. They sometimes let that override the greater concern for love and caring.
Indeed, they could quote the bible itself and point out that it said, even demanded, that work should not be done on the Sabbath. —–And they reasoned if this man has been blind for 20 years or more does one more day matter that much? –Why can’t Jesus just wait a day and heal him when it was acceptable. It seemed perfectly reasonable to them.
The Pharisees were trying to follow one of the Ten Commandments after all!
“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” It’s the second longest and most drawn out of the Ten Commandments. –There wasn’t any doubt in their mind where the Bible stood on this issue. Jesus had broken the rules. – They just wanted him to wait for the appropriate time!
–We’ve heard that kind of argument before in our own time. There have always been those who said to the activists, “Wait a minute, you can’t break the laws, Women’s Rights will come, racial rights will come, Gay rights will come, but you have to follow the rules. You can’t upset things or cause a disturbance.” –That was basically how the Pharisees thought. -If exceptions are made for good causes chaos ensues.
So I’m wondering if we’d be any less likely to take offense at someone pushing the boundaries of our sacred cows. –Of course, working on Sunday isn’t one of them for us. –Even the folks who want to post the 10 Commandments in schools would soft pedal that fifth one, about working on the Sabbath.
But Jesus isn’t going to wait when he sees the suffering of a fellow traveler! –God’s healing and justice shouldn’t be put on hold just to make things more comfortable with tradition, or more in line with the smaller points of the Law Jesus seems to demonstrate.
The Pharisees didn’t see where they were wearing blinders. It’s not an uncommon problem for any of us, no matter how “Right” we try to be. We might ask ourselves, in fact, if this passage doesn’t push us in the opposite direction and remind us that there is a place for Sabbath in our lives. Isn’t life better, and humanity more human, when there is a time set aside to acknowledge the sacred and we step back from the pursuit of business” Aren’t we more whole when we make time to focus on things other than making a living or even the passionate pursuit of recreation. But that is another issue. It is really not in this particular text. –Let’s deal with it another morning.
In deference to the real central struggle going on here, don’t we need to ask: “Where am I blind to the real possibilities of the work of God’s grace?” “Where is convention keeping us from seeing how we might serve in God’s name?” –“Where is our fixation on lesser priorities blocking our willingness to see how we might be sharing the healing and hope of God?” —Where is our sense of convention and decorum keeping us from our central mission?
I think John wants the church to be asking those questions far more insistently rather than pointing fingers at ancient Pharisees and assuming we are so much beyond them.
In the end discipleship is about journeying with Jesus in our time.
John wants us to see with clearer eyes the issues of our own lives and our own times.
Seeing, in John’s story, and also for us, is not just about having eyes. It’s also about understanding, about perceiving truth. It’s about knowing what the world is like in all its many colors and shapes and finding where God fits. It’s about not being so locked into our preconceived notions that we can’t let new truth come into our world and have a vision of how God’s love can be more truly made manifest in the world.
We are trying to journey with Jesus in this Lenten season and John would remind us to open our eyes and see how God’s love might be better shared in our world.
In both these stories we know it’s not about the water -though water plays an important role in the biblical story. When Abraham sends a servant to find a wife for Isaac he finds her at a well. Jacob meets his wife at a well, and Moses meets his wife at a well. And, of course, the Jordan River looms large as the river that must be crossed to get to the Promised Land and it is the place of Jesus’ baptism.
But today the Israelites are having a crisis of faith because this journey to the Promised Land was so much harder and uncertain than they had bargained for. The water had run out. And in the Gospel the Woman at the Well is asked for a drink & comes to faith in Jesus.
We don’t know why Jesus decided to take the more direct route back to Galilee that went through Samaria. Most Jews traveling to and from Galilee took a route further to the east, to avoid the Samaritan territory. Samaritans were considered renegades to the faith. -Not to mention somewhat traitorous since they had refused to help rebuild the Temple after Jerusalem’s citizens had returned from Babylonian Captivity. But here Jesus is, even stopping at the edge of a Samaritan town to get some food and perhaps a drink.
It’s noon, not the normal time for women to come to fetch water. But this woman with no name shows up. We don’t really know why she is there at this time of day. Most women come when it’s cooler. The conjecture has always been that she must be avoiding the other women. Maybe she has a reputation. Five husbands, and a 6th man with whom she lives—I’m sure this would not go unnoticed in a small mid-eastern village 2000 years ago! Had she been widowed? -Or divorced? We don’t know. Maybe some combination of the two.
You notice there is no condemnation from Jesus, no judgement, (that, despite Matthew’s quotes about divorce.) Just a recognition of her circumstances. Also, there is no mention of children, so perhaps she had been cast aside by husbands for not giving them children. Whatever the cause of her situation it had to make for some painful history. She surely had been acquainted with tears.
There must have been more to the conversation than John tells us. -They are still talking when the disciples return. They are shocked to see him talking to a woman, and a Samaritan to boot, but they keep their composure.
Jesus, as he often does, becomes the vehicle for grace for her. –And the brokenness which she feels becomes the crack through which light comes, -both to her and ultimately to her community.
When Jesus tells her that “The time has come when it doesn’t matter where you worship God. As long as you worship with pure hearts and true lives”, he is letting her know that she is accepted by God, both in her life circumstances and her cultural tradition as a Samaritan.
Jesus is making it clear that the Grace of God transcends even the boundaries of formal institutional religion. –It is a gift of God that can move in our lives in ways beyond the bounds of preconceived human notions.
This woman, in a man’s world, this foreigner, this person with a history, then becomes an evangelist! –She goes back to her little village and because of her excitement and enthusiasm she gets folks to come out and meet Jesus. They even prevail upon him to stay another two days in their town! Whatever her reputation before, it had to be different after that!
One of my favorite stories of renewal is one told by Rachel Remen an MD and pioneer in holistic approach to medicine and the mind body connection tells of an angry young man she had as a patient some years ago. He had been a promising young college athlete until he developed bone cancer in his right leg. The leg had to be amputated just above the knee. The surgery saved his life but ended his ball playing career. He was bitter and depressed with the overwhelming feelings of the injustice of what had happened to him. He then dropped out of college, started drinking too much and had a car accident in short order.
When he first came to see Dr. Remen he was closed and sullen, still raging inside.
She gave him a pen and asked him to draw a picture of his body. He drew a sketch of a vase with a large crack in it. He drew it so intensely and hard that he ripped the paper. –It was a vase that could not hold water, could not function in any intended way. –An apt picture of how he saw himself.
Over the next months of physical and emotional therapy he began to release some of his anger and bring in articles of other people who had been victims of terrible accidents or illnesses.
He told Dr. Remen: “Dr.’s don’t really know what it’s like.” So she offered him a chance to talk to young patients who came to the hospital with crippling injuries or surgeries.
He began to be a regular volunteer and help many new patients come to terms with their own feelings. –he could relate in a way that Dr.’s couldn’t. More and more Dr.’s referred their angry patients to him. In the end one of those patients convinced him that he had a gift and encouraged him to go back to school and study psychology. He did.
A couple of years later he came back in to see Dr. Remen and she pulled the picture of the broken vase he had drawn that first meeting out of her file and asked if he remembered it.
He said, “Yes, but it’s not quite finished yet.”
She gave it to him and he took a yellow marker and filled the crack with bright yellow and then drew lines radiating from it.
She looked a little puzzled and he said, “See this crack, where it is broken is where the light shines through.”
What had started as a painful frustrated expression of his brokenness had now become a symbol of his calling, his gift to the world.
There was a certain grace at work in his life that, even without formal religious connection, had manifested itself in his healing and wholeness.
In John’s story Jesus breaks the religious barriers and customs of his day -but more than that- he becomes the instrument of God’s grace!–To this woman and to this village he offers a healing of heart and soul.
Maybe you would say it was just coincidence that he met this woman at the well..,
But maybe God works in the little coincidences of life to let Redemptive Love shine through us!
When you have experienced God’s Grace it changes you –whether you are like the Woman and the Well or like the young athlete who had his leg amputated. –God can provide a healing that goes beneath the surface of things. It renews the soul.
John records this story for a church that has become increasingly diverse near the end of the first century. He wants folks to know: that Jesus crosses all the boundaries; Jesus sees more than skin deep, sees beyond the cultural traditions, and even beyond the taboos.
Like a jeweler looking at old tarnished silver, God is not put off by encrusted layers of dirt or brine that dull the beauty and corrode the surface. God asks not just what you were but what you will be!
John tells this story not just to let us know what happened once upon a time –BUT to say that this Christ, this one who bore God’s presence still brings the water of life, the water that quenches the soul’s thirst—and all are invited to drink from this well.
Remember, in the play or movie, “The Miracle Worker” when Ann Sullivan takes Helen Keller to the pump and begins pumping water over her hands and over and over again spells out the word W-A-T-E-R. It was a moment of realization and of unlocking the doors to Helen’s real potential… Helen later said It was her “soul’s birthday.”
I think that is what the woman at the well would have said about meeting Jesus at the well that day—and what John would have us understand is that for those who truly meet Jesus it is still true!
I have probably said before that I often find Paul’s theological arguments a little tedious. He is so tied to his first century Jewish and Roman world and his arguments are sometimes so arcane that he loses me. He is, of course, an intense and dedicated defender of the Christian faith. No one did more to start churches and spread the faith in the first century than he did. Of course, it wasn’t always so. At first, he was adamantly set on stamping out Christianity. He was a part of the stoning of Stephen, just a couple of years after Jesus’ death and Resurrection. Then went on ardently seeking to arrest and try converts to Christianity for fraudulent religious claims and apostasy. He was one of those people who are strident in their opinions and gung-ho in putting them forward. Always 100% sure of his convictions. –If you wanted to have a friendly low-key family get together, he might be the uncle you would want to leave off the guest list. But surely, those are the qualities of a mover and shaker in any age. Elon Musk, I’m told, isn’t that easy to work with or for either.
Paul’s discussion of the meaning of God’s embrace of Abram fits into that category of intense and sometimes confusing arguments. But I sense here that it is because the issue is so personal to him. He sees his own journey as coming through those same doors. “Saved by Grace” is clearly his own calling card. He understands that though he was emphatic in his religious fervor before his conversion, he was, nevertheless, on the wrong road. –He still honors Judaism and believes his ancestors are God’s chosen people but believes God has worked out a way to bless all the earth through this one Jesus. He believes wholeheartedly that this is where Judaism was supposed to go.
As a rabbi and Pharisee trained in the religious traditions of Israel, Paul came to this insight not because of his intense study or brilliance, but because he had this dramatic and mystical experience with the Risen Christ. –In other words, it came through God’s grace not through work he did striving for insight or through being so dutiful in following the Law that he achieved it on his own. God, he understands, simply broke through to him in the person of Christ in a way he couldn’t avoid. The transforming nature of Christ’s appearance to him while he was on a journey to arrest Christ followers was a gift. And it made him rethink everything. He could take no credit. He simply thanked God.
That’s how he now saw it was with Abraham. Abram experienced God’s mysterious call and trusted. That trust was counted as righteousness. Even before Abram did anything, God called him righteous. –That’s how ‘trusting Jesus’ works to put us in a right relationship with God Paul said. It wasn’t about following the commandments for Abram. The Commandments hadn’t been written yet. The call of Abram, Abraham’s name before his covenant with God, is one of the crucial events of the Old Testament. Even NT authors name Abraham as a hero second to only Moses. He is one of the most often mentioned O.T. characters in other parts of scripture. Still today the religious significance of this biblical figure for all Middle Eastern cultures cannot be ignored.
Abraham’s “belief” in God was not just a belief that God existed, or even belief that God was speaking to him –it was a trust in God’s goodness and trust in his relationship with God. But beyond that, Abraham’s trust in God was the beginning of an ongoing sense of communion with God. –Abraham was not righteous because he was perfectly good, Paul would remind us. – In fact, in the story we see that he is not perfect. –He is, after all, prepared to give his wife Sara away, to a powerful ruler rather than risk his own life., –And he has a son, Ishmael, with his wife’s servant girl because they have both given up on God’s promise for them to have a son. Then he summarily sends the child and his mother away later. These are hardly the actions of a saint –and we certainly would not call them heroic!
Despite his lapses, Abraham goes as God calls him to go — trusting that God has a purpose and a plan for him.
Abraham, like many of the great saints of the faith, did not sweep his doubts and insecurities under the rug. He did not pretend with himself or with God. So called “Blind faith” was not his forte. In fact one might say his lapses in judgment were precisely moments when his doubts overcame his faith,—when his trust in God, was overridden momentarily by his anxiety or his uncertainty. His doubts were always cropping up front and center!
–Don’t most of us go through life that way? –Sometimes saying: “Hey God I know we’re supposed to have faith, –but what about this— What about my kid’s problems, or what about this pink slip, –at my age where am I going to get another job? Divorce?? –This wasn’t in the script I agreed to. — Are you serious God, about being with me? –About caring?
Faith, as trust, the way Paul sees it evidenced in Abraham, is not this little commodity we buy once and then carry it around in our pocket the rest of our lives. Faith must be purchased daily, –with our questioning, our doubts, our letting go and our holding again. The Abraham story ought to make clear that “Faith” is not about a set of verbal statements we make, as some people want to interpret John 3:16 (which was, by the way our Gospel lesson for today). It is much more complicated than that.
It is no wonder Abraham becomes the godfather of three of the world’s major religions, –He’s so much like us in his attempts to follow God’s call… so much like us in his halting attempts to trust God in the midst of life’s struggles that it is easy to see ourselves in him. Ultimately God shepherds him through his journey and we see him persevere in his faith.
In a similar way the grace of God stands before us Paul says, and our faith/trust is a response to that grace.
Today we come to the communion table. It is the table of God’s grace made evident in Jesus. We invite to come and take the elements of Grace God has provided. -All are welcome!
Lent is one of those times when we traditionally think about faith and faithfulness. We ask what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? And wonder, “Have I been faithful to the way of God that Jesus espoused and lived?”
The Lectionary always begins Lent with one of the gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness that comes right after his baptism. His baptism experience had brought a moving and intense sense of God’s call and embrace. Now Jesus is trying to sort out what this call of God means, and what being faithful to it will entail. It is not so much a temptation as a self-assessment and personal quandary about what he will do with this call and where will it take him. It is his moment of discer4nment.
In a different way, Adam and Eve in the Garden story are sorting out their place in creation. They are testing the limits God has set on them. One might say they are testing the limits on human consumption. They succumb to the wily con job of the Antagonist of Humanity and though his con isn’t a total lie it does bring a kind of death. A death of the idyllic garden innocence.
Hebrew theological tradition was less about philosophical speculation and more about stories that could concretely and situationally explore religious truth. Most scholars today would say that both of our biblical stories this morning are from that rabbinical story mold. Like Jesus’ own parables, whether or not they are based on things that actually happened is beside the point. They are meant to point to truths that are relatable and understandable and can be thought about from more than one angle. Most scholars take both of biblical stories today, as those kinds of theological story constructs.
The Apostle Paul, for instance, uses the analogy to suggest that one way of understanding Jesus’ life is analogous to the 2nd Adam –who eradicates or counters the sin and failure of the first Adam.
Interestingly, Paul, who takes his lumps for his attitude towards women at times, never once mentions Eve’s part in things when he deals with this. –He puts all the blame on Adam when he talks about the creation story. –Perhaps it was because even though Eve was the first to eat the apple, Adam was the first to make an excuse and blame someone else. And if you look closely in the story Eve was not even created yet when God tells Adam not to eat from this special tree.
In the Genesis story it is Adam who blames Eve, God seems to apply equal responsibility. The first words of a fully conscious Adam, in the story, a person capable of understanding good and evil is, “It wasn’t my fault.” Certainly, symptomatic of human nature. Unfortunately, the church over the centuries has tended to buy into Adam’s dodge. —Some would say that is because men have been the primary writers, translators and interpreters of the bible and have guarded their role very well.
In any case, when dealing with the bible it is important to keep in mind the author’s primary purpose. While we may be playful with the text it is best not try to make any passage more than it was meant to be. I don’t mean one should not extrapolate from it and use the stories to ask a myriad of questions of ourselves. But we ought not, for instance, take this Creation story as a scientific explanation of how the world was created or that women are to have a subordinate role to men. It was not intended for that purpose.
If you do that you not only get into conflict with modern science you wind up with a whole host of complications:
Like –> If Adam & Eve were the only two people created where did their son’s wives come from? -> If God created Eve out of Adams’ rib, how come both men and women have the same number of ribs –Or one might ask –If Adam and Eve did not know the difference between Good and Evil before they ate the Apple, were they truly human, and could they really be blamed for making a wrong choice?
Well, the bible is not concerned with those details. The story is not meant to be taken that literally.
The ancient Hebrews were not concerned with “science” as we think of it. They were not even concerned with comprehensive mythologies. They were concerned with God’s intentions or agenda for humankind. What does God expect of us.
As O.T. scholar Walter Brueggemann puts it in his commentary on Genesis:
“Israel is concerned with God’s Lordly intent not his technique.”
Brueggemann suggests we take the creation story neither as historical fact nor as creation myth –but as Israel’s faith proclamation that God is at the center of things with an intention that humanity live in caring relationship with –the rest of creation, with each other, and with the Creator.
He goes on to say:
“The bible is not interested in abstract or theoretical questions like how evil came to be, or death came into the world—but its concern is the summons of God to faithful living. …. Human destiny is to live in God’s world -and with God’s other creatures, and not in a world of his/her own making.”
As such, the creation story of Adam and Eve shows, the mandate for humanity is to care for the garden… Literally to “till it and keep it” The words suggest both the task of the shepherd and the gardener or vineyard keeper. —It is hardly as some have suggested then, a license to scourge and pillage the earth and the rest of creation.
The gardener and the shepherd both have to have the interests of what they are caring for prominent in their thinking. They always function with one eye towards protecting, preserving, maintaining, and enhancing what they care for. Short sighted gardeners or shepherds don’t last very long.
It is the assumption of Genesis that humanity’s chief vocation is caring for God’s creation and living in community.
Genesis says, humanity has failed at both from the very beginning. Community breaks down when creation is not respected. That’s what happens in Genesis with the second sin, when Cain kills Able.
The Creation story clearly gives a wide range of permission, the garden is to be enjoyed, tasted, experienced, but there are limits, boundaries beyond which you should not go. –Not everything can be consumed. –Not everything should be considered subject to human interests, whims, or available for our consumption and perceived well-being.
Humanity always pushes at these boundaries and is always dying to know what is the real boundary and what is just the perceived boundary. –In part it is the nature of our freedom. –Humankind is the one creature with options! The one creature who can make choices based on long term consequences.
The soul-searching Jesus does in the wilderness is about his own options. -How far will he go in committing himself to God’s plans?
Creation in Genesis has a moral center, and a beginning point we call God. Everything exists because of and for the sake of the Creator.
Humanity is part of that creation, and yet has the unique responsibility of shepherding that creation; living in Covenant with God and each other.
And yet, God has given us the power of free will, to accept or reject the limits and responsibilities of that kind of covenant…. But rejection of God’s intention brings its own consequences and downfall.
Choosing between God’s way or what seems like the enticing possibilities we haven’t tasted yet is not a once and forever thing. Jesus, in counterpoint to Adam, passes the test where Adam failed.
Lent always asks us to think about our own decisions, faithfulness and priorities: to think about the3 choice we make. –May God strengthen you in your soul-searching this Lent.
There are certain passages that the Lectionary calls for us to look at every year. Jesus’ birth, baptism, crucifixion and Resurrection are naturals, -but also this mysterious experience of Transfiguration that Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us about. John, you’ll note omits it. John has other ways of affirming who Jesus is. In John Jesus says, “I am the light of the world” … “I am the bread of life” … “I am the Way” … “I am the good Shepherd.” In John he says to Martha, weeping over the death of her brother, Lazarus, “I am the Resurrection and the life!”, to the Woman at the Well he says, “I am the Messiah” And John understands all Jesus’ miracles and healings are signs of who he is.
But today both our scriptures have us on a mountain top. The most famous mountain is Mt. Sinai mentioned in the Exodus reading. But none of the gospels actually name which mountain Jesus and these three disciples go up. Matthew’s gospel puts Jesus in the far north beyond Galilee, in Caesarea Philippi just before this incident, so many have presumed Matthew is pointing to Mt. Hermon. It is 60 or 70 miles north of Lake Galilee, in what is now Syria. It is a little over 9,000 feet tall. –No small mountain; it even has snow on it most of winter. It is actually the highest point of that ridge of mountains known as the Golan Heights. You may remember the name from the Israeli war. The name Hermon is actually derived from the Hebrew root for “sacred”. Since ancient times it has had various temples on it to one god or another.
The other mountain theorized as the Transfiguration Mountain is Mt. Tabor which is located just east of Nazareth and is only about 1800 feet tall, certainly more easily climbable. It has nearness to Nazareth and accessibility going for it.
Mt. Sinai where Moses, gets the Commandments as we heard this morning, is far to the south, in the Arabian Peninsula. There is still debate though as to exactly which mountain it was. Elijah also escapes to a high mountain called Mt. Sinai, where he encounters the presence of God -not in earthquake and storm, but in a gentle whisper and finally in a fleeting vision. And note that both Moses and Elijah are the only two biblical leaders whose deaths are clouded in mystery. -Moses is buried by God Deuteronomy tells us and no one knows where. Elijah is mysteriously carried away by a chariot in the sky the book of Kings tells us.
Matthew seems to see other connections between Jesus and Moses. Is it just co-incidence that Matthew mentions the Transfiguration takes place six days after Peter’s famous confession that Jesus was the Christ and in Exodus Moses waits six days on top of Mt. Sinai for God to appear to him and give him the commandments –And there are clouds, and a strong sense of awe –in both stories –and in Deuteronomy’s retelling of the event, Moses’ face even shines.
Clearly, Matthew and the early church couldn’t help but draw parallels between the two events, and between these two great icons of history, Moses and Elijah, and Jesus. The church saw Jesus as the fulfillment of all that the Law and the Prophets began— And just as the People of Israel have the intimate connection between God and Moses reinforced on the Mountain, so the disciples have the intimate connection between God and Jesus confirmed on the mountain! -And these two ancient men, Moses and Elijah, are the two we are told, who appear with Jesus at the Transfiguration.
–As Moses, under the direction of God, had freed the people from bondage in Egypt, so Jesus frees us for a new relationship to God and leads us to the fullness of God’s promise. Moses gave the Law -Jesus gives the Law new meaning.
—As Moses establishes the covenant between God and the People of Israel so Jesus establishes a New Covenant between God and those who are his followers. Jesus now becomes the one through which we interpret the Law of Moses. The parallels the early church saw between them are striking. –As Elijah is taken up into heaven by God so Jesus is resurrected and ascends into heaven.
In the end, Jesus’ ethics and theology, his life, death, and Resurrection become the lens through which we discern the intent and meaning of God’s words. For Matthew, the Transfiguration is a dramatic revelation as to who Jesus is and the meaning of his life.
Matthew clearly tells us this whole experience is a “Vision.” -Mark and Luke are not quite so clear about that. The gospel writers, of course, are writing at a time when the word “vision” was not so loaded with psychological implications and scientific suspicion. Likewise, Peter, James and John were not questioning their sanity after seeing these images and hearing this voice from the heavens –they simply accept that this is a God sent vision.
–The whole experience is overwhelming we are told the disciples throw themselves face down on the ground. –Well, I guess, who wouldn’t be terrified! – A radiant light, two ghosts, and a voice out of a cloud, not something you see or experience every day!
–The voice simply confirms that Jesus is God’s son and says: “Listen to Him.”
What does Jesus do in response to all this in Matthew? –He comes over and touches these disciples as they cower, awe-struck on the ground and says, “Get up, don’t be afraid!” –It is words and a gesture of assurance.
It is something Jesus says more than once in the gospels. –When he comes to them walking on water –He says, “Don’t be Afraid.” — when he appears to the two Mary’s after the Resurrection, he says, “Don’t be afraid.” So three times in Matthew Jesus tells disciples, “Don’t be afraid” –I think it is a message Matthew includes very purposefully –not just to tell the story – but to reinforce for the early church and for us this calm assurance of Jesus’ presence and strength even when the events around us are scary and the world or circumstances seem to be pushing us to some perilous place.
The Transfiguration is one of those moments when the disciples mysteriously see who Jesus really is. It is a transcendent moment when the world is seen differently, God and life, and what it might mean to be a disciple of Christ, come into focus. It is a flash of revelation. In a moment it is gone.
Peter wants to set up shrines. This feels like holy ground. Interesting, isn’t it, that where Jesus scrubs the idea of putting up Peter’s shrines subsequent generations of Christians and others have built many such shrines to commemorate this sacred story and space. There are some 30 plus shrines and temples fixed along the slopes of Mt. Hermon and a number of churches in the U.S. are named after the mountain. There are two churches on Mt Tabor, one Roman Catholic and one Orthodox. Both are dedicated to the Transfiguration of Jesus.
It is, we see in history, a common thread of human activity, or perhaps a spiritual need. We are always trying to commemorate and solidify this experience of the holy mystery. We want something that helps us reconnect to that fleeting awareness of that which is holy and undergirds life. We want to be able to put our hands on it and draw it near to us, or draw ourselves near to it. We want and need spaces and places that nurture that deeper consciousness of God’s connection to us and to our lives. –Isn’t that why church sanctuaries are never just buildings?
In the end, of course, the Resurrected Christ became for the disciples an ever-present affirmation of God’s love and nearness. –None of them returned to the mountain that we know of. They went to all the Roman world and beyond proclaiming Christ Crucified and Resurrected. This Transfiguration visionary moment simply stirred them towards that great affirmation!
Moses puts a stark choice before the people near the end of his life: Stay true to the faith he has taught them, and they, and their children and grandchildren will be blest. Fall away into a religion of their own creation worshiping the things they have made and following a path of least resistance, and disaster awaits. It’s a theme that runs through the Exodus story. Later, of course, the Prophets charged the nation with precisely that failure. Law and Covenant were irrevocably bound together.
Keeping the covenant was never just about going to Temple or offering sacrifices. It was about building a nation and community that made justice and caring a fundamental part of their national fiber.
David Lose, the former president of Lutheran Theological Seminary in one of his commentaries on these passages says, “The law (that is the Torah) is given to strengthen community. The “you” in both Deuteronomy and Matthew is always plural. The law isn’t about meeting our individual needs but about creating and sustaining a community in which all of God’s children can find nurture, health, safety…the law comes as a gift to strengthen community by orienting us to the needs of our neighbor.”
Moses stands before the people in Deuteronomy and sets before them this picture of two divergent roads they may travel after he is gone. One is following God and the commandments God has given, which leads to life and well-being for all, and the other, simply going the way of least resistance and individual desires, which will lead in the end to national failure and disintegration of God’s hope for them. One road involves keeping a covenant with God and each other. The other means going your individual ways wherever the winds blow. The covenant with God was to define their faith and faith practice, as individuals and as a nation. To choose God’s way meant committing to a way of living in community, with justice and caring for each other. That was the focus of the Law, and it was precisely their failure to stay true to it that the prophets decried as the reason for their national troubles.
In a very rational analysis, it’s not too hard to understand how a small nation, squeezed in along the coast, with larger more established nations all around it, would be hard pressed to survive if it became divided or lost its sense of unity and purpose. But I think Moses meant more than that. Perhaps something more like Martin Luther King’s famous quote, “The arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Moses makes clear: if they lose their spiritual footing it will inevitably bring a fall.
Rev. Lose goes on to say, “Jesus intensifies the law in today’s reading precisely because the Law’s main focus and intent is to move us towards a just and caring community.” – Jesus wants “To help us avoid seeing the law as merely drawing moral boundaries and instead alert us to our responsibility to care for those around us. One can too easily discriminate, injure, neglect, or speak poorly of a neighbor all the while saying, ‘I have kept the commandment because I have not murdered.’ And so, Jesus intensifies the law to make us more responsible for our neighbor’s well-being. For by caring for our neighbor we strengthen a community that can best serve as a blessing to the world, which is God’s constant command and expectation of God’s people.”
It is out of that larger understanding of Jesus’ approach to the Law and the scriptures that most scholars suggest that Jesus teaching about divorce was aimed at protecting the rights and livelihood of women since the Law had become interpreted so strongly in the favor of men by the first century that the divorce laws came with a detriment to women.
Jesus makes the scriptures a starting point for thinking about morality and living a Godly life, not an ending point. He engages in the hard work of trying to discern the meaning of the law in an ongoing engagement with the Spirit of God. At no point does Jesus try to set up anything like a Christian Taliban where ridged rules prescribe behavior, and someone might be looking over your shoulder to see how you are doing. Jesus’ vision is of that prophetic hope where the precepts of God are written on the human heart, and everyone treats everyone with respect and dignity.
Some scholars have suggested that Jesus’ hyperbole in sayings like “If your right eye causes you to sin tear it out and throw it away” is a kind of ironic or comedic rejection of the Pharisees legalisms. New Testament scholar William Barclay in his commentary on Matthew’s gospel reminds that the Jewish Talmud, written in the years after Jesus, contained some biting characterizations of Pharisees. It lists seven different kinds of Pharisee, including the “Bruised or Bleeding Pharisee” who got their name because they tried to avoid looking at women to avoid any hint or suspicion that they had any impure thoughts, and so went around in public places either with their eyes closed or looking only down at their own feet. As a result, they were always bumping into things and wore their bumps and bruises as a badge of pride. –There were other classes of Pharisee, like those who tried to wear their good deeds on their shoulder -for all to see, or those who tried to look dramatically humble, and walked bent over in a hunched back position to give that demeanor. Or the Pharisee who was so afraid of breaking the Law that he did little, out of fear of doing something wrong. -Of course, the Talmud also acknowledges the truly Godly Pharisee who truly loved God and tried to live that love in their daily lives. -Not all that different from what Jesus’ approach.
How we interpret scripture depends a lot on how we view God. -Is God that judgmental ogre just waiting to slap us down for any mistakes? -Or is God a loving, redeeming God seeking to loving and caring lives.
Students lodging with Martin Luther once asked him what his picture of God was, he responded, “When I think of God, I think of a man hanging on a tree. Because in the cross of Christ we see God’s love poured out for the whole world and are reminded that God will go to any and all lengths to communicate just how much God loves us so that we, in turn, may better love one another.”
The Law as Matthew projects it in his understanding of Jesus, and Moses as he understands it looking ahead to the future of Israel, is not a burden we must carry but a gift that is to lift us to life more ennobled, more compassionate, and more spiritual, more able to fulfill God’s hope for us.
A few verses earlier in Deuteronomy Moses says: “Certainly this commandment that I am commanding you is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away.” (Deut. 30:11) Jesus, in Matthew, only tries to make that clear and more understandable.
Jesus uses these two metaphors in our Matthew passage today that have universal appeal and connection as imagery. Everyone gets their meaning. Light and salt play an integral part in humankind’s survival and advancement. For centuries some form of fire was the only source of light other than the sun and salt was the only way to preserve meat unless you lived in places with extreme cold. For thousands of years in human history that’s the way life was.
NPR radio did a little piece on light not long ago. They were referencing the work of Bill Nordhaus who is an economist at Yale. He became obsessed with figuring out how expensive light was thousands of years ago and how it changed over time. Looking at history and archeology findings he determined that around 4,000 years ago, other than a campfire, or holding a burning log the best you could do was a little oil lamp. Nordhaus determined it would take a day’s labor for the average person to buy enough light to illuminate a room, but even that wouldn’t last for very long. Maybe 10 minutes. Light was really expensive. This was a world where, when the sun went down, almost everyone lived in the dark. And let’s note that the average candle puts out 14 lumens of light -as opposed to the average 60-watt bulb which puts out 800 lumens. I don’t know if you’ve ever tired reading by candlelight or not, but it leaves a lot to be desired!
Not much changed for a long time. Cooking hearths were developed and refined so you could reasonably safely have a little heat and light in at least one room inside your home. Certainly, in the beginning they were smoky too. Candles were more efficiently produced over time, but still 14 lumens each. In Scotland they found a particular sea bird that had so much oil in its gullet that you could kill it dry it off and thread a wick down it’s throat and it would burn like a candle. –Not the most romantic candlelight, I’m sure. But still it was limited light.
It was almost 1800 before whale oil lamps came along with a more abundant source of oil and a longer lasting light. Then things really started to change in about 1850 when the fruits of science and industry began to pay off and a guy in Canada, by the name of Abraham Gesner came up with a way to make kerosene from coal. Kerosene, later distilled from oil, may have prevented the extinction of whales! –A kerosene lamp could burn for hours. It was brighter and cleaner burning to boot. It was a real jump ahead.
Of course, things took another leap in the late 1800’s when Edison and others started experimenting with generating electricity and developing the electric light bulb. -Think of that! In one century, we went from candles, to Kerosene lamps, to electricity. A tremendous jump in light accessibility. –I can’t help but wonder, is it just coincidence that that was the same century slavery was abolished?
Nordhaus calculated that 4,000 years ago, it took a day’s labor for the average person to buy enough light to dimly illuminate a room for ten minutes. In the 19th century with kerosene lamps, a day’s labor got you five hours of light in a room. –By the end of the 20th century –a day’s wage could earn you around 20,000 hours of light with a 60-watt bulb. –Think about that the next time you start to complain about your electric bill!
Something we casually take for granted in our world was a very precious commodity in Jesus’ day. They lived in a world that was mostly dark after sunset. Children’s “Night Lights” were nonexistent, and you got ready for bed as soon as the sun started going down.
When Jesus says, “You are the Light for the whole world” it was significant. It may be a simple statement, but it had a world of meaning. Light was precious. And so was salt of course. – Salt was important as a preservative and as a seasoning. Nobody worried about salt in their diet in those days! To “Be in the Dark” was something those in Jesus’ day knew something about! in more than a proverbial way. It was to be in an uncertain, precarious, and sometimes, perilous position. It was to be outside the inner circle or near the campfire.
I know most of us don’t always feel like The Light. But Jesus isn’t talking about how we feel at any given moment. He is talking about the true state of our being before God. And remember this is all a continuation in Matthew of Jesus’s blessing of the poor, the meek, the grieving, and the peacemakers we read last week. They are the ones he is saying are the Light and the Salt! Those folks who are at the margins. Those folks who have no power or status in the world. Those folks who depend on God, sometimes because there is nothing else they can depend on.
Jesus makes an affirmation about God’s care and blessing and then assures them that they have status and importance with God. Their lives matter. They matter, with God, and they matter in the world. For those whose lives often seem a grind, a struggle, Jesus offers consolation and assurance. They are as important as light is to life, as salt is to food.
That reality is also at the heart of communion. Here, in the bread and the cup Jesus affirms God’s unconditional love and embrace. Here Jesus makes clear God’s abundant grace poured out for you. In this bread and this cup, taken as the gift of God and as the spiritual presence of Jesus, you are assured forgiveness and love, hope and affirmation. I invite you to come and take of this sacrament of grace. God has deemed you worthy. The Light he sent into the world proclaims you too share in the light of God. You too are an expression of that light.
The Beatitudes are at the heart of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew. Yet they remain an enigma to most of us. They go against the grain of common thought.
Author, Kurt Vonnegut some time ago in an In these Times magazine article wrote:
“For some reason”, he said, “the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
—‘Blessed are the merciful’ in a courtroom? ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”
Vonnegut clearly has a point. The Beatitudes still seem foreign to our culture. –The most religiously adamant of folks, who would complain about our culture’s failure to hold up biblical standards never quote the Beatitudes as part of those standards. –Their critique comes from a wholly different direction.
The Beatitudes have that unreal quality to them. –They lift up the poor, the meek, the merciful, those who mourn, the peacemakers. —These are not the people we strive to be in 21st century America. The persecuted better get a lawyer. –The meek, it seems, get taken advantage of.
And that’s the problem with the Beatitudes. If we’re honest, we have no deep desire to be meek or poor in spirit. Our Declaration of Independence declares that we are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn’t mention grief! And as for being persecuted for following Jesus so faithfully? It is quite clear most Christians want and expect political power as part of our birthright. We simply are miles away from where Jesus was both in our status in the world and in our mindset.
Matthew sees the Beatitudes as integral to the nature of the church and the Christian culture.
One of the problems has always been how to translate the Greek text. Biblical scholars come at it from lots of different angles.
A number of modern translations including the newest, the ‘Common English Version’ and older Good News version, use “Happy are those who are poor in Spirit” rather than the traditional “Blessed …are those — ”
The late Robert Schuller called them the “Be-Happy Attitudes” in one of his books: That’s not at all what they are in the context Jesus said them or Matthew wrote them, say scholars. Personally, I don’t think “Happy” in English quite catches the sense of Jesus’ meaning.
Some other translators have tried using “Favored,” –Favored are those who are poor in spirit,” or “Congratulations to you poor!” But again, none of these words quite seem to catch the full flavor I sense in Jesus’ words. That’s why I prefer the New Century version Lei read from this morning.
Matthew’s Beatitudes are not practical advice for successful living, but prophetic declarations made on the conviction of the coming-and-already-present kingdom of God. –It is not about “Happiness” in the conventional sense, or good fortune.
The Greek word is Makarios. –In ancient Greek times, that word referred to the gods. The blessed ones were the gods. They had achieved a state of happiness and contentment in life that was beyond all cares, labors, and even death. The “Blessed Ones” were beings who lived way up there in some other world. To be in this blessed state, you had to be a god in ancient Greek thinking. The ones with Makarios, or the “Blessed Ones,” existed on a higher plane than the rest of us. They were gods above the fray of human struggles and pitfalls.
The term came to have other layers of meaning. It was sometimes used to refer to those who had gone in death to that other world –the world of the gods. -Like we sometimes say, of those who have died, “She or he, is in a better place now.” Then it was later used to refer to those who were the wealthy, the upper crust, the 1%, those who lived like gods.
Recent studies in social history have put an emphasis on the honor – shame values as pivotal in Mid-Eastern cultures, -especially in ancient times and suggested that Jesus’ meaning was around this more community oriented value.
These scholars have come up with: “How Honored, are those who are spiritually poor” – “How honored are those who mourn…”
It was a pronouncement of honor based on the values of the community of Christ –as opposed to common cultural values of wealth, family name and connections.
As one scholar puts it:
—-“These verses don’t show Jesus as pop psychologist, telling people how to be happy; they show Jesus giving honor to those pushed out to the margins of their society.”
Jesus establishes a radical new way of seeing ourselves and what is worthy of our life investment, what we are to value in life. He gives a new context for the honor/shame value paradigm so important in the first century mid-eastern world.
Remember that Jesus broke many taboos of his culture -he spoke with women, even about the Torah, he offered healing to Gentiles, he ate and drank with those considered unclean. –All of these would bring shame on him and his family in the culture in which he lived.
Jesus wants to turn the values around and put a new emphasis on what gives honor. It is not the elite who are blessed–or honored, or favored in God’s true world. It is not the rich and powerful who are to be looked up to and honored… It is not those who exact revenge and keep the family name free of any put-downs.
Rather, Jesus pronounces God’s blessings, God’s honor on the lowly: the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the meek, the mourning, the peacemakers. -he saw the world in a different way. He calls us to a different value set, to treasure a different set of goals. He even talked about ‘Loving your enemies’! — Jesus turns it all upside-down.
The elite in God’s kingdom, the blessed, honored, ones in God’s kingdom, are of a completely different ilk.
Jesus is suggesting the establishment of a different kind of community for those who follow him.
What a challenge to the church! And how seldom we are able to live up to it!
The O.T. prophet Micah, 700 years before Jesus, once asked quizzically: What does God require of us? Not sacrifices, he says, not impressive temples, not achievement or respectability: just justice, and mercy, and humility. —Sounds simple, but in truth it is a radical religious affirmation that challenges much of religious tradition!
To Jesus, teaching this new understanding of God’s favor, honor, and blessing, is both a sign of God’s different Kingdom,- and the kind of world his followers are called to live towards.
Jesus challenged people’s cultural and religious assumptions in his day, and he continues to challenge our cultural and religious assumptions today! –He calls us to live as if God’s rule were here on earth now –as if we belonged to God’s culture above all else.
What would it mean if we honored those whom God honors? What would happen if we stopped playing all of our culture’s games for status and power? –That what Jesus puts before us today.
During the 60’s, with the Vietnam protests and its racial upheaval, with marches & riots and even students shot by the National Guard the United States seemed hopelessly divided. I had one Anti-Vietnam War church member spit on by another parishioner who was Pro-War, as he held a sign at the Memorial Day Parade down Main St. Some wondered if America could ever again unite and deal with our problems, or rise to the occasion as we had in WWII, and be able to respond as ‘one people’ to threats that might arise in the world. By the end of the mid 70’s the question was raised; “Were we so dominated by our national angst and our seeming self-loathing that a uniting vision could ever bring us together in patriotic unity and purpose again?”
We were still languishing in the aftereffects of that morass when 9/11 happened there was an immediate surge of patriotism and young men and women rushed to the sign up for military duty. There was a surge in our identity as Americans. Churches even had a brief rise in attendance. All that was needed, it seemed, was some clear discernable threat that united us again and stirred a call on our sense of faith and duty. Of course, all that unity, has dissolved in the last 20 years and some of the same old questions are being asked about our democracy again as were asked in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
My point in talking about our chaotic last 60 years is simply to point to the sense of call and duty on the part of the disciples, and in the early church, in response to Jesus. What held the church together as it expanded out into the Roman Empire? What made the disciples so suddenly commit themselves to Jesus as they listened along the lake shore? What made the disciples respond so totally as they did? -They gave up family duties and committed themselves wholeheartedly the rest of their lives.
Rationally, one might say, patriotism may have been a small part. The frustration over Rome’s control over Israel served to strengthen Jewish identity and increased the longing for the Messiah the Prophets had forecast. –But certainly, the thrust of their fervor was brought by their sense that God was doing something new in the world, and that Jesus was a part of that action. Jesus’ message struck a chord of faith and hope that gave them a sense of commitment to God and to each other. God, and God’s hope for the world, became the cause which brought them to use their lives in a way that no one could have predicted, in spite of persecution and even death.
Fast forward just 20 years from Matthew’s calling story, and Paul is writing to the church at Corinth about unity in Christ. They had become divided in their loyalties. They were splintered over small issues of theology and faith, and even over differences in background and status. It was a diverse congregation. Cliques had developed. Some were wealthy some were not. Some came from Jewish backgrounds, some from Gentile. Some were highly educated some were not. Some even were slaves. Paul was adamant, -none of that matters, we are to see each other through the eyes of Christ, and in commitment to Christ. Paul’s theology included a radical sense of Christian identity, an inclusiveness, with which churches have long struggled. It has been noted, you know, that Sunday morning is still one of the most segregated times in American life. Slaves in America, of course, if they were allowed in church, were relegated to the balcony. They then developed their own churches. -It is a part of our history like it or not. And who can forget that September 15, of this year it will mark just 60 years since white racists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young African American girls who were attending Sunday School.
Martin Luther King’s charged eulogy for these small children spoke of them as martyrs for the cause of justice, Dr. King said that “These girls have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism…. they have something to say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.” While all of us today would decry the deaths of those Sunday School girls, and many more since, churches still struggle over the implications of racism and how to address it and remedy it. It remains a part of the divisions of our nation. While all of us here might decry racism, the seeds of racial bitterness linger in the hearts of many, even those who claim faith in Jesus. A faith that should unite us over basic human rights has failed to overcome old prejudices and bring us where we ought and need to be,
More recently, churches have come to stress and struggle over issues around sexuality. Issues such as Gay marriage and transgender issues have brought many churches to the brink of division. Back in 2007, the United Methodist pastor, Rev. Frank Schaefer, was stripped of his credentials for presiding over the marriage of his gay son. The divide has only grown since. A whole group of churches in the south have officially severed their tie with the United Methodist denomination over the issue. The divisions move along the lines of the Civil War divisions over slavery. And did you see that the Church of England presiding Bishops voted just this month not to allow gay marriage in the church. On the Catholic side, Pope Francis has tried to ever so slightly move the Catholic Church towards a more accepting position on Gay rights, but the forces of resistance within the church are strong and the orthodoxy of the past holds sway. –It might seem incredible to many of us, but that is the state of division in the church. It mirrors divisions in our society as a whole. -Thankfully, I can say I think we are on the right side of faith, and the right side of history. But the Church Universal cannot speak with one voice.
I suppose one might ask, if the Christian church can’t even come to a united position on moral issues based on love and acceptance of all people how can we expect a whole nation to reach sustainable consensus?
What I think Paul would tell us in the church, in this 21st century, is that faith in God and Jesus should trump everything else. It should surpass the nationalism that claims so much loyalty in the modern age, as well as the racial and ethnic loyalties that continue to ferment in the background in our time. These are not distinctions that matter if we believe God sent Jesus to redeem the world. And for those who wish to make Jesus’ teachings a part of society, it needs to begin with love and acceptance of those who are different from the majority.
Paul grounds the Corinthians’ unity in the power of the cross of Christ (1:17). Jesus was put to death at the hands of Empire; sacrificially suffering for the sin and failure of humanity to live humanely. All traditions and accepted orthodoxies were called into question by Paul and laid at the feet of Jesus’ love and forgiveness. –That was the gist of Paul’s rejection of things like circumcision. Everything had to be seen in the light of Christ’s self-giving. The Crucified Christ had power to transform a broken and factionalized little church into a community that had a shared, transformative purpose.
I think Paul would set that agenda before our church today, and before the church at large. He would call us to the commitment that dares to move towards God’s future. That is what made the disciples calling so special. They said “Yes” not knowing how far it would take them but believing God had a destiny in mind.
Rev. Michael Scott
When I read this morning’s Gospel lesson from John, where Jesus renames Simon, I couldn’t help but remember a classic old Monty Python routine. It takes place at the “Bruces Club” in Australia. Every member is named Bruce. They all greet each other: “’Ow are you, Bruce? G’day Bruce! Bruce. Hello Bruce. Bruce. How are you, Bruce? G’day Bruce.” Then one of the members walks in with a friend and says, “ Gentleman, I’d like to introduce a man from Pommeyland . . . Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce.” One of the Bruces says, “ Is your name not Bruce?” He says, “ No, it’s Michael. That’s going to cause a little confusion. Mind if we call you ‘Bruce’?”
I know someday I’m going to be struck by lightening for the things that go through my head, but I couldn’t help picturing Jesus when he’s introduced to Simon saying, “So your name is Simon. Mind if I call you Cephas, then?”
It’s pretty bold of Jesus, you must admit, when upon meeting a man, his first words are, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas.” So here’s the question on which my sermon hangs: why bother to so abruptly to rename someone – what’s in a name? After all, as Shakespeare offered, on the lips of Juliet,
“. . . that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as
sweet.”
But even as he objects to placing such value on a mere name, the bard betrays his recognition of the power of naming. Romeo’s next line, not so often remembered, is:
“I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I’ll be new
baptized;
Henceforth I never will be
Romeo.”
And indeed, henceforth, Romeo is “but love.” The man is not so much renamed as is the name renamed. Love becomes him; love consumes him. The legacy outlives him, as well as his creator. We still today refer to a great lover as a “Romeo.”
Here’s the first thing I want to say: there’s power in a name. When Jesus changed Simon’s name to Cephas, he wasn’t (all my silliness aside) just fooling around. We get a sense of his intention by examining the curious history of the text itself. Cephas (or, as it was pronounced in the original language, KAY-fas) is the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic word אפכ (“Kay-fah”) The word means “rock.” So, the Greek transcriber of the text in which we find this passage first transliterated it as Cephas, then parenthetically translated it into Greek as Petros (the Greek word for “rock). It is from that Greek word Petros that we get the English transliteration and the name becomes Peter. But it still just means “Rock.”
Think about that for a moment. You are introduced to a holy man who looks you in the eye and says, “From now on you will be called ‘Rock.’” That’s the sort of thing that could change your life. It obviously changed Simon’s life. He became a leader among the disciples and among the apostles who founded and shaped the early church. Indeed, he became in many ways the rock on which the church was built.
The ancient Israelites knew about this awesome power of a name. They knew the connection between a person’s outward identity and inner being. That’s why they never uttered the divine name that we have come to know as “Yahweh.” Whenever the consonants of that name appeared in a sacred text, they added no vowels to it for pronunciation. Instead, they uttered the word Adonai, which means “Lord.” To speak the personal sacred name of God, was to presume to grasp knowledge of God’s being. No one was allowed to hold that kind of power.
They knew the truth; there’s power in a name.
There’s power in your name. All you have to do is find it. That happened to my wife, Dadgie, at a critical moment in her life. She was an active layperson in her church, and had decided to take a course at the seminary because it might be interesting. She walked into the classroom, and the professor, the late man of insight and power, Dr. James Ashbrook, saw her and introduced himself. He didn’t simply say, “Ah, you must be Dadgie.” He looked her in the eye and said, “You MUST . . . BE . . . DADGIE!” From that moment her life was changed. Over the course of the coming months and years, she discovered in so many ways that, yes, she MUST BE DADGIE! And as one who came to know her, I can testify: what a Dadgie she became!
To discover the power that resides in your name, you must find what it is that you are intended to be. How do you discern that? It’s tricky. I have only a couple of thoughts to guide you. One comes from Jesus’ encounter with Simon. Jesus looked deep into the heart of Simon’s being in that instant of meeting him, and called forth something that he knew was there, something buried, but solid, dependable, enduring. He was a rock, and he needed to own that.
The Divine intention for you is, I believe, something buried deeply in your soul. It’s not something that comes to you from outside of your being like ET landing in your back yard. It is knit into your DNA and etched on the slate of your life experience. What is needed is for you to dive deeply enough into your own heart that you can hear the echoes of Christ speaking to you, naming you.
Your experience of self-discovery may not be as dramatic as what happened to a little boy named Michael eighty-eight years ago, but it could be as profound and as life-changing.
Michael King was born to a Baptist minister and his wife, Michael, Sr. and Alberta. When he was only five years old his father went on a trip abroad and came to Germany. Michael King, Sr. became absorbed in the powerful and world-changing history of the Protestant Reformation spawned from the Castle Church in Wittenberg. He was drawn to the complex, passionate, and charismatic monk who tacked his list of ninety-five complaints against the Roman church to the door of that cathedral and sparked a massive wave of revolt. Rev. King was so consumed by the spirit of the leader of that Reformation movement, Martin Luther, and, I believe, so aware already of the latent gifts of his little boy, that he made a radical decision. He changed his name; and he changed the name of his young son at the same time. He would no longer be Michael King, and his son would no longer be Michael King, Jr. Now they were Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King, Jr. That little boy, a boy so full of promise, so full of gifts, was given the name of one of the most powerful shakers of the foundations of institutional power in recorded history. Tomorrow our nation will stop spinning its wheels for a day to celebrate the birth, the life, and the profound impact of that little boy who became Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
O, there’s power in a name: power enough to transform a child of promise into a man of vision, power enough to transform an idea into movement, power enough to transform a nation into a more perfect union.
The second observation I have to make is that being renamed doesn’t necessarily mean changing your name. It may mean that your name is transformed. It may simply mean finding the power hidden in your name – the truth about what you are intended to be and do. It may be a little like Dadgie’s experience of learning what it is to be her truest self.
Just a little over seven years ago, a TV series started airing in Ukraine titled Servant of the People, in which a comedian named Volodymyr Zelenskyy played the comic role of the Ukrainian president. The series aired for four years and was immensely popular. Zelenskyy’s name became well known for making a joke of the presidency. In 2016, he left off being a comedian and ran for the presidency for real.
We all know the outcome. During the first two years of his administration, Zelenskyy oversaw the lifting of legal immunity for members of parliament; he had to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an economic recession. It was only a little less than a year ago that Russia invaded Ukraine. That’s an awful lot to throw at a new president whose resume consisted of being a comedian. What the world and Vladimir Putin threw at him drew out of him what Eternity had intended him to be. He became an example of strength, resolve, and courage. The name Zelenskyy was transformed from that of a jokester into a powerfully inspirational leader with a spine of steel and one held in highest respect around the world. The name Zelenskyy is now considered on a par with the name Churchill.
O, there’s power in what a name can become.
I’d like to ask you to join me in a little exercise. I want you to close your eyes . . . and purge from your mind all the distractions, the worries and issues of your life. And I want you to imagine Jesus standing before you, gazing intently into your eyes. He sees what lies unspoken, untouched, undiscovered in the depths of your being, and he calls it forth, calling you by name, and making clear what is intended for you.
What does he say?
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