Sign Weaving (John 6:1 - 21)

Biblical Storyteller:  After this . . .

Wait a minute, wait a minute . . . You know what drives me crazy?  Other than the Roman Empire, that is . . . What drives me crazy is how you chop up a perfectly good piece of literature these days.  When I wrote the thing—yes, it is I, the disciple that Jesus loved—when I wrote the thing, I wrote it to be read straight through, or at least in larger chunks than this.  And so I wouldn’t have to tell people what the this was that this comes after.  But today, with your awful habit of coming to church once a week whether you need it our not, and reading from something you call a lectionary, books and letters that were meant to make a coherent whole get chopped into bite-sized chunks like so much gefilte fish.  And I won’t even mention the scattering of my gospel, crum-like, throughout the reading cycle.  I mean, how disrespectful can you get?  If you just had to stick to a three-year cycle, why couldn’t Mark have been the odd man out?  Or better, Luke?  Those Gentiles wouldn't know the difference anyway . . .

*sigh*. So what comes before this episode is long teaching of Jesus in which he accuses his audience—Jewish religious authorities such as scribes and Pharisees and the like—of not loving God, which is a cold, bold thing to do to a bunch of holy men.  And let me tell you, they were not happy about it.  They were already chomping at the bit to silence him, if not one way, then the other . . . And at the end of his teaching, he brings Moses into the picture, claiming that he wrote about Jesus, but since none of his oh-so-august audience understood that, they must not believe in Moses, who is only the first and greatest of the prophets . . .

So, you see what I did here, don’t you?  I took the end of Jesus’ speech, where he mentions Moses, and followed it up with a story about bread in the wilderness . . . pretty neat, if I do say so myself . . . I’m drawing a comparison between this bread, and that mana in the wilderness episode, to be  sure you don’t miss the connection between Jesus of Nazareth and Moses of Egypt (and points North).  Go ahead, read . . .

Biblical Storyteller:  You mean "tell the story." 

 

After all that, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.

Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.
 
When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
 
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?”
 
Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
 
When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
 
When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”  When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

That’s our Jesus . . . He’d do anything to avoid earthly power, up to and including going up on a mountain.  Which he does twice in quick succession.  Again like you-know-who, who went up to the mountain and came back down with some commandments, some rules for gentle living.  Which were ok for their time, and certainly do still apply—though I'm not sure courthouse walls are the best place to put ‘em—but those were different times, and besides.  Jesus said that he’d come not to abolish the law, exactly, but fulfill it.  And as far as I’m concerned, Jesus said it  and I believe it.  Maybe that’s why I’m the disciple he loved . . .

Anyway. Mountains are pretty special places.  Besides being closer to God, the air seems rarefied, more pure, somehow.  Maybe that’s why so many cool things happen on them. People are always getting epiphanies, revelations, messages from the Almighty of one sort or the other.  Abraham received a command to sacrifice his son, his only son, on a mountain and Moses got those ten commandments.   Elijah met God on a mountain, and the disciples saw Moses and him on one.  And so it's not really a big surprise or anything that Jesus spent a lot of time on a mountain.

But there’s a something I’m trying to point out here.  All those examples, the people receive something from God on the mountains . . . visions, revelations, commandments . . . Mountain tops are places where the Lord communicates with folks, where God gives them something.  And when Jesus goes up into mountains, he does too.  He gives a whole sermon on a mount . . . he communicates that vision of him replacing Moses and Elijah there . . . and now here he is, giving the people their daily bread on another mountain.  And what I want to point out is that if God gives stuff to God’s people in the high places, and Jesus does the same, then what does that say about him?

It’s like I told you before:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”  Jesus was—is—a divine being, we call him Son of God, because like a Son, he  inherited all his authority and power.  And so he could heal Jairus’ daughter and make the hemorrhaging woman clean.  He could rebuke the elements like recalcitrant children and bring them peace.  And he could bring grace—in the form of nutritious bread and fish—to hungry people.  And make no mistake about it, what Jesus gave on that mountain was grace, nothing but.  Everything we have is due to the grace of God, we get all things from the Lord.  So we can add one more authority, one more ability to our laundry list: he had authority over life and the law, over the chaos of creation, over the spirit world, and now he had the authority to confer the grace of the Lord.  Surely, he was Son of God most high.

You know, over the years I've been amused at all the stuff written about how Jesus did the signs—what you call miracles—that he did.  It's like in this day and age of rocket ships and hair dryers, there can’t be anything supernatural going on.  So all kinds of theories have been floated—everything from supernovae to swamp gas—to explain what he did as so-called natural phenomena.  And this feeding of the 5,000 is no exception: there are some who staunchly defend it as a true miracle, that he used supernatural powers to multiply the loaves and fish like, well, like Moses did with those locusts and frogs.  Others have tried to de-bunk it, saying that Jesus’ example softened the hearts of all those present, and they brought out all the food they’d squirreled away and the multitudes were fed.

Well, I was there, and I’m here to tell you . . . I have no idea how he did it.  I wrote it just as I saw it: “Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.”  And that's it, that’s all I saw.  No puff of smoke as loaves appeared out of thin air, no rustling of cloaks as people grudgingly fished bread out of their underwear.  Jesus took the loaves and fish, handed them out, and there was enough.  Period.

And I kinda like the mystery of it all, you know?  Was it a miracle or guilty consciouses? Magic or smoke and mirrors?   It’s mysterious, as it should be, like God’s own self.  And the thing is . . . it doesn’t matter!  The answer to “did he or didn’t he” is he did, no matter how it came about.  Jesus distributed the loaves and fish and there was as much as they wanted.  And actually, there was more, twelve basket loads left over.  Like with the water and the wine, this grace was abundant, ebullient, overflowing.  Unlike that manna-in-the-wilderness trick pulled by Moses, where there was just enough.  Just sayin’ . . .

Biblical Storyteller:  When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.
 
The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified.

But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

 

This really happened, you know . . . I know a lot of people say we were disoriented in the fog, that we were near the shore, and he was walking along the shore, but that’s not the way it happened . . . It was dark, the sea was rough, and suddenly, there he was: walking—no, almost gliding, across the sea toward us.  And I admit it: it scared the living daylight savings out of us, me included: we thought he was a spirit, the shade of some drowned fisherman, come to haul us down to a watery grave.

 
Ok, I know it sounds dramatic, but that’s the frame of mind we were all in, there in the wind and darkness.  We were all primed to believe the worst.  Then we heard those words: “It is I,” and we were no longer afraid.  And it's a funny thing about those three words—actually, two in the Greek in which I wrote it—at the time, the other disciples and I thought nothing of it, it was just Jesus identifying himself.  But since then, a lot has been made of its similarity to what God told Moses at the burning bush: “I am,” God’s self-disclosures, meant to say that God is all of being, or undefinable, or whichever theory you like.  And the thinking goes that this was Jesus’ disclosure of his divine nature, and that might have been so.  Surely, you can translate my Greek that way,  but that’s not the way I meant it.  Here we were, scared to death, shaking in our boat--hah!—and it was meant to reassure us:  “It’s me.  Don’t be afraid.”  That’s the way I see it, anyway.

Looking back on that episode, I think the real shame was how we didn’t recognize Jesus when he walked across the sea.  You might say we never did recognize him: not when he turned the water into wine nor when he fed those five-thousand souls.  We didn't know him when he raised up ol’ Lazarus or when he told that paralyzed guy to take up his mat and walk. We certainly didn’t know him when we walked the Palestinian roads, laughing at some stupid joke Peter told, like how many Phrygians does it take to stable a donkey.  In spite of all the hints, all the speeches, all the signs, we didn’t know who he was until it was too late.

He’s still around, you know . . . He’s still here, waiting to be recognized . . . Just like he told us, back in the day, he is in me, he is in you.  He’s in the mainstreamed beggars you pass on the street and the gang-bangers down in Over the Rhine.  He’s in bakers and bankers and depressed home-makers, in dope-smokers and over-paid CEOs.  And yet I sometimes think that in spite of all that, in spite of all the years to digest and cogitation on what Jesus clearly said, people are no better at seeing it today than we were back then.

That’s the good news, of course: that he is among us, in Spirit and in flesh . . . Just as he promised, his Holy Spirit is blowing in the world, and where it works we cannot predict, but we can see the results, all around us, if we but look.

Road Rule (Mark 6:1 - 13)

There are two major, interrelated questions that Mark seeks to answer in his gospel.  First, just who is this fellow named Jesus, whose life and ministry have had such enormous effect upon those who follow him?  Last week, we read a passage that dramatized this.  Remember?  Mark said that “Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, ‘John the baptizer has been raised from the dead . . . But others said, ‘It is Elijah.’ And others said, ‘It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.’”  Of course, Herod thought he was the former, John the baptizer back from the dead, and this began Mark’s famous flashback that we explored last week.

The second question is a two-parter: what is the nature of Jesus’ authority and what is its source?  Obviously, this question is of vital interest to a faith in the throes of establishing itself: if its leader‘s authority is over a set of Tupperware, nobody’s gonna put much stock in him.  Similarly, if that authority is handed down from some carpenter in a two-bit sheep town, it doesn’t exactly inspire obedience either.

Well. The questions have already had a good workout in the two episodes previous to this one.  In the first, Jesus demonstrates authority over creation, the same creation that God originally made with a puff of divine breath.  We see him sleeping in the boat, unconcerned and nonchalant, and creating order from the sea, that ancient symbol of primordial chaos.  Thus, he has some of the same authority as God the creator, and so, hmmmm . . . where do you suppose it came from?

In the second episode, he demonstrates authority over life, by healing the hemorrhaging woman and raising up Jairus’ daughter, and the law, by making the woman clean.  Further, he demonstrates that this authority prefers the outcast and forgotten, by healing her first, and that it is exercised in relationship, by touching her and calling her daughter. Both of these ways are opposite to the ways of the powers that be.

And so, as this story opens, we’ve seen that Jesus exercises authority over creation, life and the Torah.  And by now, it ought to be obvious from whom Jesus receives that authority: one cannot confer authority one doesn’t have, can one?  And John doesn’t have authority over creation, life  and the law . . . Neither does Herod, nor the Emperor.  Only God has that kind of authority, so that’s where Jesus must have gotten his: from God.

And now, Mark tells us about Jesus coming home, and as is his custom, he sits down in the synagogue and begins to teach.  And that’s when all you-know-what breaks loose among his home-town acquaintances: “Where did this man get all this?” they ask. “What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?”  And once again, they are again asking Mark’s primary questions: “what kind of authority is this?  Where did it come from?  Who gave it to him?”  Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary?  We know that he didn’t get it from them . . . We see them every day in the marketplace, watch their kids for them when they need it, we know they don’t have it . . .

They define Jesus, define who he is in their minds, by their relationships to him, by that part of him that they’ve seen.  Some know him as Mary’s son, whom they baby-sat when his parents were busy.  Some know him as James’ big brother, who bossed him around as big brothers are wont to do, or his little sister’s protector, who kept the bullies away.  Each knows him as he relates to her or him, and and since he relates to each one differently, he seems a slightly different person to each.

But Mark makes it clear that they don’t get who he is at his heart, they don’t understand his core identity as son of God, which, in the long run, is the only one that matters.  And so they don’t believe him, they don’t believe he has the authority that he is demonstrating. Further, they take offense at him, and the Greek word use here is skandalon, from which we get the word “scandal;” it’s the same word Paul uses to say that “the cross is a scandal to the Jews,” and it has the connotation of a stumbling block to their faith, that it causes them to somehow lose it, or make it weaker.  And it makes you wonder just how strong their faith was to begin with, if something someone else does causes it to weaken . . .

It reminds me of the people who take offense at something or another and it causes them to leave the church, or maybe just a particular congregation of the church.  Maybe somebody says something to them they don’t like, maybe the pastor walks by them in the hall, maybe she says something in a sermon they don’t like, and they leave the congregation because of it.  Of course, they could’ve chosen to ignore it, they could’ve chalked it up to differing opinion, to the other person having a bad day—it really is all about the other person when that stuff happens, you know—or they could’ve decided that it’s ok for the pastor or anybody else, for that matter, to have a different view, but they don’t, they walk out.

The thing is, our translation of that Greek word—to take offense—is accurate, because it really is an active process, it doesn’t just happen to you, you take offense, it's an action you choose to do, you have a choice.  And that’s exactly what Mark is saying here: Jesus’ homies take offense, they choose to be offended by Jesus’ actions.  And why?  Not because of what he says, not because of what he wears, but of who he is.  Or more accurately, who they think he is, or even more accurately, who they know him to be.  Because he is Mary’s son, he is a carpenter, he is the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon . . . But he’s more.  And it's the “more” that they do not understand.

They reject him, and does it bruise his very human  feelings?  Is he hurt by the rejection, does he protest in plaintive bewilderment that he’s the same Jesus he ever was, the same carpenter and son and big brother?  If so, Mark doesn’t let on, he just tells how Jesus quotes a proverb about hometown prophets before he leaves his hometown for good.

And does he shake the hometown dust off his feet in protest of his reception, does he model that behavior for his disciples?  It’s clear that Mark wants us to relate these two episodes, Jesus’ visit to Nazareth and his sending of the twelve . . . he sends them two by two, out among the highways and the hedges, to preach the gospel of repentance.  But first, he gives them some of his authority, authority over unclean spirits, that has been passed down from God.  And with this, Mark adds one last kind of authority that Jesus has inherited from his eternal parent.  In the calming of the seas, we saw his authority over creation, in the healing of the two daughters, his authority over life and law, and now over the spirit world.

And as he sends them, he commands them to rely on the kindness of strangers: to take no bread to eat nor even a bag to keep it in, lest they be tempted.  They are to take no money for their belts, wear sandals on their feet, or put on more than one tunic.  I’d say it's lucky it's always warm in Palestine.

All they are allowed is a staff because the rest is to be provided by the locals where they go to preach the gospel: they are to enter a house and stay there for the duration of their visit, thus having a stable base of operations, and, perhaps, the network of friends and introductions provided by their host.

This passage, and versions in Matthew and Luke, was ground-central for Francis of Assisi, who observed that in his time, by the 13^th Century, the church had become bound up in the trappings of the powers that be, ensconced in wealth and power.  He, and his companion Clare, took to the roads, to the highways and hedges, without any support, with no money, no extra clothing, and only a staff and their fellow disciples for company.  And when they hit the road, a funny thing happened: they found places where God was obviously at work, and they joined in, they helped out.  There was none of this not created here syndrome that afflict many congregations, they saw where God was active and became involved.

The thing is, they took the Gospel to the people, they did not expect the people to come to them.  They didn’t sit in a gilded cage, or even an air conditioned box, and wait for folks to show up.  They did what Jesus told them to do, what he commanded and modeled.  Perhaps it's time we modern disciples thought about doing the same.

The good news here is that, even today, Jesus follows his own advice.  Back in the day, he took the Gospel to the people, out in those highways and byways, those towns both big and small, far and near, and he hasn’t stopped yet.  Through his proxy, the Holy Spirit, he comes to us where we are, no matter who we are, as the living, comforting presence of God.  Amen.

 

Power Politics (Mark 6:14-29)

Mark—the author of our tale—was a sly old dog.  He is famous—in pointy-headed biblical studies circles at least—for creating associations by placing different stories side by side.  He knew that by juxtaposing two episodes from Jesus’ life, he could create new meaning not present in either.  Remember the stories of the hemorrhaging woman and the synagogue official’s daughter?  They were probably originally separate tales, floating around campfires and house-churches like narrative baubles, but by embedding one inside the other, Mark was able to relate them together in a way that pointed up both the differences and similarities between the unclean woman and the synagogue leader.  And using the ancient Semitic literary trick of putting the most important thing in the middle, he was able to subtly imply who he thought was more important to God.  The last shall be first and the first last, indeed.

This week, we’re going to look at this familiar tale of a dancing girl and the King of the Jews in light of what is placed before it in his narrative.  And this where Mark is so sly: he structures it like a flashback, with Herod hearing about what Jesus was doing, and then reminiscing about what he did to John the Baptist.  And it’s clear what Mark is up to: he’s identifying Jesus with John the Baptist, he even has old Herod say so:  “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”  And so on a meta-level, the level of Mark’s theology, we’re being asked to compare John and Jesus.

And one of the theological things Mark is trying to do is delineate the person of John the Baptist from that of Jesus the Christ.  Herod thinks John’s been resurrected and is now out in the countryside working miracles and doing good things; but at the end of the story, Mark is careful to say that John’s disciples hear about his death, take away his body, and lay it in a tomb.  Just like they laid Jesus in a tomb, but in Jesus case, that wasn’t the end of it, he really was resurrected.  But here, John’s disciples lay him in a tomb, and there’s no sign of him getting out on his own.  John was no Jesus.

And that is one of things happening on our meta level, in Mark’s theological agenda, and we’ll get back to that level in a minute, but first I want to go to the first level, the first lens in our Gospel reading glasses for a few minutes, and look at what actually happened with the decapitation of John.  It’s an interesting thought that a Jew like Herod would believe John had been resurrected.  A lot of Jews didn’t believe in the possibility of it, and in fact the thought of a reanimated corpse made their skin crawl.  That Herod thought of it so readily is an indication of the state of mind he was in, and Mark dutifully reports it, because it certainly plays into his agenda of comparing John to Jesus . . . but it could be that Herod had a guilty conscious, as well, and I can see it now:  Herod thinks John has been resurrected, and is coming for him, arms outstretched like in a bad zombie movie, dead eyes boring into his.

And I’ll bet Herod was shaking in his boots, because what he’d done to John wasn’t very nice, and he knew it. He knew that John was a righteous and holy man, but that couldn’t have carried a lot of weight, because he arrested him anyway because he didn’t like what he was saying. And here’s where I want you to see that it’s the same as it ever was, as David Byrne might say: speaking truth to power will get you thrown into the pokey, we see it all the time: it’s most obvious in other countries high on Amnesty International’s list, where being opposed to those in power will get the key thrown away, but here in the land of the free it can happen as well . . . remember the use of the FBI by President after President, of both parties, to harass and prosecute people of dissenting political opinions?  Actresses, Viet-Nam War protesters, Civil Rights workers—Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prime target in the 60s—all were harassed and investigated and wire-tapped for speaking against the official policies of the United States government.  And don’t even get me started about the NSA . . .

The point is that it’s not a U.S. government thing or a Nicaraguan government thing or even a Russian government thing, it’s a feature of those in power to suppress those whose opinions they don’t like.  And here John was speaking truth to power, he was voicing God’s displeasure at what that government was doing, the sole government of Judea being one Herod, self-styled King of the Jews, who had him arrested for pointing out the Torah, the Jewish law of the land.  “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”

I want you to notice a funny thing about our text.  It begins by saying “Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias . . .” and note that it clearly states that “Herod himself” had sent men who arrested John, and in the Greek it’s even more clear, Mark puts the “himself” first, so we can hardly miss it . . . this first line asserts it was Herod, no question who did the arresting, and put John in prison on account of Herodias.

Then it gives the reason: because John had been telling Herod “It’s not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”  And again, that’s clear enough: as we’ve said, it’s dangerous to speak truth to power.  But look at what comes next:  Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him.  Say what?  Hold the phone: all of a sudden, blame has been shifted away from the ruler, the one with all the power, the one who had John arrested, for Pete’s sake, to another, a person with no power whatsoever . . . and wouldn’t you know it.  It’s a woman who gets the blame.  Like Sarah and Abraham with Ishmael, Jezebel and King Ahab with Naboth, and Bathsheba of David—it’s the powerless who gets the blame, and there weren’t many less powerful in ancient Palestine than women.  The story starts out being all about the guy in power, Herod, who historically, at least, was not known for his gentleness with people he didn’t like.  And all of sudden, the story shifts the blame to Herodias.  Herod doesn’t want to kill John, no, that couldn’t be it, because he thought he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him.  But you notice he doesn’t turn him loose . . .

This isn’t the only time in the scriptures where the powerful slip into the background, and just kind of fade away . . . Ahab demands that Naboth sell him his vineyard, and goes into a pout when he won’t, and Jezebel devises a plan to get it for him, and we know what happened to her . . . the name of Jezebel became synonymous with a wicked woman.  But it’s Ahaz who gets his way … And in the story of Sarah and Haggar, Abraham fades into the background, strangely passive, while Sarah in her jealousy drives his son—who he’d had with a woman Sarah herself pressed upon him—to seemingly certain death.

All of these stories, perhaps especially this one of Herod, should remind us of the final days of Jesus, where the brutal Roman ruler Pontius Pilate, who ate Passover rabble-rousers for breakfast, declares he can find no fault in Jesus, and throws the blame upon the crowd.  It should remind us of the ultimate scapegoat, Jesus Christ, who was executed to keep the peace at Passover—as Caiaphas himself said—so the Romans wouldn’t destroy them all.

 And in these stories where blame is affixed, the powerful are never the ones at fault, are they?  They always kind of fade into the background, they always take a back seat when the dirty-work is done, and in today’s story this was intensified by later interpreters.  Herodias’ daughter—also called Herodias, according to Mark—was identified as Salome by the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, and she supposedly danced the dance of the Seven Veils, and, uh, inflamed Herod and he promised her anything, anything, and we have visions of a sweaty ruler, with a hint of incest to spice things up, promising her anything for her favors, and it’s been elaborated by Oscar Wilde and Hollywood, and none of that is in scripture.  Mark says simply that she danced, and when he refers to her, he uses a Greek word that implies “little girl,” and the picture is not some wanton woman, seducing the king, but of a little girl, doing an innocent dance which pleases the king, and he makes this oath before all his courtiers, maybe jokingly, as one would promise the moon to a cute little girl, only his wife gets her to do the dirty deed.  And once again, the story lets Herod off the hook: He was deeply grieved, he was greatly saddened, but what else could he do?  An oath was an oath, especially one made in front of all those guests.  And so, he’s let off the hook: honor—and remember this is an honor/shame society—honor demands that he cut off the head of John the Baptist. Too bad, so sad.

And so strong is the myth-making machinery that it’s been intensified over the years, and sex, the favorite diversionary tactic of monarchs and politicians the world over, gets totally inside our passage to divert us away from the real lessons of this passage, namely that (1) speaking truth to power can be dangerous and (2) the powers that be get off the hook and powerless scapegoats—here, as often, women and children—get the blame instead.

Scapegoating is a favorite spectator sport in human societies, and it’s always the least powerful that get blamed.  The Jews in Nazi Germany, the Native Americans in the early days of this country.  At present, so-called “illegal aliens” are being scapegoated for our economic woes.  But the cool thing about our Gospels is that it lays all of this bare.  Mark’s version of the story of John and Herod, which we read today, still scapegoats Herodias, but it is clear if you read it closely that it’s the one in powers’ fault, it’s really all Herod, all the time.  The Gospels are subversive that way, they tell the “sub-version” as Walter Brueggemann likes to say.  They dutifully recount the official tale—Herod not at fault, evil woman Herodias to blame—but make it clear how it really went down.

At the heart of the Gospels is just such a story, just such a “sub-version”—the powerful San Hedron, the Roman rulers treated Jesus just like another scapegoat, just like another guy they can shift the blame onto, to keep the Jerusalem crowds in line, to give ‘em a place to focus their anger other than themselves.  And so they killed him, and he would’ve been just another in a long line of innocent victims, of blameless scapegoats, except for one thing:  he didn’t stay in the ground, did he?  He didn’t stay in the tomb where—like John—he was laid . . . unlike John, he rose again, a sign and symbol of God’s victory over the scapegoating powers that be.

And that is our hope as well.  That through Jesus Christ, we are freed from bondage to structures and mechanisms of sin, we are liberated from being scapegoats to the powers that be.  Our hope is that through Christ’s resurrection, we will be as well, and that God’s kingdom, where there is no more scapegoating, no more oppression, no more war, is coming and yet—in the person of Jesus Christ who, remember is in our hearts—is already here.  In the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God did something new, God showed that the innocent scapegoats, the blameless lambs, will inherit the Kingdom of God.  And Hallelujah for that.  Amen.

The First Letter to the Church at Greenhills (2 Corinthians 12:1-10)

Paul here.  I know, I know--it's been a while. But in my defense, it's really nice up on Cloud Fifteen.  Had to leave Cloud Nine . . . It got too crowded with those rowdy Cappadocian boys, and at least on fifteen we don’t have any 70 virgins like some other clouds I could mention . . . Anyway, I’m here now, and for some reason, I feel compelled to explain in this letter one of the more underrated passages in  that other letter, the one you call the Second letter to the Corinthians, though it was more like the two-hundred and second letter.  Those people needed a lot of letters.

The thing you have to understand about the Corinthians is that they were one arrogant bunch. Growing up in that city made them that way: it was situated on an isthmus overlooking two gulfs.  And because of this, it was a rich city, an economic trade-center and a power-broker for much of the Mediterranean world.  I remember the first time I entered it, right before I started the church: the first thing I saw was the Temple to Apollo, which wouldn’t have bothered me so much, except what came along with it was the slavish worship of athletes, whose pictures sold everything from razor blades to under-cloaks. (Speaking of razor blades, I just love those Gillette Mach 3’s, and that Rogain . . . well, let’s just say I get a lot less burnt on the old noggin.)

Anyway.  Not long after I set up my church there, pride started to get the best of some of its members, and they started to play those little power-games that they play in churches.  You know, some group or another within the church gets protective of its turf, that sort of thing.  And, oh yes, the people with money, who didn’t have to work as hard as some of the ores, would arrive early for the communion suppers and eat up all the good stuff, and they thought that just because they gave more money, they’d have more influence.  I tell you, working with the Corinthians made me understand just exactly what Jesus meant by the camel and the eye of the needle.

After things had been quiet for a year or two after my first letter, some “super-apostles” show up and I swear: do those guys just follow me around wherever I go, teaching against me?  First the Galatians and now this . . . Talk about a thorn in the side . . . they show up, preaching some kind of prosperity doctrine or something, about how we’re already justified, already saved, so we can do anything we want, and I know that’s not how it is . . .  And what’s worse, they’re boasting about all their mystical and spiritual experiences to back it all up.  And you know how I feel about bragging . . . Didn’t I say that if I boast, I boast in the Lord?  Didn’t I?  I thought it was pretty clear . . . if you must boast, boast in God, ‘cause everything we do, everything we have comes from him, not from us, so how can we boast of something someone else has done?

Ok, Paul just take a few deep breaths . . . There . . . That’s better.  The new people apparently didn’t get the memo about it all, ‘cause there they were, boasting about their “revelatory, mystical experiences,” as if they had cornered the market on these things, and from what I had heard, it was working, they were driving a wedge between the congregation I’d begun and me.  And the thing was, I’d had mystical experiences too, when the gospel was revealed to me fourteen years earlier, but I hadn’t talked about them, ‘cause what good would it have done?  Would it have advanced the Gospel one iota?  I don’t think so . . .

But it was becoming clear that I had to say something, lest all the the trust and authority I’d carefully built up over the years be in vain.  And I hate boasting and had wasted a lot of ink saying so.  So I did something kind of silly: I put it as having happened to some other guy, like the patient of some shrink trying to pretend it’s some other guy who likes to dress up like a chicken and lay fake eggs.  (And yes, we have shrinks on Cloud Fifteen: we have to with all the Baptists . . . did you know they think everyone has to believe just like them to be saved?  Crazy . . .)

 Anyway, I coyly say “I know this . . . man . . . who was taken up to the third heaven (that’s the place we all thought was closest to the inner sanctum.  Boy were we wrong about that!).  I know a man who was taken up to the third heaven—whether in or out of his body, I don’t know, but God knows—and I know that this person—whether in or out of his body, I don’t know, but God knows—was caught up into paradise and told secrets so secret that he couldn’t utter a word of it to anybody else.”   And note that I repeated the bit about whether in his own body or out of it in proper rhetorical fashion, ‘cause it’s important: I wanted them to know that this “man” was just a tool, he had no control over the matter whatsoever, God was completely in charge, so how could he be boasting when telling about it?  Of course, anybody with the intelligence of an earthworm would know I was talking about myself, maybe even the “super-apostles” would get it.  And though I didn’t want to let them in on what actually happened—it was too personal and, frankly, none of their business—it did serve to let them know that it had happened.  (This was years before Luke claimed it happened on the Damascus Road, getting most of the details wrong in the process.)  And I concluded my report by saying “on behalf of a guy like this I’ll boast but as for myself, I’ll not boast except of my weaknesses.”

You can see how clever I was being, can’t you?  At the same time I’d shown that I had the kind of visions the “super-apostles” are nattering on about, and how little I thought of them, how little value they really are when the rubber meets the road.  In fact, far from being signs that I was some super-man, some super-Christian, they were signs of my weakness.  And could I help it if they concluded that they were signs of weakness in the “super-apostles?”  Of course, any cleverness I show comes from God, so I’m not boasting about it, you understand . . .  

But if I were to boast, I could, I wouldn’t be a fool, I wouldn’t be lying, but I won’t, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me.  Actions speak louder than words, even words as exceptional as the revelations I received on that trip to Paradise . . . revelations so remarkable that to keep me from being too elated, to keep me from getting a big head, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.  Or so I thought at the time . . .

And over the years, I’ve heard all kinds of speculation about this thorn.  It’s managed to keep us all amused up on Cloud Fifteen . . . We even have a pool going on when somebody’s going to figure it out.  (I have next November, by the way.). Over the centuries, whole forests of paper have been sacrificed speculating about it, but nobody has managed to get it  . . . the most popular opinion, because biblical scholars have dirty minds, is that it was something to do with sex.  Maybe I had some kind of problem with women, the theory goes, somebody's even speculated I was gay.  No that there’s anything wrong with that, you understand . . . Others speculate I had some kind physical defect or another—not debilitating one, you understand, or I couldn’t have stomped around the Middle East planting all those churches—but some kind, maybe bad eyes or body odor or something.  Finally, I’ve heard that the thorn referred to all my opponents, like those blasted “super-apostles” themselves, or all those morons that flogged and imprisoned and stoned me . . . But it’s none of those things, though one is in the ballpark . . . And I’m not going to tell you what it was, because, once again,  it's none of your business.

Anyway, back in the day, I thought that God had, kind of like with Job, allowed Satan to give me this affliction to keep me from getting a swelled head.  See, in those days, we thought everything—good, bad and indifferent—came from God.  Now, of course, we know better, we know that, basically, stuff happens, and that God is not the author of it all . . . But back then, I was anguished about it, it drove me crazy, embarrassed me, even, and I prayed to God three times about it, asking him—like Jesus did himself—to take it away, but God wouldn’t.  But I did get an answer of sorts, and it blew me away: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness . . .”  power is made perfect in weakness . . . what a blow—I didn’t like suffering any better than anyone else, and if anyone thought this trip to the third Heaven made me into some kind of uber-Christian, some kind of spiritual giant, that should’ve disabused them of the notion . . . I get afflicted just like the best of them, just like the worst of them.  Just like everyone, really.  And now I know that God doesn’t bring affliction, God doesn’t want our pain, but God can help use it for good . . .

Well.  I’ll bet you're wondering “why us?”  Why did you choose to write your letter to us, to Greenhills Community Church, Presbyterian?  Why not Christ Cathedral or St. Peter in Chains, why not the National Cathedral in Washington D.C?  Well, to that I say: why not?  Why not GCCP?  You’re certainly no less deserving of it than those big, rich churches . . . And besides, it's not about deserving, grace never is . . . It's also not about power, or pride of place—if it were, Jesus would’ve been born in the Emperor’s palace instead of some stable, surrounded by smelly cows and goats and chickens.

It’s about need, and all those rich and powerful congregations already have all they need . . . I wrote this letter to the small churches, to the faithful congregations that are wondering if there’s a place for them in the world.  Congregations that are aging, shrinking, wondering if they’ll be around for very much longer.  Do you all have that problem?  Are you anxious about what’s going on?  You are not the Lone Ranger, you know . . .

And I wonder if you’ve ever thought about what God told me . . . power is made perfect in weakness . . . not in strength, not in huge congregations that invite presidents to speak, or world leaders.  Not in churches with thousands of members that have golden endowments and senators in the pews.  Power is made perfect in weakness.  Remember: God’s strength is weakness to the world, and the world’s strength—numbers, fat endowments, multiple worship services for every age—is weakness to God.

Sisters and brothers, power is made perfect in weakness . . . Every little group of faithful Christians has value, every group has unique qualities to offer God.  You just have to figure out what they are, and what God wants you to do with them.  I know you are concerned about it, I know you’re anxious, but if you’re open to it, if you’re truly seeking, truly listening to the moving of the Holy Spirit, God will show you the way.  I believe that, and I’ve been around for more than a few years, you know.

Well, I gotta go . . . I thank God for your faithful witness for so many years on the corner of Winton and Cromwell.  May God bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you all the days of your lives.  The Apostle Paul . . . out.