Truth and Consequences (John 18:33-37)

      So here we are, the last Sunday before Advent, the season that begins with the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends Christmas Eve, and our reading is from the middle of the passion narrative, of all things. You know the passion narrative, don’t you?: The story about the trial and death of Jesus Christ? And it’s relevant because it’d also Christ the King Sunday, and contains a discussion of what makes a monarch in the Kingdom of God. And the very fact it’s from the passion narrative lends it a poignant irony over and above any words that might be said, because the first thing anybody would ever ask about Jesus, who was nailed to that tree, is what kind of ruler, what kind of sovereign, what kind of king gets drug through the streets of Jerusalem, poked and prodded and jeered at, and then hung up to die on a cross? And, by extension, what kind of religion is bult around such a thing? Because make no mistake, Christianity is as much about the crucifixion as it is about the resurrection, as much about the crash of winter as the coming of spring.

It was early in Christianity that Christians started calling Christ their king, right along with calling him Lord, which befuddled Jews and Greeks and just about everybody else in the Greco-Roman world, because getting killed made one kind of a failure, didn’t it? It made one kind of a loser, and less kind individuals would have gone around making the L-sign on their foreheads, if English had been invented, which of course it hadn’t. Losers weren’t any more respected by the general populace in those days any more than they are today, and a guy who got himself killed definitely wasn’t a winner in their books. The guy had done all kind of miracles, all kinds of signs, and shown power over life and death, for St. Peter’s sake, but cracked like a soft-boiled egg at the first sign of Roman opposition. He wouldn’t even save his own life. Was it any wonder his disciples had scattered like quail?

And here he was up before Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea, who would not have made anybody’s most-cuddly list. History would remember him as a ruthless, vicious ruler, who’d keep the Roman peace at any cost, who ate scruffy revolutionaries like Jesus for breakfast. In fact, he had a some-time insurrectionist named Barabbas just waiting for the right moment to string up, which apparently would be right after he got done with Jesus. Now Jesus had been brought to Pilate because the Israelite religious authorities could sentence anyone of anything up to, but not including, death, and they wanted Jesus dead. But Pilate, despite his cutthroat virtuosity, is hesitating. And this has always puzzled biblical scholars, because it was way out of character for him, so the more liberal amongst them proposed that the Gospel writers, ah, embellished the scene, trying to curry favor with the Romans by blaming the Jews. See, they’d say, we’re good Roman citizens, we don’t blame y’all for Jesus’ death, it was those evil Jews!

But you know, I wonder if it’s something about Jesus that gave Pilate pause . . . after all, we know that the disciples only had to see him and hear his voice to up and leave everything and every one to follow him. Jesus seemed to radiate, to exude something that wasn’t of this world, at least any world that anybody in this one’d ever seen. Cynthia Bourgeault calls it a “recognition event,” that people recognized something in Jesus that resonated with them on a deep, and not-particuarly-rational, level. And perhaps that’s what we’re seeing here, that the Pilate historians know would even twitch at putting a rabble rouser down may be a testament to Jesus’ magnetic and holy presence.

Well. Our passage tells of Pilate’s final confrontation with Jesus, and to me, it looks he’s just trying to get a handle on it all. “Are you the king of the Jews,” he asks, and he knows full well that that’s what Herod styles himself as, king of the Jews, and perhaps Pilate is trying to get Jesus in trouble with the Romans’ pet overlord, but more likely he’s just trying to find out what he’s being charged with. Because in fact, he hadn’t been told. The Sanhedrin had just hauled him over and dumped him off on him, saying “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” What kind of trial is this that the judge doesn’t even know the charges?

So Pilate is trying to do his job, and to do it he needs to know what the charge is, and so he asks “Are you the King of the Jews?” Cause if he thinks he’s the king of the Jews, then he’ll know what’s up. And Jesus’ answer—“Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”—has been taken to be kind of smart-alecky, like “did you figure that out all by yourself, or did you get help?” But I don’t think it’s meant as an insult, I think he really wants to know. We already know that Jesus makes a sharp distinction between what comes from the inside versus what comes from without . . . remember? He says it’s not what comes from outside that defiles, but what comes from inside. Similarly, Jesus is asking whether Pilate’s question comes from within Pilate, and thus is sincere, or whether he’s parroting what he’s heard.

We live in a time where it’s an important distinction, don’t you think? We’re constantly bombarded with information and opinions, squabbling talking heads and news that is of doubtful provenance and veracity (notice how I didn’t call it fake news?). If we let ourselves be swayed by everything that comes from without, from everything we are told, we’ll be like those bulrushes over in Isaiah, but instead of our heads being bowed, they’ll be whipping around like bobbles on a spring.

But how does our dependence on all these outside influences dovetail with Jesus’ teaching that it’s only what comes from within that defiles? All those buffeting viewpoints can’t defile, can they? After all, they do come from without . . . Well, Buddhist psychology puts it this way: in everyone there are seeds: seeds of violence, seeds of compassion, seeds of fear, seeds of joy . . . every human emotion, every human behavior is within us in embryonic form. For fans of Western psychology, it’s akin to C.G. Jung’s collective unconscious, where human behaviors are represented by common archetypes. In the Buddhist metaphor, these seeds—of violence, evil, compassion, joy—lie dormant until they are “watered” by something from the outside. Thus, watching or participating in violent activities water the seeds of violence, watching or participating in deeds of compassion water seeds of compassion, and the person grows increasingly violent or compassionate. Does it mean they will be actively violent or compassionate? No. But, according to Buddhist thought, their tendencies, their propensities for them will increase.

And so, according to this thinking, outside influences—news, movies, political rallies, and the like—can actually change how we are on the inside, and therefore, as Jesus would say, come from inside and defile—or make better, for that matter. And so, when Jesus asks whether the question about his kingship is asked on his own, he is taking Pilate’s spiritual temperature, speaking from a far different spiritual place than was Pilate. Jesus is trying to see into his psyche, Pilate is just interested externalities: “I am not a Jew, am I?” he says, “Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” And in fact, Pilate doesn’t know, they haven’t told him,

So we have Jesus being Jesus, plumbing spiritual reaches, and Pilate being Pilate, just trying to figure out just what is going on. And Jesus makes it clear that he’s interacting with the governor on a whole other level: “My kingdom’s not of this world. If my kingdom were from there, my followers would be fighting to keep me free. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” And there it is: Pilate is speaking of worldly things—things of this realm—and his notion of kingship is based there. Jesus, of course, is speaking of the Kingdom of God, his natural habitat, and his notion of kingship is based there.

And Pilate takes one more stab at understanding this enigmatic man with the entire universe in his eyes: “So you are a king.” And once again, Jesus reply is from another realm: ”You’re the one who says I’m a king. But here’s the reason I was born and the reason I came into this world: to testify to the truth.” He may be on trial in this temporal realm, but his testimony isn’t about that. His testimony is about the eternal, it’s about truth. And whoever belongs to that truth listens not to the things of the world, but to his voice. But once again, Pilate hears things from his own perspective: “What is truth?” he asks, shaking his head as he walks away.

And of course, that’s the problem: Pilate is talking about the truth of the powers that be, the powers and principalities, as Paul would call them. Political truth, that shifts with the wind; human truth, which blows around like those bobble-head bulrushes. That truth is tied to authority, to whomever is in power, who holds the reigns of the media, who can control the dominant narrative. The truth of which Jesus speaks is a more basic truth, a more fundamental truth, a truth that doesn’t vary, that doesn’t budge. It’s a truth that underlies reality. And this is John, remember, where Christ’s own self is that word of truth, so Jesus testifies to himself and God, the ground of being that sent him.

And those who belong to that truth listen to that truth, they listen to him. which shouldn’t be hard to do, because they—we!—are intimately connected to him, as branches to a vine. In fact this Word, this truth abides in us, and we in him. It is our center, below any Buddhist seeds, more fundamental than any Jungian archetype. And we are fundamentally grounded to this truth, and have recourse to it, if only we will, when the chaos and confusion and obfuscation of modern existence seems too much to handle.

Sisters and brothers, this is the kind of king Christ is, one who points to truth, one who is that truth, available to us through scripture and through his own indwelling self. All we have to do, as the old hymn says, keep our eyes on him. Amen.

Class Act (Mark 12:38 - 44)

     So here we are, the first Sunday of stewardship season, where our board—which, for some obscure and (likely) boring reason, we Presbyterians call the Session—where the Session comes up with a budget and then we talk about ways to fill it, most usually, of course, from pledges. And it’s kinda like pledge season on National Public Radio, and it can be just as annoying—not here, of course—with people asking for money, money, money . . . and why is that, you may ask? Well, unlike public radio, which gets about half its budget from the gummint, we get virtually all our budget through donations. A little something called separation of church and state, don’t you know.

     And so we have our own pledge season here at Greenhills Community Church, Presbyterian, only unlike NPR, we only do it once a year, and isn’t that nice of your Session who loves you? And instead of thank-you gifts like crank-powered emergency radios and CDs of piano players nobody’s ever heard of, we get to have a warm, well-lit place to gather for worship and professionals like Brad to help lead it. And this morning’s passage is the one that a lot of pastors—including yours truly—have used at pledge, er, stewardship season over the years because it seems so perfect: here are some rich folks, parading past the offering plate, plonking in ginormous sums of money, making a joyful, clanking noise, and here’s this poor widow-woman, hobbling up to the pot and throwing in her two pennies. And it’s obvious that Mark wants to paint a sharp contrast between the rich folks—for whom, remember, it is harder to access the Kingdom than a camel to get through the needle’s eye—he wants to set up a contrast between the rich folks and the widow, whom he makes sure we know is poor.

     Now. Widows didn’t have to be poor, you understand: both Jewish and Roman law allowed women to inherit their husband’s wealth. And if a woman had sons and/or a father-in-law, they were expected to care for her after her husband passed. But for every woman whose husband left a sizable estate there were a hundred thousand who were living from her husband’s hand to mouth before the old boy passed, and now had no-one to provide. It was such a common condition that widows, along with orphans—as in the phrase “widows and orphans”—are code words, verbal shorthand, for the unfortunate. There are about eighty references to widows in the scriptures, and God's determination to care for them is frequently noted. In the Letter of James it is spelled out: caring for ‘widows and orphans in their distress” is seen as a hallmark of “religion that is pure and undefiled before God.”

     So Jesus is dealing with a loaded symbol here, and Mark calling her “poor” is almost redundant, but it certainly piles on the pathos. And she gives two pitiful, little coins—we translate the Greek here as “pennies”—and lo! it’s all she has, and Jesus makes it very clear what the point of this lesson is: The rich, he says, have “contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” Holy moley! That’s faith, that’s  dedication, she throws in all she has! And note: because she’s done this, she’s “put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.”

     Of course, this shouldn’t surprise anybody who’s been paying attention as we’ve worked our way through Mark . . . the last rich guy Jesus talked to asked what he’d have to do to inherit eternal life, and when Jesus told him he’d have to give up everything, he went away sadly because he had a lot of stuff; Bartimaeus throws away his cloak—surely all he has—before he’s ever healed, and now the widow has given it all away, to the evident satisfaction of Jesus. So we oughta be used to that pronouncement by now, but it’s still shocking: we’re supposed to give up everything? Really? How are we supposed to eat? How are we supposed to support our families? For that matter, if everybody’s given up all they own, who’s going to take care of all those widows and orphans God’s so concerned about? And finally, how do you reconcile Jesus’ commendation of it with his supposed compassion: does he really want the woman to starve?

     On the surface of it, it seems cut and dried. The rich man is told to give up all he has and the poor widow is commended when she does. Pretty open and shut. One way of getting around it is if we assume Jesus’ command to the rich guy is a specific deal, just for that particular man at that particular time, and therefore can’t be generalized. But what possible thing could they have in common—the rich guy, the blind guy, and the poor widow—that would make giving up all they had the right thing to do, and at the same time not being right for everyone?

     Of course, we could fall back on that old standby of spiritualizing everything, saying piously that Jesus doesn’t mean we have to give up our money, our material goods . . . no. What he means is we’ve got to give up our ego, our pride, our self-regard, things like that. And indeed, elsewhere he seems to say just that, but not in these stories. In these stories it’s very clear: the rich guy is to sell all his stuff, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus. Likewise for the widow: she puts in two very corporal, very solid, coins, they aren’t spiritual, they aren’t some bad habit she’s giving up for Lent. It’s money she can buy food with and it’s all she has.

     You know, it would be easy to see these folks—the wealthy lawyer on one hand and the poor widow on the other—as symbolic of two socio-economic strata in first century Palestine: the extremely poor he extremely wealthy. In fact, there were only two “classes” in those days: rich and poor, and there was nothing in between. To be specific, there was no middle class—that’s a particularly modern phenomenon: an entire stratum of people who have (a) disposable income and (b) the time to enjoy it. And in first century Palestine, there was no such animal. Either you had plenty of money, much more than you needed, or you had just barely enough, and in many cases, not even that.

     That’s why it’s hard to place ourselves in this story, at least class-wise. Because make no mistake: this is a story about class. It’s why Mark—and we—put the two episodes back to back: we’re supposed to associate the rich folks who put enormous sums into the treasury with those scribes who walk around in long robes. You know who they are: they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. Scribes were the lawyers of the day, and there was only one law: the law of Moses, the Torah. And what Jesus is saying is that they use that law to “devour widow’s houses”—in modern parlance, perhaps, foreclose on their mortgages when they can no longer pay. And they do this and then come to church on Sunday—oops! I mean to synagogue on the Sabbath—to say long prayers and show just how pious they are. They’re gonna get theirs, saith the Lord.

     And does the poor widow see the scribe who devoured her home flap by in his long robe, chest puffed out as he drops a boat-load of coin into the copper pot—clang!—after first making sure everyone’s looking? That’s what Mark implies . . . that the widow and those folks are related by oppression, and so the interesting question emerges: is the widow, in turn, making a statement of her own by publicly throwing all she has into the pot? Remember, it is the temple treasury, the money is going straight not to God, but to the institution that employs those scribes who’ve devoured her home. Is she saying “There! See what you’ve done! Here are my last two pennies! Take it all!” Is it a protest against the order of things, the powers that be, the system? And this, in turn, calls into question why Jesus commends her: not for giving up all she has and facing imminent starvation—why would he want her to starve?—but for standing up to a system that uses the law to enrich a few at the expense of the many?

     You know . . . I’ve said this before, but Mahatma Gandhi wrote that he learned all he knew about non-violent resistance from Jesus, from the gospels, and he knew that one of the most effective ways of resisting the oppressor is to ridicule them, ‘cause they can’t stand to be made fun of. And here these fine, upstanding citizens are, parading by, dropping their coinage into the pot, which everybody knows they can afford—it’s why Jesus reminds us it’s from their abundance—and then the widow hobbles by, throws in her pennies, which everybody knows is all she has, and does it ridicule those who have paced solemnly by, does it send a strong, condemnatory message? Those long-robed scribes certainly will receive the greater condemnation, but it won’t be from God. It’ll be from anyone standing by, and in the small town that is Jerusalem, word will get around.

     Well. Where do we go from here? This passage certainly works very well at pledge time, and being that it is that time, we should note that it is so. And I’ll say what I always say: we’re all adults here, we know that to keep the lights and heat on, we need income. And the best way to do that—for the church, which needs to plan, and for us, who need a goal—is to pledge for the upcoming year.

     But we shouldn’t lose sight of the more fundamental fact, that this is a fable, a tale of the haves and have nots, the firsts and lasts of the earth, and we know what Jesus always said: those with means have their rewards right here on earth, and the first shall be last and the last first. Amen.

Up From the Grave, Part I (John 11:32-44)

     You could almost sing the old hymn “Up from the grave he arose” right about now, but it’s not quite right . . . our passage isn’t about Jesus rising from the grave, “with a mighty triumph o’er his foes,” it’s about Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary.  And no, it’s not the same Lazarus who died and went to be in Abraham’s bosom while the rich guy went to you-know-where to be tormented by you-know-who.  And no, it’s not Mary Magdalene we’re talking about either, but it might be the same Martha who gets mad when her sister Mary – who isn’t the Magdalene, remember – who sits at Jesus’ feet while she does all the work.  Are you following all this?  There were a lot of Mary’s running around in first century Palestine – at least four figure in the Gospel stories – and, apparently, more than one Lazarus as well.

Anyway, because thelectionary reading takes up in the middle of the story, to understand what’s going on you have to have at least an idea of how we got here . . . Jesus had been up North along the Jordan preaching the Gospel, and he’d heard that Lazarus was dead—as Mary and Martha had said in their message, the one you love is dead (hint, hint)—but instead of dropping everything and heading South, he stays two more days to wrap up his preaching engagement, and its only when he knows that Lazarus is dead – mysteriously, because no-one tells him – it’s only then that he heads back south to Judea, to the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany near Jerusalem.  And when he gets there he finds that Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days, and that’s significant . . . when you heard in those days about somebody being dead for four days, you knew that he was good and dead.  Jews of the time believed that the soul hangs out around the body, until it sees that the face has changed color, and that the person is well and truly dead, and this takes four days . . . and so what we’re being here is that Lazarus is definitely dead, and nobody can accuse Jesus of merely waking up a coma victim, or somebody sleeping . . . he’s really dead.

And the sisters are inconsolable in their grief . . . and resentful as well.  First Martha – and then, in our passage, Mary – chides him for not being there.  “Lord,” she says, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  And it’s nothing but the simple truth . . . if Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have died . . . and lest we mistake it, and see only the chiding, this is also a backhand statement of faith in his healing power . . . at least as regards to healing someone who is sick . . . note that she doesn’t even consider the possibility that Lazarus might be raised from the dead.  That was so far from the experience, so far from the ken of good Jewish women . . . in fact, in some quarters, it would be considered an abomination to have a walking corpse shambling around . . . never mind that it’s not what happens at all—either now or that other time—it’s ripe the imaginations of some.

So Mary takes it as a given that Jesus can’t help Lazarus now.  If you’d been there, she says, Lazarus would not have died . . . and the unspoken addendum, that she doesn’t have to say, is “but now it’s too late.”  And it’s an heartrending scene—everybody is weeping, Martha is weeping, Aunt Jesse is weeping, along with Uncle Bill . . . what’s more, all the Jews that had come to be with her are weeping as well, and the first thing that comes to my mind is God’s lament in Jeremiah, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.  Rachel is weeping for her children . . . because they are no more.”  Perhaps it reminds some there of it as well, I don’t know, but Mary and Martha are weeping inconsolably for their brother, because he will come no more.

And Jesus is not unmoved, in fact just the opposite: he is disturbed in spirit, John says, and deeply moved.  And in fact, he himself begins to weep . . . and those looking on see this “look how much he loved Lazarus,” they say, but others are not so sure: “If he loved him so much, they say, why didn’t he save him from dying?  After all, he did give the blind man back his sight . . .”  And were Mary and Martha among those who felt that way?

Personally, I have to ask myself: why is Jesus weeping?  Why is he greatly disturbed?  It couldn’t be for the same reason . . . could it?  It couldn’t be because his old friend was dead . . . Did he not know what he himself was going to do when he reached the grave?  Was he flying in the messianic dark, playing everything by ear?  Perhaps—and I think this is more the truth—perhaps he is weeping for the women and their distress.  His compassion is so deep, his empathy so high, that he can’t help but join them in their sorrow.

I’ve probably mentioned thus before, but the construction of the English word compassion is useful . . . it’s composed of passio, from the Latin for “suffering,” and the prefix com which means “with.” So if Jesus has compassion for the women, he is “suffering with” them, weeping with them, he has—in a sense—put himself in their shoes.

On the other hand, elsewhere in John, Jesus describes himself as abiding in us and we in him, to my mind a deeper relationship than attempting to imagine what the other is feeling . . . abiding implies a close, intimate, intertwining, a close identification one with the other which, according to the mystics, we have lost the ability to access, to enjoy, even.  But not Jesus, not from his perspective.  He is acutely aware of all our sorrows, all our pain because, in a real sense, they are his as well.  He shares our anguish, shares our misery, shares our suffering, just as he did on that long-ago Palestine day.

Pam and I had a pastor, before we went to seminary, who hadn’t been on the job all that long, and we had a wrenching death, of a beloved teenager, and the pastor didn’t know what to do, what to say.  So she went to the local episcopal minister—Father Dave—and asked him.  And he told her to always remember that Jesus Christ was weeping right along with the teen’s parents, right along with her sisters, friends and relatives, just as he did with Martha and Mary and all who loved their brother.

And as they walk to the grave, the air is eerie with howling, as the hired mourners join the friends and family in the keening throb and swell of middle-eastern grief, and the sisters’ steps grow heavier and heavier the closer they get, because they know in their hearts that the spirit of their brother has long flown, tired of brooding over the sepulcher, tired of hovering in the air.

And as they reach the tomb, the wailing reaches a fever pitch, and they can almost see the atmosphere rippling and heaving, and it is at the same time close and oppressive, and dust mixes with tears running down their faces so they appear smudged and grimy, and Jesus marches up to the mouth and says “Take away the stone,” but Mary remonstrates with him once again, telling him that the stench will already be strong, but he just looks at her: “did I not say that if you believe you’ll see God’s glory?”  So they take away the stone, lo!  There was no stench, and Jesus’ faith is so strong that he knows what he’ll find, he knew it all along, and so he thanks God in advance and bellows: “Lazarus!  Come out!”

And from the black maw of the tomb there comes a rustling sound, faint at first, but getting stronger, and all but Jesus take a step back, and fear is on their faces, and in their hearts, because they don’t know what is coming toward them out of the darkness, and every folk story about the underworld flashed before their eyes.  Would it be a rafah, the shade of Lazarus, his revenant somehow delayed on its journey to Sheol?  Or an ifrit, one of the spirits that roam the Palestinian countryside, inhabiting tombs, clay jars and even people?  The shuffling gets closer and closer, and now they can see a gray shape, materializing out of the dark, getting clearer with every shambling step, until it stands swaying in the tomb’s mouth—a dusty figure, wrapped and bandaged like a mummy, and the sisters gasp, and take another step back, but Jesus is all business: “Unbind him and let him go.”

And though John isn’t concerned with what happens after—it’s the resurrection that interests him—I like to imagine that Lazarus blinks in the sun—it was dark there in the tomb—and the sisters edge forward like frightened deer, until at last they are sure, and rush forward smothering him in kisses.  And the ululating cry of the mourners abruptly cuts off, only to be replaced by a clamor of joy, because it’s all the same to them, and they get paid either way.  And everyone is weeping, Mary and Martha and aunts and uncles, and Jesus stands there, a little apart, and lo! he is weeping as well, with salty tears of joy.

And of course this resurrection foreshadows another resurrection, doesn’t it, and the funny thing is, this resurrection causes the next.  John says that many folks believe because of Lazarus’ resurrection, but the religious authorities, not so much . . . they wring their hands—what to do, what to do—saying everyone’s going to believe in him if this keeps up, and high-priest Caiaphas puts it this way: it’s better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”  And from that moment on, they plot to make it come true: they plot to sacrifice Jesus for the good of the nation.

But today, on All Saints Sunday, we look toward another event that the raising of Lazarus portends . . . and that’s a resurrection of our own.  As we read the names, and toll the bell, let’s remember that . . . let’s remember that when a child dies, Jesus weeps.  When an aunt or uncle passes, Jesus mourns with us.  When our mother or father or sister or brother dies, Jesus grieves with sighs too deep for words.  And let us take the resurrection of Lazarus—and Christ himself—for what it is: a promise and hope that somewhere, somehow, we will encounter our loved ones again.  Amen.