Questions without answers

• Genesis 12:1-4a
• Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
• John 3:1-17
• Psalm 121

 

Last Sunday, I had a member of our congregation confront me by the back door after church because we’d read the story of Adam and Eve, the serpent, and the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and she was damned if she was going to let women be blamed for all the evil in the world anymore.  Later that morning, we had our Lenten book study, and afterward, another of our members sent me an email questioning an overly simplistic statement I’d made about evil, as it confronts us in events like the Nazi genocide of the Jews.  And then, there was another incident this week in our ongoing internal struggle over whether and how to appropriately respond to the political crisis in our country; a certain mass email had gone out sounding the alarm about various laws being introduced in congress, and someone got in touch with me to raise concern, because she erroneously thought it had been sent using the church’s email list. 

Now, I’m not complaining about any of this.  I would rather be in a community where people feel free to say what’s bothering them than one where they do not.  And I’d rather be wrestling with difficult questions about misogyny in the Bible, and the power of evil in human affairs, and how to handle politics in the parish, than doing some of the other stuff I do every day.  So if there is more ferment going on right now at St. John’s, and folks are more inclined than usual to speak out, as also seems to be the case around town, and all over the country, I experience that, on the whole, as a good thing.  When that person went off last Sunday about the Book of Genesis I started laughing, not because I thought she was being ridiculous, but because it made me happy that someone trusted me enough to say what she really thinks and didn’t tone down her opinion or apologize for what she said.

No, the hard part, for me, is that I feel like I’m supposed to have the answer.  I take these objections seriously, because I know that they are coming from a genuine desire to understand.  People are speaking out because they want help to make sense of intractable issues that demand to be confronted, in church, and society, and the depths of the human soul.  These are exactly the kind of questions our religion ought to be able to help us address but it’s not always clear how it does.  In fact, there are times when the Bible and the history of Christian tradition seem to give ambiguous answers, to say the least, or even to come down on what feels like the wrong side.   So people turn to their pastor to help them understand.  And that would be me.     

My role in this community is to be more than the chief administrator of the parish organization.  It is also more than to be a sacramental priest, administering the rites of the church.  I am also supposed to be a religious teacher.  So when someone raises an impassioned question about a weighty matter of life and death, good and evil, spirituality and ethics, I really should be able to give something more than just another half-baked personal opinion.  I don’t know if it is just me, or if other people really expect this (probably, a little of both), but I feel like I should be able say something authoritative, something wise, something that has the deep ring of truth about it, something that, if it doesn’t settle the question, at least clarifies it to some degree so that people can find their own way forward. 

Now I don’t want to sell myself short.  I suppose I am able to do that from time to time.  But there are plenty of other times when I feel like my abilities as a religious teacher are pretty inadequate.  And one way I can explain that to myself is in terms of the gaps in my scriptural and theological education.  Sometimes I look back on my college days, or all the years I spent farming and gardening, or studying Mahayana Buddhism, and I wish I’d known then what I know now, and had used my time differently.  But, then again, I’m not really so sure that having mastery of biblical Hebrew, or a thorough first-hand knowledge of the Church Fathers, would necessarily make that much of a difference.  Because, as Jesus reminds us this morning in the Gospel of John, truly becoming his disciple is not about being persuaded by an argument, or about putting together a coherent system of religious ideas. It is about being born from above. 

At least that is what Jesus says to Nicodemus, whom the Gospel describes as a leader of the Jews.  That is to say, he is a scholar of the scriptures, and an authoritative religious teacher.   But Nicodemus is in the dark.  We don’t know why he comes to Jesus in the night.  Maybe he wants to avoid being seen, because he’s ashamed about going to consult the young upstart teacher from Nazareth.  Maybe he knows there is something about this Jesus that he can’t put his finger on, and this not-knowing won’t let him sleep, so he goes to try to learn something that will set his mind at ease.  Whatever the case, Nicodemus begins his conversation with Jesus, not by asking a question, but by making a statement.  “This much,” says Nicodemus, “we know: we know that you are a teacher sent from God, with whom God is present, for we have seen the signs that you are doing.” 

Which is saying a lot, really, especially since we are used to thinking of the leaders of the Jews as Jesus’ sworn enemies.  But there’s an implied question here, even if Nicodemus himself isn’t sure what it is.  Somehow he understands that this is not the whole story, and he leaves it to Jesus to tell him something more.  So Jesus begins by running Nicodemus aground on the rocks of his own literal way of thinking.  And then he shows him what he has to gain by knowing him, not from a distance, nor by the outward signs.  Because Nicodemus is right—there is more.  And the author of John, who likely wrote these words to read aloud to the catechumens in the night before their baptism at Easter dawn, is also giving us the chance to be more—more than people who have joined a religion.  He is giving us the mind of the beloved, the one who lies close to the heart of the one who abides in the heart of God.

First of all, says John’s Gospel, this is not about acquiring new religious knowledge; it is about being transformed, about seeing the world with the eyes of God and, finally, being in God.  And this way of new birth that begins at baptism is essentially a path of not-knowing.  To follow it is to dance on the breath of the Spirit, and who knows where that comes from or where it is going?  Still, there is one thing we can we rely on—the testimony of the Son of Man, the one person we know whose whole life flows out from and back into God.  His teaching is confirmed by the signs that he gives, especially the supreme sign of giving himself to be lifted up on the cross.  But again, this self-giving is not simply an atoning sacrifice that happened once, long ago, out there somewhere—it is also the enduring object of transforming contemplation.  If we keep our inner eye fixed on the crucified and ascended Son of Man, he will heal the wound of knowledge bound to death, that knows nothing beyond it.

Finally, this is the path of trust in God’s love above all.  Faith in Jesus leads to the heart of God, because it is from God’s overflowing heart of love for the world that he came.  This is the key to receiving the testimony of John’s gospel as something other than an argument.  These are not words written to demand conversion to a new religion, or to prop up a theological system, but are the gift of a heart that has known God’s grace and truth.  They are words given to people who have already made the decision to follow Jesus, to help us realize the fullness of this path we’ve undertaken; to show us its glory in the depths and the densities of earth, and to carry us all the way to heaven.   They were written to bring us to our one true religious teacher—who is God.

Touching the wounds

Acts 2:14a,22-32
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31
Psalm 16 

God brought Jesus back to life—this is the pivotal event of history.  But it is not a historical event in the same way the Battle of Waterloo is, or the signing of the Magna Carta.  Because the resurrection of Jesus is ongoing.  Easter morning was the continuation of the work of Jesus’ life, of bringing others back from physical, or moral, or spiritual death.   And it was also the beginning of a process of renewing the life of the whole creation, a process that is ongoing in our present and is our hope for the future.  God is bringing Christ to eternal life in us, and this is ongoing, and gradual, and happens in different ways and at different times for different people. 

Which is what today’s text from the Gospel of John is about.  The story of Thomas shows us ourselves, and how it is that we come to know and to live Jesus’ resurrection.  The process can’t occur without our participation, but just for that reason it is something of a problem.  Because we aren’t always sure it’s what we want, or how to do it?  In part it is a question of evidence—how can I affirm what I do not believe, and how can I believe what I have not seen or touched or experienced for myself? 

It is also a problem of recognition.  We may feel like we can see evidence in our lives, or in the world around us, for the living presence of the Spirit, or of God, but it is not always clear what these have to do with a man who lived 2,000 years ago.  In what sense are they signs of Jesus?

Finally, there is the question of action, or practice.  When I am asked whether I believe in the Resurrection, isn’t this a question about the way I live and act, about what I do?

Today’s gospel story addresses all these aspects of the problem, and it does so in the way it describes the risen body of Jesus.  It is a remarkable body, one that passes instantaneously through locked doors, one whose physical breath is the Holy Spirit of God, the kind of body that speaks of a transformation in which it has become something more than human. 

And yet this body bears the marks of crucifixion, and this is precisely what makes it recognizable as Jesus.  It is in his demand to see the marks of Jesus’ wounds, and to put his own fingers in the places where the nails pierced his hands, and in the opportunity that Jesus graciously provides to do just that, that Thomas knows the truth.  But Thomas is not alone.  John says explicitly that this story is written for us, so that we also may believe.  So I don’t think it is stretching the point to say that this story’s message is that it is in touching the wounds of Christ that we come to know and to believe that he is our Lord and our God. 

Now, when I say “the wounds of Christ,” there is probably at least one person here in this room who thinks about guilt.  Centuries of Christians have thought this way, meditating on the crucified body of Jesus and feeling responsible for his wounds, because of our own sins.   And that isn’t such a bad practice—for Lent. But the body in this story is the resurrection body, and these wounds are not bleeding accusations of guilt and judgment, but openings—to insight, to reconciliation and peace, to awe and gratitude, joy and faith.

Maybe the wounds of the risen Lord are the places where the work of Jesus is still open, still unfinished.  They invite our exploration and participation, because we also are unfinished.  Christ’s resurrection is still not a reality in our lives and in the world because we have been afraid, or unwilling, to see and to touch his wounds. 

We struggle to affirm that Jesus is Lord, because we don’t see the evidence.  But what if that longing for direct, personal knowledge of God, that sense of missing the most important thing, that nagging dissatisfaction with a superficial, conventional, and materialistic approach to life, that hunger for something more vivid, more meaningful, more enduring and true—what if that wound was the evidence?

We may wonder what this longing has to do with Jesus, or with the church that claims to do what it does in his name.  But maybe this itself is an opening, an invitation to feel our way into Jesus’ own pain over religion.  He experienced the immediate presence of the Kingdom of God, and then he looked at the indifference and hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day: their sterile rehashing of old arguments, and quibbling over minor differences of interpretation; their pursuit of worldly power and prestige, and easy accommodation to corrupt and violent elites; their contempt for the outcast, the poor and the mentally and physically disabled, and inordinate focus on petty offenses and sexual sins.  Jesus saw this and was wounded with anger, and with a burning compassion for the sufferings of God’s people.  We could turn away from the corresponding problems of religion today, as so many people do, and say “that’s someone else’s problem,” but then there would be no opening for us in the risen body of Christ, only a old and fading scar.

And when we think about how we are to practice, how to live in a way that is consistent with Jesus’ compassion, and his urgency for the Kingdom of God, we often assume that this a question of knowing what to do.  But here also we might find greater freedom and power if we understood that here, too, there is an open wound.   We think of Jesus as supremely sure of himself and his plan, so we forget how often he had to go off by himself to pray for guidance and for strength.   We forget his prayer in the garden that the cup of betrayal and suffering should pass from his lips, but that, in the end, “your will, O Lord, not mine, be done.” 

Last night, I attended, along with some members of our congregation, and several hundred others, a celebration of the ministry of the Reverend Tim Kellgren, who is retiring today, at the end of this morning’s services, after 37 years as pastor at Elim Lutheran Church.  There was a lengthy after-dinner program of songs and remembrances and tributes, and many people made mention of the ministries that Pastor Tim and the Elim congregation helped to found that have had a transforming impact on this community and the world.  These include PEP, providing subsidized senior housing, COTS and the Petaluma Kitchen, sheltering homeless persons and helping them get back on their feet, Petaluma Bounty and the Interfaith Food pantries, that feed the hungry.  But for me it was also inspiring, and encouraging, to hear passing mention of the many false starts, the big ideas that never got off the ground, or were attempted, but later given up as impractical, or just too difficult to sustain.

Maybe we bring Christ to life not when know what to do, but when we know that we are sent, as Jesus was sent, and go in his peace and try something, anything, to touch the wounds of the world.  And in this we could ask for no better patron saint than Thomas.  In the popular imagination, Thomas is most associated with his doubts about the resurrection.  But the Gospel of John also depicts him as the apostle of courageous action.  When Jesus announces he is going back to Judea, to the grave of his friend Lazarus, the other disciples say, “Rabbi, they were just seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?”  But Thomas is the one who says “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”   And when the rest of them were hiding out after Jesus’ crucifixion, with the doors locked, and the lights out, and the shades drawn, Thomas wasn’t there.  So where was he?  Out and about, abroad in the city?  I can imagine him saying, “This is crazy.  We can’t just cower here in fear forever.  Life has to go on—the Sabbath is over, I’m going to the market to get us some bread.”  In church tradition, Thomas is the apostle who went the furthest to spread the Gospel.  Others went to Syria, or to Asia Minor, or even to Rome, but Thomas, it is said, went to India, and died a martyr’s death there. 

Maybe for some people discipleship begins with believing in the resurrection, and moves from there to recognizing the wounds of Christ, and then to doing something about them.  But for Thomas it works in reverse.  His story suggests that we first should overcome our fears, and just try something, anything to touch the wounds of Jesus.  Then, maybe, our doubts will begin to fall away and we will be able to cry, with the joy of firsthand experience, “My Lord and my God!”

The Good, the Bad, and the Meaningful

Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

Not long ago I was driving my daughter home at the end of the day and I had the news playing on the car radio.  And I was just turning onto our street when Risa asked me from the back seat, “Daddy, why is the news always bad?  Why do they always talk about wars and people shooting each other and things like that?  Why don’t they ever have news about the good things that people do?”  Well, there were a lot of different ways I could have answered.  I could have given her a dose of cynicism about the media.  Or I could have said something jaded about human nature, and the fascination that violence and catastrophe seem to hold for us.   But she’s nine years old.  So what I did was to agree with her that it just doesn’t seem right that the news is always bad.  I said I thought she was right that there must be a different way to talk about what’s going on in the world, that there must be more to the story. 

Some of us at St. John’s have been taking part this year in a program of reading the Bible from cover to cover.  And along with this so-called “Bible Challenge” I’ve been reading books about the Bible, and also leading courses of study at the church on especially important pieces of the Bible.  So I’ve been reflecting on the Bible in recent months even more than I usually do.  And this week as I was reading the lectionary texts for this morning, and remembering that conversation with Risa about the news, it struck me that things haven’t really changed all that much since the Bible was written.  People often fault the scriptures because they contain so much violence and catastrophe and terror.  But it doesn’t seem to occur to them that this is still what the world is like, and it wasn’t any different in Bible times.  In some ways, it was worse.

The other thing we sometimes forget is that when the Bible was written there was nothing else in print.  The Bible was not shelved in a specialized section of the bookstore labeled “Inspirational.”  And there was no idea at that time of a dimension of human experience called “spirituality” or “religion,” that only had to do with lofty, uplifting, and comforting subjects.   In fact the Bible speaks out again and again against the notion that religion is somehow unconcerned with all the ugly and disturbing things that people think and do.  What the people who wrote the Bible said is that there is one world of human experience and knowledge, and the whole thing, the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, belongs to God.

 Which sounds kind of reassuring until you start to think about all the stuff that happens, and what that says about God.  And the prophets and sages of ancient Israel knew they had to think about it.  They had to make room in their understanding of God’s sovereignty and holiness, for the bad news.  Their experience of God’s goodness and faithfulness had to allow somehow for the arrogance and greed of the rich and powerful, and the sufferings of the poor, for apostasy and injustice, and the devastation of their land by invading empires, and the wholesale slaughter of their people.  And when you read the Bible you start to see that they didn’t give themselves an easy out.  If you go to it looking for a simple explanation for why the world is the way it is, or a straightforward solution to its problems, you will be disappointed.  They are not there.

What you will find is a record of the thoughts and words and deeds of men and women seized by a profound awareness of God, an awareness that comes to bear on every aspect of human experience, from the most exalted states of religious vision, or worldly triumph, or erotic love, to the depths of physical agony, emotional abandonment, terror and despair.   It’s not always easy for us to see the value of this kind of faith.  We are powerfully conditioned by the modern mind, which only wants to allow meaning to that which can be explained.  But the truth is that most of our experience, and in particular that part that affects us most deeply, is inexplicable. 

We will never know why that particular sunset was different from all the others, or why we’ve never forgotten that particular meal.  We will never understand exactly why we fell in love with that person out of all the men and women in the world, or why that child came to be ours, or why we got sick, or that one had to die, or why people make such foolish choices, or rise up with murder in their hearts.  But the faith of the Bible is that in spite of the limits of our comprehension, everything that happens, every that is, every last bit of it, down to the hairs on your head, means something to God.

So when we talk, as we have been doing this month during our Stewardship Season, about the abundance that we share as a faith community, we might consider this: our greatest gift may be that here, in a world where wonder and reverence are melting away under the hot wind of shallow explanations, is a place where there is always more to the story.  St. John’s is like a little wilderness preserve, where we keep alive the possibility that everything means more than we know.  And the way we do this is we pray.  Praying is where we meet the limits of our understanding of why things happen the way they do, and we go beyond them into God. 

Prayer is more than asking God to solve our problems.  It is also asking God to make meaning of things that are beyond our comprehension.  That goes for the good things as well as the bad.  Every day we receive blessings that we did not obtain for ourselves and can’t say with assurance we deserve.  When we make prayers of thanksgiving we stop sleepwalking numbly through the miracle that is our lives.  Giving thanks, we make even the most ordinary day a journey of discovery, the discovery of meaning. 

And as for the bad news, the personal struggles and the mass suffering, to pray about it is to stop explaining it away.  It is to acknowledge that it affects us deeply, and is more than we can handle by ourselves.  We could come up with explanations, but they wouldn’t really satisfy.  And knowing that, in itself, is the first step toward taking responsibility.  I don’t mean so much “responsibility” as in “guilt.” Or as in, “it’s up to us to fix it.”  I mean respons-ability just like the word says—the ability to respond. 

Prayer is empowering, because it says that we are able to respond to what happens, no matter how incomprehensible it is, because we know the world is God’s.  That’s what gives us the confidence and the mandate to keep praying for peace in a nation in a state of endless war, to keep praying for healing, though the doctor says it is hopeless, to keep praying for justice when inequality and corruption are on the rise. 

It is this knowledge that world is God’s, that keeps us praying for the safety and dignity of women and girls, that keeps us praying for the survival of species, for sight for the blind, and liberty for the captives, and good news for the poor, and for the resurrection of the dead, and the coming of the Kingdom.  Sometimes it doesn’t seem like enough just to pray, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing.  And I like to think that persistence in prayer makes it more likely, and maybe it happens more than we care to admit, that we will, from time-to-time, hear an answering voice in our hearts that says, “okay—here’s what we can do.”