Sermon Notes
While being a divine Messiah, Jesus is also a prophet standing in the tradition of Hebrew prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Amos, and so on. Their message, like Jesus, is that following Torah, keeping the commandments are expressions of love to God. A dove, coin, or unblemished calf offered from a heart of gratitude or repentance was to be relational, not a transaction.
Once again, in this morning’s Gospel reading, we are right in the middle of Holy Week. Jesus has ridden into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He has spoken to the chief priests and religious leaders in the Temple. But he’s no longer there. It is now Tuesday evening, and he is on the Mount of Olives, just East of town, having an intimate conversation with his disciples.
Be humble and obey: That is not a popular sentence in post-modern society. There are few global contexts in which it would be felt as a loving, nurturing request. Imagine when it has been said to you – whether in childhood or as an adult – and recall your emotional reaction: resentment, frustration, offense, resistance, exasperation, fear, maybe anxiety. Our American identity is particularly averse to embracing either concept: humility is weak, and obedience is an affront to rugged individualism.
In today’s gospel, Jesus urges his disciples to forgive and seek relationship an unreasonable number of times. He teaches to always grant space for mercy. It is a hard teaching, especially today when holding a grudge is a virtue. The parable which follows clarifies: our response to sin is not about the relationship between, but between one’s self and God. We do not forgive a penitent because of their worthiness, we forgive because God forgave us first.
Jesus’ words in Matthew seem ahead of his time, with similarities to some of our Pauline writings to the early Christian churches. Yet, these words are in the midst of what is sometimes known as Jesus’ 4th discourse. So Jesus is in the middle of making an appeal to his followers to protect and safeguard the vulnerable, especially children, and to forgive – not seven times, he says – but seventy seven times.
This episode in the story of Moses brings back my own burning bush moment. I was 8 and lived on the last street in the Dhahran ARAMCO camp in Saudi Arabia. Just past our block the desert stretched out and there was a sort of mini-canyon called a jebel nearby. A family of foxes lived in its tiny alcoves and the kits would come out to play at dusk.
We did a thing this week. Who was here Wednesday? The Clarkson Center was profusely festooned in a spectrum of rainbow colors as Lucy, Molly, Tom, Mary, and others celebrated the LGBTQ+ community. Bishop Brown of Maine gave a sermon that was engaging with a clear call to follow Jesus into the world. There were a total 197 people attending the Pride Mass. A quarter of that number were singing in our choir. For many, many attendees our Pride mass is the only church service they will see this year. For some it is their first service ever and others a transformative moment after being away from worshipping in community for decades.
As we continue to lean into the Season after Pentecost, we discover new ways to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. In today’s Gospel reading, it is easy to skim over the confusing section about children, sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, and leap to the section with Jesus’ comforting words, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Read the Gospel accounts. Jesus of Nazareth was not safe, rarely polite, and always controversial. He offered unconditional, abiding love for all people and showed profound compassion to heal and reach out to everyone in his presence, but he was committed only to the truth of God. The social acceptability of his message was irrelevant.
Tomorrow, June 19th, is the celebration of our second Independence Day, Juneteenth, sometimes called Freedom Day. Juneteenth commemorates the day when Union troops arrived at Galveston, Texas in 1865 to finally enforce the Emancipation Proclamation issued. Enslaved Americans of African descent had been free for two years, yet hundreds still labored as slaves under the oppression of land owners unwilling to follow the law.
In reading the Gospels, I have found myself wishing we had more of Jesus’ prayer life in Scripture. Usually, we are pointed to the Lord’s Prayer. But John’s Gospel is one of a kind! Instead of giving us the Lord’s Prayer, John’s Gospel gives us the prayer in today’s Gospel reading. The prayer appears at the end of Jesus’ farewell discourse with the disciples, just before he died. They were in the Upper Room, Jesus had washed their feet, and then they reclined to hear what Jesus had to say. At the end of that conversation is today’s prayer, and we get to hear the heart of Jesus as he speaks with his Father.
In today’s gospel passage, we find Jesus gathered with his closest friends at his final earthly meal, and they have been here awhile. They began dining one and a half chapters ago. Jesus has washed their feet, Judas has departed for the Temple, and we’ve had a number of lessons about Jesus’ impending suffering. In this portion of the Great Discourse, Christ describes how his followers are to act after he departs: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments…They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me.” (John 14:15, 21)
Today we fold young Keira McManis into the household of God by baptism. We sometimes call it a christening, which literally means to make a Christ. By water, oil, and the presentation of a lighted candle, we make tangible the spiritual reality that Keira is dedicated to following Jesus by her parents’ and godmothers’ vows. Our Baptismal Covenant binds us with Christians of history and future.
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. Yet, in our reading today, Jesus is the gate, or the door, through which the sheep enter into the safety of the sheepfold. Many people try to present the door as an exclusionary tool, but for John, the door is an invitation and an opportunity, a floodgate that pours out abundant life.
This second Sunday in the Easter season is also called Thomas Sunday because every year we read this scene from the Gospel according to John. The passage describes the second and third appearance of Jesus to his disciples after his resurrection. The first was to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb when she mistakes him for a gardener.
Having made this journey in worship together, we are now sent as followers of the Jesus Movement on another way. It is not a path of sorrow, it is not a campaign of vengeance, it is not the bramble-filled trail of hate and fear. We are sent on the Way of Love: a way demanding greater strength, more courage, and deeper devotion than walk we would make on our own. […] What is the first step? As The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached 55 years ago, the first step is “Remaining awake through a great revolution.”
Our Palm Sunday walk and reading of the Passion teaches how we live the Way of Christ. We wave symbols of resistance – palms were for the entry of emperors on war horses, not wandering rabbis on donkeys. We chant, “Hosanna” a Hebrew word translated as save us or liberate us. We proclaim God overthrows human empires of fear and oppression to replace them with the Commonwealth of Divine Peace.
[…] The miracle, though, is not the astonishing part of the story. It is the man’s wise clarity and everyone else’s foolish denial of revelation. The man born blind didn’t ask to be healed. According to the story, Jesus’ act was as much a surprise to him as to any of the by-standers. He is undisturbed, though, he washes his face, as directed, comes away able to see and testifies with simplicity.
Immanuel, God with us, help us to always see your Incarnate presence among us. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This morning, we have the fabulous opportunity to encounter the story of the Samaritan woman at the well from the Gospel of John. Yes, that’s right! Right in the middle of Year A, the year of Matthew, Matthew is interrupted by three months of the Gospel of John (with a couple of exceptions).
Is there only one way to be a Christian? Answering the question, “YES!” is attractive. You see having a sense of certainty provides a foundation upon which you can build a fortress of protection. A narrow definition of faith beats back fear of vulnerability. A fortress closes its doors to change, self-reflection, and discovery. That foundation, however, is built on sand because it requires twisting Jesus’ teachings.
