The Man Born Blind

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

It’s that moment when you move from shadows to sunlight. That’s how it was for me. I was born blind. I had spent a lifetime in darkness. I didn’t even know what “light” looked like. Suddenly my brain was flooded with brightness.

At first I was dizzy. My eyes hurt. I was confused. I couldn’t yet distinguish distances or recognize faces. I staggered and stumbled.

But for the first time in my life, I could see!

Now those around me had trouble seeing clearly. For my whole life, I had been nothing but a helpless beggar. Many people had never even seen me standing up! Now I was walking—no stick, no beggar’s bowl, and no shame.

As my confusion cleared, the questions around me increased.

One person asked, “Isn’t this that blind beggar boy who used to sit near the Pool of Siloam? I stepped right over him many times!”

Another disagreed. “No, that can’t be him! That beggar has been blind from the day he was born! This fellow obviously can see. I must say, however, that the physical resemblance is striking.”

Back and forth they debated. Yes, he is! No, he’s not!

All the while I tried to get them to listen to me. “The man called Jesus made some mud. He spread it on my eyes. Then he told me to wash off the mud in the Pool of Siloam. I went and washed and received my sight.”

The moment I mentioned Jesus, I had their full attention. “Where is he?” they demanded. I had no idea. I used to be blind, remember?

Rough hands grabbed me and hauled me away. Suddenly I felt eight years old again. Cruel boys in our village grabbed me one day. They spun me around. Then they hit me. “Who hit you?” they demanded. If I guessed right, they would let me go. If not, they hit me again. It was a game the bullies played many times.

I got pretty good at guessing.

Now I was standing in front of a group of serious-looking men. “You were blind,” one of them barked. “How is it that now you can see?”

I told the story again—Jesus, mud, washing, sight. Why couldn’t they just believe me?

The men began to argue among themselves. “It’s the Sabbath!” said some. “This Jesus can’t be from God. He does nothing but break the rules!”

Others were not convinced. “A blind man now sees,” they said. How can such a thing happen without God’s help?” They debated for quite a while. I just pretended to be invisible as I had done with the bullies of my younger days.

As they continued to argue, I drifted back to synagogue school in my village. I remembered learning the words of Isaiah. That great prophet described a suffering servant sent from God. God said to the servant, “I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind…”

I loved that prophetic promise. When I was a boy, I prayed every night for that suffering servant to come and to heal me. As I got older, I gave up on such prayers. It seemed that they did no good. But now I could see! Might this Jesus be the suffering servant Isaiah promised?

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even hear the question. “You there!” one of them shouted. “What do you say about him? After all, it was your eyes he opened!”

I spoke before I thought. “He is a prophet!” I declared.

That was clearly not the right answer.

Because that was the wrong answer, the argument returned to my identity. Was I really that guy formerly known as the poor, blind beggar? They couldn’t get that settled. That’s when they found my parents and dragged them into the mess.

Truth be told, I didn’t have much connection with my folks. To them, I was an embarrassment. I was a sign of their failure. I was a source of deep shame. People were always whispering to each other. “What did those people do to deserve such punishment?” they would ask each other. “It must be some terrible secret they are hiding.

This is what everyone believed. Even Jesus’ disciples asked the question. “Rabbi,” I heard them say, “Who sinned—this man or his parents—that he was born blind?” I got ready for another load of theological garbage, another tirade about how terrible my family must have been.

Jesus, however, said something else. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…” I know he said more. But at that moment I didn’t catch the rest of it. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and overcome with astonishment. This Jesus would not be my judge. His business was much bigger and better.

Mom and Dad, of course, didn’t hear Jesus. So they decided to play it safe. The word was out that supporting Jesus was a bad idea. Saying good things about him would get them nothing but grief. In fairness to them, they had dealt with this stuff my whole life. So they slid the problem back to me.

“Yes, this is our son,” they admitted. “And he used to be blind.”

He used to be blind. They said those words with almost no emotion. No joy. No celebration. No gratitude. They were just terrified. “We have no idea how this happened,” they whispered. “He’s a grown man. He can speak for himself. Ask him!”

Thanks, Mom and Dad. I was on my own again. They disappeared into the crowd.

“Give the credit to God!” the men demanded. “We know this Jesus is a sinner.”

I was so sick and tired of being bullied. A lifetime of rage and resentment ran away with my good sense. “Play your religious games with someone else!” I shouted. “What I know is very simple. I was blind. Now I see.”

I should have stopped there. But the years of abuse and bullying had equipped me with a smart mouth.

“After all,” I prodded, “why are you so interested? Do you want to become Jesus followers too?” The words were out before I could stop. Things went downhill fast from there.

“How can you be so blind?” I finally shouted. “If Jesus weren’t from God, I’d still be blind, begging and broken. Do I look blind, begging and broken to you?” I had to run for my life after that one.

I hid in the shadows on the far side of the Temple. That’s where Jesus found me. “You know the promises of God’s healing,” he said. I nodded. “You know that God’s healing is a sign of God’s kingdom among us.” I nodded again. “Do you trust,” he asked, “in the Son of Man?”

I had spent years in the dark, waiting for God’s light to shine in my eyes and in my heart. “Who is this Son of Man?” I asked. “If he’s the one who gave me my sight, I will follow him anywhere.”

Jesus smiled. “You’re looking at him.” I fell dizzy back against the stone wall. All my hopes came rushing into that moment. This was about more than my eyes. This was about light for the whole world. “Lord, I trust you,” I said. I fell on my face at his feet.

By this time, some of the men had caught up to us. They overheard the conversation. Jesus described them as blind sinners. They made him pay for that in the end.

Later, they arrested him on charges of treason and blasphemy. He was sentenced to torture and death. Some of them blindfolded him as they taunted him. He was blind as I had been. And they played a cruel game. They hit him over and over. Each time they hit him, they said, “Prophesy! Tell us who hit you!”

When I heard that part of the story, I wept out loud. I remembered what that was like for me. Jesus was bullied and tortured just like me. His accusers were blinded by their fear and hatred. They saw him as an object of ridicule and rage. They were not unable to see. Instead they were unwilling to see.

And no amount of spit and mud can fix that sort of blindness.

The darkness, however, was not the last word. They killed him and buried him in a lightless tomb. They crucified him and wrapped him in a shroud of darkness. They drove him out of this world and on to a Roman cross.

But now I remember Jesus’ words to his disciples. “As long as I am in the world,” he told them, “I am the light of the world.” The darkness could not overwhelm him. Death could not hold him. Jesus is in the world now and forever. He is the light of the world. And he is the light of my life.

Now I tell my story as often as I can. One of the members of our little church even made a song about it. “Sleeper, awake” she sang, “Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!” It is my joy and my honor to walk in the light of the Lord every day. My prayer is that Jesus will continue to shine through me today and always.

Thank you for listening. And thank you for being willing to see.

Message for March 12, 2023

Going Platinum

Matthew 7:1-14

Matthew seven, verse one, should read something like this. “Don’t keep on condemning, so that you won’t keep on being condemned.” Condemning is more than judging. When I condemn someone, I judge them negatively. I declare them worthless and disposable.

Don’t keep on condemning others. Okay, Jesus – got it. The result, it seems, is that I will no longer be condemned. But, condemned by whom? God? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think Jesus surfaces a deep reality about human life.

The degree to which we condemn others is a measure of how much we condemn ourselves. Jesus says this in Matthew seven, verse two. We will be condemned, Jesus says, according to our very own standards. The metric I apply to others will be the precise metric applied to me.

Is God doing all this measuring and condemning? I don’t think so. That would contradict everything so far in the Sermon on the Mount. No, God isn’t the one who is judging me. I’m the one who is judging me.

And I rarely measure up to my own standards.

The harder I am on myself, the harder I am on others. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. Hurt people hurt people. It’s a pretty reliable psychological rule of thumb. In Twelve-step groups, that rule often goes like this. If you spot it, you got it. What I judge most harshly in others is typically the thing I hate most in myself.

I feel better condemning the flaws, foibles, and faults of others than looking at myself. Jesus captures this in his “speck and log” metaphor. It’s more fun to squint at the speck in your eye. That distracts me from my own stuff. I may not be worth much according to my own standards. But at least I can pretend to be better than you.

“Pretending” is a key word in our text. I can’t BE better than you. I can only ACT like I am. That’s play-acting. So, I’m one of those “hypocrites” Jesus calls out in verse five.

In the ancient world, a “hypocrite” was a stage actor. That’s what we do when we judge ourselves better than others. We play a part. We perform a role. We pretend to be something we’re not.

All the time, we hide the truth about ourselves – and from ourselves. Voices inside me shout it constantly. You’re a fraud! You’re an imposter! You’re worthless! If others really knew you, no one would love you!

Is it any wonder we’re so hard on other people? We’ll do almost anything to drown out those voices for a while.

I think Jesus reminds us of another rule of human existence. What you feed is what will grow. The more time and energy we give to those judging voices, the louder they become.

So, Jesus says, stop feeding them. Stop handing your holy self to the dogs of despair. Stop throwing the pearls of your humanity to the pigs of hatred. If you keep feeding them, those voices will eat you alive. At some point, only the voices will remain.

Stop focusing on your flaws, Jesus says. Start trusting in God’s goodness, grace, and generosity. Ask, search, knock! God longs to give, reveal, and respond. This is God’s character. This is God’s heart. This is God’s desire – not to condemn, but to love.

“That can’t be right!” the voices shout. If God really knew me, God would discard me without a second thought. So, if God loves me, God must be a blind fool.

No, in fact, God is not a blind fool. I had a seminary professor who began every class with the same words. “Beloved in Christ,” he said with a half-smile, “God knows you better than you know yourself, and loves you anyway!”

That’s the good news Jesus always brings. Paul says it in Romans five. Here we are – weak, ungodly, enemies of God and all that is good. “But God proves God’s love for us,” Paul writes in verse eight, “in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Say that to yourself ten times a day this week. Then notice how the other voices fade to a whisper.

This is God’s “judgment” on you and me. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” we read in John 3:16. Too often, however, we don’t read verse seventeen. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Beloved in Christ, God knows you better than you know yourself, and loves you anyway!

Now we can have a fuller understanding of Matthew seven, verse twelve. It’s one of several places where Jesus offers “the Golden Rule.” People usually pull this verse out of its context. It shows up on hallway plaques and bumper stickers. “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you,” Jesus says, “for this is the law and the prophets.”

Let’s put that verse back into Matthew seven for a bit. Beloved in Christ, God knows you better than you know yourself and loves you anyway. God knows those others better than they know themselves and loves them anyway. God certainly knows those others better than you or I know them. And God calls us to love them anyway.

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule really becomes “the Platinum Rule.” In everything, do to others as Jesus has done to you. This is really the Law and the Prophets. This rule is the “narrow gate” Jesus describes in verse thirteen. This is the difficult road that leads to life.

Few enter that gate and travel that road because we’re so used to condemning ourselves and others. Condemning ourselves and others is the road to destruction. Doing to others as Jesus does for us is the road to life – life now and life forever. Ask for directions. Seek the path. Knock on the gate. God will answer with goodness, grace, and generosity.

Beloved in Christ, God knows you better than you know yourself and loves you anyway. God knows those others better than they know themselves and loves them anyway. God certainly knows those others better than you or I know them. And God calls us to love them anyway.

It should be clear by now in the Sermon on the Mount that this loving always means doing. Do to others as Jesus has done to you. One thing may not be so clear. All the “you’s” in our text are plural. Jesus isn’t talking just to you as an individual. Jesus is talking to us as a community of disciples. The “you’s” here are “you-all’s.”

As a society, we have told many stories that describe others as less than human. We have told many stories that describe others as unworthy of our love. In the Declaration of Independence, for example, we described Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages.” We used that story to feel good about exterminating ninety-five percent of them from this continent.

Some Christians used Old Testament stories to describe Africans as subhuman beasts. These stories declared that Black people were only good for manual labor and the benefit of white people. These stories allowed us to kidnap thirteen million black people from Africa.

For two centuries, we have told stories that blame poor people for their own poverty. We have said we are willing to help the “worthy poor.” Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find any. These stories have allowed us to shift the blame away from our own desires to have more for ourselves.

And loving them anyway means resisting and rejecting the stories that tell us they don’t deserve our love.

In everything, do to others as Jesus has done to you. This is really the Law and the Prophets. How will the Platinum Rule impact your life this week?

Let’s pray…

The Samaritan Woman, Lent 3

As I sit here in a Roman prison, I think about my life. The guards tell me that they will execute me by throwing me to the bottom of a well. That seems appropriate. There was a well at the beginning of my story too.

My mother’s favorite Bible verse came from the book of Proverbs. If my mother said it once, she said it a hundred times. “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.” She said it every time someone told me I was cute or pretty or attractive. Mother always said that she was afraid for me. She was afraid that men would take advantage of me. She was afraid that I would be proud of my beauty.

Sometimes I thought Mother was jealous. She had never been very pretty. Mostly, though, I was just angry. And it didn’t take long for me to show her just how powerful a woman’s beauty could be.

Twenty years, five husbands and a lover later, I was walking down the road toward Jacob’s well. The well was about a half mile from our little village of Sychar. I had a six gallon water jar on my head. I was on the lookout for anyone at the well. I preferred to go alone.

No, that’s not really true. I was alone because no other women would go with me. Decent women went in groups to the well in the early morning or early evening. I had no friends, and my family was ashamed to be seen with me in public. People thought I was guilty of adultery…or worse.

As I got closer to the well, I saw a man sitting there. “Great!” I thought to myself. “Will I get abused or insulted?” Those were my options.

“Give me something to drink!” he said. Typical man—expecting some woman to wait on him hand and foot. Then I realized he was a Galilean Jew. This could be really bad. Jews treated us Samaritans as traitors, as illegitimate children of Abraham, and as unclean. Usually the Jews passing this way just ignored us. But this time was different.

So I asked him. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” The Pharisees had a rule about Samaritan women. They said we were perpetually impure—from the cradle to the grave. I assumed that he would berate me or even beat me because I didn’t show enough respect. But what he said next was just confusing.

“If you knew what is really happening here,” he said with a smile, “you would be the one asking me for a drink. And I would give you the water that never runs out.” The water in Jacob’s well never rises to the top. We have to reach down eight feet or more to get to the water. That man had neither bucket nor rope. I figured he was just trying to hustle me for a good time.

I played along for the moment. “Sir, give me this water,” I purred, “so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” I called his bluff. And I waited for the rest of his come-on.

His next words threw me completely off balance. “Go, call your husband and come back.” Without even thinking, I shot back. “I have no husband.” I hung my head. The truth was out. I was completely alone and vulnerable. I just hoped this would be over quickly and that he wouldn’t kill me in the process.

“You are right,” he said quietly. “I know you’ve had five husbands. And you aren’t married to your current man. You have told me the truth about yourself. You are to be commended for that.”

How could he know this? People in the village knew all the dark details of my life. But why would some Jewish stranger know my story? Had he been here all morning? Had the other women gossiped about me as they came to fill their jars? For a moment I felt angry. Then I had another thought.

“Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. My people know about prophets. We worship the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We know that the Messiah is coming. And when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” By this time I had figured out who my questioner was. He was Jesus of Nazareth, that Galilean prophet and miracle worker who came after John the Baptist. No wonder that he knew my story!

When I said the word “Messiah,” he slowly stood up. I was afraid I had said something offensive. Instead, he said to me, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Now I had to sit down on the wall of the well. I felt a little dizzy. I was damaged goods. I was a scarlet woman. I had left a trail of destruction in my life. I was shrouded in shame and lost in loneliness. I spent my days trying to escape my past, seeking to deny my story.

And the Messiah, the Savior of the World chose to reveal himself to…me. To me!

At that moment his disciples came back from the village. They had gone to the local market for some food. I could see the shocked disapproval on their faces. They knew what my mother knew. “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.” But they didn’t know that Jesus called me to be one who worships God in spirit and in truth.

In that conversation, Jesus changed me from an outsider to an insider. He transformed me from seducer to disciple. Jesus converted me from foe to family member. Jesus moved me from menace to missionary.

Did you notice something? I didn’t think about this until later. Jesus called me “Woman.” This is neither a label nor an insult. Later, Jesus used the same title to address his mother from the cross! He made me part of his family. Me!

I didn’t wait for the disciples to say anything. I left my water jar behind at the well. I knew I was heading back home. I had to go to the village square to share the news. I usually avoided public places. The children shouted insults. The women hid their eyes in disgust. The men made lewd suggestions. Sometimes they threw garbage or even rocks at me.

But not on this day!

The jeering and insults started. “Wait,” I shouted. “Listen to me!” I don’t think they were interested in what I had to say. But they were shocked that I spoke out loud in public. “I just talked to Jesus of Nazareth. And he told me my whole story—everything I had ever done. He knew all the darkness and despair. He knew all the pain and shame. He knew all the fraud and failure. And it didn’t make any difference at all!”

“You mean that Jew didn’t care about another broken-down Samaritan woman?” one of the men shouted. “What’s the news in that?”

“No,” I said quietly. “I mean, he knew it all and loved me anyway. And somehow, that made all the difference. Look at me! My story hasn’t changed, but somehow I have been changed. Only the Messiah could do that! I believe he is the Savior of the World!”

Suddenly everyone was talking at the same time. “She’s finally lost it,” said one. “Come on,” said another, “what really happened there at the well?” Others were not so skeptical. “It’s easy enough to go and find out,” said one of my neighbors. “He’s still sitting there at the well eating lunch. If he talked to her, this Jesus will surely talk to us. Let’s go find out what he has to say about this.”

So they went to the well and listened to the Messiah. I went as well. He talked to them about their stories. He helped them to see how God’s kingdom was coming. And he made it clear that the kingdom was coming for all people—for Jews and Samaritans alike.

They were so impressed that they invited him to stay with us in the village. Jesus of Nazareth was the first Jew to sleep in our village in a hundred and fifty years! He continued to talk and teach. And soon, the others didn’t need to rely on my story. “We have heard for ourselves,” they told me, “and we know that this is truly the Savior of the World.”

Things changed for me. Jesus helped me to own my story—all of it. No longer do I feel like a gold ring in a pig’s snout. I moved out on my own and got my life together. I was in Jerusalem when they crucified our Lord. I thought for a few days that my world had ended. But then came Easter. And my life changed one more time.

I was baptized along with many of the other disciples. I was given the name, “Photina.” The name means, “Daughter of Light.” That’s when my real story began. I traveled to Turkey and to Carthage as a Christian missionary. I was honored to tell my story—the whole story—again and again. Then I was arrested by the Romans.

Here I sit, waiting my turn to die for Jesus. Soon my real story will begin.

First Person Sermon: Nicodemus

The Second Sunday in Lent

John 3:1-17

(Nicodemus enters, stretching and rubbing a very sore back): A hundred pounds of spices! A hundred pounds—just lifting that load is enough to make my back ache. But I had to carry that bundle over a mile, in the dark, and on my own. I have not done that much physical work in many a year. But I certainly couldn’t have any of my servants carry it for me.

All of it had to be done in secret and under the cover of darkness. After all, I certainly don’t want to end up like him…

I am Nicodemus. I am a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the chief legal body in Judea. For that reason, I am known as a ruler of the Jews. I have a reputation for being one of the chief teachers of our faith here in Jerusalem. I am quite certain now that I don’t deserve that reputation.

Head of a Bearded Man Looking to Lower Left (Nicodemus) by Federico Barocci is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Let me tell you why.

We have just laid Jesus’ body to rest. I am sure you have heard all about Jesus of Nazareth. Many of us had great hopes for him. My good friend, Joseph of Arimathea, had even become one of his disciples. Of course, Joseph could not be open about his allegiance. That might have been fatal for Joseph.

So Joseph went to the procurator, Pilate, in the middle of the night. He asked for Jesus’ body so that it would not hang on that cross to be defiled by the wild animals. Pilate agreed. My part in this little plot was to bring the linen cloths and the spices to prepare and preserve the body. Joseph has a family tomb in a secluded garden. No one saw us. We are safe.

Safe. That always seems to be my path.

My name in Greek means “conqueror of the people.” That sounds impressive, does it not? Conqueror of the people! Please do not be impressed. At most, I have conquered a difficult piece of Hebrew or a large jar of wine. My conquests extend no farther.

We buried Jesus in the dark. That is how I came to him the first time as well—under the cover of darkness and secrecy.

It was just before Passover in Jerusalem. We were having our annual Sanhedrin conference. We debated the usual issues—taxes, purity laws, too many Gentiles in Jerusalem, and the upkeep of the Temple. As we discussed the Temple, a messenger burst into our session.

“Some lunatic is causing a riot in the Temple courtyard! He made a whip of cords and started beating the merchants and moneychangers. Tables are thrown all over. Money is scattered in every corner. The livestock is running wild in the streets. And he keeps shouting, ‘Stop making my Father’s house a market place!’”

We all ran into the courtyard and saw him—Jesus of Nazareth. He was covered in sweat, gasping for breath. “What is the meaning of this?” the chief priest screamed. “What sign can you show us for doing this?”

Jesus raised his chin in defiance. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

“Are you mad?” the chief priest laughed. “It has taken Herod forty-six years to build the Temple, and it is not finished yet. How will you do the job in three days!” The Sanhedrin members were sure Jesus was a crazy fool. We went back to our debating.

His words, however, would not leave me. For some reason, I needed to know more. Many in the crowd shared that view and encouraged me to seek him out. I was unwilling to risk a public conversation. So I found out where he was staying. We met under the cover of darkness—secret, and safe.

I am a Pharisee. No matter what you might think, I was not opposed to Jesus. I want God’s kingdom to come as much as anyone. I heard about Jesus’ power and his teaching. Perhaps there was something to it all. I had to know. “Teacher,” I said with the greatest respect, “we know you have come from God. After all, no one can do these signs as you have apart from God’s presence.”

I treated Jesus with honor. In return, I received a challenge. “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The word Jesus used was very complicated. Did he mean “born from above” or “born again” or “born anew”? It could have been any of those meanings. I didn’t understand him at all.

“How can these things be?” I asked. Jesus was blunt. “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” I did not hear many of his words after that. I now know what he did. He used mysterious phrases because he didn’t know me. And he did not know my motives. For all Jesus knew, I might have come to trap him into an arrest. He evaded precisely such traps many times in his life.

What hurt the most was how right he was about me. “‘Very truly, I tell you,’ he said to me, ‘we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.’”

That was it. I did understand, but I did not like what I heard. Jesus talked about a whole new way of living in God’s kingdom. For centuries we had been trying to find our way to God. Now Jesus said that God was coming to us. And God was coming to us through him!

I came to Jesus in the darkness. And that was the problem. I did not hear many of his words, but these words have stuck with me. “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” I was safe in the dark. I was afraid to come into the light. I was afraid to change my mind.

After that, I left. But I was not the same.

Some months later, Jesus came to Jerusalem again. It was the Festival of Booths, the time when we Jews celebrate the gift of God’s law to Moses. In the middle of the festival, Jesus began teaching in the Temple. The crowd debated whether he was from God or not. He was persuading large numbers of people that he was right.

I was becoming more and more convinced.

The Sanhedrin debated the issue briefly. Then a vote was taken. The council sent the temple guard to arrest Jesus for blasphemy. The guards, however, took some time to listen to Jesus. They hesitated. They returned to the authorities empty-handed.

“Why did you not arrest him?” the authorities demanded.

“Never has anyone spoken like this!” the officers of the guard replied. The authorities scoffed. They described the crowd as ignorant of the law and cursed by God. I was not ready to take a public stand on Jesus. But I could not let this terrible process continue.

I stood up before the council and raised a point of order. “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” I asked.

The president of the council responded with an insult. “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you?” he sneered. “Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.”

I was publicly humiliated. But at least I bought Jesus some time. He was gone before they could send the guards back to the temple.

This last time, however, he did not escape. He came once again for the Passover. This time the chief priests had an inside contact. They bought off one of his disciples. They arrested him in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The trial was quick—merely a formality. I could have spoken in his defense, but it would have made no difference. All that would have happened is that I would have ended up dead alongside him. And courage is not my strong suit, remember?

The Romans crucified him at the Place of the Skull. He was one more failed messiah, humiliated and broken by the might of the Roman eagle.

Joseph decided that Jesus had endured enough. That is when he asked to be allowed to bury the body. I may be short on courage, but I have plenty of money. So I bought the spices and the sheets. If only a strong backbone could be so easily purchased.

I sought him out in the dark. But I know that I cannot remain in that darkness. I remember now some of his words from that first encounter. “But those who do what is true come to the light,” he said, and he looked closely at me, “so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

I have lived in the darkness long enough. Now he is buried with respect and honor. Tomorrow is the Sabbath. On the third, I will go to the Sanhedrin speak the truth that I have heard from him. That will be the first day of the week.

Who knows what might happen after sunrise that day!

Sermon for Matthew 5:11-20

5 Epiphany A, 2023

In our worship, we read the Bible in bits and pieces. The technical name for one of those bits and pieces is a “pericope.” The word literally means “to cut around” something.

A pericope is a section cut out from a larger book. Each week we cut pieces out of three Biblical books: an Old Testament book, a New Testament letter, and one of the four gospels. That’s what we read aloud during our time together.

We don’t sit down and read a whole book of the Bible every Sunday. That’s the good part about pericopes. And the bad part about pericopes is this. We don’t sit down and read a whole book of the Bible every Sunday. In our worship, we read the Bible in bits and pieces.

The bad part about pericopes is that we don’t get the whole story. We read and hear a few verses. Maybe we look for the point in those verses. But we always risk missing the point. We hear these verses in isolation. It’s hard to put them back into the bigger story.

We are reading through Matthew’s gospel this year. We won’t read every verse of that gospel in worship. But we’ll hear most of them. And, for the most part, we’ll hear them in order.

That helps, but it’s not enough. Every so often we have to review where we’re at in the story.

Jesus is “God with us.” That’s how the story begins. That’s how Matthew celebrates Christmas. Jesus is God with us to save God’s people from their sins. That mission attracts attention from the Gentile world. The Magi come to the manger.

Jesus’ mission also attracts the attention of the powers of this world. Jesus is worshipped as the King of the Jews. For that reason, he is a threat to and threatened by the powers of this world. The shadow of the cross falls over the manger in Bethlehem.

Jesus is son of Abraham, son of David, son of Joseph, and son of God. That identity is confirmed and amplified in his baptism. Satan works to derail Jesus’ mission. Satan fails and Jesus moves from personal identity to public ministry.

“Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near,” Jesus proclaims. He calls disciples. Through the disciples, Jesus will carry out his mission. It’s a nondescript bunch. It’s the core of a larger nondescript bunch called “The Church.”

Jesus teaches and heals and frees people throughout Galilee. The movement is launched. Then Jesus preaches a whopper of a sermon.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ mission manifesto. The Sermon on the Mount is a discipleship manual. We get a description of the Kingdom of God in the Beatitudes.

Jesus announces the Great Reversal of the Kingdom. He describes what that Reversal looks like for disciples. He acknowledges how the powers of this world will react to and reject that Reversal.

That summary gets us up to date. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” Jesus tells the disciples. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

When we get the mission right, we’ll know. When we move the margins, the center reacts. When we embrace the disposables, we join them in their struggles. When we do that, we can rejoice and be glad, Jesus says. We’ll be in very good company.

Jesus chooses to work in the world through you and me. We heard that message a few weeks ago. Today that message gets magnified. Jesus chooses to change the world through you and me. “You are the salt of the earth,” he declares to the disciples. “You are the light of the world.”

Salt and light change things by making them better. Think, for example, about snow and ice on your driveway. Even when the thermometer is below freezing, sunshine will melt the snow. Salt will thaw the ice. Our front stoop is no longer a death trap for the delivery people. And it’s possible to get in the garage without sliding around.

Salt and light change things by making them better. Think, for example, about cooking and cleaning. A little bit of salt improves the flavor of lots of things. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Jesus uses these everyday images to make a powerful point. Jesus chooses to change the world through you and me.

And Jesus uses us to change things for the better. I think that’s the main thought for today. Jesus uses us to change things for the better.

Before we go on, I want to point out the good news in that main thought. Jesus says you are salt and light, right here and right now. That’s not something you work your way into. That’s not something you earn. This call to be disciples is God’s gift of grace. It’s what happens when God is with us in Jesus. It’s what happens when God makes us beloved children in Jesus.

We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Not “we might be.” Not “we will be.” We are.

Think about what happens in Holy Communion. You receive the Body and Blood of Christ. You hear the words, “given and shed for you.” Not might be. Not will be. Given and shed for you right here and right now. The living presence of Jesus for you is God’s gift of grace. Right here. Right now.

Through that gift of grace, Jesus changes us for the better. Jesus makes us what God created us to be. That’s the good news. That’s such good news that it changes our hearts. It fills us with joy and peace, hope and encouragement. But that’s not the end of the story.

Jesus changes us for the better so we can be part of his mission of life. That’s what it means to be disciples. Jesus uses us to change things for the better. That gets us to verse sixteen: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

If that verse rings a bell, I’m glad. We use it to remind ourselves of what baptism looks like in the life of a believer. And this is God’s story all through the Bible.

Our first reading reminds us of Isaiah’s ancient words. God wants to loose the bonds of injustice, to let the oppressed go free, to feed the hungry, to shelter the unhoused, to cover the naked. “Then,” Isaiah declares, “your light shall break forth like the dawn…”

Faith is fulfilled in doing. I’m taking a risk today and offering a second main point. “For I tell you,” Jesus declares, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Here’s what he means.

In Matthew twenty-three, verses two and three, Jesus goes after the scribes and Pharisees. “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat,” Jesus proclaims, “therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” Disciples don’t just talk the talk. We walk the walk.

Faith is fulfilled in doing. This isn’t an anti-Jewish critique. Jesus is talking about Christians who like being forgiven but don’t like acting that way. Jesus uses us to change things for the better. Faith is fulfilled in doing.

In next few weeks, Jesus will give us examples of what changing things for the better looks like. Jesus will show us the ways our faith is fulfilled in doing. You can prepare for those readings by thinking about your daily life.

Think and pray about these questions. How is Jesus using you personally to change things for the better? How is Jesus using Mamrelund Lutheran Church to change things for the better?

I know you can come up with an awesome list of answers. As you come up with them, maybe you’ll post some of them on our church Facebook page. Others might find encouragement and inspiration in your answers.

Changing things for the better isn’t easy. It means doing things in new ways. Jesus uses us to change things for the better. Faith is fulfilled in doing.

Let’s pray…

Sermon for January 15, 2023

Matthew 4:1-11

On Thursday, January twelfth, 2010, at 3:53 p.m. Central Standard Time, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti. I didn’t know that was the first day of the worst year of my life.

The next morning, I sat in my office in Lincoln. I had just gotten off the phone with a producer from CNN. She wanted to know if I would go on the air with any comments on the possible death of Ben Larson in that earthquake.

I referred her to Ben’s family. I had no business saying anything about Ben’s death at that point. And I was pretty sure that all I would do on air was weep uncontrollably.

Ben Larson had been my pastoral intern the year before. His wife, Renee, had been the intern with Lutheran Campus Ministry at UNL. I had known Ben’s parents, Pastors April and Judd Ullring Larson, for years.

But I didn’t meet Ben until just before his internship. That is, unless you count the couple of times I talked to his mom when she was eight months pregnant with him.

In some ways, Ben became like a third son to me during that internship. So, his sudden death landed on me hard. But Ben’s death turned out to be only the beginning.

Two years earlier, I had presided over the wedding of one of my favorite young couples. I rejoiced just to be a small part of their new life together. They gave birth to a beautiful little girl. I was honored to baptize her at worship.

But soon, it was clear that something was wrong. The baby suffered from an incurable condition. It was a genetic abnormality, unwittingly passed on to her by her parents. She lived for six months. Then I presided at her funeral.

I started to unravel after that. I left parish ministry and got a job as a nursing home chaplain. That seemed like a way forward for me. A week after I started that new job, I took my wife to the emergency room at Bryan Hospital. Twelve days later, at 1:32 a.m., she died in our downstairs family room.

And I came completely undone.

I’m not telling you this to be dramatic or to garner your sympathy. I’ve had years to deal with all of this. Some of you have been through as much and worse.

You know what it’s like to enter a wilderness. You know what it’s like to get lost in the wastelands of despair and death. You know what it’s like to ask, “What’s the plan?” you know what it’s like to ask, “What’s the point?”

So does Jesus.

Last week we heard the story of Jesus’ baptism. As Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit came down to meet him. God announced for all the world to hear, “This is my Son, the Beloved, the one with whom I’m delighted!”

We rejoiced to remember whose we are in in our baptisms. In Jesus, we are God’s beloved children, with whom God is delighted.

In the next sentence – the very next sentence – the Holy Spirit carries Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. Would it have been too much to ask for just a few days to enjoy the moment?

But this is so often how it goes, doesn’t it? Just when things are going so well, it all goes to…well, you know.

It’s tempting to think that Jesus had it all figured out in advance. You know, because of the whole Son of God thing and all. But that’s not what the Bible really tells us.

In Hebrews four, verse fifteen, for example, you can read these words. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathized with our weakness, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (my emphasis).

When Jesus is tested in the wilderness, he’s not play-acting. He’s not staging a “pretending to be human” performance for our benefit. Jesus, the devil says, if you really are who God says you are, why are you suffering? Why has everything apparently gone to…well, you know? What’s the plan? What’s the point?

Most of all, Jesus – how do we get through this?

I have kept a series of rough journals since 2007. I wrote this for January 29, 2010. During Lent of 2009, Ben Larson had preached a sermon on Psalm 77. That’s a lament psalm. It’s the complaint of someone who’s life has apparently gone to…well, you know.

So, it’s not on most people’s top ten psalms list. The Psalmist cries out to a God who seems to be deaf and mute. The Psalmist complains to a God who seems to have stopped caring. “Has the LORD’s steadfast love ceased forever?” the Psalmist asks. “Are the LORD’s promises at an end for all time?” the Psalmist wonders.

Ben wrote these words as he reflected on the Psalmist’s questions. “Whenever we go to dark, chaotic places, we are not called to alter the truth. We are not called to pretend that everything is all right. We are not called,” Ben continued, “to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We are invited by God to recall God’s deeds of the past.”

Ben was reading the words of the Psalmist again. “I will call to mind the deeds of the LORD,” the Psalmist declares. “I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on your work,” the Psalmist continues, “and muse on your mighty deeds” (verses 11 and 12).

Jesus lives out the words of the Psalmist in his wilderness testing. God is the one who produced the manna in the wilderness. Why would Jesus do a magic trick just to keep his tummy from rumbling?

God is the one who rescued Israel from bondage and death. Why would Jesus dive off the Temple like some Hollywood stunt performer? God is the one who rules over all human authority. Why would Jesus need to reclaim an authority that was already his?

Remember who God is and whose you are. That’s how Jesus deals with the wilderness testing. Jesus remembers that he is God’s beloved Son. Jesus remembers that God is tickled pink with him. The Devil can’t make that any more or less true, no matter how many tests are involved.

Remember who God is and whose you are. In his Lenten sermon, Ben Larson continued with these words. “We remember our baptisms where we become part of the death and resurrection of Christ. We remember our baptisms,” he continued, “where God looked at the most powerful force of chaos – death – and it tumbled and was defeated.”

Remember who God is and whose you are. Less than a year later, Ben confronted that chaos. Ben and Renee, and Ben’s cousin Jon, were in a building that collapsed during the earthquake. Renee and Jon were in a space that let them live. Ben was crushed by large stones in the center of the building.

Ben was growing into one of the finest young preachers of his generation. He was also a gifted musician. No one was surprised to hear that he died singing praise to God. Renee crawled through the rubble to find him when the shaking stopped. She heard him sing his last breath: “Give us peace, O God, we pray.”

Remember who God is and whose you are. I would like to say that Ben’s words and witness carried me triumphantly through that worst year of my life. I’d like to say that. And sometimes that would be true. But more often, it wasn’t true. Jesus didn’t go directly from baptism to beating down the devil. There was a lot of wilderness wandering in between.

But when I forgot Jesus, Jesus remembered me. Even when I cursed God, God blessed me. Even when my spirit drained to nothing. The Holy Spirit kept filling me. It wasn’t all one thing or another. But angels waited on me whether I realized it or not.

I got through it in part because of the Church. The church reminded me of my baptism. The church spoke God’s word to me when God seemed silent everywhere else. The church fed me with bread and wine so I could remember God’s grace and mercy.

Remember who God is and whose you are. That’s what we do here every week.

Ben gave me one more gift I treasure. I wasn’t a fan of the new red hymnal until Ben came along. He taught us a song that is worth the price of the book all by itself. It’s number 808 in the ELW. It’s called “Lord Jesus, You Shall be My Song.” I’ll share a few verses as my prayer for us today. It helps me remember.

Lord Jesus, you shall be my song as I journey;

I’ll tell ev’rybody about you wherever I go:

you alone are our life and our peace and our love.

Lord Jesus, you shall be my song as I journey.

I fear in the dark and the doubt of my journey;

but courage will come with the sound of your steps by my side.

And with all of the family you saved by your love,

we’ll sing to your dawn at the end of our journey.

Amen.

Text Study for Luke 18:1-8 (Part Five)

This may be what I do for Sunday — not sure yet.

“You can pray until you faint,” Fannie Lou Hamer said in 1964, “but if you don’t get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” Fannie Lou Hamer knew that truth from her own experience. I read her story in the book, 50 Women Every Christian Should Know, edited by Michelle DeRusha.[i]

The year was 1962. Fannie Lou Hamer was forty-four years old. She was married to a sharecropper. She was the mother of two adopted daughters. Fannie Lou was a black woman, the first person at her church in Ruleville, Mississippi to raise her hand. She was the first who volunteered to go the twenty-six miles to the county courthouse and register to vote. She was the first in line when the white clerk snapped, “What do you want?”

Fannie Lou knew the risks. Blacks in rural Mississippi in 1962 didn’t register to vote. If they did, they risked public abuse, job loss, physical beatings, and lynching. “I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d a been a little scared,” she said later. “The only thing they could do to me was kill me,” she continued,” and it seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember.”

Mississippi had a literacy test for voter registration. The first time Fannie Lou tried to register, she failed that test. The clerk required her to read and explain section 16 of the Mississippi state constitution. That section described and defined “de facto” laws. Fannie later said that she knew “as much about [de] facto law as a horse knows about Christmas day.” Me, too.

Because Fannie Lou tried to register to vote, she lost her job. Local people threatened to kill her, and she was forced to flee. She dodged bullying and bullets. She also returned to the county courthouse thirty days later to take the voter registration test. This time she had studied. She passed the test.

However, her registration was rejected because she hadn’t paid the poll tax in the previous two years. Of course, she hadn’t paid the poll tax because she hadn’t been a registered voter! Fannie Lou joined the ranks of activists who worked to register other black people to vote. In that role, she was falsely arrested and jailed. she was beaten almost to death. She challenged both local and national power structures.

Fannie Lou Hamer never gave up. And she never gave in to hate. Because of her Christian faith, Fannie Lou Hamer loved even those who wanted her dead. “You have to love ’em,” she said.

“Whether confronting a belligerent voter registration official, lying bloody and beaten on the cold floor of a jail cell, or standing triumphant as a delegate before a national audience,” Michelle DeRusha writes, “Fannie Lou Hamer lived out that love day by day.”

Jesus tells his disciples a parable. This parable is about our need to keep on praying and not be discouraged. Jesus describes a persistent widow to illustrate his point. The widow is a lot more like Fannie Lou Hamer than she is like me.

There’s this judge. He’s not afraid of God’s judgment. He doesn’t give a hoot what people in town think of him. This judge likes his position. He likes his peace and quiet. Beyond that, he just doesn’t care.

And there’s this widow in town. She’s getting a raw deal. The details don’t really matter. Jesus says she’s getting the dirty end of the stick. The judge can straighten things out if he wants to. But he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t care. If he ignores the widow long enough, maybe she’ll just go away.

But the widow won’t go away. She keeps confronting the judge. “Give me justice against my adversary!” she demands. After a while, the judge has a little meeting with himself. “It’s true,” he says, “I don’t fear God’s judgment. I don’t care about public opinion. But this widow! All up in my business wherever I go! At some point, she’s going to punch me in the face! Best if I do what she wants and get rid of the problem.”

So, the widow wins. She never gave up. She never backed down. She used dogged determination and physical intimidation. The widow got her justice.

Fine, Jesus. Cute story. A little slapstick humor. The underdog triumphs. What’s not to like? But how does this tell me about my need to keep on praying and not be discouraged? Jesus, I’m not quite following you on this one.

“Pay attention to what the unjust judge is saying,” Jesus tells us, “And won’t God bring about justice for his chosen ones – those who are shouting to him day and night? Will God delay in helping them?” The answer seems to be obvious. Of course, God delays in helping God’s chosen ones. Just look at our personal experience and our history. God hardly ever seems to be in a hurry to set things right!

Except, that’s not really what Jesus says. You know, even Bible translators have a bad day now and then. The wording in the King James Version is much better than the NRSV for this verse. “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?”

Jesus’ story isn’t about how fast God’s response time is compared to that miserable judge. The parable is about how God hangs in there with us no matter how long it takes. The judge doesn’t care about the widow’s case. But God does! The judge delays because he’s unjust. God bears with us until the world is redeemed. If that terrible judge finally gets to the right decision, then certainly our loving God will get us to the New Life where all things are put right.

The story really is about our need to keep on praying and not be discouraged. But it’s not the kind of praying we usually think about. Jesus is talking about the kind of praying we find in our first reading. Sometimes praying means wrestling with God until we’re ready to be blessed and changed. Answers to those prayers don’t come easy. And sometimes we walk away limping.

Many of you don’t know this. But I’m a widower. My first wife died not quite twelve years ago. I took her to the emergency room on November 8, 2010. She died at home on November 20. She was fifty-one years old. It was awful.

My world collapsed. Most of my prayers were screams of anguish and anger. The one answer I wanted I couldn’t get. Sometimes I thought God had abandoned me. But that didn’t happen. As I raged and wrestled, as I shook and shouted, the Holy Spirit remained within me and around me. God bore with me. God waited until God could help me limp across the river of acute grief onto a new path of life.

That’s the personal angle on this parable. God does bring about justice for God’s chosen ones. God bears long with us – even in the moments of deepest darkness. I can’t scare God off with my anger and despair. That’s my experience and my testimony. I’m always glad to talk about that if you’re interested.

But there’s more to the story here. God’s justice is personal, but it’s much more than that. That’s why I started with the story of Fannie Lou Hamer. She testifies that the Holy Spirit sustained her when she was beaten and abused, when she thought she might give up all hope. And she testifies that the Holy Spirit sustained her when the unjust judges of this world refused to give her justice.

You may be crying out to God day and night for personal rescue and relief. In Jesus, God is standing with you in that struggle. And God will bring healing and hope in the end. As a community of faith, we are called to cry out to God day and night for social justice as well. The widow represents all who are abused and oppressed by systems of unjust power. She reminds us that God intends to transform victims into victors – no matter how long it takes.

Jesus ends the parable with a question. All the best parables end with questions. I think all the best sermons do too. “And yet,” Jesus wonders, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Jesus isn’t wondering about faith in general. Jesus wonders about finding the widow’s faith here. Jesus wonders if he will find the sort of faith that hangs in there, that won’t give up, that won’t take no for an answer. Jesus wonders if he will find the kind of faith that won’t settle for injustice.

Jesus asks you and me that question. How will we answer?

[i] Michelle DeRusha, 50 Women Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Heroines of the Faith (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books, 2014), pages 327-333).

Message for Luke 16:19-31

16 Pentecost C; September 25, 2022

Last week we read the hardest parable in the Gospels. This week we read the easiest one. The main point of this parable is clear. How I treat my neighbor in need matters to Jesus. How I treat my neighbor in need matters to Jesus now and forever. If I follow Jesus, then how I treat my neighbor in need must matter to me.

The story is simple. A rich man spends all his wealth eating, drinking, and partying. He’s rich enough to do that every day. Outside his front gate lies Lazarus. Lazarus is desperately poor, chronically ill, and painfully hungry. Every day the rich man celebrates. Every day Lazarus suffers. Nothing changes.

Both men die. Then everything changes. Lazarus arrives at “the bosom of Abraham.” The bosom of Abraham is the best seat at the paradise party. The rich man arrives in the fiery depths of Hades. Lazarus celebrates. The rich man suffers. Nothing changes.

So, that’s it, right? If I don’t take care of poor people, I burn in hell. It seems pretty clear, doesn’t it? I could argue that I’m no Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. That’s certainly true. But I know I’m richer than most other people on the planet. I know I’m richer than millions of my American neighbors. I know I’m richer than thousands of my neighbors in the city where I live.

Pleading my poverty relative to the super-rich won’t work. How I treat my neighbor in need matters to Jesus now and forever. That takes some of the fun out of that used camper we bought last week.

Is that the purpose of the parable? Does Jesus try to literally scare the hell out of me, so I’ll part with some of my moldy money? I think that is the purpose.

But why does that matter to Jesus? Does Jesus hate rich people? I don’t think so. Jesus wants the best for me. Jesus comes to make me the person God created me to be. That’s what it means in this life to be saved. Jesus tells this story to make me better, not to scare me to death.

Last week, I invited you to compare a parable to a Bugs Bunny cartoon. This week I want to compare this parable to Charles Dickens’ story, A Christmas Carol. I think that will help us understand a bit better.

Ebenezer Scrooge loved money. No, that’s not quite right. Ebenezer Scrooge hated generosity. He hated giving of any kind. He hated sharing himself or his stuff with others. He hated Christmas giving. He hated giving to the poor.

Scrooge hated anything that connected him to the needs of another person. Dickens described Scrooge as “Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out a generous fire; secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.” Even the rich man in our parable sounds good compared to old Ebenezer, at least for the moment.

On Christmas Eve, Scrooge gets a ghostly visit from Jacob Marley – Scrooge’s business partner, dead seven years that night. Marley tells Scrooge that three spirits will visit the old miser. Those spirits will bring Scrooge the chance and hope to be a different person. We travel with Scrooge on the journey through Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

This journey connects Scrooge with other human beings. Each spirit hammers on the hard shell of that man who was “secret and self-contained, as solitary as an oyster.” We meet Scrooge’s beloved sister, Fan. We party with dear old Fezziwig. Scrooge falls in love and out of love. As his fiancé ends their engagement, she says, “Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you, [Ebenezer] in the time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.”

The “idol” Scrooge’s fiancé mentioned was his love of money. That great love of his life tolerated no rivals. Scrooge was left alone, just as he wished.

Only human connection, compassion, and community could save the old skinflint. The spirits bring him to the stool of Tiny Tim. In spite of himself, Scrooge begins to care for the boy. Without help and support, Tiny Tim will soon die. Suddenly Scrooge has an unfamiliar feeling.

“Spirit,” he says, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.” Unlikely, the Spirit says, if nothing changes. “What then?” the Spirit proclaims, “If he be like to die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus population.” Scrooge, to his shame, had spoken those very words just a few hours before.

We come to Christmas Future. Scrooge witnesses the aftermath of his own death. He has died neither missed nor mourned. Some of his wealth enriches the poor whether he likes it or not. Tiny Tim has also died, but his memory is cherished.

As Scrooge faces the open mouth of his own grave, he shouts his repentance. “Spirit!” he cries, “hear me! I am not the man that I was. I will not be that man I must have been except for this intercourse. Why show me this,” Scrooge demands, “if I am past all hope!”

Now we come back to our parable. Lord Jesus, why show me all this, if I am past all hope! The most important character in the parable isn’t the rich man. The most important character isn’t Abraham or even Lazarus. The most important characters are those five brothers, still alive, still able to repent.

I am the sixth brother in the story. Why show me all this if I am past all hope!

Scrooge’s story has a happy ending, unlike the story of the rich man. After his Christmas Eve travels, Scrooge is still alive. But he gets more than a reprieve. Scrooge really is not the man that he was. He gets a new life. That new life means connection, compassion, and community. He finds family with Fred, his nephew. He finds friendship with Tiny Tim, who did not die after all. He finds the joy of giving as he pays for the relief of the poor.

As Dickens puts it, Scrooge “became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the old city knew…” Scrooge became the person he was made to be. And he was truly happy.

How I treat my neighbor in need matters to Jesus. How I treat my neighbor in need matters to Jesus now and forever. Jesus loves my neighbor in need and wants the best for my neighbor. Jesus also loves me and wants the best for me. Jesus longs for me to become as good a person as the good old city knew. Jesus wants that for you too.

We cannot follow Jesus and hide from the poor. Greed hides us from the poor. Generosity connects us. Money is a wonderful tool but a terrible lord.

In using wealth as a tool for God, we can “take hold of the life that really is life,” as we read in our second lesson. That’s what is at stake in our parable. The rich man had his hands full of a life that really is not life. At the end, his hands were empty, his humanity drained away. Jesus wants better for us. Jesus wants us to have the life that really is life. Will we accept that gift and do the giving?

An Early Lamb

Luke 2:1-20

“But Dad, you HAVE to come to the Christmas program. We have all the best parts this year!” Holly planted her ten-year-old fists on her hips. Her lips curled into a prodigious pout. And she stamped her foot three times on the linoleum of the kitchen floor to punctuate her point. “Kevin is the narrator. Cindy is the angel, Gabriel. Jeremy is the littlest shepherd. And I get to be Mary this year instead that stupidhead, Becky Jennings. It’s Christmas Eve. You just HAVE to be there!”

Dad was still in his brown, insulated coverall and five-buckle snow boots. He tipped his head to the left, squinted his eyes tight shut, and scratched the three-day-old beard on his right cheek. If they were going to be on time for the Christmas program, Dad had ten minutes to transform himself into a clean-shaven and respectable Christmas pew-sitter. “Kids, you know how much I want to be there. But one of the ewes down in the barn is going to have a lamb tonight. She’s having some trouble already, and I think things are going to get worse. Besides, the wind chill is forty below outside. If I don’t get that lamb some place warm, that poor thing will be dead in ten minutes. I have to stay here. I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t a satisfactory explanation, but it was the end of the conversation. Dad headed back to the barn, and everyone else went to the car. Dad had started the 1967 Ford Fairlane wagon a half-hour ago, so it was toasty warm when Mom and the kids got in. Dad’s explanation had not appeased Holly in the least. She flung herself in the back seat to punish the vinyl for the unfairness of life. It groaned under the abuse.

Kevin sat in the front passenger seat and kept his own counsel. Last Christmas he had arrived at a startling insight. For a few years, Kevin had noticed that the family was always ready unusually early to leave for the Christmas Eve program. That was especially odd because they were never early for anything. Mom and Dad bundled them all into the car—caps and mittens, boots and scarves, snow suits and presents for Sunday School teachers.

Dad would climb behind the wheel. Then Mom would say, “Dear, I forgot the flashlight (or the iron was still on or the Christmas ham needed to be turned down or some such thing).” Dad would grump and moan and head back into the house while everyone else waited in the car. Some years ten minutes passed before he returned. All hope of being early had vanished. But strangely, Dad always came back to the car humming and smiling.

Kevin knew from long experience that when they returned home from the Christmas eve program, Santa’s deposit of presents would be safely under the tree. The cookies they put out for Santa were eaten; the celery for his reindeer consumed, and Santa’s milk glass was empty. It was a wonderful miracle of perfect timing on the part of Old Saint Nick. Kevin had wondered for a couple of years about the coincidence. Then last year, when the dome light in the car came on, he noticed a slight milk mustache on Dad’s upper lip. The whole thing looked very suspicious.

Kevin was unwilling to draw any firm conclusions—no sense burning one’s bridges unnecessarily. But he did see a correlation, and it made him very excited tonight. There was some kind of connection between Dad’s behavior and the number of presents under the tree. Maybe the presents this year were so numerous or so large or so complicated that Dad couldn’t take time for the Christmas program. That had to be the explanation for Dad’s strange behavior. It was way too early to have any lambs anyway. Kevin hugged himself with anticipation. There was going to be a big haul this year.

The Christmas eve children’s program was, for the most part, uneventful. Kevin’s narration stumbled only once. Rather than noting in Luke 2:2 that Quirinius was governor of Syria, Kevin pointed out that some fellow named “Queerness” had taken the job. Giggles were suppressed throughout the sanctuary. Holly stuck her tongue out at “that stupidhead, Becky Jennings” a few times when she thought no one was looking. Naturally, everyone was.

Cindy’s tinsel-covered halo crept down to the bridge of her nose as she said her lines. But the words were crystal clear: “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And Jeremy brought all the dignity his four-year-old frame could muster to the bathrobe and tea towel conscripted to be his shepherd’s costume. Each child received the evening’s payoff from a deacon at the door—a brown paper bag filled with assorted nuts, chocolate peanut clusters, peanut brittle and candy canes. Children began trading for their favorites almost before they got out the door.

Cindy wore her halo and Jeremy his shepherd’s towel all the way home. Holly still basked in the glory of virgin motherhood. But Kevin was wandering in visions of new bicycles, miniature race cars, remote controlled airplanes, a new chemistry set, his own television—enough dreams to occupy someone for a lifetime of Christmas eves.

Mom pulled the car under the tree next to the chicken house. Before she could stop him, Kevin was out of the car and headed toward the house at a gallop. He shed his snowy shoes on the back porch, dropped his sack of candy on the kitchen table, and burst into the living room. As he passed the couch, he froze in astonishment. Not one thing had changed since they left. Not a package, not a stocking, not so much as an explanatory note had appeared. Kevin sprinted back to the kitchen. Not one bite out of the cookies or one sip of milk gone. This was a disaster of epic proportions!

At that moment, Dad stepped into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box. He had a hand towel wrapped around his face. The towel was dotted with chunks of ice and flecks of straw. The sleeves on his coverall were frozen dark and stiff with what could only have been blood. His coverall and jacket were unzipped to his navel. Kevin could see that Dad had spent most of the evening stripped to the waste, on his knees, next to an old ewe, in a frigid barn. There was no Christmas eve deception here. What Kevin noticed most, though, was Dad’s eyes. They were red and puffy—like he had been crying.

Mom and the other kids struggled through the door. “I’ll get the hair dryer and some towels,” Mom said. It was the standard routine. A frozen little bundle of wool and hooves was placed in a box on the furnace register. The old hair dryer—only rarely used for its stated purpose—was placed on a chair, pointed down toward the box and turned on high heat. A little milk replacer was mixed up in a saucepan and warmed on the stove. Then all waited to see if the verdict would be death or life.

After all was in place, Mom noticed the pain on Dad’s face as he sat on a kitchen chair in a flannel shirt, white long johns and wool socks. “Are you all right, dear?”

Dad sighed. “I should have sent that old girl off to market last fall. But it was that little Cheviot—my favorite, I guess. That white face and the pointy ears and the tiny feet—you know, she was one of our original flock. She produced a lamb every spring just like clockwork. I guess she got to be kind of like an old friend. But I should have retired her. Having a lamb was just too much for her this year. Her calendar was all screwed up. I guess that’s why she was so early, She couldn’t take the strain. She was suffering terribly. After the lamb was born, I had to shoot her to put an end to it.” A trickle of tears ran down each of Dad’s cheeks.

There was a shuffling sound from the cardboard box that said “Van Camp’s Pork and Beans” on the side. Then a small bleat came from the box. In a few moments two tiny ears appeared above the rim of the cardboard. Then the small lamb stumbled a bit as he shook off the burlap wrappings that had kept him warm in his first moments on earth.

The kitchen had witnessed this small miracle dozens of times before. But something else came to pass on this night. Cindy spoke in her clear and sweet seven-year-old voice. “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” Cindy paused for a moment, as if to allow all to absorb the profundity of her announcement. The lamb insisted on further attention by trying to crawl out of the box. Cindy spoke again, “Daddy, I think we should call him ‘Good News.”‘ And so the lamb was named all the days of his life.

Christmas returned to normal after that. They all ate chocolate covered cherries and peanut butter kisses. Mom took pictures until she ran out of flash bulbs. Dad stayed up to watch Midnight mass from New York City and to complain about how the Catholics made it all too big of a production. In the morning, the presents were under the tree, the cookies were eaten, the celery was consumed and the milk was gone. There was no bike or racetrack or chemistry set, but it was nice anyway. And by noon, Good News was in a pen out in the chicken house—the first of several orphans from the latest lambing season.

Often, years later, Kevin thought about that Christmas—how it was more special than so many others were. An early lamb came into a hostile world. He was engulfed in cold and darkness and the threat of death. A mother gave herself for him and wondered if that threat would follow his steps. Wrapped in burlap feed sacks and carried in a pork and bean box, his prospects were poor. Only a scruffy and overly sentimental shepherd saw the birth as anything approaching glad tidings. Yet the early lamb stood up and shook off the wrappings. He stretched out to feel the warmth and the touch of light on his face. And he walked into a world just as hostile as the moment he was born. But it was a world where he could live and give life.

Leave it to Cindy to see through the details and to name that lamb “Good News.” For Kevin the reality was inescapable. Jesus came into the world as that early lamb—the product of an untimely birth, wrapped tight against the cold, threatened on every side. But shepherds came to worship him. Who else would know better the power of this miracle? Who else could better appreciate this good news?

An early lamb—the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world—an image of that good news had stood among them that night in the kitchen. He was the lamb who came at an unexpected time, at God’s time, to bring life and light to all the world. He started out in a box and ended up on a cross. Yet the world could never be the same again. His name, too, is ‘Good News.’ It took an angel to tell them about it. It took a shepherd to adore him. May that early Lamb be born in us today. Amen.

Another Perfectly Good Christmas

John 1:1-14

He really didn’t like Christmas very much at all. The man didn’t hate this time of year. That would have taken far more energy, passion and commitment than he was willing to spend on anything. He wasn’t opposed to the season in the way that, for example Dickens portrayed old Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. That, too, would have required a personal stand and individual effort that he just couldn’t muster up at this time of year. No, for him, Christmas was more of a dull ache or irritation. Christmas was a fingernail cut too short. It was elastic on his underwear that had lost its vigor. Christmas was a pebble in his shoe, a rattle in the dashboard. He didn’t like it. But he could hardly generate the initiative to do much about it.

His name was Hilbert Neugebauer. He was the custodian at the old downtown church. That probably didn’t help his Christmas mood any–what with taking chairs down and putting them up for fourteen different Christmas teas, the interminable vacuuming after children’s programs and concerts, after parties and receptions, after luncheons and meetings. Worst of all, it was his job to put out the decrepit old Nativity scene. Reuben and Mildred Broadbuckle had made and donated the set nearly forty years ago. Apparently no one had the gumption or the nerve to suggest that the decaying plywood characters should be replaced by more state of the art Christmas decorations. So year in and year out, the old custodian put up the same characters in the same places at the same time. He just didn’t like Christmas very much at all.

The Nativity scene itself was fraught with tradition and required behaviors. December 6^th, St. Nicholas Day, was the unwritten deadline by which the scene must be erected on the church lawn. Only once in his years as custodian did Hilbert miss that deadline. His tardiness was still the topic of conversation when things got a little slow around the church coffee pot in December. The positioning of the characters was also sacrosanct. Mary was to Joseph’s left. The donkey had to be to the right of the sheep. The shepherds were downstage left. The wise men were upstage right. The star was fastened to a strand of number nine wire connected to the left arm of the wooden cross that served as a background to the whole scene. The angel was fastened in the same way to the right arm of the cross. The angel was required to be exactly eighteen inches higher than the star, to reflect how Reuben and Mildred understood the divine order of creation. Hilbert thought it was all a royal pain in the…oh, never mind.

It was Monday and there was a new phrase on the church sign. It was a Bible verse, although the custodian couldn’t quite place where it came from. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” The old man could always tell when the pastor was feeling overworked and harassed. Those were the times when the pastor resorted to a Biblical quotation rather coming up with some clever and pithy saying. It took far less effort to just whip out a few choice lines from Holy Writ than to invent something that might actually be novel and stimulating. The old custodian grumbled to himself, “None of it ever changes. The same crummy nativity set, the same tired Bible verses, the same silly Christmas carols–why don’t we just phone in this whole Christmas thing and save a lot of trouble!”

Hilbert just didn’t like Christmas very much. Part of it was that for years he had been particularly sensitive to illnesses and deaths around Christmas. Working for the church for as long as he had, he was pretty much in the know about all such events in the community. He remembered when the Johannsen boy was driving a tractor and pushing some snow, not two days before Christmas. The boy got a little over zealous with the tractor and rolled the rig right on top of himself. The custodian remembered the big funeral on that bitterly cold December 26^th. Then there was Agnes Plueger, their next door neighbor–finest pumpkin pecan pie the world has ever tasted. And there she was, in the ground on December 16^thof 1972. Every time something like that happened, he would sit by the table at home and cluck knowingly, “Another perfectly good Christmas, all shot to…” But before he could finish that dire phrase, his wife would shoot him a glance that stopped all speech in the room. Anna Neugebauer had no patience for his swearing and would have none of it in her house, especially when the subject was Christmas.

It was all smug speculation until that first Christmas six years ago when she was no longer there. She hadn’t felt quite herself for a few days, and he nudged her a few times about seeing the doctor. But she was sure that it was just a little indigestion. Then, on December 17^thof 1993, she was gone. No goodbyes, no final tearful embraces, none ofthat–just alive when he crawled into bed that night and gone the next morning. Even now he could remember standing next to the bed after futile efforts to wake her and thinking to himself, “Another perfectly good Christmas all shot to…” Even now, out of love and respect for her, he could never bring himself to finish that awful phrase.

He was thinking about his Anna the second Monday in December as he performed his annual cleanup of Nativity Scene vandalism. Another of the unwritten traditions connected with the Nativity Scene was some creative, but very secretive, remodeling of the Nativity scene by the senior high Bible class. Sometimes the vandalism was quite creative. About ten years ago Hilbert came to the church one morning to find the Mary and Joseph characters stacked on top of the manger. Attached to Joseph was a note that read simply, “Luke 2:16.” Hilbert looked it up and read these words, “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. ” Other years were not quite to clever. Unfortunately Joseph had clearly distinguishable fingers on his right hand. Hilbert had lost track of the number of times he had to replace all but the middle finger on that hand. Once, Mary appeared made up with glaring purple nail polish, false eyelashes, ruby red lips and half a pound of rouge on her cheeks. That, Hilbert thought, was quite a commentary on the Virgin Mother.

This year was one of the least creative efforts. The baby Jesus was up in a tree limb. The sheep were placed in morally questionable relationships to one another. Joseph had a pack of Camels in his hand and Mary had an open bottle at her feet. Hilbert grumbled, “Even the Christmas vandalism isn’t what it used to be.”

That night disaster struck. The vandals returned to complete the job. A lack of creativity turned into an expression of malice. Some lighter fluid and matches did the trick. In a few moments the ancient, tinder-dry figures had flames licking at their faces. The wind picked up, and the flames moved to the ancient wooden cross behind the Nativity. There wasn’t enough fire to reach the church or damage any buildings. But the Nativity scene was a total loss. Worse yet, the base of the cross, fragile from years of rot and moisture, gave way. Fortunately no one was injured, because the twenty foot cross toppled into the middle of the ruined Nativity, flat on the snow.

Hilbert’s phone rang in the early morning. “Do you know what time it is?” he shouted into the phone before he even looked at his alarm clock. “It’s 6:30 a.m., Hilbert.” The pastor was on the other end. “You better come to the church. Someone burned down the Nativity.”

Oh, the curses and imprecations, the fantasies of dismemberment and execution that went through the old custodian’s mind as he drove to the scene of the crime! He saw Joseph, blackened from the chest down. He looked at Mary, paint curling up toward her chin. He saw scorched shepherds, singed wise men, charred camels and stumps that used to be sheep. He began to clean up the mess. He muttered to himself, “Don’t know what difference it all makes. Nobody seems to care anyway. Christmases come and go and nobody notices. Should have probably burned this stuff years ago. Oh well, what can you expect. Another perfectly good Christmas all shot to…well, you know.”

The one item that survived the fire in good shape was the sign, the one with the Bible verse–The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. Maybe that’s what did it. Maybe it was just plain a miracle. Who knows? At any rate, in a day or two, there was a Nativity resurrection in front of that old church. First there was a shepherd that looked suspiciously like Herbie Husker. Then there was a wise man who bore a striking resemblance to the Smoky the Bear figure down at the fire station. Mary and Joseph seemed to have had a previous existence as manikins in the J.C. Penny store that closed a year or so ago. The donkey was a first cousin to a pinata character that Lillian Dornbusch kept in her parlor. The new camel was apparently a fraternal twin to Jefrey Giraffe from Toys’ R’ Us. The new manger might have been liberated from the county fairgrounds, although no one was talking. The star seemed to be a spotlight from Andy’s Auto Repair down the street. The angel still had on his Superman cape, but somehow that seemed to work into the scene. The baby Jesus had done time as a Cabbage Patch kid, and he looked relieved to be working a new gig. Finally, some considerate person put a small fire extinguisher in the new manger as a precaution against future adventures.

Hilbert just shook his head as the gifts continued to appear. To one side that wretched sign kept broadcasting its message: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. In the middle of it all lay the cross–singed, blackened and broken, but still there. And as he worked and grumbled and moped, he was suddenly reminded of another perfectly good Christmas all shot to…well, you know.

It was a Christmas with more than its share of rough spots–a long trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a pregnancy of questionable origin, parents of impeccable credentials but with little credibility, a birth in a barn and a crib licked shiny by the tongues of a hundred cows. Yet, for all that, it looked awfully good for awhile. Angels, shepherds, magi–a cast of thousands to be sure. Songs of praise, words of wonder, treasures of great price–things were certainly looking up for the little boy and his family. A miraculous escape by night to a foreign country, a trip home to wondering relatives, years of growing in wisdom and stature and favor with God and people–the boy showed great promise. It was a perfectly good Christmas.

Then the inevitable shadow appeared. It was a shadow in the shape of a cross. That shadow lay across that perfectly good Christmas just like the cross lay across the makeshift Nativity scene. The little boy who had cried in that Bethlehem stable screamed from a Jerusalem hill, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The twelve year old who debated fine points of theology with temple scholars whispered in agony, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The young man who looked up to a heaven torn to shreds and heard the words, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased”–he groaned his final words, “It is finished.” This teacher and healer who made the lame to walk and the blind to see–he breathed his last and committed that breath to his heavenly Father. And he too was dead. Just like my Anna, Hilbert thought. Another perfectly good Christmas, shot to…well, you know.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. That sign just would not quit. Because here was something else. Here was resurrection. Here was new life where there had been only death. It was an act of foolishness, of stupidity, of irrational malice that burned down the Broadbuckle Nativity. How different was that from the sin, the death, the evil that had nailed Jesus to a cross so many years ago? Not very much, Hilbert thought. Yet, the Nativity refused destruction. The darkness took its best shot and lost. A new light shone forth from a tomb. What has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people.

The makeshift Nativity scene stayed up all that Christmas season. After Christmas people decided to take up a collection and buy a new, respectable set of characters. The old wooden cross was retired and a new steel one was set in its place. The whole area was illuminated with a security light, and the tradition of Nativity scene vandalism became a subject of exaggeration and legend. But Hilbert always remembered that Christmas. After it was over he went to the cemetery to Anna’s grave, to talk to her like he did sometimes. He said to her, “You know, Anna, it was another perfectly good Christmas.”