Seattle Mennonite Church

‘Friended’ by Jesus

Amy Epp — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:11:40 +0000

I want to think about a friend, maybe even your best friend. In the busyness of adulthood, sometimes we don’t have a ‘best friend’ in same way that we might have has children or teens. Maybe you want to think of a time in your life when you had a really good close friend. I know that I immediately think of my friend Margaret, who lived across the back alley from me and who I met when she was four and I was five when it was still safe for kids to wander all over their neighborhoods. We were best friends until I turned 13 and moved away. We told each other everything. We bonded the trouble with smaller siblings, we laughed at silly jokes, we bonded over changing bodies, we talked about God and church and what we believed – she was Catholic. We were completely unfiltered around each other. Sometimes we fought. We always made up.

Thanks to Facebook we are back in touch. How many of you have a Facebook account? And how many ‘friends’ do you have on Facebook? How does your relationship with those ‘friends’ compare to the friendship that I invited you to think about? Margaret and I may be Facebook friends, but we are no longer friends. There is no intimacy, there is no shared experience. I can pick and choose both how I present myself and what I experience of others. It’s a forum for comparing our lives with others, which can sometimes leave us a little depressed; often we only put the best version of ourselves out there and that leave none of the real vulnerability and accountability of true friendship.

I actually preached on this text six years ago…I don’t suppose any of you remember. I didn’t until I found the sermon in my ‘John’ file. I didn’t talk about friendship at all, but it seems to be important to Jesus. Important enough for him to emphasize to his disciples that starting now, they can consider themselves his friends. Not servants, not students, but friends.

Friendship, as a subject for religious and philosophical debate was not new to Jesus. Anyone who was anyone had thought about and discussed what good and true friendship meant. The Greco-Roman world and its teachers and philosophers wrote and expounded on friendship, as far back as Aristotle, who said that perfect friendship only exists with perfect mutual knowledge and only between the good. It’s not possible to have many real friends. But a friend was someone of ‘one soul’ with you, on behalf of whom one would die. Friends were considered prizes, jewels, precious. Cicero, several hundred years after Aristotle and about a half century before Jesus, in his treatise On Friendship said, “Put friendship before all other things human, for nothing is so conformable to nature, and nothing so adaptable to our fortunes, whether they are favorable or adverse.”

It’s hard to know to what extend Jesus would have been immersed in these philosophical debates and conversations, but he and his disciples and John’s readers would certainly have been aware of the tradition and value placed on friendship in the Hebrew Bible. The wisdom literature extols true friendship as a virtue and entreats us to form friendships, for “two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.” (Eccl. 4:9) Specific friendships such as that between David and Jonathan (1 Sam 18:1-4, 20, 23:15-18) are looked upon as to be desired and emulated. In the books of the law, Moses is described as a friend to God: “they spoke face to face as one speaks to a friend.” (Ex. 33:11) [i]

In those friendships, as in my friendship with Margaret, as with your friendship with your best friends, there are the common themes of best friendships: mutuality, fullness of knowledge of the other, intentionality, accountability, love. These are all present in what Jesus proposes to his disciples. Eugene Peterson’s interpretation of ‘abide in my love’ is ‘make yourself at home in my love.’ Isn’t that the best kind of friendship – the kind in which you can make yourself at home, the kind in which you know and are known?

As with his biblical forbear, in the Johanine context, friendship, love and law are inextricably linked. One author even went so far as to say that at “the heart of the OT, understanding of the law is connected with a relationship of friendship.” (emphasis mine)[ii] In John 15, this loving friendship is a commandment. Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” He says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” But he also say, “I have chosen you.” Verse 16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” ‘I friended you and it’s on you to click “accept”.’ But there’s a whole lot more at stake than there is with an online friend. Just as with the OT law, this commandment is an invitation into life, not necessarily an easy one.

The commandment to love is the only commandment that we see in this Gospel. There is no first and second commandment as there is in the synoptics: Love God, love your neighbor. There is only this. Love is so broad and so loosely used now (eg – I love cake and Buffy and Vampire Slayer and my new computer) that it can lose its meaning. It can also seem un-concrete and airy-fairy and un-demanding when we hear ‘love each other’. But there is a concreteness to love – especially to ‘love as I loved you.’ When you really try to do it that way, it comes home pretty quickly. Gail O’Day says, “To find the ethical demand of this commandment too easy and somehow inferior, however, is to be deceived by the simplicity of its wording and the sharpness of its focus.’[iii]

Today, of course, is Mother’s Day. . I think most mothers (and probably most dads) would say that they would do anything for their child. That they would die for their child or children. There is a powerful protective and loving instinct that accompanies being a parent. The love of family is like that – almost beyond our control. Romantic love, too, especially the beginning stages of romance are like instinct – reactive and hormonal and passionate. Not at all bad, but not necessarily intentional. The later stages of marriage and partnership might better suit the idea of loving friendship.

The love of friendship is a choice. Once and then again and again. A million ‘yeses’ to the relationship. Jesus is also model of what making a choice to love us as friends looks like. A choice to be vulnerable and intimate and intentional. A choice to continue relationship even when friends abandon or don’t respond. A choice to love to the point of death. It’s tempting when friendships or relationship become difficult to begin to think of oneself as put-upon, as all-giving, as self-losing in a friendship where other takes all.

Here too, I found Gail O’Day helpful. She talks about the fullness of the love of Christ for us. And the fullness that it possible in our love for others. We don’t empty ourselves of live in self-denial to enable ourselves for relationship, but offer love out of the abundance of ourselves, our love for the other and God’s love for us, out of the fullness of who we are. A friend allows me to be my whole self. The ultimate sign of this love is giving of one’s life but out of fullness of self not in denial.[iv] Paul talks about Jesus emptying himself, but one never thinks about Jesus in his life and the journey that led to his death on a cross as being anything but truly and wholly his God-made self. We are our most full selves through our friendship with Jesus – his love and the Father’s. “For Jesus to call his disciples friends means, above all, that believers are drawn into a chain of love, into the intimacy and oneness that characterizes Jesus’ own relationship with his heavenly Father.”[v]

These were important words for the Gospel’s first readers. They needed the assurance of Jesus’ friendship and the love of God. More than the synoptic Gospels, John was written for the church. This teaching about friendship is an example of Jesus providing a teaching to his disciples that the church needed to hear: Shore up community, build and strengthen friendships, love each other based on the love that I modeled. The Johanine community had recently been evicted from the synagogue. They were struggling with being hated and scorned. John’s Jesus’ address this too, in the verses immediately following, when he says, “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.” and “I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (15:18-19)

Being chosen is a comforting idea for the early church…and perhaps also for us. Being odd and outside can then be attributed to one’s chosenness. (Flannery O’Conner said “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd). And what a friend we have in Jesus – who will bear all our woes and sorrow. But we have been chosen for a friendship that is more than a simple source of comfort in bad times. We are chosen for a friendship that is fruitful: “…I chose you. And I appointed you to go bear fruit. Fruit that will abide.” (John 15:16) With great power comes great responsibility. We have been given the power of this love, this friendship. How will we use it?

Second, just as Jesus leaves room in the sheep fold for sheep that are not in his flock, there is room here for growth and inclusion. The crucible of Christian friendship – friendship within our communities – is also a place to build the way of love in the world. Jesus’ newly appointed friends can ultimately only bear fruit by going. Our friendships within Christian community should not be insular but should enable us to be sent. Paul Waddell in Friendship and the Moral Life says calls loving friendship the ‘school’ in which Christian love is learned. Agape – Christian love for the other – requires friendship. “Agape is not a love that leaves friendship behind, but a love which describes the ever widening scope of a friendship whose members are trying to be like God. With agape we come, like God, to make friends with the world.”[vi] Friends who know God’s love through Jesus are called on to share it with their neighbors and communities.

Easier said than done, maybe. Well, I did say that the concreteness of love is hard. Think again about your friend. Think about how that friendship formed. Think about the ways that you keep it going and nurture it. How does that intentionality and care reflect itself and radiate into your reactions with others in the world?

Jesus who made us your friends and equals,

Make us friends also to each other,

So that in deepening our knowledge of you, of God and of each other,

We may be witnesses to the world,

Changing strangers too into loving companions.

In your name we pray,

Amen.

[i] Thomas L. Brodie, The Gospel According to John : A Literary and Theological Commentary, Date: 1997

[ii] Brodie.

[iii] Gail O’Day, “John” in Women’s Bible Commentary, p 390

[iv] O’Day

[v] Frances Taylor Grench, “John 15:12-17” in Interpretation, April 2004, pp181-184

[vi] Paul Waddell, in Friendship and the Moral Life. Quoted in Paul Wodja, “Dying for One’s Friends,” in Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, January 1, 1997.

Unpacking Housing Privilege

Jonathan Neufeld — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:55:57 +0000

This is an insightful and dynamic piece that can help folks grow in their understanding of what housing (or lack thereof) means on a day to day basis in America.

Unpacking_Housing_Privilege[1]

Guest Speaker: Joanna Shenk

admin — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:23:50 +0000

Acts 3:12-19, Luke 24:36b-48

I’d have to say, I don’t find the lectionary texts particularly easy to preach on today. I find it interesting that in the Acts passage we only hear about part of the scene at the temple. We hear Peter calling out the Israelite crowd but aren’t told what happened. If you jump back a few verses you see that Peter and John had healed a crippled beggar in the name of Jesus.

[read Acts 3:1-11]

Then Peter talks about how humans killed the Author of Life but also how that was foretold by God. So, did the humans really have a choice in their action? Lastly, he calls for repentance so that sins can be wiped out.

In response one thing I would like to say to Peter is, “why are you calling me to repent for something that I seemingly had no choice in doing?”

Then, we also have the passage from Luke where we find confused and startled disciples. Jesus does his best to reassure them that he is indeed real. He asks them for something to eat. He also talks about how he fulfilled everything that was written about him in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms. Then he exhorts them to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations, beginning where they are—Jerusalem.

There are so many different places a preacher could go with these texts… I’m going to begin by asking, how do you locate yourself in these stories? In asking this question I’m not assuming that we’re side-stepping the culture nuance that separate these stories from our own story… I’m just asking us to think about which character or characters we identify with.

Is it Peter who is confidently healing and speaking in Jesus’ name? Is it the beggar who has just been healed, although his story seems to only be the set up for Peter’s speech? Are we someone in the crowd who’s trying to make sense of Peter’s words? Are we one of the anxious disciples who is doubting Jesus’ presence?

My initial response is that I might be one of the folks listening to Peter’s speech, not quite sure what to do with what he’s saying, but curious about how the healing took place.

In both of these stories we encounter someone with a suffering body who has been “made new.” At the temple a beggar who was known by the community as an invalid began walking and leaping. In the room with the disciples Jesus assures them of his identity by referencing his body which is whole, but also still carries marks of his suffering.

These two “new” bodies are challenging Easter images. The resurrected Jesus still has wounds and still needs food for his body. The resurrection did not separate Jesus from his experience of suffering by giving him a new “heavenly” or “perfect” body. And he still needed food like any other human being.

Wounded and bruised, his hands and feet were proof to the disciples that “he had gone through the danger and not around it.” Through the danger, and not around it. Much of our time and energy is spent on finding a way around things, rather than living through them. We don’t want to experience pain or danger, or even to come face to face with the suffering of other people, or the suffering of the earth.

I would also suggest that the man who was healed at the temple still carried all of his memories of being an invalid and a beggar. Yes, he could now use his body in new ways, but still could relate to other crippled people in a way that folks who were never crippled couldn’t.

In my work with Mennonite Church USA, I am sometimes asked about the “new” things I see happening around me—How can intentional communities or various other alternative discipleship communities help Mennonite Church USA become something new?

I think this is a very good question. In light of the passages this morning, I would answer, I hope that Mennonite Church USA can become a resurrection community. There are certain parts of our history that I wish we could erase. I think there are crippling experiences in all of our congregations that we wish had not happened to us. And there are ways that Mennonites have perpetuated oppression throughout our history and continue to perpetuate it today.

I think claiming these stories and experiences is part of what it means to be a resurrected community. Since we know that God has overcome death, we know that there is hope beyond our personal and corporate failings… and at the same time we need to take responsibility for them.

So maybe I am able to get behind Peter’s and Jesus’ call to repentance if it means acknowledging the ways that we haven’t believed resurrection is possible in our lives in communities… or the ways that we’ve actively worked against it.

Even with the disciples, who were Jesus’ closest friends, he had to again open their minds to understand the scripture, after also reassuring them that he was real.

I mean, if they had really been paying attention during his ministry this wouldn’t have been a surprise right? But they, and we, have our own ideas about what salvation and the kindom of God look like. Repentance, then, is a way to reorient ourselves to the actual good news of Jesus.

And now I will go out on a limb and try to connect a few more things that I’m still struggling to understand—what does it mean that Jesus fulfilled what was written about him? Like I said earlier this can make it sound like humans are merely pawns in a game God is playing.

When we think back to Jesus’ ministry before his execution, he was constantly at odds with the religious leaders and the disciples were pretty constantly confused by what he was teaching them. Even Jesus’ first speech from Luke 4: 18-19 got him in trouble:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

So as Jesus lived out this vision he suffered for it since it did not make sense within the religious systems that existed. It wasn’t as if these humans were acting any differently when Jesus hit the scene—God knew that God’s ways were so at odds with human behavior that any God-representative would be sorely misunderstood and mistreated.

I think this means that my and our repentance can be genuine as we recognize the ways in which we’re so disconnected from embodying shalom.

And I think that’s what Jesus was calling the disciples to do—go and embody shalom! Share the good news—the year of the Lord’s favor—the Jubilee year!

We bear hope for the world because of the commission Jesus gave the disciples and the whole church. We are the Body, and the Image, of the Risen Christ in the world today: “Not our pretty faces and not our sincere eyes but our hands and feet – what we have done with them and where we have gone with them”

I love what feminist theologian Carter Heyward has to say about “being in Christ.” This passage is from her book “Our Passion for Justice.”

“To be in Christ is to love with passion, which involves our willingness to suffer, or bear, the power of God in our choices and actions; to insist that God’s power moving among us in the world effects love in relation, justice in society, food for the hungry, liberation for the oppressed. To be with Christ is to live with our feet on the ground of ambiguity and confusion every day, and to know that our decisions make a difference…

I want to say again, emphatically, what I believe to be the most pervasive and troublesome difficulty in being Christian: namely, that most Christians have made of our religion the same kind of religion Jesus and his friends were radicalizing in their time. Like many of Jesus’ contemporaries, we tend to worship the past…

To be in Christ is to believe in God’s grace and power to help folks like you and me use every available resource in our lives, including some common sense, and some courage, to do what we can to establish justice between and among ourselves, in our own homes and throughout the world; nothing in life untouched by God’s power, God’s justice, among us.

No one is left untouched: not starving children, battered women, boat people, tortured prisoners, harassed sexual and religious minorities, races/classes/sexes/nations/religions of people whose losses of food, home, money and life are devised systemically by an ugly greed for profit on the part of the privileged peoples of our world, among whom you and I may count ourselves.

To be with Christ is to say No more! and to seek ways of stopping this destruction of life.”

As Mennonite Church USA I think this calls us to some hard work. Yes, we have a radical history but are we living it out? Are we “in Christ” as Mennonites today? Has the dominant culture of Mennonites too

Witnesses in a neverending story

Weldon Nisly — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:13:59 +0000

TEXTS: Psalm 133, Acts 4:32-35, 1 John 1:1-2:2, John 20:19-31

Witnesses of the Risen Jesus

Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed!

We claim and proclaim that great truth: God raised Jesus from the dead.
In the resurrection God began a new chapter of a neverending story
– a story beyond sin and violence and death.
God would not let crucifixion and death have the final word.
God raised a dead Jesus to new life as the fulcrum of history and foundation for life. We join the first witnesses in this neverending story.

Witness to the Resurrection

As we bear witness we do well to hold two things in heart and mind about being witnesses.
First, to witness is seeing and being.
You are a witness when you see and give testimony to the risen Christ.
You are a witness when you be, that is embody or reflect the risen Christ.
Second, witness is from the same root word and meaning as martyr – as in martyr-witness.
The nonviolent self-giving love of the Good Friday Jesus made possible a risen Easter Jesus.
Anne Lamott and others have reminded us that, ‘We are Easter people in a Good Friday world.’

We bear witness by being here in worship and in scripture, song, and story.
Last Sunday Jenn witnessed the risen Jesus with a poem she wrote.
Today Rebecca was our witness to the risen Jesus.
Thank you Rebecca, Jen, and others on coming Sundays for giving witness to the risen Jesus.

Blessed with Grace-Joy-Peace in the Risen Christ

We turn to God’s Word for this 2^nd Sunday of Easter to hear an Easter word for us.
I want to lift up a word in the Word – to identify a word in each of the four scriptures today.
Each scripture gives us a word for being witnesses in a neverending story of the risen Christ.

Psalm 133 (The Inclusive Bible)

The 133^rd Psalm is integrated into the Call to Worship.
It begins by proclaiming, “how good and pleasant it is for God’s people to live together as one.”
It ends by reclaiming God’s “blessing – life that never ends.”
The Psalmist foreshadows God’s neverending story in Jesus.
Our Psalm word for today is blessing – a blessing of neverending life.
God blesses us into this neverending story of the crucified and risen Jesus.
The word from each of the other three scriptures is a word for how we are witnesses.

Acts 4:32-35 (NRSV)

Our word from Acts 4 is Grace.
Grace is the center and sum of this great summary of the emerging Jesus’ movement.
Grace is the center and sum of God’s presence-purpose-promise in Jesus, in people, in the world.
This Acts summary centered in grace is so short and powerful that we do well to hear it again.

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul,
and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions,
but everything they owned was held in common.
With great power the apostles gave their testimony [witness] to the resurrection of Jesus,
and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them…. (Acts 4:32-34a)

They lived in unity in the risen Jesus, for the common good, as resurrection witnesses.
And great grace was upon them!
Grace is God’s reconciling covenant love (Gk. charis, Hb. chesed: Theological Dict. of the NT, 101).
Grace is God’s gift offered to us free and undeserved.
Without God’s grace there wouldn’t be a risen Jesus or a people of God or a neverending story.
God raised Jesus from the dead breaking down all barriers to God’s unconditional love for all.
God’s grace is for everyone not because we earn it or deserve it but because God is Grace!

1 John 1:1-2:2

The First Letter of John is one of the most eloquent expressions of God’s love ever written.
Our Confession of Faith is from the opening words of First John.
John gives witness to our God who in Christ is light and life and love.
At the center of this introduction is John’s bold claim to joy.
We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete (1:4).
What God is doing in the neverending story of the risen Christ inspires great joy in us.

John 20:19-31

Our primary Word for today is the continuing story of Jesus’ resurrection in John’s gospel.
On Easter Sunday a week ago we heard the first part of the resurrection story.
Mary Magdalene was the first witness; then Peter and John became witnesses.
But their witness was first to an empty tomb with no body.
Weeping at the empty tomb Mary Magdalene became the first to encounter the risen Jesus.
This gospel story told by John continues this Sunday.
Fear gripped the disciples and they hid behind locked doors.
Fear and locked doors didn’t stop the risen Jesus.
In the understatement of John’s Gospel, we are told, “Jesus came and stood among them.”
In the presence of their fear, what is Jesus’ first word to them? Peace!
Peace be with you.
Jesus repeats and reinforces, “Peace be with you.”
Our word for today from John’s gospel of the risen Jesus is peace.
Jesus adds, “As God sends me, so I send you.”
Sending Jesus is God’s doing; raising Jesus is God’s doing.
God is doing the same sending and raising in us so we may witnesses the risen Jesus.
The neverending story continues: a week later they were again in the house.
This time Thomas, the absent disciple a week earlier on Easter day, was with them.
Suddenly the risen Jesus appears among them again and again greets them: “Peace be with you.”
Then Jesus offers another gift so they may receive the peace of the risen Jesus.
Jesus’ breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus knows we can’t do this alone; we can’t be blessed with grace, joy, and peace on our own.
We need the breath of the Holy Spirit.
In the beginning, at the climax of creation, God breathed life into humankind.
Then God formed a human from the dust…and breathed [into the human]…
the breath of life…and [the human] became a living being. (Genesis 2:7).
The risen Jesus breathes this same life into the disciples so they can be Easter people.
To be Easter people is to be people of Christ’s peace in a Good Friday world.

Signs of the resurrection — Witnesses in a neverending story

We are witnesses to the risen Jesus. There are signs of Jesus’ resurrection today.
Here some signs that I see beginning with the newest member among us.
Ozias Harrison Nofziger is a witness to the risen Jesus – a sign of new life in Christ.
Preparing for Ozias’ dedication and celebrating our granddaughter’s second birthday the past few days reminded me of an experience years ago.

One time when our children were a few years old, two friends and I were in a long conversation.
I was in their home in an inner city where they were in a small Christian community of peace.
They had spent years in The Philippines with Mennonite Central Committee.
They had witnessed Filipinos suffering at the hands of the Marcos regime with US tax dollars.
Ironically today is April 15, tax day in America, although this year it will be April 17.
Tragically our tax dollars are used more for Good Friday than for Easter efforts.
My friends had seen Good Friday up close and still felt the wounds in their being.
Then our conversation turned to children – our children and those they had seen suffer.
Yet my friend’s words shocked me when she said, “I could never bring a child into this world.”
I had never put words to an inner struggle I felt but had never dared voice.
This Good Friday world is too violent to birth children into it.
While confessing truth in her witness, I protested, “But our children are signs of hope.”
Our children are our “Yes” to the God of Easter Life against all the Good Friday death.
Knowing that I was still tempted to join her – except for one thing: a community of witnesses.
We were part of a community of witnesses then in Philadelphia as we are now in SMC:
God’s people who are witnesses in the neverending story of resurrection;
…who want to be Easter people in a Good Friday world;
…who seek to “walk in the resurrection,” as our Anabaptist ancestors called it;
…who struggle to say “No” to Good Friday violence and death;
…who strive to be a community of grace, joy and peace in the risen Christ.
For all our frailty and fallibility, our communal witness offers a place worthy of children.
Ozias is our newest sign of hope in an Easter God even as are all our children and grandchildren.

In Holy Week, Marg and I watched the film, “Pray the Devil back to Hell.”
Laymeh Gbowee and other ordinary women with extraordinary courage are witnesses.
In war-torn Liberia of the 1990s, Gbowee dared to be an Easter witness in a Good Friday land.
She called other Christian women and then Muslim women to become witnesses for peace.
Together in nonviolent witness they went to the marketplace and public space to witness.
They had known enough of war and suffering and terror and fear.
They had seen enough of their young sons turned into killers and daughters raped.
They said “No” to Good Friday and “Yes” to Easter with words and life at risk of life.
Laymeh Gbowee is a graduate of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU.
She and 2 other women were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for their bold witness.

The past 24 hours have been a Day of Prayer and Action for Colombia initiated by CPT.
Death threats and violence are an all too real part of life in the Colombian Church.
Ricardo Esquiva, founder of Justa Paz, and the Colombian Mennonite Church are witnesses.
Ricardo, Laymeh, Ozias, Rebecca, Jenn, and you are witness in this neverending story.

“Vision: Healing and Hope” — Mennonite Church USA

God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
to grow as communities of grace, joy, and peace, so that God’s healing and hope
flow though us to the world.

Who are you looking for? An Easter Sermon

Amy Epp — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:17:48 +0000

John 20:1-18

St. John's Bible depiction of Mary seeing Jesus. The Hebrew script to Mary's right speaks her exclamation, "Rabbouni," teacher!

Christ is risen!

The question of the day this Easter Sunday is, “Who are you looking for?” It is the question that Jesus asks Mary when, weeping, she encounters him in the garden. It seems like a bit of an innocuous question – we might ask this of someone on the street who looks a little lost – and yet, it is, as Biblical scholar Pheme Perkins puts it, “A question that probes discipleship.”[i] It is a question that echoes back through the gospel, to when Jesus asks the same question of John the Baptists disciples. It is a question that is loaded up with dramatic irony and propels the reader forward with Mary into the realization of Jesus resurrected.

This story begins in the dark, though, long before we get to that essential question. It begins with Mary coming to the tomb in the wee hours of the morning, looking for her friend and teacher. There are some who would minimize the role of Mary in this Gospel story – although I don’t see how – one author I read said, “Mary Magdalene serves only to set the story in motion.”[ii] “Well she certainly did that. There is a great deal of motion the moment she sees the stone rolled away. As soon as Mary sees that the stone of the tomb is not where it should be, she bolts. Running and racing and searching in those dark morning hours.

Mary summons her two friends, Peter and ‘the disciple whom Jesus loves’ or ‘the beloved disciple.’ For her, that misplaces stone has done exactly zero to shed light on the darkness of grief that she’s feeling. In fact it only sends her anxiety and stress higher, deepening the mystery and grief she feels at Jesus’ death. She needs the support and verification of her brothers, people who loved Jesus as much as she and who might know what to do. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” she says, “and we do not know where they have laid him.” They come along running, just as she had to find them, not believing that, as she said, Jesus’ body had been taken. Yet they see for themselves. He’s not there – just the empty tomb and a few clothes from his hands and head. They are deflated, defeated. They go home.

Many people read this text – the beloved disciple ‘saw and believed’ – to mean that he believed in Christ risen. I don’t buy it. The very next line says that “as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. (20:9)” Certainly now they believed Mary – their teacher and friend’s body was really gone. If his missing body had inspired some kind of revelation, I’d think that disciple would be jumping for joy, laughing, celebrating, telling the world – or at least cluing in Mary and Peter. But both that disciple that Jesus loved and Peter seem defeated. Thinking, maybe “It’s really true. He’s really gone. I was excited about Jesus, I thought this was going somewhere, but now he’s dead, and we don’t even have a body to remember.” They return home, no fanfare involved. And we’ve been there: Hopeless and defeated, at loose ends, feeling only distance between the hope and love that God promised and our own doubt or despair.

But, confused and lost as she is, this story revolves around Mary. She doesn’t only set it in motion, she drives it. She doesn’t go home. She begins in the dark, searching and sad. But she stays to look further. Just as we can feel with the disciples who left, we can empathize with Mary’s place of beginning too. In John’s gospel, darkness is never just darkness. This darkness is not only the dark of night, it is unknowing, on despair. None of the disciples know yet. The resurrection is still a secret. Aren’t we all basically confused and lost and searching? Aren’t we all, if we’re sitting here on Easter Sunday, at least a little curious or confused – as well (maybe) as hopeful – about what exactly ‘resurrection’ means?

The key to this story is in Mary’s search, in who she was searching for. It is in her tenacity. From beginning to end, Mary persistently searched – looks for where her teacher has gone. She will not let go. Just like she stayed with him until his death when all the 12 had fled, she’s here at the tomb searching for his body. She keeps expressing her search to everyone she encounters, “They’ve taken my Lord and I don’t know where they’ve laid him.” Like her friends, like any of Jesus disciples, she couldn’t possibly expect – in spite of everything that Jesus taught – that she would find a living Jesus in front of her. Scholar Gail O’Day says about those first disciples that “Until the community encounters the risen Jesus, there are no categories through which to understand the empty tomb. The preresurrection world cannot make sense of an empty tomb with any theory except grave robbing”[iii]

So when the living Jesus approaches her and we reach that dramatic climax in which we know who is standing before her, and he asks her that probing question, “Who are you looking for?” she still has not yet seen, still answers as one who is searching. She says, through her tears “tell me where you have laid him.” And then, through one word – “Mary” – Jesus changes the picture. Mary’s story begins in the dark confused and unknowing – and at the moment she hears her name, the light dawns, her eyes clear. By searching, she has seen, and seeing she can proclaim – the first witness of the living Christ.

These past four weeks a small group of us has been reading and talking about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins[iv]. In the last part of the book, Bell talks about the way in which God, through Jesus, can rewrite our impossibly hard stories – the stories that we tell ourselves, the stories that seem true, that cut us off from God. He talks about a woman who cuts herself – a release for the pain and shame she carries and the stories that she’s written for herself (or that others have written into her) make it impossible to see herself as a beloved child of God. But God’s story for that woman is better – impossibly, beautifully, expansively better, than that.

To Mary, to the other disciples, seeing their Rabbi Jesus alive again was impossible. Some of them – and some of us – go home in resignation or despair. (Although Jesus can find us in the closed room of fear – but that’s a story for next week). A living Jesus is impossible. And yet with a word, Jesus retells Mary’s story of the empty tomb. Looking for a dead Jesus, she finds a living Christ. From a story of grief and grave-robbing, to one of new life, resurrection and joy.

Resurrection retells the story of history. It retells the story of Jesus. Preresurrection, Jesus was an influential teacher who talked about God’s love, who stirred up trouble with political and religious leaders and ultimate died a rebel’s death. Post-resurrection, he rewrites that story as a revelation of a love so powerful that death cannot conquer it. Post-resurrection, he rewrites that story as a dedication to non-violent love that triumphs over violence and death. Post-resurrection, he rewrites the story as one of the truth of God’s un-interrupted commitment to human redemption.

On Good Friday, here in this space we read the story of Jesus who was beaten and burdened. We read the story of Jesus who was mocked, who died. We draped the cross in black. We sat in the dark. We also walked the streets of Lake City and saw and heard the way God’s children are still beaten and burdened, mocked and tormented with addiction and pain and a systemic violence that continues to be active in our city and in this neighborhood – in all our neighborhoods.

Martin Luther King Jr has a famous quote that many of you probably already know. He said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That is God’s story. Desmond Tutu – a man whose people have known more persecution and violence and humiliation than most of us can imagine – is more full of the delight and hope of resurrection joy that anyone I have ever encountered before. I saw him speak once in Indiana and everything he says or writes exudes that joy. He has a Bible story book in which the emphasis and repeated theme is “God’s dream” – the dream of that beautiful kingdom where violence is no more. Where the light has dawned.

In the light of this Easter morning, that dream, the new story, is what we are celebrating. Some of you might remember way back to the beginning of Lent. I talked about the rainbow connection. I talked about God’s promise to all people – to all the earth – to every living thing – to create and sustain covenant with us. I talked about the rainbow being the reminder not only to us, but to God of that promise to maintain connection. When we were walking back from the Lake City stations of the cross, the sun was shining, but it was still raining and across the eastern sky in front of us as we headed from the corner of 125th and Lake City Way to the doors of the church, a rainbow guided our way. And not just any rainbow, but triple deep on the canvas of a blue sky. A reminder of God’s promise that threaded it’s way through history, through the Hebrew Bible, into the life of Jesus, his death and bursting out in resurrection assurance. I don’t really believe in signs, but a rainbow is still a rainbow. It was and is still powerful symbol of that deep love of God for humanity.

We are – no doubt about it – a people who need evidence – hard evidence not just light refracted through a few drops of water. We are cynics and skeptics. We are like Thomas (whose story we will hear next week) who needs to touch Jesus. We are like Mary who needed to see Jesus and hear him call her name before she could believe that he was alive. We are people. We all have doubts, cynicism, guilt, shame, pride: things that separate us from God and obscure God’s dream from our vision the way Mary’s tears and confusing separated her from Jesus even as he was right in front of her. Jesus resurrected can retell that story – can retell all our stories – into stories of. But Mary didn’t find Jesus without searching for him.

Maybe, like for Mary, like for the disciples who left that morning, the idea of resurrection is inconceivable. Maybe you can’t make it all the way there, to the point of totally buying a dead man coming to life. But I encourage you to keep searching. Keep after the one who died. I wish us all an Easter season filled with searching that results in joy, and persistence that end in life. May we have the tenacity of Mary in her questions, that we too will be able to proclaim, “I have seen the Lord.”

Happy Easter, my friends. Christ is risen!

[i] Pheme Perkins, “I Have Seen the Lord,” Interpretation, January 1, 1992. p 199.
[ii] Brendan Byrne, “”The Faith of the Beloved Disciple and the Community in John 20,” in Journal for the Study of the New Testament. 1985. p. 85.
[iii] Gail R. O’Day, “John,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, ed.s, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. p 389.
[iv] Rob Bell, Love Wins: A book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, New York: Harper Collins, 2011.

Holy Fools

Weldon Nisly — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 21:00:55 +0000

TEXTS: Philippians 2:5-11, Mark 11:1-11, Mark 14-15

Hosanna! Crucify!

“Hosanna!” ————– “Crucify!”

No Sunday more sharply focuses our choice.
No word more clearly voices our cry than “Hosanna!” or “Crucify!”
The cry of “Hosanna!” and “Crucify!” is fought within all of us.
This Palm and Passion Sunday confronts us with both cries.
Today we are confronted by Jesus.
Today we choose to cry “Hosanna!” or “Crucify!”
Today the gospel removes the blinders from our eyes.
Many Christians try to leap from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday –
with the shouts of “Hosanna!” to Jesus entering Jerusalem to “Christ is risen” of Easter.
That is not a leap of faith; it is loss of faith.
This Sunday more than any Sunday of the Church year makes sure we see Jesus to the cross.

Jesus — triumph or tragedy

Palm and Passion Sunday poses a gut-wrenching juxtaposition for us with Jesus in Jerusalem.
It begins with shouts of “Hosanna!” and ends with shouts of “Crucify!”
Mark’s Gospel is Jesus’ passion with an extended prologue leading up to it
The first 10 chapters tell the story of Jesus’ life and ministry to be sure.
Jesus teaches, heals, debates, confronts, and calls all to come and follow.
They take Jesus to Jerusalem, where powerful people are threatened by truth.
It begins with Jesus’ “Triumphal entry into Jerusalem” in chapter 11.
On Good Friday we will hear the story of Jesus’ last supper, prayer, arrest, trial, crucifixion.
In midday we will walk this story with Jesus in downtown Seattle – from 11:00 to 2:00.
At 6:15 we walk and pray with Jesus being tried and crucified in our neighborhood.
At 7:00 p.m. we sing and pray and hear the whole story of Jesus’ journey to the cross.
Come and enter into one or all of these Good Friday ways of being with Jesus.
All of these are printed in the announcement insert of the worship bulletin for today.
Let these Holy Week encounters with Jesus reveal our cry of “Hosanna” or “Crucify.”

“Hosanna” and “Crucify” summarize two processions with Jesus.
“Hosanna!” is the cry of Jesus procession into Jerusalem as he arrives.
“Crucify!” is the cry of Jesus procession out of Jerusalem as he is led to the cross.
Both processions reveal a truth of Jesus.
Jesus is Sovereign Lord and Savior – the truth of “Hosanna.”
Jesus is Suffering Servant and Sacrificial Victim – the truth of “Crucify.”
Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey or colt not on the stallion of an imperial ruler.
Jesus left Jerusalem to be to be crucified as a threat to imperial rule.
Jesus as Sovereign Lord and Suffering Servant ushers in God’s reign of nonviolent love.
This new reign of God overturns the sacrificial violence and violent rule of the powers.
This is the Passion of Jesus revealed today and this Holy Week in Jesus.

Jesus empties himself — Philippians 2:5-11

Nowhere is Jesus’ Passion more powerfully and poetically proclaimed than in Philippians.
We heard this Word spoken and sung in worship – a great Hymn of the early Church.
This time Paul is not admonishing, instructing, criticizing, or correcting early Christians.
Paul is singing the church’s song of God’s purpose and presence in Christ.
Jesus is God’s self-emptying self-giving love for all people and all creation.
Grasping exploitation and oppression is not the character of God’s divine creativity.
Christ is God’s revelation of unconditional love.

[Read Philippians 2:5-8….]

Why? [Read 2:9-11…]

Imitatio Christi – Imitation of Christ – Fools for Christ

Hear how Paul introduces this great hymn.

[Read 2:1-5…...]

Listen to what Paul adds following this great hymn.

[Read 5:12-13…]

Fools for Christ

On the world’s terms or almost anyone’s terms for that matter, it is utter foolishness.
Unconditional love and self-giving service doesn’t go far or gain favor in the world.
It is for fools. Who wants to be a fool for Christ?
It is no April Fools joke that we are called to be Holy Fools for Christ.
Yes, it is difficult and risky to be Holy Fools for Christ.
It helps to hear and see other witnesses – saints across the ages – people like you give witness.
A litany of witnesses presented themselves to me last week. Here are some of them.

Eighteen-year-old Chiara Favorone went to church that Sunday as usual.
But it was not just any Sunday; it was Palm and Passion Sunday.
There would be the procession of Palms in memory of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
There would be the reading of Jesus’ passion remembering his crucifixion outside Jerusalem.
Following worship there would also be a procession of young women to be blessed.
It was a blessing by the bishop for their future marriage.
All the other young women joined the joyful procession.
Chiara Favorone refused to join the procession that Sunday.
Instead Chiara went out from worship that day to be a Holy Fool for Christ the rest of her life.
In that commitment Chiara joined her friend Francis as a Holy Fool.
The year was 1212. The place was Assisi in Italy.
Eight hundred years ago, Chiara Favorone became Clare of Assisi alongside Francis of Assisi. She began the Poor Clares, the Franciscan sisters (Jon M. Sweeney, NCRonline, March 20, 2012).
She has inspired countless other Fools for Christ.
Clare of Assisi has given witness to Christ for 800 years.

Diana Ortiz was abducted and tortured almost to death in Guatemala in 1989,
thanks to our tax dollars and torture training at the School of the Americas.
Rather than let torture embitter or immobilize her,
Diana founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
to help those who are being crucified with Christ by torture today.
She tells her story in The Blind-fold’s Eye: My Journey from Torture to Truth
(Sojourners, April 2012, p. 10).
Diana Oritz is a Holy Fool giving witness to Christ.

Theologian James Cone’s new book is The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
Cone argues that Christians in this country can best grasp the horror and hope of the crucifixion by looking at the lynching tree (Andrew Wilkes review, Sojourners, March 2012, p. 41).

Cone concludes, “Every time a white mob lynched a black person, they lynched Jesus. The lynching tree is the cross in America. When American Christians realize that they can meet Jesus only in the crucified bodies in our midst, they will encounter the real scandal of the cross” (158).
http://lutheranconfessions.blogspot.com/2012/03/cross-and-lynching-tree-by-james-h-cone.html
http://www.beingtc.com/james-cone-cross-lynching-tree-violence (Song: “Strangefruit”)

“The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. Both the cross and the lynching tree represent the worst in human beings and at the same time a thirst for life that refuses to let the worst determine our final meaning. While the lynching tree symbolized white power and black death, the cross symbolizes divine power and black life….” (Amazon.com book description).
James Cone is a truth-telling Holy Fool for Christ giving witness to a crucifying history.

Before we dismiss this as long past, this week we are confronted with Christ crucified.
Treyvon Martin, the African American teenager killed in Florida.
Shaima Alawadi, the young Iraqi Muslim mother of 5 bludgeoned to death in California.
A note was left with her bloodied body: “Go back to your country, you terrorist.”
Countless people called immigrants or labeled LGBTQ know the cry “Crucify!”

Then there is the powerful witness to Christ’s crucifixion by the Monks of the Tibhirine.
In war-torn Algeria in March 1996, a militant Islamic group affiliated with Al Qaeda,
kidnapped 7 monks from a Trappist monastery of Tibhirine and beheaded them.
The monks had been in deep discernment knowing the threats and risk of remaining in Algeria.
They chose to remain in their monastery in love and solidarity with Algerian people and Jesus.
The journal of one of the monks, found after his death, was a letter of love to his “crucifier.”
If the day comes, and it could be today, that I am victim of the terrorism that seems to be engulfing all foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, and my family to remember that I have dedicated my life to God and Algeria. That they accept that the Lord of life was not a stranger to this savage kind of departure; that they pray for me, wondering how I found myself worthy of such a sacrifice; that they link in their memory this death of mine with all the other deaths, equally violent but forgotten in their anonymity. My life is not worth more than any other….Nor am I an innocent child. I have lived long enough to know that I, too, am an accomplice of the evil that seems to prevail in the world around, even that which might lash out blindly at me. If the moment comes, I would hope I have the presence of mind, and the time, to ask for God’s pardon and for that of my fellowman, and at the same time, to pardon in all sincerity he who would attack me….And to you, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you too, I wish this thank you, this “A-Dieu,” whose image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it pleases God, our common Father. Amen! Insha Allah (John W. Kiser, The Monks of the Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria, 245-46).
What Holy Fools – this monk and 6 others who have been crucified and risen with Christ!

On this Sunday, with Jesus going in and out of Jerusalem in a hail of “Hosanna” and “Crucify”, there is good news – the gospel of Jesus Christ is alive in Holy Fools giving witness to Christ.
The good news is that in the frailty and fallibility of our lives and the confusion of our cries of “Hosanna” and “Crucify”, we can be and are Fools for Christ – who is God’s true wisdom.
This is no April Fools joke. This is The Way of Jesus Christ who is our peace.
Our “act of response” poses this choice for us – a particular choice we face today.
It is a choice that challenges how easy it is to “pray for peace and pay for war.”
On this April Fools Day, Palm-Passion Sunday with Jesus entering Jerusalem and Holy Week,
a week before Easter and two weeks before Tax Day we take a symbolic “special tax offering.”
David Ortman will explain it and begin with a story of Mennonite Fools for Christ in Colombia.

Summer Employment with the Community Ministry

Jonathan Neufeld — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:25:21 +0000

Community Ministry Jobs Available! Seattle Mennonite is seeking to fill three positions for 4 months, beginning June 1, 2012. One position is a 1/2 time sabbatical coverage position and the other two are 1/4 time hosting positions at a day center for people experiencing homelessness. Please send resume and letter of interest to Ken Kraybill at kenkraybillgmailcom kenkraybillgmailcom for consideration by April 13th, 2012. Please indicate which position(s) you are applying for.

JOB DESCRIPTION #1 – WE ARE SEEKING TO HIRE 2 HOSTS

God’s Li’l Acre Host
Seattle Mennonite Church

Preamble: In June 2008, Seattle Mennonite Church opened a drop-in center as an expansion of its support to persons experiencing homelessness. The center was named God’s L’i’l Acre (GLA) by the community of outside neighbors in Lake City (a neighborhood of Seattle). Activities at GLA include: personal storage, community kitchen, clothing depot, laundry, showers, phone, mail distribution, internet, resources, referral and companionship. The number of guests who visit GLA range from 50-60 people. Guests generally range in age from 35-60 years, who are typically single male from a variety of backgrounds. Many guests could be described as chronically homeless with numerous challenges that make it difficult to find housing and employment. Although challenges may include disability, anger management, experiences of abuse, broken relationships, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental illnesses; volunteers and staff at GLA seek to affirm the creativity, resiliency, generosity, skills, assets and giftedness of each person. The center becomes a place of peace and respite amidst the chaos of peoples lives. In the dynamic of comings and goings of people, the staff of volunteers, interns and community ministers are witness to many experiences of grace. The center practices modalities of person-centred, trauma-informed companionship with persons experiencing homelessness.

Purpose:

The vision of this position is to collaborate with persons experiencing homelessness in developing a holistic and hospitable drop-in center with a high degree of community (guests) ownership and responsibility.

Timing:

June 1, 2012 – September 30th, 2012 – 9 hours per week

Tasks:

Offering hospitality and companionship to guests at GLA (a morning drop-in center)
Affirming strengths in individuals as pertains to physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual growth
Taking initiative in collaboratively/communicating with interns/volunteers/volunteer groups who support GLA
Monitoring schedule for hygiene services (showers/laundry) at GLA
Encouraging guest’s ownership of space by identifying tasks and maintenance projects for guests to work on (weeding community gardens, emptying fridges, organizing clothing depot, etc.)
As people are free to cook their meals at the facility, they are also encouraged to clean-up after themselves
Ensuring clean-up of center upon closing at noon by encouraging guests to take on tasks
Referring guests to resources (keeping in mind that the community can resource each other) to address needs of housing, employment and benefits as necessary
De-escalating conflict and following outlined procedures in addressing serious incidents
Invite community members to share their gifts and talents whenever possible with one another and the program at GLA.
Following health and safety procedures at GLA

Expectations:

The Host will be asked to:

Arrive at least 10 minutes before drop-in is open and keep a regular schedule
Have regularly scheduled meetings with the Community Minister.
Maintain clear and appropriate boundaries with local residents and people experiencing homelessness.
Engage people in ways that model companionship, asset building, and principles of conflict resolution
Develop a keen awareness of group dynamics and the needs of people in order to respond in the midst of suffering
Find patience and be flexible in the midst of chaos

What sign can you show us?

Weldon Nisly — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:34:32 +0000

TEXTS: Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, John 2:13-22

Psalms of Orientation – Disorientation — Reorientation

God’s instructions are perfect; they revive our souls.
God’ decrees are trustworthy; they make us wise.
God’s precepts are right; they bring us joy.
God’s commands are clear; they give us insight for living.
God has given us gifts more valuable than gold, and sweeter than honey…

We began worship with this litany of praise for God and our orientation with God. The Psalmist gave us these prayerful words of praise
so that we remember who we are and whose we are as God’s people. This 19^th Psalm gives us words of deep orientation to God.

The inspiring Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann,
teaches us that the Psalms give word to every experience and emotion of life.
Nothing and no one escapes the Psalmist attentive eye and clear tongue.
Brueggemann shows how the 150 Psalms offer us orientation, disorientation, or reorientation.
Psalm 19 is a word of orientation to God as a great gift for right living.

Exodus 20:1-17 – The Ten Commandments

God’s Word to Moses known as the Ten Commandments offers us orientation for right living.
We can live well living by the Ten Commandments.
They are commands that provide orientation for living in obedience to God.
But the Ten Commandments can also become a crutch for us.
Worse yet the Ten Commandments can become a club for us.
When we use the Ten Commandments for personal purity and piety they become a crutch.
When we use the Ten Commandments to control others they may become a club.
The Ten Commandments are more than documenting purity or enforcing rules;
God gave the Ten Commandments to orient us to faithful living in God’s image.
They too call for our interpretation and intention in obedience to God.
They orient us to God. But we face disorientation and reorientation in life and faith as well.
In adult study during Lent, we encounter Jesus speaking in parables;
we are confronted to really grapple with real life and struggle for understanding.

We will get to Jesus’ disorienting encounter in the Jerusalem Temple in a moment.
But first a word about our orientation, disorientation, reorientation in our lives.

We recognize this as a transitional time for us as a congregation facing restructuring.
Our transition is significant enough to feel disorienting yet, hopefully, also reorienting.
Our desire and discernment is that our disorientation and reorientation be with Jesus
and not simply structural reorganization of our own presumed wisdom.
Our responsibility as members is to be prayerfully mindful that our reorientation be with Jesus.
Beyond the SMC structure we can reflect on other ministries experiencing dis/reorientation.
This neighborhood keeps changing and faces challenges.
In light of changes our community ministry will continue to undergo reorientation.
The Suriname Indigenous Health Fund has experienced considerable dis/reorientation.
Our wider Mennonite bodies also encounter Jesus in disorienting and reorienting ways.
[PNMC, MCC, TTV, MDS, MWC, AMBS….]

Our disorientation and reorientation is not just a church encounter with Jesus.
Many of us experience disorientation in our personal lives past or present or will in the future.
Disorientation is not necessarily a bad thing though it is usually unwanted.
It offers opportunity to enter into reorientation that is a deeper journey with Jesus.

Jesus, the sign of disorientation and reorientation – John 2:13-22

In the gospel heard today Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the Passover and enters the Temple.
It quickly becomes a gospel of disorientation.
Today and the next 2 Sundays in Lent we are in John’s gospel rather than Mark’s gospel.
From the beginning John’s gospel is a contrast from Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospels.
This Jerusalem Temple encounter is one of the few stories of Jesus found in all four gospels.
But in the other three gospels it comes late in Jesus ministry in the climactic confrontation.
Here in John’s gospel the Temple confrontation with Jesus is the beginning of ministry.
It immediately follows a dramatic sign by Jesus in a very different setting: a wedding in Cana.
Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana was a dramatic sign.
Jesus dramatic disruption of the Temple in Jerusalem was a far more dramatic sign.
The Passover, the holiest event of the year brought thousands of Judeans to Jerusalem.
“The Temple at the Passover time would have been an unbelievably loud, crowded, and busy place. Pilgrims from throughout Palestine and [dispersed places] came to Jerusalem three times a year for prayer, sacrifice, and payment of tithes….The normally noisy Jerusalem would at Passover be transformed into a cacophony of caterwauling, as animals, vendors, and money changers…cried out over the noise coming from the multitudes. This was the scene into which Jesus proceeded” (Wes Howard-Brook, Becoming Children of God, 83).

In the temple Jesus found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, take these out of here! Stop making [God’s] house a marketplace! (verses 14-16).

All the gospels report this dramatic temple scene, none more vividly than John’s gospel.
This account adds that Jesus “made a whip of cords and drove all of them out…”
Then Jesus overturned the money pots and tables.
It was a wild scene, no doubt about it.
But the true meaning of Jesus’ Temple disruption is wildly missed by most references to it.
Jesus’ disorientation of the Temple shakes the foundations and challenges institutional authority.

On a Christian radio station in April 2003, talking about Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq,
I kept returning to Jesus as the authority for peace witness against war not American politics.
The talk show host as usual pulled out the Jesus-used violence-in-the-Temple trump card.
An angry Jesus used violence in the Temple justifying violence to wage war.
That singular claim to ‘Jesus used violence and so must we’ is tragically wrong.
Jesus disrupted the Temple disorienting the system of authority and abuses “so embedded in its own rules and practices that it was no longer open to a fresh revelation from God, a temptation that exists for contemporary Christianity as for the Judaism of Jesus’ day” (Gail R. O’Day, NIB, 545)

Judean religious authorities demanded of Jesus, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
They demand a sign as in “What authority do you have to disorient the Temple system?”
Jesus is the sign!
Jesus is the sign of God’s revelation and reorientation of right worship and right living.
Jesus’ words about destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days is reorients God’s people to the life, death, and resurrection as the new pattern of life and faith.

Amy’s sign with the children from the commandment to “keep the Sabbath holy”
is to call us to a Sabbath rhythm of right worship so that our eyes are trained to see
and our lives keep being reoriented to this pattern of life-death-resurrection with Jesus.

Paul as disorientation and reorientation – 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

At the beginning of the First Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul confirms that Jesus
is the disorientation that reorients our world. As Paul often does, he does so with challenging as well as poetic words: “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom” for in Jesus God is revealing the foolishness of the world’s wisdom.

This is not a word of support for oppression, exploitation, and violence but a condemnation.
Jesus is God’s sign for life — the sign of the cross which looms ahead.
We continue on our Lenten journey with Jesus being disoriented and reoriented to God.

Where do I sign? What is our sign?

That is the gospel – the good news of Jesus for us today.
Have you noticed these three Sundays in Lent that the gospel is “signed?”
Each Sunday someone scripts the gospel in their own handwriting ahead of time,
brings it to church, reads it in worship and then signs their name to it and leaves it on the altar.
Cheryl did the first Sunday in Lent, Bob did last Sunday, and Carl did today.
The next three Sundays in Lent someone else will do the same.
If you would like to scribe, read, sign the gospel on March 25 or April 1, please let me know.
Their signing the gospel is personal, yes, but it is also a communal “signing” God’s word for us.
Most of all it is a recognition that Jesus is God’s sign for us and for the world.
To our theme question: “Where do I sign?” – we sign on with Jesus.

For the past two Sundays our “act of response” in worship was a signing act.
You came and signed your name or a name to hold in prayer on the “Sign Here” wall.
Step-by-step, Sunday-by-Sunday, on our Lenten journey with Jesus we are “signing on.”

Our “act of response” for this worship is in response to a question.
What “foolish” act is God calling you to sign on to and live out?
What “disorientation” and/or “reorientation” is Jesus calling/confronting you to sign on to?
Reflect in silence (2 min) on how you Jesus is disorienting and reorienting you.
“What “foolish” action is God calling you to sign up for?”
Write it on the 3×5 card (on chair) in words or image or leave blank as an prayerful intention.

God Remembers: to Name and to Bless

Weldon Nisly — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:26:07 +0000

TEXTS: Genesis 17:1-16, Psalm 22:23-31, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38

What are we to make of God’s covenant promise to make Abram “exceedingly numerous” and “the ancestor of a multitude of nations?” Is being “exceedingly numerous” God’s blessing to “be fruitful and multiply” as in creation? Some have heard that creation blessing to be God’s blessing to birth many children. Some have heard being “an ancestor to a multitude of nations” to be God’s blessing for empire.

God’s covenant is not a blessing to be dominant people or dominate nations. God has another more life-giving covenant promise and purpose.

God remembers the Covenant and Names and Blesses — Genesis 17

Here in Seattle Mennonite Church we are in the process of naming and blessing what God has and is setting before us. Our congregational restructuring vision and process is naming what God is doing among us in a way that blesses the gifts we are given so the church may be a blessing. It is to know ourselves in the covenant God established long ago with Noah and then with Abraham and Sarah and their offspring forever. We are God’s covenant people named and blessed so that we extend God’s blessing to the ends of the earth and future generations.

This is the sign of the covenant….When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. Genesis 9:12a, 16

God remembers the covenant God has made with all creatures on earth.
After the flood, as we heard last Sunday, God spoke to Noah,
naming a covenant God made with all creatures on earth.
The sign of the covenant is the “bow” — or as we know it, the rainbow.

As Amy said last Sunday, the rainbow is God’s sign so God remembers the covenant.

God spoke to Noah, saying, “This is the sign of the covenant….”
Then God repeats the rainbow covenant sign three times and concludes by repeating,
“This is the sign of the covenant….”
God is doing something significant in giving a sign and a covenant.

I repeat it as a significant sign and precursor for this Sunday’s scriptures.
We enter now into the next step of God’s covenant story in Genesis.

“I am God Almighty,” God said to Abram, “Walk before me and be blameless.”
God continues, “I will make my covenant between me and you,
and will make you exceedingly numerous.” (Gen 17:2).
Abram fell on his face before God and God repeats the covenant blessing:
“This is my covenant with you; you shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.”

What are we to make of God’s covenant promise to make Abram “exceedingly numerous” and “the ancestor of a multitude of nations?”

Is being “exceedingly numerous” God’s blessing to “be fruitful and multiply” as in creation?
Some have heard that creation blessing to be God’s blessing to birth many children.
Some have heard being “an ancestor to a multitude of nations” to be God’s blessing for empire.

God’s covenant is not a blessing to be dominant people or dominate nations.
God has another more life-giving covenant promise and purpose.
God’s covenant is a naming purpose and blessing promise.
Blessing is to “speak well of” and “advocate for” and “transmit goodness” upon another.
As the covenant sign God renames Abram, giving him the new name Abraham.
“No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham;
for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations” (Gen 17:5).

God continues the covenant naming and blessing not only for Abraham but for all generations:
“I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you…” (Gen 17:7).

God also gave Sarai the new name Sarah and promised to bless her with child for the next generation and all future generations to come(17:15-16).

Now they have new names and new blessing still without knowing how all this will come to be. Abraham and Sarah have put their complete trust in God and stepped out in faith with God. They trust God’s naming and blessing without knowing where God will take them.

Abraham lived into God’ covenant without eyes to see the future “children of Abraham.”
Actually Abraham laughs at God here just as Sarah laughs a short time later at the thought of bearing a son and future generations while being old and barren.

Abraham and Sarah discover the truth of God’s answer to their question about how this will be.
God’s answer comes in a question, “Is there anything too extraordinary for God to do?” (18:14).
Abraham and Sarah lived well into that question trusting God’s naming and blessing covenant.

Children of Abraham and Sarah named and blessed

Last Sunday our act of response was to come and sign our name on the wall.
Our Lenten theme is “Where do I sign?

To give you a little time to prepare, I want to identify our act of response which will follow.
In the tradition of Abraham and Sarah having new names, you will be invited to come and sign another name or a blessing or prayer on the wall. I will explain it more fully in a few minutes.

Paul retelling the Abraham and Sarah covenant story – Romans 4:13-25

Other biblical witnesses have signed on with God’s covenant. The Apostle Paul in the Letter to the Romans rehearses Abraham and Sarah’s signing on in faith to God’s covenant.
As Paul says, Abraham and Sarah “grew strong in faith and gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what God had promised” (Romans 4:20b-21).

By-the-way, Paul’s name identity changed from Saul to Paul after his conversion.
Paul says that God is fulfilling God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah and all generations.
Paul identified the God of Abraham and Sarah as the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
This God is trustworthy and true as the covenant God of naming and blessing.

Jesus foretells his death and resurrection – Mark 8:31-38

It is to this Jesus whom God raised from the dead that we turn to in Mark’s gospel.
The gospel heard today follows Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ of God.
For the third time Jesus foretells that he would undergo great suffering, be killed and rise again.

Peter, Jesus’ disciple, vehemently rebuked Jesus for predicting his death and resurrection.
Jesus then rebukes Peter, naming Peter’s refusal listen to Jesus as the choice to listen to Satan.

Then Jesus names the gospel in a nutshell: He will be rejected, killed, and rise from the dead.
Just as Abraham and Sarah live God’s covenant,
so Jesus lives God’s covenant and is God’s covenant.
Jesus calls us, Abraham and Sarah’s descendants, into the covenant.
We are given a choice and not all choose covenant life; some choose to kill the covenant.
Jesus names the heart of the gospel not just to the disciples but to the crowds.
If you want to follow Jesus, you must set aside your own self: false self, ego, self-serving needs; and take up the cross of the covenant journey with Jesus and follow.
If you try to save your own life you will lose it.
But if you lose your life for Jesus’ sake you will find true life.

This paradox of faith and following is Abraham and Sarah living God’s covenant.
This paradox of faith and following is Jesus’ call to descendants of Abraham and Sarah.

It is a call to life and death.
It is a call that bids us come and die.
It is a call that we choose to live or not to live.

As Bonhoeffer said, “Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus’ death. They turn their living into dying….The cross is not the terrible end of a pious life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads to death.” (Discipleship, 87)

It is death to the way of violence.
It is death to having control.
It is death to knowing the answers and the end.
It is life in God’s reign already inaugurated in Jesus although not yet fulfilled.
It is life in communion with Jesus and Jesus’ community.
It is life in God’s covenant named and blessed as Abraham and Sarah’s descendents forever.
This is the Lenten journey with Jesus.
We go with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross as we will see on the journey ahead.
We cannot know the way just as Abraham and Sarah did not know the way.
We can follow in faith just as Abraham and Sarah did.
We are God’s covenant people named and blessed to be a blessing on the earth.
Our naming and blessing is personal and communal.
As a community of faith we are in a season of naming and blessing a re-visioned church.
As people of faith our Lenten journey with Jesus offers us a new naming and blessing.

Where do I sign? – An Act of worship in movement

If you were here last Sunday you remember being invited to “sign on” the wall.
It was our act of worship to “sign on” and “sign here” as we began Lent.
Today we have a second-signing invitation and act of response to “sign here.”
If you did not sign your name last Sunday because you were not ready or were not here,
you are invited to sign your name on the “Sign here” wall in moment.
If you did sign last Sunday you are invited to sign again.
In the manner of Abram’s name change to Abraham and Sarai’s name change to Sarah,
you are invited to sign a new name on the signing wall.
It may be your middle name or a nick name or your e-mail name or a name you hold dear.
It may be the name of a person you hold in prayer in this Lenten season.
Or it may be a blessing you wish to offer or receive (e.g., beloved, called, welcome, peace, joy, justice, holy one, companion, follower of Jesus).
It may be any name or blessing or prayer on your heart this Sunday or Lenten season.

Since I have had some time to think about it during the week let me share the name I will sign.
It is a name dear to me that I rarely share. My Benedictine Oblate name is Godfrey.
In the Abraham and Sarah tradition, when one takes monastic vows one takes on a new name.
In my Oblate vow a decade ago I took the name Godfrey not because it begins with God but because Godfrey Diekman was a monk whom I met only once when he was in his 90s. He died less than a year later. In his long life Godfrey called the church to radical reform especially in how worship shapes us to follow Jesus in God’s reign seeking God’s justice and the peace of Christ in the world.

In silence of the next few minutes come and “sign here” as we mediate on God’s covenant of naming as a sign of joining our ancestors in faith Abraham and Sarah blessing all generations.

The Rainbow Connection, a sermon to begin Lent

Amy Epp — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 06:10:33 +0000

Genesis 9:8-17
Mark 1:9-15

In some ways it’s an odd way to begin Lent, with a rainbow. I think of Lent as sort of drab, colorless, a time of ashes and mourning, of barren wilderness. In our worship space we’ve chosen a monochromatic pallet as we prepared the scroll. And yet the lectionary calls out God’s rainbow promise on this first Sunday. A covenant with all creation and all generations. And the skies break open with promise too in the Gospel text and proclaim God’s love and a new beginning, God’s kingdom. This is how Lent begins. With joy.I read in a blog this week that giving up Facebook for Lent is “so 2009.” It’s true, I was not being original at all when I decided that that is what I will give up in Lent 2012. I have tried other fasts in the past – last year I tried to give up coffee and failed miserably…I don’t think I lasted a week. And I think part of the problem was that I didn’t think about a way to use the fast in a creative and generative way – that would renew and refresh – it just left me longing for caffeine. This year, I decided to use that longing for connection that I often find in Facebook to make a real and physical connection to my friends. I issued and invitation for addresses and I am making cards and propping up the failing postal service by sending them the old-fashioned way. When I pulled out glue and scissors and paper this week it was not with a mournful or longing heart but with joy. There is not much I like more than sticking things together to make pictures. In fact, I love to make things, yet rarely take time to do so.

God makes and sends her own kind of message in chapter 9 of Genesis. The God who has just cause devastation on a global scale, looks at her children, paints the sky with a bow and pronounces covenant. Now, if you listened carefully – or maybe you heard it even if you didn’t’ listen carefully, because whoever wrote this really hits you over the head with it – you might have heard the repetition again and again and again and again of certain words and phrases. Almost verbatim we heard over and over: covenant – seven times we hear the word covenant – all of creation, never again. And what is the sign? A bow in the clouds.

Anyone who has taken 4th grade science or seen the cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon knows that a rainbow is just light reflected through a prism. But it’s also an image that has captured our imaginations in a way that is almost unequaled. Kermit the Frog strummed his banjo in 1979 and sang:

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

And what’s on the other side?

Rainbows are visions but only illusions,

and rainbows have nothing to hide.

So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it.

I know they’re wrong, wait and see.

Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,

the lovers, the dreamers and me

It’s the power of the rainbow – the way we can’t help but stare in awe and take a picture or comment on it to passersby – that the genesis writer knew to be true.

The power of a story like this is that it continues to capture imagination and truth even now. God captured the connection and promise in light and color.

The world is not all light and joy, of course. We heard a promise that God would never again send a flood and yet a year ago we were watching images of swaths of the Japanese coastline being eaten up by earthquake and tsunami. Before that the broken levies in New Orleans, before that Indonesia. To say nothing of earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and ice storms. Disasters happen. People die. There is much to mourn. There is, indeed, much for which to repent, as we think of how human impact on the environment may have led to some of the ‘natural’ disasters of late.

But God’s promise to us still stands. There is something else that God repeats in this story. And it has to do with remembering. God says, “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant that God has made with every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” Maybe you noticed. God doesn’t say, “when the bow is in the clouds, you will remember.” Although we do. God says, “I will remember.”

Walter Brueggeman talks about the flood changing God. I think we often consider God static and unchanging, but after the experience of the flood, Brueggeman says, God’s mind was changed. He says, “The flood has effected no change in humankind.” In others words, here God has tried this method of trying to fix humanity, and yet people are still people, making the same bad and destructive choices. And I challenge you to go home and read the verses right after this story for a weird and not-often quoted example of brokenness in family and relationship. Noah may have been upright and righteous, but his family had problems too.

“But,” Brueggeman goes on, “it [the flood] has effected an irreversible change in God, who now will approach his creation with an unlimited patience and forbearance. To be sure, God has been committed to his creation from the beginning. But this narrative traces a new decision on the part of God. Now the commitment is intensified. For the first time, it is marked by grief, the hurt of betrayal. It is now clear that such a commitment on God’s part is costly. The Godworld relation is not simply that of strong God and needy world. Now it is a tortured relation between a grieved God and a resistant world. And of the two, the real changes are in God.” * (Brueggeman, Genesis. 1982)

When Joe and I got married, like most people who get married, we exchanged wedding bands. I don’t think we actually said anything when we gave each other our rings during our wedding, but when I perform a wedding ceremony I usually invite the couple so say something like, “This ring is a sign of my unending love for you.” That commitment we made to each other was signified in this little piece of metal, and we’ve now been apart seven months, but I only have to look at my ring, or feel it on my finger to remember the commitment we’ve made to each other.

That’s just to one other person. God swept her rainbow across the sky with a promise to Noah, Noah’s family, all people, all animals, the earth, everything. And every time is appears, we can be reminded and tell the story of God’s love again, of God’s ‘unlimited patience and forbearance.’

My first year in Seattle, Joe and I went to the Sasquatch music festival at the Gorge Amphitheater. The weather was insane. I mean really insane: hot, cold, hail, rain, blazing sun, wind. There might even have been funnel clouds poking down out of the sky. I found a Seattle PI article that said. “It was as if a scowling Zeus, the weather god, were hurling lightning and flinging hail at hapless concertgoers.” While we were watching the performer Matishayu a giant rainbow broke out on the sky. It was one of those really bright ones that just makes everything stop and the Gorge is gorgeous to begin with, but add those low hanging clouds and the sun breaking through, and everything is land and sky and the brilliance of the rainbow. Wow.

Now, let me tell you about this Matisyahu. He is an orthodox Jewish (white) rapper and reggae artist, who can beat-box like nobody’s business and who weaves themes from his faith into his music. He stopped his set when that rainbow came out and he remembered God’s covenant to tens of thousands of gathered hippies and hipsters and we were rapt. He told that story and everyone listened – and they should because the promise is for them – for all of us. God’s signature, clear as anything right there in the sky over the Gorge.

God entered into a covenant relationship with humanity, with the earth and with all of creation. If that was, as Brueggeman says, an intensity of the commitment that God has to creation, then with Jesus, God intensifies the commitment still further. Jesus was a renewal of the covenant promise. Here, God says, I’ll remind you. It seems like we need to have this conversation again. Let’s turn it up a notch. I place myself in him. Listen to him, the one I love, the one who brings me joy. He has a message for you and it is Good News. A new version of the Bible that I’ve been using lately is the Common English Bible. In Mark 1:15, this translation reads, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives and trust this good news!”

“Live the covenant life. Trust it. Trust me!” God is not bent on destruction but connection – connection to humanity and to creation. And that good news was there all along, there before Jesus and embodied in him.

And so, in the midst of the world in which we live, full as it is with the flood of war and destruction and disaster, we begin Lent with hope and a promise. My Lenten commitment is going to be to personal connections to the people in my life and the joy of creativity. As Matisyahu says in his recent song “One Day,” “keep on movin’ though the waters stay ragin’.” God’s movement is for us, what is our movement for God?

The theme for this season, as we read it above me, is “Where do I sign?” The hymn ‘The love of God’ sings ‘The love of God is greater far/than tongue or pen can ever tell” and later, “To write the love of God above/ Would drain the ocean dry;/Nor could the scroll contain the whole,/ Though stretched from sky to sky.” The rainbow stretched across the sky cannot contain God’s love but it is a sign of it. God has signed on with humanity an everlasting commitment. Lent is a time when we think about the kinds of commitments we make to God. Many people make a specific commitment to a spiritual practice during Lent, but maybe that’s asking too much. Maybe this moment will be a time for you to become more mindful of God’s presence, maybe it will be a time to renew the covenant you made at your baptism, maybe it will be a simple commitment to accept the promise that God has made to you.

If you would like to ‘sign on’ to accepting God’s promise to you or if you want to mark a promise to God and self for the Lenten season, I invite to you sign your name on the wall here. There are markers. Children, too. If you can write your name and want to say yes to God’s love for you, come on up. This is as close as we will ever get to an alter call in this congregation. We are always being asked to sign up for, sign onto or sign for things but how many of those petitions or contacts or mailing lists promise unlimited patience and unconditional acceptance. Song 81 in Sing the Journey is a simple melody inviting God to set her seal upon our hearts. We’ll sing that together in repetition and as we do, you are invited. Come write your name with God’s!