Is anything too wonderful for God?

     I must confess this week’s sermon prep could have gone much better.  I generally first read the assigned readings on Monday and then use “free” time to pray about and figure out sermons.  As you all know, sometimes I don’t land on a sermon until Saturday evening, but that’s the general process.  This week was just busy.  There were no crises or major events, just a filled week.  It was so busy, I thought Wednesday was Thursday for a large part of the day and was really, really disappointed when people pointed out to me that tomorrow was Thursday or that I still had Wednesday evening to get through.

     I share that with y’all in part as confession and in part as letting you in on the process.  The process part is probably pretty obvious.  The confession part may be less so.  Because I started late, I was behind the 8-ball on illustrations.  Now, the illustrations came quickly enough that I am certain that’s where we needed to be this week.  Unfortunately, when I went to Adventers about using their story as the perfect illustration for our reading of Genesis this morning, and they declined to allow me to share their stories with you, I was screwed.  I could not think of any generic sermon illustrations.  All the illustrations dancing in my head were focused on Adventers’ stories.

     So, today, we are really going to have to trust the Holy Spirit and the community, the koinonia of the parish.  I will speak in general terms.  If God is working among us, you may remember or hear later the perfect illustrations.  If neither of that happens, then I am truly sorry.  And if you are visiting, we usually do have a better experience, so please try us again next week!

     Our story today takes place in the midst of a great story and in an interesting location, much of which, people do not know or seem too quick to forget.  Abraham and Sarah are near the end of the more than two decade walk with God before they begin to see the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises to them.  It began, of course, way back in chapter 12 and however many miles to the north in the land of Ur.  They left Ur and followed God to what you and I know will become the Promised Land.  Just to remind us a bit of the Covenant, God has promised Abraham that He will make Abraham a great nation, that his descendants will inhabit the Land before him, and that his seed will be a blessing to the world.

     In the midst of the unfolding of the Covenant, there have been a number of adventures, anyone of which could have seemingly obviated God’s promises to Abraham and Sarah.  Background to all the challenges facing them is their age and the promise of a son.  Abraham and Sarah are rightly celebrated in the Church for their faithfulness, but their story has its ups and downs, much like our own, in their walk with God.

     Our story picks up today after God has instructed Abraham to circumcise himself and all of his male household.  As a reminder to you, circumcision was an outward sign of the spiritual and inward grace that demonstrated both to Abraham and his descendants and to the world around them that they were God’s Covenant people.  Those our Jewish forebears would not speak in the same liturgical language that we use, it was a kind of precursor to baptism.  Whenever men went to the bathroom or engaged in sexual relations with their wives, they would be reminded of the Covenant, right?  No, they were sinners just like us, but that certainly was one of the purposes of the action.

     Put it like this, you ladies who have had husbands, is there anything more important to us menfolk?  Whoa!  Whoa! Whoa!  Why all the laughing and elbows?  This is serious anthropology!  I mean, is there anything you cannot get your husband to do apart from sex, food, and a great bathroom?  Ok, we are chuckling, but it is an ironic humor, right?  It’s very important to us.  Watch a baseball game to see how many times the athletes check in to see if everything is still there!

     All joking aside, though, do you not find it interesting that God chose circumcision as the outward sign?  Every time they went to the bathroom, every time they slept with their wives, heck, every time they itched or rearranged things, they should have been reminded of the Covenant God had made with them.  There are, of course, other reasons—it’s protection against misogyny of blaming Eve, and thereby women, for everything is another—but you get the gist.

     I share that reminder because the guys at the Y were certainly interested in God’s selection.  Why not an earring?  Why not a nose ring?  Wouldn’t a tattoo have worked just as well?  Wouldn’t a good beating serve the same purpose?  But our story today occurs a day or few days after Abraham’s circumcision.  There’s a bit of serious commentary in the story as well as a bit of humor.  Abraham is laying around under the trees because things need to heal.  It’s best to stay out of the sun because things don’t need to sweat.  But can you imagine visually, now, the scene as Abraham, a freshly circumcised man in his nineties, runs to great the three men and to instruct Sarah and the servants?  I have a hard time picturing an old man running, but an old man freshly circumcised?  Forget it!

     Speaking of the trees, let’s spend a moment on them.  If your translation at home tells you it is the oaks at Mamre, you know your translators were influenced by the KJV.  The terebinth was the tree from which one got turpentine.  They are fairly common and grow well in present day Israel.  Someone told me in seminary they were related to cashews, but I don’t know if that is true.

     You should be more interested in where the copse or forest or whatever it is is growing.  Mamre has a fascinating history in the world and the biblical account.  In truth, archaeologists argue over its likely location.  There is a site today that is called Mamre that you can visit, but scholars continue to argue over the accuracy.  Some “ite” religions seem to have thought the copse or the big tree there dated to the creation of the world.  Certainly, it is a location for Abraham’s direct interactions with God.  God spoke to him at Mamre way back in chapter 13 and then again here in our chapter.  It is a location that seems to involve the unfolding of the Covenant and a place where God chooses to educate His faithful servants, Abraham and Sarah.  But in truth, it’s location is lost to us.

     Except . . . Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian has an interesting account.  He shares with readers that some rabbis and priests taught that Mamre was the very location where the Altar was erected in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of God in Jerusalem.  In other words, that tradition argued that the location of the Temple marks a spot on earth that has often served as Holy Ground, a unique spot in all the world where God chooses to speak to His people.  It will make that question that the angels ask all the more important, if it is true.

     Speaking of the angels—so three men show up in the heat of the day.  Alarm bells should be sounding in our brains.  If you have ever visited the Mediterranean lands, how much work goes on during the heat of the day?  We have this new invention called air conditioning.  Can you imagine working without it four thousand years ago?  Can you imagine walking in it?

     So, the three guys show up, Abraham sees and runs to them to invite them to relax.  His offer is one of hospitality.  Now, scholars talk about the inviolate nature of hospitality as if it was etched in stone.  It was not.  People are people and violated it just like they violate every other law, custom, or observance.  I am certain Abraham was really not feeling like battling anybody so near his circumcision.  It’s a safe bet that neither were his men.  In offering the water and food, Abraham is preventing a battle.  If the men accept, they are taking an oath that they will accept what is offered.  They expect no harm to come to themselves, as Abraham has extended the invitation, and they, in turn, will do no harm to those under their host’s protection.

     Now, make no mistake, Abraham’s hospitality is extravagant.  They will be able to wash the dirt of travel off, eat bread, and even eat meat.  We have talked many times how meat was a delicacy in the ANE, so the offer of a fatted calf to two strangers is both a sign of Abraham’s growing opulent wealth and his unrivaled hospitality.  It would be like me inviting a couple of you to dinner and offering you some Dom Perignon as a pre-dinner drink.  Abraham is sparing no expense, to use the modern language.

     It is at this point, of course, that people are shocked by Abraham’s offer of hospitality.  Why offer fresh bread and meat when water and wine will do?  Why go through all the work during the heat of the day when everyone would understand?  The answer, I’m fairly certain, lies in Abraham’s state of mind.  What has just happened?  God has, to use our language, sworn His updated covenant with Abraham.  He has unveiled more than He did six chapters ago, and He has chosen to mark Abraham and His people to signify to them and to others that they belong to Him.  I suppose the only modern equivalent I can think of would be for us to have been present at the Last Supper and in the room behind the lock doors and the Ascension.  Abraham has experienced the grace of God in a profound and life-changing way.  The Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, has promised that through His direct line all the world will be blessed.  You and I live in that period where Jesus says we are blessed because we have not seen.  Abraham has seen and experienced and it affect on him is profound!  Did I mention he was a late nineties year old man freshly circumcised and running to greet the men?  God’s grace is overpowering everything he understands, just as it should be overpowering or transforming everything we think we understand this side of that Empty Tomb!

     Back to the men.  I need to point out to you that nowhere does the story claim that the men in question were clothed like typical angels.  There’s no radiant white suits or wings to cause Abraham to perceive them as angels.  They appear to be travelers.  Abraham’s offer seems to be reflective of his character, simply enlarged or transformed by his experience with the Lord. 

     Our first unusual bit is their inquiry after Sarah?  How do they know she exists?  How do they know her name?  So far as we know, she remains out of the heat in the tent.  Is it possible the men asked after her?  Sure, somebody had to make the dough and bake the bread.  Is it possible she eventually came out and greeted the men?  Sure.  Sarah was not one to shirk from anybody, though her beauty was renowned.  Seemingly out of the blue, though, the one man promises that when he returns next year, she will have born Abraham a son.

     Sarah, of course, laughs.  What should we expect?  She’s in her late 90’s.  Abraham is in his late 90’s.  Things like that simply cannot happen.  A few of the more mature ladies and more mature men, if we ever truly mature, have commented when we speak of this in Bible studies with “thanks be to God!”  We understand her laughter, and all its possible nuances.  On the one hand, it seems unnatural.  On the other hand, parenting is for those with a bit more energy and maybe less experience.  How many of us knew what we were getting into before we had our first kids?  Great.  How many of us were really unsurprised by how easy it was to be a parent?  Where did all the hands go?  Sarah’s laughter even likely includes bitter irony.  She knows the women have talked about her.  No doubt she has walked in on conversations or overheard them.  It was clearly her fault that righteous Abraham had no child.  To make those matters worse, once she gives Hagar to Abraham to father a child on her and he does, it proves the rumors and accusations true!  Given her culture and the time, I would bet another fatted calf she had internalized and now believed the rumors and whispers.  The unnamed man, after a bit of instruction or accusation, asks Sarah and us that question that echoes across time and space and all humanity.  Is anything too wonderous for God? 

     When we hear this question in English, we probably immediately go to big events like parting Red Sea’s and resurrecting the dead.  Often, when we think of God and wonder, we associate what we think are the great or magnificent displays of His power.  The Hebrew word used by the angel, though, palar’ , captures both the ostentatious or grand displays of power and intimate, more personal demonstrations of His power.  As post-Resurrection members of Abraham’s family, we might say the Hebrew word encompasses both the transcendence and the immanence of God’s redeeming power.

     It is here, of course, that your stories of the last two or three weeks really jumped out at me and made me think of them as perfect illustrations.  We have had what recipients have described as miraculous healings.  One is/was pretty cool.  Both the person and I are, let’s say suspicious, that maybe the pain prayed about will return, that it’s not a real miracle.  But, now that we are a couple weeks into that experience, even if it returned today, the Adventer is thanking God for the respite, promising if it is His will that he or she bear that cross to His glory, he or she can do that.  Another so-called minor healing has also occurred.  The person describes it as minor and, I think, medicine would, too.  But the impact is the same.  Nagging pain is gone, and the individual knows God’s tender loving care more intimately than before.

     We have had cool provision stories and cool reconciliation stories in our midst this month, stories that, as pastor, I wish I had been allowed to share because they remind us that nothing, absolutely nothing is beyond God’s care or power.  He has tasked us with sharing with the generations that come after with the works that He has done.  Yes, the Resurrection is a great story to share with others, but our personal stories of His redeeming grace in our lives are powerful and personal, too!

     So, I am stuck in that terrible predicament of using the Gospel found in Genesis.  What ever will we do?  Is anything too wondrous for God?  Is anything too great or too small for God?  Our story of redemption in the lives of Abraham and Sarah testify to a resounding “NO!”  Is the cosmic, grand, transcendent sense of His redeeming grace, the birth of Isaac is the first step in the next generation that will eventually lead to Abraham’s ultimate seed, Jesus of Nazareth!  Through Abraham’s faithful obedience and the Son’s Incarnation, God will rescue all who call upon Him from sin and death.  That’s a great big solution to a great big problem.  But such is God’s love and attentiveness and power that even by comparison “little things” can be healed or redeemed, too.

     As a couple, Abraham and Sarah have made a real mess of some things because of their efforts to take God’s promises into their own hands rather than trusting in His attentiveness to the details of our lives.  First they adopt an heir and then they have Abraham father a son on a slave.  Though their solutions to the problem of an heir made sense intellectually and culturally, they were still left with bitterness.  Abraham wanted a child of his own flesh; Sarah wanted a child of her own flesh.  These other solutions were just the best they could do in their current condition.  God, of course, had no limits.  They needed time to begin to understand who He was, what He could do, and why He was trustworthy.  When the time finally came, when they knew Him and who He is and was, He acted.  And against all the science and culture of that day and age and our own, He gave them their own son, a source of laughter to them both!

     Still, He was not finished.  I spoke briefly of the blame and shame experienced by Sarah.  It was the woman’s job to bear children.  Any questions folks might have had about Abraham were alleviated by the birth of Ishmael.  All the blame, all the reasons for God not giving them a child had to do with her.  We know, because of our perspective as readers of the story, and a bit better understanding of the questions and problems of fertility, that it was not at all her fault.  Yet, despite all our knowledge and despite our perspective, we can certainly empathize with her feelings of shame and guilt.  Do not raise your hands, but how many of us present wondered at one point that a lost pregnancy, a miscarriage, was our own fault?  How many women were convinced they did something to terminate the pregnancy or, worse, cause God to terminate the pregnancy?  How many fathers dealt with similar grief?  If only I had not made her so mad.  If only I had better provided for her?

     The gift of Isaac, while wonderful for you and me because it led eventually to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His redeeming work, was grace beyond grace for both Sarah and Abraham.  As they shared their story of these encounters with God, what do you people think people thought of them.  Worse, as they took measures into their own hands and created difficulties for themselves and God, what must they have thought?  I deserve this.  This is my punishment for passing my wife off as my sister.  Maybe folks are right and we are crazy?  You and I rightly give thanks for the birth of Isaac because his birth was that early step in the journey that led to our salvation, but for Sarah and Abraham that child was the source of joy and laughter and fulfilment and ultimate instruction that God cares about everything in our lives.  Period.  He is the loving Father who loves our drawings on the refrigerator and the run on stories of our imaginations.  And He is the loving Father who knows the right medicine, the right-sized bandage, and even the strength of the hug we need when we are wounded.  Most amazingly and what ought to transform our perspective of this world, of others, and especially of ourselves as it did Abraham and Sarah so long ago, is that loving attentiveness He has for us, each and every one of lowly us, that He would pay any attention to us, let alone work to redeem us, that we might become heralds of His grace, trumpeters of that incredible joy welling up within us, that others might turn to Him and join this crazy family!

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†

When were you rescued from the ditch?

     After I had finished riding and lifting yesterday in the wonderful heat and humidity, Karen had sent me an arm bar text that said if I picked up some specific things she needed, she would make us all some French Onion Soup.  I don’t think any Adventers have ever gotten to sample her French Onion because . . . well, because we McVey’s scarf it down!  Suffice it to say though, if she ever offers you any, say yes!  The point of that, though, is not her cooking.  Rather, I wanted you to be a bit more empathetic about the lady’s misgivings.  I was disheveled from my shower.  I had showered, but I had no brush.  Plus, even though I had spent some extended time in a cool shower trying to cool off, I had lifted and ridden about fifteen miles, I am certain I was still a bit flushed.  Three of those miles I had ridden had a mile of 8% and a mile of 9% gradient.  It was not the hardest climbing I will do this month, but it was rather painful.

     As I was walking into Publix, I noticed a lady struggling with her two boys.  One seemed about two and the other was under three months, or so I thought.  If you are new to Advent, I have seven kids, so I am pretty good for a guy noticing when babies can hold up their heads or schooch around or unbuckle themselves.  The toddler was simply being a boy, all boy I should say.  I don’t know if it was the heat, the low from tropical Storm Barry, missed nap time, or something else, but he was clearly a handful.  In the great tradition of the righteous Pharisee looking down on the sinner praying to God, I gave thanks to God that the toddler was not my handful that afternoon!

     Then I got the nudge.  She was really struggling.  I don’t think she would actually have killed her son despite her gallows’ humor in our later conversation, but he was an endangered species.  So I stopped and asked her if I could load her groceries into her car while she got the boys buckled in.  She looked at me as if . . . well, as if I was unkempt, flushed, and generally anyone who should be trusted.  I recognized that look and the worry I was a creep or criminal, so I told her I understood my appearance was not my best.  I had just worked out for a couple hours over at the Y and pointed in its direction so she knew I at least knew where the Y was.  I told her I normally have my cross on, as I was a priest, but I don’t wear it to work out.

     The war between dubious and needing help played out on her face.  She NEEDED the help, but only creeps do this kind of thing.  I was probably after her or her car or her kids or her groceries.  I told her that was my Suburban since my pilot was in the shop, so I was definitely not looking to trade down.  I had enough kids that I was not going to steal hers.  I was there for some specific items for my wife: Vidalia onions, gruyere, and French baguettes.  I’m not sure which objection weighed heaviest on her mind, but she gave me the dubious ok and set about buckling the boys in.  I should mention the toddler put up a great fight, but he lost out to safety and his own good in the end.  Ah, I see we have a number of parents who have been there, done that, too!

     As I was loading into the back of her minivan, she kept an eye on the boys and an eye on me.  She came back around after buckling them in to “make sure the bread and eggs” were on top.  My guess is that she was still half convinced I was there to steal groceries.  I suggested she start the car and turn on the A/C for the boys.  Neither of us wanted the police to show up with them in that car that hot.  I could see the headlines of no good deed going unpunished: parish priest and young mother arrested for kids being left in Nashville heat.

     She started the car, came back to watch me finish.  As I walked the cart over to the rack thing, she walked with me to ask a couple questions.  Why did you do this?  Are you really a priest?  Wait, if you’re a priest, how do you have a wife and kids?  You have two sets of kids born within 26 months of each other?  It really does get better?  Once I had explained I was an Episcopalian, Anglican, Church of England priest, that I had seven kids, and engaged her other questions, she apologized for not trusting me.  I reminded her that she needed to be a great steward of those boys, and I understood why she though men who looked like me might be sketchy.  I took no offense.

     Why?  I asked her what.  She said Why did you do this?  Nobody does stuff like this any more?  I told her it was a God thing.  I noticed her struggles and thanked Him that we had survived those struggles with our own.  He’d nudged me.  I guessed that part of it was empathy.  It was a real chore for Karen to get out with the kids sometimes.  I know how much she had wished I could be there to help, or at home to watch the kids while she escaped the asylum, or that someone would have helped her. 

     She admitted it was really weird.  Kind of in frustration and kinda out of desperation, she’d prayed to God for help.  She was going to kill the older one or worse, lose it on him in the parking lot.  I laughed with her and told her we’d all been there.  She asked if it ever really ends.  I told her with boys it ends between 3-5, but then come the teen years.  When they are not eating you out of house and home, they have attitude to spare.  She laughed nervously that I was not really making motherhood sound any better.  I told her my kids were not that old yet.  When she asked how old my oldest was and I told her 26, she lost it laughing, as did I.

     As she was making to leave, she had me approach her in the car closer.  She offered me some money “for my church.”  I went to take it and then had a better idea.  I told her to keep the money.  How about instead, when those energetic boys are pre-teens or teens and you notice an older couple, an older man or older woman, or another young mother or young father struggling like yourself today, you send them over to help them.  When they ask you why, you tell them how the older one nearly died this hot and humid day until God sent this nutty priest with seven kids to help me and save you/him.  Come on, that wasn’t God! 

     Really, you said yourself you’d said a prayer just before I helped.  I told you I was exhausted and thankful that was not my life now.  You happened to be coming out as I happened to be going in.  You happened to catch the eye of one of the many priests in Nashville with seven kids, who could empathize with the very feelings you were experiencing, not give you some ridiculous platitude about rearing children or worse, tell you their behavior was your proof you were a bad mother.  The world is so full of good deeds nowadays, that it never occurred to you to think I was a thief, a rapist, or a con man.

     Ok.  Ok.  I get it.  But it’s not like it was a real miracle?  Really, this happens all the time in your life?  She laughed ruefully again but argued it’s the powerful miracles that cause people to believe in God.  I challenged that assumption, as y’all have heard me do over and over again.  We live on this side of the Resurrection, the greatest miracle ever, and how many of us find ourselves walking apart from God in our own lives?  All of us!  If we truly believed, if we truly accepted the Resurrection, if we truly believed that God was who He said He is and will act always for our redemptive benefit, how would our lives be different?  This young mother started with she’d probably go to church more.  We rattled off a couple quick changes.  I sneaked in my help of her.  Again, she fought it was an act of God.  So I reminded her the coincidences that had to take place for it NOT to be an act of God.

     She admitted I gave her something to think about.  I invited her to come and think about it with us at Advent.  Who knows what will happen?  But I reminded her that, at the very least, she needed to pay the coincidence forward and share the story with her boys.  I told her I was certain this encounter had happened because He’d wanted it to.  Maybe it was for my benefit; but I suspected it was for the benefit of several people, including her young sons.  My sons?  I told her that in the years ahead, when her sons struggled with whether God was real and loved them, she had THE story to share with them of His loving and graceful providence toward them.  It might allay all their doubts, but the fact that she would be the one sharing the story would cause that seed to be planted deep.

     You may be wondering why I started off with a story like that today.  Usually, my practice is to share the story and its context and then to find the modern applications or illustrations.  Part of the reason that Jesus uses parables, though, as a means of instruction is that they encourage us to identify with characters in the story and learn from their perspective.  Some of the parables are known by different names depending on the emphasis of the one preaching or reading or listening.  Is the story of the older son who spends his inheritance in dissolute living before returning to his loving father the parable of the Prodigal Son or of the Loving Father or of the heard-hearted older brother?  It is each of those, right?

     Good, I see the nods.  Similarly, the parable that Jesus uses today can be engaged with from the perspective of different characters in the Bible.  It is often seen only from the perspective of the Good Samaritan, but that is by no means the way it would have been understood by the audience that heard Jesus share it.  You are cursed or blessed, depending on your perspective I suppose, from Amy Jill Levine’s work with us clergy this past spring.  Dr. Levine is a 1^st Century Temple expert at Vanderbilt.  Fortunately for all of us, she knows a number of Christians.  She shared with us that she revels in challenging the assumptions of those who claim to follow Christ and yet do not live as if they believe the Resurrection.  This is one of those passages that illustrated a larger message from different perspectives.  What did she mean?

     Who hear has heard that the lawyer in question is the bad guy or foil?  Does Jesus condemn him in the telling of this story?  No.  Is Jesus ever shy about calling people to the carpet for self-righteous, ungodly behavior?  Again, no.  So, let’s look at this, if possible, with 1^st Century Jewish eyes and hear it with their ears.

     What did Jewish lawyers do, at least in theory?  Those are all good answers, but you and I are supposed to think of righteousness in courtroom terms, right?  What were the significant courtroom battles for Jewish lawyers?  They argued over which person in a dispute more closely did as instructed by the torah.  Righteousness was perceived more as a relative term than an absolute term.  Yahweh alone was righteous.  Human beings could strive to act more as God instructed, but there was a presumption that human beings never really hit the mark.  In Paul’s language, they sinned.  Lawyers argued their clients’ cases before the elders or judges or kings or with other lawyers to try and figure out who was acting closer to God’s heart, at least that was the intent.  They argued their cases from Scripture.

     When the lawyer begins this section by asking a question of Jesus, he is publicly engaging in the behavior of his life’s calling.  Is this Jesus fellow from God?  Is He a prophet?  A charlatan?  Informed?  Ignorant?  Who is He?  We learn a bit about him because he expects eternal life as a reward—not everyone accepted that truth at that time.  Rather than chewing him out, Jesus asks what he reads there.  Idiomatically, Jesus is asking the lawyer testing Him how he interprets the Scriptures that they both read.

     The man responds with what his Jewish contemporaries know as the Shemah.  Those who came to the Bible Project last summer will remember that word, and it serves as a good commercial for our talks about wisdom literature this summer.  You and I know the shemah more as the Great Commandment and the Second as like unto it, all of us being good little Episcopalians, right?  It’s prominent in our Rite 1 liturgies.  Jesus affirms the lawyer’s interpretation and tells him he is correct.  Jesus goes on to instruct the lawyer that if he does as commanded by God, he will live.

     Again, the lawyer wants to justify himself.  You have probably heard many sermons about how Jesus is condemning the attitude of the lawyer.  Does He?  As you read this story again and again as I am preach, does Jesus call the man out for being a hypocrite?  Does Jesus provoke him in any way?  No.  Jesus seems to take the man and his questions seriously.  While we have heard it preached countless times that Jesus hated the self-righteous attitude of the lawyer, nowhere in the story does Jesus condemn his attitude.  The man’s heart seems to be aligned with his words.  Like lawyers were supposed to in his day, the man in question is truly seeking God’s will, God’s instruction.

     Though the man is not criticized by Jesus nor blasted for being a hypocrite, it does not mean the man is not in need of instruction.  Jesus tells the story of what has become the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Again, you know the story and its sermons well, right?  Who passes by first?  That’s right, the priest.  Why?  Right, because he has to lead worship.  Who passes the man by second?  That’s right, the Levite.  Why does he not stop to help the man?  Yep, he fears he is dead and does not want to be made unclean.  I’ve heard that sermon lots of times.  It makes sense.  Levites handled the vessels for worship.  Think of predecessors to our Altar Guild.  If they are unclean, they cannot handle the vessels of Temple worship properly. 

     I see the nods.  Everyone has heard a version where the crowd and lawyer would have assumed the priest and Levite had a good reason for refusing aid to the nearly dead traveler.  Then, along comes the half-breed to save the day and demonstrate to the mean Jews the heart of God, right?  Read it again.  Where are the priest and Levite headed?  Down the road to Jericho.  Are they on their way to work?  Are they on their way to lead or serve at worship?  No.  They seem to be heading home after work.  They are both going down the mountain.  Hmmmm.  If they are headed down to Jericho and have already led worship for the day, do they have a legitimate reason to ignore the need of the man in question?  Of course not.  And even were the victim dead, the priest and the Levite would still have no legitimate reason to ignore the dead!  Tobit and other mishnas as well as the historian Josephus are quick to remind us of the Jewish care for the dead and the allowances made for the care of corpses.  So, what’s going on?  What is the point Jesus is trying to drive home?

     On the one hand, there is a sense of community that you and I cannot understand in our context.  How should the story have been told, were you one of those hearing the teaching live from Jesus?  Stumped.  Do not feel bad, you should be.  When Jesus begins this story, a priest and a Levite and ______ are walking down from Jerusalem, His audience would have filled in the blank in their heads.  There is a triad at work here that we simply miss.  If I started a sermon with “Larry, Moe and _______ have this scene where they . . . ,” all of you of a certain age would fill in Curly in your minds.  You younger Adventers will have to ask the more mature Adventers about the Three Stooges.  If I started a sermon joke with the “A priest, a Protestant minister, and a ______ walk into a bar,” many of you will fill in rabbi in your minds because you have heard so many of those kinds of jokes, right?  When Jesus begins this story in this way, everyone is expecting the third person to be mentioned to be an Israelite.  In Jewish culture, Jews basically fell into one of three groups.  There were those descended from Aaron, Moses’ brother, who became the priestly caste, those descended Levi, an ancestor of Aaron, and Israelites, those who were descended from any of Jacob’s children not named Levi.  Everybody listening to Jesus’ teaching as He starts the parable is getting a lesson about community.  They expect the Rabbi to say “A priest, a Levite, and an Israelite.”  He says instead of an Israelite, a Samaritan.

     Samaritans, of course, were despised by the Jews.  Think of their relationship like Alabama and Tennessee fans.  The Samaritans did the unthinkable and married among the Gentiles left or imported into the Promised Land of the Northern Kingdom in the aftermath of the Assyrian conquest in the late 700’s BC.  From the Jewish perspective, the “left behind” Jews betrayed them and God.  Ownership of the Land was, for lack of a better analogy to us, a sacramental experience.  Ownership of the Land promised to one’s forebears was the outward sign of the inward and spiritual grace that God was with them or His favor was on them or He was keeping His covenant.  The Samaritans made things worse, from a Jewish perspective, by having their own places of worship and their own copy of Moses’ Pentateuch.  When the Jews returned, the two groups were at odds, to put it mildly.  Think of Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well, to get a better understanding.  By including the Samaritan in place of the Israelite in the story, what is Jesus doing?  He is causing all present to think of those living around them as neighbors, regardless of their bloodlines.

     We understand His teaching on an intuitive level.  It’s a silly example, by comparison, but who is a Nashvillian?  Are they only folks who have lived here all their lives?  Are they folks that have lived here a decade?  Does Nashville stretch out to Antioch or Hendersonville or Green Hills or Cool Spring?  What if somebody was one of those 80 plus ethnic groups whose parents were settled here by the federal government as part of our refugee and immigration programs?  Does their spoken language need to be a slow drawl?  Must they have a love of country music, and not that rock country, but real, serious country music?  Can they be a Nahvillian and not like hot chicken?  Must they be horrible drivers?

     Y’all are laughing, and that’s good.  You understand that we are a complex, cosmopolitan area.  One man or one woman’s Nashville is another’s Franklin or Jackson or Clarksville.  Those in Jesus’ audience, however, had an incomplete understanding of the nature of community.  To them, their neighbors were people who were ethnically the same.  Jesus, unsurprising since He is and was the Son of God and a full participant in the Trinity, had a fuller understanding of community.  In His example, we are all community.  Everyone we encounter is our brother or sister, created by God in His image.  To mistreat them is to mistreat God.  To mock them is to mock God.  And to serve them, to love them, is to love and serve God.  Jesus expanded the sense of community for the lawyer in the story and those listening to the encounter.  To use modern language, we are all in this together.  Alabama fans, Tennessee fans, Samaritans, Jews, and whatever group you want to describe.

     There’s another important lesson in this parable, though, that gets overlooked far too often.  I talked earlier how we describe Jesus’ parables from the perspective in which we are telling them.  We have thought a bit about the perspective of the lawyer, we have placed ourselves a bit in the crowd, we have considered the Levite and the priest, who I hope you see now are not really foils for the lawyer in this story.  Whose perspective have we not considered?  God’s?  No, we know, thanks to the horizontal axis of the Cross we are all in this together, we are all in need of His saving grace, each and every one of us.  Whose perspective have we ignored?  That’s right.  The guy who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead.

     How many times have you ever heard the parable described from His perspective?  When Dr. Levine asked that question of me this spring, I have to admit I could not think of a time.  Y’all are at the whims of us preachers, but we professional Christians read the Bible and the commentaries.  One of my ordination gifts was a print of this very parable, and until she asked that question that way that day, though, I must confess I had never given it much thought.  Oh, like you, I am sure the man appreciated the kindness of the Samaritan and the attentiveness of the innkeeper.  I’m sure he was probably depressed and despondent about being attacked on his way too or from Jerusalem.  How could God let this happen to him?  How would he replace or rebuild what was taken from him?  I bet there was a spiritual wedgie in being taken care of by a Samaritan.

     But, laying in the ditch and being left for dead.  Stripped of his clothes and valued possessions.  Hearing or seeing others pass by, especially if he knew they were of his tribe, what must have been going through his mind?  If no one helped him, what was the likely outcome.  Is this how I end?  Do I die here?

     We talk often about the purposes of church.  You should be coming each week primarily thank God for what He has done for you in Christ Jesus.  You should also be coming to church to be fed, taught, and fortified to do the work God has given you to do out in your patch of the wilderness.  But you should also be coming here for spiritual triage and care.  Every one of us who gathers to thank God for what He has done for us in Christ Jesus our Lord knows what it is like to have been beaten by sins.  Sometimes, it is the consequences of our own sins that leave us beaten and broken and lying beside the road of life just waiting, expecting to die; at other times, it is a consequence of the sins of those around us.  All of us know the deeper truth in this famous parable of Jesus.  Each of us has been forced to look at life through the eyes of the one left beaten by the robbers.

     In some ways, Jesus’ instruction to the lawyer and to us is very much about the Shemah, or Two Great Commandments.  Because we know the love of God, we should be thanking and worshiping and celebrating His saving grace with everything we are.  And because we recognize we are all in this thing we call life together, we recognize that all those around us are somewhere between broken and in the process of being healed.  Churches at their absolute best are communities that do minister to one another, that do help one another bear loads and crosses, that remember the saving work God has done in their lives, both individually and corporately.

     The parable points out, though, to use the language of CS Lewis, the deeper truth and older magic of God’s love for humanity.  When we were left dead and dying in sin, who came along?  The Outcast.  The One the world rejected.  And He did the heavy lifting; He did the real struggling.  It was His wounds that began that healing process in us.  It was His flesh given for us and His blood that was shed for us that initiated and promised His work would one day be completed.

    It was that same Lord who left us in the care of others, we call them churches.  Our communities are supposed to be faithful proclaimers of God’s grace and love in the world around them.  How better can we express that truth than through our attentive and understanding care of each other?

     And it is that same Lord who promised everyone, and especially the innkeepers we call churches, that He would return one glorious day to settle the accounts once and for all.  Yes, the healing has begun, thanks be to God.  Yes, the healing will one day be completed, again, thanks be to God.  But, for now, we live in that time in the inn, healing, helping, giving thanks to our Lord who had every right to pass us by and leave us suffering in the muck and mire of our sins, but who chose, instead, to extend love and grace, that we might in turn, demonstrate those same characteristics to a world in desperate need of them!  Even we, a group of mostly well-off, well -educated, well-paid Episcopalians in a blessed community of Nashville, even we know what it is to be the one left for dead. 

      Brothers and sisters, when were you left on the side of the rode to die?  When was it that you found yourself at the end of your wits or strength or resources or knowledge and expected, maybe even hoped, to die?  When did He come along and begin that healing process in you?  What was the stalking enemy that sought to claim you, from whose clutches He freed you?  When did you experience life and near death as taught by Jesus in this parable from the perspective of the man left dying by the road?  What is that event in your life that caused you to begin to care less about the distinctions between neighbors and strangers, and more about the loving grace that had been shown to you, that caused you to desire nothing more than to gather with other wounded healers in thanksgiving and in a desire to share His saving grace with all who have ears and a need, nay, a longing, to hear?  That my friends is your deepest testimony.  That my adopted brothers and sisters is your unique story among a group who shares in redemptive stories.  That, my fellow kings and queens in the world to come, is the grace He calls upon each of us to live as overtly as possible, to go and do likewise, that we might hear the whimpers of pain in the world around us, see the brokenness in the ditches around us, that we might tend to the pain and suffering as best as we are able, that He will, again and again, show His healing grace to the world, that all might accept that amazing offer of healing and love.

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†

Peacemakers . . . in a world at war with itself!

     Those paying close attention to the lectionary may be a bit surprised by the OT readings today.  Those, or the folks who hope I will repeat sermons, I suppose.  We have a choice between the histories and the prophets this year.  As we did the histories three years ago, this year we will be following the selections from the prophets during the time after Pentecost.  Consider it my way of trying to help fight the biblical illiteracy decried by Archbishop Sentamu this weekend in the British Press.

     I was reminded of the prophet tract by David last night.  Karen had headed upstairs to get ready for bed, and David was practicing his reading since he was a scheduled lector.  I was finishing part of my cross stitch when David asked, “Hey, Dad, what’s a glorious bosom? (long o sounds)” My mind was not on the reading as I had planned to preach on Luke, so I asked what he was talking about.  Once I was in the right context, I corrected his pronunciation.  Naturally, David asked what a glorious bosom was.  It’s at this point, of course, that my sin nature and dad nature are at war.  I could say something that would totally gross out his older siblings when referring to his mom and cut off further questions, or I could take the direct route and risk questions, knowing she was upstairs and skipping what could be an important and awkward series of questions.  It was a war, but I went direct.  David, who watched mom nurse a couple younger siblings just responded “Oh, so God is like a nursing mom?”  Yep.

     Y’all are laughing because you know all the ways that conversation could have gone, especially with an absent mom.  But it is a good image for us to keep in mind—God is like a nursing mom.  It’s biblical.  It’s speaks directly against the imagined misogyny of Scripture.  Plus, it reminds us that the work that Rosemary and Jane and Katie and Lindy and, let’s face it all moms, is appropriate, God-given, God-blessed, and whatever other spiritual wedgie misogynists need to hear.

     As good as it might be for us to dwell on this particular image of God, I was pushed to our reading from Luke.  In truth, social media was a large impetus, but normal media and other conversations within the church and at the Y made me realize how important the commands are of Jesus to us.  Rather, I was reminded how important they should be to us because the world definitely needs more disciples of His at work in the world.

     The Gospel lesson is pretty well known.  If you have ever been to an ordination, this Gospel lesson is often read.  The problem, of course, is that we tend to think the sermons preached at those events means the passage is more directed at the so-called professional or ordained clergy in the Church.  In truth, it is aimed at all His disciples.  How do we know?  This is the seventy being sent out and not the Twelve.  Sometimes, we folks that have bishops like to think that events that involve the Twelve are more directed at bishops.  It’s not that simpe.  Some of those lessons taught to the Twelve were intended for you and me, though, one can argue that certain lessons are of particular concerns to those who come to be bishops, episcopoi to use the real Greek word, in the Church.  I see some lightbulbs going off.  Yes, that is the word from which we derive the name of our church.  These instructions, though, are leveled at the seventy.  This is not the inner circle of friends led by Peter, but the group next outside that.

     Jesus, we are told, sent the seventy ahead of Him in pairs to those towns and villages He intended to visit.  Think of this as an ancient commercial or other form of public relations.  The disciples, presumably, would do the things commanded by the Lord.  If they did their job well, people in that town or village would want to meet their Master.  In this case, Jesus sends them to cast out demons, heal the sick, and the like.  Imagine the response to those miracles.  If the disciples are able to accomplish the miracles in His Name, how much more will those in the towns and villages want to meet Him!

     Jesus, before they leave, tells them He is sending them like lambs into the midst of wolves.  Is Jesus going to be or should the disciples be shocked that this is hard work, full of failure?  No.  Just as wolves are not known for their kindness to lambs, followers of Jesus ought not expect the people in the world to be supportive or accepting.  But He commands them to go, and they go.

     Jesus gives them a couple specific instructions that would have shocked those early disciples.  Take no purse?  -- Has the Master lost His mind?  How will we pay for anything?  Greet no one on the road?  -- How will we learn what to expect?  Those of us who carry purses or wallets or debit cards well understand the need for access to our money in the wider world.  Imagine being sent someplace without that access—that’s what the disciples faced in this mission.  Jesus is teaching them that God will provide for their needs, be it food, lodging, or anything else.  It was probably seen as a crazy instruction by more than one disciple, but they had witnessed enough miracles to trust Jesus and obey.

     The instruction about greeting folks on the road is probably a double warning.  On the one hand, Jesus does not want the perceptions of the disciples to be predetermined.  He is teaching them to trust God.  That means they need to begin to discern and see things with God’s eyes, hear things with God’s ears, and trust their circumcised hearts are seeking to glorify God in the world around them.  The other issue, as a couple commentators in my work noted this week, is that Jesus wants them focused on what’s in front of them and not always looking back.  Dwelling on the past, and especially perceived past failure, would be a terrible diversion.  When folks traveling in one direction came upon folks traveling in the opposite direction, there was a nervous confrontation.  There was always a fear of brigands and the need to fight for one’s life and property.  But, once the nervousness was set aside, information could be shared.  What are things like on the road?  Any brigands?  How are things in the next town?  If you and I met on the road walking between Franklin and Nashville 2000 years ago, and I stayed in the red light district of Nashville the night before, my description of Nashville might color your expectations.  Similarly, your experiences and observations in Franklin would no doubt color mine.  Part of Jesus’ rationale seems to be to keep preconceptions, human preconceptions, at a minimum.

     The other part, as I said some commentators suggested, was to keep the disciples’ minds focused on the task ahead.  This was another one of those “don’t look back while you are working at the plow” kind of moments.  Again, we understand this logic.  How many of you like to hear me preach about the golden parish at which I served?  How well would you like it if I held up that parish time and time again to demonstrate your shortfalls?  Probably as well as we clergy love hearing stories about the golden rector, right?  You are chuckling, but it’s an ironic laughter.  Most of us have seen and heard one or both sides of that equation I just described, and we know the likely results.  BTW—none of y’all need to repent of those conversations with me.  None of us were alive during the truly golden age of our beloved Advent!

     Imagine the temptations to the disciples.  Oh, man, at that last town, they knew how to cook goat!  Let me tell you about that town two towns up the road, they had a Chardonnay that made you melt!  Oh, that sounds like the people in the town I just left.  You get the idea.

     Then we get to the part upon which I wanted us to focus today.  What does Jesus instruct His disciples to do upon entering the house at each town or village?  That’s right, bless them with peace.  You and I are so steeped in that shalom described here that we probably miss its counter-cultural significance.  Week in and week our we remind ourselves that because of His suffering, His, death, His Resurrection, His Ascension, and His promise to come again, that we should be possessors of peace that passes all understanding.  Practically speaking, should we ever be despondent?  No.  If we truly believe in the promises made by God to us at our baptisms and confirmations, then nothing in this world should really dislodge that peace from us.  Now, we don’t go playing hopscotch on I-65 because we are immune to the evils of the world.  We experience the same evils before and after our baptisms.  The difference is, naturally, our adoption.  We can face our death or the death of the loved one who believes in Christ Jesus because we know that death is not the end but rather a changing of life, right?  That’s out of our prayer books, folks.  When we die or a loved one die, we remind ourselves that life is not ended.  God is God of the living, so He will raise His sons and daughters to new life.  He promised!

     And if He can conquer something as hard as death, how much easier are the other things?  Provision?  Everything is His, so He can give us our daily bread.  Disease?  He can heal diseases or give us strength to bear them to His glory?  Broken relationships?  Again, the relationship of the Trinity sets the example, and we as Christians are commanded to strive for love and unity, right?  That’s why the world is stunned when couples like Abe and Carrie are brought to their attention.  Sixty-five years!  Didn’t he leave the toilet seat up a lot?  Didn’t she nag you a lot?  And both can laugh and say that is not the only thing he did or she did that drove me nuts.  Yet here they are.  Still together.  Still committed to one another, serving for us and the world around us as a visible example of the intimate relationship to which God calls all of us and the wider world!

     Because of God’s demonstrated ability to conquer and redeem death, we know with confidence He has the power to conquer and redeem all things in our life.  That knowledge, that faith, should give us peace that the world does not have nor understands.  And Jesus commands His disciples to share that peace with the world!  What is the cost?  Nothing.  First of all, it is God’s peace that passes all understanding, right?  It’s not Brian’s peace or John’s peace or Anne’s peace or your peace.  It’s God’s peace.  We are giving away freely that which He freely gives to us.  We are pass through accounts, of sorts.

     Is Jesus naïve enough to think everyone will accept that peace?  Of course not.  If the peace is accepted, it will remain with those in the house.  If it is rejected, it will return to the disciple.  There is, to use modern accounting terms, no loss in this transaction!

     Brothers and sisters, can you imagine you have anything better to offer to the world right now?  We live in a world that desperately needs peace.  Who are we kidding, we live in a church that desperately needs peace.  My social media was filled with examples of both these last couple weeks, as I am sure was yours.  My favorite was a colleague who is gay doing marriage counseling for a gay couple seeking to be married in his parish.  He shared they had that nervousness that we usually associate in pre-marital counseling with pre-marital sex.  Right, when the kids come in, that’s the uncomfortable elephant in the room.  Mean priests like me make them live in agony for as long as possible, to really help them understand the consequence of their sin.  Wait, I have not done any counseling for any of you, why are you all laughing?   I gather you went through pre-marital counseling with someone like me, too?  Nice priests like to address the elephant or sin right off the bat so that everyone relaxes.  My colleague is more like me.  As they got to the end of their first session, the couple still had that nervous energy vibe thing going.  So the priest asked knowingly if there was anything else they wanted to discuss or get off their conscience – he could not help them if things remained unspoken or unaddressed.  They looked knowingly at each other and at him a couple times.  He knew what was coming.  Finally, one of them blurted out they were sorry, but they wanted to know if they could have Chick-fil-A do finger foods for the reception in the parish hall after the service.  Since he was gay, they knew he would frown upon them eating at Chick-fil-A, let alone asking him permission to use them for a reception after the service!  That’s why they were so nervous!

     My colleague was stunned.  The nervous energy was not about sex but about chicken nuggets and little biscuits and lemonade and iced tea!  He shared later with us that he wonders whether God really can make chicken and lemonade and Arnold Palmer’s better than Chick-fil-A—we had a fun debate about that.  But he wondered how he and they had come to that point where this was an uncomfortable discussion between them.  The food was great.  The service is always friendly and impeccable.  As a gay man, he had experienced all kinds of bad and rude service at all kinds of places of business in his life, yet never once had he ever experienced anything negative at Chick-fil-A.  And yet they were part of a community, and supporters of that community, that called for a boycott in such strong language that other members of that community felt guilty about using them at an important event in their life.  And the two men in question were afraid to ask him because they knew he’d be required to blow up at them for wanting to use that business.

     Another example of the discord and darkness circling social media was a meme that quoted somebody about the Germans prior to the holocaust.  Some of you have no doubt seen it, but it says that 1/3 of Americans are like Nazi’s and support the extermination of various ethnic groups, 1/3 are actively fighting their efforts to kill other human beings, and 1/3 of Americans are simply complicit in their silence.  A bishop in our church, not ever a bishop of mine so please do not write †John or †Alan or even †Mark, shared that meme on his page.  We have been talking mostly about disciples’ ministry today, but part of the bishops’ ministry, the Apostolic ministry, is reconciliation.  And a bishop posted that on his page.

     Look, I take it that the polls are fairly accurate when describing the political makeup of Americans.  1/3 of us are Republicans, 1/3 of us are Democrats, and 1/3 of us are where the national elections are won or lost.  Certainly, my work in the Episcopal church anecdotally supports that view.  At Advent, we have folks who voted for Trump and folks who voted for other candidates.  I don’t mind y’all arguing over whether each other’s votes were good, wasted, or whatever.  But do Democrats that attend Advent really believe our staunchest Republicans in this parish are hoping people are exterminated?  Really?  And yet a bishop, a man who was consecrated to serve in Apostolic succession in the ministry of reconciliation, wrote off 1/3 of his flock as Nazi’s on social media.  And we are not really discussing the hard issues that divide the world, are we?

     If we in the Church can’t talk fast food or voting, how can we ever expect the world to know how, let alone accomplish, serious dialogue and discernment on those easy social issues like healthcare?  Like abortion?  Like immigration and border protection and whether we reward people with citizenship?  Or what should our government do, if anything, about the nuclear aspirations of Iraq or North Korea?  Or the wisdom or stupidity of trade wars with China?  I’ve rattled off just a couple divisive issues.  You may want to add things like solving our traffic problem or affordable housing problem in Nashville?  Maybe you want to discuss whether reparations for the descendants of slavery is appropriate?  Maybe you want to discuss the appropriateness of for-profit prisons.  Maybe you think our system of education is broken and in need of repair or overhaul?  Maybe for you it’s the appropriateness of Civil War monuments in the world around us.  Our list could go on and on and on.  There are lots of fights out there that can divide us, separate us, overcome us, if we allow the priority of God, if we treat them as idols rather systems of a sinful world that need to be solved to God’s honor and glory.

     I suspect on most moral issues, we have much more agreement among ourselves at Advent than we do on political issues.  All of us are fairly-well educated.  Most of us can read.  Most of us can understand.  But political issues are often related to moral issues.  Democrats are not “bleeding heart liberals” when they decry the cramped conditions in which children are kept on the border.  Those facilities were built in a different age for a much smaller number of potential border crossers, who were usually men.  But neither are Republicans necessarily hard-hearted for wanting us to figure out a way to determine whether those children belong to those adults.  We’ve already busted one ring whose survivors claimed they were forced to call the slavers uncles or aunts or mom or dad to get through the border.  And that’s just a tiny sliver of the discussion to be had on this easy little issue, right?  Tiny!  We’ve not even begun to discuss the desperation of those trying to cross despite our politicization of their plight nor the impact all this has on our agents and guards and social service workers who work in that morass day in and day out or our own culpability in the destabilization of their governments and economies (or the stabilization of despots or politicians who say the right things publicly about us as they rob their country and citizens blind and kill all opposition)!  Let’s not forget, our Lord was political in word and action.  So we should be a people who represents Him and His teaching on those issues in the public sphere, boldly and with humility.  What He teaches is for our own good, all of humanity’s own good.  The world needs His light, though it knows Him not.  The world needs His wisdom, though it may well reject Him in the end.  And it is our job as His sons and daughters, as His ambassadors in this land, to share His light, His wisdom, His teaching with those around us.  Perhaps the best and easiest way for us to do just that is to be bestowers of peace, to recognize that the “other” has experiences that inform their position, and that maybe, maybe some of their observations are valid or useful in fixing whatever is broken in whatever system we are discussing with them.

     It all sounds pollyannish, does it not?  Yet, ask yourself this question, with whom was Jesus not willing to engage peacefully?  With whom was He not concerned about saving?  What person in Scripture was beyond His willingness to forgive and transform?  What person was He excited about condemning?  We would do well to follow His lead in that behavior.

     In the end, of course, I recognize that being peacemakers means we will be trampled, ridiculed, humiliated, and maybe even killed.  So did Jesus.  We are called to pattern our lives after His, becoming in a sense, incarnations, with a little “I” of His grace, His truth, His love, and even His peace.  Like Himself, though, He knew we would be rejected.  What is His warning to those disciples about rejection in this passage?  As sons and daughters, as ambassadors, it is not our message that is being rejected, it is not our peace being mocked, it is not our gospel being refused.  Rather, it is all His.  If we are representing Him winsomely, if we are those peacemakers and meek and poor and others described in His great sermon, if we are going about the work He gives us in truth and love and grace and mercy and all those others adjectives He demands of us, folks are really listening to Him and to the One who sent Him.  Jesus reminds each of His disciples in this passage that if their message is received, it is not their message but the message of the Son and of Father.  And if that message is rejected, ultimately it is not us being rejected, but the Son who sent us and the Father who sent Him.

     As disciples of Christ it would be easy to be distracted by the results.  Too much failure might tempt us to think we are worthless failures, but Jesus wants us to remember always that each of us was worth redeeming in His eyes and His work!  Similarly, too much success might puff us up and make us think that our successes elevate us in the standing of God when compared to other human beings.  Our focus, He reminds us at the end, is that we should always be rejoicing in the ultimate source of that peace that passes all understanding, that we are redeemed by Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and sent by God to draw others into His saving embrace and to participate in that wonderful, mystical relationship of the Trinity for all eternity.  These aren’t just pollyannish words given us by some cool partier/hippie guy in the ANE.  These are the words of life, eternal life.  We would do well to live them, that others might hear and come to know Him and share in that same peace!

In Christ’s peace,

Brian†