Maybe God does, at times, give us more than we can handle. On the other hand, it’s possible that God has nothing whatsoever to do with the random events that impact our lives: the unknown aneurism; the chance meeting (for good or for ill); the embezzling scoundrel. If God played puppet master with our lives, wouldn’t the world would be at peace? Wouldn’t we all thrive and live to a ripe old age?

Blake, William, 1757-1827. Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the land of Moab, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57992 [retrieved May 29, 2021]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1795-William-Blake-Naomi-entreating-Ruth-Orpah.jpg.

This seems to be the perfect story to back up that notion. Let’s look at Joseph’s words.

Joseph’s brothers, are, at first, speechless. They are not happy to hear that this second-in-command to Pharaoh turns out to be the brother they threw into a pit, sold to a passing caravan, and whose beautiful coat they tore up and covered with blood. Regret. Guilt.

But Joseph turns storyteller. Don’t be distressed, he says. Don’t be angry with yourselves. Yes. I am your brother. Yes. You sold me into slavery. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.

Image: Bourgeois, Leon Pierre Urbain. Joseph recognized by his brothers, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55355 [retrieved May 29, 2021]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bourgeois_Joseph_recognized_by_his_brothers.jpg.

One day when I was young, my mother read a McDonald’s ad in the newspaper, fell in love with it, tore it out and pinned it to the wall. And there it stayed until the day that house was put on the market. It was an unusual McDonald’s ad: no Ronald McDonald or hamburgers. Instead, it was a long quote attributed to Calvin Coolidge. It read,

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

In this graduation season, these are the kind of words we might commend to our young people—to Nathan and Bri, for example, as they set out for college this fall, and the wide world that awaits them beyond. And I have no quarrel with the sentiment—I know that talent, education, even genius, wonderful as they are, are not the secret sauce. But these words, which end with the word, “omnipotent,” a word I generally reserve for God, come perilously close to a saying that does trouble me: “The Lord helps those who help themselves…”

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669. Storm on the Sea of Galilee, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57953 [retrieved May 29, 2021]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Christ_in_the_Storm_on_the_Lake_of_Galilee.jpg.

My entire life, I have believed that Saul falls from a horse, and my guess is, this is why. Here’s a little book that belonged to my brother Paul, but which I read plenty of times: “The Man Who Changed His Name.” (Later in Acts, the narrator starts referring to Saul as Paul; 13:9). Though I can’t prove it, I’m pretty sure that somewhere in these pages is the image that convinced me, always and forever, that Saul (Paul) fell off a horse.

Problem is: it doesn’t say that anywhere in the account we read here in Acts. Nor does Paul himself mention it when he describes the event in his letters to various churches. But that idea has been around for a while….

Image: Koenig, Peter. Conversion of St Paul, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58543 [retrieved May 29, 2021]. Original source: https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/.

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
~Ephesians 3:18-19

Image: copyright P. Raube, 2015.

It is Trinity Sunday and we are starting with one of the most iconic moments in the First Testament—this vivid image of God, in all God’s glory, and at the same time, obscured, behind fire and smoke and terrifying angels, not to mention the very real fear of the prophet to whom God is giving this vision. Fear clouds our vision. But this is one and the same God whom the apostle Paul references in his letter to the Romans, the God whom we might call, “Abba! Father!” This is the same God whom Christians call, Triune, the God we believe to be most accurately described as “Trinity.”

Isaiah's Vision of God on the Throne, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=29250 [retrieved April 24, 2021].

Ezekiel is prophet to a people who have been traumatized. He is commissioned to bring a word of hope to those who have sustained terrible losses… human losses, spiritual losses, losses of land, life, and most horribly, hope.

To be without hope is to be unable to imagine tomorrow. It’s not the same as grief, exactly, because when we’re grieving we can all too well imagine the next day, and the next, filled with our sorrow and loss. And grief itself is a sign of life—to know what your loss is, to recognize that grieving is a result of having loved someone or something. There is the tiniest comfort in grief itself, because of its proximity to love. To be without hope is to not even have our grief as a comfort, to not have the ability to picture a good or bad next day, to have only the sentence of the unchangeable truth of our situation.

Image: Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55163 [retrieved April 24, 2021]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Nicholas%27_Church,_Deptford_Green,_SE8_-_carved_panel_representing_Ezekiel_in_the_Valley_of_the_Dry_Bones_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1501992.jpg.

in addition to all this lovely love, Jesus also says something pretty startling. ‘You did not choose me; I chose you.”

That statement pushes pretty hard against a lot of what we believe—the fundamentals of modern American life. It’s all about choice. We choose where to live and who to marry—or not. We choose what we want to do for a living, and if we’re lucky we may even get to do that. We choose the books we read and the shows we watch and the politicians for whom we cast our ballots. American society is so very immersed in this idea of choice, we push back—hard—when we are told we do not have a choice about something.

…In all this, we are convinced that we are choosing. That we are in charge. That we get to do what feels right to us…

Image: Banksy. Peace and Love Mural, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57181 [retrieved May 15, 2021]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/4544013443 - Thomas Hawk.

…Into an atmosphere of anger and accusation is introduced something that everyone, no matter their belief, knows well. Love is from God. When we love, we are participating in God’s most well-known project—which the writer describes. God sent Jesus to be among us. Not a vision. Not an apparition. Not a parlor trick, but a man, who is also, somehow, one with God. (In the gospel, Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”)

God IS love, the writer insists…

Sarcophagus of Drausin, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57471 [retrieved April 24, 2021]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarcophage_de_Drausin_03.JPG.

…Every year, we are reminded of this image for God, and for Jesus, an image that is becoming less and less understandable to many of us in highly industrialized regions as the centuries go by. Fewer people than ever are familiar with farms and animal husbandry and who sheep are and what a shepherd actually does. But the image sticks, and holds the power to comfort, so much so that Christians dependably turn to this psalm when life is at its most difficult. We pray: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…

Image: Tanner, Henry Ossawa, 1859-1937. Good Shepherd, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57405 [retrieved April 24, 2021]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Ossawa_Tanner_-_The_Good_Shepherd_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
~Luke 24:36-37

Image: Christ Crucified and Risen, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57615 [retrieved April 3, 2021]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jardek/804315429/ - Joshua Jardekah Aguilar.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
~John 20:1

Image: AdobeStock, licensed usage.

If by chance you grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and learned the Apostle’s Creed as a young person, you may memorized the traditional version. In it, Jesus

“suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell…”

I’d never heard those last words until I was a Presbyterian in my 30’s. I was shocked. I could not imagine what it meant. How could it be that Jesus had descended into hell?

Image: “Three Crosses,” AdobeStock, licensed usage.

This is an odd little story, so memorable, so remarkable, but not one we ordinarily hear on Maundy Thursday. It’s told four times throughout the gospels, but never with the same exact cast of characters, and not always with the same point.

But tonight, let’s hear this story. And let’s honor this woman, because that is what Jesus wants us to do: to tell this story, in memory of her…

Image: “Anointing at Bethany,” from the Chapel of the House of the Christian Encounter (Capella della Casa Incontri Cristiano), Capiago, Italy.

We have been circling the cross all throughout Lent. Beginning on the first Sunday when we found Jesus in the wilderness, we have been pondering its meanings and its mystery. We have understood Jesus’ death on the cross as wilderness journey, as Passover, or as ransom, as redemption. Did Jesus offer himself as a holy sacrifice, both priest and victim? Or did he achieve atonement through substitution? We have even pondered the notion that the cross was his moment of triumph—Christ the victor over sin and death.

Today, we ponder another possibility…

Petts, John, 1914-1991. Christ Crucified, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57342 [retrieved January 30, 2021]. Original source: http://christianchurchestogether.org/letter-from-birmingham-jail/.

You are my portion, O Lord,
I have promised to keep your words.
I entreat you with all my heart:
Be merciful to me, according to your promise.
~Psalm 119:57-58

Image c) P. Raube

I am haunted by that question Jesus asks in our gospel passage. He’s been talking to his disciples about what’s coming, and it’s coming fast. Jesus is already in Jerusalem for the Passover, it’s the week we know as Holy Week, and what’s coming is the cross. And he asks, “What should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?”

He says that in the other gospels—in so many words. “Father, let this cup pass from me.” But John’s gospel is different, and here, Jesus doesn’t want to say those words. But even in refuting them, he says them, and I’m so glad. Because I need the humanity of Jesus to show through. We need his humanity, side by side with, inextricable from, his divinity. His humanity is what makes all this so powerful and awful. His humanity is what makes his death meaningful. Important. Central to our understanding of what God is all about…

Image: “A Choice” by Lauren Wright Pittman

Pittman, Lauren Wright. A Choice, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57082 [retrieved January 30, 2021]. Original source: http://www.lewpstudio.com - copyright by Lauren Wright Pittman.

Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good,
for God’s mercy endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim
That God redeemed them from the hand of the foe.
~Psalm 107:1-2

Image: P. Raube

We have what is, honestly, one of the weirder passages from scripture today, side by side with one of the most beloved. And the reason they are side by side, is, they are connected. Jesus makes the connection, in his conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus.

Nicodemus was a good man, though he was uncertain about Jesus, which is why he chose to visit in the middle of the night. Their conversation was wide-ranging, but at a certain point, Jesus made a startling statement. He said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus is talking about about being lifted up on the cross, and as he does, be brings in this story from the wilderness wanderings of his people. A story, frankly, in which God has kind of had it with them.

Fantoni, Giovanni. Brazen Serpent, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55664 [retrieved January 30, 2021]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brazen_Serpent_Sculpture.jpg.

How dear to me is your dwelling,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.
~Psalm 84:1-2

Image: c) P. Raube