… A child shows up in our reading from Mark’s gospel this morning, but not until after Jesus gets wind of a fight in the ranks. Jesus and the disciples have been on the road, not a great place to have a dispute (especially if your job is sharing the Good News about peace, love, and understanding). Once they reach Capernaum, home base for many of them, they settle in a house, and Jesus wants to know the deal. What are you fighting about?, he asks. And then it comes out, but only by virtue of their mortified silence. They have been arguing with one another about who is the greatest.

The disciples seem to have bought into the wisdom of the world: status matters. So much so that it causes strife in the ranks of this traveling, healing rabbi who has drafted them into service of God’s Good News….

Johnson, William H., 1901-1970. Come Unto Me, Little Children, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56876 [retrieved September 3, 2021]. Original source: https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/come-unto-me-little-children-11621

… We have two readings this morning that are concerned with imparting wisdom, and they both come on strong. Woman Wisdom pulls no punches. If we are going to ignore her urgent message, she has names she’s ready to call us, and she’s going to laugh when life takes us down. But Wisdom is a life and death matter. As she puts it, “For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them” (Proverbs 1:32).

But if we want to immerse ourselves in a truly practical application of wisdom, James is our man. The brother of Jesus wants to talk to us about talk. Speech. How, in fact, words can cause harm—maybe not physical harm, as with sticks and stones or knives and guns. But real harm, nonetheless. He embarks on an extended metaphor about the tongue—it’s one small part of the body, but it can, in his words, start a fire…

“Wisdom,” oil painting, Titian (1560), Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, Italy; Public Domain, courtesy of Wikiart.com.

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
~Mark 7:24-25

Phoenician Anthropoid Sarcophagus, 5th c. BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up absolutely sure that Jesus was an only child. (It’s a Catholic thing.) But later, when I read the gospels with a greater attention for detail, I saw, for instance, exactly how Jesus’ neighbors in Nazareth tried to wave away his mission and his power and his eloquence by focusing on how well they knew him. Not Jesus, they said. “Isn’t his father a carpenter? Isn’t his mother Mary? Don’t we know his brothers—James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? Don’t we know his sisters?” In other words, he couldn’t possibly be a prophet. He couldn’t possibly have the power of God surging through him. He’s just a neighborhood kid.

Image: Mural by Beau Stanton, October 2018; phot by P. Raube, July 2021. More about the artist at http://www.beaustanton.com/.

People are always asking me what it was like, that day. I always start by saying, it was just a normal day… if by normal you mean, a day when the Teacher was around. Meaning, it was a day of everyone dropping their tasks—leaving the bread to rise and overflow the bowl, and the nets to be repaired later, and the seeds to be planted later, too. All this we left, so that we could rush to wherever he was, and listen as he taught, and watch as he healed people. Maybe offer ourselves for some kind of healing. It was that kind of normal day…

Swanson, John August. Loaves and Fishes, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56553 [retrieved May 29, 2021]. Original source: www.JohnAugustSwanson.com - copyright 2003 by John August Swanson.

… We tend to measure God’s ways according to our own ways, ways that include sudden anger, saying things we don’t think we can go back on, and staying mad. I mean, Olympian-level marathons of mad, that go on for years until we can’t even remember why we were mad in the first place.

That’s not God. God’s ways are not our ways. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea. God moves in some mysterious ways, and those ways always seem to be about our healing, our acceptance, and our welcome back into the fold that God never really kicked us out of in the first place.

Hand of God, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56818 [retrieved May 29, 2021]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Elizabeth_Ann_Seton_Parish_(Pickerington,_Ohio)_-_stained_glass,_The_Father.jpg.

That’s not God. God’s ways are not our ways. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea. God moves in some mysterious ways, and those ways always seem to be about our healing, our acceptance, and our welcome back into the fold that God never really kicked us out of in the first place.

It’s a fascinating argument to make: if “only the good die young,” it makes sense to ease your morals or ethics, and not worry so much if you’re not walking the straight and narrow. But it’s a fallacy—we know it’s not true. We know that people of every kind die at every age. So, what do we mean when we say it? Aside from, you know, what Billy Joel has in mind?

Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519. John the Baptist, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56715 [retrieved June 18, 2021]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_-_Saint_John_the_Baptist_C2RMF_retouched.jpg.

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.