Today we’re reading a somewhat confusing passage from a letter written by the apostle Paul to a church in Philippi, from a Roman prison. We don’t know exactly what has gotten Paul so fired up about his religious background, to want to explain it so thoroughly. In that whole first paragraph Paul is fiercely proud of his parentage, his training in scripture, his achievements… all the kinds of things that might give a person an impressive reputation in his community. And then, he kicks it all to the curb. It’s nothing, he says, in the face of knowing Jesus Christ. What is Paul doing here? Maybe to understand what Paul is all about, we have to go back to what Jesus is all about.

The Confession of 1967, which we have been reading this fall, was written to guide the church at a time of intense conflict around race in our country. In that confession, we read the following:

God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ and the mission of reconciliation to which [God] has called the church are the heart of the gospel in any age. Our generation stands in peculiar need of reconciliation in Christ…

In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the world to [God]self. Jesus Christ is God with [humanity].

Again: God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ and the mission of reconciliation to which [God] has called the church are the heart of the gospel…

Image: Jesus Christ, 6th century, Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, Rome, courtesy of National Geographic.

[Today] we find ourselves in the book of Exodus, with the Israelites as they travel through the wilderness. This passage takes place not long after their escape from slavery, their crossing of the Red Sea (or, Sea of Reeds), and their celebration song and dance on the far shore. But only three days later, the song of victory still echoing in their memories, water problems begin. They come to a place where the water is undrinkable—it’s bitter, and Moses cries out to God for help. And God helps. About 10 days later their food supplies are dwindling, and they again complain to their leaders. And again, Moses cries out to God for help, and God supplies manna in the mornings, and pheasants in the evenings, and the people are cared for by the faithfulness of their God.

So here we are, a little later, and again—water problems….

Image: Moses Striking the Rock, from the Catacomb of Callistus, 3rd Century, Rome, Italy, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=49970 [retrieved September 15, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moses_striking_the_rock_in_the_desert.jpg.

All over the country it is common knowledge by people looking for day labor that they can go to Home Depot early, say, six in the morning, and someone will likely come by who needs workers on a construction project. For people who don’t have access to the internet, or to dwindling local newspapers, this is their best bet. Some days everyone gets hired. Some days, only a handful will be the lucky ones. And by lucky, of course, I mean, able to feed their families for a couple of days, maybe even get the antibiotics needed for a baby’s ear infection… if they have the good fortune to have health insurance.

Jesus says, The last will be first, and the first will be last. This is not the first time in this gospel when Jesus has told his followers this disconcerting and, in many ways, upsetting news. Jesus is talking about the “kingdom of heaven,” God’s realm—that day when God will have everything exactly as God wants it. Things will be more or less upside down—upside down from the way the disciples expect things to be, and upside down from the way most 21st century people expect things to be, as well. In the previous chapter, Jesus has reminded them this in two different situations. First, he tells his followers that children are the ones to whom God’s realm belongs—not adults, not disciples, not fancy religious people with degrees and honors. And then, when Peter steps forward to ask, directly, “Then, what’s in this for us? What will we get?” Jesus summarizes it all for him by saying, many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. For those who are among the first to hear and heed Jesus’ message, and to follow him faithfully, this does not feel like good news….

Image:: JESUS MAFA. The Late-arriving Workers, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48296 [retrieved September 15, 2023]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

This is a tough one.

“So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel. There’s no way around that. And sometimes, that’s hard. It can be one of the hardest things we ever do.

So, it’s fascinating, isn’t it, that we find our way into this part of Jesus’ teachings on life in faith community through a question, asked by Peter. Peter is asking a sincere question—from the heart. How many times do I have to forgive this one person who keeps hurting me? Seven is a good number. It is one of the Biblical numbers of completeness-the week that we observe, six days of creation followed by God resting on the seventh day. Six days of work followed by Sabbath. Forgive them seven times. Is that the right number, Lord?

Image: Fetti, Domenico, approximately 1589-1623. Parable of the Wicked Servant, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55009 [retrieved September 15, 2023]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_Fetti_001.jpg.

… “Let love be genuine,” we read in our Bibles, but that is a paraphrase. Paul’s original words read literally as “Let love be un-hypocritical.” Don’t do loving things only for the sake of appearance, do them for the right reason—to be genuinely loving. Of course, this is the kind of thing that would be easier to spot in a close-knit community than any of the wider circles. And it makes me wonder: is it ever possible to have entirely pure motives?…

Image: Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882. Hand of Love, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57359 [retrieved August 9, 2023]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/birminghammag/6424308513.

…As I was thinking this week about the world into which Jesus was born,

the idea of deep darkness, of staying awake to whatever light might come,

and of keeping eyes open even when they cannot see...

I found in some of my reading a comment from a monk.

"Attentiveness to God…is eyes that are open in the dark, the desire of love."    (A Carthusian)

And then it occurred to me that keeping one's eyes open in the dark

is an act of faith.

Though we can see nothing, we do expect, in time, to see something,

whether something we have seen many times before,

or something surprisingly new.

Faith keeps us open to all the possibilities.

And we can count on God to keep all the possibilities possible!

It was into a very dark world that the Messiah was born.

The faithful kept watch…

Image: Duccio, di Buoninsegna, -1319?. Birth of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=49174 [retrieved June 29, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duccio_di_Buoninsegna_058.jpg.

As many of you know, I grew up on the Monopoly Board. I hail from a town called Ventnor, New Jersey right next to Atlantic City. I haven’t lived at the Jersey Shore since summer after I graduated college, but, except for the first year of the pandemic, I have managed to return at least once every year.

For years, the most exciting moment of the trip was when I rolled down my window to pay the last toll on the Atlantic City Expressway. We were still about five miles from the ocean, but the marshes and reeds of the Atlantic- infused inland waterway were on either side of the highway. The smell of the salt air—the smell of the ocean—was unfailingly intoxicating. There is nothing like it. There’s nothing like going home.

Seven of Jesus’ disciples have gone home. They, too, have returned to the sea—the Sea of Tiberias (another name for the Sea of Galilee). These are the days, probably the weeks after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In two of the gospels, Jesus has given word to the disciples that he will meet them in Galilee. So, as this story begins, the seven are gathered there…

Image: Koenig, Peter. Breakfast on the Beach, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58541 [retrieved July 30, 2023]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/.

Last December my family and I became captivated by a TV show called “1923,” a spin-off of the popular show “Yellowstone.” Focusing on the Dutton family, “1923” tells the stories of settlers and ranchers in Montana just before the great depression, including the wars between ranchers and those who herd sheep. It also tells the stories of Native American children who were subjected to the forced assimilation practices of the American Indian boarding schools. We see this unfold through the story of a young girl named Teonna Rainwater. The purpose of the schools was to teach these children that their native culture was wrong and disgusting, to “civilize” them by teaching them to embrace the American way of life and the dominant religion of the time, Christianity. They were forbidden to speak their native languages. They were forbidden to use the names they had been given, and forced to take new, “Christian” names. They were taught Western ways of dress, behavior, and speech through the use of brutal corporal punishment. When Teonna fails to learn the lesson of the day (making soap), she is beaten. When she disagrees with her teachers, she is beaten. When she refuses to answer to her Christian name, she is beaten.

Writers have described the show’s portrayal of these schools as, sadly, highly accurate. This kind of forced assimilation falls into the category of cultural genocide—the desire to completely wipe out a people and their culture by making them disappear into the majority populace, no longer in possession of their own customs, religion, or language.

I bring this up because there is something similarly sinister going on in our passage today from the Book of the prophet Daniel. It’s more subtle, but it is there. The three young men whose names are repeated so many times in our text—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—have been exiled to Babylon, where their captors are trying their best to take their religion, their culture, and even their names away from them…

Image: Konstantinos, Adrianoupolitis. Story of Daniel and the Three Youths in the Fiery Furnace, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59128 [retrieved June 29, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adrianoupolitis_Konstantinos_-_The_story_of_Daniel_and_the_Three_Youths_in_the_Fiery_Furnace_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.

Poor Peter. What an awful moment. During a night of abject fear and, probably, panic, he has done something that—to be honest—affects him more than anybody else. He has lost himself. He has left himself. He has gone into hiding, in a certain way. He has denied he even knew Jesus, during the long night that will lead to Jesus being strung up on a tree. And he’s done it three times.

Simon Peter is one of the most fascinating characters in the gospels. The take we find on him in the gospel according to John is different from the other three gospels, but we can still see a continuity in how the man is portrayed. He comes to life for us.

Image: Bening, Simon, 1483 or 1484-1561. Peter's Denial, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56129 [retrieved June 29, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Simon_Bening_(Flemish_-_The_Denial_of_Saint_Peter_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.

We don’t hear a lot from Leviticus around Union Presbyterian Church. I have never before preached from the Book of Leviticus. Ever. I have also never before preached a sermon which, quite by accident, happens to have the title of a song by the Bangles, which became a kind of soundtrack for me, writing this sermon.

Close your eyes, give me your hand, darling
Do you feel my heart beating?
Do you understand? Do you feel the same?
Am I only dreaming?
Is this burning an eternal flame?

Hear the longing of the singer—wanting to know what is happening in the relationship. Wanting to know where they stand, which is a sentiment very relevant to the passage I’ve just shared with you.

Image: Wesley, Frank, 1923-2002. Lily Resurrection, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59246 [retrieved June 29, 2023]. Original source: Estate of Frank Wesley, http://www.frankwesleyart.com/main_page.htm.

Wesley was born in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh into a fifth generation Christian family of Hindu and Muslim descent. He belongs to the Lucknow school of painting. His paintings reflect this influence and that of the Chughtai school of painting that flourished in India at the turn of the century. Wesley made art based on both biblical and secular themes. He used water colours, oil paintings, miniatures and wooden carvings.

Last weekend a friend of mine invited a group of friends to her home to observe the summer solstice, a few days late. She has a recently created fire-pit, and we were the first to experience a fire there this summer. It was just beautiful. As the sun went down, the fire glowed more brightly, the fireflies (or lightning bugs, as I grew up calling them) came out, and a threatened storm cleared away to reveal a blanket of stars in the heavens.

There is something about a fire. Whether you are outside on a summer night or snuggled up in front of a hearth in the cold of winter, a fire is beautiful, inviting, even, somehow, mysterious. It’s hypnotic—the flicker of the flames and the snap of the wood as it burns are oddly soothing.

But as we know, fire is also dangerous. A fire requires caution and care to be the beautiful thing that can warm us and inspire good conversation (or even better, silence). The worst fires are those initiated by carelessness—we all know that, even when wildfires hundreds of miles away aren’t affecting our air quality and forcing us inside.

Welcome to this summer sermon series on fires in the Bible. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, on Pentecost Sunday, we explored the symbolism and meaning of those tongues of flame that settled on the disciples as the Holy Spirit initiated the work of the church. Today we have a very different kind of fire, but it is also one that sends God’s people out to do God’s work…

Image: Schumacher, Joe. Burning Bush, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55954 [retrieved June 29, 2023]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jschumacher/6386697855.

… We meet Sarah and Abraham in a liminal space today. Nearly twenty-five years have passed since God commanded (invited?) Abraham to get up and go, taking his wife Sarah, and trusting in God’s promise to do three things: to bring them to a new land that would be theirs; to make them a great nation (in other words, to make them patriarch and matriarch of a great people); and to bless them, so that they would be blessings to the whole world. So far, God had fulfilled only the first of these three promises, which has left this aging couple in an in-between space. They are not where they were in the beginning of their story; they are in a new land. But neither are they in the place—family, blessings—that they are supposed to be. They’re somewhere in between, in a kind of threshold space. This is what “liminal” means. Not where you were, but also, not where you are going—in every sense of the word…

Image: Master of James IV of Scotland, active 1488-1530. Abraham and the Three Angels, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56992 [retrieved May 31, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Master_of_James_IV_of_Scotland_(Flemish,_before_1465_-_about_1541)_-_Abraham_and_the_Three_Angels_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.

“When the day of Pentecost had come,” it begins, “they were all together in one place.” Here’s the hidden context of that sentence: Jews were in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost. Which means, before there was a Christian Pentecost, there was a Jewish festival by the same name. So, they (Jesus’ friends and followers) were there, all together in one house. Pentecost is from the Greek word meaning “fifty,” for fifty days. The Hebrew name for the festival is Shavuot, which means “weeks.” Our Pentecost is fifty days after Easter, and Shavuot is seven weeks after the Passover. Our Jewish siblings celebrated Shavuot this week. It is the celebration of God giving the law, the Torah, to Moses, and Moses, in turn, giving the Torah to the people.

I learned about Shavuot years ago by reading a blog called “The Velveteen Rabbi.” Its author, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, wrote that the customary celebration entails staying up all night studying the Torah and eating dairy-based desserts such as cheesecake, and ice cream, joyful reminders of the land of Israel, a “land flowing with milk and honey.” The sweet desserts connect to the deep love the people have for the Torah, itself, a sweet blessing from God. Barenblat describes how the celebration she had just attended drew to a close at about 3:30 AM. A brief closing ceremony consisted of “passing the Torah from person to person, each cradling her for a time, and then reciting a [blessing] to seal [their] study.”

When the Day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. We can assume the friends and followers of Jesus were observing Shavuot, cherishing the Torah and searching it, diligently, for signs of what God might have in store for them. They were wondering: What now? What’s next? Now we know exactly what was next: the sweet blessing of another Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’ people. This moment marks the birth of the church, the commissioning of us all, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be God’s witnesses in the world…

Image: Kossowski, Adam. Veni Sancti Spiritus, Church of Saint Aloysius, London, Englad, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56946 [retrieved May 26, 2023]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/8750321716 - Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P..

Today feels different [from the other Sundays in the Easter season]. Today, we are reading from the first letter of Peter to congregations in trouble. In strife. In the midst of conflict—and it sounds like conflict or oppression from outside the community. It’s so bad, the letter uses the words “fiery ordeal.” People are suffering…

Image: Klee, Paul, 1879-1940. Joyful Mountain Landscape, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55666 [retrieved April 22, 2023]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heitere_Gebirgslandschaft_by_Paul_Klee_1929.jpeg.

The book of Genesis ended with abundance. “God’s chosen people [were] safely settled in the richest area of Egypt with plenty of food in a time of famine.” Jacob was buried in Canaan. Joseph, the great Savior of his family, was laid to rest after promising that one day his people would return to the Promised Land. All was well. The book of Exodus opens recounting how the descendants of Jacob and Joseph multiplied.

Our narrative today begins with a new king coming to power. This Pharoah did not know Joseph and the story of provision he brought to the land. Without knowing the source of his blessing, the favored family of Jacob and Joseph became an oppressed subgroup within Pharoah’s empire…

Image: Birthing Stool, Spain, courtesy of the Gannon family.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
~John 17:1-3

…This morning we have shared what is easily the most well-known psalm in scripture, the psalm of the Good Shepherd. The psalm is paired with a long monologue of Jesus—called a discourse—in which he is explaining this image, and what it means. The image of the Good Shepherd is a lovely image—many of us find it comforting. Loving. Caring.

But there is also something unsettled, and unsettling, in this image. Psalm 23 is called a psalm of trust, and these psalms always emerge from a troubled context. The psalmist calls out to God in hopeful trust exactly because the psalmist is in the middle of some kind of dangerous or frightening situation. With King David as the author, we can imagine lots of possibilities for the context of this psalm. David was in trouble a lot. Maybe the psalm conjures memories from David’s time as a shepherd, before he was anointed king, and the psalm is about predators attacking the sheep. Maybe the psalm refers to his time as the leader of Israel, when he was both king and soldier. It could be a psalm written in the midst of war, referring to a battle, an attack, or an act of treason against the throne.

When we turn to the gospel reading, we find tension there, too…

Image: The Magic Apple Tree, Samuel Palmer, 1805-1881. From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58401 [retrieved January 27, 2023]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Magic_Apple_Tree.jpg.

… In the grim early days of the pandemic my children and I took to making what we called “happiness playlists” of our favorite music, and in the process of doing that, I re-discovered the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” When I learned that Chris was playing it this morning, I went back to those playlists, and there it was.

Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,
Daily walking close to Thee,
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be…

Image: Jesus appears at Emmaus, 1973, JESUS MAFA, Cameroon, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48275 [retrieved January 27, 2023]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

This week we meet the whole group of Jesus’ friends and disciples, only they are closeted away behind locked doors. They are afraid.

This, honestly, is not how we expect to find the disciples. In last week’s reading, Mary met Jesus in the garden, greeted him with joy and astonishment and love, and was sent to bring the good news to this exact group. Here’s how that passage ended:

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her. ~John 20:18

Why on earth do we find them, later that very same day, hiding?

Image: LeCompte, Rowan and Irene LeCompte, Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC. Christ shows himself to Thomas, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54879 [retrieved January 27, 2023]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryannsolari/5119341372/.

In early spring 1912 a pharmacist by the name of C. Austin Miles was in a cold, leaky basement in Pitman, New Jersey, meditating on the passage we have just read from the gospel of John. His great-granddaughter would later say that he basement didn’t even contain a window, let alone a view of a garden. Nevertheless, Miles was captivated by a vivid image that came to him. He later described it this way:

“As the light faded,” he said, “I seemed to be standing at the entrance of a garden, looking down a gently winding path, shaded by olive branches. A woman in white, with head bowed, hand clasping her throat, as if to choke back her sobs, walked slowly into the shadows. It was Mary.” He continues, “As she leaned her head upon her arm at the tomb, she wept. Turning herself, she saw Jesus standing. So did I. I knew it was He. She knelt before Him, with arms outstretched and looking into His face, cried, “Rabboni!”[i] 

This vision became…

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses…

Image: Christ appears to Mary, MAFA Jesus Project, Cameroon, 1973 JESUS MAFA. Easter - Christ appears to Mary, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48389 [retrieved January 27, 2023]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).